“Joe, all we have done is to help get you all the introductions you need so far, but getting chosen for the secret service was all down to you.”
“How do you know?”
“The phone call at the recruitment office. It was to Crawley. He got you the meeting with MI6. But it was your talents that got you the job.” Her eyes sparkled with admiration. “There is a wonderful adventure ahead for you, but there is also danger. When you are at your lowest, when you are hurting the most, when you feel isolated and lost, that is when he will appear and make promises that will feel impossible to reject. But you have to reject him. You must turn down any offer of help, Joe, or he will own you too, and you will have to work for him for the rest of your life. You have to be strong.”
Joe stepped towards her; he had a sinking feeling. He was helpless and utterly engulfed with rage and mortification. He was shaking. Her words drifted in and out of his consciousness.
“Thursday is a chance for me to redeem myself against all the terrible things I have done. We will be there together. Friends holding hands. Joining our magic to fight Hitler. Then afterwards who knows? Let us have this last moment together as friends. What do friends do together?”
“What do friends do together?” Joe squared his body to her. He was determined she would not see the pain which hit him in the chest with the force of an ironclad fist. He would not let her have the satisfaction of knowing that she had successfully seduced him, made him fall in love with her. She met her brief. He was damned if she would have his friendship now. “Friends do not lie to each other; they do not play mind games, tease them and try and twist them around their fingers. Friends, huh? You are nothing but a conniving bitch. You can tell your Crawley you failed. Scamper back to him like the dog you are, lick his feet or whatever he expects, and tell him he can’t have Joseph Mason because he is his own man and not some local idiot that is blinded by the charms of a pretty girl. Tell the Beast, or whatever he goes by, he has sorely underestimated me and…Violet,” Joe spat her name with disgust. “I—I— forget it.”
Joe stormed towards her bike, started it up and left her alone on the beach. He motored at full pelt down the road. The speed fuelled adrenaline through his body. For a moment, he was fearless. His life without Violet seemed worthless anyway. He pushed the bike to its limits. He could see the ferry port. He powered towards it. The motorcycle hurled black smoke in its wake, and the tank burned.
A jeep was bouncing along the lane towards him; Joe tried the brake to slow down. It failed. The vehicle sounded its horn. Joe swerved out of its way and lost control. The bike reared, sending the massive hunk of metal and his body in a spinning collision.
Miraculously, he walked away with only bruises. Joe kicked the motorcycle then pounded down the lane with rage towards the ferry and home.
CHAPTER 22
Present
I awoke with a start. “Oh god, I am so sorry. How long was I out for?”
“Only minutes.”
“Minutes? It felt like…never mind.”
“‘A White Rose’ is a song,” Joab said. “We listened to it on the beach on the night before the ritual, the last time we were alone together.”
“I know. I was there. I just saw it.”
Joab flashed red. “You saw us? On the beach?”
“Your song? It was our song,” Tom said. “We listened to it the last time we were alone together. All those years I listened to it, again and again, thinking it was our special song. You were doing the same thing?”
“OK, I’m sorry to hear that, but move on. Why that song?” I said, ignoring the emotion in Tom’s voice.
“I don’t know. It was a beautiful and sad song. I don’t think there was anything in the lyrics that could be a clue. It just resonated with the fear we all felt at the potential persecution of our people by the Nazis at the time,” Joab said searchingly.
“In my vision, Violet said Crawley told her to give the record to someone she trusts. She said it contained secrets. Does anyone have the song?” I said, frustrated.
“Yes, it will take a while to find it. It is old and most likely scratched.” Joab looked away, embarrassed.
“I have it on my phone.” Tom searched for the track and pressed play.
We listened intently. “Anything?” I said. The boys looked blank. I put my head in my hands. “We have thirty minutes left.”
“My journal, my book of shadows, I have kept it all these years. Stupid, I know, but that year was the most important year of my life. I wrote about our last night together. There may be a clue, and it’s in the library I think. I’ll grab it.” Joab moved towards the door.
“Stop, Joab. It’s not there.” I flushed red. “I have been reading it.”
I ran to my room and pulled the book out of my bag. I scoured through the pages until I reached July 28, 1940. I stared in horror at what I found. It
read:
Bitch, BITCH, BITCH, FUCKING BITCH.
I returned to the room gingerly clutching the journal.“There is nothing there on that day other than a whole load of expletives,” I said, tossing the book to Joab.
“Yeah, that would make sense. So the concept of a journal as private hadn’t occurred to you?”
I shrugged. “It was on the bookshelf in the library. It jumped into my hands. We don’t have time for this now.”
Joab was thinking. “That night, Violet told me something. She worked for a man called Crawley. He was universally known as Beast. He fancied himself as Lucifer, I think. I have met him a few times. He has the devil in him for sure but…”
Tom face lit up. “Joab, in the seventies, do you remember all those records getting banned? Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin? It was something to do with subliminal messages about the devil talking to kids through the music. Some Christian societies banned them.”
“Yeah, some gullible idiots reckoned that if you play them backwards, the voice of the devil speaks? It is a long shot, but a lot of the musicians in the sixties and seventies loved the old jazz and blues records. Maybe that’s where they got their ideas from?”
“Try it,” I said desperately. “How do you play a song backwards?”
Joab googled how to do it. “Download and install an audio editing program. Shit…how long does that take?” Joab prodded frantically at keys on his phone. “Some programs don’t work on phones and tablets, well, on any portable technology.”
The time was ticking. Twenty-five minutes. We watched the loading bar on his screen move at an excruciatingly slow speed.
“Tom, make the magic circle. I gather we need the knife as it was in the safe,” Joab ordered.
“Shit…we only have three of the elements. We don’t have earth. Annie. It won’t work,” Tom exclaimed.
“I will make a call.” Joab stabbed at his phone and paced.
“Who?” I asked urgently.
“Juniper. She is earth and I can trust her.” Joab left the room speaking urgently. I couldn’t make out what he was saying. “She is coming.” He said.
Tom sprinted to the kitchen and emerged with a marker. He drew a circle.
“Got it,” declared Joab. “Open audacity…select file, import, audio…choose the audio file of the song you want to reverse…highlight the portion you want to reverse…click effects, reverse.”
The song played. It sounded like aliens, but nothing emerged as a clue. Then suddenly and clearly through the music I heard…
“Egressus cepit ostium laxant ratione animae liberaret. Coniungere sanguinem ignis et aeris. Verbum ex eo sanguis eorum sit amet in mundo et quod oportet.”
“Did you hear that? Was it Spanish? Italian,” I said excitedly.
“No…it is Latin. Play it again. Can you slow it down?” Joab scribbled the words down on paper. “Unlock the door to the hidden dimension and free the captured soul. Join the blood of fire and air. The written command of their blood is the key. It must be seen from this world and that.”
“Oh no, another riddl
e!” I cried. I put my head in my hands again.
“Hey, what’s going on?”
I looked up through my tears and recognised Juniper. Her eyes were fearful as they shot from one face to the other.
“There is no time to explain. We need you to join the circle. I promise you an explanation later. You cannot breathe a word of what you are going to witness to a single soul. To be part of this is dangerous. If you join us, you are betraying Annie and the coven, and you know what the consequences could be,” Joab said gravely.
“Ha…you are kidding me, right?”
“No…join us. I am begging you.”
“OK,” Juniper said hesitantly. “You can trust me. You know that. I will help.”
I watched the exchange between Joab and Juniper. There was something special between them, a connection which appeared unbreakable. There was a whole lot of history to Joab I didn’t know. Perhaps she was part of that.
“What do you need me to do?”
We looked like the world’s worst manufactured pop group, huddled in a circle ready to break into song. Joab performed the goddess summoning ritual. We all held hands. We whispered the Latin words from the song. We copied him. I struggled with the foreign sounds but managed to sound out the words after many repeats.
“Egressus cepit ostium laxant ratione animae liberaret. Coniungere sanguinem ignis et aeris. Verbum ex eo sanguis eorum sit amet in mundo et quod oportet.”
We repeated the words again and again. Tom held the ceremonial knife in the air and asked for the goddess to bless it and slashed through Joab’s hand. I gasped, knowing I was next.
I winced at the pain as the cold metal released my hot blood. Joab and I clasped our bloodied hands together, and the blood cascaded together into a dish. For a second, we held each other’s gazes as his blood entered mine and my blood went into his. It felt like something binding somehow. I think perhaps he thought it too.
“What now?” I breathed. There were nine minutes left.
“The written command of their blood is the key. It must be seen from this world and that,” Joab said quizzically.
“We must have to write something in our blood but where?” I was frantic.
“There must be somewhere that links our two worlds together. Where did you first see Violet?” Tom asked urgently.
“In a mirror. There are loads in the house.”
“Which one first?”
“The library, but we spoke through the mirror in the basement. I think she said that was the portal I escaped from.”
With that, we rushed into the basement. I braced myself for the stifling strangulation of hot air. It poured into my lungs. I grabbed hold of the doorframe to steady myself. Tom dipped his fingers in the blood and scrawled across the glass the words Release Violet.
“Join the circle again and repeat the words. Egressus cepit ostium laxant ratione animae liberaret. Coniungere sanguinem ignis et aeris. Verbum ex eo sanguis eorum sit amet in mundo et quod oportet.”
To my dismay, nothing happened, and time was nearly up.
I could just make out the sun was rising above the roofs through the kitchen window at the top of the basement stairs. “I am sorry, Violet,” I whispered. “We better get back to the party before their ritual ends and Annie comes looking for us.”
The atmosphere in the room was oppressive with disappointment.
“Wait,” Juniper uttered. The mirror appeared to crack.
“Join hands again. Repeat the chant,” Tom said urgently.
I closed my eyes. I felt a heat radiating between us. The air swirled and mingled with Joab’s fire and created a flaming hot tornado in the centre of the circle. It grew faster and stronger. Our clasped hands struggled to contain it, and it swirled dangerously. I felt dizzy. I forced myself to hold it together.
We jumped as the mirror crashed to the floor sending a vicious crack zigzagging like lightning through the blackening surface. Then it cracked open. My eyes were streaming tears and stinging from the heat of the fire and the dust the tornado had picked up and spewed out. I gasped. I thought I could see a shadowy form or what seemed like a person inside the fire.
“Keep the circle together. Repeat the chant.”
We did as Tom demanded. The fire began to soften, the whirling tornado slowed, and the figure within it gained more definition. I was horrified to see a girl seemingly burning in the furnace.
“Keep going,” said Tom.
I stared in disbelief at my redheaded double crouched in the centre of the circle as the flames and the tornado resided. Her dancing green eyes were staring madly through her mane of hair, which snaked wildly around her face.
I released Joab’s hands and jumped backwards and stumbled to the floor. Violet’s eyes were a vivid green, but the irises were splattered with gold and gray, exactly like mine. Her pupils shrunk away from the growing light in the room, emphasising the kaleidoscope of colours. They appeared to bulge from the translucent, ghostly pale skin. The dark shadows under her eyes and cheekbones gave the girl a look of a living corpse probably due to many years of no sunlight. The girl straightened slowly to standing.
She reached her long white fingers towards Tom’s sun-bleached hair and weathered, glowing skin. She then turned to Joab’s astonished face. His hands moved hesitantly towards her before retracting because of disbelief or fear.
“You are real. I can feel your warm, living and breathing bodies. You did it. I am free. I am alive. I can breathe fresh air…I can talk to people, touch, feel.” Tears spilt down her cheeks leaving a glistening trail on her milky complexion.
Tom stroked her hair and pulled her fragile frame into a gentle embrace. Joab and Juniper watched, dumbfounded. Tom took her hand and guided her to the sit on the basement steps. “How do you feel?” he said, concerned.
“In need of a good stiff drink, a cigarette and chocolate. Oh my goodness, how I could devour my body weight in chocolate.” She spoke in weird old-fashioned BBC English.
“No cigarettes, sorry. One pack of cigarettes costs more than the average hourly wage now, and by the way, they can kill you,” Tom said.
“I was always told they were good for you, slimming.” Violet looked confused.
I realised I was now a spare in this intimate moment of rekindled affection, and I was gasping for air. I slipped to the kitchen and returned with my Curly Wurly chocolate bar from the cupboard, which I held out awkwardly like I was offering it to an unpredictable wild animal. I was ashamed to see I was shaking a little. Violet looked at me and slowly walked towards me.
“It is rather odd seeing one’s self in flesh and blood standing directly in front of you.” Her moves were odd and slightly jerky, her posture poker straight with a considered swing to her hips. It was like looking at a Hollywood starlet from an old black-and-white film but in colour. She plucked the chocolate bar from my hand and peered at it. She peeled off the wrapper and nibbled the corner cautiously then devoured it hungrily.
“Oh my god, this is bloody marvellous.” A little colour flushed the pallor of her cheek.
Tom threw his arms around her. Joab just stood and watched.
“What the fuck just happened? What is that…She’s Violet? What have you dragged me into, Joab? I can’t be part of this. We will be killed. Oh fuck. Joab?” Juniper stammered, terrified.
“Juniper, can I trust you still?” Joab looked at the shaking, pale girl fearfully.
“Yes, I am a girl of my word, you know that. I am not sure I can ever forgive you, but you can trust me.”
“What now?” I dared to ask.
“I would love a bath in that wonderful bathroom, some hot food and some fresh air, then we will get down to business,” Violet exclaimed.
“I have just convinced an entire coven of witches I am you, not to mention I was forced to battle Joab. And this house. Look at the state of it. If they come back and find you in the bath and see all the broken mirrors and me standing here like a fool, they will know I have deceived them.”
Violet looked at Tom and Joab.
“Is she like a human? I mean, do you think she feels anything?” she asked them, ignoring my presence in the room.
“Yes…she feels. She also has ears,” I interjected.
“Why don’t you, Joab and Juniper head back to the party? I will clear up here while Violet takes her bath, and you can phone if Annie is heading up to the house,” Tom suggested.
“That all sounds a splendid idea, but what if Cat scarpers?” said Violet abruptly. “Listen, Cat; you have been truly astonishing. I am amazed at what you have achieved. I could never imagine I could make such a wonderful replica of myself. But we all know it is impossible for us to coexist in the same dimension. First things first, I will need to absorb my power back. Then you will need to disappear. I can take things from here.”
“What about the plan? You were supposed to go into hiding then we were to switch powers at the last minute before the coven raised the Cone of Power. Disappear where?” I said, astounded.
“Yes, it was the plan. Now I am out. I have had a change of heart. You can either go back to where you have been hiding these last few years, or if you can’t face that, well, you know…I can end things quickly for you.” Violet tried a serene smile, but it was chilling.
“Violet, the plan was a good one. Cat has successfully convinced the coven she is you. I can get you somewhere safe, and we can gather all the information we need to foil Annie’s plot,” Tom said hopefully.
“What do you know of the plan?” Joab added suspiciously.
“Enough to know it is utter madness to raise another Cone of Power, bring the public services to a standstill, harvest data for blackmail with your techy army and blame it on the Russians.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Joab said, seething.
“Violet, she has done a lot to save your ass, and she is a very real person. I will not let you harm her,” Tom said defensively.
A cold look of jealousy gripped Violet’s face. She laughed her musical laugh; it had the sinister edge of a mad woman who had been locked away from the world for seventy years. “No, no, no, not possible she can live. It is sweet you have grown attached to my little experiment, but Cat is not real. She is my reflection, nothing more. If we are honest with ourselves, she’s illegal. I don’t want the wrath of the goddess. I made her, so I suppose it is up to me to dispose of her.”
The Haunting of Violet Gray Page 19