Daydreams And Nightshade (DaN #1)

Chapter 24: Deafening silence

Noah sat in complete silence, obnoxiously making a point. The other two waited for him to continue his story but his mouth remained shut, looking around at them to make sure they still paid attention.

"So what—" Cassius began but Noah hushed him, causing the aforementioned to look around nervously. Seeing no soldiers or other reasons to be quiet he frowned, and turned his gaze back to Noah.

"That quiet," Noah then said.

"What?"

"That's how quiet everything went after we rattled the drum."

Cassius exhaled sharply.

"You scared the life out of me!"

"I enjoyed the silence," Winton said. "Best part of the story yet."

"And that silence still included us looking around and trying to talk to each other, but we couldn't hear anything. I thought there was something wrong with my ears all of a sudden."

"Was it haunted?" Cassius asked. Noah shook his head hesitantly.

"No, not the drum. But the obvious aside there was something more to it. There was an inscription that neither of us could read so I guess I just assumed this was some kind of magical thing, possibly from an unburial or similar. Whether the boy was alive or dead it was most likely important to him, and... Well, since we still hadn't determined the whereabouts of the boy we headed back to the house. Unsurprisingly Alexei armed himself this time."

"Armed? Does that work against ghosts?"

"No. But who was I to stop him? And we didn't know whether there was a ghost or not—"

"It was either a ghost or a child, right?" Winton interrupted, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

"Uh... Yes, but the sounds we heard from upstairs were ominous enough I suppose—You know, it doesn't matter. I don't remember his reasoning but I know he did bring his long rifle, so there. And... I was pretty sure Father wouldn't let us go, so I didn't tell him."

Noah grimaced, rolling his shoulders back to get more comfortable.

But people still saw us when we snuck in that time and, well... One more gossip topic was added to the Hargreaves twins' list. No one stopped us anyway, so in we went. Alexei wouldn't let me head upstairs and I think we started arguing about it because we must've made some noise. And then we, or... I, finally saw him. The boy I'd seen through the window earlier came rushing through the door and stopped to glare at us briefly before kneeling down and crawling under the kitchen table." Noah paused. "... And as it turned out, only I could see him."

"So... Dead." Cassius concluded with a grave look on his face.

Noah nodded.

"It was the ghost of the dead boy after all. He hadn't been able to move on like Luna had suspected. So I held out the fixed drum and tried to talk to him, asking about his name and such, hoping that'd be enough but... It wasn't. As soon as he saw it he grabbed at it frantically, but his soul couldn't touch it. Which—Which shouldn't have been too surprising since ghosts can't really touch us... But, uh... Then we heard those creepy footsteps upstairs again... Like, once I tried to talk to the boy and he placed a finger against his lips, pointing at the drum."

"He wanted the room to be quiet," Cassius whispered to Winton who rolled his eyes. "And when they used the drum earlier it made everything around them—"

"Yes, I got that."

Noah smiled, happy Cassius was able to focus on the story despite the rough treatment he'd received earlier.