Besides the old man, the usual faces were there. Emily was fussing with a metal urn and a big teapot.
He scanned the room for somewhere to sit, while deftly rolling his tobacco. As he licked the cigarette paper, he felt a shiver down his spine followed by an intoxicating smell of perfume. Joe’s mouth dried and he felt his palms sweat. He turned to see the most amazing-looking girl he had ever clapped eyes on. She made film stars like Rita Hayworth look plain. Her red hair, curled and pinned back from her face, shone under the fluorescent lights. Her mouth was full and crimson. Intense hazel and green eyes flashed with life.
“Be a darling and roll me one too.” Her voice was as hypnotic as her body, clear as a bell and filled with swagger. She must have been no more than seventeen, but Joe felt she would devour him in one mouthful. He tried to speak, but he found he couldn’t. The girl plucked the cigarette from his hands. She reached into his pocket and retrieved a box of matches, which she passed to him. He managed to strike the match on his third attempt. She breathed in deeply and exhaled a ribbon of silver smoke then placed the cigarette back onto Joe’s speechless lips.
She strode with a slight swing in her hips, emphasised by the masculine trousers pulled tight around her waist with a wide belt. Her checked shirt was tucked in neatly and unbuttoned enough to show a suggestion of her cleavage. Her sleeves were rolled high revealing her long, shapely white arms. Her collar was turned up in a jaunty fashion.
Every man in the room stood to offer her a chair in competition to win her attention and a flash of her lovely smile. She chose to sit on the table. The only man in the room unaffected by the unknown beauty was the funny old man, Granville. “Be a dear and sit on a chair.” He said.
The girl huffed, revealing some of her teenage years, but graciously accepted one of the four chairs on offer from the eagerly nodding men. “Please, leave one for my new friend.” She nodded in Joe’s direction.
He coughed on his last inhalation of the cigarette. Tommy, easily the most handsome fellow in the room, looked at him with disdain. Joe put out his cigarette and walked tall to his seat.
Granville stood and tapped his china cup with his spoon. He cleared his throat and said, “Welcome to this momentous meeting. I believe you all know each other. I have the great pleasure of introducing Violet, the niece of a dear departed friend from my adventuring days. Violet is from one of the most powerful families from the north of the country. She is the last of the line of witches which can be traced back to Francis Drake’s great gathering of the grand coven of witches. If you remembered, they created the first recorded cone of power, raised to attack the Spanish Armada. I believe she holds something very special which will forge our circle. She is the missing air element, to add to our water, earth and fire. Now we can be fully united and complete to create something unimaginably powerful. Violet, a demonstration?”
The girl stood, nodded and smiled knowingly at Granville. Her eyes glistened as she glanced around at the expectant faces. Her pupils grew and her irises sparkled like kaleidoscopes. She cupped her hands and blew gently into them, then released her fingers, allowing the breath to escape into the room. An unexpected gust of wind whirled outside, rattled the windows and pushed the door wide open. The women held on to their wild and flying hair, as they hovered helplessly, elevated by a cushion of air between the floor and their chairs. Violet stretched her arms wide, exultation on her face. The girl manipulated, twisted and controlled the air in the room to create a small hurricane. Joe was amazed the creaking old hut still remained standing. Gasps from spectators became screams.
“Enough, dear, we need to get started.”
With Granville’s brisk words, the party landed in an undignified heap on the floor. A girlish giggle escaped from Violet.
“To business,” she said.
CHAPTER 7
Present day
I woke with a gasp; electric energy was rushing through my body. My mind drifted to another world, and then it snapped back into my body. Light blazed through the window. I was lying on a huge king-size bed. Joab’s face was inches from my own. I pushed myself away from him. “What do you think you’re doing?”
The worry on his face changed to amusement. “It’s OK. As much as I would like to ravage you, you passed out in the basement.” He laughed. “I thought you had stopped breathing, and I was about to give you mouth to mouth when I detected a whiff of Marmite. Repellent stuff. To my relief, after a few drops of tincture, a whiff of rosemary, you came to. I carried you up two flights of stairs. No need to thank me.”
“How?” I questioned, not forgetting the electric force field between us.
“I got a massive electric shock when I picked you up and was about to leave you in the basement, and I saw some rubber gloves. I put them on, and they did the trick, no electric shock.”
I saw the discarded pink gloves on the floor, then I looked at Joab wearily. Part of me still felt lost in my dream.
“Ugh, thanks,” I muttered, regretting my breakfast choice. I changed the subject. “I was dreaming. I keep dreaming about…” I had a feeling that I shouldn’t tell Joab about the dreams. They were my secret until I figured out what they meant and whether I could truly trust him.
“What are your dreams about?” he asked suspiciously.
“Nothing, just incoherent stuff. They don’t make sense.”
“I feel weird. I am buzzing.” My eyes darted around the room then back to his face. I felt an odd mix of arousal and confusion. For a moment I imagined Joab folding me into his arms as he stroked my head. His long fingers accidently brushed my dry, rough hands, and there was a sizzle of static energy.
I dared to look him in the eyes. I couldn’t resist the magnetic pull between us. I pictured my mouth moving towards his, his towards mine. Get a grip, I thought sternly.
As if Joab were responding to my thoughts, his hand slowly lifted to caress my shoulder. The contact generated another huge wave of electricity, and heat crackled. I jumped with shock; I could barely breathe. The mirror rattled against the wall. There was my blurred reflection again, the white hands pressed on glass. The lips moving, the words, “No!” echoed through my mind. I screwed my eyes up and rubbed them. There was nothing left in the glass except a faint handprint.
Joab abruptly stood up. “I am sorry, I shouldn’t have tried to touch you,” he said, oblivious to whatever happened with the mirror.
“Did you see that? In the mirror? Could you hear anything?” I stared past him at the shining, now completely clear glass.
“No…” Joab was looking at his hands in bewilderment. “Sorry. What about the mirror?”
He clearly hadn’t seen a thing. Perhaps I was going mad. I decided to keep the strange visions to myself.
Then Joab blurted out, “What is going on? What is this static charge between us?” I shook my head and he said, “You are shaking. I think you should stay here tonight. If you want to, I mean if you are comfortable with the idea…you probably shouldn’t drive. I gave you some tincture of herbs, medicine to help you come round and relax you. They can have a sedative effect.”
I looked at Joab stunned. “What herbs did you give me?” I asked suspiciously.
“Harmless stuff, completely natural. I am a qualified herbalist. So…do you want to stay?” he persisted. “Have a think about it. I don’t mean for anything inappropriate. You will have your own room of course.” His hands ran through his hair nervously.
“I won’t,” I said warily. The thought of staying all night in this house was terrifying, but right now, I was more concerned about taming the attraction spinning inside me. I had to get out before I lost control. “Look, I can’t stay, I…I need to finish cleaning, then go home. I have got a project to do.” I pushed myself up.
“Don’t rush to get up. Have a think about it while I get you some tea.” He left the room. I heard him thump downstairs.
I shifted my body and considered standing up, but another wave of dizziness rendered my legs
>
useless.
What if he has been drugging me all along, in the coffee maybe? Maybe the drugs were making me see things. The ghosts were hallucinations, nothing more. Could it also be the reason I was so attracted to him and nothing to do with his beautiful face, amazing body and mysterious demeanour? My eyes scanned the room for clues to suggest any murderous tendencies. Nothing. There was a table. It was empty apart from a glass of water, a couple of burnt out candles, incense and oddly, a small tub of salt. “Ugh,” I said and bashed the side of my head with hand. “I am paranoid.” I began pacing. But wasn’t paranoia a side effect of being on drugs?
I heard Joab downstairs banging cupboards and clinking mugs. A few minutes later, a phone rang, and Joab answered. Too afraid to be on my own in the room, I tiptoed to the top of the stairs so I could hear him more clearly.
“Hey, how’s Spain? Did you get it? Yeah, everything is fine here…Oh Cat? She’s OK. Hang on a second.”
The radio came alive with music and laughter from a pair of presenters, muffling Joab’s talking. I strained my ears to pick out snippets of the conversation. “I am not sure if it’s her. She’s nothing like her. Way too shy. She went into some kind of panic attack. She thinks there is something going on with the house. I haven’t seen anything. Another two weeks? We need the book so take as much time as you need.”
A few minutes later Joab returned with a packet of biscuits and two mugs of tea. “That was Annie, checking in. She says you should stay as long as you like. She’s going to be at least another couple of weeks.”
“I heard you tell her about my panic attack. I wish you hadn’t done that. She may sack me. I panicked because I am a freaked out by the house, this electric current between us and if I am really honest…you.”
“Me?” Joab said, surprised. “What have I done? Annie won’t sack you for a panic attack. She was concerned.”
“Why are you interested in me? Who do you think I am?” I glanced away then forced myself to look at him again before I continued bravely. “Why me? I am a cleaner.” I remembered the cold hard truth about my origins, my strange life. “I am nobody.”
Joab thought for a moment, and his expression became earnest for the first time since we met. “A while ago, I knew a girl. She was something special. She disappeared a very long time ago. When I saw you, you reminded me of her; I dared to think you were her. You look so much like her, uncannily so. Did you feel anything when we first met? Didn’t you feel a connection to me?”
The truth was, I would never forget the moment we met. The moment he tried to possess my soul. I was surprised he felt the same. His honesty helped me relax. Some of the crippling anxiety left me, but I would not let him know how much our first meeting affected me. “I guess it was a little intense.”
I began to wonder. What if I were the girl he knew? The vision I saw in the mirror, the girl who I thought was merely my reflection, could it be the ghost of the girl that looked so much like me? The idea was too far-fetched to be true. Was I once the girl Joab knew, before I lost my memories? What happened to me to make me forget? Should I tell him about my amnesia and complete lack of history?
He sat cross-legged on the bed in front of me. “I think the energy between us could be an elements thing. Don’t laugh…but I believe in magic.” He waited for my reaction. I gave none.
“To make magic, you need a magic circle, and that is made up of four elements of nature. I am fire…a natural leader, passionate, full of fire energy and a protector.”
“And full of yourself?” I teased.
“I think your element is air. It is difficult to tell with you being so secretive. If this is the case, you will be intelligent, funny and intuitive. You should be good at finding lost objects, reading people and their minds, like telepathy.”
“Ha, you are wrong. I am absolutely none of the above!” The truth was I never gave myself a chance to find out if I were any of those things. I knew I was bright, I seem to learn very quickly and I was more intelligent than people gave me credit for.
“Some air elements can travel through time with their mind either into the past or sometimes the future through their dreams. Most seers and clairvoyants are air signs,” said Joab. “I think something has happened to you and put you out of balance.”
“You are so full of shit!” I laughed. “Anyway, how do you know I am an air sign?”
He looked at me quizzically. “Just knew. I pick up on that kind of thing. Your birthday is in June, right?”
“It might be,” I said truthfully.
Joab continued. “The electricity could be our elements colliding, a kind of chemical reaction.” Joab lightly ran his fingers millimetres away from my skin along the inside of my wrist, sending crackles of energy up my arm. His expression was teasing as he glanced at me. “There are books here if you are interested. I can teach you about the magic I practise. We have a few weeks before the others arrive. It’ll be fun, and you might discover something about yourself. I know there is so much more to you than the shy, fragile girl I first met. A nobody? You most definitely are not. There is a reason you stumbled here and took a job that, no offence intended, is not your vocation.”
I looked at him with reluctant curiosity. “I’m not sure it’s my thing.”
Joab peeled off the gloves he always wore and held his hands out in front of him. He urged me to do the same, then allowed his hands to hover just above mine. The electricity crackled, and I watched little gold sparks between Joab’s palms and mine. The warm energy grew until it burned. I snatched my hands away. Joab flipped his palms over, and I gasped and backed away. There were little flames rising from them. I looked for a hidden lighter or something that could create the illusion of fire. There was nothing.
“Your hands are alight!” I gasped.
“No. I am making the fire.” The flames extinguished. Joab slipped his hands back into the gloves. “They are fire retardant. There have been occasions where I have let my emotions get the better of me, and I have set fire to…stuff.” He quickly steered the conversation away from his fire magic, dodging any probing from me.
“Oh, it’s so much more than star signs and the elements, the moon and nature. There is a magical energy inside you, and we are going to wake it. Whether it is me or the house, it is fizzing under your skin. I can feel it.” Light was dancing in his eyes.
“This will sound crazy, but there could be a reason you keep having blackouts and dreams. It could be your magic waking up. Something you have heard or seen may have been the trigger. You could be a seer. A seer travels through time and into other people’s minds by spiritually leaving the body. Have you experienced anything like that ever?”
I laughed, aghast. “Magic? Time travelling? What the hell? Are you talking about witchcraft? Are you a witch?”
Joab nodded. “Yep, but so are you. You are an original too, like a natural witch. The house would not have let you enter unless you were a witch. It is charmed to keep us safe. You don’t need to learn how to be one; you just are one. You just need a refresher course.”
I scoffed in disbelief at the witch revelation and changed the subject much to my own surprise and disclosed a little of my true self.
“I most definitely am not a witch. If I were, I would have turned lots of people into frogs,” I said, thinking of the girls at school. “What makes you so sure? Don’t tell me you just pick up on that kind of thing?”
Joab smiled. “You are learning already.”
“You must convince me that witches are real before you can turn me into one, or find my inner witch, or whatever you plan to do.” I pushed my hair nervously behind my ear and looked at Joab. “I have to tell you something. When I explained that I only recently moved to the area, well, it wasn’t strictly true. I have no memory of who I was until two years ago.” I waited for Joab to react. Nothing. I continued. “I walked into Dinah’s shop. My adopted mum has a hairdressing salon. It was a stifling, hot and stormy morning on 22nd June two years ago
. I had no idea where I came from. I didn’t match any missing person files, so the police weren’t interested. I was referred to the social services, who were happy to leave me in the care of Dinah. The doctors thought I suffered some kind of trauma. I could barely speak, and I couldn’t remember anything. They said in time it will all come flooding back. Two years later, I am still none the wiser and can’t remember a single thing until that night.” I chose not to tell him of my recurring nightmares about being chased through the woods and being surrounded by fire.
Joab suddenly lit up. A smile spread across his face. He stood and pushed his hands through his hair and paced for a moment. “So, I didn’t imagine it! You could be her. It has been so long since… I knew it. I felt we were connected. I wasn’t sure. We just need to track down your past and make you better, and you might remember.” He reached for me then changed his mind. “Maybe I can help…It’s a long shot. You must be calm and relaxed for it to work. We can try regression using hypnotism. Many people use it to overcome fears, but it has also helped in cases of amnesia. You should call Dinah; I can pick your stuff up if you want me to?” Joab smiled expectantly at me, pleading with sparkling eyes.
“Whoa…I don’t know. I told you, I have to complete a project, and Dinah will be expecting me. It’s too soon to…” With everything that had happened today, a million alarm bells were ringing, shouting at me to run away and not come back.
“Just see the house as a hotel with your own en-suite room. I promise, all above board.” Joab was relentless.
“Hypnotism? I don’t know. It sounds kind of invasive. My mind is mine. I don’t like the idea of it being scrutinized.” I remembered awkward counselling sessions shortly after I arrived at Dinah’s.
The Haunting of Violet Gray Page 4
