“From 1940?” I gasped. The date of the dress goes way beyond coincidence. I pulled my jeans on under the dress. “It is a lovely thought, but I can’t come to the party. To be honest with you, I still feel dizzy, and parties and I don’t go. I am terrified of big groups and talking to people I don’t know. Nothing is interesting or special about me, not like all those people in the kitchen with their amazing clothes and hair. What the hell would I talk to them about—cleaning, bleach? Maybe later I might make a small appearance just to be polite, but that’s it.”
“No pressure, of course. I would love it if you were there, but if you are not ready, another time.” His fingers brushed my arm, and he lightly kissed my cheek. “It is wonderful I can kiss you.” His lips searched for mine but settled for my cheek.
“Joab, hun, where’s the corkscrew?” a girl’s voice echoed up the stairs.
He sighed. “Another time…I better go down. Hopefully, we’ll see you soon.” He turned and left me.
CHAPTER 14
I hung the dress on the black-velvet-covered hanger and hooked it on the back of the wardrobe door with the shoes positioned underneath. I lay on the bed and closed my eyes. The dizziness had left. I felt fine, but the thought of mingling at the party was horrifying. The sound of excited voices and laughter echoed through the house, and the base of the music shook life into the walls. The doorbell rang constantly. The laughter grew raucous. Then I heard the door banging and giggles accompanied crunching footsteps as they left the house. I assumed to the barn for the feast. My stomach rumbled for food.
I peeped from the top of the stairs and proceeded down them with caution in case anyone was still there. I got to the kitchen and gasped at the mess. There were bottles and glasses everywhere, splodges of guacamole and hummus and squashed nachos. I suppose I was “the cleaner.” It was up to me to tackle the aftermath of the gathering. There were loads of dried leaves scattered around the floor, some with writing on them.
Before I began tidying, I glugged a glass of water and scooped a generous dollop of hummus with a nacho and munched it hungrily. There was a ring of the doorbell. I considered ignoring it but felt obliged to answer it, so I trudged to the door and opened it to a crack.
“Hi, Cat, remember me? Tom?”
My brain froze and tuned out of reality again. I felt my body hurtle out of my skin, and I was standing in a field. There were crackling records playing and planes motoring above. I recognised the messy, sandy hair and warm sparkling eyes and kind smile looking adoringly at me from under a RAF hat. “Tommy,” I breathed. Suddenly I was back to the present.
Tom’s sunny expression darkened with concern. “Are you OK? You looked like you zoned out there for a minute. Not expecting me I gather? Do you remember me? I’m Tom. we met at the phone box.”
I tried to collect my thoughts. OK, so Tom is also the spitting image of 1940s Thomas Mason. Dinah did say that many generations of the same family have lived in the village. Thomas Mason is most likely a great-grandfather, I convinced myself.
Tom looked slightly ill at ease in a shirt, jacket and slim leg trousers and a pair of highly polished shoes rather than his usual woollen jumper, jeans and wellies. I quickly wiped away any hummus evident on my chin. “Yes, I am fine, sort of. I have had a few funny spells, low blood pressure most likely. Nothing to worry about. Of course, I remember you. If you are looking for Joab, they have gone to a party thing at the barn.”
“Yes, I was on my way, but I got held up. Are you not going?” he said quizzically.
“No, I am still not feeling well, and I don’t really like parties. Besides you should see the state of the kitchen. Someone needs to sort it out, and I guess it is my job.” I shrugged.
“Come with me. I don’t particularly like parties or Joab for that matter. But it is Mabon. In my line of work it is good for me to show thanks for nature’s bounty.” He smiled pleadingly with me. “I will help you clean up the mess. Then we’ll head down just for the ritual and a drink or two.”
I searched for excuses, but Tom would not take no for an answer. “OK, just for a while, and you haven’t seen the state of the kitchen yet, so you don’t know what you have let yourself in for… I thought you were supposed to be part of a witch’s coven to go to the party?” I let Tom into the hallway, and he followed me through to the kitchen.
“Yeah, Joab and I go back a long way. Our history has been turbulent. We rarely see eye to eye, and he holds a grudge, but if we don’t try to hold on to traditions and our rituals, slowly the craft will die. Joab gets some big ideas too. Some good, some crazy. He needs someone to balance him out. That’s where I come in. He is true to his fire sign. I am water, so he needs me to ‘piss on his fire’ sometimes before he gets out of control,” Tom said, smiling.
I felt at ease with Tom. He was gentle and funny, very different from Joab, who was charismatic, passionate and exciting. I didn’t feel apologetic about my bedraggled appearance. With Tom it felt like he looked beyond my skin and didn’t care what dress I was wearing. We fell into comfortable conversation as we piled bottles into recycling crates. He picked up a bottle of virtually full wine. “A bit of refreshment while we work?” he suggested while pouring himself a generous glass.
“Why not?” I smiled, defeated.
Tom turned the radio on and cranked it up loud. “Great tune,” he said as a grungy rock song shook the room. He started shaking his hair to the rhythm; I laughed at his funny, awkward dancing. Just how I imagined Prince William would dance to this kind of music in secret.
“I better grab some bin liners from the basement.”
I left Tom in his zone and headed to the cleaning room. I scuttled down the stairs through the thick stuffy air, pulled open the door and instinctively propped it open. I noticed the mirror from the bathroom was leaning against the wall above the tumble drier. As soon as I entered the room, there was an urgent rattling and banging. The door slammed behind me, and I felt my body wrench towards the mirror. I slammed against the mirror with my hands. Sweat was streaming down my face, my breathing short. I felt a burning heat surrounding me. Suddenly I felt my mind break free of my body then there was darkness. My mind hurtled to a strange place.
June 21, two years ago
My aching, exhausted body gave up when I reached the far edge of the wood. I crawled like a hunted fox, dragging my limbs in search of sanctuary. I glanced over my shoulder to see the furnace raging. The black-cloaked figures retreated. Who were they? What did they want with me? Who was I? I remembered a girl thrusting the necklace I wore into my hand and commanding me to run. Since then I hadn’t stopped running. I knew nothing of my purpose or why I was made other than I had to survive. I shakily stood and staggered towards two lights hurtling towards me. There was a voice: “I have got you. You are safe.” Two strong arms lifted my wasted body into a seat. Instinctively I knew I could trust the voice and the gentle eyes. There was another voice:
“Take her to this address. Take care not to be seen.”
Present
I awoke, shaking and disorientated, on my hands and knees. The vision had brought me to my nightmares, the dreams that haunted me relentlessly for the last two years. This vision was different. I wasn’t watching the story; I was there. The girl was me. Why? Weakly I rose to my feet.
The face was there again—my reflection, but not me, the otherworldly girl.
“Not again! I can’t take any more hauntings today,” I pleaded to the walls and the mirror with exhausted desperation. “Violet, if that is who you are, I don’t know what you want from me, but either tell me or go away. I can’t take any more.”
“Get Tom. Tom, it’s me. TOM.” My hands were glued to the mirror, her lips moving faster. “Get TOM,” the girl begged through the mirror, banging her hands.
“Violet.”
I turned to the voice behind me. Tom was staring in disbelief at the mirror. He looked at the reflection then at me and back at the mirror.
“It can’t be you. Yo
u’re dead. I lost you. Cat, you look just like her. I didn’t see before. Are you a ghost?” he said to the mirror.
Violet was banging hard, her hand stretched and pressed on the mirror, tears tumbling down her cheeks. “Tommy, it is you.”
Tom pressed his hand to the mirror, and Violet reached for his face. I felt like I was watching myself in a dream. The incredible force that pulled me to the mirror relaxed and freed me and was replaced by the tenderness between two lovers who had found each other again.
“Tommy, darling, you have to get me out.”
I was surprised to see tears forming in the eyes of the usually rugged man. His grey irises, twinkling with disbelief and joy, fixated on the strange girl in the mirror.
“You can see her…the girl in the mirror? I thought I was going mad.”
Tom didn’t answer; he gazed at the frantic face urging him to act. The was the girl from the journal, and my dreams, the girl Joe loved, and it seems Tom loved too.
“Violet?” I said into the glass.
“Yes, about bloody time.”
I was surprised at the impatience of the ethereal being.
“Ever since the moment you entered this house, I have been trying to get your attention. It was difficult at the beginning. I wrote the mark of Gemini on the mirror when you first arrived at the house. It was a simple spell. It worked like a switch, turning on the telepathic connection between us so I could pull from your energy and communicate with you.”
I glanced at Tom; he seemed to have frozen. Violet banged her hands hard on the glass. Tom stumbled backwards. He pushed his hands through his hair and turned to the door, then turned back to the
mirror.
“I don’t understand…you were dead. They told me the ritual killed you.”
Violet tenderly touched the glass, her eyes yearning for her love who was in another untouchable world.
“Tommy, darling, we will be together soon. I promise. I need you. I need you both. I have been trapped in this godforsaken world for decades. Time stopped in this dimension in 1940. My world is a reflection of yours, but the clocks here don’t tick. There is no such thing as time, there are no people here, and all I have are books and a gramophone with a single Billie Holiday record I happened to have the night I was trapped. I can watch your world through the mirrors. I have seen so much, and I can’t do a damn thing about it.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Cat, I am you, well, half of you.” Violet fell silent for a moment; her eyes searched my face. She glanced back to Tom as if to utter a silent apology. She turned her attention back to me, and with a look of anguish, she began to speak, “You are my doppelganger. I made you.”
I stared at her white face. “What the hell? What is a doppelganger? How did you make me? You mean to say you are my mother? You can’t be. You’re too young…”
Violet interrupted me. “There is a secret organisation of powerful people called Erubus. They put me here. They practise the darker sides of the occult; they are power hungry politicians, some warlords and some businessmen. Erubus handpick those they want in power in the major countries in the world. They groom them, flatter them and make them promises too good to ignore. Then those people become puppets for the group’s every whim. This secret group runs the world, but no one is aware of it. I got caught up in their web. I learnt some of their secrets, but I discovered they were evil. I wanted to escape. They liked my magic and power, and they believed I could be a useful commodity for them. I knew too much, so they locked me in this world rather than kill me, just in case they needed me.”
I stared at Violet and Tom in utter disbelief.
“This will seem like a lot to take in, but I don’t know how much time I have. I am feeding off your energy; when you are exhausted, I am pulled back into the prison dimension. Please just
listen.”
Begrudgingly, I faced her. She was the only person who could tell me who I was after all.
“When I was locked away, Crawley, who I believed was my friend, betrayed me for Erubus. It seems I was the currency for securing his place in the organisation. Anyway, whether it was guilt or pity, he gave me a necklace. I was like a pet to him, so it was not unusual for Crawley to gift me jewellery. It was a clever way of passing information to me undetected. He said he did not have the power to free me, but the pendant holds a secret code, which if deciphered will help unlock the portal He had it engraved himself, but the message had to be well hidden from Erubus’s eyes. Before he could tell me how to solve it, Erubus whisked me away, and I never saw Crawley again.
I have studied every book in the library at least ten times and practised every spell. I have tried to decipher the code on my necklace, but I couldn’t do it. I have never been any good with puzzles. I tried to read out the literal translation of the necklace, which was easy. Even you managed that with some prompts from me and some books, but I think the words are clues or signposts to something else, which is why I gave it to you. I felt that with some help you might be able to work it out.
I attempted to make a small opening in the portal of my prison dimension two years ago during the summer solstice. I hoped I could get a message, along with my necklace, to Joe or Tom if they were still alive.
But Annie and her coven of witches were gathered for the feast at the house; I heard them plotting and planning. They planned to release me to join the original elements to complete their magic circle. When they drained me of my magic to carry out her ridiculous and evil plan, they planned to send me back into my prison if I survived.
I couldn’t let them have me for their own greedy, shortsighted magic to quench their desire for power. I wouldn’t allow them to use my magic for their means; I would die before they would have control over my fate forever! I couldn’t live in limbo for eternity.” Her eyes flashed with tears. “I was desperate, I thought if I could distract them by thinking I was free, I could find a way to escape.”
I was confused. I stared at her.
“I am so, so sorry. I made you. You are a doppelganger. I made you with a purpose. You were my decoy and courier of the necklace. You were to convince Annie and Erubus I was free so that they would pursue you, and while they chased you, I planned to try and open the portal again and sneak out. I expected them to find you quickly, but if it bought me an hour, I hoped that would be enough for me to escape. I knew when they discovered you were my doppelganger, they would dispose of you, as it is highly illegal to make one. I prayed the necklace would fall into Tom’s or Joe’s hands. As you can see, the escape part of my plan failed. I am still here. When I created you, I thought you would be a reflection, an empty image. I didn’t know you would be a living, breathing, feeling person.”
“What do you mean?” Violet was scaring me. I could feel the blood drain from me.
“I made you as bait. I knew Annie and the coven would chase you, but fate spared you, luckily for me. You took half of my power, the ability of astral travel, which was useless for me anyway because I have no means of anchoring my mind to any particular date in here, which is necessary for travelling to occur. But you can travel on the astral plane to different points in time using your mind. It’s why you have seen us in dreams of the 1940s. You were also part of me, and when I secured our connection with the Gemini spell, I was able to communicate with you through the mirrors and share your thoughts and visions telepathically.
I guided you to objects, which could anchor your mind to 1940 when everything went so wrong. Do you remember the black journal flying into your hands? I moved it through kinesis. It helped you travel back there and witness firsthand the events unfolding. I knew if you saw what happened, you would help me and prevent Annie from repeating the awful spell. I hoped you would find the people with skills and connections, the tools and the spells needed to secure my freedom, and we could work together to stop Annie.”
“You made me as bait? My sole purpose was to be chased, pursued and killed so you could escape?” I stared in horror
and remembered the dreams I had had when I arrived at Dinah’s. “I dreamt every night for a year about being chased through the woods by people in black robes and masks. They surrounded me with fire. I jumped through the flames. Was that real? Was it a memory? You can’t just make a person. I am flesh and blood. Tom, it is not possible, is it?”
Tom stood like a ghostly statue.
“Yes, it is possible, and I did it!” said Violet. “I am Gemini, cusp born on the most magical date of the year, which makes me powerful. There are two halves to a Gemini’s person. I projected one-half of me into a magic circle with some hair, nail clippings and some of my blood and cast a spell, and you were born as a fully functioning girl it seems, not a shadow as I was expecting. The people chasing you through the woods were real. They were the New Forest Coven of witches. They were chanting spells to draw you back to them. That is your first memory as my doppelganger.”
I was dumbfounded. “This is bullshit. You’re lying. It’s not possible,” I said, shaking. I edged back towards the door. “Doppelganger?” I looked at Tom and back to the mirror.
Violet gently placed her hand on the mirror. “I am sorry, Cat.”
“You are saying I am your shadow, and you made me out of nail clippings. I am nothing.” I laughed. “An empty shell? I have no memory of my past because I have none? I have no feelings, no emotions because I am not real.” My mouth was dry; I felt like I was sliding into a dark pit. “You sent me out into the world to be killed? If I am nothing, a mere shadow, then why am I so fucking angry?” I screamed at her, banging the glass repeatedly. A crack formed, and a shard of glass came loose, piercing my skin. A crimson stream of blood snaked down my arm. “Look, I bleed. I am real!”
Tom threw his arms around my waist and pulled me back. Tears cascaded down my face. The face in the mirror was cold, void of emotion.
“Cat, you are me. I bestowed the rest of my power to you. Don’t you remember? Your dreams are memories. The book you found. It was Joe’s journal. His book of shadows is an account of everything that happened in the year of 1940. You travelled back in time during your blackouts and watched the events of 1940 that lead to the destruction of so many souls, including mine. The coven intends to raise the Cone of Power again. They want my power to complete the circle to raise the magic, which will make Annie incredibly powerful but could kill thousands of people. Keep reading the book. Keep travelling back to 1940. You need to see for yourself, and you will understand why we must stop them.
The Haunting of Violet Gray Page 11
