by M S C Barnes
The Legacy of Souls
By M.S.C. Barnes
The Legacy of Souls
Copyright©: M.S.C.Barnes 2018
Published: 20 March 2018
Publisher: Stone Circle Publishing
The right of M.S.C Barnes to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by M.S.C. Barnes in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Table of Contents
The Voice
Failure
Trust
Time to Learn
A Golem
An Assessment
The Importance of Words
Not a Novice
Just Get On With It
Darkness
Going Home
Pain
Sympathetic Attack
Safe at Sea
Tracking
Protection
Auras and Secrets
No Poppet Required
A Dryad’s Fury
Not Burglars
Another Meeting
Bad Reaction
Hellfire Caves
Abandon and Rescue
Years of Desolation
Healing
Coincidence?
Subliminal Messages
From the Fog
An Owl’s Insight
A Very Old Friend
The Endless Staircase
The Sanctum of Friends
Rebellion
The Trap
Water Gateways and Enclaves
Containment
A Soul’s Ghost
Wasting Time
The Truth
Love’s Intent
His Heart
A Grave Secret
Finding Zach
Going it Alone
Surprises
Instinct
A Choice
A Witan Gathering
Into the Light
Half A Soul
Something Unexpected
Time to Get On With It
The Voice
Ellie Simmons stared at the waves crashing against the chalky cliff-face that dropped away below her. Her bare feet were so cold they couldn’t feel the soft grass between her toes, and the wind sweeping across the exposed ridge caused her body, dressed only in a thin nightdress, to shiver uncontrollably. But she paid no attention to the discomfort, she had to concentrate.
In her mind a voice screamed: No, don’t do this. I don’t want to do this!
That voice had dominated her existence for over a year now. From nowhere it had come, popping into her head one day while she was on a solitary walk in Woodchester Park. She remembered the moment: treading carefully along a mud-squelchy path, the rain-spattered leaves above her rustling in a strong wind and the tree boughs creaking. She had stopped as she glimpsed something strange in the undergrowth between two great tree trunks. She peered into the tall ferns and then started as she realised what she was looking at: a large black cat; a panther! Stunned as she was to see this beast in the middle of the wooded valley, that was not what froze her in her tracks. What made her mouth go dry and her heart almost stop beating were its eyes; regarding her with what she considered greed, the panther’s eyes glowed red. And then it sprang towards her.
Strangely, she remembered nothing more, just that minutes later she was walking through the woodland towards the open moorland with that voice in her head now. And it had never stopped since. It went on incessantly, talking, laughing, shouting — making non-stop noise. It continued, day and night, whether she was alone or in company. She had tried everything to stop it: sleeping pills, alcohol, loud music, shouting and screaming herself. Nothing helped and her increasingly desperate and odd behaviour had caused her family, friends and neighbours to think she had gone mad. Actually, she wondered herself if she had.
That voice. Will you never be quiet? Leave me alone!
But it didn’t leave her, it was ever-present. And it had made her do such things. She cringed at the memories. The hateful, wrong things it had made her do. Not only had that voice invaded her mind, it seemed to have taken control of her body. It was the voice that decided the actions she took, the abhorrent things she did.
Her family had become so concerned they had tried to have her hospitalised in a mental health institution. But the controlling voice had ensured she would get no treatment. It was clever. Whenever the doctors — the well-meaning, patronising doctors — had visited, accompanied by concerned looking ambulance crews and disinterested police officers, that voice had caused her to be calm. It had spoken its own words through her lips, engaging rationally with those so-easily-duped doctors. And each time, the doctors had decided she was not so far gone as to require ‘sectioning’.
A year of noise, of gloating, of debauchery and shame. Then finally that voice had made her do something so dreadful, so heinous, she couldn’t bear to live in this body any longer. She had mustered every scrap of willpower she could and brought her body here — to Beachy Head — And now she stood, looking over the precipice at the violent, grey sea, the waves hacking at the soft chalk cliffs, the cold spray rising to seep into her nightgown and hair, as the voice screamed its profanities and its hateful threats.
I need peace. Ellie sighed. This is the end of us both.
With a deep breath she found the strength. She raised her arms in front of her, tilted her head down and let gravity have its way.
The fall was swift. The wind rushed past her ears, it stung her eyes, making them water, blurring her vision so that she could no longer see the froth and foam of the stormy sea. The cold air forced its way into her lungs as her mouth hung open in a silent cry of exhilaration. Free. I am free of you! Then excruciating pain ripped through her body followed by blackness …
She felt nothing — nothing physical anyway, certainly nothing to indicate she had a place in the tangible world. But suddenly she felt a gentle presence, a warmth, a kindness. She felt herself being pulled and became aware of a young boy — a teenager. She could see him — in all the darkness around her this boy stood, surrounded by a halo of blue, and he beckoned to her. She went willingly. There was something compelling about the boy. She felt herself float up towards him and then she flew through him, through his chest and she felt an electric thrill as her whole being was laid open to him. Her mind replayed a multitude of events. She saw herself living lives and experiences she had long-since forgotten. These were lives from centuries before, life after life, event after event. She lived them all afresh in a split second. And at the end of it all was this last life, a life as Ellie Simmons.
Momentarily she felt surprised at the exposure of everything that she had been and was, and then crushing embarrassment as the boy recoiled in horror and revulsion at the things he saw. She passed out of his body feeling ashamed and she began to panic: Am I damned? Was it me? Am I so terrible?
Emerging from this boy she wanted to shrink away, flee the guilt and self-blame that now overwhelmed her. But as she searched for a path to take she found another, stronger presence. A man. Like the boy he was surrounded by a blue halo of light and from him emanated a firm resolution, wisdom and knowledge. Now h
e beckoned her. She had no choice, she was pulled to him and as she passed through this man, she shrank back, fearing he would find her as revolting as the boy seemed to have done. But this man didn’t falter. He didn’t judge her, he simply accepted. Her lives past, for good or ill, were accepted. She felt no embarrassment, no guilt. This man was guiding her to learn and grow from this most recent life, a life which had been prematurely brought to an end by someone else she now realised — another presence that hovered nearby, shouting and cursing. As she passed out of the man’s body she felt the sadness of loss. She wanted to stay with him. But that sadness was quickly replaced by a feeling of peace. She knew she needed to sleep. She felt drowsiness overtake her, warmth surround her and she floated into darkness full of the memories of all the lives she had lived.
Failure
Seb Thomas sat on the damp grass, the icy wind tearing at his face and clothes. His breath came in short gasps, his heart raced and he had to brush a tear from his eye as he tried not to sob. He barely registered Aelfric Duir, standing feet away from him, beckoning the misty trail of the human soul that Seb had just expelled from his own body.
He gazed across to the white cliff, where moments before he had seen that soul take its destiny into its own hands and end the life of its host body, the shell it wore on this visit to the human reality. Up until recently, as a thirteen year old boy, he couldn’t have imagined what would drive a person to that extreme act. But it was now nearly three months since he had been confirmed as the newest soul Custodian — a role that had lifted the veil of ignorance which he, like so many human souls, lived behind.
He had discovered that human souls exist as separate entities to their flesh and blood bodily host, and that the souls travel again and again to the human world, living life after life as different people in an ever-changing variety of circumstances.
As if that wasn’t revelation enough, he had also learned that there were souls who rebelled against the order and balance of Nature, defying the need to spend a resting period after each lifetime in the centre of all the worlds, Áberan. Here they were meant to grow and develop, to learn from the last lifetime and the ones before, so that they could eventually reach a state of wisdom and awareness that would enable them to leave the human reality and become a Dryad — a tree spirit. But these defiant souls refused to remain in Áberan until Nature allotted them a new human host body. They sought to return to the physical world when they chose and travelled back as trespassers, hunting a host body they could take over — sometimes a host body already occupied by another rightful soul.
So it had been for that soul Aelfric Duir had waved on to rest. Seb had seen, in the memories of Ellie Simmons, the moment when the trespassing soul, having skulked in the world using the animal host of a cat as a shell, had waited for the right opportunity. When it found her wandering alone in the woods, the trespasser had gleefully invaded her adult body.
Seb shuddered at the memory of the dreadful things it had then caused the body and tormented soul of Ellie Simmons to do. He hadn’t meant to show his revulsion and horror at the things he had seen. Aelfric Duir, his mentor and, like him, a Custodian had spent the last months teaching him that Custodians did not judge. Their role was to ‘read’ the souls. Where they found even a single ounce of goodness or hope then, without judgement, they must send them to Áberan to rest. Only when there was no glimmer of goodness would a soul be banished to a dark soul depository, the Soul Drop, to spend eternity in isolation.
Seb watched Aelfric now, reading the trespassing soul, beckoning it to him and as it passed out of his own body waving his hand to send it on its way. Seb had no idea if Aelfric had banished it, or if he had found some hint of goodness in it and sent it to Áberan, and he didn’t care. He just felt utter relief that he hadn’t had to read that soul.
He found it so hard. The things these greedy, self-willed and warped souls did was shocking. With the knowledge base of a thirteen year old he had been thrown into a world of sights and acts that were beyond his naive experience, and the visions of their depravity appalled and upset him.
He clasped his arms around himself, trying to control the shaking of his body and he looked up at Aelfric Duir who now stepped over to him.
“I’m so sorry. I just couldn’t — What she did was awful.”
Aelfric gazed sympathetically at him and then sat beside him. The cliff edge was only yards from them and Seb followed its curve with his eyes as it wound round to form the promontory from which Ellie Simmons, in her desperation, had thrown her human body. Waiting for a couple of walkers, hardy enough to brave the cold on this exposed coastal path, to amble past, it was a while before Aelfric spoke. When they had gone, now satisfied that his words could not be overheard, he turned to face Seb.
“She did not do those things Seb.” His voice was soft and the wind tore the words away as he spoke them.
Seb sighed and dropped his head.
“I know. But that last …” he mumbled.
There was a fluttering to his right. Seb turned to the leaf-covered figure on the other side of him. All Custodians had a Dryad — or tree spirit — twin and this was Seb’s twin, Alice. Invisible unless they spoke their name to an individual — revealing themselves to them — Dryads had human appearance except instead of clothes and hair, they were decked in the foliage of the season. Since it was winter, Alice’s normal oak-leaf covering had been shed and his body was now adorned with a mesh of ivy. Their eyes too differed from humans, the iris around their pupils shone silver, and Alice’s now flashed with annoyance.
“You have to get used to it, Seb,” he said.
A few feet away Aelfric Duir’s own Dryad twin, Dierne looked on, frowning. The two Dryads, disconcertingly, hovered above the ground with no apparent means of doing so.
Seb shook his head. “It’s grotesque Alice, the things she did.”
“She did not, Seb,” Aelfric repeated. Lifting a hand he waved it in the air. The muted sunlight bounced off several silver lines on his palm, and he reflected it onto a cluster of large gorse bushes several yards to their left. Instantly, within the bushes, the shape of an ornate, arched door materialised.
Seb was used now to the appearance of these doors, which were present, though invisible, within the natural fibre of the world. Once located, either he or Aelfric could open them by reflecting natural light off the silver birthmark they each bore on the palm of their left hand — the mark of a Custodian — onto the space where they knew the door to be. And these doors would lead to the place where they, or any one of the people who made up their Custodian groups, needed to be. The normal difficulties of geography and distance had no place in Seb’s new world.
The door opened and Seb hung his head again now as Nat Kitchener, the Sensor of his own Custodian group, stepped through. Pulling her small cardigan tightly around her willowy figure as she felt the bite of the icy wind, she rushed over to Seb.
That Nat was here now, Seb knew, was a sign that Aelfric believed Seb needed her presence — and also an indication that he had once more failed.
But even through the muddle of disappointment and embarrassment, Seb felt his heart skip a beat. Nat was remarkable and her intuition, her kindness and her gentle openness attracted Seb. Her talents as a Sensor gave her the ability to read the feelings, intent and personality of those around her. She had sensed the presence of other creatures from different realities long before Seb had even been aware of their existence: fairies, the Dryads, elves and the presence of evil in souls with or without hosts. He lifted his eyes to hers now and all he saw was concern.
As the door disappeared in a flurry of sparkles, Nat sat down beside him, her arm and thigh just in contact with his.
“Tell me.” She left the phrase hanging in the air, inviting him to open up to her, as she had so many times over the last few months.
Seb couldn’t speak. He could feel Alice’s annoyance, and he knew why. Alice had seen the things Seb was capable of. Just before his co
nfirmation as Custodian Seb had managed to save Alice from being torn to shreds by a colony of possessed bats, and to defeat two age-old, experienced and tyrannical souls and condemn them to the Soul Drop. He had even managed to save the life and the soul of Aelfric Duir, his own mentor. So Alice was becoming increasingly frustrated at Seb’s inability to close off the experiences he witnessed every time he ‘read’ a soul, and to deal appropriately and efficiently with them. Seb was frustrated too. He knew he should be getting better at this, but each terrible act he witnessed devastated him, filling him with horror and anger. Now he felt ill and desperately sad.
“I’m sorry.” Was all he could say.
“Seb, no-one here is judging you.” Aelfric stared out to sea. “You do not have the life experience to deal with what you see, so it distracts you and upsets you. You see it as failure. It is not.”
Picking absently at a few blades of grass, Seb said nothing. His birthmark began to ache slightly and his heart sank. This was the sign the Custodians got when there was a trespassing soul, or when something else threatened the balance of reality. It was how they knew they needed to deal.
Aelfric, obviously feeling it too, stood. “Stay here Seb,” he said. Without looking back he waved his hand towards the bushes. The door reappeared and, making his way to it, he walked through followed by Dierne, who, floating above the ground, moved through the air so fast he left a green trail, marking his passage, behind him. In moments the door fizzled out of sight leaving Seb alone with Nat and Alice on this exposed and blustery headland.
Trust
“So what is the problem Seb?” Alice said, sighing. “We go through this every time, but you don’t let me help.”
Seb lifted the blades of grass he had absently picked and let the wind carry them over the edge of the cliff. The wind also freed a leaf from Alice’s body and it drifted off with them.
“These people do such horrible things. Watching them makes me feel sick,” Seb mumbled. The blades of grass dropped below the cliff top as Alice’s leaf turned into sparkling dust motes and disappeared. “I try to prepare myself for what I am going to see but I am never ready. And the more good things I see in their memories, the harder it is when these dreadful things appear.”