Possessed [Erotic Paranormal Romance]

Chapter Two - Imaginary.

"Bye! Thank you! Come back any time! She'll be here a while!" Charlie heard her mother call out to the movers as they started pulling out of the driveway, making her cringe and roll her eyes as she started up the narrow stairs to the attic with a shake of her head. Her mother was just as shameless as she was sweet - a boggling combination that she'd always adored.

Until she was old enough to start having kids.

It was then, when her mother saw Charlie's ... hardship, for lack of a better word, when it came to finding someone to date seriously, that she refocused her attention from her single friends, to her single, twenty-six year old daughter. Having had her own complications from giving birth to her at the ripe age of 30, her mother had become obsessed with trying to make sure that Charlie didn't have to go through the same thing.

And it wasn't that Charlie wasn't interested in having kids. In fact, it would have been less embarrassing if Charlie hadn't been actively trying to date - and actively failing. It wasn't that she was avoiding having kids or a serious relationship. It was that every single guy in L.A. that wasn't gay or over the age of 35 was. And if they weren't, they were looking to have kids immediately. Like, skip out on the third date condom and get down to business, immediately.

Was it too much to ask for some kind of middle ground?

Slowing at the familiar creeks of the top steps to the attic, Charlie could feel her heart give a nervous thud against her chest as she peaked into the room, her eyes glossing over the dusty tarps that covered a majority of the room. The smell of dust and debris flooded her nostrils, mixing with a wave of nostalgia as her eyes settled upon the tarp-covered mirror, just where she'd left it beside the dirty old circular window.

Staring at the covered mirror, Charlie felt her heart start to race as she imagined what was underneath, fragments of her childhood coming back to her. Memories of reading old books, of hiding away from her brother, of playing with ... an imaginary friend.

She scoffed to herself, stepping up and into the attic, approaching the mirror with a reluctant hesitation. Reaching for the tarp, she yanked it off with sudden aggression, her eyes locked on the cloudy surface of the mirror, heart skipping a beat when her eyes met her reflection's. Hand reaching up to the mirror's interactive molding a long moment later, her fingers delicately traced over the carvings, her lips curling into a subtle grin when seeing the traces of crayon down toward the bottom of the molding.

Her eyes bounced around her reflection, looking for some sort of ... oddity. An unparalleled movement. A lagging response. She stared for almost a minute, waiting for her reflection - or something else entirely - to move. Greet her in some form or fashion. But when she was met by only silence and her racing heart, she scowled, her eyes stinging with the threat of tears as she threw the tarp aside.

She really had been a stupid little girl with an overactive imagination, just like her brother had always said. Honestly. What did she think was going to happen? Her reflection was going to speak to her? Tell her how much it missed her? Turning around and pinching the bridge of her nose with closed eyes, Charlie took a moment to gather her thoughts, calming herself back down.

It had been over a decade since she had stepped foot in the attic. She didn't have the time once she started middle school. What with clubs and sports and trying not to be an outcast, there wasn't any time for an imaginary friend. Especially not when her brother was going around telling people that she'd run home to play with one. Charlie spent all her time doing anything she could, trying to prove him wrong. Chess club, bowling club, art club - anything to prove that she wasn't running home to play with her imaginary friend.

Anything to make some real ones.

But despite her efforts, Charlie remained an outcast through most of her schooling, only managing to gain the friendship of one individual, who was probably the only other people in the school that was ostrasized just as much - if not more, than she was.

Francis Castillo. The only openly gay boy with not only the balls to tryout for both the football team and cheer squad, but the skill to make both teams and outshine everyone on them. He should have been the talk of the town, not the talk of the locker rooms. She was the only one to offer him praise, and he was the only one to go out of his way to stick up for her, making them incerpeable.

Sighing, Charlie walked back towards the attic steps, only making it half a foot away from the mirror before accidentally kicking a stray book that had been left on the floor. Wincing with a scowl at her now throbbing toes, Charlie glared down at the floor, though her synched brows relaxed when seeing the familiar book, and the drawings hidden beneath. Eyes darting about, she gently swept her foot over the thin layer of dust on the floor, revealing the circular patterns drawn in crayon around her.

Again her brows pinched, drawing the similarities to a summoning circle in her mind. Her heart raced as she whipped back around to look back at the mirror. She hadn't thought anything of it when shew as a kid, but this ... It was definitely a summoning circle. Again, her eyes darted about her reflection in search of answers as her mind raced. But still, there was nothing out of the ordinary.

Could it have been ...?

Hesitantly reaching down to pick up the dusty book, Charlie gently swept her hand over the hardcover, detailed with intricate moldings and trim. Flipping to a random page, Charlie scanned over the writings and diagrams on the fragile, tinted pages. Going to turn the page, Charlie gasped and flinched when cutting her finger along its edge. She swore under her breath as she shook her hand aggressively, drops of blood dripping onto the dusty hardwood floor.

"Fucking hell," she hissed, sucking her finger into her mouth as she glared at the book.

"Charlie? You up there?" Her mother called out from the hallway below the attic. "Dinner's just about ready if you want to come down!"

"Coming!" Charlie called back, closing the book and flipping it over to look and noticing the words "Made in China", printed toward the bottom of the back cover. Groaning and sucking her teeth, she shoved the book aside onto one of the nearby tarped dressers in annoyance. "Yeah, Charlie. Because it's much more likely you were friends with a god damned demon," she scowled to herself as she headed downstairs.

And as she made her way down the steps, the familiar beginnings of small black swirls began to weakly swarm around her fleeting reflection, her blood seeping into the crayon drawings on the floor.