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“Mind your business, Eden.” The humour in her voice made me press my lips thin as I tried not to laugh.
“Okay, okay. Keep your secrets, Gran.”
I sure as hell was going to.
25
EDEN
At this time of night, Gran hit me with a stern look that let me know we would talk about why I was really there in the morning before she went off to bed. I was too tired to tell her there was nothing to talk about. Instead, I walked through the guest room upstairs, running my hands over trinkets and memorabilia I didn’t often get to see before I decided the room felt too foreign.
Every time I went to Gran’s they led me to the guest room. It had a brand new bed, the mattress never slept on and the sheets were always clean. Still, I wanted my old room with the worn twin bed and the handmade quilt thrown at the bottom both Gran and Abuela kept insisting I was too big for. Just as often as I kept insisting I didn’t stay there enough for them to spend money upgrading the room.
I waited until the house fell quiet and crept downstairs.
After everything that was going on, I wanted familiarity. The safety of my childhood room and the pretense that nothing could get me in there. All the monsters were scared away and the blankets were the only shield I needed.
Silly? Maybe. But some things you just never outgrew.
Settled in bed, sleep came for me. The worry I packed away in my chest was pulled away so quickly, that there was nothing I could do to stop the exhaustion from flooding in and taking its place.
“Eden.” My name was a song carried on the wind.
I shot up in bed and looked out the window. I was almost sure I had closed it, but my sheer white curtains lifted with every blow of the wind. My hands brushed against my arms as a shiver moved through me. My teeth chattered despite the humidity in the air, the night blowing in an unseasonal chill.
The house was quiet. Each blow of wind made the curtains hover in the air. I held my breath as they lifted and slowly fell.
I should close the window. If Abuela and Gran came in and saw my window was open, they would both shit a brick. My bedroom was the only one on the ground floor, and they’d told me time and time again I was welcoming trouble leaving it open, even in the hotter months.
Times had changed and Gran had finally hit a point in her life where she let us put the AC on, so there was no reason for the window to be open.
I should close it.
Every inch of me was frozen as I watched the curtains lift once more and pause. They didn’t fall slowly as they had been doing but stayed lifted in the air, as though someone held the corners. All too quickly, the curtains pulled back, tight around a form unseen.
It was the shape of a person standing there, the top of the curtain pulled tightly around their head before it was slowly dragged off and a woman stepped out. Her orange eyes glowed.
My mouth dropped open, fear making my heart hammer like a drum against my ribs. It beat so hard it ached. My breath was shaky as my lips quivered and my eyes glassed over. A single eye poked out from under the thickness of black hair as she stared at me.
This was the moment. The one I had seen countless times in so many horror movies. This was the moment where the woman sat there like a complete idiot instead of doing something.
I was always so judgemental. I would scream at the TV in that obnoxious way that would piss people in the theatre off — which was why I always kept my ass at home for these movies — and ask her what the hell she was doing. I’d huff and puff about how much of a fool she was and how I would have had my ass up and out the door before anything could be said. Before whatever creepy thing in the room had a chance to do whatever creepy things planned to do.
I understood now.
Fear was ice through my veins that froze me in my bed. My mouth opened but frost glued my tongue to the inside, making it useless. I could taste it, sharp nothingness stuck in my throat.
“Eden,” she sang.
I said nothing, I couldn’t even if I wanted to. My eyes whipped to my bedroom door. Suddenly I was a child and there was nothing I wanted more than for my Abuela and Gran to come into the room and turn on the light. Their presence was all that was ever needed to rid me of my monsters.
Gran!
Abuela!
If only they could hear the way I screamed in my mind.
Her smile was the thing of nightmares as she slowly stalked toward me. Her steps were the jilted ticking of a clock, each one unnatural and stiff. Her hand lifted and black smoke billowed around it.
