Seeing Things

by Suzanne Linsey-Mitellas

  Mrs Braithwaite began to descend the stairs, with Andy behind.

  “Your mother… has called again. She is downstairs and wants to speak to you,” Mrs Braithwaite explained. She stopped midway down and looked back at him; he could see worry in her eyes. “I wish she wouldn’t come here, Andy; really I do…”

  He put a hand on her shoulder; she touched it briefly. “I am sorry, Mrs Braithwaite; I wish she wouldn’t come here too. I don’t know what I would have done if I couldn’t have come and lived with you… There was nowhere else I could have gone,” Andy declared.

  “Well, you are here now, and all is well. I am just saying that if there is anything you can do to stop her… er… visiting, it would be appreciated.”

  As they continued down the stairs, both took care to avoid Andy’s extensive collection of Star Trek action figures that had been left on the bottom steps, pushed against the wall. Andy had brought them down to clean them earlier, but had not yet bothered to take them back to his room.

  “Andy, I have told you about leaving things on the stairs; it’s dangerous, and someone could get hurt with them…” Mrs Braithwaite remonstrated.

  “I am sorry; yes, I will take them up after I have dealt with this,” he agreed.

  A door clicked open. From their position, standing on the third step up, they saw Andy’s mother enter the hallway from the living room, where she had obviously been stashed to keep her out of the way.

  “Ah, Andrew… there you are…” She stared hard at Mrs Braithwaite, who walked calmly down the last steps and off into the kitchen.

  “What do you want now?” he frowned.

  As usual, his mother was dressed inappropriately for her age. She wore leggings, or perhaps pyjama bottoms, that looked a size too small; a tight T-shirt with a big, pink cat logo on the front; and her oversized, suede boots. Her face seemed more lined than ever, with the deep crevices highlighted by the light streaming in through the front-door glass. She had always been a heavy drinker and smoked like a trooper; Andy guessed his mother’s unhealthy lifestyle was finally catching up with her.

  She walked a couple of steps closer; he got a gentle whiff of booze from her breath.

  “I don’t know how you did what you did last time, getting that bloody voice to shout at me. I assume it was some kind of recording you hid somewhere in that hall to scare your customers. But calling your mother a bitch is low, even for you, Andrew.”

  He walked down the last few steps and stood there facing her, as if he had reverted back to being a frightened child, standing still, pretending to be a statue and waiting for the tirade to end. God, he wished something would happen to her to wipe her from the face of the earth and out of his life. “It wasn’t a recording; it was a ghost… Someone who clearly wasn’t too pleased with the way you were banging on.”

  Her face darkened. “Yes, of course, it was… My God, you must think I am as gullible as that thick little tart you have got upstairs. Managed to screw her yet, have you? Would be the first time ever if you did.”

  He plucked up as much courage as he could muster. “I would like you to leave now, and if possible, please do not return again; it upsets me and Mrs Braithwaite. You have nothing sensible to say, so I cannot see why you continue this charade.”

  She looked at him quizzically. He could see she didn’t know what the word ‘charade’ meant.

  “I told you before, and I will tell you again. If you want me to go, you are going to have to pay me. My husband died because of the stress you put him through, poor sod, and you owe me now,” she declared.

  “I owe you absolutely nothing.” Andy felt his eyes getting wet with tears. “My father died through stress, and, to be honest, it was probably caused by you—”

  She made a swipe at his face, and he instantly stepped back.

  “Look, just bloody go, OK?” he shouted.

  Mrs Braithwaite appeared quietly around the kitchen door. Her old eyes surveyed the scene: that horrible woman, Andy, and then, just to her right, standing in the hallway with his back to her, was a teenage boy, dressed in what looked like red velvet pantaloons and jacket; a very flamboyant, white, frilled shirt; and on top of his head was a powdered wig, slightly off to one side. He was staring at Andy and his mother intently. Even with her old eyes, she could see him clearly; he just looked like he had a sheet of tracing paper over him, as though he was faded out, but only slightly.

  Walking two steps so she stood directly beside him, she whispered quietly, “What I wouldn’t give to have that woman out of my house.” She turned her head and smiled at him.

  Henry started a little. He was still getting used to Rachel being able to see him, but now someone else? Being dead didn’t hold the same anonymity it used to. “You see me?” he replied.

  “Oh yes,” she said under her breath.

  Andy’s mother ripped her glance away from Andy and stared at the elderly figure, who appeared to be smiling at the wall. “Jesus Christ, you have lost it, you silly, dried-up, old hag… Why the hell Andrew would—”

  “Oh Cheryl, surely you can do better than that,” interrupted Mrs Braithwaite.

  Abruptly, the ghostly boy walked down the hallway, past Mrs Horton and Andy, and stopped in the far corner where the front door was. Sticking his tongue out with concentration, Mrs Braithwaite saw him lift up both hands in the air straight out in front of him, his fingers outstretched. Then he jerked his hands towards the ceiling.

  At exactly the same time, the Star Trek figures, which had been sitting on the stairs, flew into the air and hung there, unmoving, as if in zero gravity.

  Alerted by the sudden movement, Andy looked behind him. Seeing the figurines simply hovering in the air gave him a start. “Oh bollocks… me figures!” He went towards them and lifted his hands to scoop them from the air. But it was too late.

  From his position in the corner, Henry threw both his arms down and forwards in a violent motion. In less than a second, every single figure that had been suspended in mid-air all shot forwards, like bullets fired from a gun. Whizzing past the shouting Andy, they struck Cheryl Horton, in her face, hair and chest. One poked her in the eye, and another grazed her cheek with its sharp edges.

  Her hands began trying to bat them away as if she were being attacked by a swarm of wasps, her screams then filled the house as she tore at the front door and, as if being followed by a cloud of bats, ran up the path and down the street, still yelling and clawing at her hair and face.

  “My figures; my precious figures! Stop, stop!” shrieked Andy as he scrambled to pick up the little plastic pieces from the floor, and where they had ended up caught in the folds of the assorted coats and jackets hanging on the nearby coat hooks.

  It was at that moment when Andy heard Rachel tearfully storming out of the bedroom door above them and speedily running down the stairs. His eyes flew to the prone figure of Mr Spock, right in the middle of the second stair from the bottom. “Noooooo!” was all he could yell as Rachel stood directly on the figure, snapping the head from the body in an audible crack, before she vanished out of the door and took off down the road in the same direction as his mother seconds before.

  Sitting on the step, he cradled the ruined body of Spock. “I blame the fucking doctor for this,” he said sadly, inclining his head up the stairs.

  Looking at Henry – who remained in position by the front door, with a small figure of Sulu by his feet – Mrs Braithwaite replied, “Blaming this on a ghost… Wouldn’t your Dr Spock say that was illogical?”

  Holding the broken, little figurine in his hand, Andy stared back. “Mr Spock… And, no, I am beginning to see how much bloody trouble spirits can be.”

  Dr Maxwell, seeing the scene below and that Henry was clearly something to do with it, decided against going down the stairs, and instead floated quietly upwards through the roof and out of sight. He had encountered more than enough
chaos for one day.

  Chapter 41

  The creature sat on a rock in the searing heat of its world, with its mind turning over what had been happening. It frowned slowly, its hairy, prominent eyebrows eclipsing the little red eyes beneath. It was clear the plan had begun to fail, and it felt the plot strings lengthening then snapping one by one. The idea to capture souls, using the compelling pull of the shrine, and that idiot Sean, had seemed an excellent idea to start with, but it had one big Achilles heel in that it relied on mortals to succeed. Relying on meat sacks to do what they were supposed to do was inefficient; that had been proved throughout time, both by other mortals and its own kind. Young flesh, the very thing it needed to frequent the shrine, had dried up. The creature had thought the murders might cause a crowd of youngsters to visit the woods, their interest piqued by the macabre and paranormal, thus luring even more to their doom; however, it had not counted on people becoming afraid instead and staying away.

  It had been lucky with Kayleigh and Mia, with them both knowing each other, and being able to use Sean against them. Two souls had been bagged with relatively little effort, but, now, relying on lone teens to visit the shrine seemed more futile as each day passed.

  But it had another idea. At first, when it had seen Rachel, it was amazed to encounter a mortal who could not only see it clearly, but who didn’t wither in its gaze. It had hardly ever witnessed anything like this before, not in all the millennia it had walked the earth. Its first thought was that she was a clear threat – sent, perhaps, from the place of light, to destroy it – and it had been ready to do the unthinkable: to join forces with others of its kind to get rid of her. But, then, it had reconsidered, as it often did, and decided that – far from being a threat – this girl, Rachel, could in fact be the biggest and best weapon in its armoury thus far.

  Like a structure between two continents that could withstand both heat and ice without bowing or rusting, Rachel stood between the mortal world and the underworld. She was just like a human bridge, which could be used not only to lure souls from the light to the gloom, but also to bring forth evil from the darkness. It felt its skin and fur bristle with the concept. It rubbed its long, spindly hands together; then finished with one of its customary clawing scratches to its flank.

  The supreme leader had, according to its gatekeeper, been interested in the creature’s bold claim that it could bring forth more souls than any other. The gauntlet had been thrown down; for a basketful of souls, the creature could gaze upon the supreme leader and drink in its wisdom. Proudly, the creature had promised more than a basketful, it had pledged a whole chasm of souls, enough to fill the deepest pit.

  But now its boasting was at an end, and it actually had to do what had been promised, otherwise it would likely end up finding itself roasting in the fiery pit, alongside its own victims.

  Like a lumberjack, it was getting ready to fell the largest trees in the forest of souls, and Rachel would be its willing axe.

  *

  Rachel felt cast adrift, like a small boat thrown into the roughest sea. Her whole life had been a difficult journey of sorts: losing her parents, working a part-time job whilst training to be a teacher, the brain haemorrhage, losing the teaching career she adored, John walking out, and of course, the small issue of being able to see the dead. Some people lived an easy, charmed life, and she knew friends whose life had been simple, such as her friend Sally. Sally had gone to school, had trained at university, had become a teacher, had married her childhood sweetheart, and had a son who was now doing well in college; her parents were alive and well, and they all enjoyed family holidays together. She had no financial worries, no one hated her, and she had no specific problems to overcome. Life for her had been uncomplicated; an easy ride, like you would find in a children’s fairground.

  Rachel’s life, on the other hand, had been marred by unwanted changes, illness, death, desertion and now this. How many people in the world suffered a near-death experience and then, unexpectedly, started seeing ghosts? She bet not many, but she did; oh yes, she did all right.

  She had felt betrayed by Dr Maxwell. Before the meeting, she had believed he was on her side and that he cared about her, but, since their last conversation, she didn’t know what to think. To accuse her of being as gullible as to allow an entity to manipulate her thoughts – her most intimate thoughts – to compel her to construct some kind of trap that it could use to capture souls. The whole idea was horrible and ridiculous. The theory relied on a person believing in evil entities, that they walk among us, and the idea that entities could manipulate the very minds and actions of mortals, not to mention the existence of hell. It was quite the most absurd thing she had ever heard.

  However, even though it was a far-fetched notion, she decided that – much like the atheist who occasionally prays for help – she must hedge her bets and set her mind on getting the shrine removed. Then, if the projection of the entity – the hairy, ape-like thing – was using the shrine to lure victims, it would put a stop to its plans.

  She had been walking through Darkfoot Wood and thinking at the same time. She hoped the ape thing would appear in front of her, as part of her was actually very angry, and she wondered if there was any value in confronting it. As if waking from a dream, she looked up to see the shrine in front of her; it appeared to have fallen into slight disrepair since its opening. Long weeds were growing around the bench, and thistles had started to pop through the ground. Clearly, no maintenance people had been around to tidy it up. Stopping dead, Rachel saw, sitting on the bench, the spirit of a young girl, who was between fifteen and seventeen years of age. Dressed in tight jeans and a large woollen jumper, she seemed to not notice Rachel at all. Her hair was a mousy blonde and – straight away, even from that distance – her large, blue eyes, round and innocent, were obvious.

  Blast. Rachel wanted to be on her own. There was no way the hairy, ape-like thing would come out with someone here, even if the someone was a spirit. Now what was she to do?

  Looking up, the girl immediately noticed her, and her face lit up with a beaming smile. “Hello,” she said brightly, “I knew you would come.”

  “Really?” Rachel drew closer. “Why is that?”

  “The spirits of the woods have told me about you, and how you made this shrine to my friend, Kayleigh. I came here one night to be closer to her, but a horrible man murdered me.” She delicately wiped away a tear.

  Intrigued, Rachel sat down. The eyes of the memorial teddy bear remained fixed, staring at her, as if making some kind of accusation. Ignoring the staring stone bear, she turned back to the girl; she was very pretty in a naïve-looking way.

  “Mia? You are Mia, aren’t you?” enquired Rachel.

  “Yes, that’s right.” The girl beamed again. “And you are the woman who sees the dead; everyone is speaking about you, saying you have the answer. Is this true?”

  Rachel looked at the ground. “I am afraid I don’t have any answer…”

  “But you see us… clearly… That is unusual, yes?” Mia shifted her position to be closer to Rachel; she held her gaze quite firmly. “To be able to see us… to speak to us… Not many people can do that.”

  “I am sure I am not the only person in the world who can see ghosts.”

  Mia smiled. “You are one of a kind, Rachel; believe me when I tell you that. You have a power that you should use for the benefit of everyone.”

  “It doesn’t feel like a gift, more like a curse. What use is seeing dead people?”

  “The police have used you, haven’t they? To find the remains of the deceased?”

  Rachel thought Mia had a precocious way of speaking. She was about sixteen but spoke like someone much older; ‘the remains of the deceased’ was an odd thing for a young person to say, why not, ‘dead bodies’? But then she reminded herself that she did not know the kind of person Mia was.

  “Yes, with Kayleigh,” sa
id Rachel, “but they didn’t ask about you, I am afraid. Not that I could help them. I don’t feel your remains are here in the woods anyway.”

  Mia sat up straight. “That’s because they are not here. He shoved me in a water tank in the old Mountain View Hotel; do you know it? It’s the abandoned hotel, just on Birkbank Lane.”

  “That’s… that’s where your body is… now?”

  “Yes. It’s best you tell the police.”

  Taking a deep breath, Rachel asked the obvious question. “Do you know your murderer, Mia?”

  “That depends…”

  “On what?”

  “Do you have a spirit guide? Someone to help you locate the dead, like a go-between?”

  Rachel thought hard. “Well, there was this one man… a doctor, but I don’t think he is too keen on helping me anymore.”

  Mia began to play with a loose bit of hair by her ear. “You need a spirit guide; every psychic person has one. Maybe I can be your guide and your helper… What do you think?”

  “I am not psychic. I just see dead people. I don’t know if people will win the lottery or meet a tall, dark handsome stranger. I have no clue how people will die or when. I just see ghosts, and I am not sure how someone who is a ghost themselves can help with this.”

  “Think of how your powers could be used. Those who have been murdered can speak through you to identify their killer. People can be apprehended for terrible acts they thought they would have got away with.”

  “Yeah, providing the ghost knows their killer, and assuming that they are stuck here and haven’t floated off to heaven.”

  “Or elsewhere,” stated Mia with a smile.

  “Do you believe in a hell?”

  “If that’s what you want to call it, then yes. To believe in heaven means one must believe in hell; to believe in God, then one has to believe in the supre—” she stopped, pulled an odd face, then continued. “Satan.”