Chapter 20 - Greetings From The Shadow Walker

James paced back and forth in the master bedroom until his wife joined him from the kitchen.

She didn’t need to ask what was bothering him. There had been only one thing weighing heavily on both of their souls over the last two weeks.  The events of this morning were just another notch to add to their already over-burdened minds.

Anna-Marie was only mildly surprised that James was struggling with Mikayla too. As far as she was concerned, that girl was impossible.  She was trouble when she got here, and she’d be nothing but trouble until the say she left.

Clearly, Mikayla had no intentions of becoming a member of their family, and for that Anna-Marie was glad. The teenager wasn’t right in the head. Who just slices their arm open with a knife anyway? Ann didn’t want her children growing up near such a character. It was too reckless, too unstable, too dangerous.

Nevertheless, seeing James this way made her uneasy.  James was the most down-to-earth person she knew, and if he couldn’t get through to Mikayla, then no one could.

“We should just give up,” Anna-Marie said as she went to the dresser. 

Picking up a bottle of hand lotion and squeezing a small amount out into her hands, she rubbed it in as her mind still whirled with thoughts about the teen.

“I don’t understand her,” James murmured under his breath.

“What is there to understand?” Ann asked as she massaged the remaining lotion into her skin.  “She doesn’t want to be here.  We can’t force her to stay against her will.”

“I know,” he said, stopping in his tracks and rubbing the back of his neck.  “I just… I don’t get it.  She’s just so… off… about everything.”

“Got that right,” Anna-Marie said under her breath.

“I mean, everyone wants to be a part of a family, right?  Why wouldn’t you?  Life is hard enough as it is.  How can she even think about managing it all on her own?”

Anna-Marie regarded him cautiously.  “You don’t still want her to stay here with us, do you?”

He thought about Mikayla’s tears, her stricken face before she would quickly contort her expression to one of controlled apathy or disgust.  She could hide behind a mask, but her eyes always told a different story.

“James!  She slashed her freaking arm!  She could kill us in our sleep!  You can’t possibly be serious in thinking about having her stay with us!”

Ann sounded almost hysterical when he didn’t immediately respond.  She was worried, he got that, but he knew there was something much deeper about Mikayla under the surface.  The strange behavior, the hesitation, her goosebump-inducing touch…

The black blood.  The quick healing…

“James, please, we can’t…” She was begging.  He could see the fear in her eyes, and his heart twisted painfully in his chest.

He squeezed the bridge of his nose.  Talking to Mikayla wasn’t getting anywhere.  Punishing her wouldn’t solve anything.  He didn’t know what to do.  Things were starting to really spin out of control and she had barely been with them for two weeks.  What more could she do to upset the balance of their home?

Lots.  She could break things, set a fire, take off into the night and cause trouble…  God only knows.

Pulling off his T-shirt, he heaved a sigh as he tossed it into the laundry hamper.

If she didn’t calm down, what should they do?

Could he kick out a troubled teen for the sake of his family?

X

A sound woke Mikayla with a start.  She pulled herself up and looked around in the darkness.  The clock on her nightstand revealed it to be quarter to three in the morning. She groaned and tossed the blanket off.  She pulled a sweater on over her as a tugging sensation pulled at her mind. 

Sucking in air through her teeth, she cautiously tiptoed to the window.  The curtains were drawn, as usual, and she hesitated with the fabric between her fingertips. A faint tingle in her mind made her fingers twitch.

She gritted her teeth.  “I know you’re out there,” she whispered under her breath to the window.  “And I know what you want.”

‘Good.’

Her heart jumped in her throat as she stepped back.  She most definitely heard a voice, in her mind, rather than in the room around her.  She was sure of it.  She didn’t recognize it as being one of her own thoughts because the pitch was different.  It was female for sure, more melodious, seductive, and haunting.

She shivered involuntarily. 

“The answer is no,” Mikayla growled, twisting the polyester between her fingers again.

Mikayla couldn’t see the woman’s face outside her window, but she didn’t need to.  She could almost envision her in the shadows of her mind.  She was shrouded in darkness, but the moon that shone down on the land outside illuminated the curve of a smirk that played on the lower portion of her slightly tilted up face.  The lips were plump and naturally deep red.  The upper half of her face was in shadows, except for the raccoon-like glow from her red eyes.

‘How about a formal introduction, in exchange for something you want?’

Mikayla scowled.  “I want nothing from you.”

‘You’ve made that very clear for years. But I also know that you want to know the code for the house’s security system.’

Her breath hitched in her throat.  How could that demon-woman know that?  That was impossible!

Unless she could read minds.  Which would confirm Mikayla suspicions regarding the house being under surveillance every night.

But of course she could read minds—she was projecting her own voice into Mikayla’s head after all.  She was probably picking away at the memories she had stored in there as well.

“Go away before I call for a priest,” Mikayla said.

She tried to stay calm and keep her thoughts to a minimum, but her mind was already racing as to what to do.  How could she possibly hide her thought from this intruder?

A sound, like laughter, rumbled in her mind, light and amused in tone.

‘You know the only thing guys like that can do is burn us a little.  You’re a funny one.  I imagined you to be all serious and rough around the edges—like in the field the other day.’

Mikayla felt her heart sink in her chest.  So it was her in the tree…

The sound of laughter reverberated in her mind again.

‘Oh you poor child. You have so much to learn.  If only you step out of that house and join your brothers and sisters, you can learn everything.’

Mikayla could feel her teeth grinding together.  She stepped away from the window, even though every muscle in her body resisted the movement, wanting instead to open the curtains and meet the woman that had been searching for her for years—maybe her entire life.

She hated the way her body responded to the woman’s presence.  She didn’t want anything to do with the woman and how they were somehow alike, and yet everything about the stranger pulled Mikayla in, like a magnet.  She fell to her hands and knees, the position being one of surrender, but enabling her more support and control over her shaking limbs against the invisible pull outside.

“Go away.”

‘If that is your wish, then I shall leave without the information you desire.’

Fuck.

Mikayla knew that the woman wouldn’t actually leave.  She was just toying with her.  Of course Mikayla wanted to know the code, but dealing with this woman would surely bring nothing but trouble.  Sneaking out was the only way she could return home to get the answers she needed.  She couldn’t trust this woman with the truth—even if she did know more than Mikayla did.

She hated being helpless.

“If I tell you my name… will you give me the code and leave without harming this house or the people inside?”

‘Gladly.’

Mikayla took a deep breath as she brushed her fingers through her hair anxiously.  She knew this person was just screwing around with her, trying to form an acquaintanceship in hopes that could lead to something much more down the road.

Don't trust a word she says, she told herself.

‘Yes, we wouldn’t want to know the truth now, would we?’

Mikayla gritted her teeth.  “Get out of my head.”

‘Push me out,’ came her reply.  ‘I know you can.’

Jaw taunt, Mikayla leaned back on her knees and tried to push the voice from her mind.  The only problem was that she had no idea how to.  How do you push a voice out of your head?

Cackling erupted within the vortex, drowning out Mikayla’s own thoughts by the strength and volume of the presence.  She clutched her head as the tissues began to sting with the vibrations.  She tried to push it out, to the back of her mind, like she so often did when her mother's voice came rattling to the forefront.  The volume decreased, but she could still hear it, cackling away in the distance.

Realizing that she had manifested that change, the laughing stopped as Mikayla’s eyes grew wide.

‘Better,’ the voice said, ‘But I'm still here.’

The volume had returned to normal, as Mikayla had released her own force at the realization that she had pushed the voice back.  She had successfully pushed the presence away from the forefront of her mind, but that presence was still there.  How to kick her out completely was another matter in itself.

‘Join us, Mikayla, and I’ll teach you everything you need to know to reach your full potential.’

Tensing up at her name caused another smirk on the woman’s lips to cross her mind.  How did she know her name?

‘So naïve.  We know everything about you, Mikay.  We know who you are, and what you are—something you don’t even know.  We can help you. We can—’

Silence.

Mikayla didn’t know which was more startling, the fact that the woman stopped talking, or the fact that she could no longer feel her presence in her mind.

She didn’t know what to do.  It was too abrupt.  She wanted to go to the window and look out, but what would happen if she did?  She had never attempted to gaze outside at night since that time when she was seven with amá sání.  She didn’t have a hatáli to call if something went wrong.

But with questions hanging in the air as to what caused the woman to abruptly go silent, when Mikayla had no idea how to push her out herself, she had to go look. She had to know.

On silent feet, she crept to the window, and gingerly pulled the curtains open a sliver.

There was nothing but darkness that she could see, so she pulled it open further an inch.

The moonlight shone down on the suburban homes, but the streets were empty and quiet for as far as she could see.  Opening the curtains further, she looked all around the house, but could see no one there.  Even in the shadows, there was nothing, no movement, not even the rustle of a blade of grass.  Everything was very still.

It would seem that her visitor was gone.

Was she even there? Mikayla’s eyes widened in alarm at the thought.

Instincts told her to go downstairs and check that every door and window were still locked up tight.

She padded silently to her door and peered out into the dark hallway.  She listened to the snoring inside the master bedroom and the light breathing noises of deep sleep in the kids’ room.  Two sets of airways in each room confirmed that everyone was still safe and sound in their beds.

She went out into the hallway and carefully down the stairs, trying not to make a sound.

Once in the kitchen, she found that all of the windows were shut tight.  The door to the garage was closed and locked.  In the living room, all of the windows were shut and the front door was locked, but there was something on the floor.  A small, folded piece of paper sat at the base of the door.

Something told her to pick it up.  Unfolding it, she saw four numbers scratched into it in black ink.

The code for the security system.

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Author's Note:  There, we met our first Shadow Walker (as the hatáli calls them).  We'll see her again. ;) Thanks for reading!