The Banishing (4 page)

She had argued that mentality away.
Shouldn’t that be how somebody made you feel?
, she surmised.
Shouldn’t meeting the person you love make you finally feel whole, complete?

Melissa winced at the thoughts but knew them to be true. True for her. Even if others around her denied it—other women thinking they had to feel strong, complete, already the self-made mini heroes of their own lives, in need of nobody or nothing—Melissa guessed deep down that everybody wanted somebody. People needed other people. Humans were made that way.

Didn’t she, on some level, believe in the concept of soul mates? Somebody out there that was perfect for another? Had she not always thought that person was Mark?

The day they met, she had been relaxing in a coffee shop in London. She remembered it was a warm day—no, a
hot
day. The city heat had been unbearable. Feeling sickened by the thick heat, Melissa had almost cancelled her day out shopping, half dreading the idea of coasting along the busy walkways and ducking in and out of changing rooms.

She decided to go. She’d had the day booked for months. It was supposed to be a treat; she had kept all of the money she had been given from her family and friends for her birthday, intending to revitalize a dying wardrobe. Instead, the day had tired her out, almost wearing her down before she’d stepped out of the underground station.

Around midday, worn out from trying on clothes that she never purchased, Melissa had wound her way over to Clovers—a small café just off of North Oxford Street. Dehydrated and desperately hungry, she waited in the long line by the checkout, wanting nothing but to sit down and relax.

After a few minutes—although, at the time she knew it had felt like hours—she had placed her order (a cola and chicken salad…even those details did not elude her), and with her tray in hand, she turned to find a table, when she slipped on something wet on the floor and fell forward, her drink and lunch spilling across the floor.

Everyone fell silent. All eyes darted across the café toward her. Her skin immediately flushed a bright, beetroot red, and Melissa almost had to stop tears of exhaustion and embarrassment from seeping out of her.

She remembered a waitress nearby sighing and muttering something under her breath about “idiot customers”. Melissa was about to turn on her and give her a piece of her mind when, out of nowhere—at least it felt that way—a man stepped up beside her, reached down, and began helping her collect the mess that was her lunch.

Mark.

Tall, dark, and handsome. A famous cliché, but that was Mark all over. He dripped sexiness, Melissa thought at the time. She had smiled, self-conscious and eager to make a quick escape, but over those mere moments, as the two knelt side by side, mopping up the spilled drink with napkins and piling salad back onto her plate, Melissa found herself looking over at him, unable—even if she wanted—to take her eyes from him.

“Do you always do this when you’re eating out, or should we order in tonight?”

Melissa felt her skin turn red again. She laughed. The chat-up line sounded well used and favored, like a worn paperback read many times. She knew she couldn’t have been the first recipient, but she could not help but smile.

Melissa knew she wasn’t perfect looking, but she wasn’t bad, either. She had never had much trouble getting dates in high school, and she had had several short-lived relationships over the last few years. Men had been interested, but most of the time she had not reciprocated, especially when one seemed a little cocky, ripe with chat-up lines. In that moment, though, she found she didn’t care about all of that. She felt good about him, whoever he was. The warm smile, the way he had rushed over to help her…all of that certainly helped, but there was more than that to it, she knew.

Something in his eyes. She felt a chemical spark when he looked into hers. A connection.

She didn’t spend longer than three seconds finding the words to answer him. “I could do with a pizza, if you want to go halves,” she had said, playfully smiling at him.

That had been that. Simple and quick and uncomplicated, the two of them had joined souls. The pizza, as it turned out, wasn’t in either of their homes, but in a small, Italian restaurant that Mark said was his favorite.

Despite her nervousness, the words flowed, their mood melted, and it all felt so perfect and right. Nothing was hard about it. Melissa thought back to other dates she had been on over the years. Some she considered had gone very well, but none like this; this felt different.

Adult. Mature. Real.

They had been a couple ever since.

Mark had been so at ease back then. At the time, he seemed so carefree, flirtatious, and warm. The sex had been something out of this world, she recalled.

That was Mark. Funny. Always ready with a witty remark. Sexy without even knowing it. He had stolen her heart, and Melissa knew the day she met him, she felt complete. Whole.

She didn’t want to lose that. He was still there, still with her now. The real him was buried behind the troubles they now faced.

She wasn’t ready to let go of that. She knew with a steady resolve that she would do anything to save her marriage. Anything to save Mark. Closing her eyes, Melissa fell into a steady sleep, the memories stirring beneath her eyelids as she travelled into her dreams.

* * * *

Something, movement, snapped her out of her sleep, and she opened her eyes, trying to adjust to the darkness around her. It was the middle of the night. The bedside alarm clock blinked its red glow beside her, and it told her it was almost 3:00 AM.

Something had woken her, pulled her from the deep sleep she had fallen into, but she didn’t know what. Movement again, from the hallway outside the room. Melissa sat up in bed and looked over at Mark. He appeared to be asleep; his breathing was deep and steady, his back rising and falling with each nocturnal breath.

Something shuffled outside the door. Melissa strained her ears, listened closely, but she couldn’t discern what it was. Slightly nervous but now suddenly wide awake, Melissa peeled back the duvet carefully and lifted her legs over the side of the large bed, until her bare feet met the floor.

She stood up and inched slowly to the bedroom door. She pressed her ear to it, listening. Yes, there
is
something, she thought, wondering whether to wake Mark. What if someone had broken in? Something about the sound stopped her. It didn’t sound like robbers salvaging through her belongings; it sounded light, careful, deliberate. Had a cat managed to get in, scratching at the door?

Melissa realized she had been holding her breath, and she released it. She reached for the door handle and twisted it, pulling it open. It squeaked into the night, echoing through the room, and she turned to Mark to see if it had woken him. He seemed undisturbed, lost in his dream.

Stepping into the hallway, into the darkness and shadows, Melissa pushed away thoughts of night-intruders and robbers. It was stupid; they had an alarm, which was set each night. It would have been blaring by now, barking its siren into the night. It wasn’t that they had much to steal, although the property was nice—a large, two bedroom home with a large lawn, conservatory, and a lounge to die for, according to Mark—but the charm and look of the home probably told people passing by that it might contain plenty of valuables. In truth, other than an expensive sound system and a 50” widescreen television, there was nothing of significant value at all.

Melissa closed the bedroom door behind her and started descending the stairs. She paused, half-way down, listening. More noise from downstairs. It sounded like someone walking…no, shuffling along the carpet. It scared her.
Was
there somebody there?

“Hello? I will call the police. My husband is upstairs.” Her voice sounded small, gulped up into the dark silence around her. If anybody
had
been there, they wouldn’t have felt frightened by her. Not sounding like that.

She continued down the stairs, more loudly, trying to display a feeling of confidence. She fumbled for the light switch and snapped it on. Light flooded the hallway. Nobody was there.

Melissa walked toward the lounge, feeling more reassured. She started to push open the door, when she heard another noise from within.
Shit.
She took a deep breath and pushed it open.

The room was a blanket of pitch black, but her heart thudded wildly—too fast—when she saw the outline of a figure standing in the corner of the room.

Chapter Six

Melissa let out a wild, guttural scream and flipped on the light switch. She looked about her, frantically scanning the room in front of her, but the tall, shadowy figure had disappeared, as if it melted away by her very presence.

Mark came pounding down the stairs, tying the strings of his robe together. His eyes were wide, scared. “What the hell is going on?” he cried, breaking into a run toward her. “What’s happening?”

Melissa turned from Mark back to the lounge, staring, a hand against her chest. “There was somebody here.”

Mark reached her, peering into the lounge. The empty lounge. “What? There’s nobody here.”

His tone angered her—so controlled, enlightened.
You didn’t see what I saw
, she thought, as she crept quietly into the room. She checked behind the door, behind the sofa, then turned back to Mark. “I saw somebody. I’m not lying. I swear. Somebody tall was standing right in there in the room, as if…”

“As if what?” Mark asked, padding into the room and plopping himself onto the sofa.

“As if he was waiting.”

“He?”

Melissa sighed. “Yes, he.”

“So, you saw this person? You know it was a man?” he asked, as if he was an investigator, trying to pry the facts from her.

Melissa left the lounge and headed into the kitchen. She turned the light on there and peered around the room, cautious, nervous.

“If he left the lounge, you’d have seen him pass you,” Mark commented, trailing behind her.

Melissa leaned back against the kitchen workbench, rubbing her eyes. “Shit, Mark. Somebody was here.”

“Somebody broke in, you mean? Come on. You’re not making sense!”

Melissa dropped her hands from her eyes and looked over at Mark. She knew he was strong, knew what he was capable of, but she felt so annoyed at him in that moment, she wanted to slap him. “What’s not to understand? I was sleeping, I heard some noise, so I came downstairs, went into the lounge, and saw somebody. Trust me, somebody was here.”

Mark plugged in the kettle and switched it on. It whirred to life, bringing the water to bubbles as he spoke. “So where is he? If he was in the lounge, there’s no way out for him. Not without you or I seeing him, anyway.”

“So you keep saying. I don’t know. Why do you think I am so freaked out? That’s the whole point, isn’t it? That somebody was here, and now he isn’t…”

“You’re saying he disappeared, then. Into thin air. Do you know how that sounds?”

Melissa ran a hand through her hair, suddenly feeling tired and wanting to be on her own. What she had seen frightened her—badly—and she knew Mark wasn’t taking her seriously.

“You were tired, probably still half-asleep,” Mark said, throwing a spoonful of coffee into his mug and pouring in the water. Steam rose from it, and the fragrance of coffee filled the kitchen. A smell she usually found beautiful made her feel suddenly nauseous. “Do you want one?” he asked, looking over at her.

Melissa shook her head no. “I’m going back to bed,” she said, turning to leave the kitchen. “I need some sleep.”

She didn’t say it to him and never would, but that night, she lay awake as the hours passed, unable to get any sleep. To even shut her eyes, after seeing the figure in her lounge, seemed a frightening thing to do.

* * * *

When she awoke the next morning, Mark was still sleeping soundly beside her. He was wearing nothing except a pair of briefs. The duvet was strewn across his body, knotted and messy from a long night of tossing and turning. She knew she needed to get up for work, but she remained there for a moment, just staring at him. Her husband. The man she loved.

She thought about last night, the way she had overheard him talking to himself. The figure she saw in the lounge. The thoughts came out from the shadows of her tired mind and stirred something in her; nervous, tense energy. They were just more things to worry her, upset her. She knew she had seen somebody in the room. Yes, it had been dark, but she trusted her eyes. Melissa knew she wasn’t somebody to leap to conclusions, to latch onto weird, fantastical ideas, but what she saw was real. That scared her more than anything. To feel like her home had been invaded was one thing…but whoever it was…
whatever
it was had literally disappeared before her eyes. What that meant, she didn’t even want to know. Even Mark had looked at her like she was insane.

Maybe I
am
going mad
, she thought, propping herself up and looking over at Mark. He stirred slightly, moaned something under his breath, and then fell silent. Watching him there made her miss him deeply, and she realized that for months now, he had been distancing himself from her. She had been losing him piece by piece, inch by inch. It had been a gradual thing, but it was happening, and she felt powerless to altar the path he was on. It wasn’t just the way he had been recently, with his temper. The way he had struck out at her—although that had dented something in their marriage, destroyed her trust in him, and she wondered if something like that
could
be repaired—but it was also the way he seemed to be far away.