Mated to the Dragon

Chapter 5

The ghost's voice was like iron nails dragged over rock. It rose and fell, never once making the words audible. Then the eyes that had been as white as the naked body turned to black and the mouth stretched wide in an eternal scream. Fiona stared at the ghost in fear and she wanted to scream but no sound came out of her throat. What a nightmare was she trapped in?

How on earth was she going to make sure that she could get away from this place and also relieve the area of the ghosts. There were not only two deaths which had happened here, but one did not seem normal…it looked forced while the other was an act of revenge. And revenge is a powerful emotion. If it did not help you get over your emotions then it was going to eat you alive. She had no idea how she was supposed to get out of this or what she was supposed to make of this.

Things were murky and bad enough without putting in a spirit and her anger in the entire mix. If this was taking or going to take this much time then how was she supposed to go on to the cave of jabberwocky and enlist him for his help???

But suddenly nothing mattered because something was happening right in front of her eyes. And Fiona had never been this scared in her entire life.

From the blackness came noises no living thing could ever make. It perhaps was once alive but rendered into a spirit that contorted with pain, anger, hatred... As the silvery wisps curled in around the door frame the sounds intensified until they huddled with eyes wide, hands clamped over their ears, hearing everything nonetheless...

At first it was nothing but a deeper moaning to the caustic winter air that swept over the ocean. The sound wound itself around their ears and began to change, like a terrible lullaby. Then from that background of sound that ebbed and flowed just like waves on the moonlit sand, came words. Fiona froze, straining to listen against the ceaseless wind and crashing water. It was no language she knew, but it hissed as it spoke...

“Why are you here?” said the hissing voice and Fiona felt that her heart would leap out of her mouth if she was any more scared.

“I am not here by my own choice. I even do not know how I reached here,” said Fiona and her voice was quivering like anything.

“You…..are not……worthy…..” hissed the ghostly voice again and this time Fiona narrowed her eyes. Who was this woman to tell her if she was worthy or not?

“And who do you think you are? Screaming here in my face like a banshee and covering the land in a beautiful garden and making it eyesore? Why are you so angry? You already took your vengeance against the one who killed your babe then why are you still here?” asked Fiona. Her fear was now lessening and she was increasingly getting agitated.

“You dare doth speak to me in that manner?” screamed the ghost again and the wide gap of her mouth…..it looked so dark that it felt like that insects were going to swarm out of that gaping hole immediately.

“I dare…because it is you who have brought me here. I did not want to come here or even see your memory but I have seen your grief. I have seen why you have been in so much pain for all these years and it pains me too…but you have to realize that it is over…it has gone and what has already happened…you can never bring that back,” said Fiona. Hoping that her empathy was going to help the ghost feel a little better but when nothing improved she thought maybe it was because she was lacking a personal touch.

Even though she had no clue what spirits actually liked in their form or why they became like this…angry…rebuffed…held on to the earthly plane while they should have found their light long ago but she knew that they were souls who had degenerated over time. And if they had anything in abundance then that would be emotions.

“Others would have emotional scars, not you, you're still bleeding because your heart is so strong. The thing is, you just need a new bond and you'll be fine, you'll be as good as new, still independent and strong. Love is as the blood in our veins, it needs to flow. I know what you are feeling…what you have been feeling with your child gone…you are a mother and I cannot even imagine the level of the emotional pain that you are dealing with but that does not mean that I cannot feel you. You lost your child and I lost my mother. May be that was the reason why  am the only one who is able to see you and your memories?” prompted Fiona.

When that too did not matter, she said,” I see you. I do. I see pain in those eyes. It has sat there for your life time, trapped in the confusion we all carry. I see love too, the love you would have given were it not for the scars. It's still there baby, and one day I will set you free. I'm not perfect, yet I love you, and I know what love means. Give me a chance to find my feet, to stop my own head from spinning and I'll prove it. There is so much of your life that is a hell for your soul, and you stay there from strength rather than weakness I know. So let me join you in that pain, walk with you, feel the same torture I know you bare.”

“He stared though us as if we were ghosts and our voices seemed to pass right through his head as if it were so much meaningless wind. Occasionally his brow would furrow as if to indicate that some kind of thought was forming, but then his face would relax again into the same stupid, slack jawed expression. If it weren't for his open eyes you'd assume he was sleeping...or dead. His breath was slow and even but his limbs were as still as a cadaver. Even when we played loud music to stir him nothing happened, not even a twitch,” said the spirit. “ He was my husband…he was the father of our child and I did not know what devil possessed him that would lead him to kill his own child. That too, our first daughter.”

“And you avenged her death? Didn’t you now? Then what is stopping you from going away from here? What is holding you back?” asked Fiona. She needed to know the reason o what was happening to the spirit of the woman or else she would never be able to leave this place.

“This land is cursed with the blood of my child. With the blood of my first born and nothing can grow here…I have made it so,” said the spirit in a howl and goosebumps rose across her entire skin.

“Then tell me…how should I get you rid of your pain?” asked Fiona. After all this land was the place where she had connected with her child and this was the same piece of land where the blood of the most precious creature in her life had been spilled. All her love had been immediately turned into grief, rage and anger all mixed into one in a moment.

“You cannot. No one can…only blood of my blood can…” said the spirit in an eerie voice and suddenly Fiona was thrown back in the present.

People can grow strong enough to whisper at the iron bars that hold them and see them bend out of their way, like the most crazy magic. That's what love can do: fix souls, fix brains, cure us all. I wish I could have mastered that way, but it's hard when you've been starving for so long. You can sit and call for help. You can act like there is no cage, wear a mask of coping and normality. You can rage against the bars. Yet what love makes simple, no other thing can solve. There is another escape route, yet it is one into another great pain. It is possible to be so emotionally starved that you slip through the bars, no longer bound but with your soul crumbling. That was my way out. What followed was endless emotional marathons on bleeding knees. I learned how to hide the pain, how to look normal. I understand why some go cold inside to escape the pain of isolation, why they let their empathy wither and die: numbness over feeling, mental anesthesia. I refuse. The thing is, regardless of the pain, I believe that living with an incomplete soul is a form of death, and I'd rather be a humane human in pain than a zombie needing to bite others to feed.