"Paranoia," Alfie said when Morlen didn't reply to him, only hardened against the couch and clenched his fists, unable to latch his dominance around the medium. "At first, I was sure it was just a dream. I knew what was real. I saw so many things that my mind had made up; I started to see the difference between a hallucination and reality. But this- this I was so sure was a dream, until I saw him do it again with my own eyes." Alfie stopped and frowned. "Who's he?" Looking up, Morlen was staring out of the window, so Alfie looked up to Koda who was staring at the journal.

"I don't know."

Alfie then turned to Enya. Her eyes had glossed over. She was lost in memories until he snapped his fingers, tugging on her attention. "Who's he?" he asked again.

Enya glanced at her husband, then at her son. Her lip twitched as if she was holding something back. "Just read the journal."

Alfie sighed and held the book closer to his face. He usually wore reading glasses, but today he hadn't even thought to bring them. He could feel Koda burning his side with a warmth that was welcomed. Every so often, he felt the twitch in the muscles of his arm that rested against him. Alfie wanted to fantasise about a time where they were comfortable and knew each other like they had been close for years, and sitting this way was as natural to them as breathing, but now was not the time.

"It was small at first," Alfie continued to read Enya's writing out loud. "I would feel it at night, the horrible fear that something wasn't right and by morning, it was gone. Then things would start dying. Fresh flowers would be dead by the afternoon, even if I bought them that very morning. But still, in the back of my mind, I thought it couldn't be real." Alfie was frowning to himself. He didn't understand, but he pressed on. "How do I know if it's not just all in my head? Morlen commented on the flowers and said I should stop buying them. He didn't believe me when I said they died within hours after being in the house. He said I was delusional. Maybe I am."

"I never noticed them," Koda said quietly, not wanting to disturb the silence in between Alfie's voice. "The flowers, she rarely bought them."

"I bought them all the time," Enya said, seating herself on the table in front of her son. She rested a gentle hand on Koda's knee, and he scratched at the denim as if he felt her touching him.

Alfie looked back down to the paper. There was only one more line left to read on that page. His heart shrank, and his throat seized up. "Something is not right," he read. "Death is close, I can feel it, whether it's my death or something much worse. I might be delusional, but my emotions are genuine. Something dark is here, I know it." Alfie stared until the words blurred on the page. "Your mother should have written horrors."

Koda's body softened against him. Alfie didn't realise he wasn't relaxed until it happened. "It's pretty dark, and it only gets stranger from there," Koda sighed.

"If it only gets even more unbelievable, why do you believe what she's saying?" Alfie asked, and Morlen shifted against the cushions.

"Koda said it gets strange, not unbelievable. You need to read it, medium; then you can tell us what you think. You talk to ghosts for a living. If you don't believe it, then I really have lost my mind."

Alfie was surprised by the subtle softness in his voice. Even Morlen's eyes were smoothed at the edges. Morlen seemed to change quickly, just like Koda did. Grief affected them in similar ways.

"I'll keep reading." Alfie held back his attitude this time. With only five minutes of observation, Alfie could tell that Morlen was someone who made an imprint on the lives of those around him in a negative way. His aura irritated his own like washing up liquid in a bowl full of oil. Alfie was the oil and Morlen was the soap, breaking him apart and trying to dominate his space. Though, Morlen was a grieving husband. The medium had to respect his sensitivity and brush it off as mourning. "Also, Enya is still here if you want to talk with her?"

Koda looked around the room like he expected to see her. He never could, but it was weird to imagine her close.

"Is she in pain?" Morlen asked before his son could think of anything to say.

"No. If anything, Enya is the most peaceful she has ever been." Alfie, for some reason, was surprised that Morlen even cared, but he had to remind himself that despite his anger, his judgement, and his aggressive actions, he was still human and of course he cared about the well-being of his dead wife's ghost.

"Really?"

Alfie nodded. "I believe that when people die, their souls are free of any sickness, addiction, and mental illness because it's the body that carries these, not the soul. The soul- in my opinion- is always perfect. So, for example, if someone who was suffering from dementia passes away, their soul was never affected by that, only the body. When you hear stories of people with Alzheimer's disease remembering everything right before they die, I think it's the soul shining through as if to say the body was letting go." Alfie was aware of the silence when he stopped talking, and he was even more aware of Koda's eyes staring down at him with a deep glow of thoughtfulness. "Well, that's only my opinion. People are free to see it however they want. It's comforting for me to see it that way."

"I like that. I guess it is comforting to know that loved ones don't carry that pain to wherever they go after they die." Koda said, and at some point, he had rested his arm on the back of the couch. It was slipping down, and Alfie's hair was tickling his bicep.

"Enya," Morlen said, and his eyes rested firmly on the floor. "Can she hear me?"

"Yeah." Alfie watched Morlen's wife turn to look at her husband. She seemed to be wandering around, getting used to the house without her really being in it.

"How do I continue without you?"

Enya wasn't expecting to hear the emotion in her husband's voice. "By pretending like I don't exist. You did that when I was alive, so it shouldn't be that hard."

Alfie wanted to be consumed by the couch as he repeated her words. Being a messenger for the dead wasn't a gratifying job, especially when most clients liked to attack the messenger as if they were Alfie's own words.

Surprisingly, Morlen scoffed. "It's not the same, and you know it."

Koda didn't feel comfortable when his dad was so open and expressive. He felt like he had walked in on something very personal.

"It took my death for you to realise what I meant to you." Enya had turned and was looking at some family photo's that had been shoved into cheap black frames and stuck to the wall.

"You really don't know what you have until you lose it." Morlen sounded like he was speaking to himself. "I miss you. I don't know why, but I do."

Koda removed his arm from the back of the couch and slumped down until his head was the same level as Alfie's. He also wanted to disappear, or be a fly on the wall.

"I miss the way you used to look at me," Enya said, staring at a photo of their wedding day. Morlen had a stare that was both loving and disapproving. Enya's favourite was when it was a mixture of both when she irritated Morlen, and he couldn't decide if he married her because she was challenging, or found her annoying because she was challenging. "Now you'll never look at me again. You don't even know that I'm right here, not really."

As Alfie repeated her words, Morlen's posture was losing its principled stance. His hard outer shell was breaking, Alfie could tell by the way Morlen's jaw would tighten, and he'd swallow back a big ball of sadness.

"I thought my love for you had gone. Why did it have to relight once you died? I don't deserve that pain, do I?"

Koda almost choked on his breath when a tear strolled down his father's cheek.

"You do." Enya hadn't turned to look at him. She didn't want to feel pity. "Koda deserves to see you broken. After all, that's exactly what you did to him."

Alfie wasn't sure if he wanted to repeat her this time, but despite the hesitation, he had to because it was his job.

Morlen then made eye contact with his son. Another tear fell down his face, and he quickly rubbed it away. "I didn't mean to. It was his fault for choosing to be the way he is."

Alfie could see Enya's fists starting to shake when she said, "I might not have made my voice loud enough at the time, but you didn't have to be so cruel. He chose a path for himself, and it wasn't sport. So what? He's happy isn't he?"

Morlen was staring hard at his son. The sharpness returned to his eyes. "You know that's not what I mean. He's-"

"Gay," Koda said like the word had been on the tip of his tongue for hours. It wasn't news to his father. He told Morlen over a year ago, but it still felt like it was just yesterday. His father was still bitter about it, and his opinion hadn't mellowed with time. "I don't exactly care what you have to say about it, but we're here talking to my dead mum and your dead wife, and you're still finding ways to hurt my feelings. Are you not tired of hating the fact that I'll one day marry a man and not a woman?"

Enya was looking at Koda from over her shoulder. A small smile painted on her lips. Alfie wished Koda could see it.

"I hoped that if I hated it enough, you'd try to have feelings for women," Morlen said.

"It's not a choice, dad. I've told you this so many times now. I'm not forcing myself to be unhappy because you're too embarrassed to have a gay son."

Alfie felt a jolt of empowerment through him. He suddenly wanted to announce that he was gay too and satisfied by the fact that he liked men and the fact that he was in love with Koda.

"You're so stubborn." Morlen leaned back against the cushions. The tears had dried up as quickly as they appeared. "I guess I know where you got that from."

"Not mum," Koda muttered, now aware that Alfie was frowning to himself.

The medium was thinking about why he hadn't told his parents about his crush on Koda. Why was he so afraid? In the end, truth always revealed itself, and he had the power to lift the weight of such a secret off his shoulders. He was proud like Koda, but he was scared. Though, Koda managed to tell his parents, even with a dad like Morlen, so what was stopping Alfie?

As he concluded that tonight might be the night he sat down and talked with his mother and father, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a vase in the far left side of the room. It was full with white lilies like the ones in his mother's studio. And just like those, these flowers were withered and dead.

"How long have you had those?" he asked, changing the subject entirely.

Morlen turned to where he pointed, and he looked at the lilies like he only just noticed them.

"Someone sent them four days ago," Koda said with raised brows. "They were fresh when they arrived."

"Who sent them?"

"I don't know. It had a card on it that only said 'She'll be missed. Sorry for your loss'."

Alfie's curiosity dragged him off the couch and away from Koda's warm side. Morlen and Koda watched him approach the lilies with caution. It was a sad sight to see such beautiful flowers so ugly and distorted. He leaned closer to pick out the card from in between them, and the scent was strong as if they were still alive.

The medium brushed that abnormality away when he read the card. Something about the handwriting was familiar to Alfie, and he didn't like the heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach or the warning signs flashing to the beat of his heart.

Enya was right when she said that something was wrong. Alfie could feel the darkness coming.