Chris knocked gently on the door, suppressing a grin. “I’ve arranged to stay for longer. Wanna go down to the pool.”
After some clattering and banging from beyond, the door creaked open, revealing Claire’s flushed face. “Oh you could have told me, Chris. I was in a right tiz!”
He walked away and sat on the bed, waiting for his wife to uncoil.
Relaxing in the hotel's spa proved just the ticket. They even had time for a leisurely lunch before taking the journey to Swansea later on in the afternoon. A glance at his passenger revealed she was back to her serene self. Chris smiled a self-satisfied smile and drove away.
“I’m in two minds whether I want to hear from Ann again tonight,” Claire broke the comfortable silence after a few minutes.
“Yes. I’m sure you must be. You don’t want her to interfere, but you want to understand.”
“I want to help her! She seems frightened, Chris.”
He nodded his solemn understanding.
They travelled in silence for a while along the motorway. Claire mentioned she was enjoying the mountain scenery as they approached Wales’s second city.
“You’ll love tomorrow then,” Chris informed her. “We’re driving right through the mountains. I think the road is even called Mountain Road!”
Claire smiled in appreciation and anticipation. “How long now?” she asked.
“We’re just turning off for Swansea.” They drove through the typical valley’s scenery of row upon row of terraced housing lining the mountainside before skirting the city and heading to the marina. The impressive new homes and even more impressive yachts made Claire relax further into her professional persona.
She sometimes hated touring, but other times it could be very enjoyable indeed. Seeing the country and staying in lovely hotels wasn’t so bad.
After their usual settling in, they arrived at Swansea Grand Theatre from their hotel in plenty of time. A crowd had already gathered outside and Claire signed a few autographs. It made her feel fantastic. Just the boost her ego needed. She was led through to her dressing room where she sat in tranquil introspection before curtain-up, as was her usual practice.
She wasn’t surprised to find the connection with Ann stronger than ever. It was so powerful it again blocked everyone else. Claire was aware of other spirits on the periphery, but their messages weren’t at all clear.
A sudden thought struck her, cleaving her face into a massive grin. Instead of letting it put her off, she would explain her predicament to her audience. They could help her! The crowds of like-minded people may well be what was providing the clearest connection with Ann anyway. Together, they might find the solution.
The announcement from the compare to the audience for the eagerly anticipated psychic to come on stage created even more cheers and clapping than it had on previous nights. She walked on to rapturous applause.
“Thank you. Thank you!” she cried, waving greetings to her fans. “Tonight is going to be a little different” she announced. “You see. I need your help.” She took a moment to explain her difficulties with Ann and her plan for them to assist.
The audience looked more than happy to be involved in the unique experience. Claire took a deep breath or two to focus. “Ann...? Is that you Ann?” She could see her clearly. Somewhere up high. In an in-between land. Not on earth and not in heaven. Claire nodded to herself and to the audience that things were making sense.
Now she understood what it had all been about.
Before continuing her train of thought she decided just to confirm what she was sure she knew already. “Does anybody here know Ann?” The usual description of the hand-made clothing and short grey hair was offered. After a few initial mumbles the audience settled down promptly.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “That’s what I expected. I think I know what Ann wants. She wants our help.” The audience jostled in thrilled excitement.
Claire tuned in again to confirm her suspicions. “Ann? I can feel a deep connection with her,” she reported to the rapt crowd. “She’s very afraid. I think…” she gasped as her hand flew to her open mouth. “She doesn’t know she’s dead, my lovelies!” The audience, led by their mentor, gasped too.
“You don’t, do you Ann? You don’t know you’re dead, do you?” She addressed the audience again. “She’s in limbo, you see? She’s tried to ask me for help all week but I’ve been a silly billy!” she rolled her eyes theatrically. “I didn’t understand, did I?” She took a deep breath before letting the audience know what it was they must do.
“We need to help her go into the light. Here’s what I want you to do. I’ll instruct Ann to go towards the light. Then you, in row one, join in,” she directed, demonstrating by pointing, who she meant. “Then the next row, and the next row, and so on, until we’re all chanting, ‘Ann, go towards the light!’ Okay?”
The audience showed they understood with nods and murmurs and waited in tense anticipation. Claire began as she had said.
“Ann. Go towards the light.” She pointed at the first row, who joined the chant for the next repetition. “Ann,” they said in unison, “go towards the light.” Claire pointed to the second row who joined in. Row after row grew the mantra which became fuller and louder until the whole room recited at an incredible volume.
“ANN. GO TOWARDS THE LIGHT!”
Chapter Five
Angharad couldn’t move. Petrified to the spot like the vast Bluestones she’d climbed over for most of the afternoon. She forced her brain into grinding action to look for the truth. What was happening to her? What were the signs?
Somewhere in her mind she knew the calling she heard hadn’t come from someone close by. She’d pushed out the notion of anything supernatural when she’d blamed the couple next door, but she had known really, hadn’t she?
Knowing hadn’t prepared her for the shock of hearing with an alarming clarity, ‘Ann’ called out here, high on the mountain. She had accepted that the Ann in question was herself
She didn’t recognise the voice calling her, but she was sure it was English. Different regional accents troubled her, not having viewed much television in her life, but English, she was sure was right.
Then she heard something that chilled her more than hearing her name from a disembodied voice on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t just that it was louder or purer than it had previously been. It was what it said.
“She doesn’t know she’s dead!” the voice declared, seemingly expressing the horrific notion to someone else. Blood drained from Angharad’s taut face as she swooned in disbelief. Shaking uncontrollably, her mind whirred. It couldn’t be talking about her! It just couldn’t. She wasn’t dead! No! She was very much alive. She patted her arms with her hands just to make sure.
Worse was to come. Rooted to the rock, she couldn’t believe what happened next. Angharad quickly concluded that, far more devastating than simply hearing a voice call out, and understanding that the owner of said voice thought she was dead, was receiving a directive from the voice. It knew she was there. It wasn’t questioning ‘was it Ann?’ It was telling!
Her head swam in a shark infested sobriety logic couldn’t wade into. She was terrified to obey and couldn’t imagine for even a second why it was happening. She heard the voice instruct her, and although she didn’t know what to do, she thought she knew what it intended.
“Ann. Go towards the light.”
The scream which escaped her filled the mountaintop. And then, the sharks of improbability closed their circling in her ocean of confusion and bit hard. The voice she had heard for the last three days was now joined by others, all there with her on the mountain.
“Ann. Go towards the light,” they chimed in unison, like an invisible congregation. The chorus of the crowd more than doubled and then trebled again, all chanting the same dreadful command. “Ann. GO TOWARDS THE LIGHT!”
A sudden rush of energy allowed her movement at last. She heaved herself from the sma
ll rock to which she had been cemented and ran, stumbling over the uneven terrain towards the rough direction of home.
She felt she would never outrun the voices, but she knew she had to try. Her impetuous pace covered ground in a blur down the gentle incline from the summit.
The dusk that had fallen on one side of the mountain vanished suddenly in brilliant, blinding sunshine as she rounded the bluestone and faced the setting sun.
“Ann. Go towards the light,” the unmistakable demand called again.
Angharad froze. Momentum had rushed her headlong towards dazzling light now. Sunlight, surely? But the grotesque cacophony of the dreadful directive from the unseen crowd terrified her.
“Ann. Go towards the light… Ann. Go towards the light” again and again. Still trembling, she stole herself and took a step towards home, which was also a step towards the setting sun.
“That’s right Ann. You go towards the light. That’s right!” she heard the English woman’s voice encouraging her. Spinning around to confront her tormentor, she didn’t expect to see anyone, but just couldn’t comprehend what was happening.
Was it a joke? How could she see her, this weird woman with her ugly shrill voice? The chanting of the crowd continued but she could hear the English woman above them all.
“That’s right Ann. You’re nearly there.”
She could cope no more. A whimper of defeat was lost in the deadening still air of the mountainside. What could she possibly do?
She wouldn’t believe the voices were right, or even that they were real. But she was scared that if she continued her movement towards the brightness she’d be lost forever. That it wasn’t the setting sun she walked towards and the voices were not some weird auditory hallucination due to her hormones or something. She might disappear into it, never to return, like a Universal gulp of breath into the lungs of the heavens.
What was she thinking? She was sure she was alive. Of course she was. She would remember dying, wouldn’t she? She shook her head, admonishing herself for even half entertaining the idea that she was, in fact, dead.
Willing it all being to turn out perfectly rational. Perhaps she should go to the doctor. Soon. She couldn’t persuade herself. Legs shaking, her body wouldn’t allow what her mind was trying cajole. She physically couldn’t take one more step towards the setting sun.
Collapsing in a shivering heap on the cold, grassy moorland, Angharad gave in.
“Thank you everyone. I think we’ve helped Ann pass into the light. She can be happy now.” The crowd gave rapturous applause to show their pleasure and appreciation at having been a part of something a bit different.
Claire, in reality, was far from convinced Ann had gone anywhere near the light. The contact with her remained strong, which wasn’t significant in itself. Most of the spirits she talked to were exactly where they were supposed to be. It made sense that she would still have her connection once she had passed over. But she just didn’t feel that anything had changed.
Ann, wherever she was, at least remained quiet, and so Claire was happy to continue with her usual show.
It went fabulously. The unusual start appeared to have enhanced rather than impeded the performance. Relief turned quickly to contentment.
There was plentiful after-show attention from the crowd which she lapped up. When she and Chris returned to their quayside hotel, she was exhausted but quietly pleased with herself. The anxiety she still felt regarding Ann was easy enough to ignore. Fuelled by the sea air, she fell into a deep, refreshing sleep.
The sun had well and truly set on the mountain. It was dark and very, very cold. The voices had been silent for a while and Angharad at last had the courage to open her eyes and re-engage with her surroundings.
Relief was a perverse result of shivering with coldness. Despite the distinct danger of hypothermia, at least it meant she was alive. She’d never imagined an afterlife—certain that when you died that was that. Clinging onto any romantic ideas to feel better about the inevitability of death wasn’t something she needed.
The last three days had made her question her innate belief, but, if there was some sort of hereafter, she doubted shivering would be a part of it.
She knew she had to make it down from the mountain. As difficult as that might be with the enveloping blackness, the temperature would get colder and icier before dawn. She smiled wryly to herself, knowing how her back to basics lifestyle had doubtless made her hardier than the average hiker.
She rummaged in her rucksack for her emergency torch. Eventually she found it under sandwich debris, paper napkins, wrappers and other accumulated rubbish. After rubbing some encrusted dirt from the lens onto her jumper, she switched it on.
It flickered faintly. She wound the dynamo handle and it brightened considerably; enough to allow her to walk home dodging crevices and bogs if she stopped every few hundred metres to wind it again.
It helped that it was a route she could probably just about complete blindfolded anyway. After a couple of hours spent plodding onward and downward she neared the house.
Arriving at the stone bulk of her cottage she panted with relief and even allowed a little smile to play on her icy lips as she stumbled inside. She lit the fire in the Simenei Fawr and thawed in its warmth.
A brief interlude of hazy consciousness proceeded a deep sleep, achieved thanks to the cold exhaustion overwhelming her exhausted body. Sleep closed in before she even had a chance to worry about what on earth was happening to her.
Chapter Six
“Wake up sleepy. We have a longer journey today,” Chris gently primed his exhausted looking wife. “I can tell this sea air definitely agrees with you!”
She shot him a playful look of pseudo contempt and began the task of waking. Sitting herself up on her elbows, she attempted to rub her face and eyes with her hands, but found it impossible to do so in that position. She gave up, and gave in to a mighty yawn.
“Where’s a bloody cup of tea then, Chris?” she asked, only half-joking.
“We’re going down to a cooked breakfast in a minute. You can have as much tea as you like then!” Chris retorted. Claire mumbled to herself whilst squeezing past him to the bathroom and affably slapped him on the behind causing him to squeal in surprise and laugh in good-nature.
“I’ll just wait here until you make yourself look a bit more human, shall I?” She ignored him and carried on into the bathroom.
Chris flicked through the limited channels available on the television in the room. He stopped when he recognised a familiar face.
“You’re on telly,” he called out. Claire peeped, soapy-faced from the doorway with a questioning expression on her face. “Just a repeat of the ‘Medium at Large’ tour.”
“I think I’ve lost a bit of weight since then,” she said, careful not to make it a question, because she knew it wasn’t true. Or rather, it was no longer true. She had lost quite a lot in reaction to the shock of seeing herself on the square screen. But she had more than piled it back on again when, after an initial struggle, she remembered hearing that ‘television adds pounds to you!’ That was excuse enough to lapse initially, then fall into the same glutinous habits with wanton abandon.
Despite being rather displeased with her tubbiness on screen, she had to concede she possessed a certain beauty. Seeing the captivated audience helped to buoy her spirits and excite her more for the day’s journey and tonight’s show in Aberystwyth.
After a hearty breakfast the couple checked out and ensconced themselves into the privacy of their car. As they turned away from Swansea and onto the mountain road for Aberystwyth, Claire’s thoughts drifted back to Ann. She couldn’t help but worry, not just for tonight’s performance, but for Ann’s very salvation.
“She doesn’t know she’s dead…” The memory came from a dream that for moments after she woke, Angharad couldn’t quite believe hadn’t been a nightmare of the entire week. Waking fully clothed in the lounge with the fire embers still glowing convinced her that l
ast night’s eerie experience on the mountain had actually happened.
What did it mean she doesn’t know she’s dead? She wasn’t dead. Was the message even for her? She had presumed because she was the one hearing it. But she wasn’t Ann anymore. The voices had insisted on calling her Ann and not Angharad.
Where were the voices coming from? The most likely explanation was that this was the first sign of dementia or some other mind debilitating illness people of her age could expect to succumb to.
She had nursed people who it was almost impossible to believe had once been functioning participants in society, so desperate their need for care. Unable to toilet themselves, they didn’t even recognise members of their own family. Some didn’t even seem to perceive themselves. This was probably how it all started.
A pang of sadness and regret filled her heart. She had lived a worthy life, working caring for others. Much of the world had been experienced, engaging with other cultures as a volunteer helping those less fortunate.
There were small regrets of not having any children, but if she had, they would have left home by now anyway, and she wouldn’t have enjoyed the opportunity of helping all those other worthwhile people.
Living a commendable life was no protection from the deterioration of age though. Many of the elderly she had cared for told amazing tales of their determination and achievements, sometimes through two world wars!
Captains of industry, Captains of ships and Captains in the army and police force, SRN nurses and doctors as well as astonishing nonprofessional careers too.
There were many, many children, grandchildren and great, great grandchildren they could call family, but there was no-one who couldn’t find themselves victim to dementia or Parkinson’s disease or some other devastating condition.
Her gaze drifted into the middle-distance as she mused over good times and bad, and wondered how many of either she had left.
Blurred Lines: A box-set of reality bending supernatural fiction (Paranormal Tales from Wales Book 9) Page 31