Dark Days, Dark Nights

A teenager suffers a sleep disorder when her psychotic neighbor, who live in hermitage in the flat above her, creates strange activity--right in front of her bedroom window.

My parents have lived in only apartments since they were first married when they were eighteen. It was either two- or three-bedroom apartments somewhere in our Illinois commuter town. Three weeks after my thirteenth birthday, my family and I finally moved into our first home that wasn’t an apartment. The two-story bungalow was a two-family flat that sat prettily on a nice, suburban street called Dakota. I remember the lawns on Dakota street being trimmed and lined with flowerbeds, creating a patchwork of green perfection towards from the beginning to the end of Dakota. It was the month of September when we moved there, so the trees decorated the green neighborhood with bright reds and oranges. The house was about 5,000 square feet and quite spacey. Even though my parents were just renting the bottom flat, it was still more space than any apartment we ever lived in. The backyard was medium-sized and nothing too exciting but at least there was a backyard. I was better than sharing a huge park area with a bunch of other kids like we were used to. I noticed that there was a cellar door in the back of the house led down into the basement. It was a wooden cellar door that was painted blue. Its hinges were rusted and the wood on one of the doors was splitting. It was somewhat of an eyesore on that house.

No one lived on the top flat when my family first moved to Dakota Street. My sister Jasmine, who was fifteen and antisocial at the time, was happy about that. My little brother Damon, who was ten, could care less. All he waited for was to see his new bedroom that he was going to paint bright orange and decorate with posters of comic book characters like Superman and Batman and whatever-man that could fly or fight while wearing Spandex. I had to share my new bedroom with Jasmine. Jasmine hated me, her own sister. According to my parents, Jasmine was their first-born and they confessed that they have spoiled her too much. Therefore, my existence made the spoiled firstborn jealous. 

Two days after my family moved in, we took a family photo in front of the new house. We also decided to all wear red tops for the picture, despite Jasmine’s pleading for us not to do something so “corny”. Dad’s brother, Uncle James, came over with his professional camera on the day of the photo shoot. Uncle James directed us, telling us to group together on the front lawn and stand in front of the house just a little bit enough for the front door to show. When Uncle James snapped the picture, Damon and I raised our arms in the air and cheered, “Che-e-e-e-se!” Mom happily joined in and raised her right arm.

Jasmine and I battled over our territories in the bedroom. Dad bought a foldable room divider in hopes of bringing some peace between us. That didn’t work because Jasmine would still walk around the room divider and invade my space. On my side of my room was a window that faced the backyard. Jasmine sweated during her sleep, so she would invade my side of the room and open the window open. The night breezes were too cold for me and they would give me sore throats in the morning. And when I closed the window, she just came right on over and opened it back up"even wider! The situation got so bad that the room was painted two colors: sunflower yellow on my side and carnation pink on her side. On my side, the wooden floor stayed bare. On Jasmine’s side, dad had laid down a large pink rectangular rug. Our room looked like a madhouse. Despite the misery, I waited patiently for the next two years when Jasmine would finally pack up and move out to go to college.

In the first week of October, a new family moved in upstairs. Jasmine was upset about it. However, I was excited in hopes that the family would have a kid around my age for me to befriend. The family moved in strangely, though. There was very little commotion except for footsteps going up and down the stairs. I was guessing that they probably didn’t own any heavy furniture like couches or beds. We didn’t hear voices communicating, like one person telling the other to move this or move that. Whoever was moving in parked a rust-beaten blue station wagon in front of the house. For the hours my family and I were home, we did not see any activity surrounding the station wagon. It would be gone before any of us would wake up for the morning and it would be parked in the front, empty and still, during the evening. Every night during the week of the new family’s move, at eleven-thirty, we heard lively Dixieland music playing through muffled speakers. Dad groaned, “Who in the hell we got moving in?” We could not answer that question. We could only guess. All I remembered was that when the footsteps, shuffling, and music stopped, we knew that the family was finished moving.

            The family was not seen for two weeks after they moved in. It was awfully quiet and almost felt like it did before they moved in. My family and I could only guess what they looked like, what kind of family they were, their ages, race, et cetera. Being the only Black family in this neighborhood, except for a few Middle Easterners and Asians, we already assumed that they were probably of the Caucasian persuasion. Since it was so quiet, we assumed the new residents were probably elderly.

Well, our mysteries were kind of solved when dad caught a glimpse of someone outside the blue station wagon. Dad woke up around five in the morning and saw a man walking out to the station wagon with keys in his hand. Dad said the man was skinny with an Adam’s apple that looked like the only biggest muscle in his body. Then he also said that the man had brown hair and wore round thin glasses. One thing, he said, that stood out about the guy was how he walked. According to dad, who was so bold with his descriptions, said he walked with a flutter like a gay butterfly. We figured maybe he was the only person that lived upstairs. The day after dad saw that man, mom saw two women walking into the front door of the flat as she pulled up in her car. Mom said they were both short but one was fat and the other one was kind of pudgy but wrinkly like she was probably in her late seventies. The fat sister had long gray hair and was wearing a wrinkly black peasant dress with flip-flops. The non-fat sister had long gray hair that she wore in a braid down the back of her head and was dressed like a schoolmarm in her denim jumper embroidered with flower designs. She said that they were both walking fast with their heads down as if they were trying to hide something. 

            Sooner or later, we had to find out who was living above us for safety. During the last week of October, dad decided to invite the new family over for dinner. Mom shuddered. All she could think about were the two women and how strange they appeared. Mom always taught us not to judge people by their outer appearance (unless they were wild in the eyes or foaming at the mouth). She was breaking her own rule but I could kind of understand because these weren’t just any old kind of neighbors. These were people living right above us and sharing limited amount of space with us.

            A dinner date was eventually set. When my parents went to give the family the dinner invite, the family asked us to come upstairs to their flat. Interesting, I thought. Well, on the day of the dinner, we all wore our everyday clothes and went upstairs to the family’s door. I stood beside Jasmine in my pink and yellow jogging suit feeling cute. Damon was picking at his nails. He was obviously nervous about meeting this new family. In fact, we all were. After three knocks on the family’s door, we heard about four locks unlatch. The door quickly opened and a skinny man in glasses greeted us. I assumed he was the man that dad saw. The man gave us a firm nod. “Hello,” he said in a rigid, perky voice. Then he stuck his hand out and gave a few more jerky nods, “Come in.”

As we walked in the first thing I noticed was how utterly and completely tacky the house was. The living room was decorated with some old, dry-rotted wallpaper with paisley designs on it. The wooden floor was left bare but a large dark orange rug with bits of yellow and green in it covered the middle of the floor. There were no shelves, television, radio, or couch. There was just a bunch of chairs to sit on and a dinner table to eat at. The chairs were, at least, cushioned but not to the extent of giving us full comfort. A bunch of Russian matryoshkas, porcelain figurines, and dying plants sat on the window ledge at the very front of the house. It was dark outside and even though the electricity was running, they had candles lit as if it were a romantic dinner. As we walked into the house and examined our odd surroundings, the man introduced himself.

“I’m Patrick. Patrick Kowalski,” He said. “The house is pretty bare. We haven’t had the chance to pick out any new furniture or décor. There are four of us living here and we are all entirely too different with various taste. So each of us is bringing in our share of furniture at our own pace. ”

            “Hey, there’s five of us,” said Dad. Then he went down the line of introducing us, “I’m Omar Hines. This is my wife, Regina. These are my daughters, Jasmine and Maya, and my little man, Damon.”

Dad was cut off by an alarming, shrill, female voice from the back room that shouted, “Who’s there? Patrick! Who is it?”

            “It’s the dinner company, auntie.” Patrick looked a bit annoyed.

            “What company?” The voice cried, “What do they want? Why are they here?”

            “Excuse my aunt,” Patrick told us in a low voice. “She’s very forgetful these days because she’s getting older. Either that or she’s just pretending to forget, which she likes to do sometimes when she is in one of her ‘moods’.”

            Then all of a sudden a short, portly old lady came rushing out from the kitchen holding a candle in one of those antique candleholders with the curved handle. She was dressed in a pale pink blouse and a long black skirt that nearly covered her terrible-looking brown shoes. She stood beside Patrick and said in a fast-paced voice, “Who are they? What do they want? Why are they here?”

            “They are the family that lives downstairs,” Patrick told her. “Remember? We invited them over for dinner.”

            “C’mon!” The woman quickly waved her wrinkled hand back and guided us to the dinner table. We all sat down in the chairs provided and I caught mom shifting her eyes in response to the weirdness that we were feeling at that moment.

            “Aunt Sophia?” Patrick called. “Can you go wake up Aunt Beatrice? Tell her they’re here.”

            Sophia shouted, “Beatrice! Wake up!”

Sophia didn’t bother to go to the room to do the job. Instead she hastily paced around the house with the candle still in one hand and rearranging things with her other hand. She was going back and forth into the kitchen stirring pots and pulling plates out of the cabinet above the stove. The flame on the candle danced in rhythm with the woman’s quick movement. I was afraid that she was going to drop the candle and start a fire with the way she was moving. I could just see it.  

Sophia came rushing back in with the candle still in one hand, and a pot in the other. Patrick looked a bit nervous about her energy and slowed her down when he said, “Auntie, would you please put the candle down? You’re going to have the place up in flames before you know it!”

            “I know what I’m doing,” Sophia scoffed. “I have enough faith in the Lord to know that it won’t happen. You should to. Stop worrying. Worrying is a sin.”

            “Not now, auntie,” Patrick mumbled. “Wait until the blessings.”

            Sophia scowled at Patrick. She sat the pot down in the middle of the table in front of Damon. The pot sent off a strong aroma of garlic, pepper and onion. Then Sophia shouted across the room again, “Beatrice!” Damon reached his hand over to the pot and tried to lift the top off. Mom pushed his hand away from the pot and made an agitated face reminding him to have some manners. Damon was so greedy. Sophia continued to bring out more food: a bowl of picked beets and a loaf of bread that had flour sprinkled on top. Then she finally opened the pot, which was filled with cooked cabbage, kielbasa sausage, and some kind of noodles. I remember having food like this at a Polish restaurant when I was nine. From the food, I assumed these people were probably Polish"or just liked Polish food. Sophia stuck a spoon in the pot of cabbage and she placed a stack of plates next to the pot. As she was doing this, another woman came in who looked almost as old as Sophia but was not as gray.

            “Aunt Beatrice, here is the family I was talking about,” Patrick said to the woman.

Beatrice was kind of fat and her black muumuu flowed around her body like a tablecloth. She sure did have a stomach on her but she knew how to carry her weight. Her stringy hair was down her back and her shoulders and looked like it needed a good shampooing. I also noticed that she wore a necklace that had a weird pendant in the shape of a star circumscribed by a circle. Like her sister Sophia, they had owl-like features"round and sort of buggy eyes, a pointed noise and very thin lips.

            “You have very beautiful children,” Beatrice said to my parents. Mom thanked her. I caught Jasmine making a funny look. She was outwardly reflecting how we were all feeling at that moment but she chose to be rude with it. She was luck mom and dad didn’t see her.

After Sophia filled the table, Patrick and the sisters sat down at the table with us. Beatrice reached over the table, grabbed a plate and dug the spoon in the cabbage.

            Sophia cried, “Beatrice!”

            Beatrice flinched. “What is it?”

            “Have you no manners?” Sophia cried, “I know you are already a heathen but you can at least, for once, give blessings in front of company.”

            Patrick lowered his eyes and nervously fiddled with his fingers.

            “Why not take it as a compliment and see it as me being very eager to eat the delicious food that you prepared,” Beatrice said in a sarcastic tone. “It’s food that you want to ‘thank the Lord’ for, when in reality, this food comes from the Earth. Not from the sky where you believe this supposed Lord lives.”

            “That’s it, Beatrice,” Sophia hissed. “Enough of your blaspheming. Just for that, you lead the blessings!”

            Beatrice stood up and clasped her hands together, as if in praying manner but without her closed eyes said, “From Forest & Stream; From Mountain & Field; From the fertile Earth's Nourishing yield; I now partake of divine energy"[*]”

            “Enough!” Sophia slammed her hands on the table.

Beatrice sat down and said in a quick voice, “Be blessed.” Then she dug the spoon in the pot and began to fix her plate. We just took it upon ourselves to say our blessings to ourselves, quietly, and then we fixed our plates. The food was very good and Damon really loved the beets. Mom was happy about it because she figured we didn’t like beets so she never fixed them. Dad passed the plate of bread around and every one got a slice of it. Patrick ate his food slowly and in between bites he held his head down, furrowing his brow nervously. Beatrice ate really fast without looking up. She chewed very roughly with a look of concentration on her face, eyebrows slightly raised in satisfaction. Sophia ate kind of similar to Beatrice except she took many sips of water between her bites.

“Aunt Sophia, you can’t drink while eating. You will get full quick,” Patrick said.

“Must you worry about the silliest things, Patrick?” Aunt Sophie said.

“I am not worried, auntie. Just concerned.”

“You need to pray more, Patrick,” Sophie said condescendingly.

Mom interrupted the conversation in hopes of lightening the mood. “This cabbage is very good. Don’t you like it, kids?” We nodded with our mouths full.

Sophia decided to go into more detail about the cabbage. “It kielbasa with haluski, onions and peppers"a recipe passed down from my grandmother. My grandmother was a very blessed woman. If she were still alive, she would have been 120. She died very young. She died when she was fifty.” Sophia took a sip of water out of her glass and plunked it back down on the table. Then she leaned forward as if she thought we did not hear her well the first time. “She was always right with the Lord, praying every day, doing things with her church every weekend, and keeping the family praying"”

Sophia was suddenly cut off by the sound of a man shouting from the back of the house. Sophia immediately froze and became quiet. In fact, we all froze in our seats. Beatrice then stood up from the table. Sophia quickly looked up at her and cried, “Where are you going?”

“To check and see what is going on.” Beatrice said.

Sophia pointed at us. “No. Not here, not now. Wait until they leave!”

“What’s the matter?” Dad asked.

Patrick shook his head, “Nothing. It’s Joseph. He gets a little excited sometimes.” Then we heard the shouting again followed by some loud laughter. At that moment, I wanted to go pee but I was too scared to get up because I didn’t want to go in the back where the noise was coming from. I was kind of waiting a few minutes until everybody finished eating. Then I finally asked where the bathroom was. Sophia offered to go show me to the bathroom. As Sophia walked me through the kitchen and to the bathroom, she asked me, “How old are you, young lady?”

“I’m thirteen,” I said.

“Thirteen, eh? You’re a very pretty girl. Very pretty, I say. You must be careful with it. There is so much sin in the world, so much sin, that beautiful women can get caught up in.” I really didn’t get her point but I kind of took it as her way of trying to be helpful. I stood outside the bathroom door as she handed me a washcloth from the basket next to the bathroom door. Before I went in, she added, “I once had a granddaughter. Her name was Adrienne and she was beautiful"just like you. She died. You want to know why?”

“Why?” I asked.

 “Because she was involved in so much sin. She was a beautiful girl but very lustful and vain. She used her beauty to get things that later destroyed her like money, men and booze. Before she knew it, the devil drained her and her beauty soon faded. She became miserable and then she killed herself.” Sophia then unlocked the bathroom door and let me in. As she closed the door behold me, I sat on the toilet feeling uneasy and confused. I did not understand her point in giving me that speech other than it being some kind of advice. Sophia waited for me outside the door. When I flushed the toilet and got up to wash my hands, I heard the laughter. It was giggly and high-pitched like the laugh of a munchkin. I quickly scrubbed my hands, nearly dropping the soap, and rushed out the bathroom. I forgot Sophia was standing out there and I bumped into her. I noticed that there was a room next to the bathroom and the door of the room slowly creaked open. It was cracked an inch and through the crack there was a big eye peeking back at us. Sophia caught the eye looking at us, and then she cried, “Joseph! Go back in! Go back, I say!” The door slammed shut.

The reoccurring memory of seeing that eye made my nights sleepless while living under the new family. I heard the laughter through my bedroom ceiling, which meant that Joseph’s room was above mine. Jasmine was the heaviest sleeper out of all of us, so it did not interfere with her like it did me. I was once happy to be in this new house. That went away. The daytime was okay since I was at school most of the day and at band practice afterschool. But once night fell, my fears would awaken. I began to sleep few hours and my performance in school and in band practice began to decline due to my lack of adequate sleep. My teachers complained about how often I fell asleep in class. My lack of sleep also caused me to catch more colds than I ever had. I started having migraines that made me so sick and sensitive to the light that my teachers would send me home. My parents decided to take me to a doctor to see if I was developing some kind of sleep disorder. The doctor diagnosed me with acute insomnia and the doctor prescribed a low-dosage of sleep aid. For four nights the medicine made me sleep a little better. But one night, all hell broke loose when I saw the shadow of a human figure zip across my bedroom window. As the figure moved, I heard sounds of clunking and clinking. I quietly crawled out of the bed and peeked out the window. My eyes grew as big as two headlights when I caught sight of a man with two bricks in his hands and the garden hose tied around his arm. The man had balding hair, large eyes, and a big nose that gave him a side profile like that of a crow. He looked straight at me and we stared, wide-eyed, at each other for a good five seconds. After the fifth second, a wide Cheshire cat-type grin stretched across his face. I immediately yanked the shades down, jumped back into the bed, and cried.

I broke the news to my parents the next morning over breakfast.

“What do you mean there was a man in the backyard?” Mom cried.

My voice was shaky, “He…he saw me. He looked…at me.”

“Are you sure you weren’t dreaming,” said Dad.

I quickly shook my head, “Nuh-uh.”

Jasmine said, “Maybe it’s the drugs. It’s making you psycho.”

“Jasmine, shut up,” I shouted. “I should have opened the window back up, so the man can come and take you away and out of my life!”

Mama’s mouth opened. “Maya!”

“I’m sorry,” I whined.

Jasmine looked offended for a second but then whispered something dirty under her breath.

Mom looked over at me, “Maya, I know you’re not feeling very good and I know you’re feeling irritable. Just stay home today, okay.”

Dad shot mom a confused frown and said, “So, you going to just let her miss school over this? Regina, she’s already having enough trouble at school.”

“I know, Omar,” said Mom. “But she’s shook up. Just let her stay home. Just for today.”

Staying home from school and taking medicine did not ease the nightmares I had every night. I kept hearing that silly laughter above my head, which would filter through my sleep and into my dreams turning everything demonic. I also made sure the window shades were down. In fact they stayed down day and night and my bedroom never saw the light of day. I had nightmares of the man’s shadow growing bigger against the white shade until the entire window turned black or I would dream about seeing his face, on my bedroom ceiling, smiling down at me with that Cheshire cat grin. I ended up sleeping on a trundle bed in mom and dad’s room. It was fun sleeping in their room the first week, since I got to watch TV with them and even indulged in bedtime snacks like cheese and crackers or a peanut butter sandwich (which both made me fall asleep along with my medicine). Sleeping with my parents made my nightmares revert back to comfortable dreams. My parents began to miss their privacy after a week of me bunking with them but they were willing to do anything just for me to have a good night’s sleep so I could get my grades back up.

As the nights went on, I found myself falling asleep in my parent’s room and waking up in my bedroom. I found out that when I fell asleep in their room, Dad would carry me back to my room and tuck me in the bed. Dad was a tall and stocky man so he was strong enough to carry my 109-pound body. I didn’t like that. I didn’t want to go back to that hellhole of a room. I expressed my dismay to my parents about this. So, they bought me a star-shaped nightlight that I could plug into the socket near my bed. The nightlight was a lovely gesture but it still did me no good.

The month of December crept up on us before we knew it and marked our fourth month at the new house. I remember that winter to be very rough and lingering. Our city received a record snowfall of three feet and we could not keep count of the number of road accident due to the ice and snow. People were stuck in their houses most of the time and only got out to go to work or take out the trash. Thank God my parents did all of their Christmas shopping for us in November. Otherwise, we would have had very few gifts due to the intense weather conditions. The snow was so deep in front of our house that even snow play was no fun for Damon and I. Damon tried to make a snow angel but instead fell at the bottom of the snow pile and left a three-foot deep impression with his body. My parents had to pull him out of the snow as he kept screaming that he couldn’t feel his hands.

A week before Christmas, there was a snowstorm that triggered a blackout in the entire county. The denizens freaked out about their safety and the last minute Christmas shoppers became frustrated. The stores within five-mile radius of our neighborhood filled with long lines of people stocking up on their winter survival kits. Mom and dad had to go buy more thermal blankets for us, which were almost sold out at the shopping center that was five miles from our neighborhood. There were enough canned goods and powdered beverage mix in the pantry, so we were good with food. Mom was able to turn on the stove with just a turn of the knob and the flick of a match to light an eye. Therefore, we were able to warm up soup and Spaghetti-O’s, and hot chocolate. The Christmas tree could not be lit but we were still able to enjoy the decorations in the daytime or when we shone the flashlight on them.

The blackout was bad news for me, the recovering insomniac. I did not want to close my eyes in total darkness of the night, without the luxury of switching on a nightlight if I needed to. I tried to sleep with the flashlight, which I didn’t like because somebody always had to borrow it from me. So, I did not sleep well during the blackout. The best I did was sleep in the living room on the couch, where the moonlight shone through the window.

During the blackout, mom and dad found themselves going back and forth upstairs to borrow things from the Kowalskis and vice versa. That was the most we have seen the family during that time. They received canned goods and tissue from us and we borrowed candles and matches from them. Back and forth, my parents and the family sought after each other for vittles.

On the second night of the blackout, my worst nightmare came to life when Sophia and Patrick came banging on our door. Mom rushed to the door and swung it open.

“Yes? What is it?” Mom answered calm but nervously.

            Sophia cried frantically, “It’s Joseph"he’s missing! Where is he?”

            “Missing?” Mom glanced back at me. I was sitting on a blanket in the middle of the living room floor where Damon, dad and I were playing cards. Jasmine was just ignoring the sudden moment, listening to her headphones on her tape player.  Dad got up and stood beside mom.

            Patrick rubbed his hands fearfully. “His room is empty. The window is wide open. There is a rope ladder nailed onto the window where he must have escaped.”

            Sophia looked at dad. “Did you happen to see him? Did you?”

            Dad answered, “No. Where could he have gone?”

            Patrick pressed his hand against his face and took a deep breath, “I think Joseph has been climbing out of his window more than once. Joseph cannot be out of our supervision. That is why we asked your family to come have dinner in our home. We can not leave this man home alone.”

            Mom asked, “Wait, is Joseph underage?”

            “No! He’s a grown man,” said Sophia. “And he’s a dangerous man.”

            “Dangerous?” Dad shifted his eyes uneasily.

            “Joseph does not act well during storms"storms of any kind,” said Patrick.

            “We checked the backyard,” Sophia said. “Joseph likes to go in the backyard and collect bricks and things. He creates things with them.”

            When Sophia said that my heart jumped. That was Joseph who I saw in the backyard. I slowly stood up with my legs shaking like Jell-O that just plopped out of its mold. My first thought was to run and hide somewhere in the house where there were no bricks, metal or anything Joseph could find.

Sophia continued, “Joseph thinks the bricks are sacred, that they are going to help him get closer to the Lord. He’s building a shrine. Do not ask me why. While I commend him for his enthusiastic faith in the Lord, he is not always as holy. He can be an evil, evil man.”

            “He’s not evil auntie. He’s sick,” Patrick cried.

            “Sickness is of the devil,” Sophia said.

            Mom gently squeezed her eyelid and whispered, “Lord have mercy, Jesus…”

            “How dangerous is this man?” Dad cried.  

            “He hears voices that tells him to do things that can put us all at danger,” Sophia warned us. “Sometimes the voices tell him good things, sometimes the voices tell him bad things"very bad things. He could be outside, down the street, anywhere. We could not find him anywhere, in or around the house.”

            Suddenly Beatrice came running down the stairs. She was shouting, “Joseph! Where is he?”

            “He’s missing? We got to find him,” Sophia said. “We got to find him before he hurts himself…or hurt someone else.”

            “Goddamn it…” Dad whispered nervously.

            Sophia heard dad swear and she gave him a stern look, “No need for blasphemy. It is the Lord that will help us. Your blaspheming shows your fear which is of the devil.”

Patrick interjected, “Let’s go find him, auntie!”

Sophia and Beatrice rushed back upstairs. Before Patrick followed behind him, he said to my parents in a low voice, “Excuse my aunt, once again. To be honest, she and Beatrice can be partly blamed for Joseph’s madness.” Then he sighed heavily and went upstairs. About five minutes later, Patrick and his two aunts rushed back down the stairs in their winter coats and boots.

“We’re going to drive around the block and look for Joseph. We’ll be back shortly,” Patrick said.

Patrick opened the front door and a gust of snow blew in their faces. He pushed his way past the wind and out the door with Sophia and Beatrice following behind him. Dad shut the door behind them and walked back into the living room. After that exchange, Dad announced that he was going to go out in the driveway to clean off the car.

“Daddy, no!” I screamed. “What if Joseph gets you?”

Mom calmed me down. “Baby, Joseph is not out there. Okay?”

“How do we know?” I cried.

“Joseph could be lying in your bed"right now,” Jasmine said. Her lips sputtered and she burst out laughing. I could have said something back at her but instead I started to cry. Mom got upset and slapped Jasmine on the leg. Jasmine flinched but continued to snicker to herself.

Before dad headed out the living room to get his coat, he asked, “Is there an extra quilt around here? I’m gonna need two quilts. You all know I’m a big man.”

“I think we have another clean quilt,” Mom said. “Jasmine…Maya…go downstairs and get the quilt off the top of the dryer. It should be one there.”

“But it’s dark down there,” Jasmine cried.

Mom frowned. “That’s why you have flashlights!”

“I don’t wanna go down there,” Jasmine whined.

“I’m staying up here with your father and brother. Take your butt downstairs and get your father a blanket! And take Maya with you like I said.”

I carefully walked down the dark stairs with Jasmine walking behind me. I waved the flashlight side to side, making sure I saw every stair that I stepped on. Suddenly, Jasmine pushed her hands against my back. I jerked forward and nearly tripped down the stairs. Jasmine cried, “Hurry up! Sheesh!” I wanted to yell but I held it in. I just tried to make the trip quick. I had just ran out of patience and was ready to bury Jasmine somewhere outside in the snow. As we moved through the basement, a cold draft swept passed our faces. The cellar door was cracked open.

“Who left the cellar door open?” Jasmine asked.

I did not answer her. There continued to be silence between us and it was silent enough for me to hear the strange noises that were coming from the boiler room. It sounded like feet dragging against the floor. The creepy noises motivated me to pick up the pace. Unfortunately, the quilt was not on top of the dryer. I opened the dryer door and stuck my hand in the dark hole. It was empty.

“Where’s the stupid quilt,” Jasmine cried.

All of a sudden, I accidently dropped the flashlight and knocked it out. Jasmine shrieked and shouted, “Great job, genius! Now we can’t see a damn thing! I oughta find my way back upstairs and lock you down here!”

“Shut up, Jasmine,” I yelled. “I’m sick of you! You’re nothing but a spoiled, jealous brat! You never have anything nice to say to me. I can’t wait until you leave and go to college. And when you leave, I never want to see you again. Ever! And once you leave, I’m writing you out of my life. I hate you!”

“Well, I hate you!” Jasmine shouted.

Jasmine turned around and began to storm off. All of a sudden, I felt a cloth fall over my face and my sight went pitch black. The basement was already dark but we were still able to see the outlines of the washer and dryer since the moonlight shone through the crack of the cellar door. However, once that cloth fell over my face it was as everything around me became blacker than black without moonlight. I felt arms clutch around my body, lift me up and hang me horizontally. I could hear my heart pound violently through my ears over the sound of feet running beneath me. What was going on, I thought? Why was I mysteriously being lifted and flung around in pitch black? When I heard Jasmine scream my name in the distance, I kicked my legs violently and screamed for help. The sound of running feet came to a halt and my body was lifted upward. I felt cold air seep through the fibers of the cloth. Creak! Slam! After I heard the sound of what may have been door hinges, the pitch black lightened to a dark gray but I still could not see anything.

I heard laughter.

The laughter sounded too familiar.

Then the sound of frantic shouting immediately faded out the laughter. Even though I was blinded by darkness, I could hear the familiar voices of my mother and father except their voice were loud and violent in tone. I felt my body drop and land on a soft surface. My body shivered in response to the ice-cold softness under me. I felt a grasp at the top of my head, a grasp on the cloth. I shut my eyes and felt the cloth move upward from over my face. Freezing wind swept across my face and forced me to open my eyes. I could see, again. And the first thing I saw was mom’s face against the moonlit night sky. Tears were streaming down her face. I did not know what to say. All I could do was sit up and look around the snowy backyard at everyone"dad, Damon, Jasmine, Sophia, and Beatrice. Patrick was across from us, holding a man facedown in the snow. Then he turned the man over. It was Joseph, the man I saw in the window that other night. Joseph seemed to have allowed Patrick to restrain his body as if he were a child. Patrick pulled Joseph’s arms out of his coat and tied the coat arms in the front like a straitjacket. Then Patrick removed his own jacket and tied it around Patrick’s ankles. Just by the look of it, I could tell this may have been their common procedure in handling Joseph.

 “That is it!” Patrick shouted, “I’m turning him into the police, auntie!”

Sophia shouted, “You’re not turning him in! Lock him upstairs!”

Patrick snapped. “You’re just as crazy as him! He tried to kidnap the child!”

So, I was being kidnapped? Kidnapped?

“I can’t deal with him anymore,” Patrick continued to shout at Sophie.

My family hurdled around me and helped me back onto my feet. We all dragged through the snow and back into the house leaving the Kowalskis outside. Once we settled down in the living room, mom wrapped me up in a blanket and held my head against her warm chest. I could still feel her heart racing and pounding against my ear. Dad took Damon to his bedroom and tucked him in. Jasmine sat straight up in the La-Z-Boy chair, emotionless and stiff like a wax statue. Mom told Jasmine to go to her room and warm up. Jasmine quickly shook her head. Her trembling lips parted yet she did not make a sound. Dad came back into the living room and rubbed Jasmine’s tense shoulder.

“You’re okay?” Dad asked her. Jasmine’s mouth began to open but still no words. Daddy turned around and went back to Damon’s bedroom. Ironically, Jasmine was in more shock than I was at that moment. I did, however, feel my heart palpitating abnormally. I buried my head against mom’s bosom and started crying. She rocked me to sleep, trying to calm me from the panic attack I was suffering at that moment.

Mom said, “Jasmine, your father is going to sleep with Damon. I will sleep with you and your sister"” Mom stopped talking when the sound of police sirens wailed down our street. The red and blue lights flashed in front of the window, causing our shadows to bounce eerily on the walls in the dark living room. The police officers stepped outside of their cars and greeted Sophia and Beatrice who came running out to the front. Mom watched cautiously through the window, then she got up. She walked to the front door and opened it. She did not go outside but she did watch as, moments later, two officers came from the back with a handcuffed Joseph. As the cop car took off, Sophia covered her face with the sleeve of her coat and wept. Beatrice held her and walked her back into the house. Patrick followed behind them. They looked at my mother and they lowered their faces. The aunts did not say anything. All they could do were hang their heads in shame and weep. Patrick looked mom in the face and said, “I’m so sorry…so sorry.” His voice trembled.

“Thanks for saving my child,” Mom said.

Patrick just shook his head, “I’m sorry.” That was all he could say.

As soon as Patrick went upstairs and locked the door, the lights in our home came on after the sound of an electrical click. The digital clocks flickered and blinked twelve o’clock. The television in the living room clicked on and an off-air screen faded in. Our electricity was back on but that did not stop our sleeping arrangements for the night. In fact, we slept with the bedroom lights on all night. After what happened that night, we could not take any more darkness.

That event was so unsettling that three days later, my parents started looking in real estate listings for another home. Eventually, they found an affordable three-bedroom bungalow with an attic (that could be turned into an extra bedroom for Jasmine) that was in an urban neighborhood. The neighborhood was known to be fairly safe and mostly a family neighborhood that was not too far from my parents’ workplaces. My siblings and I had to move to another school, though, but we weren’t too nervous about it. My parents were renting the new house but they made plans of hopefully buying it for good.

Little by little, my parents started packing during the rest of December. After Christmas, my parents announced that we were moving in the second week of January. I did not know what to make of it. It was too much for me emotionally. I was not the same. I no longer possessed the carefreeness that a thirteen-year-old child normally had. I was still getting used to the two-family flat before that horrifying incident. Even though my parents spoke with high hopes of the new bungalow, I was still scared that it would not be completely safe. Nowhere was going to be safe until I was able to feel inner peace. There is nothing like feeling unsafe in your own home.

Our last week at the two family flat came very fast. Since the incident, the Kowalskis stopped speaking to us. They were too ashamed and did not want to show their faces to us. However, Patrick wrote a letter to my parents apologizing. He also wrote in the letter that Joseph was staying in a psyche ward to get treatment. I hoped that he would never get out but mom told me, “It is not certain if he will stay long, Maya. That is why we are moving.”

Jasmine refrained from speaking to me since that dreadful night. Good thing that I had Damon to talk to because I needed somebody in that house to make me feel like carefree again. Jasmine only spoke to me if she needed me to hand her something or wanted to know the time. The strange thing about Jasmine’s silent treatment was that she showed no malice behind it. When she looked at me she gave me a docile look, rather than her usual sneer or rolling of the eyes. My bedroom was nearly bare except for a quilt on both beds for us to sleep in for the last night before our big move. Boxes were piled up against the wall in the bedroom, filled with our clothes and toys, and the shade on the window stayed closed. Even though Joseph was gone, I preferred the window to stay covered.

            The night before my family’s big move, Jasmine spoke to me. We woke up simultaneously in the middle of the night. She called my name, “Maya?”

            “Yes?” I answered.

            Jasmine swallowed hard and took a deep breath. Then she said in a low voice, “How did you feel when Joseph tried to take you away?” 

            “Like I was going to die,” I said.

            There was a pause. Although the room was dark and we could not see each other past the room divider, it was odd how we could feel each other’s emotions through those wooden panels. Jasmine was sniffing like she had a runny nose but it took me a minute to realize that those were sounds of her crying.

            “Why are you crying?” I asked her.

            “I’m scared.”

            “Mom and dad said that the new house will be safer. We won’t have to share it.”

            “No. I’m scared that Joseph may come back.”

            “Really?” I exclaimed. “But he did not try to take you. He tried to take me.”

            “I know. But I don’t want him to try and take you again.”

            I climbed out of the bed. I moved the room divider back and walked around it to Jasmine’s side. When she saw me, she sat up while holding the blanket to her face. Tears were streaming down her face. Jasmine was in rare form. She looked vulnerable and innocent with her gleaming doe eyes. The way her hands clenched on to the quilt was like that of a baby’s hands. I sat on the bed beside Jasmine took my hand and held it. It felt weird at first but the whole moment was unexpected. I allowed myself to embrace the awkwardness because for the first time, Jasmine and I were realizing how important we were to each other.

 

           

 

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[*] This is pagan prayer from Scott Cunningham’s, Living Wicca.