• I sat inside of the porthole that night, the rain falling on the glass more like chunks of ice than drops of liquid. My pale reflection swam in and out of vision in the circular window. I could make out my charcoal black hair spilling over my shoulders and off the porthole sill. The Nordstrom purchased pants I had worn throughout the day looked ghostly in the window, along with my tight t-shirt that was looked splattered in pant with glitter stickers formed into the batman symbol on my shirt. The sequins glimmered in the altering water below us.
    My two cousins sat on the hotel bed huddled together, watching Spiderman on their dad’s laptop. I would have joined them on the comfy bed, but the scene that was before me like a blueprint kept me spellbound where I perched. For a blinding second, I felt like I was on the Queen Mary before it was docked in Long Beach. The ocean looming before me, ballroom music humming just above. I kept my eyes open for as long as I possibly could, holding onto the echo of memory as it danced before my vision. Then I blinked, and I was back in Long Beach, California. I closed my eyes, trying to find it again, but it was gone, just a taunting sensation that danced with a tango dancer’s grace just beyond my mental hands.
    The grandfather clock near the TV chimed thirty minutes had passed the hour, Time strolling by me and taking away precious seconds of my life as I sat in the circle-shaped hole I had magically weaseled myself into. Where were they now? My aunt and uncles have been gone for three hours now, it was eleven thirty and they still weren’t back.
    I hadn’t noticed that there had been a knock on the door until my cousin whimpered my name.
    “Brisa?” I heard her whimper and I managed to turn my gaze from the harbor view and stare at my cousins. Janet was snuggled deep under the covers, even her Brother, Ace, was trembling in the covers.
    “What’s wrong?” I asked, sliding from my spot in the porthole and to their sides.
    “Someone’s at the door,” Ace whispered, pulling the laptop up to him like he was going to use it as a shield.
    At first, I thought it was my aunt and uncles trying to open the door after having one martini too many. As I approached the door, however, that someone knocked again, hard and urgently.
    I opened the door just enough to peak outside, but a chill wind beat the door open, slamming me into the wall and howling into the bedroom. The doorknob knocked the wind out of me, but before I could collect my breath, I leapt from behind the oak door, rubbing my middle.
    I looked around for someone, but saw no one. Still musing over whether it was really just the air conditioner freaking out; I closed the door and walked over to my cousins, who were still shivering in shock. That’s when I saw him.
    He – or was it a she? – was sitting by the TV, watching us. For a moment, I thought I was staring at a girl, but the finely chiseled face of a man took the features as I blinked rapidly in surprise. White hair danced on his shoulder blades, liquid gray eyes were painted onto his irises. He was just dressed fairly normal, like the waiters that worked in that expensive Italian restaurant a few blocks away from me. He wore black slacks, and his white button up shirt was slightly wrinkled, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a classic.
    He gazed at all of us, sharing a stare with each of us. It was he who decided that the silence was too awkward to be comfortable. His voice was hoarse and his tongue seemed to fumble with the words in a French accent.
    “May I have a glass of water?”
    Suddenly, my joints were moving by myself, and like a puppet, I was walking towards the table, where I picked up the Arrowhead bottle and handing it to him.
    “Thank you, Brisa,” he said with a smile, opening the bottle with fingers that creaked in their sockets while he unscrewed the bottle.
    “Who are you? How did you get in here?” I asked the strange force that had been holding my arms and legs to move me around fading away.
    The man looked at me with those strange eyes, and I looked away. Usually, I could stare down anyone, but this man was different.
    “Abélard,” he said casually, raising the tip to his lips. Through the water, I could see his mouth, his teeth were… wait… there were no teeth. But how could he speak so properly? Let alone with an accent?
    “I got in here,” he paused to dap at his thin lips with the sleeve of his dress shirt. “Through the door.”
    Now I know how my aunt and uncle felt when I gave them short answers. I sighed and said, “without me seeing you?”
    “Listen to me, I need you to help me,” Abélard said, putting the cap back on the bottle and staring at me now. That’s when I saw his eyes, they were old… a young man with old eyes.
    My cousins were too busy hiding under the covers now, and that’s where I hoped they would stay.
    “How can I help you?” I asked, stalling for time, looking over at the grandfather clock. He followed my gaze and he started talking a little faster.
    “I can’t say much, I can only visit Earth an hour a night,” Abélard seemed to be looking at all the clocks, to make sure that the time was indeed a quarter till midnight.
    “What do you mean you can only visit Earth for an hour…?”
    “I am dead, in case you didn’t suspect that when I nearly threw you through the wall. I have to leave now, I need to do something important.” Abélard stood up, and stared at me now with those eyes… ooh they how they would make me shudder later that night.
    “I need you to help me get something back, something dear to me,” he said, and the force was making me nod my head, and a voice, which wasn’t really my voice at all, said, “Yes, I’ll help you.”
    “Thank you so very much, Brisa,” Abélard began to move for the door, and the clock chimed ten minutes until midnight.
    “I’ll come get you when it’s time, Brisa,” he said, and he, and his voice, began to fade. Then the door burst open again, and the wind tumbled out into the hallway, and slammed the door shut, leaving behind a girl with her hair thrown in every direction, and the bed covers tousled every which way.