Page 15 of Eldritch

After putting their dishes in the dishwasher and cleaning up, all but Letisha and Sybil headed to their bedrooms.

Letisha rolled her shoulders, and Sybil thought she recognized that look. Concern mixed with displeasure inside Sybil.

“What’s up? You in pain?” Sybil asked.

Letisha put her hands on the kitchen counter near the sink and looked around. “A bit of fibromyalgia. Just some of the extra humidity today causing a flare.”

Sybil winced. “Sorry.”

Letisha stood up straighter and took her hair out of the ponytail that held back the long strands of her tightly curled hair. The hair spilled out, the slight kink flowing outward in an unruly wave that she said made her nuts.

“No need to be sorry. It’ll be gone by tomorrow,” Letisha said, her voice ripe with fatigue.

“Did you bring any medication?”

Letisha laughed, but with a total lack of humor. “Nope. I ran out of everything after I stopped using it last year.”

“Oh yeah. I forgot about that. Well, there are always regular pain killers.”

“This job is a big deal. I don’t have time to feel pain.”

It was Sybil’s turn to go quiet. She looked around the kitchen. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Letisha snorted. “Yeah. This is one butt-ugly kitchen. And I mean butt-ugly forever.”

Sybil laughed. She ran her hand over the old title countertops in an unflattering pink that had cracks on at least half of them. The grout was also in terrible shape. Sybil scuffed a toe over the tile, which suffered from the same pink and chipped in several places. The only thing that worked was the colossal size of the room and the generous cabinets and countertop space. That, and maybe the dishwasher, which looked younger than some of the other appliances.

“What are you thinking?” Letisha asked.

Sybil didn’t want to think about the kitchen anymore. “We aren’t here to fix the decor in this house or do renovations, so that’s a good thing. But this place feels...”

What could she say without being that crazy woman?

Letisha said, “Dark.”

Sybil’s gaze snapped from the tile floor to her friend’s eyes and solemn expression. “Yeah. That.”

Letisha made a soft, disbelieving sound. “I can’t believe I’m saying this because it’s more your thing. But ever since we got here, I’ve felt off.”

“The fibromyalgia?”

“That, yes. But also something I can’t really explain. It’s...I don’t know. I don’t feel quite right about this place, and I can’t put my finger on it to describe it.”

Sybil nodded. “Same here. There’s something in this house that’s…not quite right.”

Letisha rubbed the back of her neck and threw a look at Sybil. “One of your feelings? You’re not going to say ghosts, right? Because not every old creepy mansion is haunted.”

That stung. Sybil knew Letisha didn’t mean that in a bad way. Or...well, maybe she did. Although they’d been friends since they were four years old, it felt like a weird sort of marriage. People who claimed to care for each other who danced around the things they hated. Who let tiny resentments come out in a passive-aggressive fashion.

Sybil held up one hand as her resentment rose. “Look, let me get this off my chest. I used to keep all of this shit quiet most of the time, right? After that one time when I was a teen...well, I figured it was the safest thing to do. It’s safe when someone just keeps their mouth shut all the time.”

Letisha’s expression remained unimpressed. “You don’t have to keep proving it to me, okay? We’re forty damned years old. I was there for the history, wasn’t I?”

Sybil wanted to snap back, but sucked in the emotion and tried to make the bubbling anger disappear. Sudden tears hovered. She strained to keep them at bay. “Yeah, you were. You’ve listened to me all this time. I just...I sometimes feel like I have to keep proving myself. That’s it’s okay for me to say things like...that I feel something is wrong with people, or that I know it is. Or that there is something wrong with a place.” Sybil sighed, to calm herself rather than express grievance. “I’m sorry, okay. I shouldn’t repeat myself on stuff like this. I need to get my shit figured out. It’s my problem, not anyone else’s.”

If she didn’t have at least Letisha’s understanding, who did she have?

“It’s okay,” Letisha said around a yawn, as if she hadn’t noticed or didn’t care about the turbulence Sybil felt. “I’m dead. I’ll see ya bright and early for breakfast.”

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