Chapter 2
Nina woke up at the crack of dawn to catch her train to her job at the hotel on the north side of Sydney Harbor bridge. The trip was more than forty minutes long, so she had to get up earlier in order not to miss the early train. As a room attendant the backbreaking work was hard. She was hoping to find a better job when her application for permanent residency was approved. She could get a more lucrative job when she finished Uni.
She thought she could catch a few winks on the train, but her mind rebelled.
It was too wide awake with the thoughts running through it.
Was the episode with the angels a figment of her imagination?
Could she hope she had help to fight this battle?
Her boss, Mariam was at her desk, when Nina walked into the office to get her room assignment sheet. She was a small woman of around fifty, with a welcoming personality. It amazed people to hear a booming voice sounding from such a petite form. Her flame red hair was always up in a twisted bun on the top of her head. Partway through the day, a pencil or pen got stuck among the curls. It amused Nina to see her searching hopelessly for the item.
Nina loved her.
“Good morning, Nina. You’re early. Go get yourself some breakfast, then come get your list of rooms.”
Mariam already had the inevitable pencil in her hair that early in the morning. Nina smiled. Mariam always made her day. Even if she got off on the wrong side of the bed, on any particular day. Today was one of them. Tired and dispirited after the night she had, all she wanted was to feel the cool comfort of her bed to sleep the whole day away.
But her boss cheered her up, by just being her.
“Not feeling hungry just yet. But I will go have a coffee when I have my list.”
“Okay gal. I’ve given you 8 rooms on floor 2, so when you’ve had your cuppa, you can come collect your cleaning supplies trolley. You look like you need to get some more rest, even though you had the weekend off. Did you do the fliers job on Saturday again?”
The concern on Mariam’s beautiful face made Nina feel like crying. But she pushed the feeling of wretchedness away.
She had run far, but she hadn’t outrun her past.
It had followed her here.
Now all she needed to do, was to learn to fight.
After her shift ended at 3 p.m., she changed into her street clothes, punched out, then went to catch her train. Strolling into the middle car, she chose a seat. The train was pretty much empty. The rush hour hadn’t started yet. It usually did around 4 p.m. onward until after 6 p.m. Glad to have a respite from crowding on the train, she leaned her head back to relax.
Out of nowhere came a prickly feeling.
She was being watched. She shifted to scan the carriage she was in, noting no one else in that section with her, except for the lady in the front seat, who was chatting on her phone.
Subsiding, she closed her eyes. She wasn’t aiming to sleep, just destress. The whoosh of the train soothed her. The low laughter of the lady in front, kept her busy wondering who she was chatting with.
‘The laughter sounds flirty. Probably a man…’, She surmised.
She wished she could be as lighthearted as she.
Then that voice crept into her thoughts.
“Open to me…”
That insidious, raspy voice was back.
She cringed.
Shuddering, she shot up from her seat.
Grabbing her knapsack and handbag, she bolted out of the carriage. She raced up the stairs, to the top deck of the train, tripping in her haste.
She realized her mistake.
She was trapped!
“You are not getting rid of me that easily, my dear.”
Nina felt she was going insane. That evil laughter mocked her attempts to shake him off.
Jumping down the stairs to the lower carriage, she continued running.
“I’m always going to be with you, so you can forget about losing me.”
His deep, whispery laughter resounded in her ears.
The blur of faces in the filled cars, didn’t faze her, as she shot past them. She didn’t care what anyone thought at this stage.
She just needed to get that voice out of her head.
She ran through to the third, then on to the fourth, then came to a panting halt at the last carriage. Her hand went to the emergency door.
She opened the lock, not knowing what she intended. The thought to jump formed in her mind. A hand clamped onto hers. She froze.
It wrenched her fingers from the door, then spun her around.
The two from this morning confronted her.
Brett retained a hard grip on her.
No, she had not imagined them.
They were real.
In a detached part of her mind, Nina noted Shanna’s outfit was the height of fashion. Her Gucci jeans matched with a fawn-colored leather jacket looked splendid. With the way Brett was dressed, it seemed like he had just thrown on what was comfortable, but it didn’t detract from his gorgeousness. His black leather jacket suited his coloring.
They looked even more splendid than ever in daylight.
The song ‘Ebony and Ivory’ played through Nina’s mind.
“What in the name of all that’s holy possessed you to jump out of a moving train? Are you insane?”
Shanna’s incredulous voice snapped her out of her thoughts.
Nina shushed her.
“Don’t you shush me, woman. You could have been grease out there. What’s wrong with you?”
She was standing to the side of Brett, slightly behind him. Her incredulous face mirrored what Nina was feeling at this point. Meanwhile Brett had been quietly studying Nina’s face. He gripped her arm, turned, then pulled her along behind him through the aisle to a seat. Pushing her down, he sat beside her.
“He was in your head again, wasn’t he?”
No quibbles, just straight to the crux of the matter.
Nina liked that.
She was the same.
She nodded.
“How can that be? Why is he in my head now?”
She tried to steady her voice, but it still came out tremulous.
“He knows he’s getting to you, sweetheart. You have to learn to shut him out of your mind. We can’t do that for you. Only you can. We can only negate physical harm to you. You allow who you hear in your mind. It’s your choice.”
In trying to get his point across, Brett had taken her hand into his, had clasped it between his two. Nina supposed he wasn’t aware of how it looked to others.
She glanced Shanna’s way.
She had turned the front seat backwards to face them. Was now sitting across from them. The incredulity on her face, as she looked from their clasped hands, then up at Brett’s face, amused Nina. The wry humor helped to displace the fright she had been feeling.
Awkward, Nina tried pulling her hand away, but he held on tight. Feeling she had to turn the attention away from their clasped hands, she queried in a small voice.
“How do I do that?”
When she had first become aware she could see and hear the dead, she had never been able to block out the voices. They had always been in her head.
There was never any respite from hearing their agony.
Nor from feeling it with them.
There were hardly any happy ghosts.
Now to have the choice to shut that out would be blissful.
“You must close the door of your mind. It takes practice, but you can learn to build a door in your mind.”
Nina was skeptical.
She forbore from pointing out, that in all her 35 years, she had tried everything she could, but to no avail. His next words got her thinking he must have read her mind.
“I will teach you how to do that. You have a wonderful gift you know.”
He definitely had been reading her mind.
“Thanks. Appreciated.”
She didn’t intend to sound ungrateful, but this wasn’t a gift. She hadn’t asked for it.
It was not a gift, but a curse.
She wished it could be returned.
Because of this ‘gift’, a demon had possessed her. She had been too young, too open and vulnerable to fight against his power. Her aunt, Seni, who had the gift of casting out evil spirits had been alive then. She had battled for days with the demon, had finally cast him out. Too weak to fight for her life, she had succumbed to illness brought on by psychological and physical damage caused by the powerful demon that had possessed Nina. She had passed a year later after that.
Nina hadn’t forgiven herself for being the cause of her aunt’s demise.
‘Nope…this gift had been a curse to my family.’
She snapped out of her pensive thoughts when the train stopped at Hornsby Station. The angels stayed with her, walking her to her building.
“We have warded your building against inside attacks. It’s the outside ones we have to worry about now. We will deal with those when they occur. Be strong”
Brett put a hand on her shoulder as he tried to convey reassurance.
At this point it was still hard, and still too new for Nina to trust in anyone. She had lived for a long time with the knowledge she had no one else to rely on, but herself. For now, they had her back. But for how long? That was the million-dollar question.
She nodded, then turned to use her key on the scanner.
As she took a step in, Nina clearly heard Shanna’s voice.
“What the hell are you doing? Humans and angels don’t interact, except when we have to protect them.”
Nina spun around to gape at her.
She couldn’t believe the bitch’s audacity. Or rudeness.
Brett was still standing where she had left him. Shanna stood a few steps behind him.
He raised an inquiring brow at her.
Then she heard his reply clearly.
But his mouth didn’t move.
“Just do your job and stop querying my motives. I’m doing mine.”
Nina was flabbergasted.
She stared, immobile, wondering if her overactive imagination was playing tricks on her, again.
Brett and Shanna stared in puzzlement back at her.
“Are you okay?” Queried Brett as she stood there, irresolute.
Nina came out of her trance.
She shook her head.
Instinctively, she didn’t want them to know she had heard them conversing. She didn’t know why, since they were the good guys.
She just didn’t, period.
“I’m fine. I just thought of something I forgot at work. It’s okay, I’ll call them as soon I get to my room.”
Babbling out her explanations, she back pedaled, turned, then bolted for the stairs. The angels looked perplexed at her odd behavior. But she wasn’t worried about that at the moment.
What she was really worried about was a very real concern.
What would happen if they knew she could hear them on their angelic wavelength?
Would they have to silence her to keep their secret?
Scary thought.