by Rachel
I’m so glad to have my boy back safe and sound where he belongs, I stand in the doorway for a while and stare at him, even though his father is a complete knob head, this little boy is a perfect creation.
Levi appears behind me and wraps his arms around my waist and looks at Jack with me, he tells me to let him sleep and that we should go to bed too, he has to go back to work tomorrow and then he will be going back to his apartment, I wish he didn’t have to leave me, I hate being on my own and even though he can’t protect me I feel safer when he’s here with me.
We lie on the bed, he cuddles in behind me and wraps his arms around my waist, this is my safest place in the world, here in his arms, I hear him breathing, I think he’s asleep already, very early but I don’t care, I snuggle my head into my pillow and nod off.
CHAPTER 23
I feel cold and it wakes me, Levi is sleeping soundly wrapped up in the blanket, his arm still over me, my ribs still hurt a little, when will these blood things heal? I climb out of bed quietly not to disturb him, its freezing, my toes feel numb it’s that cold. I make my way out into the hallway to Jack’s room to check on him, he’s sleeping soundly all cuddled up in his quilt.
I walk through the flat, fuck me it’s like a frozen winter in my flat right now, icicles will appear from the ceiling if it gets any colder. I hear whispers so I head towards the kitchen but I see no-one. I switch the light on and look around, I can feel my body shiver and my heart pound, I’m scared but my body is too cold for my brain to notice.
“Robyn”
I jump out of my skin, there he is, Jay, in-front of me.
“Jay what the…..”
“Listen I don’t have much time,” he’s looking all around him as if to be expecting someone.
“You look like shit Jay, how are you here….” I’m so confused and he looks awful, he has a wound to the head now and what appears to be holes in his ghostly apparition.
“I’m here for you; I had to come tell you, I know you need help”
“How do you know that?”
“He has sent someone for Jack, to befriend him, earn his trust, once he has that he will bring Jack to the darkness, he knows you’ll follow, he knows you will go after Jack, he wants Jack to come willingly so his soul is easier to take….” He says fast.
“But he needs my soul to have Jack’s” I’m confused.
“Yes, he will wear you down until you give it but remember, you are stronger, if you give yours it means you surrender Jack's he is trying to befriend him so that Jack thinks it's safe to go with him, that’s why he needs his trust, so Jack will say yes to him but he won’t fear him….” He sounds so panicked.
He quickly turns his head as if he hears something.
“I have to go, I don’t think I can come back I will try though, don’t let him get Jack Robyn, remember you are stronger” and before I know it he’s gone.
Ok, I know I was screaming for help in my head but there is no possible way he would have heard that and how the fuck did he get here? I don’t get it! And what the fuck happened to him, he looks awful, like he has endured so much torture and pain.
For a moment I feel sad for him but then something clicks, Jack is a five year old boy, he's six soon and over time when he spends time with people he trusts them, this thing sent to get him is befriending him so they can take him easily. Ok, so I understand that bit but how do I stop Jack befriending them, do I block his memories like my mother done with me so that he forgets he can see them and therefore they can’t contact him, but wait, no, I can’t do that, I remember what it did to me, how I felt them and thought I was going crazy and when they did reappear how frightening it was, I couldn’t do that to my little boy, the only way I guess I could help him is to try and teach him not to go with anyone, dead or alive, you know, the strangers thing we teach all kids, even if they seem nice always come see mummy.
I go back upstairs and quietly climb back into bed, I hear the trees blowing outside, I see them almost tap on the window, they form shadows on my ceiling, its normal temperature but I know they are watching me, I snuggle into Levi and go back to sleep.
I roll over to cuddle into Levi but he’s not there, I open my eyes and its morning, I hear Jack and Levi giggling and talking, they must be in the kitchen having breakfast. It’s nice knowing they have bonded, I know Pete is Jack’s father but I wish everyday Levi was, he’s so much better for him and isn’t a complete asshole.
“Morning beautiful” he smiles at me.
“Morning to you too” I sit with them.
I’m feeling rather blue to be honest, Levi is going back to his apartment and I really don’t want him to plus my mind is racing about last night, I feel time is running out and something is coming now, like a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that something isn’t quite right.
“Go get dressed sweetie mummy has to take you to school….” I kiss Jack on the forehead.
He skips off very happy to his room. Levi is looking at me, his blue eyes twinkling at me, I want him right there on the kitchen table but I can’t.
“You don’t seem happy babe” he looks sympathetic almost.
“I’m fine babe, just a lot in my head right now…”
He pulls me across so that I sit on his lap and he kisses my knuckles softly. I see the ‘tell me’ in his eyes.
“You can talk to me you know”
“I know, it’s just, I don’t want you to leave and ghost stuff” my voice is low.
“Ok, well the ghost stuff I can’t say much on but….if you don’t want me to leave….then I don’t have to” he smiles.
I look at him, eyes wide open “wait….you’d move in?”
“Yes of course I would”
I fling my arms around him and kiss him passionately, why I didn’t just ask him this in the first place I don’t know, maybe I was scared that he wouldn’t want to live with me, ya know, ghosts and all. I feel excitement running through my body, like a little school girl with a birthday present, mega excited and I know Jack will be pleased.
“I need to get dressed baby” I smile and kiss him.
“Me to” he smiles back.
We head to what is now our room, oh I smile at the thought and I can see Jack getting ready and playing with his toys so I hurry him along, he can dawdle at times and sometimes needs a bit of push, then again what kid doesn’t I guess.
I feel happy inside, Levi and I are getting dressed and discussing the fact he will be moving in this week, we have to arrange to have all his stuff transported here, it will be a squeeze, it’s not a huge flat but we will make it work and hopefully we won’t be here forever.
Things feel good right now; it’s as if my mind has forgotten all about the ghosts and the trouble in my life, why can’t it always feel this way? I don’t know, they say that you get good luck with one hand but something bad always comes along after it. I feel a gust of wind as I am in the bathroom and I take no notice because I’m not thinking straight, my head is in the clouds of loveliness.
“Babe close the windows its cold!” I call out.
“No windows are open babe”
I freeze, something has just drafted into my flat again, but it’s not cold, its normal temperature, so what the fuck is it?
I make my way into the hallway slowly, walking down I can see my bedroom at the other end and I see Levi dancing around getting ready, oblivious to anything, not that I can blame him I mean how is he supposed to know anything at all anyway. I hear Jack talking, I know he’s in his room on his own as there is only us three in the flat and Levi is in my room.
As I approach his bedroom door then I feel the coldness, I feel my toes and fingers go numb and the cold rush of winter through my body. Something isn’t right, I stand next to his door, I want to hear what’s being said.
“Mummy said I have to speak to her first”
“Mummy wants you to little one, you can trust me, I am your friend”
That voice, that dark deep voic
e, I recognise that voice.
“Ok, will we come back for mummy?”
I push the door open to see Jack walking towards the wall and he has his hand touching it.
“Jack….” I call out.
“Don’t worry mummy he’s my friend, we will come back for you”
I see the black hooded figure standing next to him he takes Jack by the hand and gives me an evil smile with that disgusting face.
“NO!” I scream.
I lean forward to grab Jack but it’s too late, I fall flat on my face, Jack is gone. I don’t know how or where, he’s just not there anymore, like he disappeared through the walls. I bang on the wall screaming for him to come back but nothing. Levi comes running into the room panicking and worrying at the sound of my scared shrieking voice.
“What babe what is it?”
“Jack, he’s gone, that thing, someone, the beast I don’t know he’s gone”
I’m shaking with fear, my boy, my baby, he’s gone and I know he has been taken to that thing.
“Babe you will find him”
But I’m not in the mood for a pep talk right now, I know he is trying to calm and help me but I'm all over the place, I need to figure out where he has gone and I need to figure out how to get there.
CHAPTER 24
“Babe calm down, you’ve have done so much and tracked down people, you can do this you just need to focus” Levi says encouragingly.
I hear is words but I can’t focus, my little boy is gone, my one duty was to protect him and make sure this didn’t happen, Jay clearly warned me last night and I was so wrapped up in my own bubble of happiness this morning I didn’t keep him safe.
This is all my fault, if only I had been in the room with him, keeping an eye on him like I was supposed to then this thing would not have been able to get his evil hands on him.
My god my mind is racing round doing a million things right now, I can’t go to the police and report him missing, what am I going to say ‘excuse me officer a ghost has stolen my little boy please help me find him!’
No, No I can’t do that, this has to be me, only me, only I can go and save him, but how, where there fuck have they taken him and how do I get there?
How long is this going to take? Will they hurt him? Oh god no please, please don’t hurt my boy, wait, they won’t hurt him, they need him, I can’t think they will hurt him.
They know I’m going to follow after them somehow and they need me to break our connection to get to him, so at least in my head right now I need to think that wherever he is they won’t hurt him.
I hear the flat buzzer go, who the fuck is that? I never get visitors this early on a weekday.
I go down to answer it and to my surprise it’s the psychic from Hollow in Georgia, still cannot remember her blimming name.
“How the fuck….” I’m confused.
She cuts me off, “I figured you’d need me, I sensed a shift in the spirit world and tracked you to here.”
She walks in and up into the flat, now I know she is a psychic but that shit she just said to me makes no sense at all. Such a cliché isn’t it, a moment of need and then this woman turns up to help! What are the odds of that?
She walks in and stops by Jack’s bedroom door, a look of worry comes over her face. I stop behind her looking trying to observe and guess what she is thinking but I’m stumped.
She turns and looks at me “let’s go sit down shall we” she seems so cool.
We all sit in the living room, she has those people with her that I met when we had the séance and Levi is now looking extremely puzzled.
He sits next to me and takes hold of my hand, I squeeze his tight, I’m so scared right now my heart feels like it’s about to leap out of my chest and right on to the floor.
“Why are you here” I ask her confused.
“My dear, when I saw that thing, that night, I knew you would need further assistance, I have been watching you, in my head of course” she smiles “but I felt something sinister was coming and I knew I had to get to you.”
“I’m sorry who are you?” Levi jumps in.
“She’s the woman I saw in Georgia when I went for that séance I told you about remember?” I tell him.
Levi sits back in his chair with a face of ‘oh ok got ya but why is she here’ and I know what he’s thinking because I’m thinking that and more.
“I appreciate you coming all this way; I don’t understand how you found me”
She smiles softly “I have my own ways my dear and I am here to help you.”
I get up quickly all panicky “Look I don’t have time for this someone….”
“Took Jack….” She finishes.
I look at her, my brows frown but not meanly “how did you know that?”
She stands in-front of me “like I said my dear, I felt something sinister.”
In a way I feel some sort of comfort knowing she is here, she is good at what she does and she managed to contact that thing once before and he came right us. I’m sure it will not be so easy this time, he already has Jack, but then again, he needs me to.
“Now before we get started on all this we need to both be on the same level” she advises softly.
She sits me down on the sofa and sits next to me; Levi has his arm protectively around me and her, well, followers I guess, all gather around. We are all sat close together as if awaiting a camp fire story.
“Now, tell me what you found out from that night….” She shifts in her seat.
I take a deep breath and try to recall the things I had read about him.
“Ok well, his name is Ivan, as we found that out, I read in a book he was known as Ivan the Fearless, uhhhh, he was born in the fifteenth century in a small town called Rusk, just off the Romanian border, nothing frightened him, he showed no fear and no mercy, he marched with his armies across the lands killing innocent men and women who refused to bow down to him, he challenged the king and when he won he claimed the land as his own, people feared him as if they refused or disobeyed him he would then take their lives, he didn’t care who they were, men, women, children, he’d kill anyone. I saw the picture in the book of bodies on spikes outside his castle that were put there as a warning to traitors and the people of the land but I have seen that before with Vlad, I read about him in history.”
“Yes, it is said that their bloodline was connected” she advises, “go on….”
I look at Levi, he looks shocked by all this but I continue “ummm it was rumoured he had fathered many children through raping women and he would kill the husbands of the women that he wanted. It stated that he was killed by one of his own men who had betrayed him, the man was a spy sent by his enemies and stopped him fulfilling his ultimate goal, to the rule all of England….and I guess that’s all I know really.”
“Well that’s a lot and his goal wasn’t to rule England, it was to rule the world, it is said that he possessed dark magic, that he worked with the devil which is why he was so good at winning battles, he had a demon army on his side.”
My eyes widen in shock, am I hearing this right? Surely such things are not real.
“Ummm, I don’t believe that….” I shake my head.
“Really Robyn, after every-thing you have seen or endured you don’t believe that maybe there are other forces out there, something beyond our own world?” she looks into my eyes.
I guess she is right, I have seen so many things in my life how can I be so naïve into thinking that it was our world a ghost world and that’s it, surely you go somewhere nice when you die, if you’re good of course and I have seen that light when Amy and Lucy found peace, I have also seen darkness when they have come to attack me.
“Ok so then what….” I prompt.
She gets up from the sofa and starts talking, placing her hands together like she is telling a story to children “so, as I said, dark magic, and yes, it was rumoured he fathered many children, some of which he apparently used in his armies, history tells us that
such man may have existed however there are those who believe it is nothing more than a scary legend, it states he was killed by a an enemy who had infiltrated his army and his body was buried with a knife wound and one arm missing, the villagers kept a part of him in gods church, control they claimed so that his soul could never again be whole.”
Holy shit, firstly right now I feel sick and now this makes sense, Jay was like that and countless ghosts I have seen have all been like that too, he said it was for control and he must be doing it because it is what they done to him.
She continues “it is believed that after his death a note was found advising his enemies he would return and a war will start until he has ultimate power, when they went to the church to destroy the arm, it was gone.”
“Who took it?” Levi asks, his eyes wide open.
“Some say followers, some say it was lost and some say it was never there, we don’t know but my guess is Ivan has what he needs, a strong army to help him cross over, Jack and now all he needs is you” she looks at me and sighs.
“I have to go get Jack” my voice low.
“My dear, once you go to the other side, it’s not all flowers and lightness, its dark and you will be going to where he wants you to go, a place full of sadness, darkness and pain” she looks worried.
“I don’t have a choice; he’s my son I have to go get him”
“When you go there you must always remember that you are stronger than he is, you have life, he does not have that” she grips my hand.
“Wait Robyn you can’t do this alone” Levi says worried.
“I have to” I touch his face “You need to trust me”
“We must form the circle” she prompts.
We all gather round the kitchen table, it’s the only place I can think of where we can all sit and hold hands. We all prepare ourselves, what’s going to happen I don’t know but I know it isn’t going to be pleasant.
CHAPTER 25
We’re all sat there and questions are still swirling around in my head. I have to ask them before we start, I have all the knowledge of him, I’m not going to forget that in a hurry but I need to know everything else before this goes any further, I need to be prepared.
