by R. L. Weeks
“Alice,” I say.
She looks over the top of her book, then throws it into a furnace behind her. “Yes.”
“Where are we?” I ask.
She tilts her head. “Where the bodies are.”
Why put a furnace in a church? I wonder. Unless it was placed here to burn the bodies?
“Are you trying to hurt me?” I ask, feeling childish.
“No,” she says a little too sweetly. “I am trying to help you end all of this… My child.”
“The murderer is your child?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer.
She sits by a pile of bones I hadn’t noticed until now. “You must keep searching. Do you understand? Until you find the truth. The answers.”
I nod. “I won’t stop looking.”
She pats the spot next to her. I take a seat, and she reaches out and touches my hand. “Almost,” she says.
“What do you mean by almost?” I ask.
She laughs. “Nothing, nothing,” she says and stands up. She twirls around. Her blue dress twirls with her. “It’s great to feel again.”
“Again?” I pause and look around. “This is the church down the road from where I am,” I say with realisation.
“You must keep using your Sight,” she says a little too desperately. “Regardless of what happens.”
I shiver as the room grows colder. I suddenly feel unsafe. “I need to get back to my body.”
I turn without giving her a second glance. I run out of the basement of the church, past more scattered bones. The echoes of my footsteps dance around the veil.
Dark hands reach out from the shadows, their fingers reaching for mine. “No!” I scream.
I run up the road to the butcher’s shop and look around frantically for Emmett.
I find him in the alley next to the shop, holding my body. “Emmett!” I shout. A shadow follows me from the church. It doesn’t want me to go yet.
I do what I did last time and throw myself onto my body. I feel a hand grip my arm and jolt up.
Eighteen
My eyes fling open. “Emmett.”
He holds me tightly. “Raven.” He clings to me. I nestle my head in his arms. “I have so much to tell you.”
I proceed to tell him everything, including what happened at the church.
His eyes widen. “We can’t keep doing this.”
“But I know the bones are there. I can use them to access the memories of the victims.”
His expression stays hard. He pulls me out of the alleyway and holds my arm as we hurry down the street. He lowers his voice. “We’re done with this. You said they almost took you—the shadow people—and as for Alice, I don’t like it, Raven.”
I grab his arm and stop him from walking. The rain drizzles down in London fashion and wets my hair. “Please, Emmett. We are so close. All the bones of the people they killed are in that church. I need to know why they’re in the church,” I say, pleading. “If I can just hold their bones, I can see their final memories and find out what happened.”
“Out of the question,” he says. “We are done with this. The police will find the killer. You may have made it back, Raven.” He looks at me intensely. “You could have died,” he says as if I don’t understand.
I do understand.
“But I can do some good. I have this gift for a reason.”
“Oh, please don’t call it that. It’s not a gift, Raven. It’s a curse.”
We walk the rest of way in silence.
We reach the house. I push open the small black iron gate and walk up the grey path to the oak door. I push on the black knocker and walk inside.
“To!” I shout. “Come down.”
Like expected, he appears. “Raven,” he says with relief. “I was worried. I should have gone with you.”
Emmett closes the door behind me. “She almost died,” he says, “so don’t let her coax you into going back there. She cannot use her Sight anymore!” he says to the air, hoping Tom will hear.
I groan. “Apparently I am not allowed to make my own choices.”
“Not,” Emmett chimes in, “when those choices are dangerous.”
I huff. “I’m going for a bath.”
Emmett grabs my arm as I go to walk upstairs. I turn to face him. His nose is just inches from mine. “Please, Raven. The more you use your gifts, the more you break down the veil between you and them.”
I notice the concern etched on his face. “Fine. Now please let me go.”
He nods. Tom shakes his head. “I’m with Emmett on this one, you know.”
I grind my teeth.
Of course he is.
I step into the claw-foot bath and let the hot water release all tension from my aching shoulders and back. I rub the metal frame of the small picture and look down at the portrait of Benjamin Shaw as a boy. I took it from the memory, and it’s a good job I did now that they won’t let me go back there.
Emmett would be distraught should he find out what I am really doing in the bath, but I push that to the back of my mind. I know I must stop using my gifts of Sight if I am to be okay, but I must find out the truth about Benjamin Shaw and stop the children from Littlemore orphanage from disappearing.
I see a shadow behind me this time when I close my eyes. They are waiting until the veil is thin enough so they can take me.
The water rises in the bath as I swirl into another memory. I feel the shadow men sense my presence. Emmett’s words haunt me. “The more you use your gifts, the more you break down the veil between you and them.”
This time, a young Benjamin Shaw is running down the frost-bitten street. He is covered in soot from sweeping chimneys.
I look back and see that the flat is boarded up. Where are his parents?
Little Benjamin Shaw stops in front of the butcher’s shop. His eyes are filled with a wild fascination.
He watches the butcher slice through the pig. I sense his curiosity and lust for blood. He does not understand it, but it fills him.
Benjamin looks up at the bloody knife. His button nose sits just above his small lips. His brown eyes widen as the butcher uses the meat cleaver on the dead pig.
Benjamin puts one small hand up to the window, reaching out for something.
I reach out myself to feel his energy like I did before.
I wish I had that power.
It’s the first time I have seen the boy smile.
I am going to look at the tools again tonight.
Then I understand. He steals glances at the torture items left on display in the museum. He envies serial killers. He wants to do it now, but he is too young and weak.
Where are your parents? I wonder again.
The boy looks inside the shop more intently. I catch a glimpse of a newspaper. The whole scene, like every memory, is frozen in time and attached to an object. According to the newspaper, a man and a woman were found dead in their bed, their throats sliced open.
That must be why the windows to the flat are all boarded up.
I look at the boy and wonder, did Benjamin Shaw really kill his own parents?
I’ve seen the darkness in his heart, but he is just a boy.
The memory fades. Hands drag me down into the water.
I gasp when I realise the idiocy of what I have done.
I appear two streets away, and I can’t breathe.
My physical body is drowning.
I break into a sprint. I see Alice somewhere in the distant fog, and the shadows are closing in. People walking around are like ghosts to me, when really, I’m the ghost.
“Tom!” I scream, hoping that somehow he can hear me, but my voice is drowned out by gurgles.
It’s hard to run when you’re drowning.
I fall to my knees and reach for my neck. I try to draw breaths, but nothing comes in.
Something in me fights back. I don’t want to die. Not now, not yet.
I somehow make it to the house. I cannot explain how I’ve managed to make it
here, except that my desire for survival is stronger than I thought.
I run upstairs and see Tom.
“Tom,” I say, gurgling.
His eyes widen.
“What’s wrong?”
I point to the bathroom.
His eyes widen. “Are you drowning?”
I gasp for air. He pushes me through the bathroom door and into to the tub. My eyes fling open. I gasp for air, but my lungs fill with water. I try to get up, but I can’t.
This is how I will die.
Suddenly everything becomes peaceful.
I feel the bath topple over. I land on my side, and water spills over the floor.
I cough up water on the floor and manage to draw in a short breath.
The seconds feel like minutes.
“Breathe, Raven.”
I suck in another breath and cough some more.
I’m still chocking.
Tom watches me with tears in his eyes.
I regain my breathing.
Each breath becomes longer, and the coughing eventually subsides.
“I almost died,” I say as the realisation washes over me.
Tom stands by the tub, panting.
How did the tub tip over?
“Did you do this?”
He looks down at his hands. “I did.”
Nineteen
Emmett runs his hand through my hair. The morning sun rays shine through the living room window.
“I’m so glad Tom was there to help you.”
I smile. “I’m surprised he managed to push the tub over.”
Emmett looks around the room.
“He’s upstairs trying to move a lamp,” I explain.
“Oh,” Emmett says. “So he can’t just move things now?”
I shake my head. “It seems like it was a one-time thing.”
“Or,” Emmett says, “he can only do it when experiencing extreme emotion. Like needing to save the woman he loves.”
I choke on air. “What?”
Emmett stands up. “Am I wrong?”
I look down. I don’t even know what to say. How the hell did he know something happened?
Besides, it was only a moment.
That’s all.
Emmett nods. “That’s all I needed to know.”
“He’s a ghost,” I say. “It’s not like anything can happen.”
Emmett walks to the door, stopping before he opens it. “It’s not any of my business anyway. I am just glad he could save you.”
“Emmett!” I call after him, but it’s too late.
He’s probably gone to one of his offices in the city.
A thought lingers in my mind. Why would Emmett, owner of all these fancy businesses in London, choose to stay and run an orphanage in Cogsworth?
Tom walks in. He looks pleased with himself. “I managed to do it. I pushed over the lamp.”
I jump up and clap my hands together. “I never thought I’d be so excited over someone knocking over a lamp, but this is great!”
Neither of us wants to say it out loud, but the truth is that death sucks and Tom doesn’t want to move on. I know it. He knows it. Damn, even Emmett knows it.
We both celebrate these things like they mean something. Like they’ll change the inevitable.
He can’t stay here.
I force a smile. This is the first time I’ve seen Tom hopeful.
“What were you thinking about?” I ask. “When you pushed the lamp over?”
He blushes.
“Uh…” He scratches the back of his neck. “Nothing…”
I don’t press it.
“What’s next then?” I ask, hoping I can keep him in a cheery mood.
He reaches out for my hand, but it goes right through mine. “I want to be able to touch people.”
My heart pounds as he draws in closer.
“I want to feel again, Raven.”
“I know.”
Twenty
My mood swings are giving Tom whiplash. I’m depressed again. I can’t even bring myself to sit up in bed.
Emmett brought a tree, reminding me that Christmas day is coming soon. I always spent it with Grandmother and Nora. Now it’s just a reminder that everyone I loved is dead.
I know I shouldn’t feel this sad. After all, when I am around Tom, how can I be depressed? At least I’m alive. However, no matter how many times I tell myself that I’m fortunate to be alive, I can’t shake the grasp of sadness that coils around me. I hear Tom pushing a pencil and sigh. No matter what he does, he is trapped there, and I am trapped here.
I stare at the flaking ceiling.
“Knock, knock,” Emmett says instead of actually knocking.
Tom sits up from the desk at the end of the room.
I look at Emmett. I can’t even bring myself to smile. I feel nothing. Nothing at all.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. His gaze doesn’t leave me, but I can’t deal with him right now. He’s the one who walked off because of petty jealousy—or whatever that was—over Tom.
I turn over and pull the cover over my head, praying he gets the message.
He doesn’t.
I feel the bed dip next to me. “Sorry about earlier,” he says. “I can’t expect to hold you to anything, but I do want to know where I stand.”
I stare ahead into the darkness under the covers blankly.
“Please go away,” I say. I don’t recognise my voice. It sounds hollow.
He pulls the cover down over my head. “Look at me.”
I glance sideways.
He half smiles. “That’s not quite what I meant.”
I roll my eyes and sit up. “I’m not in the mood to talk, Emmett.”
I look over at Tom. “I’ll leave you to it,” he says hastily and leaves.
I rub my eyes and drop my head into my hands.
Emmett touches my hand. “What’s wrong?”
I feel my bottom lip wobble. “It’s nothing.”
He places his thumb in the dip on my chin and tilts my head up. His gaze bores into my own. “It doesn’t look like nothing.” He drops his voice to a whisper. “I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
“It’s not that,” I say. “You won’t be able to take it.”
He scoffs. “Do not underestimate me, Miss Pride. Is it about Tom?”
How does he know?
My silence says it all.
“Well,” he says with a more clipped tone. “If you love him, then you shouldn’t be worried about hurting anyone. What I said was wrong. I was hurt. I shouldn’t have expected anything.”
I bring my head up from my hands and look at him. “You expected something?”
“Was it not obvious?” he asks.
I half smile. “I’m not good at picking up cues.”
He laughs. “Well, it seems I’m delusional with cues too.”
I part my lips. I don’t know what to say to him. I don’t actually know entirely how I feel about Tom. I like him, enjoy him, but is it love? “How does love feel?” The childish question escapes my lips before I can stop it. Thankfully, he doesn’t laugh.
A small smile spreads across his face. “It feels like you can’t be without that person. That what you feel for them is unconditional, no matter what they do. It feels like you are the second part of the world’s best team and when you are with that person you can accomplish anything. They take your fears away. You don’t worry about them leaving you, because you trust them with your whole world, and that doesn’t scare you.”
I smile. “You seem to know a lot about it.”
His smile drops. “Well, love is universal.”
I laugh. “Not really.”
He rubs his hands together. The room is freezing cold. “So you don’t love him then?”
I fiddle with the lace on my sleeve. “I’m not sure. Do you think you can love someone and not know?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
“Well, then,” I say, “I guess I know nothing.”
I twist my lips. “Then why do I feel tingly around him?”
“Lust, probably,” he says, seemingly annoyed.
“Okay,” I say, deciding to drop it. “I know you’re still annoyed about me going into another memory.”
He pulls out his pipe. I really hate the smell of it. “You don’t want to end up dead, do you?” He looks at the door. “Unless you want to be with Tom that much?”
“If I’m dead, would I still feel despair?”
He tilts his head. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
I shake my head and pull the covers back over my head. He pulls them back down again. I huff.
“Raven.” His tone softens. “How often do you feel despair?”
I stare at the ceiling. “I don’t.”
He squints but eventually leans back. I know he doesn’t believe me, but what can I tell him? I don’t know how I feel. One minute I feel fine, and the next I feel like all the hope has been sucked out of the world.
Emmett lights his pipe. “Well, we can agree on one thing.” He sucks in the smoke and exhales it. “We both want you to stay alive.”
Twenty-One
Tom rushes into the living area of Emmett’s three-storey house. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” I say jokingly, but he doesn’t smile. I tense up. “What’s wrong?”
“I think I know what’s going on. I was thinking about how I was found outside your house by the butcher’s, and then I got to thinking about how it’s odd that Emmett has so much in London and chooses to work at an orphanage. Then I was thinking about the memories you told us about…and thinking…”
“You’ve been thinking,” I say, breathless. “I get it. What have you found out?”
Tom sits in the armchair and shakes his leg. “Has Emmett returned home yet?”
I shake my head.
“Good,” he says. “I followed him this morning, and after I did, I went snooping for more information.” He runs his hand through his red locks. “Well…Emmett was an orphan.”
“I know.”
“Oh,” Tom says, seeming annoyed. “Well, he was the son of a butcher.”
I nod. “I know that too.”
Tom slumps his shoulders. “Wait, you know his father took over Shaw’s Butcher’s Shop after Benjamin Shaw’s father died?”
