Doors To The Dead by Rae Else (great books for teens txt) 📕

The musicians’ van.

He blinked in surprise at the revelation. He would have been less surprised to see her materialise on the roof than from out of the van. It was much harder for a soul to evanesce into something they had no attachment to in life. To think that she'd anchored herself in this object that she had nothing to do with was mind-boggling.

That’s why he hadn’t sensed her when he’d searched the grounds. He’d rummaged through the building and land that had been significant to her. As the minutes drew on, he watched the lavender spectre appear in front of the vehicle.

Theo’s spirit, with all his sluagh enclosed within, was poised to strike if Donna went on the offensive. Yet the purply-hued soul seemed languid as she coalesced. The perfume of the offering was working its magic upon her. The woman’s memories surged through her, giving her a corporeal form that shimmered on the night air.

The memories coursing through Donna were so strong that she seemed as real as the sandstone house behind her. She wore a white dress, her chestnut curls hung loose. She had taken the form of her much younger self. Amidst the wasted vines, she looked as dazzling as white buds on bare blackthorn.

Theo held his breath as he watched her power exert itself on the landscape around him too. Like fireflies in the night air, her memories changed the vineyard. Previous midsummer nights, when the vineyard was full of ripening fruit, almost ready to harvest clothed the vines; their perfume as heady as the wine they would one day, or rather, had once produced.

Theo watched her with relish. Her vibrant purple aura dazzled him. She walked towards the offering. If she tasted the bloodied fruits, she would become bound to him. She would become the blood of his blood. Usually, it was only the long wandering souls that came into the shelter of his soul so easily. But the offering had brought out her memories of this private haven she’d made for herself. Where she felt most at peace. Safe and happy. As she reached for the fruits, her gaze found Theo, and her thoughts cut across his.

The sandy-haired man looks like an angel. Has he finally come to lead me to the promised land?

Theo ensured his most tender smile rested on his face. If such an idea led her into his possession, he’d gladly oblige. He conjured the patchwork wings that he possessed, their smoky feathers bringing an awestruck look to Donna’s face. Funnily enough, there was still an Enodian in his year who called him just that, Angel, because of this display he’d enjoyed conjuring as a kid.

Instead of taking the fruit, Donna’s purply spectre shattered. Before he could block her, she pierced him.

The fall of heavy metal thrust itself upon Theo’s ear.

Through the night, the shimmer of breastplates and helmets surrounded him. The conjured Roman soldiers were intimately familiar to him. Their footfalls stirred up memories of multiple ancient battlefields he’d tethered sluagh on. After all, like a virus, the Romans had got everywhere. Yet none of his memories were as vibrant as those of the Roman legions on the Cairngorm battlefield that had been his schoolyard.

Donna yanked the memory out of him like ripping up roots from the ground. Theo was back in the Cairngorms, surrounded by troops. Night disappeared and the brutal light of day illuminated the battle. He felt as if he were drowning in sweat and blood. Clanging metal and cries deafened him. Yet it wasn’t only an assault to the senses. The beings around him pierced his soul.

Their terror and rage palpitated through him. He caught things about each one. When one man charged towards him, Theo knew he belonged to the Batavi, a Germanic tribe. He was part of the Auxilia. The man hoped to survive long enough to be granted citizenship. But pay was enough, it put food in his belly. What did it matter if he fought for a people he cared nothing for? Yet as the man was mown down, it was the Rhineland and its delta that his soul cried out for.

A Tungrian rushed upon Theo, a swordsman from the Belgic part of Gaul. Once more the man’s despair swamped Theo as he fought and fell thousands of leagues away from his wife and child.

As Theo stumbled away, he believed that he was fleeing down the Cairngorm foothills.

He kicked one of the wine crates, fell over and crashed onto the dry earth.

A cascade of bottles smashed upon the ground, ringing through his consciousness.

Theo stared up. Sprawled on his back, he gawped up at the reassuring blanket of darkness.

His surroundings came back to him as he left the nightmare of his innermost fears.

The vineyard was back to its neglected state, the mouldering sandstone villa to his left, and Donna was gone.

He baulked. Donna had tricked him. She’d attacked him. She’d feigned her entrancement and succeeded in drawing up his fear and plunging him into it. Something that hadn’t happened as vividly as the night he’d just relived. He’d been nine. Fledgling Enodians weren’t allowed to tether human souls until they were eleven, but Theo had been impatient. He’d ventured out alone. Tethering the sluagh of foxes and wildcats, stags and eagles had long grown dull. He longed to see that look of awe on his classmates’ faces again. The one they had on first seeing his smoky wings. How much harder could the addled souls on the battlefield be to tether than wild animals?

That night, Theo learnt about the complexity of humans the hard way. The lingering war-torn of the Cairngorms had plagued him for hours. He’d been found in the morning by an elder Enodian after passing a long and terrifying night, stumbling through the grasses and heather. He’d spent most of the night curled in hollows in the wood, the sluagh around him haunting him so much that he didn’t even realise when day broke. The visions