Vigil

The drawn out Creeeeeaaakk of the misaligned bedroom door seemed to echo in the dark.

Cassandra's fingers twitched where they were carefully tucked, hidden beneath the bulk of her pillow and comforter. The rest of her remained still and lax.

Measured breath, eyes closed, but not squeezed. In, out. In, out…

The silence…stretched. 

No rustle of movement. No footsteps or shift in the air.

No tell-tale thud of the off-kilter wood of her door wedging itself back into frame.

A chill swept over her. She waited. No further sounds came, and the house settled into stillness.

One may tell you the witching hour is 3am. Cassandra would inform you that in reality, it is 10pm. Each night, without fail, something stirred in her house. The entity never changed, but the locations and sounds did.

Whispers or screaming drifting from just outside the window, or down the hall.

Footsteps that echoed, or skittering downstairs.

Phantom dripping sounds from the bathroom, doors that rattled open or shut firmly.

A low, angry murmur from the next room.

A slow, steady climb up the stairs to where her door sat upon the landing, and the weight of an unfathomably dark gaze, wrath bubbling beneath.

She was no longer able to rest easily at night. She would wake from a fitful sleep at the slightest disturbance. On the nights she was lucky, the sounds passed by. When she was met with the most misfortune she was ripped from the false safety of her covers. 

Daytime was a different form of torture. You see…Cassandra lived with something Other. It came alive in the dark each night at 10 pm. But that did not mean it left when the sun arose. The monstrosity simply took up life within the home as though it were the most natural thing in the world. 

Curled talons around a devotional book, flipping pages idly.

Pitch-dark eyes flickering orange in the unsteady glow of a fire pit on the back deck. 

A smile with far too many teeth when she walked through the door. 

No one else noticed, and life went on.

She tried, as the monstrosity watched her unblinking, to show them the reality, but their attention flickered as though redirected. Or worse: they gazed into the Abyss and found themselves enthralled with its guile and charm. Either no one noticed its presence, or it seemed to insert itself as a member of the household in their memories. Reality bent and refracted as though passing through crystal.

Cassandra had once been as blind. Her realization was a gradual culmination of noises in the dark, eyes that followed her from room to room and bloodied scratches with no good explanation. When she finally came to terms with the reality of the monstrosity lurking in her home, she had begun to try to fill the space with light and life and laughter, inviting family and friends, steadfastly ignoring the oppressive aura of malice.

She took a sip of coffee. The entity possessively curled around the back of her chair simply smiled, mouth cracking open in a jagged display, and dragged a talon down her arm.

She jerked away violently, horrified. Hot coffee spilled across her lap as the gash began to ooze.

“Cass? It was a joke. No one meant to startle you that badly. You aren't burned right? No harm done.” A friend asked.

It ran claws through her hair in a mimicry of affection, and she felt her skin break open. Her hair grow damp and slick with blood.

“You seem sort of pale and tired. Maybe you should get more sleep?” Another frowned. 

She had told her priest once, in confidence. He agreed to come over, concerned. Cassandra ran late getting back to the house that day, and she found the door open and unlocked. Alarmed, she stepped inside and saw the priest having tea with the Thing in the House, soft radio music playing in the background.

“Ah, Cassandra! Join us and then I can take a look at the house after we share a cup of tea!” Father Michael beamed.

The monstrosity smiled and tapped the back of a kitchen chair in invitation.

Father Michael prayed over the house, but found nothing out of place. She asked for an exorcism anyway, and he performed one to simply ease her mind, pressing a vial of holy water into her hand as well as the number for a local therapist. She sprinkled the holy water across the entrances and windows of her room that very evening, praying anxiously. 

At almost 10 pm exactly, the monstrosity curled too-long fingers around her doorframe and grinned maliciously. Talons tapped a rhythmic hunting-song into the wood, mocking her. The clock on the wall ticked in time, keeping a beat.

As years passed, Cassandra tried any angle she could. Psychiatrists and therapists prescribed her anxiety medication and grounding techniques. Shamans tried exorcisms of their own, unsuccessfully. When her own family pulled her aside to suggest perhaps she needed to consider long term psychiatric care and used the term facilities, she stopped trying to get help entirely.

She cataloged the information she could despite that, and through quiet nights at friends houses and the peaceful calm of dogsitting for a coworker 3 towns over, she came to a startling realization. There was a limit. The uncanny misery and influence the creature exuded couldn't reach her when she was far enough away.

A little ways from the house and Cassandra would still feel an inexplicable draw. A tug on the knot of anxiety and the connection to the house , wound tense and tight. Come home. But far enough away, wrapped in blankets and watching the stars, 10 PM was a peaceful time. 

It took her months of careful planning and miniature escapades of odd jobs, but on a cool spring day in April, Cass finally turned the key in the lock of her brand new apartment.

She had found a place hours away and miles from the house she grew up in. It was small and unassuming, just the way she hoped it would be. 

Cassandra learned that she loved to grow plants, ivy especially. She played music and hung soft lights. She found a true friend in the form of a patient and level-headed roommate, and they decorated the living space until it was nothing but soft cushions and inviting blankets. 

The half-moon on the three year anniversary of her freedom was especially bright. Cassandra felt the lingering warmth from the mug clutched in her hand as the chill of the night wind arose to snatch it away. She inhaled deeply and tried to set her focus on the scent of the rosemary on her apartment balcony.

Her mind pulled her a different direction though. To an old, offset door and soft carpets. A tiled kitchen with a worn coffee-maker and soft sunlight filtering through the window. Home. 

Had she truly given up something as large as the very home she was raised in? For what?

When she touched upon those nostalgia-tinted memories, she found she was no longer even certain of herself, if she ever had been. Something squeezed around her heart.

Was any of it real?

Surely, if it had been reality, someone else would have noticed, and absolutely no one had. How could it be possible that of the hundreds of people she had met in her life, known, grown close to, visited with…she was the only one seeing true? Logic would suggest she might be less sane than the others.

The thought sent ice water down her spine. How could she ever trust her perception again? 

A shifting shadow caught her attention then, flickering in the light from the streetlamps and empty streets below. Her breath caught. An animal. The wind.

 She swore she had caught the glint of teeth in the dark, but between one blink and the next panicked gasp, they were gone. In the quiet between the rustling of the leaves shifting in each gust of wind, a familiar, foreboding awareness settled. Throat tight, she glanced at her phone for the time. 9:59 PM.