Beneath the Elder Tree

by Hazel Black

  ‘I only wanted to show you some beautiful places. There’s nothing wrong with that.’

  ‘I know there’s not.’ I said, drawing close to him. ‘We are standing in a stinking and filthy room right now and I am quite content.’

  ‘And I know the cause of this contentment.’ His hands slithered over my spirit body. He was laughing like an excited child as his lips brushed my neck, dark tingles burrowing deep into my aura. ‘I think I am the cause of it.’

  ‘Oh, you certainly are.’

  ‘I’m a lot stronger than I was the last time we were together…’

  ‘You better be.’

  ‘I am much more than you can imagine.’

  His hand snaked up my arm, across my shoulder to my breast. He smiled curiously for a moment and everything went still and quiet. It was the calm before the storm. Suddenly he drove his hand into my chest and lifted me from the floor. There was no pain as such, just a sense of penetration that was neither positive nor negative. I was tingling from the power he displayed. His eyes were like red suns in autumn twilight.

  ‘You have no idea what I am capable of...’

  Suddenly we were falling. My body passed through the floor as if Tim had taken command of my form. We both fell slowly through the levels of the apartment block and never once was his stare broken. Our descent was patient and seemingly endless, until we abruptly landed on the cold earth of the lowest reaches of the basement. I felt stripped of control as we watched one another in the shadows of that stale, cavernous room. I was willing to hand control over to him … for a short while. There was something so very arousing in allowing another person to control me. It was something I rarely did in life. I felt I could handle it in the afterlife. And it was very clear to me that Tim was in control.

  I was submissive in those first cautious moments in the darkness. I remained motionless and left Tim to dictate the course of our lust. This was as masculine as he’d been thus far. He was towering above me, clad in black, his raven hair was a vortex, swirling around his face that was glowing in the red hue of his eyes. Tim’s form was sinister and radiant at the same time.

  His hands ran over me and made me shiver inside. His black aura was seeping under my luminous surface, becoming one with me. His energy rushed all over my body before concentrating between my legs. This was the closest thing to physical sex that spirits could engage in. This was better than mortal sex, though. This was on another level to anything the living humans could endure.

  ‘Is this how you imagined it?’ he asked, watching me carefully from within the crimson light around his eyes. ‘Or was your mind more adventurous when you thought about me?’

  ‘Kiss me,’ I demanded. ‘Kiss me!’

  The black aura that posed as his clothes evaporated and laid bare his spirit body. There was a paleness about him that the moon would be jealous of. His body was practically featureless at first. Then it became muscular as I ran my hands over it. We came close to one another, arms busy on each other’s backs. A kiss followed. Beyond passionate. It was so deep I almost lost myself in him. I don’t think I had ever been so turned on. I don’t think I had ever been so tuned in to what was possible for two beings to experience.

  My soul became ablaze with pink flames. Tim’s was a hurricane of black tendrils, crackling and snapping at me. Together they mixed. Parts of his form passed into my body, symbolically entering me between my legs, elevating me into the darkness. Clouds of black and pink aura revolved between us and around us. His male form was writhing against me. In me. Pain and pleasure in equal volume. Too many sensations to focus on.

  We writhed against one another faster and harder. The mixture of our auras was in riot and I moaned in ecstasy. More and more of his dark aura entered me and Tim groaned with pleasure. We were climaxing together. The room was lit up with sparks of every colour imaginable. My rapturous screams were so loud that the entire world might have heard me.

  * * *

  Being a spirit guide means you never sleep, age, blink, breathe or tire. You could, however, feel fulfilment. That’s what I experienced as we silently contemplated one another. Dull knocks and scrapes came from above as the mortals began their day. Tim and I were frozen in an instant of euphoria. Not until the greyness of mirror world crept in through a crack in the top corner of the basement did we stir. We sat close together holding hands. Simply looking at one another. His ghostly features were perfection to me. There could be nothing better to look upon in the moment of ultimate arousal. There was so much mystery in that face of his.

  ‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘where exactly did you go last week?’

  ‘I hate repeating myself.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me in the first place.’

  ‘You cannot be told,’ he said. ‘You must be shown in order for you to properly appreciate what I have seen.’

  ‘I’ll do a deal with you: You tell me about all the places you went, save one - the one place you can keep a secret until we go there together.’

  ‘You mean it?’ His eyes lit up and he became animated - almost to the point that was strange for Tim. ‘You would come away with me?’

  ‘For a few hours, yes.’ I remained perfectly calm and tried to monitor his reactions. ‘Tell me of these places.’

  ‘Many miles from here - far to the north of the city - where the highways become single lane roads with cracks in them, you can gaze at the landscape and see no signs of mortal man. That was the first place I visited. When those unattended roadways become nothing more than tracks of dirt you are at the border of a magical place…’ Now there was a smile I had not yet seen. There was an innocence in it that one would think impossible for a black spirit to have. ‘It is one of the few ancient forests left in this land. It’s not plantation. It’s not to be cut down each year to supply the suburbanites with Christmas trees. This is part of the world itself. Thousands of years in the making. One vast life-form split into a million pieces like a head of hair - millions of individuals that are connected by life. Oh, Lucy, you cannot imagine it… Do you recall the first time you looked upon the city in night world?’

  ‘I do. I was sitting on a tin roof of an old factory with Emily. I won’t forget it even if I live until the very end of time itself.’

  ‘It pales in comparison to nature’s great city. The level of life and light there is overwhelming. Intoxicating! I don’t have the words to do it justice.’

  ‘I’m tempted to go there now.’

  ‘That’s not part of your deal.’

  ‘I know. Where else did you go?’

  ‘I walked in the dark earth…’ His expression became solemn and his eyes blackened briefly. ‘Beyond the mighty forest is a granite hillside with waterfalls trickling along its stone face like eternal tears. Hidden by one of these is the mouth of a cave. I don’t think the mortals know of it - I saw no traces of them inside. It was blacker than black as I made my way deeper into the earth. Small auras of microscopic life forms led me to point were there was no life at all. There was only frozen rock…’

  ‘It doesn’t sound very nice.’

  ‘It wasn’t. It was a most curious place. Not one that I would ever wish you to visit.’

  ‘It’s that bad?’

  ‘Deep in the darkness I sensed a titanic energy. I thought it might be the earth itself. Maybe the earth has an aura that is kept inside… I thought that for a time as I wandered, almost blind. I was wrong.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘I didn’t stay to find out. I sensed a terrible evil beneath me - something older and more decrepit than any black spirit I’ve encountered. I sensed that it was sensing me, and so I fled up through the layers of rock until I stood at the edge of the high northern mountains. I made my way to the tallest peak and saw the curve of this world cut by the silver
gleam of the mirror sun. I saw a hundred cities. A million life forms. All were ignited as night claimed the land. I watched for hours. Then I looked above and saw the countless stars. I saw the planets of a foreign space. I saw life, Lucy. The planets were distant but vibrant. Pulses of light that could only mean life.’

  ‘Stars twinkle, Tim.’

  He fell silent, as if he was a child who’d just been told there was no tooth fairy.

  ‘There was one more place?’ I asked. ‘The place you will take me to.’

  ‘There is,’ he nodded. ‘It’s very special. And you will adore it.’

  ‘Not as much as I adore you, Tim.’

  ‘I do hope your adoration will last.’

  ‘Don’t be getting all down in the dumps.’ I said, rising from the floor. ‘Just because I don’t believe in aliens.’

  ‘I didn’t mean aliens, Lucy. I meant life… I don’t know what I meant.’

  ‘You’re beautiful when you’re excited and happy, Tim. Please stay that way. You’ll have my adoration if you do.’

  ‘I shall try.’ He stood and we linked arms and rose to the ground floor corridor. ‘I’ll be leaving you for the day, Lucy.’

  ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘To a place that is ugly, but one that helps me to conserve the strength that I have gathered.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘A vacant cathedral in the city. It’s dirty and damp and not where I want to spend my days. It does seem to preserve this spirit of mine, though.’

  ‘Good. It will do until we find something more fitting.’ I squeezed his chilled hand before he walked to the main doors of the building. ‘Will you return in night world?’

  ‘Not all the shepherds of the world could prevent my return.’

  There was one last kiss before he left the building. I turned and headed up the stairwell towards Laura’s apartment. Then, as I reached the second floor, I glanced out the small window to take another look at Tim as he made his way to the city. I was startled to see he was not walking away from the apartment block. Tim was already quite a distance away and was flying…

  ‘That’s quite a handy trick,’ I breathed. ‘No secrets indeed.’

  - CHAPTER FOURTEEN -

  Full of Surprises

  Not even the monotonous gloom of the mirror world could spoil my mood that morning. I was enchanted as I waited for Laura to wake. The hybrid energy I had created with Tim still clung to my soul and I basked in the warmth it filled me with. I couldn’t wait to see him again. To hold and kiss him once more. I was adrift in a wonderful dream as the early hours rolled on.

  Laura’s alarm snatched me from my thoughts. Annoyingly, it took her over an hour to leave the bed. She kept hitting the snooze button and drifting back to the soft hug of sleep. It was almost midday when she finally climbed off the bed and got dressed. Grace was still sleeping in her room, the drapes pulled, the essence of stale cigarettes and alcohol in the air around her.

  My chosen had a shower before making a cup of coffee that she brought to the couch. She sipped from the mug, that looked oversized in her childlike hands, and watched TV. I lingered near her, sometimes regarding her, sometimes floating about the room and contemplating the lust of the previous night. Eventually I found myself perched like a stone gargoyle on the arm of the chair, gazing at the TV screen. I was truly a spirit now - I was starting to sit the way Emily did.

  The shows she watched had little meaning to me. They were like graffiti in a foreign language - interesting to look at for a few seconds, nothing more.

  My attention was snared when she flicked through the channels and landed on a news report. It declared there had been another murder. I hurried to the screen and moved my face close to the flickering images. As a spirit I found it difficult to focus too long on TV - the artificial stream of lifelike footage didn’t translate properly into mirror world. The picture was indistinct and the sound was distorted with echoes. I concentrated as hard as I could and gradually there was some clarity before my eyes. I saw a reporter standing near a railway line, microphone in hand, with a densely forested area spanning the background.

  ‘We believe the bodies are somewhere in the trees behind me,’ she said, answering an earlier question from the anchorman. ‘The authorities remain cautious in connecting this to all the deaths that we discussed earlier. They simply don’t have enough evidence to make a concrete connection between each of them. This could always be the work of copycats. However, according to my sources within the police department, there is a growing belief that all the murders are the work of one very disturbed individual - the man known as The Rosehill Ripper. This is fast becoming one of the worst series of crimes in living memory. My count is twenty three deaths in a little over six months. It’s hard to know where this is going to stop.’

  ‘It really is appalling, Jenny,’ the anchorman said, his tone flavoured with disingenuous concern. ‘Can you go into any detail in relation to these most recent crimes?’

  ‘Not much. As you can see behind me, the entire area is cordoned off. What I do know is that two bodies were found here three hours ago. The couple have been identified by the police, but not yet named publicly. I’ve been told that they lived in the suburbs, and commuted to the city each day. They never made it home yesterday evening.’

  I looked over my shoulder and focused on Laura. She was only half watching the bulletin. The joy I’d felt that morning had abandoned me. A foreboding had taken its place. Why did I feel that Laura was in danger? In nagged me incessantly. It made little sense, as Tim had said the night before. There were millions of people living in the city and the suburbs that stretched out from it like spatters of blood. The odds of Laura ever crossing the ripper’s path were very slim indeed.

  The reporter ended her account before the camera snapped to a studio showing two newsreaders and a guest psychologist who was about to attempt to make sense of the killer’s motivations. I didn’t want to hear it. In fact, I didn’t want this horror invading my heart and ruining what had been the best day I had spent in mirror world. There had been too much darkness and depression and I wanted to be free of it.

  ‘Come on, you,’ I said to my chosen as she drained her mug. ‘Let’s get out of this place before Grace wakes up.’

  My words were transformed into thoughts in Laura’s mind. She was heading down the concrete steps to the open air within five minutes. I followed her from a distance, not wanting to influence her course. She had surprised me days before, when she had visited the city, perhaps she would surprise me again.

  It was dreary in Millbrook, as it always was. Laura didn’t belong in such a place. But no one really deserves to endure poverty. Everyone is too good for it. It made me sad that society had broken down. Mankind had fractured into nations, religions and classes. A person’s life depended on where they were born and who their parents are. It dictates everything that follows. The course of life is decided on little more than the flip of a coin…

  I was getting depressed, much like Emily used to be when she was around the mortals for any length of time. I was hating my fate again. My thoughts wandered ahead to the coming of night world and Tim’s return. I was neglecting Laura again - that was until she did something that tore me from my grim meditations.

  She crossed the little field in the centre of the estate and walked towards the grocery store. Along the way she would have to pass someone who was loitering by the street corner, sucking almost frantically on a cigarette. I recognised him as Mouse, the youngest member of Josh’s gang of drug dealers. He looked rather timid compared to the last time I’d seen him. Looks can be deceiving though - this young man was part of a group of violent drug dealers who weren’t very fond of Laura.

  My chosen would have to walk right past him to reach the store, and my
anxiety levels were rising. The last thing I needed was her getting involved in another altercation with the wolves of Millbrook.

  Mouse hardly noticed her approach, and I thought that this would pass off without a single word. He did his best to ignore her as she stepped onto the pavement and came towards him. Laura didn’t ignore him. No, she walked straight up to him. He stared at her as she drew close. He was completely taken aback, which is probably why he didn’t tell her to piss off before she spoke to him.

  I was glad he didn’t.

  ‘My name is Laura. I live just over there.’ She pointed over her shoulder at the dilapidated block with her thumb. ‘You know me, right?’

  ‘Yeah, I know you. You cost me a night in a jail cell a couple of weeks ago when you ratted us out to the police. You’re a pest.’

  ‘One action doesn’t define a person.’

  ‘What?’ Mouse frowned. Nobody in his circle of friends spoke as Laura did. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I just wanted to say that I was sorry to hear about your friend Josh. He wasn’t very nice to me - nobody is - but I don’t believe anyone deserves to die like that.’

  ‘Uh…’ Mouse was stunned. He struggled to speak. The people he associated with never displayed sympathy like this. ‘Thanks…’

  ‘I hope you feel better soon.’ And with that she gave him one of her precious little smiles and started to walk away.

  ‘Hey, Laura,’ Mouse called after her. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘For what?’ she asked, tilting her head slightly.