Call Dad, she thought. Just call him. He'll send money. He'll help.
She fingered her mobile phone in the pocket of her dress. Whenever she thought about calling him, something stopped her. The sound of the last argument between Mum and Dad rang in her ears. He wasn't the Dad she used to know, the one with the soft voice and the warm hugs. He was tense and fidgety now. One of her last memories of him before he left was watching him tap his fingernails against a glass of scotch. Then he dropped his tie on the floor as he stumbled through to the kitchen for a top-up. He shouted a lot. He was a drunk. No, she wouldn't call Dad. Not yet. But she had to eat.
Andrea was not a thief. She was a quiet teenager, one who stayed away from the bad kids. One who kept herself to herself. But she considered it today. Just a bottle of water and a Mars bar. She could pay them back another time. The hard kids from school stole from the corner shop all the time, she'd seen them.
All she had to do was wait until the old man behind the counter served a customer and then she could quickly pocket something before going back to browsing the magazines. She had a tote bag, she could drop food and water in that.
Could she do it?
Would he recognise her face?
She stopped outside the shop. It was old, like everything in the town, yet the quaint stone front made it seem welcoming. Accessible. She wouldn't get into too much trouble here. Surely. They wouldn't call the police. Not here. In a city somewhere with knives and guns they might, but not here. Here was safe. Right?
The boy from the beach would be able to steal. He would walk into any place and do whatever he wanted. How else did he get away with spending the nights dragging a stick through the sand on the beach? He was fearless. This was what fearless people do.
She sucked in a deep breath and opened the door.
When the old man smiled at her, she almost bolted. How could he still be so nice? Even after all those years of all those kids nicking sweets and chocolates when his back was turned. She hated him then, for his niceness. Didn't he know he wasn't supposed to play that character? He was supposed to be the grown up everyone could hate. The one that made it okay to get back at. Instead, his amiable blue eyes twinkled at Andrea and he offered her a piece of liquorice as she walked past the counter.
"I remember you," he said. "From the school, right?"
She answered mid-chew. "Yes."
"You're one of the good ones." He moved his glasses up his blood-shot nose. Andrea's eyes lingered on the ruddiness of his cheeks, and the strange way his eyebrow hair poked out at all angles. She felt sick. She couldn't do this.
"I wanted to look at the magazines," she blurted out.
"Of course, dear. They're at the back with the chocolate."
She knew. She knew exactly where they all were. She was about to turn and leave, to run away and forget the foolish notion of stealing, when three disheveled men stepped in and began to boss around the shopkeeper, asking for various kinds of old-fashioned tobacco and spirits. Andrea's heart began to beat faster. The scent of stale beer drifted to the back of the shop. Their tracksuits crinkled and crunched. Now was her chance. With shaking, fervent fingers she snatched a bottle of Evian and a handful of chocolate bars, shoved them in her tote bag and hurriedly made her way back to the entrance. Each step felt like an eternity. It dragged, as though she walked against a tide, yet she was certain she was moving fast, suspiciously fast.
"Hold on there," called the shopkeeper as she reached the entrance.
Andrea felt sweat beading on her forehead and down her back. Her face was red, she was sure of it.
"Didn't you find what you were looking for?" he asked.
She shook her head, too nervous to speak.
"Is it something I can order for you?"
Tears welled and burned behind her eyes. She longed to blurt out her crime.
I stole it, all right. I stole it.
But her stomach rumbled and she remained silent.
His eyes narrowed as his gaze followed her hands gripping the side of her tote bag.
"Is everything all right?"
"Oi, mate," interjected one of the men. "You serving us or what?"
The shop keeper turned back to the men and frowned before returning his gaze to Andrea's tight fist around the top of her bag. She sensed his suspicions and began to back away. When she noticed the man's jaw slacken, and the disappointed shrug of his shoulders, she realised that he knew what she'd done.
"You didn't? You didn't take something did you?"
And that was it. Her legs were moving faster and faster, her feet tripping as she ran. If she turned back, she thought she would see the face of the man hurrying towards her, she could hear his shouts and it brought the tears out. Wind and tears. She ran.
Copper hair in the moonlight.
She had run like this to the water's edge one night. As the shops whizzed past her in a blur, they faded into the jagged rocks of the cliffs. As her hair trailed out behind her, she imagined the breeze coming off the sea, instead of the startled look of the passers-by.
On and on without a break, running at a sprint only the young can manage. She thought about that note. She thought about the empty fridge and the boiling kettle and the quiet house.
Blue walls.
The sea.
The blue on her dress.
It all merged.
And as she ran, seemingly aimlessly away from that shop and the little man inside, she realised that she knew where she was running to. And sure enough, she was trotting down the many steps to the small, secluded alcove that had been her home while her mum walked and walked. Steps carved into a cliff, older than the safety rail that accompanied them.
When her feet hit the hot sand a sigh of relief escaped her lips. She threw herself onto the sand, stopped crying, and laughed instead. If this had been some sort of initiation into a group of bad kids, she would have passed. She would be one of them. She could swear freely, and spray paint onto walls, and sniff glue in the park. See, the thing was, people were so busy telling you what it's like to do the right thing, they never told you what it felt like to do the wrong thing, and it felt kind of good.
She pulled herself half up and crossed her legs under her. Her hands trembled, partly from the chase, partly from the lack of sugar in her blood, so she gulped down a quarter of the water first, then took a big bite of the Mars bar.
This was the beach from her dreams, or her sleep walks. She knew why she was drawn here during the day. This was where she talked with the copper haired boy under the moon.
It was a part of the coastline that seemed dug away by a spoon, like the clumsy first portion of a jelly. It was rounded and yet jagged, with lots of rocks piled haphazardly. The waves crashed against the rocks, but it was a warm, not too windy day, which made the sound more relaxing than overbearing. There were few seagulls because there were no people to feed them.
Andrea was alone. And for the first time she really felt it. She was aware of the loneliness. Perhaps it had all built up to this moment. She stared down at her stolen food and hugged her knees.
The sun cooled as the day moved on. She ate one chocolate bar at the beginning of each hour until the sky turned blood red and the tide withdrew away from the rocks. She pulled a cardigan out of her tote bag and wrapped it around her shoulders.
Mum can make her own tea.
Would she be missed? Would her mother know?
There was an ache coming from deep inside her. The muscles of her legs were tight and weary. She checked her phone for calls and messages. There were none.
She leaned back and watched the bruised sky turn black. At least her father had never hit her mother. There is that. But he did take Sophie with him, and that left her with nothing.
There was no moon tonight.
She slept and awoke, with the feeling of not being alone. Before her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she heard the soft scrape of a stick in wet sand. The tide had come back in,
and her toes were tangled with seaweed. When she reached forward to remove it, she saw him.
The boy.
"You're here," she said. "And you're real."
He continued to write in the sand.
"Where do you come from?"
He shrugged, still crouched down with his feet planted firm and flat on the beach. "Here."
"You live here?" she asked.
He nodded.
"How long have you lived here?"
"Don't know." He had a child's voice with a dark edge. Like a sharpened butter knife. "I didn't always live here."
"Where did you live?" Andrea asked.
"With you."
A strange jolt ran down Andrea's spine. It could have been be a jolt of recognition, or a jolt of fear, she wasn't sure.
"No? that can't be right. You must be confused."
The boy shrugged and continued to drag his stick in the sand.
"What's your name?" she asked.
But he didn't answer. "You are Andie."
"How do you know my nickname?" Andrea's skin had chilled. She pulled her cardigan closer.
He shrugged. "Just do."
Andrea sat and watched the boy for a few moments, when she realised that he was writing one word over and over in the sand. There was little light on the beach, only the faintest glimmer of street lamps from up on the cliff somewhere, probably from the town. She had to lean forward very close to the sand. When she read the words her hand rose to her mouth and she moved away from the boy, because she finally knew his name.
She had always known his name. Why hadn't she realised?
The boy watched with his calm, dark eyes as she bundled up her knees and rocked forward and back.
"That won't stop it," the boy said. "It won't make it go away. I know that because Mummy knows it too. She says it when she comes to visit sometimes. She says it'll never go away, no matter how much she walks and walks."
Andrea's mind raced as she put together all the fragments. The lack of photographs at home, the quiet rooms, the screaming matches between her parents. And then the envelope. There was a reason for the envelope, and a reason why she wrote 'love always' on a random note.
"Where is she?" Andrea breathes. "Where did she go?"
The boy shrugged again. Except he wasn't the boy anymore. How could she have forgotten? What happened to her mind?
Charlie stayed silent.
Andrea reached for him, to grab his arm like she used to when he was alive, but he faded into the darkness.
And now she remembered: the pitying glances at school, the sad day stood around a hole in the ground as they lowered his tiny wooden box into the soil, the way her parents clung to each other at first, and then moved further and further away until they never touched, never talked, only screamed.
When Dad left with Sophie, something happened to her mind. She realised that now. Something happened to her as well as Mum. They both went missing in different ways.
Andrea stood and walked to the edge of the sea, letting it lap against her. She turned to the right, where she knew was a natural cave tucked into the cliff. She knew what she would see before she even looked.
She'd found her. After all those days of looking, all those walks on the cliffs, all those silent meals, she had finally found her. For the first time, she thought her mother beautiful and not just Mum. A woman, almost a stranger, stood with an arm around her little brother, Charlie. Their faces remained solemn and dark, with the same soulful brown eyes. They were barely visible in the darkness, little more than shadows. She wished they looked peaceful.
About Sarah Dalton
Sarah grew up in the middle of nowhere in the countryside of Derbyshire and as a result has an over-active imagination.
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She has been an avid reader for most of her life, taking inspiration from the stories she read as a child, and the novels she devoured as an adult. She is the author of popular YA series The Blemished, and the YA horror series Mary Hades.
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Shadowspirit
M.A. George
"Remind me never to agree to this in the future," Cyril pants, arms pumping faster.
A bloodthirsty roar echoes through the glen, closer behind us than a moment ago. "You had better run faster, or you shan't be having a future," I wheeze, surging ahead to jump a split-rail fence. My feet are moving again the moment they find land, tall rye grass whipping my boots. Thank the stars I'm too poor for underskirts and satin slippers.
Cyril's palm presses against my back, as if either of us could run any faster. "The next time you have a mind to summon a grimwraith, Henta-" Another ravenous roar interrupts his train of thought. Bickering will have to wait for a time we're not running from the spawn of Hell. Cyril darts around a haystack and points ahead to a plemwood thicket. "Do you really suppose he's going to help us?" He glances over his shoulder, never breaking stride.
A guttural snarl snaps at our heels. "Does it sound like he's going to help us?"
"Your idea, not mine." The sweat of Cyril's palm presses into my back again. "Just trying to stay optimistic."
We plunge headlong into the thicket. Cyril tries to hold back the branches, but they lash and scratch and slice at my face, grasping with their reedy arms, giving way with reluctant snaps and pops as we wade forward through the brambles. I try to calm my huffing breath, ears searching through the whistling twilight breezes and chirping yulejays and Cyril's muffled panting beside me.
"Perhaps he'll move on," he whispers, pressing forward into a clearing, "and we can abandon this plan altogether."
I arch an eyebrow. "That thing could hear a Talis heartbeat across the earldom. You expect he's going to saunter past two of them? Pounding like this?" I press my palm to my heaving chest and crouch beside Cyril on the edge of the clearing, the new spring leaves overhead shadowing the sun's fading rays. "And this plan is all we've got. We need answers."
He draws his dagger, but it's not for defense. Grimwraiths laugh in the face of sharpened steel. Cyril begins tracing an arc of runes around us, and I use my own blade to complete the circle. Neither of us admits that grimwraiths also laugh in the face of fortification runes.
A sharp gust of wind cuts through the thicket, whipping my hair from its braid, and sending the yulejays screeching for the skies. The earth itself trembles in fear. Cyril sheathes his dagger, taking my hand instead. "Ready?"
"No." I meet his eyes and nod anyway.
A brief smile flickers across his lips, quickly squelched when a roar that would wake the dead booms overhead and underfoot. It rattles the leaves and shudders my bones, filling my ears and sucking the breath from my lungs. I rise to stand and shout into the tempest, "Emissary of Lucifer, spawn of Hell's womb?It is I-Henta Mourngard, daughter of the Darkheart bloodline, conjurer and necromancer-who call you forth from the depths this day, seeking your counsel."
A low, eerie rumble stirs the trees, morphing into an amused chuckle. "What do I care for divination, young Talis?" The voice smolders, coming from everywhere at once, resonating like a battle horn-grim and deep-humming through my skull. "Humans always ask for destiny foretold, and it is always the same in the end?Death." Another rumble of laughter resounds in my ears.
I hold my ground, even as a figure materializes at the opposite end of the clearing. At least twenty hands high, maybe thirty-if you count the horns aflame-like a bull standing on hind legs, but with the muscled torso of a man, and flesh the color of rotten trout. Smells roughly the same, if said trout died by firestorm.
I try to stand a little taller. "My destiny is mine alone," I reply. "It is not my own fate I seek?but that of another. One who has already crossed beyond the veil."
Another haughty chuckle rumbles from the grimwraith's chest, a cloud of smoke puffing from his gaping nostrils. "If you wish to see what lies beyond the veil, perhaps you should cross it yourself,
Talis." His hoof edges toward me, a greedy forked tongue flicking over his decaying lips.
Cyril rises beside me, muttering a stream of incantations. Between calling for the Protection of the Ages and summoning the Divine Star's fortitude, he sandwiches in, "Are you sure this is a good idea, Henta? As grimwraiths go, this one is particularly ill-mannered."
I reach for his hand, feeling his fingers reflexively threading through mine, but my eyes stay trained on the grimwraith. "I seek a shadowspirit, a watchman of the Seventh Order, my protector-"
"Some protector, this shadowspirit." The grimwraith's right hoof steals another step my way. "Perhaps he has already foreseen your fate this day, and surrendered his soul to the underwraiths in forfeit."
I scoff. "He would sooner die."
"A commendable feat. I should like to meet this shadowspirit who would manage to die twice." The grimwraith smirks, a hideous twist of his maggot-ridden maw. "Seventh Order, you say? Had a bit of a quarrel with such a watchman recently?seemed to think he should have the run of my archives. A pity I did not think to try killing him."
"Where is he?" I step forward, but Cyril keeps me tethered. Obviously, I shouldn't make a habit of stepping closer to demons?but desperate times call for exceedingly stupid measures. The grimwraith leers, relishing my desperation, but I press on. "What did Jakob seek from your archives?"
Scorn ignites his eyes. "Had the gall to ask after a grimoire, as if a common shadowspirit could barter for such a prize." Laughter rumbles deep in his throat, a sputtering crucible of smoke and embers. "'Twas a bold request, as bold as it was futile. Your watchman's bravery does him credit." He inhales deeply, ribbons of smoke snaking back to his cavernous nose. "I detect a seasoning of that courage in you, young Talis. Delectable."
"If-" I swallow. "If Jakob has been harmed, you shall answer for it."
"There is a narrow line betwixt courage and insolence." His head cocks to the side, a burst of flame arcing between his towering horns. "Take care not to cross it. Insolence has such a bitter aftertaste."
"I shall ask you once more?" My teeth grind, though my knees quake. "Where. Is. Jakob?"
Spectral Tales Page 4
