Enchanted, A Paranormal Romance / Fantasy (Forever Charmed) (30 page)

Mary looked exactly the same as she had appeared to Mandy in her dreams. She was fully formed and human looking, but at the same time had an unnerving sheerness to her. Her feet hovered a few inches above the ground. “Darkness into light!” Mary’s ghost commanded. The little flecks of light that were surrounding her suddenly burst forth and filled the room, consuming the shadow demons, their agonizing wails and shrieks cut off abruptly. The room was eerily silent and bright. Mandy was able to see Steve again, he was lying lifelessly on the floor, his limbs twisted at weird angles against the hard and unyielding floor. Mandy struggled to hold herself together. Lucas was left standing alone now that his dark demons had been sucked away. He looked at once terrified and defiant. Mary’s ghost floated slowly toward Lucas.

“Let me tell you a little story, boy. One time, a long time ago, I had a family…a husband, a sister, a body, a life! And it was sucked from me, sucked from me on a whim!” Mary’s voice climbed up a few octaves, finally building into a shriek, the shriek of a banshee. The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees, and Mandy stared in a kind of awe filled horror as Lucas took a step backward, his face paling and his eyes growing wide in fear as the banshee Mary came nose to nose with Lucas and the light suddenly evaporated from the room, a heavy darkness descending into the little house.

Mandy couldn’t see a thing around her anymore, but she felt Nana’s hand on her arm, her fingers encircling it apprehensively. She couldn’t see, but she could hear. In an otherworldly shrill voice, Mary asked, “You ok, little buddy?” Mandy gulped, as if the darkness hanging in the room seemed to be forcing its way into her body, leaving her with a nervous knot in her stomach. Lucas didn’t answer to Mandy’s knowledge. “Little buddy?” the singsong sarcastic voice of Mary’s voice repeated. Goosebumps shot up Mandy’s arms. “I hope I can have the pleasure of sucking the life out of you,” the taunting voice shrieked.

Mary’s shrieking suggestion was joined by another shriek, a shriek of fear that could only be coming from Lucas. It was short and high pitched, like a woman’s might be, and was followed by two more bursts of the same type and then a number of heavy, fast moving thuds on the floor. Mandy felt the breeze as Lucas rushed by her and Nana, running towards the door as Mary’s ghost tailed him, laughing gleefully. The door to the little house was suddenly flung open, flooding the room with moonlight.

Mandy stood frozen in fear to the spot she had been standing in, looking at the open door in bewilderment. Her hand flew to her mouth as if it could stifle all the horrible feelings and anxieties welling up in her gut along with the sob that was working its way out of her mouth once more. Suddenly she found her feet and made her way to the open doorway.

Though it was night and the sky loomed dark overhead, the lawn to the lighthouse was eerily bright. The full moon beamed down upon them, at peace in her airy thrown, with a magnificent robe of stars thrown about her shoulders, dazzling like a hundred diamonds. She lent an ivory glow to everything and all below. It should have been a peaceful scene with the soft moonlight and the rolling waves crashing in the background, and it would have been if not for Lucas running full speed toward the cliffs of the little island, screaming in holy terror as the misty form of Mary sped after him.

Mandy found herself balling her hands into fists at her sides so tightly that there were little half-moons on her palms from where her fingernails had dug into her flesh. As much as she didn’t want to watch, as much as intuition screamed at her to turn her head because she already knew what the outcome was going to be, she felt compelled to look. In fact, she couldn’t bring herself to look away.

Lucas kept on running and shrieking, throwing a terrified look behind him once or twice as he ran. Mary was hot on his heels, poking him in the back once in a while with a long, icy finger as she caught up to him. Mandy couldn’t decide which was worse, the horrified screams of Lucas, or the chilling shrieks of Mary as she chased him.

The ground was angling down towards the rocky drop-offs at the edge, but Lucas showed no signs of slowing in his race against the ghost, nor did the ghost show any sign of relenting against her victim. Mandy figured Lucas would have to stop running in a minute, and she didn’t even want to know what was going to happen then. What does a vengeful ghost do to her victim? Mandy was sure she didn’t know the rules to this horror show and she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

Lucas was getting much too close to the edge now. Mandy felt her heart speed up with anticipation. Lucas stopped and turned around at the last second, his eyes flashing in terror, his mouth open and panting. Mary pressed on, closer and closer to him she breezed. Mandy could see the beads of sweat glistening on Lucas’s brow and for a second she was reminded of dewdrops on a flower.

Mary extended her thin, bony finger at Lucas, hovering inches from his face. She was at once glorious and awful to look at, gracefully floating in the air and illuminated from above, with a wicked grimace on her dead face, her eyes as dark as coal. She floated even closer, and Mandy watched as Lucas’s mouth pulled down in a terrorized frown, the unspoken plea in his eyes unmistakable. It was deathly quiet as Lucas took a step back, trying to put some space in between himself and the specter. The grass was wet with the night time air and slick and Mandy knew what was going to happen. She opened her mouth to scream, but it was as if she was stuck in slow motion.

Lucas’s arms flailed wildly as his feet went out from under him. He fell backwards, his face disappearing yet searing its image forever into Mandy’s brain. His eyes opened wide in shock, his mouth still in an unbelieving frown, the scream was shrill and horrible and then was abruptly swallowed by a huge splash from the waiting sea. The misty shape of Mary let out a wild peal of delighted laughter as she dove off the cliff following Lucas and then all was quiet and the scene looked peaceful as it was meant to.

Mandy stood glued to the spot, staring at the point on the cliff where Lucas and Mary had just disappeared from. Mandy felt as if she was being pulled in two directions. An image of Steve laying face down on the floor of the lighthouse, bloody and unconscious called her back into the house, and yet part of her wanted to go take a look for herself over the edge of the cliff. Realistically, Mandy knew there was no hope for Lucas. The boulders in the rocky water below would have crushed the life right out of Lucas the way Mandy could crush a bug. She wiped away the tears starting to drip down her cheeks and turned and went in to the house, not stopping to look back.

* * *

Chapter 32

“Tragic Accident Claims Life of Young Local,” Steve read the headline aloud to Mandy and Ally as they sat on a bench in front of Short Sands Beach. “Wow. It’s amazing how many things the media gets wrong, isn’t it?”

Mandy snickered under her breath. “Yeah, well, not everyone can handle the truth. Sometimes lately I even have a hard time telling fact from fiction. That article is a whole lot easier to swallow than what really happened. I mean, no one would believe what actually happened up there unless they had seen it.”

“And if they had seen it, they would probably wish they hadn’t,” Ally added, shivering as the thoughts from the doomed visit to the lighthouse were let loose.

“I still can’t tell you both how grateful I am to you guys. I’m really lucky to have friends like you,” Mandy said, looking them both in the eyes.

“We’re all really lucky,” Ally said. Ally and Mandy met eyes and then looked at Steve, who looked away trying to push back the memories of what had almost happened. After Mary had chased Lucas quite literally over the edge, Mandy had turned her back on the haunting scene and gone back into the little lighthouse to find Ally and Nana hovering over Steve, who was still lying on the floor, limbs bent at odd angles and bloodied. The only difference was that he was moaning and beginning to stir a little bit.

Mandy had run over to the group, using every last bit of strength to stifle the anxious feelings for Steve that were building in her gut. “Nana, what should we do? 9-1-1?! Who has a cell phone?” Mandy remembered the words spilling out of her mouth pell-mell in a tumble.

“Shh, child,” Nana had cooed. “He’s just coming around. Give him a moment.” Giving him a moment had seemed like the farthest thing from what Mandy’s instincts told her to do. She wanted to take Steve to the emergency room, he needed medical attention. Stitches, x-rays, heart monitor, morphine…the works. But Nana had put a soothing hand on Mandy’s arm and instructed, “Just wait.”

Waiting was hard, but Mandy didn’t have much of a choice. Steve had moaned some more and his fingers had clenched and unclenched a few times until he finally slowly turned over onto his back and opened his eyes. His face was streaked with rivulets of red blood but his eyes were bright and focused. “Mandy! Where is he?” Steve had gasped out, not realizing what had happened after he had struggled and fell.

Mandy was on her knees at Steve’s side in an instant. She brushed his hair back off his forehead, stalling while she looked for words that might not upset someone who had just been knocked unconscious by a bunch of evil demons and a wannabe warlock. “Lucas, is um…he’s,” Mandy faltered, not sure how much to reveal to Steve.

“He’s dead. You might say by his own hand,” Nana cut in, getting right to the chase.

Steve blanched and tried to sit up, Mandy’s hand on his back helping him into a more comfortable position. “Dead?! I don’t understand…what happened?” Nana had filled Steve in on the details while Mandy rubbed Steve’s shoulders and Ally listened quietly, looking as if she was in shock. Steve actually appeared to be handling the gruesome story better than Mandy had expected. Some of what Nana shared was actually news to Mandy too, like the part about the mysterious glass globes of water, like the one Mandy had smashed, that seemed to be everywhere Nana was. “They’re called Soul Savers. It’s actually an ancient practice, but like many ancient practices, they seem to have gone off the radar as of late. Essentially what it is is ocean water, or salt water, and a token symbol of a deceased loved one that was wronged or has reason to make something right in their earthly life. The globe is under a special enchantment. If it is broken by the right person at the right time, the soul of the deceased is released. The conditions must be right however. The globe must only be broken and the soul will only be released if doing so will benefit both the lost soul and that of the person that releases them. For this reason, globes can be passed down through generations until the right time is finally achieved. In this case, I knew Mary’s time to right her name was near, in part due to my dear friend Ophelia’s predictions,” Nana had concluded.

At the mention of Ophelia’s name Mandy and Steve had both gasped, each remembering all the weird occurrences involving Ophelia. The notes, the hushed warnings, the strange prophecies. “So that’s all real? Ophelia is actually a psychic?” Mandy gaped and she couldn’t help asking the question that seemed to have a very obvious answer.

“Oh, quite,” Nana had concurred. “Time travelers have a certain flair for psychic tendencies. It’s easy to predict the future when you’ve been there and back,” Nana had chuckled at this like it was a good joke. Mandy and Steve both stared at Nana mutely. It seemed that anything was becoming possible lately.
Ophelia was a time traveler. That could only mean one thing.

“So that means the Ophelia mentioned in Mary’s letters…” Mandy trailed off. It seemed pointless to even say such an absurd sentence out loud.

“Is the same Ophelia that you and I know? Yes, that’s correct dear. She travels about, taking on cases she sees fit to improve. Lives can be bettered with her assistance, a little push in the right direction.” Nana nodded seriously as if this shouldn’t be such a hard concept to swallow.

Unable to find any words, Mandy had been unable to question Nana any further, and hence Nana finished her account of what had happened since Steve had blacked out. “So, you see dears, when Mary had achieved her just revenge, she was able to return to the hereafter and rest in peace. When she did so any black magic still lingering here from Lucas’s abusive spell was dissolved and any injuries to you were healed, allowing you to wake, good as new.”

Mandy looked at Steve and for the first time realized that the bleeding had stopped, and in fact, there was no trace of the bloody scratches at all. His hair was rumpled, his glasses askew, his clothes hung in tattered shreds, but his body looked completely unharmed. “Mary’s finally at peace, after all these hundreds of years,” Nana said quietly, picking something up from the floor by her feet. The glass globe, the Soul Saver, that Mandy had smashed not long before, was now whole again. The water was calm inside and on its surface floated a small branch of yellow flowers. “Mandy, do you know what flower this is?”

Mandy stuttered, surprised at the flower but sure she was right. “Goldenrod. It symbolizes good fortune.”

Nana crinkled her eyes in that way Mandy loved so much. “That’s right,” Nana replied, holding the globe out towards Mandy. “This is yours now. You’ve earned it.” Mandy hesitated, taking the globe gingerly from her grandmother. She felt as if she had a million questions she needed answered, but knew it would be impossible to answer them all at the moment. One seemed more pressing than the others.

Mandy turned to Steve and looked from him to Ally, who had been sitting so quietly up until this moment. “I know it’s none of my business, with the way I’ve been acting lately, but are you guys…you know…” Mandy couldn’t bring herself to finish the question or meet their eyes any longer.