“Caleb?” She whispered his name again, thinking that he didn’t hear her. Granted, she was doing her best to stay as quiet as possible, the house dark and empty. Caleb and Kassie were moving out of the house, upsetting as it was to Kassie. The old house had character, panache. Style. That’s the reason the couple bought it in the first place.

1107 E Terrace Street wasn’t the best place for a one-bedroom home. Not for downtown Seattle. The Salvation Army shelter, three homeless shelters, and the Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge crossing Lake Washington made it a magnet for those with untreated, unmedicated mental health issues. Self-medicating people wandered the streets, and even with an increased police presence, it wasn’t safe for Kassie to be outside alone at night.

They bought the home as a foreclosure, although the reason for the former owners to not make the payments or pay the property taxes, was beyond Kassie or Caleb. If you made the money needed to buy a house in the downtown area, you would think it’d be enough to make a house payment of a few thousand dollars a month.

She whispered again. “Caleb. This isn’t funny. Knock it off. We have to go.” Kassie didn’t hear a sound, not even the settling of their small home. The first time Kassie felt strange in the house, Caleb was out of town. Now, he was busy taking boxes in and out of their first home, upset to be leaving so soon after they moved in. But, like his dad told him years earlier: Happy wife. Happy life.

“Kassie? Where’d you go?” Caleb walked into the now empty dining room, Kassie shivering, holding herself, and rocking on her heels, doing her best to not have a meltdown. “Are you okay, babe?” He kissed her forehead, pulled her close, and held her tight. “Baby?”

Caleb felt her sobbing softly, her chest rising and falling with each gasp. “I thought. I. Well. Oh, Caleb!” Kassie broke down, her crying echoing through the home. “I thought it got you.” Her voice was muffled. “I was so scared.”

He pulled her away from his chest. “Hon, I’m right here.” Brushing away her tears with his thumbs, he held her face. “Kassie, all the boxes are loaded. We can leave now.”

“No.” Kassie pulled out a bundle of sage wrapped with a thin red string. “We are cleansing this place first.”

“That’s ridiculous, Kassie.” Grabbing her hand, he pulled her toward the front door. “We need to leave this place and all this,” he gestured with his hands, “behind. Cleansing this house isn’t going to help us.”

“Speak for yourself,” Kassie yanked her hand away from him. “I’m doing this, whether or not you like it.” Kassie never lit sage with a lighter, believing that matches were better. Whether or not that was true, according to the Sammish tribe living in and around Lake Washington, remained to be seen. But it made her feel as though it worked better. Lighting the match Kassie watched and listened to it roar to life, the heat emanating from the tip. She closed her eyes for a second, then jerked awake.

“Miss?” The flight attendant was trying to get Kassie’s attention. “Would you like something to eat before we land?” Kassie rubbed her eyes a few times, collecting her senses. Kassie looked around the cabin, searching for Caleb.
“Um, yes. Yes, I’d like something to eat, please.”

The flight attendant, an older woman who appeared to be on the edge of retirement, nodded, moving toward the front of the plane. Caleb waited for her to go by, returning from his short stint to the bathroom.

“Where the heck were you?” Kassie hissed. “I wake up, and you aren’t here?”

Smiling, Caleb said, “Where was I supposed to go? I’m on the plane with you. It’s not as if I can get out,” he said, pointing to the exit doors, two rows from them. “Did you have another bad dream, Kass? You know there is nothing wrong with that house.”

“Yeah? We’ve not moved in yet, and I can see us moving out in less than two months.”

“So you don’t want to close on it?” He sat down next to her. “Seems like a waste of the deposit.”

“Yeah.” She said, settling back in her seat. The red-haired attended returned with a tray of hot food, coffee, orange juice, and a bottle of water. “If you need anything else, let me know,” she said, winking. It looked weird, the wrinkles on her face moving opposite of what they should. Kassie blinked a few more times, the attending smiling an odd smile.