I Belong to the Earth (Unveiled Book 1)

by J. A. Ironside

  That's not how I was beaten.

  Helen's voice was flat. Like somehow I'd gotten off lightly by only taking one punch. I was shivering. The floor was freezing and an icy breeze blew through the back door. How long was I out? Not that long, surely?

  Poor Ciarán. My face throbbed. My left cheek felt five times its usual size.

  Why worry about him? He hurt you.

  It wasn't him, it was Clayton. What Clayton did to you was wrong, even if he was out of his mind with grief. But he shouldn't still be stuck here doing it again. Or using other people to play it out. Can you see why we have to break the Pattern now?

  I got slowly to my feet, stiff and aching all over. One hesitant step. Not too dizzy. I could do this. Better slow than not at all.

  Helen was conspicuously silent.

  Grief does strange things to you, Helen. You must know that.

  I had a brief flash of memory; Mum dead, me refusing to speak or let anyone near to me for days afterward. Not until I saw Amy… I felt Helen curl her lip in disgust.

  Haven't you ever loved anyone Helen? Haven't you ever cared enough that the world ended for a while when they were gone?

  And who would I be caring for, Miss?

  Helen's sardonic reply gave me a chill for reasons I couldn't quite define. I squashed my disquiet.

  Never mind. Can you help me? I need to get to Grace and fast. Take me there?

  She considered my request. I could almost feel her narrowing her eyes.

  I'll take you to where it all ends.

  I felt a tugging in my mind. The direction I needed to go in. Between the throbbing of my face and the ache of my broken arm I forgot to be suspicious. My head was spinning and my stomach rolled. I blundered through the heather and scrub. The rain had stopped for now but my feet were soon soaked and numb with cold in my boots. There was a strange feeling to the moor. Expectant. Waiting.

  I stumbled on, dizzy and scratched by gorse and bramble. I looked up to see if I could gauge the time. There were no stars. There weren't any clouds either. This wasn't the sky of my reality. Just an empty void. A great dome of absence that made me feel like a tiny insect clinging to the skin of the world. I shuddered. I was fairly sure this wasn't Yorkshire. I could be in hell, heaven, Gondal or on another planet. Somehow I'd travelled the way the Dead do, slipping between cracks in the layers of reality.

  I understood now, that this was what I was afraid of all along. This is where it would happen.

  I kept my eyes firmly on the ground, on the earth which at least looked the same. I was scared that if I gazed into that wheel of starless night again, my mind would be sucked out into the void. I would be trapped here forever. There were things in the dark, which watched and whispered.

  Don't look. Don't look.

  Here. Helen was abruptly solid in my mind.

  I pulled my gaze. A vague, masculine outline stood on a limestone outcrop over a twenty foot drop. My stomach flip-flopped weakly. I hadn't been a big fan of heights since I went shooting off one at around ninety miles an hour. It took me a second to realize that the man wasn't Haze. I looked around for Amy or Grace. They weren't here.

  Where have you brought me?

  To where you need to be. To finish it. Helen tried to cover up her next thought but we'd grown too close.

  I saw Helen, crawling on the kitchen floor, beaten and bloody. Three broken fingers. Two missing teeth. A cheekbone that had swollen her eye shut. Cuts and bruises all over her stout frame. Pain in her sides from her broken ribs. I saw her lying, fevered, on her bed, untended by anyone. She roused once to Reverend Weston standing over her.

  "Take what time you need to recover…" Her heart swelled at this kindness and then broke at his next words. "We'll say nothing of your foolishness. Forgiveness is divine. You'll work to repay me, I know. And Helen? You will say nothing to anyone about what happened that night. You will never address Mr Lynfield again."

  The flash of fury and resentment belonged to me and Helen, both.

  I saw Helen recover slowly, the bruises on her face fading. People in the village gossiped about her and her missing teeth. Helen was not well liked. I saw Reverend Weston give Helen a message for the sexton regarding Kate's headstone. She was buried while Helen was in the fever. Helen waited until she was out of sight and read the message. I saw a look of calculation cross her face as she changed some of the words on the message. I saw her smiling her new gap toothed smile at the headstone, after it was erected. I saw her watching Clayton Lynfield, as day after day he wandered on the moor lost in grief. I saw her slipping through the heather toward him…

  No! Helen slammed a lid down on the last memory. It was too late. I already knew how quietly she could move across the Moor.

  You killed him. You killed Clayton by shoving him off a rock stack. That rock stack there. I sounded too calm. Even to myself. Haze didn't do it. Clayton didn't kill himself. You murdered him.

  He was thinking about it. I just helped him along. Helen was sullen. He deserved far worse after what he did. That one now, he might well do it without help.

  I recognized the figure teetering on the edge. Ciarán.

  "No!" I stumbled forward.

  Ciarán whirled and almost lost his footing. I saw him grow paler in the strange half-light.

  "W-what are you th-thinking!" I screamed at him. "Guh get back fr-from there!"

  "Stay away, Em. I swore I'd never turn into me Da and then… look at you…" He choked back a sob.

  Remember what he did? Remember how he hurt you? Helen bombarded me with images; Ciarán kissing Grace; gazing down at her adoringly as he carried her; touching her newly chestnut hair. She threw the last image of his fist flying into my cheekbone at me with such force, it hit me like a physical blow. Remember! This is where we settle accounts. This is how it has to end. This is how we get justice. And he wants to go. It'll be easy. One good push. Blood for blood.

  Blood for blood?

  I stared at my hands, both raised as if to push the boy in front of me. My broken arm groaned in its cast.

  Blood for blood! The black hen. It all clicked into place.

  With a mental scream of fury I shoved Helen back behind the electrical barrier she'd been slithering past.

  No! No more death! Helen beat against me uselessly. I ignored her. Threw myself at Ciarán and almost unbalanced us both.

  He caught me and for a moment his arm was a shield around me, keeping me from harm. Then his eyes moved over my face and he stepped away. I stepped with him.

  "Don't you understand Em? That man… Clayton… He's still here! I might hurt you! I don't ever want to hurt anyone again."

  "It w-wasn't you. N-not your fault." I entwined my free hand in his jacket and pulled him closer. I sounded very sure. I was. Ciarán would never hurt me. He would never lead me on or kiss my sister. He would definitely never hit me. It was Clayton, stupid, besotted Clayton, stuck playing out the Pattern all along. Why didn't I figure it all out before? Because deep down I knew, I just never believed I was enough. That I was good enough. I smiled at Ciarán, face throbbing. He liked me. As insane and badly timed as this realization was, I was happy.

  "Don't Em, don't…" His voice was tight with panic.

  "Tell me you don't care about m-me then?" I looked straight into his eyes. Hazel and dull gold. Clayton was weak without Helen to goad him on.

  "I do. I do care that's why…"

  "I trust you, Kuh Ciarán." It was true. I would never push him away again.

  I pulled his head down and kissed him. Hard. I felt him struggling with himself. I felt him trying to resist. And I felt it when all his barriers came crashing down and he kissed me back. A tangled meshing of lips and tongue and teeth that gave way to something softer, sweeter, more gentle but just as fierce. He cared about me. More than cared. It was dizzying. His feelings might have been frightening in their intensity if I hadn’t felt just as strongly for him. His arms came up around me, hands warm, moulding me a
gainst him. And I was soaring. We were soaring together. In that one perfect moment nothing mattered except his lips moving against mine, his body warming me, the rightness of us being together. I laughed at myself, but gently. Who would choose being numb over this? All this time I had been hiding.

  Finally I pulled away. Both of us were breathing hard. My cheek was on fire. Ciarán's face was flushed. Brighter glints of gold appeared in his eyes. I touched Ciarán's face with the tips of my fingers. He held still, eyes wide.

  Let go now, Clayton. Rest. I coaxed the unhappy soul that blindly held on to Ciarán.

  The gentlest nudge and Clayton stepped away. A brief glimpse of his face, lines of pain smoothed into relief before he melted into particles of light.

  One down.

  "Emlynn… I just… just saw…" Ciarán looked shell-shocked. Not that I blamed him.

  "I nuh know. No t-t-time now." I gave him a look I hoped was as piercing as Mrs Cranford's. "I n-need your h-help. You can have your breakdown t-tomorrow, if w-we live!"

  The ghost of a smile touched his lips. He squeezed my hand.

  "Okay, where to?"

  I shook my head. "W-we need to split up."

  Ciarán scowled. Not crazy about that plan.

  "I n-need you to fuh find Amy. She's not part of the main P-Pattern. I can't go after her. I have to save Grace."

  "By yourself? I don't think so!" The scowl deepened.

  "I h-have to. Until I stop H-Haze the Pattern will go on. H-He doesn't even know he feeds it. P-please fuh find her! Find Amy! She's l-lost in this darkness!" I was close to tears.

  "But…"

  "Please? T-Trust me?"

  He regarded me for a moment, then gave a short nod before looking away.

  "Thank you." I kissed his cheek.

  There was more here than one kiss would heal. But he would be okay for now. He would make sure Amy was safe. I would take that and be grateful.

  "When I find Amy, I'm coming after you. That's non-negotiable." Ciarán's tone was final. Stubborn boy.

  "Okay f-fine. Hurry!"

  I let go of his hand and he melted into the dark.

  Okay Helen, let's see where Kate and Grace are.

  You can't save her. She's probably already dead. Helen said sourly. So petty.

  We'll see. Being dead hasn't stopped you from being a major pain in the arse, has it?

  I wrung her like a wet rag and she screeched in my mind. Images dripped out of her like drops of acid. Always ignored. Always overlooked. Always manipulated. Exploited. Threatened and frightened. I'd have felt sorry for her if I didn't know how many people she would let die just to keep a foothold here and now.

  Yes, yes but where's Grace?

  Kicking and fighting all the way, she showed me.