Trine
Misha guides me to the back of the property. The suburban house has a nice backyard, with a large tree line covering the fence in the back, but there’s nothing else out here.
He leans against the back wall of the house and exhales heavily. “I didn’t expect you to walk into that.”
I laugh dryly. “Yeah, neither did I,” I say. “That’s…that can’t be medical, right?”
“No. Levitating rarely is.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Is he going to be okay?”
Misha considers this for a second. “Honestly, I don’t know,” he says. “We’ll do our best.”
“That sounds like you don’t think it’ll work.”
He sighs. He slumps down on the wall and I join him on the grass, both of us crossing our legs. We’re under the shade of a tree here, but it’s going to get too hot to be outside soon. “I have rarely seen this before.”
“Rarely?”
He looks away from me. “I’ve done this before,” he says. “You see a lot of shit.”
I shake my head. My throat is still dry and my head is pounding. I don’t know how I’m going to wrap my head around this, it’s so hard to even think about. My gaze darts away from him, mostly because I can’t believe how matter-in-fact he is about this, as if we were just talking about the weather or the news.
Fuck. This can’t be routine for him.
I refuse to believe that.
I turn my head so I can look him in the eyes. “I don’t get it,” I say. “How can you cope with this? How can you know that this is really happening and still go on with your life like it's nothing?"
He shakes his head. He doesn’t scoff, but he smiles a little coldly. "I don't. In case you haven't noticed, I've made it my career. So, for what it’s worth, I'm not just ignoring it. It's not just a normal thing for me. It's not a normal thing for anyone."
I chew on the inside of my mouth until I can feel the sharp taste of copper coating my tongue. He’s right. He’s not just ignoring it. But still, even though he made it his career, this feels insane. I rub my eyes as I try to think about what’s just happened.
I’m still rattled. Every time I close my eyes, I see the way Tom was looking at me.
And then the way he wasn’t, his eyes almost entirely white. Like he wasn’t even in his own body anymore. Just the idea of it makes me feel sick to my stomach. “Did anything like that happen with me?"
"No,” he says quickly. “Your case was brutal, but it was nothing like this."
"Why was it brutal?" I ask, almost immediately regretting it. Part of me doesn't want to know. Part of me thinks that it's really stupid for me to ask any questions about this in the first place.
Misha looks up at my face for a second. He opens his mouth to answer, but then he falters, his shoulders slumping down. His gaze darts away from me, focusing on a bird on the trees in front of us somewhere instead. "Because you were this young woman with her life ahead of her, who obviously had no real involvement in any of this.”
“What do you mean?”
I watch his throat work as he swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down when he does. “Obviously, I don't blame anybody for being curious about the devil, and dark forces, and you know, all that kind of stuff, but you're a special case. You’re the kind of person who seems to be vulnerable to it without any effort on your part. From what our background work discovered; you didn’t even use a Ouija board in your entire life.”
I guess that’s true. I never had much interest in the occult, except that it sounded like it’s cool as a look. My mother’s interest in spooky stories was always a deterrent, especially after she went crazy. I don’t think it’s the time to talk about that, so I just got my knees to my chest. “Is that what happened with Tom?” I ask. "And is it true that playing with a Ouija board, I don’t know, does it really open portals?"
He shrugs. "I don't know. I just know that some people are more emotionally vulnerable to it, and it doesn’t seem to ping other people’s radars.”
“And this is…like, you have to have heard of it to be possessed?” I ask. “Because I didn’t grow up religious, but religion was still a huge part of my life.”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry, I have more questions than I have answers. I wish I could tell you, but I can’t.”
"Are you?" I ask, looking at the clearcut lines of his profile, at the shadow of a beard growing on his face. He’s so good-looking, I could keep staring at him forever. Even when he clenches his jaw and his brow is furrowed, the high cheekbones and strong features make him so pleasant to look at.
We might’ve had sex, but this feels like it’s the closest I’ve ever been to him.