The Protector of Memories (The Veil of Death Book 1) (13 page)

Faith addressed a man in the back row. “That piece of paper you’re looking for is in the desk in your office. It’s caught at the back of the drawer - top drawer, left.”

“Blow me.” The man answered back. “I’ll let you all know if that’s where it is.”

Laughter sounded around the room followed by intermittent clapping and whooping.

Faith motioned for silence and when the room fell quiet she said. “A ghost called David now speaks. He brings us a warning.” She proceeded to relay the message as David spoke it.

“A species of ghost called the empty ghosts are drinking the memories from every other species of ghosts. I believe they do so in order to remember once again what it is to fell alive. But the memories of ghosts sustain them not and so their memories of life are fading fast and they want more. They have acquired the knowledge that more memories can be got…” Faith paused, swept her arms around the room, “from human beings. If they drink from the vessel that is the human body then they will gain eternal life.”

Faith glanced around the room and at the sea of faces that peered back at her.

Within the ‘stunned silence’ she called to Dawn and Hope. “Can you join me by my side?”

As they did, Faith addressed the room.

“Dawn has come to us this day to speak with you about her husband, Phillip. He resides within her body and he is bleeding her dry_.”

“Shouldn’t you be on some sort of medication?” Alan Bowling interrupted Faith and before she could answer, he asked. “And who exactly are you?”

“My name is Faith. I mediate between the mortals and their ghosts.” Faith pointed to her sister. “This is my sister, Hope. She has the sighting of the auras.” Faith held Alan Bowling’s eye contact and sighted the flicker of disgust within them. “We are the sisters of Charity.”

A murmuring of voices sounded around the room.

Alan Bowling tried to keep eye contact with Faith but when the directness became too uncomfortable he turned and looked at the woman called Hope. “The alcoholic,” he shouted and stepping closer asked, “What does that mean exactly ’the sighting of the auras’?” But regretting immediately his question, he added quickly, “Forget it. I’ll let somebody else have the pleasure of interviewing you.”

Focussing his attentions back onto Faith he said. “I came here with an open-mind… prepared to hear your side of events. I understand publicity. I understand ratings. And it worked. I’m here. But what I am witnessing is nothing short of brainwashing the minds of vulnerable people.”

Alan turned away from Faith and addressed everybody in the room. “Be careful people because this woman is a paranoid schizophrenic and without the proper medication she is a danger to society. Furthermore you need to know that Faith has another mental condition called ‘the Goddess Complex’. Do you know what that means people? It means that she feeds her need to be omnipotent on your need to believe that there is an Afterlife… empty ghosts. It’s all in her head.”

“You don’t have an empty ghost living within you.” Dawn interjected. “So until that day happens you cannot understand what that feels like…” and sweeping her arms out to indicate the room and the world beyond she continued. “We need to work out what to do before it is too late. I doubt my husband is the first to enter a human body? There must be more empty ghosts who are making their way into us?”

Alan Bowling interrupted Dawn to ask Faith a question. “Don’t you think it to be tasteless to use Dawn’s vulnerability to feed your own need for attention? We all know what she has had to endure these last two years… the tragic circumstances that led to her son’s death. If David was going to speak to anyone wouldn’t it be to his own mother?”

“The ghost called David does speak to Dawn and she cannot hear what he says but Dawn knows that he is there_.”

Alan interrupted Faith with another question. “If David was real wouldn’t his own mother be able to see and hear him?”

“David hasn’t stopped being real simply because he exists as a ghost.”

Dawn joined into the conversation. “Have you not heard a single word that my son has said?”

“But your son isn’t the one who’s speaking is he?” Alan pointed at Faith, “she is!” he exclaimed. “And that woman spreads lies about Charity. Today we have heard from Charity that Faith and Hope have been extorting money from her_.”

A middle-aged man stood up. “Why is it so hard for you to accept what Dawn is saying?” The man looked about the room and added. “I don’t think we should dismiss so quickly the possibility that the warnings are true?” He smiled at Dawn. “I’m Steve by the way.” He looked around the room and explained. “I don’t know about you lot but I’ve been coming here since these mediums sessions started. I’ve been one of the lucky ones. I get visits from my Dad, my Nan and great, great-grandfather. Heck.” He laughed. “I ain’t even met him_.”

“So how do you know it is him?” Alan Bowling asked impatiently.

Steve looked at Alan and shrugged. “Because of the messages he relayed to me. Then there’s me Dad…” he paused, “well he died last year and spoke about something that only he and I ever knew about.” Steve smiled over at Faith. “I believe in Faith and I believe Dawn. And what I’m hearing it doesn’t sound good does it?”

A murmuring of voices sounded around the room.

Dawn looked at Alan. “I cannot hear my son when he speaks but what he says is the truth. My own husband is harming me.” To prove the point, she pulled the sleeves of her jumper up to reveal the fresh burn marks. “Phillip did this to me this very morning. He is dead but he still harms me.”

Everybody moved forward at the same time.

Alan indicated for his photographer to take some photographs. “Self-harming is not the workings of empty ghosts_.”

Sam jumped up from her chair, “Has Dawn asked that you speak on her behalf?” she demanded. Alan Bowling was getting on her nerves at the way he spoke for Dawn and yet ignored her completely.

Alan stared at the small, chubby woman and rolling his eye-balls up toward the ceiling said. “People like Dawn need protecting from people like you.”

Sam crossed her arms. “Don’t you think that it is Dawn who is the best authority on what it is that she needs?”

“But she doesn’t know what she needs,” Alan said. “Only the professionals can help her. People like you hinder that process. She’s not been long out of prison and my guess is that she is suffering from post traumatic stress. But she needs to seek professional help_.”

“I am here Mr Bowling.” Dawn interrupted and when he eventually looked at her, she asked him a question. “Where were those people… the professionals that you speak of? Where were they when I asked for their help? I asked to be protected from my husband when he was alive?” Dawn stared at him and when he didn’t say anything, she continued. “You and everybody else didn’t see the monster beneath the uniform did you? Where were…” but her voice came out in a croak. She coughed, “I need protecting from Phillip but this time I go to the people who believe me…” she coughed again.

Linda stepped forward. “Mr Bowling. I think it best that you leave. And if you print mental conditions within the same article that holds Faith’s name in it, I will sue you for defamation of character…” she held her hands up, “you are a reporter Mr Bowling not a trained psychiatrist.”

Alan stared up at the woman with distain.

Dawn joined the reporter’s side and said. “I will tell you my story only if you agree to print the warning that my son wishes to tell the world.”

Alan turned away from Linda and looked at Dawn. “Agreed,” he said and motioned for his photographer to follow him. As Alan walked out of the conference room, he shouted over his shoulder. “Be sure to read my opinion in ‘The London Local’.”

A man stepped toward Hope, held up his mobile phone. “What is that that shines around your body?” He asked her.

Hope looked at the image of her body. “That…” she paused, peered closer at the picture and realised that it was not her auras that she was staring at but her stardust. “That.” she said, “Is my stardust. It seems that your devices see what our sight does not.”

Everybody who had heard Hope’s words took a step forward, asking to see the image on the mobile phone.

“WOW. How do you do that?”

“It’s all glittery like well… glitter.”

“Is it the same as auras?”

“Is that what we’re seeing auras?”

“I’ve heard that people who can see auras are spiritual healers.”

“I got this condition_.”

Linda groaned as a tidal wave of people moved toward Hope. “Go through that door.” She instructed Faith, Hope and Sam, “Quickly… before you become crushed by the weight of people.”

She punched in the code, opened the door – and ushered the three of them through it.

∞

It took Linda, Brian and the two security guards over thirty minutes to get everybody out of the library.

When Linda finally made her way back toward the conservatory she was still annoyed with Hope. “Thanks to your…” but Linda paused, took a deep breath. She was about to say ‘stupidity’ but stopped herself in time. “Thanks to your need to enlighten everybody about stardust, nobody would leave the library until they had taken out all books relating to that particular subject. Which of course we have none. So everybody insisted on taking out books on ‘Auras’!” Linda exclaimed in exasperation.

Nobody spoke for a couple of minutes.

Sam who had done nothing but pace the room ever since she had entered it, sat down on a two-seater sofa. She felt numbed by the whole experience.

Faith frowned and said to Hope. “So Hera has led the empty ghosts out of the Void of Emptiness?”

“Yes” Hope answered. “With stardust, Hera has unlocked them from their state of emptiness… how they got there in the first place is unknown.” She glanced between Faith and Linda. “You need to read the book.” Hope insisted and then added, “I saw etched within the pathway of the park; ‘The Protector of Memories…’” she paused, pointed at the book and shared. “Hera stole our memories… our true identities to ensure that they would not travel with us when we became mortal. Our mother protects them now.”

Sam felt the goose-bumps tickling her skin.

She had the weirdest sensation that something was behind her. She sat up, turned and stared at a wooden plant stand housing a plant she knew to be called a ‘busy-lizzie’ and waited for it to do something that a plant should not do - but when all that it did do was remain still, she turned and looked at Hope.

Hope had felt Sam’s body shivering and she watched as it rippled throughout the airwaves of the room. “This might help… a little.” She said to Sam and handed over the hip-flask before looking again to Faith and Linda.

“Linda. You must read the book.” Hope said and took one out of the carrier bag and handed it over.

“Why do I need to read it?” Linda asked.

“Read the book’s title.”

Linda read the book’s title and gasped aloud when the words disappeared. She rubbed at her forehead as a strong sense of déjà vu washed over her. “So this is the book you were talking about earlier on?”

“Yes. You were the first to be claimed.” Hope informed her and she took a swig of wine before adding. “But you don’t remember who you are, do you?”

Linda stared at Hope dumbfounded.

Without saying another word, she sat down next to Faith and began to read the book but she couldn’t concentrate on a story whose words vanished the moment she read them. She laughed nervously, “what if I want to read the words that I’ve just read?”

“My mother’s words will linger the longest within your mind Linda.” Faith replied without looking up from her book. “You will not need to read the book again.”

Linda sighed aloud and focussed on the story

∞

Sam looked around the room and thought about her Nan.

She could not make her mind up on whether she felt relieved or disappointed that her Nan had not visited her at today’s medium session. She pushed her hands through her hair and was relieved to know that her Nan was not an empty ghost. But Sam’s mind leapt to the photograph of her Nan and Granddad taken on their wedding day. The Granddad, Sam had never met because he had already died a couple of months before Sam was born. But the photograph made her wonder about her granddad’s dad. Sam knew that he had fought in the war;
killed and was killed
.

Her thoughts confused her and looking down at the floor, Sam thought about Dawn’s husband;
the man was a monster. You don’t stop being a monster just because you are dead?
She glanced up at Faith as more thoughts began to whirl around within her mind; a
re all empty ghosts going to take possession of a Soul, regardless of how they lived in life? Do they even remember their life?
She sighed aloud,
so many questions I want to ask_.

Another thought now occurred to Sam.

“Is Dawn the woman that that book writes about?” she asked Hope and quickly added. “The woman that Zeus and Eurynome watched while an empty ghost went inside…” she stammered, “But what happened to Dawn… her possession of Phillip? That only happened yesterday? How could the writer have_.”