Soul Jars

By A.R. Vincent

Petra Taylor feel's responsible when her friend, Ben, goes missing. After all, she was the one who reported the disturbed grave to the groundskeeper. She was the last person to see him that night. And she did neglect to mention the missing soul that should have been there. Not that he'd have believed her if she had.

 

But Petra isn't your average pensioner. Ever since her powers awoke ten years ago she's been able to see the souls of the living and the dead. Now, as she searches for Ben and what happened to the missing soul, she has to finally embrace the powers she's been so desperately trying to ignore and the help of a demon she wishes she'd never met.

 

An exciting new supernatural mystery novel for lovers of paranormal women's fiction and cosy crime. 

 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: A.R. Vincent
• Release date: Jun 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201414351

A.R. Vincent

A.R. Vincent is a fantasy and sci-fi nerd who grew up dreaming of living in Hobbiton, or possibly somewhere on Endor, and raising dragons or man-eating plants. But instead she lives in England, in a wonderfully chaotic house where she raises kids and cats and several struggling house plants (none of which have so far shown the slightest inclination to vocalise their desire for blood, musically or otherwise). When she was younger, she wanted to be Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but when she finally accepted she wasn’t the Chosen One, she decided to be a writer instead. When she’s not writing she enjoys playing board games, pottering in the garden, and making various noises with a ukulele that she claims is music.

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Author’s Note

The English-speaking world is separated by a common language. Telling someone you like rubber thongs, for example, has a vastly different connotation depending where you are in the world. In Australia, it would indicate an appreciation of waterproof footwear. In the United Kingdom it would suggest that you go in for some rather niche underwear choices.

I am a Brit’ and my words and idioms are, I’m told, very English. I use ‘whilst’ instead of ‘while’ and spell colour with a ‘u’. I talk about knickers not panties, measure in imperial rather than metric, and probably use terms and curse words which aren’t as commonplace across the rest of this beautiful, diverse planet as they are in the UK. 

I don’t feel I need to try and hide that here. This story, however otherworldly, is set in Britain and its characters are, like me, British. Also, I believe that you, my readers, are intelligent and understanding enough to accept these little linguistic English oddities, even if they are not your own, and may appreciate their curious otherness.

Thanks for reading and I really hope you enjoy Petra’s adventures as much as I enjoyed writing about them.

Take care.

SOUL JARS

Ileaned on my cane as I waited among the trees. The wind whipped through the tall white boughs of poplar and birch, its icy gusts cutting through the several layers I was wrapped in. Around me, undisturbed by the weather, were the lights. They grew in pastel coloured columns from about each grave in the burial site. I watched them, pulling my coat closer around me, as they swirled and sparkled, driven by an unseen metaphysical force.

This wasn’t a sight everyone got to see, and part of me loved it. My supernatural abilities gave me an affinity for the dead, which meant I could see this. The sparkling essences of those who had moved on, the lingering imprints of their life energies. Not ghosts, that part of the person had departed, but the accumulated essence of the person’s time on Earth. Some were brighter than others, I didn’t know why, and all faded in time as their energy assimilated back into the natural world. I could sense who the person had been as I neared each column. Not in a what’s-their-favourite-ice-cream sort of a way, not even knowing their name. It was just a sense, like the shadow of a burning intellect or the warmth of a loving heart.

I heard a rustling and saw the floating beam of a torch cut through the gathering gloom. I stepped out from the shelter of one of the older poplars.

Ben, I said as the man with the torch grew nearer.

Petra? he said, swinging the beam of his torch in my general direction.

Guilty as charged, I said, stepping even further away from the tree.

Dammit, Petra! He barked. How’d you do that?

What?

Get round here like that without a light? Egads lass, you scared me out of my goddamn wits.

I glanced around. I hadn’t noticed how dark it had already become. The inky clouds were blocking out most of the light from the setting sun. It hadn’t felt that dark when I’d set out from the house a half hour ago and with the lights from the graves I hadn’t noticed how much the evening had closed in. Not that I’d be explaining that to Ben.

Sorry, Ben.

So, he said, raising his unruly silver eyebrows, how can I help you? His bushy grey hair was hidden by the hood of his wax jacket and the lower part of his weathered face obscured by a utilitarian khaki scarf, leaving only his eyes visible.

I walked over to a mound of earth that had, until this morning, been completely covered with grass. Here. I gestured with my cane at a section of the plot that had been disturbed. I would have crouched to get a better look, but my new hip was already angry about the cold and the second long walk of the day. I figured if I did something reckless like crouching, it would simply give up and sulk. Since I didn’t fancy getting stuck, I remained standing.

The groundskeeper crouched to get a better look. He can’t have been more than five years my junior, but his joints apparently were a lot less cantankerous as mine.

He ran his hands over the disturbed earth.

It didn’t look like animal marks to me, I said.

No, he said, his tone distracted and thoughtful. Looks like some kind of blade.

Like a shovel? It seemed an obvious choice, but something about his choice of words made me doubt it would be that obvious.

Maybe. But I would say more like some sort of trowel.

Well, there goes my grave robbing theory, I said. No one’s going to try and dig up a grave with a trowel.

You find a patch of grass that’s been dug up in a wood and your first thought is grave robbing?

It is a cemetery, I said, a shade defensive. It’s not totally illogical.

You need to read more classics and less of that modern crime rubbish.

I laughed. We’d debated the merits of our respective tastes in literature before. Well, since we’ve ruled out a modern-day Burke and Hare, why do you think someone started digging about here?

He stood up, wincing and making the obligatory noises we all start making when we get over fifty. Ooh, my knees, he said, blowing out air and staggering a little. It could be lots of things. We’ve had people trying to plant flowers on the gravesites. They know they’re not supposed to and all that, but they still do. He sighed. Then there are the others.

Others?

Yeah, we’ve had ‘em before once or twice. Some Looney Tune breaks in and thinks they can do black magic or devil worship or something. Most of them are just teens, trying to do séances or work some sort of spell. Then there are the adults who frankly should know better, trying to do animal sacrifices and other creepy stuff. I’ve had to call the police on some of that sort. Reckon they must be unhinged or something.

His words sent a chill through me that cut deeper than the breeze. I knew Ben, like most people, dismissed those who claimed to do magic or deal with the supernatural as crackpots. It was a luxury I no longer had. Whether or not I wanted to, I knew there was more in Heaven and Earth that was dreamt of in their philosophy. None of which was exactly warm and comforting.

That knowledge was exactly why I had called Ben about the disturbed earth when I had seen it. Because I had seen more than just some freshly turned earth. I had also seen what was missing from the grave. This grave, unlike all the others, had no light above it. Having lived next to the Rosemary Woods Natural Burial Site for over a decade, I knew that the lights faded with time. I didn’t know why, there wasn’t really anyone to ask. Well, there was Doug, but I didn’t like talking to him about that stuff. 

I also knew this grave was not that old. Maybe a month or six weeks at most. As a natural burial ground, Rosemary Woods had no headstones on any of the graves. So I had no idea who was interred beneath this mound, but I couldn’t think of any situation that would make someone's essence fade in such a short time. And if it hadn’t faded on its own, then somehow it had been taken.

I didn’t know all that much about the supernatural world - though, to be honest, even that was more than I wanted to - but I didn’t think it was anything good that could steal the lights of the dead, much less who would want to.

You okay, lass? asked Ben, pulling me back from my thoughts.

For a moment, before I pulled my gaze away from the dark clods of earth, I glimpsed Ben in my peripheral vision. To my eyes he emitted a warm, honey coloured glow that seemed alive with dancing sparkles. This ability to see these lights in people was the first part of my gift to awaken. Or at least the first part I’d noticed. I had initially mentioned it to the doctor. He had said it was auras and sent me for an MRI to make sure I hadn’t had a stroke. I hadn’t. Now, I believed it was the same essence that I saw above the graves.

Sure, I said, turning to look at him fully. In full sight he just looked normal, all traces of the honey glow gone. You heading home now? I asked, wrapping my arms tighter around me, as if they might somehow keep out the freezing night.

Yeah, I’d best be getting on. Can’t keep the missus waiting, you know how she gets, he said with a wink.

I did know. Brenda, Ben’s wife, was possibly the nicest human being in the world. She was a nursery practitioner with a talent for baking and a fashion sense that made me think of a psychedelic Mrs Christmas. Of course, I wasn’t the one who was married to her, but I couldn’t imagine her screaming at anyone, ever.

Ooh yeah, I said, playing along, don’t want to upset her now.

He roared with the kind of laughter that made you feel inexplicably warm inside. Honestly, if he and Brenda were older, I would have been sure that they were Mr and Mrs Klaus, and these were just their secret identities.

Right then, I’ll be getting on then, he said. You be okay, getting back on your own, lass?

Yes, thanks. I’m good.

That you are, lass. That you are, he said and turned away into the dark. I could hear him whistling as he walked off into the night.

I watched the bouncing light of his torch grow smaller as he wove back through the trees, then I turned in the opposite direction and headed home.

I stepped away from the ghostly trunks of the poplars and across a small stretch of meadow. I glimpsed the bouncing bells of snowdrops through the grass, their white flowers illuminated by the twisting lights above the grave. The trees I stepped into on the far side of the clearing were older. Oaks and chestnuts some older than the burial ground, some memorial trees planted over the site’s first graves. Despite the fact they had been there for decades, many of the newer trees were almost as willowy as the faster growing poplars and birch I had just left.

I felt a now familiar pull as I neared a small oak that arched over the path. Somewhere in the moss-covered ground and wood-aconites, that spread out beneath its branches was Albie, well, his ashes at least.

A warm feeling crept over me when I neared this spot. A sense of something familiar and friendly, like the feeling I had had when I’d heard the swing and clatter of his cat flap door. Sometimes, when I stood here, I almost felt that if I called him he’d slide around the tree and come for a cuddle.

Oh Albie, I whispered. I still miss you, tiger.

I felt the grief rise to greet me, crushing the warmth that had drawn me here. A swirling vortex of pain that threatened to close my throat and bring tears to my eyes. An overwhelming maelstrom of grief that, I had been told, was utterly disproportionate to the loss of a pet.

I gave the tree a wan smile and blinked hard, trying to convince myself the moisture in my eyes was because of the cold March evening and not the huge cat shaped hole in my heart. Albie had been a tiger’s soul in a house cat’s body. He had been my constant for eighteen years. Since my partner had walked out on me, Albie had been in so many ways the only friend I had.

I turned away from the spot and headed into the darkness. I had only taken a few steps when a movement caught my eye. From the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of grey among the trees. I turned, feeling the prickle of adrenaline running through my skin as my heart picked up the pace. The dead, or the dark, had never bothered me, but anyone or anything that could tamper with them utterly freaked me out.

I stared in the direction the movement had been. Nothing. Just the trees and the growing dark, and the silent column of swirling lights

AS MUCH AS I WANTED to know what was happening, I was exhausted by the time I got home. So instead of going and talking to the only person I knew who might help with this, I rested. It was only half a choice. The exercise along with the piercing cold had made my leg ache. I needed food and rest and time for my brain to catch up again, but I couldn’t be bothered with any of that yet.

Instead, I slipped onto the piano stall, took a sheaf of sheet music down and spread it out across the little stand. Chopin’s Nocturne in G Minor. Starting to play, I lost myself in the dancing notes until there seemed no barrier between the black curlicues on the paper and my fingers. I didn’t think. I didn’t ponder. I just played. Or I did, until the pain in my hip brought me back to reality and the world seeped back in.

I sighed, moved away from the piano, checked my phone and saw a voicemail from Lucy. She was the receptionist for the Rosemary Woods Burial site. It was a small courtesy, but it made me smile. I had no doubt that most of the staff at the site saw me only as the batty old dear who lived next door and took way too much interest in their place of work. Still, they were always polite and tolerant of me.

I listened back to her message. I had contacted Lucy when I wanted to get hold of Ben about the disturbed grave, and she was following up and making sure I’d met