Ghostwriting

by Traci Harding

  ‘A bottle of water and some dirt might have done the trick if the right words were invoked,’ Max told them, remaining calm as he thought about the next step. ‘Do you have a water pump?’

  Phillip smiled at the simplicity of what the old bloke was suggesting. ‘Will that work?’

  Max shrugged. ‘We won’t know unless we give it a go.’

  ‘It’s got to be worth a try,’ Rhea seconded. She hated to think they’d destroyed the floor to no end.

  ‘I’ll rig it up.’ Phillip went to fetch the water pump.

  ‘I’ll give you hand.’ Chuck followed him outside.

  ‘So what shall we do with the water?’ Rhea quizzed Max. ‘If we let it flow on to the property won’t that release the entity into the great outdoors?’

  Max shrugged. ‘I would tend to think that exposing the curse to the two elements it doesn’t have, air and fire,’ he motioned to the sun, ‘shall render it null and void.’

  ‘And if it doesn’t?’ Rhea ventured.

  ‘The way I see it … what have you got to lose?’ Max queried and Rhea saw his point.

  Phillip dropped a hose into the well and ran another outside where the water could flow into the sun-parched earth. ‘Okay …’ He looked to everyone present as if asking if they were ready; secretly they were all worried that the entity would not take kindly to having its home disturbed. Nevertheless everyone gave Phillip the nod, and he flipped the switch on. The pump powered up and began sucking water out through the hose into the sunshine.

  After a few moments when all seemed to be going swimmingly, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘You really think this is going to work?’ Phillip uttered aside to Max who raised both brows.

  ‘I —’ he began but noticed that the door to the laundry had crept open and the casing of the pump had started to spark. ‘I think something is amiss.’

  Suddenly the pump blew a pressure valve, and when water started flowing into the casing of the pump, Phillip knew they were in trouble. ‘Move it!’ He grabbed Rhea and wrenched her out the back door. Max and Chuck exited quickly behind them as the pump exploded in a shower of sparks.

  ‘Shit!’ Phillip growled as the sparks and smoke subsided and the pump died a sad death. ‘So much for that idea.’

  ‘Um …’ Chuck was staring at the electrical cord that plugged the pump into the wall. ‘What is that?’ He pointed to a visible electrical charge that was moving slowly down the power cord and toward the electrical socket on the wall.

  Phillip moved closer, having never seen anything like it in all his time as an electro-mechanical design engineer. ‘I have no idea.’ His first impulse was to rip the power cable out of the socket, or at least switch off the power point, but Rhea held him back.

  ‘Don’t touch it,’ she demanded, as it was obviously live and faulty.

  In that moment of hesitation the strange electrical phenomenon disappeared into the wall.

  ‘Oh dear,’ mumbled Max, not wanting to alarm anyone with the thought he was having.

  ‘Oh dear, what?’ Phillip urged him to voice his woes.

  ‘I’m not entirely sure, but what if our watery entity has been empowered by the electrical charge and is now using the electrical system to transport itself to a safer abode elsewhere?’ Max suggested meekly.

  ‘But surely the surge guard will shut down the power once the charge reaches the meter box,’ Chuck posited, ‘and trap the entity in the electrical wiring of the house.’

  ‘Double shit!’ Phillip ran around to the side of the house to view the old meter box. ‘The electrician has yet to fit an earth leakage breaker,’ he explained his distress to the others as he ran. ‘There’s nothing to stop it from accessing the mains power, the local power plant, the rest of the town and beyond!’

  ‘Oh my God!’ mumbled Chuck, as he ran after Phillip with Rhea and Max in tow. ‘I know you probably think that the people of Berrensborough deserve whatever they get, having kept you in the dark, but if that thing gets loose in town, we’ll never pin it down. We have to stop it here.’

  Sure enough the strange charge passed through the meter box and started heading down the wire that connected their property to the mains power.

  ‘Think of something, honey,’ Rhea begged. ‘You’re smart. Can’t you think of something?’

  Phillip did not even respond; he was already racing to toward his work shed.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ Chuck quizzed Rhea, who looked even more worried now that her husband obviously had something in mind.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She ran after Phillip to find out.

  Her husband emerged from the shed, strapping on a tool belt, and carrying a large leather strap and a very long ten-millimetre cable.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Rhea pleaded, already knowing that whatever it was, it was dangerous and she didn’t want him to do it.

  ‘That’s a five-mil cable that the charge is running down.’ He pointed to the thinner cable running overhead, as he continued to make his way toward one of the more distant poles on the property. ‘So, if I clamp it off, I can redirect our friend down through this MCI cable and into this ten-mil cable.’

  ‘No,’ Rhea begged, ‘you’ll get fried!’

  ‘So long as I’m only touching wood, I’ll be fine.’ He kissed Rhea, and then passed the leather belt around himself and the power pole and then used the strap to climb the pole, carrying one end of the large cable up with him.

  ‘Careful!’ Rhea pleaded, biting her nails as he reached the top and began work.

  The unknown entity was steadily moving along the power cable toward Phillip and as it inched forward Rhea feared for Phillip’s life. ‘It’s getting closer!’

  ‘I know, sweetheart. Don’t harass me.’

  ‘Um.’ Max hated to disturb the man when he was working. ‘Where are you planning on redirecting our friend to.’

  Phillip clamped off the line, and realised that in his hurry to deal with the problem he’d screwed up. ‘Good point. Rhea, get the other end of that cable and plug it into one of the cells on the battery. And hurry!’

  Rhea picked up the cable and ran with it. ‘Which cell?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he yelled back, ‘but once you see the charge enter the battery, and the amps rise, hit the knife switch and it should be trapped. Run!’ He glanced up to see the unknown entity hit the cable that was connected to the pole he was working on. He grabbed the plug of the ten-mil cable that he’d secured to his belt and went to plunge it into the MCI connector, but in his haste he lost his grip and the weighty cable dropped back to the ground.

  Max and Chuck were both running with Rhea toward the shed.

  ‘Somebody!’ Phillip yelled. If he dropped down to the ground to retrieve the cable he’d never climb back up in time.

  Chuck did an about-face and raced over to help Phillip.

  ‘Come on, Father, move your arse!’ Phillip sat holding the MCI connector that was about to be hit by their strange electrical surge and he didn’t really want to find out what would happen if it reached him and had nowhere to go.

  Chuck, puffing and panting from his sprint, picked up the cable and began swinging it in a circular pattern, like a cowboy might swing a lasso.

  ‘We’ve got one shot at this Chuck. Make God proud!’ Phillip held out his left hand to catch the cable, whilst holding the MCI connector firmly in his right hand.

  The priest let the cable fly up, right into Phillip’s awaiting grasp. ‘Yeehah!’ the priest exclaimed in relief.

  The entity was nearly on top of Phillip. Although he was tempted to, he knew he should not rush. He pushed the connectors together until he heard a click and then pulled them slightly apart to be sure the connection was secure. As the charge reached the connector, he let go and slid down the pole.

  ‘Great work.’ Chuck slapped his shoulder.

  Phillip felt this was no time for congratulations, as the charge had picked up speed and was now racing down the
cable toward Rhea who was only just rounding the shed. ‘Holy Christ! It’s moving faster than it should be. Run, baby, run!’

  As Rhea came to a stop in front of the battery, she spied the charge come round the corner of the shed and race up the cable toward her. Her fright nearly made her drop the cable, but they’d come too far to blow their chance of trapping this entity now. She let out a screech as she pushed the plug into a cell socket, and no sooner had she let go than the charge passed into the battery and the gauge on the cell suddenly rose to fifty amps.

  Phillip came racing into the shed with Chuck hot on his heels. ‘Hit the knife switch, babe. Quickly, before it realises it has nowhere to go.’

  Rhea threw the switch and everyone took a second to catch their breath.

  ‘Did we get it?’ Chuck queried. He could not relax until he knew.

  Phillip checked the gauge and the amp reading indicated that they had indeed captured the beast. ‘It’s trapped in a lead casing.’ He unplugged the cable, just to be sure, and then kissed his horrified wife and held her close.

  ‘I’m so proud of you.’ Rhea squeezed her husband and collapsed into tears.

  ‘It’s all right, hon,’ he comforted her, ‘it’s over.’

  ‘So what happens to the entity now?’ Chuck wondered.

  ‘We remove all the connector plugs and wait for the battery to go flat.’ Phillip was fairly sure that that would be the end of that.

  ‘You are a brilliant man.’ Max smiled and held his hand out to shake Phillip’s and then Rhea’s hand. ‘And you are a very brave young woman.’

  ‘We couldn’t have done it without you.’ Rhea smiled broadly at the occult scholar.

  ‘And you, Father.’ Rhea looked across to the priest, who was quietly thanking God.

  ‘Yeah, Chuck, you did great.’ Phillip awarded the priest his due. ‘Where did you learn to swing a cable like that.’

  ‘Rodeo,’ he explained in a word, his response surprising the young couple. ‘Well, I wasn’t always a priest, you know.’

  Selwa

  My agent — my fairy godmother

  The Lost Word

  THE WOMAN WHO, without doubt, has had the most profound effect on my career is Selwa. If everyone had someone like Selwa in their life, then we would all be successful, famous and oozing with confidence.

  I had finished the first draft of The Ancient Future and had headed straight into an edit without thought for what I would do with the manuscript once I was happy with it. I had an inkling, or maybe just a secret hope, that the right person to help my book to publication would come along by the time it was complete.

  As I mentioned earlier, it was my mother who first set me on my path to being a published author by passing my script to Lynny Rainbow, who in turn passed it on to Selwa.

  The scenes in The Cosmic Logos that tell the tale of my road to finding an agent are as true as I can recall them. There was an author friend of Lynny’s, David Sale, who generously recommended me to Selwa — despite not knowing me from a bar of soap — and I thank him kindly for placing this last brick in the bridge that led me to finding an agent.

  I must confess that at the time I didn’t even know there was such a thing as an author’s agent; along with most people, I just assumed that you sent your script off to a publisher and then waited a couple of years to get a response.

  Before I heard back from Selwa about the manuscript, I was chatting with a friend, who just happened to have once worked as a sales rep for a major publishing house. When he heard that Selwa was reading my script he nearly did a backflip he was so excited. ‘She’s only the most influential agent there is to be had in this state and possibly this country!’

  I smiled, quietly saying to myself, the Universe always provides.

  It was the day of my tenth wedding anniversary when Selwa phoned me to change my life with the news that she loved my manuscript. Words cannot describe the wonder and awe I felt at that moment regarding the powers of creation, fate and destiny. After my misadventures in the film industry, I’d been suppressing an underlying fear that I’d been kidding myself about ever being able to write for a living. Selwa dismissed that fear for good, and guided me out of the murky regions of being an aspiring writer and into the magical realm of being a professional author.

  And God knows there were many obstacles to overcome during this transition — finding a publisher; getting promotional photos; negotiating contracts; edits, edits and more edits; designing a jacket; launching and promoting the book. By the time the book hit the shelves I was very thankful to have discovered that there was such a thing as an author’s agent and that they are an absolute must-have if you want to get taken seriously and actually get published. Who, in their right mind, would want to negotiate all of the above alone and without any idea about what is a fair thing? Not this little black duck, that’s for sure!

  My relationship with Selwa has gone far beyond the normal agent – author business dealings. I call her my fairy godmother as she is like a second mother to me. I have been privileged to see a side of this wonderful lady that very few people get to see. Most who have met Selwa professionally would probably consider her a rather charming, powerful and very focussed businesswoman, but she has a deeper, spiritual side that many may not be aware of.

  Numerologically, the name Selwa belongs to a ‘Perceptive – Bewitching personality — a magnetic person with a keen sense of knowingness or sixth sense, who has the ability to attract others without trying and has many friends.’ Never a truer assessment was made. Selwa has on several occasions shown a rather uncanny psychic ability, as I know on a personal level — she successfully predicted the birth of Lisa’s first babe, Chloe, who was due the week after the Popular Writing Festival held at the NSW Writers’ Centre in Sydney. Having exhausted herself organising it, Selwa didn’t want me to miss the festival. As I had promised to be one of Lisa’s carers for the birth, I was concerned that my private and my professional life were set for conflict. Selwa, who had never met Lisa, told me there was nothing to worry about because the babe would be born the weekend before the festival, and I would be free for the festival. This would mean that the babe would be two weeks early and, silly me, I doubted the forecast. I should have known better, as late in the weekend before the festival, Chloe was born.

  With her wonderful inner wisdom, Selwa has never attempted to suppress my esoteric style of writing. In fact, she has always done her best to encourage my research and private investigations into the greater mysteries, and into the exponents of these secrets present and past. And thus I am able to present such a book as this to my readers: something a little bit different, that might be a bit hard to categorise; a bit left of centre for some and food for thought for others.

  So, you see, Selwa really is a fairy godmother with magical powers that are showered on all her authors to further the righteous cause of Australian popular fiction both here at home and abroad.

  Originally I had planned to write Selwa into a computer-ghost story, as Selwa detests technology, but as I researched ‘The Lost Word’, the story took on a completely different slant.

  As a young woman Selwa was a great traveller and quite the man-magnet. When I spoke to Selwa about her young bachelor days the character for this tale began to take form. I saw her as a rather self-assured and fearless adventurer, much like the Lara Croft character from Tomb Raider — without the guns. Selwa also detests violence.

  In the past and present many archaeological expeditions looking for information about the secret mysteries have been funded by secret societies such as the Freemasons, Rosicrucians, Illuminati, druids, Gnostics, Hermetics, alchemists, and the personality of this character was bold enough to deal with such people. Thus, the search for ‘The Lost Word’ was conceived.

  A special mention and thank you: The name of this character, Karita, was actually drawn from one of the regular contributors on my message board, who is currently in the UK investigating sacred sites there. Her name was s
o perfect for the character that I asked if I could use it and Karita kindly agreed.

  With this character I feel I have captured the essence and allure of Selwa — the fearless, the psychic, the mediator, the creator and the adventurer. There is so much magic in this lady it seemed only fitting that her ghost story should lead her into realms otherworldly.

  The Lost Word

  1. The Guardians of Secrets Past

  Long ago, a doctrine was parted,

  half was published, half was shrouded.

  The truth was hidden underground,

  by a Brotherhood, duty bound.

  Crucibles, war and strife would pass,

  before the hidden doctrine would surface.

  Any clue as to the secrets lost,

  must be pursued at any cost.

  IN THE CHAPTER ROOM the Brotherhood gathered, as it had done regularly for centuries, to discuss issues of the world that were of interest to their secret organisation.

  This evening it was a young, prominent art collector who had something to share with the Brotherhood. ‘Grand Master, fellow colleagues.’ He raised himself from a lush throne-like chair, which was positioned in a circular formation of thirteen chairs, twelve of like design, for only the Grand Master’s seat stood apart from the others in splendour. The art collector extracted a print from a large cylinder and carried it across the floor featuring the insignia of their order, and placed his offering in the hands of his superior. ‘This is a print of an original painting that an art dealer in Australia thought I might be interested in.’

  The Grand Master, a business tycoon, opened it out and was immediately struck by the subject matter of the painting.

  ‘This piece was painted by one of our Australian brethren, Master Collector?’ he asked.

  The art collector cocked an eyebrow, for this was the conundrum. ‘Neither the artist nor the dealer belongs to our order, Grand Master. The art dealer knows I have a passion for ancient symbolism and, although this piece is not antique, he thought the striking imagery might appeal.’