Short Story: Reflection

When I started this blog, I decided I’d like to pepper in some of my older, dusty short stories and poetry amongst the tarot talk. So, I’m posting Reflection here for the first time. Hope you enjoy this paranormal horror short from the digital files of my early twenties!

Reflection by Allison Gunn

I’ve always believed in something bigger than myself; that we’re all connected somehow; that there’s something watching us— maybe guiding us. When I was younger, I went with my parents to church every Sunday, and I called this hint of something out there “God,” but now that I’m older...well, I’ve come face to face with that something. It’s not a god, though it does indeed watch us and draws us nearer with every breath.

About a year and a half ago, my husband, Mark, got it into his head that we needed a house. It’s the American dream, right? You get married. You get a house. Then you get the kids to go in the house - possibly buy a minivan to top it off. You get the picture. 

I wasn’t so sure I wanted to be in that particular picture, but I couldn’t see myself being anywhere else. Maybe it was a lack of imagination or drive, but...I just felt as though my purpose was right around the bend. I’d figure it out eventually, and in the meantime, I had Mark steering the ship for the two of us which didn’t seem like such a bad thing given he was the one making six figures.

But everything that I thought I knew about myself changed the moment we rolled up the gravel driveway to a stunning white Victorian farmhouse just outside of Marlette, Michigan. It stood there like a rock jutting out of the cornfields with nothing else around it at all. I imagined that once upon a time, there must have been a barn and fences, trucks and maybe a silo— something. It had to have been a part of something other than the cornfields.

Time must’ve gobbled up the other farm trappings with wind and rain, but there our house was, lingering there all on its own. It was ours from the moment its foundation had been laid so many years ago. It was as if I’d known this to be true my entire life.

Mark didn’t seem to feel the same way, though.

“This house is overpriced, run down, and in the middle of nowhere,”  he grumbled with his jaw set. 

His hands were placed firmly on his hips, but I was sure I could convince him otherwise if I really needed to.  The little squeak of a man claiming to be a realtor nervously shifted in the corner of the kitchen and little beads of sweat glittered at the top of his forehead where his pale skin met his dark hairline. He didn’t have anything to push Mark in the right direction and close the deal— that much was clear.

“I know it’s a fixer-upper, but just think about what we could do with it, honey.  It’s rustic.  It is more than what we wanted to pay, but it is still more space than we ever imagined we’d have,”  the words rolled off my tongue as I repeated every key phrase and buzzword my husband had recited in our furious quest for a new home.  “And you were the one who said you wanted to be further out from the city—”

“I didn’t mean this far out!” he snapped.

“We need to put down roots, remember?” I smiled as I caught his eye, knowing he could hear himself in my words.

I expertly mixed sweetness and reason in my voice, but I didn’t really feel any of those emotions at all in the moment.  Rather, I felt compelled...I felt drawn.  There was something there...something that called my name and wrapped its fingers around my soul, tugging me further into the depths of that house.  

Mark shifted uncomfortably and took in a deep breath, glancing over his shoulder at the quivering realtor who fumbled with papers from his briefcase.  “Doesn’t this place feel a little...I don’t know, creepy? It just seems like something out of a gothic novel to me.”

“You just talk it over with him. Just think about it. I’m going to take another look around if you don’t mind, honey.” I kissed him on the cheek, palm lingering on the side of his face with an earnestness that promised warm days in the future...if only he’d let me lead the way just this once.

I left the two of them there in the cream colored kitchen with the glistening tile, but cracking cabinets. The hallway twisted and turned towards the front door. In the darkness, there was a great expanse. It pulsed and breathed in and out. I knew it was in here somewhere. All around me maybe.

It was as if I entered the most vivid dream as a feeling of wonder and weightlessness washed over me. My focus remained on the one undeniable urge to find and embrace whatever it was that silently cried out my name and drew me ever closer.

As I stepped out onto the wooden porch and the safe darkness of a placid summer night, my body felt electric with anticipation.  I wandered around the porch and down into the overgrown yard.  This place had long gone unattended, left to its own devices.  The weeds were up to my thighs, but I didn’t mind one bit.  Instead, I continued to amble through the yard, brushing the wild flowers and reeds softly with my fingertips.  

I was being pulled - not dragged or forced, but drawn ever more powerfully as I rounded the corner of the house.  There was little room between the unkempt bushes and the wooden planks of the house’s exterior, but I trailed along in between regardless.  Brambles snagged at my dress, scraping long trails of flesh away from the tender skin beneath.  My flip flop straps tangled with weeds and twigs until they simply popped and fell away, leaving me completely barefoot as I steadily moved forward.  A twisted and discarded stick on the distant ground punctured through the bottom of my right foot, and peeked out of the top as blood spurted from its exit wound.  I faltered for just a moment, but continued on.  By then, pain was so distant and inconsequential. 

My eyes slid along the smooth onyx sheen of the dark windows.  One after another...so carefully placed in a row many, many years ago.  I should’ve been afraid of the monster in the night; I knew so in some far-off place in my mind.  Yet I wasn’t frightened, not in the least.  This was my calling.  Surrendering to the pull was my purpose.

Just as suddenly as I’d begun the journey, I knew I had arrived.  It was the fourth window along the side, almost to the back of the farmhouse.  There was a small bed and some chairs and some lovely kitsch that had been strategically placed by the realty company to make potential buyers feel at home there.  But none of that mattered to me. No...I cared about the Something else that coiled up inside there.  Something that was invisible, intangible but more real than anything I’d ever experienced before.

I drew in close, my breath fogging up the glass slightly.  I placed both of my hands on the cool pane and peered inside, my soul rising upwards and in, pressing against the window.  My palms warmed slowly at first, then quickly...wonderfully...blessedly.  I nearly squealed with glee as condensation slowly materialized around my fingers as the hands on the other side of the glass met my own.  There.  There.  The hands were there.

Fully lost inside my dream, I shifted my gaze from the place our hands met to the expanse between them...the void between two hands where the heart beats and the soul chippers.  It pulled; I leaned in.

“Come to me,” I whispered, “I’m ready.”

Slowly from the darkness it emerged, unfolding and blossoming as ink in water might.  It was one with the shadows, but distinct in its existence.  The eyes were vacant and empty. Black swaths of cloud or perhaps spirit swirled about its face as if giving form to hair.  Its body was immaterial, but feminine in nature, and I knew it so well.  Its thoughts reached into my mind, expanding and stretching into the depths. 

We must have been mates for such a long time, though I couldn’t remember a world where we would’ve existed beside one another.  But here we were...united again.  We drew close, breath of life giving flush to death with only a single pane of glass between us...a barrier so easily surmounted...so easily cracked.

We had to be together.

We must always be together.

We are forever together.

It’s delightful here in the shadows between the rays of light. Someday, you might feel me calling to you too.