by S. L. Wilson
‘Picture a bright white ball of light floating above you. Watch it drop and cover you completely, surrounding you in the shining light like you are suspended inside a bubble.’
She could see the light clearly and watched in awe as her mind did as Connor had instructed. The ball of light wrapped itself around her like a cloak and her entire body quivered as it settled over her. She let out a soft gasp.
‘You’re doing great.’
Connor’s whispered tones began to melt into the background, her stomach, which had been lurching, began to settle and her throbbing head began to feel lighter. Her breathing deepened as she felt wave after wave of profound relaxation rise up from her feet and wash over her to the top of her head. She felt all the tiny hairs on her body standing to attention.
‘Picture the ball of light hovering in front of your forehead.’ Connor relayed his instructions and Amber felt herself following like a willing slave. She was vaguely aware of the shop and the distant noise of life carrying on beyond the walls. Connor was sitting by her side, but at that moment she was disconnected from everything. It was an odd sensation but not totally unpleasant.
‘Open up your mind and welcome the light,’ he said. ‘We are going to open your brow chakra and connect with its energy. Picture an eye opening in your forehead, ask to see the energies that belong beyond this realm…’
Amber could sense him talking but his words weren’t registering. She was watching the huge floating eye that was sitting just beyond her reach. In her mind she stretched out a hand and pushed very gently with her fingertips until the eye split down the centre and opened like two ornate doors. The two halves shone brightly as they swung wide to reveal a field of clouds.
She took a tentative step onto the nearest cloud; it felt solid beneath her feet. When she looked down, her toes had disappeared from sight beneath the swathes of fluffy cotton wool. The space was bright, but Amber couldn’t see any source of the light. It was as if the clouds themselves were illuminated.
She moved forward slowly, searching the horizon for signs of life. A voice behind her made her jump; it wasn’t Connor’s voice this time but that of a woman.
‘Welcome, little eye.’
Amber faced the source of the voice. A tall woman with silver hair that reached the floor stood in front of her. She wore a long, plain white gown with a simple silver necklace, an ornate silver eye dangling at the end of the chain.
‘Am I dreaming?’
The woman laughed and it sounded like tiny bells tinkling in a light breeze.
‘You are not asleep, little eye, yet you are not awake. We exist in the space between, in your expanded consciousness. As an oracle you can access this space and link to us whenever you are in need.’
‘Are you an oracle?’ Amber thought she was probably stating the obvious, but she reminded herself she was new to all this supernatural stuff and waited for a reply.
‘We are both oracles, my child. I am Lavanya, an ancient oracle who no longer walks your realm and you…you are a new kind of oracle, strong and powerful but with a veil over your mind.’
‘What do you mean, ancient oracle?’ The beautiful woman standing before her looked not much older than India.
‘The ancient oracles divided their powers and moved to the four corners of the earth. We grew tired of the squabbles of humankind.’
Amber swallowed hard as she realised Lavanya was one of the ancient oracles from the book Connor had given her.
‘We carried on with our lives and were lucky enough to marry and have our own children. This produced a future generation of oracles, but as each generation was born, their powers were diluted. They each had prophetic dreams or a sixth sense, some had abilities for magic or great strength, but none held all of the seven powers.’
‘What powers do you have?’
Lavanya smiled and her eyes twinkled as she spoke. ‘I, along with my brothers and sisters, held the seven powers until we divided, then we each took only two, together with our expanded link to one another. My powers are for healing and sight. I can see the future mapped out for everyone.’
‘Wow that must take up a lot of headspace!’
‘Indeed.’ She laughed again. ‘My brothers and sisters have the ability to lead great armies, they are skilled in combat, stealth and have great strength and elemental magic. My own magic is strong and my sight is a powerful tool, but I can only see what is mapped out. Every individual has their own ability to change any outcome.’
Amber’s eyes filled with tears, and she brushed them away with her hand. Lavanya reached forward and caught a single teardrop on her finger. As Amber watched, it crystallised into a perfect diamond. She placed it into Amber’s hand and pressed her palm closed.
‘Nothing is impossible. Your friend is safe, little eye, but for how long depends on his own strength and your courage.’
‘He’s alive?’ Relief rolled over Amber.
‘For now, yes,’ she nodded. ‘But he is weak.’
‘What can I do?’
‘You are a rare oracle, Amber Noble, descended from two ancients. When your parents had you, they reunited the ancient powers once again, and all seven powers flow strongly within you, but you must lift the veil so you can tap into them.’
‘Veil? Do you mean the curse on my family?’
‘Yes, there is evil magic at work here, and you are shaded from seeing your true potential because of this veil.’
‘The coven are working on it; they are trying to find a way to break the curse.’
‘Concentrate, Amber, you have the power to lift this veil yourself, focus all your strength inwards.’ As she spoke she pressed a long finger against Amber’s forehead, right between her eyebrows. Amber felt an intense pressure build up inside her head and just when she thought her head would burst she felt a ‘pop’ and was blinded by a bright white light, like a million stars had exploded all around her.
She threw up her hands to shield her face.
‘AMBER, ARE you okay? What the hell happened?’ Connor’s voice brought her back with a jolt to the small shop on the high street, full of dusty books and crystals. The smells and sounds were familiar, but Amber felt an ache in her heart that her time amongst the clouds had ended so abruptly. She had so many questions.
‘Amber?’ Connor was on all fours, his face mere inches from hers.
‘Hi.’
‘Hi! That’s all you can say…hi! Bloody hell, Amber, you’ve been in a trance for half an hour. I couldn’t wake you up and then when you finally do return to the land of the living all you can say is hi!’
She shrugged her shoulders and gave him a small smile. ‘Sorry.’ She rolled the word off her tongue slowly, hoping he would think she was cute instead of insane. His piercing eyes dropped to gaze at her lips and he leant in closer. Amber could feel his breath on her face.
‘I was worried,’ he said, his voice slightly gravelly, before he gently pressed his lips to hers.
Amber felt the heat rising up from her stomach, filling her chest and continuing to flood her cheeks. She moved her hands and ran her fingers through his thick hair, as his lips moved on hers. He shifted his position on the floor and pulled her closer to him, his strong hands circling her back and lightly stroking along her spine.
They were both breathing hard when he pulled away, and she noticed how flushed his complexion was.
Before they could speak, the door at the back of the shop opened, and the tender moment they had shared was interrupted by the rush of excited voices as India and the others burst into the room.
They leapt to their feet, dusting off their jeans and rearranging the candles. The four coven witches watched, amusement dancing in their eyes, as the two of them coughed and cleared their throats. Amber rubbed at her mouth in a bid to erase any signs of the passionate embrace they had just shared.
‘So…’ Connor coughed again as he ran a hand through his unkempt hair and looked India in the eye, ‘…what’s up?’
Amber could tell that India was trying her absolute hardest not to smile and she cringed inside. Of all the times for them to walk in, it had to be then.
‘We’ve worked out the spell for the gateway,’ she said. ‘We had to translate it for a modern coven but it should still work.’
‘You’ll have a window of about two minutes to get through the gate,’ Hettie added, ‘then we have to close it again so the demons don’t escape.’
Amber wrinkled her brow. ‘How do we get back then?’
‘We understand that your priority is Tom, but as part of your mission we also need you to find the gateway key. If we have the key then the Guardians will be unable to enter our realm, freeing Hills Heath from this curse; however, if you fail to retrieve it then we can redo the spell and reopen the gateway, and you’ll have another two minutes to get back across, but the Guardian pact will still exist.’
Connor nodded and studied the scroll in India’s hand. ‘How will you know when we are through or if we need you to reopen the gate?’
India handed him a necklace with a flat crystal pendant attached. ‘Use this in the same way you would a scrying mirror,’ she told him. ‘Concentrate your power and connect to me through the stone. We will be able to see one another through the surface of the crystal.’
Connor looped the pendant over his head and tucked it into his shirt.
‘Keep working on channelling your chakra energies with Connor.’ Amber could see the sly smile playing at the corners of India’s mouth as she said it. ‘Your powers should start to come through slowly.’
Amber mentally kicked herself and threw her hands into the air; lost in the memory of her brief kiss with Connor she had totally forgotten about her vision.
‘Lavanya! In my training session, I met a woman called Lavanya.’
The coven sisters turned as one to stare at her. ‘As in the ancient oracle goddess Lavanya?’
‘Yes, she told me a bunch of stuff about my heritage and about the evil power that’s put a veil over my mind, but she also told me that I can lift it myself and then it’s hey presto – oracle powers.’
‘Did she say what powers exactly?’
‘Not really, she mentioned seven powers in total and how they had split them all up when they did their vanishing act. She seems to think I have all seven hidden deep inside me.’
She gave them a lopsided smile.
India clapped her hands together and herded the others back towards the door at the back of the shop. ‘Come on, come on, we all have work to do.’
Before she closed the door, she levelled her gaze at Amber. ‘We open the gateway at sunrise, so you don’t have long to work on your training. This is going to be a learn-on-the-go kind of mission.’
‘I get it, Indi, but I do feel different somehow, like I can feel something just under my skin, an itch that I can’t scratch.’
‘Your powers are going to appear over time. You’ll have to be very adaptable and learn to deal with each one as it emerges. Connor will help you as much as he can, but Amber…use them wisely.’
It hadn’t occurred to her until that moment that her powers could be dangerous. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure she wanted to be a supernatural being, however helpful it may be in finding Tom.
ONCE INDIA had left, Amber and Connor were once again alone in the dark shop; night had fallen and Connor moved to the window to lower the blinds.
‘I’m sorry about earlier,’ he mumbled. ‘I shouldn’t have kissed you like that.’
Amber flushed again in the candlelight. ‘And just how should you have kissed me then?’ she teased, but his expression turned her heart to stone as he faced her.
‘I shouldn’t have kissed you at all, Amber.’ He paced in front of her, his face a steely mask. ‘We have a dangerous mission coming up, and I shouldn’t have complicated things by kissing you.’
Amber felt winded. She was used to being rejected by the men in her life, every attempt at a boyfriend had ended in disaster, and the one man she should have been able to count on, her dad, rejected her more than most, and yet Connor’s rejections hurt more than any of the others.
‘It’s fine,’ she whispered, lowering her head. ‘Stressful times make people do all sorts of silly things.’
‘It wasn’t silly, Amber.’ His voice softened and she raised her face to look at him, his brown eyes clouding over as he took a step back. ‘It wasn’t silly, it was stupid.’
She wasn’t winded this time, she was carved in two. Her heart felt like it might implode in her chest.
‘It’s no problem,’ she bristled. ‘Dangerous mission outranks kissing – got it!’
They both stared at the wooden floor for a few moments, not speaking until Amber broke the silence. ‘Better get back to my training then, we’re on the clock.’
Sitting back on the floor in the centre of the protection circle, she crossed her legs. As she settled herself into a deep breathing rhythm she heard Connor finally move and take a seat beside her.
She tried hard to concentrate on the wheels of energy, balls of light and her breathing, and not on the hot tears that threatened to spill from her eyes and Connor’s warm body next to hers.
Once again she could see the ball of light above her head and, at Connor’s instruction, she cloaked herself in its protection then concentrated on the space between her eyebrows.
Something tugged at her mind, like she was pushing and someone was pulling from the other side. It was an odd sensation and one she wasn’t taking any pleasure in, when suddenly it gave way and a violet blue light flooded her vision.
THE LIGHT swirled and twisted, leaving trails of patterns imprinted on the back of her eyelids. As it grew brighter it began to take shape, each swirl settling in a bubble like a lava lamp. She could see small figures inside each of the violet bubbles, the figures becoming clearer until she was watching hundreds of pictures, mini home movies floating around in her mind. She concentrated on one of the bubbles and the scene unfolded.
A young couple sitting around a kitchen table, surrounded by wedding gifts and cards. They were eating dinner and the woman was smiling up at her new husband as he refilled her wine glass. The picture shifted and Amber could see the woman huddled on the floor, weeping, her husband looming over her and shouting; another shift and there was an ambulance outside and the young woman’s body was being taken from the house covered in a black zip-up sack, the husband now sitting in the back of a police car.
The bubble popped and another scene drifted into focus; this time there was a man and his daughter, crying. Amber felt sad as she watched the two lonely figures nestled together in a grief-stricken embrace. As she watched, she saw a heavy black fog float down over them, seeping into their noses and mouths and settling on their clothing. The figures stopped crying and the scene shifted; a young girl approached the gates of a school, her dad waving at her as she walked across the playground. There was a woman standing behind the man, holding his hand and watching the young girl like a falcon watches its prey. Amber felt the panic squeezing the air from her lungs as she realised what she was seeing. This was no vision, this was her own memory, and as she studied the woman she saw the blonde hair fade to grey and the designer clothing turn to rags, the perfectly manicured hands twist into claws and her skin shrivel until her eyes were sunken pools of blackness in a wizened face. And then it was gone, the veil was gone, and she remembered – she knew – Patricia wasn’t what she seemed. The woman who had been a part of her life for the past ten years, who had made her life a living hell, had cursed Amber and her dad.
Amber’s screams echoed through the tiny shop as the enormity of it hit her. Patricia was the necromancer.
The temperature was cool as the sun began its ascent from behind the imposing structure of the old church. The thick, sandstone walls cloaked any hope of feeling the early morning warmth, and the chill in the air caused goose pimples to cover Amber’s arms.
She had tried repeatedly to call her dad but his phone was
switched off. She’d even tried to call Patricia, but again she got no answer. India had asked if she wanted to abandon the mission to rescue Tom and concentrate on finding her father. She had felt so torn. She loved her father and knew she had to find a way to free him from the necromancer’s curse but she knew she couldn’t leave Tom to the fate that awaited him. If Patricia had kept them both under her curse for ten years she obviously had long-term plans, and that gave Amber some time.
India assured her the coven would handle the situation in her absence and that once the two of them had cleared the gateway they would put all their efforts into finding Alan.
As Amber and Connor made their way through the graveyard, she cast her mind back to the vision she had seen as her brow chakra opened and the veil unravelled. She had always disliked Patricia, but now she felt more than mere dislike. It was a heavy ache that lay deep in her gut, like a disease that had invaded her very bones. It was pure hatred.
Her mind was a jumble of thoughts and memories; pictures that had been hidden from her by the veil of dark magic tumbled forward and she was having a tough time controlling them all. She hadn’t told India, or Connor. This was her burden to carry.
She remembered her mum more vividly now and realised that she would never have left them. Something had happened to her and Patricia was probably the reason.
She could trace the trail of dark magic in her mind, following it like breadcrumbs until she found all the hidden memories: her mum’s disappearance, her dad’s strange and erratic behaviour and his hostility towards her, his sudden acceptance of another woman, her miserable existence and feeling like an intruder in her own home, and then of course there was Tom. Patricia had used the dark magic to ensure Tom was at the church when the Guardian came to claim his payment; she had ripped his protection talisman from his wrist using her evil magic and as good as delivered him to the gates of Phelan herself.
Payback was going to be a bitch when she got home – if she got home.