THE PAPER EIGHT
When I was eleven years old, my grandmother, a god-fearing woman, often told me, “Everything good is not always white.” She would say something like this after watching a movie with me, where the black cat, dark-haired character, or even the night itself was always depicted as evil or malevolent.
I mentioned to her about the dreams I had—dreams of a white spirit that would stand in my closet and watch me sleep. It had no face. It stood tall, floating just above the floor like a glowing white sheer curtain just inside the door’s opening. It seemed to get closer and closer with each dream. The last dream I had; it was standing at the foot of my bed. I told her, since it was white, that it must be my guardian angel, watching over me. She glared at me and sucked her teeth.
Every other weekend I would spend a Saturday or Sunday night over at her house. I slept upstairs in her somewhat finished attic. From the back door entrance, the stairs bypassed the main level and continued upwards to the left, winding up to the attic. At the top of the stairs, there was a room door directly in front of the landing. That’s where I slept. To the right was a hallway with unfinished flooring, made up of pieces of old plywood and carpet. The hall led to a living room-type space with a larger bedroom to the back of it.
One night, I lay in bed in the attic room. I was alone for the first time in that room. Usually, my cousin or my slightly older sister would share the bed with me, sleeping with their heads at the opposite end of the king-size bed. Yet, that night, my sister chose the living room couch downstairs to watch television, and my cousin the room at the opposite end of the attic.
I got up to shut my bedroom window since the cold breeze kept finding its way under my comforter. As I closed the window, I also shut out the outside noise which made my room all the quieter. Too quiet.
I was never really afraid of the dark. Yet for some reason, I couldn’t get over the fact that something felt different. As I slid back into bed and pulled my blanket to my chin, I felt that cool breeze yet again under the comforter. I heard the sound of a gentle wind, blowing through an opening somewhere in the room, but the window was closed. I scanned my room only visible due to the moonlit sky shining through my opened curtains. Maybe I didn’t shut it all the way, I thought.
I stepped out to investigate the window, but as I passed the closet door a chilly breeze blew over my bare feet. Confused, I paused in front of it. Dust blew from underneath the door as the gust grew stronger and the room now colder. My heart pounded against my ribcage and my breath floated out in front of me. As I reached for the doorknob the door gently shuddered. My eyes grew wide as sudden fear and cold choked me. I bolted to my bed and dove under the comforter. From under the blankets, I could hear the closet door lock click and the sound of the hinges dragging as it opened. The room grew even colder instantly.
“Gramma!” I yelled. But it felt as if my cry out to her fell short, muffled under my bedding.
The doorknob gently bumped the wall along with the sound of the breeze fading. Once again, my room was eerily quiet. Near the foot of my bed, I could see a soft white growing glow through my comforter.
I was shivering, I drew my knees to my chest, keeping an unblinking eye on the glow when I remembered my dream. The tall white guardian angel, standing in my closet doorway. Was this another dream? I pulled the comforter down just a little. Enough for my eyes to see. There it was, floating in the doorway. I was paralyzed with both fear and wonder. I didn’t know what a guardian angel looked like, but the feeling I was getting from it was threatening. My wonder disappeared, leaving behind nothing but fear. I didn’t want to breathe let alone move. I was hoping if I just sat here, maybe, hopefully, it would go away. Better yet, I would wake now, in my bed and safe.
My bed jolted gently. Then again. To my horror, my bed was being dragged across the floor toward it. It grabbed the frame of the closet door with long bone-like fingers and leaned out from inside. I screamed as loudly as I could. The heavy bed dragging across the wood floor was bound to wake someone up. Or so I thought.
I threw my comforter off and prepared to leap out of bed, when the room door next to me burst open, scaring me back underneath my sheets. My bed abruptly stopped moving, and there was silence once again.
When I peeked out from underneath the blanket, to the open bedroom door, tiny black apparitions emerged from the pitch-blackness of the hall, one by one. Hand in hand like shadows of silence. The last one that entered joined hands with the first creating what seemed like a protective barrier. There were eight of them.
Their presence made me feel safe and relaxed, which was different from the white spirit’s overwhelming darkness. They all began humming a soft, delicate tune in unison. Each note seemed to push against the oppressive energy of the white spirit. The room vibrated with the intensity of their song, the pureness of the melody battling the cold darkness coming from the closet.
As their song continued, my vision began to fade as if I were being lullabied to sleep. The last thing I saw, before drifting off, was the closet door slowly closing.
I woke up the next morning to my cousin shoving my shoulder and telling me, “Wake up. Grandma is making pancakes!” She ran downstairs eagerly to claim her favorite spot at the table.
As I climbed out from under the covers, I noticed my bed was back in its original spot. The sun shined brightly through the window. But even with that, I wasn’t trying to stay in that room any longer than I had to. I raced downstairs behind her.
On my way to the bathroom, after my grandma ordered me to wash my hands before eating, I noticed a picture on the hallway wall. As I said, I was eleven years old, so I didn’t pay attention to a lot of decorations or pictures, but this time I caught a glimpse of a picture in the center of numerous old and new family photos. It was a photo that had always been there, yet I never paid it any mind.
My Grandma came up behind me as I remained staring at it. “You better hurry before your cousins and sister eat all the pancakes,” she said. Then continued, “Oh, I see you’ve finally noticed this picture. You like it?” She looked down at me with a knowing smile and placed her hand on my head. “It’s been in the family for many years.”
“Grandma,” I started, my voice unsteady, “those figures in the picture, they…”
She cut me off with a soft chuckle. “Those are the ancestors, baby. They’ve been with our family for generations, protecting us, guiding us.”
I looked up at her, then back to the picture of eight dark-brown stick-like figures, stretched out hand in hand like a paper people chain cutout, framed in African art.
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