Everything's An Illusion

"I don't know, Dee, it's pretty bad out." I said doubtfully.

"Come on, Emma, don't be ridiculous. It's not even that bad. Look, I can see all the way across the street now. At lunch I could barely even see my hand in front of my face, it's getting better." Deeana retorted.

She was standing by the glass door of our high school's lobby, gesturing outside at the fog. All day the fog had enveloped the world, making it seem as if there was no end to it, as if the tiny classroom was the only part of the world left and if we went out the window we would have fallen into nothingness. Deeana had wanted to go visit her grandmother, another ritual every year around the week of Dustin's death. She was close with her grandmother, but they really only saw each other around Dustin's death each year, which is rather depressing when you think about it. They talked all the time on the phone and even texted each other, but they never really had much physical contact with each other during the year other than Christmas. Their grandmother had been widowed for years and spent most of the year travelling abroad, presumably to avoid the loneliness in her house. Usually I went with Deeana to her grandmother's house on the other side of town, but the fog made visibility next to impossible, and I hadn't thought it was a good idea to go.

"You are literally the most spoiled person I know," I muttered as I grabbed my bag.

Deeana smiled in triumph, but there was a look in her eye that said she'd known I would cave the entire time. I always caved, so it wasn't much of a surprise to either of us.

"Thanks!" she squealed. "I'll call her and let her know we're coming," she grinned.

She talked on the phone with her grandmother as we walked to my truck that was parked across the street from the school. She had been right, the fog had cleared up since lunch, but it was still pretty bad and I knew it was going to be a stressful ride. Even worse, I knew, would be the ride home in the dark. It wasn't absolutely terrible in the sunlight, but driving at night in the fog was one of the worst things I could imagine.

The whole ride there Deeana was singing under her breath to the song on the radio and texting, completely at ease, but I couldn't relax. The fog had me on edge, and there was a feeling in the air that had the hair on the back of my neck sticking up on end. It was the feeling I got when the voices came, and I was terrified. Were they going to start haunting me in the daylight, too? My eyes scanned the road uneasily. It was a side road with no other cars to be seen. There were hardly any houses either, maybe one every couple hundred yards. It was getting more and more difficult to see through the fog and I slowed down considerably. There was a sudden movement in the shadows off to the right ahead of us and I slammed on the breaks.

"What's the matter with you?" Deeana yelled.

"Did you see that?" I panicked. "I think there's someone in the bushes over there!" I said, ignoring her anger.

"It's a fucking squirrel, asshole," she huffed. "That really hurt," she added in a whine, rubbing her shoulder where her seatbelt had dug into her.

"I could have sworn it was a person moving...I thought they were going to jump out into the street..." I said, my voice fading away as I realized how stupid I sounded.

"Look, it's a squirrel. See? Can we go now?" she was looking at her phone again.

I took a deep breath and slowly let my foot off the break, staring at the bushes as we passed them. Squinting, I could just barely make out the figure of a squirrel peering out at us from under one of the low-hanging branches.

---

"Deeana! Emma! It's so wonderful to see you!" Deeana's grandmother cried from her front porch as we got out of my truck.

She ran down the steps of her front porch to greet us with giant hugs. She enveloped us both in her arms, and I had the distinct smell of her grandmother's house fill my nose. Deeana's grandmother, and her house, was like something out of a fairy tale. She was beautiful, the kind of beauty that you can tell used to be absolutely breath-taking, but had faded some with age. Her house was small and quaint, it looked like an illustration from a children's book.

"Hi grandma," Deeana said, her voice slightly muffled by her grandmother's shoulder.

"Hi, Mrs. Haynes," I managed to get out.

"Oh, Emma, don't bother with the formalities!" she chastised. "You make me feel so old! You know I prefer you to call me Evie."

She grabbed our hands and led us into the house excitedly.

"Oh Emma, I almost forgot to tell you, I made your favorite tea," she crowed in delight. "Apple cinnamon, it's all ready in the kitchen for the two of you. Actually, wait here I'll bring it out to you."

Deeana and I sat down on the living room couch and waited patiently for Evie to return with our tea. Deeana started texting, but I looked around the room in interest. I loved Evie's house more than anything, and every year there was something different and more interesting to look at than the last year. I took a picture from the end table next to the couch to look at it closer. It was a group of little boys standing around in complete and utter chaos.

"Oh that's Deeana's father and his brothers and cousins. He's the one with the evil look in the corner. You should have seen him as a child he was such a handful. Looking back it's quite comical but at the time he was lucky he even survived," she chuckled.

"I like this picture," I said, placing it back on the table so I could take my tea from Evie.

I took a long wiff of the tea, taking in the smell.

"I put extra sugar in it, just the way you like it," Evie winked at me.

My mother was a health nut, and ever since I had been a little kid she never let me eat any kind of junk food or anything with too much sugar. As a result, I had over-compensated as a teenager and was somewhat of a sugar addict. I couldn't get enough of the stuff, it was as if I was making up for all the lost time with it when I was a child, Evie knew this and always showered us with sugary treats when we visted.

"How've you been, grandma?" Deeana asked, tucking her phone away in her pocket.

"I've been fine, fine. I just got back from Paris about a week ago, you know it's the most lovely place. We really should go together sometime, and maybe Emma if your parents would allow all three of us could go together. It's quite a trip, quite a trip."

She was walking around the living room as she spoke, touching each picture hanging up around the wall lightly with her fingertips. After a few moments, she paused at a picture of Deeana and Dustin from a few years before he had died.

"You know the strangest thing?" she started, "I could have sworn I saw him a few days ago..." her voice faded away as she spoke.

I felt chills run up and down my spine at her words. Next to me, Deeana scoffed at her grandmother's words.

"That's ridiculous," she said.

"I know, I know," Evie replied quickly. "Oh lord, I almost forgot! I had wanted to ask you if you wanted to take these home to your mother..."

She went on to describe an antique set of china dishes she had recently found in her attic when she had cleaned it out. I stopped listening though, all I could think about was what she had said. Maybe I wasn't the only one who thought something else was out there.

Maybe I wasn't a crazy as I had originally thought.