*****
Waking up from lying on the floor in the hall is not pleasant. A cascade of water is flying off the walls creating puddles everywhere! It is comparable to a waterfall. Hurt and anger build up inside him.
Everything was to have been taken care of after his grandfather's death. The money was available for all repairs. The property was supposed to remain in his family's hands. Had his grandfather's lawyer been unable to do so?
He looks up and sees no signs of holes or wears in the structure. If this keeps up, no one will be coming here for the gathering Jude had talked about.
Aloneness overwhelms the idea of a party. Debilitates. Following like a shadow his whole life except for Jude. One of the nicest people with an open mind, he had taken a liking to Jessie since first grade. Maybe this can all be worked out. I just have to get through this day, or is it night now?
How much time had passed since awakening in the woods this morning? Sitting up he wrings out the excess water from his clothing, slicks his wet hair back from his eyes, and checks the layout to see if anything else has changed during his absence.
Or had it been a blackout?
The flowers are still growing from the carpet. He feels in his pockets and takes out a folded paper. It was a paper from class. Reading it he shakes his head, then pockets it. A kind of warning most likely so he would proceed with caution, and not take anything from a room that wasn't his.
"I still have to investigate," he says, taking a step forward, gold flecks adorn the floor. "It really is like the yellow brick road..." he says, laughing...
How weird it is having come out here to see if everything is fine, to have a party to celebrate his new life after college only to find what use to be his refuge, or sanctuary an inconclusive puzzle.
Continuing on, a door slowly cracks open illuminating the way in bright yellow streams of light producing shadows that begin to dance, beats of music play, and Jessie leans back against the opposite door to watch.
The party begins so wonderfully, with random twirls of dance among family and friends that had come to celebrate her birth. Love and sadness fill his heart.
He turns from the scene, leaning on the back wall trying not to pass out, not wanting to see these vivid images from so long ago.
Lucy had been special, not like anyone he'd ever met before. Growing up together, she shared with Jessie paintings, songs, artwork, and goals created for her. Grandfather was always so envious of her talent, her abilities. He drifts off back to that time, that night, and what had occurred.
"Hey, Jessie! Come see what I made! Mom said I could use some of the old art supplies from the attic upstairs. I think these will make super cool decorations for my room! You have to come in here. Jess!"
"What? I can't see anything, Where are you, Sis? Where did you go?"
Nothing but silence. No random footsteps, no noise, but Jessie continues to move onward to where he thinks the door had been. Was it really my sister, had she really been here?
Wind begins to howl outside. Shutters bang against the house and hail pelts the glass windows. Reaching out his hands to feel his way towards the door something grabs him, pulling him.
"Stop!" he screamed. The forcefulness is too much for Jessie to fight. Pushed, pulled towards nothingness. "I said Stop! Who are you?"
It stopped as it began.
Still in the dark Jessie feels around to find a door handle hitting his hand against it. "Dang that was painful," he says, clenching his hands. Then reaches back out, touching where the paint had flaked off. Leaning into the exit, he pushes with all his might just in case it is locked. A swift fall sets him right on his butt!
"I've about had it," he says, as a small amount of light leaks into the room slowly getting brighter and brighter. Jessie scoots towards one of the walls in the room, raising his head only to see the apparition.
She has blue eyes, dark brown hair and is slender, with a long white dress.
No it couldn't be?
A ghost, an image from his past, or maybe just a lost soul, he isn't sure yet.
The mist he had seen was returning once more, a flashing light bounces off the golden flowers, trees and plants, none of them breathing, nor living, but covered in gold as if someone has taken a can of spray paint to them.
"Yes...Yes...Yes!" Jessie screamed. This is what his sister had done, but the flowers and plants were not real. Not then so why now? What made them real, or was someone shifting reality, as well as time?
Jessie reaches out to touch the flowers. His sister's flowers had been made out of paper mache and sprayed gold with his mom's help.
He barely touches the fragile flower with his pinkie, and whoosh. The gold flower turns to flecks, floating and swirling in the air. Behind him everything gold begins to melt onto the floor into a pile of wet substance. This idea of greed, a desire for riches, but his sister held no such desire only the fact that she had found the color beautiful.
The liquid gold vanishes.
In its place near his feet he can make out pictures on tiny scraps of photo paper. He picks them up, one by one putting them in order as they are numbered. He starts flipping through them.
Bright colorful pictures of happy children...
His grandfather! He was rather young in these photos. Grandpa was pretending, playing, growing up; it seemed glorious to see him in this manner.
Their hollow voices fill the room with cheer.
"Hey, throw the ball to me!"
"You're it."
"Let's run to the swimming hole."
Jessie sees it all blurred together. His grandfather's childhood. Then another vision hits him.
"Papa, Papa, why are you doing this? What happened to you? What did I do wrong?" screamed Jessie's father. Dad was a young boy, but why is grandfather hitting him?
"You should never go into that room. Never. You hear me, Todd? Spirits live in that room. Possession lies in that room. You must stay out. I have told you before. If you let it out, it will kill us all."
That must be why Grandfather had gotten so mad the night Lucy entered that room. Maybe this is that room.
Why did his grandparents stay here if it had been such an issue? Yes, it was a lovely home, but it came with a price tag besides the mortgage.
Jessie continues watching the pictures unfold as he flips them through his hands. Lucy always thought Grandfather was evil, but what if it had been something else? His eyelids flutter and droop as he fights to keep them open. The crickets and cicadas sing into night as the light outside dims. Jessie's head begins spinning creating, a crazy dizzy sensation he'd felt upon his arrival.
When had he last drank, or ate anything?
"I left my pack downstairs," he says, before laying his head down on the rug, curling his feet under himself, waiting to fall. It probably isn't the best idea, but there is no sense in trying to make it back to campus after dark. He has no news for Jude anyway on the use of the mansion, and going through the woods at this time of night is not a good idea. It always felt as if someone was watching him out there.
Stirring briefly, he scans the room and hopes it is not the one seen in his vision. A resounding knock starts up amid a faint clicking sound in the background.
Jessie sits up at once, but no one is lurking about. He longs to drift into a peaceful sleep, but knows that if he does, it will be anything but serenity.
A foreboding silence keeps him more alert than the last noise. It is as if he is waiting for a ghost, or other haunts, to jump out of nowhere to grab him. After working himself up to the point of exhaustion, he begins to slip, to drift in and out of consciousness.
*****
The phantom girl who'd been following the young man watches him sleep. Should I reach out to him, just a quick touch? It has been so long since she made contact with a human. She'd been one once. Oh, how I long to be again back with the living. Will he feel it? Will he know, or will it all be in vain? If I do my touch, warmth wi
ll only be felt for a second.
Urgency is felt to make him recognize what must be done for all this to end.