Séances are conventionally used to contact the dearly departed. But Layla and her friends weren’t about to let convention stop them from contacting John Milton (deceased 1674, no relation) for essay advice. They had all gotten a fun scare when the electricity went out for a moment, but their breaths clouding in front of them had instilled another kind of fear. No one dared point out the moderate temperatures outside. Layla didn’t even entertain the idea of asking if they’d also felt something drag over them like a soft blanket, dispelling the cold. 

They wrote together before disbanding at twelve. Something lingered behind her as she wrote, something that made her pulse quicken and her fingers fly faster over the keyboard, skimming through ideas and words. A feeling of slow warmth comforted her and gave her jitters.

 

Layla’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. Her leg was bouncing. A smile flickered across her face as she remembered her friends goading her into postponing this appointment for the séance. She had a tension headache and a knot of dread in her stomach.

Her eyes darted to the time on the display. 4:51. Her eyes flicked to the road, back to the time. 4:52.

She pulled up next to the office building on Main Street. The routine of the parallel park steadied her hands. The glass door framed her lone figure on the street as she tugged it open.

The optometrist’s was a combination of comfort and sterility: decorative pieces and glittering frame displays were the only things breaking up the expanse of teal wall. 

“Layla?”

The assistant’s invitation startled her. Layla followed her to the exam room, hovering by the door before darting forward onto the chair. The phoropter hovered over her shoulder. Layla had enough steadiness left to smile and nod when the assistant told her that the doctor would be in soon. 

That moment came too soon. “Good afternoon—

The doctor froze mid-greeting, teeth gleaming under just open lips. His eyes were fixed on something in the corner past Layla. She sat for a moment, her fiddling hands frozen. By degrees, she turned her head to look behind her.

“My apologies!” The doctor’s words made her jump; there had been nothing there. “Halloween has me on edge. But it’s… interesting to see how people get along with the supernatural. How are you?” He spiraled into the swivel chair and tapped away at the computer.

Layla’s mouth opened and closed.

“Good,” she finally replied, relaxing into the familiar terrain of pleasantries.

The doctor moved onto doing things with lights and screens and mirrors and Layla sat back and told him what worked best.

He stepped back and smiled. “We’ll call when your new prescription is in.” They exchanged thank yous and good-byes. 

 

Layla sauntered into the shop a week later. 

No Halloween decorations graced the reception desk, but the assistant stood there, glasses in hand.

Layla tried them on and blinked. Everything had a new layer of clarity, but there was also an added brightness. The outlines of everything had a certain radiation to them, like a saint’s halo.

“Interesting,” Layla said.

The assistant smiled. “The distortion you see is normal, your eyes will adjust. Should you have any problems, please let us know.”

On the drive back, she dared a glance through the rearview mirror. Squinting, she caught faint opalescent rays retreating out of the mirror’s frame. In her rear window was the stretch of grey sky crowded out by trees, cars trundling along behind her. And beyond that something that looked like a person jogging. Except it was in the middle of the highway and emanated dark blue rays like a supernova.

For some people superstitions are a hard “yes” or “no”, but for Layla it was the one thing in her life that she lent ambiguity to. She almost felt silly thinking it, but she could tell there was something spooky going on, and that the doctor knew about it. Determination crawled into Layla’s heart; she could handle it.

Anyway, if it didn’t change after a week, she would go and do something about it, beginning with the word “doctor’s” and ending with the word “appointment”.

 

Normally, Layla ate lunch at the park benches with her friends, but they were both setting up for the party later. And normally, she wouldn’t see the Approaching Thing gaining ground across the car park.

It scrambled forward with disturbing ferocity. There seemed to be an inexorable force pushing It away from her, but the Approaching Thing was inexorable too. It sort of had the shape of a large greyhound, all skinny limbs and arches. 

She took the last bite of her sandwich. Her jaw popped as she chewed.

By her guess, it would catch up to her that afternoon and she wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to do about it yet. The soft blanket feeling from the séance remained. It was separate from whatever was coming closer, though she wasn’t sure that they were strangers to each other. 

Time, and the Approacher, waited for no one. Layla wrapped up her lunch and drove slightly over the speed limit on her way home.

The flat was empty. She turned on her notifications to a barrage of texts. Her friends had taken ‘the scenic route’ through the wooded suburbs and were desperately lost. Layla reckoned it’d be around an hour before they remembered their phones had GPS. 

The flat was centred on the living room, with bedrooms off to one side and the kitchen on the other. She turned the couch around to face the door. She settled onto it, placing her glasses on the couch’s arm.

As it always does, the lie down turned into a nap.

Layla woke up feeling cozy; she didn’t want to move from her warm spot. But the biting cold demanded her attention. Bleary-eyed, she propped herself up. The room stretched in front of her unchanged, bar the steam of her breath. She set her glasses on her face.

The Approacher had arrived. The room in front of her was blocked out by the blue-black light radiating from It. Its organs pulsed violently beneath see-through skin, tongues lolling out of its featureless face. It lifted a foot, its clawed toes flexing. Its claws scored lines in the carpet.

Her hands clenched; her leg twitched; her breathing stopped, started again. She decided to be optimistic; it wasn’t upon her yet.

With breath stuttering only a little, Layla turned —

To see the silhouette of a person made of broken glass shards, all their fractures and sharp edges criss-crossing. It didn’t reflect light like glass, but emitted its own violently multicolored glow. Layla heard it say, “Spirit caller, let me clean up your mess.” It bowed. The radiance kaleidoscoped all around her. Shame welled up in Layla as she understood: she had summoned the Approacher and this Professional, whose job it was to corral this demonic species, had followed.

At least she knew it wasn’t John Milton’s ghost

Layla turned. “Get it.”

The soft blanket feeling passed over her again and she yanked her glasses away from her eyes as the two radiances clashed. Every muscle in her body tensed. Ash fell onto the carpet and the acrid smell of burnt wood replaced the bone-deep cold. Layla couldn’t help but wonder if the ash would stain.

The Professional retreated and a relieved breath rushed out of Layla. 

She let herself fall back onto the couch and settled her glasses on her nose. 

A notification ping popped from her phone: a cheery “party prep incoming!!” followed by “better be back from ur lunch u slacker >:)”.

Layla looked at the ash on the carpet and decided to be coy: ‘‘i’ll have u know i’ve been incredibly productive getting help from a new friend.”

Taking a breath, she turned to see the Professional again.

Her companion bowed. It wanted to stay.

“Cool,” Layla replied. She wrinkled her nose. “This place needs a fucking scented candle.”