Familiar Spirit

The police had been suspicious, but not at all unkind. Sarah had been taken to the hospital, where her arm was stitched up, and she was kept there overnight. For observation, they said. Sarah reflected that it was better than a jail cell, but in fact she liked it. It was nice to be taken care of, to be obliged to do nothing but sleep. And while she slept, and ate the bland, pleasant food, and watched television shows she would never have looked at under other circumstances, the police were checking out her story. Sarah had kept close to the truth in what she told the police, only leaving out her own dealings with Jade, implying that Jade was an imaginary obsession of Valerie’s. Valerie’s lover testified that Valerie had attempted suicide at least once before—not in his presence, but he had seen the scar on her wrist—and that she believed herself to be in communication with some sort of demon or devil who told her what to do.

It wasn’t long before the verdict was in: Valerie had committed suicide while the balance of her mind was disturbed, possibly under the influence of drugs, and Sarah was an innocent bystander lucky to have escaped with her own life.

Valerie is dead, and so is Jade, Sarah told herself now. Jade was dead, he had to be dead. But still she felt the niggling fear that Jade had somehow survived, that he had been able to abandon Valerie’s dying body for some other, nearby, mortal shell—a bird on the roof, a cockroach in the walls.

Sarah looked around at the weedy lawn, at the dead brown leaves and bare branches against the grey sky, and wondered if somewhere a pair of eyes, yellow as fire, watched her. She let herself in by the back door.

The house was quiet. It was an old, empty house. Sarah paused and listened and all that she heard were noises from outside: a few, trilling bird cries, and the rushing sound of traffic, and the wind in the trees.

In the living room the broken wall still gaped, revealing the fireplace within, but the rubble had been swept away, cleaned up along with the blood. Sarah wondered if she had the police to thank for that.

She wondered where Jade had gone.

Had he evaporated, simply vanished like a drop of water on a hot stove, erased by the hammer blows and the final slice of the knife? Was there a hell somewhere that claimed his spirit?

Accept it, she told herself. Believe it. Jade is gone.

But she had no evidence. She wanted something more certain than a pile of green sand and the memory of Valerie’s smile.

Sarah trailed around the house feeling at a loss, already bored. There was nothing for her here. The house was too big and empty. She had nothing to do here. No more demons to fight, no more mysteries to solve. The thought made her oddly sad. And then she knew she would not stay. Someone else could live here; someone who would be free of her memories and nightmares. She would see about that apartment the first thing in the morning. In a different place she would still be alone, but there would be other distractions, and fewer memories. It would be nice to live so close to Beverly without feeling she was intruding, and good to live on a shuttle bus route, to escape the problems of finding parking on campus every day.

Having made her decision, Sarah was suddenly restless, eager to get on with her life. Already her life in this house was fading into the past. But she would spend the night here—having made such a big deal about her ability to do so to Pete, she could hardly go back to their apartment now. She would need some things for breakfast—a trip to the store was an easy, immediate answer to her restlessness.

As she pushed her cart up and down the aisles of the Safeway, Sarah fell into a daydream about the apartment she would rent. She imagined it as being much like the Marchants’, only smaller. Her elderly, mismatched furniture would make it look very different. She thought of the advantages of central heating and air conditioning.

She turned down the next aisle and there they were. Brian and his Melanie.

It was too late to back up. They had already seen her, and she would not be the one who retreated. She had nothing to be ashamed of; it was Brian who should blush and feel uncomfortable. She felt a cold, steely anger towards him. He had not called once in the past week, although he must have known. For all his professions of friendship he was a coward. He had not had the courage to call her at a time when all her friends were offering their sympathy and help. Her hurt had turned to anger, and that made it easier to face him now.

“Hi,” she said when she drew near.

To her surprise Brian looked neither guilty nor embarrassed. Instead, his face lightened when she spoke, and a look of pleased relief spread across it with his smile. “Sarah! Good to see you! Of course, you must shop here now—I’d forgotten we were in your neighborhood. We came here because Melanie’s got a card on file and we needed to cash a check. She used to live in an apartment just off Medical Parkway.”