Seth

The sun felt warm and comforting as it fell across her back and shoulders.

All around her the landscape took on a multitude of pure golden hues. Even the sky seemed to glow with an almost incandescent coral, and the stars, which should not have been out this time of day, gave off a faint pearlescent gleam. To her right, Seth walked along the dry riverbed, his head bent as he peered down with an intensity that would have looked comical if it wasn’t so serious. He was in full-on rock hound mode, and she could see that the pockets of his favorite jacket were already bulging with the day’s finds.

“What about this one, honey?” She held up a rock with a hole worn clean through the middle, evidence of the river’s ancient heritage. She peered through it as Seth paused with his fist closed around something, another treasure for his collection no doubt. He turned to face her and she felt her heart swell with grief. He looked perfect, robust, and so full of life and promise. His eyes seemed a deeper, more fathomless blue than she could remember, but the face and overall mannerisms were all his.

How strange and cruel the mind is, she thought as he slowly brought his fist up, his fingers still curled tightly around whatever specimen he had picked up. Memory can be a curse as well as a blessing.

His eyes met hers and he smiled, and then he opened his palm to show her what he had found. It was one of the strange rocks she had discovered this morning, the ones she had flung across the riverbed in a wash of rage and grief. The crystals were virtually afire as the sunlight of this surreal and alien landscape flashed in their depths, and for a moment the thing seemed alive.

“Seth?”

He didn’t answer her. Instead he slowly turned his face towards the opposite side of the bank, and with the other hand, he pointed.

“Honey?” Something about this was all wrong, and for a moment she wished that she would wake up. She spent her every waking moment longing for the tranquility and predictability of sleep, but this time she wanted the dream to end.

For a split second she thought she could see tears trailing down the length of his profile, and when she took a step towards him, he turned once more to face her. Sure enough, there were two unmistakable tracks running down his cheeks, and his eyes seemed truly fathomless. He extended the hand holding the strange and beautiful rock out towards her.

I need them to return—will you help me find them?

He had spoken to her without moving his lips, and she felt a cold dread run through her body. Whoever—or whatever—this was, it was not her son. If he had only not spoken, the illusion would have been complete, but now that they had….She found herself suddenly angry.

How dare you use my own memories against me!

She could feel the tumult rising up in her and it began to chase away the paralyzing grogginess that she was wrapped in. Awareness began to return to her as she allowed her anger to fuel her determination to wake up, and within moments the dream began to dissolve. The landscape and everything in it was now leached of its picture-perfect coloration, and the face and form of Seth began to fade into a dark monochrome gray.

His expression seemed almost tragic as he glanced down at the rock in his hand and then back up to her face.

Help me find them.

With a flick of his wrist he lobbed the rock towards her. She saw it coming towards her as if in slow motion, the various colors and hues of the crystals winking and flashing in the light of the dying sun as it rolled end over end in mid-flight.

Help me.

Something was touching her face.

She snapped instantly awake, her heart hammering almost painfully in her chest. The room was dark save for the light of the moon coming in the window, which illuminated the desk with its collection of specimens and the floor around it.

Her skin tingled where something had been touching her face, tracing it seemed, the tears that had been running down her cheeks.

She bolted upright, the comforter falling away from her with a faint swish of fabric. Her eyes strained to see in the darkness, and all around her the familiar objects in the room took on a macabre and sinister appearance.

Something was in here with her.

She knew it as surely as anything else in her life, and as she made a move to push the comforter off of her, something moved in the far corner of the room.

For an instant the shadows seemed to come alive as a small, dark shape detached itself from the surrounding darkness and stood up. It was a figure, no doubt of it, yet it seemed somehow wrong and not fully formed. The head and shoulders she could plainly make out, a child of about five years of age. They appeared to be bald, and if she squinted just right, she could almost make out the shape of the ears as they hugged the side of the skull. She couldn’t make out any features in the face, which was perhaps the most alarming thing of all. All over it was a uniform dark gray, and it appeared to be without clothing. Arms that were a bit too long explored the surface of the desk, and for an instant the moonlight reflected off the glass of a picture frame that was displayed there.

The picture was one of her favorites. In it, she knelt by her son as he sat in a kitchen chair in the front entrance way of the home. She had a pair of scissors in her hand and was in the process of trimming his hair, her first attempt at a home haircut. Gerald had been behind the camera at the time and he had captured the moment perfectly, her laughing at the almost comical way in which Seth sat stoically in the chair, his eyes squeezed shut as if bracing himself for something unpleasant. She had wanted to preserve this moment for posterity and had the photo mounted in a custom frame. In a small envelope and taped neatly to the back, was a lock of her son’s hair tied with a ribbon. Seth had loved the photograph as well and always reassured her that he hadn’t been afraid, he had just simply wanted to make her laugh.

Whenever she looked at it she felt herself smile no matter how painful or difficult her day was, but now, whatever this thing was, it had the frame in its grip.

Her mind immediately tried to protect itself by conjuring up all sorts of explanations: she was dreaming, it was the play of light and shadow, it was wishful thinking, anything to keep her from screaming and running from the room in a blind panic.

There was a faint scraping sound as the thing struggled to pick up the frame. She must have made some sound because its head jerked up, its entire demeanor radiating fear and alarm. The frame tumbled off the edge of the desk and fell to the floor with a crash.

Glass littered the floor, sparkling like diamonds, and in a clumsy tangle of arms and legs, the thing hurriedly scrambled back to avoid being hurt.

It seemed then that she found her voice and her courage. “Get out…get out, GET OUT!”

She was on her feet in seconds, but the comforter had somehow become snarled around her legs. With a sharp cry she fell flat on the floor, the breath nearly knocked out of her. From her skewed vantage point she saw the thing turn and actually take a step towards her, its long arm raised as if to offer assistance.

This is not happening...it’s impossible!

In a flash it had reversed course and was climbing up and over the ledge of the window. It vanished in an instant over the side, and she could clearly hear its soft yet clumsy footfalls as it scurried off into the night.

Her lungs burned as she forced air into them, and with a frustrated snarl she managed to disentangle the comforter from around her feet. Moving awkwardly and almost blindly in the near-dark room, she quickly skirted the glittering shards of glass and practically flung herself towards the window.

The moon illuminated enough of the lawn to show that something had made its way through the damp grass leading out towards the barn. The tracks were in a haphazard zigzag pattern, and from far off in the pasture, there came a small commotion from her cows, who had obviously been spooked.

A sharp pain arched through her chest and she placed her hands on either side of the sill to steady herself. Her palms came away wet, and as she glanced down, she noticed that small irregular smears of mud marred the wooden sash. Whatever it was, it had come from across the fields, made its way to the house, and had climbed up to Seth’s second story bedroom window. There were more smears and bits of grass on and around the window latch, which had been carefully bent back, but not broken.

“I’m not crazy.”

She hoped that by saying this out loud that she would feel better, but in actuality she felt more frightened than she had ever been in her life.

Seeing something that resembled a child clinging to the shadows in her dead son’s room, well…that could easily be dismissed as an overactive imagination or wishful thinking. She had been dreaming about Seth and those strange rocks that she had found that morning, so it made sense that maybe what she’d experienced had been a sort of waking dream.

How then to explain the broken picture frame lying on the floor, or for that matter, the fact that the window had been opened from the outside? The mud and grass clinging to her palms veritably screamed for acknowledgment and she hurriedly wiped them against her shirt.

“I’m not crazy.”

“I’m sad.”

“…I know that you are gone and can never return to me….”

She shook her head. No. I’m frightened and I don’t know what to do or who I can turn to for help.

“If you ever need anything—and I mean anything—just give me a call. Let’s not let a fence stand in the way of being neighborly.”

She could conceivably call Tom, but to what end? What could she possibly tell him?

“Tom, it’s me Mrs. Daniels—Jennifer. I’m seeing the ghost of my dead son skulking around the property. He was in the house last night and now I think he’s hiding out in the barn.”

He’ll think I’m crazy, or at the very least he’ll think I’m suffering some sort of episode.

No doubt he’d insist on her calling Hutch to give her a once over, but what good would that do? The mud on the sill was proof that there had been someone in the house. The glass in the frame didn’t break itself, and something had definitely been touching her face while she slept.

She glanced out the window again. The night was quiet once more and the cows had settled down finally. She could just make out the ghostly outline of the barn standing like a silent sentinel across the lawn. A spot darker than the façade stood out in the dim light, and she knew without a doubt that one of the doors was open.

“All right.” She let her breath out slowly. Whatever it was, it appeared to be as scared of her as she was of it. It hadn’t tried to hurt her—the fact that it almost reached out to help her when she’d fallen bore testament to that—and like all living things, it simply wanted to retreat to a place where it felt safe.

And where can I retreat to feel safe? She wondered as she set about sweeping the shards of broken glass into the wastebasket near the desk. Thankfully the photograph had been undamaged during the fall, but as she scooped up the frame and set it carefully on the desk, the envelope containing the lock of Seth’s hair was missing.

Frantic, she nearly tore the room apart in her search for it, and finally at her wit’s end she stood with her hands on the windowsill breathing hard.

There, just underneath the window on the soft, muddy ground, lay the envelope. The lock of Seth’s hair was on top, still neatly tied with the ribbon she had placed on it years before. A set of fresh tracks—no, footsteps—led away from the envelope out into the wet grass, and in the moonlight falling down through the treetops, she could see that they were child size and barefoot.