Stuck to her chair, Juliet was unable to move or speak. Although she couldn’t fully see it, she knew the figure was approaching her. She sensed one of its arms reaching out. It touched her face.
Horror stiffened her body, but for her life she forced out a scream.
The room returned to normal, the lamp stopped flickering, and the temperature rose in an instant. The figure was gone, and Juliet heaved for air, her hands over her burdened heart.
‘Are you okay?’ Roy, the stand in manager, knocked, asked and entered simultaneously. He was alert and ready for some kind of trouble.
‘I’m fine.’ A breath rushed into her.
‘You’re fine?’ he said, his round face incredulous. ‘The whole café heard you scream.’
‘I said I’m fine,’ she reasserted.
I am fine. It was only my imagination,
she tried to convince herself.
Roy relaxed his stance. ‘What should I tell the team, and our customers? It sounded like a
bad
scream; Ashleigh dropped somebody’s order when she heard you. She jumped right out of her skin!’ He laughed a deep grumble, but Juliet could see he was still concerned.
‘Anything, Roy. Make something up. Say everything’s okay and nobody needs to panic.’
‘I’ll say you walked around a corner with your head down at the same time Sandra came around the corner and that she gave you fright. Yeah? That will do.’
‘Thank you, Roy. I’m going to leave soon.’ She began clearing her paperwork away. ‘I shouldn’t have come in today.’
Imagining what she’d just experienced, the amorphous thing stretching out its arm to touch her face, made her think:
I should have rested some more. I’m obviously in shock.
‘You’re welcome,’ said Roy. ‘Why did you come in?’
‘Shopping fell through, and you know me … I can’t just sit around.’
‘I think you need a hobby; you should not just work every minute of your life,’ he remarked, stepping on delicate ground.
‘I like to work. This is my café, and I like being here.’ It felt like a personal attack. ‘Besides, I have hobbies.’ She had her home-study course, an exercise routine, she was learning Spanish, and she volunteered at a charity shop.
Do they count as hobbies?
‘Okay. I was concerned, that is all. It is easy to get burnt out when you work too much.’
She gave Roy a prickly stare; she didn’t need
her
employee
questioning her ability to work. There was enough on her mind (the mind she thought she was losing after the day’s events).
‘Roy. Get back to work,’ she said, teeth clenched.
He nodded and offered a concerned half-smile before he left the office. Juliet gathered her thoughts until she couldn’t stay in the room any longer. She hoped that she wouldn’t permanently fear her office; it was one of her favourite places to be, working or not.
As she left the café, she sensed all eyes on her. She held her chin high, managed appropriate smiles, and expressed confident farewells to her employees and customers.
That evening she watched the local news and saw that it covered a story on a police chase in Amiton.
The police had followed a vehicle due to suspicious behaviour, and when they signalled the driver to pull over, he sped away instead. The pursued driver gained distance by cutting through Amiton upper grounds, but had crashed into a business stall, flipped the car and came to a stop. It turned out the driver was drunk, and in his intoxicated state he’d panicked and thought driving through the upper grounds was a good idea. He’d been treated for a head wound sustained in the crash, but no major injuries.
As Juliet eyed the television screen, she experienced bitterness towards the drunk driver. She’d had the strangest day of her life, and he was to blame.
Chapter 3
‘Stop showing off your perfect white teeth!’ Janet Morgan, one of the full-timers at Creaky Crystals, playfully slapped Nick’s arm. ‘You know I want mine whitened.’
Rubbing his arm as if it hurt, Nick said, ‘What are you on about?’
‘You’ve been smiling all day; you’re like a walking dental advert.’
‘Should I take that as a compliment …?’
‘Whatever floats your boat, Nick.’ She laughed to herself. ‘You’re an odd boy aren’t you? I’d have wangled the day off if I was almost hit by a car, but you’re having the best day of your life. Odd-ball.’
He
was
eager to go home after saving the woman’s life, but he wanted to work his hours; or more accurately, he
needed
to work them.
‘Maybe I’m just happy the car didn’t hit me.’
‘Maybe you’re a strange boy ... Anyway, why were you in the upper grounds? You don’t come from that direction.’ She goggled him suspiciously.
‘I was just looking at the view from up there.’
‘Hmmm, that confirms it: you’re a weirdo.’ Janet stuck out her tongue, then dawdled off towards the jewellery section.
Still smiling, Nick thought about the incident. He’d given a statement to the police, omitting the part about the woman he’d saved; she’d hurried off, and he didn’t think anyone had seen her almost be hit. Telling lies to the police was a bad idea and he wasn’t sure why he did it, but it was done now. And there was a more interesting matter to dwell on.
The rest of the shift dragged, but when it was finally over he made his way home as if his life depended on it.
There was a lot to mull over that night. Excitement oozed out of him. After having a real ‘flash-forward’, he was infused with a sense of importance. What did it mean?
He spent that evening thinking about it.
Was it a random experience? Is it an ability I can learn to use at will? Am I different, special somehow? If so, are there others like me?
No conclusions were made, but he slept easier that night, feeling like there was purpose to his life.
Across the weekend he read through books on Celtic, Classical, and Norse mythology. He researched on the internet how to practice psychic powers. He read about oracles, prophets, clairvoyants, seers, and shamans. Some people used cards, the roll of a dice, crystal balls, or other objects for divination, but he also read about people who saw the future in their dreams and through guided meditation.
It wasn’t wise to be on the internet for too long, in case he went over the limit again and got charged more (
again)
, so he shut down the computer.
Half the material he’d found was stuff he had knowledge of from past research. Because he’d considered becoming a Wiccan before, he already
kind of
believed in psychic abilities, and also that cheesy word: magic. But seeing was different to believing.
He tried to meditate and get into a trance-like state to bring on another vision, but nothing happened. He was having a hard time with the whole fate and destiny side to it.
How can I see the future if it isn’t planned out? Or maybe it was a probable future I saw, based on peoples’ choices. And if everyone had a destined path, then did I change that woman’s fate by saving her?
After a while he gave up trying to force a vision. It was too easy to get carried away and act like he was in a fantasy film.
Languidly, he tidied his bedroom that hadn’t been corrected since his tantrum a few days before. He took his time, not allowing it to affect his easy mood.
The detached bungalow he lived in was on the outskirts of Amiton. From the front door there was a hallway that divided the house down the middle. To the front-left was the snug room where he would sit and read, watch films, or play games. To the back-left was the bathroom. On the front-right was the living room which he rarely used, as it served the same purposes as the snug. And to the back-right was the bedroom. The hallway led to the rear of the house where the kitchen and back door to the garden were.
His dad had helped him choose the bungalow, paid a sum towards the deposit, and would occasionally contribute to paying the bills. He never asked for anything in return, and Nick assumed it made him feel good to assist financially; maybe to make up for the absence of Nick’s mother.
When Nick had first moved in he’d had a full time job, but, unable to handle the stress in his life at the time, he’d walked out on it. Now all he could find was part time work, and each month was a struggle to pay bills. To bring in extra money, he’d considered renting out the living room as a bedroom, but it was one of them ideas that was easy to brush aside, no matter the sense it made.
His bedroom was the only decorated part of the house. Everything else had been left in the state it was purchased in. There were bare walls, holes in places, Nick had minimal furniture, and there was just
too much
DIY to even think about.
It was a few years ago when he’d moved in, and it should have all been in shape by now. But after his wages were spent on bills and essentials each month, he never had enough left over to decorate. He’d given up. As long as the place was liveable, then what did it matter? There was no one to impress but himself. And for entertainment he was lucky to still have some books and game consoles from when he lived with his dad and brothers.
On Monday he received a phone call from Tom.
‘Nick?’
‘Hi, Tom.’
‘How have you been? You haven’t come to see us lately.’
‘Everything’s good,’ said Nick. ‘Yeah I know. I might come by next weekend,’ he capitulated, supposing he couldn’t avoid visiting them forever.
‘Cool,’ said Tom, and there was a long silence.
‘So, any reason you called me?’ His brothers didn’t contact him often, usually making their dad relay messages. Which was awkward.
‘Yeah … I wanted to talk to you about something, but not over the phone.’
‘Okay, well what about the weekend when I come over?’
‘No, not at Dad’s house either.’ Tom sounded almost guilty, or maybe ashamed.
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t feel comfortable talking about it at home. It’s personal.’
‘You can come over here some time if you like?’ Nick suggested, intrigued.
What could be so personal that he can’t even speak to Tommy about it?
‘Thank you, Nick.’
‘That’s alright. It will have to be in a week or two if you can wait? I’ll be working a lot of shift this week, because of how busy it’ll be.’
‘Yeah, I can wait. Oh, I know.’ Tom huffed, crackling the line a little. ‘Amiton’s crazy this time of year.’
Lansin Island was the place to be for Halloween, or Samhain as some of the locals called it. The entire town was decorated. There were bloated pumpkin-faces, hollow-eyed ghosts, gangly spiders, and frowning skulls. It was a festive overload. As if a child had been given free rein to top their ice cream with sprinkles, Amiton received a Halloween-sprinkles overdose. Public rituals were performed, and a play enacting a wild hunt with the lord of the dead, otherworldly beings, fairies, and animals. Clairvoyants’ tents were set up where people would pay to know their future.
It was mainly aimed at tourists, but almost everyone in Amiton and on Lansin Island celebrated Halloween. In the town centre it was normal to wear a costume for the entire day; most shop assistants did, and Mora insisted that her staff dress up too. In the evening there were firework displays at Wood Park, and other plays with special lighting effects and fire manipulation: dancing, spinning, twirling.
‘Yeah, it is busy, but I love it!’ Nick said. ‘Thank you for lending me
Big Fish
by the way. It was good.’
‘That’s alright. So I’ll see you next weekend. Bye.’
‘See you.’ Nick hung up.
He contemplated what costume to wear to work on Halloween, but became distracted when he remembered that ‘the veil between the two worlds’ was supposedly thinnest on Halloween, supposedly making divination easier. He smiled, becoming antsy and excited over the idea of having another premonition, and then spent the rest of the day reading books in the snug, only stopping to use the bathroom, make hot chocolate, and to eat.
The next day at work he spoke with another part-timer, Michael Welding.
‘What are you going to dress as on Monday?’ Nick asked.
Without a pause, Michael replied, ‘I’m going to be a vampire.’
‘You were a vampire last year.’
‘Yeah … I like vampires.’
‘So does everyone, apparently.’
‘That’s ’cause they’re awesome.’ Michael was pretty simple, straight to the point, and was ridiculously good looking.
Nick wasn’t homosexual, but Michael was one of those ‘pretty boys’. If Nick had to look like anyone else, it would be him. He was eighteen, had mousey coloured hair, pale blue eyes, and his toned body gained definition (and recognition) through the tight tops he wore.
Nick reckoned he must have been invisible stood next to Michael.
‘Fair enough,’ Nick said. ‘How’s college going?’ Michael was on the same Diploma in Construction college course as Tom and Tommy.
While waited for his colleague to answer, Nick gazed out the glass front of the store. It rained steadily outside, leaving droplets and trails on the glass.
‘It’s good. We’re doing something about surveying,’ Michael slurred his words. He may have had the face of an angel, but he had the voice of a troll; it screamed out, ‘I’m unintelligent!’
‘Good to hear.’
‘What’re you going to wear Monday, Nick?’
‘I haven’t decided yet.’ And on that answer, the conversation died. They returned to work.
There wasn’t much to do at Creaky Crystals that Tuesday. Even though it was a large store, everything was in order. It was the biggest (and one of the only) tourist shops in the lower grounds. On the front was a prodigious sign with ‘Creaky Crystals’ etched in cream letters against dark oak.
Mora didn’t need to employ as many people as she did, but Nick gathered that she liked the company, and also it was fairly unpredictable how busy the store would get; sometimes there were waves of customers and then there were long reposes.
Amiton locals were a chatty bunch, so at least one staff was usually spent in conversation. The most notorious blabbermouth was Alice Bicker. She was a regular customer, but not a Pagan of any variety. She simply loved the stock.