Trapped (29 page)

             
“Once you w
ere settled in at the hospital
there wasn’t anything we could
do
but wait. I must admit it had been
very frustrating
, we felt useless, as I’m sure you’re
feeling the same way
now
.
Well we
became rather
antsy
, just sitting and waiting. You know Hayden. H
e can’t handle not being in c
ontrol of a situation. So he asked
me
to
stay with you
and to call him if anything changed
. He told me
he needed
to find
Luke. He wanted
him to try and reach you
again
. He also needed to know if
he knew
anything
more
about Beth and Stella.

He
called me a few tim
es from different places before he
eventually
teame
d up with Luke. The idea of Stella
putti
ng some type of curse on you
slowly
began spreading
amongst
the others. The idea that she
could do such
a thing to a living person
obviously
intrigued
them. So Beth
and Stella were
hiding out, t
hey were afraid of
being attacked by the others
. They were convinced
there would be others like the
m
wanting to know how they did it. I’m not sure if they rea
lly knew
at the time how
they did it
exactly
,” Carlos took a bite of his s
andwich and glanced over at me.
I thought back to my time asleep.

“
I did see Luke
in my
other realm.
As far as how
Stella
managed to do this me, well I have been told that she
pushed
me so close to death that I
somehow
escaped to that realm to hide from her,” I told them. Clive placed a hand on
my shoulder and sat beside me.

“Hayden would not rest. He
visit
ed you daily, sometimes
in
the middle of the night or early
in the
morning, but he always checked in on you. He stayed long enough to give you a sponge bath, brush your hair and exercise your leg
s.
On the days he didn’t make it Carlos or I
would do all those things
for you,
e
xcept the sponge bath,” he said
as h
e winked at me and looked away.

“As I said, in the first few months he spent most of his time with you at the hospital,
but as he grew more involved with Beth and Stella he wasn’
t able to make it as much. When
Louisa
protected you,
Carlos
would join
him,” he said as he gestured for
him to continue
again.

“We were
hoping
to
somehow end your torm
ent and bring you back to us. Stella and Beth
became
very interesting
to Hayden
though
. While th
ey knew what
happened to you and that the others wanted to find them, they were still experimenting with the other
realm and the newly dead. T
hey
were becoming
the leaders of the dead. They decided who would stay and who would continue on to the next realm.
It didn’t work on the spirit
s
that have been here for ages but it did work on the young ones
, t
he newly dead I mean. Stella began to learn
old world spells and curses.
Exo
rcism
’s of the dead is what she
called it and it began to work
. Those that they decided to expel would be separated from their light immediately, their bodies vanished and their light flew up in to the air and swirled around
as though caught in a breeze the
n
it would
fly away,” Carlos explained
.

             
“It i
s very interesting to us for obvious r
easons,” Clive continued.

“Not that we are worried about a lack of light, many people die every day and although
a
small
percentage
, a number of them
as you know
do not move on like they
should. What I really wa
nted to know i
s why they were doing
this? What p
urpose did it serve for them? I
s it just a power trip? Did they want the others to be afraid of them
?
” Clive paused. He stoo
d and looked back at me.

“We didn’t know at the time how
long you were g
oing to be, well how long it would
be until
you woke,” he seemed nervous as he continued.
I tried to be patient as I listened to him, hoping he would get to the pa
rt where Hayden decided that thi
s was a good idea, I glanced at him quickly th
e
n looked away.

             
“Hayden began to get
close
r
to Beth and Stella.
They were beginning
to trust him.
Stella
a
llowed him to follow her. She
accepted him in
to
her gatherings, which made her followers very nervous. I wasn’t permi
tted in these meetings but I
escorted Hayden a few t
imes to the edge of town. I
watch
ed
as he walked toward her.
Stella stood
unearthly st
ill on the edge of the woods as she
wait
ed
for him to
be within arms-reach of her
the
n she would
,
with surprising speed
grab him and r
un. This continued for days
. I decided to
finally
confront him about this odd
relationship
he has
started
wit
h
her but he
became
very defensive. He just kept
sayin
g he is going
t
o
stop the exorcis
ms and find a way to wake you up.

So I let it be, I let it go. I went back to work for Clive. I made a
few trips to Central America.
I always came to see you when I could though Natalie.
After a number of months of this I
finally
confronted
him
again. I told him he has to stop. He needs
to put an end to Beth and Stella
immediately
. It is
past their time
, they have
to go
. Clive told him this as well
. That’s when Hayden started to
weak
en, he lost
weight
, he stopped shaving and his hair grew unruly, which as you know is not Hayden’s style. I tried to explain to
him
that
he would be of no use to you if he became si
ck. We were
surprised and c
onfused by his
rapid
loss of strength. T
he seekers hav
e always been
strong and healthy. It wasn’t until a
few
weeks after this
confrontation th
at I became aware of what he was actually doing. This isn’t the first time he’s travelled between the realms. He began searching for the
realm you were in
,” he stopped talking and sat in front of me, searching my ey
es for some kind of response
.

             
I
thought about the time I believed
I awo
ke, back in the apartment. It couldn’t have been him there
though
. He di
dn’t talk to me like I
still
existed
in the darkness. I sighed, wish
ing he would have found me
there. Maybe there were
times I couldn’t
remember. When I woke up it didn’t seemed like I went under
for very long, certainly not seven months, maybe seven days
at most
.

“The only time I can remember se
eing Hayden both of you
were with him at the apartment. He
wasn’t really with me,
just a part of my visions, not real. I can’t re
member him finding me,” I
told
them
.

“Natalie, he said
he did find you, but you just kept r
unning away from him,” he said, confused
.
This shocked me. There were
time
s
when someone
chased
me
but
I
believe
d
I
only
ran from my fears. I ran
from myself.
I shook my head, not wanting to believe Hayden found me there.

“He wouldn’t let it go
Natalie
, he kept returning to that realm with you but each time he came back he seemed more and more
despondent
. He faded in front of us
and he seemed
deeply
hurt by your rejection.
Unfortunately
Stella took advantage of this and she comforted
him
when he returned to her. He wasn’t
going
to the apartment at night either
, he
actually stayed
with her
,” Clive seemed to want to stop telling me
all this. Did Hayden cheat
on me with a ghost? I faked a
reassuring
smile, urging him to continue.

“The day
before
you wo
ke up, Hayden was
mis
sing for over a week. When I received
the call from
Louisa
that you were awake, I became
frantic
, I neede
d
to find him. I went to the edge of the woods and called his name. I ran thr
ough the trees shouting
, hoping for a respo
nse.

Beth appeared before me
. She knew you were awake and led me to him. I found them
lying
together in a cave, Stella’s faded form and Hayden barely dressed and shivering.
He appeared
to be suffering from hypothermia
.
I rushed
him to the hospital, he was actually being
treated
just a few rooms down
from you
. While you waited for him he struggled out of
his own
bizarre
delirium. It took a few hours f
or him to recover enough to be able to
see you
,”
Carlos closed his eyes. I felt like he had just punched me in t
he stomach. It hurt to breath
with the lump that formed quickly
in my throat
.

“
Louisa
told me she
called him, she told me
he visited
every day. Why did
she lie to me like that?” I felt
a
heat rising into my cheeks. Everything
has been a lie since I woke up.

“Natalie, he told us
he believed he was with you before you woke up. He made a
drastic mistake, because he
travelled
in
to
a different realm with someone else
. She must have
convinced him you were there.
S
tella
is in love with him and the realm they go to is the o
nly one they can be together in,
”
Clive explained.
I couldn’t understand this. Hayden would not cheat on me, especially not with a ghost.