The Witch Hunt (Jonny Roberts Series Book 3) Read online

  Zara and I held her a little higher, her skin now the colour of porcelain. It was as if she were a doll, precious, in need of protection. But, staring into her face a little longer, I considered that this was false. She was more like Frankenstein’s Monster, experiencing the convulsions of life. Wanting anything but.

  Dad sawed frantically, though still trying to be as careful as possible with her neck. He was a motor, slowly attacking the tight circle of rope. When it finally turned to sinews, Bella took a gargling, desperate breath. Then, she was released, the rope splitting, the noose falling harmlessly to the floor. Bella falling into Zara and I’s arms.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Dad, utterly breathless. “Is she okay? Is she okay?”

  Bella was coughing and spluttering, so she was definitely alive. But she was clearly not okay. Nobody that tried to hang themselves was okay.

  “Mum?” Zara managed, her voice quivering. Her mother’s head lolled against my arms. “Are you alright?”

  Bella didn’t reply for a moment. But then, her eyelids flickered open, and she stared, and screamed.

  “Why! Why did you stop me! I don’t want to be here anymore! I want to die! Kill me! Kill me now!”

  She sunk her teeth into my arm. I cried out.

  “Bella!” Dad shouted.

  But Bella was already out of my arms, my grip released. She scrambled against the floorboards, somehow made it past Dad’s rugby tackle. He made a faint cry of defeat as his arms hit air, before he sprawled onto the floor.

  “Mum!” Zara shouted. Bella was running for the kitchen. She’d already disappeared through the living room door.

  “Get her!” cried Dad. He bounced up from the floor like a human spring. But Zara and I were already past him, chasing after Bella.

  Turning the corner, we found out why she was so desperate to get into the kitchen.

  “No, Mum! Don’t!”

  This time, it was Zara’s rugby tackle. And this time, Zara crumpled Bella’s tiny frame. Bella’s fingertips brushed the knives in the block, but couldn’t grasp one fully. Her hand fell away, before she slammed against the floor, buried beneath Zara’s bulk.

  “Get off me! Get off me!”

  Zara didn’t listen. She positioned herself so that she was sat on top of Bella. Then she held that position, despite Bella’s bites and scratches, her slaps. Zara just took it, her face completely stoic.

  I jumped onto Bella too, as did Dad. Each of us pinned her down, so that she couldn’t use her arms or her mouth to get us back.

  “Please darling, stop this,” said Dad. “It’s me. It’s your Michael.”

  Dad’s soothing tones achieved nothing, though. Bella just continued to shout, “Get off me! Get off me!” Then, “Let me do it! Let me do it!”

  Each cry was frantic, desperate. It was as if Bella had become someone else, something altogether unhuman. Now, her eyes were pieces of coal, black and huge. Her teeth were sharp, predatory, threatening. Saliva trickled from both corners of her mouth, as if she hungered for us. The deep red mark on my arm attested to this, fresh blood rising from my skin.

  But she could do nothing to us. Zara sat on Bella’s chest, I on her left arm, Dad on her right. She was powerless; not that it made her any less terrifying. Not that it calmed my quivering heart. I risked a look at Dad, to see how he was coping. He was looking at Bella, not back at me. But, where I’d expected to see fear in his eyes, instead, I just saw acceptance. It was only then that I realised that this had happened before. That Bella had tried to kill herself before.

  It seemed to be an eternity before Bella’s breathing slowed, became heavy. Bizarrely, the effect was immediate. She stopped flailing, quit her struggles. It was as if, in the space of a second, she’d realised that resistance was futile. In fact, it was as if she were about to fall asleep.

  And that’s what she did do a moment later, her head rolling backwards, in the same manner that it had done the previous night. Where before her eyes had been sharp and hateful, her mouth screaming profanities and anger, all of a sudden, everything about her relaxed. It was as if what had happened to her was impossible, could not have happened. Like we were the ones who were dreaming, not her.

  As soon as it was clear that Bella was asleep, Zara got up with a sigh. Dad did likewise. I took this as my cue to get up, too. For a moment, we all stood there, Bella now lying peacefully on the floor. The three of us looming over her. My frustration only growing at the continued silence.

  “What?” I finally said, my eyes darting from Zara to Dad. “Are neither of you going to tell me anything?”

  They looked at me. Zara sullen once again. Dad still with that look on his face, like this was an everyday occurrence. And welcome to the club, Jonny.

  “Well? What the hell just happened?” I prompted.

  Dad shook his head. “You don’t need to know.”

  “I do.” I felt my temper rising. I wasn’t a child; I didn’t need to be protected from this. “You’re my dad, and she’s sort of my step-mum. And you clearly both know.”

  Still nothing. Just that irritating, awkward expression. I tried a different angle.

  “Look, I saw you last night, okay. I saw you both pinning her down. And she was going crazy, just like she was then. And her eyes, they had that demon look about them, the same as when—”

  “I know,” Dad interrupted. “I know you saw her. The truth is, Jonny ‒ neither of us know any more than you do. These . . . episodes . . . started about a year ago. We’ve been to the doctors. Of course, we played what happens in the episodes down. They palmed us off with some drugs, which have made no difference at all. And some nights, still, as you’ve seen, Bella seems intent on killing herself.”

  I rubbed my face with the palm of my hand. “But during the day, she – she seemed absolutely fine.”

  “I know. I’ll admit, she’s suffered from depression in the past. But during the day, she’s never admitted to me that she wants to commit suicide. In fact, she’s told me that she has no recollection of these events. It’s almost as if she becomes a completely different person.”

  I nodded. A completely different person.

  “Almost like she’s possessed?” I offered.

  “Yes. Exactly like that.”

  Zara had been looking between the two of us, and now said, “Shall we take her back to your room, or just leave her here?”

  I wondered if Dad might snap at her sarcasm. But instead, he merely nodded, resignedly. Dad lifted her deadweight into his arms, and carried her up the stairs. Zara and I followed.

  A minute later, she was tucked up in bed, the lamp casting a soft light across her body and her neck, which was a ring of deep red.

  “Right, I’m going back to bed,” said Zara, turning to the door. “See you both in the morning.”

  After Zara’s bedroom door closed, Dad and I were left standing awkwardly at the end of their bed.

  “You going to be okay?” I asked him.

  “Yeah. I’m used to it,” said Dad, with a false smile.

  I shook my head. “That doesn’t mean you’ll be okay. Is it always this bad?”

  “No. This was one of the worst I’ve seen. Luckily, I’m quite a light sleeper, so she normally wakes me up as she leaves the bed. But I think those beers last night must have numbed my senses.”

  I put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Dad. If you need anything tonight, just come and wake me up. And try and get some sleep too, okay?”

  Dad said he would. But as we parted, we both knew that we’d be awake until dawn.

  7

  I spent the remainder of the night trying to work out what was happening to Bella. My mind became a maze of different ideas.

  Firstly, I wondered if Bella was just extremely depressed. Dad had said that she claimed to have never felt suicidal during the day, but what if she was lying? What if it was a reaction deep in her subconscious, that affected her at night, and made her try to kill herself in her sleep?

  Alte
rnatively, she could just be suffering from some sort of terrible sleep walking. Something that could have been simply explained. I hoped that this was the case, because the only other explanation that I had was far, far worse.

  I’d given away my third hunch to Dad. I’d thought of it soon after touching Bella, and feeling the insane amount of energy surging from her to me. She’d been a giant energy conductor, which from experience, often only meant the presence of one thing. And now, as I stared at the early morning light filtering into my room, I asked myself the question again.

  What if Bella was being possessed by a spirit?

  I scrunched my eyes. Realised that I couldn’t just sit around and watch Bella try to kill herself if this was a possibility. Okay, I’d promised myself that I’d put my past life behind me. But Bella had been so kind to me since I’d arrived, and I was warming to her, even if I’d wanted to yell at her two days ago.

  The only barrier was that it would be exceptionally difficult to help her. If my hunch was right, then I could try to summon the spirit. Only once before had I tried to do this on my own, and it had been a total disaster. Not only had I nearly died, but I’d almost ruined a friendship, and a relationship too. If I was going to do it again, it would be even harder. This time, I didn’t know the name of the spirit that might be possessing Bella. What’s more, I didn’t know how possession worked. I’d heard of it, I’d even heard Aaron speaking about it, but I’d need to do more research.

  Besides, the hunch could even turn out to be wrong. I’d felt no creepy feeling as I’d wandered the house. When I’d stepped into Alice Pickering’s crypt, and when I’d met with Katy Johnson in the burned house, I’d felt electricity travelling through my body. They’d been like radiators on full blast. Their energy could be felt from some distance away. Even looking at Bella the night before, staring into her demonic eyes, had produced no reaction inside of me.

  Yet, what about when I’d touched Bella? Then I’d felt the volts in my veins. Okay, they could have been a result of fear. But, what if I only felt them then because the spirit was inside of her? What if Bella’s skin was like lead, stopping the energy from exiting into the world? Keeping it inside? Meanwhile, the negative energy slowly took her over, caused her to become depressed and psychologically damaged and suicidal and—

  I shook my head. I couldn’t get carried away, make too many assumptions. Also, before I did anything, I wanted to see exactly how Bella felt this morning. If she was acting strangely, if she was acting out of sorts, whatever, I wanted to know about it.

  I waited for at least two sets of footsteps on the stairs before I climbed out of bed. After all, I didn’t want to be the first person that had to confront Bella that morning.

  Walking down the stairs, I didn’t know what to expect. Would Bella be damaged; injured? The rope would surely have crushed her windpipe, have caused a lot of swelling and pain around her neck. Also, could she continue her bright, jovial mood after everything we’d seen? Could she keep up that lie any longer?

  Creeping around the corner to the kitchen, my eyes immediately rested on Bella, sat at the table. Expecting her to be as white as ceramic, her eyes to be tense with sadness, I instead had to blink. Because as I walked in, she smiled at me, that familiar, pearly grin.

  But, beneath it, the redness and bruising from the rope formed another smile.

  At first, I didn’t quite know what to say. When I did speak, my voice sounded alien, as if it didn’t belong.

  “Morning.”

  “Morning,” Bella returned. Croaky, but an attempt at being chirpy. Upbeat. Not the voice of somebody who’d tried to hang themselves less than six hours ago. And I wondered; who are you trying to kid? Is this just a pretence? Are you pretending to be happy to try and trick me, to make me not ask you what the hell is going on?

  Dad had been leaning over the oven top, cooking eggs. Now, he turned to look at me. We immediately made eye contact. His eyes soon snapped away again, though not quickly enough for me to miss the dark circles under his eyes, and that same look of resignation from the night before.

  “How are you this morning?” Bella asked me, Dad turning back to his eggs, saying nothing.

  “Good,” I lied. Then, I reluctantly asked, “How are you?”

  “Fine, thanks.” I thought the next words out of her mouth would be about the night before, something about how that wasn’t the real Bella I’d seen, or that she was going through a really difficult time, or in fact, any sort of acknowledgement of what had happened. Instead, she merely asked, “Is eggs on toast okay this morning?”

  I swallowed. Why was she avoiding the topic? Surely she knew that I knew? Surely Dad had spoken about it with her? Or, at the very least, surely she’d noticed ‒ had felt ‒ the bright ring of red and purple around her neck?

  “That would be fine, thanks,” I said.

  “Great. The television is on in the other room if you want something to watch. Here, I made you a cup of tea.”

  I barely paid attention as she passed me the mug, being too lost in my thoughts. Then, thanking Bella, looking at the back of Dad’s head once again, I walked into the living room. Sat down. Thought.

  What the hell was going on here? Surely Bella could see that I wasn’t stupid? Perhaps she was just deliberately ignoring the issue in the hope that I’d forget about it. After all, I was going home the next morning. Perhaps she just wanted to make the most of the weekend without revealing her deepest, darkest secrets. Maybe she was embarrassed about it. Maybe she was afraid that I would go back home and tell Mum.

  I didn’t have a clue. But if Bella didn’t want to talk about it, then I could hardly raise the subject. I supposed this stubborn awkwardness would just have to continue.

  Eating breakfast at the table, we still didn’t bring up the topic. And still, she kept up the act of happiness. But the longer I looked at her, the harder I observed her, the more I saw the purple bags under her eyes, too. The more I saw the tension in her face, the worry lines around her forehead. She was quite an actress. But not quite good enough.

  Her voice was still wobbly ‒ from the rope, or keeping up this mask? ‒ as she said, “Oh, by the way, Jonny, your dad and I have to pop out for a couple of hours today. We go horse riding every Sunday. You’re welcome to come and watch, of course.”

  Perfect. I shook my head. “No, it’s okay, thanks. I fancy just chilling here for a little bit, if that’s alright?”

  “Of course. Nothing to worry about. You can have the run of the house. Zara might be around as well. Perhaps the two of you could have a chat, get to know each other a little more?”

  I couldn’t think of anything I’d less like to do. “Sure, that would be great.”

  “Good. She’s quite into her films, our Zara. Maybe you could even go to the cinema? There’s one just down the road, in St Albans.”

  I nodded. Pictured Zara and I going to the cinema together, the lack of conversation between us. Me shuffling in my chair through the adverts. Turning to tell her—

  I blinked. My mind’s image of Zara had turned into Cassy. Looking back at me. Smiling. Trying to hold my hand.

  Block it out. Just block it out.

  Dad frowned. Spoke for the first time that morning. “You alright, Jonny?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry,” I said, not wanting to give up my own darkest secrets.

  After the awkward breakfast, Dad and Bella went to get ready for their horse riding, which left me alone in the living room. Zara still hadn’t stirred, which suited me.

  By the time they came back downstairs, I’d watched a whole episode-and-a-half of Friends. Interestingly, I noticed that Bella was wearing a scarf, which perfectly covered the bruises around her neck.

  When I saw Dad in jodhpurs for the first time, I couldn’t resist a snigger.

  “Don’t laugh,” he said, grinning too. A little of the morning’s tension evaporated. All weekend, we’d been breaking down the walls between us, but last night had only constructed a
nother one.

  “We should be back in a couple of hours,” said Bella. “You know where all the food and stuff is, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. Hopefully my daughter might show her face at some point today.”

  I waved them out the door, telling them that no, they didn’t need to feel guilty for leaving me, and yes, of course I’d be fine on my own.

  Only once the car had left the driveway did I throw myself onto the sofa, yank my phone from my pocket, and finally start researching possessions.

  Firstly, I was curious to know if possession was permanent. Bella seemed back to her normal self, even if the evidence was still imprinted on her neck. Was it that the spirit could only possess Bella for short periods each day? Or only when she was asleep? If so, why? Was that when she was at her weakest?

  Typing possession into Google and scrolling down, one of the first results was about something called ‘demonic possession’. Considering how Bella’s eyes had looked, I decided the description was pretty accurate. The page started with a definition for what demonic possession actually was.

  Demonic possession is when a person’s actions are controlled by a spirit, demon, or some other form.

  Still being unsure about demons and whether they existed or not, I didn’t know how much I could trust the source. But the next bit interested me, nonetheless.

  Victims of demonic possession often report a number of complaints: missing memories, hyper-suggestibility, perceptual distortions, and a loss of control among them.

  Bingo. Dad had said Bella could never remember what had happened to her. Furthermore, each time, she totally lost control of herself.

  Not even understanding what the other two symptoms meant, I looked them up. But when I found out that perceptual distortions meant you lost awareness of where you were, and hyper-suggestibility meant being in a state of hypnosis, or doing what somebody else wanted, I began to shuffle in my seat. These four symptoms matched what had happened to Bella perfectly.

  But, this still didn’t explain how the spirit was actually possessing Bella, something else that I really wanted to know. Glancing at the clock, though, I knew that I didn’t have the time. Not if I wanted to perform the summoning that morning. I had two hours before Dad and Bella came home, and though Zara normally slept-in, there was always a possibility that she would come downstairs. I probably wouldn’t get another chance before I went home, and I still didn’t know if Dad had everything I needed in his cupboards.