Chapter 1
Cherlynn Jade
My breath stilled as I lied there in bed waiting for them. They came every night.
It always started with the disembodied voices. I could sense their presence as they gathered around me, the voices gradually manifesting into shadowy figures.
I shut my eyes in terror before I could see more.
The figures were like shadowy wisps in human form. I could see no further detail to them and I always looked away in horror before they could reveal themselves further.
My name is Cherlynn Jade. I was named for my mystic green eyes. They’re always the first thing people notice about me.
For as long as I can remember, those green eyes always noticed those figures and they were always there gathering around me. Their intentions unclear but their existence still chilling nonetheless.
I remember the first time I heard the disembodied voices and saw the shadowy figures. As with many parents, my parents reassured five year old me they were just my imagination. That the voices were none other than the sounds of the night outside and the shadowy figures nothing more than illusions the moonlight played against my bedroom wall.
They didn’t just come at night. I encountered them in broad daylight too. I saw them in the most unlikely of places as I went about my life: I saw them during what should have been mundane trips to the store, gathering around homes. I even saw them in the solidarity of the woods. I saw them everywhere. There was no place I could go where I wouldn’t be bothered by them.
Like a heavy darkness, everywhere I went, there they were. This became my sense of normalcy.
Even as a child, they felt as real as any living person. As real as you and me.
I saw them as I stretched out on the couch watching TV, while eating breakfast before school. I even saw them right in the middle of eating dinner with my parents.
I remember one such incident during my childhood when I saw a tall figure looming inside the kitchen’s entryway.
My six year old eyes widened in speechless terror.
It took every ounce of willpower to get the words out as I pointed a small shaky finger towards the kitchen’s entryway.“A monster.”
My parents glanced at the entryway neither phased whatsoever. “There’s nothing there.”
Right in plain sight, there was no way my parent’s couldn’t have seen it.
That was when I realized that I was the only one who could see these figures.
As I continued to encounter them as an adult, can I still say that they were just a figment of childhood imagination?
It wasn’t until much later into adulthood did I find out these weren’t just ominous shadowing figures let alone monsters. They were spirits. Spirits that desperately sought my attention.
I opened my eyes afraid of what I’d see. The room was silent and their presence was gone. I sat up and placed my face in my hands in a combination of relief and exhaustion. They would be back. And then they’d be back the night after that.
In the middle of the night, I was abruptly woken by a heavy presence of more than one of those figures standing around my bed. “Why don’t you all just leave me alone!” I cried out in exhaustion.
Not once did I ever get the feeling that they were there to cause me harm. That didn’t make their presence any less chilling as they loomed over me.
I could hear the many different disembodied voices around me as they slowly manifested into the shadowy figures. They spoke all at once seemingly fighting for my attention. Their blended voices were an entanglement of desperate pleas. Maybe it wouldn’t have been half as bad if it was just one of these spirits.
The room was finally quiet again. And then I heard another voice. While this voice was also disembodied, unlike the others, it was faint yet as clear as day. A male voice.
“I know what it’s like to want to be left alone.”
I sat up in bed, startled. My eyes darted around my dimly lit room waiting to catch a glimpse of yet another figure. I didn’t see anything. My ears perked up sure I’d hear the voice again. I waited and waited but never did.
Felix White
I watched the young woman as they approached her every night. I kept my distance and watched in the shadows. I remained all the more elusive as I watched them disturb her in the daytime.
Part of me felt sympathetic towards her. This might come as a surprise. Not because I’ve never carried an ounce of sympathy. Not because I can’t imagine what its like to want to be left alone. Many people can relate to that at some point in their life. However, my circumstance is vastly different.
My name is Felix White. At least it was when I was alive.
You see, I haven’t been alive for quite some time.
Imagine being hurled into the spirit world with no warning. You’re alive one second and dead the next. Hard to imagine, isn’t it?
That’s what happened to me. Imagine walking out into the street one night and being hit by a carriage. No warning. No chance to react.
It took me a while to even realize I was dead. That I was no longer a living breathing person and when the realization couldn’t be denied any further, I couldn’t accept it.
I couldn’t be dead! I still had a life to fulfill!
I glared in anger as remembered the last time I was alive. The energy from my anger manifested and knocked a piece of pottery off a stand shattering it to pieces.
The woman stirred from her sleep and sat up looking around the dimly lit room in fear for a moment before drifting back off to sleep. She seemed to be staring towards my direction, and while I knew full well she couldn’t see me, I knew she could sense my presence.
Being a ghost gives you quite a different perspective on things. The years that pass feel like days. Even mere seconds sometimes. A majority of the time, I can’t be sure. I have no real perception of time anymore.
Time is nonexistent in the spirit world. Every moment carries no sense of time to it despite being dead for just over 100 years. The last time I was alive, it was a summer day in July 1880.
I eyed the shattered pottery. It was ugly anyway. Not something I would ever have in my home.
This was my home when I was alive. I knew every minute detail about it but I don’t recognize it anymore.
The woman is a stranger in my home. She was an intruder who decided to come in one day with no warning and make this her home and there was nothing I could do about it.
I continued to watch even as the other spirits have since left her alone.
They would return tomorrow and the night after that. I looked on in sympathy at the poor exhausted woman and sighed in annoyance at their existence myself. Those spirits don’t even live here. They never did. They are only here because they are attached to her. They will follow her until they were satisfied with what they want.
Communication.
I stepped even further back into the shadows despite knowing I had no concern of being seen. She was now fast asleep.
There was something different about her. I knew it the moment I first encountered her. She was one of them. Those rare individuals who could communicate with the other side. Except she was in full denial. She wasn’t like most of the people I’ve had the misfortune of coming across.
What they wanted was the very last thing I wanted. Being a spirit myself now, I wanted nothing but peace and solitude. To remain undisturbed by the living and their fantastical and ridiculously absurd curiosities of the other side.
What’s so fascinating about the paranormal? About ghosts and things that go bump in the night? I didn’t believe in such things when I was alive. Yet, here I am.
I suppose I should understand their deep curiosity. I remember what it was like to be alive. To have a sense of curiosity about the world around me.
If only she knew the only way these spirits would leave was if she fought through her denial and fears and listened to them.
I felt the energy build up within me and realized my thoughts had manifested into something audible.
I know what it’s like to want to be left alone.
I took one last glance at her as I faded away into the darkness.
Cherlynn Jade
I swept up the shattered pieces of pottery being careful of the jagged edges. I shook my head in disbelief. There was no logical explanation as to how the pottery could have fallen off the stand. It was well enough away from the edge.
The crash had woken me but I was too exhausted to bother with it. The presence in the air felt as if there was an angry presence close by and I was too afraid to leave my bed. Now, here I was, first thing in the morning, sweeping up the mess.
An unsettling thought fell over me. It was as if someone had thrown it off. No. Absolutely not. I forced the idea and what happened out of my mind and did my best to resume my day.
Throughout the day, I couldn’t stop thinking about that mysterious voice I heard last night.
I know what it’s like to want to be left alone.
It was different from the other disembodied voices.
Why was their voice so clear to me and what did they want? Was it from the same angry presence that broke my pottery?
I sighed as I discarded the shattered pieces. I didn’t know much about my home’s past. I just knew it was very old and existed as far back as the late 1800s. I could only suspect that quite a few families have come and gone as they made home here from one generation to another.
I pushed the incident to the back of my mind. Surely the voice was all in my head. It was just a dream. I repeated this to myself over and over until I convinced myself to believe it but deep down, I knew better.
Later that afternoon, with the stress I was feeling, I felt it might be a good idea to relax on the back patio. Being able to fully relax and forget my worries even momentarily isn’t something that exists for me but I could at least try.
I closed my eyes and leaned back on the patio chair. I tried to focus my thoughts on any positive occurrence around me. The warmth of the brick wall behind me, the soft breeze, the birds chirping high in the trees somewhere, the sound of cars going by … my thoughts drifted further. What birds made those calls? I wondered where the people that drove by were going?
My eyes shot open and I sat up abruptly. My heart raced at a sudden image of a man that appeared out of nowhere, intruding my peaceful thoughts.
I’ve never seen this man before. The image I saw was vague and out of focus like that of a grainy photograph.
From what I was able to make out, he wore a light brown overcoat that extended down to his knees and black boots of some sort. His appearance was much like that from someone from the Victorian era although I couldn’t be sure.
I closed my eyes trying to pick up on the image of the man again but saw nothing. I only heard the usual sounds of the spring afternoon. Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about what I saw. The image had appeared to me so sudden, it was impossible to forget.
I sighed and stood up abruptly as another thought occurred to me. Something far more ordinary.
I still hadn’t checked the mail today. Maybe doing an uneventful daily routine will help me ease my thoughts.
There was a sense of stillness and calm as I ventured down my drive way to the mail box. There was nothing out of the ordinary as I headed back towards my house. I even smiled as I glanced at the usual billing statements I carried in my hand. A sign of normalcy. I smiled until I caught sight of the figure of man looking out one of my upstairs windows.
I froze as a chill fell over me. It was the same man I had just seen in my mind’s eye!
