The Ghost in the Mirror (Haunted House Book 2)

by Ayse Hafiza

  She rose like a tornado out of the mirror, which was lying flat on the ground in the center of the star.

  The burning sensation didn’t abate, and he knew it would continue because this was how the witch was demonstrating her superiority over him. She wasn’t coming willingly so she was going to make his life hell. He kicked and writhed, but he wasn’t going to stop his chanting, not yet. Not until the curse of her was broken. He thought about the baby in Sophie's tummy. The world needed to be safe, and if it meant Frank’s death then so be it.

  She rose above the mirror in a long black dress, once again she looked like Jane, he didn’t want to make the same mistake, so he willed his eyes to focus. She appeared to resemble a different woman. She had gray and dark brown hair, black eyes, a gray complexion, and deep lines that set her face in an angry snarl. Her long black dress had a bodice and was made of a stiff, dirty satin. Her hand raised in the air, and with scrawny fingers, she pointed at him. He could see her whispering an incantation. There was no pretending anymore, they were having a fight. He grabbed her dress, and dragged her onto the ground, as her body touched the roots of the fig tree, all the ghosts that had hung there showed themselves once more hanging from their nooses, this time they were pointing at her.

  The wind whipped between Frank and the witch as he jumped down on top of her, beating her in the face with his fists. The Priestess of Oban didn’t bleed, but she took the pounding with a shocked look on her face. He knew he was managing to hurt her and while he was doing it she couldn’t recite her spells. His life depended on this moment, finishing her was his only desire, and as she lay under the weight of his body, he realized that beating her in his world, the real world, was how he should have approached the curse a long time ago. He was so very close to finally obliterating the witch. Frank was a scrapper, having lived on the streets, he knew how to throw a punch and that he did until he felt the boom of a branch crack against his skull. As he fell to the ground slumping over the witch’s body, he saw that he hadn’t been beating the witch at all, again it was Jane.

  She had sent Jane.

  As Frank’s sight faded in and out he saw Mrs. Boswell standing over him with a branch in her hands, she was moving closer to see if she had killed him. By the time Frank passed out, he knew Mrs. Boswell was a traitor.

  20

  Another Escapes

  He lay on the grass for a long time, until Sophie managed to get men from the village to rouse him and bring him inside. While he lay under the fig tree his mind had wandered. Why had Mrs. Boswell interrupted him? He was glad she did because he had been within an inch of taking Jane’s life. Maybe Mrs. Boswell saw him beating a woman, and that’s why she intervened? He made a million excuses for her because her friendly attitude was a large part of the reason he came to the island.

  Or maybe her willingness to serve him had masked something about her. He was going to find her and make her answer.

  The men followed Sophie’s instructions and settled Frank up in his room on his bed where he was in and out of consciousness for days. By the time his head stopped hurting he saw the mirror back on the wall. He spoke to Sophie when she came to feed him soup.

  “What happened the night I passed out?” asked Frank.

  “Mrs. Boswell disappeared.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “No one knows.”

  “She’s been on the island her whole life, but the day you got sick she got in her car after she left here, and no one’s heard from her since.”

  “We need to search her home.”

  “I think the Islanders have and Mr. Creedy wants to have a chat with you when you are free to receive him.”

  Frank forced himself to sit up.

  “You know she’s the one who hit me with a branch over my head?”

  Sophie looked at him and shook her head.

  “Frank you passed out in the garden. She was teaching Nevaeh, she was nowhere near you.”

  Nevaeh heard her name and came into the room and agreed with her mom. But Frank could see Heaven standing behind her sister mouthing the words ‘she hit you.’

  Frank nodded at them and smiled accepting their version of events. But, he knew Heaven was telling him the truth. Mrs. Boswell wasn’t all that she seemed, she was hiding something. He thought about her flattering tone, and her Master of the Coven rubbish, she had used the words so easily, but had she really believed them? He had involved her in so many of his plans, with the old woman gone, he might finally have some success.

  Mr. Creedy took the mirror out of the room and carried it downstairs so they could speak in private. Without Mrs. Boswell, supporting the Master of the Coven had become the task of the elderly postmaster.

  Frank was still convalescing. When the elderly man entered the room, he took a moment to settle himself on a chair near the foot of the bed, he looked apologetic.

  “We’re so sorry Master of the Coven, we were negligent where the Boswell family were concerned.”

  Frank looked at him. He wasn’t saying anything that Frank hadn’t worked out himself. But he wanted to hear the details. Why did it happen and what for?

  “What do you mean?” Frank expected details from the old man.

  He paused then ran his hand over his thinning hair. Frank noticed the beige of his cardigan, it looked like vomit, and he could tell from the man’s actions that whatever he was about to tell Frank was making him anxious.

  “Well. . .Mrs. Boswell’s been part of this community for such a very long time, setting up the estate agency and knowing everyone on the islands business. So, she was the last person that we would look at. Do you understand? She claimed long ago to be a distant cousin of Philomena Hamilton, whose son established the Hamilton clan on the Isle of Eigg and back then we had no reason to doubt her. They were ancestors we all looked up to.

  After she disappeared we began to look into her claim. Checking the archives and we now know that she was Philomena Hamilton’s great, great, great, great, grand-niece, but only by marriage. You see Philomena married into the Oban clan.”

  Frank gasped understanding the inference.

  “So Mrs. Boswell is a Hamilton and an Oban. . .” he concluded.

  “Yes, by her roots. In those days marriages were arranged to stop civil wars and share wealth, it would have been the same reasoning.”

  Frank rubbed his forehead, “So, I guess she was more Oban than Hamilton. The very family that we were looking for were right under our noses.” He shook his head at the incompetence of his followers. “This was major information, why couldn’t it have been checked beforehand.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “You don’t understand Mr. Creedy I was in the middle of a ritual to destroy the Oban witch, and Mrs. Boswell cracked a branch over my head. I will never be able to pull that witch out of the mirror now.”

  “I’m so sorry Frank,” said the old man. He didn’t doubt that the younger man's responsibilities were a huge burden. “I just hope what you promised her wasn’t too precious.”

  Frank snorted, “Mine and Sophie’s unborn child. I don’t know. Do you think that’s precious?”

  The old man gasped.

  “Why did she do it? Mrs. Boswell, I mean. Do we know why?”

  “To harness the power of it. There were some spells written in a notebook. From where she had tried to decipher spells from your book. But the book can’t be read by just anyone. She wouldn’t have been able to understand it in its entirety.”

  Frank thought back to the moment when he had first held the spell book in his hands, the woman had been surprised that he had been able to read from it so easily.

  The older man continued speaking.

  “The Oban witch is very powerful,” said Mr. Creedy as he crumpled backward. “Can you not offer her anything else?”

  “Like what, money?” Frank’s reply was more sarcastic than he had intended.

  “Why did you agree to that?”

  “I don’t know, because
the Islanders were unwell. I thought I could find a solution to finish this all before payday came and I needed to hand over the baby.”

  “Why would she want a baby anyway,” asked Frank not understanding.

  “Because a baby is pure, and she is evil. If she can harness blood magic, it makes her infinitely more powerful.”

  Frank shuddered, blood magic meant that she would have sacrificed his child in a ritual. Inside he felt his steely determination rise.

  “And surely if I destroyed the witch, then Mrs. Boswell would have benefited. If she and Audrey are in line for the mirror after me, then why would she stop me.”

  “She probably wasn’t thinking that far ahead. I’m sure she just wanted to harness its power to keep Audrey safe.”

  “Call Audrey back here,” commanded Frank.

  The old man laughed, as if that was even an option now, Frank did too when he realized how absurd a request it was.

  If Mrs. Boswell was an Oban, then so was Audrey and no matter how they flattered his ego, he was no Master of their Coven.

  He felt a burning sensation near his left lower rib and the laughter made his throat hurt. Mr. Creedy made his excuses and left him. Frank looked at the dull wallpaper in the room, as he wondered what the hell just happened and how his world had been flipped on its end once again.

  When he felt better, he set about his process again, this time with Mrs. Boswell gone he would be able to get back to destroying the Oban witch. Frank was determined, he was sure that he had her, and when Mrs. Boswell launched her attack that was when she had pretended to be Jane. He was sick of torturing himself, believing that he was hurting her when in fact it was the witch, it had happened twice now. When could he be sure that he had actually seen Jane?

  Underneath the fig tree in the back garden, he locked the garden door from the outside. Frank was determined to keep the women inside the house safe. Safety was the only reason Sophie had followed him to this island and to this house. He owed her that at the very least. He put the key to the door on the window ledge so Sophie would be able to find it if he never returned.

  He wanted to speak to her, to tell her his plans, but he wanted her to be safe too. Sophie was having a hard time with Mrs. Boswell gone, Frank realized exactly how much time the older woman spent at their home. She knew all about their lives, she was almost like a grandmother to Nevaeh and Heaven when she was alive. Mrs. Boswell, the old bitch, had been spying on them the whole time. Franks hands formed fists and felt like punching something, but instead he used his energy to draw a pentagram on the ground again and placed the mirror inside. With an incantation, he threw a fistful of salt in the air. He saw the ominous dark clouds form over the Irish sea and he could feel the wind pick up in ferocity. He had some water with him which he kept close. It was blessed with prayer and a spell, and when he managed to pull that Oban witch out of the mirror, he was planning on giving her a shower before he crumbled her into ash to be scattered into the sea below.

  Frank was going to succeed, because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t have a future, and neither would his child. Failure wasn’t an option. He was clear on that.

  He fell into a meditative trance and called out to the witch.

  He didn’t feel the strength of her presence, she was hiding, so he forced himself to touch the surface of the mirror. Pushing his hand in, he moved it around until he saw a swirl of black energy. Pulling as hard as he could with his hand holding a root for support he pulled out the demonic maid by her hair. Knowing she was caught she clawed at his hands, trying to stop him. He opened the water and threw it onto her face. It began to melt like hot wax. She stopped attacking him and touched it, the smell of burning flesh in the air surprised him, and with one swift yank he pulled her fully out of the mirror. She lay on the ground, melting as the water worked its magic. He hated her but not as much as he hated the witch.

  It wasn’t the Priestess of the Oban that he had caught fishing inside the mirror it was her spy. He recited his incantations until she exploded into a pile of ashes, these he collected moving quickly to where Heaven had fallen from.

  “For you Heaven.”

  Frank released the ashes into the air and watched as they fell into the sea below.

  Exhausted once it was done, he walked back to his pentagram. He touched the bark of the fig tree, and even the tree’s memory felt weak. Frank had a smile on his face, it wasn’t exactly how he thought it would be, he hadn’t vanquished the Oban Priestess, but it was a start. He had taken something of hers, just like she had taken something from him.

  For that he was happy.

  Slumped against the tree, Frank looked up at the house. He saw the ghosts, their faces at the windows, all watching him. Unsure if he should have been taking a bow, Frank looked at all their shocked faces. They were back.

  He had got used to not seeing them, but now they were back in force, all the different fashions they wore showed him the years that they had been alive in the house. He would need to get used to them being around again. Ever since he held the seance in the house they had gone away. Frank picked up the mirror and poured the last few drops of water on its surface, willing the water to enter and obliterate their world, but the water trickled down, nothing happened. It was a futile attempt.

  Letting himself back inside the house, each room was full to the brim with ghosts. Why had they all come back? Maybe without the demonic presence of the maid, they felt it safe to come out? If she had managed to subdue this number of eyes, he was already starting to miss her.

  More than anything it was his revenge, he had in his mind to somehow avenge Heaven’s death, and that was something that had bothered him. He had never told Sophie or shared it with Nevaeh that he had seen the maid hanging from Heaven’s shoe dragging her down the cliff face. She had done it to taunt him. Finally, he had got her back. Resting the mirror back on the wall in his room, he covered it, with a thick curtain and incantation.

  The ghosts watched him walk in, stayed with him in his room, and never left his side. He wanted to ignore them, but he knew that he couldn’t. The house felt cooler, even when they lit the fire in the evening, their breath let out a condensed mist which Sophie and Nevaeh started to notice.

  Overnight Frank's house had become busier than Grand Central Station, but with its previous residents living out their lives around them.

  Alone in his room he tried to speak to them, to ask them to join him in his quest against the witch, but maybe it was because they had lived their lives, or for whatever reason, they offered no support. Instead, they ignored him as they walked in and out of his room. Frank had taken someone from the Oban witch, he knew what that meant. It was a declaration of war, and the mirror hadn’t softened since he had taken the maid, he knew the Priestess was preparing to take him down. He didn’t need to look into the mirror to understand the dark, forbidding presence he could feel emanating from it. All his natural allies, his ancestors, none of their ghosts acknowledged him.

  Frank was alone, and his so-called allies didn’t care. Not one.

  21

  Inside

  As he sat up in bed, he wondered how his life had changed. Externally he had a house, a child on the way. He should have been the happiest man on the planet, but he wasn’t. Frank knew that feeling, the depths of it. Loneliness was crushing him, he was truly alone and isolated. No one was on his side. He had no connection with Sophie since he had tried to get her to leave and she had discovered Heavens presence. He wondered if she saw that as a betrayal. But Sophie was looking at the past, whereas he was looking at her future. More than anything he wanted Sophie out of the house, but there was no way he could do it. He wondered if he should tell her about what the Oban witch wanted, their child. As the weeks went past he knew he was running out of time. Then he had seen the Islanders coming to the house, bearing gifts of baby clothes. It was becoming real. Sophie would lose her child, but she wouldn’t leave because a dead child and million other ghosts lived with them inside their
home.

  No one was going to help him, and he had made a promise that he knew he wouldn’t be able to negotiate his way out of. Frank was stuck. He went downstairs for breakfast and ate alone, watching Nevaeh outside in the garden. He never saw her alone, she was always playing with her sister. If anyone with his ability to see watched them, they wouldn’t believe it. Nevaeh had skills she could see things, and he wondered exactly how much she had been able to see. And he wondered what it was that Mrs. Boswell had been teaching her.

  Sophie walked around the kitchen, the swell of her belly suited her. She was the kind of woman who should have always been a mother. A kind woman. Frank watched her make a cup of tea before moving to sit at the table with him.

  “The babies kicking a lot more now. I can feel him when he has his foot stuck between my ribs. I think he might be a footballer,” Sophie said, as she took a sip and put her cup down on the table.

  Frank smiled into his drink, Sophie had said the word he.

  “Are you sure it’s a boy?”

  “Well I can’t be, but I feel like it is,”

  “That’s great news,” said Frank. “Whatever I can do to help please let me know.”

  “You might have done enough,” said Sophie patting her tummy.

  Although they weren’t a couple, there was still something there. A distant respect. He didn’t analyze it too much because the truth was that Frank didn’t know how to be in a relationship. But the only thing he knew was that it was his duty to protect them. As he walked away from Sophie and back to his books with his mug in hand. He knew that right now, he needed to be the man and keep Sophie and his unborn son safe. To do that, there was still the not so small matter of the Oban witch to deal with.

  Looking at his nemesis the mirror that hung on the wall, he sipped from his mug. The curse once he learned about it the hard way, had dominated his life. His Moms things had been no help, and with a sweeping arm movement, he dropped them all to the floor. Frank understood one thing which was that no one had been able to help him. No one had been able to guide him. No one could support him. He was on his own. Putting his mug down he stared at the mirror, he could feel the anger running through his veins. Ever since he learned of the mirrors curse, he had learned it was always better to be alone, and now he wasn’t going to be alone. He was going to have a son, a child that the mirror intended to rob him of. He hated it. He always chose to be alone, but being a father, that unknown experience was going to be taken from him again by the mirror. He needed to stop her, the Oban witch had enough, she had stolen enough.