Other Ways of Seeing
A/N: Exploring the psychic aspect of my writing. Ida may be 'as blind as a dingbat', but that doesn't mean she's completely unaware of her surroundings.
Set in 2008. And how I wish that this incident was purely fictional!
Other Ways of Seeing
Ida had been nine years old when she had her first pair of glasses. "The docs said that those would help correct my vision; it hardly had an effect though," she mused as she finished securing the plastic string that held the tarpaulin in place at the front of the session hall. Without her contact lenses, she knew she could not even see to the other end of the hall. However her sense of hearing more than made up for it though; even from her precarious perch she could hear the chatter and teasing of the rest of the team assigned to this weekend's camp.
A step sounded in the doorway. "Hello, who is in charge here?" a rather wrinkled man, the caretaker of the retreat house grounds, asked as he peered into the hall.
Ida glanced towards the other end of the hall; her partner was still busy tinkering with the sound system controls. "I guess that's me," she said to the caretaker. She carefully climbed down from the stepladder she was on. "What do you need?"
"You need to go up to the dormitories and see if the rooms are to your liking," the caretaker said.
Ida nodded. This was just part of the camp set-up routine; it was always the responsibility of the team leaders to check over the sleeping rooms, the bathrooms, and the dining room to ensure that there were no hazards, as well as to map out which rooms would go to which particular campers. "The gender segregation factor is always the difficult part," she thought. In the past she'd had to go to pretty extreme lengths to make sure that the guys did not sneak over to the girls' side, and vice versa. Hopefully this year she wouldn't have to sleep in the hallway just to stand watch all night.
The dormitory proper was located on the floor just above the session hall. A sweeping stairwell started in the front hall and opened out into a sort of sitting room, which branched out into two hallways housing the bedrooms and the bathrooms. Although it was only four in the afternoon, Ida felt as if a sort of shadow had settled over the place; something was wrong in the way the light came in through the windows near the stairwell. "Like there's a shadow in the corners..." the thought occurred to her as she followed the caretaker to the sitting room.
"Right this way," the caretaker said, pointing to the left hallway.
Before Ida could take a step forward, she heard a door slam in the corridor. "Is someone there?" she asked.
"No. The place is empty," the caretaker said.
Ida shook her head. "I'll check the right hallway first," she said. Something in her was sure that to check the left hallway now would be a terrible mistake. She fought to keep her hands from shaking as she trailed the caretaker from room to room in the right wing, checking over each bunk, each nook and cranny all the way up to the two bathrooms at the end of the hallway.
She wheeled around as she heard the door slam again in the left hallway. "Maybe there's a window left open?" she asked.
"No. This place is quite closed off; there are hardly any drafts," the caretaker said confusedly.
Ida opened her mouth to comment on this when she suddenly saw blackness all around her. The dark was stifling, pressing in on her, making it almost impossible to breathe. "Inhaler!" she thought in a panic as she reached to her side for her purse, only to come up with nothing. She gripped onto the wall, fighting for some foothold in this cloying fog.
"God help me!"
"Miss, are you alright?"
"Ida! Hey, what are you doing up here? Hey..."
Ida shook her head and found herself looking at the caretaker, and then at Mark. When had her partner run up here? She took a deep breath and nearly sighed with relief. "Just checking the rooms," she replied.
"Oh okay. They're nice, aren't they? And they'll fit everyone..." Mark began.
"We're not going to use the left hallway," Ida said. "There's something there. Here as well, but it's worse there."
Mark nodded. "Also in that room?" he asked, jerking his thumb in the direction of one of the rooms in a corner.
"You feel it too?" she asked him. Even now she couldn't get past the feeling of something making her hair stand on end.
Mark nodded. "I'll have the team take care of the participants; let them stay in the session hall or the dining room. We'll get Tato, Francis, Rochelle and some of the others up here so we can try to do something about this place."
"I don't think we should confront what's in the left hallway though," Ida said. She winced as another slamming sound came from that direction. "Not unless we have a priest with is."
Mark whistled. "That bad?"
"I prefer to err on the side of caution in these matters, Mark," she said. There was no way she was ready for a frightening confrontation, especially at a camp where there were so many young ones. "Why does this have to happen every time?" she couldn't help but wonder. To be more exact, why did this happen every time she was on some sort of camp or mission? It wasn't as if she could see ghosts or spirits in most of her waking hours, but only during times like these.
She felt Mark grab her elbow before he nodded to the caretaker. "If she says the rooms are okay, we'll use them."
"Just the right hallway?" the old man asked.
"Yeah. We'll just squeeze the participants in here, and make the team double up in rooms. Triple if necessary," Mark replied.
The caretaker nodded before handing the keys to him. "Don't make a mess. And go to the guard if you need anything."
"Thank you," Mark said. He looked at Ida. "Okay, we're really in for it."
Ida nodded. "I know. But this is just an occupational hazard. These good things always come with a fight."
"That they do," Mark said. "Hope you brought your Bible, your rosary, and some holy water. We're in for a night."
Ida swallowed hard, wishing that in this aspect she could be truly blind.