The Akasha Chronicles Trilogy Boxed Set: The Complete Emily Adams Series

by Natalie Wright

  “Go get it,” Fanny said. She shoved the flashlight into Jake’s hand.

  “What? No, we’re all going to get it. All for one, remember?”

  “Come on Jake, you’re the guy here. Man up.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, give me the flashlight then.” Jake grabbed the flashlight from Fanny and left us in the dark as he slowly walked toward the back corner of the shed.

  “Got it,” he said. Fanny and I were in complete darkness now so I hoped he’d walk fast so we could get out of there.

  “Come on Jake, let’s get out of here,” I said. I heard Jake’s feet slowly shuffle then a sudden loud crash.

  “What happened?” Fanny asked.

  “I tripped,” said Jake. A few seconds later, Jake let out a loud scream. The small beam of light cast by the flashlight moved erratically.

  “What’s going on Jake?” I screamed.

  “Something just had my leg,” he said as he came bounding toward us. “Come on – move – there’s something in here!”

  We all ran with Jake to the door of the shed and escaped outside. When we got out, Fanny grabbed the flashlight from Jake.

  “What are you doing? Come on, let’s just get out of here.”

  “Calm your panties, nub,” said Fanny. She shined the flashlight back into the shed from just outside the door. She moved it back and forth until it caught the glow of eyes looking back at us.

  “There. That’s what attacked Jake,” she said.

  Jake and I both cowered on either side of Fanny as she shined the flashlight onto Jake’s attacker. There were two beady eyes looking right at us, reflecting the light in that creepy way animals’ eyes do. And in the light of the small electric torch you could see the eyes were surrounded by black fur.

  “It’s a cat,” I said.

  Fanny laughed so much I thought she’d have a seizure.

  As soon as Fanny stopped laughing enough to talk, she said, “Okay, I concede Jake. We no longer send you to do ‘man’s’ work.”

  “Shut it,” Jake said. He grabbed the flashlight from her and stomped away.

  We ran to catch up with Jake, neither of us wanting to be left in the dark Irish night without a flashlight. When we got to the sidewalk in front of the inn we followed Jake up the street. He looked like he knew where he was going.

  20. MONASTERBOICE

  “Jake, you know how to get there?” I asked.

  “Sure. We take this street about four miles then we go left. We should be there in another mile or so. Easy.”

  We walked on the sidewalk until we ran out of sidewalk then we walked single file along the narrow road. We soon found ourselves in the Irish countryside, the houses thinning out and giving way to fields. We were three young teens alone on an open road. Though we were cloaked in the robe of darkness, I felt exposed.

  “Hey guys, maybe we should get off the road,” I said.

  “Why?” asked Jake.

  “So no one will see us. Three kids out this late carrying a shovel may be a bit out of place, don’t you think? And what if they’re looking for us? I mean, we don’t know, but if our parents called the cops back home and they started looking for us, they may have tracked us to Ireland and so if we get stopped by the town fuzz … ”

  “Yeah, Em’s right,” said Fanny. “We should get off the roads.” Jake nodded his agreement and pointed us in the direction that he thought we should go.

  Along the road, there was a low fence made of grey stone that we jumped over pretty easily. After that, it all started going to crap pretty quickly. I mean that literally. We soon found ourselves tripping over small bumps in the grass and trying to dodge cow pies.

  “We’re in a frickin' field of cows, Em,” said Fanny. She quickly sidestepped what appeared to be fairly fresh cow poop. The dark of the night may have helped shield us from any onlookers, but it made the travel much more difficult. The only light came from a small sliver of moon that was just starting to creep above the horizon and a single, small flashlight.

  After about a half hour of slow going through the cow field, we came to another fence. As we approached it, the reality of our situation began to dawn.

  From the road, the stone fences looked about four feet high at most and easy to scale and jump over. But when you get up close to them, they’re not only taller than that, but grown up all around the stone are bramble bushes. What was once an ordinary stone fence became a stone fence with a natural razor wire barrier.

  We stood in front of the impenetrable fortress of rock and brambles for a few minutes, speechless. It was getting late. We had spent more time in the shed getting a shovel than we had expected. And with the slow going through the field, it was now after 11:00.

  “What now?” asked Jake.

  “I’m sorry guys,” I said. “I’m not much good at this whole quest thing. Every idea I have turns to dog poop.” I felt defeated and we’d only just begun.

  “No need to apologize, Em,” Jake said. “It was a good idea. How were you supposed to know the Irish protect their cow pie fields with natural razor wire?”

  “Okay Jake, stop kissing Emily’s butt long enough to navigate us back to the road.”

  We walked along the fence toward the road, climbed over the lower fence then started walking single-file again up the road. After about an hour of walking, I sensed that we weren’t going the right direction.

  “Hey Jake, you sure we’re going the right way?” I asked.

  “Pretty sure,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, back there when we were first started out, the moon was coming up in front of us.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Now it’s behind us,” I said.

  We all stopped. Jake looked back and up into the sky. “You’re right,” he said. “Crap, we must be going the wrong way.”

  “Oh that’s great Jake! We’ve been walking for an hour in the wrong direction,” Fanny said. She flicked Jake in the head.

  “Ow! Don’t flick me. You didn’t figure it out either, Einstein,” he said.

  “Okay guys, stop bickering. Jake, pull out that map,” I said.

  Jake shone the flashlight on the map. “Problem is, I’m not really sure where we are. There are so many little roads that intersect. I’m not sure what road we got onto when we went back over the fence.”

  “Well, we know we’re going the wrong way now, so we have to turn around and go back down this road,” I said.

  “Yeah, but then what?”

  Fanny cut in, “Wait! I’ve got it.” Fanny rummaged through the backpack.

  “What now? More tweezers?” Jake asked.

  “No Jakester, something way better for this situation.” Fanny pulled something small and rectangular from the pack. “My phone,” she said with a smile.

  “You’re not thinking of calling a cab, are you?” I asked.

  “No silly, something better. I got GPS on this thing. I totally forgot about it.”

  “You’ve got GPS on your phone, and you’re just now telling us?” Jake said through gritted teeth.

  “Don’t get your boxers in a knot Jake. I forgot, okay? Besides, I didn’t think you’d get us lost, nub.”

  “Let’s not waste more time bickering. Fanny, get that thing fired up,” I said.

  According to Fanny’s GPS, after an hour and a half on the road, we were now six miles from Monasterboice instead of five when we started out.

  “Let’s get going. We gotta’ hustle before we run out of time.”

  We walked as fast as we could along the edge of the narrow roads. We didn’t see a single car so I guess my worry about being caught out there wasn’t much of a problem. After almost two hours of walking and navigating the roads – tricky even with a GPS in rural Ireland - we saw a large stone tower in silhouette on the horizon to the east.

  Monasterboice. The tower looked just like the pictures we’d seen of it on the Internet. It looked ominous in silhouette against the large October moon. Even at that late hou
r there were crows circling around it calling out.

  We were exhausted, but we ran the rest of the way to Monasterboice. We finally got to the gate a little before 2:00 a.m. The air was chilly and filled with the smell of wet fall leaves, grass, and the lingering odor of cow dung.

  Our elation at finally finding the tower soon turned to despair. Just like the cow and sheep fields, Monasterboice was surrounded by a grey stone fence all the way around. But the Monasterboice fence was even more menacing than the fences around the fields. It had jagged stones turned on their sides all around the top. You couldn’t shimmy over it without ripping a huge gash in your stomach.

  “Very effective security fences they have here,” Jake said as we approached.

  “What now?” asked Fanny.

  Neither Jake nor I had an answer. Lit by the large, nearly full October moon, the cemetery with the large stone tower looked like an impenetrable fortress.

  “I think we should walk around the outside of the fence. We can look for a place where the top stones have come off or something,” I offered.

  “As good a plan as any,” Jake said as we headed out.

  We trudged through a field on the south side of the site first. It wasn’t long before we saw what we were looking for. There was a place about two feet wide where the jagged capstones were missing.

  “Bingo,” Fanny said. She wasted no time and scrambled up the wall. Fanny’s a strong climber. It didn’t take her long to scale the wall and slide through the narrow gap between capstones. After she got up and over the wall, she leaned over it from the inside and put her hands out to help me up.

  I’m not a strong climber and not nearly as small as Fanny. It wasn’t so easy for me to scale the wall and pop over. Fanny pulled me and I pushed against the bumpy stones with my feet as I tried to push my bottom half up the wall.

  “Come on girl,” Fanny grunted. “Use your muscles.”

  “I don’t have any muscles.” I huffed and puffed from the exertion.

  “Jake, make yourself useful. Push Emily’s butt up the wall,” Fanny said.

  “I’m not … I can’t do that!”

  “Why not?” asked Fanny.

  “I can’t touch her butt,” said Jake. “That wouldn’t be … a proper thing to do.”

  “Jake,” I huffed. “It’s okay. Desperate times, desperate measures, remember? Push my butt over this wall before Fanny rips my arms out of their sockets.”

  After a few seconds, I felt Jake’s small hands shoving on my posterior. He had them just kind of resting there, not pushing at all.

  “Come on Jake! This isn’t the time to cop a feel. Push!” With that Jake gave a mighty shove and I was up and over the rock wall. Fanny let go of my hands, and I fell over and landed on top of her. “I’m over,” I said.

  “Really? Hadn't noticed." Fanny quickly scrambled out from under me.

  “Okay, Jake. Your turn,” I said.

  “Not happening,” Jake said back.

  “What do you mean? You gotta’ come over too.”

  “I can’t. There’s no one over here to shove my butt over,” he said. “Here, I’ll toss over the backpack and hand you guys the shovel. You can take it from here.”

  “No, Jake, we’re all in this together, remember? We’ll get you over.”

  The backpack came flying over the wall and landed with a thud.

  “Here’s the shovel.” Jake handed it over the wall and Fanny leaned over and grabbed it.

  “You guys go on in and try to find it. I’ll wait here for you. Now get going. We’re running out of time.”

  He had a point. It was getting late, and we didn’t know how to find the torc. We were in a huge graveyard. It was full of large headstones, Celtic crosses and low gravestones. We could search for days and not find what we were looking for, and that’s if we actually knew what we were looking for.

  “Okay, Jake. You’re right. But don’t go anywhere. I don’t want to lose you out here,” I said.

  “You won’t lose me.”

  “Make yourself useful, Jake,” Fanny said. “Be a lookout. If you hear or see anyone coming, hoot like an owl or something so we know to hide.”

  We heard Jake mutter something under his breath as we walked away from the wall. “What’s the plan, Em?” Fanny asked.

  “I’m not sure. I guess we need to walk up and down the rows and look at the markers. Look for clues, like a symbol or letters that seem to go with Hindergog’s story.”

  Easier said than done, especially in the dark. From the wall, the ground sloped slightly. At the top of the small rise, we saw gravestones packed tightly together as far as our eye could see. The stones were in fairly even rows, but every now and then there would be a large rectangle of stone placed around a grave, only about two inches off the ground. The perfect height to cause someone to trip. Fanny and I must have each tripped and fallen face first into a gravel-filled grave about three or four times. Our shins and legs were scraped and bruised.

  Row after row of old stone grave markers and large and small Celtic crosses. Fanny and I used the flashlight to illuminate each grave marker we could see, but even the light wasn’t much help.

  “I can’t make out any letters on most of these,” I said.

  “I can’t either,” said Fanny.

  Feeling with our hands didn’t help. We knew we were looking for a marker or grave from over a thousand years ago so we could ignore the modern ones with words etched in marble. All the older ones had been worn down by weather and were covered with lichens and moss.

  We had walked through probably half of the cemetery when we heard a scuffling in the leaves behind us. Fanny and I both jumped and turned around, moving together almost as one unit. Fanny shone the flashlight directly in front of us. We didn’t see anything but again heard the leaves rustle.

  We held our breath and didn’t move a muscle. Here we were in an old graveyard in the middle of the Irish countryside during a full moon with crows calling out overhead. It doesn’t get much creepier than that. We heard something come toward us. It sounded too large to be a cat.

  “Who’s there?” I called out into the dark.

  “It’s me.” Jake appeared in the small pool of light made by the flashlight.

  Fanny and I both released our grip on each other and began to breathe again.

  “Jake, you major pain, what the heck are you doing? You scared the crap out of us,” Fanny said.

  “Oh, good to see you too.”

  “You shouldn’t sneak up like that. You should have called out or something,” Fanny replied. Her voice was filled with annoyance. Fanny didn't like to show weakness, especially around Jake.

  “What? And miss the opportunity to see your face just now?"

  Fanny lightly punched Jake's arm for good measure. He rubbed his arm where she hit him, but he continued to smile, enjoying the rare moment when he got the better of Fanny.

  “How’d you get in?” I asked.

  “Oh that. Well I sat there for a while but got bored. So I started walking the fence to see if I could find a way in. If you guys had gone a little ways further along the fence, you would have found a wrought iron gate. They forgot to lock it. All I had to do was pull it open and voila! Jake’s in.”

  “I’m glad. We need your help. We’ve gone through row after row of graves – watch your step, by the way – some of them are raised. But most of the old ones don’t have any visible writing left. We could be here for days and not see a single clue,” I said.

  Jake looked thoughtful for a minute. Sometimes, when he’s thinking hard, you can practically hear wheels spinning in his brain.

  “I’ve got an idea,” he said at last. “Em, remember when I was saying names of burial sites, and you got that chill up your spine when you heard Monasterboice?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Well, maybe you can use your second sight – or whatever you call it – you know, to sense when we’re in the right place.”

 
; “I don’t know. I don’t have control over that stuff. It seems to come and go as it pleases. I can’t just turn it on when I want to.”

  “But maybe you could try,” said Fanny. “We don’t have a lot of options.”

  We didn’t have time to look at each grave in that place with our little flashlight. There had to be hundreds of stones in that place. Besides, even if we looked at each one, our eyes were no use. Any information that might have been a clue for us had long since worn away.

  “Okay, I’ll try it,” I finally said. “I’m not sure what to do though to turn on my receiver.”

  “What did you do when you were younger?” Jake asked.

  “I don’t know. I mean, when I was little, it was like always on. I didn’t have to turn it on.”

  “Well, try to meditate or breathe or something,” said Fanny.

  “Yeah Em, that’s a good idea. Maybe if you quiet your mind and think about the torc, maybe it will lead you to it,” Jake said.

  “But we’ve walked through about half of this place already. And there wasn’t any hair raising going on. I think we’re at a dead end.”

  “We still have about half to go. Besides, what do we have to lose?” Jake asked.

  He had a point so I did what Jake suggested. I sat on the ground, closed my eyes and tried to get quiet. It seemed so silly. Fan started giggling and that got me laughing. Jake looked stern and serious, which made us laugh more. But after a few minutes and Jake pleading with us, we stopped and I tried again.

  With Fanny quiet, after a couple of minutes I was able to quiet my mind a bit. At first I felt sleepy. I could have laid down there and taken a nap on the hard ground between all these gravestones. But then a peace came over me. I daydreamed, just like on the airplane.

  I saw the same green hills and a circle of stones. I saw the face of a beautiful woman with long wavy red hair. At first I thought it was my mom, but it wasn’t. Then I saw it. The torc. Just as in my dream before. Shiny and golden and glowing. It hovered right in front of me. I felt like I could reach out for it. I saw the initials ‘SCS’ in my mind then the dream was gone.

  I opened my eyes and half expected myself surrounded by lush green hills with the torc hovering before me. But I was still in the graveyard. Fanny was lying down, maybe asleep. Jake still sat across from me, his eyes droopy but awake.