[LJI9:04] Kana Tevoro
It’s been more than ten years since I last faced the intruder, the stranger, the alien being who watched me from a shadowed corner of my room as I silently screamed and invisibly struggled against the chains that held me immobile.
I think I might have been twelve the first time it came, unbidden, to my tiny room at the top of the stairs. I know it was winter, nearly Christmas. I know the Indian shutters of my windows, which should have been closed tight against the cold Maine winds, were open. Moonlight, reflected in the fresh-fallen snow, made the night outside my window nearly as bright as day.
Eyes wide open, I could see colors: tangerine, scarlet, cobalt. Colors that had no right to be in that place, at that time, colors that seemed to bob and weave above me, avoiding the corner where the dark waited. Music filled my head, high strings and low drums.
The dark of the corner snaked out and swallowed the light, consumed the music.
Suddenly blind and deaf, I lay there, crushed by a weight, unable to move, unable to speak. I’d known, as sure as I’d known my own name, that I was next, that I would simply be devoured by the presence who...
I woke up the next morning to an empty room.
Two dozen years and countless terrifying repeat visits would pass before I told another soul.
She listened, calmly. She gave my rational mind an excuse it could accept. I think you are describing sleep paralysis, she said. Here in the South, it’s called “witch ridden.” She taught my irrational mind magic: giving me the words I needed, showing me the power I didn't know I had, to face and defeat my monster once and for all.
It’s been more than ten years. I am still afraid to fall asleep some nights, but at least I am armed and ready. The witch won't stay off my back forever.
I think I might have been twelve the first time it came, unbidden, to my tiny room at the top of the stairs. I know it was winter, nearly Christmas. I know the Indian shutters of my windows, which should have been closed tight against the cold Maine winds, were open. Moonlight, reflected in the fresh-fallen snow, made the night outside my window nearly as bright as day.
Eyes wide open, I could see colors: tangerine, scarlet, cobalt. Colors that had no right to be in that place, at that time, colors that seemed to bob and weave above me, avoiding the corner where the dark waited. Music filled my head, high strings and low drums.
The dark of the corner snaked out and swallowed the light, consumed the music.
Suddenly blind and deaf, I lay there, crushed by a weight, unable to move, unable to speak. I’d known, as sure as I’d known my own name, that I was next, that I would simply be devoured by the presence who...
I woke up the next morning to an empty room.
Two dozen years and countless terrifying repeat visits would pass before I told another soul.
She listened, calmly. She gave my rational mind an excuse it could accept. I think you are describing sleep paralysis, she said. Here in the South, it’s called “witch ridden.” She taught my irrational mind magic: giving me the words I needed, showing me the power I didn't know I had, to face and defeat my monster once and for all.
It’s been more than ten years. I am still afraid to fall asleep some nights, but at least I am armed and ready. The witch won't stay off my back forever.