Page 96 of Dead Serious: Case 3 Mr Bruce Reyes
I often think back to the house of my childhood. My sister Constance lives there now with her husband and children. Life is difficult for them, I know. The money is almost gone due to a series of bad investments by my father before he died, accompanied by his love of gambling. A proud man, he never recovered from my mother’s passing, but I believe I can postdate his ill humour to a much earlier period.
I don’t believe he ever truly adjusted to life in England. In India, he’d been an important man until his rather public fall from grace. I vaguely remember our life there—the heat, the monkeys that would sit in the trees by our nursery window. Mostly I remember our Ayah, whom we always called Big A. She was a kind woman, softly spoken but firm, and would sing to us in Hindi until we fell asleep.
I was very young when we made the journey to England. Constance and I adjusted, but Cordelia, like Father, never really settled. Cordie always seemed to be searching for something. I do not recall a time when she was not consumed with the idea of magick.
Being the oldest, she was often allowed to accompany Father on his travels during his posting as a governor of India. There was one time that I believe was the catalyst for Cordie’s infatuation with the ancient powers and myths. Father was visiting Lala Khal in the northeastern corner of the country, bordering the Himalayas, when they were diverted in error because of a feverish guide who became befuddled and lost his way.
Father and Cordie, along with several servants, found themselves in a place called Mayong. They were not overly gregarious when it came to hospitality, especially concerning outsiders, and the British especially, but one of the elders took an interest in Cordie. He invited them to partake in a meal and told her stories of his village. He told her that it was known amongst their people as the Land of Black Magick and regaled her with tales of witchcraft.
That fascination stayed with her, and the older she grew, the more she devoted herself to learning everything she could about witchcraft and magick.
When Constance reached a certain age, we discovered she had prophetic foresight, that things she dreamed would come to pass. As for myself, I began to see the spirits of the departed. It seemed all three of us had been gifted with extraordinary talents, although in the prevailing years, I would not come to view my own as a gift but a burden.
The servants knew, I am certain of it, but everything changed when we came to England. Cordelia did not want to leave the land of her birth. Even at that young age, her heart and soul were tied to its traditions and its magick, even though it was not seemly for the daughter of a high-ranking British governor. But Father always indulged Cordie above all of us. He believed her fascination with the traditions and myths to just be stories, old wives’ tales to amuse the children.
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
We have seen it, been touched by the power, and it changed all three of us forever. The house Father purchased in Whitechapel, far from any fashionable neighbourhood, was a large property and the best Father could afford since the decline of his career. Our English nannies were not so strict nor as kind as Big A. They largely ignored us unless mealtimes or bedtimes, and our tutors were not much better. Thus we were most often left to our own devices.
We were three young children, transplanted into a strange country, even if it was ours by birthright. As we grew, we were left much of the time without adequate supervision and were, oftentimes, bored.
During one such dreary day, Cordie devised a game for us. We were to be village elders conjuring magick. Constance and I, being so much younger and easily led, thought it to be a marvellous idea. Little did we know that Cordelia had smuggled one of the Mayong chief’s tomes of magick home with her and was convinced she could open a gateway back to her beloved home in India. We thought it was a game.
It was not.
The gateway we opened in error did not lead home, it led to a world of the dead. I saw many of them escape into our world the moment it opened. Constance cried and went running to hide in the coal bunker, where the servants found her some hours later.
I could not move. I had never seen so many souls. It left me cold, a feeling of utter dread churning in my stomach. Beyond the gateway was a great darkness, reaching out with many flailing arms of shadow.
I wanted to run but I could not. Even as young as I was, I knew the gateway had to be closed. Cordelia found the correct spell and between us, we managed to seal it. We resolved never to speak of it again, but I have never forgotten that darkness nor how it stared down into my soul, filling my veins with ice and my mind with shadows.
“Bloody hell, that’s cheery.” Danny frowns. “So the sister basically used dark magic to open the gateway?”
“Yes.” I stare at the paper in my hand my mind, churning over everything I’d just learned. “But they said they’d closed it.”
“Perhaps they didn’t close it all the way?” Danny offers. “They were, after all, a bunch of kids.”
“Maybe, but I think Cornelius would have known if it hadn’t closed properly because he could sense the darkness on the other side.”
“But if they did close it,” Danny muses, “how and when was it re-opened? And why is it that, in all the time Bruce has been in charge of the gateway, there was no mention of a shadow monster trying to get through?”
“I honestly don’t have a clue.” I breathe heavily in frustration. As always, I find one answer and it raises ten more questions. “It would be interesting though”—I rub my lower lip thoughtfully—“to see if there was an eclipse the first time the gateway was opened.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, think about it. Cornelius said that, as the gateway opened, he saw souls escape into our world. But when Bruce was in charge of the gateway, spirits were crossing over into the afterlife. We know that the gateway opens with alignments, but what if the type of alignment determines which direction the gateway goes? Like a northbound or southbound tube platform. They can only travel in one direction.”
“It does make sense, I suppose.” Danny scratches his chin like he always does when he’s mulling something over. “I think you might be onto something.”
“Cornelius said that the gateway was opened with magic and that they closed it the same way, so”—I pick up my phone from the table and find the right number, then hit connect—“what we need is a witch.”
When Harrison answers, I switch it to speakerphone so Danny can hear and then quickly fill him in on everything we’ve learned.
“I have to admit,” Harrison says, “I had begun to wonder if magic was the cause of it opening. On Cordelia’s admittance form to the asylum, it mentioned something about her ‘delusions’ of witchcraft and magic.” I hear a quiet scoff of indignation from him.
“So, what do you think?” I ask nervously. “Do you know of any spell—or whatever it is you do—that would close the gateway again?”
“Unfortunately, no,” he says with a sigh. “I’m sorry. When I first began to suspect days ago that magic was tied to this, I immediately began searching, but there’s nothing. Maybe if I had more time, I could find out something. But right now, I can’t even figure out how to close it even temporarily, and without the proper information and research, I could potentially make things worse, unless… I don’t suppose you have the book of magic Cornelius mentioned his sister smuggling back from India?”