The Weight of Souls

“Don’t do that, Dad.”

I stood up and he moved his chair so I could get past, at the last moment he caught my arm. “Taylor, I don’t like you going out after school like this, but I won’t take away your chance to make new friends. You just have to be more careful. You know how to travel in London. Be more aware of the world around you, will you?”

I nodded. “This won’t happen again.” I gestured at myself and he sighed.

“You look so much like your mum these days.” He half turned away. “Don’t let what happened to her, happen to you.”

Justin followed me to my room. “Your Dad was pretty spooked.”

I winced at my reflection. “He had good reason to be.” I peeled off my glove and held it for a long minute. It was wrecked and should go in the bin. But it had been Mum’s. I dropped it in the laundry.

“So I’m in the club.” I touched the Mark on my hand. “But I’m running out of time. The next meeting isn’t for three days. I don’t get to set the challenge till I complete another dare and I can’t do that until I’m chosen by some wheel. What are the chances of that?” I clenched my fists.

Justin nodded. “I think I can help.”

“You can?” I raised my eyebrows, then I realised who, or rather what, I was talking to. “Of course. So I do another dare.” I ignored my sinking heart. “Then I get to ask for a truth.”

Justin looked at my blackened hand. “There’s one more problem, Tay. Once you complete the dare, you don’t get to be challenger for another week.”

I inhaled, desperately clinging to my calm. “Ten days, I’m not sure I’ve got that long.” I slumped onto my stool in front of my picture board. “Maybe James will bend the rules again.”

“We’ll think of something.” Justin’s hand fell on my shoulder and I jumped. “You need a shower.”

I fingered my bruised head with a wince. He was used to looking at his perfectly groomed girlfriend. Ex- girlfriend. “Right. I look like hell.”

I turned the nozzle onto massage and let the water hammer at my sore muscles until they ached. Then I lathered my hair up, rinsed and did the whole thing again, until the water ran clear instead of grey.

The room was lit with four halogen bulbs, there was a towel warming on the rail and there was plenty of hot water. I didn’t want to get out. So I stayed, leaning my head against the glass door and watching the shower gel foam around the plug.

When the water started to run cool, I stepped out and wrapped myself in the towel. Then I dragged a comb through my hair, brushed my teeth and pulled on some flannel pyjamas.

The thought stuttered through my head: Not exactly sexy.

I bit down on it as I ran through the dimly lit hallway. Who cared about that anyway?

I was surrounded by a fog so dense I literally couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.

“Justin?” I spun around, seeing nothing. No sound penetrated the whiteness; I seemed to be all alone.

Experimentally I stepped forward. I could feel the ground beneath my bare toes. It was cool, but not cold, hard, but not uncomfortably so. Was I on a road, a path?

Wait a minute… why were my feet bare?

I squinted down at myself and pinched my top between my fingers. Why was I wearing pyjamas? Had I come outside?

I tried to remember. Had I head a noise or something, maybe left the house?

“Justin?” I tried his name again, but there was no reply.

I took a breath and the air in my lungs felt oddly dense. “Dad?”

If I was on the street, surely I could find my house. I kept turning in a circle, hoping to see something to guide me home. There was nothing but endless whiteness. No glowing streetlamps, no outlines of cars. My toes didn’t bump into a kerb.

My neck prickled. “Who’s there?”

No answer.

“I know there’s someone out there I can feel you watching me.”

My heart thudded and without thinking about it, I broke into a run. I didn’t consider what I might crash into in the weird whiteness, just that I had to escape the intense presence. Some primal instinct told me it was a predator and I was prey. So I ran, hands out in front of me, breath stirring the air until it swirled like smoke but revealed nothing.

“Taylor, can you hear me?”

At first the voice was so quiet I thought I was imagining it. The tones only tickled my ears, making me turn in search of it. Now at least I had a goal. I would run towards the voice.

“Can you hear me, Taylor?”

I stopped. The voice was still muffled, but I could hear it much more clearly. “Mum?”

“Taylor, it’s coming. You don’t have much time.”

“The Darkness, you mean? Where are you?” Desperately I swung my arms, frantic for her touch.

“You have to be careful. Some things were not meant to be.”

“What wasn’t meant to be?”

“I love you, but I have to go, so you’ve got to listen. He’s waiting for you in the Dark, Taylor, and he’s hungry, hungry for the world.”

“Taylor… Taylor… wake up.”

I bolted upright with a gasp, clawing at my sheets. Finally my hands closed around Justin’s biceps. For a moment I stared at him and I could feel how wide my eyes were, wild and straining. I knew I was digging my nails into his arms, but I couldn’t let go. My breath came in hitching pants and I couldn’t get enough air. “J-Justin?”

“It’s me. You were having a bad dream.”

“The Darkness is coming and we’re not even close to finding your killer.”

“Calm down.” Justin carefully peeled my fingers from his arms. “Let me switch the overhead lights on.”

I slept in the gentle glow of my standard lamp and my bed floated on the light beneath it, but he was right, the main light would help. He found the switch and I sobbed out loud as the brightness immediately dispelled the lingering shadows.

“You’re shaking.” He hesitated then crouched next to me. His torso protruded through the bed turning him into a strange sort of centaur but he was able to put his arms around my shoulders.

I flinched automatically – this was Justin after all. Then I forced myself still, the nightmare remained with me and even the touch of someone I did not like was better than hugging my knees alone.

His skin was cool against mine. At school I’d brushed against him once or twice and I’d always been struck by how warm he was, as if he had an internal furnace that burned harder and brighter than other people’s. Now he was cool.

“You’re dead,” I whispered.

I felt the swift brush of long eyelashes against my forehead as he blinked. Then he pulled back. “I thought we’d established that,” he murmured.

“Yes, but you shouldn’t be.”

He snorted. “Preaching to the choir here.”

I thought of my dream. Was it possible that Mum had really visited me?

“What do you think happens when you move on?”

He tilted his head towards the wall in a silent question and I nodded. He leaned back, keeping one arm around me and I curled into him, exhausted and oddly grateful. “I don’t know.” His voice was low, as if he was afraid of being overheard. “I wish I did. Mum used to go to church, but Dad wasn’t into all that stuff. I always