leaving everything else behind, to clear her mind.
Suddenly, her mobile phone rang. Stunned, she saw that someone was using Carlos's phone to call her. Her first reaction was to think it was Esteban, and she nearly rejected the call to keep her contemplative moment undisturbed. In the end, she took the call.
"Esteban?"
"Elena? It's me, Carlos, Carlos!
The parapsychologist felt her heart bursting inside her chest.
"Carlos ? It's you! Where are you calling me from?" she asked, thinking that he may be calling for help from Hell again.
"I'm at the door of my flat. I'm with Laura. Isn't that incredible?"
Elena could not understand a thing. It was, without a doubt, Carlos's voice. But she found it hard to believe that he was, with his daughter, in this world!
"Carlos, listen, I'm coming right away. Please, wait for me and do not speak to anyone. This is all very strange.
"I won't."
"Have you spoken to your father?"
"I called him before I called you, but he didn't pick up."
"Maybe it's better this way. You two, wait for me, I won't be ten minutes."
"Don't take too long, Elena. I'm very excited, but I need you to explain what's happened."
The parapsychologist could not tell whether she'd just suffered a hallucination. This sort of thing could sometimes happen to people who were in a state of shock. As she walked to her car, she called Andrés to pick him up before she went to Carlos's flat.
"I told you I wouldn't go back there ever again!"
"Andrés, you must come with me. I don't know, I may be going mad..."
Finally, Andrés gave in and they both went to Carlos's flat. There was nobody in the lobby, so they went upstairs. The door was ajar and they could hear voices inside. Elena and Andrés went in cautiously and they froze: in the living room, Carlos and Laura were playing on the floor, as if nothing had happened in the last few months.
"Carlos, Carlos, Carlos!" exclaimed Elena, flinging herself in the arms of her friend.
"What... what happened?" asked Andrés, still deeply surprised.
Carlos took a while to reply. He was very emotional, crying with happiness. Meanwhile, Laura was distracted, as if none of it had anything to do with her at all.
"No, I don't know. I can hardly remember my last day here... I know I asked for help, but nothing else... All of a sudden, I was in the middle of the street, fully clothed, with my phone, my keys and ... my daughter holding my hand!"
"It's amazing. It's incredible. It's awesome" said Elena, who was sobbing and laughing uncontrollably at once .
"I don't understand a thing," murmured the technician.
"Neither do I. You, that was on this side, must know what you did."
"Father Salas..." said Elena sadly.
"I see," said Carlos, suspecting that something had happened to the priest.
As Elena kept hugging Carlos and stroking Laura's face and hair, Andrés, who'd never seen the girl in the flesh before, started to pick up the equipment. It was fabulous, extraordinary, a story very few would believe, not even those of the American channel that had lent them the expensive equipment. It had been worth risking their very lives for: everything had finished more or less well. From where he was, he looked at his friend, who was now playing with both father and daughter, and he had no trouble imagining they were a lovely family. Without thinking, he picked up the infrared camera, the first thing that he found, and decided it was only fitting to capture the magical moment for posterity. He turned on the camera and the moment he looked at the screen, he was completely terrified: in it he could see three figures, one of whom was warm and appeared as a reddish orange blob, but the other two were merely a whitish outline. That could only mean one thing.
Who the hell was Elena with?
––––––––
––––––––
Y our Review and Word-of-Mouth Recommendations Will Make a Difference
––––––––
R eviews and word-of-mouth recommendations are crucial
William C. Dietz
Ashlynn Monroe
Marie Swift
Martin Edwards
Claire Contreras
Adele Griffin
John Updike
Christi Barth
Kate Welsh
Jo Kessel