Vera’s father told her when she was a little girl she used to sleep with her eyes open. Some nights he’d be down in the living room watching the end of the late-late movie, cops and robbers, a cowboy gunfight, or maybe the final innings of a White Sox game out on the West coast; he’d dial the TV sound low, a cold one in his hand and he’d sip, sip—sleep crouching over him like a shadow. His angel would glide up behind him and stand there, quiet as a whisper. He’d feel something in the room. Turn his head. And she’d scare the hell out of him. Sleepwalking with her eyes peeled wide, hair hanging damp in her face. White shins poking out under her nightdress, barefoot on the carpet—she’d sway as he took her gently by the shoulder. Those eyes looked out, not at him, but at the shrunken after-hours world, the moony glare of TV. She was looking, yes, but really seeing the dreams she was having. What dreams? He never knew. Leading her back to bed, he’d feel his heart galloping in his chest. A grown man spooked by his daughter. Like being in a room with a ghost, he said. The stories always made Vera laugh.
Now she understood.
Opal sat up. She clutched the afghan to her chest. Her mouth dropped. Lips quivered. Her gaze locked on the widescreen television. The power hadn’t come on. The screen was dead gray,
slippery-looking. Vera stared at it and saw their reflections and the tiny blade of the candle flame poised behind them.
“What do you want?” Opal asked.
She wasn’t talking to Vera. She addressed the TV. She saw something there that terrified her. The apparition must have convinced her it wasn’t caged inside this box of glass, plastic, and circuitry. It found a doorway. Yet she was standing up to it, using every ounce of courage to hold her ground.
And because she couldn’t see it, Vera felt terrified, too. She lifted her Bobcat from where Opal had set it on a bookshelf. She tucked the pistol inside her jeans at the small of her back; the metal sent a chill up her spine.
“We won’t give it to you,” Opal said.
The stone, Vera thought.
The spirit in the television wanted them to fork over the stone.
She watched Opal’s reactions, could tell that Opal was listening carefully to every word the spirit said. Vera tried hard to hear it. But that was impossible, she realized. Nothing in this room was making any noise. It would be like eavesdropping on someone else’s nightmare. Still she couldn’t help but strain to pick up any shred of sound. The silence throbbed in her ears.
“Don’t hurt him,” Opal said. Then quickly she added, “I don’t want to see. I won’t look. If you show me, I won’t. . .”
Opal’s voice caught in her throat. She lied. Whether she wanted to or not, she bad to look. She covered her mouth with her hands. She bit down on the knuckle of her middle finger; drew blood. She rocked back and forth in her seat. A moan started in her lungs and moved into her head, getting louder and higher, higher and louder, until it became like the shriek of a drill.
“No, no, no, noooooooooo ...”
Vera had to stop this.
Loud knock on the wall. Scraping on the other side, curved from high to low; vibrations traveled as something clattered to the floor. Vera spun around. The disturbance came from the bed-
room closet where Adam and Wyatt were. The ladder had fallen. Annie barked. Wood creaked in the attic.
Were Adam and Wyatt rushing back down?
Or were the Pitch breaking inside?
“Stop it!” Opal yelled. “Stop! Stop! You can take the stone. I don’t care what happens but stop . ..”
Opal collapsed onto the floor. She was weeping, her arms outstretched to the blank glass screen. She slapped at the television. She got to her feet and grabbed the top of the widescreen in an effort to topple it.
Vera rushed to shake her awake when she heard her mumbling— hoarse, jagged, in a voice of utter defeat. “Take her. She’s the one who stole the stone. We didn’t know. We only tried to protect ourselves. She’s the one you want.”
She’s talking about me. Vera wanted to touch her, to bring her back. Yet her hand paused in the air as she listened.
“Kill her,” Opal said.
“Don’t say that!” Vera screamed. “Wake up! Don’t tell them that!”
She shook Opal as hard as she could.
“Kill her! Kill her!”