Hot tears stream down my face and I blink them back, refusing to let them cloud my vision. I can’t look away. As much as I want to, I can’t pry my eyes from my dad’s decomposing specter.
Wade pulls me into his arms, trying his best to calm me down. He rocks the two of us back and forth gently on the bed. But I can’t calm down. Nothing will ever feel calm again. My world has just been tipped on its head.
The room suddenly tilts and I bend over, lurching bile and water all over the floor.
This can’t be happening…
“It’s okay, Autumn,” Wade coos in my ear, stroking my hair, oblivious to the horrors staring back at us. If he knew, he wouldn’t be saying that. If he knew, he’d be running in the opposite direction.
I shake my head, unable to put words to any of it. My brain is a blur of colors, emotions, and sounds. That’s it.
“I tried to keep you safe. I tried to protect you,” my dad says. I’ve almost gotten used to the way his words sound more like an anomaly than anything else. “You have to trust me. I did this all for you. Repent. Repent everything, or they’ll take you, too…” he pleads frantically.
“No, no, no,” I repeat, shaking my head as Wade and I rock back and forth. “Can’t be true. This can’t be…”
Nothing about this makes sense.
I close my eyes, no longer able to take in the horrible way my father’s face looks like it’s melting against the bone.
Plummeting into the surreality, my mind whirls through all of the recent interactions with him, trying to make sense out of this.
I have to be dreaming. Please, tell me I’m still dreaming. He can’t be dead. He can’t be. He was just here. They said he was okay. He told them to start work on the house. That’s what James said…
“Autumn, it’s okay. It’s okay,” Wade repeats, rocking me and stroking the back of my head.
“No, no, it’s not,” I sputter, unable to keep my body from trembling. I glance at Wade, and once again, tears blur my vision, making it impossible to see his features clearly. “Not okay. Nothing’s okay.”
His eyes look so sympathetic, but he doesn’t understand. How can he? I don’t understand.
“Talk to me. What’s happening? What do you see?” he asks, never stopping our continual rocking. “I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”
I chance another glance at dad. The rotting face of my father leans forward, its gaping eye sockets staring into my soul.
“He reeks,” Dad snarls. “In league with them. They’re all in league.” The intensity of his anger make me sick to my stomach.
I bend forward, heaving again, but nothing comes up.
“He draws attention,” Dad continues, raising a skeletal finger at Wade. “He’s a beacon for them. Your time will be cut short. Shorter, even. He must go—”
“What are you talking about? Who them?” I squeal, trying to force his words into something that makes sense. “This isn’t Wade’s fault.”
“My fault?” Wade says, shock in his tone. For a moment, he stops trying to console me and sweeps his gaze around the room. “What is?”
“He’s a beacon,” Dad says, ignoring me. “Don’t you understand, Autumn? No good…”
He lunges his ghostly body at us, arms wide and gnarly fingers ready to attack. I squelch another scream, flinching and covering my face with my arms, anticipating his blow.
However, nothing makes impact. After a few seconds, I pull my arms back and look up. As if an invisible wall somehow separates us, Dad slams against the air inches from my face, unable to connect beyond it. His face flits through confusion, anger, and frustration as he pounds against it.
“What is this?” He twists around, searching for the source of whatever magic has blocked him from us. “No, it can’t be,” he fires into the room. “You were locked away. You were under control.”
I follow his horrified gaze to Abigail, who is still standing in the shadows, muttering quietly. Her head remains bent, but as he curses at her, she slowly raises her gaze. Power emanates from her, lighting the edges of her being, and it even makes me stop in my tracks. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. For the first time since I knew I could see her, she actually looks like a ghost.
“You knew this could not go on forever. Your time has come to an end, Lyle,” Abigail says, stepping from the shadows and into the moonlight. As if the moon itself lends her power, the edges of her dress, arms, and even her hair glows brighter. “The treachery you bring upon this house cannot endure when it is cast into the light. Autumn has seen you for what you really are. You will harm them no longer. I will not allow it.”
“How dare you? This is my house. You can’t do this to me,“ the remains of my father fire back. What little skin clinging to his skull scrunches and peels back in odd ways as he laments her. It makes my skin crawl and my heart feel completely hollowed out.
Abigail’s voice booms out, an unearthly sound that shakes the windows on their frames and the decorations of the room. It echoes straight through me, right down to my bones. “Do not speak of ‘to whom this house belongs.’ Child, you are but a speck in the existence of time, as we all are. Yet, even in such deliverance, this home was mine long before you were a fleeting thought upon your parents’ minds.” She takes another deliberate step forward, her eyes blazing and jaw set.
“What’s happened to you?” I say, my words barely a whisper, as I watch my father snarl in
