Curse of the Stag’s Eye (Haunted Hearts)

12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

G az faltered where he stood, as though uncertain what he was supposed to do. Dawn’s hand dashed out and sharply squeezed Nikesh’s. She stared directly behind him.

“What?” He twisted in his chair. “What’s there?”

“Quick, make a circle.” I kept my voice as calm as I could.

Gaz just tutted. “Don’t start that again.”

Dawn fixed him with a very peculiar look. “Please, Gaz. Sit down and take Michael’s hand. And Rhys’. That’s right. Just like that. Make a circle and don’t break it.”

“Babes, what’s going on”? Nikesh whispered as a dark cloud formed from nothing in the doorway and swirled round and round, a ring of thick, black smoke, hanging in the air, a mass of shifting blackness darker than the room around it. I could barely believe what I was seeing. The swirling, unnatural motions of it, combined with the wretched scent, made my stomach churn. The ring filled and bloated upwards, downwards, outwards, taking form.

Gaz’s voice croaked out. “It’s… it’s the bloody shape.”

I hissed at him from across the table. “What shape?”

“I saw it in… in the cellar. Or I thought I did. I thought maybe it was a trick of the light. Or infrasound, or… or…” He couldn’t speak another word, he just stared, dumbfounded.

“Guys, what is it?” Nikesh’s smile had disappeared. “I don’t like this. Guys?”

The shape moved forward — deliberately, disgustingly, unnaturally — intentionally avoiding the weight tube and hovering behind Nikesh.

“It’s okay, ’Kesh.” Dawn kept her voice calm but gone was the warmth that had defined her speech all night. “It just… It wants you to know.”

Nikesh’s head sank into his shoulders. “Know what, babes?”

She squinted as if trying to listen to a conversation in another room. “He wants you to know.”

Micheal’s mouth dropped open. His chin wobbled.

“Is this Baines?” I asked.

“I don’t think so. It’s… He’s… fixated on Nikesh. And he doesn’t like me. He doesn’t want me here. He doesn’t think I should be here. Oohhh!” She shivered violently. “It’s like there’s ice in my spine!”

The shape moved closer to Nikesh and reached out to him. The very instant it touched his neck, his body jerked, his eyes shot wide open, and the rest of us yelped as a rush not unlike the violent jolt of a static electric shock stung our hands, running through us all like we were a circuit. We released our grips. The shape, and the smell of rotting vegetables, were gone.

Nikesh jumped to his feet and spun around and around like a dog chasing its own tail.

Dawn shouted and ran her fingers through her hair. “Are you okay? Babes, are you okay?”

I gazed up at him. “What did it feel like?”

Nikesh’s hands ran over his whole body — torso, arms, legs, face — and he slowly sat down again. “It felt like… like electricity racing out from my spine in waves, or ripples. Like a stone thrown into a pond.” He sat wide-eyed for a moment, then looked at each one of us in turn. He burst out laughing. “Oh, my Christ! That was a ghost! A ghost touched me!” He slammed his palms on the table, over and over again, like a makeshift drumroll.

I couldn’t help but laugh with him. Even Dawn managed a smile. Nikesh leaned across the kidney-shaped table and kissed her. I caught Gaz’s eye. He wasn’t laughing. His mouth hadn’t closed, nor had he turned away from where the shape had been.

Nikesh bounced around the kitchen while Dawn tried to hug him and calm him down.

Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, Gaz turned to look at me. His eyes were red and wet. He moved to speak but caught himself. He wiped his face with his hand. “I need some air.”

“Yes, air!” Nikesh pointed at him. “I bloody love air. Let’s go get some air. Babes, you coming?”

Dawn glanced at me from the side of her eye. “You two go on. I’m not climbing all those stairs again.”

He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “Back in a minute. Come on, Gaz. Don’t summon any phantoms without us!” He disappeared through the door, still waggling his fingertips. Gaz trudged out after him.

Michael sat with his chin still trembling and his hands gripping the edge of the table so tightly his knuckles had turned bone white.

“Michael?” I tried to make eye contact but he kept staring at the doorway. “Michael?” I reached out to touch his shoulder.

He snapped his head round to look me dead in the eye. “What the hell was that? How did you do that?”

“I didn’t do anything. It was a ghost. A real ghost.”

“A ghost.” His manicured nails dug into the table. “A ghost.” His eyes darted about, then without warning he slid out of the bench, and bolted out of the room. His Italian leather shoes echoed as he ran down the stairs.

“He didn’t take that well,” Dawn said.

“Should I go after him?”

“The boys can calm him down.” She sat next to me and rubbed my forearm. “Are you okay, hun?”

I gave myself a bit of a shake. “Fine. Yes. Fine. It’s not my first ghost. Though it was definitely my most… present , if that makes sense?”

She nodded. “I know what you mean. So you’re okay, then?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m fine.”

“Good.” She slapped my ear. Hard.

“ Ow! What the bloody hell was that for?”

“For the speakers, and the footsteps, and the lies, you dozy bollocks.” She sat back and crossed her arms. “I can’t believe you did that.”

I rubbed my ear. “I said I was sorry.”

“Did you?” she asked. “When?”

“Well, I meant to. I’m sorry, okay?”

She chewed the inside of her cheek. “You don’t stand a chance with him now, you know.”

“With who?” My ear started to sting. I think she hit me with a ring.

She popped her tongue at me. “With Gaz, you pillock. I know Michael wanted into your knickers, too, but I don’t think he’d be good for you.”

I grumbled. I’d never grumbled before, I don’t think. “Michael? He’s not into me, he’s into Gaz. That’s why they’d been bickering all evening.”

“Oh, Rhys.” She gave me the exact look my mother gave me when I was five years old and I tried to make dessert for the family with wads of wet toilet paper and flowers I’d pulled from the neighbour’s garden.

“And what makes you think I want a chance with Gaz?” I asked.

“Because you’ve been making eyes at him all night. Because you're both single, because you're both gay, because you're both bears — I know all about bears — my uncle Tony is a big, beardy bear, lovely man. You might know him from the scene? So, why wouldn't you be interested in Gaz?”

I wrinkled my nose. “He's an outdoor gay. I'm an indoor gay. It would never work. He'd be all ‘let's go mountain biking’ and I'd be all ‘let's sit on the couch and play the Lost drinking game’ . We wouldn’t last a week.”

“What's that?”

“You take a shot every time there's a flashback.”

She batted her long lashes. “I mean, what’s Lost? ”

“Christ, butt, you’re young.”

“I’m kidding, I know what it is. It’s some old TV show, right? And you’d like to play with him, wouldn't you? With Gaz.” She poked me in the ribs. “You would, wouldn’t you? Admit it.”

I couldn't stop my eyebrows from jumping. “Give over, you.”

She giggled. “I knew it!”

“Well, you are psychic.” I drummed my fingertips on the table. “I'm sure he's not your type but I think he’s gorgeous, to be frank with you.”

She giggled a bit. “He’s not exactly my type, no, but I can see it. He’s got a friendly round face — when he's not scowling, that is — a cute little nose, strong shoulders. If he had a full head of hair, I could be tempted. I know Nikesh is shredded, but I'm not averse to a cuddly dad bod. I love Nikesh's hair though. It was the first thing I noticed the night we met. I love running my hands through it when we're watching telly, or when we're in bed.”

“Have you been together long?”

“Oh, ages. Almost six months. And I'm not psychic. I'm a medium. Maybe.” She chewed her lip. “You saw what form it took? The spirit? When it first manifested?”

“A circle,” I said. “An eye.”

She turned to the window and gazed out across the island, to the bridge, and high above it, the Stag’s Eye. “I don’t like that stone. When the spirit was here, I kept”—she held her hands by her head—“kept seeing images of it. It was like I saw everything that happened through its eye.”

“What did it feel like to you, the spirit? When it was communicating? Did you, like, hear voices in your head, or was it like a little film in your mind, or what?”

She frowned, turning her head this way and that. “It's more like I got these...feelings. Impressions. Like I was remembering a snippet of a dream except it wasn’t my dream? Okay. Look. I once poured a bowl of cornflakes and halfway through eating it I found a bran flake, and I was, like, How did that get there? That's not meant to be there. And that's what it was like. It was a thought mixed in with my thoughts that wasn't meant to be there. It was in me but it didn’t come from me.” She chewed her lip again. “You wouldn’t understand. It’s hard to explain. I’ll tell you this much though: I’ve never felt anything as powerful as that. And I’m worried about what it’s going to do next.”