When Darkness Falls - Six Paranormal Novels in One Boxed Set

by Shalini Boland

  Angela stopped chewing and frowned, not sure how she should respond to this question. Or was it a statement. Humans, so many rhetorical questions. “Is that a rhetorical question?” she asked anyway, just to clarify.

  “Rhetorical question? I’m eleven, I don’t even know what that means,” Grace said, then continued with a mouthful of food, making it hard for Angela to understand her. “Do you own a bike? I know a really cool place, if you would prefer to go for a ride?” She paused for a moment to swipe a piece of chicken off her chin then continued.

  “My bike is new, the last one I had got smashed during the thunderstorm. The tree in the backyard fell on it…Boom!” She clapped her hands together for effect then gently persuaded a piece of meatloaf into her mouth with her thumb.

  Angela, momentarily startled by Grace's sudden clap of hands, looked up from behind her apple. “A movie sounds splendid; I am not in the possession of a bike, nor do I like bikes,” she said, placing the barely eaten apple back on the table.

  Grace nodded, and swallowed another piece of meatloaf. “Okay then, a movie it will be. I’ll go find one and get it started while you bring the food over.”

  Grace hopped off her chair and went into the lounge room to search for a movie. She left the motionless Angela staring hesitantly at all the uneaten food still piled in front of her on the table.

  Does she really want all of this food? Angela wondered, contemplating her present predicament. She realized that she was totally unaware of just how much food this child would need to appease her evident feeling of starvation. By all accounts, her body did not look like it had been undernourished.

  Grace came back to help with the food. “Come on, get a wiggle on,” she said grabbing various plates of food from the table. Angela slid off her chair and followed Grace, without the wiggle.

  They placed the plates of food on the carpet in front of the television and sat cross-legged watching movies for the next three hours. They watched, listened, and learned. Angela did most of that. They ate, talked, and giggled. Grace did most of that.

  Grace learned that Angela’s parents were both shift workers, so Angela was left to fend for herself most of the time. This fact didn’t seem to upset Angela as she spoke of it; in fact, she appeared to prefer her solitary existence. Angela spoke with an unexpected knowledge and confidence, and then at other times, she became distant and withdrawn, like she wasn’t in the room anymore.

  Angela, Grace decided, was a little odd, almost like an old person in a young body.

  “An assortment of fascinating contradictions.” That is how her father Brian would have described Angela.

  Angela smiled occasionally while she watched Grace intently, learning about her. She learnt about things that made Grace happy, what made her sad. How her forehead would furrow as she wiped a tear away with the back of her hand when she spoke of her father. How much she missed him. She learnt how much food Grace could consume before she declared that she was stuffed. She took this to mean, that Grace had eaten an adequate amount of food to ward off her feelings of starvation, for now.

  Grace chatted about her mother, who still cried herself to sleep each night. The ballet lessons, that she had quit going to now that her father had died. She didn’t feel like dancing anymore.

  Grace thought briefly about Hope, random images of her friend fleeted through her mind. Her attention shifted, the images fled. Like a feather swept quickly away in an impetuous flurry of wind along a deserted sidewalk.

  Grace focused her attention back to the present - to Angela - and talked about Parap Primary, the school they would attend in the morning. They would both walk, she had decided, because Angela didn’t own a bike.

  “You’re in my class at school you know, I saw you when you came into the room and Miss Bell introduced you to the class.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Maybe you could sit next to me on Monday, if you want to.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it’s just that I don’t really have any friends, and you’re new so… maybe we could be friends, what do you think?”

  “I concur,” Angela responded, and then tried a smile; it seemed like the appropriate response.

  “Concur?” Grace said, squishing her face into a frown.

  “Oh, yes, I mean yes, I agree, friends would be good, we will sit together.”

  Angela made a mental note to try and think like an 11-year-old child. It wasn’t going to be easy. Nothing about being human was easy. Mortals, she decided, were such a complex race of beings with so many illogical inconsistencies and idiosyncrasies.

  “Great, I’m so glad,” Grace said, beaming. Having a friend, she decided, would make the long school hours more bearable.

  “Would you like me to paint your fingernails?”

  Angela studied her nails; they appeared to be the correct color. “Yes?” she replied. More in the way of a question than an answer.

  “Great, what color? I’ve got lots,” Grace said running off to her room to find her box of fingernail varnish.

  Grace sat and busied herself with coloring Angela’s nails while they watched their movie. “There, what do you think?”

  “Well,” Angela said hesitating, and trying not to look too mortified. “This is very colorful isn’t it?” She looked at each one of her painted nails and cuticles in turn. Each one a different color from the first. In the centre of each brightly coloured nail Grace had stuck a small round smiley face. “Not at all what I expected, but thank you… I think.”

  “Mum says that I’m very creative,” Grace said, studying her workmanship.

  “Creative… yes, that is one way at looking at it, I suppose.” Angela sniffed the strong smelling liquid on her fingers and screwed her nose up. “It doesn’t smell very nice, does it?”

  “Okay, your turn to do mine,” Grace said thrusting out her hands out toward Angela.

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure I don’t do creative,” Angela said with a horrified look on her face.

  “Oh come on, I did yours, now it’s your turn to do mine. Or,” Grace said unfolding her legs out from under her, “you could paint my toenails.” She wriggled them enthusiastically at Angela.

  “Fingers,” Angela announced, unscrewing a bottle of pink glitter varnish.

  So, it was on this sunny Sunday, while watching television with Angela and painting nails, that Grace’s heart began to heal. It was also from this day forward that Grace and her odd little friend Angela became inseparable best friends.

  “I’m pretty creative with hair, too,” Grace said, admiring Angela’s satiny shoulder length hair. “Do you want me to-”

  “Definitely not,” Angela said shaking her head frantically.

  “Oh, come on… let me just try this one thing,” Grace said picking up a pair of scissors.

  “Woops,” Grace muttered as they both watched a clump of Angela’s fringe fall to the floor in front of them.

  Chapter 10—A Secret Bond Bound by Blood

  The roles between Kate and Grace changed dramatically during the days that inevitably ran headfirst into the weeks, then months, that followed Brian’s death. Grace comforted her mother, as though Kate had been the frail child suffering from the loss of a beloved father.

  Then, when Wade disappeared, leaving her alone to cope with Kate’s and her own crippling grief, Grace’s demons began to circle again.

  Grace missed Wade’s comforting presence during her tortuous nightmare-filled nights. She missed him watching over her like an Angel rising up from the depths of her darkest shadows to protect her, guard her from her hungry demons. He had been there for her, when her dreams had made her scream out into the still of night. He had held her heaving, broken body tightly against his chest until her tears, and the raging storms outside, subsided.

  In the morning, while Kate slept in her self-induced coma, Wade would prepare breakfast for her before she left for school. She would always wave goodbye to him happily, knowing that he would be there waiting for h
er when she returned.

  Grace would run through the front door after school to find Wade. But on this day, as she ran into the house, he was not at his usual spot at the kitchen table, drinking coffee.

  She called out to him, “Wade…” but there was no answer to push the creases from her brow. But denial can clasp your hand at the darndest of times and lead you slyly down the well-worn path to unrequited hope.

  “Oh, I get it; we’re playing hide-an-seek…” she called out as she twirled herself around. Mocking faces from photographs smiled out at her from glassy picture frames hanging on the walls.

  “You can’t hide from me forever, you know, I’ll find you...” She ran behind the sofa, nothing. She ran through the house searching each of the room’s in turn. All but one. She avoided her mother’s room. She would probably still be curled up in bed, hidden under the sheets hiding, or asleep. She was never sure.

  Behind the laundry door, searching. Still nothing... She ran down the hall to her bedroom and leapt inside with her arms outstretched. “Ta-da! I found you!” she squealed out but the room remained unmoved—silent.

  No Wade. No hope. Who would tell her now it was going to be okay?

  That is when she saw the leather bound book on her bed with ‘Grace’ etched in gold on the front cover. She traced her fingers over the gold letters, then opened it, and read the handwritten inscription inside.

  Grace, A secret bond bound by blood.

  Forever.

  Wade.

  She read it again, this time out loud. Perhaps the answers she was looking for would come to her if she read the words out loud.

  She opened her palm and looked at the fine lines in her hand, lifelines. There was no visible mark where a small scar should have been. Was that an answer? Or was it just another unanswered question to a riddle?

  She sat on her bed and hugged the journal to her chest. She knew then that he had left her; she only hoped that it wouldn’t be for too long. She needed him. She wiped a tear from her cheek. Inside, her soul screamed the scream of a thousand circling demons.

  As time passed, Grace did not have to coax her mother out of bed everyday. Occasionally though, she still had to remind her mother to eat, bathe, brush her hair, her teeth.

  Angela became the shining beacon that lit Grace’s way along the dark path left by Wade’s unexpected departure. She would come over before school everyday to have breakfast with Grace and sometimes, the lifeless Kate.

  After breakfast, Angela would clean up the morning dishes while Grace strode off to her bedroom to dress for the beginning of another school day.

  On these mornings, after Grace had finished dressing, she would watch Angela sitting beside Kate on the old sofa in the lounge room. Angela’s tiny frame almost engulfed and swallowed up between the soft, plump cushions. Angela’s little dog Champ, as always, sat loyally at her feet. His round tiny black eyes, almost unblinking, watched his master attentively.

  Angela would converse with Kate in soothing musical tones. However, it wasn’t the lyrics Angela spoke, more the way that she voiced them through rose bud lips, which were hypnotically soothing to the listeners’ ear. Harps, Grace thought when she heard Angela murmuring softly to Kate.

  Grace never knew what Angela and her mother spoke of, but whatever it was, it was definitely helping. The friendship that grew during this time between Kate and Angela felt somewhat unusual to Grace, misplaced. But the feelings began to pass quickly as her mother began to awaken from the depths of her own darkness.

  Grace let out a sigh. “I’m ready for school when you are Angela,” Grace said as she wriggled into the shoulder straps on her backpack. She walked over to her mother, bent down, and kissed her gently on the cheek. “See you after school, Mum.”

  Kate gave her a weak smile in return as she brushed her fingers lovingly down Grace’s cheek.

  “I’ll be here, waiting. I’ll make something really special for dinner...” She forced an eager smile; it didn’t reach her sad, hollow eyes.

  “That sounds great, mum. See you when I get home,” Grace said. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too, sweetheart,” Kate said from the safety of the old reliable sofa. “You two girls have a good day, okay? I’ll see you here after school.”

  Champ yapped and jumped up on the sofa beside Kate and dumped his head in her lap.

  The girls waved to Kate and trudged out through the door, Grace leading the way. She appreciated her mother’s genuine attempt at sounding somewhat capable. But she knew that it would most likely be beans on toast again that night for dinner. Beans on toast or pizza, both had become the staple evening meal at the Connors household after the prepared meals from various neighbors had run out.

  “Your mother is getting stronger every day, Grace, it won’t be long now before she is back to being her usual self,” Angela said gently, running her hand down Grace’s arm. She could feel the fiery crackle of energy burning her fingertips that steadily increased as Grace’s evident despair grew.

  Grace sighed, “I thought she was getting better, then…” Her voice was swept away by a brisk flurry of wind that twisted loose leaves around her legs as she walked. A streak of glass lightning, then thunder clapped and fractured the cloudless sky overhead.

  Angela pushed Grace along the sidewalk, through the squally of leaves.

  “I think sometimes your mum just has days that are worse than others. That’s all. What do people call them, these bad days?”

  Grace looked at Angela with a serious frown and then slowly her face broke and she collapsed into fits of laughter. She gripped her stomach to try and contain herself. She had to admit, though, that it felt wonderful to laugh out loud like that again.

  “They call them bad hair days,” she said, trying to control herself as she looked down at Angela. A huge clump of hair was still absent from her otherwise perfect fringe.

  Angela glared back at her with a stern look that looked misplaced on her angelic face.

  Grace held her hand over her mouth in an attempt to conceal the remaining grin.

  “I’m so sorry, it’s just that, well, it’s a bit funny you have to admit,” Grace pleaded, trying to pacify her friend.

  “So everyone keeps telling me,” Angela mumbled under her breath as she strode forward, kicking the motionless leaves laying on the path with her shoes and swinging her arms fiercely by her side, leaving the stunned Grace in her wake.

  “Oh, come on, Angela, it was an accident. You weren’t meant to move your head,” Grace said, jogging to catch up. She threw an arm around Angela’s shoulders. “It’ll grow back—eventually. One day we will laugh about this.”

  Angela’s face, although still plastered with a stern frown, hid a secret smile. Grace’s skin no longer burned with the unrestrained energy that had, only moments ago, radiated dangerously from her body.

  The wind had completely settled, leaving random leaves scattered on the ground in their wake. The sun shone encouragingly in the clear blue sky above as they walked down the footpath toward primary school. Sunshine sliced through the dense blanket of despair that had draped itself uninvited over Grace’s world.

  Grace watched as a boy walking a few meters up ahead of them rounded the corner, and gave Angela a little nudge with her elbow.

  “What was that for?” Angela asked rubbing her arm, checking for a bruise she knew she wouldn’t find on her ivory skin.

  “That’s Joshua Deneb.”

  “Yes, that’s Joshua Deneb. I know that. What is the point you are trying to make, Grace?”

  “He likes you,” Grace said factually with a grin on her face. “Should we run and catch up with him?”

  “No, Grace. I am perfectly happy to walk at this pace, which by the way, should get us to the school gate approximately seventeen minutes before school commences.”

  Grace laughed and shook her head. Angela was always so funny. Seriously funny, she thought—in a non-intentional way.

  Angela continued with her
spiel. “As long as we are all heading to the same destination we will all, eventually catch up.

  “Okay, Angela, we can do it your way,” Grace replied happily.

  Angela was, of course correct. She usually was. They arrived at the school gate sixteen minutes and fifty-nine seconds before the school bell sounded.

  Josh was kneeling at the gate when they arrived, waiting and pretending to tie his shoelace. He blushed profusely when they came to a halt in front of him.

  Angela, with her arms folded, glared at him and said, “why are you untying then retying your shoelace, Joshua Deneb?”

  He rose, shoved his hands in his pockets, shrugged, and then failed in preventing the infectious grin that whipped itself across his boyishly good-looking face. Joshua gazed upon Angela, transfixed by her dazzling violet eyes. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. He blushed as she returned his gaze, a frown creasing her brow. “Come on,” Grace announced, tugging on Angela’s arm. “Lets get to class.”

  The three new friends turned in unison and headed toward their waiting classroom. Joshua’s gaze still transfixed on Angela.

  The days continued to slip by unnoticed and Grace began to see glimpses of a future where she could be happy again. She felt energized by the sun as it bathed her skin. She immersed herself in its comforting strong arms of warmth.

  The sunshine offered up a portal into a new life, a new life with the promise of new beginnings. Grace started to feel that maybe this new life was going to be okay after all. Surely the dark painful shadows from the past had gone from her life, never ever to return.

  Even Kate had begun getting up much earlier and was cooking breakfast in the mornings again, or heating up leftover pizza from the night before. And, now and then, Asian food, now that Asian takeaway food menus had been added under the magnet on the refrigerator door. But Grace didn’t mind; it was still a beginning and she welcomed any new beginnings with open arms. She still missed her breakfasts with Wade though; Wade had made breakfast fun.