A Death Displaced

by Andrew Butcher

  ‘You!’ he pointed. ‘You should not have come here.’ He turned to Juliet and stared into her eyes again. ‘Kill your friend. Kill this Nick. Do it now.’ he ordered vehemently.

  She pivoted slowly, she released her mobile and it bounced on the floor. When she looked up at Nick, her eyes were distant and uncaring. Then she charged towards him. He stepped backwards, but she was on him before he could do anything. She went for his throat, trying to strangle him. Her nails dug into his skin, drawing blood.

  The pains of the previous attack swelled in the fumbling.

  She developed a rage in her eyes; Nick could see that she wanted to kill him.

  He didn’t want to hurt her, but he had to get free. He struggled to breathe as she tightened on his throat, then he brought his elbows up and wriggled his fingers between Juliet’s hands and his neck.

  Managing to overpower her, he heaved in a breath. He used the anger his body had built up from all the pain it had already endured, and he pushed her hard. She fell backwards onto the floor, but he could see the determination in her eyes.

  Aldrich looked panicked that Nick had got loose, but he stared at Juliet and shouted, ‘Kill him, kill him!’

  Nick did the only thing he could think of.

  He ran to the open cabinet, picked up the statue head of Alexander the Great and launched it at Aldrich. It smacked Aldrich in the side of his head. He fell. The statue head cracked on the floor beside him. Aldrich’s cane fell and clanked about, then rolled away from his body.

  Juliet was still on the floor but she seemed dazed now.

  ‘Why am I down here?’ she looked up at Nick, ‘What happened?’ she stood up and then looked across at Aldrich on the floor. A small pool of blood formed around his head. ‘What happened to him?’

  The thudding in Nick’s chest was overwhelmingly painful. It took him a moment to locate his voice. ‘We have to leave. Now!’ he said, his voice raspy from strangulation.

  ‘What? Shouldn’t we call an ambulance?’ she pointed at Aldrich’s body.

  ‘Trust me, we have to leave.’ Nick ran out the front door, and Juliet shuffled behind him. His bruises burnt with rapid blood coursing through him.

  ‘Why can’t I remember anything?’ she shouted, hurrying up the chalky path.

  ‘I’ll tell you in the car. We have to leave, please just come.’

  He struggled unlocking the car door; his hands shook too much. Once inside, he waited for Juliet to get in, then drove back over the hill and down the private road, heading away from Grendel Manor.

  ‘Nick, slow down. You’re driving like a mad man.’ Juliet appealed.

  Once they were over the hill and onto a public road, he slowed his driving. He instinctually drove towards Amiton, taking a different route from the way they came.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Juliet asked, ‘Please tell me what happened.’

  ‘Sorry, we just need to get away from there. I need to think.’

  ‘Pull over soon then please. I don’t feel safe; you shouldn’t drive like this.’

  He drove for a couple more minutes and then found somewhere to pull over. Juliet looked at him, at his neck. Shock ran over her face.

  ‘What happened to your neck?’ she asked, and leant closer to see the damage. ‘Did Aldrich do that?’

  ‘Not exactly...’ he answered, and then looked in her eyes.

  She appeared bemused; she looked down at her hands, then inspected her nails. There was dried blood under some of them. She gasped and began to cry.

  ‘I don’t understand. Did I do that to you? My hands ache and there’s blood under my nails. Look at the scratches on your neck.’ she said, her voice breaking up.

  Nick began to explain what had happened. He put one hand on her shoulder and she didn’t seem to mind the physical contact. Her face went through a series of emotions when he described the way she handed over her phone obsequiously, and then went at him in a rage.

  ‘My phone, I left it there, I didn’t realise.’ she said.

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll think of something.’ he replied, unsure.

  Juliet closed her eyes and sighed. She kept going to say something, then she would stop, and think some more.

  Then she asked, plainly, ‘So Aldrich can control people with his mind?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘How does he do that?’ her eyes squinted, horrified.

  ‘How would I know? How do you see ghosts? How did I see the future?’

  ‘But, what are we going to do now?’

  ‘I just need to think.’ he said. He tapped the steering wheel impatiently; waiting for lightning to strike, but nothing came to mind.

  ‘We have to go back there,’ said Juliet, ‘I left my phone there. He knows my name, and he knows you’re called Nick; you’re saved in my phone as Nicolas Crystan. If he can control people, then he could have us killed.’

  ‘I agree, but what if he gets you to attack me again?’ Nick asked, and saw a guilty look on her face.

  ‘I’ll stay out of the way. How come he couldn’t control you with his mind?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know…’ he thought about it, ‘It felt like his eyes were piercing into me, but it had no other effect.’

  A car sped by and made him jump. He laughed at how jittery he was, then tried to mentally relax. He said to Juliet, ‘I know we have to go back, because it must have something to do with my mum. I have to talk to Aldrich again.’

  ‘What if you killed him? You can’t ask him questions if he’s dead.’ Juliet said and winced.

  ‘But you can.’ he raised his eyebrows. Guilt flushed over him at the thought of turning an accidental murder into an advantage for him.

  ‘No, it doesn’t work like that. Spirits just seem to show up whenever they feel like it. I can’t summon them.’ she said, shaking her head.

  ‘I hope he’s not dead. I only did it to get you out of the trance you were in. It was all I could think of.’

  ‘I know. Looks like you saved me again.’ she laughed, and her eyes lingered on Nick’s for a moment.’

  ‘I think we’re missing out something. We can’t just go back like this.’ Nick began, ‘My mum tried to tell you something, didn’t she? I have to take something with me.’

  ‘Yeah, but she vanished before she could tell me what.’ Juliet said hopelessly. Nick saw her go mentally inwards, like she was thinking hard about something. She looked up at him with an expression that clearly meant: you’re-not-going-to-like-this.

  ‘Why don’t you use your ability?’ she asked.

  ‘What? I’ve never used it before. It’s like what you said about the ghosts. The visions come to me. I don’t know how I do it. When I tried to use it before, it gave me a splitting head ache!’

  ‘But can’t you try? If you can see the future, then we’ll be one step ahead. What if he’s already sent someone after us? Please, Nick,’ she put her hand on his knee, ‘please try.’

  He didn’t say anything. He thought about her hand on his leg and enjoyed it being there. It made sense what she was asking him to do, but he’d tried to have a vision before; it wasn’t that easy. He’d spent hours reading up on it, and meditating, mostly to no avail.

  If he tried it now and let her down, then how awful would he feel? But then, what if Aldrich had sent someone after them? It would give them the upper hand if he knew the future.

  ‘What if there are repercussions?’ he asked, ‘I saved your life, but now you see ghosts, and that poor woman fell in the same place, was that just a coincidence? I had painful flashes relating to her death. Maybe I deserved the pain for messing with fate…’

  He watched Juliet close her eyes at the mention of the woman who fell. When she opened them again, she said, ‘That woman appeared to me yesterday, she explained what happened, she doesn’t blame you. I’ll tell you about it another time. We’ll think about the repercussions when we need to, but for now we have to try something. What else can we do?’

  ‘Okay,
I’ll try, but don’t expect anything to happen.’

  He closed his eyes, squeezed them as hard shut as possible. He scrunched up his face and tried to think of the future. He held his breath and tensed his body. Nothing happened.

  ‘It’s not working.’ he said.

  ‘Relax, Nicolas, you look too tense.’

  Trying a different method, he began to breathe deeply. He told himself not to worry, that it didn’t matter whether it worked or not.

  Imagining himself sinking into the seat stilled him. Then he envisaged his whole body and mind being connected to everything. He saw his entire self as a tree, growing outwards; his branches and roots weaved into the world around him.

  The relaxation was so deep that he lost the sense of where he was and what he was trying to do in the first place.

  When he opened his eyes, he was no longer sat in his Vauxhall Corsa.

  *

  He walked through a foliage archway. He recognised it from Grendel Manor.

  He turned around and saw three people trailing behind him. It was Juliet, Tom and Tommy. All three looked nervous.

  This time he knew that it was a vision. It felt just as real as the first time, except that on the first occasion, he became so absorbed that he actually believed it was real, until he awoke from it. This time he simply watched through his own eyes.

  He walked down the chalky path. Ahead of him the large front door of Grendel Manor was open: the way it had been left when he escaped with Juliet.

  In a hushed voice, he said to Juliet, ‘Stay outside, we’ll go in and check.’

  She nodded and stopped where she was. Nick walked inside and his brothers followed close by.

  He found Aldrich where he had left him, on the floor with a small puddle of blood, the broken statue head, and Aldrich’s cane. Nick approached the body cautiously then used his fingers to check for a pulse.

  Aldrich was alive.

  *

  He opened his eyes with a swift inhale.

  ‘Did it work?’ Juliet asked.

  ‘Yeah, I saw something.’

  ‘What did you see?’

  ‘I saw us go back to the manor. And I think I know what my mum was trying to say. She was saying that I must take my brothers with me. Maybe they are immune to Aldrich’s ability too? I saw them with us in the vision. We went back and the door was open, how we left it. I asked you to wait outside in case Aldrich tried his mind-thing on you again, and when I went inside, he was on the floor still. I checked his pulse. He was alive.’

  Juliet looked relieved; she gently sighed.

  Nick smiled at her and laughed awkwardly at the situation they were in. She looked at him, watched his eyes; he didn’t know what she was thinking, but she leant in closer to him.

  He wasn’t sure if he read her body language wrong, but he looked from her eyes to her lips, then back to her eyes again. She pulled her gaze away from his, then allowed her stare to linger on his lips. Then she kissed him, and he kissed her back.

  Chapter 14

  What have I done?

  She pulled away from the warmth of his lips. The kiss lasted no more than five seconds, and her ambivalence prevented her from fully enjoying it. It was a spur of the moment thing; she was never the first to go in for a kiss in her last relationship. He’d always been the one to initiate it.

  Too much change was happening: the car incident, the spirits, and these new feelings towards Nicolas. She wanted to kiss him but she also didn’t want to.

  As she pulled away, he looked nonplussed, and followed her with another kiss. She let him kiss her, and then gently pushed him back.

  ‘We need to go get your brothers.’ she said.

  Nick huffed, amused, ‘Err, okay,’ he pulled out his mobile, ‘what was the kiss for?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ she moved firmly back to the passenger’s side of the car, composed herself, but offered no more expansion on her answer.

  In a strange sense, she felt violated: not by Nicolas, but by Aldrich. He invaded her mind, used her body and altered her memory. An eerie shiver bristled over her skin, thinking about it. Although she’d initiated the kiss with Nicolas, the intimacy felt like too much after being violated like that.

  ‘Okay… the twins might be at college, I’ll ring Tom.’ Nick’s phone was to his ear instantly. A moment later he said, ‘Tom, are you at home? Good, is Tommy with you? College? Why aren’t you at college? Actually, it doesn’t matter, could you call Tommy and tell him I’ll pick him up at the main entrance in about ten or fifteen minutes? I’ll come get you straight after that.’ he paused, his eyes shifted in thought, ‘It’s important. Don’t say anything to Dad. It’s about Mum. I can’t explain now. Thank you, thank you.’

  Juliet was impressed at the speed and painlessness of the phone call. She imagined that if she were to call Kim in that manner, that Kim would flood her with questions.

  Nick started up the car and was back on the road in no time.

  ‘What are you going to tell them?’ Juliet asked sensibly.

  ‘My brothers?’

  ‘Yes, and did I hear correctly, are they called Tom and Tommy?’ she added.

  ‘Ha, yeah they are, it used to be difficult to tell them apart, but it’s easier now. Tommy is the larger, muscular one and Tom is the slim one. I’m not sure what to tell them, but I know what we definitely can’t tell them.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘We can’t tell them about our... erm, abilities. They’ll think we’re pulling their legs, or that we’ve gone insane.’ he said in a practical voice.

  ‘But what will you say about Aldrich? You have to warn them, else we’re putting them in danger. They’re going to notice the marks on your neck.’

  She rubbed under her nails in an attempt to flake off and smudge the dried blood. The idea that she could have done that to him, bruised and cut his neck, well actually, the fact that she did do that to him made her stomach churn. I don’t remember anything.

  She’d never laid a hand on anyone before. She’d wanted to once, years ago, when some girls at school bullied her for being wealthier than them. She’d heard most the names growing up: rich-bitch, spoilt cow, snotty, more-money-than-sense, stuck-up. But these girls were particularly nasty.

  Violence wasn’t the answer though; Juliet’s parents had respect and they didn’t gain it through violence, so Juliet’s ‘retaliation’ was to state that she didn’t care what those girls thought and that she’d never stoop to their level of bullying. She was better than them; they were simply stupid, jealous girls.

  Nick appeared to be cogitating.

  ‘We’ll tell them about Aldrich, but then they’re still going to think we’re crazy.’ he said; he sounded fed up like he just wanted the situation to be resolved already. ‘I’ve already told Tom that it’s about Mum, so they know it’s important and they will want to come with us, but they won’t believe about Aldrich unless they see it for themselves.’

  ‘We don’t want that to happen.’ Juliet made clear, ‘Hopefully they are immune to his ability like you are.’

  ‘I think that’s what my mum was trying to tell you.’

  The route that Nick took towards Amiton was different to the way they came. He drove south past the small hamlet of Willow, and on their right was Eradon Lake.

  Juliet looked across at the water surface. There were dour grey clouds hanging above the lake, preventing most reflections on the water, causing it to appear deep, dark and sullen. The lake had a surface area of almost four miles and it took a few minutes to drive clear of it. Nick drove over a bridge that crossed the Nova River and headed southeast.

  Juliet almost suggested that they visit Tamara Trewin. Maybe she could help them. But she soon found many reasons why it was a bad idea: Tamara might be in the middle of an appointment, Juliet was rude on her exit when she visited, Tamara could be susceptible to Aldrich’s ability, and how would they convince her to come along anyway? And what could she do? She claimed t
o be a powerful witch (and all her other titles) so Juliet thought that maybe she could help in some form. After all, she was right about Juliet being displaced. But then, it wasn’t Juliet’s decision on who to bring with them; it was Nick’s car and his mum’s past they were trying to figure out.

  ‘Do you mind that I invited myself along to all of this?’ she asked. ‘I’ve just realised that it isn’t my business what happened to your mother, and you might not want me present when or if you find out.’

  Nick seemed to really think before answering, ‘My mum appeared to you as a ghost. She affected your life and made it your business.’ he paused, cleared his throat and continued, ‘I feel like I can trust you, and I’m happy for you to figure out this mystery with me. But I understand if you don’t want anything to do with it. I don’t know what we are getting ourselves into. I’ve already assaulted a man.’

  Juliet thought she saw guilt on his face, ‘It wasn’t your fault.’ she consoled. ‘I want to go back to the manor with you. I can’t avoid the changes that have happened to me. I see spirits and I’m going to make the best out of the situation that I can.’

  When they reached Amiton College, Nick pulled up on a curb by the entrance. Other students huddled about in small groups and walked aimlessly by. Some glanced over, unimpressed at Nick’s decision to park there, but most were indifferent.

  The building that featured the main entrance was Victorian style. It had red bricks, (slightly yellowed) white window frames, and to one side, a gothic clock-tower piercing high above all else. The rest of the college was made up of more modern builds and even a stack of unflattering mobile-classrooms.

  Juliet had attended Amiton College and achieved a diploma in Business, but not at this campus. There was another campus, a smaller one, in the upper grounds of Amiton town centre. She’d also studied the practical elements of her degree at that establishment.

  She’d had a good experience there, respected the college, and made a couple of friends along the way. She turned eighteen at the time she completed her diploma, and that is when her parents bought her Chanton Hillview café and moved to Marbella.