The Curse of Thelonious [✓]

twelve

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Atlas!” he heard Lera’s familiar voice through his hazy thoughts but he couldn’t seem to wake. He had been dreaming of the ghostly woman as usual and she had led him to a cliff before she faded away. Although he knew it was only a dream, it all felt so realistic with the wild blowing violently and the sound of the sea below the jagged rocks. He didn’t know why he had been brought here but he knew it must have meant something.

“Atlas wake up!” he heard Lera yell, her voice muffled as though there was something blocking him hearing her. The air was humming with the melodious voice of the woman from his dreams. He couldn’t hear her exactly but rather, he could feel what she was saying. Her voice carried across the harsh wind, as though it was part of the atmosphere.

‘Here,’ she seemed to say. ‘It was here.’

He tried to move to have a look around but it was as though his feet were rooted in one spot, the ground holding him down. Atlas had no idea where he was although it was probably the edge of an island. Perhaps the rocky coast of England? He bent down and tried to pull his feet up to walk around but it was no use. He couldn’t move. The harsh edges of the cliff cut his palm open and he groaned with the pain.

Standing up again, he looked around carefully. There was nothing that stood out to him – it was just a quiet cliff-side – other than the weather. The wind was almost violent and if his feet weren’t somehow glued to the floor, his body would probably be pushed away with its force. The waves below him were thrashing violently, the rising and falling of them was loud and clear to his ears.

Using every fibre of his being, Atlas forced himself to wake and his eyes to flicker open.

Lera was stood over him, exactly as the last time he had a dream like this. Her face was scrunched in concern and her dark hair shone in the moonlight peering through her bedroom window. Before he could grab control of his thoughts, he couldn’t help thinking how beautiful she looked. The second it flew into his mind he blushed, the apples of his cheeks tinged pink but thankfully, she was too worried to notice. 

“What happened?” she asked, fear evident in her voice. Her golden skin was glistening and there was something about the way she moved, it was so swift and flowing: reminding him the way a drop of ink dissolved in water.

He was about to answer and explain properly when a stinging from his left hand made him look down. Horror lighting up his face, he almost screamed out loud when he realised what it was. As he lifted up his shaking hand, a trickle of blood fell from the large cut in his palm, contrasting against his pale skin.

“Oh my God,” he exclaimed in pure terror. “Oh my God, they’re real!”

It took a while for him to calm down enough to explain exactly what had occurred to Lera but once he saw her fright, he wished he had kept it to himself. “So, so this woman you dream of, she’s making you see things that are real? You’re actually there? It isn’t just a dream?” she spluttered out, her lips trembling slightly in dread.

He nodded thoughtfully, his mind full of questions. “But why?” he asked, more to himself than to the girl beside him. “Why is she making me see all these things, what do they mean? I know she’s helping but it’s just so frustrating not knowing what anything means. And– and it’s– it’s scary to be honest.” 

Lera shrugged feeling more helpless than ever. All this paranormal stuff was real, they had proof of it now. When she had first decided to try to figure out what had happened, she didn’t think they’d genuinely get anywhere but now, she was terrified because they had. As the fear rippled across her skin, she hesitantly shuffled into her bed, beside Atlas.

They had been taking turns to sleep in order to maintain some sort of distance but now she just didn’t care. Their bodies were so close she could feel the heat from his skin warming her up. Her feet automatically reached towards his and he intertwined his fingers with hers. Although any other circumstance being so close to a boy would only make her freak out – and in a bed no less! – now she only felt safe.

Whatever would happen, would happen. They couldn’t do anything other than try their hardest to unravel the truth before more lives were lost, including their own.

“We’ve got that school trip to London next Wednesday for the Natural History Museum,” she murmured, staring up at her ceiling. “I know you weren’t gonna come but I think you should. I think we should ditch the museum and go look up where your mum was brought up. If the family is as massive as it seems, we’ll find out some info on them online and we can figure out where to go. There must be some clues or something, y’know what I mean?” 

Atlas nodded in agreement.

He really didn’t want to go in case he came across the rest of the family, his family. They didn’t care about his mother when Manning Sinclair had contacted them for ransom after kidnapping her. Once he had told them she was married and pregnant, they cut her off from their family completely, leaving her at the mercy of her evil husband. They didn’t care she had been brutally murdered so why would they care about him?

They wouldn’t help him at all but he knew where Lera was coming from, they had to try at least! Perhaps just looking around the Wakelin Manor would be enough or asking around about the family instead of having to meet them. He knew he wouldn’t be good enough for them: with his inability to speak unless it was Lera, his hardened eyes, terrible nightmares and immeasurable scars scattered across his bruised body.

He wasn’t good enough to be a mighty Wakelin, he was nothing more than the lowly son of Mad Manning Sinclair and he hated it.

There had never been anyone to ever care about him apart from the girl beside him. It scared him, how comfortable he was with being so close to her. Under any other circumstance he wouldn’t be able to handle it, too used to violent abuse to be next to anyone without any fear. But this was Lera – he knew without a doubt she wouldn’t hurt him. She was the ray of light against his darkness.

Atlas watched her as she slowly drifted off to sleep, her eyelashes flickering as they came to a standstill. And although Lera couldn’t see it, he smiled at her, perfect dimples shyly creeping out from under his cheeks.  

“Goodnight Lera,” he whispered as he too closed his eyes.