The Haunting of Violet Gray

by Emily Sadovna

  I remained in the tub, shaking and petrified. I felt as though I was losing my mind.

  “Uh, yes, I’m fine,” I replied through chattering teeth. “I must have dozed off in the tub. Don’t come in. I am not decent.” I searched for a towel and wrapped it around my goose pimples. I rose from the strangely freezing water and stepped gingerly onto the mat. I opened the door a crack, just as Joab threw his full weight against it. My feeble frame was knocked to the floor into a tangled mess of limbs and towel only just keeping my private parts from view. Joab splashed headfirst up to his armpits into the cold bathwater.

  “Like I said…” I hissed through limp, damp coils of hair, which were plastered to my red face. “I am not decent.”

  Joab, usually cool and composed, withdrew his sodden arms from the water, cascading it all over the floor while more streamed down his mortified face, and exploded into laughter. I stood and did my best to control the towel and, with it, my dignity.

  “You are shivering. Are you OK?”

  “I don’t know. I must have had another bad dream. I thought I saw someth…nothing.” To say out loud what I thought I saw might make me sound like a lunatic.

  Joab pulled a robe around me, careful not to touch me. His face was inches from mine, his hair slick and black from the water.

  I gasped with a sudden memory of my dream. I felt as though I had tuned into the past. I was looking at Joe, for a split second, not Joab. I blinked, and the vision was gone. The similarity between them was uncanny. They must be connected—an ancestor perhaps?

  Am I connected to Joe, Violet, Thomas and now Joab? What are this house, the journal and my dreams telling me? I glanced suspiciously at the wallpaper.

  “Are you sure you are OK? You look like you have seen a ghost.”

  I laughed flatly. “Yeah, just my overactive imagination again.”

  Joab scanned the room quickly.

  I scrutinised the walls over his shoulder for any signs of movement. The room was still and sunny.

  “The house is old and full of magical energy. There is a chance it could be talking to you through your dreams. It can’t hurt you.”

  “Curry?” Joab suggested as if answering the growl in my stomach.

  We both moved towards the landing. I turned to head back into the bathroom instinctively to unplug and wipe the bath clean. I glanced at the mirror. There were some words scrawled into the steam:

  “moT teG.”

  I stared at the glass, trying to make out the meaning of the letters. “What the hell?” I glanced away for a moment and was distracted by Joab’s body, which glistened through his wet T-shirt. He peeled it over his head and threw it into a laundry basket, grabbed a towel and vigorously rubbed his hair and skin dry. He made the mundane task of getting dry sexy. I glanced back to the letters. They had vanished.

  I dressed in jeans and one of Joab’s old T-shirts and slumped on my bed. I quickly scrawled the letters from the mirror onto a scrap of paper. I pulled the journal out from under the mattress and slid the paper between the pages of the book. It was hidden until I had an opportunity to decipher them.

  Next, I carefully removed the photograph and held it under the bedside lamp to examine the faces. With a start, I realised the man in the suit with dark curly hair tamed into an unruly side parting could be Joe, the Joe from my dreams and the writer of the journal.

  “Cat…do you want a beer?” Joab called, breaking my line of thought.

  “Yeah, coming…”

  I burned with questions. Reluctantly, I stashed the book away.

  We sank into an enormous sofa in the recreation room. Joab laid the curry out on a coffee table with some plates and a couple of beers. He pulled down a white screen and set up a projector and was browsing through some online movies. There were candles everywhere. Now was not the time to pursue my line of enquiry.

  “Check this out,” he said with a flash of a grin. “Fire, fire, a burning flame. Hot as the sun, the beautiful flame. Give me the power to control you.” With a flick of his wrist, the candles flickered into life, sending a warm glow across the vast room.

  I tried to conceal it, but I was impressed.

  “Oh my god, did you just do that with your mind?”

  We devoured the curry and swigged on our cold beers. I waited for the perfect moment to confess and ask Joab about the book. My courage failed me.

  “So your education continues. What’s your choice: The Witches of Eastwick? The Witches? The Mortal Instruments, The Craft or my favourite, The Wicker Man?” Joab said, scrolling through films on the screen.

  The Wicker Man was seriously creepy. It was old and a bit naff, but there was something about the village and the leader of the cult that was a little similar to Michelhurst and Tom’s father who lived at number fourteen. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the children in Michelhurst danced around the rolling fields in animal masks.

  “They do a sort of wicker man burning here,” Joab casually mentioned. “On Mayday, or Beltane as we call it. It’s symbolic of course, and they don’t burn real people. It is just a huge man made out of willow and hazel branches. They set it on fire at dawn on May Day. We all dance around it and drink May wine and carry on the party in the barn. We do a ritual, mainly in our woods as the other villagers don’t approve. We elect a May Queen and a Winter King then we all hide in the woods. The high priestess blows the horn, and the boys hunt for the girls.”

  I tried to keep my face composed, but I was freaked out. “What happens when the boy finds the girl?”

  Joab shrugged. “Kissing and stuff.”

  Then I remembered J. Mason’s entry in the black book when he described losing his virginity.

  I was very much hoping that as a newcomer to the village, my fate was not to end my life in a giant, flaming wicker man.

  “You are a natural witch. With a little more time and education, you will hopefully reconnect with your power and be initiated back into the coven. Then you can join the celebrations.”

  Joab reached for my hand and hesitated, remembering the static energy. His fingers hovered millimetres over my skin making my senses sing and long for his touch, which I knew was impossible without pain. His body moved closer to mine encouraging me to lower myself in the soft sofa. His mouth was inches from mine, and his breath was hard and fast.

  “Wait…I have something.”

  Joab pulled from his pocket a tatty, old, faded red scarf, maybe silk. He tied it loosely around my wrists and slowly urged my arms over my head. His hand hovered over my body; my breath quickened as it moved towards my T-shirt. He deftly loosened the scarf around my wrists, leaving my arms resting above my head, my body open to him. For the first time, I allowed myself to look deeply into his eyes. I shivered when he stared, entering the depths of my soul.

  He draped the cool, smooth fabric over the tips of my fingers and slowly dragged the scarf along the thin skin on the inside of my wrists and arms, across my collarbone, under my chin and along the lines of my jaw and lips. The scarf moved down my throat to my breasts. His face was intent with desire, his eyes shining. There was a heat radiating from his body, so close to mine but still not touching. His hands moved down my chest towards my abdomen, which arched, begging to join with him but remaining separate. The heat intensified from his hands, and the gentle warmth became almost unbearable.

  “Ouch.” I pulled away from him and glanced down to see a red patch of skin on my stomach. “You burned me.”

  Joab pushed himself away from me, blowing his hands and rubbing them together. “I am sorry. I lost control for a moment.” He threw a cushion with great force across the room and kicked the coffee table. “Ugh” he growled. He took a swig from his beer. “I want to touch you, hold you like crazy. But this ‘thing,’ my power…” Joab looked disgusted by his hands, the source of his power. “And the electricity is like a wall preventing us. It’s more than an element clash. I think it is a spell or a curse stopping us. I need to find out what it is. I have t
o break it. We are meant to be together, you and I. Do you remember anything? Anything from before? You must remember something. Do you remember this scarf? It was hers. I have carried it for years. It carried her scent. We were together. We always said forever. When I am with you, I feel like I did then, like I did with her. A kid filled with dreams and optimism. The way I was before my life ate away at me, before I changed. I loved you. I love you.”

  I was shocked. “Whoa.” I pushed myself further away from him. “Look, you are great, exciting, and really hot. I like you, but we barely know each other. I have never had a boyfriend. Hell, I don’t even have friends. Whatever you say about our past, I don’t remember a single thing about it. I thought now, just then, was lovely, frustrating, but just fooling around. You are moving too fast.” I surprised myself with my assertion.

  “Sorry…look, I forget. It’s just finding you again…it’s driving me insane, and not being able to touch you… We were soul mates once, and now you think I’m some crazed stranger.”

  I was fully dressed and quenching my dry mouth with the dregs of my beer. I wanted an excuse for escape.

  “I’ll take it slower. Look…tomorrow is a new day. I’ll be your teacher again, nothing more, then hopefully if you regain your power, then you may regain your memory, and we can take it from there. I am going for a walk. I need some air.”

  Joab left the room, then the house, slamming the door behind him. There was a buzzing sound; I noticed Joab left his phone on the coffee table. It was just a text. I glanced to see it was from Annie. I am not a nosy person, and I totally respect privacy. I can’t stand people prying into my life, but I couldn’t help it.

  “Found it…. A x”

  I scanned the text. All previous messages had been deleted. The door clicked open, and I quickly released the phone. Joab stomped into the hallway with a blast of cool air. He glanced at the table then at me.

  “I forgot my phone.” He swiped it from the table. “Look, really, I am sorry. It must be tough for you, not knowing anything about your past. I will help you piece it together, I promise. You are right. I am moving too fast.” Joab scanned his phone. “I have a message from Annie. She has found a book we have been looking for.” His focus then moved elsewhere, and absent-mindedly he said, “Hey, you should get to bed. I need to call her.”

  I half smiled. “What book?” I asked.

  “Just an old book Annie has been looking for in our library, a record of spells and such. She must have found it in one of the old bookshops she has been scouring in Spain.”

  I tried to conceal my suspicions. I couldn’t shift a feeling that Joab was not sharing the whole truth with me. “So she’s coming home soon?”

  Joab’s eyes avoided my searching gaze. “Yes, hopefully…well, I better call her. I am going for a walk, I will call her then. I need some air.”

  It was obvious I would learn nothing more from him, so I took the hint and left the room.

  CHAPTER 11

  It was late and I was tired. I went to the bathroom and washed my face with soap and water.

  I tugged a brush through my hair, smoothed it down and plaited it to prevent it from turning into a bird’s nest during the night. I turned off the light and pulled the door closed. Something was bugging me; something was missing. I turned the light back on and glanced anxiously around the room. The mirror was gone, the mirror with the smudgy writing.

  Odd, I thought and searched around the room.

  Making a mental note to ask Joab about the mirror, I padded across the thick carpet towards my bedroom door. I changed into pyjama bottoms and pulled on Joab’s thick hoodie; the vast house was freezing at night. Collapsing into bed, I found my previously tired eyes suddenly sprung open and my heart was racing.

  My mind toiled over the revelations and uncertainties of the evening. I unclasped my necklace and dangled the stone in front of me—something I often did when I couldn’t sleep. It calmed me for some reason. On the front of the stone, there was a picture of a spiral with a jumble of symbols surrounding it. I peered at the writing, still unable to read it. On the back, there was a sequence of symbols. What do the symbols mean? They have to be a clue to who I am. I photographed it with my phone. The words looked like shapes or symbols. I googled Russian, Arabic, Ukrainian and Turkish on Joab’s tablet. Nothing looked like the symbols on the necklace. Perhaps they were pictures? If I was a witch, maybe there was some ancient witchy language? So I googled “witch language” on the tablet.

  There were lots of interpretations of the symbols. I quickly scribbled them on a piece of paper. Maybe Joab would know the meanings?

  All I could make out was a symbol for the pagan calendar, my possible zodiac sign of Gemini, the sign of the goddess and the five-pointed pentacle, which I recognised from Joab’s teaching. It was something to do with the five elements.

  I was now wide awake, and Joab was still not home. I had to understand the necklace. Heading downstairs, I tentatively entered the library. There must be something in those old books that could help. The light from the moon streamed through the window, shining on the heaving shelves. I removed my necklace and placed it on the table while I scanned the books. I reached for a book titled Egyptology and heaved it onto the table next to my necklace. I scoured pages of symbols but could find no similarities. Next, I found a book on Wiccan symbols and runes and the book of Wiccan healing I was studying with Joab.

  I examined the pages and gasped to see exactly the same symbols as those on my necklace, which eluded me for two years. Excited to finally make sense of them, I quickly jotted down meanings of symbols in the order they appeared on the stone; the first symbol seemed to represent a book of shadows. I knew from my witch training that meant a record of spells or a kind of diary of a witch.

  The next symbol was for a pagan calendar then the symbol for Gemini. The circle with moons each side was the triple goddess. It represented the three stages of the goddess, which were the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone.

  The final symbol was the pentacle, which represents the five elements of earth, air, fire, water and the spirit. Still, I had no clue what they meant. Next, I attempted to decipher the picture on the front of the stone. I began to tire; I wondered where Joab was.

  I left the library and crept into the kitchen. The cat rubbed against my legs meowing loudly, demanding food. I glanced out of the kitchen window to the drive and his car. Mine was hidden away in a garage at the back of the house. I fed the cat and poured a glass of water then headed back to the library.

  The room grew warm, stifling almost. It was a strange contrast from the cold of the kitchen. I noticed the pages of the book I was reading were flapping in a breeze. I moved to the window to close it, but when I reached for the catch, it was already shut and locked. Then the curtains billowed, and the moonlight shining through the window reflected off the huge mirror. I turned to see my reflection and crept slowly to it.

  Although the reflection was mine, the hair was flying and snaking in a gale in a different world. The lips were moving fast as if whispering something again and again. My reflection’s hands touched the mirror from the other side. My hands hadn’t moved. It was a different girl!

  Without thinking, almost in a trance, I reached mine up and placed them over hers. The whispering grew louder as the warmth intensified. My touch was energising the voice. The distant sound became clear. “My astral double, beyond the mirror, I give you my power. My astral double beyond the mirror to another dimension, I give you my power. My astral double, my doppelganger and guardian of my body, I give you my power. My astral double, beyond the mirror, my doppelganger of another dimension, I give you my power. The faithful guardian of my body, I give you my power. I give you my power…”

  The reflection repeated the words, again and again. The curtains twisted and shook violently, and books slammed to the ground. The crystal decanter rolled across the desk and smashed on the floor. My hands pulled to the mirror. A massive surge of energy gripped my arms.
My body grew hot then the candles in the hearth ignited and the flames grew. The flames darted out of control and fell on the rug.

  The voice was fading back into the walls. The girl’s whispers laboured through a buzzing sound, and she grew more distant. “You have my power now. Use the necklace and the book. It is the key to the spell to reunite us and free me. You need me. Get me out. Please free me. Find Tom…Get Tom.” The voice dissolved and the reflection vanished.

  “Tom…get Tom.” I remembered the words that mysteriously appeared in the steam on the bathroom mirror. It was a message written on the inside of the mirror but reflected backwards. Whoever was trying to speak to me wanted me to get Tom. Why? What has Tom got to do with the girl in the mirror? I felt for the card Tom had given me. As I held the card, my hands began to shake uncontrollably. They felt cold. I turned my palms over. A breeze began to blow into my face. It strengthened. I couldn’t contain the energy twisting like a whirlwind around my hands. The force threw my hands forward, blasted into a vase, which crashed into the window. Power grew, propelling me backwards and crashing my head into the wall. I was dizzy. Nausea swept through me. I grew hotter as sweat trickled down my chest.

  The angry swirling of air in the room suddenly stilled. I was shell-shocked and afraid. I stumbled up the stairs, resolute on packing and leaving. I suddenly longed for my home and Dinah’s comfy embrace.

  The heat vanished, and I was shivering uncontrollably. As I shoved my things into the bag, my hand brushed the black journal. I remembered the words from the mirror. The key is in the book and the necklace. I picked up the book and frantically scanned the pages for clues and felt my neck for the pendant. It wasn’t there. I left it in the library.

  I scuttled down the stairs like a frightened mouse, feeling too vulnerable to deal with anything more this godforsaken house wanted to throw at me. I reached the library and crashed head-on into Joab.

  “Hey…what’s going on? Are you OK?”

  The genuine concern reflected in his eyes filled me with an uncontrollable wave of emotion, and for the first time in my memory of the last two years, tears spilt from my eyes. I sobbed. My shoulders shook. My whole body seemed to be in convulsions. “I am leaving. I am getting out of the fucking house before I completely lose my mind.”