Portals (part 1)

I pulled the covers up under my chin and watched my moonlit breath escape in a misted sigh.

That was odd. Even in my half sleep state I knew that it wasn’t supposed to be a particularly cold night. It was March in Brisbane after all. First month of Autumn. And I was alone in the old farmhouse with my kids at their mother’s and my partner on a retreat in Guatemala.

Worse still. Rising moisture in that old house had forced me out of the master bedroom to sleep on a mattress on the livingroom floor.

I stirred, rousing myself into a more lucid state. The air bit at my cheeks with icy teeth.

I shuddered and let another stream of mist blast out over me.

Then I heard it.

A soft shuffle of feet and a sigh to echo my own.

Like a seven year old child, I peered out over the covers to the entry way from the hall. Ordinarily, with the moon this bright, I should’ve been able to see across the small hallway intersection to the white door of my daughter’s bedroom.

But not that night.

Instead, a dark silhouette filled the archway with a darkness that spilled back blacking out the rest of the hall. My breath caught in my throat.

The fighter in me insisted I leap off the mattress and attack this intruder, but my instinct held me in check. This was no normal intruder.

It stood there, watching. Its malintent seething forth in a tide of putrescence making my skin crawl.

When my partner left for Guatemala she had told me that if I ever experienced anything untoward to just tell it to go away and leave me alone. That it wasn’t welcome. In those moments as I peeked out from under the covers those words seemed somewhat dismissive. But short of calling for a priest with an African dig site, they were all I could think of.

“Get out! You aren’t welcome here!” My voice was strong, unwavering and commanding. I felt conviction and powerful facing this rising fear. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but what happened next was not what I had been hoping for.

The shadow moved. Puffed up. And the room was filled with thunderous foot steps as it rushed forward to stand over me. I had time to draw in a gasp of breath before it pressed down on me with a silent scream. I closed my eyes, but its pale face was still there. Its yawning maw about to consume me.

Then it withdrew. The weight upon my shoulders lifted and it was back in the hallway. Only now I could see the ghostly smudge of white that was its face lurking just beyond the moonlight. Not knowing what else to do I did something I had not done since I left private school. I recited the Lord’s prayer and Hail Mary over and over, projecting my voice with conviction as I sat up.

It chuckled.

I don’t know how long we stayed like that. Staring at each other as a pair of adversaries across a battlefield. But it wasn’t until Mitchel, our rooster, crowed that I realised the sky was lightening to the deep blue of predawn.

Slowly, I toppled over onto the pillows and fell asleep.