Annie drifted in and out of sleep. Every time she woke, she felt its pull again – and succumbed.
You’ve had a difficult life, Annie, a voice told her. A traumatic one. But with help you will now enter a new existence. One where your gifts are treasured…
Images bloomed in her mind.
A young man, chest crushed, slumped in his car, face a smear of blood. 147
An angry man at her door, finger pointing, mouth moving in a series of rapid insults.
A broken window. The paint on her door. A lifeless, long-eared bag of fur on her doorstep, its eyes staring out.
A series of faces, staring, fingers pointing, hands curved over mouths as they spoke hate.
Then a series of thoughts and emotions. Words and feelings settling across her heart and in her mind.
And then she felt a warmth spread from her heart to encompass every cell in her body. Followed by a chill that did the same. She shivered. She didn’t quite know how to feel, or how to be in this moment, but did recognise an overarching sense of wellness.
This curse. These murmurs. They will plague you no longer, she heard.
Annie felt a surge of hope. ‘Forever?’ she heard herself say.
She almost wept with relief. To be without that chorus of madness in her mind. Never to see someone’s face transform into a skull and hear how they would die. To be free of that would be wonderful.
Emotion bubbled from the tightness in her heart, up her throat, and sobbed from her open mouth.
And as she did so, it was as if someone wrapped her up in a cocoon of care and concern. And she let the tears flow. And how she wept. For the child she had been, the girl she had become, and the woman she was yet to be.