THE LOCATION OF BURIED BONES
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Hands slammed onto the wooden coffee table, placing the crumbled yellowing map flat on the surface. Nancy spread her hands over the thick piece of paper, from center to the edges to straighten it out. She let out a loud huff as she tried to decode the lines on the map, only breaking her gaze when she heard quiet thumps of knees hitting the ground beside her.
Olivia pressed her upper abdomen against the edge of the table as she leaned over it, taking in the strange lines. She recognized the four curvy thin lines that connected before forming a channel into the North Atlantic Ocean, right off west of Horseshoe Bay. What she couldn't recognize or comprehend, however, was the mass of lines that filled the entire page.
Olivia frowned and leaned even forward, but almost let out a strained whimper as the wood met deeply with her sore ribs. She held her breath and pulled away slightly, trying to stop herself from distracting the others. "What do they mean?" Olivia croaked, looking between Ace who sat directly beside her, and Nancy who was across the small table.
"It's not like any map I've ever seen," Nancy mumbled, tracing her finger over one of the slightly smudged lines.
"I have." Everyone's heads snapped toward George, whose eyebrows were perked in mild enthusiasm. She shuffled from the position she was in until she was propped up by her heels, almost nonchalant and calm while Olivia stared at her in impatience and anticipation. "They're ley lines."
"Ley lines?" Ace frowned, still looking at the map before him.
"Ley lines." George motioned for her friends to lean forward to get a better view as she explained. "They're basically latitudinal and longitudinal lines along with monuments and landforms. This archaeologist discovered them in the early 1900s when he noticed ancient monuments around the world were aligned." As she spoke, she hadn't even recognized the knitted eyebrows and shocked eyes that stared at her.
"How... exactly do you know all of this?" Bess asked slowly, trying not to come off as judgemental.
Olivia's eyes tried to follow each person that spoke, but she felt their voices slowly fading as her heartbeat became more prominent. She squeezed her eyes tightly, trying to regain her focus, but only found it hard to see through blurred vision once she peeled her eyelids open.
"My mom's a Medium," George's faded voice brushed past Olivia's ears. "I knew this stuff before I knew how to add and subtract."
"Liv? What's wrong?" She almost jumped out of her skin at the whisper from beside her, warm breath hitting her cheek. Her muscles strained as she tried to turn to face Ace, the rough collar of her hoodie scraping tightly and uncomfortably against her neck. She could barely lift her head to look Ace in the eyes– it felt as though her head was stuck in place. It was too heavy to even tilt upward the slightest bit. When her vision finally fell onto the blonde man, she saw him looking down at her with wide, concerned eyes as he took in her appearance.
Beads of sweat had formed on her forehead and upper lip while her cheeks were shiny under the daylight glimmering through the windows. It was evident to him that with her slumped shoulders, Olivia could hardly hold her head up. She almost looked dead. If it hadn't been for the slow rising and falling of her chest, he would have thought she was. It was as though with every second that passed, she became more and more pallid like she was washed out, bloodless.
"Do you feel sick?" he whispered again, shooting his hand forward and pressing the back of it to her clammy forehead.
"No." She shook her head slowly, trying to mask the pain with her pursed lips. She tried to brush him off by returning her gaze back to the group at the table, encouraging Ace to do the same.
Although her chest burned as though it had been set aflame while her body felt as cold as ice despite the sweat lacing her skin, her physical state would be something she worried about after they broke the curse. This map– had the answers Olivia needed. The map was what would save her. So now, the map was all that mattered.
"You see this?" George's voice slowly began to refill Olivia's head, although her tired brain tried with all its might to filter everything out. The brunette pointed to a spot on the west side of the map, where all the ley lines intersected. "This is the Nexus of leylines."
"What the Hell does that mean?" Nick was quick to interject with a dissatisfied scowl on his face since everything sounded like gibberish to him– as it did to everyone else.
"It's an energetic vortex," she explained. Olivia pushed her body forward, intrigued by George's words. She felt that piece by piece, things were coming together, things were starting to make sense. "It could mask a person's energetic signature and hide them from the supernatural."
"So you're saying that Arthur Irvine might have hidden there?" Bess questioned, propping her chin in the palm of her hand. Her eyes darted from corner to corner of the room as she tried to give her brain time to process things.
"He must have known his time was up..." Nancy trailed, staring at the wall ahead of her. She pushed herself off the coffee table and climbed onto her feet. "He knew that the Crossroads Demon was coming, so he hid." She bent over and tapped her finger aggressively against the Nexus of ley lines. "He hid right here."
"That must be where his bones are!" Ace exclaimed, flailing his hands in the air in disbelief of the discovery they had just made.
"Oh my Goodness..." Bess clasped her hands against her mouth and followed Nancy to her feet. "We have to go there! We have to go there now."
"Question is, where is this?" Nick asked, picking up the map.
"It doesn't have any names or labels."
"Well it's right along the ocean, so that narrows things down," Ace announced as he stood up. "I can do a search online– it shouldn't take too long."
"You don't have to," Olivia's voice came out hoarse and barely audible. "I know where this is." She pushed herself onto her knees and placed her arms on the table so she could try and climb to her feet. Ace quickly hurried to her side, gripping onto her waist and helping her up. "It's the lighthouse."
The car ride was tedious, painful, filled with bouncing legs and tapping of fingers against cold steamed windows. Olivia felt her heart squeeze tighter with every minute that passed on the navigator, and her jaw clenched harder with every turn on the road.
Picking at the skin around her thumbs, she tried to distract herself with the small raindrops streaming down the window. She followed them down the glass, one by one, trying to place her mind elsewhere– anywhere but where she was now. Anywhere that would rid her chest of her palpitating heart, or her mind from its dreadful, terrifying thoughts.
Nothing compared to the feeling of when the tall, ancient structure fell into her sight. Through the foggy glass, it stood tall and intimidating, like any moment it could come crashing down on her with more secrets and mysteries, just like her own life had.
Her heart stopped when she felt the door part with her body, and she almost fell over onto the ground. "Sorry," Ace mumbled sheepishly, holding the door open with one hand, and extending his other one out for Olivia to take. While she took his hand, she couldn't muster up the strength to even put on a reassuring smile, to let him know it was okay, that she didn't hold it to him. Still, Ace knew. He knew that had she had the energy, telling him he was okay was the first thing she would do. But she didn't have the energy right now, and the very thought of that made his heart sink to the pit of his stomach like an anchor was placed upon it. "We're gonna fix this, okay?" he promised, his hot breath forming fog in the air before him, right beside Olivia's ear as she was tucked closely into his side. He wrapped his arm around her waist to support her as she limped toward the lighthouse with the rest of the group.
Illuminating the space around them with its bright light, giving the sea a beautiful shimmer, it stood high and powerful. It became more and more menacing, the closer they got to it. It almost seemed to triple in size with every step Olivia took, and she wondered if she was just hallucinating again, or if it was the pure terror that lingered within every single inch of her body. Either way, the lighthouse was colossal, especially with the supernatural aura it carried. This very spot, it was where Arthur Irvine had sought asylum. Where he had tried to protect himself, after cheating his way into success. Where his bones were buried, and where everything ended and began all at once.
"How do we know where we're supposed to dig?" The sound of shovels scraping along the floor almost filtered out Nick's voice as he paced after Olivia and the others.
She slowly withdrew from Ace's side, although relishing in the warmth his body was providing her. She tugged her sweater sleeves over her hands before wrapping her arms around her torso as a means to comfort and warm herself. Slowly, she moved forward, step by step, her bloodshot eyes scanning the mountainous ground.
"Not sure, but it can't be too far away from the lighthouse," George suggested, crouching onto the ground and tracing her finger over the sand. She slapped her hands onto her thighs and groaned, throwing her head back in exasperation "Which is a lot of areas. This is going to be hard."
"Yeah, and it's not exactly like we have a bone detector," Ace sighed, restlessly turning his head from side to side to see if he could spot any inconsistencies or bumps in the ground.
Bess frowned and propped her elbow onto the back of her other arm so she could rest her chin on her palm as she stared at the sick girl in the distance. "Maybe we do..." she pointed to Olivia who had continued to make her way around the space all throughout the others' conversation. It had almost been as though she was trapped in a trance. Her eyes were glued to one particular spot, not too far off from the lighthouse.
She felt almost drawn to it, like something was pulling at her chest like a magnet, urging her to come in that direction. And in her daze, she could have almost sworn she saw a shadow or a silhouette. A blurred, dark body, walking around the area. It sent tremors through her entire body, it made her want to stop in her tracks, turn around and avoid it at all costs. But she couldn't. She couldn't stop her throbbing, frail legs from walking, and she couldn't stop the burning desire in her gut to go towards it.
"Livvie, do you see something?" Ace called with a raised voice. When Olivia didn't respond, he began to speed-walk toward her, concerned about her being alone so far away from them. He felt like someone needed to have their eyes on her twenty-four-seven, or something bad would happen to her within the blink of an eye.
She wasn't even startled by the heavy mass of footsteps coming up behind her as her friends stampeded in her direction. They stopped beside her with their eyebrows furrowed as they tried to make out what the brunette was staring at so deeply.
"Olivia?"
"Here," Olivia declared abruptly before Nancy could speak any further. With a stiff body, Olivia pointed directly in front of her on the ground.
"Here, what? The bones?"
"Start digging," Bess whispered, her eyes wide and mortified as she watched the interaction between Nancy and Olivia. It was almost as though the latter was possessed, trapped in a stupor.
Without hesitation, George, Nick, and Ace each gripped onto a shovel. Nick initiated by sticking his into the ground, forming a crack before pushing in deeper. He scooped out the dirt and started a pile of hard sand beside the small hole he had made. George and Ace followed suit, working their hardest to empty the space as fast as they could.
"Stop!" Olivia suddenly cried as a sharp pain struck her heart. Her breath hitched and she held her hands against her chest, trying to ease the pain. "Don't dig anymore."
"What? What happened?" Ace quickly rushed to her, standing behind her and placing his hands on her arms.
Nick squinted at the growing hole in front of them before drawing out his phone and turning on the flashlight. He hovered it over their work before a small grin curled at his lips. With a quiet grunt, he dropped to his knees and lowered himself onto his chest, sticking his arm inside. When he withdrew his arm to reveal a single bone, everyone's eyes widened as they gasped.
"You felt this, didn't you?" Nick looked up at Olivia, who stared with teary eyes. so overwhelmed with the fact that they had finally found Arthur Irvine's remains, her lip quivered as she nodded.
Grinning, Ace stepped in front of her but as soon as his eyes met with hers, his smile dropped. "Hey, hey, don't cry," he pleaded, raising his hand up to her face "This is almost over." The moment his hand met with her cheek to cup it, his eyes widened and he flinched as heat burned into his hand. With weary eyes and parted lips, he turned around to face the others. "She's burning up. Really bad," he whispered, almost too scared to say it out loud, even though Olivia was too physically and mentally feeble to comprehend his words.
Nancy let out a shaky breath before nodding. "We have to complete the ceremony. Fast."
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With trembling legs, Olivia tread over the large symbol drawn on the floor, with her fist clenched to stop the blood from flowing. It stung and burned and throbbed, the way her clammy fingers pressed onto the open wound– the sigil she was forced to carve into her skin.
She was terrified, unable to steady the unending flow of thoughts in her mind or the rapidly beating heart in her chest. She thought that at any moment now, she could have a heart attack. She couldn't bear the anticipation, the unknown. The uncertainty of whether the ceremony would work or not, and if it did, what it would look like, and what the consequences would be. Would she survive?
Once she was standing beside the pile of bones inside the Irvine symbol that was enclosed by the pentagram, she shuddered before relaxing her fix. Crimson red streamed from her palm to the bottom of her hand before dripping onto the bones before her.
Timidly, she glanced over her shoulder at Nancy, Ace, Bess, Nick, and George who crowded a few feet away. "We're right here with you," Bess promised, giving the girl a reassuring nod. Olivia absorbed her words, taking them in and cherishing them before closing her eyes and letting out an unsteady sigh.
"Crossroads Demon," she started, eyes already blurring with tears the moment the words left her mouth. "I... I return to you..." she paused, overwhelmed by doubt and expectancy. She felt like she couldn't breathe properly like her chest could explode. "I return to you the bones of Arthur Irvine, in exchange for the freedom of my soul and the Irvine's to come."
A soft rumbling sounded and small chips of wood dropped down to the floor from the ceiling above. Olivia's teeth clattered with terror as her eyes darted around the room, trying to make out what was going on.
It was then that she properly felt the floor beginning to shake, and her head snapped up to her friends to ensure that they were feeling the same thing. Once she saw the mortified expressions on their faces, Olivia had all the confirmation she needed.
When the wind picked up, blowing through her hair and sending it flying in the air, was when Olivia was tempted to run, to break the symbol on the floor, to halt the ceremony, to escape. She wanted to hide and disappear and to never have to think about or be involved with the supernatural life that was forced upon her. But before she could even think about backing out of the ceremony, the wind had already reached its maximum, sweeping all of Hillary's papers in the air, and blowing out the lit torches hung on the walls of the chamber.
Olivia spun around inside the symbol, trying to focus her eyes on one thing, but there was too much going on– too much for her to handle. She thought his brain might explode, she thought she was going to have a panic attack. But with all the sounds and all the movements around her, her mind was far too busy and distracted to allow her to cry or break down. All her mind was focused on was trying to understand, trying to process what was happening.
Smoke began to fill the air around her, and Olivia's breathing quickened and became more unsteady as her panicked eyes tried to figure out its source. But it didn't have one. Fog and smoke continued to blacken the space around her until she couldn't even see her friends. Her one form of comfort had been taken away from her, and their voices fogged out in the sounds of the storm.
A large jolt shot into her chest, and she gasped deeply for air but her lungs struggled to retain any. Out of her control, her head flung back and she felt her chest tighten. She couldn't even scream or cry when she felt her feet lose contact with the floor as she slowly began to levitate in the air.
The noise around her only increased in volume, as did the grey smoke in the air and the sheets of paper, pens, and dust that flew around the air recklessly. The storm got more and more powerful with each second until Olivia was completely lost within it, her body paralyzed in the air and her brain trapped in limbo.
Her friends watched from outside the symbol, with dropped draws and palpitating hearts. It took moment for Ace to settle his thoughts, to be able to function and tell his legs to move. With all his will and courage, he charged toward Olivia, his walk developing into a run. But as he reached her, his shoulder bumped hard against a transparent barrier at the ring of the symbol, and it sent him plummeting back into the floor.
"Ace!" Bess cried, running toward him but her voice was barely audible in the racket that was going on in the chamber. She lowered beside him and stared at him in horror of what had just happened, while he gripped his shoulder in immense pain. Carefully, she tucked her arm under his other arm and helped him to his feet where they both stood still, eyes wide and gaping once they noticed Olivia's eyes had turned pearl-white.
They stood helplessly, watching their friend suffer while they could do nothing but stare as the storm got more and more violent and heavy. The sounds of gushing wind were almost like defeaning whistles in their ears, only growing louder by the minute. It intensified continuously, until suddenly...
It all stopped. The noise, the wind, the magic.
Then the slamming sound of Olivia's head to the ground. And then silence.
A long and painful silence that cut into everyone's souls. A dreadful silence that left them in shock, frozen, and at a loss of what to do as their friend lay limp on the floor in a pool of her own blood. Lifeless, like the bones of her ancestor that rested beside her.
"Olivia." Ace's shoes squeaked against the floor as he raced toward her. He slid onto her knees, ignoring the intense stinging as the floor tore holes into his jeans and burned into his skin. "Olivia!"
"Ace," Bess whimpered from behind, pained by the cries of her best friend. She clamped her hands against her mouth to muffle the sobs desperate to come out.
"Ch- check if she's breathing." Nick was too afraid to step near them, remembering the feeling of losing his girlfriend all too well.
"I can't- I can't tell. I can't tell!" He cupped her cheeks in his hands and hovered over her through glassy eyes. "Olivia?" A tear trickled down his face and dropped onto Olivia's cheek as he lowered his head to kiss her forehead. "Livvie, please. Wake up."
Ace couldn't hold back the sob that escaped his lips when he saw her eyes roll from side to side under her closed eyelids. When she slowly peeled them open, his lip chin quivered before he lifted her upright and buried his face into her shoulder, soaking her skin with his tears. "D- did it work?" she rasped after recollecting what had happened in the past few minutes. She tried to sit up but was restricted by the severe pain in her bones and Ace's arms holding her tightly.
"I think so," Nancy laughed through a sniffle. She made her way toward the pair on the floor and dropped to her knees. She wrapped her arms around Olivia and Ace, and the others followed suit with teary eyes and pounding hearts, overwhelmed by the joy of their friend still being alive. "We beat the curse."
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