Monday, October 3rd, 2016

Angie has been guiding me to a small wooden cabin that was used by the rangers and the close surroundings. She showed me the situation around the cabin as it is now, and how it used to look when it was still being used. She showed me there’s four pathways leading away from the cabin, all leading to the four main parts of the wood; Millers lake, The pits, Hiker’s trail and Deer trial.

The first is a part of the woods that I remember from our nightly adventure in the woods. It’s a large calm lake that – according to books – isn’t deep anywhere, except one part that is a deep hole. She showed me the fifteen cabins that were once rental houses for families to spent time during the summer months.

The ‘pits’ is an area in the woods where there’s a lot of uneven grounds, ditches, deep holes and large bumps that had been forbidden area even before the first people went missing. The grounds are simply unstable, and you could step in a hole without seeing it.

Hiker’s trail is the best part of the woods and is directly next to the lake, and is the part where Davy, Edward and I entered and walked through towards the lake. It’s just an area with lots of small trials, ideal for a walk through the woods – were it to be in any forest except Miller woods.

And then there’s Deer Trial, the part that was used for hunting, where there were a lot of deer – hence the name. It’s also the part of the forest where Hunter’s Lodge is located, and it is the part of the forest in which most of the ghost stories take place.

We haven’t walked there yet.

But since we started exploring the woods for my sake to not get lost and do research about any dark activities to solve my problem, I started to grow fond of Angie and her stupid humour.

It also distracted me from my homework, and now I’m seated in class, while the teacher is handing out tests, which I totally forgot and didn’t study for.

“Fuck.” I hiss, wanting to curse more for this stupidity. I need to pass this test because I haven’t done well in this class so far.

“Don’t worry.” Angie giggles, showing up next to me. “Annika is smart. I’ll peak for you.”

I smirk while keeping my head faced down so that nobody sees my sudden smirking. Angie giggles and skips towards Annika, who sends me a worried look as I look up to find her staring at me.

She’s asking me with her eyes if I’m okay and I smile to reassure her everything is fine indeed.

I get my test, fill in my name, and wait for Angie to give me the right answers. Knowing Annika mostly get’s A’s in this class, I decide on putting some of the answers wrong, even though Angie repeatedly tells me it’s not the right answer.

I can’t fill in my test in the exact same way. The teacher will know I cheated, even though he would never be able to figure out how I managed to get Annika’s exact answers since she’s not seated next to me. Davy is in between us, and by the annoyed and frustrated sounds he’s making, I can tell he’s struggling with his test too.

But I can’t do anything to help him right now, other then keep my test as much to the left as possible so that he is able to peak every so often.

So, Angie is handing me the answers, and I’m trying to hand them to Davy right afterwards.

I finish the test, filling in three made up answers in the end to finish before Annika does so that the teacher will be even less suspicious. I pretend to check the answers to give Davy a bit more time, but then I get up, hand in the test, and leave the classroom.

Angie follows me while floating behind me, humming a tune happily, swaying from left to right a bit. I can’t focus on her in plain sight, but I know she tends to do that a lot.

It’s a tune I don’t recognize and probably is from back in the fifties. Every so often I’m reminded of the fact Angie is a nine-year-old ghost that died over fifty years ago, instead of her being just another one of my friends.

Though, I do believe if she would be alive, I would definitely be friends with her if she would be my age.

“Sid.” It’s Annika’s voice behind me, and she sounds a bit worried. It makes me turn around to find her walking towards me, while Davy is following close behind her. “You didn’t study, did you?”

“Eh, yeah, I did.” I lie, knowing I can’t say I didn’t, while I know I must have passed the test with a nice grade because Angie helped me.

“Oh, because you cursed…” She smiles carefully. “I’m worried about you though. You changed a lot… You know…”

“Since we were in those woods.” Davy steps in and finishes her sentence. “Edward and I are fine, but we feel like you’re deliberately allowing Angie to haunt you.”

“Which is true.” I shrug, taking a look around us, finding a wide smiling Angie on my right. She sticks out her tongue towards him and I bite my lip to prevent myself from laughing.

“She’s here, isn’t she?” Annika looks around us.

“Yeah, my right side.”

“Is she really? Or are you losing it?” Davy frowns and crosses his arms. “Cory can’t even explain what you’re experiencing.”

“It’s because Cory didn’t experience the same.” I shrug, knowing Cory was never haunted by the mass. “Nobody ever listened to her before.”

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And the black mass is probably a demon, and I don’t want to think about it. I’m trying to ignore that part of the problem as much as possible.

“If you open up, you’ll understand.” I tell Davy with a simply smile. “She’s not evil. She is actually really helpful. And she’s funny…”

“She’s a nine-year-old ghost,” Annika hisses annoyed. “She’s not a friend, Sid.”

“You have no idea what is going on right now, so you have no idea how wrong that assumption is, Anni,” I snap at her, annoyed because she spoke negative about Angie, while I really like her.

And not just because we share the same sense of humour, but because she’s the only one capable of helping, and helping me in the same time.

“Then tell me what’s going on, Sid.” She is practically begging me. “Why are you letting this happen? I don’t want to lose you.”

I’m indecisive if I should tell her about the black mass. Davy knows, and I somewhat expected him to tell her about it.

“Is it… that thing?” Davy whispers, sounding a bit uneasy. “Is this because you saw that… shadow?”

“It’s not a shadow.” Or maybe it is, I don’t know. But if it’s a shadow, it belongs to something I can’t see and that’s maybe freaking me out even more. “But yes, Angie is helping me to try and figure out what it is.”

“And why are you the only one who suffers from it?” Annika genuinely sounds worried, but I still feel a bit agitated because I don’t think she believes I’m telling her the truth.

She might think I’m losing my mind.

And I wondered if I did too. But I’m pretty sure this is reality, as is Angie.

“Because it got to me first. It latches onto the person closest, and apparently, I was.” I hug, crossing my arms. “Look, I’ve been doing research and some dark shit went down in those woods. And Hunter’s Lodge had something to do with it.”

“We’re not going in there, ever again.” Davy tells me adamantly. “No thank you.”

“Because you’re a pussy,” I snap, wondering where the sudden annoyed feelings are coming from. “Grow up.”

Both Davy and Annika frown at me, probably too wondering why I’m acting on edge.

“What’s wrong with you today, dude?” Davy chuckles awkwardly. “You said you didn’t want to go back in there either.”

“Well, I changed my mind. I have to help Angie. She’s helping me, it’s the least I could do for her.”

“The least you could do for her?” Davy scowls. “She could’ve left us alone and none of this shit would’ve happened…”

“Stop! Talking! Like that!” I cry out in anger. “You don’t know half of it, Davy!” I swirl around on my heels, marching away from them, mostly because I’m starting to become angry and I don’t want to fight with either of them.

“Then talk to us, Sid!” Davy caught up with me, grabbing my wrist to stop me from walking away. “Tell us what we don’t know?”

“Angie’s keeping it away, okay?” I hiss, pulling my wrist from his hold. “She’s keeping that… thing… away. It wants me, it wants to posses me. It wants to use my body to kill people, okay?”

Annika stares at me in shock, while Davy looks me up and down confused.

“If she doesn’t help me, I’m going to be possessed by an evil shitty fucking demon and it will make me kill.” I cry out, slumping down to the floor because suddenly I’m exhausted and I feel defeated. “And I don’t know how to stop it.”

“We’ll help, Sid.” Annika sits down next to me and while she puts her arms around me, I want to push her away. I don’t want her to touch me right now. But as she does, I suddenly grow calm and less exhausted then seconds before. So, I slump down against her while she caresses my hair in a loving way. “Because I love you, and I’m pretty sure Davy loves you as a brother too.”

“Ans as a friend.” Davy kneels in front of me, grabbing my shoulder firmly. “Show us what you found so far, and let Annika use her brains to help figure this out and find a solution.”

* * * * *

I’m in Annika’s bed and she made her mother call my parents to tell them I’m still experiencing trouble to sleep, and I would stay over for the night. As soon as I got my parents approval, I pulled on a jogging pants and crawled into her bed, tired, yawning, wanting to sleep without Angie for one night. But she followed me in here, and she’s currently seated on the foot end of the bed, staring at me without a facial expression that I can read.

We’re having a stare-off. Not a bad one, but we do this more often when there’s nothing to say, or in the rare occasions I’m done with it all and want her to take the black mass and leave me the hell alone for a second.

Annika and Davy both noticed I’m staring in her direction, both not knowing she’s there for sure, but probably both thinking it.

I showed them all the information I have about dark rituals, demon worshipping in Deer’s Trial, Voodoo, and all other things I’ve found about the Miller Woods.

Annika went over it, Davy helped her by playing her assistant as she’s trying to connect rumours, stories and news articles and find anything out of the ordinary. Any bit of proof that any if it truly happened so that we would know where to start our fight.

But then she found me staring, because Davy nudged her and nodded his head towards me.

“You know what?” Davy pushes himself up from his seat. “I’m going to sleep in my own room.”

“What?” Annika frowns and I lazily break eye-contact with Angie. But I think we turned to look at him simultaneously.

“Tell Angie I’m done hiding. I’ll listen.” Davy swallows, visibly not entirely convinced this is the right thing to do. “I’ll help you to find her… body.”

I simply blink, incapable of responding because I’m too tired.

Angie glides off the bed, walking around Davy with a curious look on her face. “Siddey, will you be okay with Annika?”

I push myself up quickly, not wanting her to leave. “What, no!” I call out, to which Davy and Annika think I’m responding to Davy.

“You don’t want me to help her?” Davy frowns.

“Oh, big baby.” Angie giggles, waving off Davy. “I’m in the next room. I’ll keep an eye on you. But believe me, it’s not here. Annika is a shield, remember?”

“How would that work out?”

“Well, the same as with you?” Davy now sounds lost. “I’ll open up, she’ll talk to me, and we’ll help her together, and help you in the same time.”

“He really doesn’t understand that you’re talking to me, huh?” Angie giggles again.

Annika shushes Davy, since she noticed I’m not staring at Davy.

“Annika is strong, and full of love, and kindness, and innocence…” Angie sums up before she giggles again. “Well, not thatinnocent.” Angie winks and laughs like a nine-year-old does when they’re letting you in on a secret.

My god, she sawAnnika and me having sex. She must have.

“But she’s pure. I can’t explain. But whenever she’s around, itis not.” Angie smiles and skips towards Annika, waving her arms around dramatically. “She’s like an angel or something.” Angie bows for Annika and I can’t fight back a smirk because she’s acting silly again. “And this angel here seems to love you very much.”

“I love her too, Ang.” I whisper, and that causes Davy to open his mouth, mouthing an ‘ooh’ in realisation, while Annika blushes and smiles, passing Angie to walk towards me.

“I love you too, Siddey.” Annika whispers back. “You think you’re going to be okay if Davy sleeps in his own room?”

“I will, whenever you’re around.” I mutter, pulling her in bed, rolling around while she’s giggling. “I don’t mind some alone time with you again.”

“Ugh, I’m outa here. Angie, if you hear me, you better follow me and leave these two lovebirds on their own for a while.” Davy waves and leaves, causing me to smirk as Angie winks towards me, skipping out of the room to follow Davy.

And as Annika dresses to get ready for bed, I overthink Angie’s words about her, her strength, the fact she’s like a shield and pure, I can’t help but think Angie must be right.

If there’s demons, then angels do exist too, right?

And I think I found my very own angel in Annika.