Haunting The Night. Mara Purnhagen

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      “I wanted a sign,” he said. “Just one thing to help me know that she was okay, that she still loved me and remembered my birthday.” He shook his head. “I know it sounds stupid, but I was eleven, and it meant so much.”

      “It doesn’t sound stupid at all,” I said, and I meant it. How can it be stupid to miss someone, to want more than anything to know that they are still around in some way?

      “I wanted a sign,” Mills repeated. “I asked for a sign. And I got it.”

      He pulled out his wallet. It was made of soft brown leather, worn at the corners where he folded it in half. He opened it as if he was going to retrieve a dollar bill, but instead of pulling out money, he showed me a piece of what looked like a slip of silver foil.

      “What is it?” I asked.

      “I was staring out my window.” Mills looked at the thing in his hand. “There was a tree outside, so close that its branches used to scrape against the glass.”

      It was still light out, he said, but beginning to get dark. His window was open to let in the summer air. He got up and went down the hall to brush his teeth. And when he returned, it was there. Stuck in the branches of the tree was a single balloon.

      It was a big, silver Mylar balloon emblazoned with the words Happy Birthday in a rainbow of colors.

      “I couldn’t believe it,” Mills said. “It was right there, so close that I could touch it.”

      He punched out the window screen and pulled the balloon inside. “I asked for a sign, and I received it. And this—” here he held out the piece of shiny silver “—this is what I keep with me every day, no matter what.”

      He let me hold the shard of balloon that he had saved. One side was silver, but the other was printed with a red “B.”

      “I keep that with me. The B is to remind me to believe.” He smiled. “I haven’t had even half the experiences with the paranormal that you have, Charlotte. This was my only encounter with something unusual before I met your sister. But I know this is real. I know that my request was answered. And if it can happen for me, it can happen for you, too.”

      “But my mother isn’t dead,” I murmured, feeling the slippery surface of the balloon between my fingers.

      Mills put his hand over mine. I looked up at him, at his kind eyes sheltered behind thick glasses. “Doesn’t matter. If you need a sign that she’s okay, then you should ask for it.”

      I gave him back the piece of balloon and watched as he placed it carefully within the folds of his wallet.

      I wanted a sign so badly, an assurance that in the end, everything would be fine. But I didn’t know how to ask for it. Would I even recognize a sign if it was right outside my window? I winced, remembering that the only thing sitting outside my window at night was a dark shadow creature. And it wasn’t giving off positive vibes. Maybe it was a warning that things would not be okay. Maybe it was waiting for me to accept that.

      Fast footsteps came down the hallway and we stood, ready for the doctor’s prognosis. I reached for Mill’s hand, glad that he was with me. Perhaps I didn’t need a sign when I had the support of a good friend.

      But it would be nice.

      Chapter Three

      It was the medication. The doctor told me and Mills that they had tried—with Dad’s approval—a new kind of medication and that Mom had experienced “an adverse reaction” to the concoction. She was fine, the doctor assured us, and they would return her to the original drugs. I was relieved and anxious to see her. Minutes later, when Shane and Dad arrived, the diagnosis was repeated. Shane got angry, but Dad was surprisingly calm. “It’s my fault,” he told Shane, and I hung my head because I knew that, in the end, it was really my fault Mom was lying in the hard hospital bed. That guilt hung around my neck like an albatross, weighing me down with every step I took.

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