Inside Evil

Chapter 8 - Part II

*Inside Evil and its sequels are available on Amazon, Kobo, B&N, Smashwords and iBooks*  

Martha had left early after urging Susan to do the same. During the winter it was the crackling fireplace which attracted many customers. They'd come to shelter from the cold, purchase a new book and spend a few hours tucked in a rug. The smashed fireplace meant that, though a few customers poked their heads around the door to exchange pleasantries, they soon disappeared back into the darkening streets once they saw the absence of flickering warmth. Even Sam hadn't appeared in a few days, particularly since the cellar incident. Susan had locked the door and switched the sign to closed, and even though she kept on a solitary light at the back of the shop, no one attempted to disturb her thoughts.

Susan sat in the gloom, the stone disc placed face down on the table in front of her. Her steaming cup of coffee had long since gone cold, and there was a chill creeping through her fingers which made her absentmindedly draw her blanket closer and wrap her arms around herself.

So much had happened in the past few weeks. Susan was unable to grasp Vanessa's absence. It was like trying to catch a cloud. Every time her mind adjusted to the situation, the moment of clarity simply slipped through her fingers. She knew her daughter was dead, and the emotional surge when she thought of Vanessa had changed from one of overpowering love to a twisted torture, which began with momentary hope immediately interrupted with devastation. It made her feel sick, and Susan thought having a knife stabbed into her heart over and over would surely be easier to bear.

The day's events had proved pivotal for Susan, and just one word had changed her entire approach on revealing the truth. Murder. She was neither horrified nor upset by the word. It instead spread relief, a cleansing of emotion which freed her from previous thoughts that the search for clues was likely to become a dead end. A tale which had no conclusion and would leave her for the rest of life wondering what had happened. Similar to that of Martha's life after Barry, Susan supposed. However, the mere mention of murder, meant that there was something to uncover, a truth to be told, and a reason for Susan to carry on her existence. She had believed that something was wrong. Martha had also felt deep and resonating feelings. However, a police detective sitting in front of her and uttering those words had instantly proved to Susan that she was quite right in her justifications for chasing her daughter's ghost. And, DC Frans didn't even know about her cellar. That was, if Martha hadn't told him.

There was still the glimmer of fury within Susan. She had no real reasoning for it, but she felt betrayed. As if Martha had purposely kept the knowledge of the former investigation and the detective's link to Barry, a secret. She toiled back and forth in her mind, reasoning that until earlier she hadn't even known of the detective's existence and there had never been any reason for Martha to bring it up. Especially as, until recently, Martha had never even spoken of Barry's disappearance. Susan had learnt more about her friend since Vanessa's death than she ever had before.

Setting her coffee down, Susan reached out and brushed the edge of the cold stone, retracting her fingers as she remembered the horrible image of her daughter on the other side. She pushed her hand into the red cardigan that was wrapped tightly around her under the blanket and pulled out the crinkled pages of Vanessa's diary. She'd read these lines so many times that they were burned into her retinas, and should she lose the paper she could recite the text, scrawls and inscriptions letter by letter. This was her only comfort, as she didn't understand what any of it meant.

It seemed too much of a coincidence that both Barry and her daughter had become lost souls, fading out of everyday life to become solely focussed on something else. Something else which Susan didn't have any explanation for. But, Martha had pointed out clearly, that Barry was lost in his own world in the weeks before his disappearance and here, once again, Vanessa too seemed to have withdrawn and become emotionally unstable before her death. There seemed to be four people mentioned in the hand written scrawl, Susan herself, Bernard her husband, and two others. Bernard was oblivious of Susan's plight and she was scared of revealing the entry to him. He was a soft man, in physical form and nature. His huge arms had only ever provided comfort, and Susan held firm to the fact that he would have never hurt Vanessa. A girl who was clearly so distraught with emotion, that she'd sought comfort away from home at the boarding school. No, it was the girl in her daughter's dreams and the mysterious R who held the clues for Susan. But it was here that her hurdle reared its form as Susan had no leads. Nothing to go on other than a bad feeling and Barry Wittle's mysterious past.

There was a dull clatter from beneath her which made Susan almost jump. She was alone, the night had secretly crept in and the noise in the stifling silence was all that bit heightened. She looked around curiously before realising that the sound had indeed come from beneath her. Without giving it a second thought, she leapt up from her seat, threw off her blanket and was at the fireplace in three strides. She tore the board covering the demolished brickwork away, throwing it towards the sofas, before getting down on all fours and pushing her way through the gap, smashing her hip against a piece of masonry which was jutting out, in her haste. With the stairs and their accompanying wooden balustrade now having being completely demolished, only several rungs descent on the ladder were needed to clearly see into the room where the candles still burned brightly.

The cellar was empty, but whilst the air in the bookstore had been cold, Susan immediately saw her breath catch in the air as she descended into the gloom. To one side of the table lay a candle, as if it had rolled off the table and dropped onto the floor. It lay there, smouldering as its flame went out and the wick became tinged with orange. As Susan stepped lower on the ladder her grip tightened and she was unable to move as she saw a pale hand stretch down through the gloom and pick the candle up. Slender and beautiful fingers carefully lifted the candle back towards the table, where the increased illumination lit up a pale wrist disappearing into a dark, robed sleeve. Susan couldn't see any more than a robed arm from the elbow down, as though she was looking through a foggy window which obscured most of the detail. Another pink and slender hand came into view, this time holding a lighted taper. As Susan watched, the fallen candle was placed back into the half circle position and lit. The figure stepped closer to the table and was revealed to be wearing a dark robe, its face hidden by a hood which overhung considerably. All Susan could see were the slender and beautiful hands, young and supple, ghostly in the translucent state of the scene.

One hand disappeared deeply into a pocket on the front of the robe, before reappearing with a flat and circular stone disc. The hands fingered it gently for a few moments, before reaching forward and placing it upon the table. The exact same spot in which Susan had found a similar item just weeks before. The figure lingered momentarily, before Susan saw another hand reach in and pull at the figure's elbow. The dark hood flipped upwards and Susan saw dark eyes staring straight into her own. As quickly as it had looked up, the figure withdrew from the scene, turning its head as it went, and leaving Susan with the flash of pale skin before everything was still.

Susan dropped to the floor without thinking, lettingthe icy water rush over her feet. She dashed to the table and reached in forthe stone, but her hand simply flowed through the disc in the same way thatSam's hands had previously done with the candles. There was an image, an etching, on the face of the stone, and though she strained as much as she could, Susan could not make it out. The lines were hard to see, like a developing Polaroid, but Susan was almost certain of the face that would appear upon the surface.

*I will be posting one or two scenes a week as the story builds. However, if you can't wait that long, Inside Evil is available on Amazon, Kobo, B&N, Smashwords and iBooks.

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