My soul left my body—I hoped it visited Miss Barb in the shadow realm or wherever and begged for forgiveness whilst away—and I clutched my chest, my gaze flying to AJ, who was perched on the oak branch.
“The he—” I started but had to stop and cough my lungs up for several seconds before continuing, “The hell did you get up here?”
He shrugged even as he frowned deeply at me, something like concern in his gaze. “I got a ladder from that little shed out back.”
I glanced down at the ladder angled against the tree’s trunk and then back at AJ, not sure what to say, so I just nodded and started handing him the boxes. He accepted them without hesitation and arranged them carefully behind him on the thick branch.
“Is this all?” he asked when I made no move to hand over more.
“No,” I rasped, steeling myself for what was next. The photos in the hallway.
Everyone deserved to have family photos, no matter how messed up their family was.
“Dude, you’re uh…. You’re giving me qualms.”
My gaze and focus snapped back to him. “Get the fuck out of here with yourqualms, AJ.” Rolling my stinging eyes toward heaven, I spun back toward the darkened room and retucked my face into my shirt. “Qualms,” I muttered under my breath, using the phone’s light I hadn’t turned off to navigate toward the bedroom door.
It didn’t feel like it was about to cave in, but I knew things could be different on the other side of the bedroom door.
The door that didnotwant to open.
I gripped the handle, turned it, and tried again and again before realizing I was going to have to be more aggressive. Stepping back, I slipped my phone into my pocket, braced a foot on the wall by the door, and pulled with all of my strength and that of my ancestors until it opened with a violent creak, painfully jerking my shoulder to the side.
Barely feeling the burn in the joint, I put my shirt that had slipped off back over my face and grabbed my phone again, pointing it broadly down the hallway.
A sharp inhale was the only reaction I allowed myself. It was so much worse than I could have ever dreamed. Much worse.
Casting my light over the hallway walls, I scanned them for which photos might be most important, then decided on a quantity-over-quality approach. I didn’t want to linger here, inspecting photos in a hallway of questionable fortitude.
There was reckless, and then there was bending over to invite disaster to destroy you.
The floor creaked loudly beneath my feet, and I held my breath for a moment while praying I hadn’t peed myself.
For whatever reason, it made me think of Jeanne’s kids building forts at Dad’s house.
I wanted to see it.
I wanted to see a lot of things, actually, but if I let my mind wander off to yet another daydream, I might not be seeing anything again.
Not with my sanity intact, anyway.
Firmly turning off my mind, I swept down the hall and removed frames from nails and hangers until my arms were full, my eyes stung unbearably, and my fingers ached. I still didn’t go back to the window, though. Not yet. I propped the stack of frames between the bedroom jamb and my body, then retrieved my phone from on top and shone its light onto the stairs, confirming my fears.
There would be no descending them. Any items down there were lost.
Which really sucked, because rescuing one of Barb’s rooster statues and presenting it as a gift in a few years might’ve been the best—and most morbid—long-con joke of my life.
Shaking the wave of sadness away, I propped my phone back on top with the light pointed upward, illuminating the path at least partially, and heaved my burden into my arms.
And I’d just about made it to the window when a bright white light filled the space and aboomrattled the house. My body lurched, and suddenly I was sure the house was about to collapse with me in it.
But then there was another flash of light, and my senses creeped back.
Thunder and lightning. A storm.
Letting out a breath, I set down the frames and perched back on the sill for the last time.
AJ was still in the tree, also looking like he might piss himself. “Hurry,”he pleaded.
