Chapter Nine
Charlie’s First Day at Work
He didn’t know if it was just because she’d needed time, or if she’d been struck by how much seeing his mother had upset him, but in any case, Victoria was being more patient with Charlie.
‘Once more,’ she murmured, resting her head in her hands. Charlie jadedly looked away from the pencil. He’d resumed the futile activity from the moment he returned to the Room, and hadn’t moved from the sofa for two hours.
‘You’ve said that at least five times.’
‘I know. But this time, if you fail again and I tell you “once more”, do feel free to ignore me. I imagine you’re tiring.’
‘Yeah,’ replied Charlie, at a loss. He was drained of energy, but he had to pass this test, or he’d have to stay half-ghost, half-human forever, which he certainly didn’t want; it was a never-ending cycle of fatigue.
Resisting the temptation to curl up on the floor, Charlie sat up straight and stared unblinkingly at the eight-inch thin rod of graphite, encased in a wooden sheath, stripped from the bark of a tree somewhere in the acres upon acres of British countryside. Timber. So many molecules, each of which was placed in a precise and organic alignment to form the pencil…which was moving.
Charlie didn’t dare break his concentration; he continued to work his mind furiously on all things associated with pencils. Every word encouraged the inanimate object to nudge itself along the coffee table: Timber. Paper. Papyrus, quills, ink, bone and feather – wood – chip – rubber – shavings – grey – lead – words – symbols, all formed by pens, and pencils, pencils, pencils!
‘Yes!’ Charlie almost flew from the groove he’d worked into the sofa as the pencil rolled triumphantly off the edge of the table and bounced onto the floor. He wanted to cry, which was just stupid - it was a pencil.
Nonetheless, he couldn’t remember the last time he felt these little bursts of joy, of relief. He turned to face Victoria, joined by Julia Joyce and Bobby, back from the outside. They were applauding.
‘Yay Charlie!’ Julia beamed.
‘Excellent, mate,’ said Bobby. ‘You’re like a telepath now.’
‘Guess I am.’
‘Well done Charlie, truly,’ said Victoria. ‘Now for the second stage: newspapers…oh, good heavens, not right away!’ she added, seeing Charlie’s blanched expression. He chuckled, but already felt apprehensive at the prospect of another psychic endurance test.
‘So…’ he ventured. ‘Does that mean I can have a break now?’
Victoria folded her arms, wryly raising an eyebrow.
‘Well, in point of fact, I thought I might take you out on your first official duty as a servant of Death.’
‘What, seriously?’
‘I am always serious.’
‘So because after hours of failed attempts I finally got a pencil to move with my mind, that means I’m now one of you?’
‘Well, if you think about it, you became one of us the minute you walked through the door,’ said Julia.
‘Er…okay. What’s our duty?’
Victoria strode towards the front door, gesturing for him to follow.
‘I shall explain on the way. But we don’t want to be late.’
YOU ARE READING
A Blue Sky Existence
ParanormalCharlie lived a perfectly ordinary life until an afternoon in August, 1990. His family has to cope with an enormous loss, and it seems as though their world will never be the same again. When an elusive cloaked figure shows up after the tragedy, ho...
