Arch of Shadows

by C. L. Bush

  “You’re home,” Samantha said, her voice crackling with a mixture of emotions. “Come on, Clara. We have to get out of here. Can you walk?”

  “Wait,” Clara mumbled, her vision still blurred. “Where... Sam?”

  “I’m here,” Samantha reassured her, hugging her fiercely.

  “Sam, move away,” a voice came from nearby. “Something’s wrong.”

  “What are you talking about?” Samantha asked incredulously. “We did it, JJ. We got her back.”

  “Something’s wrong, Sam. I can feel it. Just move away.” JJ’s voice was followed by the sound of struggle and Samantha’s hands relinquished her unwillingly.

  “Let me go! What are you doing? Clara! Clara, tell them you’re okay!”

  Clara managed to put a hand over her eyes and felt a cold hand on her wrist.

  “Damen, what are you doing? Let her go!”

  Whether by command or instinct, Clara felt her hand drop to the ground and the image of Damen McDooley kneeling next to her sharpened. He seemed distraught and disturbed, which only scared Clara more. This time, with a decent experience in surviving life-changing magical incidents, Clara knew it was better to remain lying wherever she woke up and wait for the information to come to her.

  “Damen, what’s going on?” she asked slowly, her voice husky as if she had just woken up from a deep dream. She caught his worried look, and a glimpse of JJ hugging a reluctant Sam in the background. The scene gave her a sense of a déjà vu.

  “Clara.” Damen’s voice was barely more than a whisper as he said her name in a way she hadn’t heard before. “You don’t have a pulse.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  C. L. Bush started reading at a young age. Since then she has voraciously read all she could get her hands on. She has a degree in Business and is a mother of two boys and three grown stepdaughters, as well as the wife of a soldier in the U.S. Army. Her life is busy, but she has always kept her love of reading and writing alive. History is also a passion of hers, and she regularly goes on trips with her family to experience it firsthand. She looks forward to bringing her love of reading, writing, and history to her readers.

  Contact her on Facebook: www.facebook.com/authorclbush/

  Or at her website: www.clbush.com

  A New Series by C.L. Bush

  The Original Lost Boy: Heroes Aren’t Always What They Seem

  I’m the original Lost Boy. I came to this island with a boy who I believed would do great things.

  Little did I know how wrong I would be.

  This is the story you've often heard but have never truly known. Fairy tales are always written by the heroes and not the villains. But what most don’t know is that sometimes the heroes are the villains.

  Explore the tale you've heard since childhood with a darker twist.

  Excerpt from Echo of Whispers

  PROLOGUE ONE

  The darkness engulfed him as he stepped under the boughs. The silence was deafening. Even the animals and bugs ceased to utter a sound. It was as if they knew what everyone else tried to ignore about the woods on the edge of the small town in New Hampshire.

  A twig snapped under his foot and broke the silence like a gunshot, startling awake every cell of his body that was attuned to the whispers. He could hear them like the low hum of bees flitting in and out of his ears, ever present and maddening amid the quiet. Their shushing voices, barely discernable as he entered, now became louder around him as he ventured further into the dimness.

  He turned, thinking to go back and seek the refuge of the sun on his face, but his body froze. Every muscle stood at attention, ready to break if he made the wrong choice. He had to go further. There was no other option now.

  Taking a breath, he felt his muscles relax as he took a step forward. Then another. Walking deeper into the trees everyone said carried death. What called him he didn’t know, where he was going he wasn’t sure. The voices whispered again and again, guiding him to a spot so black he felt that it blotted out all light in existence.

  He looked down, barely able to make out his hand in the darkness as he heard the rustle of the leaves underneath his shoes. He was no longer under control of his body, his limbs moving as if a robot… or a zombie. And still, the whispers persisted.

  As he moved further and further in, their volume grew, making him rub the side of his head in the hopes of dislodging them. Still, they continued. He barely felt the blood as it dribbled down his neck and onto his shirt, his fingernails torn and bleeding themselves.

  What were they? Why didn’t they stop?

  His brain tried to scream, but that scream only echoed in his brain, and his throat and mouth didn’t move to make the sound he begged them to.

  Still, he kept moving, deeper and deeper until he was sure he would be forever lost. He had heard the rumors around town about these woods since he was a child, read the stories in the newspaper and online about the deaths. But he never truly believed it until today. He never understood how a place could compel someone to die.

  As he pondered this, still scratching at his ears, he saw a light ahead, a tiny pinprick in the distance. Moving closer, he picked up the trickle of water amid the whispering voices in his head. He knew this wasn’t good.

  His legs carried him onward, the voices growing louder and louder as he got closer to the water, pushing him to move faster. His heart sped up at the thought of what might be there. Fear stained his mind and he picked up the scent of it in his sweat as his nostrils strained for breath.

  Just as he came through a small gap between two large rocks, the voices grew from whispers to screams and he could finally understand what they had been saying.

  GET OUT! RUN!

  Now completely terrified, he watched with eyes that were no longer his to control. What he saw was unlike anything ever seen in a horror movie or haunted house. He could only stare before he watched his hands come up and his broken fingernails dig into his eyes.

  His screaming, whether inside his head or real, was the last thing he heard before his heart stopped.

  PROLOGUE TWO

  The wood was as silent as death. The clouds hovered above the trees, creating a blackness so deep, no light penetrated it. They moved as if floating; no leaves crinkling, no twigs snapping – the only sound of their passing breaths emanating from each and the soft whispers of a group knowing exactly where to go.

  The place called to them, the ancient power in their veins guiding them to the spot of pure magic – and not good magic. It loomed above them, creating a soft glow to penetrate the dark.

  There were five of them. Just enough to do what was needed.

  It had to be sealed. The deaths had been piling up for months and the town was on edge, terror spilling into the once crime-free bedroom community on the edge of New Hampshire almost too much to bear. They couldn’t wait any longer now that Ben had been arrested. They must protect the next generation from the evil hiding in the woods.

  Taking care not approach too close to the stone, they formed a large pentagram, each taking their assigned place, and let their hoods fall back from their faces. All shone ghost pale in the glow of the tall arch.

  “Remember, we must all say this together for it to work. One person chanting out of sequence will throw it all off.” The leader’s voice was firm. He made sure to receive a nod of understanding from each of the party before continuing.

  “Christopher, you start.”

  The youth, just eighteen years of age, begrudgingly nodded to the leader, knowing this was necessary to protect the next generation – one that hadn’t been born yet. “Magnae deae lucem, lunarem, dominamque, marie nocte...”

  The next took up the chant. “…et magnae dead mystica mysteriis in hoc loco canelarum…”

  The third. “…ac fulgere conspicis speculum noctem matantem…”

  The fourth. “…protega me cum cultiorbus fortitudo...”

  And finally, the leader. “…aegrae vibrationem volant!”

 
All were chanting now. The rhythm of their words created sparks that flew from their outstretched hands toward the arch. It began to glow in a pulsing pattern that seemed to quicken with each repeated chant. Finally culminating in a large circle of light bursting forth from the arch and spreading out in a five-foot radius around it and the pentagram they stood in.

  The chanting stopped with this burst of power and those in the pentagram still held their arms aloft, waiting and watching as the circle settled itself on the ground and disappeared from sight. The only light now came from the arch again. All around the woods looked the same as before they had started.

  “It is done,” the leader said, lowering his hands and watching the others do the same. A sigh of relief passed through the group as a few leaned over with their hands on their knees, looking as though they were drained from the power needed to do what they just did.

  “But how do we stop the power pulling them toward the circle?” One of the women spoke up, her face surrounded by a riot of red curls as she placed a hand on her middle.

  “I have a plan. You’ll have to trust me for it to work, but it should prevent the whispers from being able to enter their minds and pull them to the arch.”

  The young woman looked stricken now. “You won’t hurt them, will you?”

  The leader gave her a comforting smile as he walked over to her and took her hands. “Cathy, all will be well. I will simply mark them at birth and they’llnever know. Please, trust me.”

  She nodded to him, squeezing his hands gently as she turned toward Ian. “We should go back now.”

  The young man nodded, placing an arm around her as they moved toward the path that would lead them out of the darkness. The leader watched them go with a frown on his face. He hadn’t thought anything of it a few moments ago when Cathy had placed her hand on her stomach, but now a sinking suspicion was forming in his mind. If he was right, then the need for protection would have to come sooner than expected.

  What he didn’t know was that Cathy and Ian had no intention of staying in Richmond, nor ever coming back again.

  Oh, how the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Oh no!” Sam sighed sadly at her phone, prompting Clara to lift her head away from her notebook and color-coded notes. “My battery’s dead.”

  “Oh, the horror,” Clara replied dryly, a smile hiding at the corner of her lips. She swiftly turned a page and returned to her notebook, fully focused and fascinated by the material at hand. She pushed her hair back, and her friend mocked her for her abundance of concentration.

  “Don’t tell me you’re still preparing for the history test?” Samantha leaned forward, covering a large portion of Clara’s reading material with a candy bar. “I’m sure you know it by heart by now. You need a break.”

  “I don’t need a break; I had one yesterday,” Clara replied, but accepted the sugary bribe anyway. “Besides, this isn’t that material. This is pleasure, not work.”

  “Only you can focus in the cafeteria.”

  “Sam, I can focus anywhere.” Clara smiled and pushed away her scribbles, biting off a big chunk of chocolate. “Did you know that there was once a trial for a couple of tomatoes in Salem?”

  A soft chime of Samantha’s laughter caused even the nearby table of jocks to fall silent under her spell for a split second. Lean, elegant and wide-eyed, Samantha MacDonald was the town’s sweetheart, and someone Clara never could’ve imagined getting close to. Yet, the queen of extroverts was, indeed, her best friend in Richmond, the friendly equivalent of a backyard in USA. Although she would usually be found surrounded by a chatty group, Sam quietly indulged Clara’s need for some one-on-one lunch time usually. This would give Clara time to revise and spellcheck her papers, and it would give Samantha time to gently tease her friend about her most recent discoveries and interests.

  “I’m guessing their crime was an overcooked Bolognese sauce?” Sam continued, multitasking between a casual wave to school acquaintances and mockery of Clara’s tenaciousness.

  “Actually, you’re not far from the truth,” her friend replied, a pen traveling between her fingers as it usually did when Clara was in her Wikipedia mode. “You know, Richmond doesn’t lack its own gore lore.”

  “Four years later, you still sound like a tourist,” Samantha teased and Clara rolled her eyes complacently. Although she has been a part of the Richmond community ever since her freshman year, Clara still wore what Sam liked to call ‘Eau de NYC’. “I’m sorry. No more jokes. You have my full attention.”

  Clara stared at her suspiciously but quickly continued, her eyes glistening. Clara had a mind for puzzles and a thirst for knowledge. She binged on documentaries and strongly believed that whatever awaited humanity in the future was, in fact, cemented in the past.

  “Well, as you know, we’re supposed to write an investigative report for Mr. Jackson’s class by the end of the semester.”

  “Yeah. I was planning on writing about the winter bake sale,” Sam admitted with a warm smile, patiently deconstructing Clara’s cynicism with rationale. “We’re going to raise awareness about burn-out syndrome and use the money to equip an R&R room. Speaking of burn-out, did you know that Jennifer Mulligan was hospitalized this Friday? She had a severe panic attack. That poor girl. And finals haven’t even started.”

  “With her grades, I’d have a panic attack as well,” Clara replied, enduring Sam’s disapproving glance. Clara never had an abundance of empathy for a lack of academic effort, except, of course, when it came to her best friend. “Anyway, I wanted to write about a local... phenomenon.”

  “The daily traffic jams?”

  “Ha ha,” Clara responded wryly, but ignored her friend’s teasing with ease. She knew full-well that Richmond lacked both townies and cars to ever produce a traffic jam. It was the one New York thing she didn’t miss among Richmond’s picket fences. “Never mind. When is the bake sale?”

  “If things go as I planned, I hope we’ll organize it for Halloween. There’s nothing scarier than burn-out syndrome.”

  Samantha organized her life outside of the logic of color coding, planners and notebooks. Her mind could hold an exquisite amount of information, social connections and empathy, especially if it meant saving people. Her path did lead her away from daily dealings far too often.

  “Did you even study for the history test?” Clara interrupted her friend’s expose on the Halloween charity event and Sam was ready to glide over it.

  “I did.”

  “You’re a horrible liar, Sam.”

  “Don’t worry so much about me, Clara.”

  “Someone has to,” she replied and pushed the color-coded notes toward her friend. “Read them through. It’ll get you a B at least.”

  “You’re a sweetheart, but I’m not using them.” Samantha laughed lightly as Damen approached. As they had been dating basically since kindergarten, Samantha and Damen were as solid as anything in Richmond. Their relationship was as common as going for shakes to Dave’s Diner or ordering pizza from La Bella’s.

  Somewhat distracted by the firmness of routines in Richmond in the beginning, Clara learned to love those predictabilities and she enjoyed studying them. There’s no better way to research human nature than in tight-knit weavings of small towns, Clara thought.

  “Hey.” Damen nodded lightly, smooching Samantha’s cheek warmly and hugging Clara affectionately. “What’s up with my favorite girls?”

  “I’m trying to convince your girlfriend to study for our history test.”

  “That sounds like a good idea,” Damen agreed, his brows frowning. Although he wasn’t a studious overachiever, Damen had already secured a college scholarship thanks to his athletic prowess.

  Broad-shouldered and tall, Damen McDooley negated Clara’s stereotype of small-town jock stars through his unexpectedly caring and warm personality. Truth be told, he was impulsive at times and tended to get competitive during games - but that was what got h
im the scholarship. In the end, there was no better guy Clara could have chosen for her friend, and Clara was glad to be the witness of his clumsy but self-assured affection toward Samantha.

  While Clara observed Damen’s quiet adoration toward her bestie, Samantha gave him a dismissive hug and easily jumped off the bench. She could slip into the role of a caretaker with so much ease; it was heartbreakingly difficult to take care of her when opportunities would arise. Damen and Clara still tried to do their best.

  “Anyway, we’re going with JJ to visit Jennifer after school. You should come with us, Clara.”

  “Jennifer Mulligan?” Clara asked in confusion as Samantha nodded feverishly, worry carved on her face. “I didn’t know you guys were close.”

  “We aren’t,” Damen responded lightly. “JJ, he... They’re good friends.”

  “I just had an idea,” Sam interrupted. “Maybe I can give her your notes, so she can catch up with things. Are you okay with that, Clara?”

  “Do whatever you want; I made them for you. Just promise you’ll study for the test,” Clara continued but her words melted in the sweetened, casual kisses between Sam and Damen. Clara wasn’t the one who felt comfortable around public displays of affection, so she softly coughed. “Make her study, Damen.”

  “I would if I could,” he answered truthfully and Sam rolled her eyes, losing her patience.

  She was kind and easy going, but she hated being told what to do. Clara had the rare opportunity to see Samantha rebel and it was a sight she would be comfortable forgetting. Sam may have been indecisive, but she was stubborn as hell, and it was a combination many would rather avoid. In fact, these short outbursts of revolt were what got Sam a subtle tattoo for her sixteenth birthday and a nasty, not-so-subtle curfew for the following year. Of course, Clara hadn’thing to do with that. Sam’s partner in crime was the ever-impulsive Damen.