The Veil

Chapter Fifty

Despite the circumstances, I couldn't help but laugh. 

Lindsay's face didn't change from the serious stress but she was clearly joking. 

I waited for her to laugh, to say something else, when she doesn't, I finally spoke, "Yeah ok, sure I can." I giggled again. 

"I'm serious Lily. You're doing it right now." I frowned at her, she couldn't be serious.  

I'd never taken Lindsay for a crazy person, she'd always been so normal around me, but apparently she'd snapped sometime in the weeks before. 

I shook my head at her, looking around, "Well, we're alone so I don't think I am." I couldn't help the laugh that escaped me again. "Okay, well, I need to get out of here, I'm in a whole bunch of pain, I don't know if you notice the blood but I'm sure I need the hospital, so." I pointed behind me. 

Feeling oddly calm about the whole situation, I knew logically shock was setting in, the adrenaline of the crash and hobbling though the woods had worn off and it was sinking in, but I couldn't accept that right then. 

I glanced at where I'd watched the scene with my parents, there was nothing there but trees and slowly settling snow. 

I shook myself. I knew I'd been dreaming. 

Was I still in the car, dreaming all of this as I hadn't regained consciousness yet?

Or more seriously could a concussion cause hallucinations? 

I wondered if Lindsay was really here. 

I looked up at her, she seemed pretty real, but then so had my parents. 

I reached out slowly and poked her in the arm, she was firmly there. 

Okay so the dreaming theory was more likely, still not an ideal situation, that meant I'd never called Tom and still nobody knew I'd wrecked his car at the side of the road. 

Lindsay heaved a sigh and got a frustrated look on her face, "Look this isn't easy you know! And I don't see you guys coming up with brilliant solutions so just give me a minute!" She ground out angrily. 

She was looking behind me again, over my head. 

I looked behind me, to be sure there wasn't anyone there, and there wasn't. 

"Did you have a car crash too?" I asked, arching an eyebrow at her.

"You really need to start listening Lily, because you're in danger, and I can't protect you from him!" She shook the tops of my arms, trying to gain my full attention again. 

I gripped her waist to steady myself. "Lindsay you're making absolutely no sense right now, the only danger I'm in is bleeding out from my leg." I frowned and glanced down at the wound in question, the bleeding had slowed down but it still looked pretty gruesome. 

My whole body however, was oddly numb, from the shock, from the sleet turned to snow falling around me, I had no coat, I didn't think I'd need one, not expecting a crash and exploration into the forrest with a crazy person. The hoodie I'd stolen from Tom that morning was soaked through and I was shivering. 

"I'm a ghost Lily, I have been the whole time I've known you. You can talk to the dead, you have been able to your whole life, but your parents wanted to protect you, they put protection spells on you every few years, it dampens your abilities, makes it so the dead can't find you, and makes it so your grandfather can't find you, can't take your abilities for himself. And right now, the last spell they put on you." She gestured to where my parents had been standing minutes before, being killed by my grandpa. "has now worn off, you've been seeing the dead again for months now, the dreams, the nightmares, that was your parents trying to communicate with you trying to get you to understand your grandpa was still coming for you. The man in your bathroom? The man in the grocery store? The old lady behind the bar, in the doctors, all ghosts, like me." Her eyes were pleading with me to believe her. 

And I absolutely didn't believe her. Who would? It was all crazy. 

I was either dreaming, or Lindsay was having a mental break. Those were the only options I was able to keep producing, nothing else made sense. 

But what was she even doing in the city to begin with?

"You realise you're not actually a ghost right? I mean I've never paid much mind to ghost culture before, but I don't think you'd be able to help me cook chilli if you were dead." I said, but my hands were shaking against her. 

She felt very real under my hands, she had cooked chilli with me all those months ago, she'd been in the house so many times, taken all my sugary treats because her parents didn't let her have sugar. 

She was very real. 

But under all that, under the shock of everything and the pain, I realised I hadn't ever told her about the man in the bathroom, when I'd fallen and cut myself and Tom had found me bleeding in the mirror, I thought the man had been a dream. 

I'd never mentioned the lady behind the bar or the doctors to her, because she was a real woman, alive, confused but alive.

And what man in the grocery store? I'd seen her in the grocery store at the lake, but that had just been my head playing tricks on me. 

"I can see you're thinking about it. Think harder, how would I know about these people? You saw me in the grocery store at the lake didn't you? You saw me that night in your bedroom, when I told you to come back here. Why do you think none of your friends have ever seen me? All your headaches, the nosebleeds? You've been overwhelmed by The Veil, you've had too much too fast and you're not used to it, it takes a toll on the human body, even someone as special as you." She stroked her hand gently down my cheek, she swiped a tear away that I wasn't aware I'd shed. 

I couldn't believe her. 

It was an impossible thing to believe, for anyone to believe. 

But what she was saying, the things she knew, they were adding up, it was frightening. 

She didn't know I'd seen her in my room, I'd never told her, I'd never told anyone I'd thought I was going crazy. 

"Ho-how do you know what I've been seeing?" I stuttered, whispering. 

I couldn't get my voice to work properly. 

I'd told her as much as I'd told Tom, that I'd been having nightmares, that I'd been seeing weird things, but I'd never said what I'd been seeing. They both knew about the headaches and the nose bleeds, but I'd never specified to anyone what I was seeing. 

"Sweetie, I've been there the whole time, you just haven't been able to see me the whole time. I've been able to fend some of the ghosts away from you, your parents didn't want you to be too scared and overwhelmed before anyone had a chance to explain everything to you. They didn't mean to leave you before they could tell you everything themselves." She stopped suddenly and glanced into the empty space next to us, she smiled a little and looked back down at me, "You're mom says you grabbed her box today, from the bottom of her closet, it has a diary in it, meant for you. She says it explains everything you could possibly need to know, she wrote it for you." 

I choked on a sob and stumbled back from Lindsay, almost falling over as my feet slid in the mud. 

She couldn't know that, all the other things I could have mentioned and forgotten about, I didn't have the best memory, it was possible. 

But the box from my parents closet, there was no way for her to know that, for anyone but me to know that. 

Nobody had been there, nobody had been in that house in years, there was no way Lindsay could know about that box, I hadn't even known about it until a few hours before when I'd found it and packed it. 

"I know this is all overwhelming Lily and you're freaking out, but we need to get out of here now. Your grandpa, he's still trying to get you, get your abilities." She said, walking towards me with her arm outstretched towards me. 

"What are you talking about, I don-I don't have any abilities?" I shook my head, everything was too confusing, too scary. 

"Oh you have exceptional abilities. Abilities beyond anything most witches could wish for Lillian." I gasped and fell backwards as I stumbled in the mud again, this time landing hard. 

The voice wasn't Lindsay's, it was a deep male voice. 

One that up until an hour ago I hadn't heard for years. 

My grandpa.