SWNOVELS Chapter CHAPTER 14
“Hey mom! I think he’s waking up. Get in here quick!” I can hear Devon shouting from somewhere, but it sounds so far away, like he’s speaking on a bad line. Groaning, I managed to lift my eyelids up. The light in the room is blinding and I automatically shut my eyes again.
“Dude shut the lights off.” I utter somewhere between a grunt and a mutter. “It hurts my eyes!” I feel my mattress shift as Dev gets off the bed, walks to the door and flips my light switch off and then felt the shift on my bed as he sat back down next to me.
A sigh of relief slips passed my lips as I find myself able to open my eyes and leave them open. I go to move into a sitting position, but Devon stops me from moving by placing his hands atop my shoulders. “Bro, you totally don’t want to try and move right now. Grandma Jean says it looks like you have second degree burns across a majority of your body!”
I look into his blue eyes in shock. He has to be joking, right? How in the world could I have been burnt? Glancing down to what I can see of my chest and lower stomach though, I stare in astonishment, blisters and skin that looks like I have the worst sunburn ever is what my eyes behold.
“Oh Dom, you’re awake. Are you okay sweetie? How do you feel? Would you like me to get you a drink? Water? Soda? What would you like baby?”
I huff a laugh. I’m sorry, I can’t seem to stop myself from doing it. “Mom calm down. I’m okay. Just a little bit sore and more than a little confused as to why my skin is burned and I feel like I have the worst hangover ever!” Drawing a blank, I try to recall the events of last night. A metaphorical light switch flipped on in my head as my memory comes rushing back like a tidal wave. “An evil spirit did this to me mom” I look at her with wide eyes and it’s like looking in a mirror as she returns the same expression of horror.
“It’s that same spirit,” Grandma says as she comes to stand beside mom. “I can feel it. It is growing stronger by the day and I’m not sure how we can prevent it from causing more harm to Nic. I do know we need to sort out why it only feels compelled to hurt him though.”
“Actually, I think I know why it’s trying to hurt me. I think it wants Alina. It doesn’t want me to pull Ali from the Spirit Realm.”
“Why do you say this boy?” Grandma turned curious eyes on me as she asked.
“Because of what it said before it rushed me and seared my flesh.” I closed my eyes for a second as I recalled the exact words, “she’s mine, you cannot have her. But it said it in a snake like ‘sss’ way, vindictive and very evil sounding.”
“Hmm, this is not good. Not good at all,” Jean said in concern as she shook her head. “We must figure out why this spirit wants to stop you from pulling Alina back. I’m thinking we may have to reach out to an old acquaintance of mine from my younger years. I must go home. I’ve some things I need to sort through. I will return tomorrow.” Grandma Jean said as she patted my shoulder. “Here Lisa, apply this to Nic’s burnt areas, and then have him drink this before he goes to sleep.” She shows mom a tube of cream and a bottle filled with a dark liquid. Mom nodded and then in the blink of an eye, grandma was gone.
“I wonder what that crazy woman is thinking of doing.” Mom says as she shakes her head, a lopsided grin on her lips.
*
Jean entered her home through a side door that led straight into her kitchen entrance. Stomping the snow from her boots, she stopped briefly by the hall closet to hang her powder blue winter jacket, scarf and hat up before continuing down the hall.
She shuffled around in her library looking for a very particular book of spells. It had been decades since the last time she used this little book. No larger than a cell phone and maybe just as thick as one, she tried to remember where she had seen it last. Jean perused the shelves looking for the dark red leather which held the contents bound together and she had wanted to place it somewhere where it would go unnoticed by others who may have entered her library.
Tapping her index finger to her lips, she scanned the room and then closed her eyes to see if it would help her to recall memories of the past.
“Ah yes,” she said to herself with a smile on her lips. “I am so silly. How could I have forgot that I placed it inside the safe.” Placing her hand along the bottom of the gold frame of a picture that had been strategically placed in between two floor to ceiling book shelves, Jean hit the smallest of buttons so that she could disengage the painting from the wall. Pulling outward on the hand painted photo of their ‘Great One’ the first of all witches, Hekate, Jean heard the hinges give a small squeek for lack of use and looked at the wall safe.
Spinning the knob to land on three different numbers of the safe until it unlocked itself. She pulled down on the lever and opened the door wide before peering inside. Standing on tiptoe, she placed her arm to the very back of the safe, blindly rummaging around until her hand fell upon the item she was searching for.
Pulling her arm back out, she shut the safe door and put the painting back into the proper spot. Turning from the wall, Jean walked herself over to her light tan rocking chair and, lowering into it, took a seat. Leafing through the fifty-page handwritten book, she located the incantation that would call out to the one person she knew she could count on for assistance.
“…I call to thee, thy dark within thine light. Come to me, I call ye.” As she uttered the last word, all the air in the room was momentarily sucked out as though pulled by a vacuum and then like a switch being flipped, it all came rushing back into the room, whipping Jean’s hair about. Following the rush of air, a visitor appeared before her.
Ice blue eyes stared into her golden-brown ones. “My dear Crone, why dare to call me from the afterlife?” Death flipped back the hood of his dark grey velvet cloak so that he could have a better view of Jean. If it weren’t for his almost colorless eyes, white-blonde hair, and extremely pale, ash-grey skin tone, an outside observer would have assumed she was chatting with another human being.
“Hello my old friend. It has been a very long time since last we met.” A smile touched the corners of her lips as she continued to hold his gaze. “I have a request to ask of you.”
Death scoffed, “Well, if I don’t feel the popular one today! Whom do you think you speak with, dear one. I do not grant requests to beings of the earthly realm!” His voice was deep and seemed to rumble as he spoke, the echoing sound ricocheting off the walls and into Jeans’ very soul.
Jean raised her hand to stop him from saying anything further and in doing so, managed to stun him into silence. “I ask for your assistance in sorting out why a spirit would be so hell bent on keeping my grandson’s soul mate in the spirit realm. The spirit is strong and seems to only be growing stronger. We need to know why, and we need assistance to pull his soul mate back to earth as well.”
“And why would I want to do this?”
“Because I offer a fair trade in return.” Jean looked into the cold eyes that bore into hers.
“There is but one trade I am willing to except, a soul for a soul.” A sinister grin spread across his lips as he said this to her.
Jean spoke as though death hadn’t said a word, “I am well aware of the conditions for a request such as this and am willing to give what you ask freely. So, the only question left to ask is, do you accept?”
Death rubbed his hand along his chin as he considers his response. “I will think upon this request and return to you tomorrow night with an answer.” Not a second after the words are uttered, death vanished right before Jean’s eyes. She nodded her head, “let the waiting game begin;” she said with a knowing smile upon her face.