CAMRYN'S POV
" So much pain in here. So much longing and regret. Fear. Sadness. Guilt" Billie rambles as she dramatically walked around the room. " And perversion. Now, can you ferret out the fairies for us? I mean, that's our main concern at the moment" Constance asks.
" Targeting a particular spirit is going to be difficult. This is a very crowded house" Billie informs us. " You were so young. I'm so sorry " I heard a voice in my head. I realized it was Billie's voice that was in my head. She knows I'm dead. " Please don't tell anyone. They can't know" I said in my head begging for her not to tell.
" So what can we do?" Constance asks totally oblivious from me and Billie's " Talk". " Somehow, we have to try and dislodge them from the paramagnetic grip of this place" Billie explains looking off into another room. " The what now?" I asked confused.
" The evil. It's a force just like any other, Camryn. Pure physics. Real and powerful. Created by events that unleash psychic energy into the environment, where it's absorbed. Like the way a battery stores energy. You'll see it all the time in places like prisoners or asylums. Negative energy feeds on trauma and pain. It draws those things to it. The force here in this house is larger than the many individual traumas. And it has a need. It wants to break through. It wants to move in our world. It's using those trapped between this worlds and the next as conduits" she explains.
" That's very interesting. But what do we do about the gays? I mean, how do we get rid of them?" Constance sighs. " Oh, there might be a way. I can't promise" Billie explains as her face suddenly goes serious. " He can't be here" she states. I turn around and say Tate standing in the doorway. He looked at the three of us angrily. It was the exact look he gave me when I almost left. I hate that look.
" Tate" I say to him trying to calm him down. " Billie dean, that's my boy. That's tate" Constance explains to Tate. She slowly starts to turn around and faces Tate. " I want to help" Tate says. " You've helped enough" Billie snaps. " Not now, tate. Go on" Constance whispers to him waving him away. I gave him a small smile as he left the room.
I turned back to the ladies and crossed my arms. " Okay what was that about?" I was a bit annoyed. " It's just that, sometimes, when a medium meets a spirit so directly, it has a powerful effect, that's all. It's nothing to concern yourself about" Constance chuckles.
I look at Billie and then back to the doorway. I was confused as to why she was so affected by Tate so much yet when I was alive I barely felt anything. " Okay, so what can we do?" Constance asks, getting back to the topic at hand.
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Billie downs the last sip of her drink as she sets her glass on the table. " It's difficult to banish a spirit but not impossible. The most successful attempt that I know of happened when America was known as the New World" Billie explains. " Are you kidding me? That's, like, 500 years ago?" I look up at her.
" Spirits do not follow our physical laws. Nor are they affected by time. About the only thing they have in common with their living is their suffering. Regret. Loneliness. In 1950, on the coast of what we know now as North Carolina, the entire colony of Roanoke, all 117 men, women, and children, died inexplicably. It became known as the Ghost colony because the spirits remained. They haunted the native tribes living in the surrounding area, killing indiscriminately." Billie informs us.
Billie scoots her glass towards Constance, signalling her to fill it up again. " The elder knew he had to act. He cast a banishment curse. First, he collected the personal belongings of all the dead colonists. Then they burned them. The ghosts appeared, summoned by their talismans, but before the spirits could cause any more harm, the elder completed the curse, that would banish the ghosts forever." She explains.
" How?" I ask. " By uttering one single word. The same word found carved on a post at the abandoned colony. Croatoan." She sighs. " So now you know what you have to do?" Constance piped up. Constance and Billie dean then get up to leave as I make my way to Ben's office. I looked inside only to see a pacing Tate.
" What'd she say?" He asks, walking over to me. " we have to get something of his. Something important. Like hella important. And heirloom or a ring! If we have the talisman and we do this special voodoo ritual, he'll be gone." I explain still trying to process what Billie dean told me. " That sounds like bullshit" He says emotionlessly as he turns away.
" Nuh uh no more mad Tate. Billie Dean's for real. She studies this stuff. The bigger guy wears a ring, it's like, a wedding ring. But the downside is I don't remember what hand it's on." I say grabbing his arm. " I don't trust her" He states as I sigh.
" And why'd she say all that stuff about me? I did something bad didn't I?" He whines. I stared into his eyes and smiled. " You didn't, calm down she's just overwhelmed okay? Now let's find this ring kay?" I told him as he sighs.
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I walked back into my room and shut the door. I turned and faced Tate as he turned to face me. " What'd you get?" He says smiling. " His watch~ He took it off to paint. Why does a ghost need a watch?" I ask as I raised up Chad's watch.
" CAMRYN" Ben's loud voice booms outside my door as he pounds on it furiously. " Shit" I whispered. Tate jumped onto his feet as I looked at him panicking, not knowing what to do. " Camryn! You disappeared on me. What the hell happened?" He shouts again as he keeps pounding on my door.
I moved to my door trying to be as silent as possible as I stared at it. It shook a lot as Ben kept hitting and punching my door. " Camryn, your mom's waiting in the car. We have a plane to catch." He says as I open the door. I came face to face with Ben as he stared at me Fuming. " Good. Go far away. Just don't bring Mom in the house" I explain to him, hoping that he would listen,
" what are you talking about? You're coming with us" He says clenching on my shoulder. " No! I can take care of myself. If you want to, you can come back for me later. But for right now, you have to trust me this one time and get the hell out of here. And tell mom and Violet I love them and good luck with the babies" I state as I push him towards the stairs.
He turns and grips my face in his hands. " What's the matter with you? Huh? Are you high or something?" He says looking at me. " I wish" I mumbled. " Cam, I stopped at a red light, and you were gone. Where did you go?" Ben questions.
" No where. I was right here. I wanted to come. I swear! I just- I couldn't leave the house" I explain as tears build in my eyes. " Stop it! You're lying. You're on drugs. I can tell. Tell me what kind right now. Tell me!" He yells at me, shaking my shoulders.
I stared at him as tears fell down my face. I have to.. I have to tell him that I'm dead or something bad is going to happen, I know it. " IM DEAD DAD. Don't you get it? Once you die in this house, you can't leave! That's why you need to go and take mom and Vi somewhere safe!" I yelled as I cried.
The car horn honked outside as Ben looked over my shoulder towards the window. " Ben! " Mom screams from outside. " That's exactly what I'm gonna do. You're coming with me." Ben says dragging me with him out the door as I tried to remove his hand off my wrist.
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Ben dragged me down the stairs as we are faced with mom, Violet, and Constance. They were stumbling into the house as mom groans in pain, gripping her large baby bump. " What's wrong" Ben asks. " the babies are coming!" Mom cries. " Shit not now" i mumbled.
Ben grabs mom and pulls her into the house while mom screams " no" Over and over again. Constance shuts the door and follows them into the house as well as Violet. Now I was all alone, on the stairs. Frozen in fear.
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1537 words
