Golden Calf, Part Twelve

17 May 2005

Nothing I tried gave me the clarity I wanted on what had happened. I knew it was something real, but the glimpses I got were mixed with the environment in the apartment, flashes of personal memories, something that I'm pretty sure someone else in the apartment was trying to contact, and general feelings of dread. The one thing we were able to establish with our rituals was that it wasn't local; attempts to trace the source came from somewhere around the Pennsylvania/Ohio border. I knew it was time to call John. He seemed distracted at first, until I told him that I needed to talk about Alethea.

"Look, Jackie," he said, "this is really not a good time."

"I'm telling you, I sensed something near you and the only sympathetic links I have in that area are you and possibly Alethea."

"You have a sympathetic link to me?"

"I don't know! But those are the only options."

"Okay look. My girlfriend's best friend died in car accident last night. I need to be focused on her right now."

"I...okay, first off, I'm so sorry for that loss and you should definitely be there for her. But the bits that I know about what happened do line up with an accident like that."

"Okay, well, I was asleep when it happened, but maybe you picked up a message meant for me or something. But I'm just standing in Lori's apartment talking to you when I should be grabbing things she'll need."

"Wait, what?"

"She's staying at my place for a bit. Bad memories associated with hers right now."

"Oh, right. You have room for that?"

"I mean. There's an unused bedroom in the house, but I figured she'd just, you know, stay in my room."

"Well, so, with everything going on with Alethea, I was thinking of moving over that way. It would be a lot easier for me if I could maybe rent that room?" I heard him sigh and pause.

"Okay. Probably. Give me like a week to deal with the funeral and everything, and then maybe we could talk about this?" I agreed, and then he was gone. I looked around the room, and considered the fact that I was suddenly thinking of leaving Chicago and was only partially convinced of my own reasoning. Is my fear about Alethea showing up enough to warrant moving to a place that I know nothing about and where I only barely know exactly one person?

​Well. I guess I have a week to figure that out before anything will come of it, anyway.

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