The Hauntings

Chapter 11

"Gran." Scarlett shakily states, emotion surrounding her as she stands in the living room. 

 Christine automatically drops her patchwork quilt she is sewing, to the burgundy carpet, she stands up as quickly as her aging back lets her. 

"Letty, whats happened?" she asks with concern as her granddaughter staggers into the room and then almost swoops to her as the distance decreases between them. 

"I can hear him...I know it's wrong but I can hear him...in my head...how is that right...what's wrong with me" Scarlett squeezes into grandmother's arms, not making any sense in her blubbering but enough to make Christine's heart to stutter. 

"It's OK dear. I've got you. I'm here." Christine rubs her granddaughter's back soothingly allowing her to calm down, whilst she grows more hysterical inside. Christine, guides Scarlett to the two-seater sofa in front of the fire place,  the dancing flames behind the metal safety gate, inviting them closer. 

Handing a glass of water to Scarlett, Christine asks, "Letty honey, what has got you so worked up, now? Explain to me slowly?" she gently asks, although from the incoherent words Scarlett mumbled, Christine doesn't want to hear it. She knows its the worst news, news that can't be fixed. Christine urges her hands to stop quivering, by stubbornly holding them into place.   

Scarlett nods, gulping half the glass down, not realising how thirsty she is. She had come straight here after the experience she had, in the studios. 

"I did what you told me to do with the Trickster, distract them and find out more information about what he wants of Liz. So I decided to listen into one of their conversation but then mid-way through it he some how knew I was standing outside the door and then he spoke  to me in my head, gran." She gives a briefing of the event, emphasizing the words, looking into her grandmother's eyes earnestly, tears of terror matching Christine's internal trauma. 

Christine pales further and hastily steps back at Scarlett's words as they sink in, sending a chills of despair, through her body. She doesn't want this. Christine can no longer control her shaking muscles, so she leans heavily on the door-frame, the furthest she get from Scarlett, without leaving the room.  

"No, no don't be silly Letty. Of course her wouldn't have spoken to you in your head." Christine adamantly denies Scarlett's words. Her granddaughter is just being melodramatic. It's nothing, just a whimsical imagination of a young woman. 

"But Gran I'm not making it up. It's true, I'm not lying. I mean I thought it was some crazy joke but this is the second time it's happened to me." Scarlett sliding closer to her grandmother, emphasizing with her eyes that this psychic connection with the Trickster, is indeed true. That this is very much real.

"You mean to say it's happened to you more than once?" Christine gasps ,her chin wobbly and she clasps one hand to her mouth, smothering the wail.

"Yes. The other day in the kitchen." Scarlett frantically explains.

This is dreadful, distasteful, revolting news. Christine can feel her walls crumbling this is almost as worse when her daughter turned up at her doorstep at twenty years old from university and announcing she was going of marry one of them.

"Now stop. Stop it right now. Stop exaggerating Scarlett Evans! You can't talk to a Trickster in your head. It's impossible. Don't be so foolish to fall for his tricks." Her grandmother shuffles away from Scarlett further, as if she doesn't want to be infected by the vermin her granddaughter is spouting out. She just doesn't want to hear it. This blasphemous.

"Gran! How could you say that? You have to believe me. It's not a trick!" Scarlett says shock making her voice rise, pleading with her blue eyes so like her mother's.