The Weight of Souls

3 THEY AREN’T GHOSTS, THEY’RE HALLUCINATIONS

As I dragged myself round the corner of our road, my limbs felt like china, fragile with fatigue. The only thing that kept me moving was the knowledge that I would soon be in bed.

But halfway down the street I realised the lights in our flat were on. No way. I checked my watch. If Dad was waiting up, it was because he wanted to talk to me.

I sighed so deeply my chest hurt and moved into the light cast by the living room window. Movement inside told me that Dad had seen my approach. I glanced at his chair-lift, considered it briefly then climbed the stairs slowly as an old woman.

“Where’ve you been?”

“You know where.” I kept my back to him as I peeled off my hoodie and hung it by the door. There was a small rip in the arm. I didn’t even remember doing it. His silence pricked at me. I shook my hair out till it brushed my shoulders, then turned round. I held up my hands to show him the unblemished palms.

“No black mark. So you’re well at the moment. No hallucinations?”

“They're not–” I stopped and shook my head. “I’m fine.”

He held up a syringe. “I need another sample.”

“Why now?” I wrapped suddenly aching arms around myself.

“Cameron suggested your blood may change when you're ill. I need to take a sample now and when the blackness next appears so I can compare them.”

“You’ve got loads of samples.”

“I don’t know which are from when the illness has hold of you.” He frowned and rolled forward in his wheelchair. “Don’t be difficult, Taylor.”

I took a step backwards. “Can’t we do this in the morning?”

“You don’t know when the stain will next appear.”

“The ghosts can’t come into the house, Mum made sure of that. I’ll be fine in the morning.”

“There’s no such thing as ghosts.” He stopped his advance and I stared down at his greying hair and bloodshot eyes. He looked as tired as I felt. “You know how I feel about you going out after so-called killers. The only reason I’ve let you up till now, is that you don’t seem to be doing anything dangerous and after you’ve done it you feel better for a while. But I’m beginning to think this thing you do is feeding your illness, not improving it.”

I stared at his serious frown. “What are you saying?”

“I don’t think you should go out like this any more.”

My cheeks went cold. “You remember what happened last time you kept me in? How dark the Mark got?”

“Yes, and I know your mother told you this Darkness would come for you, but this story she fed you – it’s only a story.”

“It isn’t.”

“Maybe you need to let the Darkness come. Cameron says it could be a psychological symptom of the cure that you don’t really want.”

“Dad. You met this guy in a chat room.”

He set his jaw. “I don’t want you doing this any more.”

I licked my lips. “How are you going to stop me?” My voice was so quiet he had to roll nearer to hear.

When he worked out what I’d said, his wheelchair wobbled. Then his face reddened and stubble stood out on his cheeks like shadows. “As long as you live under my roof, you’ll do as I say.”

I shook my head. “I do as you say. I give you sample after sample.” I pulled my sleeves up until he could see the livid bruises inside my elbows. “I don’t dare get changed with the others for games in case they think these are track marks.”

Dad closed his eyes briefly and his fist tightened around the syringe in his hand.

“I took those anti-psychotic medications you found on the Internet.” I shuddered and choked into silence as the memories slid up, blurred as if Vaselined, vague and full of holes. Memories of being so dazed that I could barely identify the ghosts that Marked me.

“I know that prescription made you worse–”

“No, Dad. I’m not taking anything else. I’m not giving up the only thing that makes it better. I’m not going to let you do this to me.” He opened his mouth but I bulldozed over him. “I know you’re trying to find a cure but you can’t stop me avenging the dead.”

“You enjoy it,” he spat. “Cameron’s right, you want this illness. It makes you feel close to your mother.”

I gasped and for a moment we gaped at each other.

“You believe that?” I whispered.

“I… I don’t know.” His hands dropped to his lap.

“You think I enjoy this?” Suddenly tiredness stole my voice. I couldn’t fight any more.

Pete's face floated in front of mine, his expression a match of the one from earlier, revealing his disgust at my touch. Swiftly I closed my eyes, banishing the cruel reminder of our lost friendship. We'd been close once, before Mum had died. Back then I was top of my class at school and I had a life. Now what was I? A soon-to-be drop out. A social leper who spent more time with the dead than the living. A freakish embarrassment to the people who had once cared about me.

I had one friend left, Hannah, and I had no idea how long it would be before she tired of my strangeness. One day I'd lose everything. I had no future and it hurt to think about my past. What was the point of talking about how much I hated my life?

I held out my arm. “Take your sample. I’m going to bed.”

Dad shook his head. “Not here. In the study.”

He turned his wheelchair awkwardly in the narrow hallway and rolled swiftly ahead of me, as if afraid I’d suddenly change my mind.

Dad pushed open the door and gestured me past him. Inside, the room looked more like a lab than ever. The only thing of Mum’s I could see was the book that I secretly called The Tale of Oh-Fa. She had first read it to me when I’d started seeing ghosts, then every night after that for two years. It was the diary of one of my ancestors, a recount of his experiences on a doomed archaeological dig in Egypt, translated into English by his granddaughter. A true account of where our curse came from.

Dad had taken it away from me after the accident, but by then I had it memorised anyway, just as, I suppose, Mum had intended. Initially the story had squatted like a toad in the back of my mind, but now I was grateful for every twisted word. Through them I could hear Mum’s voice and feel her hand over mine.

Sit me in front of an exam paper and my mind can go blank, yet The Tale of Oh-Fa, unseen for three years, clung to my memory with an unshakable grip.

I barely had to think about it and the words were there, describing the moment my ancestor sold our family out. The pages were always ready to appear in front of me, every word etched in the sound of her voice:

“Greatest of the Lords of Death, forgive me.”

In tones like rolling thunder a voice, unsuited to its jackal’s muzzle, spoke. “Last of the grave robbers.”

I gabbled a desperate apology as the Lord’s tongue flicked his canines. “Your aura carries death. Your baby is trying to be born, but your wife can push no longer.”

“Can you save them?” I could hardly believe I was asking a boon of the beast.

“I will send aid to your wife and child, but you will serve me. The child birthing as we speak will serve me. Her children will serve me. Their children will be mine.”

Visions of my newborn daughter filled my head. Perhaps I could trade my own soul, but not that of my child. “Yours, Lord?”

“I will gift you with the power to see those in need of justice. You will track down the unrighteous and send them into the Darkness – to me.”

A hole opened a hand’s span from my outstretched arm. In it my eyes perceived the glimmer of gold. To my shame I could not drag my gaze away. “Yours if you pledge yourself to me.”

Of course he made the pledge. The promise of treasure was enough to push him towards the decision he secretly wanted to make. Facing a monster, who would really choose to die in order to save a bunch of children that hadn’t even been born?

And so he doomed us all. My mother, my grandmother, great grandmother, endless cousins and second cousins, the list went on. If I had children of my own, they would likely suffer the same fate, driven to insanity and early death.

Now the book was open; Dad must have been reading it for some reason. I couldn’t see which page he had been looking at so I glanced away from the memories it brought. It hurt to think of Mum and her ancestor’s legacy of death.

“You’ve got new equipment.” I nodded dully at the large microscope that stood at the back of the room.

“I know you hate this, Taylor.” Dad rolled closer. “I know you think things would be different if your mother was still here. But this thing you have, it’s a genetic condition and if I can’t cure you, maybe I can make it so you can have kids without passing that particular gene on.”

I stared at him. “You think I want kids?”

His eyes widened. “Don’t you?”

Laughter bubbled up, until I vibrated like the chandelier in the hallway. “Who’d have kids with me?”

Dad looked sadly at his wasted legs. “You’re a beautiful girl, one day you’ll fall in love.”

I snorted. “Yeah, then maybe the guy will ask me out, I’ll run out on him because there’s a ghost he can’t see and that’ll be the end of it. Give it up, Dad. I’m not falling in love with some guy who thinks I’m crazy, not like Mum did.”

The words spilled out before I could stop them, and as soon as they tainted the air, I wished I could take them back. Dad’s face whitened.

“What did you say?”

“Dad, I–”

“You know nothing about your mum and me.”

I straightened. “You think I don’t remember? You tried to make her go into a hospital because you thought she was a nut-job. You tried to stop her teaching me how to deal with this.” I waved my newly empty palms. “You never believed her, not for one minute. I don’t know why she never left you.”

Dad’s fists gripped the arms of his chair so tightly I could hear the creak of metal.

“She’d never have left–”

“That's true, if she left, she’d have lost me, you’d have made sure of that. Any court would have sided with you and had her locked up for her own safety.”

“You think that’s the only reason she stayed?”

“I can’t think of any other,” I growled.

Dad wheeled himself backwards, his arms shaking. His eyes when he looked at me had no recognition in them. Then he reached blindly out to the desk beside him. His hand groped until it knocked the ever-present picture on its side and he picked it up, cradled it to his chest, then tilted it back and stared into the flat emulsion of my mother's eyes. I wondered what he saw behind the glass.

“It's true, your mum and I fought about the fact she wouldn’t seek treatment for her illness. But that isn’t the whole story, how could it be? She used to say I was the great love she had been promised.” His voice hoarsened. “She was certainly mine.” He stroked her picture. “When the Mark was on her she said I kept her sane, that looking after us helped her life make sense.” He sighed. “I think that without us, her hallucinations would have taken her over completely.” His fingers continued to move restlessly over the image of her face.

“I never told you how we met.” He spoke without looking at me, still I shook my head.

“I had just finished university. I was doing rounds of interviews, trying to get a position in a reputable lab, but there weren’t that many places out there. I’d just had a really bad time with an old goat who hated me from the moment I opened my mouth.” Strangely this made him smile. “It had been one of the worst hours of my life.” He shook his head. “I was drowning my sorrows in the nearest pub when this vision walked in.” His eyes clouded with memory. “God, she was incredible. She wore her hair loose in those days and it just seemed to float around her like a…” he paused, then smiled. “Like a fairy cloak, black as night. She was wearing this elegant dress thing and high heels like she’d just come from a party. But she walked into this rough pub like she had every reason to be there, no hesitation, just total confidence. She looked around for a moment then walked up to this enormous bloke at the bar. She stood next to him then offered to buy him a drink. As soon as the pint was poured she shook his hand and turned to walk out of the pub, like that was it.” He shook his head again. “The bloke got all bolshy, trying to make her stay, thinking he had a right to something because she’d bought him a beer.” He grinned. “I was about to stand up, to try and help her out, but I got my feet tangled in my briefcase. It didn’t matter though. She leaned into the idiot and whispered something in his ear. Then she did some fancy martial arts thing on him and dumped him on the floor.

“She was walking out and my heart was just tearing out of my chest, trying to go with her when she stopped at my table and looked at me with these eyes like pools of still water.” He sighed. “She just stared at me, long and steady, for a moment then she took my hand.” He tightened his hand on her picture. “She said something odd, I’ll never forget it. She said ‘I was wondering when you’d be along’. Then she led me out of the pub and into a wine bar down the road. That was it for me. I never loved anyone like I loved her. I never knew why she was in that bar.”

“Yes, you do.” I edged towards him. “She was Marking a murderer.”

Dad ground his teeth. “I loved your mum so desperately I was willing to ignore her hallucinations. I didn’t think they were a problem for us, not until I realised they could affect you. That’s when I started pushing her to get treated.”

“Dad–” I bit off my insulting comment, not wanting to inflict so much pain again. “Look, even if I met this mythical guy who’d put up with me, I wouldn’t risk inflicting this condition on a child.” My voice was hoarse. “I’m surprised Mum did.”

Dad stared up at me, finally meeting my eyes. “Taylor, me and your mum, we talked it through. We looked at her family records before she got pregnant. The condition runs in her family, but there was a fifty-fifty chance you’d be fine. We thought it was worth the risk. She loved you from before you were even conceived. She wanted you. We wanted you.”

I shook my head. “No. You wanted the kid who didn’t get the curse. Not me.”

Dad gaped as if I’d punched him in the chest. “How could you think that?” He rolled towards me swiftly, dropping Mum’s photo in his lap so that he could grab my hand. “I love you.”

“But you’re trying to change me, just like you tried to change her. You’d love me more if I was normal.”

He shook his head and his fingers gripped mine more tightly. “I couldn’t love you more. I couldn’t have loved your mum more.” He was actually crying.

My eyes widened and I felt cold all over. I’d made Dad cry. He hadn’t even cried at the funeral.

“I can’t believe you’d think that. That I’ve made you think that.”

I couldn’t stop myself, even seeing his tears I couldn’t choke the words away. “Then why try to force her to a doctor if you loved her so much? If you love me.”

“It was an illness, Taylor. You don’t love someone less because they aren’t well.” His chest heaved. “You try to help them.” He realised he was crushing my hand and released his grip. I rubbed the life back into my fingers without looking away from his face.

“I wanted her to go to a doctor, because I thought if we found some drugs that helped her, then you wouldn’t have to suffer at all, you could go on the same prescription from the very beginning.”

“But she wouldn’t go.”

Dad half-smiled. “She was so stubborn – like somebody else I know.” He groaned and rubbed his hand through his hair. “It upset me, her refusal. I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t want to help you, especially when you got sick too.”

“If you’re so sure I’m crazy, why don’t you send me away? Get me locked up and cured like you wanted to do to her.”

He looked at his wasted legs where they lay unmoving on the chair. He swallowed.

“Dad?”

“It was her last wish.” He heaved a sobbing breath. “The last thing she said to me as we lay trapped in that wreck was, ‘Don’t send Taylor away’. I’d made her worry about it so much that she used her last breath to get that assurance. Not to tell me she loved us, but to make me swear. And that’s why I have to work so hard to find a cure myself, because I had to make that promise.”

I was crying myself now, silent howls that hurt my chest. I had to make this stop. I blinked furiously to hold back the tears and thrust out my arm. “Just do it.”

Dad gaped owlishly at my bare wrist then hung his head to stare once more at my mother’s picture. “Maybe we should do this in the morning.”

I pulled my sleeve back down and backed out of the room, glancing once more at The Tale of Oh-Fa as I left. What I wouldn’t give for Dad to be right, for there to be a cure.

But Mum had always said it when she fought with Dad – you can’t cure a curse.