Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Epilogue
Breakfast was awkward for me. Mom told Dad I'd cleaned my room. She had apparently been agonizing over it more than I thought. Dad was less excited about it, but nodded his approval.
Seth kicked me under the table and gave me a frown that said, what the heck do you think you're doing? Now I'm gonna have to clean mine!
When Dad asked what got me to finally clean up, and Mom told him it was because I couldn't find my tennies, I cringed inwardly, but Dad only smiled, and said, "See, it pays off, doesn't it? Bet you found other stuff you'd lost, too." I had to agree, or chip the facade.
Seth gave me a suspicious look. He knew something was up. Little brothers are like that. Fortunately, he didn't want to draw attention to himself, for fear of being ordered to clean his room because I'd cleaned mine.
The whole rest of the day was uneventful. And the next, and the next after that. In fact, it was more than a week before there was another incident. Aside from having two long and one short pink ribbons, and a clean room I was extremely hesitant to not keep that way, I really had no sign that there had ever been a disturbance.
The room still creeped me out, though. No matter how quiet and alone I was, I always felt like someone was watching me when I was in there. I started getting rid of the pictures on the walls. First, the pin-ups went. Then, the photos of my school friends, which I placed in a scrapbook so that no one would ask why I took them down. Finally, I did the same with the family pictures. The feeling of being watched remained, but at least there were no eyes on the walls to creep me out.
I also got out my old nightlight. I put it near the door, with the excuse that I needed to be able to see if I had to get up and go to the bathroom. Seth started to tease me, but Mom said, "It's a girl thing. You don't want to know." It shut him up, so I wasn't going to correct the notion.
I was starting to think the whole thing was over. You know, when you're still basically a kid, a week is a long time.
I'd even thought about getting rid of the nightlight. It was kind of a distraction. Still, in the middle of the night, even though nothing had been happening to me, darkness was still scary. I kept it on.
One evening, nearly two weeks after the cleaning, I had a bout of insomnia. It happened to me sometimes. I'd get something on my mind, and I just wouldn't be able to sleep. Beside me on the nightstand, the latest book I was reading became extraordinarily tempting. I was almost finished with it. In the quiet of the night, if I wanted to, I could read the end. Might as well, if I was going to be awake anyway.
I rolled over, turned the lamp on low, grabbed the book, and sank right into it. Within seconds, I was lost in another world, completely cut off from my surroundings. I heard nothing. I felt nothing. I saw nothing but the story in my mind. I wasn't even aware of looking at the letters on the page. The story carried me through an agonizing struggle, to a brilliant victory, followed by a wholly satisfying epilogue. As I finished the final morsel of fictional detail on the last page, my eyes began to droop. I was finally getting sleepy.
Closing the book, I rolled over to lay it on the nightstand and turn out the light. Instead, I dropped it on the floor with a howl of surprise, and shrank back against the wall, yanking the covers up to my face. Standing in the middle of my room, facing toward my closet, was the oddly dressed woman from the garage sale, and beside her was a girl who looked about my age. Her blond hair was tied in two braids, each decorated with a pretty, wide, pink bow. When I screamed, they both turned away from the closet and looked at me.
They didn't do anything. They just stared. The woman looked worried. The girl smiled. Tears spilled down my cheeks. The woman didn't look any different than she had at the garage sale, but the girl had no eyes. Nothing at all was there, not even an open cavity where eyes should have been. The skin over that part of her face was smooth. It was sunken in just a little, but not much. The lack of eyes made her smile look horribly wrong. It was way too wide.
My body began to tremble. There was no way for me to escape. They were between me and the door. I heard someone whispering, and then realized it was me.
"Not real, not real, not real, not real..." I shut myself up with a deep, but hitching breath. The specters continued to stare at me, and I at them. It was only a second or two, but it seemed like an eternity. I began to notice that what looked like smooth skin on the girl's face was really just shadow. She had eyes. They were just like mine, only blue. Her smile was not so wide as it had looked before, either... just an ordinary child's smile. The lady set her jaw and turned away from me, facing the closet again, with her hands on her hips. I realized I could see through both the lady, and the girl.
As the instant of discovery passed, I heard a pounding noise outside my room, then voices.
"Sarah, what's going on? Are you ok?" My door burst open. My eyes jumped to it, then back to the middle of the room. The two specters had disappeared.
My parents came running in, and light flooded the room. The terror broke over me, and I had a hysterical fit, sobbing uncontrollably and pointing at the closet door, hanging ajar, with the fading image of two spirits reflected in the mirror.
Dad, looking confused, strode over to the closet and reached for the door. My heart lept into my throat. He hadn't seen what I had seen. He didn't know what was in there. I wanted to tell him not to touch the mirror, but before I could, he grabbed the door handle and threw it open.
There, crouched beneath my skirts and blouses, was a scruffy, ragged, very frightened looking old man. Mom screamed, and the man bolted out of the room. Dad grabbed one of my clunky boots, and threw it at him, hitting him in the back of the head, hard. The man kept running. Dad chased him down the stairs, and out the door. I heard Dad's voice as he yelled down the street, "Don't you ever come near here again!"
Mom practically flew across the room, wrapped me in her arms, and tried to comfort me. "It's ok, baby. He's gone. You're safe. We're all safe."
I could feel her shaking, even as hard as my own limbs were jerking. My mind reeled with horror. It wasn't just the ghosts I had to fear. There had been a strange man in my closet. How long had he been in there? How long had he been in the house?
I pushed away from Mom. "Where's Seth?"
Here eyes widened. We both jumped out of the bed and ran down the hall to his room, threw the door open, and stormed in. Seth was sound asleep, laying sideways and spread eagle on the bed, something I was totally used to seeing him do. Mom looked in his closet, under his bed, and behind his curtains. There was no one there. Seth was fine. Everything was fine. The man had just been in my room.
Jesus, had he watched me change for bed? Watched me reading? What had he been planning to do when I went to sleep? My stomach lurched, and I ran to the bathroom to throw up, Mom right on my heels.
Hours later, the police had come and gone, the house settled back down, Dad "sleeping" in the living room with his shotgun. I was once again in my room. Mom had tucked me in like a little kid, given me a long, long hug, and asked if I needed her to stay the night with me. Part of me, the scared little girl part, really, really wanted to say yes. There were ghosts in my mirror. There had been a prowler in my closet, a scary looking man who might have seen me naked. I was weirded out beyond reason. But I also had this feeling.
How long had that man been in my room? Why was he hiding in my closet? That look on his face... he had been nearly panic-stricken. Had he seen the woman? Had he seen the girl?
Weirdest of all, it didn't feel like they were there to haunt me that night. They were watching that door, because that man was in there. I had a strong feeling they didn't like him. I think that he wasn't just startled by my Dad. He'd seen them, and they'd scared him... yet they had hidden from my parents in the mirror.
Why?
I was still thinking about that when I drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Epilogue
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