Wide Awake - - Part One: Crazy Talk

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***Author's note: "Wide Awake" is an original, previously unpublished, fictional story that I wrote. It will be told in multiple parts.***

WIDE AWAKE

Part One: Crazy Talk

I wished it were a joke. A twisted stupid joke. I looked over at my sister's face hoping that she'd show me some sign that she wasn't serious; that she hadn't just told me the craziest thing I'd ever heard her say. My false hope slipped away along with the sigh that escaped my lips. She gazed at me expectantly, worriedly chewing on her bottom lip, trying to anticipate how I was going to respond to what she'd just told me.

"Steph," I sighed again. "I . . . I really don't know what to say."

My sister, Stephanie Marie Wilson, is seven years younger than myself and my only sibling. The age difference between us was hardly noticeable by this time. At sixteen, Stephanie could almost have passed for my twin. We had the same petite, slender frame, the same blue eyes, the same shoulder-length, silky brown hair. We weren't identical, of course, but looking at our pixy-like faces, it's obvious that we are sisters. The most noticeable difference is in our personalities.

Stephanie is more adventurous, more rebellious, than me, Lily Ann Wilson. It isn't just that she is a teenager. She's always been like this. I, on the other hand, have always been cautious, hesitant. I do very little without analyzing my options first, weighing the pros and cons, judging the risk involved. My sister thinks this makes me dull. I don't see it that way. I see it as being smart.

"Lily," Stephanie sounded annoyed with me now. "Just tell me what you think. You believe me, right?"

I couldn't lie to her face, so, looking down at my feet, I mumbled, "Um, yeah, sure."

When I looked up again, it was to encounter her silent glare. I couldn't take her looking at me like that for long. I sputtered. "O.K. Fine. No, I don't believe you. I don't believe you at all. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

Crossing her arms, Stephanie stuck out her bottom lip like a petulant two year old. Her question came out sounding whiny. "Why don't you believe me?"

I couldn't help myself. It was such a ridiculous question that I rolled my eyes as I answered. "Oh, pulleeeeze. Come one, Steph. It’s . . . well, it just sounds crazy."

"I'm. Not. Crazy." My sister spat out her response one word at a time.

"Well, I'm not saying you've completely lost it or anything. You must have let your imagination get carried away. Or, maybe, it's something you've dreamed."

"I was wide awake, Lily. Wide awake."

"Are you sure of that? Maybe you dozed off without realizing it." I frowned. "I hope you're not sick or anything. You could have a fever that's causing hallucinations. I should take you to a doctor." I tried to touch her forehead to see if it felt hot, but she dodged my arm.

"I feel fine." Stephanie grumbled. "I don't have a fever."

I chewed on my lip. I was growing more and more worried by the moment. "I don't know, Steph. Maybe you're a narcoleptic or something. You might be falling asleep suddenly, without realizing it. That could be dangerous."

Just as I had become the lip chewer, Stephanie had become the one rolling her eyes. "You don't have to explain it. I know what a narcoleptic is, and I'm not one. I'm not sick. I'm not crazy, and I'm not going to a doctor. So, forget it."

To be honest, she didn't look sick at all. In fact, she appeared to be doing better now, than when she'd first arrived in Seattle three weeks ago. Then, Stephanie's face had been blotchy and her eyes red from crying. She'd been fighting with Mom and Dad after she'd skipped the last day of school, along with her boyfriend, Cody. When Stephanie had come home again, it was the next morning. She had a butterfly tattoo on her ankle, a belly button piercing, and a hangover. It was the worst trouble she'd ever been in. It was hard to say what in this whole scenario they had been most upset about. Probably, it was her spending all night alone with a boy. That fact alone most likely had trumped tattoos, body piercing, school skipping, underage drinking, and even disappearing for twenty-four hours without a word. I just hoped that whatever she and Cody had done that they'd been safe about it. My adventurous little sister wasn't ready for the adventure of motherhood. Not at sixteen.

Mom and Dad had responded to her behavior by grounding her. It was the start of summer vacation, and she wasn't allowed to go anywhere, do anything or to see Cody or any of her friends. Stephanie responded by sneaking out of the house two days later. Unfortunately for her, she got caught, and this only made matters worse. Mom and Dad took away both her phone and her computer. No texting, no chatting, no calls, no e-mails, nothing. She was in Teenage Hell.

After only a week of watching her cry and mope around, Mom and Dad said, "Enough! We're driving you up to Seattle to spend the summer with your sister. You know she'd love to see you."

It was true. I'd been trying since Spring Break to get Stephanie to come up from our family's home in Portland, Oregon to spend her summer vacation with me. I planned to enjoy a summer off from grad school at U.W., University of Washington, in Seattle where I was working on my M.B.A., Master in Business Administration. After working so hard on my degree, I felt the need for a break, and I thought it would be nice to have Stephanie spend some time with me. Of course, I hadn't considered that Mom and Dad would practically force her to come; that I'd be taking responsibility for a moping, moody, misbehaving teen for the next two months.

My plans for a fun summer break had quickly begun to feel like a punishment. I wondered what I'd ever done to our parents that made them think I deserved this. Maybe it was their way of getting back at me for going to college out of state. They'd ended up helping me with tuition a lot more expensive than it would have been if I'd gone to an Oregon state school. If this was my punishment, Mom and Dad had a sadistic streak I'd been unaware of previously.

I’d still be suffering a miserable summer if it weren’t for a great opportunity that had suddenly fallen into my lap. One of the art history professors at the U.W. was going on a year-long sabbatical. Professor Christine Harper was originally not leaving Seattle until the fall, but she’d changed her plans suddenly. She’d begun asking her colleagues if they recommend a student willing to housesit for her as soon as possible. I’d made it known to several of the faculty members that I was looking for just this sort of opportunity long before I’d thought there was any real chance that my sister would be spending the summer with me. Once she was with me, I’d figured house-sitting would be off my summer agenda, at least until she went back to school in the fall.

Although I had never met her before, Professor Harper called me based on recommendation from one of the professors who knew me and knew of my interest in house-sitting. I drove to her house in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighbor that same afternoon. It was a large, two-story, five bedroom home; an older house that had been recently remodeled. Its outside was painted a shade of ivory with the door and the trim painted dark blue. It was obviously a home of an art history professor, since every room was filled with a variety of carvings, sculptures, ceramics, watercolors, and paintings. The professor herself was a tall, lean woman with a flowing mane of gray hair. She had the kindest smile I’d ever seen.

After just the one meeting, Professor Harper said that she had a good feeling about me and asked if I’d be able to move in right away. She was eager to catch a flight to Rome where she’d be beginning her sabbatical. When I explained that my teenage sister was staying with me over the summer, the professor said, “No, problem. It’s a big house. Everything will work out just fine. You’ll see. Please, Lily, will you take the job? I promise that you’ll not regret it.”

I had agreed then. I mean, how could I not? I was a beautiful house, and I'd be getting paid to stay there and take care of it, and all its artwork, for a year. Now, though, I'd started to wonder if Professor Harper was right. Would I really have no regrets? How could that be true when my little sister was telling me that she’d been hearing voices?

Well, to be exact, Stephanie claimed to have heard one voice, other than our own, since we arrived at Professor Harper’s house. Personally, I would have been equally disturbed whether she said that she was hearing one voice or twenty of them. Either way, didn’t it indicate that something was wrong? Surely, this wasn’t normal. Didn’t it mean that something had to be very wrong with my sister? Another thought suddenly occurred to me.

“Steph, you haven’t been using drugs, have you?”

Stephanie scowled and spoke slowly as if she considered me dim-witted. “Nooooo, Lily. I don’t use drugs, and I only drank that one time, which I really regretted by the next day, so I’m not an alcoholic either. I told you. There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“How can you say that when you’re hearing voices?”

“Lily, it’s not like that. I’m not hearing voices in my head. This is real. He is real.”

“He?” When she had told me that she was hearing a voice, I hadn’t considered that Stephanie was hear a male voice.

“Yes. His name is Thomas, and I don’t just hear him. We talk to each other. We’re friends.”

All of this was really too much for me. If my sister wasn’t sick or crazy, then she was letting her imagination get out of hand. Was I supposed to believe any of this? It sounded like a fantasy to me. I gave up trying to reason with her and turned to sarcasm instead.

“So, is your friend, Thomas, a gnome or an elf?”

Stephanie laughed. “No, that’s silly. He’s not a gnome or an elf or anything like that. Thomas is a regular person. At least, he was. Don’t you understand what I’ve been saying? This house is haunted, Lily. Thomas is a ghost.”

***To Be Continued***

Until I type again,
Kami