The Sight (Book One)

Chapter One

The Man

I’m asleep when he comes. He doesn’t say anything. I have no warning he’s going to show up. He’s just suddenly there. Appearing out of nowhere. Standing over me. Watching and waiting and wheezing.

I hear the breathing first. Labored. Rasping. Gurgling. And then the smell of oiled leather and pipe smoke.

My ears start to ring. A high-pitched frequency that makes me lightheaded and dizzy. I can’t tell if I’m awake or if this is another nightmare.

I feel pressure near my leg as if someone is leaning up against the bed or is placing their hands on the blankets. My lashes groggily flutter open, still caught in that glossy state of the in-between where dreams hover and float above reality. And in that split-second where everything is hazy and dim and blurry, my eyes adjust in the darkness, and I see him.

The man. He’s back. He’s returned and is staring down at me.

I haven’t seen him in a while. Months have gone by. I thought therapy was helping. I had convinced myself he was a figment of my imagination. But, I’m not dreaming. And I don’t know who he is or what he wants.

Frozen in fear, all I can do is stare up into his face. He seems to be in his eighties, his skin withered by the sun, his deep, sunken eyes creased at the corners. He’s wearing a thick red plaid flannel shirt and faded washed out denim overalls. The brass buttons look tarnished and old-fashioned. He’s tall and burly as if he’s worked outside all his life. I don’t dare move a muscle as I wait to see what he’s going to do.

He stands there so long I start to think I’m hallucinating or still dreaming. But, then he reaches his hand out toward me. I can see the gold wedding ring on his finger and the veins spreading out like a road map over his gnarled skin.

Right before he’s about to touch me, a strangled scream bursts out of my lips and I jolt up in bed. “No, leave me alone! Get out of here!” My voice echoes into the darkness and the man vanishes the instant I am wide awake.

Terrified, I throw the covers back and jump out of bed, running into the hallway where my sister, Lizzie, is brushing her teeth in the bathroom. All the lights are on and it is an enormous relief.

Wide-eyed, Lizzie looks startled as I frantically burst out of my bedroom.

“There’s a man in my room!” I yell out. I can barely see where I’m going. Lizzie grabs my arms to keep me from smacking into the wall.

“He’s back?” she asks and it occurs to me that I’ve done this before. It’s happened for years. Ever since we moved here. She’s used to me having meltdowns. I thought I was getting better. I thought I was over this. I think they all hoped I was past the worst of these episodes. “Where is he?”

“In there,” I tell her, trembling as I point towards my dark room.

Rinsing out her mouth, she wipes her face with a towel and then walks into my room and turns on the light. I hesitantly follow her. My cat, Max, squints at us as his yellow eyes adjust to the sudden invasion. Unfazed, he curiously watches us, trying to figure out what is happening.

Lizzie walks around the room and I stay glued to her side as we search behind the bedroom door, under the bed, in the closet. She checks the window. The blinds are closed and it’s shut and locked tight. She turns in a full circle. Nothing. My room is empty except for us. Everything is exactly how and where I left it.

Lizzie looks at me and shrugs. “Guess he left.”

But, he hasn’t. I know he’s still crouching in the corner somewhere. I can feel him and anxiously look around. “I swear he was here.”

“I don’t see anyone.”

Overhearing our conversation, Mom joins us. She’s in her robe and pajamas. Her skin is glazed from her night cream. “What’s going on? I thought I heard yelling.”

“Juliet saw the man again,” Lizzie explains, sighing, as she shares a look with Mom that implies too many things even though she doesn’t say them out loud. Is she annoyed? Laughing at me? Do they all think I’m crazy? I don’t want them to see me that way but don’t know how to change it. And mental breakdowns like this don’t help.

Mom’s expression softens as if she feels sorry for me. She thinks I’m dissociating again, creating an invisible world to try and cope. “There’s no one in here,” she reassures me, looking around. “Maybe it was just a dream.”

I can still see the man’s eyes, sunken and sad and hollow, looking straight into mine as if he recognizes me or is trying to say something. It wasn’t a dream although I get those all the time. Strange, haunting images that seep into my unconscious and somehow end up happening in a matter of days or weeks, or months. I’ve even dreamed when an earthquake will strike or tragic car accidents. But, that’s a whole other issue I don’t dare talk about. No one knows about those dreams. Only the journal my therapist encourages me to write in that I keep hidden under my mattress.

I didn’t imagine the weight of his body against the bed. I saw him. I could smell him. He was real. A shiver races up my spine as I realize how close he almost came to touching me.

Thinking I’m cold, Mom takes my hand and leads me to my bed, pulls back the covers for me to get in. “Why don’t you go back to sleep, honey?”

I don’t want to sleep. I’m afraid he will find me again. But, they aren’t listening. They never do. I don’t think they believe me. It will be passed off as my abandonment issues. Night terrors. Trauma and residual damage from having an alcoholic birth mother. Labels that have been attached to me to explain away the unexplainable. If they don’t see him, he must not exist.

But, I know.

Once I’m in bed, Mom tucks the blankets around me, brushes my hair off my face. Even though I’m sixteen, I’m not treated like a normal teenager. I’ve been through the system and was a ward of the state. Eight foster homes by the time I was four. I’m a problem child. Damaged goods. Diagnosed and disturbed and demented.

Mom is more careful with me than she is with my sisters. They aren’t adopted and are not as breakable or sensitive or fragile. I’m the oldest but am sheltered more than they are. They didn’t spend the first part of their lives being passed around from home to home, in one-room apartments, sleeping on dirty floors with rats and exposed plumbing. She doesn’t have to worry about them falling apart. They don’t have issues and impairments like I do.

Her touch is soft and soothing, and, against my will, my eyes slowly drift shut. She stays until I fall asleep. Having her nearby helps me feel safe.

It isn’t until a few hours later that I am once again startled awake. Did something bump the bed? The room is dark and there is no longer any light coming through to chase away the shadows. The house is dead silent. No one is awake except me. I’m too vulnerable. I’m no longer protected. My door is closed making it harder to hear my cries for help.

I lay there, listening for him. I count out my heartbeats. I hear the heater click and ignite and come on in the hall. My cat stirs and stretches and then settles.

Nothing happens for a few minutes and I start to relax and almost go back to sleep. But, then I hear the shuffling. I can’t move or blink or run as his footsteps slink closer, his heavy boots dragging along the hardwood. I knew he was still here. I wonder where he hides.

My ears begin to ring. I smell pipe smoke. And I hear him breathing.

The man is back.C