Every Touch (37 page)

   Kelly and Trish removed their backpacks and opened them, taking out small folding spades.  Kelly handed one to Laila and together they began to dig.

   They removed the top layer of turf carefully, setting it aside so it could be replaced afterwards.  Then they started on the hole.

   “We’d have been really screwed if you hadn’t gone for a cremation,” Kelly said after they’d been digging for twenty minutes.  She pushed a lock of hair back from her sweaty forehead.

   Trish grunted and kept on digging.  She looked paler than usual in the moonlight and Laila wondered how much her recent donation of blood was affecting her.  It was more difficult than Laila had thought it would be.  The ground was hard from the recent hot weather and even the relatively small hole they had to excavate was taking a lot of effort.  She checked her bandaged arm and was dismayed to see fresh blood staining the fabric.  She stopped.

   “Kelly?” She held her arm out for her sister to see.

   Kelly stopped digging and dropped her spade, removing the leather gloves she was wearing and gently easing back the dressing.  Blood oozed out.

   “We need to stop that,” she said.

   “We should all take a break,” Laila said, looking at Trish in concern.

   Denny’s sister nodded wordlessly and plunged her spade into the earth at the bottom of the two foot square hole once more.  A thud resounded into the night air.  The three of them looked first at each other then into the hole.  Kelly scrabbled in her backpack and pulled out a torch.  Dropping to her knees to point the beam only into the hole, minimising the risk of the light being seen, she switched it on.  At the base of the excavation, by Trish’s spade, a wooden lid poked through the earth.  Fatigue and bleeding forgotten, they grabbed their spades again and worked around it to liberate the rest of the box from the soil. 

   With it finally free, they sat on the sides of the hole and stared at it standing between them. 

   “Stage two, complete,” Trish announced with a small smile.  Laila noticed she was breathing heavily, her face bathed in sweat.

   “Are you alright?” she said.

   Trish shook her head, waving her hand.  “I’m fine.  Just tired.” 

   Reaching for her backpack, she pulled out a bottle of water and took a long drink, handing it to Laila after her.  Kelly inspected the cut on Laila’s arm while she drank.

   “It’s stopping again,” she said, putting on a fresh bandage.  She threw the blood soaked one she had removed into the hole.

   Laila passed the water to her sister and stared at the box containing Denny’s ashes.  She hadn’t fully allowed herself to truly hope they could get this far, but now they had it seemed almost unreal.  They were here, they were ready, they could do this.  Although the next part was the most likely to get them discovered. 

   “Are you ready?” Trish said, pulling Laila from her thoughts and looking at her.

   She nodded.  “As I’ll ever be.”

   Trish put a hand into her backpack again and pulled out the two Christmas boxes.

   “For a long time after Denny died,” she said, staring down at them in her lap, “I kept these beside my bed.  I felt like I needed them to keep a connection to him.”  She caressed them gently with her hands as she spoke.

   “We could just use one,” Laila said, feeling terrible for taking something with so many memories attached from her new friend.  “You could keep one.”

   “No,” Trish said decisively, “you need an item imbued with love and the more love you have, the more likely this is to work.  I don’t need these to remember my brother and if this works, I’ll get him back.  You have to use both of them.”

   She held them out to Laila and she took them, smiling at her and saying, “Thank you.”  It didn’t seem nearly enough to express her gratitude for all Trish was doing.  

   Laila placed the boxes into the hole and picked up the box.  Kelly and Trish stood on the grass surrounding the hole and Laila sank to her knees.  Opening the lid of the box, she tipped it up and let the ashes gently pour out onto the earth inside the hole over the boxes until everything was covered with the grey powder.

   Kelly withdrew the plastic blood bag filled with Trish’s blood from her backpack and Laila used a penknife to slit it open, pouring it over the ashes and boxes.  The chips of wood soaked in Denny’s blood were sprinkled on next. 

   “Okay,” Laila said, holding her arm out to Kelly.

   Her sister knelt beside her and unwrapped the bandage from her wound.  It was beginning to scab over.  Kelly held a scalpel she had taken from her pack.

   “Are you ready?” she said.

   Laila took a deep breath and nodded.  “Do it.”

   She held her left arm out over the pile of ashes in the grave and Kelly carefully cut along the wound, slicing through the scabs and clotting blood and reopening the blood flow.  Laila gritted her teeth, trying not to flinch as pain burned white hot into her arm even worse than it had with the original cut.  She whimpered involuntarily and Kelly glanced at her, worried.

   “Keep going,” she said, trying to take slow, steady breaths and not allow the hyperventilation her lungs were begging for.

   Trish walked around the hole and knelt next to her, taking her right hand.

   Kelly resumed her surgery and Laila squeezed Trish’s hand, leaning her head against her shoulder and clamping her eyes shut.  When the blood began to flow freely again, Kelly stopped cutting and Laila opened her eyes, relieved beyond belief.  She lowered her arm, allowing the scarlet flow to seep down her hand and drip from her fingers onto the pile of ashes, wood chips and blood. 

   As each drop hit the mound, a wisp of what looked in the darkness like smoke puffed into the air with a faint sizzle.  Laila watched in surprise.

   “Do you think that means it’s working?” Kelly said, looking into the hole.

   “I hope so,” Laila replied. 

   “It’s certainly doing something,” Trish said.

   They stayed kneeling beside the grave until the blood stopped flowing from Laila’s arm.  The instructions hadn’t specified the amount of her and Denny’s mingled blood was needed, but she wanted to give it as great a chance as possible so she let it continue until her natural clotting mechanism kicked in and it stopped seeping from the cut.  When it finally did, Kelly bound her wound securely so it would heal. 

   Laila could tell her sister was concerned about her, yet she said nothing.  She took it as a sign of her increased confidence in Laila’s ability to look after herself.  When she was bandaged, Laila took Kelly’s hand and smiled at her.  Kelly smiled back and nodded.

   They stood again and Laila took a folded piece of paper from her pocket and a small torch.  Trish stood ready with a box of matches.

   “I still don’t see how we’re going to get it to light,” Kelly said.  “It’s all soaked in blood.  You can’t set light to blood, it’s mostly water.”

   “I don’t know, but the instructions say to light it so we have to try,” Laila said.  “Maybe the ashes will help by absorbing the moisture.”  She didn’t feel very confident about her theory, but it was all she had. 

   She looked towards the gate.  This was the part she’d been most concerned about.  Once the fire was lit, if it did light, it would be disturbingly visible in the darkened cemetery to anyone who came past.  She couldn’t see anyone there now, but she didn’t know how long they would have to leave the fire burning.  The ritual demanded it be left “until all is burned up”, which was as infuriatingly unspecific as much of the rest of the ancient ritual’s instructions.  She felt like far too much was being left to chance, but she had no idea how to change that. 

   A picture of Denny waiting at home came into her mind.  He was relying on her to keep them together.  A fresh wave of determination swept over her.  They had done all they could, she would see it to the end.

  
Please,
she prayed silently,
please make this work
.

   “Okay, Trish,” she said out loud, “I’m ready.”

   She unfolded the piece of paper on which Denny had copied the words for the ritual, as the instructions directed, “read from words inscribed by the spirit itself”.  Trish struck a match.  It flared into life, burned for a second, then died.  Laila and Kelly looked at her.

   “Sorry,” she said sheepishly, “I’m a bit nervous.”

   She withdrew another match and struck it.  It flared and burned, this time staying alight as Trish shielded it from the breeze.  She let it burn for a few seconds to make sure, then tossed it into the hole.

   The entire grave burst instantly into flames with a loud
whoosh
.  The three women staggered back away from the conflagration in shock.  It had ignited as if they’d doused the whole thing in paraffin.  Laila squinted her darkness acclimated eyes against the bright light, waiting for them to adjust.

   She looked at the paper in her hand.  She no longer needed her torch to read it.

   Raising her voice above the crackling of the flames while attempting to shield herself from the heat of the fire with her free hand, she began to read. 

   She had practiced the Latin incantation over and over, making certain every syllable was pronounced correctly, and she read with confidence, not stumbling over the words once.  Once she had finished, she threw the paper into the waist high flames.  It caught light in mid air, blazing white for several seconds within the fire, twisting and burning as it did so. Then it vanished with a flash.  As abruptly as it had started, the fire extinguished and they were plunged into darkness again.

   Laila couldn’t see anything but the bright yellow imprint of flames on the insides of her eyelids.  She blinked several times, trying to relieve her eyes which felt hot and dry.

   “Damn,” Kelly said.

   No-one responded.  They stood in silence for a while.  Laila’s night vision began to return.  Eventually, she turned on her torch and shone it into the grave hole.  It was completely empty with no sign that the ashes, blood or boxes had ever been there.  The surrounding grass, however, was singed black.

   “Well, that was unexpected,” Trish said, staring into the hole.  “Something must have happened.”

   Laila knew she had to be right.  She just wished she knew what it was.

   “We’d better get this filled in, in case someone saw that,” she said. 

   They replaced the empty wooden box that had contained Denny’s ashes in the hole, refilled the grave and placed the turf back on top.  It didn’t look untouched, but they agreed it didn’t appear too badly disturbed.  The journey back through the cemetery to the ladder was uneventful and they were back outside quickly.

   They went straight back to Laila’s car and drove away, her heart pounding with hope, fear and excitement all the way home.

***

They’d been gone for over an hour and Denny couldn’t concentrate on anything anymore.  Would they have done the ritual by now?  It should only have taken them twenty minutes to get to the cemetery, there would be no traffic at this time of night.  Had something gone wrong?  Had they done it and it hadn’t worked?  He couldn’t take not knowing.

   He walked into the bedroom where his phone was sitting on the bedside cabinet.  He decided to text Trish.  He had to know what was happening.

   Halfway to the bed he stopped, a strange, tingling sensation in his skin distracting him.  Raising his arms, he looked at them.  He wasn’t certain, but they appeared almost as if they were glowing.  As he watched, tiny sparkles of light ignited across the surface of his skin.  The tingling feeling intensified.  Something was happening to him.  The ritual was working, it had to be.

   Suddenly the sparkles of light blazed, the intensity blinding him.  Every cell in his body detonated in searing, burning agony.  He was shattering, tearing, being ripped apart from the inside. 

   Falling to his knees and throwing his head back, Denny screamed.

Laila unlocked the door to the flat and ran inside, Kelly and Trish close on her heels.

   “Denny?” she called. 

   There was no answer; no hand pushed into hers, no arms wrapped around her. 

   “Denny?  Are you here?” 

   Still nothing. 

   Laila’s heart began to race.  He knew they would be coming back, he wouldn’t have gone anywhere else.  She walked further in as the others fanned out around her.  After a few seconds, she heard Kelly gasp.

   “Lai,” she said.

    Laila looked round to see her sister at the open bedroom door, her eyes wide as she stared inside.  Laila immediately went to the bedroom, and stopped.  A man was lying on his side on the floor in the middle of the room, curled into the foetal position and completely naked, his back to her. 

   He wasn’t moving. 

   Laila stood staring at him, her legs feeling like they were made of lead.  Trish rushed past her and crouched down next to him.