All About Eve - Part 5

Before the sun had begun to brighten the cold October sky Paul and Eve stood at the metal door leading to the morgue behind the police station. This time Paul came into the morgue with Eve and stayed, not going back out to wait in the hall. Paul pulled on the metal drawer and the body covered in a white sheet rolled out.

‘Do you need to look under the sheet?’ asked Paul.

Eve shook her head, no. ‘I just need to touch her,’ she said. ‘Over the sheet.’ She

looked at Paul. ‘Well that’s what I did last time anyways, except nothing happened then.’

Paul shrugged. ‘Well we’ll just have to see this time, I guess. Go ahead and work your magic,’ he said, taking a step back from the corpse to give Eve some more room to do what she needed. Eve took a deep breath and closed her eyes. This time instead of putting her hand on the girl’s stomach, she placed her hand on the forehead, on top of the thick grey sheet. She stood still, cleared her mind, and waited.

She didn’t have to wait long. In her minds eye, she saw the morgue just as it was as she stood there. Then she saw a girl, older than the girl that lay on the slab in front of her. She opened her eyes, and saw a shimmer in the air next to Paul, close in size to Paul himself. Eve was confused. She closed her eyes again and saw the girl floating slightly above the concrete floor of the room, next to Paul. She opened her eyes again and only saw the shimmering of the air. Again she closed her eyes.

The girl looked serenely at Eve. She was wearing a pink dress, the kind a little girl would wear, but this girl looked much older than a young girl. Older than Eve by a few years. The girl spirit gestured to the body in the drawer. ‘I am not she,’ she said. ‘I used her as a message,’ she said ‘to get your attention. I have been wanting to talk to you. Trying to talk to you for a long time.’ she said.

Eve felt a sharp pain in her head. Arra. She was trying to stop Eve from talking to this girl. Eve opened her eyes and cut the connection between herself and the spirit girl. She put a hand up to her head.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Paul, coming forward, concerned.

‘Don’t,’ said Eve stepping backwards from him. ‘I need to focus.’ Eve imagined one of her psychic nets encircling Arra in her blue robe. She imagined ropes of light wrapping themselves around and around Arra, binding her tightly. Then she placed a mental shield around herself. She could sense Arra struggling in Eve’s net, and could feel her anger growing. Eve doubled up on the barrier. She visualized a mesh bubble over top of the rope. She felt a small stab of pain above her eye. If that’s all Arra could do from within her metal cage, she could put up with that, she thought.

Eve then went back to the girl on the metal drawer, and again placed a hand on her forehead. She closed her eyes and re-focused her mind. The girl in the pink dress materialized again. ‘You are okay to speak now,’ said Eve to the ghostly girl. ‘Arra won’t interrupt us anymore’ she said. ‘I hope,’ she thought.

The girl smiled.

‘Are you the shimmering in the air that I’ve seen before?’ asked Eve.

The girl nodded.

‘Why would Arra not want me to see you? or talk to you?’

‘I could not make myself visible to you before now,’ said the girl simply. ‘You weren’t strong enough in your abilities,’ she said. ‘And I wasn’t strong enough. It can take awhile, on the other side, for us to learn to be able to manifest ourselves to you on this plane.’

‘Why did you want to talk to me?’ asked Eve. ‘Why did you get that strange man in the top hat, and that little boy with the pageboy cap and the long tweed shorts? the one that says he drowned in the river, to tell me you were wanting to talk to me?’

The girl looked at Eve with a look of sorrow.

Eve continued. ‘Why did you use these girls as a message to get my attention? who are they?’ she asked.

‘These girls are nothing but shells,’ the girls said. ‘They died a long time ago, and their spirits left them many years ago when their bodies actually died. They were not harmed for this. And their spirits gave me permission for me to use their physical bodies in order to get your attention.’

‘Why did you use these girls?’ Eve asked.

‘Because I thought they would help you to remember,’ said the girl in the pink dress. ‘Because they looked most like me,’ she said.

Eve agreed, ‘They do look a lot like you. But why does that matter? Who are you?’

The girl in the dress smiled sweetly. ‘October 28th’ the girl said.

‘That was yesterday’ Eve said surprised.

‘1978,’ the girl added.

‘October 28th, 1978?’ Eve repeated. ‘What does that mean?’

The girl smiled. ‘That is all I will say,’ she said. ‘It is up to you whether you want to know more’.

The girl started to shimmer and slowly fade away. She was still smiling.

‘Wait, what’s your name!’ shouted Eve.

By then the girl had faded, but Eve heard a word in her mind. ‘Adrienne’.

Eve’s eyes snapped open and she fell forward slightly. Paul grabbed her arm and steadied her.

‘What happened?’ he asked

‘I saw someone,’ Eve said.

‘Someone?’ said Paul. ‘You mean not the girl there?’

‘No, not her. Someone else.’ Eve said. She put a hand on Paul’s arm. ‘I’m sorry,’ she apologized, ‘I’ve got to go. I’ll explain later’.

She ran out, leaving Paul standing next to the girl on the metal tray. He pushed it into the wall and left the morgue and walked down the long narrow hallway on his own. Eve was long gone.

~*~

Eve ran up the stone steps of the town public library. She flung open the doors and ran up to the lady at the information desk. ‘Hi Linda,’ Eve said to the lady at the desk. Everyone knew Linda, a well known figure at the library since anyone could remember. ‘If someone gave me a date, where would I look to find out anything about it?’ she asked.

‘Oh hello, Eve,’ said Linda taking reading glasses off her head and putting them on. ‘You’d want the news archives. I’ll show you where they are.’ Linda lead Eve past rows of shelves to a small dark corner of the library and pointed to a shelf that was almost sagging with giant leather bound books. ‘Here are the archives,’ said Linda taking down one of the tombs. ‘Each book contains all the newspaper clippings for one year, divided by months.’ Linda opened the book she had put on the table in front of them. ‘See here,’ she said, pointing to the page, ‘each book has tabs labelling the months.’ She turned over the page with the tab labelled ‘March’ and Eve saw that the page started with news stories from March 1st, and ended with newspaper clippings dated March 31st.

‘Thanks for your help, Linda,’ said Eve.

Linda smiled and headed back to her post at the front of the library. Eve scanned the shelves until she found the book labelled 1978. It was high up on the top tier of 4 level shelf. She moved a foot stool underneath the area and tugged the book of the shelf, almost falling backwards off the step. The book slammed down on the table. She yanked it open and grabbed at the tab marked October. She scanned the first few pages, looking at the dates at the tops of the articles. When she got to the page that contained the articles dated the 28th, she pulled out a chair, sat down and started reading.

Eve let out a little scream when her eye fell across a single word. ‘Hendry.’ There was a small picture accompanying the article. It was of a little girl with long blonde hair wearing a pink dress. It was the same pink dress that the spirit girl in the morgue had been wearing. Under the photo was a caption and a name. ‘Adrienne Hendry’ Eve read, the bolded words burning into her mind.

She started to read the article, but it was soon obscured by the tears that filled her eyes, and started to drop down onto the yellowed newspaper cut outs.

She got up on shaky legs and left the book open on the table. She could barely breathe, let alone see with her tear-filled eyes. She stumbled out of the library in a daze and then started to run blindly in the direction of her parents home.

She could barely walk up the stairs to the front door she was crying so hard. She walked into the house slowly, blinded by her tears. She found her mother in the living room watching TV.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she screamed at her mother. ‘Why did you hide it from me all those years?’

Her mother looked shocked and confused. ‘What are you-’

‘Adrienne!’ Eve cried.

Her mother stopped and she started to cry as well. ‘Oh honey,’ she said getting up and crossing the room. She held her arms out to give Eve a hug.

‘Don’t touch me!’ screamed Eve backing away.

‘We didn’t tell you to protect you,’ her mother said. ‘That’s all. We didn’t want to scare you. It’s a horrible thing to remember.’ Her mother went on. ‘You were only five. So young.’ she said. ‘And we were glad that you forgot so quickly, for some reason. It was after Adrienne, what happened, that your guardian angel showed up. And we were glad because that kept you company, and kept you occupied, and you seemed to have blocked it all out.’ she said. ‘You must have been so traumatized that you blocked it all out.’

Eve sat down heavily on an armchair. ‘Those girls that were found by the river…’

‘Yes.’ said her mother. ‘That’s why we were so upset. Because it reminded us of what happened to poor little Adrienne. She was only eight, you know.’

Eve nodded. She knew. She had read it in the newspaper article. How her older sister, eight years old had been playing by the river and had waded out into it because she saw something in the water she wanted to get, and was swept down river. She was found on the same small patch of river bank that Eve had first come across one of the girls that Adrienne had set up for her, to help her remember what had happened.

‘You were there,’ her mother said. ‘You were there playing by the water in the sand when Adrienne….’ she couldn’t finish.

Eve unbound Arra from her psychic prison. ‘Did you come to me to make me forget? To help occupy me and play with me so I wouldn’t remember?’ Eve said.

‘Yes,’ admitted Arra. ‘I did it for your own good.’

‘Why did you keep stopping her from trying to talk to me?’ Eve yelled at Arra. ‘Why did you stop those other spirits from trying to tell me that it was Adrienne that was wanting to talk!’

There was a pause. Before Arra could speak again, Eve said ‘I can’t trust you anymore.’

Arra started to protest.

‘I don’t want you as my spirit guide anymore. You have been lying to me and keeping me from the truth all this time. I can’t listen to you, I can’t take your advice. I want Adrienne to be my guide!’ Eve yelled at Arra. And she cut the psychic connection between them.

‘Don’t,’ she heard Arra’s voice weakly, but Eve easily shut her out. She would not let Arra intrude any longer. She opened her mind, casting it like a lighthouse beam in the night, searching. ‘Adrienne?’ she asked. ‘Are you there?’ At first she heard nothing, and then she heard a faint yes, and felt a presence, a certain feeling, come over her. Adrienne had come and filled the void that was left by Arra. ‘I am here,’ Adrienne said. ‘Thank you’.

Eve got up from the chair. ‘I’m leaving,’ she said simply and went to the door.

Her mother looked shocked and confused. ‘What do you mean you’re leaving?’

‘I can’t be here anymore mother. I can’t live with you. I can’t trust you. You have hidden this from me. And you never would have told me, would you?’

‘We did this for your own good!’ her mother cried. Eve had heard that already today.

‘I’m not a child anymore, mother. I’m twenty-five.’ she said. ‘I could have handled it. You don’t understand what I know. What I see.’

‘What do you mean?’ her mother asked.

‘Do you know how I found out?’ Eve yelled. ‘Do you? It was Adrienne. She told me!’ Eves tears started falling again. ‘I had to find out from her. Not from you’.

The look of confusion on her mothers face deepened. ‘What?’

Eve shook her head. ‘Never mind.’ Then she moved towards the door. ‘I’ll be back to get my things in a bit,’ and she left the house, leaving her mother standing at the top of the stairs, confused and crying.

~*~

Eve ran into the police station, flying through the doors and up to the desk. There was a large man at the front desk drinking coffee, his feet up on the table. ‘Where’s Paul,’ asked Eve, breathless from running. The man spluttered, having just swallowed some coffee. He pointed to a small office at the back of the room.

Eve went through the small hatch door separating the reception from the main working area.

‘You can’t go in there!’ shouted the large officer after her, removing his feet from the desk but making no further effort to get up.

Eve burst through the door of the small back room. Paul jumped up from behind a table. Sitting opposite was a man in handcuffs.

'Eve, what are you doing here?'

Eve grabbed Paul's hands and pulled him forward. 'Come with me!' she said, not bothering to wipe away the tears that were falling onto her shirt.

'You're leaving?' he asked incredulously. 'Where are you going?'

'I don't know yet. Somewhere, anywhere but here!' she cried. 'They lied to me. All of them!'

'I know,' said Paul gravely, nodding.

'You know what?’ She asked, full of suspicion.

'About Adrienne. That's what you're going on about right?'

'You knew about her? You?'

Paul nodded again. 'I knew as soon as you told me your name,' he said. 'When we first met.’

'Why didn't you say anything!' she screamed at him, letting go of his hands.

'I didn't think of it. I didn't think it was appropriate,’ he said simply, looking down at the floor, anywhere but at her.

Her tears started anew. 'I can't believe this!' she yelled, stepping away from Paul.

The man in the handcuffs sat looking up a both of them, amused and bewildered at what was happening.

'I trusted you.' she said. 'Of all the people, I thought I could trust you,' she spat, turning on her heel she slammed the door to the interrogation room. Paul flung it open. 'Eve, wait!' he yelled taking a step out of the room. He couldn't leave the man sitting in the room, nor leave Officer Simons along with him. It was protocol that there were at least 2 officers present at all times.

She ran out the entrance and ran down the main road towards her house, not stopping one.

She went into her bedroom and took the suitcase from out of her closet and started to throw everything she could get her hands on inside. On the top, she stuck her favourite stuffed animal, Koko, a ratty old koala, that she had had since she was five.

Her sister spoke again, for the first time as Eve’s guide and protector. ‘It won’t be the same in the big city,’ she said, echoing what Paul had told her earlier. ’People are more understanding about people like you and of things like me.’ Eve just smiled and nodded, slamming her bulging suitcase closed.

With only a simple goodbye and brief hug to her mother and father, Eve stepped out the front door and walked down the long winding gravel drive.

THE END

~~~~~~

Want to start another series? Check out part 1 of my murder mystery series below!