The Strangest Dream (part 8)

HELP HER! Autumn screamed, so Clyde rushed over, swatting the air, and Autumn threw herself on her baby girl and screamed out, "LEAVE HER ALONE!" Evelyn's leg dropped, and she started to cry uncontrollably. Clyde turned the light on looking around the room, but he didn't find anything, and Dunken and Marie stood in the doorway, holding back Charlie with a look of disbelief. Clyde then sat on the edge of the bed with his head cupped in his hands "I can't fight what I can't see!" he then turned with tears in his eyes and cradled Evelyn apologizing for not believing her before.

She said that a man was pulling her back into their house, and she could hear her mother screaming in the distance. The next day they all went home and proceeded to have a perfect day trying to put this all behind them by stacking cards and playing Old-maid with her mom. Once again, she asked if she could sleep in their bed, and once again, they said yes. This time she dreamt of nothing. She felt like nothing was better than something terrible.

After breakfast that day, Evelyn was doing her lessons with her mother when there was a knock at the door, Autumn got up to answer it trailed by her curious little girl.

It was a short old lady with a wide-brimmed hat with a lit cigarette in her mouth.

"My name is Kazia, are you the lady with the problem in your house?" Autumn told her yes and invited her in but then stopped her at the door. "We don't smoke here," so the old lady dropped the cigarette and crushed it into the doormat.

Evelyn thought the lady looked funny with a long scarf that was wrapped three times around her neck, and she was carrying a big canvas bag.

They sat in the living room, and Evelyn told her all that she had seen in the house in her dreams, Kezia couldn't help but to notice her staring at the ring on her finger and with a gravelly voice she told her "You know that this is a real cats eye that came out of a real black cat?" Evelyn then turned her gaze elsewhere and grimaced at the sheer thought of such a thing. "Let's get started," she said while she unpacked her canvas bag onto the coffee table. Evelyn covered her eyes and peaked between her fingers, not wanting to see what else that lady might have in that bag. A feather, a candle, three pendant necklaces with the image of Saint Michael on them, a dish, and a dried-up green stick she said was sage.

The old lady sat there with her palms up then she put her head back and exhaled,

her eyes rolled back in her head, showing only the whites of her eyes and she started to moan. This scared Evelyn so much that she tucked herself close almost behind her mother on the couch. Kezia then explained that she was connecting with her spirit guide. She took her stuff and started up the stairs to her parent's room, where Evelyn was slapped.

Kezia started speaking a language Evelyn had never heard before, she was waving the smoke around the room with the feather as Autumn walked behind her with the lit candle. Evelyn stayed close behind her mother, looking around in each room with anticipation that at any moment, something was going to jump out at them. With every room, she formed a cross on the doorway, and when she got to Evelyn's room and opened the closet, she said, "This is where you feel safe" then she clicked her tongue twice and moved on.

After she was finished, they sat at the table, "It is done. You have nothing to be afraid of."

"Is it gone?" Autumn asked, "It was never here," she replied.

She started to put her things back in her bag. "What you have here is a little girl's overactive imagination" Autumn grabbed the lady's items, putting them back on the table and looking so desperate she said, "NO, that's not true! We saw the marks. We saw her leg in the air, she was screaming!" Kezia pulled her bag,