Hollow Sight

by Kristie Pierce

  “I’m worried about that because for one: I haven’t seen him yet this entire trip, not that that is a bad thing. And two: I really don’t want to walk around in withering pain until I absolutely have to. And last time he took away my sight, which brings me to Evie. I have to do the same thing with her. Get her here, get her to follow, then get her to stay. She can take away my sight too, and, Liam she scared me. More so than Joseph because it’s not actually him that scares me, it’s what he does to me – the physical reaction I have. And I don't think he’s really trying to hurt me” I say as I realize that to be true. I consider that for two short seconds and continue on. “I’ve already pissed Evie off, so who’s to say she won’t do something else besides what we already know she can do? She’s bad, Liam, like, really bad.”

  I’m rambling, I know it, but Liam doesn't miss a beat. He’s very quiet for a moment after, but finally manages to speak. “I’m not sure how to respond to this,” he admits in a tight voice.

  “There’s more.”

  “More?”

  “Sera can’t come with us. She has to stay away.”

  “What? Why?” Liam is losing his cool and his already rigid tone is close to becoming enraged. At least I know that his tone isn't anywhere directed towards me.

  “Something about interfering with the path they have to walk. If she’s there, it could deter both Joseph and Evie from crossing over. Sera is a pure spirit, one that carries light and all things good. Evie is obviously… not. Evie is confused and misguided. She kept talking about some kind of ‘darkness’ reaching out to her and how she liked it. Sera believes by what information she’s learned from The Eytsah, that her presence will make Evie think it’s a trick to take away her power, because she thinks she’s now something more than just an uncrossed, non-living… person. Same goes for Joseph; he doesn’t even realize he’s died, so Sera’s presence may confuse him. His loved ones need to be who guide and welcome him Home.”

  “But I'm assuming Joseph has already seen Sera. Right?”

  I remember back to just a couple days before, at my coach’s house when Joseph had followed Liam after I’d arrived to beg him to see me, and how Sera had been standing there. I nod and then shrug my shoulders.

  “So we’re on our own,” he confirms.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And we have to bait, line, and sink both Joseph and Evie? Sera is unable to help with that, too?”

  “Yes. She left already and told me she would not be back until after this was over. In case one or both of them are trying to make contact with me already.”

  One way or another, I think, dead or alive, I won’t see Sera until Liam and I are complete in our mission.

  That may have been a dramatic thought to have, but I really believe that if Evie wants to, she’ll kill me. And I thought the pain Joseph could cause long ago might just do me in. So with the two combined, I am not in such good shape. Everything I know about the spirit world is crumbling down around me so fast, I can't make sense of it all. And now I’ll be smack dab in the middle of it whether I like it or not – whether I understand it or not. But the worse part, Liam is in danger. Do I tell him this? How do I?

  “How are we going to do this?” he asks quietly. His voice is no longer angry, he’s very clearly alarmed.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  I look up to see him studying my face. “What do you mean?”

  Liam sighs and brings his hand up to cup my cheek. “Breckin, you’re not telling me everything. Don’t hide anything from me; I can handle it. Together, remember?”

  “Sera explained spirit attachment to me.”

  “What is that?’

  “It’s when a spirit or ghost attaches themselves to a living person. In this case, Joseph has attached himself to you. That’s why you can sense him. The living host – that’d be you – starts to feel sensitivities toward the spirit, sensing them, feeling their emotion. I thought that maybe you had a subtle gift like I do that made it so you can tell when ghosts are around, because you can feel Evie also. But it’s not that, it’s this spirit attachment.”

  “Okay, so more reason to be rid of them.”

  Liam nods and stands up.

  “Where are you going?” I ask worriedly, sitting up rigidly on the edge of his bed. I haven’t told him the worst part yet – that he’ll start to experience not only the emotions of Joseph’s death, but the injuries in which he died as well. Only for Liam, unlike me, he’ll actually begin to die just the way Joseph had.

  “I’m fetching my guitar. You told me why you were scared, so now I’m keeping my end of the deal.”

  “You don’t want to talk about this?” I ask as my voice shoots up a few octaves.

  “No. We’ll deal with it when the time comes.”

  “But Liam, the time has already come. Joseph is already attached to you, and it’s less than twenty-four hours away from the anniversary of the accident, and we have no idea what we’re going to do, and I haven’t seen Joseph, although that’s a good thing if you ask me, but what if he doesn’t come and what if Evie does something terrible, and what if I can’t do it, and what if…”

  “Shhhhh,” he soothes, rushing over to me. “Breckin.”

  I’m panicking. I am totally losing it and I don’t understand how he can be so calm. How he can just brush all of this off for now and go about business as normal? I close my eyes and struggle to calm down. I have got to get my act together. Frequent panic attacks are not only embarrassing, and not like me, but also exhausting. Oh, and completely annoying.

  “Breckin,” he repeats.

  “What,” I whimper, opening my eyes.

  Liam is directly in front of me now, inches from my face, and he’s staring at me very intently. He cups my face into his hands and kisses me gently. His kissing doesn’t leave me gasping or with my head spinning at first like it normally does. As his lips softly move with mine, I get a feeling of safety and completion. As he wraps his strong arms around me, I know in that moment that everything is going to be okay. That he and I will be able to do this. All of my fears scatter to the back of my mind as warmth and fire shoots through my veins. When Liam twists one of his hands into my hair though, that’s when the normal head swirling and stomach flipping start. I desperately wrap my arms around his neck and smash my body to his. But before I can get too lost in our little moment, Liam starts chuckling against my lips.

  “Better?” he asks as he pulls away.

  I narrow my eyes. “That’s just mean.”

  “Breckin, I can’t help it if you get so worked up by just one little kiss,” he teases.

  “And you don’t?” I retort.

  “I didn’t say that,” he says softly. “Are you better, though?”

  “I guess so. But if I start to have another panic attack, I’m afraid your lips just might be stuck to mine. And the next one probably won’t be so short. It could last for hours.”

  “Thank you for the warning. I think I’m up for it.”

  I relax and watch Liam gather some of the papers he had shooed from the bed and he walks over toward me with guitar in hand, twisting the square-silver-turny-things on the end while giving the strings a few small strums as he sits down. I can’t help but to get a bit excited. I am going to crack one of the Liam Francis Mysteries. This is one of the reasons I have come to England; to learn more about him.

  “I haven’t played in a long time, so be patient with me. I’m a little rusty.”

  I smile hugely. “Okay.” I can’t believe it, he’s actually going to play for me! When he’d promised to show me what all of that was, I thought he was just going to tell me what he’d been doing. Instead, I’m going to have my own private little concert. I feel like a giddy teeny-bopper at a boy-band concert with a backstage pass.

  Liam closes his eyes and inhales a steadying breath. He doesn't open his eyes as he begins to play, and from the very first chord I am completely lost in the music.
His hands move competently with the instrument, pinching and stroking the guitar wires effortlessly. The chords sing out from his commands giving away no signs of error. He doesn’t need to look at the notes he had jotted down on the sheets of paper next to him, and I wonder why he’d even had them out. He softly hums along as he plays, implicating lyrics to be sung, but never sings them full out. I watch his face and he appears to be totally relaxed, and too, he seems to melt into the song becoming part of the chords and lyrics he isn’t willing to sing. It becomes shockingly obvious that this is Liam's gift. If he hadn’t told me, I’d never have known that he hasn’t played in a long time as he continues to stroke and caress the guitar like a lost lover.

  The beat to the song isn’t slow nor particularly fast – sort of in between, giving it a muted sadness. When he repeats a part of the song half way through, I guess it to be the chorus, but this time when he plays it, it’s louder giving it more meaning somehow. Kind of like that part of the song that’s your favorite because it climaxes and gives you goose bumps while making you think of some memory you’d long forgotten. Only the memories I think of are those of Liam and I, never forgotten. Every minute we’ve spent together, good or bad, all come to mind. His humming is slightly louder as well, and his face breaks way to a Liam I've never seen before. He’s totally secluded in the moment as he picks away at the strings toward the end of his song. His face looking complicated and dramatically simple at the same time, emotions playing over his features as he connects the song with his own memories.

  I want to talk to him and tell him how good he really is, but I don’t want to break his concentration. And I certainly don’t want him to stop playing. So instead, as he strums away on his dark glossy guitar, I sit silently next to him and listen. As I remember those first days together, I glance over his features. I drink in the way his sandy brown hair – a little longer now – falls into his aqua eyes, eyes that are a color so intense, and so beautiful they still cause me to gasp just a little. He holds his jaw hard with focus which still has a sexy covering of stubble. It surprises me how much I like him with a dusting of facial hair. Eyebrows puckered over his eyes while his long eyelashes cast shadows over his prominent cheekbones in the dim light of his room.

  Before I can go any further in my ogling, the song ends and he looks up to me with excitement. I open my mouth to tell him how much I loved it, and that’s when I lose sight. I blink against the black in front of me, more surprised than afraid at first, trying to push it away but can’t. I quickly think to which one it could be, and being that I don’t have any type of pain accompanying the blindness, I figure it out quite quickly.

  “Evie,” I gasp.

  “What?” Liam snaps. I feel his bed rise underneath me and I reach out to him.

  “Liam,” I whisper. “I can’t see. She’s close, she has to be.” I’m trying very hard to stay calm. I don’t want Evie to see that she can cause me fear again, and I won’t let Liam know how scared I really am in her presence even though I’ve told him before. Somehow telling and seeing are two very different things.

  “I’m right here, Breckin,” he reassures. His hands come to hold either side of my face as I fight against the blackness.

  “Well, that was touching,” Evie says in a sickly sweet voice. Her voice comes from my right so I turn my head automatically toward it.

  “She’s that way,” I murmur, pointing with my head to where I hear her voice. “Don’t let go of me, Liam. Please,” I beg.

  “I’m here,” he repeats. Liam lets go of my face but hangs tightly to my hand.

  “You know he hasn’t played that thing since I died. Not surprising for what happened I guess. So sad, Liam giving up something he loved so much because I'm gone. He only used to play for me, you know.” Her voice remains fake, like she somewhat cares, although after my last conversation with Evie I know that caring is an emotion she’s no longer capable of.

  “Can I have my sight back, please?” I ask quietly. Somehow asking feels like a small defeat, but maybe if I prove that I’m willing to play by her rules, she’ll leave me alone. Ha!, my subconscious sneers. “I really don’t see the point in taking it away.” I murmur then.

  “Oh funny! You made a little joke. Do you see the point in this?” she hisses. My sight is abruptly restored and I automatically look to find her.

  Evie’s expression is violent and she has all her attention focused toward Liam. I turn to him, flinching back from what I might see. All I find though is him looking in the distance as if trying to find Evie all while standing protectively in front of me. His face contains no trace of sadness or anger this time from her presence. His jaw is tight with slight aggressiveness, and his stance rigid, but I know his reaction is from wanting to protect me from something he can’t.

  “Are you all right?” I ask him.

  “I’m fine. Can you see?”

  “Yes.”

  Evie lets out a horrific shriek, a sound not at all human, and in an instant she’s directly in front of us. She had moved so fast that she was a blur of brown hair and white skin for a split second as she barreled toward us. My eyes widen in horror as it’s clear that she is about to do something.

  “You,” she snarls to me. “I warned you not to get in my way. I meant that little, Miss Priss, so just know that I’m coming for you. Nothing is going to be able to protect you from me. Are you listening?”

  “I’m listening,” I choke as I cower into Liam’s side.

  Evie lowers her face to mine. “Nothing.”

  As her terrifying words echo in my ears with a buzzing like angry bees, she vanishes.

  Chapter Thirty

  “Breckin,” a soft, accented voice whispers in my ear. My head is still very thick with sleep so his voice sounds far away. “Breckin,” he murmurs again. This time I feel soft caresses on my cheek followed by more whispering words. “Wake up my love. The sun is shining brightly and I have much to show you today.”

  I groan and peek open one eye. Liam is lying next to me with his gorgeous face resting beside mine sharing my pillow. His tropical eyes bore into mine with an excitement I haven’t seen in a while, and I can’t help but smile in return. I’m lying on my stomach and as I continue to become aware for the day, I feel Liam’s fingers lightly trailing along my spine. I close my eyes again to better enjoy the sensation of his skin touching mine. His weight shifts next to me followed by his breath tickling my back.

  “You’re going to make this difficult I see,” he murmurs in a low voice. “Do you need more time to sleep?”

  I let out a defeated sigh. Liam can never change the fact that I’m not a morning person, although I have to admit that if I were to wake up every day for the rest of my existence this way, I very well may become one. I turn my face into the pillow to sigh again – a very long and exaggerated sigh – as I feel Liam’s nose trailing up my back.

  “How do you do that?” I demand, looking up.

  “Do what?” he answers softly as he kisses up the length of my arm. I am trying to be as stern as an interrogator, but Liam remains cool and confident just as a well-trained spy might be under cross-examination.

  “I swear I fell asleep in my sweatshirt and yet here I lay in my T-shirt that happens to be yanked up to my shoulders…” I trail off as I feel rather than hear Liam begin to chuckle against me. I raise up to rest on my elbows and glare at him. He laughs louder at my expression and shakes his head.

  “Well, madam,” he begins, holding his smile. “You must’ve gotten warm sometime in the night because you ripped your sweatshirt off. Not that I mind your willingness to expose yourself in my presence, but I had no part in your disrobing. You did that.”

  “I did?” I gasp, and then refocus. “But that still doesn’t explain how my T-shirt seems to get yanked up to my neck whenever you’re around.” I say, narrowing my eyes. Not that I don’t enjoy Liam’s hand trailing as lightly as a butterfly’s wings down my spine, and there is never any part of my body exposed that shouldn�
��t be. Ever the gentleman.

  He shrugs, obviously not allowing me in on the secret. “So, are we going to continue to waste the day away laying here discussing how you like to rip your clothes off, or are we going to get around so I can show you London’s fine sights?”

  I collapse back down onto the pillow with my face in its fluffy warmness once more. I feel Liam’s weight lift away from my side, but I stay put. I’ll need another few minutes to fully wake up before I can commit to less sarcastic remarks and fully be able to enjoy the day.

  I’m amazed that I was able to sleep so soundly, forgetting all the worries and fears I’d been encased with during the night. Evie had vanished instantaneously after viciously threatening me, and I think I actually may have had another panic attack. I’m beginning to feel like the past couple of days has been just one long panic attack, actually. I’ve been on the verge of one for so long now that I think after she’d gotten so uncomfortably close to me and after terrorizing me several times yesterday, along with Sera disappearing, my body went into some sort of off-switch mode. I can’t remember much of anything after her warning. Just Liam wrapping his arms around me and listening to the sound of our heartbeats. I don’t remember losing it though, so I’m just guessing.

  I hear the shower in Liam’s bathroom turn on and a little part of me hopes that he hasn’t shut the door all the way so that I won’t be alone in his room. There is not a wall thick enough to keep out a ghost, I know that, but as I recall all the terror I’d felt the night before, I can’t stop the bubble of hysteria from surfacing and being alone is a very terrifying thought.

  I sit up quickly and whirl around in alarm to face Liam’s bathroom, but give a huge sigh of relief when I notice he has only cracked the door just like he’d done last night. I lay back down and surround myself in the left over warmth of the blankets, curling up into a loose ball and refuse to think about our night ahead. Instead, I wonder what kinds of things Liam will be showing me today, where will he take me, what will I see? I don’t think it’ll be much warmer today than it was the day before, so I’m hoping that what I’ve packed will suffice for walking around a frigid city.