Exorcising Practice by Judy Colella (free romance novels txt) 📖

Two inches. Reva’s mother had once said her fancy shoes had two-inch heels, too high for the six-year-old to walk in. But Reva had ignored that warning and tried them on. After picking herself up off the floor, rubbing the elbow that had struck the edge of a nightstand as she’d lost her balance, Reva had concluded that two inches was a rather large measurement.

Another thing she’d learned was two inches (from her dad) was the thickness of the closet door. Under the circumstances in which she and her brother Troy now found themselves, two inches suddenly seemed like the smallest measurement there was.

Turning to her older sibling, she stared hard in the semi-darkness to see if he looked as terrified as she felt. She hoped he didn’t. But the light, which came through the slats in that very thin door as illuminated slices, revealed nothing in his expression she could easily identify.

They were huddled together at the back of the closet, their breathing tight yet labored. Something…something…was downstairs that instinct had told them both should not be. When they'd come home from school, they had dropped their backpacks in the red box their dad had built and placed in the foyer for that purpose, and headed for the kitchen. Their mother always had some kind of yummy snack for them when they got home.

Only…something was in the kitchen breaking things. Crunching things underfoot that had dropped or been tossed to the tile floor. Slamming things, splintering wood – cabinet doors, maybe – and they both knew their mother wouldn’t, couldn’t do things like that.

Simultaneously they’d stopped, backed up, then tore up the stairs. Yelling. Calling for their father, then their mother. Running faster when the only answer was the crash of the kitchen door slamming into the wall as something…something… burst into the hallway. They’d scrambled into the huge walk-in closet in their parents’ bedroom, the first room at the top of the stairs. The closet doors folded open and shut in three wide, slatted panels. The only lock was on the outside, high up, which their father had installed when Reva and Troy were toddlers. A safety lock, he’d explained a few years later. Troy had shown it to Reva. Why would a lock be up so high? Safety, said their father. To keep little, curious people safe.

It wouldn’t do that now. And if all the smashing and bashing had been any indication, that little hook-lock wouldn’t have helped even if it had been on the inside.

A howl. Not like an animal. More like – like – like the school bully when Troy had had no lunch money to give him, Reva thought. Not a child’s voice, no, not a child’s. Too deep, scary, and coming from the bottom of the stairs.

“Reva!” Troy hissed, elbowing her in the side and making her jump. Almost scream. “Look at this!” He thrust an open notebook at her and pointed to the right-side page.

Why would he be bothering her with a notebook when a Thing was about to find them?

“Hold it up.” He was more breathless somehow than he’d been after scrambling madly up the stairs. He raised her hands so the page was visible in one of the shafts of light.

She frowned, read it, frowned some more. “What does ‘t-e-m-p-o-r-a-l’ spell?” Her question was barely audible.

Troy told her. “The next word is ‘displacement.’” Before she could ask what that meant, he added, “Dad’s machine. The one he keeps covered in the basement. I think it… it’s a – a time machine!”

“Why?”

“Because ‘temporal’ has to do with time.” Troy was ten, and very smart for his age.

“So?”

“It’s dad’s journal about the machine!” He took it back, turned a few pages, then lifted it again so she could see another page. This one showed numbers and arrows surrounding a sketch that matched the strange contraption in their cellar.

Before Reva could respond, they heard clanking. Rhythmic clunks accompanied by an occasional squeak. Approaching the closet, but slowly. She clapped a hand over her own mouth and tried to bury herself in the pile of clothing that had fallen off their hangers when she and her brother had entered, grabbing at things for balance in the dark.

“Hwelc thissem stede?!”

Words? Reva felt like she’d almost understood them. But what had spoken? The voice sounded a bit muffled. She cast a quick glance at her brother to see how he was reacting.

Troy had backed further into the closet but was standing.

The crash they heard next was very obviously that of the huge mirror over their parents’ dresser being reduced to shards.

“Hwaet dēofel hēr eardiende?” The whatever-it-was sounded closer.

The door rattled. It opened a little, closed again, only to be torn off its tracks. Light washed into the space like a physical force pressing the children hard to their knees. They clung to each other, Reva beginning to sob.

Silence. A clanking. A squeak. Another clank, closer.

“Ne thā dēoflu.” The voice was soft this time, almost pleasant. “Ah. His thā cild.”

Reva gaped. Not a monster. A knight, his armor dented here and there like the bumper of an old car. He raised his visor to show eyes that lifted with a smile hidden by the lower part of his helmet. He put out a gauntleted hand, the other hand grasping a sword. “Hīe becumen.”

“Did he say for us to come with him, Troy?”

“I think so.”

They stepped out from among the fallen garments and approached the knight, curious, instincts silent.

His smile grew as he stepped forward and swung the sword.

Publication Date: 02-10-2013

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