SALT WATER

From The Raven James Chronicles by B.H. Wydeven

(Continued from "Salt")

Raven gasped, a cold sweat covering his face and back. He fidgeted uncomfortably on Benny's living room couch, where he had been sleeping for the last week. Things had stayed quiet since he had begun crashing on the couch. After last week's encounter with the entity in the guest bedroom, Raven and Benny had surrounded the entire house with salt, which, as Raven had explained to him, worked modestly as protection from wandering spirits.

As Raven opened his eyes, he heard a gentle scratching and thumping sound against Benny’s big picture window. But it was the heavy breathing that had torn him out of a sound sleep.

           

The living room was dark and full of moving shadows. It was early morning and the slightest touches of dawn were illuminating the room. The furniture in the room was reduced to mere shapes with no dimensions. Raven sat up, tense with the feeling of a second unseen presence.

           

Raven absolutely hated waking up this way. He had built that waiting room in his subconscious for a reason, but the metal gate didn’t always hold up.

He was still pretty drunk. Having been on a steady diet of whiskey and teenage scotch the night before, Raven felt his stomach gurgle. His muscles ached and his back was itchy from meshing with the rough texture of the couch cushions. He blinked until his eyes witnessed solid shapes, albeit spinning and blurry shapes.

Suddenly something rapped against the window with a rapid knocking pace. Raven quickly sat up on the couch. Next to the living room window of Benny’s house was a tall fir that enjoyed slapping the glass pane like scratchy brush stroking along a pallet. It’s eerie rapping filled the otherwise peaceful living room. Raven closed his eyes again and listened to the wind dance with the trees, creating a hiss through the branches and the fine fabrics of the needles. Soon, a steady but gentle rain began pattering on the brick sill, building into a steady hiss.

Springtime was tuning up its instruments.

           

Inside, the living room was cold and the air was still, as if waiting for a more violent storm. The house creaked as the wind picked up its pace.

Then he caught sight of the woman in the room.

She appeared to be middle aged, dark brown hair with strands of silver. She stood at the far end of the living room near the door; her figure was very faint and she appeared to float into the room without legs. Her eyes sockets were empty, nothing but two holes in her head.

She didn’t pose a threat, but her heart beat was loud in Raven’s ears as if her heart was lodge somewhere in his brain. Her breath seemed sporadic and panicky; suddenly she began panting like a dog, building up into a rapid rhythm parallel to the thunderous beating inside Raven's skull, until finally she let out a loud gasping scream, as if being tortured.

Raven shuddered and cupped his ears but the noises had already given him a horrible headache. He opened his eyes to relieve his most focused senses from the terror.

            The woman approached Raven, gliding up to him as he sat upright and reluctantly wide awake on the couch. She stopped just before the coffee table and looked down at him. The overcast sunlight glowed through the two round holes in her head.

            She whispered something softly but Raven couldn't understand her. As she hovered over him, Raven slowly reached under the couch and pulled out a container of salt and hastily poured a thin line across the coffee table. Pursing her lips, the woman turned and faded away.

            Raven took a deep breath. Not when I'm sleeping, bitch. He said to himself.

            His mind searched the room for the possibility of more lost souls who had managed to intrude the house, but in his groggy haze, Raven seemed to be alone.

            He had gotten lucky.

Supporting himself on the arm of the couch, Raven stood up and stumbled his way to the front door. Outside, the air was cool and the rain came down in steady drifts of thick drops. The angled siding tossed the cold rain into Raven’s face, stinging his cheeks and tickling his neck. He lifted the welcome mat and found a scattered array of white salt. On the ground trailing the edge of the house, the white minerals were thinly scattered. Much of the line had submerged by a shallow moat where the rainwater was pouring off the house.

His protective salt from the supernatural had been defeated by nature.

Raven looked up at the sky. The clouds were gloomy swirls of gray and white; no sign of clearing up.

                                                               † † †

“Raven, what happened to the salt?" Benny said. “I was going to make pancakes this morning. All I need is a teaspoon of salt, but I’m completely tapped out!”

             Raven reached under the coffee table. "Here," he said, tossing Benny the carton of salt. "The spring rain washed my salt away."

            It had only been a week since Raven had told Benny about his ability to see ghosts and every since then, Raven had been expecting some kind of normal reaction from Benny; a dirty look, a "you're insane," or even the inevitable "get the hell out of my house." Even a question or two from Benny would seem reasonable for a normal person to ask.

            "How many pancakes do you want?" Benny shouted from the kitchen. Not the question he expected from a normal person.

            Then again, what the hell did he know about being normal?

            "I'll just have a Bloody Mary."

            "That's it? You sure?"

            "Fine. I'll take two."

            Benny was so preoccupied with making pancakes that he didn't notice Raven pass through the kitchen and into the garage. There, on the shelf as he had left them, were two gallon jugs of holy water.

            Raven hoped he had enough salt.

            The sizzle of pancake batter on the hot skittle filled the warm, buttermilk smelling air as Raven set the jugs on the kitchen table.

            "What'd you do with that carton of salt?"

            "Right here," Benny said, barely glancing away from the stove. He did a double take when he saw the jugs. "What do you have those out for?"

            Raven removed the cap from the first jug and poured in a generous amount of salt.

            "I'm making salt water," Raven explained, watching the salt disperse into the water. "Hopefully, with the salt fully dissolved into the holy water, no force of nature will be able to get through."

            Raven recapped the jug and shook. "I should have thought of this a week ago," he said, holding the top and bottom of the jug and jostling it back and forth. Slowly, the salt dissolved, leaving the water looking cloudy. "There."

            "Cool," Benny said carelessly. Raven looked back at him and tried to read the expression on his face, but he seemed unpretentious to what Raven was doing or the potential dangers. Normally, Raven hated it when people asked him questions about his abilities or the actions he took because of them. But in this case, he was almost zealous to answer some questions.

            With the skillet sizzling on the stove, Raven silently continued with the second jug, then quietly went outside in the rain and carefully distributed the fully dissolved salt water around Benny's house.

            He returned inside about fifteen minutes later, soaking wet. Benny poked his head out of the kitchen when he heard the door open. "Where've you been? Pancakes are sitting in the oven."

            Raven frowned. Ringing his long wet hair with a hand, Raven followed Benny - and the smell of pancakes - into the kitchen.

            "You want some orange juice?"

            "Orange juice and vodka?"

            "Coming right up. Have a seat."

            Benny opened the oven and placed 2 pancakes on a plate for Raven, and 2 for himself, then prepared 2 orange juices - one with vodka, and sat across from Raven. The whole chivalrous thing made Raven a little uncomfortable.

            "Thank you," Raven said as Benny set the plates and glasses onto the table.

            "You're welcome," Benny said, sitting down. Raven awkwardly reached out for the glass of orange juice and took a sip.

            "There's no vodka in this."

            "Opps!" Benny said with a chuckle as he swapped the glasses. "I haven't had any alcohol since the accident. The booze almost killed me that night." Benny smiled at Raven. Then silence.

            For one hundred and twenty awkward and seemingly endless seconds, only the sound of chewing occupied the room, broken only once by a single question from Benny.           "How are they?"

            "Good."

            This continued until Raven had bottomed out his orange juice and vodka.  Immediately Benny grabbed his crutches and pushed himself out of his chair.

            "It's okay, I got it," Raven said.

            "No, I insist," Benny said, wincing as he slowly pulled himself up.

            "It's ok, that leg isn't going to heal with you waiting on me all the time," Raven said, scooping up the glass and darting out of his seat as Benny conceded. As Raven poured vodka into his glass, the ice cubes crackled and slowly rose with the liquid. As he returned to the table, Benny's eyes followed Raven's yellowish orange beverage. He finished swallowing the last of his pancake, nodded to clear his throat then said: "Can you teach me how to see ghosts?" There was a nervous tingle in his voice, as if the question had been hanging from his tonsils for a week.

            Raven took in a refreshing sip of his orange juice and vodka - triple the potency as Benny's mix - and shrugged.

            "Well, everybody already has the ability to do it; they just have to be open to the idea. But I don’t recommend it.”

            "I believe in ghosts."

            "It's more than just believing. You have to be an antenna. You have to unlock a part of your body and your soul and your mind and allow that energy to reach you at a level that most people can not accept exists."

            "Have there been any ghosts here, in the house, since last week?"

Raven look a long look at Benny before he answered.

            "Yes," Raven said. "There was a woman. She approached me as I woke up. That's how I knew the salt around the house wasn't working."

            "Oh," Benny said. "Do you talk to the ghosts when they come to you?"

            Raven took a deep breath. "I try not to unless I have to. There are so many of them, I have to turn most of them away."

            "Do you like helping them?" Benny asked quickly.

            Raven hesitated before shrugging. "Sometimes. If I can bring them peace, yeah. Actually, the only time I ever feel truly alive is when I've helped a spirit find it's way. It's a very emotional process though."

            "Could we help them together?" Benny said, with a serious look on his face. It was the look of a man who held the world on his shoulders, but still wanted to carry another planet in his arms.

"Possibly, if you’re careful. Communicating with ghosts is not something I chose to do. I do it because they’re always there if I’m not drunk. And sometimes drinking doesn’t even keep them away. The attention whores are the worst. They’re the ones who try to fuck with my head and sometimes even try to convince me that they’re demons.

“It sounds a lot like bartending. Sometimes I get the chill customers who keep to themselves, but then I get the assholes that come in and are rude to other customers and make everyone in the bar feel awkward.”

“Attention whores.”

“Exactly. So, what can I do to …hunt ghosts?”

“Start by never calling it that,” Raven said, taking another long swig from his drink. “There are some devices you could use to detect ghosts, if you want to equip yourself. Also, I don't really like people knowing that I seeing ghosts, so you do need to be very discreet. Don’t advertise it."

            "Of course."

            Benny took a sip of his orange juice. Raven waited for the next question.

"Raven?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

† † †