May, 1996. Somewhere in Connecticut.

The toddler woke to soft singing. It was a lady's voice, barely more than a whisper. His blue eyes opened and he looked around the dark room, barely illuminated by a small night light by the door, half hidden by a dresser pushed up against the wall there. The light seemed to cast shadows more than it dispelled them tonight. It was still dark. He could see the moon shining through his window on the other side of the room. The floor was littered with the toys he'd been playing with that evening.

"....Momma's gonna buy you a mockingbird.."

He wondered who was singing. Mommy never ever sang to him. Nana did but Nana wasn't there. Mommy and Nana had been yelling at each other the night before when Nana had come over and Nana left quickly. He had wanted to go with Nana. He missed her a lot. The fighting scared him and made Mommy so angry. When she was angry she drank bad smelly stuff that she told him was for grown ups. That's why it smelled bad to him. When she drank that stuff she was either really mean to him or she would put him in his room and ignore him for the rest of the day, sometimes longer.

"...And if that mocking bird don't sing..."

The closet door was cracked open. The small boy crawled out of his little bed and stood up on bare feet. The singing was coming from the closet. This confused the little boy. The closet was always closed because he couldn't reach the door. It was empty. How had she gotten into his house? Did Mommy know? How did she get into his room without waking him up? He always heard when Mommy opened his door. It was loud and squeaky.

"....Momma's gonna buy you a diamond ring..."

Why was the lady in his closet? Her voice was so quiet and so pretty.... He wished his mommy sang to him like this. He was almost sure his mommy would have the prettiest singing voice in the world. She had to because she was his mommy. He took a few steps towards the closet and tripped over his dump truck. He landed hard on his hands and knees and briefly felt like crying. But he didn't want to wake Mommy up. She'd make the lady with the pretty voice go away. He worried that he had already been to loud, besides, he was three. That was too old to cry over something so silly.

Abruptly, the singing stopped. He could still hear whispers but he couldn't make them out. He stood. The room filled with silence.

He toddled the rest of the way to the closet and opened the door, still curious about the singing lady. He didn't see anyone. He wondered where the women with the pretty voice could have gone. He thought maybe his closet was magic, like the one that was in the book his Nana had read and got excited. He hadn't understood most of the story but magic closets sounded fun to him. He searched the closet again but found no hidden passages to fairyland. He was disappointed. She had been singing the song his Nana sang to him and her voice was so pretty. He hadn't wanted her to leave. He wanted her to stay and sing Nana's song to him. He must have scared her away when he fell over his toys.

The little boy went back to his bed, lower lip stuck out in a small pout, and laid back down. He couldn't get out of his room to see where the lady went because if his closet was magic it wouldn't show him how to get where the lady had gone, and it would make his mommy mad if he left anyway. He never wanted Mommy to be mad. It scared him.

As he drifted off to sleep the singing started again, even quieter than before. It was almost like she was singing in another part of the house because it was so quiet, but he was sure it was coming from his closet. He struggled to open his little blue eyes, but even if he'd been able to, all he would have seen were shadows, his closet a black doorway to nowhere.

"....And if that diamond ring don't shine...."

The boy fell asleep. He would forget the singing lady by the time he woke, but the singing lady would never forget him. She would forever hold his life in her hands. She watched him from the closet, a grin on her face that revealed stained and broken sharp teeth. The closet door slowly swung closed on it's own accord.

...

Now (2015), Eastern Nebraska

Nicky sat straight up. He had woken up to screaming. The couple he stayed with did not have a happy marriage. This was a nightly occasion and shouldn't have woken him up. His other roommates were either gone for the night or moved out without saying anything. He hoped it was the latter. There were five adults and two babies living in the two bedroom apartment. He hated it but for some reason he just felt like he needed to stay. He belonged there, his instincts told him.

He had suddenly gotten an overwhelming urge to go to the gas station. Not the one down the street but the truck stop all the way on the other side of town. It was the middle of the night. He didn't need anything. He had cigarettes. He had a case of soda and had restocked all his snacks the day before. He was also very broke. But he got up and got dressed anyway. The man had learned not to fight it when he got these feelings. They were important and led him to things he was supposed to do; people he was supposed to meet.

He checked his appearance in the mirror that his son's mom had hung on the back of the door to the room they shared. He briefly wondered where she and their infant were but decided it didn't matter that much.

Nicky was shorter than average and scrawny. He had bleached hair with dark roots that hung almost to his shoulders, not quite long enough to get into a ponytail. He wasn't much to look at but it didn't bother him. He never really wanted to be memorable. He didn't know for sure, but he was pretty sure the jeans he had on weren't his. Which meant they were probably women's jeans because the other male that shared this room with him and Jamie's mom weighed more and was a good six inches taller than him. Oh well. Didn't matter that much. He needed to leave now or he'd miss something important. The sense of urgency he felt was starting to make his skin crawl. He had someone he needed to meet.

He walked out the front door. It was going to be a long walk, and an even longer night, but he was in a great mood.

"Yo! Wait up!"

He poked his head back in the apartment, irritated. He needed to leave.

"What, Kay?" He asked, trying to hid his annoyance.

The pretty blonde girl pulled her shoes on and pushed him out the door, following close behind him.

"Wherever you're headed, I'm coming. I need to get out of here or I'm going to hurt him." She told him.

Great. Now he would have to listen to the bitch whine and moan about Jose the entire way. Oh well. No time to argue.

"I'm going to that truck stop across town. I feel like walking and I lost my smokes." He told her.

As he had predicted, she began to complain the second they hit the sidewalk. He didn't understand why they were together. He knew they had a kid but so did he. And you didn't see him trying to make something that wasn't meant to be work. He turned her out, his good mood returning as he walked. Tonight was going to change his life. Maybe all their lives. He just knew it.

....

Bellamy was sitting on her bed in the dark, wide awake. She rarely slept more than a few hours, but that was okay. Lucas, her boyfriend, texted her and he'd have been pissy if she had ignored it. What sleep she did get was plagued with nightmares, anyway.

Something about tonight felt strange. It was almost like the air was full of static. She felt restless, like there was something urgent she needed to do. She had tried to explain it to Lucas earlier but he had told her it was probably just her being excited about moving in with him later that week.

Lucas had an apartment in the next town over. He had been insisting on her moving in for quite some time. She hadn't really wanted to, but learned very early on that Lucas got what he wanted. Or else.

She turned on her light and decided to finish packing. Lucas wanted her to start moving things in the morning and the last thing she wanted was to make him angry this week. She was already feeling overwhelmed about moving and having to change jobs, she didn't want to deal with him yelling, or worse, on top of that.

Her fan clicked off on it's own.

She sighed. She had noticed a long time ago that odd little things happened when she was upset. Small objects would disappear and be found in odd places, or appliances (like the fan) would turn on or off on their own. Occasionally her bedroom or her hall closet, depending on where she was in the house, would open just slightly like they hadn't been latched properly. That bothered her the most. She hated closets.

She taped the box she had been filling shut and turned the fan back on. When Lucas had noticed the odd occurrences, he had been strangely excited about it. He had insisted that someone very important was watching over her when she told him about all the strange things that had happened growing up. Lucas was very interested in the paranormal. Very, very interested. Obsessed, even. He had told her that was what originally drew him to her. She was different. Important, somehow, to someone on the Otherside.

The fan turned back off and the closet door clicked open simultaneously.

Bellamy thought that Lucas was full of crap. He insisted that she needed to "make contact" with whatever was "watching out" for her. He claimed it was of the utmost importance. She instinctually felt she was best off ignoring it altogether. That's what her mom had told her to do. But she pretended to humor him most days. It was easier.

It wasn't that she didn't believe in ghosts. She did. She had been raised believing that there was more to the world than what you could see. But her family had also taught her caution. Caution seemed to be a foreign concept to Lucas. She turned the fan back on again and stacked boxes in front of the closet. The little weird things were happening more often and that bothered her a lot. For now, tho, she ignored it. She had more important things to worry about.

Her phone chimed again. She looked at it to find an excited text from lucas. Apparently, he had met some interesting people at work. He wanted her to meet them as soon as possible. Instantly, dread filled her. She most likely did not want to meet these people. She just knew they meant trouble for her. She then received an entire string of texts from him. He was thrilled.

The closet door clicked open unnoticed.