Ghostwriting

by Traci Harding

  ‘Oh, Heartley’s spirit is real,’ Isis clarified, ‘it is his power in the physical world that is an illusion. What power Heartley had in this world died with him. Remember that and we shall fare well.’

  ‘Perhaps I should stay.’ Simon shied away from the challenge, having felt Heartley’s wrath before.

  ‘We need you for numbers.’ Shannon grabbed his hand to encourage him to be strong.

  ‘Yeah,’ Billie shoved his knee with hers. ‘You’re our west.’

  Each member of their party had a designated direction to occupy during the ritual. West was Simon’s position; Billie was to be south, Shannon was to be east and Isis was to stand to the north, where the gate to the recently fenced-off grave site was located. Jupiter would stand atop the grave itself, and his psychic wellbeing was assured so long as his companions maintained their positions throughout the ritual.

  Isis didn’t wait for Simon’s resolve to strengthen; she knew he would come to the party. She opened her door and stepped outside.

  All the circling paraphernalia dropped to the ground instantly, and the house fell into darkness.

  Shannon, Billie and Simon weren’t sure what was more unnerving, the paranormal episode or the still, dark silence that awaited them as they emerged from the warmth and protection of the luxurious car.

  Heartley’s choice of resting place wasn’t too far from the house, but it seemed to take forever to reach it in the dark with only a couple of flashlights for guidance. The patch of property where the grave was located had become rather overgrown; it seemed Heartley’s descendants had not gone to any great lengths to make it accessible. Fortunately, the men Simon had hired to erect a fence around the grave had cleared some of the scrub from around the raised stone, which had been cemented into the top.

  Jupiter walked straight in through the open iron gate and sat himself upon the tombstone.

  ‘How can we be sure that Heartley will come?’ Billie was not sceptical, just curious.

  ‘No disembodied spirit can resist an open medium … like moths to a flame they come.’ Isis gently urged Billie to take up her position.

  ‘But why can’t spirits resist him?’

  ‘Because in Jupiter lies the means to their true expression in the physical world,’ Isis explained quickly, eager to get on with it.

  But how can a ghost express himself through a mute? Billie wanted to ask, but, feeling that she’d be pushing the friendship, she took up her position to the south of the gravesite.

  Once everyone was in place, Isis began calling Heartley back to his grave and Jupiter’s head dropped forward as he concentrated on grounding himself.

  A surge of wind swept into their presence from the direction of the house. It shot past each member of the outer circle before rushing into the gravesite through the open gate and colliding with Jupiter with such force that the impact nearly knocked him over.

  Isis immediately ran to close the gate, but to the horror of the three people looking on, Jupiter stood up and raced across to prevent her closing it. Isis slammed the gate shut, and locked it as Jupiter rammed into the iron bars and gripped them to rattle the gate and check its sturdiness.

  ‘Give me the key, whore.’ Jupiter surprised Billie and Shannon when he spoke.

  Isis had backed up beyond his reach. ‘Your escapades in the physical world are hereby curtailed, Edmond Heartley. You can return to the light that spawned you, or you can remain confined to this wee patch of ground for all eternity. The choice is yours.’

  Jupiter was seething, and the angrier and more red-faced he became the higher he lifted off the ground, rising until his whole body drifted above the height of the fence.

  Simon backed up a couple of paces. ‘He’s going to —’

  ‘He certainly is not,’ Isis snapped, ‘so don’t even suggest it. And don’t break the circle. That’s just what he wants.’

  Jupiter floated over to the westerly side of the grave to taunt Simon. ‘Beat it, girl,’ Jupiter hissed. ‘You fags are all chickenshit.’

  Simon’s expression hardened at the insult, and he resolved to stay put. He took two large steps forward to resume a position closer to the action. ‘But big, tough, abusive fellows like yourself really get me hot.’ Simon blew a kiss to Jupiter and served him a wink.

  The spirit quickly changed position and headed south, toward Billie. ‘Well, if it isn’t my favourite victim.’

  ‘I kicked your arse —’

  ‘Billie, he’s coming after you because he knows you’re easily riled. Don’t touch him,’ Isis warned. ‘If you make contact with him through the bars, he’ll use you as an outlet to escape.’

  ‘Ah.’ Billie smiled with a new understanding. ‘Nice try, butthead, but I’m not biting.’

  ‘Be nice, Billie. We promised Katlin,’ Shannon reminded her.

  ‘Stupid, weak whore.’ Jupiter exaggerated every word as he headed east and into Shannon’s quarter.

  ‘She forgives you, Heartley,’ Shannon said tenderly. ‘You can stop being angry with yourself now, for she will seek no retribution in the next life. You have no need to fear moving on.’

  ‘She forgives me,’ Jupiter snarled. ‘The two-timing bitch scared me to death!’

  ‘And you butchered her slowly, you sick motherfu —’

  ‘Billie!’ Shannon appealed to her to refrain, and then looked back at Heartley. ‘Katlin never two-timed you, because she never loved you in the first place.’

  ‘Nor did my second wife,’ Heartley grumbled, ‘although she deceived me into thinking that she did love me.’ He sounded suddenly sad and betrayed.

  ‘None of it matters any more.’ Isis drew Jupiter’s attention. ‘Leave it in the past along with your guilt, fear, anger and greed. You can progress beyond this sorry state and be reborn —’

  ‘To live another loveless life?’ Jupiter snapped.

  ‘That would depend,’ Isis replied, surely, ‘on whether you are over that loveless experience, and whether you are ready to try loving others so that you might in turn be loved in a sincere, pure and respectful way.’

  Jupiter was grumbling and was suddenly violently ill; to the uninformed it seemed as if he was rejecting Isis’ notion, but his reaction meant that he was considering her suggestion.

  ‘I was very cruel to her when I could not get her to love me,’ Jupiter gasped for air between words, ‘nor even tolerate my presence.’

  ‘But it wasn’t that you couldn’t win her heart.’ Shannon intervened in the proceedings as she had intimate knowledge of his plight. ‘The fact was, no man could have won her heart! How can you possibly expect to run and win a race that has already been won, the prize already claimed.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ he mumbled, reduced to tears. ‘But I punished her for her disdain toward me, which only made matters worse, and inside myself I became twisted by my desire to break her will. Was it any wonder that no one could truly love the monster I became?’

  ‘None of it matters any more,’ Isis repeated, more gently this time. ‘Let it go, Edmond. Forgive yourself. Resolve to do, and know, better and move on.’

  Jupiter said nothing. He just nodded and lowered himself back into a seated position on the gravestone.

  ‘Turn now to the light that beckons you, Edmond,’ Isis instructed, ‘Go in peace, brother.’

  ‘Go in peace,’ Shannon, Billie and Simon repeated after Isis.

  Air streamed out of Jupiter in all directions, causing his hair and attire to billow in its wake, then a near-transparent white vapour flowed out of the medium and down over the gravestone, into which it was absorbed.

  Everyone maintained their positions as they awaited Jupiter’s return to reality. The man raised his head and served them all a large smile as he gave a thumbs up.

  ‘Simon,’ Isis announced, ‘your house has been returned to your possession.’

  The announcement met with a mighty cheer from the banishing crew.

  They all slept in the house that night without incid
ent. Isis and Jupiter departed before Shannon and Billie rose. As Simon seemed to be quite at ease in the house, the two girls did not linger on after breakfast.

  No one had much to say this morning. They were all still mentally digesting the incredible events of the previous night and were too preoccupied with their own thoughts to share them with the others.

  Shannon gazed out of the window during the journey into town, back to life as she’d known it. Her mind was on Sean and what Isis had said about the power Shannon possessed for willing the man into her life. She certainly had nothing to lose by testing the theory, and resolved that she would see Sean again, and soon. They would be married and live happily and prosperously ever after. Billie’s rummaging through her own handbag interrupted Shannon from her daydreaming. ‘What are you doing?’ she queried, as Billie lit a smoke.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious.’ Billie inhaled deeply from the cigarette, and then blew out the smoke in a long and satisfied manner.

  ‘But what about your psychic career?’ Shannon fashioned her disappointment into a joke. Billie had been doing so well without all her vices!

  Billie had another drag on the cigarette and then tossed it out the window. ‘Yeah, you’re right. I wouldn’t want to blow my calling in life.’ She laughed, still doubting the prophecy. ‘How about you?’ she sobered to inquire.

  Shannon shrugged. ‘I’m choosing to have faith in Isis’s theory, so I’ll wait and see if I have as much willpower as she reckons I do.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Billie granted, pulling up in front of Shannon’s house. ‘You’ll let me know if there’s any developments, won’t you?’ she encouraged, as Shannon climbed out.

  ‘Is that my phone?’ She listened hard. ‘Shit … gotta run, Bill. I’ll catch ya.’

  By the time Shannon got inside, she only caught the tail end of the message.

  ‘So give me a call if you’re still interested.’ The message machine clicked off as the caller hung up.

  Shannon immediately rewound the message, convinced it was work related.

  ‘Hi Shannon, it’s Penny from Starling Productions. You know that fantasy film we’ve been threatening to shoot in New Zealand … well, we’ve found a co-producer in the UK who is prepared to get involved, but we have to move the whole production to Ireland. Could mean departing within the fortnight, so give me a call if you’re still interested.’

  Shannon could hardly breathe for the emotions that were vying for precedence over her thoughts. ‘Oh my God! Oh my God!’ She had to sit down. ‘Could I have created that?’ Shannon shook her head; surely it was just a happy coincidence. ‘No, no, no.’ She stopped that train of thought. ‘That is my old way of thinking. The new me accepts full responsibility for my future … so of course I made it happen. In fact, I can honestly say that I expected it to happen.’

  The phone rang and startled Shannon out of her scattered wits. She picked up the receiver quickly, hoping it was the production company calling back.

  ‘Hello? Shannon speaking.’ She nearly dropped the receiver when she realised Sean was on the other end of the line.

  ‘I didn’t know whether I should call —’ he began, a little awkwardly.

  ‘This is so amazing!’ Shannon’s excitement shattered any doubt he might have had about her interest. ‘I was just this second thinking about you. Guess what? I’m coming back to Ireland.’

  Claire

  The actress — an inspiration

  In the Limbo

  of Luxury

  I LEFT THE film studio to travel and get serious about my own film projects. I had big aspirations at that time, but they waned as the next year passed and I found myself no closer to getting a film on the screen.

  Between losing faith in film production and commencing work on my first successful novel, I was forced to earn a living. And, as so many starving artists do, I got a job in retail sales.

  I’d worked in a record store before; in fact, I’d worked for this same retail music chain before. I met many an aspiring artist among the staff and it got to be that my first question to anyone I’d not worked with before was, ‘So what do you really do?’

  When I asked Claire this question, she gave me an exhausted look and mumbled, ‘I’m an actress,’ She stood there in anticipation of my next question being, ‘So what have you been in?’.

  ‘I sympathise,’ I replied. ‘I’m a writer.’

  At that moment we recognised in each other a kindred spirit who had dreams and a life beyond the walls of retail sales.

  Working with Claire made working in a record store bearable and when Mandy (the body builder) came to work with us, my paying job even became fun for a while.

  Despite the great people and times we had, it killed my soul to know that whilst I was working full time for someone else, my own dreams were fading and I was turning into a moody, depressed person. I was beginning to be sucked into company politics and I hated that I was expected to give a damn about sales figures. There was this amazing story forming in my head, which I did not have the time to write and this frustrated me all the more.

  Claire took a stand for her art before I did; she found herself an agent and headed off to the US to see if she couldn’t get serious about her craft and make some connections. Not that Claire wasn’t acting one hundred percent of the time, anyway. When asked to actually use her own voice and personality for a moment, it was not unknown for Claire to find herself at a loss.

  I took holidays to try and deal with the fact that work was going to be even more depressing with Claire gone, and that in three years I hadn’t touched my film project or written anything new.

  The amazing tale that had been brewing in my mind for many years finally got a look in. Those holidays I found my passion for storytelling once again. Still, I had decided not to waste the idea on a film script. This time, I would write a short story. That short story became The Ancient Future Trilogy, which eventually spawned a second trilogy, The Celestial Triad.

  When I returned to work having written five amazing chapters of my first book, I was told that Mandy had resigned from her casual position at the store. She was going to design her own label of gym wear and was off to the US, with Claire, to buy fabric and scope the latest trends. I resigned my full-time position on the spot, and applied for her casual job. This was one of the most vital decisions of my career — I still had money coming in, but I had a whole lot more time to work on my writing and a whole lot less responsibility to the company. The career prospects really started looking up after that and I got happy and healthy in mind, body and spirit.

  Claire returned from the US and found work in commercials, TV and theatre. She took acting classes and became a damned fine clapper loader on the side — for extra cash. She acted in a couple of short independent films the year before last, the first of which won Tropfest 2000, and the second was featured in the ‘best of the rest’ at the same festival. Next thing Claire knew, she’d been accepted to attend an acting school in New York.

  Two days short of getting on the plane, Claire was diagnosed with cancer and was informed that she immediately faced six months of chemotherapy if she wished to live.

  I have yet to mention Claire’s extraordinary beauty, of which she has always been annoyingly unaware. The next six months really tested this woman’s opinion of herself, and her beliefs, but never did she question her goal. Her ambition never suffered one iota for her illness. In fact, every second week (when therapy was not causing her to throw her guts up), Claire was still working on any production that she could work her treatments around.

  Fortunately, the acting school in New York was kind enough to hold Claire’s position until the following year. The star herself got through the therapy and her cancer has gone into remission. A year to the day after Claire learnt of her illness, she climbed on a plane and flew off to New York. She returned to us, after the course, a completely changed woman, full of positivity and hope. She has just returned to the US to speak with a producer about
a feature film.

  Claire appreciates her own beauty and knows her power now, knowledge that is bound to be useful where Claire is headed.

  Twinkle, twinkle, little star,

  I’ll wonder about you from afar,

  Until the day you shall be seen

  upon the huge, silver screen.

  Miss Claire-Bear McFlair inspired the character of Rhiannon in Masters of Reality, and the character of Zoe in the forthcoming Book of Dreams.

  I had started writing ‘In the Limbo of Luxury’ even before Claire influenced the storyline and the tale became dedicated to her.

  I dreamt up the story right in the middle of penning the second book of The Celestial Triad — being the fifth book of an ongoing series, the writing was heavy going. Every time I wrote a sentence I had to consider the text of the four epic books that had gone before it. For a brief, insane moment, writing seemed to be a chore and I didn’t know what to do about it.

  Claire was staying over on the weekend I was having this crisis. I didn’t have writer’s block, I had something worse. I was bored with writing and although I was enjoying the story that was unfolding, it was just too hard. So much research was involved, so much history had to be considered. I craved a new tale, one that was entirely spontaneous and unexpected.

  ‘Write something just for the hell of it,’ Claire said, encouraging me to blow off my paying text and have a little fun.

  I don’t normally like to concentrate on writing more than one tale at the one time, but ‘In the Limbo of Luxury’ taught me what a grave mistake that had been. This tale popped out in a couple of weeks and the book that I was contracted to write also fell out into my computer with more ease and joy than it had heretofore. I finished Tablet of Destinies well within deadline. Now I am twice as productive and if I were not, this book would not be here.

  During the short time it took to pen this tale, Claire’s illness came to light.

  From the moment I’d conceived of this tale I knew that it was to have a surprise ending. All my readers have come to expect a happy-ever-after tale, but this time my heroine was going to self-destruct and betray herself in the end.