My Name Is Lydia (Jack Nightingale short story) (5 page)

He moved out of the
way and Barbara sat down on the bed again. She began to talk to the girl in a
soft, low voice. At first the girl seemed to fight it, moving her head from
side to side and gritting her teeth, but gradually she relaxed. It took much
longer to hypnotise her this time, and it was half an hour before Barbara
looked over at Nightingale. “She’s under,” she whispered.

“Tell her to talk to
me,” said Nightingale.

Barbara nodded, and
put her face next to the girl’s ear. “Lydia, Jack’s going to talk to you now,
and I want you to do what he asks. Is that alright?”

“Yes.” The voice was
still lower, but had lost its aggression.

Nightingale and Barbra
switched places. “Lydia, listen to me. You’re going to go to sleep, and you
won’t wake until I tell you to. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“You’re to go to sleep
and stay asleep. You’re not to bother Christine again ever. You just sleep
until I tell you to wake up.”

And that’s never going
to happen, he thought.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Then sleep now. And
stay asleep.”

A shudder ran through
the girl’s body. Nightingale spoke again. “Christine?”

“Yes?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“Is Lydia there?”

“Who?’

“Let me talk to
Lydia.”

“Lydia isn’t here.”

Nightingale stood up.
He smiled at Barbara. “Can you bring her out of it now?”

“It that it?” asked
Mrs Warren. “Is it over?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s
worked,” said Nightingale. “Though I guess time will tell. To be honest, all we
can do now is to hope for the best.”

* * *

It was two weeks later
that the envelope arrived. Nightingale and Jenny were in the office trying to
decide whose turn it was to make coffee when the post arrived. Jenny sorted
through it, filing the bills, binning the junk and opening
anything
which
looked interesting. She passed the long white envelope across.

“Says ‘Personal’ and
you know I’m not one to pry,” she said.

“We both know you’d
have opened it if I’d been out.” Nightingale ripped open the envelope and
pulled out a letter and a cheque. He looked at the cheque first and whistled.

“Who’s it from?”

“Susan Warren. Listen
to this. ‘Please accept this with our heartfelt thanks. Christine’s entirely
back to her old self and we really can’t thank you enough. It seems our nightmare
is over, and it’s all due to you. Once again, thank you so much.’ Looks like it
worked.” He grinned at Jenny and passed her the cheque. “Better get that in the
bank as soon as possible.”

As Jenny headed out,
Nightingale lit a cigarette and blew smoke up at the ceiling. It was good to
hear that Christine was okay, but it was Mrs Warren he was worried about. He
hoped that she had gone to Father Mahoney for help. Her soul had been tainted,
but least it was still hers. And the pentagram was still behind her ear, the
mark that showed she had sworn allegiance to Proserpine. He tried to blow a
smoke ring but failed miserably. He still had a bad feeling about the Warren
family, but he’d done all he could.

* * *

Christine was walking
home from school with two of her friends, Emma and Olivia. She tried never to
walk home alone, since a couple of older boys from year ten seemed to think she
might want to talk to them. She didn’t, of course, didn’t even know their
names. The three girls were chatting about how awful the school lunches had
become when Christine heard someone call out her name.

“Hey, Christine. Over
here.”

Christine looked
around and saw a young woman dressed in a long black leather coat over leather
motorcycle boots. An upside-down silver
cross hung
round her neck, and her earrings were five pointed stars. She had long straight
black hair and the blackest eyes imaginable. Sitting by her side was a cute
collie dog, its tongue lolling out of the side of its mouth.

“Christine, I need to
talk to you.”

Christine frowned. “I
don’t know you,” she said. “You’re a stranger.”

“My name’s Proserpine.
Lydia knows me. Let me talk to Lydia.”

Christine turned to
look at her friends. They were standing motionless, staring blankly ahead,
almost as if time had stopped for them.

Then she shuddered,
closed her eyes and opened them again. She smiled at Proserpine.
 
“Mistress Proserpine. How may I serve
you?” Her voice had dropped an octave.

Proserpine walked over
and patted the girl on the head. “It seems I took my eyes off you for a while,
and you made your presence felt rather too early. What did Nightingale tell
you?”

“He said I should
sleep till he woke me.”

Proserpine laughed.
“He really is an idiot, he has no idea what he’s doing most of the time. Still
perhaps a period of silence might be no bad thing. Bide your time Lydia, let’s
have no more manifestations, just watch and wait. I’ll have work for you to do
soon enough.”

“How soon, mistress?”

“Be patient, girl,
your time will come. And don’t call me Mistress. You’re my daughter. My one and
only.”

“Can I kill
Nightingale for you, mother? Please let me.”

“Nightingale, no. But
that interfering priest, yes, I think so.
But not just yet.
I’ll be in touch when I need you.”

Lydia gave a blissful
smile and a shudder of pleasure. “I’ll be waiting to serve you.”

Proserpine stroked the
girl’s blonde hair,
then
gently pinched her cheek. “Be
seeing you, darling.”

She blew a kiss at the
girl, and Christine shook her head, smiled at her friends and then walked off
down the street with them flanking her.
Just a normal, happy
eleven-year-old, heading off home to her loving family.

* * *

Jack Nightingale
appears in the full-length novels Nightfall, Midnight, Nightmare, Nightshade
and Lastnight and in the short stories Still Bleeding and Cursed. He has his
own website at
www.jacknightingale.com

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