15th August, 2008, 11:24pm
It took a while for Tom to calm down, but Danny knew he had not believed them when they said it was not his fault.
Danny was lying in his bed, awake, just thinking. In just a few weeks, Tom had become unrecognisable. His friend had been dealing (and still was!) with a situation that had escaped perfectly to his control, and he had only realised that when Tom turned into a sobbing mess a few hours before. Danny felt revolted because it was not fair. How was it fair that his best friend, one of the nicest people he had ever met, could feel like that? How could Tom deserve something like that? He silently hoped that now, that he was not alone with his secret, now that they knew, Tom would go back to normal.
A light knock on his door interrupted his thoughts.
'Yeah?' Danny whispered, wincing at the pain in his head when he propped himself up on his elbows, so that he could see who was there.
'Can I talk to you?'
'Dougie?' Danny saw his friend entering the room, an arm still holding his ribs, and sitting beside him on the bed. 'Is everything alright?' Danny sat up straighter and looked at Dougie's blue eyes. His friend looked scared.
'Do you remember when Tom said he had found two notes written by the girl?' Dougie looked away from Danny and focused his gaze on the wall in front of him. 'One saying that his friends and family would suffer and the other saying he could run, but she would always find him?' Danny nodded. 'I saw the second one flying through the living room window weeks ago, when the three of us were watching TV.' Dougie confessed, letting out a laugh, one of those laughs that gets stuck in your throat when you're about to cry. 'I read it once, and the paper turned to ashes right after. I thought I was having hallucinations or something. I was scared as fuck for the rest of the week.' The blonde buried his head in his hands, and Danny put an arm around his skinny shoulders. 'I wonder how Tom did it.' Dougie raised his voice a little. 'How the hell did he cope for weeks with a fucking ghost, with books, notes, computers, appearing and disappearing, nightmares every night!' He sobbed louder, letting Danny comfort him and lay him in his bed, covering the both of them with the red blanket. 'I'm so scared, Danny.' He sniffled after a while. So Danny pretended he was not scared too, and managed to keep calm and not burst in tears beside his friend.
'Shh, you're safe, I'm here. I know this all seems fucked up right now, but let's just sleep, and it'll all look better in the morning.'
16th August, 2003, 10:17am
'So, do we have a plan?' Harry asked.
After breakfast, the boys had gone to the music room to discuss a 'plan', like Harry had called it, to get them out of the situation they were in. The drummer was not exactly healed from his pneumonia, but since Danny and Dougie were nowhere near better than him, he decided to help Tom a little. Tom was not feeling perfect either. It was obvious to anyone that he had cried himself to sleep, and he had shown up in the living room with dark bags under his eyes, which were red and swollen.
'We could tell Fletch.' Harry suggested, which surprised the other three, as Harry was kind of the rebel one in the band, and they did not expected him to involve their manager in a problem like that.
'Do you really think it would be a good idea? He would think we were stoned or something.' Tom muttered moodily.
'Yes, but we have proofs! The book, and the weird stuff that happened to us three. Besides, he trusts you a lot. Seeing as you were the one who had the nightmares and had the whole experience, he will have to believe us.' Harry explained. Tom curled up in a ball, his knees against his chest.
'I don't want to tell the whole story again.' He sounded scared like a little kid and like he would start crying at any minute. 'I'll start crying again, and he will think I'm crazy.' Tears ran down Tom's red cheeks, and his breathing became irregular.
'We can do it for you, mate.' Danny offered. He moved closer to Tom and let the blonde cry in his shoulder, and exchanged a worried glance with Harry, who observed how Danny was holding up so amazingly. Harry had defined Danny and himself as the strongest ones, emotionally, even though Danny could cry easily, but knew how to deal with pressure and was in a good mood most of the times. Harry simply kept his emotions inside, and tried to help as much as he could. It was not enough, though. There were four of them, but they were dealing with something they didn't knew much about.
They needed help, more than Harry or Danny could provide, because even themselves knew they would break at some point.
16th August, 2003, 3:43pm
Fletch looked at the boys, his lips closed in a tight line, but they couldn't quite understand his expression. They had called him for a reunion in the band house, explaining him that something like that couldn't be discussed by the phone, and they had just finished their long explanations about Lilith, the Catchpole family, Marie Hills and the black book, and their connection, Fletch had listened everything without interrupting them (which was not like him at all), and now he was just staring into the four of them, as if trying to fit all the ideas into his head and understand everything. With a sigh, he finally spoke.
'You have to understand that this is not exactly easy to believe. As much as I trust you, I had never thought about ghosts and that kind of beings, if we can call them beings, that is, and, like you, I don't know what to do about this. This is something really serious, not like in the movies with haunted houses. This is actually dangerous for all of you, and includes killing a girl. You have a lot of evidence there, so I can only believe you, but I need to think about this and have a talk with Tommy, so that there are no ghosts here when you start dealing with the new album, singles, press, shows... What you told me cannot interfere with any of that.' Fletch left them, after promising he would talk with Tommy and find a solution for everything, which made the boys feel a lot less nervous.
16th August, 2003, 9:53pm
'I don't understand.' Dougie said, his brows furrowing in confusion.
Danny, Tom, Harry and Dougie were back in the living room, examining Lilith's black book that was now in Dougie's lap.
'What is it, Doug?'
'Have you seen 'The Exorcist'?' The blonde asked.
'That old movie with the green girl and the priest?' Danny asked, tilting his head to the side.
'Yeah, that one. The girl's body is possessed by a demon. In the life enchantment, it says we have to...kill Marie so that Lilith can stay in her body. Why can't she just possess Marie's body, like in the movie?' Harry rolled his eyes.
'Maybe because it's just a movie, Dougie.' Harry replied in annoyance.
'Well, yeah, but-' Dougie stopped talking when the book opened himself, the first few pages turning as if there was a fan right next to it, violently blowing the pages. When it stopped, Danny, Tom and Harry sat next to Dougie, all of them looking scared, and Tom noticed the fourth page was not empty anymore.
'While performing the life enchantment, the apprentice must have in mind that the dead body is essential for the charm. Contrarily to popular belief, the ghost cannot stay for long in a living body. While in a possession state, the body has two souls fighting inside of it, which would create an unbearable environment for the ghost. Killing the body allows its soul to go away to the other side, and the ghost can finally occupy the body and live inside of it normally.' They all read in silence. Dougie sighed.
'I guess this answers my question...'
Tom smiled weakly, shrugging. 'I wish it would answer some of mine too.'
deeplyinloves: Haha, thanks! I hope this is not being too predictable, I wanted to keep some of the mystery! Hope you enjoyed this longer chapter :D an thanks for your reviews!
