Indwell (Chasing Natalie's Ghosts) by Nicole Smith Page A

said smiling at me.
    “What’s your name?” I asked.
    “Cheveyo,” he replied.
    “Cheveyo. I like it. My name is Natalie,” he smiled up at me again. He already knew my name. I remembered him saying it in the field. Some loud banging sounds interrupted our conversation. It was coming from downstairs. It sounded like a chair possibly being thrown against the wall. I also heard some glass breaking, then came the swearing and crying.
    “Good times,” I said under my breath, frowning. A few minutes later Luke came running into my room, slamming and locking my old heavy wooden door. The lock on the door was a metal square that had a small metal tab on the top that slid back and forth, sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t.
    “Are you okay Luke?” I asked, not too surprised that he was scared.
    “Yeah, I’m fine, but can I sleep here, just for a little while?” he whispered.
    “Sure. Just watch out for Cheveyo.”
    “Who am I watching out for?” Luke asked looking around.
    “Cheveyo, my new friend, he’s sitting at the foot of the bed. Don’t kick him?” I said. Luke just looked at me and shrugged.
    “Okay, whatever, funny, sure,” he slurred as he drifted off to sleep. Cheveyo smiled and whispered, “Good Night Natalie” as he curled up into a ball at the end of my bed. I grabbed my housecoat and covered him.
    The next morning I was hesitant to go downstairs, so I took my time washing up and then I knocked on John’s door, to see if he had gone downstairs yet.
    “What?” he mumbled.
    “Are you awake?” I asked, about to turn back to my room.
    “No, but I’ll go downstairs with you,” he said glumly. We walked silently down to the dining room. The table was still covered in ashes.  There was no one there, so we walked into the living room. Two of my father’s friends, one on the couch and one in the chair were sleeping soundly. There was a broken chair in the middle of the room and pieces of my mother’s large white table lamp scattered around it. We walked back towards the kitchen and there in the middle of the room was a man, lying on the cold linoleum floor. I wanted to scream but John already had his hand covering my mouth.
    “Shhh,” he whispered, as we backed up towards the stairs. Once we reached the top John sighed.
    “Just go back to bed. Mom will be up later,” he ordered.
    “Okay,” I whispered, silently closing my door. I realized Luke had already gone back to his room. I decided to check on him, just to make sure he wasn’t going to go downstairs either. He was sleeping in his own bed so I closed the door and went back to my room. Once I closed my door and stepped down into my room I noticed Cheveyo was there again but this time he wasn’t smiling.
    “Promise me you won’t go back downstairs till your mother comes up to get you?” he asked. He seemed so serious for such a little kid.
    “I won’t. I wasn’t planning on going back down there anyway. Why? Do you know something I don’t?” I asked, feeling a little unsure of what was going on.
    “That man down there on the kitchen floor will not be among the living for much longer,” he whispered, almost too quietly for me to catch. I just curled back up onto my bed and stared at him.
    “Can I go to your house today? I’d like to meet your family?” I tried to not show how eager I was to leave this place.
    “I’d like you to come to my home someday, but not today,” he simply stated.
    “Why not today?”  I was trying to control my anger. I felt rejected. I wanted to go somewhere else.
    “It will all become so clear to you one day that you’ll wish you didn’t understand. You’ll wish you didn’t see so much,” I closed my eyes for just a few seconds and when I went to look at him again he was gone. I really wished he would have stayed with me that day.
    I grabbed the remaining amount of medications in the cabinet. There was also a bottle of pain killers at the back of the shelf, left over from my