Page 15 of Twisted Fates
“I-I don’t know,” he said, looking to his left again. “The consensus is that it won’t. It’s probably nonsense, but let’s try.”
Damian closed his eyes and lifted his hands. They cupped my nose, he began to hum, and then his eyes flew open. They were both solid white, and I just about jumped out of my seat, but something held me in place.
I wanted to scream, run, but I couldn’t do a damned thing.
Seconds passed, and Damian’s eyes returned to normal. Then he lowered his hands. “Wow,” he said when he examined my nose.
Whatever held me down loosened, so I jumped up, dropping the bloody towel to the floor. Irushed toward the door, but Damian stopped me. “Wait, don’t freak out. I can explain.”
“Explain what? Are you possessed or something? I need to get out of here. You too. You should leave this house.”
Just then, three apparitions appeared in front of me. I recognized the one in the middle first. It was the man from Damian’s photo. “What the hell?” I asked as I came to a stop in front of them.
“I’m sorry, sir. I’m Orville, this is Alice, and this is Emma,” he said, but I was too stunned to move, much less respond.
“I-I’m sorry, sir,” the apparition named Alice said. “I didn’t mean to hit you in the face.”
I looked at Damian, who shrugged. “I just met them all today myself,” Damian said.
“Ghosts? You’re talking to the house’s ghosts?”
“And why wouldn’t he?” Orville asked indignantly.
“First of all, there’s not supposed to be ghosts, and second, you attacked me. And…and your eyes, something must’ve possessed you. This isn’t okay. You need to let me leave.”
“No one possessed him. He’s a wizard, and he was using his powers and a mighty fine job he did of it. Look here, in the mirror,” Orville said, pointing toward an oval wooden framed mirror on the wall above a sideboard.
I gulped, afraid to look away from the apparitions in case one of them attacked me again, but I couldn’t resist looking where he pointed either. I saw myself in the mirror, and therewas blood under my nose, but the swelling was gone. It looked as if nothing had happened but a simple nosebleed.
Ignoring the ghosts, more intrigued by what I saw in the mirror than the fear of them, I went to get a closer look, reaching up and feeling my nose. It was fixed. Not even tender.
“H-how?” I asked, turning toward Damian, who just shrugged.
“No idea, it just happened, but it worked, right? Your nose isn’t broken now?”
I looked at him for a few seconds and then back at the mirror, then turned to where the ghosts stood. “Why did you attack me?” I asked the female spirit, Alice, as the male ghost had called her.
“I didn’t mean to. I saw the door was open, and you were coming in, and I tried to close it before you could trespass.”
“Trespass? I was here yesterday.”
“I know, sir. I just didn’t recognize you.”
“Alice, please go to your quarters. Let me spend some time with our guest. You too, Emma,” Orville said.
Both female ghosts disappeared, and I felt a slight breeze indicating they’d just walked past. Of course, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. “What’s going on? I don’t understand any of this.”
Damian stepped forward and put his hand on my elbow. “I think I can explain some of it. After you left the sandwich place, I found a piece of parchment and a quill in the envelope your boss gave me this morning. It gave me instructions aboutthe home, about Orville,” he said, gesturing toward the ghost who stood before me.
“Orville is a servant to the home. My predecessor, who left the place to me in his will, said I should spend time with Orville and the other ghosts. They’re here to help me fulfill some destiny I have.”
“Destiny?” I asked stupidly, not knowing how to respond to it all.
“Yeah, I guess I’m supposed to be some legacy wizard. I don’t know. I’m still figuring it all out.”
“Why did your eyes turn white? That was freaky,” I asked, and Damian shrugged.
Orville stepped forward. “When the power comes through the wizard, or at least this is how it was with his predecessor and clearly how it happened just a moment ago, it can be drawn from parts of the wizard’s being. More often than not, in a healing, the wizard lends his own essence to the person he is healing. In this case, your nose was broken, so the power flowed from Mr. Richard’s face—his eyes in particular, as the nose and eyes are closely related, are they not?”
