Chapter Three

Chapter Three of Mirrors.

                      

    --Chapter 3--

You think you saw a banshee,” I simply stated. Luke nodded and shoved a hand into the pocket of his blazer, producing a black cased iphone. I averted my eyes to the window behind him and took note of the darkening sky. “‘Many see banshees as entertaining folk lore while others genuinely believe in their existence. Had evidence of banshees consistently coincided with death by long-term illness or other easily-foreseeable causes, there likely wouldn’t be as much support. However, there had been reports of drowning and other sudden deaths of perfectly healthy individuals in the weeks following what was thought to be the sound of a banshee’s cry. The most famous example of this is King James I of Scotland who was murdered soon after he reported having been approached by a strange Irish seer.’” He read aloud. My stomach now churned with the feeling of a glacier lurking inside.

“What do yah think?” He inquired. I furrowed my brow and took the phone he held toward me. The small screen was a glow with several paragraphs of BS and a small short man in green, otherwise recognizable as a leprechaun sat perched near the top of the page on top of SoyouthinkyourIrish.com. Ireland always seemed like an inviting place to me. With its rolling hills of green grass and the locals amusing accents, but it felt like a sinister land now.

I glanced up to see Luke staring intensely down at his phone as I set it on top of my pale grey and violet flowered comforter. “Luke, I don’t know what to tell you.” I said in shaking my head softly. Concern registered in his blue eyes.

“It’s not just that,” He popped his knuckles, assaulting my ears and I was tempted to sock him upside the head. “I kept having these trippy dreams on the flight here.”

“Come on, you know better than to eat airline food. Besides Cape Cod’s quite a way from your native LA.” I reasoned and felt guilt surface and scolded my mind from examining why. Luke rolled his eyes dramatically.

 “Humor me.” I simply stared at him. He seemed to take my silence as an invitation to go on. “Ok, well it started on the first flight. I was here, down in the kitchen actually. It was the same chick from the night before and she was there too. At first she was silent, all reserved and stuff. Then someone like, walked in and she went freaking ballistic. I couldn’t see who it was; my vision was really clouded over.”

 A thought accrued to me then, as a vivid image of my father involuntarily entered my thoughts. His sandy blond hair had originally been short cropped and it always was in my oldest memories of him. But in this particular image, his hair was shaggish as it was in his final days. His stormy grey eyes that I had inherited from him were dull with what I thought to be the depression. 

“It freaked me the hell out. But on the final flight, it was horrible. Again I was here, or I felt like I was. But then I was in a solid white and black, modern looking room. The only furniture was a white love seat and a night stand.              The chick was there and of course, the moment the shadow entered the room she flipped her lid. It was like the apocalypse, the foundation shook, and the darn couch caught on fire out of nowhere. The fire spread like . . . well, fire. I don’t think I’ve ever felt such fear and it was so real, too real.” He continued to stare intensely at his phone, like it held all of life’s greatest mysteries. I held the capability to put two and two together and solve the case my cousin urged me to understand. But I didn’t have any intentions of doing that. Instead I asked. “What else?”

Luke lifted his head, his cheeks appeared to hold a hint of green and he looked worn and tired. “The shadow was you, Vin.” Somehow though I couldn’t imagine how, I managed to muster a humorless chuckle and rise to my feet without falling on my face. “Thanks for the warning, but please stop blaming your insanity on innocent banshees and particularly exhausted teenage girls. You can leave now.” I threw out in a rush as I tugged on his arm until he gave in and stood.

“I’ll be taking up residence in one of your many guest bedrooms for awhile. So don’t make any plans for lunch tomorrow. You’re practically the only weapon in my arsenal for getting Margret out of the house. If not one of those fish restaurants, at least the kitchen table.” He rumpled up my hair once more before turning on his heel and strolling through the door.

 

-       -  -

An hour had passed since I since I sent Luke away. One part of me wanted to doubt his conviction that my death was drawing near. Yet at the same time the other, more realistic part of me knew exactly what he spoke of.

I stared down at the two solid white pills as I stirred them around in the palm of my hand. It had been almost three months since I‘d last had an anxiety attack and turned to the pills that the doctors all said would make it all better. I only assumed that mom thought I was still taking them, then again I didn’t really understand her thought process that well anymore.

And it was becoming clear that I didn’t understand most other things as well as I once thought. I had thought that I understood my father, better than anyone sometimes. I knew that my mom must have also believed the same thing once as well.

I never thought that he would take his own life, that I knew that for a fact. I knew that I could have prevented it, had I saw the signs. But in end he was the same man who’d helped me through the hardest years of my life.

I hated myself for letting the new ache that throbbed in my chest shadow over the grief that I should have been wallowing in. I had lied to Luke. I knew exactly what he was talking about. And that little fact, was tugging on the strings that the anxiety pills were created to hold stitched tight.

Fear consumed me as I let my eye lids slip shut. The darkness there paled in comparison to the onyx that had consumed the evening sky.

Tree’s bent as the force of the howling wind as it swept over the forest.  Making even the blades of grass and dead leaves whisper in time.  I stood amongst it all my back pressed against the trunk of a gnarled tree.

My organs felt like mush inside of me and my heart beating like the drum of a fast passed metal song.

I saw her, standing a few yards away from me, her head down and some dark figure behind her with its hands hooked under her under arms, holding her up. The both of them were non descript as they stood just out of range of the faint glow of the moon light. The moon had once seemed so friendly and inviting, but now it seemed as sinister and vile as the wind. A very low moan slash scream filled my ears; I realized it was coming from the girl.

I awoke sometime later, my heart pumping just as fast and my mind reeling and playing on a continues loop, what I had just witnessed.

 

Author's Note

Chapter three, enjoy.