The Cait Lennox Box Set

by Roderick Donald

  “Oh yeah, The Gift. Tell me more.” Jools was all ears.

  “I haven’t mentioned it until now, but for the past few days I’ve been having visions again. It’s been stressing me out.”

  Using her fingers as a comb, Cait swept her long strawberry blonde hair up off her shoulders and tied it into a ponytail, slipping a scrunchie off her wrist and over the gathered hair to hold it in place.

  Jools knew her daughter well. Cait hadn’t mentioned anything about having any more contact with the Otherworld since her kidnapper suffered that strange massive stroke in the hospital and they had finally put that all to bed last year. Well, no new visions Cait had talked about, at least. And besides, Jools knew that Cait would clam up tighter than a cork in a champagne bottle if she was pushed too hard, so her usual ploy was to let Cait drip-feed until she had divulged the whole story.

  Cait was like that—headstrong, determined—even secretive of her thoughts and emotions, just like her father G.

  But she was also vulnerable.

  “Cait, if you’re getting stressed, just do as I taught you, remember? Close your eyes, turn inward, take ten deep, slow breaths in through your nose, out through your mouth, and focus on nothing but the air invigorating your body. Feel the energy.”

  Jools was a bodyworker, a preceptor, a naturopath, with amazing perceptive skills and an intuitive side that to the outsider verged on the impossible. Jools had inherited The Gift from her mother, who in turn had it passed on to her by her own mother. There was an ancient line of Druidic shamans sitting in her DNA, and Jools had passed this mystical knowledge on to her own daughter.

  “Today, in the park with Mia . . . well, I don’t know how to describe it,” Cait said, her words lingering in the air.

  “Just relax and start at the beginning.”

  Jools took a sip of her iced water, then brushed her shiny auburn hair off her face and settled back into her chair.

  Normally fiery, Jools was ever the steadying influence on her daughter as she gradually introduced her to the powers of The Gift over the years whenever they revealed themselves. Dealing with another dimension was like a rebirth for Cait that required a quantum shift in her understanding and awareness of the mundane world around her. Suddenly things weren’t as they seemed, and Cait was constantly surprised, frightened even, of each new revelation.

  “Mum, it was terrifying. I crossed over to a really dark world. And look,” said Cait as she lifted her light linen top to reveal the angry red welt the Gatekeeper had inflicted.

  “Oh my God, Cait, what happened!” Jools was truly shocked. “Let me look at that.”

  “That’s where the beast attacked me. He was pure evil. That’s about the only way I can describe it.”

  Jools got up and moved around the table. Kneeling next to Cait, she gently reached out, feeling her hand slip through her daughter’s disturbed aura. There was a distinct coldness like a microclimate draft pouring out from the wound.

  If this is what I think it is, it’s not good, thought Jools. The Otherworld was a more metaphysical domain, and to bring an actual physical wound back into this world was fraught with danger.

  And “the beast.” What beast? It had marked Cait, whatever it was, thought Jools, concerned that this was a bit more serious than simply a bruise.

  Gently tracing Cait’s wound with the tips of her fingers, Jools hovered about a centimeter above the weal. Her qigong training in China all those years ago had taught her to be sensitive to the body’s energy, and she drew on the experience to trace the gallbladder meridian from a point just below Cait’s twelfth rib on a diagonal axis across her flat washboard stomach to a point at the top of her pelvic girdle.

  Which was exactly the same line that part of the welt ran along.

  Electric, icy, sharp. Very yin. Definitely not a good sign for a twenty-four-year-old, Jools thought to herself as she traced the line of the wound.

  Jools gently touched the bruise.

  “Ah,” Jools said and grimaced, immediately withdrawing her hand as an electric shock arced from Cait’s body and shot up through her fingertips.

  Negative energy! Whatever evil force touched Cait is still there . . .

  Jools then skimmed the palms of her hands around Cait’s lithe body from head to toe to neutralize her aura, then gently rested them on Cait’s shoulders. Acting as a conduit, Jools connected Cait to the earth, grounding her energy and dispelling the blockages that were preventing her daughter from overcoming the psychic assault by the Gatekeeper. She would never properly heal until free flow of her life force—her qi—in her body was reestablished again.

  As she allowed Cait’s energy to flow and reconnect along her eight meridians, Jools was reminded of an ancient saying from the annals of Traditional Chinese Medicine: Where there is free flow, there is no pain.

  “Concentrate on my words, Cait,” Jools said with a melodic, almost magical, lilt to her voice.

  “Just relax into the moment. Listen to my voice carry you, drift with it, and recall what you can about your visit to the Otherworld.”

  Jools innately knew it was essential that her daughter’s negative energy be exposed and then purged, or there was a serious danger that she would never properly heal. Then the Gatekeeper would suck on her like a parasite until he finally claimed his prize: her soul.

  As Jools continued with her spiritual cleansing, chasing the remnants of the Gatekeeper around her daughter’s body, Cait succumbed to her mother’s touch. Memories of her fight with the beast vividly returned, flashing clearly in front of her eyes as if she was watching a sci-fi movie.

  “Mum, it was the whispers that saved me. They gave me the strength to fight the beast.”

  “That’s The Gift, Cait. It’s your ancient grandmothers calling and guiding you during your journey on the other side. I used to hear them too.”

  “What do you mean ‘used to?’ You told me that you were in touch with them,” said Cait, confused.

  “Cait, like you, they’re a part of me. But I don’t really hear them much anymore. Certainly not as clearly as you. Your powers even now are far greater than mine have ever been, and you’ve only just started your journey.

  “Remember I told you once that I think you’re the chosen one? Your grandmother was always convinced you were destined for greatness. Well, I think that prediction has just come true.”

  “It doesn’t seem like it, Mum. I feel like shit. And ever since the clash with that evil monster I’ve been so tired.”

  And that’ll be the calling card that the Gatekeeper left you, Cait, thought Jools, keeping her etiology to herself for fear of worrying her daughter.

  I’ve got to exorcise that beast out of you.

  Cait woke violently, screaming and pleading, in battle with an unseen monster. Her cries had woken her father G and he rushed to her bedroom, flinging the door open, expecting the worst. And there was his daughter, sitting upright in bed with a glazed, vacant stare that was not of this world, seemingly fighting some imaginary beast that was visible only to her eyes.

  Jools was two steps behind her husband. Quickly grabbing him by the arm to hold him back from rushing to his daughter’s aid, Jools stood at the doorway and assessed the scene in front of her.

  “G, leave her. She’s having a vision. She’s got to work through this herself.”

  “You sure, Jools? Surely she needs us. Remember last time when she was being chased by that imaginary cobra?”

  “It wasn’t imaginary, if you remember. It was an Otherworld beast that was pursuing her. And besides, back then Cait hadn’t fully experienced the power of The Gift. It’s different this time.”

  “Well, it doesn’t look like it to me.”

  “G, Cait’s been marked. She showed you the welt. She still carries some of the evil from the Otherworld that she had to fight before she could return back here. She needs to stand up to it and banish it from her body. It’s the only way.”

  G looked at his wife: she was deadly se
rious.

  “Feel the cold in the room,” said Jools quietly to G, turning her head and looking up at him with a knowing glance.

  “Yeah, it’s damp and freezing.”

  “That’s the evil energy that Cait’s fighting. But I’m watching her, just in case it goes pear-shaped.”

  Cait’s eyes suddenly focused on the here and now.

  She was back!

  “Oh Mum, Dad. I’m so glad you’re here. I just had another vision. It was really terrifying, but I managed to turn the beast back! I did it, just like you told me to, Mum.”

  “Cait, now you need to heal.” Jools and G moved over to Cait’s bed and sat on it next to their daughter, one parent on either side. Cait was saturated with sweat as if she had just jumped out of a sauna. It was running off her, her wet top clinging tightly to her slim body.

  “Can you tell us what just happened, Cait?” asked G, not wanting to sound pushy. He was totally in sync with his daughter and he had a gut feeling it would be cathartic if Cait replayed her vision back to them. Besides, Jools might be able to shed some light on what she had just seen. G didn’t have their paranormal talents of perception and insight, or whatever else The Gift had bestowed on Cait, and to a lesser extent Jools. But he had been through enough with both of them last year when Cait was having her constant visions and they were chasing her kidnappers that he had a good understanding of what was most likely going on inside his daughter’s head.

  “Well, remember I told you the other day about that poor child James visiting me in my dreams? Dad, he actually sort of materialized for real in the botanical gardens the other day. And he just reappeared again tonight and showed me where his body was dumped after he was sacrificed.”

  “Sacrificed? What do you mean?” G and Jools answered as one in the way that couples who are totally in tune with each other sometimes do.

  “He was surrounded by a group of people in hoods and long white cloaks. They must have drugged him, as he was in a stupor. Four of them then picked James up and carried him on their shoulders past all the others and placed him on a large white stone slab.”

  “You saw this?” asked G. He was stupefied.

  “Let Cait talk it out, G. Let her follow the vision,” reprimanded Jools.

  Silence invaded the room as Cait gathered her thoughts, thoughts that were currently scattered around the space like a jigsaw puzzle needing to be pieced back together. Looking at Cait, G noticed a hint of pallor returning to her previously gray, washed-out face. Jools gently lifted Cait’s pajama top and saw the Gatekeeper’s scar turning pink and glowing slightly.

  Yes Cait, you’re starting to mend, she thought.

  As her daughter recounted the vision, the polar cap coldness in the room faded and was gradually replaced by a warmth and whiteness reminiscent of a warm summer’s day.

  You’ve just done it! You’ve crossed the precipice and purged the beast that invaded you.

  Jools felt an inward smile that was all happiness and relief.

  She’s going to make it.

  “Then one of the faceless people undid James’s white jacket they had dressed him in and . . .

  “Oh no, that’s right.” Cait drew both her hands up to her mouth and gasped, the pallor draining from her face for a second time as evil recollections darkened her mind.

  “It was terrible,” Cait continued, talking through her cupped hands. “All the others started chanting in a low hum and the person next to James painted a black pentangle on his bare chest.”

  Cait paused to center herself, breathing in deeply.

  “Then a person . . . no, no he wasn’t a person, he was like a shimmering entity in a human body . . . oh my God, he was frightening. Totally evil, Mum. He was old but young at the same time. He wasn’t of this world, I’m sure. But maybe he was.”

  She was describing Soran, the Gatekeeper who had just wounded her in their battle for James’s soul, manifesting in corporeal form. He’d crossed over from the fourth dimension to personally claim another soul. It was his way from time to time, as he needed the life force that only a fresh young soul could give him to maintain his mortal presence in this earthly world.

  The horror of her vision was cascading through Cait’s mind in waves. This person—this thing—was omnipresent and all-powerful, with a force emanating from it that was like nothing she had ever experienced before.

  “Mum, I saw him sucking in the universal energy from around him to seemingly satiate some need. It was pouring into him like a white electrical storm. That’s the only way I can describe it.

  “And the boy! That thing was around him, inside him, drawing his life force out of him, drinking his energy.

  “Then he . . . it . . . drew out a large knife . . . oh no.” Cait started sobbing, tears of pain and fear running down her cheeks.

  But Cait continued talking, slowly enunciating as though she had to think long and hard about what word needed to come next. G and Jools realized it was best to let Cait bring it all out in her own way and time. What she was about to divulge had to surface without their help. She had to face her demons on this.

  “He . . . he lifted up the knife and then thrust it deep into James’s chest and cut out his heart. I saw it! Oh, it was terrible.” Cait burst into tears again, crying not for the cruelty of the sacrifice, but for James.

  “He was murdered, and everyone around him was rhythmically incanting and pleased.”

  How could that be?

  “He held it up for the others to see. Sparks and white light were shooting off his hands,” Cait continued. “James’s heart was still beating . . . and there was blood pouring down the arms of this person in the white cloak. Except it wasn’t white anymore. It was stained a deathly red.

  “And the chanting by the onlookers. It was awful. As this thing at the altar turned to face the others who were in a circle around him, the invocations got louder and louder.”

  Cait stopped talking as quickly as she started. She was exhausted. Flopping back onto her pillows, she closed her wet eyes. Cait had just witnessed what she presumed resembled Armageddon. It was certainly portentous of the end of a life in the most violent and vile way possible.

  “Cait, let’s talk about this tomorrow. You need to rest . . . sleep . . . heal.” Jools pulled back the blankets and slipped in next to her precious daughter. They needed some mother and daughter time together. She snuggled up next to Cait and spooned her, transferring her positive energy into Cait’s healing body.

  “Thanks Mum, Dad, for being here. I really need you guys sometimes. I’ll be okay tomorrow,” said Cait in a quiet, gentle voice.

  She’d been through worse.

  G got up off the edge of Cait’s bed, turned around and straightened the duvet over the two of them. As he leaned his trim six-foot frame over to give Cait a supportive “you-know-I’m-always-here-for-you” kiss on the cheek, Cait said, almost as a throwaway line:

  “I know where James is buried too. They had a grave already dug under a large oak tree in the middle of some large gardens somewhere. He was just dumped into the hole, then covered with dirt. There were others buried there as well. I saw the graves. They were like black voids in the earth under the grass that had grown on top of them.”

  “Abdul! Abdul! Stay afloat. I’m coming,” Aziz yelled desperately to his younger brother, trying to be heard over the roaring tempest of the storm that was lashing their flimsy life raft, doing its best to flip it over and swallow it.

  “With Allah’s blessing, I’ll save you,” he called out, oblivious to the danger around him as he searched the boiling sea.

  But Aziz’s pleas were unheard, drowned out by nature’s fury. He could see his terrified younger brother through the rage of the storm not more than six meters from the raft, struggling, sinking, then momentarily reappearing before he went under again. The salty water of the Mediterranean was invading his lungs and suffocating him, sucking him toward a world that was black and bottomless, cold as the ice caps and porte
ntous of an eternal wandering in another realm.

  He had to rescue Abdul!

  And now.

  Aziz urgently shoved aside the man from Nigeria seated next to him. Nigeria-man was anxiously holding on to the drooping safety line that had been hastily strung around the edge of the eight-meter inflatable life raft before they were towed out from the safety of land and let loose into the threatening seas off Libya.

  The idea was that a volunteer rescue ship would hopefully pick up Aziz and his fellow refugees in the morning—if there was anything left of the craft and its terrified occupants after the fury of the storm.

  But first Aziz and Abdul had to survive the violent gale. And Abdul was out there, floundering, drowning.

  I’ll rescue you, my brother. Hold on! Visions of losing his brother below the waves bruised Aziz’s brain. He had a blood duty to protect Abdul.

  The flimsy vessel suddenly lurched vertically upward as it sucked onto the face of the next giant four-meter wave that was angrily trying its best to flip the craft over. But the weight of fifty-four other refugees desperately clinging on for dear life held the raft flat onto the water. Climbing up and over the crest, it was certain death if the angry green monster sucked you overboard. Bending in half like a fold in a newspaper, the stricken craft crawled over the summit of the wave and surfed down the other side. Sucking onto the wave’s profile like the tentacles of an octopus holding on to its prey, it lurched this way and that as it followed the contours of the water underneath.

  Aziz stared again into the maelstrom.

  “Abdul. Abdul . . . where are you?” Aziz panicked, frantically searching for his brother through the blinding windblown rain. And now his charge was nowhere to be seen. Aziz had made a pledge to his father and older brother that he would have Abdul with him when he arrived in Sicily after the crossing. The four of them were to start a new life together, as far away as possible from the bombs and killing in their beloved Libya.

  Easing his hold slightly on the safety line, Aziz raised up for a better view, kneeling unsteadily as he braced himself on the slippery, rounded side of the raft.