Beneath the Elder Tree

by Hazel Black

  My thoughts always seemed to return to Tim. No matter what I learned, discovered or experienced, I would always wind up contemplating him. By midnight I was scouring the city for my lover. I scaled down to the ground level of the city and walked the packed streets and dingy alleyways. Rain was clattering the roads and flashes of lightning illuminated the sky. The beams of passing cars cut through me as I stalked the side of the road. Two mortals screamed at each other somewhere in the distance. There was muffled dance music from an apartment high above me. Laughter and loud voices drifted from a nearby bar. A wave of aura exploded from a building across the street as a mortal passed away. The living hurried along under the cover of umbrellas and passed straight through me. It seemed an impossible task to find any one person or spirit in this chaotic mass of life. I was still confident I would find Tim eventually. Finding the ripper amidst this confusion was a very different prospect. I could search for years without locating him.

  ‘Hey!’ someone shouted from above. ‘You looking for something?’

  I craned my neck and peered through the downpour to see Tim balanced on a flagpole dangling from the side of an office block, his arms folded and a wide grin on his handsome face. It was difficult to hide my relief that he had found me. My eyes must have been exploding as they focused on him.

  ‘Looking for something, yes,’ I replied, trying to hide uncontrollable elation at seeing him.

  ‘A thing, is it?’ He fell from the flag pole and floated lazily through the haze of rain to the soaking pavement. ‘I was rather hoping you were searching for someone.’

  ‘Maybe I am and was just lying to you.’

  ‘You’d never lie to me,’ he boasted, tilting his head and frowning. ‘You love me far too much for that.’

  ‘Love is a very strong word.’

  ‘How about: You have too much of a crush on me to lie to my face.’

  ‘That would be more accurate,’ I nodded, allowing my head to fall to one side, inviting him to touch my neck. ‘Anyway, I don’t like lies or secrets.’

  ‘Good, because I don’t have any.’

  ‘Come off it, Tim. You have a secret life.’

  ‘You’re referring to the others?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘I kept that from you at first, yes,’ he confessed. ‘I did invite you to join us last night though, and you refused.’

  ‘I did. I’d much rather have you all to myself.’

  ‘You’re so selfish,’ he laughed. ‘I’m a fool for you, so I will allow you to have me… all to yourself.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re anyone’s fool, Tim.’

  His hands crawled over mine and we came together and shared an impatient kiss. I felt his inner strength and it aroused me. I could tell he too was excited by how strong I had become. He was about to ask how I had acquired this new power but I pressed a finger over his lips and shook my head.

  ‘I thought you said you didn’t like secrets.’

  ‘I don’t like other people having secrets,’ I replied with a wink. ‘Me, on the other hand, I like to maintain a certain sense of mystery. And you’d probably lose interest in me if you knew all there was to know.’

  ‘No. You’ll always have my attention.’

  ‘Not your undivided attention.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘The other ghosts who were on the rooftops last night… I noticed one of them was female, and I got the distinct feeling she didn’t like me being around you.’

  ‘You’ve got it all wrong. She’s female, and quite a magnificent one, but she has little interest in me. Natalia only speaks with me because we have a common purpose - killing the shepherd. Why she showed animosity towards you is a mystery to me. Maybe she doesn’t like having another beautiful ghost in her back yard. There aren’t too many around, you know.’

  ‘You’re full of crap.’

  He laughed it off. And I wasn’t exactly serious. We were teasing one another, which seemed to stoke the flames of desire in us. Tim looked quite elegant that night. His pale body was covered from neck to toe in a second skin - a black plastic coating that gave him a glossy and wonderfully sinister appearance. His hair was slicked back and shimmered under the bolts of lightning that pulsed like white veins across the black sky. His eyes were a calm crimson with white points at their centre. His face looked hewn from white marble and was sheer perfection.

  ‘How do you change your form?’ I asked. ‘Every night you look a little different - not to mention your ability to change gender in the blink of an eye.’

  ‘It’s ridiculously simple,’ he replied. ‘All you need do is imagine yourself in a different way. What you do require is inner strength. I thought I would have to teach you how to gain such a strength, but it is clear,’ he looked me up and down, ‘that you have already discovered how to extract the dark power that exists in mortals.’

  ‘Don’t ask me how I made the discovery…’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘I’ll tell you that in time.’

  ‘A man learns patience when he realises his immortality.’

  ‘How very poetic, Tim.’

  ‘I do try.’

  ‘Enough talk of dark power for now. Tell me more about the power of transformation. I just think of a different face or new clothes and it will happen?’

  ‘Don’t change your face, Lucy,’ he said genuinely as his hand pressed against my cheek. ‘Your natural face is too beautiful to be hidden, even for an instant.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I deserve no thanks for stating the obvious.’

  ‘It hasn’t always been so obvious to me.’

  I looked down at my body. It was still covered by the remnants of the same clothes I was wearing when I died in the real world. I looked rather drab compared to the other ghosts I had seen in the spirit worlds. I badly needed an upgrade. I concentrated hard, and imagined myself wearing a magnificent wedding dress. Suddenly folds of white silk sprung out of my skin and enveloped my previous attire. Layers of white material wrapped tight around my breasts, stomach, shoulders and arms. More tumbled down over my hips and fell loose around my feet.

  ‘You’re planning on getting married tonight?’ Tim snorted. ‘How peculiar your tastes are.’

  ‘Not all that peculiar…’

  The dress faded from brilliant white to grey, then quickly stained black and it split into strips and flowed by itself as if there was a gentle breeze pushing and pulling at it. I could tell by Tim’s face that he approved.

  ‘You look like a dark angel,’ he said softly. A cheeky grin came to his face and his eye brows hopped. ‘All you’re missing are wings…’

  He took a step away from me and bowed his head. His arms fell by his side and a red glow cocooned him for a moment. When it evaporated there were black shapes behind his shoulders that stretched down to the pavement. At first I thought he had woven a cloak for himself. I was mistaken. The shapes fluttered and spread out by his sides. Black and silver feathers appeared. A soft wave of red rippled out of his body and two mighty black wings rose on either side of his shoulders.

  ‘How do I look?’ he asked. ‘Does this meet with your approval?’

  ‘That’s quite a flamboyant little trick.’

  ‘Flamboyant but simple. Why don’t you give it a try.’

  It was as easy as weaving the black dress. As soon as I imagined having wings, a part of my soul sprung from my shoulders. Feathers formed and within seconds I was truly a dark angel.

  ‘This flamboyant trick uses up a lot of energy,’ Tim told me, ‘so our flight will have to be a short one.’

  ‘Flying for a moment would be better than a lifetime of walking.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Ti
m smiled. ‘It’s the only way to travel.’

  He hunkered down for a moment then sprung off the pavement and his wings flapped hard as he took to flight, swirling above me and around me. I went down on one knee before forcing myself into a short run. I launched myself from the street and my wings swooped by my sides and hauled me upward. We rose higher and higher until the city was nothing more than spider web of light far below us. We passed through the cloud cover as lines of electricity shot past and deafening thunder rumbled my soul. We climbed until all was clear around us and the moon was fully formed and glowing brightly, like it was so close I could touch its surface. There could be no better setting for two people who desired one another. Soaring above the clouds, far from the world and all its watchers, we made passionate love until our energy was sapped.

  It was close to dawn when we finally glided back to the earth’s surface to hide from the sun in the attic of an old cathedral that Tim called home. We passed under the old timber joists that were silver with cobwebs and found our way to the darkest corner. There we cradled one another as the pale sun rose outside.

  I felt terribly drained as dawn awakened the physical world. I’m not really sure if that was because I had used up my strength in creating the wings and then making love with Tim, or if it was the usual effects of mirror world. Within minutes I could barely keep my eyes open. Tim was far weaker as we lied there in the gloom and was perfectly still.

  ‘Now I know why you choose to live in the city,’ I said to him before he capitulated to fatigue. ‘It’s a powerful experience if you open yourself to its macabre side.’

  ‘You’ll be empress of this world when I banish the shepherd,’ he whispered to me. ‘I promise.’

  ‘I don’t need to be more than I am now. I feel special just being close to you.’

  ‘Good, because I will never let you leave me.’

  The fire in Tim’s eyes faded and he fell asleep in my arms. The last thing he said should have made me wary of him; it certainly would have set off alarm bells if a guy had said that to me in the physical world. The way Tim said it made me feel very special. As much as I didn’t like to admit it, I loved feeling special. I suppose everyone does.

  Mirror world burned away a lot of the strength I’d found the night before, and with it the lust and confidence disappeared. I even got a little resentful by feeling at home in the sinister side of the spirit world. I had settled too quickly into this way of life. It felt good to enjoy myself with Tim, but I had more important things that I should have been concerned with. Finding the ripper was top of my list. I also had to know if there was any way to reverse my exile from the other worlds. Being a ghost was exhilarating at times, and most people in the living world would give anything to experience even one night as a ghost. I, on the other hand, would have given anything to feel normal once again. I refused to accept this as my destiny.

  * * *

  The two weeks that followed were the most magical I had ever experienced. I would spend each night with Tim, exploring the world and the endless possibilities it presented. We visited many of the places he had told me about before my banishment. All were magnificent. One was particularly special, though.

  One night we entered the void and moved far away from the city to the old forests in the far north of the country. It was as spectacular as Tim said it would be. There were no living humans for many miles, so there were no red auras in sight. It dawned on me then that no evil exists outside the human race. Hatred, greed and envy were confined to mankind. We were the root of all evil. Mankind was the master of nothing but its own demise.

  Now that there were no red auras surrounding me, I could see normal aura lights again - the way I used to see them when I was a spirit guide. The countless animals that made their home in the forest emitted auras that were as bright, beautiful and as abundant as the stars above. The most magnificent sight was the immense light from the trees around us. It looked like the earth itself had a gaping wound on its surface, and the light from within was pouring outward, reaching for the heavens.

  We strolled amongst the oaks, elms, hawthorns and willows, unable to see more than ten feet ahead because the aura that radiated from the leaves and branches were so bright. It was an experience that would stay with me for a very long time. It was one of those special moments that never decays once it enters your mind.

  Tim and I made love under the silver surface of a lake that was hidden in the land of light and I had never felt so fulfilled. Night world was full of wonder, especially since I no longer had the responsibility of guiding Laura. I was free of all that now. Yet I missed it so much.

  I often felt guilty even thinking about enjoying myself while she was lying in a hospital bed recovering from her encounter with the ripper. And so each night I would live it up with Tim, and each morning I would leave him sleeping in the gloomy attic of the cathedral and go watch over Laura. The guilt was building. And all the while the hope of finding her attacker was dwindling. I realised that the search was the proverbial needle in a haystack. I constantly monitored the city in night world in the hope of spotting a red aura more powerful than all others – wishing that would be the killer. There was no sign of him, and after two weeks I had all but given up on any chance of catching him.

  A few days later I sat in a car with Laura and Mouse as they were driven to the city’s largest cemetery. Grace was to be laid to rest now that the authorities had decided her body would not yield any further evidence that could lead to prosecuting her killer if they ever managed to catch him. Mouse tried to comfort Laura as the car left the hospital. His heart was in the right place. Laura practically ignored him, though. I could pick up some sense of her emotions and felt that they were in turmoil. My bond with her was completely broken and I found it very difficult to decipher what she was thinking. Mouse found it impossible to know what she was thinking and quickly fell silent. He sat next to her and stared out the window as the car passed through the maze of buildings and apartment blocks. I felt almost as helpless as he.

  I slipped out of the car as it slowed to the gates of the cemetery, then watched from a distance as it sailed off into the sea of headstones. I stood by the tall iron railings and watched it moving along slowly towards a small group of sombre looking people. The air around the cemetery was heavy and I could feel the graves pulling me towards them. There were thousands of dead bodies within the tall railings enticing me to go to them. A worse fate than any other would befall me if I ever walked near a grave. Emily’s warning of eternal imprisonment remained fresh in my mind.

  I managed to scale a pillar at the eastern corner of the grounds and in the distance I saw Laura and Mouse standing in the middle of ten or more mortals dressed in black. A priest was speaking to the modest crowd. Everyone was looking at him except Laura, who only had eyes for the coffin. Her relationship with Grace was turbulent to say the least, but they had their own bond. Grace would always be Laura’s mother. Her loss would weigh heavy on Laura’s heart until the day she died. Or even beyond that. The bond between parent and child can live on into the afterlife. I knew this all too well; I still missed my parents and rarely an hour went by without them occupying my mind.

  I thought a lot about my mother and father as I sat between Mouse and Lucy on the return journey. How were they coping without me? Had anything really changed? How had my funeral been? I decided then and there that I would go visit them. There was no longer any reason to stay away. I would return to Hampton when mirror world returned, while Tim was resting. I didn’t want him going to my home. My visit was something I wanted to keep private. I wouldn’t even tell him about my plan, and would leave as soon as he feel asleep.

  Night world rose as Laura was returned to her room in the hospital. She was told by one of the nurses that she would soon have to leave the safety of the recovery unit and make her way back into the real wo
rld. One of her mother’s cousins had been in contact and Laura would go to live with her as soon as she was well enough to leave the care of the hospital staff. At least she would be away from the city and the clutches of the ripper. That was something to lighten my mood. Her move also presented me with the opportunity to make a new start. I could still be close to her while distancing myself from the city and all the horrors that transpired there. But could I leave Tim? That was the question I pondered as I watched Laura tire that evening, after a busy and emotionally draining day.

  I left her side when she fell asleep, then passed through the window and sat on the ledge outside. Night world was in full flow. The fires were bright that night. The shepherd was busy in the black sky. Tim would be awake now. It was time to become a black spirit once again.

  - CHAPTER TWENTY -

  The Ripper’s Identity

  The day had been wearisome for many reasons and I didn’t quite have the vigour of recent nights. It took time to scale down the side of the hospital and begin my trek across the city towards the old cathedral where Tim would be resting. Within an hour of walking I was watching out for strong auras that I could drain. I badly needed fuel for the night ahead. That’s why I decided to alter my course and head for the maze of apartment complexes in the eastern district of city centre. There were entire armies of wicked people there that I could sink the spirit teeth into. I had truly become a parasite that preyed on the living and sucked the very force from them in order to remain active. That very notion sickened me. I consoled myself by thinking that I was doing some good by removing the strength and influence of evil men in the physical world. I remained an instrument of good, not a tool of evil.