The Full Moon was in two days. She took a breath, glanced at the lamp on her desk that wouldn’t be turning back on until she paid her utility bill, and she made a hard choice.
The King of the Kelpies and Abigail had a date two days from now, on the night of the Full Moon at Kirk’s Well. Abigail wouldn’t miss it for the world - or at least for the sake of those kids who were about to be kelpie snacks.
But she had two days, and the lights were off.
Abigail had to keep the lights on, and as much as she may drive her crazy, Tess also needed a paycheck.
Abigail closed the trunk she was rifling through and stood up. She pulled her hair back and then let it fall around her head, tucking itself as it always did in the collar of her jean jacket. She sighed for what felt like the two-hundredth time that morning.
“Tess, what’s that woman’s address? The one with the double Bambi’s?”
—
She would have stayed there if she knew it was in the same part of town as the high school.
Abigail drove back towards the high school and kept going, the lunch rush just beginning to pick up. The woman with the two dogs - Dorothy - broke down in tears when Tess called her to let her know Abigail was on the way. Abigail knew there were tears, as she could hear them across the room.
Abigail found the woman’s house, just as she described it. A small colonial across the street from the construction equipment. Abigail eyed the construction site as she got out of her car. She’d never been on this street before but she could tell opposite Dorothy’s house used to be wild.
Swamp, in fact.
Dorothy’s house bordered the swamp the school was developing.
Abigail walked up to the house, noting the manicured lawn and the pristine flowers along the edge of the walkway that appeared almost fake. She could hear no dogs barking (never mind, speaking) as she approached the front door. The house was eerily silent, almost enveloped in a cone of quietude.
Abigail knocked on the door and heard nothing. There was no call from inside, no acknowledgment of someone who had to take the tea kettle off the stove or get off the couch. There was no sound at all, and after waiting what felt like a polite enough length of time, she knocked again. Abigail’s policy was three knocks and after that, she left the premises. She had been pranked enough times by high schoolers who thought they were funny. She lifted her hand to knock the third and final time when Abigail heard a crash from inside.
The sound of glass breaking.
Whatever this was, it was no prank. Abigail tried the door and, surprisingly, the door knob turned. She decided the situation could be physically dangerous for Dorothy so she entered quickly, closing the door softly behind her. In the muffled silence of the house, Abigail could hear the sounds of quiet struggling…and splashing water. She followed the sound, reaching into the inside pocket of her denim jacket.
She slipped the string of her yo-yo, carved with ancient symbols, over the middle finger of her right hand.
Abigail rounded the corner to Dorothy’s kitchen, and made her way through the quaint living room, now hearing clearly the sounds of struggle, whimpering, and splashing water. For everything she was expecting to see, what lay before her was the furthest from her mind.
There were now three dogs, and they were floating. Dorothy - or who she assumed was Dorothy - lay in her shower, coughing and sputtering with the water of the shower falling on her. One of the floating dogs - a copper-colored Pomeranian, like the other two - gripped the hose of the shower head and was, apparently, paying Dorothy back for all the baths she must have given Bambi over the years.
The other two Bambi’s - Bambi #2 & Bambi #3 - were floating in the air, taking in Dorothy’s torment with a feverish glint in both their eyes. They were all so focused on hosing Dorothy down they didn’t notice Abigail as she took up space on the threshold.
“Hey Bambi,” Abigail called over the sound of the falling water. “Special delivery for ya!”
With that, Abigail shot out her enchanted yo-yo, the one she inherited from her father, with precision accuracy. Always taught to go for the entity closest to her, the yo-yo hit fair and true, knocking Bambi #2 out of the air, frozen now in the grip of blue power lines that crisscrossed over its body. The yo-yo returned and was lashed out again before Bambi #3 could make a complete turn, and #3 fell to the floor, trapped in the same holding spell #2 was caged by.
The original Bambi, though - she was fast. She darted through the air before Abigail could land another strike with her yo-yo, her teeth bared and red light gleaming out of her eyes. All Abigail could do was hold up her arm as Bambi’s teeth closed on the denim. The Pomeranian, fueled by some unknown power, floated in the air, kicking and clawing as it tried to attack her.
Luckily, all the yo-yo had to do was touch a possessed creature, so she took the yo-yo with her left hand and touched Bambi, immediately deflating her as she fell to the floor, caged by tendrils of blue light. Abigail rushed to the bathroom, finding Dorothy - spry for a woman of her apparent age - making her way out of the bathtub.
“Dorothy, I’m Abigail. Of Spectre Detectors. You were speaking to my assistant, Tess. Are you okay?” Abigail was guiding Dorothy to the couch in the living room after getting her wrapped up in a big bath towel. Her nightgown dripped with water, yet she seemed no worse for wear.
“Yes, yes, I am, thank you. Thank you for coming,” Dorothy stammered, sitting herself down on her couch. A grandfather clocked ticked and tocked just a few feet away. The sprinklers came to life outside.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Abigail asked Dorothy.
“Yes, yes,” Dorothy replied, composing herself. “I took Bambi out for our walk this morning, as I usually do every day. This dang construction next door, across the street, has been disturbing her greatly. Always barking towards the swamp as we walk by, she’s never done that before so I figure it must be the construction equipment, you know?” Dorothy was patting down her hair with the corner of her towel.
“Until this morning. On our walk back, Bambi just FLEW into a rage, and just when I thought I couldn’t get her under control, she fell over, stiff as a board. I brought her into the house, thinking I could get her to come to, that she must have had some sort of panic attack…and then she began talking.” Dorothy looked down at her lap. Abigail found that most people who experience the paranormal are hesitant, almost ashamed, to talk about their experiences.
“Go on,” Abigail encouraged.
“I thought I was losing my marbles when Bambi started talking to me. She became ferocious, and that’s when I called you. Soon after, she began talking about all sorts of crazy things. How we were all going to die for disturbing the “Sacred Kingdom,” whatever that is. I can’t remember most of what she said, and then it got really weird when she went through some sort of spasm and just…doubled.”
“Doubled?” Abigail asked.
“Yes, doubled. I swear she started blowing up like a piece of popcorn and then another one of her, just popped off. Then IT started to talk too, with more mention of the Sacred Kingdom.”
Abigail’s mind was spinning. She wasn’t expecting this mess with Dorothy and Bambi to have anything to do with Principal Dexter and the fiasco at the high school, yet the proximity of the two seemed connected. She could look out the window and almost see the hulking shadow that was Piermont High.
Yet what worried her the most, what got the hairs on the back of her neck standing, was the mention of the “Sacred Kingdom.” She remembered her father only showing fear to her once, in all his years, and it was only the few times he mentioned the Sacred Kingdom.
One of those times was the last time he was alive, right before he left for Europe all those years ago. To hear mention of this, all these years later, out of the blue, caused her to take notice.
“Personally,” Dorothy said, “I think it has to do with the swamp. I have been hearing these godawful noises in the middle of the night.” Speaking of night, Abigail noticed how the day was starting to dim - she only had a little bit of daylight left.
But daylight was truly the sand in her hourglass. Once the sun set, those blue spirit bindings around the Bambi’s would disappear. Bambi #1 would go back to normal, and #2 and #3 would disappear into a pool of ectoplasm, Abigail had seen it a million times before. If she wanted to get answers out of the swamp, she’d have to go before daylight.
If she wanted to get answers out of Bambi, while she was still possessed, she’d have to figure out how to remove the bindings from Bambi #1 and interrogate the dog while possessed. Doing so would be incredibly dangerous, both to her and Dorothy, but possibly to the entire town if Bambi were to escape her.
Maybe she could get answers from the dog, but maybe she could get answers out of the swamp - and possibly bring an end to whatever was happening over there - while she was at it.
What would she do?
👍🏼 this post to have Abigail explore the swamp across the street
♥️ this post to have Abigail focus on interviewing the possessed Bambi
POLL RESULTS: 5 ❤️ 11 👍
