Paranormal parolee

Ch 8~ Que the travel montage music!

Grace opened her eyes the next day to the silence of her bedroom. Cold, blue tinted early autumn light pushed past her thick curtains through breaks in the fabric to fill her room.

Her small hands rise to meet her face attempting to block the light. Despite her hands best effort, thin splinters of the offending light rouse her into a sitting position. Sleep filled brown eyes move to find the bedside clock.

The little glowing numbers tell her the time is 1:30 in the afternoon.

The nightmares had really pulled her under this time. The groggy woman puts her head in her hands and tries to replay the horrible images and make sense of what her brain was trying to tell her. She always prided herself for keeping a very organized mind, making the stress induced nightmares that turned her brain into a tossed salad even more frustrating. She sat there, very still and taking deep breaths. But a moment passes and Grace growls in frustration and throws herself back into the chaos of pillows.

It was the same old same old. Vague dreams of anxiety and horror plague her nights only for her to wake up with no memory of them. They weren't even mysterious creepy prophetic dreams, that would at least be cool. Even with a life full of the strange and occult her nightmares were just normal and horrible. And attacked her almost nightly for no discernible reason!

Well... That's not entirely true. There was a reason. But Grace would never address it, hadn't for years. Grace's depression riddled her body, suppressed just beneath her shining veneer. But she would never acknowledge it as the cause of her nightmares. And why not? Keyword here being suppressed. 

Taking another glance at the bright digital face of her clock she resigned herself to the fact that she wasn't gonna get any more sleep for the day. Not that it was very good sleep. Jostling her protesting body out of bed she goes to her closet for her clothes of the day. The phone calls she had made yesterday had sorted out transportation for that evening, giving her time to finish packing and dither for a while.

With clothes in hand she moves to her bathroom. Standing before the door she puts her dominant right hand on the intricate faintly glowing ward, her left hand on the handle about waist height.

A moment after her hands made contact the strange symbols dimmed and a soft click could be felt under her left hand. Grace pushes open the door and enters the modest bathroom.

It was plain in every aspect. A sink, a toilet, a shower. Maybe the tub was a standout, but only because it was pretty big. If anyone told Beetlejuice just how simple and underwhelming the bathroom was on the other side of the heavily guarded door he would scoff, insist there was more to it, call whoever it was a filthy liar, and flip them off. And he would be right.

Standing at the sink, grace brushes her teeth and washes her face, splashing water across her skin before looking up at her reflection. Through the mirror her eyes find a small white door on the wall behind her. The door was unremarkable. Shorter and slimmer than the average door. It looked to all the world like a small linen closet for the towels and soaps of the bathroom.

It was very much NOT a linen closet.

It was the reason for the absolute overkill on protection charms that guarded the room and kept others out. A point of embarrassment for the young woman. Hell must have frozen over, because this marked the second instance where Beetlejuice was right. Everyone had dirt, even Grace, it's a fact of life and death.

Arching her back and raising her hands overhead to stretch the sleepiness from her muscles, the pajama clad woman turns to lean the small of her back on the bathroom counter. Looking right at the small door. With arms crossed Grace considers her options.