I had slept surprisingly long, we all did. We woke a couple of hours before lunch, all three of us, bundled close together.

I have no recollection of even going to bed, so someone must have carried Eloim and I. I don’t think anyone has done this since I was two, and it made me feel a little weird. Eloim was between Xander and I, and they were still sound asleep. They looked so similar right now, they had the exact same position and it was adorable.

I reached carefully for my phone and took furtively a few pictures. Both of their mouths were half open, and they were breathing loudly in alternation. It was hard to imagine how my life had changed so much in such a short amount of time. If it hadn’t been for Enola, at this moment, my life would be the closest thing to perfection I could imagine.

I could picture a few more kids running around, me spending my day painting, or running after the little runts all over the place, and Xander whenever he was not deep in work, helping them build a cardboard forth or whatever crazy projects he would do from time to time with Eloim, always with mirth at the corner of his lips.

He was really made for the family thing.

I brushed my fingers the lightest I could on his cheek. I saw him twitch and lean into it. It made me smile. The sheer dichotomy of the insanity of yesterday and the sweetness of this morning could barely be processed by my brain. If only every day would be like right now, I could do this for the next fifty years without any problem. But that’s not how life works isn’t it? It’s all ups and downs, and we just have to find someone that can give us a good average to share together.

I promised myself that we would go through this and I really wanted to believe this with every fiber of my body. How long would this take.

I could still run. I could run and everything would be over, but my heart would shatter. I couldn’t I do this to myself, to them.

Xander opened his eyes slowly, blinking a few times.

“Hey there, handsome,” I muttered quietly, Eloim was still sleeping.

“Hey there, beautiful.”

I smiled.

He put his fingers over mines, took my hand to his lip and kissed the back of it.

There is something to be said about old-fashion British gentlemanliness. It made my legs all nooddly. Good thing I was already lying down.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, his voice careful, soft.

“Better,” I admitted.

“You have nerves of steel,” he noted.

“Like yourself.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t face half of what you are.”

“But what you’ve faced, you’ve faced it for far longer than I.”

He tucked a curl behind my ear. “I’m calling the priest today, we need to accelerate this. It can’t wait any longer.”

I nodded. I took his hand in mine and drew it to my lips. I made him smile.

Eloim stirred and we slowly made our way down to lunch, our little perfect moment now over.

The day went relatively well, despite everything.

I know that Regis and Miranda cleaned the bathroom while we slept, but I wasn’t keen on seeing it right now, so I used another one. I supposed this is one of the advantages of a big house, you have alternatives.

After a few times of this, I decided it was silly and I’d better get over this now before it festered into anything bigger, so I went to the bathroom and opened the door to look in. I half expected to see a dark silhouette looking at me from a corner, but nothing was there.

The mirror was gone, all the shards gone, there was no shower curtain anymore, but other for that and a couple of decorations that weren’t where they had been before, everything looked normal.

I just stood there, taking everything in. I still wasn’t keen on getting in there but I wondered if it would be better for me so that I would not sink into some form of paranoia, or bathroom phobia. I got over stairs, I could get over this bathroom, right?

I heard a creak next to me, and my heart jump out of my chest and I whirled around ready to fight to the death.

“Easy, easy,” said Xander. “Did something happened?”

He checked nervously inside the bathroom then back at me.

I let my forehead fall on his chest and closed my eyes to let my breathing return to normal, but there was this massive empty space behind me that kept creeping me out.

“Hug me please,” I asked.

He did and we stayed this way for a while so that my heart would quieten, but the opened door next to me kept bugging me, so I turned and closed it.

“Are you okay?” he asked me, worried.

I was about to say that I was fine, but I changed my mind and went for the truth instead. “No,” I admitted.

We managed to put Eloim to bed early. We both tucked him in our bed, but when he slept we moved to the corridor to talk for a while. After maybe half an hour—for which we didn’t dare to go any further from Eloim—we heard a few choked scream, and rushed inside the room in a panic.

I heard Miki run up the stairs as if he had a sensor that had just gone up.

Inside, Eloim had wide terrified eyes fixated on something that we couldn’t see at the bottom of the bed. I heard a creak on the mattress and Eloim went scrambling up the bed trying to climb on the bedframe if he could.

As I had been the closest to the door and the first through, I rushed to Eloim to take him in my arms. Something solid went flying my direction, trying to stop me, but Xander found himself in between me and whatever that was. Miki was barking continuously, and I rushed out of the room with Eloim in my arms and Xander on my heels.

It would probably have been easier for Xander to take him, but we also knew that it was probably safer for me to do it. The fact that she had been stalking Eloim so hard freak me out though. We had assumed it was little things here and there, maybe occasional apparition, but either it had been worst that we had thought or things were escalating now.

“You get in the car, now,” told me Xander.

“Where could we go?” I asked him.

“Consecrated grown, we’re trying for a church.”