Inheritance

At precisely 4:30 pm on a Friday, Alex shut down his work computer and locked up his office in Lowell, Massachusetts. Traffic was heavy at that time off day – not a huge surprise, especially given that that night was Halloween and all the twenty-somethings in this college town were gearing up to celebrate. Having settled in to the age of thirty-five a few months ago, Alex couldn't be bothered with any of that mess. Back when he had just moved to the area for work he tried going out and mingling at parties, bars, and the like. He'd tried being social. He'd tried meeting new people and he'd tried new things, but nothing had ever clicked for him. Every let down took more out of him than the one before, until lately he'd come to the realization that it was all pointless anyway and he should embrace being alone.

His sour mood deepened as he turned onto route three north, and he flicked his headlights on, annoyed at himself for having forgotten. All the people he ever met were shallow and flighty, and casual dating just wasn't for him. At his 35th birthday party a few weeks ago, an event intended for and attended only by him, he resolved to live that single life forever and grimly resigned himself to eternal bachelorhood.

He didn't have any expectations for this particular Halloween night either. After his half-hour commute north on route three, he finally made it home to Pelham, a sleepy New Hampshire bordertown that luckily avoided all the noise and business of Nashua. His house, which he was pleased to have closed on a year ago, was situated on an old farm. It'd taken a lot of renovation, but given that the place was his very first property it had been a labor of love. The plot was ten acres and very quiet, situated at the very end of a gravel lane.  The trunks of tall ash trees, pines, and maples caught the headlights of his Honda Civic as he proceeded down his long driveway, and he smiled with wan pleasure like he did every time he looked upon the place. His eyes lit first on all of those spots that begged for his attention – missing shingles, siding in need of painting, gutters needing to be cleaned from all the falling leaves. He spent about ten minutes listening to the last desperate, chilly crickets chirping in the falling light as he took a walk around the house to itemize what had to be done in the next two days. This house had become the focus of his creative energies, and he devoted himself to it like a man in love.

His circuit finished at the front door, where he saw a letter taped to it. Why hadn't it been left in his mailbox at the end of the drive? Why had he only noticed it just then? Alex's blue eyes narrowed as his slender fingers plucked up the envelope. The paper was thick, fine, and cream colored – definitely not the cheap sort of paper from a spam mailer or bill. As he walked inside and flicked on the lights, the orange-yellow glow of the low-wattage bulbs lit over the handwritten, black lettering:

To Alexander Dupuis, 1 Baker Lane, Pelham NH, 03076

The return address was the office of an attorney in Boston, also handwritten. Alex frowned and took a seat at his small kitchen table, not bothering to take off his jacket. The chilly, quiet house creaked a little as the wind picked up outside and the trees shifted, their drying branches hissing against one another and moaning as they flexed. He ignored it and focused on the envelope, slipping his middle finger into the corner and ripping along the top fold.

The paper inside was a thick stack of some ten pages, all printed on paper of the same quality. Upon them was written the will of a relative he hadn't heard much about for at least fifteen years. His great uncle had been a remote sort of man, very old but in surprisingly good health for a man of his age. He'd met the man a few times at holiday parties - the rest of the family had seemed to annoy him, all save for Alex, who shared his aloof disposition even as a child. The will stated that most of his affairs would be left to various members of the family in equal measure, with some possessions reserved for liquidation to account for the cost of his last medical and funeral expenses.

At first Alex didn't see his name on the will anywhere, and he grimaced a little. It wasn't that he'd felt entitled to any of his great uncle's possessions – it just seemed odd to have received record of it if it didn't directly concern him. Yet there was an additional piece of paper behind the rest, of a different stock. It looked like the sort of paper that'd come from a writing pad, and the lettering was identical to that on the envelope.

Alex,

I know we have not met each other that many times, but I can see in you a reflection of myself. The rest of the family would not understand and so I must leave my last, greatest, most beloved possession to you. This is a great responsibility, and I understand if you feel unprepared. But if you take up your duty as my successor, your life will be rewarded with companionship for many years to come.

I bequeath her to you, Alexander Dupuis, as your ward. Upon reading these words with your very eyes, it is done.

His great uncle, to his understanding, was a very detail-oriented, thoughtful man. It was out of character for him to write so short and vague a letter about something he'd clearly valued and yet didn't bother to even name. Either way, there wasn't much Alex was prepared to do at this hour on a Friday night, and on Halloween no less. So he gathered up all the documents, stuffed them back into the envelope, and carried them to his small office to be dealt with in the morning.

That night he didn't get any trick or treaters, but he didn't expect any. He bought a small bag of candy, but when the clock struck 8 pm, he decided to start eating a few of the sweets himself, and set the rest in a dish on the kitchen counter.  He lingered through a broadcast of the Thing and Nightmare on Elmstreet, and then he shut off the TV, collected the dishes from his dinner, washed them, and then went to bed.

Alex usually wasn't a light sleeper, but that night he had a hard time settling in. What had that letter been about? What did his great uncle mean about companionship? Was he inheriting a parrot or something? At 3 am he finally gave up and got out of bed to take a shower. The heat helped to soothe his tight muscles of his tense body as the water sluiced down his pale skin and black hair on his too-thin body. More than anything he wanted a hot cup of coffee, and he was thinking about that as he padded over on bare feet to the fogged mirror over the bathroom sink as he prepared to shave.

Lazily he swiped his right hand over the glass, his palm squeaking softly on the surface as his left hand took up the can of Old Spice shaving cream and lazily shook it. When he looked into the mirror again, he jerked back with a cry, dropping the can with a clatter into the sink. A young woman was looking back at him through the glass. Or, rather, a feminine sort of something, because she couldn't possibly be human - not with her perfectly chalk white skin, black hair, all-black eyes, and two horns that curved back over her head. Despite her angelic features she looked like a demon.

But that couldn't possibly be! He spun around, just in case some kids had broken into his house to play a bizarre prank on him. But there was no one behind him, and as he listened there was no one else in the house. So when he turned back to the mirror, he saw the girl creature looking amused, her pointed ears moving a little in her hair. Even half panicked, he could tell that her eyes were following him. She was looking at him as much as he was looking at her.

For a moment, Alex didn't know what to do. His mind, especially when underslept, often played tricks on him... but they'd never been like this. Unsure if he was hallucinating, he grabbed a towel and left the bathroom, clumsily switching off the light behind him. It forced him to towel off in the hallway but he was too unsettled to care. There were a few minutes when he lingered there in the hallway, gripping the towel, too nervous to go back in. He felt stupid, but not quite stupid enough to get over his own rattled nerves. With a huff, he balled up the towel, nudged open the door, and whipped the bundle into the bathroom without looking before closing the door to it again. That'd do until morning.

Yet it was already morning. The sun wouldn't be up for another few hours still, but the clock was already well past midnight, and the calendar was already sluggishly moving through November. Alex shivered and tugged on a pair of jeans, an undershirt, a hoodie, socks, and boots, lacing them up with fingers clumsy with sleepiness and jangled nerves. Coffee and a walk through the yard would help, then the sun would come up, and things would be fine. The thought was comforting. Not very sensible, but comforting anyway.

And it all came to naught as he stood at the counter and began scooping coffee beans into his small grinder. When he placed his palm over the cover and pressed down on the button to get it going, the softly screaming engine and the clatter of the trapped beans was horribly loud, which made him nervous all over again. But it was the sight of the demon girl in the reflection of his kitchen window that actually made him cry out and swear, jerking back and knocking over the grinder. Fresh coffee grounds littered the counter with a pleasant smell and a deep brown grainy mess as Alex stared at the glass, and the horned girl with all black eyes looked down in surprise at the mess.

She looked up at him and frowned, lifting a claw-tipped finger and tapping it on her side of the glass. But she was a reflection, right? Why was the tapping making any sound? Alex's heart was beating  harder, his eyes wide. “What the fuck? Seriously, what the fuck are you? You were just... You...”

“I'd help, Daddy-O, but I'm stuck, man.” she said, her girlish voice muffled as if she were speaking through an actual window.

Alex frowned, suddenly furious. He certain that some kid was pranking him, so he walked quickly out of the kitchen, and pulled open the back door to take a look at the yard nearest the kitchen. But when he looked there was no one there, and what with the stairs leading down to the ground, the kitchen window itself was some ten feet from the grass. A headache was starting to grip at the side of his head, and Alex closed his door and locked it again, moodily listening to the wooden stairs creak as he trudged back up into the kitchen. He and saw her waiting there in the reflection, looking at him like he was an idiot.

“I said I was stuck. Not outside,” she admonished.

“You're not real. I'm asleep.”

“You're not asleep, so don't flip your wig. Who has dreams like this?” she chided, looking down her nose at him.

Alex's scowl was threatening to become permanent as he carefully scooped up the coffee grounds from the clean counter and put them back in the grinder. He pointedly ignored the reflection of the girl in the window, pressing down on the button to finish the job for his coffee.

A candy wrapper tumbled to the floor, heard first, then seen from the corner of his eye. Then another one. When he looked up at the window again, he saw the reflection of the strange girl sitting on the reflection of the counter, eating his candy with obvious delight. When she dropped a wrapper, it fell in the reflection, and once out of sight in the reflection it tumbled down to the real floor and settled there.

“Stop that” Alex grumbled, still convinced he was seeing things. Maybe he was dreaming.

With a little curled smile, the horned girl poked a hole in the next wrapper with one of her short fangs, then tossed it away. Inevitably, the pierced wrapper fell to the ground, and Alex picked it up, looking at the hole in the wrapper, along with the slightest shine of her saliva.

“What in fuck is this?” he said with enough acid to hopefully cover up his growing fear.  He could feel that the spittle on the wrapper was warm.

It didn't work, and she gave him a sympathetic look. “Walter's dead, bless him – the fella took a powder permanently. And he bequeathed me to you. It says so in the letter you got.” She frowned and looked at Alex. “You can read, right?” Her nose wrinkled and she gestured to the window. "If you can't, just press the letter to the glass here and I'll read it out to ya."

“Of course I can fucking read” he growled, though at a stern look from her, he cleared his throat and felt ashamed for his rudeness. “Um... sorry. Look, you startled me, and I have no idea what that letter had meant. I guess it meant you?”

She nodded, plucking up another candy and twiddling the blue, white, and black packet in her black-nailed slender fingers. After sniffing it she carefully set it down again, where it materialized back in the dish. “Yes. I'm sure if you consulted his attorney, that real gone gentleman could direct you to some safety deposit box somewhere or other with the actual contract of my incarceration.”

“Incarceration in the glass?” he asked, trying to keep up. Alex finally got the grounds successfully into the coffee maker's basket, then filled up the back with water, flipped the top down, and set it to percolating.

The girl shook her head. “In this plane of existence. This whole glass thing is for your benefit. Well, for the benefit of each of my jailors.”

That coffee couldn't come soon enough. “So are you a demon or something?”

The girl rolled her shoulders and picked up another candy. “Yeah.” Her tone was casual, like they were discussing the weather.

“And you're in jail?” Alex had been raised Catholic, but he'd never once heard of anything like this.

She wrinkled her nose and sniffed at the wrapper of the candy, then started carefully peeling it open. “It's more like parole. They got sick of me, see? So I have to spend a certain amount of time here before I'm allowed back.”

“What'd you even do? As a demon, I mean?” He rubbed at the back of his still-damp hair as she scowled at him, and he cleared his throat. “I mean, aren't you all evil and bad? So wouldn't being bad be good?”

“It's complicated. But let's just say I was... mouthy, and said something rude to the wrong person.”

“And you were locked up.”

She nodded, nibbling on a Reese’s peanut butter cup.

His curiosity got the better of him, and he prodded, “What'd you say?”

Her all black eyes glinted as she looked back over at him, her ears folding shyly back against her hair. “That's another thing. I literally can't say those words anymore. At least in that order. But um... It had to do with sex and barn animals and... one of the words rhymed with blunt' and well, it wasn't polite, and She snapped her cap.” The capitalization was very clear in her voice. Whoever she'd insulted had been very important, at least to her.

A minute or two of silence went by as he drummed his fingers on the counter top, waiting for the coffee pot to fill barely enough to pour into the mug he'd pulled down from the rack. The girl just sat, brooding a little, her heart no longer truly into the task of raiding his candy dish. Perhaps it was a sense of relief as he poured out the coffee, or pity, when he asked, “So, can anyone see you like I can?”

The girl shook her head. “No, just you. Just my jailor.”

“And you're stuck in the glass?”

She nodded, resting her cheek on her hand. “Yes, until you break the glass holding my reflection. Then I can be on your side of it.”

“So I could just, you know, leave you in there until your time was up, right?”

A candy fell to the floor, and she looked at him with wide eyes. “Aww man, you... wouldn't.”

Alex shrugged and sipped his coffee, blinking a little as she crouched over the reflection of his kitchen sink and slapped her palms on her side of the glass, rattling the panes. “You CAN'T! Please don't leave me in here!” she wailed.

At just that point Alex noticed that she wasn't wearing any clothes. A flush crept over his cheeks, and he cleared his throat and sipped at his coffee. “Why not?”

The girl pouted and wilted, her palms squealing down the glass morosely as she let her forehead thumped against it. “Because it's boooooooooring. There's no one on this side but me. There's enough to eat and drink, but there's no one else. And it's lonely.” Her all black eyes looked at him through the fall of her black hair, and he felt sorry for her.

“Did my great uncle Walter let you out of the glass?”

She nodded and nibbled her lip. “Mmmhmm” she said sadly.

“So how do I know you didn't kill him?”

That question seemed to strike her poorly, and she frowned, deeply offended. “I cared for him more than his own family did, you ass. I was there every day, being his friend, keeping him company, and helping him deal with his cancer. Where were you?”

With a wince, Alex rubbed at his cheek, red with embarrassment. “Right. I'm sorry... what's your name?”

The girl frowned and hopped off the sink, walking away into the room's reflection. Clearly she was done talking for the time being. In her retreat, he saw that she was about as tall as he was, though she had a spade-tipped tail and slender pearlescent hooves leading down from slender ankles. All in all she was a pretty, if very odd looking, demon.

And she was mad at him. Of all the things that'd happened that night, his feeling of guilt was the most unexpected, and the most unpleasant.