Vicky’s blue eyes grow wide. Tears appear in the corners. Suddenly she looks lost.
I throw my arms around her when she sways on her feet. “What is it? Are you sick?”
Can ghosts even get sick?
A sob escapes her and I press her black-clad slender body closer to mine. I rock her gently and kiss the top of her head.
When she finally speaks, her words are so soft that I don’t understand them.
I move my ear closer to her lips.
“It’s my grandmother,” she repeats in a whisper.
“What is your grandmother?” I ask, confused. Then it hits me. The smell. That’s what she means.
Vicky frees herself from my frozen grip. She wipes her eyes clean of very real tears.
“This is the spot where they found her. She’d been dead for several days.”
I lick my lips. “Are you saying we’re in that memory right now?”
She nods, looking around nervously. “I must have taken you with me by accident, because I was holding your hand when it happened.”
I reach for her hand and she jumps a little when I grab it.
“So where did they find your grandma exactly?” I lower my voice, although I’m not sure why.
She raises the arm I’m holding and points to a dark corner.
“Okay, stay here.”
“Wait,” she whispers urgently. “What are you going to do?”
I take another step away from her. “Well, we’re here for a reason, so I’m going to see if I can find any clues. You said the deaths of your mother and grandmother were a mystery, right? Just like yours?”
“Well… yes.”
“So let me go check it out.”
She bites her lip and I plant a quick kiss on it. “I’ll be back soon.”
Before she can argue more – and before I lose my nerve – I stick my hands out in front of me and start walking. Or shuffling, is more like it. There’s junk everywhere and the further I walk, the darker it gets. It’s like stepping into a horror movie. My whole body screams at me to turn around.
But I don’t. I want to help Vicky. She deserves to know what happened to her family and herself.
Cobwebs tickle my face and I hit my toe on a chest. The floorboards creak, not just under my feet, but all around me. The hairs in my neck rise.
I yelp when a hand touches my shoulder.
“Shh, it’s just me,” Vicky says. She holds up a light. “Here, this might help.” She hands me my phone, which I must have dropped when we arrived.
“Thanks.” My voice is a bit shaky and I clear my throat. “You stay here.”
“No, I’m coming with you. It’s my memory after all.”
I frown. “Really? Did you find your grandmother here?”
She shakes her head irritably. “You know what I mean.”
My heart pounds loudly at her bravery. I want to tell her how amazing she is, but I’ve got a feeling this isn’t the right time for that. So I turn back around and take a deep breath. “Okay then. I’ll lead the way.”
Her hand slips into mine and I feel a whole lot safer.
Thanks to the flashlight on my phone it’s not hard to swerve around the clutter now.
The penetrating smell gets worse with every step, but I keep going. When I spot a leg, I come to a halt. Slowly I move my phone up.
There she is, folded over a bunch of suitcases. Her legs dangle on one side, her head and arms on the other. A small spider is exploring the fabric of her dress.
I move the light over the floor around her. “There’s no blood.”
Vicky nods. “I know.”
“So what happened? Did she have a heart attack?”
“If she did, then how did that symbol get into her neck?”
She grabs my phone and moves closer to the body. With her jaws clenched together, she reaches for her grandmother’s hair and pushes it aside.
I bend towards the symbol that is now visible. It’s red around the edges, like a new tattoo, but I recognize it immediately. “It’s the same as yours, isn’t it?” I whisper.
Slowly I bring my hand closer to it and follow the lines, starting with the small I attached to the larger one. I press the large raindrop at the bottom.
“What is it?” Vicky asks. “What do you feel?”
“It pulses. It’s barely noticeable, like the purring of a cat.”
Her eyebrows shoot up and I shrug. “I don’t know how else to describe it.”
“How do you think it got there?”
I wipe my hand on my trousers and stare at the symbol for a minute. “It wasn’t carved in. It must have been magic.”
“That’s what I thou-“
“Hello?” a voice suddenly shouts out. “Mary?”
The creaking of the stairs indicates someone coming.
My gaze meets Vicky’s. “Are we visible?”
“I don’t think so. We’re not really here after all.”
We take a step back from the body and listen to the footsteps approaching.
The door is pushed open slowly and a pale, wrinkled man peeks in. “Mary?” His eyes sweep the attic. “Are you in here?” He squints and reaches for a light switch I wish I’d found before.
For a moment we’re all blinded by the sudden brightness. Then he gasps and grabs his heart.
I hold up my hands in defense. “It wasn’t us. We found her like this.”
“Shh, Dante, he can’t see us,” Vicky whispers.
I drop my arms, but keep an eye on the old man. “Are you sure?”
“Oh no! Mary!” The pale man rushes forward. He almost trips over boxes and other junk on his way.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Vicky says, almost inaudibly.
I bend over to her. “Then why are you whispering?”
She takes another step back. “Because this feels wrong.”
I put my arm around her while we watch the man kneel in front of Vicky’s grandmother. “No, oh no.” He shakes his head violently. “I knew I shouldn’t have left you alone. I knew we were onto something."
He looks up and blinks away his tears. For a moment I think he can see me, but he’s just staring sadly into the distance. The pain on his face makes the hairs in my neck stand up.
As I look into his eyes a strange sensation flows washes over me. “I know this man.”
Vicky turns her attention to me. “What? How? You weren’t even born yet in this year. And this man is like…” She waves her hand in his direction, “seventy years old.”
“Yeah, maybe he just looks like someone I know.”
We both bow our heads when the old man lifts Mary’s hand and kisses it. “I will avenge you, my sweet Mary. They will pay for what they did to you and I will make sure they will never harm anyone else ever again. And I will continue our search, my love.”
I gasp. “Wait, is this your grandfather?”
Vicky shakes her head. “No, he died young. My mother once told me about another man, who worshipped the ground my grandmother walked on, but there are no pictures of him.”
“Well, this must be him.”
The man puts his hands together and lifts his head to the ceiling. “Dear God, please help me fight the Devil. Help me protect all the innocents and keep this world safe. Amen.”
My heart stings at his words. This man doesn’t have a bad bone in his body, yet he has just lost the person he loves most. My hands ball into fists at the thought of the unfairness of it all. Mom and Vicky are just like him. They want to do good, make people happy, yet they suffer more than others. If there is a God, why doesn’t he help people like them?
Before I can finish my thought, a rainbow appears in the corner of the attic. It rises to the ceiling, covering everything beneath it in specks of colored light. The old man smiles and closes his eyes. His body seems to light up from within.
“Thank you, God. I will not disappoint you.” He stands up, straighter than
before, and takes a deep breath. A tear escapes his eyes as he looks down on Mary. “Goodbye, my love. One day we will be reunited.”
With light steps he walks back to the door. A second later darkness falls upon us and his footsteps retreat.
For a while we just stand there, lost for words.
Finally Vicky speaks up. Her voice is hoarse with emotion. “That was beautiful.”
I’m about to agree, when I notice some kind of mist creeping towards us. “What is that?”
Vicky’s body tightens. “The Shadow World.”
I squeeze her closer to me. “We don’t want to go there again, do we? Why are we walking towards it?”
“We’re not. It is moving closer to us.”
“Well, let’s get out of here.” I grab her hand, turn and pull her with me.
But the mist comes in from all directions. It rises from the ground, leaning towards us, reaching out.
I duck to avoid it. “How long do you usually stay in a memory?” I ask, looking around for a way out.
“I don’t know, it’s different every time.”
“Has this ever happened before?”
She jumps back as the mist dives at her. “No, but it has been getting closer with each memory.”
While I hold on to her with one hand, I hit myself on the cheek with the other as hard as I can. It has no effect. The rules of dreams don’t apply here.
The gray mist rises around us quickly. Wisps sway from side to side, like snakes assessing their prey. I try to follow them with my eyes, but there are too many of them. The air around us gets thick as they box us in.
I pull Vicky’s arm to get her attention. “On three we jump through it.”
She nods and I start counting. “One… two…”
On three the mist swoops down on us from all sides. Everything is blurry and it feels like I’m suffocating. My head spins and Vicky’s hand slips from mine.
“No!” I yell, but the sound is sucked into the void.
I have no control over my body. It is pulled away. All energy drains from me, making it impossible to fight. A thousand hands pull at me. Their cold touch numbs my limbs.
I don’t want to fight anymore. Closing my eyes, I drift away.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tamara Geraeds was born in 1981, in a small village in the south of The Netherlands.
When she was 6 years old, she wrote her first poem, which basically translates as:
A hug for you and a hug for me
and that’s how life should be
She started writing books at the age of 15 and her first book was published in 2012. After 6 books in Dutch she decided to write a young adult fantasy series in English: Cards of Death.
Tamara’s bibliography consists of books for children, young adults and adults, and can be placed under fantasy and thrillers.
Besides writing she runs her own business, in which she teaches English, Dutch and writing, (re)writes texts and edits books.
She’s been playing badminton for over 20 years and met the love of her life Frans on the court. She loves going out for dinner, watching movies, and of course reading, writing and hugging her husband. She’s crazy about sushi and Indian curries, and her favorite color is pink.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Lots of thanks to my valuable beta readers Cebo Hadebe, William Case, Aurora Maier, Jennifer Bourgeois, Rick Bettencourt and Irina Rakovic.
Thanks to you, the reader, for reading the figments of my imagination.
Thanks to everyone who took (or is going to take) the time to leave a review and/or recommend my book(s) to other readers. If I could hug you, I would.
The Second Premonition Page 22
