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A tiny electric shock zapped my hand, and I dropped the recorder. I shook my hand to chase the prickling sensation away, and bent over to retrieve Nick’s little toy.
Then the television sparked too, over on my left. It gave a half-hearted spit of electricity, sending a bright line across the center of the screen. Then the screen went dark again, except for the square reflection of the big open window.
I saw a pattern there, on the screen. It was illuminated by the slanting sun.
I left the recorder where I’d dropped it and approached the TV. I knelt before it and angled my head to best see the dusty residue in full relief.
“Now we’re talking,” I breathed. “You are here, aren’t you? You can come out if you want. I’m not afraid of you. I’ll listen if you’ve got something you’d like to say. I’m good at passing messages around. ”
Pressed into the dust on the screen was a flattened imprint. “Is this you?” I asked, sneaking my fingertip up along the gray glass. “Is this your face? Did you put this here?”
Very clearly I saw it, and the closer I looked the more details became apparent. A cheek was pushed into the set, with an open mouth, and a closed eye. Along the edges of the eye I spied faint feathering, where lashes had brushed themselves against the dirty monitor.
The face was hard to read, since I could see only the half impression. It might have been angry, or sad. Or frightened.
A quick tickle of movement caught my eye. Something flickered through the window’s reflection, but it moved too fast to watch, to register what it was. It might have been an arm, or a sleeve. Something that waves, or directs, or hits.
But when I looked away from the screen there was nothing there in the gold patch of light beside the bed.
No matter how hard I squinted I couldn’t make anything out of it, not any proper shape or message. Only . . . if I used my imagination, I might have said that there was a place in the beam where the dust didn’t swirl or float. There may have been a blank spot, where the air was clear. If I thought about it. If I was looking for something to see.
“You’re going to have to do better than that,” I told the mostly unseen presence. “You’ll have to be more direct. I want you to know, I’m not here to cast you out or anything. I’m not here on God’s behalf, or for anyone who’d try and make you leave. You can stay, go, or wreak havoc. I don’t care. I just want to know why. Maybe I can help you. ”
Over on my right, I thought I saw it again—that half-seen blip of motion, relegated to the farthest corner of my eye.
It was a mistake.
I stood up straight, having been crouched beside the TV up until that moment. “What was a mistake? Hey, I heard that. Come on, come out. Let’s talk. ”
She didn’t answer right away, and didn’t come forward.
“I’m Eden,” I told her. “Who are you? Is there something you want? Something I can help you with? I’m here to listen, if you want to talk. ”
It was a mistake.
“What was a mistake? What happened?”
A loud popping noise startled me. It took me a moment to figure out where it was coming from—the curtains. Up at the top of the rod, one of the circular wooden rings broke and the end of the curtain sagged. Then another did the same. And one more, right next to it. The curtain began to fall.
“Do you want the curtains open? I can open them for you. Do you want more light? Is that it?”
Let it burn.
“Let what burn?”
The Klan will burn it. All of it.
The curtain was nearly on the floor, now hanging from just two small rings. These also broke and dropped, and the window was exposed. “All of what?”
All of us.
“Did—did you burn? I know there were fires here. ” There were at least two—one when the first hotel burned down a hundred years ago, and another when the new building nearly went up in smoke sometime more recently. “Did you die in a fire here?”
It would almost be too easy.
No.
“Okay. Then please, tell me your name. Tell me who you are. ”
