“What things?” Stassi queried.
“Did you see it?” I tilted my head to the side. It must have been there. Why else would Tux have jumped up and barked?
“See what?” Stassi mimicked my movements and tilted her head.
“The fox.”
Stassi quit petting Tux and leaned back into her seat, watching me. She waited a beat and then she burst out in laughter. She held her stomach and threw her head back and laughed harder than I had seen her laugh in forever. It was the sweetest sound I had ever heard. Even if it was at my expense.
A smile quickly marked my lips before I could speak. The laughter was contagious. “Why are you laughing at me? I’m serious.” I could barely get the words out.
She finally calmed her fit of laughter long enough to speak. “A fox? Mom, are you serious?”
My mouth gaped open in exaggerated offense and I nodded my head. “Yes, I’m serious. Why would I lie about that?”
“A fox? Mom. I think my story has scared you into seeing things.” She raised an eyebrow and smirked.
I looked around and the space around us was still. Undisturbed. Tux was sitting back on the cool, hard surface, content with himself again. Maybe I had imagined it.
“Whelp.” Stassi grasped the ends of the armrests of her rocking chair and stood up. “I’ve got to get going. That baby isn’t going to watch himself.”
Stassi walked inside to put on her shoes and grab her things. I crossed my arms as I sat alone on the porch and started rocking back and forth. Forward and backward. I never heard the four wheels of the silver sedan come to a halt in front of my house. However, I heard the faint click when the light inside of the house across the street suddenly turned on.
I NEVER REMEMBERED falling asleep on the couch. I guess being woken up countless times throughout the night had really done a number on my body. And now I was having an out of body experience and was watching myself sleep. The eyes of the me on the couch were clamped shut and my lips were quivering. A hum was slowly escaping my throat and I knew exactly where I had heard the tune before as it slithered to my ears. I was dreaming . . . or having a nightmare. In the here and now, it was just images flashing in my mind, but the story of the past the images were telling were all too real.
The song was beautiful. I’d never heard anything like it before.
My mother used to play the violin. I had seen pictures of it. She always listened to the orchestra while she cooked. The sounds playing from the wooden instruments were captivating. They told stories. I had always wanted to learn how to move my fingers along the strings and mesmerize souls as they listened to the beautiful noise. But we could never afford the lessons and my mother was too busy to teach me. So I stared at photos of her when she was a little girl and sat intently at the kitchen counter while she cooked, letting my soul travel to unknown lands.
What I was hearing right now was different somehow. A story was being woven with the crescendos, decrescendos, and plucking. The story was haunting. Tears started to prickle in the corners of my eyes. The salt of my tears threatened to spill down my cheeks and burned. I gasped suddenly, causing my friend Alana to look over at me, confusion blanketing her face.
“What is it Bobbi?” she asked.
“Do you hear that?” I was whispering and I wasn’t sure why.
“Hear what?” Her voice mimicked mine, growing softer.
“The music.” I dropped the doll that was in my hand and moved closer to the window.
Alana followed suit, crawling on hands and knees, over toward the large, round attic window. We were hiding from something, not knowing what it was. Not knowing what we were going to see once our eyes started scanning the dark.
“Do you hear it?” I asked again.
“Yes,” she answered simply.
I stopped short and sat up on my knees. I stared at Alana and searched her face for a hint of something. Of a lie.
“What?” she asked, still crawling toward the window.
“Do you really hear it?”
“Of course I do.” She stopped at the window and stayed crouched down, refusing to look out of it until I made my way over to join her.
No one had ever really heard or seen the things I had. I thought I was alone. I thought I was crazy. The music had sounded loud to me, but I was sure Alana wasn’t going to hear it too. It was just in my head after all. My imagination running wild. Not this time.
No.
Maybe all of the other times before were real too. Maybe I always just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time . . . or maybe it was the right place and the right time.
Everyone else was . . . well . . . wrong.
Right?
I ducked down next to Alana under the window. The attic was musty and damp and I hadn’t realized it until now.
“It’s really getting loud,” Alana whispered.
“Yeah . . .” I hesitated. “Do you think someone is out there?”
“Gotta be!” Her excitement was hushed, but I could see the wonder dancing in her eyes.
It had to be close to midnight. My parents were already asleep.
I wasn’t supposed to be up here playing with my mom and dad’s old things, but what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. I found two candles in the drawer of junk in the kitchen earlier and had lit them with the lighter hiding in the back of the same drawer.
I wasn’t supposed to play with fire either.
Alana and I wanted to explore. That’s what we did when we had sleepovers. Now, we were in the middle of the scariest journey we had stumbled upon thus far in our short nine years.
I took a deep breath and placed my small hand in hers. “You ready to look?”
“Yeah.” Her eyes grew large.
“One . . .” My heart was pounding in my chest.
“Two . . .” We both placed our hands on the window sill.
“Three!”
Our little heads, my red and her brunette, popped up simultaneously. The music crescendoed to deafening sounds. Our eyes met.
My eyes and that of an old woman in a black cloak.
It was only for a moment that our gaze clicked. I felt the pop in my bones. And then the crook of her cracked lips turned up ever so slightly. When they did, the whites of her eyes burned black and the flames of the candles lighting up the room faded.
The woman started slowly putting her violin back in its case.
“No!” I cried.
I started crawling backward until I managed to get to my feet. Alana was still staring out the window.
“Alana! Come on!”
She wouldn’t budge.
“Let’s go see who she is. She’s leaving!”
I flung the attic door open and ran down the stairs. I ran through the house for what seemed like hours, though in reality, it could have only been seconds. Finally making it to the front door, I placed my hand on the doorknob, ignoring the heat that burned my hand and raced up my arm. When I made it outside, the cool air violently entered my lungs. A different kind of burn was swirling inside my small body, but I wasn’t fazed.
My eyes searched for the bench the woman had been sitting on. A bench that wasn’t normally there, but that I’d seen out of that attic window. I couldn’t seem to find it now. I looked back up at my house and found the attic window. My eyes followed the path from there to where the woman, the bench, and the violin should have been. Before I landed on that spot, I saw movement out of my peripheral vision.