The weather had become mean. Chunks of ice and debris were being tossed at the window. Every so often a loud thud or crack would make me think the glass was going to shatter with the next direct hit. A bit of the crusted ice on the pane had been torn away, but the night still had its hold, and it was like looking out over a world full of unknown mysteries.
Narrowing my eyes, I peered out and then blinked, hardly able to see. A streak of lightning had broken through the sky, white as snow, but blinding in its power. The fork of electricity had hit a tree further down the hill, splitting the wood in two. Smoke rose from its burnt trunk.
Thunder rolled a second later. Stupidly, I looked down at my feet to see if the floor was steady or if the earth beneath me shook with its baritone.
Holding on to the windowpane for support, I was terrified to shut my eyes, terrified to see what IthoughtI had just seen burnt into my retinas, leaving me no escape from it.
Years ago, when Brando and I were first merging into a couple, we had gone to my father’s cabins in the woods. One night, not able to sleep, I stood at the window in the kitchen, looking out. At first, I had assumed the figure was a ghost, a possessed woman in a white nightgown who carried a torch for her long-lost love—metaphorically speaking. Turned out, it was actually a gas lamp, and the ghost had a heartbeat and a steady pulse. And a healthy libido, apparently. Violet had run off toward another cabin with Mitch.
This,thiswas not my best friend, and anythinghedid had to be inspired by the supernatural realm, I was sure of it.
When the lightning had touched down, it had lit the area by the smoking tree with a bright shock of white, and like a switch that had been turned on, I saw him—a man in a thick cloak looking up at me. In an instant, the switch had been flipped off and the world faded back to black.
Hugging my arms to myself, I trembled from the chill in my bones. Goosebumps rose along my skin and every hair stood. “S-shit, s-hit, s-hit,” my voice stuttered out, almost too low for me to hear. I was too frozen with shock to even cry out for help or move.
Finally, after some blood had begun to circulate again, I looked toward the bed, a safe fortress, Brando hidden deep in its recesses, behind the curtains.
“Ahhhhh!” I took off for it, and when I was close enough, I launched myself into the opening, not wanting my legs to even brush the underbelly of the bed.
Cold hands sliding out, coming to pull me under…
On landing, I bounced and, in a few frantic reach and claw movements, clung to him, hitting him so hard that he woke with a gruff, “Oof!”
I still felt like he, whoeverhewas, was behind me, a snatch away, those desperate eyes finding mine in the shocking white realm of the night. Dreams had come to me of my brother after his death, but they were just dreams. I had never seen him so whole in looks and soul but missingsomethingas this figure had been.
It was beyond frightening to think that he,the ghost, was in the midst of the storm, in the darkness, gazing up at the window, and the only reason I saw him was because he had been exposed. Some hand had accidentally flipped on the switch to another world.Whoops, I’ll turn that off now. Forget you saw anything!
Too late!
“Baby.” Brando patted my head.
“B—” The rest of his name stuck in my throat. My heart was still too wild to allow anything else to come through.
He sat up, taking me with him. His eyes were open, but I could tell by the look on his face that sleep still had him. He blinked a few times.
“What’s wrong?” he said, pushing me away some, searching, his eyes now a bit wild.
I’m losing my damn mind!I wanted to scream.The man—that man—that effing ghost! How do you even tell someone that you’ve just seen a ghost, and felt, rather than saw, his intent? He looked at me with want. Oh, Jesus. Perhaps this was a sign of the end!
“N-nothing,” I finally managed, lying through my teeth. I couldn’t tell him. How could I? If the ghost came as some sort of messenger of my death, I didn’t want to scare him.Why else would you be seeing ghosts?some irrational part of me screamed inside of my head. “T-the w-weather. It’s b-bad.”
Brando looked at the window, the occasional crack and pop going off with strong gusts of wind. A steady whirring made me think of ghost noises made around a campfire before scary stories were shared.
“Yeah, but you’re safe. You’re inside.”
This coming from a man who swayed with rigs out in the middle of the ocean during bad weather. A man who didn’t hesitate to jump into the ravaging clutches of the frigid Bering Sea when no one else would while ships went down into the bowels of the unknown.
He was so calm, so rational, soeffing lucid.
Whereas I was…
“All right,” he said, holding me tighter, though I was probably bruising him. “Nothing is going to hurt you, Ballerina Girl. I won’t allow it.”
Nodding like a scared kid, I held on to him even tighter. His confidence seemed to feed my own bravery. I was confident that he could handle anything, even if he faced something that wasn’t corporal enough to fight, and I relaxed some.
Female power be damned. There was nothing like having your own Beast in your bed when the Bogeyman appeared out of nowhere.
He groaned from the pressure. “Here,” he said, lowering us both because I had my claws out and attached. “We’ll lay on the pillows and get under the covers.”
