“Why is it that your family would break this bond to Lezetta? Whyshould I even trust you?” Brendan asked her feeling skeptical about the whole situation now.
“You should trust me because Drew saved me once a long time ago and I owe her for that. She has been my very best friend for a very long time and nothing will ever change that. I would do anything in the world for her as long as it was in my power.”
“You didn’t say why it is that your family has broken their bond with the witch.” Brendan was standing near the broken window now. He wished so badly that he could be with Drew. He needed to feel her in his arms. He needed her to speak to him and to let him know that she was ok.
“Lezetta had more power than she was ever worthy of. The original intention of every witch is good. No magic should ever be used to hurt anyone. Lezetta went too far when she sentenced you to an eternity in solitary confinement. The bond to the sisterhood isn’t nearly as important as the fact that we believe in decency and kindness. The so called sisterhood evidently forgot that back then or they didn’t realize what exactly Lezetta had talked them into.”
Brendan believed that he could trust her. She was either a very honest and loving person or she was a very good actor. Either way, he had no idea what to do so really he had no other choice but to believe her.
“What happens to me when I fall in love and am loved in return, Liza? Do I earn the privilege of moving on to heaven or hell, and why is my sister still here? She should have moved on before I was murdered!”
“I don’t know about your sister, Brendan. I don’t understand why she is still here unless Lezetta wasn’t her true killer. If that is the case then she probably stayed behind to set the record straight.”
“And Lezetta? Why is it that she would need to be staying behind? She got everything she wanted did she not?”
“You ask questions of me Brendan that I have no answers to. I don’t know all of the ways of the spirit world and up until now I really had no desire to know.”
“Then how in hell do you suppose we get Drew back? Have ye no idea about that either?” Brendan said, his Irish fading in and out again.
“I know that we need to get Drew’s body back to the grave where Lezetta traded places with her soul. Drew needs to get back into her body as soon as possible. I also know that I can’t carry her by myself and I need you to help me.
So, what is it Brendan? Do you love her or do you love her not?” Liza asked calmly. She knew that they needed to hurry but Brendan was the type of man that obviously needed to know all of the answers before making any major moves. Any other time she would have respected that but right now there wasn’t much time for all of the answers.
“Of course I love her, damn it!” He said walking back to Drew’s body now. He picked her up off of the couch then and carried her in his strong arms. “It does me no bloody good though if she doesn’t love me back. I tried to follow her before remember? I ended up right back in that bloody, God forsaken room upstairs.”
“Yes, this is true, but look at yourself, y ou are visible again Brendan. I think that Drew was just confused about her feelings. Maybe by now she has decided that she does love you. Maybe she just needed to hear you say it yourself first! We won’t know unless we try!”
“No, it’s a bad idea. Wha t if I walk out of this house with her and I am sent to the top floor and she is dropped to the ground? We have abused her poor body enough don’t you think?” Brendan said staring down at Drew’s bruised head where Liza had clocked her with the Ouija board.
“You are just afraid of finding out that she doesn’t love you. What if she does? Are you willing to let Lezetta live in her place? Brendan, I can’t do this without you!”
“What if she does love me, Liza, and then I am sent away without her?”
“I see. S o, this is all about you now. You are afraid to be alone again. Maybe you weren’t worth breaking the sisterhood bond after all. Give her to me, Brendan. I will drag her there myself if I have to!” Liza opened the door and held out her arms to him.
“’Tis not that! Blast it, woman! I don’t want to leave her here alone!” He said angrily. “You have no idea what it is like to roam these halls alone for so long! I can’t let her go through what I went through even if it is for half the time that I had to bear. I would spend another hundred and fifty years alone or burning in hell for that matter if it meant that she would be safe and happy!”
“Then you need to take all of that energy, all of that love, and please help me take her to the cemetery. I know that you can do it, Brendan. You have to at least try! If she loves you then the curse is broken. You will no longer be trapped inside of this Godforsaken house and no matter where you go you can at least go there knowing that you saved a life! That hasto account for something don’t you think, and wouldn’t you rather go away knowing that she has a chance for a life with someone than to stay in this house another one hundred and fifty years knowing that you could have saved her?
You haven’t been in hell, Brendan. You haven’t been in purgatory waiting for God’s judgment day. You have been waiting for Drew’s judgment. She had to decide if she really loved you or not. I think that we both know what she decided. I think that she has judged you as the man of her dreams, as the man that she chooses to spend the rest of her living life with.”
Brendan closed his eyes and held on as tight to Drew as he could without hurting her. He took in a deep breath and took a step towards the door.
Chapter 9 Justice
“Mary Ann?” Drew called as she was pulled through the tunnel, now encasde in darkness, by a very cold hand.
“Let me through bitch!” A dark voice said to her. She could smell the rot of his breath as he spun her around. “Let me through to speak with my dear brother! I must get through to Lezetta!”
Drew thought that she understood everything now. Danny would rather roam the house for all eternity than the cemetery, understandable she thought as she landed hard on the cold cemetery floor. With Lezetta taking over her body he could live there with her. What would happen to Brendan? Could one ghost get rid of another?
“Ye lousy wench! What have ye done? Ye have closed the gate to the other side! Ye’ll be stuck here forever just as we are now!” He was o n her now. Angry as the devil!
From the corner of her eye she saw a flash. The moon light had returned from behind the clouds and there was something flying straight for them. He was knocked off of her only to turn on Mary Ann who had thrown herself at him.
“Ye think you have a new play toy do ya, Danny? Not here! Not her! She shall not feel your hatred and your evil as Brendan and I have had to! She has not to do with whatever craziness has rotted yer brain!”
Drew slowly sat up and scooted away from the two sparring siblings. She had no idea what was about to happen but she would be damned if she was going to spend her eternity listening to these two bicker and have that nasty man breathing all over her.
“Ah, sister, dear. Don’t ya know that th is be my playground? I am the king of this sadistic world ye be livin’ in and don’t you forget it!”
She watched him grab her and throw her across the cemetery. Her eyes were as wide as silver dollars. She had definitely never been more afraid in her life yet, she was astounded at what the spirits could do. What was the point? They couldn’t kill each other!
The first breath of fresh air that waved through his nostrils in over a hundred and fifty years made him almost drop Drew. The air was so thick he could feel it sticking to his skin. The loud roar of thunder made him jump. Brendan opened his eyes to see the clouds rolling over head, hiding the moon and the stars once more.
He looked down to an unconscious Drew who was sleeping unaware in his tight gripped arms.
“Let us go and get you back my love.” He said and kissed her temple where blood had started to trickle down from Liza’s hard blow with the Ouija board.
Liza reached up and squeezed Brendan’s arm. She nodded at him, in reassurance as well as
trying to get him to hurry along. Brendan’s legs shook. He didn’t know if it was his nerves from being able to walk on the ground outside of the house for the first time or, not knowing what to do next exactly. He was the man, he was expected to be the hero, but he had no idea where to begin.
“To the cemetery then.” He said to himself as much as to Liza.
He needed to run. Holding Drew even tighter he took off in a sprint leaving Liza panting behind him. As he reached the gates of the cemetery he froze, the hair rose up on the back of his neck. Whatever was going on in there wasn’t good. He wanted badly to leave Drew’s body outside of the gates. He didn’t want to take her back in there, putting her in more danger; unfortunately he knew that it had to be done.
The candles still burned on Lezetta’s grave, illuminating his way. He knew that he needed to take her there, but had no idea what he was supposed to do after that.
“Every…spell… has… a… counter.” Liza said breathing hard, kneeling over with her hands on her knees. She had run as fast as she could, trying to keep up with Brendan’s fast long legs. “It can be undone. I don’t know the spell though for trading places.” She said after finally catching her breath.
Brendan looked briefly back at Liza and gave her a sympathetic smile. Liza was growing on him. He could see why Drew had felt so comfortable with her when she had practically closed everyone else off in her life. Breaking a coven promise was a very serious crime when it came to witchery. He knew that she would probably be shunned, possibly even losing her powers for her transgression.
“What good is it to be a witch if you know no spells woman?” Brendan laughed nervously.
Brendan laid Drew down in the middle of the ring of candles that burned brightly. He reached down to wipe the blood off of her face then kissed her gently again on the head. As he stood up he felt the wind rush out of him. Someone or something had pushed him down to the ground forcefully.
“Brendan!” Liza sc reamed. She went to help him up instead took a blow to the stomach as she reached out her hands. She hunched forward trying to wait out the unbearable pain that seemed to take over her entire body. There was no waiting; she was knocked out cold when someone hit her over the head as she was bent over.
“Ha! Think ye can save the weak by bringing a woman to fight yer battles do ya Brendan, my brother?”
“Danny?” Brendan said as he stood up, trying to balance himself. Standing atop of Lezetta’s tomb, feet placed on either side of Drew’s body, stood an evil version of Brendan. He looked exactly like him; the only difference was the wickedness in his eyes.
“I wasn’t aware there were any battles to fight, Danny.” Brendan said still trying to catch his breath.
“How ‘tis it that ye have made yer way from that prison o’ yours, Brendan?” Danny said as he hopped down from Lezetta’s tomb. The dust from the ground, or maybe Danny’s boots puffed up in a cloud around his feet. “Don’t tell me the spell has been broken. There is no one left to love ye now!”
“How do you know about the spell, Danny?” Brendan said growing angrier every second. Drew’s body lay helpless on a cold tomb and nothing but the devil himself was standing in between him and her.
“Oh Brendan, so n aive ye have always been. Course you was always the one on the right track weren’t ye? Always the good boy that be believing that no one can do ye no harm. The curse was my idea in the first place!” Danny’s laugh cut through Brendan’s soul like a jagged knife.
“Why, Danny? What did I ever do to you, my brother?” Brendan’s heart hurt. He had always loved his brother even though he knew since they were very young and Danny drowned the small kittens that had made their way into their back yard, that something was very wrong with him. “What did I ever do to make you hate me so?”
“Because as much as we look the same, ye were always the golden child! The favorite, the one to do no wrong! While I was being whipped from shoulder to shank for childish crimes that we both committed, you was being placed upon on a pedestal for all the blasted world to worship!” Danny’s eyes turned red and Brendan half expected horns to grow from his head and smoke to start rolling out of his ears.
“Do not stand there and tell me about your terrible childhood when you brought it all on yourself! Ever since the moment you drowned those cats you had nothing but the devil in you. I’ve no idea what led you to that moment but everything that you got after that you deserved it very well and you know it. Why don’t you tell me the real reason for your curses now, Danny!” Brendan was shaking with anger. He didn’t know how but he knew that the more time he wasted arguing with someone that he couldn’t control, the closer he was coming to losing Drew to the other side forever.
“You always had everything didn’t you, Brendan? From the moment I was sent away it was all yours for the taking! When I saw that ye even had the most beautiful woman in the world at the palm of your hands I couldn’t bear to let you have it all any longer! I tricked that little wench of yours into thinking that I was you. After I bedded her and shook her boots right off of her pretty little feet I told her the truth then. She was madly in love with me by then, lad! I had her in the palm of me hands! The only problem was that she wanted my charm and my body, and your money.”
Liza was slowly coming to. She could feel someone shaking her but couldn’t quite focus on a face.
“Liza!” The voice faded in and out as it desperately tried to reach her.
“Drew?” Liza mumbled. “Drew! Focus! I can barely see you or hear you!”
It was seriously pissing her off! Drew knew that everyone could see Danny as plain as day but she could barely stay in focus for more than a second. How was he doing it?
“Concentrate, Drew!” She heard Mary Ann say. “You’ve got to feel all the love and hate in one. Everything that has ever touched ye heart, you’ve got to let it shine! Your friend she needs ya now!”
Drew closed her eyes. She thought of her mother’s face the night that she opened the door and saw the man that she thought loved her trying to rape her daughter. She saw the hate in her mother’s eyes ever since that night. She saw the amazement in Liza’s eyes after she knocked that stupid Kelly Barbie bitch flat on her ass and how she looked up to her for a long time after that.
Then, she saw her friend’s eyes grow sadder as the years went by. She never realized it until now, but the sadness was for her. The fact that Drew wasn’t happy herself; it was a reflection of her own eyes.
She saw the love in Brendan’s eyes and the confusion in her own. She had known that she loved him all along but she hadn’t been ready to take that step. She was ready to give her body and soul to a man now after her whole life had been built around hating men. It was an ocean of emotions that she was drowning in. Everything was flooding in at once. “Drew!” Liza screamed. “I see you! It’s working!”
Drew opened her eyes then and looked down at her hands. Though she wasn’t human, she was still visible.
“Drew, help me. We have to get you back into your body!” Liza was sitting up now. Her head was killing her but she was going to have to suck it up.
“So, you took my life to be with Lezetta. You ha d the woman then, why did you never take over my home, my money?” Brendan asked Danny as Danny got closer and closer to Brendan and further away from the knocked out Drew.
“Well, that is because Lezetta, the stupid bitch, wasn’t as smart as she thought she was. After we had Mary Ann taken care of, she faked her own death. We hid out until it was time to take care of you. She knocked ye in the head a good one then she cursed ye and she cursed yer blasted house. She couldn’t step foot in it after that, she said it burned her down to her soul. She realized then what a mistake it was that she had made.
She had to come up with a new plan. She wanted me to kill myself and let my spirit take over your body. She figured that with the curse you weren’t completely dead, only sleeping. She would have the sisters bring your body here to the grave after I was buried in your tomb and t
hen we would switch.
I was desperate you see to live your life. So, I decided to go along with it. I hung myself from that tree.” He pointed back to the tree that grew tall now above the grave that was marked Brendan O’Keefe.
“The world was black and cold, nothing new for me really.” He said with the wickedest grin Brendan had ever seen.
“Lezetta didn’t come back for you though did she?” Brendan said as he slowly walked backwards away from Danny who was getting closer by the second. “You trusted her to come back for you and she never did.”
“Oh, she came back alright. It wasn’t until after she was dead herself though. She found out that she was pregnant you see. She fell in love with the child the moment she found out and decided to leave it all behind. She left us both behind then. She told the sisters to leave your rotting corpse up there in that house and to leave mine here in this blasted cemetery. Several years later when she passed on, the sisters had her buried here. They could come and light their candles and pray their blasphemous prayers and she would be in the grave that she had cursed herself with years before.”
“Now she has found a way to come back.” Brendan said, more to himself.
“Aye, and so have I!” With that Danny leapt towards Brendan. Brendan ducked just in time though and out of the corner of his eye saw Liza and two glowing figures dash towards the grave where Drew’s body lay.
“Drew,” Liza said, “Try to connect with you somehow!”
“That won’t work!” Mary Ann exclaimed. “You have to switch them back! Ye can’t just shove one in there with the other!”
“She is right.” Drew said. “Think, Liza. She ha d to have used some kind of magic or something. People can’t just switch bodies.”
Just then, Drew reached for the necklace that Brendan had given her. It had become a habit lately to rub it when she was thinking hard or when she got sad. It had become a comfort for her. She turned to look at her body that lay on the tomb.
“It’s gone!” Drew whispered.
“What’s gone?” Liza and Mary Ann asked at the same time.
Ghost of a Chance Book 1 in Above the Grave Trilogy Page 18
