Chapter 5: A Grandmother's Logic

“Are you okay, Kiara?” Marielle asked with a note of genuine concern in her voice.

“I’m curious, that’s all,” Kiara answered unwaveringly. “Let Clifford know that we’re definitely going back there, please?” she begged.

“Absolutely not, Kiara,” Marielle responded. “You sound like someone who is heavily medicated, so I’m going to hang up now.”

Marielle’s grandmother was at her side by now. She grabbed Marielle by the arm and marched her down the passage, away from the study.

“Grandma, I’m still talking on the phone,” Marielle protested in a soft tone of voice.

Her grandmother then deftly grabbed the cell phone out of Marielle’s hand and spoke into it.

“Goodnight, Kiara,” she said firmly. “Do not come up with such crazy suggestions, and at this time of the night? Oh no,” she concluded and cut the call.

“Grandma, you hung up on her!” Marielle protested with a look of disbelief on her face.

“That’s what you were threatening to do, isn’t that so?” Ethel, her grandmother, responded.

“Yes, but now she’s gonna tell her mom that we were mean towards her,” Marielle protested.

“Oh, she can grow up,” Ethel remarked. “And I was helping you get rid of a problem.”

“But I was going to say goodnight on my own,” Marielle protested.

“Well, she was busy intimidating you and I can see that you don’t know how to handle someone like her,” Ethel explained in a gentle tone of voice.

“But, you will not always be there next to me,” Marielle complained. “I have to learn to deal with her myself.”

“Well, tonight you needed help,” Ethel responded. “Besides. Your father arrived, and he’s not charmed about you going out late on a school night. He’s afraid that you will do the same thing when you’re at college,” Ethel added in a low tone of voice.

“Dad’s back home?” Marielle responded with an excited look in her eyes.

“Quiet,” Ethel whispered. “He’s busy working and he’s upset with you, so it’s better to go off to your bedroom. You can see him in the morning, when he’s calmed down.”

“Is he really upset?” Marielle asked.

“Of course he is because you should have been back ages ago,” Ethel insisted. “So, what’s this about seeing a ghost?” she whispered.

They were now in Marielle’s bedroom. Ethel gently closed the door behind them.

“Cliff said we’re not supposed to talk about it now,” Marielle whispered back with a glance at her own mirror on her small wooden dressing table.

“But, if you don’t get some clarity about it, you will not have peace of mind,” Ethel protested while wagging her finger at Marielle.

“But it’s not the kind of thing to get into at night,” Marielle responded with her eyebrows raised for emphasis.

“How are you going to fall asleep while you’re afraid?” Ethel asked with her hands on her hips.

“I’m not afraid anymore,” Marielle commented. “But I will become afraid again if I go over that episode right now,” she added quickly.

“So, you think that you’re safe if you don’t address it?” Ethel asked, giving Marielle a sideways look.

“Don’t you think that it can become more real if we discuss it?” Marielle asked. She looked skeptically at her grandmother.

“Come and sit down here,” Ethel responded and took Marielle by the hand. She led her to sit down on her bed.

Marielle looked at her grandmother curiously, but she sat down obediently.

“Now look,” Ethel began. “There are different kinds of spirits and different kinds of visions.”

“Yes?” Marielle asked with her eyes set firmly on her grandmother’s face.

“So, to keep my story short, I will say that what you saw could have been a spirit or an evil entity,” Ethel continued.

Marielle shuddered and hugged herself at this. Her eyes were stretched wide in fear and anticipation.

“Why don’t I just stop her now?” she asked herself anxiously. She couldn’t get herself to move a muscle though. She waited with bated breath while her grandmother continued.

“A ghost can’t follow you home unless the departed person was an acquaintance of yours,” Ethel continued in a gentle but confident tone.

“Oh, is that so?” Marielle asked, not feeling any less stressed out at this moment.

“But now, an evil entity,” Ethel continued with her eyes firmly on Marielle’s now. “That’s something else. You can’t set any limitations there unless you know how to rebuke it and put it in its place.”

“Well, I don’t know how to do that and all this really now scaring me Grandma,” Marielle responded. She tried to get up from the bed. “Cliff was right. One shouldn’t discuss this at this time of night.”

“I have to help you so that will know what to in the event that something unusual happens to you tonight,” Ethel stated as she held onto Marielle’s hand tightly. “I have to inform you so that you can have the boldness to help yourself.”

“But, can’t I just sleep with the light on tonight? Then you can tell me all of this tomorrow,” Marielle protested. “You can even tell me while I get ready for school.”

“A night light is reassuring my darling,” Ethel responded, stroking Marielle’s shiny brown hair. “But you might need more than that after what you’ve seen tonight. You might need a weapon. A powerful prayer could also help, but I happen to know that in these circumstances you need information to survive.”

“What do you mean?” Marielle asked in shock. She forcefully shook her hand free and jumped up from the bed. “Can my life actually be in danger?”

“Calm down, my dear,” Ethel responded, standing up and reaching out to Marielle. “That would be the worst-case scenario. I’m actually talking about the safety of your own soul. Your very sanity. You could actually end up staying in your room and be too afraid to go anywhere for years and all out of fear.”

“That’s just as bad as losing my life,” Marielle commented. “Cliff is right in the sense that I am too tired to confront anything new or challenging at this time of the night. But has anything like that actually happened to someone?” she asked with a concerned frown between her eyebrows.

“Being tired does not mean that something would not follow you from somewhere,” Ethel remarked with a concerned frown. “So, it’s quite simple. You should just know which rituals should be performed to safeguard your spiritual and physical wellbeing.”

“It sounds too dramatic,” Marielle replied. “I am alright, as long as I’m not afraid.”

“Did you expect to see what you saw in the dressing room at the theatre?” Ethel asked with a serious look in her eyes.

“No, of course I didn’t expect to see a bleeding person standing next to me,” Marielle responded with her eyes stretched in disbelief.

“So, were you afraid before going to the dressing room?” Ethel asked.

“No, I wasn’t,” Marielle replied. “But I was afraid afterward.”

“What happened when you realized that it wasn’t a real person standing there?” Ethel asked studying Marielle’s face with a sideways glance.

“Well, I fainted,” Marielle replied.

“See how drastic that was” Ethel responded with her hands in her hair. “It was unexpected and it affected you badly. Imagine getting another unpleasant surprise at home, even if you’re not afraid at the outset.”

“Are you saying that it can control me simply because I saw it?” Marielle asked in alarm.

“It might have been waiting for someone like you to confide in,” Ethel responded with a serious look in her eyes.

“Are you suggesting that I go back there, so that the ghost can confide in me?” Marielle asked with a horrified look on her face.