Page 51 of Eldritch

Sybil sighed. “Old tapes playing in my head. CPTSD.”

“What is the tape saying?”

Sybil stared at the front window. “I thought it was great that you’d have the pills and feel better. But then that little critic in my head--”

“The one that sounds like your mother or father.”

“Right. It told me I was only happy you’d feel better soon because then I would, too.”

Letisha frowned. “You’re a fantastic friend. So why would the voice give you shit over that?”

Frustration rose a little in Sybil. She’d explained the concept to Letisha and others more than once. They couldn’t seem to understand how insidious the automatic reactions to things could be. How uncontrollable.

“That old tape made a groove in my brain when I was a kid. Now the record player pulls out that record every time something that happens reminds my primitive brain of an incident in my past. My brain tries to avoid any confrontation or situation where your mood might be unhappy. Or angry. Because to that little kid part of my brain, the primitive part, I don’t like it when people disapprove or become angry, even if it has nothing to do with me. Because it always feels like whatever is happening is my fault.”

Letisha nodded. “So if I take the pills and feel good, then you’re happy because I probably won’t do or say anything negative to you.”

“Right.”

Letisha’s gaze landed on Sybil, and Sybil couldn’t miss the sympathy in her friend’s eyes. “I feel bad sometimes that your childhood hooked into you so firmly that you can’t seem to escape what happened.”

A tear formed in Sybil’s left eye and hreatened to break free. She drew in a slow breath to head it off.

“It’s a vicious cycle,” Sybil said. “I know it’s not rational. But it is selfish. So even though it’s a protection mechanism my little kid brain produced because it was trying to stay safe, it’s maddening to me and other people now that I’m an adult.”

“Did I ever make you feel like I didn’t understand or care about your trauma and what it did to you?”

Sybil winced. She heard the worry in her friend’s voice. “The kid in me wants to say no. But putting up with my complex trauma sometimes can’t be easy.”

“None of it was your fault, Sybil. You were only a kid.”

“Intellectually I understand. Emotionally, I sometimes don’t know that.” Sybil started the van. “Thanks for understanding this time.”

“Anytime.” Letisha smiled, and they brought their hands together in a high five.

They returned to the highway that led them back to the woods.

“The pharmacy tech noticed the name of the cleaning company on the van,” Letisha said when they’d been driving a few minutes. “She asked me if I was visiting Estes Park. When I told her we were cleaning Clarice’s old house, she got this weird look on her face. She said, oh hell no. She’d never stay in that house. Not even one night. She particularly hates the giant tree trunks. They creep her out. She called it the Eldritch Woods.”

Sybil wrinkled her nose. “I didn’t even know they had a name. Clarice never called it that. Wait a minute. Eldritch as in?—”

“H. P. Lovecraft’s Eldritch.”

Sybil shook her head and smiled. “Freaky. But cool.”

Letisha groaned. “You would think that.”

“Guilty. Well, I’m eager to get back to the woods. I feel we’re behind on this job.”

“Because we are. But we’ll catch up.”

Letisha put her head back and fell asleep fast. Letisha’s meds could make her a little sleepy, but only when she first started taking them. She’d been off them for a long time. No doubt she had trouble sleeping when the fibro returned.

As Sybil drove back, she noted how eager she was to return to the woods. She didn’t question it. Didn’t give it much thought. The anticipation and the quiet gave her a sense of peace she hadn’t felt in a long time.

* * *

The third-floor ballroom was enormous. Though Sybil had taken a peek in the ballroom when they’d arrived that first day, now that she’d entered the place with cleaning supplies, she took a moment to scrutinize the interior. That first day, she’d had an impression of the room, but she hadn’t taken in every nook and cranny. She felt into the room, of course, taking in the atmosphere. To her surprise, she sensed nothing at all as she stood at the threshold of the north door. In the middle of the third floor, the ballroom had a large north and south exit.

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