It was overcast and misty, dark under the forest canopy. Only six students had returned. Navigating through thick shoals of fog like a school of lost fish, they made their way into the heart of Anahata.
While passing the stillness of the cemetery, suddenly, a voice broke out of the mist.
"Where are you going?" A vision popped into sight.
Hiranur jumped back with a start. The others gathered around, tightly.
In front of them stood a woman, old and bent, her wrinkles black as cinder, her white hair, loose and flowing in the opaque mist. On one hand, gnarled fingers of gripped a walking stick, the other held a rosary, still swinging at her finger tips. She watched, as they continued into the thicket.
"Where are you going?" her voice creaked again.
"We're going beyond Halcyon," said Ezra.
"Where the cemetery's boundary ends?"
"Yes," said Chin-Hae.
"Where the stream curves?" she asked, her eyes narrowing.
"Yes," said Raë.
"That is the heart of darkness. Don't you know ... that property is haunted."
"Haunted?" asked Yinka, stopping for a brief moment.
The bent woman cocked her head, as though catching a glimpse of a vision. "I see spirits that roam the land."
Ezra laughed. "Like white floating sheets with cut-out eyes?"
Ignoring him, she continued, "The woman living in Halcyon killed her three children, then hung herself from that tree." She pointed at a raintree Æsh was standing beneath.
"The spirits come from the graveyard. History repeats itself. If it's happened before it will happen again." Lifting her stick, she pointed towards the periphery, "No one goes beyond that point, nature has even marked it by creating a boundary of fallen trees."
Ignoring her warnings, they continued on.
With quite resignation, she said, "You'll be sorry for not listening."
"What do the spirits look like?" shouted Ezra.
"Like you and me ... except that they've been dead for centuries."
A chill ran up Yinka's spine. Ezra and Chin-Hae broke out into a laugh. Æsh stole a glance at her from behind the tall foliage.
YOU ARE READING
BECOMING SUPRA
RomanceWhen Raë (ambitious and driven) and Æsh (mysterious new kid) sign up for an after-school course, they chance upon Bose, a quantum physicist, who teaches them how to become SUPRA: beings that are above and beyond; beings that can manifest at the spee...
