After the incident in Eloim’s bedroom, he refused to sleep there alone. Actually, he would barely ever be away from me.

I was keyed up.

It was hard to believe what had happened in that room, what I had seen. I was questioning everything, from my perception of death, religion, all the way to my sanity.

Every night, Eloim would refuse to go to bed without clinging to my chest, so I let him and lied beside him. I would close the lights and read a book on my phone for a few hours. It did eat away at my schedule a lot, but there was not way now I would leave Eloim behind terrified.

I didn’t know what I really saw, or what I could do.

I didn’t even tell Xander when we talked on the phone.

I asked the contractor if they could help me repair some of the damage on the doorframe, telling them that there had been a problem with the doorhandle and I had to go through to Eloim to get him out, not mentioning any weird disfigured woman.

They glued all the pieces back, and we managed to save the moldings. In the end, I had to put a new coat of paint, but it worked and looked mostly fine once done.

There would be days, when Eloim would cling to my leg, or but his back against it to play on the floor while I worked. If I moved, it would take a few seconds and he’s scooted around until he was back into position. He needed physical contact.

My senses were on full alert all the time, especially at night.

More than once I heard creaking from the bedroom floor when we were in bed, as if weight was moving around, but this was an old house. It could be a million things, normal things, rational things, but because of what I’d seen, I questioned everything that I wouldn’t have otherwise.

The contractors were mostly working on the exterior of the house now, and it was extremely satisfying to see its metamorphosis from creepy old ruins to a stunning piece of architecture. Everything that had been hanging the wrong way were now back into place. Every scrape of paint had been stripped off, and in a week, I could have the pros repaint it all, and I was now choosing the colour palette with Eloim, making it an activity. I even printed a few pictures of the house for him to draw on and see which colour was the coolest.

He was very tempted into going for a rainbow pattern, I was sadly a little more conservative than him, and went for something a little less extravagant.

Eloim had enough fun with this project, than he was starting to return to him normal self.

We even managed to start early on the east side as there was not much left to do on the wood cladding.

“Purple?” said Xander as he came off his car the moment he returned.

Eloim had rushed to him like a small rhinoceros stampede to give him a hug, smiling.

Xander raised him in his arms laughing.

“That’s interesting,” he said looking at the painters working on the first few feet of the first coat. “Not subtle though.”

“Is it too much?” I asked.

“Nah,” he said. “I’m sure it’ll be great.” He kissed me.

“You should have seen your son’s ideal colour pallet. It would have been a unicorn house.”

That made Eloim giggle.

“I prefer purple,” said Xander.

The day went well, but at night, when Xander tried to but Eloim to bed, things went sideways.

“NO! NO! NO!” screamed Eloim. “MILA!”

It sounded like he was being tortured and the fact that Xander was with him didn’t register as I careened through the house and rushed inside his room in a panic.

Xander looked at the scene with wide eyes.

Eloim jumped out of his bed and into my arms crying.

“What happened,” mouthed Xander silently.

“Later,” I replied in the same way.

I took Eloim in my arms and brought him to bed, and I resumed what was slowly turning into our new routine.

Xander looked at the scene worried. Eloim didn’t sleep until he was properly clinging to me, and I stayed this way until he fell asleep.

Xander sat on the bed on the other side and looked at his little boy with concern painted on his face.

“What happened?”

How do you answer this?

“He got locked into his bedroom and now he’s afraid of it.”

“How?”

I looked at the little boy, unsure of what to say next.

“I’m not sure what I saw,” I admitted.

“What do you mean?”

“Just … don’t judge me please.”

He looked at me strangely and I told him all that happened.

He stared at me with skepticism, I raised my shirt and showed the side of my body where the massive blue bruises were slowly turning to purple and yellow.

He eyes bulged out.

I lowered the side of my pants, showing him the extend of it.

He looked horrified.

“I’m not saying that I believe into anything weird.” I sighed. “I had the housed checked for carbon monoxide poisoning, I heard it can cause hallucinations and the feeling of being touched and everything. A child would be even more affected than an adult,” I said.

“And?”

“Nothing. The air quality is pretty good around the house other than maybe where there is too much dust because of the renovations, but we always kept those sections isolated from the rest of the house and it should not cause trouble. I also asked someone to check the electricity, I heard that it can have built up sometimes that can affect people. It’s called electromagnetic fields. I wanted to know if we had that.”

“And?”

“Nothing significant to warrant intervention. I called a specialist to check for ultrasound frequencies?”

“Why?”

“Apparently it can make you eyeballs vibrate and make you see hallucinations.”

“And?”

“I have an appointment for two days from now. I asked the contractors to check for possible toxic mold that could be here, but they said no, all the mold had been taken away and none had been found to be very harmful.”

I saw his jaw pop in the corner.

“Do you think I should ask for a medical and mental check up? Just to be safe?”

“What? No, no.” He shook his head.

“I know what I saw. I was not sleeping either. The pets saw it, Eloim saw, or at least felt it. What if it’s part of why he’s struggling so much? What if it’s where the scary faces come from.”

Xander turned around to look at the wall. He was unmoving on the side of the bad for a little while. I looked at his back and waited.

“When is his meeting with the psychiatrist?”

“In a month. There were no available spots before then,” he said, his back still to mine.

“Do you think I’m mad?”

“No.”

“Lying?”

A couple of seconds went by.

“No.”

“I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ll do everything I can for Eloim, but I’ll respect your opinion in this.”

He said nothing.

“I don’t know what to do with something like this,” I said.

“I don’t either.”

He stayed this way for a few more minutes. He needed to think, I knew I did.

I was slowly feeling tiredness take over.

“Do you think it’s her?” asked Xander from the shadows.

I opened my eyes. He was still sitting on the side of the bed, probably looking at nothing in particular. I knew what he had meant, who he was referring to. I had thought about it too.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I never saw her before.”

Xander took his phone out of his pocket and flipped through its content. He turned around a little later showing me the picture of a pretty woman with brown hair and eyes.

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “She had longer hair. Around her shoulders.”

“She had that haircut when—,” he let the words trail off.

“She didn’t have a recognisable face,” I said. “It was … damaged, injured, it was not pretty. I wouldn’t be able to make out features much.”

“If you saw that, could you recognize it?”

I felt myself heave. I knew exactly what he was asking me to do. I could just say no and be done with it, I could turn the page and move on, but I also knew there would be a million questions that would stay unanswered, and I doubt this is the best way to find a solution.

“I could try,” I told him.

He looked at me. He knew how bad what he asked could be, but we both knew what was at stake.

I could see he wanted to ask for confirmation, that he was doubting the wisdom of this, but I nodded. I will do it.