The Locket

by K J Bell

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will. As your Paramour, Reese has abilities too. He’ll make those disappear and any pain or bruising that goes with them.” His fingers brushed my skin unintentionally and like a raging thunderstorm, heat rose between us, pushing the coldness away – the embers of desire he tried to ignore – set fire to my body. He felt it too. He locked his gaze with mine, his jaw tightened, and conflict warped his face.

  “Yes, but can he do that?” I asked, dousing the flame with my question, though I still felt the burn beneath my skin.

  “You are so stubborn. You don’t understand, Claire. Your seals are drawn to each other with a force you can’t resist,” Brent urged. My mind wandered back to my magnet analogy – annoying me – while Brent continued. “You can’t fight it. Look, Reese will be here tomorrow. He’s relocating your aunt so that she’s safe. You’ll feel differently then. I promise you.”

  Continuing an argument I was sure to lose, I asked, “So, you’re saying no one ever lives a happy life with someone that is not stamped exactly the same?”

  “Sometimes people don’t find their match, and yes, they still find love and make do with someone else. But deep inside, they’re always missing a piece of themselves, just as you would be if you don’t accept Reese as yours. Only for you, Claire, it’s very dangerous.” I watched his face twist with concern when he said the word dangerous.

  “Well, you’re wrong. He’s not my soul mate, Paramour, or whatever else you want to call him. I feel absolutely nothing for him and I’m not going to just because you say I’m supposed too,” I snapped, scowling at him, my hands firmly folded together in my lap.

  He sighed, shaking his head, jaded with my response. “You will, Claire. You can’t fight your seal. You’ll need him more than the air you breathe.”

  That hurt. That hurt a great deal, because right now I felt like I needed Brent that much.

  “How can you say that? Can you honestly say that you don’t feel anything for me? You’re a liar, if you can,” I chastened.

  He looked at me exasperated, smacking his palm on his head.

  “I do, Claire. You’re right, okay? But it doesn’t matter. I’m not supposed to and it can’t happen. Something is off with everything. How I do feel about you for starters. How I fell asleep or didn’t recognize Logan was a danger to you, and I didn’t feel your pain when Logan was in your room.”

  “Wait,” I interrupted, “Logan was in my room? I thought that was a dream.”

  “No, he marked you and to do that he has to touch you. An Adherent can only hurt you through the human Anchor that entertains them,” he replied, shaking his head as though he was trying to lose the image.

  “Oh.” The thought of Logan in my room made me feel physically ill. “This is still so confusing, Brent. I don’t understand who Kace is or why he wants me dead.” The word dead rolling off my tongue made me shutter.

  I sat, slowly picking at my eggs with my fork, while Brent started to tell me everything.

  “Do you know anything about the spiritual world like ghosts, hauntings, souls, those kinds of things?” he asked. He took a large swig of orange juice and waited for my reply.

  “You mean like supernatural stuff? Not really, but my dad and I used to watch ghost hunting shows on TV. They were so ridiculous. I can’t believe people actually think that stuff is real,” I laughed, before considering my situation. I felt like I had just been smacked and I had, really hard. Reality was sinking in and I had a strange feeling the rumors about ghosts at my aunt’s house were about to be more than town gossip. My fork slipped from my grasp, clinking noisily as it hit the plate. I elected to give up on eating for now.

  “Well, I agree the shows are a little outlandish, but much of it is on point. We are Ghost Hunters, Claire. We don’t use special methods or equipment that measure PSI, nothing like that, but we are designed to hunt down lost spirits, ghosts.” Brent put it out there for me to examine.

  I gulped. Did I just hear him correctly? “How is that even possible?”

  “To start, a human life comes to an end. When this happens, their soul is released in the form of an apparition to The Appa-Realm. We refer to it as The Realm. You may have heard the term Astral Plane on one of the shows,” Brent questioned.

  I nodded and he went on.

  “The Realm is a world that exists above the physical world. Doyens are apparitions that control The Realm. Each has a specific job and gifted abilities to complete those jobs. Some of the Doyen’s are Agents. They are in power, if you will, like Royalty.”

  “What do they have to do with us?” I asked.

  “Once an apparition arrives in The Realm, an Agent determines if they are able to move beyond The Realm to whatever higher purpose they were designed for. The human life is somewhat of a training period, helping to prepare them for that. Humans need to live, fall in love, make mistakes and learn from them so they can serve a higher purpose when their human life ends. When a human dies, and has not completed their purpose in the physical world, they can’t move beyond The Realm. Sometimes the Agent has to physically return them. Such is the case when someone is brought back to life. Other times, the apparition has to complete their purpose in their current form, which is a great deal harder. However, it works and most of the time apparitions are able to complete their purpose and successfully move on to the next life.”

  “And Kace refuses to do that?” I assumed.

  “Yes, centuries ago Kace decided he wanted to remain in The Realm and haunt humans. Our kind has been hunting him ever since. Many apparitions have joined him over the years. They have the ability to freely come and go from The Realm, without an Agent. Apparitions only appear spirit-like when it’s dark. During the day they look like any other human. Our kind has the ability to not only see but communicate with them in the Physical world. ”

  “Mediums,” I interrupted.

  “No, Claire. Most Mediums are human, some with a minute ability and some with none at all, but they only communicate with the dead. There are a few of our kind with real abilities that choose to live as loners, working as though they are mediums, and they make a nice living doing it. As long as they don’t abuse their gifts, the Agents allow them to do so. Our kind is abettors to the Doyens. We’ve accepted our design as Chasers, half human, half apparition and the gifts that go along with it. We have senses and abilities to track apparitions or lost spirits, trap them, and return them to The Realm.”

  “I don’t understand. How can we be both human and apparition?” The idea seemed completely impossible.

  “When a life is saved, an apparition returns to physical form, and some cling to their human counterparts longer than others. If humans mate during that time, and there is an off – spring, depending on how strong the spirit is at conception, we are born.”

  I remembered the story of a horrible accident my dad was involved in, at the mill where he worked, because the structure was old and run down. He almost died and the mill closed shortly after.

  “My dad?” I asked knowingly.

  “Yes, and your mother as well,” he explained. “She had fallen down the stairs shortly after your dad’s accident. The Agents returned her so quickly she thought she merely passed out. Three weeks later, you were conceived.”

  “I had no idea,” I admitted.

  “That is why you are special. The Agents have abilities too. Some are fated. The fated ones reviewed our future and determined that a Locket child would be born within the year, with abilities much stronger than the rest of us, inherently able to hunt and remove Kace. The child would come from two parents whose physical lives had been spared. There were six such children born before the end of the year. Agents found each child their Aegis, pairing them all. Once they determined who The Locket child was, the Agents would find that child’s Paramour as well.

  “You and Reese?” I confirmed.

  He nodded.

  “How did they know?” I asked curiously.

/>   “The Agents measured the connection in our seals. I was the one who was most loyal and protective towards you. They knew I was your Aegis. Reese pulled towards you loving and affectionate, so it was determined he was your Paramour.”

  “Oh,” I said, not convinced I would ever have feelings for the sandy haired boy from the lunch room, though I did blush when he smiled at me.

  “All of the children’s parents knew and understood the importance behind who their child might be, and how important it would be for them to be hidden and protected if their child turned out to be The Locket,” he continued, moving quickly past Reese as a topic.

  “So, how did they know it was me?” I questioned, still trying to piece it all together.

  Brent told me how our kind got their abilities as they aged. We were strongest in adulthood. The Locket child would display one or more of the abilities around age four, lose them a short time later, and then gain them twice as strong in adulthood. He told me I was about four, and was riding in the car with my parents. We had passed a cemetery, and I was waving and saying hello to people. My parents had turned to me and then to the cemetery. It had been empty other than headstones and trees.

  Remembering it very clearly, I was waving and saying ‘hello’. The people in the cemetery were warm and friendly. My dad had asked me who I was waving to. “The people,” I had told him.

  I dreamed about it many times since then, passing cemeteries full of people, but in my dream the people were distraught. They waved and begged for my help. I woke often, restless with an internal need to help those people, but as reality had set in I knew it was a dream, and my anxiety went away. Recalling the people at my father’s funeral, and my curiosity with their distance, I knew now, they must have been apparitions.

  Brent told me my mother had known immediately. “Your father hadn’t been so sure. He thought it was mere coincidence so they took you straight home to discuss it with an Agent, and it turned out they were both correct.”

  “But how can that be? How can they have both been right?” I asked.

  He continued explaining that all human children have some abilities. “They fade long before adulthood except for our kind. It’s not uncommon for a small child to see apparitions. This is why children have more nightmares than adults. The Agent determined that it wasn’t enough to say that you were The Locket child but they wanted to test it.”

  Thinking about this for a moment, I racked my brain for something traumatic from my childhood that would trigger a memory.

  “The dog?” I offered.

  “Yes, very good Claire,” he said.

  Fear flooded my mind but the details were still foggy.

  “I remember being in the woods chased by a dog. I was terrified. I recall when the ordeal started and when it was over, but nothing in-between. My mom swept me up in her arms and we left Northfield that night,” I informed him.

  “I will never forget it. I felt every bit of terror you did. It didn’t last long but I begged my parents to make it stop. My mother held me and rubbed my back promising it would be okay,” Brent shared, looking distraught.

  His revelation toiled with my emotions, as I thought about Brent as a small child, wrenching in pain all because of me. It didn’t seem fair. Remembering other times in my life when I was afraid, I pictured a brown-haired little Brent clinging to his mom, his blue eyes filling with tears. My heart ached for him.

  “Last July must have been awful for you. I’m so sorry, Brent,” I said, remembering how much pain I experienced when my parents died. I hadn’t been alone in my struggle after all.

  “Don’t, please. I learned to control the way it affects me. As I got older I accepted that it’s a gift, and that someday it would help me save you. When I felt you yesterday, the only thing I was afraid of was not making it to you in time.” He struggled to finish the sentence. My body stiffened with the memory.

  Brent kept going telling me the Agent wanted to see how I would respond to fear.

  “Your mother told him you were afraid of dogs. They took you into the woods and let the dog loose on you. They assured your parents if the dog made it to you, they would end the experiment. You weren’t in any real danger. Your father protested but your mother convinced him they needed to know. The dog charged after you and you ran screaming, but as the beast got closer, you turned and faced him. Just as you did at Maggie’s, yesterday, you created an encasement around your body, manipulating energy. The dog smashed against it and fell to the floor, yelping in pain from the impact. It was confirmed. You were The Locket child.”

  Relief swept over me. My parents weren’t crazy after all. Their erratic behavior was all to conceal my identity, keeping me safe from this monster, Kace.

  “Are you okay? Please don’t worry, Claire. This is all meant to be.”

  “I’m not worried,” I lied. “Why would you think that?”

  “You purse your lips to the side and put your head down whenever you’re worried,” Brent teased, easing the tension that had been clinging strongly to the air between us. I was thankful to him for the break in intense conversation.

  “I do not!” I argued, knowing darn well that he was right. I pursed my lips again in an exaggerated fashion, and looked at him through a furrowed brow in a lame attempt at pouting.

  A contagious smile curled at the corners of his beautiful mouth. He let a laugh roll of his lips and shook his head. “You’re hilarious, Blake.”

  Oh, so we were back to Blake now. Whenever he was teasing and playful, I was Blake and when he was serious, I was Claire. Sticking my tongue at him, I tucked that thought away for future reference.

  “So, what do we do now?” I asked.

  He told me we would wait until I was ready and then we would start chasing. Once we found Kace, we would isolate him so he couldn’t escape The Realm again.

  “When that is completed, we should have an easy time rounding up his followers. Peace will be restored in the physical world. Once again, The Realm can function as it has for centuries assuring that humans fulfill their purpose, successfully, and move onto the next one.” He summed it all up, confidently.

  “Just like that, huh?” I said, mocking him with my tone.

  “Just like that,” he said, his blues eyes sparkling.

  “How will we know when I am ready?” I asked curiously.

  “We’ll know,” he assured me.

  CHAPTER 8

  “When deep down in the core of your being you believe that your soul mate exists, there is no limit to the ways he or she can enter your life.” – Arielle Ford

  This was all so much to take in. Suddenly, so many things my parents said to me over the years had meaning. I knew I should be afraid, but I wasn’t. For the first time in my life, I understood. Finally, I had a purpose and a real destination in this life and I was embracing it openly. Well embracing most of it. Reese was a conflict I was not yet prepared to resolve. While I still had so much to think about, and a bazillion questions were swirling in my mind, it wasn’t consuming me. A heavy weight was lifted off of me. My parent’s mercurial behavior was now alleviated because I understood.

  It would stand to reason, that on this day, I was not prepared to begin my pre-destined fight. With that, I decided a little fun was in order, and since Brent was back to calling me Blake, I thought he would be up for it.

  “Wanna walk?” I asked Brent.

  He watched me curiously as I made my way down the stone path to the pebbled beach below. I grabbed a small bucket from a space under the deck that was littered with beach toys.

  “Come on, collect rocks with me,” I called up to him.

  “Okay,” Brent agreed, smiling. “Let me just grab my sketch book. I can’t resist the scenery.” It was picture perfect. I could see why he would want to draw it.

  Brent joined me, and we walked together on the beach, examining rocks as we went. Brent took a seat and began drawing in his book. I continued filtering though the many stones. Some of them were rea
lly amazing, appearing to glow in the sun’s reflection like hot coals. Most of the ones I gathered were brilliant amber in color. After scrutinizing them, I realized they were probably not Jasper at all but some sort of volcanic rock. I couldn’t quite pinpoint the makeup of the mysterious stones. Some might be quartz, and my scientific brain wrestled with what category they belonged in. Brent teased me, telling me my inner nerd was too loud, and I should just relax and enjoy how beautiful and unique each stone was. They were magnificent, especially when they were wet. I felt like spending hours, maybe even days, on this beach, examining each intricate stone.

  The sound of the waves as the water cascaded through each of the stones was so different from the sound you would hear on a sand beach. It was louder, more aggressive, like the water was assaulting each stone as it drew back. I decided I could listen to it for hours.

  The urge to run into the water surprised me, and without thinking, I went for it. I made it no further than my ankles before I realized it was freezing. The entire lower half of my body went numb as the frigid water cooled my veins in seconds. Turning, I bolted back to shore, tripping on the uneven surface, falling on my derriere, right as a wave reached the shore, drenching the rest of me.

  Twisting my head, I saw Brent was laughing at me.

  “I’m glad you’re amused, Cassidy,” I teased, mimicking his playful use of last names. But the words were unidentifiable babble as I shouted them through chattering teeth.

  Brent came to offer me a hand with a giant grin plastered to his smug face. I gave him a dirty look and attempted to get up on my own, but failed miserably.

  “Come on Blake, you have to admit, that was funny,” he teased.

  Seriously, I wasn’t laughing.

  “It was not,” I protested, stifling a giggle. Failing again to get my legs under me, the waves continued cooling my blood. I was sure if I didn’t accept Brent’s hand for help, I would die right there of hypothermia.

  “Come on, Blake. Your lips are turning blue,” he said, rolling his eyes when I refused his hand.