My Deliverer
Catalina, Canada
October 2005
It started a few months ago, around mid-June, and I didn't tell many people about this. I guarantee you that this story is 100% true. And I am positive that I was not hallucinating or imagining any of this. First, I'll tell you a little about my house and neighborhood.
It's nothing out of the ordinary. I know that most of the stories on this site will tell you that the houses in which the ghosts resided in had some sort of complex history, or were built over a graveyard, or were at least 250 years old. Unfortunately, my residence is not that interesting. It is brand new, built on average soil, and only had one very normal family living in it before me. The houses around me aren't that interesting either.
The first thing that happened wasn't exactly terrifying, but it did leave me confused and shaken. I remember every detail like it was yesterday. It was around eight or nine on a Wednesday evening, and I was sitting at my desk, thinking about my ex-boyfriend and doing my homework. But mostly thinking about my ex. My mother was downstairs, chatting with her friends. My sister was watching T.V, and my father was at work. I even remember the song that was playing on the radio. It was the Gorillaz, 'Feel Good Inc.,' a song I was obsessed with at the time. But I digress. I was almost finished my homework when I felt someone watching me. Thinking it was my sister, I turned around to ask what she wanted. What I saw will never, ever leave me.
A tall, slim man was standing in my doorway. He was wearing a faded grey cloak that was tied around his waist. He was deathly pale and his eyes were entirely black, even where there was supposed to be white. His eyelids were drooping slightly, as if he was tired. His hair was nearly white- blonde and appeared to be very fluffy, sticking out in every direction. He had a serene, feminine face and didn't look that menacing. A soft smile appeared on his lips. His features seemed slightly blurred somehow. He looked like an angel. However, I just knew from the wrenching feeling in my gut that he wasn't. He didn't seem like a ghost, but I could tell he wasn't human either.
I froze, unable to move. We just stared at each other for what seemed like hours, before he floated towards me. He didn't move, he just floated, like a boat on water. Literally. I felt my stomach rise to my throat. It was the feeling you get when you're on a roller coaster and it makes a rapid, sudden drop. I leaned back into my chair, growing more and more frightened by the second. He stopped inches away from me and leaned his face close to mine. He reached a slender hand towards me and stroked my face slowly. His fingers felt ice cold and they sent chills throughout my entire body. He stopped at my jawbone and cradled my chin in his hand. He came closer as if to kiss me, and I got ready to scream bloody murder. A second before his lips touched mine, I closed my eyes tightly. When I opened them, he was still there, but he seemed frozen in time. His eyes were closed as well. Then he disappeared. Just like that. No fading away, no dissolving out of view. He was there one minute and then he wasn't.
I sat in my chair, slack-jawed, my mind trying to find a logical explanation to what had just occurred. 'Did that really happen?' I wondered. It seemed so unreal. My heart was racing out of control and I decided that I had done enough homework for one night and went downstairs to watch T.V. As much I tried to concentrate on the show I was watching, I kept remembering that eerily quiet face, and the icy touch that still lingered on my skin.
A few minutes later, my mother walked into the living room, saying something to her friend who was standing in the hall. At first she didn't even seem to notice me. She turned off the television, and turned to leave when she gave a tiny shriek. "Cat," She sighed in relief. "I didn't see you there," She paused. "Are you feeling alright? You look... drained."
I looked at her curiously, and for a moment I wanted to tell her what happened to me, but I quickly brushed it off as my imagination getting worked up, although it was a hardly believable notion. "I'm fine," I said after a moment of silence. She had a skeptical expression on. "A lot of homework," I told her. She nodded, turned the T.V back on and left the room.
For about three days, I felt like I was constantly dreaming. Nothing seemed real anymore. Eventually, my friends got worried about me. If they asked what was wrong, I explained to them that I was simply tired. Over those three days, my mind was glued on to that perplexing ethereal face. Did I imagine it all? Was I insane? However, inside of me, a mix of anxiety and excitement to see him again grew.
I didn't see him again for a good two weeks. I was disappointed, but on the other hand, I was slightly relieved. My relief didn't last long.
It was Sunday morning in July, and I woke up early on purpose so that I could sit outside and watch the sunrise in the field behind my house. My parents didn't approve of this, but I figured that bending the rules just once wouldn't hurt. I crept around my house as quietly as possible to not wake my family. I didn't turn the lights on because my sister slept on the first floor with her door open, and it was growing brighter outside anyway. I walked out of my backdoor and started making my way to the field. The grass was glistening with fresh dew and the morning breeze was bracing as it hit me. There was an inscrutable calm hanging in the air.
Out of nowhere, an electric feeling ran down my spine. I stopped walking. I turned around and glanced back at my house, searching, full of fear, for something. I saw nothing out of the ordinary. I sighed, shook my head and walked on. But something made me glance back
. The door was swung wide open. I frowned, sure that I had closed it. I walked back and closed it tightly. About ten feet away from my house, I looked at the door. Sure enough, it was open. Feeling more flustered then scared, I ran back, slammed it shut, and stomped away.
Roughly twenty feet later, I heard my name being screamed. The voice was filled with ire. I froze and turned slowly. My father was standing in the doorway, a disapproving look upon his face. "Catalina!" He yelled. I knew I was in for it; he never used my full name unless he was extremely disappointed or angry with me.
Later on, my father told me that there were rabid wolves running around in the field that I wanted to go to. If he hadn't caught me when he had, I would've probably been killed by them. There is a point to this, and I will make it at the end.
That Sunday was spent trapped in my room, reading Virginia Woolf and Jane Austen novels, and doing chores. At eleven, I was getting ready to go to sleep when I suddenly remembered the young man. I didn't know why I hadn't thought about him before. I looked around, almost expecting him to be there again, but he wasn't.
I crawled into my bed and turned out the lights. I tossed and turned, trying to sleep for about an hour before flipping the lights back on and grabbing a book to read. But I couldn't focus. He was still on my mind. An uneasy shiver caused goosebumps to grow on my arms, and intuition told me what I didn't want to know. He was there.
I put my book down on my lap and looked up to meet those familiar dark eyes. It was like seeing an old classmate that I never really paid attention to before. It's difficult to explain, but imagine meeting up with a person that you've known all your life, but you just haven't acknowledged them before. That's the feeling.
This time, he had a melancholy look on his delicate features. He was wearing the same faded cloak, and his hair still looked like he had just woken up from a restless sleep. I leapt onto the floor on shaky legs, absolutely horrified on the inside, but I tried to put on a valiant face. I don't think it worked. "You're not real," I hissed at him.
His head tipped to the side; he seemed puzzled. He started moving his lips as if he was talking, but I only heard the pounding of my heart in my ears and the steady, constant ticking of the clock on my wall. "Go away, I don't want you here!" I lashed out at him, expecting my hand to go right through his body, due to the stereotypical idea that all ghosts are permeable. Instead, I hit his very solid shoulder. His face showed the same unfazed, indifferent expression, and I immediately tried hitting him again. It didn't have any effect.
He moved his lips more slowly this time. I stopped trying to hurt him and realized he wanted me to read his lips. I sighed exasperatedly. "No, I don't care what you have to say to me," I couldn't stop from shaking from fear. "I just want you to go away,"
He mouthed something at me again and I caught some of it. 'I know' and 'Come away' was all I could understand. He reached out to touch my shoulder. His cloak fell away from his arm and it was only then that I noticed he was bathed in a murky silver glow, like an angel's limb exposed for a moment. I was interested in spite of myself, and decided to just go with the flow. "What are you?" I asked.
He grimaced and started speaking quickly again. I shook my head. "I don't understand," I said. He smiled mournfully and pointed to himself, then took a pencil from my desk and wrote something on a paper. He folded it four times and handed it to me, then drifted out of my room and down the stairs. I didn't bother following him.
I opened the paper and in the middle of it, in an elegant scrawl, was the word 'deliverer'. I looked up with a frown, but I felt a ripple of intrigue and excitement.
Monday morning, upon waking up, I was convinced that it was all a wild dream. After all, what sensible person would believe that really happened? It was completely beyond all reason and yet... the paper was still lying on my desk, creased four times, with 'deliverer' clearly written on it.
I hesitated before picking up the paper. I stared at it blankly, and as much as I denied it, I knew I wanted to see him again. There was still that feeling of uneasiness, and fear of the unknown, but throughout all that, I felt compelled to find the Deliverer again.
After that day, he visited me every night for one and a half more months. Eventually, I got better at reading his lips, and I could almost always understand what he was saying. But sometimes, he would tell me things that, even though I could understand the words he was saying, I didn't know what he meant by them. I remember him saying things like, 'I wish you would know' and I would ask what he was talking about, and he would say something completely different. I didn't care though. He was a thoroughly fascinating character, and I found that everything that went wrong in my life (which was a lot at the time) was forgotten when I was with him, which was strange, because we only talked about depressing subjects. He never talked about anything happy. When I asked him why, he said he rarely ever felt good emotions. Sometimes I wonder if I pitied him more then I loved him.
A particularly interesting thing he told me was that when I told him a problem, he toke it away with him when he left. I told him that what he told me didn't make any sense, but he wouldn't stay on the subject for very long.
The last time I saw him, which was over two weeks ago, he told me that he was always hurting because he was cursed and this was his punishment. I told him I didn't understand. He didn't reply, instead he handed me a small pouch full of iridescent beads, and a feather. He suddenly looked doleful. A black liquid welled in his eyes and spilled down his doughy face. I can't say he was crying, but that was what it seemed like. 'I die,' he mouthed. I felt indescribable misery spread throughout me. He couldn't leave me now. "No," I said softly. He just closed his sable eyes and vanished.
I haven't seen him since then, and I constantly feel nostalgic when I think about him. I think it was him who opened the door when I wanted to watch the sunrise. Maybe he meant for my father to find me. Maybe he was some sort of Guardian Angel. I'm not exactly sure. All I know is that I miss him. He was almost like a friend I could depend on.
I keep the paper, the beads and the feather in a shoe box under my bed, and once I showed the beads to my best friend. She said that when she held them, she felt like someone had just died. I started crying when she said that.
I wish I could see him again, my Deliverer.