Free Stepping into the Sky: Jump When Ready, Book 3 by David Pandolfe

somehow
suspected it would. That was the hunch he’d gone with. The fire had died down a
bit, flickering steadily now. Henry guessed it would offer them a few more
hours of warmth and comfort.
    “What do we do now?” Nikki said, her voice fading and her
head still resting against his shoulder.
    Henry glanced over at her to see that she’d closed her
eyes. He closed his eyes too, hoping she’d dream of dancing, flying weightless
as the entire world disappeared .

7
    In the Garden
     
    Michelle’s eyes shot open in the dark. She’d just heard it
again. The footsteps clicking on the stairs, the sound of someone taking deep
mournful breaths. As if weeping, she thought, as she had so many nights before.
This was the sound of someone grieving, gasping for air as her lungs convulsed.
    “Mommy!” Michelle’s daughter called out from down the
hall.
    Each night, they left the bathroom light on in the
hallway. The left closet lights on in bedrooms. But lights only chased away
things you imagined.
    “Mom, I hear her again too!”
    Her son this time.
    Michelle heard their small feet slapping against the
hardwood floors, racing in her direction. She threw off her blankets and sat
up. Next to her, Caleb stirred, once again fighting for sleep, hoping this
thing that kept happening would somehow just stop.
    Part of Michelle agreed with his continued attempts at
denial. It wasn’t possible, not in real life. This wasn’t a movie and houses
didn’t have ghosts. Those were just stories.
    Footsteps couldn’t sound on stairs when no one placed
their feet upon them.
    Crying couldn’t be heard without a person nearby crying.
    “Mom, she’s in the hall!”
    “I heard her on the stairs too. I really did!”
    Small bodies launched themselves into Michelle’s bed and
she wrapped her arms around her children. “It’s okay,” she whispered. She
stroked hair and smoothed brows. “It’s okay. It’s just the wind. And that old
furnace. Mom and Dad will have that looked at.”
    But what she told them wasn’t true. It wasn’t the wind.
It wasn’t the house either. It was something that had happened here. Something
that kept happening, over and over. Michelle pulled her children close and they
nestled into her. She ran her hands down their backs, whispering that
everything was fine, that there was nothing to be afraid of, that it was just
their imagination.
    She knew she was lying.
    ~~~
    The doorbell rang and her eyes sprang open to daylight.
Nikki shook her head briskly, trying to wake up. She’d been dreaming about a
woman comforting her children. Michelle. In the dream, her name had been
Michelle. Nikki had felt her fear and her children’s fear as well.
    The doorbell rang again, echoing in the hall. Nikki saw
the foyer inside her mind, that large space full of polished mahogany. Henry
rustled into wakefulness beside her. He opened his eyes, his arm still around her
shoulders.
    In his gaze, Nikki saw the same question she was asking
herself. Who was at the door? How could anyone be at the door?
    We’re in the dream, Nikki told herself, but that didn’t
make her feel any better. She’d just been dreaming of someone else’s life. And
she and Henry had just shared their old dreams. Dreams surrounded her now.
    A knock sounded on the door now. Not the same knocking as
last night. A light rapping that sounded somehow friendly rather than the
insistent pounding of someone trying to frighten them.
    “I think someone’s really there,” Nikki said.
    Henry nodded, blinking as he continued to wake up.
Neither of them said anything more as they got to their feet and left the room.
    From the hallway, Nikki saw half of a girl’s silhouette
in the windows framing the front door, windows she hadn’t noticed last night in
the darkness. In fact, light streamed through those widows now suggesting a
beautiful day outside. Nikki felt pretty sure she knew who was at the door.
    A moment later, the knocking sounded again. “Is anyone
home?