You're Not Alone

  ***

  The week dragged by. I hadn’t heard from Andjela, and the spirits in my apartment had been silent and unobtrusive throughout the week. The lack of their presence actually worried me. Had the angry spirits succeeded in stopping Matthew?

  I pulled into the parking lot of my apartment building after a long Friday. I turned off the car and sat for a moment. Now that I finally believed Matthew was trying to communicate with me, it seemed as if his spirit was gone too. I felt depleted, tired, and sad. I planned to call Andjela and tell her there was no need to have the séance. There were no signs of the spirit, or spirits, as we suspected.

  I was hanging on by a thread. Mr. Abernathy’s visit earlier this week to the funeral home disclosed to me just how close to ruin I was. He gave me one more month to start making full payments again or the bank would start foreclosing procedures. I was able to keep up with the mortgage on my apartment building because I had all the units rented out. That income covered the mortgage with enough left over for the utilities, but the cottage payments were as late as the funeral home’s. I moved money around trying to cover this mortgage, that loan, utilities for the cottage, living expenses, and whatever else was thrown my way but instead of helping myself, I only made matters worse.

  My lawyer called me halfway through the week and told me there wasn’t much he would be able to do to help me. I would have to sell. He gave me options and told me he would do whatever he could to help me in the process. I said thank you, hung up the phone, and cried the rest of the night.

  I sighed heavily as I got out of the car. The past few days had my head spinning with the options presented to me to save my home and business and get myself out of debt. I looked up at my bedroom window and dropped my purse. The same smoky shadow I saw before was there. It appeared to be clawing at the window.

  I picked up my purse and ran up the back stairs to my apartment door. It had to be Matthew. I don’t know how, but I could tell the figure was male. I was sure of it. I fumbled for my keys in my purse, finally yanking them from the “bottomless pit” that Matthew nicknamed it one day. I had asked him to get my keys out while I got grocery bags out of the trunk. Frustrated from not being able to find them in the deep cavernous sack filled with what have you, he thrust it back in my hands and took the grocery bags. “You find the keys in that bottomless pit,” he had said. I smiled remembering that warm, autumn day, but the thought didn’t keep my hands from shaking as I inserted the door key into the lock.

  “Don’t go,” I pleaded. “Please don’t go.” It seemed like an eternity before I got the door unlocked. Finally, I succeeded and yanked it open. I ran to the bedroom without closing the door. The smoky figure was still there. I stopped just inside the room; the site of the apparition floating above the floor had me mesmerized. The white fog took the shape of a faceless person with vague outlines of a body. It turned, but I couldn’t tell if it was now facing me or looking out the window. At that moment, I realized I still hadn’t been totally convinced of everything Andjela told me or what I had been experiencing in my apartment. But now, now, I believed.

  “Matthew?” I took a step forward, and when I did, the vision began to fade. I quickly took a few steps back. The vision became dense again. “Matthew, please.” I shifted my weight to prevent myself from moving forward once again. I so wanted to run to…to Matthew. It was Matthew. I felt it in my heart. “I miss you so much.” I started to cry. “I don’t know why you’re here or what you’re trying to tell me, but I am so lost without you.”

  The smoke started to flutter and take form. I held my breath while I watched my lost love reveal himself to me as he moved toward me. There was no face or any distinguishable characteristics that visually told me who it was, but it was the essence of the phantasm that I felt as it passed through me that proved to my brain what I was seeing was in fact the ghost of Matthew.

  I closed my eyes as I began to feel all of the emotions I’d had since he died a year ago leave my body for a brief moment and replaced by his love. But as quickly as he caressed my soul, he was gone from my body and his love was once again replaced by sorrow.

  I opened my eyes. He was floating in front of the window. What appeared to be arms stretched out toward me in a pleading fashion. Matthew. I reached out to him. I wanted to hold him, feel him near me, but the sight enfolding in front of me caused me to jerk back away from him. The apparition started to shudder and writhe as if it was a towel being twisted and wrung out to dry. Matthew was struggling, fighting. I watched in fear as a darker smoke started to encircle the form of my beloved.

  Then I heard them—whispers. They got louder, and I could hear them all around me. I turned wildly, trying to see where they were coming from, but the voices sounded the same everywhere I turned. The whispers turned to screams, and I whipped around to face the window once again. The two spirits were wound around each other, and as they fought against each other, the screaming grew louder.

  “Matthew!” I shouted. I ran to him and plowed right into the window cracking the glass. I fell back to the floor and covered my ears against the sounds that were overtaking me. I rolled onto my side with my hands over my ears and my arms protecting my face. Screaming and pounding invaded my very core to the point where I didn’t know if the screams were coming from me or the spirits, or both.

  Abruptly, I felt hands grabbing me and I knew it was me who was screaming.

  “Quinn, Quinn! It’s okay. Look at me. Quinn, look at me!”

  I was so confused, but the voice I heard through the noise was familiar. Panic made me want to stay curled up and go inside myself to get away from all this, but the composure of the voice convinced me to open my eyes.

  Mr. Princeton was gently shaking me and telling me it was okay. Beside him was Andjela. I looked from one to the other. When did they get here? What just happened? Now it was my head that was pounding. They watched me for a moment as if they were waiting for something.

  I was waiting for my mind to clear, to grasp what just happened.

  “Are you okay?” Mr. Princeton asked soothingly. The noises, including my screaming, started to fade. I was finally able to hear him clearly.

  “I’m going to the bathroom to get a wet cloth and some bandages.” I watched Andjela stand up and quickly leave the bedroom.

  “Quinn, let me help you. Here, lean against the bed.”

  With the help of Mr. Princeton, I dragged my body over to the bed and propped myself against it. Andjela came back in the room. I didn’t know why she went to the bathroom to get a washcloth and bandages until she knelt down beside me and took my arm. I looked down at it and saw blood running down my hand. She gently wiped my forearm and hand with the wash cloth and dabbed it dry with a towel. She proceeded to wrap it with gauze and bandages.

  All the while I watched her work, I noticed Mr. Princeton out of the corner of my eye watching me. Where did the cut come from? What was going on?

  “It doesn’t look too deep. I don’t think she’ll need stitches,” Andjela said to Mr. Princeton.

  “Thank God,” Mr. Princeton said. “Let’s get her to the living room. I think a cup of tea will help.” Mr. Princeton placed a hand gently on my other arm. “Do you think you can get up?”

  I looked from Mr. Princeton to Andjela and nodded. With their help, I stood up. I felt a bit shaky, so I waited a moment to steady myself. Mr. Princeton led me out of the room, but Andjela stayed behind.

  He sat me down on the couch and proceeded into the kitchen, I was sure to make that cup of tea he mentioned. A moment later I heard him talking quietly, and I was hoping it was to Andjela and not to the voices.

  I started to shiver. I was cold. I reached for the blanket at the end of my couch and wrapped it around my body. I blew out a breath to see if it was the room getting cold again or if it was just me.

  It was just me.

  Mr. Princeton entered the living room carrying a cup of tea with Andjela behind him. He sat on the couch next to me and handed
me the mug. I wrapped my hands around it feeling the heat penetrate my fingers. I took a sip in hopes the hot liquid might quickly warm me up from the inside out. Mr. Princeton and Andjela were silent, as if waiting for me to say something.

  She walked slowly around the living room. Satisfied, she sat on the couch next to me. I could feel her body relaxed, at ease.

  “Why are you both here? How did you get in?” I finally broke the silence.

  “Andjela showed up on my doorstep and said you were in trouble. She asked if I could get into your apartment. I never question Andjela, so I got the key Matthew gave me a long time ago, and we came in the front door. We heard screaming. By the time we got to your bedroom, we found you on the floor in a fetal position.”

  I looked at both of them incredulously. Once again, Andjela knew. She knew, and for her to get here when she did, she had to have felt what was going on maybe before it even started.

  “I did,” Andjela said.

  “You did what?”

  “I sensed something about an hour ago. I told you the connection is strong. As soon as I felt it, I tried calling but you didn’t pick up, so I came right over. I tried knocking on your door, but you didn’t answer that either. I heard the noises—whispers and then screaming. I ran to Eddie’s apartment and got him. Thank God he had a key, or we would have had to break the door down, and I don’t think either of us is strong enough for that.” She smiled at me, I’m sure to try and inject a little humor to a situation that I felt was pretty much humorless at this point.

  I weakly smiled back. “I think I left my back door open,” I said, not knowing why.

  “It was closed when we got here.”

  What the hell? I was totally exasperated.

  “So, tell me what did happen.”

  I took another sip of tea. I wasn’t even sure I knew what just happened. “I got out of my car and saw the same figure in my bedroom window I saw before. I came upstairs to my apartment and went into the bedroom. Andjela, it was Matthew. I know it was.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Yes, she probably did know. “Andjela, is it possible? I mean, he went right through me. I felt him.”

  Mr. Princeton’s face looked as if he wouldn’t be able to contain his believable excitement. He shifted anxiously but stayed quiet.

  “What happened next?” Andjela asked me.

  “I think I saw another spirit wrap itself around Matthew’s. They were struggling. I’ve never seen anything like it. The whole time they struggled, I heard the whispers all around me, but they turned to screams at the same time the spirits got almost violent with each other. I ran to help him, but I went right through them and I think I hit…the window.” The last statement brought a little clarity to me. I looked at my arm. “The glass? Is the window broken?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Princeton answered. “I’ll get a board and cover the window for the night. We can call someone to fix it tomorrow. You’re lucky you didn’t cut yourself any worse than you did.”

  “I didn’t even feel myself get cut. I remember falling back from the impact of hitting the window.” I examined the bandage Andjela put on the wound. I didn’t know what the cut looked like or how deep it was. “The screaming and pounding got louder, so I curled up into a ball to protect myself because I felt,” I looked at Andjela and whispered, “I was in danger.”

  “That’s because you were.”

  “What’s going on, Andie?” Mr. Princeton’s face was now filled with concern.

  “I believe Matthew needs help.”

  “Matthew? It really is him?” he asked in awe.

  “It is, Mr. Princeton. I saw him, or I mean I saw his spirit.” I answered.

  “Unbelievable. It’s so exciting. I mean, I’ve believed in the spirit world all my life, and now, it’s so close.”

  “Maybe a little too close,” I said.

  “Quinn, do you know what this means?”

  “Not really.”

  “It means everything I’ve worked for is finally validated.”

  “If you mean my ghosts are going to be your experiments, you can forget it. I’d be just as glad if they all left me alone,” I answered in disgust, thinking all Mr. Princeton cared about was his ancient crap.

  Solemnly, Mr. Princeton put his hand on mine. “I’m sorry, Quinn. I didn’t mean that. I would never use any of this as an experiment or even as research. It’s just that for me, I now know I haven’t done my life research and studies for it to mean nothing. It means something.” Mr. Princeton looked sad.

  My heart sank at hurting this man who was only trying to help me. “I’m the one who should apologize. I’m sorry. I know you would never do anything like that. I guess I’m just a little disjointed after everything that happened.”

  He perked up a little. “I know. The most important thing now is to figure out what the message is that Matthew has been trying to tell you.”

  Andjela finally spoke. “We have a bigger problem than that, Eddie.”

  “We do?”

  “Yes. Last week Quinn’s apartment was inhabited only by Matthew and his like spirits, but now angry spirits have appeared.”

  “Is that what happened tonight?” I asked, still numb from the occurrence in my bedroom.

  “Yes, only the angry spirits are gaining strength. The first time Quinn told me she saw Matthew in her window, I knew he was getting stronger, and I hoped he was strong enough to come through in the séance we were going to have tomorrow night. I suspected there might be other spirits but…” Andjela’s face became solemn. “I thought we still had time.”

  “So you knew these angry spirits could get stronger, maybe even stronger than Matthew?” I felt my own anger gaining strength.

  “Yes, I knew it could happen.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t we have the séance earlier this week before this… this happened?”

  “I was waiting for the full moon. It’s the best time for connections.” Andjela put her head down. “I really hoped we had enough time. I’m sorry.”

  “What do we do now? I don’t know what to do.” Tears slid down my cheek. I didn’t care anymore. Let the Shikmans take the properties, the bank accounts, everything but my business. They couldn’t touch that. I could get a small apartment and get back on my feet. Maybe it was time to let it all go. Maybe it was time I let Matthew go.

  “Andie, explain to me exactly what is happening.” Mr. Princeton asked.

  “Matthew is being stopped from getting her message to Quinn by angry spirits.”

  “Who are these spirits?”

  “We call them specters. Other than that, we never know who they are, Eddie.”

  I looked at Andjela. That was a word I hadn’t heard her use. “Specters?”

  “Spirits that are threats, dangerous...because of their emotional state which is anger, hate, despair.”

  “So they do have a name.”

  “A generic one, yes.” She smiled and turned to look at Mr. Princeton. “Eddie, now is your chance to prove your work. Do you think you can help us?”

  “If Quinn wishes me to, I want to help.”

  “How can you help? We haven’t even been able to communicate with Matthew to find out what he wants.”

  “If we can help him to defeat the specters, then the séance will allow me to communicate with him and find out what he is trying to tell you. I believe Eddie can help him defeat the specters.” Andjela looked at Mr. Princeton who nodded in return. She looked hard at me. “I know he can."