The hockey puck slid across the ice as I watched Tim cruise through a maze of black and yellow, his team's colors. The rink was filled with the swell of noise and confusion that rose and fell with the movements of the players. The air was blue-gray from the friction of stick, shaft & blade cutting through thick ice. Hunkering in the corner, protecting his goal was Tim's nemesis, Jake. A strange mist was swirling around him, an energy, sharp and electrifying. Traces of music wafted, caught in the screams of the crowd. Dense geometric slopes and patterns circumvented paths against a canopy of athletes. I climbed down from my seat on the stands and sat at the empty seats closer to the ice. A sudden shift in light, the scent of fermenting sugar mingling with flowers and I felt the pulse beat on my wrist as Tim 's skate cut across Jake's neck severing the jugular vein. Jake fell on his hands and knees. Blood gushed out of his throat, which was wide open. There was a faint echo, a collective intake of breath. Tim looked over in my direction in disbelief and shock. Many would call this a freak accident, but Tim and I knew better. It followed us there that day. We sensed it, fraying into the sound of horror.
***
It looked like any home across the country, but this one was very haunted. The house itself was a white brick antebellum 3 story with huge pillars, 3-car garage and a guesthouse. It had 6 bedrooms and 5 baths. Tim was reluctant to buy the fixer upper since the home was built in 1817, and was in terrible disrepair. But each time I returned for another viewing, I sensed a spiritual bond to the place. There was stillness inside things, on the surface of things, as if matter was ripped apart from space. I accepted its natural beauty and judged it gently, convincing Tim that we could build a nice family within its walls. Renovations began immediately. Our hands never stopped moving. Our skin was like steel wool. And blood from scrapes and scratches crept its way underneath our fingernails, but we were happy. After we were somewhat settled comfortably in the house, Tim started to work long hours at the local bar and grill, spending all free time at the hockey rink to unwind.
My body was so sore from working in the yard one afternoon that I decided to take a break with a hot shower and nap. The water pressure was on high. That was when it first started. The whistling. I played with the faucet thinking it was a problem with the showerhead. But even when the water was turned off, the distant sound of whistling continued. I thought my imagination had gotten the better of me, pure exhaustion had not only invaded my body but my mind and I quickly rinsed off and headed for bed. To arrive at sleep, one has to stop moving. But even though I had fallen into a deep state of peacefulness, I still felt the continuum of movement, as if I had been astral traveling on a red wind, that came to rest on a barren earth. There was a faint trace of salt on my lips and then he appeared, the dark figure. I felt drawn to him yet I felt we were divided by longing. I watched as meteors sprayed past, above his head, turning stars to blood rain. In his hands all that I've touched and lost, in my hands all that he touched and lost. "I'm so sorry, " I said, before the infrared aura of a snake awoke me. A white light engulfed the room and I became transparent. I began to remember the dark figure in my dream. We held each other up to the light and read one another's soul.
From that moment on I had the distinct feeling I was never alone. While folding clothes one day in the bedroom, I suddenly started to sob inconsolably for no obvious reason. Tim became more distant usually finding reasons to be away from the house. His temperament changed and he was highly irritable and angry. Things escalated from there. Toilets flushed by themselves, cabinet doors in the kitchen flung open, and then there were the night sounds on the lawn. The quantum whispering of thoughts. Tim and I experienced the scents of wet clay, the cold spots that crystallized our breath, the disturbing thoughts we were having about hurting one another. He soon left the house. He said there was an evil presence there, that he could always feel it. I always felt it too, but to me it wasn't really evil. I sensed I had to help it find happiness, for to run and deny it the happiness it sought, would have meant to deny my own happiness. A psychic medium and friend once told me that one and the same creator made good and evil. And we are an equal balance of both. Maybe what was really going on was a simple manifestation of my infidelity and Tim's rage in a home that once symbolized our love.
***
That night I went to see Tim at the hockey arena. "What the hell are you doing here?" he asked. "Jake..." I said.
"Will be fine. The skate blade cut his exterior jugular not the interior or he would have died." Tim replied.
"Tim..." "Don't say it, Kate. Whatever it is, it's haunting you, not me, " he said, before he walked away.
I stood on the lawn of our home that night, where light lay broken with past memories, listening to the whistling wind come and go in drifts over the Hawthorne and Iris. It taught me not to fear. It taught me that failure had brought us together.
