As I lay wondering about things I didn’t want to wonder about, I heard a scratching sound under my bed. Had Artemis followed me? The sound started out as a faint scuffing but grew louder the longer I lay there. It wasn’t like a dog pawing, but more like someone scratching on wood, as though trying to claw through it. Then again, that could just be my imagination getting the better of me.
Not much scared me, but someone scratching under my bed as I lay on it was way too urban legend for me. Next I would hear a drip only to discover it was the blood of my boyfriend hanging dead from a tree. Luckily, I had no trees in my apartment. Then I thought, Hey, a tree would add a nice touch.
No, I didn’t need to think about things like that at the moment. Someone was definitely under my bed. Scratching.
I inched to the side, leaned over it slowly, and pulled up the bed skirt. A set of huge blue eyes stared back at me and it took every ounce of strength I had not to scream like someone being mauled by a wild animal. I bit down and met her gaze. She looked about seven, judging by the size of her eyes and the shape of her round cheeks. She was lying on her back, scratching the wood that held my mattress. Blond hair, tangled and matted, hung over her eyes, partially obstructing her view. Her childlike face was dirty, her hair completely covered in a slick, oily mud. I couldn’t tell what she was wearing, but she looked absolutely frantic. She clawed at the wood with a panicked aggression. Her eyes wide, searching. She was terrified. Period. She wanted out of wherever she was.
“Hi,” I said as softly as I could. She didn’t miss a beat. She continued to claw and stare at me as though trying to escape, and my heart sank.
Just then I realized most of her fingernails were jagged and broken. They wouldn’t have broken on my bed. The dearly departed come fully assembled. Or torn apart. If her fingernails were frayed and broken, it happened while she was still alive. But she kept clawing anyway, splintering the wood with her nails, trying frantically to get out of wherever it was she was trapped.
I climbed off my bed and lay flat on the floor beside her.
“Honey,” I said, reaching out, hoping to ease her fears.
She paused, but only for a moment. She stared at me as though she couldn’t quite figure out what I was or what I was doing there. Then she went back to clawing.
Angel, my departed thirteen-year-old investigator and partner in crime, once said that my touch, as the grim reaper, was healing. I reached under the bed and put my hand on her shoulder. She stared straight ahead, eyeing the boards under my bed, but she did seem to calm a bit. Then she slowly started to claw again, only with less of a frenzied panic. She clawed absently at the board in front of her face.
She had a pixie face with a bow-shaped mouth and huge eyes. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had wings. If pixies did exist, I was fairly certain they would look exactly like her.
Because I didn’t know what to do for her, I stayed beside her the rest of the night with my hand on her shoulder. I fell asleep that way, on the floor. Sometime in the early morning hours, Artemis had joined me. I felt like Reyes and I had joint custody, taking turns with her. I didn’t mind her sleeping with Reyes, though, because waking up with a ninety-pound dog on my back was not as fun as one might think. I liked air. I liked to breathe without my lungs being on fire. So when I woke up with Artemis literally taking up the length of me, her frigid body like ice, the fact that I was shivering should not have been surprising. Normally I was under the safety of covers when she slept with me. The floor did not conduct heat well.
Then I remembered why I was on the floor. I startled and glanced under the bed. The girl was still there, only she had scooted to the corner farthest away from me and lay curled into herself, her knees on the floor, her eyes peering out from underneath her dirty hair. And she was lovely. With the sun peeking over the horizon and casting a soft glow in the room, I was able to see her in a different light. I could see the departed in any light, but the darker the area, the grayer the departed became. Now I could see the blond hair beneath the mud more clearly. The crystal depths of her blue eyes.
My hand was still under the bed and there was something in it. I pulled it out and opened my palm. It was fragments of wood from where she’d scratched. I rolled over onto my side. This meant I had to kick Artemis off me. She’d been snoring, and moving her was like moving a small mountain.
“Oh, my god, Artemis, scootch over. Dogs,” I said to the pixie. She didn’t seem amused. It happened. Once I managed to settle on my side, I lay there a long while, hoping to coax her closer. To coax her to cross.
Then I heard breathing, panting, and not from Artemis. I rolled onto my knees and looked over my bed. There in a far corner of my room between my nightstand and leopard skin floor lamp, was another girl, only this one was older. She looked about nineteen, but she was very similar to the pixie. Matted blond hair, slick oily mud from head to toe. She wore only a short gown. Her bare feet were covered in scratches, as though she’d fought back, kicking at someone, or she’d tried to run before dying. I wondered if the girls were related. Then I noticed ligature marks on her neck. I hadn’t seen them on the pixie, but her hair and position had made it impossible to be sure. I could get a probable cause of death of this one at least. She had been strangled, and judging by the broken blood vessels in her eyes and the swollen face, that was very likely the way she’d died.
Artemis woke up and began sniffing under the bed. I was worried she would scare the pixie. Instead, the girl seemed fascinated by her. Her features softened and she almost smiled. Almost.