Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 97229 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97229 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
I could barely hear her words through her sobs.
“Why didn’t you save me sooner? I was so scared!”
The answer was obvious to me. I was crying along with her as I answered her question.
“Because I was too scared myself. But I’m not now. I’m not scared anymore.”
I opened my eyes and took a huge gulp of air. The creature in my arms wasn’t the little girl me, it was the vampire who’d led me to the trapdoor.
His stare said it all.
“Yes,” he said. “You were trapped inside and cut off from the light. Bolted in so deeply that you couldn’t hear your own cries.”
The room spun afresh, but I didn’t try to steady myself this time, I let it swirl and swirl, and I trusted Hans to keep me steady. Keep me safe. Keep me warm.
The sobs ate me up, just like the little girl crying with Goblin under her arm. I saw Mum wrenching him away from me in my nightdress, as I screamed and cried and begged her to let me keep him.
NO WITCHES, KATHERINE! NEVER ANY WITCHES!
“I can’t believe they did this to me,” I sobbed to Hans. “They did this to me, didn’t they? Mum and Grandma. Why?”
He held me tighter and his silence said it all. He didn’t need to speak the words, I was already beginning to know them.
Feeling not thinking.
I saw Mum and Grandma in church, praying. I saw them scowling and whispering, trapped in the world on the surface, just as I was trapped in the world underneath. Because they didn’t want to face it either, did they? They didn’t want to open their own trapdoors…
“That’s it,” Hans said. “Keep on feeling.”
The years rewound themself in flickers, my own deep past, where they would hold my hand and lead me into church for prayers every weekend, before I even knew what prayers meant.
Please, our Saviour. Save Katherine from the path of darkness. Hold her in your arms and keep her from sin.
Please, Lord Above, take our child into your embrace, and forgive her the chains of our past.
Our past.
The chains of OUR past.
What past did they mean?
Now was the time to use my skills… I had to trust them. Trust myself…
The flickers of the past kept on coming.
Witches being burnt on stakes and drowned in lakes. A chain of women hiding who they were throughout my whole family line. The fear. The torment. The shame.
Mum and Grandma ignoring the screams from their own trapdoors.
I was the one who was freeing myself from the shackles.
I was the woman who would connect us back to our roots.
The little girl stepped back inside me, and my soul came home. My tears stopped, and the room stilled, and I pulled free from Hans’ arms, because I didn’t need his strength anymore. I had more than enough of my own.
His smile was magnificent as I stood before him. He nodded, sharing the secrets of my mind.
“Welcome home, little one,” he said. “See the world through your brand new eyes.”
The joy was incredible as I looked around me. There were sparkles of life and energy glistening through everything I could see. My senses were heightened, but they weren’t intimidating. I held up a hand and felt the energy coursing through my fingers, free to burst out in whichever direction I chose.
Yes.
I was a psychic and a ghost whisperer, but most importantly of all. I was a witch.
“What do you want to do now?” Hans asked me. “Would you like to go back home? Take some time out?”
But I shook my head, touched my hands to his handsome face and kissed him. Kissed him deeply and tugged on his lip before I looked him in his gorgeous eyes.
“No, thank you,” I told him. “I want to go to the blood house. Just like we planned.”
Chapter Twenty
I waved goodbye to Margaret and George. She looked so happy for me as I walked through Regency with my vampire lover, and I’m sure I looked very happy for her in return. It was wonderful to see them reunited. A couple still in love after a lifetime, despite what George might have been up to in this world.
“Will I get to speak to her again?” I asked Hans as we reached the exit.
“Quite possibly. It depends when they take the road into the light. Some couples prefer to live out the ghost of their past for as long as they possibly can. Margaret will be well aware of their options. She’s been waiting for George a long time.”
“Margaret seems a really nice woman, it would be great to get to know her.”
Hans looked at me as he took my hand. “She’d make a great start to your circle of ghostly acquaintances.”
I saw our taxi waiting on the road outside the club and squeezed his fingers.