56

                                    

                                          
            
                          
I scrabbled over to the bed and yanked the box out from under it. Lifting the lid, the silver branches flexed, leaves scraping against one-another as they fought for freedom. High-pitched chimes rang out, caught in maniacal repetition as the movement reverberated through the branches. 
                          
A shiver ran through my body as the familiarity of the sound registered in my brain. 
                          
Jonathan's silver throne sounded just like that. 
                          
So did his demented laughter.
                          
The pervasive feeling of gloom settled on me as soon as I uncovered the box, I reached in and grasped the tree around its gnarled metal trunk. 
                          
The sense of foreboding was deep but so familiar that it brought relief from the maelstrom of emotions that the little family soap opera had left behind.
                          
 Heavy power thrummed through my hands. Once chaotic peals settled into the tune that I now knew was the key to controlling my power: the White Paternoster. 
                          
They may be Jonathan's words, and the coven's, but they were mine too.
                          
Placing the tree on the floor in front of me, I basked in the dense aura of power surrounding it, opening myself to its dark energy. 
                          
As it filled me up, the rocking chair creaked back and forth, calling for attention. I ignored it, keeping my eyes firmly on the tree.
                          
This was my power. 
                          
The other Alice Gray was not getting anywhere near it. She'd hypnotised me last time; sucked me in with the ancient power in her golden eyes, and then she'd drained me.
                          
Not this time. 
                          
Silver glowed from where I sat, my life-force joining with the tree to make one bright ball of energy.
                          
The rocking stopped. A small victory, but it was enough to light a fuse of exhilaration that burst like a firework inside me.
                          
Finally, something was going to happen.
                          
I waited on tenterhooks, hardly daring to breathe but struggling to keep my excitement contained.  
                          
Nothing.
                          
The burst of excitement fizzled, leaving nothing but heartburn in its wake. 
                          
I was so stupid.
                          
I'd expected to be transported back to Jonathan as soon as I came into contact with the tree. In five years that had never happened before. Why should it now? 
                          
I stared at it intently, hoping for a clue, something, anything, that would tell me how to proceed. 
                          
Whispered laughter flew past my ears, mocking my failure. 
                          
Keeping my eyes focused on the tree, I refused to let it get to me.
                          
"Come on!" 
                          
Surprise, surprise, the inanimate object, in the empty house did not reply. I really must be losing my mind.
                          
A rustle from the chest of drawers tempted my attention. I refused to look. The tiny victory over my malevolent ancestor was looking more doubtful by the second. 
                          
A vision flitted before me. 
                          
My eyes followed it despite my intention; drawn like a moth to a flame to the one thing that was certain to get me every time. 
                          
My mother.
                          
Her long auburn hair was fastened in a single plait down her back. She wore a simple cotton dress, its cheerful sunflower pattern faded. 
                          
The pendant hung from her long, graceful neck.
                          
The lump in my throat constricted my airways until a sob broke through and exploded out of me. 
                          
She was so carefree and beautiful. 
                          
Stood at the chest of drawers that must have been hers once, she reached for one, her hand travelling straight through the handle, causing her to pull back, puzzled.
                          
"Evelyn," I called, assuming that she wouldn't know who I was. 
                          
Her head tilted slightly. 
                          
"Evelyn," I tried again. 
                          
This time she gave no indication of having heard me at all. 
                          
I wanted to scream at her to listen, all the hurt welling up at once. 
                          
She could have warned me about all this, prepared me. That was her job.
                          
Instead I'd been left stranded in a world where everyone wanted a piece of me.
                          
But this wasn't my mother. 
                          
It was a ghost.
                          
A ghost intent on the impossible task of opening that one drawer.
                          
Oh. 
                          
Slowly I reached round her shadowy figure and pulled it open in her place. 
                          
My mother tilted her head towards me. A look of pleasure flickered across her lovely face. 
                          
A quiet pop, and the image froze. 
                          
I watched in horror as a silver web crept over her body, stretching and distorting its form. 
                          
It reached her face last of all, twisting her smile into an ugly grimace. 
                          
My mother's shape gradually widened, the silver web like a wavering grid with weakened links. Soon all that remained was a vague outline made up of clumps of silver webbing with thin fibres floating out, unable to connect and keep her together. 
                          
The disjointed particles hovered in the air for the slightest of moments, swirled like wisps of smoke, and then dissipated into the atmosphere. 
                          
I forced myself to blink. The image of my mother's face stretching out, then dissolving played out like a horror movie on the inside of my eyelids. 
                          
Pulling in deep breaths, one, two, three, I tried to get the panic under control before I lost it altogether. 
                          
That instant of recognition before she broke apart, did I imagine it?