The Morgan Sisters Complete Series Boxed Set

ISBN 9789899734869-8

'I'm going to miss you girls so much,' whispered Audrey, 'you're growing up so fast. It won't be long now until you're leaving us altogether...' she said, wiping away a tear from her cheek.

'She's right, you know. Work experience now, weddings tomorrow...' Patrick added with a chuckle.

'Erm, I don't think so, Dad,' laughed Lana as she and Emma gave Greg and Lucy a quick hug before following Declan onto the boat.

'Don't forget to bring us a present back!' yelled Lucy with a grin as she waved frantically.

'Be careful, girls. Look after them, Declan!'

Declan turned, smiled and waved. 'I'll guard 'em with my life, Audrey. I promise you that. See you in a few weeks.'

As the boat chugged into motion, the two girls stood alongside their temporary guardian as they waved. Suddenly, Emma looked down into the churning waters below, and her fear came back with a vengeance.

Over the sound of the engine, Declan shouted, 'Finger and thumb, Emma, finger and thumb.'

CHAPTER 13

They'd been travelling for four hours, and although Emma had managed to sleep through much of it (thanks to Declan's mind tricks), she woke with a start when she heard a loud horn in the vicinity.

She turned and found Declan reading a newspaper to one side of her while Lana sat on the other. She was by the window, utterly mesmerised by all that was happening along the Thames.

A sudden urge to throw up made Emma jump up, 'Erm, just need some fresh air,' she said.

'Do you want me to come with you?' asked Lana, but her sister shook her head.

'No, I'll be fine. Thumb and forefinger, thumb and forefinger,' she muttered over and over as she walked away. She opened the door that led outside, and a blast of cold air immediately made her feel a tad better. Finding a seat at the back of the boat, she sat down and breathed deeply, pushing her thumb and forefinger together so hard that her fingers turned white.

She forced herself to look up from the floor at the water that surrounded the small ferry boat. Thumb and forefinger, thumb and forefinger, she repeated in her head while she tried to think happy thoughts. But something was preventing her. It was as if a brick wall had been erected between the water and her pleasant thoughts. Slowly she felt the fear seep further into her bones, creeping from the soles of her feet right through her stomach to the top of her head. A wave of nausea came with it, and she had no choice but to rush to the side of the boat, where she held on for dear life and vomited with her eyes tightly closed.

Forcing herself to open them slowly, she watched the water as it churned up and down, around and around by the slow chugging of the ferry. And that's when a voice entered her head and told her to jump.

'What the...,' she whispered, 'I'm not going to jump.'

But the voice had different ideas, and soon Emma found herself sneaking a look around her to make sure no-one was watching as she climbed over the handrail.

Her face was as white as a sheet, but her body didn't seem to care as she threw herself from the boat, into the cold waters of the Thames estuary.

Hitting the cold water winded her. Breathing was almost impossible, and she found she could no longer move her body as she began to sink further and further down below the surface. With her eyes wide open in terror, she watched as the boat continued without her. Powerless to do anything, she simply watched the murky water around her, waiting for her terrible fate. Death by drowning. Her biggest fear. One that she was sure was about to come true.

Nobody would know until it was too late. She had made sure no-one was watching as she threw herself in. Although death beckoned, confusion reigned in her head. Why had she done it? Why?

Suddenly, something began happening to her body, and she felt a newfound strength fill her lungs, almost as if she could breathe underwater without actually inhaling it. Her arms and legs began to move gracefully through the water, and she swam along the bottom of the estuary. She felt as though a great weight lifted from her and she laughed beneath the water, somersaulting and dancing like a water baby.

A strange itchiness began in her feet, slowly making its way to her ankles. Emma bent over and lifted the bottom of her jeans, only to find something black winding its way up her legs. A momentary shock of fear pulsed through her and she catapulted herself from the bottom of the Thames upwards until she broke the surface of the water. Scanning the numerous vessels that sailed around her, she concentrated all her efforts on finding her ferry boat.

When she spotted it in the distance, she dived back under the water and swam with such speed that when she surfaced again, she realised she had swum much too far. Laughing, momentarily forgetting about the strange thing climbing her body, she reversed, swimming back towards it. Swimming alongside, she started to think about how she was going to get back on board, but before she could give it another thought, her body threw itself upwards, and she landed, feet first, exactly where she had started, on the deck of the boat.

Sitting back down, she closed her eyes for a minute. 'I'm dreaming. None of that really happened to me,' she told herself. But when she opened her eyes, she wasn't alone. Sitting beside her was none other than the ghost of Josiah Grimshaw.

She closed her eyes again, took a deep breath and re-opened one and then the other. He was still there. The young man she'd seen die in hospital.

'H...ello Joe,' she whispered.

His face lit up as he turned to look at her. 'You can see me? You can see me now?'

Slowly she nodded.

'But why? You couldn't see me earlier on. I've been on the boat with you and Lana all day.'

Gulping, she scrutinised him, 'You have?'

'I...I... just came back outside when I saw you.... jump out of the water.'

'You did?'

He nodded.

'So it did happen,' she squealed, turning to him and attempting to hug him, but her arms went right through him, and she almost tumbled to the floor.

'Sorry,' he said, 'but if it hadn't happened, surely you wouldn't be soaked to the skin. Aren't you cold? You must be freezing.'

As Emma's teeth began to chatter, she realised that she was a bit chilly and her clothes were sopping wet. Now what? She thought. I can't very well go inside like this, Declan will go mad.

'Erm, Joe?'

'Yes, Emma?'

'Can you do me a favour?'

Ten minutes later, Emma had managed to creep back inside without Declan noticing her. Lana met her in the toilets.

'What's going on?' She said, 'For some reason, Joe told me to bring your bag into the toilets... Oh My God, you're soaked. What happened? Jeese Emma, are you all right? You look like you've been for a swim. Hang on a minute, you look amazing, how is that possible? For the past five days, you looked like you were about to die and now you look like, like...'

'Like what, Lana?' laughed Emma.

'Like a new woman.'

'I feel exactly like that, Lana, I feel like a new woman. My fear, it's gone. It's completely and utterly gone!' she exclaimed as she took off her wet jeans and wrung them out over the sink.

Lana gasped.

'What?'

Pointing, Emma slowly looked down. She'd forgotten about the black thing in the water. She, too, gasped when she saw that a tattoo-like thing was still winding itself up her legs. Soon it had reached her belly. A sudden pain made her bend over, and she winced, holding her stomach tight.

'Oh, God... that's agonising.'

Lana watched in shock as the tattoo then began winding itself around Emma's back, finally stopping in exactly the same spot that her tattoo had. Like hers, it hugged the curvature of her spine. Emma stood up as the pain eased. 'Wh... what does it say? Does it say Provehito In Altum? Look, Lana, look.'

Leaning down, Lana read the words aloud, 'Lux In Tenebris Lucet,' she said. 'And it's the same tattoo as mine with the eye and the wings; it's just the words that are different.'

'But what does it mean?'

'I haven't got a clue, Em, I'm no Latin expert. Maybe Declan will know?'

'No! We can't ask him?'

'Why not? It's not like he'll have any idea why we're asking.'

'I suppose not.'

A voice came from inside one of the cubicles, 'it means light shines in the darkness.'

'Josiah Grimshaw... this is the ladies toilets, what have I told you about that. It's creepy.'

'Sorry, I didn't see you get undressed, honestly. I've been behind the closed door the whole time.'

Lana suppressed a laugh as she looked at her sister, 'So what does that mean? Light shines in the darkness?'

Emma shrugged as she put a black sweater on over her purple jeans, 'I don't know. I don't know what any of it means. I've just been for a swim in the Thames, Lana, the Thames! I could almost breathe under the water, and I swam like a... like a dolphin or something. It was amazing. But I have no idea what it all means. Even though I feel so totally exhilarated, all of this is scaring the living daylights out of me. What are we going to do?'

Lana raised her eyebrows and sighed, 'There's nothing we can do. Not at the moment anyway. We're in London for the next few weeks, and we will just have to get on with our work experience. We can figure everything out when we get home, okay?' She said as she hugged her sister, 'I'm so glad it's happened to you too, Em. Now we're even more like true sisters.'

The girls smiled at each other as they walked out of the toilets carrying Emma's bag, complete with sopping wet clothes inside.

CHAPTER 14

Declan didn't say a word when they returned to take a seat next to him. Instead, he just looked up at them and grinned before pointing out the window.

Lana gasped at the sight unfolding in front of her. It was breathtaking. It was the Thames Barrier.

'Wow,' she muttered, her eyes wide in amazement, 'It's amazing. I can't believe we're actually here.'

'It is a great city,' said Declan, 'I think the three of you'll find it a real eye-opener.'

'Don't you mean the two of us?' asked Emma.

Declan's eyes shot wide open before he laughed, 'That's what I said, wasn't it?'

'No... you said the three of us.'

'Must have been a slip of the tongue,' he winked.

Lana glanced at her sister, her eyebrows raised before she shrugged casually and continued to stare out the window.

'It was built to stop London from being flooded by storm surges and particularly high tides,' said Declan.

'It was the storm, the great storm that influenced its creation,' whispered Joe as he seemed to shiver.

Lana and Emma tried hard to ignore him.

'Has it ever been used?' asked Lana.

'Oh yeah, it's been closed loads of times,' answered Declan.

'When was the most recent?'

'This year, they closed it for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee pageant.'

'Really? How come?' asked Emma.

'Oh, not because of anything serious that happened. It was to reduce the flow of the river due to the number of boats that took part.

'Did you see it, did you take part?' Emma asked.

Declan laughed, 'I saw it, yeah, but I didn't take part. Not exactly.'

'What do you mean, not exactly?'

Declan just shook his head, 'You ask a lot of questions, Emma. Just enjoy the views,' he said, pointing outside again.

From then on, they all sat quietly, as they passed landmark after landmark.

Even Josiah's mouth stayed open as he took in the sights to the city. A city he'd never visited, not as a young man nor an old one. He spent his entire life on Andilyse Island.