“You believe this?”I pick up the journal by the corner.
“I’m not sure.All I know is that things are happening in this house that also happened over twenty years ago, and not just to your mother but to others.Maybe it’s time to look beyond the realms of the normal, beyond the realms of the living, because I can’t explain what the hell is going on here.”
Unable to process this, I drop the journal onto the bed.My logical brain is fighting it.I don’t believe in spirits.I don’t believe in ghosts.I don’t believe in the supernatural.But I also can’t explain what is happening in this house.I thought Fenrir was sleep-deprived.I thought I’d started sleepwalking—a perfectly natural reaction to upheaval, a perfectly reasonable trauma response.But my mother?
“You’ve had this journal for days,” I accuse him.“You say you care about me, yet you kept this from me.”
“It’sbecauseI care about you that I kept it from you.And not in the sense that I want to wrap you up in cotton wool, and that I don’t think you have a right to know.I am, after all, your bodyguard.My job is to keep you alive.And knowing what a tough job that’s been in the last six months, I thought it’d be best to vet the material before I gave it to you, but again, only to decide how best to tell you or present it to you.There could have been anything in there about your mother and father.”
“And there is,” I point out.
“But nothing about them and their relationship that you don’t already know.”
“No, just the fact that she was scared of him after he locked her up in a room and was probably going to section her.”I almost laugh.
“And that’s why I’ve sat here with you, remained by your side as you read every page, brought you drinks and food, reminded you that I’m here, that I will always be here for you no matter what.”
“Because it’s your job to keep me safe,” I echo his words.
“Because keeping you safe goes beyond the bullets and death threats.Your well-being and mental health matter to me, even if they don’t to you,” he says.“Look here.”
He leans over to the bedside table and picks up my current read.He flips to the front, finds what he’s looking for, then spreads the pages and turns the book to face me.
“Think of me reading the journal before you as a list of trigger warnings.”He taps at the page that lists the trigger warnings for my current read, which includes a whole host of stuff, some things I’ve never heard of.“I had no intention of keeping anything from you, of not letting you read the journal.I just needed to know what was in there before I gave it to you so I could prepare the trigger warnings.”
I take a second, letting this sink in.He’s being protective, that’s all.And yes, I’m annoyed that he read it before me, but I can’t argue with his intentions.If I’d have found it accidentally, then maybe I would have more to be cross about, but he just handed it to me.Besides, there’s a part of me that knows it’s stupid to fight with him.We’re stranded in this house together.We only have each other.Not to mention the things we’ve shared, the emotions that now bind us, and there’s a whole load of shit going down—most of which is inexplicable—so fighting with the only person who’s here to help me is probably a bad move.
“Okay.”I snatch my current read from his hand, worried my bookmark might fall out.
“Thank you.”
The words sound strange coming from him.I don’t think I’ve ever heard Fenrir say thank you for anything before—but that having been said, I’ve never had to forgive him.
“We need to move on to the more pressing matter of what the fuck we think this all means.”
He draws his hand down his face.“I don’t know.I don’t know what or who to believe.The only thing I do know is what I’ve seen, what I’ve felt.Whether it’s supernatural or not, something’s going on here.”
Even though my head is rattling—loose parts jangling because I don’t know how to put them back together again—what he’s saying does make sense.
“Okay.So this prompts the more important question: What the fuck are we going to do about it?”
He sits back on the sofa and lets out a long breath.He’ll have been thinking about this, surely.This is his job: to fight the bad guys, to keep me safe.But this is something else.The usual bad guys are blood and bone; this is mist and mirage, an invisible threat we know little about—and one I’m still sceptical of because my brain refuses to believe such things.
But the sensation of opening my eyes to find myself staring at the mattress—the feeling of weightlessness, and then being dropped from a height—still lingers.I can’t explain it, except to say I must have still been dreaming, even though I felt awake.And the other night, when Fenrir and I were upstairs and heard the noise in the kitchen, only to come down to find the drawers open and all the sharps laid out on the table—I have no logical explanation for that either, except perhaps some sick joke on Fenrir’s part, altering the security camera footage.But what would he gain from that?And why would he do it?To make me think I’m going insane?Or because he is?
“Any suggestions?”I ask as Fenrir chews on his lip.
He sits up, as if he’s going to say something profound.Instead, he just lets out an audible sigh before saying, “I’m not sure.”
I stare at him.He’s always known what to do, always has a plan, even when it involves sedating me, restraining me, or chasing me.So why doesn’t he have one now?
“Okay, the way I see it, if this shit’s real”—I slap my hand on the cover of my mother’s journal—“then we have no other choice but to leave.”
His eyes snap to mine.“We can’t.Not in this weather.”
“I get that we can’t drive off the mountain, but why can’t we leave on foot?”I shrug.
“Because there’s a blizzard outside, which means visibility will be next to nothing.We don’t have the right clothing for a snowstorm, and I’m not even sure how long it’d take us to reach the bottom of the mountain, by which point we’ll have probably died of hypothermia.So as much as I agree with you that we need to get out of this house, to do so in this weather would be signing our death warrants.We need to remain here where we have shelter, heat, and food.”
