Chapter 3

NOAH

I took my shoes off and kept them on the porch. Mom's room door was wide open. The bed was empty. She wasn't there. Must've been to the bathroom. I took everything out of the bags and began preparing for breakfast.

All of the crockeries were kept just as mom used to set them. But with a thick layer of dust. I spent more than half an hour washing a few dishes. That girl still hadn't come out. As time passed, my suspicion grew stronger that something was wrong. 

I hit an egg against the edge of the bowl. It was a mess. Reminded me of the time when dad smacked me in the face with an egg. I was eight. Jenny and I were playing Tag. Right when dad threw an egg at a cockroach on the kitchen wall, I ran in. No sane man would do that. Dad was sane. But he was paranoid about insects that could fly. 

I washed my hands and went to check on that girl. The bathroom door wasn't locked. There was no one inside. 

"Hey?" 

She was probably gone. I could see that she was reluctant to stay. But the situation made her. Now she was gone. Leaving splatters of blood and a broken yellow vase. 

2 years later

Last week we got married, life seemed like a perfect featureless road leading to a cheerful ending.

Our yacht floated on the surface of lucid fluid gleaming with naïve hours of sunlight, shaped like a flawlessly smooth metal disc, exposing phoenix sand, off-white and trout grey colored stones over which small creatures with orange and black scales motioned their fins and tails to progress through the water. Light began to dwindle as we proceeded, at a modest speed, giving the water a light sapphire blue appearance. Puffs of air brushed past my skin, a faint earthy odor glided into my nose. 

Ella stood before me her back commanding a view of my face. 

“Imma go for a dive. You up?” I broke the silence.

She turned towards me, crouched, and ran her reedy fingers through the water waves. 

“No way.” She chuckled. “Not in this freezing lake.”

I stopped the boat, took off my shirt, and plunged into the lake. 

“You’re insane!” she said with a small laugh.

“No sane man can ever fall for you, love.”

“Oh, is that so?” 

There was my pretty wife. Smiling at me. She sat on the swim platform. I swam to the other side of the boat and pulled her into the water before she could resist. 

She took a deep breath, ran her fingers over her head, then wide opened her mouth with a hint of a smile. 

"Oh, you didn't." She giggled. "You're so dead!"

The water was pressurizing my head. A muffled sound of singing flew to my ears. It was a song. About the trees. Without any music. The bubbles played it. A vague figure appeared a few meters away from my sight, which was gradually enlarging and lightening. 7-year-old Jenny. Her skin was pale, lips parched. Eyes wide open exposing brilliant blue iris. And thin light brown fibers descended till her elbows. She held out her hand to me.

“Come on Noah, let’s go. We’re all here, mom wants to see you.”

Reflections of her voice engulfed me.

“Jenny...”

My chin trembled; my eyes wouldn’t allow tears to fall. She touched my cheeks with her frosty bony fingers. 

“You could’ve saved us, Noah! You knew. You knew it all along.”

I tried to touch her. She moved away. Then continued to move away from me. But it sounded like she was coming closer to me with every step. Her voice, word by word, got harsher. 

“Yet you let us leave. Now you have to come to us. Come to us Noah. Mommy wants to see you.”

“I...” 

“Why won't you come to us? Noah! Answer me!”

“Jenny, please...” 

My voice box stopped vibrating. 

Her fingers slid down to my neck clenching it. Her grip was too tight. I couldn’t breathe. Her eyes oozed out thick red liquid, skin withered away baring burnt flesh, lips parted releasing an extremely unpleasant odor that can be experienced from a rotten lifeless body. 

“I’ll rip your head off you toerag!”

“what's wrong honey?”

Ella was holding my face. She stared with concern in her eyes. My heart pounded violently in my chest. Lungs malfunctioned. Ears at a loss of hearing a bare sound. I pushed myself up into the yacht and laid there wheezing.

“Jenny … Jen …”

“Hey, hey breathe. Look at me.”

“She was—here.”

“Calm down. No one was here.”

“Jen … my sister …”

“Honey breathe first.”

“Jen … she needs me. I gotta go, I … I gotta go back, mom … wants to see me.”

She dragged me near the boat and helped me up. I lied down. And stared at the sky.

“Baby it’s alright. You’re fine. It was like a bad dream. Nothing was real.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” she reassured me. 

I placed my palms on the surface and got up. 

“We should go back.”

“No. I'm fine.”

She started the boat anyway and turned it towards the house. Ella knew about these hallucinations. I knew whatever I saw wasn’t real. But they always get the best of me. Ella had been forcing me to see a psychiatrist. She was worried about me. Her care is what drives me insane for her.  I love my wife. She is my everything. 

I didn’t want to see a psychiatrist. Whatever I experience, may have an awful impact. But I lowkey wanted to feel my sister around me. Be it a ghost or something unreal. I just know that I met Jenny.