Graham collapsed to his knees. The darkness hung over him like a sharp, flat guillotine, obscuring everything except for the boy and the spectre of his sister. Josie’s heart raced, but she couldn’t turn away. The power of the moment held her transfixed, and she could only stand and watch the shocking events play out.
“I didn’t push you,” Graham whispered into the sinister maw. “Didn’t.”
And then Josie did stagger back as the night erupted. Shock, awe and fear twisted her heart through a wringer as bright ethereal power stunned the dark. Hellfire descended upon Graham’s quivering form, setting his clothes alight with blue flame, his hair standing on end, his mouth into a frozen rictus of terror, and still the all-powerful supernatural force did not relent. Terrible visions shot towards him, skulls with black eye sockets and mouths spread wide in eternal agony, teeth sharpened into points and drool flying from forked devils’ tongues. The tormented dead assaulted him with their pent up rage, their everlasting questions, and they demolished him down into a wreck, their anger inestimable. The shadows crackled with unnatural power, and all that lived and hoped and enjoyed a future shied away until the paranormal fury began to diminish.
Graham sobbed into the dirt, then upturned his eyes so his sister saw them. “I pushed you,” he said thickly. “I acted without thought, in the heat of the moment. I saw a chance to be . . . the only one. Again. The loved one. I’m sorry, Millie, so sorry.”
The spectre glittered like crystal inside a black hole. “Graham?” It was Millie’s own voice, the same as it had been in life. The voice of a six year old girl.
“Graham, I loved you, dumbo. Doesn’t matter what Mum and Dad did. I loved you, my big brother. Couldn’t you tell?”
Graham’s sobs wrenched at the air, his body almost hyperventilating. “I know,” he wept. “I know, I know.”
And that was all he got. In the next moment, the ghost of Millicent Stokes diminished and the ghostly voice returned.
“Remember this. Use it. Don’t follow the dark. You know what is right and what is wrong, and now you have a second chance. The darkness within us has no good purpose – it exists only to do us harm.”
Josie watched as the darkness weakened, as the spectre of Millicent Stokes faded away, as the outlines of houses and windows returned. She knelt beside Graham and threw a glance at Jeff.
“You still with us?”
“I think so.” The old police officer threw himself into action, almost tripping over his own feet as he hurried to her side. “Is he okay?”
“Better than he should be.” Josie lifted Graham’s head. “You understand that you’ve been given a second chance, don’t you? Something that Mille will never get.”
Graham nodded faintly. “I loved her too. I just—”
Josie backed away, not wanting to hear more. If she could have proven Graham’s guilt, she would still burn him, but it would never be. The facts were that Millicent Stokes had gotten her closure, and hopefully the rest of York’s phantom horde had vented a little of their fury. She hoped the event might alleviate a little of the animosity and disappointment some of the ghosts had clearly felt for her during Wednesday’s whispering.
She waited for Jeff to finish with Graham, then gazed at the youth’s back as he trudged towards and then into the house. Jeff, when he turned to her, observed her with new eyes.
As expected.
A little fear, a lot of respect, the new formed notion that he never wanted to become too close to her.
She could never tell anyone. Not Simon. Certainly not Emily. And not Paul Kett, although she thought he already knew. Truth was, the little he knew was not even close to the hard reality.
Maybe she should end this now. It wasn’t as though she’d signed a contract to attend every whispering. But the ghosts of York were a part of her now, they had chosen her. Maybe for a specific reason. Maybe at random. But the fact remained that she could never change who she was.
She wanted to help people, and the ghosts helped her do that.
Jeff clicked open the car locks with a remote. “And we haven’t even started work yet. Feels like I’ve already done a twelve hour shift.”
Josie climbed into the passenger seat. “Welcome to my world.”
****
The next two days were her days off, and passed by in a blur as all periods of rest seemed to. She drove Emily to school, stopped by to see Simon and grab a caramel cappuccino at the Java Surprise, and ate a sausage roll in the museum gardens. In typical fashion, the piercing sunlight decided to call it an early day and skittered off to let the dark rainclouds have their fun. Josie caught the bus home and found enough vegetables and meat in the fridge to put together an improvised Chicken Chermoula. She spent a few happy hours chopping and mixing, then headed out to collect Emily for a little girlie time before Simon came home. Her daughter was tired and complaining of having been woken up during the night by some kind of weird bumping. Josie explained that it was probably the house timbers settling after being cooked by the abnormally hot weather they’d been having in York lately.
Simon, no doubt, had slept through it. Anything short of an earthquake and that man didn’t even twitch.
They ate dinner and washed the dishes whilst Emily watched a Shaun the Sheep DVD. Simon, as expected, spent half the time pretending to wipe whilst peering through the kitchen door, enjoying the clever sheep’s antics as much as his stepdaughter. Later, they put Emily to bed and reassured her that all was well with the night.
They shared a few hours together before turning out the lights and climbing the stairs. Simon was asleep before his head hit the pillow. Josie liked to stay up for a while on her rest days, reading and sipping at half a glass of red wine. The digital clock read 22:00 when she started and by the time she looked up again it read 00:01.
Her eyes heavy, she thought about the ghosts of York, the whispering and what would happen next Wednesday when she again made her way to Clifford’s Tower. The spirits, she knew, weren’t exactly the forgiving type. Not until they got what they wanted, anyway. But she was their chosen representative and, by the way they had acted around her during the breaking of Graham Stokes, she felt confident that all was well. Maybe, she wondered, the whisperings weren’t just confined to the tower. Maybe the ghosts came to her at other times without revealing their presences. An intriguing idea.
At last, she drifted off to sleep.
****
She woke in the dead of night, unsure as to what sound had roused her. At first, she lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling, listening to Simon’s snoring and the odd car humming around the nearby ring road. She shivered, but didn’t feel cold. The duvet was wrapped right up to her chin.
What then?
She strained every one of her senses. There was the ticking of the carriage clock in Emily’s bedroom. The hum of the fridge downstairs. But there was something else too, a sound so distant it almost gave her a headache as she strained her ears to listen.
It was soft and distant at first, like a dry autumn leaf scratching along a road. It was the lowest murmur – a whisper trapped beneath a conversation. Josie sat up in the dark, eyes wide. A cool trickle of fear ran the length of her spine.
What the hell was that?
Gradually, the sound became more noticeable. Minute by minute, agonisingly slowly, the sound manifested into two distinct beats.
One in. One out.
In her locked house, in the privacy of her bedroom with her partner beside her and her daughter twelve feet down the hall, in the deep silence that inhabited the place she lived every single night, someone or something was breathing.
Josie swung out of bed. She half reached for Simon, ready to shake him awake, but doubt, prudence, and a sudden realisation stayed her hand.
It wasn’t just the breathing. There was an underlying presence too. Something dark, something malicious, lay behind this. She sensed the same malevolent presence that had stirred during the whispering, and now recalled that
something had noticed her. It had been watching her.
It had followed her home.
The breathing grew louder, in and out, in and out, until it roared inside her head. Her intuition told her this wasn’t the type of breathing that kept someone alive, this wasn’t life-force, it was more the sound of something dead trying to imitate the living. She felt a great, dark shadow hanging over the house, rising, raising wings that ended in vicious claws, and, above that, the indistinct skull, the dripping fangs, the burning eyes like lava pits.
The breathing grew until it snarled and howled around her. It was the breath of a hunted animal reaching the limit of its endurance. The breath of a tied man watching the serial killer raise his bone saw. Emily let out a cry from down the hall and Josie was up and off like a rabbit. No one – nothing – would hurt her daughter. Not whilst Josie drew breath.
Emily’s frightened eyes latched on to her. “What is it? What is it, Mummy?”
Josie hugged her daughter, soothing her and stroking her hair as the breathing finally diminished. The cool glow of the carriage clock told her it was around 03:00. A single dreadful thought blustered and fumed around her mind.
What had she awakened?
“I don’t know, sweetie. Maybe it’s the pipes. We’ll get a plumber out tomorrow.”
Her daughter snuffled and cried herself back to sleep. Josie carefully climbed into the bed, wrapping Emily’s small, vulnerable frame in her arms and cocooning her body. Distraught, she sent out a thought, desperately hoping she wouldn’t have to wait until tomorrow night for an answer.
Something’s watching me. It was here, in my house.
And the collective reply from the whispering of ghosts who were always with her came back with an instant, anxious reply.
Pray that it gets bored. Pray that it forgets about you.
THE END
The story of Josie Leigh will continue. . .
A Whispering Of Ghosts Page 3