The Trailer 3

MY GRANNY'S HOUSE

I was eight when everything started, I had decided to sleep in my granny's house that night and I would go home tomorrow and spend the day with my daddy before he had to leave and work for two weeks. Papa was snoring in his bedroom, Granny was taking care of the foster baby in the living room, and I was lying in bed, trying to fall asleep. It was kind of hard at first because Granny had only moved in about two weeks ago so I wasn't completely used to the noises just yet. It wasn't too long after I fell asleep that I felt a woman sitting on the edge of the bed by my feet. I know it was a woman because of the flowery smell and the fact that the bed didn't dip down enough for it to be a man, but too much for a child.

Holding my breath, I pull the sheet off my face and take a look around, but see no one; Granny was still dealing with a crying baby in the living room and there was no other woman here. I've had the same spirit sit by my feet every time I slept in that room and I'm not the only one either! My cousins Emy, Payslee, and Hadlee have all felt it, and my other cousin Krissy hears a baby crying in her little brother's room down the hall. The crying thing isn't new, but it bothers us that it comes from JJ's room at night and that Krissy is the only one to hear it (she has bad hearing). The only time I heard the crying was when Granny brought Emy home from the hospital when she was a newborn.

Granny and I were sitting in the living room while Emy napped in her room (now JJ's) when we heard a baby crying. Naturally, we assumed Emy had woken up so Granny told me to go get her while she ran outside to do something real quick. I shrugged, not making the connection that the crying wasn't loud enough to be my cousin. I walk into the room and find Emy lying calmly in her crib, looking at the monitor until I came in. She certainly wasn't the one crying since it was still going on. Thinking we picked up a signal from a different baby monitor, I turned Emy's off, but the crying persisted. A little freaked out now, I pick Emy up and carry her with me into the living room. Granny comes inside a few minutes later, demanding to know why I hadn't went to get Emy like she asked, then she walked into the living room and saw me holding the quiet baby.

Her face went really pale and she had to grab the back of my chair to stay steady. There is a little division wall between the walkway and part of the living room, the side facing the living room held pictures and the side facing the front door held movies. At least, that's all I thought it held. Granny sat Em down in the floor to play while she showed me the movie side of the wall, pulling out a tiny porcelain container that looked like it cost a boat load of money. "Ash, this is Mikayla," Granny tells me in a voice thick with tears. "Lydia didn't want it in her apartment until she's completely moved in, so she asked me to keep it safe." Mikayla was Emy's older sister who died a few months before Emy was born. Inside that container was the ashes of a six month old. The crying abruptly stopped when Granny showed me it and toys in the back of the house randomly started to go off. That still happens and every time it does we kind of ignore it, knowing Mikayla was playing.

Emy is five now and has a sixth sense of some sort. Her father is a murdering psychopath that has threatened to kill us all on numerous occasions and the cops can't seem to catch him. Whenever he's around Emy gets really clingy, especially to me, pleading us not to leave her by herself. This kid has never seen her biological father and her, Krissy, and JJ were adopted back in August by my granny and papa. I wish being clingy was the only thing that happened during that weird time that happens like clockwork every year, but it's not; she has dreams too. She dreams of a little girl with braids in her hair and dark skin telling her to stick close to people and stay safe. We showed her a picture of Mikayla when she first came to us about these dreams and what she said made all of us shiver. "Yeah, that's her, but she ain't so little in my sleep."

Mikayla seems to be very protective over Emy since they share the same parents (Krissy and JJ both have different dads). Mikayla tells her when she should stay close to her loved ones, when to stay inside, and when to watch the other kiddos close so that they don't get hurt. Granny has a hard time believing these things, but I believe wholeheartedly because everything has come true thus far. She warned Emy to keep a close eye on her sister and that afternoon Krissy fell off the trampoline before we could get her and dang near broke her neck! Emy's not the type of kid that lies and her imagination only goes so far; she wouldn't just pop off to us that we need to watch Krissy because she might get hurt bad. Mikayla can stay all she wants as long as she doesn't cause harm to anyone; the moment that happens I'm calling my brother (who knows a sage ritual), my best friend (who knows several cleansing rituals) and my aunt Steph (who's a "white witch").

MY BROTHER'S HOUSE

My best friend Kyle and I were spending the weekend at my older brother's house (no it's not that weird, my brother married his sister). The backyard of the house has a general creepy feel to it so we kind of stayed inside as much as possible. Donna, my sister-in-law, had just gotten her tubes tied that morning and Brandon, my big brother, was taking care of her. That left Kyle taking care of Bryce, who's six, and me taking care of Ayden, the new born. Don't get me wrong, they're great kids, but it was a little annoying to be the one that had to shut Ayden's crying up because, other than our older siblings, I was the only one who could.

Brandon, Donna, and the kids went to bed early the first night, leaving me and Kyle to our own devices. We were sitting in the living room, watching Taken and all different kinds of action movies. Kyle's a Wiccan and fully believes that salt keeps evil away, so every night before I went to sleep he would sprinkle salt around the couch I was sleeping on and the pallet in the floor that he was sleeping on. We fell asleep that night without the salt and the TV on and when we woke up the next morning the TV was off. Now, the first thing we thought was that someone else in the house had shut it off, but they claimed otherwise. Ayden had slept all night except for when Donna made him wake up for a feeding and that was done in their room, Brandon had slept all night and well into the afternoon, and Bryce knew he wasn't allowed to leave his room until someone else was awake because he had a habit of going through stuff he wasn't supposed to.

Kyle and I shrugged it off, putting it down to our siblings trying to prank us and went on with the rest of our day. We played X-Men with Bryce, talking gibberish to baby Ayden, annoyed Brandon, and helped Donna cook. By the time evening had arrived, we were tired yet excited. Everyone else disappeared into their rooms for the night while Kyle and I reclined on the couch to watch Boondock Saints for the thousandth time. We could quote the dang thing. We slowly grew bored and paused the movie, deciding to talk instead. What started off as a normal conversation about what we would do tomorrow changed to what we had experienced throughout our lives.

We were running low on popcorn and went into the kitchen to make some more while we continued our discussion. He was in the middle of digging through cabinets to find another bag when I spotted the thing out the window. The back door leads into the small kitchen and there's a tiny window in the door to see out of and that's how I spotted it. I say "it" because I have no clue what it was, it obviously wasn't human. I grab Kyle's arm, thinking at first that it was a prowler. There had been a rash of break ins happening in Stillwater at the time and I was wondering whether or not I should wake Brandon up and tell him to get his gun. Kyle and I look at the thing out the window, watching as it moved gracefully and quickly towards the house; barely more than a shadow. Kyle's first instinct is to grab the salt and spread it out in front of the door.

The things stops for a second before continuing towards the other side of the house. Kyle and I hurry into the laundry room, spreading salt over the window sills and watched as the thing kept walking, we weren't quick enough the next time. My nephew Bryce's room was the next one on the side of the house and my heart jumped in my throat. "Yeah," Bryce said softly," Alright, I love you too, Mommy." Kyle and open the door and find Bryce laying back down to sleep. I asked who he was talking to while Kyle salted the doorway and window. "I was talking to Mommy."

"Okay, sweetie," I nod, leading Kyle back to the living room and closing the door behind us. Donna hadn't left her room that night, so I have no clue who my nephew was talking to.