WE #6 TM - Hotel Santibar- Revised

WE #6 TM - Hotel Santibar, Revised


Moving through an empty lobby of a hotel at ten past midnight would frighten any normal young girl. Milly, however, didn't frighten easily. She had lived in Hotel Santibar for so long, moving through its corridors was akin to moving through the channels of her own mind. She did not see shadows as dark and foreboding. To her, the rickety old metal cage elevator didn't look like a death trap waiting to fall. Even the mice that shuttled along the peeling baseboards didn't frighten her-- in fact, she thought of them as visitors, since no people came to stay any more.

The Santibar was her home, and she was at ease there. Well, except for when the demons came. Milly referred to them as demons, though in truth she had no idea what they were. She only knew that they were not like her, and that when they came, everything in her soul told her to stay out of their way. Then the overgrown field behind the hotel became her home, and there, she was uncomfortable. Too exposed. And she never knew when it was okay to go back in-- she had to feel the hotel to be sure it was safe. It was unsettling, to project her mind alone into the building, and if she was wrong, if they had not left yet...she shuddered to think what might happen if they sensed her presence.

They came on a Monday, just after the first real frost. It was her anniversary. The air held tiny crystalline particles of frozen dew that filtered in through the broken windows. Milly found a place on the floor where the sun light shone in a pale yellow puddle. She compacted herself to sit within the pool of light, and when she closed her eyes and used her memory, she could almost feel its warmth. As the exact time of her anniversary drew near, she turned her thoughts inward. There was something about that time, that day so long ago, that imprinted the trauma into this very room. She would come to this room on any other given day, to play with leaves or with the whisper cats that came to hunt mice once in a while. But today, she didn't have a choice. Milly had to be here, just like she had for the past fifty years.

One time, a few years after it had happened, she had tried to run away down the mountain road and into the town below. She had tucked herself into a garden shed and grasped the heavy lawn mower to ground herself. It had made no difference; when the time came, she was yanked out of herself, turned inside out, pulled through the air back up to the hotel on a silver umbilicus that attached her to the very place where she had died.

The air grew heavy, and shadows of furniture long since removed came into hazy being. The voices started up, just like they always did. Her mother called from what used to be the bedroom, and every year, she loved to hear it again. Her brother was laughing, and the radio was playing faintly in the background. It was the only thing she enjoyed-- the rest was annoying at best. The memory gripped her, and Milly's eyes began to glow with a white mist as her whole spirit took smoky shape. She was pulled by the silver chord into the dilapidated bathroom where her soul splashed and played inside the empty confines of the old enamel tub. Time and energy wrapped together, with Milly at its center. In came the phantom of her toddling brother, laughing, bringing her the radio because it was playing their favorite song. The long chord snaked out behind him, one of his chubby feet stepped on it, and he began to fall, dropping the radio as he went. It flew a few feet through the air--

'The soap is mine mine mine, scrub and shine shine shine, it's my bath time!'

-- and into Milly's tub. Though no electricity ran through the hotel- and hadn't for at least twenty years- the lights flickered, both in the strange echo world and in the real world as well.

And then it was over. She lay in the bottom of the tub, back to her normal, invisible self. She used to hate playing out the haunting, and cried for days afterward, but then she began to accept it, and even looked forward to the natural rhythm of its presence. At least she got to hear her mother's voice again, and her brother's laugh. Milly squeezed her eyes shut and recalled the last words she ever heard her mother say to her while she was alive.

"Milly? Are you finished yet?"

Yes, I'm finished mama.

The growl surprised her. It was in the other room, where the sunshine was. Milly pulled into herself, making herself very small, and did not reach out with her mind. She could smell the putrid decay of the demon. They hadn't been there in so very long, she had started to hope that they would leave her hotel alone. She wasn't sure why they came. All she knew about them was that they would do her harm if they found her.

The demon was snuffling near the bathroom door now. Milly was frozen in fear at first, but then she spotted the drain. In her small balled up form, she glided across the bottom of the tub and pushed herself down into the rusty metal hole. It had a crisscross pattern at its bottom, but Milly had been working on becoming small as a dust ball for years now, and so passed through the little bars with only slight discomfort. The drain was tight, but dry. She pushed down as far as she could and waited, recalling the face of the ancient Mr. Hodgeson.

He had been in the hotel when she first crossed over. He would make his rounds without missing a beat, checking the systems of the hotel long after the systems had been turned off and allowed to fall into decay. His hair and clothing were dirty, and too many of his teeth were missing, giving him the look of an unfinished Jack O' Lantern. He had never said anything to her. He muttered under his breath to the hotel when he walked his timeless route, but to Milly, he had always remained silent.

The demons had come during one of Mr. Hodgeson's walks. Milly had smelled them and shot out to the field as she always did. She heard the growling and gurgling and snarling within the hotel, but not one peep had he made. She knew they had found him, she could hear their ravenous grunts and squeals. Mr. Hodgeson disappeared that day. Milly was sure that they had somehow eaten him.

 The demon was in the bathroom now, its grunts echoing in the confined space. Milly then heard a second one arrive, its moaning at a higher pitch. It seemed more frantic, snuffling and squealing in excitement. She had no idea if they could smell her, but she feared that it might be possible. Compacting herself tighter still, and pressing further down, she turned her focus inward and tried to disappear altogether.

The wailing scream that erupted above her almost made her re-emerge in fright. A woman's voice pierced through the now surprised growls and squeals of the demons. Milly could hear what sounded like a tornado ripping through the bathroom, wailing and wind and squeals combining into a cacophony.The demons were howling like wounded animals. The ruckus left the bathroom, and whatever the screaming windy thing was, it seemed to be chasing them out of the next room and down the hall.

Milly made a break for it. She shot out of the drain and into the next room, still a glowing little silvery ball. She hovered near the ceiling, listening as the wailing and snarling whirlwind receded farther into the hotel. Gliding into the hall and into an adjoining room, Milly bulleted through a broken window and out across the field, settling like a seed fluff down into the waving grasses. There, she took her normal, invisible form and peeked her head up above the golden seed heads.

From this distance she could still hear the turmoil. Soon she spotted the demons emerge from the far end of the building. Their dark barrel forms squished and squeezed past each other in an attempt to get away from their pursuer, turning to form great heads with bared black teeth, snapping  at what appeared to be a dust devil. The miniature tornado was defined by swirling leaves and dirt, and it would tear at the demons when they manifested, scattering them like shadows before sunlight. It hounded their retreating forms to the edge of the woods and out of sight. She could still hear the turbulence reverberating through the air, and so Milly kept her spot, watching with invisible eyes.

Several minutes passed. Milly didn't dare go back to the hotel yet, afraid of what this new threat might mean. She had to steer clear of any being vicious enough to scare away demon spirits. If it set up camp in her hotel, what would she do next year when her haunting played out? Her frightened thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of a lady wearing a pale blue dress at the edge of the wood. She came out at the exact same spot the demons and the dust devil spirit had entered. Milly watched her carefully as she made her way back into the hotel, floating a few feet above the ground.

Milly sat and broke off small grass blades as she waited. Making the tiny frozen stalks snap calmed her. She wondered what the lady in blue wanted, what she was doing now in the hotel, and when she would leave. There were spirits older than even the demons that walked the woods at night. Milly had spotted them from the windows of the hotel, but had never made any contact with them. They moved on their own private missions across the field and through the forest. She didn't look forward to dodging them out here in the open air tonight.

A call came then, reaching out over the distance. She froze, waiting to hear it again.

Yes, there it was, much closer now.

"Milly?" Why would anyone know her name? "Are you out there?"

Milly rose slowly above the grass heads. She spotted the lady in the blue dress, and this time took notice of her auburn hair, curling and bouncing as she floated away from the hotel and out over the field. Her glowing skin was pale, her face wrinkled, but something in the way she held her arms and tilted her head struck Milly as familiar. The lady in the blue dress called out again.

"Milly? Baby, are you here?"

All the particles of her being flashed, and with a surge of energy, Milly pushed herself through the air, careening at her mother like a shot.

"Mama!" They both tangled together, laughing and crying, causing a whirlwind of their own as they spun around each other. The years seemed to melt away as Milly swelled, her energy becoming a solid apparition. If any living person had been looking, they would have seen the two spirits clearly.

Once their souls grew calm again, Milly reached up and swiped at the silver tears on her mother's phantom cheeks.

"But mama, you're here now, which means..."

"Yes, my sweet." She pulled her into a chilly embrace. "It was time. I was so old, my heart was just too tired to keep on going. Ah, Milly, I missed you so much! Your brother--"

"Michael?" Milly hadn't said her brother's name aloud in so long, she was surprised to hear it on her own lips. Her mother laughed. It was the most beautiful sound Milly had ever heard.

"Michael, yes of course. He was with me to the last, and he told me while I lay dying, he told me to tell you 'hello'." Milly looked up at her shimmering mother and smiled. A message from her brother after all these years was like a gift to her soul. She was beaming, but her mother's face was furrowed with worry.

"... And he also wanted me to tell you that he has always been sorry--"

Milly put her fingers over her mother's lips and shook her head.

"No, mama, there's nothing to be sorry about. Accidents happen all the time, don't they? To everyone, eventually."

Her mother let out a small sound, fresh tears spilling from her eyes. She kissed her ghost daughter's fingertips and then lowered them to where her heart used to beat.

"We spent years blaming ourselves, my little dove. I'm so glad you haven't spent this time being angry at us."

"I was never mad mama, not for one single minute. But I've been waiting such a long time, I almost forgot what I was waiting for..."

Her fingers clasped her mother's. They rose up and floated back to the hotel together. There was so much to catch up on, and now they could begin to make up for all the lost time.