Speaker 1: My mom ran away after I was born because I
came out with drugs in my system. I've tried to
look her up since then, but I think she probably
died under a bridge somewhere. I can't say i'd feel
too bad if she did. Grandma always said her biggest
fear was Mom coming back and trying to take me.
My dad's parents took me in. It was supposed to
be just until Da've got clean, but he overdosed on
fentannel first. He didn't even do fentanel. Grandma told me
somebody mixed it in with the crap he bought in
the street. I can't say I feel too bad about that, EATA.
He was supposed to be getting clean to raise me.
Maybe I would feel sorry for my parents if I
had known them. Maybe they were good people who made
bad choices when they were too young to know better.
But since all I know about them is the drug stuff,
that's my whole concept of them. My therapist did one
of those word association exercises with me recently. He only
gave me one second to respond with the first word
or phrase that came to mind. He said, ma'am, and
I immediately answered John Key he said, Dad, and I
immediately answered, Aunt Die, I'm only telling ye the so
ye know me talking about my parents. It isn't like
some kind of reach for pity. My feelings are professionally diagnosed.
My grandparents always felt like my parents. I still called
them Grandma and Grandpa, but for all intents and purposes,
they were my mom and dad until Grandpa died. It
happened right after we moved into a new house in
two thousand nine. I didn't understand why we had to
move back then. Grandpa kept blaming it on the president,
but that didn't make any sense to me. Fran Mow
kept on saying Grandpa lost his ass on our old house,
which sounded painful but also didn't make sense because Grandpastole
had to see no what. Obviously, I came to understand
the Great Recession later on, and how it forced a
multitude of families out of the homes. But I'm trying
to place you in my mindset back then. For some
of this to make sense, I'll need to remember what
it was like to be seven years old. Where was I? All? Right? Grandpa?
There isn't much to say other than he died in
his sleep only days after we moved in. I'll never
forget Grandma wailling loud enough to wake me up that morning.
She told me and every one else at Granpa's funeral
that her worst fear came true when she rolled over
that morning and touched his cold, stiff arm. But I
guess it was her second greatest fear, right after man
coming back for me. So then it was just me
and Grandma. I can't honestly say whether she ever had
a job before she went to work at the Salvation
Army up the street to supplement Grandpa was meager life
insurance parts. Next time you go to a Salvation Army,
look into the cashier's eyes. I mean, really, look. I
know they are working for Jesus or whatever, but I
swear to God that place sucks out people's souls. When
Grandma would talk to friends about her jaw, she would
always mention how great it was to work somewhere with
a mission. But that's not what she talked about with me.
I heard all about the lines of thanks, barg and
shoppers who treated her no better than one of worthless
trinkets and shelves. None of them knew what Grandma had
been through. When I visited her at work. I could
tell some of the customers, usually the ones who didn't
really need to shop at the Salvation Army, assumed she
was there because she had and applied herself towards anything better.
They had no idea she was trying to feed herself
and her grandson on new minimum wage and a crappy
insurance policy, or that she was doing it alone. And
because of all this, I was alone too. If I
didn't go visit grandmart work, which I hated doing most
of the time, I went straight home after school. I'd
make myself some pizza rolls or Toaster's droudle and watch
cartoons or read until Granma came home after seven. And
if that sounds like fun to you, I'm guessing you
had parents. So there's everything you need to know for
what's coming next to make sense. I hope my therapist
told me to write this story done to help me
process it. So here we go. My fingers are sweating.
I had this blue curtain on my bedroom window that,
if shut during the afternoon, cast a tranquil acrihue on
the walls. I used to love shutting a curtain when
every fantasy novels the other woldly light helped me escape
reality and enter the wells in the books I used
to fantasize about discovering another world back then. I'm sure
you can understand why. I wrote about this in a
poem for school once, and my teacher recommended a book
called The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I guess
it's a classic. I checked it out from the school
library and started reading it on the bus. I identified
with the Protectonists, the pefancy Sibbings, having also been abandoned
by my parents in the interest of saving my life.
Up in my room, with the blue curtain drawn, I
redepart Wie. Lucy, the youngest Pevensey, opens a wardrobe and
discovers what else but a secret world. As I read
about Lucy's stepping into snowy Narnia, I could have sworn
I heard a soft wind beating against the inside of
my own closet door. I could imagine opening it discovering
a pine forest dusted in magical snow. Then the wind
behind the door beat a little harder, hard enough to
snap me out of my daydream. Setting the book down
and rejecting its influence, I listened I could not blame
my imagination for the door's beating any more. It was
almost vibrating, rising in velocity, dropping down to soft tapping,
then rising again. I would love to tell you I
was not so naive to think Narnia could actually be
behind my closet door, but I was. My life preceding
that moment matched the typical protagonist journey in one of
my fantasy books. There, I'd been an orphan, hopelessly dreaming
of a better, more exciting, and fulfilling life, when a
wise age my teacher pointed me towards a sacred tone,
the lie and the witch and the wardrobe. And now
it was time to discover that, likely due to some
sequel worthy back story, I was the chosen one, chosen
for what well. I would just have to open the
closet door and find out. I dropped my feet on
to the hardwood floor, I could fill a breeze between
my toes, rushing towards me from under the door. Note
to my therapist, this is a big moment for me
because I had always been terrified of closets. I'm not
sure why. Maybe we can explore it in my next session,
but for as long as I can remember, I'd had
this horrible sense that something might be hiding behind every
closet door. I realize now this is very common amongst children.
Looking back, it's incredible that I went to the closet
all while it was making those noises, a testament to
my desperation. With each step, I took what I was seeing, hearing, feeling,
and even smelling pana whatever you call that cold, damp
smell of snow seemed more unbelievable, yet even more real.
I could almost hear an epic skull playing me towards
the big reveal. I reached the door knob, I saw
my hand trembling and realized a bit of my usual
fear was present. After all. I stood with my hand
out like that, contemplating whether I really should open the door.
I gazed back at the book lying on my bed,
wondering if it contained answers. If I was going to
open the door and enter some other world. I thought
I should probably take the book with me. I turned
back and took one step toward my bed. The door
stopped shaking, and the breezetopped whispering around my ankles. The
wall turned real again. I spun back around Hannah's stretched
and ripped open the door, desperate to salvage my chance
for adventure. Fear be damned, but the clauset was empty.
I studded the walls and searched the ceiling. There was
no way either had let in a draft, not one
big enough to rattle the door anyway, but from nowhere
and I see gasperst past me, combing my hair, billowing
my clothes, and drying my eyes. It only lasted a
fraction of a second, but almost knocked me off my feet. Regardless,
nothing followed, but I would look back on this later
as not the moment I entered another world, but that
I let something into mine. I slammed the closet hut.
Whenever I opened my blue k kurtain after having a
clothes for a while, it felt like waking up from
a dream. I slid the curtain aside to transport myself
out of the reality which had just been infiltrated. The
had alterated evening. Sun clean's my room and confided me still.
When I pecked my book up again, I carried it
downstairs to keep reading it in the living room. Grandma
came home and called to me from the kitchen. She
wanted her sewing machine brought up from the basement. She
had brought home an adult allowine cost from somebody had
donated to the Salvation Army. It had a big tear
under one of the arms, but it was an otherwise
perfect condition. She could not bear to see it thrown
away when she could so easily repair it. It's torn through
both layers, but I think I can manage it, she said.
Want to guess what kind of costume? It was a line.
This was a total coincidence. Happenstince, but sortiviery too. Again.
I could not help but feel linked to the book
I had just left in the room. The lion costume
did not try to be overly realistic, but it did
have a fuzzy tail and a big bushemin around the
gaping hole for the wearer's face. Pranmok kept her singer
in the basement since she rarely used it any more.
When Grandpa was alive, she used to sit in front
of that machine, often repairing clothes for him, for me, friends,
and neighbors. I thought she didn't have the energy or
I'm for sewing any more, But knowing Grandma she would
have fixed anything a friend asked her. I realized much
later that her friend stopped asking for those little favors
after Grandpa died. Little did they know as much as
Grandma loved sewing, a project here and there would have
brought her joy that instead went missing. Excited that Grandma
was sewing again, it always made her happier. I went
to the basement. When I opened the door at the
top of the stairs, though, and counted an unexpected obstacle.
The stairs were gone. The handrail and frame of the
stacae still pointed the weight down, but no steps existed
to get me there. I returned to Grandma to ask
if she knew the steps had all been removed, but
she only scolded me for joking around instead of doing
as she asked. She chastised me so that I doubted
my own eyes in memory, and I returned to the
basement shamed. And there were the stairs walked but sturdy
as ever, large gaps species wide enough for her hand
to reach her and grab your ankle separate every step.
Those gaps had terrify me during a few weeks we
had lived in the house. Maybe they wouldn't have seemed
so bad if I could have turned in the basement
life from the top of the stairs, but the light
bulb at the bottom turned on with the drawstring. I
could only reach it if I stood on the last
step and stretched to get there. I had to brave
the sinister staircase and whatever might look beneath it. Truth
be told. As much as the stairs frightened me and
never hesitated at the top, I could usually mask my
fear until about half way down, and on the day
Granmo sent me for her sewing machine to fix the
line costume. Half way down, as were, one step vanished again.
My foot fell through the empty space before I caught
myself in the handril and yanked my foot back out.
I can't recall what sort of sound I may, but
it felt like my soul escaped through my mouth. Grandma
yelled to check on me. I nearly yelled back, Grandma.
One of the stairs fell off. Before I realized the
tricked my eyes and feet had played on me. The
invisible step had returned once more. I tested it, gaged
its strength, and chatted, sorry, just tripped. I had spooted
myself as what I decided I was dare dreaming about Narnia,
and I'd begun to daymare about the basement steps. I
stopped looking where I put my feet, refusing to acknowledge
my nagging anxiety. My next step found alive, fritting, but
then became stuck. A cramping pressure fixed it in place.
It felt like a nail had caught my shoe lace
and spontaneously tightened it. Only I was not wearing shoes.
There was no wooden step beneath my foot. I had
stepped into the palm of a wrinkled gray hand, the
very sort, I supposed, the irrational fear as had tried
to warm me about its knotted fingers were responsible for
the crushing sensation. A bruttle looking risk connected the hand
to a bony arm, which disappeared under the step. Mother
foot still stood upon the hand tugged the last two
steps in the basement floor rushed up at me. But
my fear wholly belonged to the monster dragging me below
the stairs. Its movements were emphasized by awful groans and
pops like old barn were protesting a storm. I think
they came from the monster's bones. I screened for Grandma Will,
holding myself against the monster's pole with the hand rail.
Another knolled hand rose through the stairs, snatching at my
free ankle. It almost caught me. Where was Grandma? I
kicked and connected with something like eggshells. Retribution came in
a furious tug, which finally loosed my hands. I fell.
My body crashed on to crusted paate cans, scattering them
across the floor. I clenched my as shot as if
I could make the monster disappear. As I flailed amongst
the cans, cobwebs, and dead insects. Uneven footsteps descended cautiously
above me, and I heard Grandma shouting. She sounded so
far away. I threw bling kicks as my hand searched
for a weapon or purchase on anything which might stop
me from being taken, from being dragged deeper into the shadows.
The monster's wet mouth opened near my ear, Its sticky
tongs qulched inches away a flinch, and my eyes opened.
Two green, humanlike eyes met them, green eyes set in
a gaunt face made of living stone. It bore a
collapsed nose and a black forehead from mouth gaping in
an open frown. Black hair, oily and left framed this
horrid expression shoudows disguised any further details. But just as
through tear, as I focused on, my attacker started losing opacity.
Like a cloud breaking apart, it drifted into the ether.
This grip on my ankle remained tight until the last
its faint edges vanished. Grandma found me a heap of
vibrating muscles, lubricated by tears and snot. She demanded to
know what I was doing beneath the stairs. You could
have spilled one of these cans all over the floor,
you know, she scolded me. What happened? I took her
hand and let her pull me out from under the staircase.
By the way, not one step was missing, which made
it difficult to instill any credibility into the story I
proceeded to tell her. Even to me, it sounded like
the rampant delusions of an overworked imagination. I carried the
sewing machine upstairs once I got a handle on myself.
I didn't want to, but I realized I would be
back in the basement again soon if I didn't. Grandmaw
watched me from the corners of her eyes for the
rest of the night. It would not be until later
that night, when I rolled my sock off of my foot,
that I would discover fall on bruces wrapping all the
way round it. If nothing else, those are certainly real.
There's a certain age when, although you are told ghosts
and monsters aren't real, you need assurances. You start to
notice inconsistencies your it all. Drinking soda will wrot your teeth,
but there are garbage bags bursting with empty Mountain Dukens
in your friend's garage, and his parents have all their
pearly whites. You're told by some relative who smokes a
pack a data you should never pick up the habit.
But if smoking is so terrible, why does it seem
they can't wait for the chance to do it. You
are told ghosts and monsters, some werewolves and vampires aren't real.
Then a green eyed basement welleru pulls you under the stairs.
The next morning, a Saturday, Grandma was off work. I
came downstairs while she was making breakfast and asked, Grandma,
do you believe in ghosts? Of course not, Carter. Why
would you ask such a silly question? Grandma predictably answered.
I swallowed my nerves and said, because I think I
saw one yesterday in thebisement, Grandma said, well, I'm pretty
sure you didn't. I doubled down. I think it came
out of my closet, Grandma replied, every kid thinks there's
a monster in their closet. Some day you'll grow up
and realize that sort of thing is josilly. Besides, the
only real monsters are lawyers and congressmen. I didn't know
what those were, but I was pretty sure a congressman
hadn't pulled me to the staircase. But Grandma, I was
about to shore the bruise on my foot, even though
they had already faded significantly, but she interrupted me. You've
been reading too many of those books about magic and dragons.
You are losing touch with reality, losing touch with reality.
See and here I thought reality was losing touch with itself.
Grandma's hard nosed disposition seemed unelpful in the moment, but
it actually went a long way in comforting me. Hearing
how easily she dismissed Maclay made me wonder if she
was right, which opened the door to the possibility that
everything was actually okay, and that was enough to get
me through the day. Mostly. Sometimes, Granma would make a
noise downstairs, and I would jump and glance at the closet,
but mostly I felt safe. I don't think the monster
liked my new confidence much, so it went after my
source of comfort. Grandma opened my door that evening, right
before bed hand shaking. I thought she had just received
some bad news, or maybe she was sick. She did
look a little feverish. Without looking at me, she closed
the door behind her, then pointed to my closet and asked,
did you really mean what you said about something coming
out of there? I had to think she and I
had boy put so much effort into convincing me nothing
had happened that turning around and believing it again took
some effort. I said, yeah, I guess I did you guess?
She demanded. Then, but you've never been one to make
up stories, have you? Do you believe me? I asked.
She opened my door again and gestured for me to
follow her. We went downstairs to the kitchen. The table
was a mess. Grandma always spread her materials out across
the whole table when tackling a sewing project, but never
with such total disregard. She led me all the way
outside into the driveway. On the way out the door,
I asked what we were doing, and Grandma answered, I
have to keep an eye on this. A nasty smelling
smoke wafted over the driveway from the side of the house.
It irritated my eyes and made my nose run clear
and mortary. Grandma said, I might have been wrong about
what I said earlier, you know about She couldn't make
herself say gos. But I didn't hold it against her.
I had never heard her apologize before, and she was
trying her best. She finished, but don't worry, I think
I took care of it. The wind breathed particularly pungent
cloud of smoke toward us. I coughed. Granma moved us
further up the driveway. From there I could see a
round the side of the house and found the source
of the smoke. Granfas's old charcoal grill was on fire,
or at least that's how it looked. I noticed the
fuzzy tail of the lion costume dangling from the open
top and asked, why did you burn the costume, granm
I ignored the question. I want you to stay out
here until we can go back inside together. Then I
want you to tell me if you see anything strange again,
or if anything weird happens, you tell me right away,
you hear. I nodded and tried to ask about the
lion costume again, but the flame suddenly tripled gran must
war and shuffle toward the grille. I couldn't follow her
through the smoke. I heard her coughing, then aloud hiss.
The smoke turned white, and the smell changed to something
like a dusty attic. Gran Mustard a few feet from
the grill, holding a fire extinguisher, The child lion costume,
now covered in thin foam, slumped to the ground. After
dumping the costumes remains in the thrush bin, Grandma went
straight up to her room and shut herself in. I
went around, checking locks on doors and windows. All was
a cure, but I still feared our infultrutor might find
another way in. I was smart enough to put together
how Grandma thought it was connected to the lion costume,
and by burning the costume, she had ended the haunting.
I wanted her to be right, but I feared she
was not. I lay alone in bed, wanting to ree,
but scared of what might come out of the book next.
It had not occurred to me, and would not for
many years, that whatever had come into our house was
masking itself with whatever occupied mine in Granma's mines. It
was inserting itself at the top of our awareness and
twisting those things which brought us joy. It was leaching us.
I think it wanted us weak. Sleep tugged up my eyelids.
My thoughts ran together in an incoherent mush that I
was no longer paying any attention to. My mind was
nearly blank when I heard a thought above me. I
stared at the ceiling until I heard the next thump,
clearly from the roof. It didn't come from the attic.
I knew because of how soft it sounded, soft but heavy.
When I heard this second thump, I pulled my covers
over my head. I wondered if grham Mo could hear
the sounds too. They began pacing above me, like some
one walking in circles. For what purpose I could not
venture to guess. After seven or eight rounds, the footsteps stopped.
A few seconds passed, then both feet, if that's what
they were, jumped, landing together. Everything went quiet. Mine even
breathing sounded twice as loud beneath my covers, making me
hold my breath out of fear I would miss a
crucial sound outside. Whatever was out there jumped again, but
this time its feet did land in the attic above,
as if it had fallen through the roof. My ceiling groaned.
I started calculating how quickly I could run to my
door to Grandma's room. The next thud boom before I
made a decision. It came from right beside my bed
and sounded like my bare feet when I jumped out
of bed every morning. It was there right next to me.
Did it know I was there too? Did it know
I was hiding under the covers. I'd been holding my
breath too long. Soon I would have to release it,
and then the monster would no more to find me.
It was so still, so quiet. I silently begged for
it to make the floor creak, or for some sound
which would disguise a whispering breath. But the fountain beside
my bed made no such sound, and I had to breathe.
I intended for my lips to form a tiny spigot,
but the desperate air inside me forced them open. Immediately
my covers flew off. They hit the far wall in
a cluster. I did not look to see what had
thrown them, instead rolling off of the bed in the
side opposite the intruder. My bed springs cirked like some
one was crawling across the mattress. Too afraid to stand,
the less heavy snatched up. I flattened myself and slipped
under the bed. I wanted to scream for Grandma, but
had again folded myself into thinking silence would protect me.
I could hear every movement from the being above me.
Head springs squeal, the box spring groaned, and I thought
this slast two inches above me might split Whatever was
up there must have been three or four times heavier
than me. For a second, my primary fear changed from
being caught to being crushed. I heard one of the
slots near my feet break from the frame. It fell
diagily across my legs, and still the weight above increased.
When it seemed inevitable the whole bed would come down
on me, the intruder jumped when it landed in the
bed again. Another slot snap in the middle, prodding my
chest and forcing me to move close to the edge.
It must been encouraged by snapping board because the intruder
jumped again and again and again. Each time the whole
bed frame shook, the legs slid four inches. During all
of this, I could no longer stand the anticipation of
the final blow. I cried, stop and regret, instantly wrench
my stomach. I tried to call into a ball, but
I didn't have enough room to move. My protests worked
though A gust of ethereal wind opened my bedroom door
and signaled my salvation from present danger, but also the
beginning of a new set of horrors. No more sounds
came from my bedroom, but down the hall I heard
gran Must scream my name. Terrified of what I would find,
but eager to be out from under the bed and
the restrictions it imposed, woke my way out and scampered
to the doorway, peering into the dark hallway, seeing nothing,
hearing nothing. Branma only screened my name once. Had she
meant for me to go to her or to run
away to aid or escape? I knew which one I
wanted to do, but I wouldn't have been able to
live with myself after abandoning my only family. The only
person who remained sober and alive enough to take care
of me. I don't believe Grandma was telling me to
come or run away, because when I did finally go
to her, she angry beyond any doubt. The most furious
I ever saw her ride up to the day she
pass away. Is the only person I shared that harrowing
night with. When she saw me, she was already red
and turned purple. The glow of her bedside lamp, which
she stood beside, wearing only in that gown cast au
gus shadows on her scowling face. How to James, she growled,
Is this your idea of a joke? Has it been
you scaring me this whole time? I heard to explain, No,
something just left my room. I was hiding under my
bed the whole time. She yelled, almost as loudly as
she had first screened my name. This stops right now,
tell me the truth. Or boom, like a shotgun, shook
the floor. This one came from downstairs. Prian Martin I
stared at each other, paralyyesed with fright. I'm not sure
a word can convey the evil feeling which bled into
the air, rising from downstairs like invisible smoke. It was
similarly suffocating and tasted just as toxic. It's still here,
I said, knowing she would understand what I meant, although
she still hadn't told me what happened to her earlier
that day. With the costume, I had a feeling she
might believe in monsters. Now we need to leave, she said,
not necessarily to me. But where could we go? There
wasn't a ness upstairs unless you counted the windows, all
of which led out to a two story drop that
I may have been able to endure with little injury,
but would at the very least horble Grandma. And that's
assuming she could make it through a window. We ran
out of time to decide what to do. Another sound
came from below, this time the distinctive croak of the
first stair. I imagined a foot, an elongated version of
the hand which had grabbed me in the basement, pressing
down on that step. I'm not sure why, because neither
Grandmr nor I had seen the monster yet. That night
it felt more present, I guess, it felt inevitable, and
it smelled now, adding to its amplified presents. It smelled
like smoke and strangely a bit like barbecue. It also
had a toxic undertone, which forced the memory of grand
Mob burning the lion costume upon me. But now the
footsteps were half way up the stairs. They came in
an uneven patent which did not synchronize with my intrinsic
memory of how the stairs should sound. It almost sounded
like two separate and trews creeping up car her. Grandma
whispered close the door. This obvious reaction had eluded me
while I tried to make sense of what I was hearing,
I reached for the door at the very moment to
tonished mane emerged at the top of the stairs. I watched.
It was all I could do, as the charred and
in some places melted lion suit padded into the hallway
on all fours. It was clearly operated by something physical within.
The hood pointed down, so the black and man hid
to wear his face, but I imagined it would mirror
the one I had seen prayer, the one with the
green eyes. Without shutting the door, lest I let the
downward facing lion of our location, I scoured back to Grandma.
She shut off her lamp and we knelt behind her bed.
Grandma had all sorts of boxes and shoes and things
under her bed, so I couldn't hide there this time. Luckily,
Grandma's vanity mirror faced the open doorway, so I thought
I could watch the lion. Unfortunately, I realized if I
could see the lion in the mirror, it could also
see me. I cowered away from the reflection. A board
popped in the hallway, and others squeaked. If I tried hard,
I could make out the sound of the fussy tail dragging.
I heard the main brushing against the bedroom door, and
risked a glance at the mirror, hoping the lion wouldn't
choose that moment to look up. Pope meant nothing to
the vile spirit which had possessed the costume. Our eyes
met in the reflection. It's mild, Grandma, I shouted, as
I scrambled to my feet. She climbed up using the
bed and gasped when she saw the lion's face. The
lion stopped back and forth, much like a real cat,
pacing to show us our boundary. With walls behind and
to either side of us, we had nowhere to go.
It fed off our fear, and it must have been
getting full. Grandma and I were both the most terrified
of our lives. Get back, Grandma screamed. She picked up
the lamp, wielding it defensively. The lion pounced on to
the bed. Grandma turned the lamband. You can't take him.
You can't, Grandma cried, angrily, weaving the lamp back and
forth like a torch. The lion came forward, moving fully
into the light, and I saw its face in perfect detail.
A few locks of black hair had loosened from the hood,
framing the face and putting it in context. For me,
it was gray and hollow and dead looking, but it was,
without a doubt, the face of my mother. She sensed
my recognition. No, don't you look at him, Grandma warned,
look at yourself. What judge would ever give you custody?
What's your plan? Kidnapping him? The thing wearing Mom's face
looked back at Grandma and grinned. Pink coloration spread from
behind its ears and washed over the whole face. The
nose inflated and straightened. Its then dry lips puffed out,
and heel then darkened. Beautiful eyebrows grew in a boat's eyes,
which came out of the skull until they looked chieful
and alert. The face now looked like a frogo I
had seen of my mother in high school, right before
she was introduced to hard drugs. If I needed any confirmation,
the thing in the lions suit was not actually my mother,
that was it. Even if she was still alive, that
version of her was long dead. The spirit had tapped
into Grandma's worst fear, though, and it had a piercing
grip on her. Go away, I shouted at it, but
it remained focused on Grandma. Its face was beautiful, but
its expression hideous. Its grin had become as neared its
repaired no scrunched, and in its eyes I saw something
I had never seen before or yet instantly recognized, bloodlust.
The lion hunched back and pound at Grandma. She threw
the lamp of both arms directly into the lion's face,
my mother's face. The lamp entered the costume's hood, still
actively pursuing its trajectory. The whole costume went limp as
the lamp dragged it off of a bed, through the
air and on to the floor across from us, where
the lamp shattered and the costume went still. Let's go, Carter,
Grandma said. She ushered me away from the bed, and
we heardd downstairs. On the way out the door, she
grabbed her car keys. She drove us to the Salvation Army,
and we slept on donated couches or tried to sleep anyway.
We let the bank fell close on that house. We
never went back. Whether that dark spirit had been patiently
awaiting its chance in that house when we moved in,
or if actually came with the costume, we weren't going
to risk facing it again. Grandma had to buy a
new copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
for the school library. I've chosen to remain ignorant about
the house's fate. I'm not sure if it still stands,
or if it does, who owns it. I fear see
how the emotion continues to drive me that re establishing
any sort of connection to the house, even just seeing
a picture of it, might invite the terrible thing back
into my life. And now I don't have Granma to
protect me. She passed away unexpectedly in her sleep. At
her funeral, the minister said she passed away peacefully. I
hope he's right, but I'm not so sure. The reason
I wonder her ties back to why Grandma tried to
burn up that lion costume. She told me her theory
about what happened years after our ordeal. It knew I
was afraid to lose your grandpa, and that I knew
his heart wasn't in the greatest shade. Somehow it killed him.
It took him away, because that's what I was most
afraid of. It must have lived off with the daily
fears I had about not being able to support you
or losing you, until it was strong enough to try
to take you to I could see it her way.
If I tried, I had not been the intented victim
of the haunting, as I had previously believed. I was
merely a pawn and a scheme to what her Grandma,
but I believed her based on what made her burn
the costume. While she was repairing the outer lining, she said,
she began to feel the fabric tightening. She realized it
was moving slightly beneath her fingertips. She sat back and
watched as the costume faded, but only partially, she said.
The lights only firned up about half way down. A
face had appeared in the open hole. Grandma recoiled. The
face blowish gray and morbidly still belonged to me. It
was my face and case in the stillness of death.