The Trespassing of Souls Read online

The Trespassing of Souls

  By M.S.C. Barnes

  The Trespassing of Souls

  Copyright©: M.S.C.Barnes 2015

  Published: 26 December 2015

  Publisher: Stone Circle Publishing

  The right of M.S.C Barnes to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by M.S.C. Barnes in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.

  Table of Contents

  Second Day Nerves

  It Gets Worse

  The Mark

  Teasing

  The Weekend

  Aiden

  The Leaf

  Explorers

  Labyrinths and Doors

  Cross-country

  Bats and Squirrels

  Moonlight

  The Sin

  The Summons

  An Abstraction

  The Caretaker

  Labyrinth

  Think First

  A Question of Age

  Whispering

  The Visitor

  History

  Left Behind

  Dryads and Hellhounds

  Believing is Seeing

  Sticks and Stones

  The Five Springs

  Through the Door

  The Group

  Souls and Trespassers

  Failure and Allies!

  Listen!

  A Quiet Word

  New Rooms

  The Annexe

  Nearly All Together!

  Sleeping Arrangements

  A Surprise for Zach

  Heath

  A Father Figure

  You Decide

  Souls and Spirits

  The Ancient Place

  Reunited

  Preparations

  A Time to Sleep

  Into the Darkness

  Trust

  Circles and Summons

  The Attack

  Defence

  Retake Them All

  The Fight

  Guilt and Power

  The Twins

  Give up the Ghost

  A Mind's Power

  Revelations and Revenge

  Sacrifice

  Eternal Damnation

  The Seal

  Concealment

  Just a Body

  The Escort

  Final Rest

  Sentinels

  Retelling

  A Binding Pledge

  Blame

  Things to Come

  Confirmation

  A Resolution

  The Question to End

  The Beginning

   

   

  Second Day Nerves

  Seb’s mum had made him pancakes with ice cream for breakfast. She knew he wasn’t happy, but then he rarely was. Mostly, Seb Thomas was troubled.

  This morning was particularly troubling. It was day two at his new upper school and day one hadn’t gone well.

  Socially, Seb had struggled through lower and middle school. With the exception of one friend, to all his other classmates he was either invisible, or the focus of ridicule and derision.

  He started the new school with this one friend, Zach, and guiltily admitted, only to himself, that he felt resentment at the friendship. Zach, like Seb, was highly intelligent and into ancient wonders, gods, mysteries and mythical beasties. Naturally they were drawn to each other. Seb, however, couldn’t compete with Zach’s overconfident, extrovert character. He felt eclipsed and dominated by him but was forced to cling to their friendship or face total solitude.

  So on that miserable Thursday morning he ate his pancakes, as the ice cream gradually melted, with a lump in his throat and a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Yesterday morning had been so different, full of excitement at the new start, new possibilities, freedom from the invisible Seb at middle school; a chance to be someone new. Today the gloss had been taken off that hope. He hadn’t managed to make one new friend. He had been with Zach the whole day and couldn’t bring himself to speak to any of their new classmates. He was left feeling it was all going horribly wrong and he was going to be as sad and out of place at this new school as he had been at his last.

  He felt a burst of adrenaline, the stomach-churning feeling of trepidation. To the sound of his mother barking instructions at his younger brother, Seb scooted out of the door.

  Brooding clouds gathered overhead.

  His sister sat smugly in the front seat of the car. She loved school, made friends easily, loved the novelty of new class timetables and had travelled home from her first day at the school full of stories of the friends she had already made.

  Scarlet was extrovert, organised, keen where Seb was introverted, chaotic, reluctant. They had started at the new school together in the same year and, as always, people guessed incorrectly that they were twins. In fact, Seb was ten months younger than Scarlet but their birthdays fell in the same academic year which consigned him to a school career living in his capable, gregarious sister’s shadow.

  He scowled at the snooty smile she gave him and clambered into the back of the car, dropping his water bottle onto the seat. It tipped over, leaking onto his trousers. He wiped them with a tissue which disintegrated and smeared white, flaky deposits over the black material.

  The journey to school passed quietly. As the few miles rolled by, Seb’s nervousness grew.

  The eight o’clock news came on and his mum turned the radio down. She habitually protected her children from news stories, not wishing them to hear about stabbings, bomb blasts or other tragedies.

  Seb remembered his horror the first time he heard about a bombing. His mum had been too slow to turn the radio down, distracted by his then baby brother vomiting the majority of his morning milk over his car seat. The news story told of an explosion in a country called Iraq, in a city Seb couldn’t pronounce. It had happened in a crowded market area and women and children were among the forty killed.

  Whilst the young Seb drew comfort from the fact this hadn’t happened in England, he wasn’t sure exactly how much. His internal world map didn’t contain the detail of where Iraq was and he had to check on his illuminating globe when he got home. He had been pleased at the distance of that country from England but now a hazy darkness had crept into his consciousness. Up until that point the world had been a safe, innocent place. Now he had been introduced to some of the nasty things that could happen and that people could do to each other.

  They arrived at the school approach road and their mum parked on the avenue of oak trees leading to the main gates.

  Seb struggled with his heavy bags, which seemed to be so much bigger than everyone else’s. Scarlet was shouting at him. She had seen a new friend nearing the school entrance and wanted to join her but knew she couldn’t get away with simply abandoning her nuisance brother. She edged away from the car. Their younger brother bawled that she was going without him and chased after her. Everyone could hear the Thomas family, strung out in a noisy procession: Scarlet shouting and waving to her friend, their little brother crying and their mum calling to him, running behind with his raincoat flapping in her hand. Seb, embarrassed, scowled and followed, holding his head down.

  Seb struggled to catch up with Sc
arlet and her friend as they approached Reception to drop off their mobile phones. Feeling grumpy, he decided that actually he didn’t need his sister’s company today and slowed. He sauntered to Reception, signed in his phone and headed for the playground via the main corridor. Trying to appear as if he had been at the school for ever, he was focusing on the light ahead, the exit door to the playground, when he felt a sudden blow on his right shoulder, heard a thud behind him and was spun around by two hands.

  A booming voice shouted, “Halt, mortal, and be identified!”

  Peering into the gloom of the corridor, Seb saw a set of bright white teeth shining from a dark face, framed by a head of tightly curled black hair. Zach!

  “I heard you coming, your feet stomped so much.” Seb tried to sound unflustered.

  Zach threw his head back and laughed a loud, outrageous laugh that rebounded along the corridor and must have travelled into every room off it.

  Seb was horrified. “Shh! We’ll get into trouble.”

  Zach put his arm around Seb’s shoulders and continued laughing. “I’ve been here ages, what took you so long?”

  “I thought you’d be in the playground. Come on, we’ll be late now,” Seb said.

  He moved towards the exit, wishing to goodness Zach would take his arm off his shoulders. He knew he should be grateful to have a friend, but Zach was already acting the fool and drawing attention to them both. They would never make new friends.

  “Wow, it got sunny quickly!” Zach boomed, staring at the light shining through the exit door.

  “Shh, Zach, there might be teachers in the classrooms.”

  Zach’s arm at last fell from Seb’s shoulders as he stepped round and walked backwards. “I see no Keep Quiet signs. I see no teachers,” he raised his head. “I do see a fraidy-cat friend though,” he carried on, bellowing out the words as a door behind him opened, “who needs to lighten up.”

  Seb stopped dead, staring beyond Zach’s shoulder to where a large figure had stepped from the classroom door between the boys and the exit. In silhouette it looked like a giant – an ogre! Its head only cleared the ceiling by about six inches; its hulking frame filled half the width of the corridor. It was making a