A Death Displaced

by Andrew Butcher

  His accent was strong but he spoke English fluently. He’d lived in London for ten years before he moved to Chanton.

  He was an excellent cook and he’d learnt a lot from his wife. He’d told Juliet that in Zimbabwe, most women learn how to cook from a young age (though maybe not all to Gordon Ramsay’s standards) and it was usual for the women to cook for the men, but when he moved to England with his wife, he asked her to teach him and found he had a real passion for it.

  While enrolled on a cookery course, he found a job as a chef in London; but after ten years of it he wanted a slower pace of work. Cooking non-stop became tedious and he desired more interaction with customers; the Chanton Hillview turned out to be the perfect balance for him.

  Juliet wrapped up the plans with Roy, headed home and let the remainder of the week unfold.

  She felt so much better by Sunday.

  Nothing even remotely strange had happened to her since seeing Tamara. She’d confirmed in her mind that it was purely stress, related to the car incident.

  But the next day was Halloween. Tamara’s words itched in her mind. The Spiritworld can be unpredictable that day. Halloween will be a vulnerable day for you. Juliet had a restless night, anxious, but also annoyed at herself for letting it get to her.

  Halloween, she woke and instantly busied herself.

  Just have to get past today, then I’ll be confident that Tamara was wrong, a complete fraud.

  Kim had invited Juliet into Amiton to see the celebrations but Juliet had replied that she would rather die of boredom than waste her time celebrating Halloween of all things.

  She prepared herself a full English breakfast. After eating, she cleaned the entire house, not that there was a speck of dirt to be found anyway.

  It only took her to mid-day before she ran out of house chores. Going in to help at Chanton Hillview would have been ideal to pass the day by, but she didn’t want to see it in progress. Leaving Roy in charge of the whole project was actually so that she could come and see the end result. She wanted the surprise, a kind of gift to herself. And also, there was that ghostly incident in her office. Better not to risk it today.

  Trick-or-treating wasn’t common at her house but she went out and bought a variety of sweets in case.

  When she returned home, she gathered some old clothes, DVDs, jewellery and other items that she no longer wanted, three large bags full, then took one bag each to three different charity shops.

  Afterwards, she cycled out towards the sea. Chanton was on high ground, and cliff edge ran along the west side of the town. The north of Lansin Island was mostly steep cliffs along the coast line. Juliet took a cycle path which led her to a spectacular view of the hills.

  The exercise, the picturesque scenery and the cold, crisp air gave her confidence. She cycled home as the early dark fell upon her.

  By evening, she’d busied herself to the point of exhaustion. But at least Halloween was almost over.

  Allowing herself to finally relax, she sat down to watch television. The local news showed footage of the earlier celebrations and highlighted the evening’s entertainment across Amiton.

  In her exhaustion, her eyes started to give in. As they did, the picture on the television began to flicker. A nearby lamp post burned brighter for a few seconds and then switched off completely. The television alternated channels before the picture froze on a random image.

  The half-sleep that consumed Juliet prevented her from witnessing the phenomena, but when the window blinds swayed and clattered, the noises startled her.

  Her first thought was that she was dreaming. Then the temperature dropped; she felt more awake than ever. The air in the room seemed to swirl and howl, creating a circle in the centre, surrounding her on the sofa like a vortex.

  A gentle hue coloured the room, bitter, icy blue. She wanted to run, shriek, get out of the house, but she found herself petrified.

  She attempted a scream but the sound stifled in her throat.

  Out of the agitated atmosphere enveloping her, a figure appeared. This time it was fully visible, unlike the amorphous shape that appeared in her office. This was a woman, and she looked solid, real. Her eyes brown, her face pretty, her hair chocolaty.

  ‘Help me,’ she said, her voice an echo.

  Juliet couldn’t vocalise. Breathing proved difficult and her chest painfully rose and fell.

  ‘I need your help,’ the woman’s empty eyes looked at Juliet. ‘I don’t mean to frighten you but I can’t stay long. Please listen to me.’

  Juliet found her voice, ‘You’re not real… I’m hallucinating… or I’m dreaming.’

  ‘Even if you were, you can still see me and hear me. I am real in that sense, but please, I don’t have time.’ the woman’s ethereal voice filled Juliet’s head.

  The spirit continued, ‘My name is Samantha Crystan. I need you to find my son, Nicolas. You can find him at Creaky Crystals in Amiton, find him and ask him to go to Grendel Manor. He thinks I wanted to abandon my family. He needs to know the truth,’ the spirit conveyed no emotions as she spoke; her eyes seemed glazed and distant. ‘Tell him to go to Grendel Manor, and that he must take his…’

  Juliet’s house phone rang, causing her to jolt. As she did, the spirit disappeared. The room returned to normal within a split second. Juliet blankly stared at nothing.

  Her mind raced. Nicolas Crystan, Creaky Crystals, Grendel Manor, he needs to know the truth, he must take his… take his what? What was she going to say?

  ‘Take his what?’ she called out, but received no reply.

  Chapter 7

  Nick had a nightmare last night.

  It wasn’t entirely coherent but from what he pieced together it was disturbing. He was in an open field and it was raining, but even through the heavy downpour he could feel heat, like the intensity of an enormous bonfire. It smelled thick of smoke but it was too dark to see where it came from.

  Then he heard screams, but in a dream things didn’t exactly make a sound or at least not the correct sound, but he knew it was children screaming in agony.

  The rain stopped and he was somewhere else, an empty place; well, it wasn’t exactly a place, it was like being nowhere: a dark nothingness. But someone was there with him. His mum, but she was slightly out of reach

  Desperately, he tried to reach his hand out to her. She floated backward; the faster he attempted to run, the more his legs ached and were unable to move.

  He couldn’t shout or make her stop. He was helpless to do anything. She drifted out of sight into the nothingness. But steps appeared, he walked up them, hoping to be led out of the darkness but when he reached the top, he looked back and realised that the steps weren’t designed to be walked up.

  At the bottom of the steps, where he’d started the ascent, was a pit. The smell of smoke hit him again. He endured a choking sensation. When he turned back to move further up the steps, a man appeared in front of him, blocking his path.

  The man’s face was kind; something about his eyes inspired feelings of safety. He put one arm around Nick’s back, directing him up and away from the pit. When they reached the top of the stairs, the man plunged into his pocket and drew out a large knife. A beautiful knife, ancient and engraved in some dream-language Nick could not interpret. He was enthralled by the blade, in a trance, admiring its beauty.

  Staring at it for what felt like an eternity, his eyes were finally drawn away by the appearance of his dad, John Crystan.

  Out of the nothingness, his dad walked up to the other man. The unknown gentleman passed him the knife. Nick felt happy, belated for some reason at the knife being in his father’s possession; like it was an honour.

  The man fixed his gaze on Nick’s dad and as he did, John began to approach his son, weapon in hand. He stuck the blade deep into Nick’s stomach, then pushed him.

  He twisted and fell down the steps, bones snapping on the way down and then landed in the pit. Fire enveloped him, pain engulfed him, and that is when he woke up.
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  Upon awakening he realised that he had slept on his arm in a position that cut off the blood flow and it had gone completely numb. It was horrible; in his only-just-woken-up state of mind, he feared the worst: that his arm would have to be amputated. It felt dead and heavy. After a short while, it returned to normal but he had the irritating sensation of pins and needles lingering in his hand.

  His thoughts returned to the nightmare. He’d usually brush it off and go back to sleep or forget about it, but since the premonitions, he’d been placing more importance on the activity of his mind.

  It was nothing like the vision of the woman falling, or the recent one of the attackers; those visions were clear and so, so real. This dream was nonsensical and, he supposed, unrealistic. But for all he knew, it could have been another form of seeing the future. Like his grandmother supposedly had a dream of exactly how and when she would die.

  Maybe it was construed in metaphorical imagery, being a dream after all?

  The most likely scenario was that he was over-thinking the entire thing; that he was looking for meaning in a nightmare that was probably nothing more than a common dream-like interpretation of his fears.

  After all, he had dreamt of his mum being out of reach, and she was. He’d dreamt of his dad stabbing him… that wasn’t a fear of his, but their relationship wasn’t great.

  There was also the smell of bonfire and the sounds of screaming children which could be due to the Halloween theme that’d surrounded him the past few weeks. Also, the heavy rain from the dream: it always rained on Lansin Island. And as for the ancient looking knife: Creaky Crystals sold ritual knives, athames.

  He could find logical reasons for everything present in the nightmare, except for the man with the kind face who led him up the stairs and away from the pit, who passed his dad the old knife. He didn’t know who he was.

  In the nightmare, Nick had felt complete safety in the man’s presence, but shortly after he passed the knife to Nick’s dad it was like they both turned against him: his dad the minion with orders from the overlord, Mr Kind-Face, to stab him.

  Too creepy to think about and he didn’t need to ponder it for any longer.

  He stretched and yawned, pleased to have got some sleep; working Halloween yesterday was hectic and exhausting. It always amazed him to see practically the whole of Amiton dressed up. Customers heaved in and out of Creaky Crystals all day long.

  The only comparison he could think of to sum up the craziness of Halloween in Amiton was the hype at Disney World; the way people bought items that they would never purchase if they weren’t in a giant theme park.

  Disney World hype: buy a Mickey Mouse hat that you’ll never wear! Halloween in Amiton hype: buy a set of tarot cards that you’ll never use!

  Nick had only been to Disney World once, with his mum, his dad and his brothers when he was young. He thought about the way his dad was back then and how he didn’t recognise him in the withdrawn man he now was.

  For work, Nick dressed as a zombie wearing a poncho and a sombrero. He got some interesting reactions. Michael was a vampire, surprise, surprise, Mora was a witch, but it wasn’t too different to her usual attire, Janet wore some devil horns, boring, and Alan dressed as Shrek.

  Friday came around quickly. Nick parked up and headed for Creaky Crystals.

  On his walk through the lower grounds, a sense of dread grew in his stomach. Ahead of him, he could make out a collection of flowers and other items propped against the bottom of the 50ft wall. He was bemused at first and then realised what it was. Someone had died there... But the woman… I saved her, didn’t I?

  Quickening his pace, he squinted to get a better view of the omnium-gatherum of flowers and other items. A picture of a woman had been placed there. He recognised her; it was the waddling witch wannabe, the customer who enquired about different wands in Creaky Crystals a couple of weeks ago.

  She’d died here, but how? Why here in this spot where the woman from his vision had hit the ground?

  Under the picture was her name: Rowena Helen Howard.

  ‘Did you know her?’ a man with short black hair asked as he placed down a bouquet of flowers with an attached note that simply read ‘rest in peace’ on it.

  ‘No, I work just there,’ Nick pointed a finger towards Creaky Crystals, ‘I’m about to start work.’ his voice quavered, How am I supposed to feel? ‘What about you? Did you know her?’

  ‘Not very well. We were in the same class at school; she was always nice to me.’ he said, looking unsure of how he should feel too, ‘It’s sad. I feel awful for her family, not knowing how it happened.’

  ‘What did happen?’ Stupid question, he bit his lip, frowned and looked about. There were a couple of girls stood a few metres away; they stared sullenly down, tears in their eyes.

  ‘No one knows. I saw about it on the news last night. She was found here yesterday morning, but she’s too far out from the edge to have fallen. It’s like she was thrown over or maybe she jumped.’ His face tightened and he looked down at the picture of her, ‘It’s not right talking about it here. Whatever happened, it looks like she’s going to be missed by a lot of people.’

  At that point, it began to rain. The sky was a morbid colour. The man had pale skin and his scalp became more visible as his black hair collected the wet.

  They stood in silence while Nick watched the memorial notes begin to smudge and crumple. At least the flowers would endure. He wiped a hand firmly over his hair to rinse out the soak, ‘I better go to work, take care.’ he said.

  The black-haired guy nodded goodbye to him and then ascended the steps to the upper grounds.

  If Nick had watched the news more often, then he might have seen about this incident and would have been more prepared for today, but the news depressed him so he rarely watched it.

  Passing through the door to Creaky Crystals, he came over queasy and his thoughts swam in circles. Is it my fault that the waddling witch wannabe is dead?

  Mora smiled at him on his entrance, walked past him and towards the front door, ‘I’m going on my lunch now, Nicolas. Michael said that someone came in to see you the other day. Ask him about it, okay?’ she said speedily and exited.

  Nick didn’t know who would have stopped by to see him; he wasn’t exactly Mr Social Life.

  After chucking his jacket out the back, he returned to the shop floor. Michael and Alan approached him, ‘You’re looking a bit peak-ish, Nick! ’ Alan said, and mockingly kept his distance as if Nick were contagiously ill.

  ‘I’m alright, I’ve just heard about the woman who fell and died out there. It took me by surprise a bit.’

  ‘Who says she fell? She might have jumped! Maybe she was pushed… maybe she was killed somewhere else, then dumped there. Or actually, she probably did fall… it’s not called The Fallend for no reason!’ Alan cocked his head to one side and raised his eyebrows.

  Michael interrupted. ‘That’s not cool, Alan, she only died yesterday, shouldn’t be talking about it like that. It’s not funny.’

  ‘Alright, alright, I was only saying.’ Alan looked down at the floor for a second then swiftly popped his head back up, ‘Hey, Nick, some fit bird came in to see you on Tuesday, didn’t she, Mikey boy?’

  ‘Yeah, I told her you were working today. She’s gonna come at the end of your shift to see you. She was tall, blonde and pretty.’

  ‘She was fit.’ offered Alan, again, with enough enthusiasm to wobble his double chin.

  Alan was single, in his thirties, and worked fulltime at Creaky Crystals. He seemed content with that, but he didn’t share a whole lot about his life outside of work.

  ‘Okay, thanks.’

  ‘Do you know her?’ Michael asked Nick.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Janet’s probably set you up with her.’ he laughed.

  ‘Janet needs to set me up with her!’ Alan chimed in. Michael and Nick laughed, though Alan was starting to grind on Nick’s nerves. He was a nice enough b
loke, but lately he’d seemed a bit blasé towards the reactions his comments were getting; some things he said came across plain hostile.

  ‘Well, I don’t know who she is anyway.’ Nick said. As Alan went to say more, he was interrupted by a customer wanting to purchase an item. He took the customer to one of the till points to process the transaction.

  ‘So, is she as fit as Alan says?’ Nick asked Michael, sarcastically exaggerating the word ‘fit’.

  ‘Yeah, she was pretty. Not my type though.’

  ‘She sounds exactly your type,’ Nick was confused because Michael had always come across so simple; Nick had thought Michael would be the one saying fit bird. But no, ‘pretty’ seemed to be his word of the day, and with his unintelligent troll-voice and his angel face, that word just didn’t seem like one he’d use.

  ‘No. Not really.’

  ‘You haven’t had a girlfriend in ages, since Kelly in fact.’ Nick remarked.

  ‘I haven’t met anyone I like.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ he shrugged his shoulders and the conversation ceased there.

  Michael approached a woman sifting her hands through a bowl of gemstones. He struck up a conversation.

  Alan still served the same customer, although it seemed to have turned into a pleasant causerie between them.

  Nick dawdled around the store, glad to finally have time to think about everything going on.

  He deduced that the tall blonde woman who had come into the store was the gorgeous one that he saved. He couldn’t think of any other tall blondes that he knew. Maybe she realised that she never said thank you to him for saving her. But then how did she know he worked at Creaky Crystals, and how did she know his name?

  Maybe it wasn’t her who came in, but anyway, he didn’t feel much like a hero anymore. He may have saved her life, but now this other woman, Rowena Howard, had died in the exact same place that Tall-and-blonde was supposed to hit the ground.

  What was this? Fate taking someone else in exchange? Some blip in physics, compensating for what he took away? Was it just a freaky coincidence? Did she commit suicide? Why was it her? She was the first person he saw and spoke to after he snapped out of the vision.