“I want to thank you,” a voice says from the distance. “You bringing him here made it much easier on me.”
I crane my head the best I can manage against Liam’s furious grip to see who’s talking. I should have known it would be Evie. The wind picks up speed as she approaches, sending the rain into sideways sheets and daggers of cutting shards of glass. Pellets of water and ice now beat against my face and throat, making it feel as though I’m being slashed through with hundreds of tiny knives. I reach the ungloved hand up automatically to my face and pull it back to see fresh red blood coating my fingertips. Disbelieving, I reach up again with my fingers and let them sweep down the length of my cheek toward the base of my throat. The rain quickly mixes with the sticky blood trickling down my skin, thinning it to small rivers of red-tainted streams down my palms and wrists. I suck in a breath of disbelief and terror.
“Why are you doing this? What’s happening?” My voice sounds like it doesn’t belong to me. Too far away, hollow as if shouting down a tunnel.
“You have so much to learn, my sweet little girl,” a different voice purrs. This voice instantly sends a jolt of pure fear throughout my entire body. It hisses as though it can slither its way into my pores, polluting me from the inside out. Everything about it sounds wrong and terrible. And even though I have not yet seen who or what it is speaking, the image of sheer darkness and evil comes to mind as I wait for its source to appear.
I still can’t see the origin of this sinister voice, but I can feel it everywhere. Its very being seems to consume the air around me – thick and heavy – the weight of death lurking overhead like a vulture patiently waiting for its prey to die. In that instant the rain stops, freezing where it falls. Harsh slashes of translucent and shimmering droplets have suspended right in front of my eyes. If I wanted to, I could reach out and touch the floating frozen orbs of rain with my fingers. The treetops that had been blown viciously sideways from the uproar of violent wind stay tilted and slanted into cruel diagonals in the darkness beyond. I hear the protest of wood splintering and branches giving way as they fall to the hard ground below with deafening crashes. Even the blood that had begun to pour down my cheeks and pool into the collar of my jacket has frozen into stillness. I have no idea what’s happening, but I can feel to the center of my soul that it’s very bad. And very evil.
Liam tightens his hold on me, making it so that I am completely unable to move. I struggle to fight against him, but it’s no use. I can feel my cheek swelling, pushing up against my eye. I tentatively probe my cheekbone with my fingertips and wince when they make contact with my skin. I remind myself that that wasn’t Liam. Liam would never hurt me. Evie is doing this.
“He’s mine now.” Evie murmurs sinisterly as if confirming my thoughts. “It won't be long and he’ll be here.”
“Here?” I choke. “Where is here?”
“You must be careful with this one. She has the Sight,” the dark being hisses. “You've been too vague about her, Evie. The student keeping secrets from the teacher is against the rules.”
“She's nothing,” Evie growls. “She is merely a means to what I need.”
I look up to Liam and see that his face has gone lifeless. His expression blank, his beautiful eyes gray with the rage he’d been possessed with are now empty. He stares ahead, but I know he sees nothing in front of him as his eyes have slightly crossed, unfocused. His shoulders have slumped as he finally bows his head while the fierce grip he’d had around my wrist loosens. Both hands drop limply to his side, and he wobbles slightly back and forth as if he’s been knocked unconscious but been left to stand upright. That’s when his knees give way and he collapses.
“Liam!” I scream. No. No, no, no. No. This can’t be happening. Ghosts aren’t supposed to be able to harm you. They can’t physically bring any type of harm to you. Nor should they be able to influence someone so greatly. Everything I’ve ever known is wrong, working against me in a perpetual nightmare I can’t wake up from.
“Not to worry. He's still with us... for now.” The darkness whispers. “We can’t have him interfering.”
“Stop! Stop, whatever you’re doing! Please!” I beg.
Evie chuckles and comes to face me. Her dark-circled eyes rake over me in satisfaction as she takes in the tears that have begun to fall and instantly freeze against my cheeks. My skin pulls and aches beneath the ice and there are little flecks of snow and frost glued to my eyelashes. I don’t fight, I don’t back away, I don’t move. Nothing to further the torment or to antagonize her.
“Awwww, look, I've made her cry. See? She’s nothing,” Evie repeats. “Nothing except weak and fragile, just like the ice masking her skin; easily broken and able to be disintegrated into nothing.”
I kneel down to Liam's side and try to quietly wake him with no avail – shaking his shoulders, murmuring in his ear. Evie has begun to circle around us both, mumbling in a language I don’t understand as the dark, cloudy figure that fills the air like a plague now hisses in the air above. I still can’t see the creatures face as all that’s visible is a black misty fog, but I can tell that it’s watching Liam and I with some sort of baleful amusement.
“Why? Why are you doing this, Evie? Why are you hurting him? You loved him once, more than anything and now you’re hurting him.” I swallow hard against my fear. “But that's what you want isn't it? That's what you've wanted all along; for him to hurt.”
“I’ve already told you that,” she snaps. “He isn’t supposed to be alive.”
“He is,” I disagree. “If he was supposed to have died, he would have. You can’t control what happened and you can’t control the situation now.”
“First things first.” Evie says as if I hadn’t spoken. “For you to understand, I need to show you something. This may be a bit difficult for you, but just know that it's necessary. Maybe then you’ll see.”
“I will never see!” I scream with sudden stubbornness.
As I look at Liam laying helplessly at my knees, a certain kind of anger fills within me, pushing away the fear and helplessness I’ve been encasing myself with all this time. I fight against the icy pain at my face and throat as blood again begins to slowly trickle down my skin slower than molasses in January. I know Liam laying here, unconscious and possibly hurt, is my fault. All the pain and remembrance of Evie brought to him over the past few months is my fault. Him being here for her to torment, it’s my fault. I have to fix this. I have to stop this. I will not allow Evie to keep hold of Liam this way, nor will I continue to allow her to keep controlling him in the way I know now she can.
I stand up slowly, taking in Evie's pernicious expression and face her with a newfound bravery. Instead of her coming to me, I now walk to her. I feel the determination behind my glare as pure adrenaline courses through my veins replacing all doubt. I stand toe to toe with her and speak in a voice I've never heard from my own mouth before. Resolute. Disgusted. No longer broken. And so calm it’s unnerving.
“Get on with it then.” I purr.
Evie cocks her head to the side as if she were a bird, and for a moment she considers me like the insect she sees me as. Then she laughs in a way that could crack a glacier in two; an ear splitting, shrill sound that causes the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up. But I can't let her shake me. I won't. The only thing it manages to do is piss me off further.
“Okay, then.” Evie says in a cocky tone. “I'll show you. Are you ready?”
“I said, get on with it!”
The rain pounds on my face, soaking my hair and causing my clothes to cling uncomfortably to my skin. I’m lying in such an odd position; lumped over something metallic and hard. The thing underneath me smells of copper and rust and gasoline. I slowly look up, squinting into the rain that whips and stings against my skin with the force of an arctic hurricane. That’s when I see him lying on the black, rain-soaked pavement.
Liam.
People are everywhere. Running and yelling with complete chaos surroundi
ng. Some appear to be working over Liam frantically as if he were in some sort of danger. This confuses me greatly – the last thing I remember was his beautiful face smiling and laughing as I gazed into the misty night sky above us, not wanting to be anywhere else in this world except with him. His hand on mine, the only sound between us was… us.
I lift myself from the metal object beneath me and gradually walk over to the frantic mob, and then gasp when I see his bloodied, swollen face and mangled body. His skin pale, almost white, as he lay very still half slung into the dirty ditch next to the road. With the frigid weather that had turned so suddenly – from unseasonably warm to cold and frigid like it should be in late December – he should be shaking from the bitter wintry air. But he isn’t. There’s no sign of life in him at all. His eyes are closed, the lids turning a deep shade of purple. One arm is outstretched beside him as if he were reaching for something, and the other is bent in a misshapen angle behind his back. I raise a hand to my mouth, clamping down with my teeth to stifle a scream.
“Liam!” I shriek. No one even looks up to me. I try to push my way through the mass of people, but nobody moves. “Liam, wake up!” I wail again.
Blood continues to pour from a wound I can’t locate, pooling around his shoulders, coating his sandy hair making a thick, wet halo around his head. The pavement beneath him is turning to the color of dark ink with his blood, rain water mixing and combining as it runs in streams of ichor, trickling its way down the length of the road. The blood that has pooled in the dirt creates a slick puddle, appearing depthless even though I know that it to be merely inches deep. I see that he is very clearly unconscious, and a small part of me is actually thankful that he isn’t awake to know what’s going on. But then rationality loses out over panic. Oh God, please don’t let him be dead. My eyes frantically look over the rest of him, and I can tell that bones are broken the way his body lays contorted in a position that isn’t natural. Along with his arm wedged beneath him is his left leg, bending in the opposite direction that it should, a sliver of red and white protruding from his ripped jeans; muscle and bone mixing in a horrific display. Bile rises in my throat.
“Evie.” I hear Liam whisper, still in delirious unconsciousness. His voice is raspy and gurgley. I hear his breath, choked and strained against the air he struggles to inhale. His face is already swelling from the injuries he’s sustained, now completely forcing his eyes closed. But who is Evie?
“Liam, I’m right here,” I say, kneeling down to him. His eyes wheel through the slits of engorged skin as if looking for me, but then roll back into his head as his lids flutter to a close. A thick and bubbly stream of blood makes its way up his throat and shoots out of his mouth like a grotesque garden fountain as he chokes and gags against it.
“What’s wrong?! What’s happening?!” I yell. No one answers me.
Things don’t make any sense at all after that.
When I reach my hand to Liam's face so that I can reassure him I’m near – even if he can’t hear me, maybe my touch will help – my skin does not caress his like I wanted it to. My hand sweeps through Liam's battered face. Nothing restricts against the movement, nothing pushes back against my palm when I’d meant to touch his cheek. I stare at my shaky hand expecting to have his blood painted across my palm, but I find that there’s nothing. I continue to look at my hand in bewilderment as it’s clean of blood or any other sign that I'd just touched him. I jump up in shock and whirl around in a circle. That’s when I notice a girl’s body, limp and lifeless, crumpled over what looks like maybe a mangled car.
The voices screaming frantically around me become muffled like people talking underwater. The bright siren lights dim into dullness and I no longer feel the chilling rain slashing against my skin. I have no idea what compels me to walk toward the girl, it isn't like I can help, but I do, I walk. I walk slow and sure toward her unmoving body as if being pulled by a powerful ocean current I cannot escape.
People continue to run passed me, yelling commands to one another and carrying medical supplies. Still, I walk. I faintly note another car close to the chaos, creased and mashed from a collision but otherwise pay it no attention. My attention is solely focused on the girl in the distance. I walk slower as I become closer to her, unsure still as to why I am being drawn to her. Why isn't anyone helping her? Clearly she’s hurt, so why is all the focus behind me and none being given to her?
“It’s time to come Home,” a musical voice commands, suddenly appearing beside me. I turn my head sharply and see a woman so beautiful and angelic that it stops me where I stand. Seeing her is like seeing a miracle happening right in front of you. Unbelievable yet undeniable as you watch it unfold before your own eyes.
“It's time to come Home, Evie,” she repeats.
“No,” I argue, confounded. “I have to make sure this girl is okay. And Liam. I can't leave Liam, he's hurt.”
“He will be cared for. You're safe now, Evie. That is why you must come with me, now.”
“My name is not Evie.” I snap, feeling even more confused. The angel looks over me with her soft golden eyes in the way a mother looks at her newborn child. She smiles sympathetically and holds her hand out to mine. I ignore her and look back to the frail body of the girl laying over the heap of what used to be a car.
Finally, people start to care for her. I have to admit, even to myself, that it doesn't look good as a big piece of loud machinery is being guided toward the car she’s sprawled across.
“Her body is pinned,” a male voice says. “Be careful to cut around her.”
Cut around her? What does that mean? I soon receive my answer as I watch, feeling horrified, a big wrench-like looking thing with massive metal teeth barreling its way down toward the wrinkled car and the motionless body of the helpless girl.
“Wait!” I plead. “She needs help! Get her out first! Why isn't anyone helping her?!”
I want to run to the girl and fling myself between her and the giant jaws, but the enormity of it all roots me in place. A loud shriek echoes and rips through my head as the mouth of the machine crunches down against the car. I reflexively cover the sides of my ears as the grating echo of metal on metal sends jabs of needle-like pain stinging through my eardrums. There is a man dressed in an ugly florescent-orange vest complete with reflective silver tape waving his hands in guidance and another now lifting the girl from the mangled mess as her body comes free of the crushed metal enveloping her.
“Evie,” the angelic woman says, now directly next to me. “Come. There are people waiting for you.”
I look over to the woman's face to argue, but am unable when I better take in her appearance. Her skin is dewy and radiant as that of a summer morn, with golden eyes sparkling like the sun; swirling lines of yellow and golden light swim and illuminate in their irises, glittering and shining with the secrets of the universe. Skin so perfect and flawless I can’t help but feel a tiny bit of envy and awe in spite of everything. She wears a dress of simple white – a gown that flutters with the flow of the wind, although more gently than it should with the winter air barreling its way around us. Her bullion hair shines as if reflecting daylight even though it’s night, pouring down her back all the way to her feet like a golden waterfall. And she’s glowing. There is light all around her as if she were being lit up from within. Billowy and fragile specks of golden light float around her like tiny dust motes. She holds out her hand to me once more.
“Come,” she commands again.
“But what about Liam? What about her?” I ask, gesturing to the girl that has now been carefully lain on the pavement at our feet. Her body is completely lifeless, her brown eyes remaining open as they stare vacantly at nothing. Long mahogany hair tangled and made black by the icy rain that continues to relentlessly pour. There’s dry blood smeared across half of her face and chest, and I bite down on my lip, hard, when I see her neck is twisted further around than it should be. Something about the way she looks, though, it doesn’t make sense. Aside
from the horror and brutality of everything, there’s just something about this girl that sends a nagging suspicion tingling down my spine. I slowly inch closer, my hands clutched tightly together in desperation.
I stop breathing when I see the girl is me.
I suck in a deep breath and hold it. I hadn’t even realized that I’d begun to cry until I’ve dropped to my knees, clutching both of my hands against my mouth. I’m so confused. What the hell is happening?
“I can't leave him,” I whisper as I gesture vaguely toward Liam. He’s now been loaded into the back of an ambulance and it’s only a matter of minutes before the paramedics will speed off toward the hospital.
“You can take him with you.” Another voice says from the distance. “There is a way. If you come with me, I will show you.”
This voice is much different than the purity coming from the angel beside me. The voice is female, but low and menacing – threatening in a way that sends a chill down my spine. I allow my eyes to scan the black night around me but see nothing but the chaos of the accident. Two men have come to load my body onto a thin stretcher, complete with a black plastic looking bag with a thick silver zipper running the length of it. A white vehicle pulling into view with the word Coroner labeled against the back window.
“Evie, please,” the angel begs. The urgency and power in her voice startles me and I can’t help but step away from her. “You must come.”
“If you ever want to have the boy again, you'll ignore the foolish white cherub by your side and come with me.”
Just then, a dark and billowy figure begins to form in front of me, reaching out to me with a long and smoky hand. She dances above the ground while a black hissing mist carries her closer on a distorted tide of slinking serpents and snakes. I squint into the monstrous fog that has now formed around me, grabbing and clawing as it draws closer. I want to run, to cave in on myself, to disappear, but I’m frozen. Whether by this sinister being or by my own fear, I don’t know.
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