Free Beneath the Elder Tree by Hazel Black Page B

you’re talking to?’
       ‘My spiritual Mom.’
       ‘Funny,’ Emily sighed. ‘Look, here she comes.’
       I turned to see Laura slowly making her way up the pavement towards us. She looked so awkward and timid, like a fawn who was unaware that she was wandering into the wolves’ lair.
       ‘Heads up,’ Mouse hollered to the others. ‘It’s the snitch!’
       ‘Finally,’ Josh smiled. ‘I was starting to think this little whore would never show her face again.’
       Josh started laughing. I could see that there was anger rising behind his grin. He pushed himself off the wall with his elbows and joined Mouse and one of the others, a tall and muscular boy with a shaved head, on the corner and they watched Laura approaching.
       My chosen noticed them as she drew near, then planted her gaze to the footpath. Her body exploded with anxiety and her limbs were trembling. There was history between her and the gang, I could feel it, and there was going to be a confrontation. I instinctively moved towards Josh, so I could protect Laura from him, but Emily grasped my shoulder and pulled me back.
       ‘Observe only.’
       ‘He’s going to hurt her.’
       ‘And what are you going to do? Even if you could stop him, it’s forbidden.’
       It was impossible to contain myself. My temper was boiling over and for the first time my own aura became visible, like those of the living. It flickered over my body in streams of crimson and orange.
       Laura reached the corner and Mouse blocked her path, bringing her to a halt. Josh then stepped forward and poked her in the shoulder.
       ‘Come here to check up on what we’re doing, did you?’
       ‘Just getting cigarettes for my mum,’ she told him.
       ‘They’re my cigarettes now, bitch. Hand them over.’ He held out a hand that had his name tattooed on the knuckles. ‘Don’t make me take them from you.’
       She grudgingly passed them to Josh and he flung them to Mouse before grabbing a fistful of Laura’s hair. He dragged her face close to his own and glared at her.
       ‘Not too smart now, are you?’ he hissed. ‘Threatening to rat us out to the cops. You better get it into that thick head of yours that this whole place and everyone in it belongs to us. That includes you!’
       ‘I don’t belong to anyone,’ she protested. ‘I don’t belong to you.’
       ‘Oh, you’re wrong. I control your life. You do anything that I don’t like and I’ll make your life, and the life of your drunken bitch of a mother, a living hell.’ He pulled a carpet knife from the back pocket of his jeans and put the point of the blade to her left eye. ‘You understand what I’m saying, bitch?’
       ‘Yes,’ Laura sniffled. Tears were rolling down her face and her entire body was shaking. ‘Let me go.’
       ‘That sounded like an order.’
       ‘Please, can I go?’
       ‘That’s better.’ Josh released his grip on her then pushed her away. One of his henchmen stuck out a foot and Laura toppled over it and fell hard on the pavement. This brought a cheer from the rest of the guys and some younger kids who were watching from a distance.
       I was losing my temper and my aura was burning around me like a bonfire, but Emily remained strong enough to keep me in place. I saw frightened faces in the windows of the houses and couldn’t understand why no one had come to help.
       ‘They’re as afraid of them as Laura is,’ Emily told me. ‘Fear has defeated most of them.’
       ‘This isn’t right, Emily.’
       ‘I did tell you that you’d see terrible injustice and that you’d just have to accept it.’
       ‘We should be able to stop things like this from happening.’
       ‘You will guide this girl in the coming years to ensure she escapes this place and all the bullies that live here. That’s your job. Directly intervening could get you banished like those black spirits I talked to you