Veiled (Ada Palomino 1)

“Ada,” he says again and steps toward the window, to the light. I watch him, breathless, my heart racing, so afraid of what just happened in my dream that I can’t even speak. I’m not even sure if any of this is real.

Is this what it’s like to go insane?

“I’m sorry to wake you,” he says, running his hand down his face. It seems like my father, that I’m awake, but I can’t be sure. Will I ever be sure? “I just . . . I couldn’t ignore it.”

Somehow I find my voice. “What?” I sit up straighter, trying to get my bearings. The dream ended so horribly, so suddenly, that I’m afraid I’ll easily slip back into that gruesome scene.

My dad paces back in forth in front of me, hands behind his back, and I know now that this is real. But the thing is, my father has never woken me up in the middle of the night before. It’s always been the other way around.

Suddenly I’m so acutely aware of how it is now. How it’s just me and him in this big old house. That’s all we have here.

He stops, looking down on me with such fear that I’m not even sure I knew fear until this moment. I have never seen my dad afraid. Wrought with grief, yes. Inconsolable, yes. Angry, ignorant, deceitful, smug, arrogant, condescending, stubborn, all a million times yes.

But afraid? My father is a highly-regarded professor of theology. He is never afraid. He has God on his side after all.

“I might be going crazy, Ada,” he says softly. He looks away, like he can’t even bear to see my reaction.

“Okay,” I whisper, clearing my throat. “What happened?”

He sits on the edge of the bed, looking absolutely despondent as he stares forward at the wall. “I don’t know,” he says, almost inaudible. “I don’t know. Your mother.”

I sit up straighter. I can see the black thing slicing her in half, the look in her eyes, the plea for me to run.

“Your mother,” he goes on, pain creasing his brow. How I wish for my strong, unfeeling father at this moment. “She was in bed with me. She was right there. Right there.” He sobs and puts his head in his hands. “It was her. It was her, Ada. I wasn’t asleep. It wasn’t a dream.”

And yet, despite how disturbing this is, how heartbreaking it is to see my dad crumble, it gives me hope. Because she was fine. She was with him and okay, nothing at all like my dreams led me to believe.

“She was there with me.”

I reach over and put my hand on my dad’s back. “It’s okay. She’s trying to tell you she’s good. She’s happy,” I say softly.

“No,” he says abruptly. “She was dying. All over again.”

I can’t breathe. I stare at him, unsure how to approach this, how to make sure we’re on the same page.

“Dad, mom’s already dead.”

“I know. I know she is. But she wasn’t just now. She was dying. She was gasping for breath and I heard her voice in my head. She said . . . she said . . .”

Oh god. I close my eyes, praying that it’s not the same.

“She said, don’t come find me. No matter what happens.”

“No matter what I say,” I finish quietly.

He gives me a sharp look and the fear has transformed. He’s no longer just afraid of what he saw.

He’s afraid of me.

“I had a dream,” I explain. “She said the same thing to me. Just now. Before you woke me.”

He’s staring at me in disbelief, blinking hard.

“Dad. What happened after she said that?”

He still seems out of it, like he’s having a hard time with the two realities. “She . . . I . . .” He closes his eyes, taking in a deep breath. “I pulled back the covers and she wasn’t even there from the neck down. It was just blood. Just blood. So much blood.”

I don’t know how to fix this. I know my father is looking for the most reasonable explanation but I’m so terrified that after everything that has happened so far in our lives, I’ll be another daughter to blame. He saw what happened in that subway in Manhattan. He saw what happened to me then, he saw what happened to Perry months before and yet he never believed. His faith never let him believe.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” I ask him. My voice is trembling now and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

He stares at me and it’s almost like I can see two parts of him grasping for control. I already know which one will win out. It’s the only thing he knows, that he can rely on. His faith.

“No,” he says gravely. After all that he’s seen, to admit to seeing ghosts would shake his very foundations.