Ryan dropped me off at my father’s, leaving me in the dark to my thoughts. I stood on the porch and stared off towards the hilltops around me, and kind of just, took in being back at home. Both in the literal sense of this being my childhood home, and the sense of the locality. I tried to let the unease slide off of me that I’d felt at the police station, as well as the agony of emotion that had unleashed itself on the ride back from the fire tower, and the worry for Dad that I’d felt on the trail. This had been a prolonged and very tiring day, to say the least. I flipped my wrist over, causing the face of my watch to illuminate with the motion. Midnight. I'd been going for 22 hours straight, no wonder I could feel the fraying webs at the corners of my mind, and the ache in my shoulder that said I had overextended. I sighed and turned, opening the door that, at least despite all the bad blood between us right now, Temperance had left unlocked for me, and saw myself into the living room, where I found not only Temper, sitting on the loveseat and quietly drinking something out of a stout mug, but also Anna, the hospice nurse who'd come down from my grandfather's house.
"Oh hey guys. I didn’t realize anyone would be up at this point."
“Well, I came to update Temp on Abraham, and then she said you were staying and she expected you back at any minute. I guess—” A glint of gold from her wrist flashed as she cast her eyes to it. “—we might have gotten involved in our conversation.”
Temperance for her part looked at me coolly over the edge of her mug. She didn’t say anything venomous, so that was progress.
“Yes. We got involved and stayed up. Glad to see you came back in one piece.” There was a quick glance at Anna. “Kitchen’s clean. I think we have some sandwich stuff if you want something.” Not warm, but also not poisonous. More progress.
“I think I’ll just—” My knees groaned and my spine cracked under the surface of my skin like a rusted bike chain as I sank into my father’s recliner across from Temperance. “—sit.” A rattle that would challenge the dying escaped from me, a sigh that practically spelled the weariness I felt.
“Judah? When’s… the last time you slept? Or ate, for that matter?” asked Anna, a motherly sternness taking hold in her voice as she eyed me critically.
“Dunno. What month is it?”
I felt Temperance grunt with a mirthless snort, and heard her get up from her chair. I stole a glance from a half lidded eye and saw Anna looking at her retreating form pointedly.
“Thanks, Temp,” I said tiredly, and leaned my head back on the chair. Temperance grunted, and then hitched. I opened an eye, and she looked towards the seam of the ceiling and wall, like she’d heard something. She shook her head and continued into the kitchen. I eyed the seam suspiciously. I guess I could help Dad out and check the attic for pests. Later. Right now the recliner was too comfortable and warm. I should get a recliner like this.
"Judah, is there any news?"
“Technically I’m not allowed to comment on a pending investigation. However, I can comment that I did not find him while I was up there and did find evidence that he’d gotten away from the carnage on the trail.” I set my jaw. “And we’ll find him. I just need to find more clues.”
Anna smiled. “Well, that’s better news than nothing.” I tried my best to smile back at her, passively listened to Temperance clink dishes in the kitchen, and closed my eyes to rest them a second.
I thought about that garnet plinth dad had drawn in his journal again. What was he going on about? The clicks and clanks got more distant as I tried to hold on to my train of thought. Missing dads and magic stones. Helluva day.
My shoulder throbbed in protest again. The image of the gemstone in my mind’s eye pulsed with a pinkish light from within its core and matched the pang.
Wait. Magic stone?
I jerked upright at the thought.
The room was dark, and Temp and Anna were both nowhere to be seen. I had a blanket draped over me, and a sandwich was left wrapped in a napkin on the coffee table.
I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep. Ok, magic stone was just my brain disassociating and trying to process the day I’d had. I nabbed up the sandwich. Baloney, tomato, mayo, lettuce. A fine feast for— I looked down at my watch. 3:33 in the morning. Witching hours. Joy.
I chewed my sandwich and looked out into the living room. Wild waking up here. The room felt.. smaller than I remembered, though I hadn’t gotten that much larger since before I left. My growth spurt topped out around the middle of my Junior year. As I chewed I noticed a light on in the hallway, shining on the wall separating the hallway from the kitchen.
Pinkish, magenta? That’s a weird nightlight color.
I sighed. I chewed. I looked at the light. It danced on the walls in intricate patterns. Almost hypnotizing. The bands of soft pinks blended into harsher magentas and even deep burgundy. Definitely a good program for an LED light, for well, the creepiest pretty ambient lighting I’ve seen for a hallway.
I took another bite of the sandwich. Well. I may as well see if dad had a printer now that I was more functional. I got to my feet, my knees creaking once again as I put weight on them. I rolled my left shoulder around. It wasn’t completely screaming. Progress in spades.
I started walking towards the hallway and towards my father’s office, making a note to check out the nightlight on my way through. If nothing else to change the setting, the more I watched it the more I got the creeps.
I paused as I lined up with the hallway. Dark. Temperance’s door was shut, but from under it was coming that pink light. Boo. No model number for me.
Wait.
I looked at the hallway behind me. The light still danced like I wasn’t even here.
I looked at the floor. There’s no way the light would be coming from under the door and hitting the wall four feet to the left of the door—
—halfway up that wall.
What the absolute shit?
I looked dumbly at the crack in the door, and back to the wall. I wanted to pinch myself, but that seemed a little reductive. There had to be something going on, right? I looked at the floor again. No weird mood light refracting the light, no additional light sources in the hallway.
I stepped over to Temperance’s door and leaned my head towards it. Nothing out of the ordinary. Rain noise, probably her phone.
Pain.
Wince.
I hadn’t had a real run of tinnitus in a long time, much less anything this intense. I rocked back from the door. I noticed the burn in my shoulder for the first time. Like a drill had been pressed into the joint, and the friction from the bit was radiating heat into the muscles around it.
“Temp?” I asked hoarsely, shaking my head and turning the knob to her bedroom door.
I was bathed in the pink hued glow as it swung back into the room, revealing a sight I don’t think I’d ever unsee.
Temperance was floating.
Like, full-on magician’s assistant, wave-your-hands-under-her-and-over-the-table-level floating over the mattress. Her hair looked like she was underwater, red curls splayed around her like a puddle of molten copper, reflecting the light and casting shadows across her face, where her eyes glowed an impossible blue in the darkness.
“Oh.” I stopped short. This doesn’t happen. Now I really did give my forearm a quick pinch.
No change. Well, one could hope. I took a step further and winced again as the ringing in my ears got louder. No. Not ringing. It was almost a tune. Like if you pitched a Gregorian chant like nine billion octaves.
I blinked through the pain, my eyes blurry with tears.
I saw something in her left hand.
A pulse of pink light.
That matched the throb in my shoulder.
Magic Stone. God damn it.
I took another step forward, closing the gap between us. I felt repulsed by the stone. Like I didn’t want to be anywhere near it. But I also saw her arm. The veins coming down her palm, up her wrist like black tendrils, following up and disappearing into the sleeve of the oversized short sleeve shirt she was sleeping in.
I mean, that’s not good right? Nothing good ever comes from blackened veins. I’ve seen plenty of horror movies. That’s the possession shit taking hold. Getting deep into the blood.
I forced myself to close the gap. Where’d this thing even come from? Dad had drawn it in the notebook, but —
Oh no.
The hole in the bag.
In my pocket.
I brought it.
I was close enough to her to hear that she was whispering. Staring at the ceiling with affirmatively glowing blue eyes and whispering. Cause this couldn’t get more Scooby-Doo meets The Exorcist. It was gibberish. Or some weird demon speech. Except…
Except it wasn’t.
It was Welsh. And I didn’t know why I knew that.
I froze. Everything about this was freaking me the fuck out.
“Deffr, cysgadwr. Y mae’r amser i’r gair iachaid” she intoned, her words harsh like someone who had a severe case of laryngitis. It didn’t even sound like my sister-in-law’s voice at this point.
“Yr ysbryd a groesodd dy lwybr, bellach ynghlymedig yw”
Nope. Can’t deal with this. I lashed my arm out and really hoped I didn’t also get crazy Welsh demon possessed. I got my fingers around the stone and ripped it from her grasp. And nothing happened.
Well, to me. Temper fell out of the air and landed on her bed and screamed, which, admittedly, caused me to also scream.