Who Knows.

Knock knock

I sat up. Across the room, the blue lights of the clock showed the time. My eyes ached at the sight of the number. Three o’clock in the morning was not even close to being an acceptable time to wake up. I dropped my head back to my pillow and struggled to sleep.

“Uhg,” I muttered with an ache behind my eyes. “Why?”

Knock.

With the blanket over my head, I ignored the sound of knocking. I figured it was my grandmother’s house settling. Her attic was stuffed to the breaking point with decorations. With the first of each month, she rearranged the house. I shuddered at the thought of the hundreds of spiders that lived under her most-forgotten boxes. Spiders, mice, and roaches: I had seen all of them scattering about her attic the day before. I dreaded the idea of one of the creatures touching me.

I hated being at her house, but with the passing of my grandfather and my older brothers away at out-of-state colleges, I was thrown into staying at her place as September cooled into October. My parents claimed it was to keep her company and help her adjust to the new normal, but instead of staying with us, they boarded a ship for a two week cruise.

“Christine, help!” My grandmother’s weak voice floated down the hall and through the gaps of the doorframe. “Help, help.”

I waited a minute, hoping that her calls for me would stop.

“Christine!” Her voice grew louder with a strong sense of panic. “Help!”

I threw back my sheet and grabbed my phone. It vibrated softly as I tapped on the strong flashlight. The scratched hardwood floors creaked as I stepped out into the hall. I felt cold and exposed, walking around the drafty house at three in the morning, but I didn’t have a robe to toss around my shoulders. Her door made little sound as I cracked it open and peeked in her room. My grandmother slept, quiet and still. I snuck to her bedside and stared at her face for a few seconds. With certainty that I was hearing things, I went back to bed. Curling beneath the sheets, I wanted nothing more than to be back home. It must have been an hour before I heard anything else stir in the house.

“Sleep well, Christine,” the creaks of the house wished.

I hummed to myself, happy to finally start dreaming.

The next morning I got up at eight. I found my grandmother sipping coffee at the dining room table. A book was laid out before her. Because it was still early in the season, clean fresh air breezed through the open kitchen windows. Sunlight showed rolling dust motes landing on the leaf-printed table cloth. My stomach growled.

“Grandma,” I tried to get her attention.

She hummed one of her church hymns.

“Grandma,” I repeated. “I’m hungry.”

She smiled at me. “Oh, good morning, Christine.”

“What is there to eat?” I asked, focused on my empty stomach. “Can you make the fried potatoes that Grandpa used to make?”

“I can, but you have to go down to the cellar and see if there are potatoes to be fried,” she folded down the corner of the page to mark her place.

“I didn’t even remember you had a cellar,” I admitted.

She chuckled. “We always have. Your grandfather dug it out for us when we built the house. That was back when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth,” she joked. “It’s underneath the sink.”

“Underneath the sink?” I looked at the locked cabinet doors in horror.

That cabinet was the thing of nightmares. When I was young, my older brother would tell me stories about it. He said that Grandpa had found a creature when he used to travel and brought it home as a gift for Grandma. But the creature outgrew them, and he locked it underneath the sink to keep us safe. In the middle of the night, my brother would pull my hair or jump on my bed and yell, “Christine, it’s the monster! It got out!”

Wooden spoon in hand, Grandpa beat him up one side and down the other for making me cry.

“Don’t let it eat me.” I had grabbed my grandfather’s shirt. “Grandpa, please don’t let it eat me.”

“Hush, it’s okay.” He used to rub my head with his strong hand. “Don’t listen to him.”

He would pick me up in his arms and let me sleep in the bed with him and Grandma for the rest of the night.

“There’s a bunch of food down there,” she thought aloud. “We might as well empty it out today. Since everyone has grown up and moved away.”

I stared at the lock, waiting for it to move. “Yeah.”

“Let me go see where your grandpa put the key to that silly old lock.” She rose from her seat and walked back to her room.

“Grandma.” I followed her. “Are you sure that I can go down there?”

“Of course,” she dismissed the idea as she dug through one of his old drawers. “Just wear your shoes.”

I went to my room in a cloud of dread. This was one of the many reasons why I didn’t want to spend the fall with her. It had been ten years since I had spent the night at her house. Pulling on my favorite pair of socks, I muttered to myself.

“Not real,” I whispered. “Just a stupid kid story.”

Grandma appeared in the doorway. “Christine, I got it. He had tucked it away in one of his shirt pockets.”

“Ha, how sneaky. I bet he thought we wouldn’t find it.” I smiled as I tied my laces.

“Come on, let’s get in that cellar, and I will fry us some breakfast.” She took my hand and brought me to the kitchen.

“Why did Grandpa keep it locked?” I asked as she clicked it open.

“He didn’t want you crawling down there when no one was looking.” She took the lock off and opened the doors. “You could fall or get into trouble.”

I peered around her shoulder at the dark hole underneath the sink. The smell of age and dust rose from the black. I looked over my shoulder as something creaked.

“Take one of Grandpa’s flashlights,” Grandma offered as I helped her off of the floor.

She reached up and grabbed Grandpa’s big yellow flashlight. With a smile of confidence, she handed it to me. I clicked it on and pointed it down the cellar. A wooden step ladder ushered me into the black. For such a big flashlight, it wasn’t impressive. I almost would rather have my phone, but the size of the flashlight gave some feeling of protection.

I crept down the ladder under my grandmother’s watchful eyes.

The cellar was smaller than I expected. I thought it traveled deeper and wider, but it was only the size of the kitchen itself. The walls were packed tightly except the wall that faced the rest of the house. The one nearest to the bedrooms was built with red brick. Unlike the other parts of the room, there were no shelves or random old buckets shoved against it.

Though the attic had all sorts of things living in it, there wasn’t even one line of spider silk in the entire cellar.

I looked in the wooden crates on the shelves until I found one filled with russet potatoes. Most of them were half rotten. I gagged from the smell.

“Grandma, these aren’t good anymore,” I called to her as I lifted the crate onto the top step.

The crate scraped against the floor as Grandma pulled it closer to the light. “Looks like I'll have to go to the store. Will you empty the rest out while I go?”

“Of course,” I agreed.

Whatever Grandma wanted, she got.

I set the flashlight up in the middle of the room to let its faint light shine over the room. There were heavy crates filled with nuts and bolts. One of them overflowed with washers of different sizes. Another had batteries. I stacked the empty ones in the bare corner of the kitchen. To my surprise, there was only one crate with potatoes.

A creeping feeling came over me as I entered the cellar for the last crate, like I was being watched by a stray dog or other weird creature. I kept expecting someone to be standing behind me on the other side of the room, but there were no signs of life.

I picked up the last crate.

Scratch scratch

I dropped the empty crate and scurried up the ladder. The noise reminded me of the knocking sound I heard the night before. I closed the cabinet doors as fast as possible. Reaching on the counter, I grabbed the lock and ran it back through the handles.

“Christine, come help me with these groceries.” My grandmother was finally home.

“Grandma!” I shouted. “Something’s alive down there.”

Her bags rustled as she entered the kitchen. “What?” She raised her brow at me.

“Grandma, I heard something scratching at the wall,” I told her.

“It was probably just a mouse.” She gave me a heavy bag of potatoes. “We have to figure out what to do with these crates. How many are there?”

“It didn’t sound like a mouse,” I argued as I pushed a crate full of washers to the side. “Sounded a lot bigger.”

“I would take a look down there, but I don’t think I could get back up.” She rubbed my shoulders as I dug through the grocery bags. “It was probably just your imagination, we’ve never had any problems with anything living down there. And I’m sure if anything got down there, then it would have found a way out, whatever it may or may not be.”

“Okay, you’re right.” I nodded in agreement. “I’m probably spooked because I woke up in the middle of the night, thinking that you called me. I don’t think I got enough sleep.”

“You thought I called you last night?” She took out a cutting board.

“Yeah,” I confirmed as I washed a couple of potatoes for her. “I got up to check on you, but you were asleep.”

“Aw, that’s so sweet of you, Christine.” She chopped the potatoes into cubes to fry them. “Your grandfather would hear me call his name at night, too. I guess I must sleep-talk, and I called your name since you are the only other one in the house.”

Relief washed over me. “That makes sense.”

Grandma made fresh fried potatoes while I cooked a few scrambled eggs with cheese for our breakfast. Not wanting to move the crates, we went to the living room. I sat in Grandma’s chair, per her request. She rested in Grandpa’s seat across the room. It was a peaceful morning that soon bled into a calm afternoon of watching reality shows.

Even though I was interested in the different events and actions of the people on the television and engaged in deep conversation about it with Grandma, I couldn’t help but glance at the locked kitchen cabinets underneath the sink. A few times I wondered if it moved the tiniest bit.

I was always the nervous one in school, looking over my shoulder to see if someone was following me. It was like there was a constant pair of eyes watching me. Not a benevolent or protective watch over me, but one looking for my mistakes and my shortcomings. At my grandmother’s house, I started getting the same weird feeling. If I walked to the bathroom, the eyes were on my back. If I walked back out to my seat in the living room, the eyes were watching my chest rise and fall with my breath. Unlike school, I could pinpoint where the eyes were watching from. That damn cabinet had gotten in my head.

“Let’s see what’s on the news.” Grandma flicked the channel to the five o’clock news. “Then, I’ll make something for dinner. I was thinking about one of those pasta packs.”

“Yeah, sounds like a plan.” I stared at the lock, wondering how strong it was.

“Looks like it’s going to storm tonight, Christine,” my grandmother commented. “Tomorrow will be a good day to stay in, we can make hot cocoa or tea and figure out what to do with those crates. Do you think your dad or brothers would want those bolts and stuff? Christine?”

“Um, I have no idea,” I gave her a half-hearted chuckle. “I can figure out something to do with them tomorrow.”

That night when I went to bed, I settled in quickly and fell asleep with uncomfortable ease. I expected my muscles to be sore from lifting, but they weren’t. Moreover, I thought that I would be too nervous to go to sleep, but I felt safe under my sheet. Unfortunately, I woke up around one in the morning. I waited to hear the knocking, but it never came.

The wind blew with vicious intent. The walls and the roof moaned with its power. Lightning flashed with the roar of thunder behind it. The storm calmed me; I fell asleep less than an hour later, but another sound woke me up.

Creak

I heard my door swing open. Pretending that I was asleep, I pulled my sheet up and cuddled up with my pillow. I couldn't breathe well with my sheet over my head, but it was good enough. Something pressed on the end of my bed, like a cat laying against the bottom of my feet. My body froze with fear. I stayed that way for an hour, unable to move even if I wanted to stretch or flex my joints. In that hour, I had grown used to the pressure. It was strange, but the longer it stayed, the safer it seemed. It was warm and didn’t hurt me. The smothering of my sheet recycling hot breath kept me from falling asleep completely, but I was halfway there.

Then I was there. I dreamed that I was sitting at a table. There was someone on the other side, but whenever I looked up, no one was there. I could only see the edge of a hand or the corner of a smile. Good feelings fluttered about us like butterflies in spring.

“Christine, it’s been a while,” the person spoke. “Do you remember me?”

“Of course,” the sound of the voice was too familiar to ignore.

“I will see you soon,” the person stood, disappearing.

“You have to leave?”

The pressure lifted, waking me.

Creak

Whatever had visited me left along with the dream.

I stretched out on the bed. Cold air from the rain flushed over my skin. Peeking out from my sheet, I looked around the room. Not a single thing was out of place. Even the door was closed like when I had crawled into bed. I sat up and placed my hand where I had felt the pressure. There was no hint of a handprint or a strand of fur, but the bed was warm. I snatched my phone and turned on the flashlight. Moving as quickly as possible, I got up and locked the door.

It was four in the morning. The storm was still roaring with anger outside.

“I guess I’m not getting any damn sleep here.” I rolled in my sheets and played on my phone until sunrise.

My grandmother’s door opened at six. I laid in bed and listened to the rain for another hour before meeting her to watch the morning news in the living room. When I entered, she was snoozing in her own chair, giving me the perfect chance to sit in my grandfather’s. His chair was big and soft. I had not sat in it since his passing, and I was happy to be in it. He had spent hours and hours, in sickness and in health, in that seat. I rocked myself as the news people rambled.

My eyes fell away from the television as I watched the doorway to the kitchen. I felt myself begin to fall asleep as rain tapped on the glass windows. A wave of nausea hit me. I had to sleep or I would be sick. I dropped my arm and pulled the foot rest out. Snuggling into the cushion, I relaxed into a deep sleep.

My name was whispered in the rain as it hit the window.

“Christine, Christine.” It disturbed my sleep. “Christine.”

I shook my head to make the noise go away. A blanket was put over me, feeding my sleep. I tried to wake myself up, but only managed to mumble a few words.

“Stop,” I muttered. “Stop.”

An alarm pulled me from my rest. The smell of cookies filled the room. I stumbled to the kitchen. The table was cleared of any crates I had put on it yesterday and was set with newspaper and wax sheets. Without a word, I sat at the head of the table to watch my grandmother work. She pulled a tray of ginger snaps out of the oven. With the greatest care, she spread sweet cream over them.

“That smells delicious,” I spoke up, my voice cracking.

“Oh, you’re awake!” She exclaimed with delight. “I thought today would be the perfect day to make something warm and sweet. After you eat, do you think that you could paint some of the empty crates for me?”

“Of course, sounds like fun.” I rested my head on the palm of my hand.

“Thank you! You know, I was looking at them this morning, wondering what in the world we could do with them.” She made me a plate. “Then it came to me, we could make flower boxes. I was thinking that we could go out to the store tomorrow and get some flowers and dirt.”

“I would love that.” I smiled. “Flowers after the rain.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “I’ll go get the paint after we eat.”

Over breakfast, we talked about different designs and colors.

Soon we were painting away. I took four of the empty crates. The original idea I had in mind was to make them look like the four seasons, but they didn’t turn out that way in the least. I painted the first one white; however, some black had gotten mixed in and the crate came out dull. As I tried to add little pink flowers for spring, I saw that the pink was too light. The smallest bit of red turned my spring flowers into ugly red flashes.

“This didn’t come out right,” I tried to laugh it off. “It’s so dark.”

I set that one to the side to let it dry and began on the next. This one I planned to look like summer. I tried to capture the deep blue of the sky and soundly failed. The color came out with a green tint. It looked more like goo from the sea than a sky perfect for picnics. When I added the clouds, the white merged with the blue-green, making it appear like fuzzy mold.

I threw that one aside with the other one.

“Christine, it’s okay,” she acknowledged my frustrations. “Think before you act.”

I stared at the other crates for ten more minutes before I even set one in front of me. For fall, I painted the whole crate a deep brown. Then I dotted it with orange, red, and purple. When I looked at it closely, I saw the branches of the trees waving in the wind; nevertheless, from far away it reminded me of a blood bath.

“That one looks pretty.” Grandma hugged my shoulders. “I’m going to take a break and watch a show or two.”

She left me alone with the crates.

I took my dull white and tapped it on the last crate until it looked like a snowstorm.

“When are you coming back?”

“What?” I looked towards the living room: Grandma was asleep.

With rushed steps, I went back to my room and grabbed my phone. I walked back out to the kitchen with it in hand. Soon, I had my favorite songs playing while I worked on the winter crate. The artists sang a haunting song about a monster stalking a woman.

Shivers ran down my back and a headache threatened to build behind my eyes. I skipped the song, angry at myself for having a song like that. Oddly enough, I hadn’t heard that song since I was in middle school, about seven years ago. My last year of high school, I had spent an hour or two going through my playlist clearing it of old songs. I used to be so excited. Like my older siblings, I thought I was going off to college. I wanted to be that pretty girl who sat in a coffee shop writing a paper about the meaning of life. Childhood fantasies about being a college student rolled around my mind. I thought of how every professor would adore me for my academic insight. So smart, I wanted to be so smart. And loved.

“Pfft,” I rolled my eyes at myself. “How pretentious can I get?”

Pushing the nonsense from my head, I lined the crates up: winter, spring, summer, and fall. I went with the movement of the winter snow storm and let it blow into the spring flowers. Likewise, the red flowers fell into the tainted summer sky, and the clouds that looked like mold swept into the fall leaves. The seasons went round and round.

That night, I added the final touches and some details to my ‘art.’ I asked my grandmother to wait until morning to get a good look at them. It was ten o’clock before I had an iota of sleepiness greet me. My mind was too busy wondering if the house was haunted or if it was just Grandma talking and walking in her sleep. I decided that the next time something came into my room, I would take a look; however, I was scared about what could happen if it wasn’t her. Logic told me that my imagination was out of control and ruining the line between reality and whatever my head made up.

I locked my door before I went to sleep. During the night, I slept soundly.

The next morning, I showed Grandma my ugly crates. Thankfully, she didn’t mind how they came out. In fact, she loved them. But she adored everything I did. As a child, she fawned over every poorly done painting or drawing I made for her.

She smiled at them. “I love how you did these. The colors are great,” she raved over the crates.

“I don’t really like how they came out,” I admitted to her. “I wish the colors didn’t mix together so much.”

“You know why they did that?” she asked.

“No.” I pouted.

“Because you didn’t wait for the first layer to dry,” she giggled. “You have never waited for the first layer to dry. Here, I’ll show you.”

“You still have my old paintings?” I wondered aloud as she walked me back to her bedroom.

She opened the door to Grandpa’s workshop. “That I do. Your grandfather let me stow them away in here. Watch your step.”

Grandpa’s workshop smelled like metal shavings and wood. Different tools and scraps of whatnot littered the floor. His workbench was covered in wood shavings and random screws. It looked the same as it always had.

She moved the workbench scraps to the side and unlocked the drawer. Old paper curled up as she pulled it out. With a careful hand, she laid each piece out, one by one. There were pictures of flowers in vases and sunny parks. In all of the paintings, it was plain: I was never one to wait for the paint to dry.

My favorites were the portraits of my family. I lined them up to each other and tried to guess which funny-faced human-like stick person was who, but as I named them off I noticed an extra person. As I dug farther back into my pictures, I saw the same stranger again and again. Sometimes it was mixed with my family, other times it would be in a park or at a pool. In one of the pictures, it was the stranger holding my hand in what looked to be my bedroom.

“Grandma, who is this?” I pointed to the stranger.

“Hmm,” she picked up a portrait I had done. “It’s not your father? Maybe Grandpa?”

I squinted my eyes at it as I looked closer. “I don’t think so.” I shook my head.

“Oh, that’s right.” She tapped the page as she suddenly remembered. “You had the biggest imagination out of all of your siblings. You made up an imaginary friend to play with when you wanted to get away. This must be it.”

I held the paper close to my face, taking in the lines. “Did I give my friend a name?”

She shrugged. “If you did, then you didn’t tell anyone else. You didn’t like to tell us about your friend. You tried to hide these pictures of it, too. Grandpa found them all stuffed under your bed here.”

“Huh, that’s weird. You know, I think it’s a guy.”

She left her seat and went to a metal closet. “Maybe you drew yourself another brother. Well, this is where I put your brother’s art.”

I tucked the pictures away before joining my grandmother at the closet. We went through my brother’s pictures and enjoyed the nostalgia. I hated seeing her have to move Grandpa’s things out of the way. Her eyes teared up more and more with memories of the past. Underneath the last pile of drawings was a picture of my grandparents together. Grandma held a swaddled baby in a rocking chair while Grandpa looked over her shoulder. Love reflected off of their faces.

“I think that’s your aunt I’m holding, but it could be your uncle.” She pressed the picture against her heart. “It was so long ago. So much has changed.”

“You know, Grandma, I can clean up in here if you want,” I offered. “Just organize it and maybe move those crates with the tool stuff in here to get them out of the kitchen. Can I do that for you?”

“Yes.” She took my hand. “Thank you, Christine.”

She let my hand go and went out of the room. I turned on my music. Singing, I began to clean the workshop. Once I cleared a spot out along a wall, I dragged the full crates back to the shop. I had just started emptying half-filled drawers of randomness when my grandmother popped back to let me know she was going out to have lunch with one of her friends from church. I made sure she had her key and then locked the front door behind her.

In her absence, I finished organizing and cleaning the workshop. I made sure each drawer had some unifying theme that brought the items together. Thankfully, I didn’t feel eyes creep down my back. Then I took a shower because I was covered in dust and dirt. There was even rust caught underneath my nails.

When I got back to my room, my bed was made. I had not made my bed since the second grade, and there was the portrait of my imaginary friend laying at the foot of the bed. I flipped the drawing over to the back. A word was written in my grandmother’s curly handwriting. Though I tried to read it, her cursive looked like a group of long swirls to me. With the picture in hand, I sat on the end of my bed and stared at it. For the life of me, I could not remember.

That night when my grandma returned I went out to the living room to listen to her talk about her late lunch. I waited until her show turned to commercials and she had finished talking about lunch to talk about the picture.

“Grandma,” I took the paper to her. “Did you leave this on my bed? I found it after my shower.”

She examined the writing. “I guess so. It looks like I did. I’m surprised you didn’t remember him earlier. You would spend an hour or so with him each day.”

“I did?” I was in wonder. “I keep trying to remember but I-”

Knock knock

My words stopped short.

“Did you hear that?” I asked, rushing to the door. There was no one outside. “Did someone knock? I thought someone knocked.”

“I didn’t hear anything. Might have been on the show.” She stared at the television. “Christine, look at that! We used to be like that before you and your brothers got too old to want to spend time with your grandparents.”

The family on the show prayed together over their dinner. They all looked happy and at peace, the exact opposite of me.

“That’s nice,” I kissed the top of my grandmother’s head. “Well, I’m done for the night. I think I’m so tired, I’m going crazy.”

She patted my hand. “Love you.”

“Love you too, good night.” I disappeared back into my bedroom, locking the door behind me.

It was nine o’clock at night. By ten, I was settled beneath my sheet and dreaming, but the night was cold. I woke at one in the morning, shivering. Despite my best efforts to fall back asleep, I had to do something. I used my phone’s flashlight to keep the dark away as I rolled off the bed. When I had moved in not long ago, I had stored my extra blankets in clear containers under the bed. My purple swirl blanket from when I was ten was the only one in reach. It was a thick, warm comforter. I remember pretending that it was a huge purple cloud that I could wear as a gown or escape into another world through. Something clattered against the floor as I pulled it out. I hadn’t noticed it before and I was hoping it was merely my imagination. But the cold handle was real when I poked it.

There was a cellar door built into the floor directly under my bed. If it hadn’t been so cold then I would have shoved my blanket back over it. I didn’t like the way it looked; it seemed to stare back at me like a warning, as if it was telling me to leave and never think of it again. I laid my blanket over my sheet and crawled into bed. I kept my flashlight on, staring into the room.

“Christine! Christine, help,” my grandmother cried out not an hour later. “Help me!”

I rushed out of bed, nearly slamming into my door. The rest of the house was uncomfortably warm. I went straight to her bedroom. It was empty.

“Grandma,” I saw smoke roll from the kitchen. “Grandma!”

Sweat poured down my chest and back. I pushed through the smoke in search of her, but I misstepped in the blindness.

My body jerked awake, making my heart jump. The purple blanket was on the floor. I was in a cold sweat and my door was cracked open.

“Stupid door,” I grumbled. “I thought I locked you.”

The floor creaked as I got out of bed. I wrapped the purple blanket around my shoulders before walking all over the house. Everything was still. The only sounds were my footsteps and various o’clocks ticking away. Grandma was fast asleep in her bed with grandpa’s pillow cradled in her arm. I tenderly put the back of my hand on her forehead. There was no sign of fever. The last place I checked was the thermostat. I clicked the air ON and went back to sleep.

It was noon when I joined my grandmother in the living room. She sat in her rocking chair and folded fresh laundry.

“Good morning, sleepy head,” she chirped. “Sleep well last night?”

“Not really,” I admitted, feeling sicker by the moment. “I woke up freezing, and then I got really hot.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She looked up at me. “You don’t look well. Are you feeling alright?”

I collapsed on the couch. “No, but I should be okay.”

She took my temperature and made me a mug of hot tea. My fever was high and burning. Standing made the room rock back and forth; walking churned my stomach. I laid on the couch as my body ached all over and my head throbbed with pain. For the rest of the day I fell in and out of sleep. Grandma fetched my purple blanket from my room and laid it over me. She also gave me my pillow to help me rest. It seemed I had just fallen asleep a moment ago when I woke up to someone laying on me. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t speak or move. My head was turned to the side so I couldn’t see who or what was on me.

“I missed you,” the words bore into my ear drum. “You grew up and abandoned me.”

My grandmother sang fractions of her church songs. “Lord, bless this house. Be where I walk. Keep me steady through all my days.”

Then the weight left, letting me move again. Feeling unsafe and violated, I rolled on my stomach and covered my face to hide my tears. I wanted to go home. Being at Grandma’s house was weird and uncomfortable. Once I was more relaxed, I got up to talk with her.

“Grandma.” I leaned against the kitchen doorway.

“Yes?” She glanced at me from the sink, her hands wrinkled with dishwater. “Are you feeling better?”

“Sort of.” I pulled my blanket tighter around my shoulders.

“Your cheeks are very red,” she commented. “I don’t like the way it looks. You need to drink more water and go back to bed.”

“Well, I was thinking that a bit of fresh air would help,” I suggested.

She frowned. “But just for a few. If you take too long then I'll come out and get you. Don't forget to put shoes on those feet.”

I tucked my feet into Grandma’s hard bottom slippers and stepped out the laundry room door. Even though I knew my parents were on a cruise, making them unreachable, I still called my mother. Her phone went straight to voicemail.

Beep

“Hey Mom, I was calling to let you know that Grandma is fine. She, uh, still goes out with friends and does housework. We cleared out grandpa’s cellar under the sink, and I cleaned up his workshop so Dad and the boys can help take out his tools when there’s time. I, uh, haven’t been doing as well as Grandma. I’ve been having a really hard time sleeping. The last time I slept well was at home. Grandma has been calling my name at night, and I keep hearing things during the day like knocking at the door. I guess I’m just feeling pretty homesick. Um, speaking of sick, I actually have a fever right now. So when you get back, would you please come visit? I really miss you and Dad. I love you both. Bye.”

I closed the call and breathed deep. The cold October air stung my lungs. Coughing, I stepped back inside. I shuffled to the kitchen for some hot tea and honey, but when I got to the doorway Grandma was gone. The blanket dropped from my shoulders like a glorious cape as I ran to my grandma’s room. I found her on the bed with her book propped up and her lap.

“Christine, you know better than to run in the house.” She peered at me over the pages, tapping her finger on the hard cover.

“I’m sorry.” There was something not quite right with her. “I just wanted you to know I was back inside.”

“Christine.” She stopped me the moment before I was out of sight.

“Yes ma’am?” My voice cracked; I didn’t want to be near her.

“Just a few things I wanted to ask,” she began. “Firstly, when are your parents going to be back from their trip?”

I counted the days on my fingers. “By the end of next week.”

“Are you going to go back home when they return?” she wondered.

I tried to smile. “I don’t know, but I invited them over to visit. I thought you wouldn’t mind the extra company.”

“Not at all.” She laid her book down in her lap. “You know, Christine, I have truly enjoyed having you here. It reminds me of when you were little. You would spend a week at a time here. Sometimes more.”

“I love spending time with you,” I meant what I said, just not when I said it. “I missed being in the house.”

She grinned. “Oh, I’m sure the house missed you too. In fact, I know it did.”

“Well, I’m getting a tad dizzy,” I excused myself. “I’m going to go lay down.”

I put my hand on the doorknob of my room.

Knock.

The sound came from the kitchen. Distracted, I walked to the kitchen. I was calm. My brain was convinced that something had fallen or the house settled. Nothing could be wrong, I was sure of it. But everyone has moments when they are terribly mistaken.

As I went through the kitchen, I noticed the lock missing from the cabinet under the sink. I scavenged the countertops for it and when I didn’t find it, I tore through the living room in search. There was not a pillow unturned or a cushion not lifted. I even shifted through the various drawers of the stands and under the television. It was nowhere to be found.

I marched back towards her room with the intention to ask her what she did with it. That cellar… Grandpa had built it with his bare hands, but there was something very wrong with it. The moment I passed it to enter the back of the house my sickness increased tenfold. My head hurt so much I could barely see straight. Vomit whirled in my stomach, ready to fly out my mouth at any second. I knocked against the hallway wall and collapsed to the cold hardwood floors. What little was in my stomach came past my lips and dribbled onto my chin.

Maybe it was because of the fever, but I could have sworn I saw the stranger, my old imaginary friend, standing in the doorway of my grandmother's room. However, her window was letting in the rays of the setting sun to silhouette whoever was standing there. It may have been her, but my sight was unclear.

Whoever it was stepped over me as if I was a dead body and left me to sleep. But I couldn’t sleep, the ground was too cold. Over the hours I was there, my joints stiffened, and I curled up into a ball. The smell of vomit lingered in my nose. Shivering, I stayed where I was like a pitiful puddle.

A few times, I felt someone stepping over me. I almost reached out and caught their ankle, but it was dark and I couldn’t make myself move.

“I’m cold,” I muttered to the figure. “Can I have my blanket?”

“Of course, dear.” I heard the rattling of crates in the voice. “Just a minute.”

My purple blanket was thrown over me. Rough hands tucked me into the old fabric and then I was lifted into long arms. The person held me tight to their chest, their heart beat pounding.

“I made everything right again, just like it used to be,” I heard the same familiar voice from my dreams. “But this time round, everything is going to stay right. No one can change this for us, Christine. And even if you don’t remember, I do. I remember.”

I was laid down on my bed. My imaginary friend from long ago laid next to me.

“Every time I close my eyes I see you, Christine. I see you in the dark, I see you in the light. Every single moment, of every single day, I see you. The times we used to play together roll in my mind like a movie. I’ve tried to forget. I knew that you might grow up and forget me like all of your siblings, but I thought you were different. When I saw that you were like the others, it broke my heart.” It pet my cheek and rubbed its knuckles over my lips; I was so afraid that I couldn’t even open my eyes. “The day they brought you home, I knew that we were meant to be friends forever. And the day you left for the first time, I knew that no matter what happened, we would be together again. I found my way back to you. Aren’t you happy? ”

I told myself that I was dreaming.

“Christine, Christine,” it started to cry. “We were such great friends. Why can’t you remember?”

Shame and fear frayed my nerves. “I’m so sorry,” I muttered.

I was finally warm. My body relaxed under the sound of the voice as it told me about the games we used to play. Hide and seek, tag, scavenger hunts… the list went on and on. Sleep came over me like the unforgiving darkness of night.

This past Thursday, firemen found the remains of Christine Rose Sunday and her grandmother, Andrea Toni Sunday. Material had been stacked against every entrance to the house, blocking the firemen from getting to the women in time to rescue them. Christine’s body was located in one of the bedrooms. Andrea’s body was located in her own bed. It appears both women were asleep and passed peacefully. What started the fire is not apparent; however, firemen located a gas leak from cracked pipes beneath the house.