by Ayse Hafiza
“Oh, I see,” said Mrs. Oban.
“I can’t leave if my little girl is here. I just can’t,” Sophie whimpered.
He didn’t need to see into the kitchen to know Mrs. Oban was likely giving the younger woman a hug.
“I don’t think I can ever leave,” Sophie confessed.
Frank gasped, it wasn’t the reaction he wanted. He needed his child safe, he was standing on the staircase, the same one where he had been paralyzed in his dream. The demonic apparition could have materialized at any moment.
“You don’t need to leave love, and no one will ever make you leave. You are as connected to this place as he is. Did you find a compromise?” asked the older woman.
He took a deep breath. If he left them alone, he knew Mrs. Boswell would talk Sophie into the seance. Then he would be able to save Jane and get her to move on. Put the mirror at the bottom of the Irish sea and live a peaceful life with Sophie.
“No, there isn’t a compromise that I can see,” said Sophie.
“Well he wants you off this island for your safety, so maybe he thinks something here isn’t safe,” said Mrs. Boswell.
It was the perfect breadcrumb given at the perfect moment, Sophie must have been surprised to hear those words.
“Do you think so?” asked Sophie.
“Yes, absolutely, this house is old and there are things in the corners,” said Mrs. Boswell. She was a great actress. “Maybe we should have a cleansing ritual, that would be a good idea,” said the older lady.
“But I don’t want Heaven to go away. If she is here somehow, she is with her family and that’s her place.”
“Don’t worry about Heaven, she has only been here for a little while it wouldn’t be her that he is worried about.”
“Frank is a Shaman, so if he says that we need a cleansing ritual, then of course we need a cleansing ritual,” said Sophie agreeing to whatever Frank had in mind and had yet to voice to her.
“Let me go speak to him,” said Mrs. Boswell.
Frank moved away from the door and quickly into the sitting room.
She walked into the room and Frank glanced up from the fire at her.
“Why don’t you speak to her about what you want to do?” Mrs. Boswell asked.
He shrugged his shoulders, Frank was his father’s son, his default was to be grumpy until someone bothered to figure out why.
“She thinks it will be a cleansing ritual,” said Mrs. Boswell.
Frank stood up, placing the mirror on a roundtable that had been gifted to them. He set four chairs around it and lit candles around the room. The largest candle he used for a representation of fire and it had pride of place on the table by the mirror.
Mrs. Boswell went to find Sophie.
When Sophie walked in her eyes widened as she counted the chairs.
“But there’s only three of us,” she said.
“Nevaeh has to be included in this,” he said.
“But why, she’s just a child?” Sophie's concern made her step away. He could hear the panic in her voice. ‘Give her a convincing reason,’ he heard himself say inside his mind.
“To protect Heaven, because she’s connected with her,” Frank said. Feeling his heart rate calm down. Sophie listened and then nodded.
Complying with his wishes, Sophie went to speak with her. Mrs. Boswell and Frank were left alone in the room.
“I sure hope you know what you are doing,” said Mrs. Boswell.
“I need to break my connection with the mirror. If I can do that we can try and send it back to terrorize the Oban clan. I can’t give it what I promised. I can’t do that.”
The old lady looked at him suspiciously, Frank had never said what he promised the Oban witch, but she knew it wouldn’t have been a simple request.
“You know it was forged with the Devil’s own magic, this won’t be easy.”
He nodded, he knew it wouldn’t. Nothing had ever been easy, that unfortunately had been his entire life. Why would tonight be an exception? Light footsteps were heard on the stairs, signaling to Frank that Nevaeh was coming. When she walked into the room she looked at him, the look on her face was one of distrust. It disturbed Frank because she had never looked at him like that. The little girl had generally always been friendly. Frank was going to be part of her family, he didn’t want her to think of him negatively, or judge him harshly. He would be the father of her younger sibling, so he wanted to have a decent relationship with Nevaeh. It wasn’t that he wanted to be a father figure, but he was the best this poor kid got. He didn’t say anything to her, he watched her settle herself on a chair.
“Mommy is going to be holding your hand the whole time,” said Sophie as she attempted to reassure her daughter. The little girl gave a small nod.
Mrs. Boswell took her seat and held Nevaeh’s other hand.
“Whatever you do, don’t let go,” Frank instructed. Each held the others hand slightly tighter then nodded that they understood.
Placing the four elements in the spaces between their chairs, Frank finally took his seat at the table and closed the circle.
“Close your eyes” he instructed. This part wasn’t necessary, but he didn’t want them to see Jane when he pulled her out of the mirror.
Frank was going to rely on his third eye more so than his normal two. In his mind’s eye, he was in the room with the women, his physical body stayed there while he continued to chant, he felt his astral body begin to separate and leave his mortal one.
He concentrated hard and he could see the dark spaces at the back of the room form into shadows, he stayed firm with his incantation refusing to falter. The temperature in the room dropped and he could see the hairs on Sophie’s arm stand on end.
Black amorphous blobs in the corners of the room formed into the ghosts that had lived in the house. He knew they were still with them. He also knew from the temperature in the room the demonic maid was there too, he could feel the sapping of his life force by her mere presence.
Frank carried on.
From the mass at the back of the room, Heaven stepped forward. He smiled at her, and she smiled happily back at him. She moved forward and put her hand on Sophie’s shoulder, as she did so the pregnant woman’s face softened. Sophie sensed that Heaven was with them. She put her other hand on Nevaeh’s shoulder, and Frank could see that the young girl was protecting them. They were strong because they were family that loved each other.
The mirror on the table moved a little to the left, its corner seemed to move. It moved and stopped, then moved and stopped again. Then in a heart-stopping moment, it began to spin at an unbelievable pace. Frank felt the pressure of Mrs. Boswell’s grip. It reminded him of his dream, the one where Sophie was having the baby. He didn’t want to go there in his mind.
He looked up at each of the women and that’s when he saw her, the demonic entity who appeared as the maid, she stood behind Heaven. The light emitting from the dead girl’s aura kept the demonic maid at bay. Frank knew she was an evil presence in the house, but she wasn’t the Priestess of the Oban. He had worried that she was because she had free rein of the house, but he knew she was a deep festering cancer and that was all.
He drew his energy back to the mirror, ignoring the spinning motion. He gazed into the depths of it. As if it was a windy day, he saw brown strands of hair move as if they were dancing. His astral body recognized that hair, he could feel the love from her, he could sense her calling him. Frank reached out his hands in his mind’s eye. He wanted to drag her out. Pull her away from the grip of the Priestess of the Oban. He reached out to her, the air in the room felt as if they were standing at the epicenter of a tornado.
He couldn’t reach and so his astral body stood up and leaned forward. He made contact with her, her body began to rise, her head and shoulders were breaking the barrier and were escaping the prison of the mirror.
His incantation was working.
17
Inside the Prison
Holding onto
her, he felt his fingers form a claw-like grip. The indignation of her being stolen rose in his mind. Feelings that he had pushed away since being with Sophie began to rise in his mind, He was torn, Jane was his and had been his for so long, and Sophie was making him a father and represented his future. Frank was torn, he knew at this moment he loved them both. As he held onto Jane, he held onto what was stolen, an alternate future where she was the woman he was meant to build a life with. Frank was a man wronged and he held onto her with every muscle. Determined that he would have her back. This was the closest he had ever been. She was going to be his again, and she was coming to him. Just as Heaven was able to protect her family with her love, he would use the same to protect Jane and call her back to him.
Who had he been fooling, he knew she was the love of his life? Once he had her back, he would never ever let her go.
Frank held onto her, his arms now throbbing with the exertion, but he remembered the first time he ever laid his eyes on her. Jane had been waiting for him with his elderly Mom. She was a police constable and he worried about whether she could like him. But she had.
She had let him kiss her. That kiss, that precious moment of knowing that he had met his soulmate had become the key to her confinement. Frank knew at that moment exactly what he needed to do to set her free. He leaned his upper body closer. He would kiss her again to set her free.
The only being to move in the room was the demonic maid, while taking a step back toward the shadows, she caught his eye. Frank noted the worried expression on her face. From that, his instinct told him he was doing it all right. He continued with his incantation and her hair parted unveiling her as the same fresh-faced twenty-year-old beauty that he remembered. Her lips the color of rosebuds, and her eyes crystal blue. At that moment Frank fell in love again and kissed her on the lips. She responded, he closed his eyes, and mentally recited his incantation. Repeating it until he fell into the warmth of her.
His astral body felt the upward motion, he was winning. Suddenly he fell hard onto a dark rocky surface. The warmth he felt, and the feeling of Jane was gone in less than a second. Landing on his bottom he opened his eyes and looked up, he was inside a cave and alone.
“Jane? Jane!” he screamed out.
Somehow he was in a prison, and the house, the women, all the ghosts. . .all were gone. He was on his own. He could feel every one of his muscles tingle as they started to contract. The anticipation that something bad was coming jarred him. Frank could see his breath turn to ice in front of his very eyes, it was a powerful force approaching. He knew the dungeon he was in held another presence, and it wasn’t Jane.
Even though he couldn’t see her yet, he knew the Priestess of Oban was close. Frank shuffled backward a little, he wasn’t expecting a confrontation with her, not here and not yet.
“Well, you seem to want to protect the world,” her voice echoed from the darkness that coated the solid rock walls.
Inside his mind, he answered, ‘Yes.’
“Haven’t you worked it out yet? Women who you believe are the fairer sex. . .”
He held his breath, knowing that the witch was about to bestow some great truth on him.
“. . .are not weak. You believed your Mom to be weak when she was the strongest. You believed Jane to be weak when she isn’t. And you think Sophie needs your protection. . .when she doesn’t.”
Frank let go of his caged breath and told himself off mentally. Of course, the Priestess of the Oban would know what was happening in his life, especially when she had lived inconspicuously in the corner of rooms he had inhabited for most of his existence.
“You think women are weak when it is you Frank who are weak. Just like your suicidal father before you.”
The comment made him reel. The witch knew all his secrets and her words left him in no doubt about exactly what she thought of him. He saw himself as equal to her, as the Master of the Hamilton Coven, but now he was starting to see, maybe he was well out of his depth. He couldn’t claim to know much about her.
How could he respond? He stayed quiet, there was nothing he could say. If she wanted to fight him he was ready for it, he had been studying the rituals and spells of the Hamilton witches, but he wasn’t sure why she needed the character assassination. He reasoned to himself that the best way to fight an attack was to also attack.
“What is your purpose?” he called into the darkness.
She appeared in front of him so suddenly that he had to take a step back. She looked like a cruel and demented version of Jane. Her skin luminescent like moonlight, but her eyes pitch black. He could see her, and if he could see her, maybe he could conquer her. His one question had made her reveal herself.
“What do you want? To rid the world of all witchcraft?” he asked looking right at her. He stood taller, gathering courage.
“You were created with the agreement of my coven. If I withdraw the support of my peoples to you. Revoke the oath of the ancestors, what would happen then?” He knew it was a threat. The Oban witch needed to know that he represented the power of the ancestors and that she didn’t hold all the ace cards.
The witch said nothing, but he saw her face grow darker, the surface lined with evil energy as if ants were walking in lines across her face. He wanted to carry on destroying her with his words. Her power relied on an old pledge, one which he knew he had the ability to break. The witch needed to understand that she should have been on her knees in front of him, pledging allegiance rather than threatening him. She moved back a little and Frank took a deep calming breath puffing his chest out. Internally he wanted to kick and scream, he wanted to tell her how she had ruined his life, destroyed any sense of hope he ever had.
“You’ve caused misery to all the Hamilton witches since you were created,” he said stepping forward and watching her shrink further away.
Her foreboding presence was still close, but he had enough. He wanted her to surrender, he couldn’t help but think about the misery she caused him, his mother, his grandmother, and all the other women who he had never known and who had carried the burden of losing their loved ones he decided enough was enough. Frank was going to finish it and finish it now.
He raised his hands and charged at her. As soon as he reached her, his claw-like hands wrapped around her throat and he squeezed.
She tried to fight him off and as she did her eyes filled with fear. She pulled at his forearms trying to make him stop but he didn’t he pushed harder and harder seeing the white of his knuckles. Her hands slapped against his vice-like grip trying to make him stop. Her eyes looked like they would pop out of her head as she fought against him. He felt nothing as he gripped tighter, he didn’t want to see what he was doing so he looked over her shoulder as he pushed his hands closer together tightening his grip.
Her face started to change, it became paler, the same coloring as Janes. Her black eyes slowly turned to the clearest blue just like Janes. And it took a moment for Frank to realize that he no longer felt the presence of the Oban witch. The witch was gone and the woman he was strangling was Jane. It took a few seconds to penetrate his anger, it whispered in his mind like a whistle on the wind.
But when he heard it, he loosened his grip. Janes body slumped to the floor and he stood over her, panicking. Frank had done something worse than in all his nightmare. Holding her nose, he tried to breath into her airways. He cried the words over and over as he attempted to bring her back to life. She gasped with a small cry and rolled on to her side curling up into a ball with her back toward him.
The Oban witch had played on his anger, had made him hurt the one he loved. He realized then this was a game to her. Like a raincloud that was full to bursting he could feel her presence as if she was sitting inside his head. She didn’t need to speak, he knew that being in her presence, he would not be able to negotiate. A fight was going to happen, and he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to win it. Frank thought about her, about how she had dominated every ancestor. What chance did he have of a f
uture, of hope, or of love? None. He leaned down on the floor and kissed Jane on the cheek.
She was breathing but she was unconscious, and as he tried to lift her he felt his astral body start to fade. Trying to touch her he saw his hands become transparent like the ghosts he had seen in his own house. Frank understood his astral body was returning to his physical. He grabbed at Jane but couldn’t touch her, his hands dissipating in the air with each movement.
Frank faded to black.
Frank slumped forward in the chair, his eyes not registering the women in the room with him. The mirror was now still, and the ladies around the table were holding hands. The air was heavy as Frank broke the link pulling his hands away from theirs. Rubbing his eyes, he said nothing.
“Well?” asked Mrs. Boswell.
Frank looked at her.
“I felt her, Heaven was here,” said Sophie, touching her shoulder where her daughter had held her. She turned and grabbed Nevaeh holding onto her as tight as she could.
Frank felt emotionally drained, he looked over at the elderly woman and gave her a weak smile, then he could no longer contain himself. The first tear trickled down his face, the next from the other eye, then the next again. He felt the futility of his cause and the ripples of power she exerted in his life. He was under no doubt that he was helpless, and his destiny was to be defeated.
Frank tried to wipe away the tears without Mrs. Boswell seeing them. But he knew he couldn’t, she watched him closely. Later that evening as he cried alone in his room he could feel her words in his head, she was right. Women weren’t the weaker sex. He didn’t need to protect them, he needed to protect himself. For the first time, Frank realized exactly how much danger he placed himself in. All his life he had spent time trying to protect women when all along he was the one who was weaker, the one who took after his father, the one who needed protection the most. How could he have never seen it before? All the women, including young Nevaeh, were fine after the seance it was only Frank who wasn’t. He had been pulled into another dimension, failed in his attempt to thwart the Oban witch and crumbled most spectacularly. He leaned back in his chair and allowed the floodgates to open.