“I can show you how to get everything you want,” the murky shadow whispers. “Just come with me.”
Huge white wings suddenly billow out from behind the angel beside me – so fast I think that I may have been imagining it. The little flecks of golden dust motes now glow painfully bright, causing me to shield my eyes. A halo of pure white radiance envelopes her head as if it were being thrown down from Heaven itself as her long hair flows and lifts tragically and beautifully against her. The dark being beside us hisses away from the light but quickly recovers. Where the edges of the dark being came in contact with the light, it sizzled and smoked letting out a wail of pain. The black fog thickens and rolls against me and I feel little nips of pain against my skin where it touches. An overwhelming sense of desertion and terror engulfs me. Blackness begins to cling to me like flies to fly paper. No matter how hard I struggle against it, I can’t shake it.
“You’ll lose him forever if you choose not my path,” the darkness scorns. The black mist has grown heavy and reeks of rot and stagnant filth.
“Do not listen to this evil,” the angel warns. “The path of darkness leads to regret and devastation, loneliness and isolation. She speaks nothing but of lies. You must come with me, before it is too late.”
I stare after Liam as emergency workers close the ambulance doors, entirely blocking my view. Is this it then? My last memory of him, bloodied and battered, struggling to hang on to his fragile life with broken limbs while I’m de-… No. I can’t even think the words. But what’s worse, he didn’t even know who I was; he thought I was someone else.
I wheel around and look to the lifeless body that is mine, still unable to believe that it’s me. Suddenly something tugs at my memory – the reason as to why none of this makes any sense. My mind flashes back to the day in my living room when Evie had shown her memories to me; the memories of Liam laying in his hospital bed, bruised, beaten, and broken. The day when she had realized she was really dead. The day she was overtaken with rage and sadness when she realized she could no longer be in Liam's life. The day the real Evie was lost to the darkness.
“None of it is real,” I whisper. “This isn't real.” The disastrous scene in front of me evaporates into swirls of liquid smoke the color of metal, and then as if wiping a slate clean I can see what’s really happening in front of me. I’m on the ground once more, brought to my knees by what I’ve just experienced. “Those are the memories of when you died. You had a choice. An angel came for you. But you didn’t go.” I remember how the darkness made me feel; complete terror and abandonment. I can’t make any sense of it. Why would anyone choose to go with such an evil and dark entity, even if it offered such things as keeping Liam?
“How stupid can you be, Breckin, really? Don’t you see? I chose the one that would help me. That silly angel couldn’t keep me here with Liam. Nor could she aid me in bringing Liam to this side. She was going to take me away. ” Evie explains in a voice as shrill as nails streaking down a chalkboard and it’s clear that she truly believes in what she says.
“That's how it's supposed to be!” I yell.
“No! I shouldn’t have died in that car accident. I should still be alive. Liam should have died that night! Not me!”
“No, Evie,” I whisper, shaking my head. “Things happen for a reason. Even if we don’t understand the explanations behind it, everything we go through has some type of rationality. That’s another reason you need to go Home. You’ll understand then.”
“Rationality,” Evie mocks. “So I suppose you think it perfectly rational that I died. Rational that Liam lived. Rational that I have to remain invisible to everyone else and watch them live their life as I should have lived mine. Well my dear, Breckin, I'll tell you what I see as rational – Liam dying. He has to die to set things right. And once he’s here with me, I can torture him for forever. Just as he’s tortured me.”
“What? Evie, wait.... You don’t have to do this.” I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. All the air has left my lungs and I can’t seem to breathe in any air to replace it.
Evie's ice-blue eyes have gone black in her moment of anger – black eyes set in deep, dark circles against her white skin – and she’s moving faster than ever. She paces around the wet pavement, never taking a step though, only unnaturally floating from side to side. I watch with unease in my stomach as she suddenly stops and glares off into the night toward the bend in the road. Everything I know of ghosts is working against me now. Sera had once told me that they couldn’t cause us any harm, but I’ve learned the hard way that that simply isn’t true. Joseph brought me unyielding pain from the injuries he’d endured from the accident, but I suspect that’s different than what’s happening now. Evie hasn’t caused me any pain – yet – but she has taken away my sight more than once, and has drowned me into unconsciousness as well. And now it’s obvious she’s planning to hurt Liam. No. Worse; she wants him to die.
I have to think of some way to stop her. I have to cross her over and I have to do it now. I need Sera more than ever but I know that isn’t going to happen. And with Liam unconscious beside me, I realize now, more than ever, that I am all alone in this. Our future and our fate depends solely on me.
“I was driving that night. Did you know that?” Evie murmurs. This time when she speaks however, her voice is quiet and seemingly regretful.
I look up to see that she’s still looking off into the distance, but at nothing in particular. “No. I didn't know that.”
“Liam was supposed to, but he’d slipped out during the play to meet with those arseholes he called friends. I’m not sure why he hung around them; they weren’t at all what he would have ever considered his friends formerly. But he’d been introduced to them by Will’s older brother the summer before and I think he somehow felt important when he was with them. They all liked him for his money and what the Francis name stood for. Power by association, I guess. Either way, they were all sods. He and his father had had a fight just as we left and he was angry. When he came back to me his breath reeked of liquor – another bad habit he’d picked up with those blokes. Once the play was over, he tried to convince me that he could drive, but I wouldn’t allow it. So instead, he threw a fit like a child and sulked in the passenger seat. It was cute in a way. His arms crossed sullenly over his chest with his lip stuck out into a pout. He really is adorable when he pouts, don’t you agree?” She looks over to me for a split-second with the hint of smile. At first I think it to be meant as chiding, but looking at her expression closer I see that she is actually having a memory that brings her a sliver of happiness.
“I took the longest route possible, one that we’d traveled many times before so he could sober up before arriving back home. I knew his father would be waiting up for him so the fight could continue; that man never could let anything go. A song came on over the radio that Liam liked. It was one he’d been learning to play on the guitar. He was singing along, severely off-key I'd might add; the way he always sang when he was pissed up – and he repeatedly tried to get me to sing along with him. I bought him that guitar. It was his birthday present last year.” She shrugs to make light of it but I know better. “We were coming around that corner up ahead as I whacked away his wondering hands for the hundredth time. I had to admit though, as annoying as he was when he was like that, he still managed to make me laugh. Even then, we were so happy.”
“That’s when it happened,” I say then.
“Yes. What I showed you was what I remember next. If Liam hadn’t been an idiot and steaming – that’s extremely drunk – I’d still be alive…”
“And he’d be dead.” I finish. In the back of my head I realize this must be one of the reasons Liam beats himself up over this, and, too, why his father could say those awful things to him. Even so, it was still just an accident.
Evie turns to me then and her stare is back to the menacing and cold expression I’ve come to expect from her. “Maybe,” she allows coolly. “Or maybe not. If things
had gone as planned, we probably wouldn't have been on this road in the first place.” Her expression then changes to one I find mocking and cruel. She smirks at me then and says, “Or perhaps we would have been on this road after all. This is where we would often come to... well, you know.”
I feel my cheeks flush and I look away. How perfect that Evie finds it appropriate to poke fun at my lack of intimacy with Liam.
“So sad. Now you’ll never know what it’s like to really be with him. That’s almost as tragic as what I have planned.”
“Enough,” says a voice I’d hoped to never hear again – the voice of the darkness that has been watching and hovering silently above us. “This taunting game of yours is boring, child. Forget not why you’re here as it is almost time.”
My body tingles in fear. I’m out of time. If I’m going to cross Evie over, I have to do it now. The Evie that Liam remembers is in there somewhere – that much she’s proven in her short moment of storytelling. I just have to find her. I have to reach to that little part of her that still cares. It’s the only way I’ll be able to put her at peace. And it’s the only way I will save Liam.
Chapter Thirty-Three
I sit silent, trying to come up with a plan, some sort of strategy to try and get Evie's attention focused back to the way she had once felt for Liam. This is the only plan I can come up with; to try and reach somewhere deep inside her. A place so far gone I think it impossible to do, but I have to try. Maybe then she’ll realize that her beliefs are wrong and crossover.
How foolish of me to ever think for a second that she was sticking around because she still loved him and because she still cared. Sera too; she was positive that Evie's only purpose for visiting Liam was to assure him that she was okay – so he would no longer worry about her or feel guilty about her death. And also, that life here on Earth ceased to matter to her anymore. The last part may very well have been true, but Evie's afterlife certainly has just as much meaning to her as her human life had. A meaning so vile and disarming I never thought it possible for something so horrible to exist in the spirit world. They’re supposed to be at peace once they pass, silently watching over those they love and left behind for now, waiting silently for them to join. Not secretly scheming and plotting revenge on unsuspecting loved ones and seeking out a way for them to join. Perhaps, though, I knew all along she’d had other plans. From upon first laying eyes on Evie, something twisted deep down inside of me, quietly screaming that I was not to trust her.
I guess I could see her way of thinking a little better if she at least wanted Liam to be with her for love, or for the simple fact that she missed him. That I could understand. I know that if I were ever to be separated from Liam, living or dead, I’d want to be with him too, in any way I could manage. I know what it’s like to be without him, so I can understand the desperation that one clings to for the normalcy and comfort of what once was. Especially if fueled by love. But for Evie to want Liam with her just so she can hurt him further is as devastating as it is demented. And it’s something I will not stand for. I cannot imagine him in a parallel world that I feel deep down to the center of my soul is dark, cold, and isolated. He’ll only be tormented and trapped by the evil ghost he once knew as Evie. But furthermore, if Evie gets her way, it means that Liam has to die.
“Come on, get up,” Evie orders. She charges over toward me like an ox. But what happens next shocks me further than anything that has happened tonight thus far. I watch in a sort-of detached state – as if surveying what’s happening from outside my body. However, when she lifts her foot and pokes me in my side while giving a few nudges as if prodding cattle with a stick, I’m slammed back into consciousness.
I look dumbfoundedly to her foot – the foot that now jabs into my ribs – and then up to her now gaunt face in blank wonder. That’s when she impatiently reaches down and hooks her hand beneath my arm and jerks me upward to my feet. I scramble to get away from her in a knee-jerk reaction of her forcefulness. The slick road beneath my feet causes me to slip and slide as I fight, her otherworldly strength causing my attempts to be worthless, and my numb legs can’t seem to move fast enough for her as she drags me along impatiently behind her. Evie’s violent grasp rips my coat sleeve into shreds as her fingernails slash against the fabric. There are sharp stings running down the length of my arm and when I look, I see that her nails are now tearing my skin as well.
“How are you doing this?!” I scream, realizing escaping is impossible.
Evie lets out a shrill laugh. “Doing what, pray tell?”
“Stop playing with me and tell me what you’re up to! Enough with these games, Evie!”
“Why ruin the surprise?” she taunts. “The fun is only just beginning.”
“You're not supposed to be able to hurt me. You're not supposed to be able to touch me! And Liam. You were controlling him, I know you were! How are you doing this, Evie? TELL ME!”
I’ve had enough. Even though Evie’s hurting me, causing blood to slowly run down the length of my arm, soaking my coat sleeve and shirt beneath, she’s played her taunting games with me long enough and my patience has evaporated. I want answers. Impatience wins out over the pain and I manage to stop us in our tracks as the courage I've mustered again takes over.
Evie looks at me, then down to the arm she’s injured with her clawed fingers and smiles to answer me. “You see, when I made the decision to go with her after she’d promised I could bring Liam with me, she gave me... abilities.”
“Abilities,” I echo.
“You have your gifts and I have mine. I told this to you once before, but you weren't listening. They get stronger the longer I’m here. But they’re most powerful now because of the energy of the Hollow Site. And it gives those who created it with their death the most power and the most leverage with what they once had. So as long as I’m here, I can act as if I’m almost living again. Liam being here helps with that, too. His energy only makes me stronger.”
“So when you say leverage, you mean Liam.” I whisper, almost to myself.
“Yes. Only this time I’m stronger and capable of much, much more than I ever was when I was alive.”
“With limitations, you naïve little child,” the dark willowy figure hisses. The sound of that voice sends another trickle of ice water running down my spine. “You only have the ability to touch and summon as you are here on this day and this time. Once the hour of your passing is over you will no longer have them. They will evaporate just as your life here in the human world has. Why must I explain this to you time and time again?”
“I know that,” Evie snaps. “And I’ll be most powerful at the exact hour of the marking of the accident. It’s in those few minutes that I will bring Liam over to this side with me – when he relives the happenings of that night. It’s then that I will be able to do with him what I want.”
So that's why Evie wanted to bring Liam and I here. The Hollow Site gives her some sort of power. I calculate how much time is left until that moment comes, the moment where she’ll be at her most powerful. How much time do I have left to do what I know I have to do? I realize that it can’t be long as the darkness hovering above has already said it’s almost time just a short moment ago. Time is running out, but I need to know more before I act.
“You keep saying, her,” I prompt.
“You’re too nosy,” Evie barks. “You’ve already heard too much. But I guess it won’t matter after tonight. I thought you’d have figured it out by now, but her is the one you see above us.” Evie lazily gestures to the black fog that now appears to be thickening as it swirls and hisses making its way down toward us. “She’s –”
“Hush!” The darkness scorns. “You sputter too much. She need not know my name.”
“I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking.” Evie apologizes. “Please, forgive me.”
For a fleeting moment Evie actually looked scared – as scared as I feel. It’s clear that this darkness is very powerful in her evil and as she snakes even
closer, I start to become colder. Everything around us has remained frozen with the trees still bent in angular, icy slants and raindrops unmoving in midair looking like elongated slivers of crystal that could be stolen for the taking. She’s formidable and I’ve no doubt that this hissing, sinister creature is giving Evie her so-called abilities. As she comes even closer to us, a long and skeletal hand starts to form, stretching out toward my face. I reflexively flinch back, but Evie's grasp hardens into a firm fist-full of my flesh and she pushes me outward to hold me within reach of the looming darkness.
It’s the same bony decrepit hand I remember from Evie’s memory in the moments after the accident. As one of the skeleton claws touches the flesh at my chin, bringing my terrified gaze upward, I feel ice forming on my flesh again, numbing my neck and jaw. The ice tightens and pulls at my cheeks while the sound of splintering ice puddles echoes inside my ears. It’s then I realize that it’s my skin.
Over the painful chill I feel the warm trickle of my blood seeping down both sides of my face. I let out a hard gasp and the breath that evaporates from my mouth freezes in midair. I fight as hard as I can to not make eye contact with this being demanding my attention, but it’s no use. My eyes unwillingly look into the center of the dark fog and that’s when I see the beginnings of a face. It’s a vision that instantly burns into my memory and I know from this moment on it will be something of an image to haunt me beneath every blink of my eye.
Features made of rotting, peeling flesh are forming in swirls of thick, dark smoke. At first the eyes are hollow and empty, but then sockets of pitch night form giving the illusion of actual eyes. There are no whites, only irises of endless empty black staring back at me. As she smiles, gray cracking lips part into a sneer showing jagged, razored teeth. From their serrated tips drip old blood and ichor. When she cocks her head to the side, the smoke that has acted as host for her deformed facial features are slow to follow. What lay underneath are outlines of decaying jaw, teeth, and cheekbones; a skull made of bone rotted by years of decay. Her head remains covered in a cloak of murk reminding me of the thick gagging film that accumulates on top of swamp water. When she speaks, the air around me fills with the same suffocating scent of mildew and rot.
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