Chapter 5: Closing In

That morning when she'd pulled her daily Tarot card it had been number seven of the Major Arcana, the Chariot, and she knew what that meant. Because it had been on her mind. A week in the new house, then another, and nightmares aside she was settling in. She was cleaning and doing laundry and cooking and taking care of herself. It was, against all expectations, fine. And because it was fine, because she was fine, there was more than a little need to reciprocate the kindness she'd received two years prior. She wanted to show her parents how well their investment was paying off. You see, the Chariot in this instance had to be her mother. Strong, determined, willing success into existence. It could've been an acknowledgment of her own success too, and no doubt was, but the idea was there. Sophie needed to have her mother over. She needed to show her that she could live on her own, that she was holding it together.

      She was holding in together. The man made of smoke came at night, watching her from the floor outside her door, but it wasn't like before. These were just nightmares. Sophie could put them from her mind, mostly, during the day and focus on important things like work and furnishing the house. In fact, she'd just gotten paid on Friday and now it was time to get that coveted table. You know, the one everyone has but no one actually eats at except on special occasions? Like having your parents over. A dining table. The one she was looking at was a sorry sort of table, skinny and tall. Lanky. And the chairs were not chairs but bar stools. It was a counter height set and it was $349.99 without tax. To be honest, it was also the cheapest option on the website. So she'd braved the outdoors and unfamiliar roads to come to this store, where it was in stock, and pick it up herself. Yes, it was going to be a tight squeeze, but it would fit in her car. It was a small table, but she didn't need anything more to entertain her parents.

      "Mommy! Mommy look!"

      "Get down from there Davey, it's not for climbing."

      "But Mommy!"

      "I said no. Come on now."

      The toddler's slurred words deteriorated into screams and "Mommy" sighed heavily. It was a hazard, taking children into public. Sophie knew that, and she had a lot of empathy for "Mommy." She had a lot of empathy for "Davey" too; she knew all too well how frustrating it was to have needs and desires and fears and to be entirely unable to communicate them. Nevertheless, the cries of a child are grating, if one were to use a kind descriptor. They're something humans are programed to respond to. And they make bad situations worse. It's no one's fault, that's just the way it is. There was a reason Sophie was not seeking to procreate.

      Before "Davey" let loose her skin had been pricked and her muscles rigid. People moved about the store, usually in pairs, and their movement sent waves through the air like ships in still water. Patterns of constructive and destructive interference buffeting her back. She could feel them move like pressure, like heat, like the hair on her arms being pulled this way and that. Her muscles tugged in opposite directions as she tried to navigate the isles, weave between these pulsing masses. Her eyes ached as she watched them, peering up through her lashes as she ducked out of the way. Her breath was shallow through her nose and every time someone made eye contact a stab of pain cut into her heart.

      After "Davey" started his scene Sophie felt like something was trying to kill her. Closing her hazel eyes, she parted her lips and tried to take a deep breath. Her ribs would not expand, and so the air could not be pulled into her lungs. It came out a gasp. At her sides her fingers had curled into fists quite independently of her brain. Still, she took advantage of it, tightening them until her nails bit into the flesh of her palms. A jolt of pain ran up her nerves and Sophie grabbed onto it, holding it tightly like a raft in the storm of toddler screams. Other people were uncomfortable too; she could smell it like a smog, choking her. She'd been contemplating the table, wondering if she could really afford the $349.99 even though she'd done the math and concluded that, yes, it would be a stretch but she could make it work before coming here. The decision had already been made, but she was hesitant. It was a lot of money. Now, though, she bit into her cheek, into the metallic, raw flesh. Hard.

      Buy the table, she thought, scaffolding her mind with the pain and focusing around it. Buy the table, take it home, and you can have some wine. It's quiet outside, just buy the table.

      Selecting a kit from the top of the pile, Sophie picked it up with rather a lot of difficulty and set it on her low, flat cart. This was not a high-end furniture store- it might've even been more of a hardware store that sold furniture. Doubtless she'd get comments on the table, but it would be bought and built and that would be that. Inside her skin her stomach was churning and Sophie switched to pressing her tongue into the point of her canine. Pinching the tip between her teeth. "Davey" was really going at it and "Mommy's" hushing attempts were also escalating. Sophie got it, she knew what it was like to have a mother brush you off. She agreed with "Mommy;" the furniture sets were not for climbing, but still, it was hard to be little. This knowledge did not settle the panic in her gut nor lessen the urgency with which she brought the table set to the front of the store. In the end she had no idea how much she'd spent on the table and chairs, she just knew, as she passed through the pressurized doors and felt warm, outside air on her face, that she'd survived the worst of it.

      At least, that's how she felt until she'd wheeled the table to her car. The road noise was less horrible than the child's screams, but it still seemed disproportionately loud. It seemed to Sophie that she was right at the edge of traffic being buffeted by the whirlwind of displaced air every time a car passed even though she was safely tucked in a parking lot. The table was heavy and unwieldy and her heart pounded in her chest as she tried to maneuver it over the back seats, folded down and flat, and onto the center console of the car. Not fast, not racing, but hard, like the cardiac muscle was straining and squeezing with everything it had. A clenched fist in her chest. Sophie felt that fist tighten all over her body, like her muscles had crystalized and it was only with great effort that she could move at all. She got the table into the car, closed the back hatch, and returned the cart to the proper storage location. Got in her car and placed both hands on the steering wheel. And in the stillness tears welled up from the place deep in her chest where she'd been compressing them.

      This is stupid, she thought, closing her eyes and feeling the warm wetness pulse down her statuesque cheeks. Why am I crying?

      It was a dumb question; she knew why she was crying. This used to happen all the time. She was overwhelmed and felt safe in her car. Felt alone. It was no different from when she'd escaped the lab noise at work by hiding in the bathroom. Which was as much a reason to cry as anything else because she was afraid that would happen again. That paranoia, the dissociation from reality, she was scared it would happen again. If she couldn't even buy a table without freaking out what chance did she have in the long run? How could she expect to survive on her own when she melted down just as easily as that toddler Davey? Her lips parted and she pulled in a little, shuddering gasp. Her chest and throat ached.

      But she was living on her own. She had bought the table. She'd gone to an unfamiliar place and bought a table and now it was in her car. Sure it had been a lot, but she'd done it. There was no way she could've done such a thing two years ago, no way she could've even made it back to the car before crying. It was a lot of money and it was okay to be stressed about spending it. It was okay to have a hard time with a screaming child. Perfect storm. On top of all the sleep she'd been not getting it was reasonable to get a little worked up. That's all this was, just some anxiety. Just getting a little worked up. And she'd had her cry and was done now. Licking her lips, she used one hand to wipe the tears from her cheeks and the other to start the car. She set the GPS on her phone to her home address, carefully turned out of the parking lot, and then, making sure to count, established a following distance three seconds behind the car in front of her.

~

      The small table made for a small amount of work with its assembly. Yes, it was heavy and had been difficult to get out of the car and into the house, but now, after about twenty minutes of nothing but road sounds like white noise, Sophie was feeling much calmer. And the table was not so heavy that she'd needed any help maneuvering it; she just had to move at her own plodding pace. Setting the table flat on the wood floor, she'd checked for staples that might produce scratches, then pushed it maybe eight feet across the room and into the corner. The bar around the kitchen started parallel to the sliding door and wrapped around the corner, but terminated after about three feet. Over here in the living room corner it was just drywall. Beige paint. And now a table. Sophie had gone into the kitchen, poured herself a glass of pinot noir, and grabbed the scissors. Cutting into the box, she found instructions, screws, washers, and an Allen wrench to add to the collection she would no doubt be developing as she furnished the house. Keeping her wine out of the way, she read the instructions from start to finish, touching each individual baggie of supplies as they were named, then got to work.

      Sophie was a gifted scientist, meticulous and analytically minded, but putting things together had always been her mother's forte. Mom was handy, Sophie was not. By the time she'd gotten the tall table stabilized on its long legs and the bar stools slid into place the sun had started to go down. This was not surprising; she'd spent hours that morning on the hardware store's website agonizing over the purchase, calculating with her phone because she didn't have a computer yet. It had already been rather later than she'd intended when she'd gotten to the store and later still when she'd gotten the box into a position to be disassembled. But it was just a hair disheartening. Being slow was not a trait she was particularly proud of. Focusing on the fact that she'd just built a table all by herself rather than on the timeline of building said table, she went back into the kitchen with her empty wine glass. Poured another, warmed up some lentil curry in the microwave, then settled herself on her loveseat. For a moment she just sat there, looking forward at the barren wall. She had had stuff the first time she'd gone out on her own, but after… she'd gotten rid of almost all of it that had been hers and left the apartment's furniture behind. There was a photo of herself and her parents, professionally taken, hanging on the wall by the thermostat, but not much else.

      The spartan nature of her decorating was a mixture of things, the first and foremost being that she was paying utilities and half of a mortgage (her parents were paying the other half) and did not have money for frivolous things. Honestly the table had been anxiety producing enough and she genuinely needed it. Fifty dollars on a nice painting or rug seemed irresponsible to her. But there was another factor. Her coworkers insisted she was lonely. Theo said she was lonely. Sophie wondered if she was lonely. Yet how could a feeling produced by solitude manifest in this sense that she wasn't at all alone? Even now, on the loveseat by the door, she could feel the hall open behind her like a yawning mouth. Was the man made of smoke there? Was he watching? Sophie looked over her shoulder into the nothing, then over to the table she'd just made. Gathering her food and wine, she got up and moved to the table. Hopped up onto one of the bar stools and finished her meal there. Because this was her table and she should use it. Her house. She just wasn't used to it yet. That's all.

      She took her dishes to the kitchen, rinsed them, put them in the dishwasher, and marched bravely towards the hall. Hesitating, she looked right at the sliding glass door and out into the courtyard. That charming little courtyard she'd fallen in love with. It was going wild without her supervision; she wouldn't be able to put off yard work much longer. Was it too late in the year to plant herbs? You could plant them anytime except winter because they were hearty. Was that a fact or something she'd just made up to make herself feel better? Moving to the door, she cupped her hands around her eyes and looked out. Envisioned a little fountain, some tomatoes and sage, and a little chair. Would it be indulgent to buy that next, even before a bedframe? Did she even need to ask? She wanted it- had been wanting it. It was her money, after all… The shadow of what her parents would say darkened the little courtyard and she pulled away. Flicked on the hall light and proceeded to her room.

      Emancipated though she was, running naked through the house was not something Sophie felt up to just yet. People did it, she knew rationally. Cas said his housemates would do it even when other people were home. The idea of it made Sophie feel faint in a bad way. So instead she gathered up her pajamas and some fresh underwear and took the maybe seven steps from her room into the bathroom fully clothed. Closing both the door to the hall and the one to her bedroom, Sophie turned on the water to heat up. For a moment she looked at herself in the mirror, ran her hand over the little bulge of her stomach. But it had been a good day regardless. She'd accomplished a lot. Smiling at her reflection, she pulled her hairband out and let loose her curls, undressed, and stepped into the steaming water.

      The shower itself was not interesting. Sophie invested in cruelty-free products that she kept in a caddy over the shower head. She used a conditioner that was specialized for curly hair. And, being conscious of the value of water, she was pretty quick. Usually. She meant to be quick. She pulled her face out of the stream of water and wiped her eyes, opening them like she'd done thousands of times. This time was different because it was darker than when she'd put her face in the water. Her skin pricked despite the warmth and she felt her chest tighten. This was fear, she recognized it, knew it well, but she didn't know why she was afraid. The opaque shower curtain showed her patterns of light and darkness, forms without structure, and as she looked one of those forms moved. Over by the door to the hall, between her and the door, there was something.

      Like before, in the store, her heart was pounding. Regularly, not frantic, not yet. Powerfully. She could hear it in her ears over the rush of the shower, feel it against her breast. Every time it contracted it did so with such force it shot pain down her arm. Sophie pressed against the wall, as far away from the form as she could get, and watched it without blinking. Her lips were parted and she was panting, shallow, quiet breaths. Maybe it didn't know she was there. Maybe it would go away. Maybe it was nothing. But no; it moved. She could see the blurred outline through the shower curtain. There was no sound associated with its movement, just a shadow, like a cloud over the sun. Now her heart was frantic, a struggling animal in her chest thrashing, desperate. The blood flowed through her head so fast she was dizzy, yet without the breath to oxygenate it it was quite useless. Just a stream of liquid so pressurized she felt her arteries, the network through her body, ache. This thing had her cornered- there was no way out. The window behind her was too small to fit through; both exits to the room were on the other side of the black mass.

      Behind her the tile started to sweat goo. At first she thought it was just the water, yet she felt in her core that wasn't true. It rolled down her back and coated her arms, slippery, viscous, like an oil. She flinched away from it but that brought her towards the form. It was closer now, defined, human shaped. The man made of smoke. Reaching a hand forward, he pressed it into the shower curtain. At first just darkening a space, then indenting it, reaching towards her. Sophie reached through the pillar of water, grabbed her shampoo bottle, and smashed it into that hand as hard as she could. There was no substance to contact, just the shower curtain, but Sophie was quite past caring. She brought the bottle above her head and then down again, hammering into the black form, beating it with all her strength.

      Until she realized there was nothing there. No form, no shadow, no darkness. Just shower curtain. Her hand shook as she reached out to touch where the shadow had been. Nothing but the water, running down the plastic like rain. Tentatively, she pulled back the curtain and stuck her head out. Water dripped from her hair and onto the laminate. Nothing. The toilet across from her, the sink and mirror next to it. The glass was fogged over but she could see her shape. She knew her face was blotchy and her eyes were watering with the effort of holding herself together. To the left there were two doors at a right angle to one another. Closed, just like she'd left them. A brown towel hung on the wall next to the shower, across from the door. Empty, like the house around it.

      It was then that she wondered if she'd seen anything at all. Closing her mouth and swallowing, Sophie replaced the shampoo bottle in the caddy and turned off the water. Placing a hand over her chest, she felt her heart continue to pound. Her body was spooked, that much was for certain. The question was whether or not the fear was rational. Sophie got out onto the mat and grabbed the towel. Wrapping it around herself, she put a hand on the door handle leading into the hall. Swallowing again, she pulled it open and skittered away from the empty space. Outside the hall looked innocent and void, inviting even with its light on just like she'd left it. She darted forward and into the kitchen, grabbing a large knife from the drawer. Clutching the knife in one hand and holding the towel in place with the other, she just stood there for a moment. Her hair dripped, making a puddle.

      Once she'd worked up the courage, she moved to the counter and leaned over the bar into the living room. There was her loveseat and lamp, and the new table in the corner. The windows still had no curtains but that didn't feel like her biggest problem. Moving slowly and holding the knife in a death grip, she checked the front door. Locked and dead-bolted. She checked the sliding glass door, which was also locked. Then, methodically, she checked the bedrooms. Their walls were offensively colored and their closets were innocently empty. No one. Nothing. Just… empty house.

      That night Sophie left all the lights on. She got dressed and went to bed, but that knife stayed on the floor next to her. And she did not sleep.

~

      That next morning's coffee was very welcome. Never before had Sophie been so grateful that the little Italian pot made such a stout cup. She hadn't even watered it down that morning, just tanked it and gotten into the car. The gate was a struggle, again, but eventually she'd gotten on the road and, forty-five painful minutes of traffic later, arrived at work. Parking under the lamp at the far end of the lot, she'd arrived after Dr. Kern, so the door was unlocked, but before everyone else. It was nice to do her morning chores and calibrations in peace. When Holly got in she gave her a good morning and politely listened as she detailed the previous weekend's escapades. Sophie didn't go into detail with her own weekend. Same with Cas. He gave her a long, unsmiling look when she didn't meet his eye. His eyes were like pits of blackness and, normally, she could stare into them forever. She felt like Cas really saw her when he looked at her, it was just that right now she didn't want to be seen. Keith had come in and announced they were starting a new project looking at little balloons that went into the vein instead of stents and she'd need to assign sample numbers to about 100 rabbit veins and maybe 800 blood samples. So a small project. Sophie had taken her lab notebook and sharpie back to the freezer room to do the work alone. She'd been at it for a few hours.

      "Hey," came a voice from behind her, soft and clearly intended not to startle her.

      Sophie jumped just a little, not enough to disrupt her numbering though. She kept the vial of blood with its purple cap in her hand, set down the sharpie, and looked over her shoulder. Cas was by the door with about three boxes filled with blood samples. He grinned when she made eye contact, dipping his chin.

      "Hey," she answered, her voice much more timid than she'd intended. She wanted to put on a brave front even though she sensed he already knew something was wrong.

      "You've been quiet," he observed, taking her response as permission to approach her. "You okay?"

      "Yes." The lie came out quickly. Cas tilted his head and Sophie looked away again, back down to her vial of frozen blood. "No… I haven't been sleeping well."

      "Still? I thought you'd settled in."

      Sophie licked her lips, then recorded the sample identification next to the assigned number in her lab notebook. Put the vial of blood in a slot in a box and put the box in the -80 °C freezer. Cas watched her get another box from a stack, mark it with a number, then set it on the tall table next to the blood samples.

      "I'm having nightmares," she confessed to the box, frowning. "Last night it was… really bad. I feel like I'm going out of my mind."

      "Do you have something coming up? I always get nightmares when I'm dreading something. Maybe that's all?"

      "I was going to have my parents over…"

      "That's probably it! Parents are stressful," Cas said exuberantly, grinning at her. Sophie put the lid back on the sharpie and gave him a sideways look. Her lips twisted upwards but her eyes were still a little sad. "Are you nervous about being alone with them? Do you need a buffer?"

      "Cas, you're very sweet," she sighed. "But I don't think that's it. This wasn't like any nightmare I've ever had before. It's more like… never mind."

      "Oh come on," Cas pressed, bouncing back from rejection quickly. "More like what?"

      "You'll think I'm crazy."

      "I promise I will not think you're crazy. Cross my heart."

      He made a playful gesture with his free hand. The purple nitrile glove made it all the more endearing and Sophie raked her teeth over her lower lip, choosing her words carefully.

      "In my nightmares," she started slowly, looking forward. "There's someone else in the house with me. Someone watching. He comes up from under the floor and just…"

      "I mean, I'm not an expert," said Cas slowly, making a move to run his fingers through his hair before he caught himself and forced his gloved hand down. "But it sounds like you don't feel safe."

      "What can I do?" Exasperation made her voice sharp and she turned to face Cas more fully, pressing one hand to the tabletop and putting the other aggressively in her lab coat pocket. "I have a locked gate, I deadbolt the door, I have pepper spray."

      "Maybe you just need to be more confident? You're doing everything right, short of taking a self-defense class or getting a dog. You know, something to have in the house to keep you company."

      "I have an orchid," she said after a long moment, relaxing her shoulders and shaking her head. "He keeps me company."

      "So it's a "he" is it?"

      "Yes, he's a boy orchid…" She dropped her gaze to the floor and rolled her lips. "Maybe you're right."

      "I think having your parents over will be great. You can show them how well you're coping, that you're in control. Maybe you'll convince yourself while you're at it. It's worth a shot, at any rate."

      Sophie nodded along, keeping her eyes down. There was a comfortable moment of silence between them before she looked up, hazel eyes meeting black. He was thinking something, she could tell, she just didn't know what it was. There was warmth in the way he looked at her that made her feel nice, and an intensity she didn't understand. Did he look at everyone this way? Finally, she smiled, tilting her head and looking away again.

      "You're probably right. I'm having them over tomorrow for dinner. We'll see how it goes."

      "You'll have to let me know! I'm sure it'll be great."

      "I hope so…"

"I should probably," Cas mumbled after another moment of less comfortable silence. "Get back to work before Keith notices I'm gone."

"Me too," affirmed Sophie. She reached for the blood samples and grabbed the next vial, but faltered. "Hey Cas?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you. For noticing I was having a bad day."

He gave her an award-winning grin and a thumbs up with his free hand.

"Any time."