A Death Displaced (11 page)

‘Okay, I’ll listen to you.’ Intuitively, he sensed he could trust her; she seemed honestly annoyed to be in the position she was in, to have to talk to him.

For a moment she gazed past him, at an empty table a few metres away, and Nick turned to see what had caught her attention. Nothing was there.

‘Are you alright?’

‘Yes, fine.’ Her attention snapped back to him. ‘I was just thinking about something.’

‘Okay. Tell me what you were going to say.’

‘When the car came towards me, I felt it hit me … I really
felt
it throw me over the edge, and I hit the ground, but when I opened my eyes I was alive. You saved me, but I felt different. On the way home I started seeing things: blurs, shadows, figures … strange things that don’t make sense. For the next few days I continued to see these things. I thought I was in shock maybe, but at one point it became too much. I heard something say
help me
in my kitchen, but nobody was there.’

Nick listened to her and tried to gather where she was going with it. He believed what she said, because he’d had a vision of the future. If that was possible, then maybe this was too.

She continued. ‘I booked an appointment with Tamara Trewin, you probably know who she is … the medium that lives in Willow?’ Nick nodded, knowing of the woman she referred to. ‘I described to her about the car incident, and she did something with her hands, feeling the energy off of me I think. When she was done she told me that I was displaced.’

‘Displaced? What did she mean?’

‘I haven’t finished yet. She told me that it was my
fate
to die and that when you saved me I was physically saved, but my soul died,
or I spiritually died ... something like that.’ Juliet looked down at her hands as if she was ashamed to say these things aloud. ‘She said that I’m anchored in two worlds: this world and the Otherworld.’

Now Nick could see where she was headed with the tale. He almost didn’t want to listen.

‘Tamara told me I was seeing spirits and that Halloween would be a vulnerable day for me.’ She stopped and rubbed the fingers of both her hands over her temples. ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this aloud; it sounds ridiculous.’

Nick should his head. ‘No, I believe you.’

‘You do?’ She gave him her eyes and seemed about to smile, but then looked away again.

‘Yeah. I have something to tell you that
you
might not believe. And I think I know where you’re going with this … My mum appeared to you on Halloween, didn’t she?’

Juliet sighed, relaxed her posture. ‘There’s more to it than that. She asked me to find you. She told me your name and where you work. She told me her name, Samantha Crystan, and said that you must go to Grendel Manor, that you need to know the truth ...’ She frowned hopefully as if the mention of Grendel Manor would mean something to Nick.

‘Know the truth? She must mean about how she died?’

‘I assume so. She tried to say more, but disappeared before she could finish. She said she couldn’t stay for long and started to say you have to take something with you. She said,
Tell him to go to Grendel Manor and that he must take his …
but then she vanished.’

‘I don’t know what she could have meant by that,’ Nick replied honestly.

He had a sip of orange juice and would usually have savoured the freshness of it, but with all these revelations the acidic taste made his nervous stomach churn.

‘What do you have to tell me?’ asked Juliet.

‘The reason I believe everything you’ve said is that something strange happened to me too. A few days before the car almost hit you, I had a vision of it actually hitting you and throwing you over the edge. I saw you die. At the time, I thought it was just a weird daydream. Then on that Friday morning, I saw things that matched my daydream and I
knew
that I had to act fast to save you. That’s how I got to you in time: because I’d seen the future.’ Tension flew off of his shoulders;
such
relief to finally share his secret.

‘So … Tamara was right. It was my fate to die.’

‘I don’t know, but I wasn’t going to let you die like that,’ he said, and did he imagine it or did she blush? He’d thought she was gorgeous when he’d first seen her, but now he really saw just how beautiful she was.

‘This can’t all be coincidence can it?’ she asked.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘So what are we going to do about it?’

‘We?’ His pitch rose.

‘Yes,
we
, if you’re going to Grendel Manor, then I’m coming with you.’

Chapter 8

Juliet thought about Nick on her bus journey home. His hazel brown-green eyes had soothed her the few times she dared look at them, but she also thought he seemed younger and less mature than her.

They’d agreed that on Monday he would pick her up from Chanton as it was closer to Grendel Manor than Amiton was. She hadn’t given him her address but instead chose a location they could meet at, and exchanged phone numbers before leaving The Crow.

It felt as though the bus journey took eons. She was on edge again. At The Crow, even as she talked with Nicolas, there was a woman sat a few tables away, staring. 

Juliet knew it was a spirit, and knew who it was: the unfortunate woman that had mysteriously fallen and died out the front of Creaky Crystals. Juliet had read the lady’s name in the light of the shop windows. Rowena Helen Howard.

The spirit had fixed her eyes on Juliet for the first minute or so of the conversation with Nick, then vanished into thin air. Having had more exposure to it by now, Juliet handled the occurrence much better than she did the previous week of phenomena.

After Samantha Crystan had appeared on Halloween, Juliet had expected no more spirits, but there was another one only a couple of days later. In fact, she’d begun to realise walking around Chanton, that some of the usual by-passers were actually ghosts. They could have gone unnoticed to her, but she’d learned to tell the difference because the air that surrounded spirits seemed to twitch, like disturbance in the atmosphere or static on a television screen. And of course it was a give-away if they suddenly materialised or dematerialised.

She found it most odd that when Samantha Crystan had appeared, lights flickered, the temperature changed, and there were all kinds of theatrics, but that didn’t happen for every spirit.

Maybe they come from different depths of the Spiritworld; is it harder for some to appear than others?
At first, Samantha hadn’t appeared fully formed. Was that because Juliet was new to her ability, or was it Samantha trying desperately to get through?

Still on the bus, Juliet contemplated Rowena’s death and if it had something to do with her, if in some way she was responsible.
It’s not like I asked to be saved. Even if I wanted to be, I wouldn’t have wanted someone to die in my place,
she thought. But it didn’t help. Guilt weighed her down, horrible to bear.

Had Rowena stared to make her feel guilty? Maybe to let Juliet know it should have been
her
to die? Whatever the reason, she didn’t ask for
any
of this, and that helped her ignore Rowena and concentrate on her conversation with Nick.

She hated the feel of guilt; it didn’t seem to serve a purpose. There was only one way she could think of to try to resolve it.
I should learn to use my ability
. That way, she might even find out what had happened to Rowena, and maybe she could help her. She detested knowing it should have been her to die.

I have to do something
. In her eyes it would be plain wrong if she didn’t try to make it all have some kind of purpose … helping Nicolas and Samantha Crystan could be a first step, at least.

The bus pulled into Chanton, and Juliet received a phone call as she thanked the driver and exited. It was Kim, so she removed a glove to answer her phone.

‘Hey, Kim.’

‘Juliet!’ Kim squeaked. ‘What are you doing tomorrow?’

‘I haven’t planned anything yet.’ Usually she volunteered at the charity shop on Saturdays, but she’d cancelled assuming Nicolas would want to go to Grendel Manor as soon as possible. He hadn’t, because he was apparently going to his dad’s house on the weekend.

‘I’ll come over then, yeah?’

‘Sure. What do you have in mind?’

Walking home, Juliet hated how hot her body felt under her winter coat; it contrasted with the sting of cold wind against her gloveless hand and naked face.

‘Some girly gossip, drinks, and a lot of chillaxing in your hot tub,
of course
. We can have a proper catch up.’

‘You want to have some drinks? Are you planning on staying over or bussing home?’

‘Ryan will drop me off and pick me up. It’s Bonfire Night tomorrow, so he’ll take me to see some fireworks.’

‘He’s okay with you coming over and drinking?’ Ryan Fraser was Kim’s boyfriend, and they’d been seeing each other for about three years, maybe four. He gave Juliet the creeps.

‘Yeah. He’s the one who suggested that I see a friend for the day. I think he’s had a stressful week at work and wants the day to himself. He works odd shifts.’ Kim said, rather unconvincingly.

‘Is he still a support worker?’ As far as Juliet could remember, Ryan had been caring for vulnerable adults for years now.

‘Yeah, tough job. He’s a sweetheart for keeping at it. I know I couldn’t do it!’

‘Sounds like a rewarding job though,’ said Juliet, unsure.

‘Ha! Not with the pay he’s on.’

 Juliet laughed then returned to the previous subject. ‘What time are you coming over then?’

‘Midday?’

‘That suits me.’

‘Juliet … you’re buying the drinks, right?’ Kim sniggered amiably.

‘I’ve already got plenty for you to choose from.’

‘If I was minted like you, I’d buy us the drinks and I’d let you chillax in my hot tub. You know that, right?’

‘Yeah, yeah …’ she teased, ‘I’m sure you would.’

She stayed on the phone to Kim while walking home.

Chanton was eerily quiet, and, at times, Juliet had the urge to run so she’d get home sooner. She didn’t speed up though, believing a better tactic for not getting mugged was to appear confident, rather than to be a pathetically vulnerable running target. Scuttling down these empty dark streets would
not
portray confidence.

She reached home. Juliet’s mother had named the house when it was hers, and although Juliet wasn’t too fond of her mother’s choice, she’d left it unchanged. So now she lived at The Haven, 8 New Avenue. After a goodbye to Kim she hung up, unlocked her front door, entered, and then removed her stuffy winter coat.

Roy had called her the day before with an update on the progress of the redecorating. Everything was going to plan and he reckoned it would be finished early next week. Juliet had smiled when she heard that. It was the highlight of her week.

For Juliet, there was still time to do something productive this evening. She checked to make sure she was stocked up on fruit juice and Southern Comfort. Her wine collection filled half a wall, but she was pretty confident Kim would go for SoCo and cranberry, as usual. She put a bottle of champagne in the fridge, just in case.

After switching on the patio lights, she strode out into the garden.

It had been a while since she’d used the hot tub, and so it needed a clean out. She removed the cover first, using the lifter, covered it with a weak chlorine solution, hosed it down, and then propped it against the patio wall to dry. Using disinfectant spray, she cleaned all the areas she could reach. Then she replaced the filter and filled the tub with hot water and bleach before running the jets. Leaving them on , she headed back inside.

The blinking of an LED on her laptop caught her attention, and she realised she’d left it running without the power adaptor connected. With the battery about to give out, she plugged it in and logged into her online banking account. Tension set into her when she saw that her parents had transferred money into her account. She’d told her mum it didn’t matter, that she’d only wanted to talk about the car incident.

Oh well, an extra five thousand pounds is always nice to receive.

But it reminded her of something Nicolas had said at The Crow:
I wasn’t going to let you die like that.
The way he’d said it was so ... caring? It had made her almost uncomfortable, but not exactly in a bad way. Then she heard her mother’s voice:
Well, you’re alive aren’t you? That’s all that counts.
Dismissive ... false? Almost as if Mrs Maystone had better things to do than worry over her daughter’s feelings.

Juliet felt bitterly glad that she’d survived the incident and didn’t have to burden her parents with her funeral. Her skin flushed with wriggly, anxious sensations. These kinds of thoughts were not good. Not productive. She set her mind to online shopping and study research, anything but these musings.

After half an hour, she returned to the hot tub, drained it, then filled it with cold water and let the jets run again to rinse out the bleach. She left it another half an hour while she showered, shaved her legs and armpits, and washed her hair. Then she returned to drain it for a final time. The cover was almost dry, so she replaced it and went back inside.

It was almost ten o’clock. When her body climbed into bed, she indulged in the slow sinking sensation of the memory foam mattress, and then settled on her back to look up at the ceiling.

The light was off but she could still make out the shapes in the room.

It had been a strange couple of weeks or so, to say the least. Despising that someone had died where she was supposed to, she came close to tears. It wasn’t fair. She pulled the cover over herself and hid away in deep shame. With closed eyes, she reminded herself not to give in.

I’m not a bad person. I didn’t ask for this. I still have a choice … I can help people and make the best out of this.

She’d come to accept that she
really
could see the spirits of dead people. If that meant to others that she was absolutely bonkers, then so be it; it wasn’t like she was going to go around telling everyone.