Chapter 02
Kate drove through the wide-open iron gate into the long, circular drive of what looked like an old-fashioned villa. The sun’s rays danced on grass with traces of dew, making the grounds look like a sanctuary. And that was exactly what it was: a sanctuary for troubled souls with deep pockets. Or not so deep, in their case, which was the main reason for her father's frequent absences.
She pulled into the parking lot on the left side of the villa. She took a few deep breaths before she climbed out of the car, picked up a small bag from the backseat, and went toward the wide stone stairs that led to the entrance. She could see a few familiar faces and nodded to those who glanced her way as they strolled around.
She walked up the stairs and into the villa. “I’m here for Mrs. Marin,” she said to the woman sitting behind the window with ‘Reception’ printed in white letters on the glass.
She didn't even have to glance into the common room to the right, where people sat on the brown-leather sofas or in armchairs, watching TV, reading, or just staring into space. Her mother never set foot inside that room. Actually, her mother rarely even stepped out of her own room.
Using the stairs facing the entrance door, she went up to the second floor and crossed a light green hallway. She walked through the third door on the right into a medium-sized room with a single bed, a wardrobe, chest of drawers, and an armchair. The yellow fabric of the bedding and armchair emphasized the dark wood of the furniture.
Kate stopped before the foot of the bed, her eyes sliding over the pictures of the ruins and churches that covered every inch of the wall behind the bed. Rome. Her mother's dream city, the place she had always wanted to visit, but had never gotten a chance to.
She sighed, put the bag on the cabinet beside a small potted bamboo, then moved to the armchair. On it sat a woman with long, dark curls that spilled over her thin shoulders.
Kate put her hand on the edge of the armchair and gazed through the bare window at the modest park that stretched behind the villa.
“They had a sewing class last week,” the woman said. “I thought of joining them, of making a dress for you like I used to do...”
“Did you?” Kate asked, despite her certainty that her mother hadn’t gone. She was too weak and fragile to take more than a few steps, and she refused to use a wheelchair. And how could they have a sewing class? Weren’t the staff afraid that some patients might harm themselves with scissors? They probably had a supervisor to prevent that. Or did they only allow the docile ones to participate? She shook her head. That was of no concern to her.
“...I remembered how things changed.”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes I forget... I mix things up.”
It was all those pills she ate, Kate thought.
The woman grabbed Kate's hand. “But I can never forget him.”
“Could we not talk about that, please?”
“All in white... at first I thought he was an angel, but he was the devil.”
“Mum, please.”
“He threatened me. He said he was going to hurt you, to get inside your head... It was his fault! It was his fault! I can't...”
Kate felt the urge to press her hand against her mother's mouth, to drown the voice that became higher and higher with each word that tumbled from her lips. But that would have only worsened her mother's state. “Mum, please, just stop.”
“He said --”
“Stop it.” Kate cut her mother short. She had heard the story countless times and knew that if she allowed her mother to continue, she would become agitated or possibly violent. A few times she had even harmed herself. She had to turn her mother’s attention elsewhere. Be gentle and firm when dealing with her, the doctor had said. “Wouldn't you rather hear how I am? If there's something new in my life? If I’ve met somebody?” She wanted to tell her mother about Mandy and Tyler. Her mother had always liked Tyler. That is, before she ended up in here.
“‘No friends,’ we said, didn't we?”
Kate swallowed before she spoke. “Yes.” She had promised her mother that, believing that true friends didn't actually exist and that a true friend was a figment of imagination, like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. But people did stand by her side when she needed somebody -- Nan and Tyler. When she thought she wouldn't be able to pick herself up and continue, their silent presence gave her strength to go on.
“Friends will hurt you when they learn who you are.” The grip of her mother's fingers tightened.
But who was she? Her mother was never able to explain this to Kate. Did she even know? “Mum.” She knelt beside the chair. “What are we?” Mediums?
“Cursed.” Her mother's gaze turned toward the window, toward the cloudless blue sky.
The last time it was freaks, Kate remembered, and before that, lunatics... and on that day when she could see her mother's insanity in her blank and dull gaze and feel it in the fingers squeezing around her neck, it was abomination. They were similar in appearance and in their burden of seeing ghosts, except Kate doubted that she would have tried to murder her child out of love and fear that the false angel -- as her mother named him, the voice in her head -- would be able to harm her.
Her mother's fingers entangled with Kate's, their hold painful as she brought both of Kate's hands against her chest. “I love you, you know that.”
“Yes, I know that.” Kate gently tugged her hands out of his mother's tight grip. She heard her mother's words of love frequently, but deep down she doubted them. She didn't want to, but she did, and with her father being so rarely at home, it also made her feel lonely. It was a good thing she had her neighbours, and now Mandy, and despite it being against her mother's wishes, she was not ready to renounce them; not yet anyway. Maybe later, when she couldn’t keep ghosts at bay, when even garlic and pentagrams didn’t help anymore. But she wouldn’t think about that, she refused to. “I brought you something.” She stood up and put the bag she had brought onto her mother's lap. “You should be more sparing with the salt or they will complain to father again.”
#
Monday was a new day, but the feeling of distortion after her Saturday visit to the institute still lingered inside Kate, the same feeling she had to deal with twice a month. The memories of what had happened were still too vivid in her mind, and despite the love her mother tried to express at every visit, on those nights, Kate still had nightmares. She had thought that time and the therapy she had participated in with her mother would stop those memories from surfacing as bad dreams, but they didn't. They actually made the nightmares more frequent.
A thin layer of sweat coated her temples and she wiped them with the back of her hand. Sometimes she thought about not visiting that place anymore. About not hoping that her mother would get better, because she wouldn’t. She relied too much on drugs and pills, and she had refused to leave her room from the moment she had drawn her first pentagram with lemon juice on the yellow wall.
Kate closed her eyes for a moment. She could remember a time before that night, when life was easy, simple and shallow, when she had planned to be a cheerleader and her worst worry was what to wear to school the next day. It felt so unreal now, like it was somebody else’s life, not hers. She wanted it back.
She could see them even back then, but those cases were rare, they were less pushy and she could easily ignore them. Not like now, when she had to seek not only the safety of her home, but that of her wardrobe as well.
“Hi,” a male voice greeted her.
She rubbed her temples, not needing to lift her head to know who the owner of the voice was. Ethan. “Could you just leave me alone, please?”
“What's wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Has something happened? Is somebody bullying you?”
Kate smiled; she couldn't help herself. That was the same question she got from Tyler every time he caught her in one of her low moods.
“Is that guy bothering you again?”
“Oh, the...” She didn't even remember that bully’s name anymore. “He's harmless.” Most of the time, anyway. The stings from her former girlfriends hurt more, but with time she had gotten used to those, surprisingly. Or maybe because of other more pressing problems they didn't burn as deeply as they would otherwise.
“Words of malice can cut deeper than any knife.”
“How poetic.”
“But it's true.”
“Yes.” Kate looked around the yard at the students scattered on the grass, eating sandwiches or lunches brought from home. She could remember the first time the people who were supposed to be her friends had called her names -- behind her back at first, then openly, until Tyler found out about it and put a stop to it. She had just suffered through an ordeal and instead of offering her their sympathy, they made fun of her pain. It hurt, and for the first few months she had curled in bed every night and sobbed into the pillow with Lifehouse's Somewhere In Between on repeat.
He rummaged through the backpack that hung over his shoulder, pulled out a sweet roll, and tossed it into her lap. “Here.”
“Why are you giving me this?” She stared at the pastry.
“Because. Now, tell me what’s wrong.”
“Huh?” Kate's head snapped up, and for a precious second their eyes met before she quickly averted her gaze.
“What's the reason you look so down?”
Like she would have told him: a stranger. A stranger who apparently claimed that he knew who she was. She lifted her gaze again, careful not to make any eye contact with him, her fingers curling around the roll, crumbling its wrapper. “Who am I?”
Ethan squatted before her, his hands resting on his knees and his eyes searching her face. “You really don't know?”
She didn't trust him, and she refused to tell him about being able to see them, but... “You know... about them?”
“Them?” He raised his brows.
“The colours.” If he could see them, he should be aware of what she meant by that.
He nodded.
“You see them, too?”
“Yes. They’re not dangerous, you know.”
With the way they always hovered around her, flying through her, and their voices begging and demanding things from her, they sure looked threatening to her.
“They are just spirits with regrets.”
Were they? “What do they want from me?”
“They can't move on without your help.”
“And what am I supposed to do?” Her fingers started to play with the edge of the wrapper. “Find people for them and speak for them like in that psychic show?”
“No, just help them pass over.”
“And how should I do that?”
“With a scythe, of course.”
“You have to be kidding me.”
His mouth stretched in a smile that lit his face, making him look unearthly. “I don't know, maybe. A scythe is the official Soul Reaper's tool of the trade, but you might produce something else.”
Soul Reaper? She had gotten used to people making fun of her, but he was taking it too far. She glared at him. “I don't like your sense of humour.” She picked up the bag that lay beside her and shoved the roll inside. She only had a sight that enabled her to see ghosts or whatever those colourful blurs were, that was all.
“But you are the Soul Reaper, I'm not kidding.”
She hung the bag across her chest. “And now you’re going to tell me you’re one, too.”
“If I was I wouldn't need you, would I?” He rolled his eyes.
Why would he need the Soul Reaper? She wanted to rise, but his hand on her arm stopped her. “Don't.”
She tried to shake him off, fear crawling up her spine. They were going to appear again, just like they did every time he touched her. And even if Ethan said they weren't dangerous, she still wasn't prepared to face them.
“I need skin contact,” he said, like he could tell what kind of thoughts and fears tumbled in her head.
“Skin contact? What for? --It was you!” She knew it! And he did it intentionally! She shifted as far away from him as she could while he still held her arm. “What are you?”
“The Awakener.”
“The Awakener,” she repeated. “What’s that supposed to be?”
He released her and lifted his hand, which was suddenly covered with metal plates that embraced his palm and fingers like armour. A flat crimson red stone was set in the middle of the palm and pointed claws stretched over his nails. “That's why I could see who you are as soon as I laid my eyes on you.”
She blinked once, twice, but the glove was still there before her face, with the sun’s reflection on the metal blinding her. This was getting surreal. Too surreal for her. She did the only thing she could: she fled.