Besides

By Pamela Harju

When darkness comes, how do you deal with it?

From two best friends in an alternative rock band who fall in love with the same woman to an abandoned Irish mining town, these stories hover on the edge of darkness, tragedy and dystopia.

Discover ghosts, monsters and murderers in this whimsical collection of short stories and novellas from award-winning author Pamela Harju.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pamela Harju
• Release date: Feb 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215143971

Pamela Harju

Pamela Harju is an award-winning author of musical fiction. She spends her spare time with her dogs and travelling to see rock bands most people have never heard of. She loves tea, big old houses and tattooed men and is happily unmarried to her partner of many years. A native Finn, Pamela lives in the Irish countryside in an old cottage that's always threatening to fall apart. She has a full-size dog agility arena in her back garden.

Book preview

Pamela Harju

Besides

A collection of rarities

Copyright © 2022 by Pamela Harju

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Pamela Harju asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

First edition

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Contents

In Your Blood

Freak

Matters of Gravity

Connor’s Curse

Kellig

Letters to Transylvania

The Light in My Darkness

Thank you for reading.

The story behind the story

Also by Pamela Harju

About the Author

In Your Blood

This story has previously been available as a free download on BookFunnel, Prolific Works and StoryOrigin. This is the first time the story is available between physical covers.

When Lee enters the room, he sees Jolly posing in front of the mirror, topless and in a ridiculous-looking, rimmed black hat. He is twisting his tattooed torso left and right, craning his neck to check his reflection from different angles. Strands of his usually spiky black – recently, anyway – hair peek out from underneath the hat.

Oh hello mate, Jolly greets as he enters the room. How do I look?

You look ridiculous, Lee says and throws his leather jacket on the bed but flashes a grin at his friend.

Cheers. Jolly responds to the grin, takes the hat off and throws it on his own bed in a practised move. Lee can almost smell the new stage antics accompanying the headgear.

Where have you been? Jolly asks. He doesn’t look at Lee. He’s busy looking for something in the bag on the only chair in the room.

Lee smiles, and he’s aware that his entire face lights up.

I walked Isa back to her hotel.

Did you now?

For a moment, it looks as though Jolly hasn’t really taken note of the gargantuan announcement. Then he pulls underpants from the bag, lifts them closer to his nose and gives them a careful sniff.

I can’t figure that girl out. Sure, she’s pretty as hell-

I didn’t realise hell was pretty, Lee says, sitting down on the bed, still grinning like a lunatic which catches on with Jolly.

If hell’s as pretty as Isa, I want to go! They chuckle out loud while Jolly makes his way towards the bathroom. I mean, yeah, I get that she’s a freelance photographer, like, but she still hangs around us a lot. Does she ever have any other assignments? I just don’t get it. The bathroom door closes behind Jolly – sort of. The door handle rattles for a moment while Jolly tries to close the door properly and then gives up realising that it’s not going to happen.

Lee lays back on the bed, arms crossed under his head. Yeah, Isa is very pretty, but it’s not just that. There is a mystery about her that enchants him. She does keep showing up, but she also makes it worthwhile every time. Tonight, though, was the first time anything had happened.

She had lingered on after the show until everyone was gone, and Lee had made sure that security hadn’t kicked her out. Then, when all the band’s gear was loaded back in the van and they were ready to leave the venue, he had offered to walk her back to her hotel. It was sort of in the wrong direction, in New Town whereas their accommodation was just off the Royal Mile in Old Town, but he wouldn’t exactly have called that a sacrifice. His friends had just shrugged and let him go.

He had pretended to know Edinburgh well, which wasn’t entirely true. Sure, he had visited the city a few times, but he had let on that he knew it better than he did thanks to his Scottish father. That wasn’t a lie, but his dad was a Highlander.

In any case, Isa’s hotel was just across the railway tracks – not far enough, if anybody asked him. They had strolled by the Princes Street Gardens and past the Scott Monument, and he had tried to impress her by imparting all his information on said monument. It wasn’t all that much even though he had climbed to the top of it once – all 287 steps. He hadn’t mentioned that he had suffered from a most heinous case of vertigo at the top.

While they had been gazing at the top of the monument, his face close to hers while his arm had been pointing upwards, there had been a moment, and for once in his life, he had gathered up the courage to seize the moment. Suddenly their faces had been close together, he had felt her warm breath on his lips – slowly turning blue in the cold Scottish winter’s night – and he had gently put his hands on the sides of her head.

Then she had pulled away.

Her chin had fallen down in something like shame, and an unfulfilled What? had escaped from his mouth before he had had the chance to stop it.

They had remained like that for a moment, his hands on her shoulders, his eyes on her face while she stared down. A few late night walkers had passed by, either oblivious to their situation or curious but not willing to show it.

I can’t.

Why? he had whispered.

I can’t. It would be disloyal.

Disloyal to whom?

She had merely shaken her head.

Please just drop it. I’m sorry. I can make my own way back from here.

He had refused, of course, and walked her back to her hotel, awkward as it was. At the front door, she had given him a warm hug accompanied by a genuine smile.

There had to be something she hadn’t told him. Perhaps there was a boyfriend that he didn’t know about. He had always assumed there was none because she always showed up on her own, but she was doing her job. People didn’t bring their partners on work trips.

Still, there had been a moment, and it had been close. It meant that there was an attraction.

The handle of the bathroom door shakes again, and Jolly bursts into the bedroom, his head buried in a large, white towel.

Man, that shower is crap. Cold, hot, then freezing again, and if you adjust it, it goes to boiling. There’s, like, this much room for adjusting it. His index finger and thumb display a gap of a few millimetres. So good luck.

We don’t have to get up early, do we? Lee asks while starting to take his shoes off.

Nah. We’re setting off in the afternoon. Lie-in tomorrow.

Jolly does a little dance around the room.

* * *

They had been born two weeks apart, him and Jolly. Lee had been born on a thunderous night and Jolly a fortnight later in the middle of one of the most memorable heatwaves of the 1990s. Jolly Martin, born Joseph Jeremiah Martin - nicknamed Joey by his parents and his sister who was eight years his senior - was the sunshine of the lives of everyone he knew. While not a studious kid, he did well in school purely by being witty and a logical thinker. Lee, on the other hand, was bookish and interested in his studies but didn’t come across that way because of his shyness. Had it not been for Jolly, he would not have had any childhood friends.

They lived in the same street growing up, three doors down – or up, depending on how one looked at it – from each other. It had been heartbreak time when Jolly’s father had got a promotion which had finally given the family the chance to move into a bigger, more comfortable house a couple of districts away. Jolly had changed schools, and at the same time, Lee’s parents had divorced and he had found himself living with his mother. An only child, he missed male company. His parents had broken up on good terms, and he saw his father regularly, but losing his best friend and his father at the same time was too much.

Jolly didn’t do well in his new school either. He started getting into trouble, hanging out with some older kids because those his age didn’t like the look of him. It was a better school, and Jolly didn’t fit in with the posh kids. After a few months, his parents decided to return him to his old school, and the friends had vowed never to be parted again.

* * *

Lee watches the countryside flow by as they drive south. John, their friend and jack-of-all-trades, is driving, sipping his coffee whenever he can. Fatigue is a constant friend on tour.

Benson, their bass player, is watching something on his tablet, buried in his own world with headphones on and with a travel cushion around his neck. Vic, the drummer, is reading, also in his own world. Jolly is sitting in the passenger seat, and judging by how quiet he is and by the way his head keeps nodding, he’s asleep.

Lee is sitting in a corner wrapped up in his own thoughts while they pass endless villages and towns, some of which are household names and some of which he has never heard of. Touring is a funny way to travel. One sees very little although one travels all over the country. Lee, although a natural hermit, recluse and introvert, doesn’t think he could put up with it if it wasn’t for the company of his friends. Apart from his three bandmates and John, he doesn’t have many friends. He never has had.

He has been friends with Jolly since before he can remember. They built sandcastles together, kicked a football together and shot water pistols at each other. Later, they rode their bikes around the estate and camped in a tent in Jolly’s parents’ back garden. It wasn’t until they entered their second decade of life that Jolly started having other friends, and Lee struggled with that. It was like suddenly he wasn’t enough.

Jolly was a somewhat popular kid in school. He was chatty, outgoing and smart and excelled at sports as long as he could keep up his interest in them. Lee, on the other hand, was clumsy and awkward in all senses of the word, and nobody wanted to be friends with him. He ended up knowing other boys only because Jolly kept dragging him along to random-number-of-players-a-side kickabouts, birthday parties and sleepovers. It was all good fun even though he was as uncomfortable as a chicken in a fox’s den if Jolly left his side for a moment.

Then they got older, into their pre-teens and early teens, and suddenly Jolly discovered something more interesting again: girls. Lee discovered them too, possibly a little before Jolly even, but he was terrified of doing anything about them, so he just watched them from afar. Jolly didn’t need to. Being popular with other boys meant that he was also popular with girls. His smiles and winks came naturally, and girls – the pretty ones too – were tossing and twirling their hair at him. For a while again, Lee thought that he had lost his best friend as Jolly always seemed to be busy seeing girls. Jolly seemed to get up to all the naughty stuff too – kissing and things that meant nothing to Lee. He was 15 before he even managed to snatch a kiss.

Apparently, Lee has been told, he isn’t bad-looking. In fact, girls quite like his height and his floppy blond hair, but he lacks confidence, and that is – if not quite a turn-off – a hindrance. That is what his friends have told him. He wishes that one day he will wake up and see himself in the mirror with different eyes, but every morning without fail he is met with the reflection of an awkward and insecure, slightly odd-looking young man who is afraid that a woman will turn into dust at his touch.

Right, boyos, we’re here! John shouts from the front seat. Lee looks outside and is met with the sight of a huge brick wall.

That’s the venue, my dears, John continues and starts getting out of the van. Everybody else is still in a haze.

* * *

They are playing support that night. They are finished with their set early, having played first on the night. For such a small venue, they have a surprisingly generous dressing room of their own. They are all drying themselves off with towels, sipping beer, Coke or water depending on their requirements. Vic in particular is drenched with sweat from his efforts behind the drums, and he has towelled himself thoroughly before spraying practically the whole room with deodorant and getting changed into a cleaner t-shirt.

Lee is sitting in front of the only mirror in the room trying to get his hair back into shape when he sees the door open in the reflection. He hasn’t heard a knock, but they are a noisy bunch, so it’s no surprise. His jaw drops when he sees Isa enter the room, complete with her enormous camera with one of the massive lenses.

Hi boys, she says with a smile. There isn’t anything flirtatious about it although there could be, was it said in another tone. They chorus a greeting back at her although Lee finds himself choking on his words. He notes through the mirror how Isa’s curious eyes follow Jolly around the room. He is walking around topless, showing off his physique, hairless chest and jungle of tattoos. Lee tells himself that it’s the tattoos Isa is admiring. She has one herself – at least one that he has seen. It’s a Pegasus on her upper right arm – a beautiful little thing, just like her.

I didn’t realise we had the pleasure of your company tonight, Jolly says with a grin while drying his hair on a towel. He has given up on the spikes now and prefers to just let it hang loose, possibly under that silly hat, but it keeps getting in his way on stage in sweaty streaks, with hair gel running down his face. Jolly doesn’t seem to mind it, but Lee sometimes gets bothered by it when watching his friend on stage. That kind of things trouble him.

Oh? Did I not say that? She says, her large eyes all innocent.

Not that I recall, Jolly says with a look around at the others.

Sorry about that. Do you mind if I grab a few shots?

Fine by me, Benson says and grabs his phone from the side table. Nobody disagrees. Lee would rather not have his photo taken, not the way he looks, but he very much likes the idea of Isa hanging around.

Good show tonight? she makes conversation while snapping away. The others chat away excitedly, but Lee remains quiet. He is intrigued by this creature with her red hair, tiny frame and the delicious body hidden underneath the white, lacy dress. He doesn’t know how to get through to her though. He thought he had his chance the other night, and then she turned him down at the last minute. It was hard to understand. She doesn’t pay him much attention now either. Perhaps she feels awkward about their last encounter. She is friendly towards him, smiles at him and makes brief comments in his direction, but there is nothing to indicate anything more intimate. He is disappointed to note that her eyes and camera linger on Jolly even after he has thrown a fresh t-shirt on. Jolly looks more like a rock star than the rest of them, but he is not a handsome man either. The thought of Isa falling for him is unbearable. Jolly is not interested in settling down, but Lee knows that he doesn’t have much of a mind of turning a pretty girl down either. Jolly agrees that Isa is pretty too.

Isa takes her leave when she hears the headliners start their set in the main room. She disappears in a flurry of skirts and red hair and is gone as quickly as she arrived.

The atmosphere in the room remains relaxed. Everybody is chatting away. It’s only Lee who feels that the temperature has dropped and the air has started moving more freely. He is breathing again. He keeps his eyes on Jolly, but his friend seems to have forgotten about Isa’s appearance and is focused on chipping off the peeling black varnish from his fingernails.

* * *

They move to a bar just around the corner after the gig is done, they have loaded their gear back into the van and have chatted to a few fans. There aren’t many of them yet, but they exist and are all the more precious for that.

There is a whole group of hangers-on at the bar. The main band, all of their own crew, some fans and a girlfriend of the headliner’s tour manager, who doubles up as the girl who sells t-shirts. There is also a smaller group of girls, one of whom is Isa.

Lee almost stops in his tracks when he spots her. She appears to be with a couple of friends, who are all happily drinking their cocktails and giggling over them. He hasn’t seen her like that before. She is usually a little shy although still sociable and not awkward. She is used to being on her own but clearly flourishes in the company of friends.

Accompanied by Jolly, Lee steps over to the girls. He notices the slight flush on Isa’s pale but made-up cheeks. She looks coyly at them but smiles sweetly. Her friends are chatty – probably thanks to the drinks they’ve already consumed – and glad to be introduced to real rock stars in the making. Jolly is comfortable with that definition of himself, but Lee isn’t. Vic and Benson don’t mind either way and hurry over to the bar and return a moment later with a round of drinks. Benson is generally considered the good-looking one. He looks like a nobleman stuck in the wrong century. He has a steady girlfriend though and remains faithful to her, despite the attention he often receives when they are out. Vic, on the other hand, is ordinary-looking but seems to have a string of less steady girlfriends. Lee was looking for a girlfriend but stopped the search when he met Isa some three months earlier. He isn’t sure of her relationship status. He has looked her up on Facebook, but not everybody flaunts it publicly.

Lee downs his first drink quickly. He gets a second round and finishes that quickly too. Being tall is both a blessing and a curse when it comes to drinking. He can hold his drink, but it is also harder and weightier on the wallet to try to get drunk. By the time he has consumed enough alcohol to try striking up a conversation with a creature as gorgeous as Isa, Jolly is already quite, well, jolly, and has his arm around Isa’s shoulders while grinning at her like the cat who got the cream. Their faces are close.

Lee feels the hair on his arms bristle like the hackles on a dog threatening attack. He can feel it flowing through his blood, riding inside his veins and all across his body, like a poison reaching his brain and eventually his heart, slowing it down and eventually stopping it in its final beat. His ears are ringing, not hearing the music pounding around him, but a deep, low, dark music inside his own mind. He grips the edge of the table in an effort to feel something else but the blinding jealousy and the inevitable loss that is going to follow. He has been there before, and he is there again – always second best. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Never getting the bride either.

As the night goes on, everything gets blurrier – everything except the image of Jolly and Isa right across the table having eyes for no one and nothing except each other. Jolly is so easily led. He hasn’t even noticed Isa until she is practically the only option available, and then he is all over her. Lee is disappointed that Isa has succumbed to his charms. He considers telling her that there is no way Jolly is going to settle down with anybody. It isn’t that Jolly is the kind of bastard who enjoys