18 chapter 18

I woke next morning, Saturday, at ten I went to the bathroom, took a shower, brushed my hair, and teeth, (not with the same brush) then opened the door to go downstairs as I walked past Skylars room I put an ear to the door to see if she was awake but what I heard surprised me

"can't tell her" she was saying and after a small pause she spoke again "the last time I revealed my secret we had to move, I can't do that again" she was saying I started to walk away knowing this was none of my business as I had secrets too but I stopped "no, Raven will think I'm a freak. like everyone else did at my old school, I'm sorry but you're going to have to find another way to tell her" I left at that thinking about the one sided conversation I had heard. someone wants her to tell me something but she's scared that I will see her differently, oh well she'll tell me when she's ready.

I went downstairs to be greated by a full English breakfasts with eggs, bacon, sausages and beans

"ooh yum" I rubbed my hands together and sat at the table ready to eat

"where's Skylar?" Shreya asked

"she's on the phone" I told her with a shrug as I dug into my food, not long after Skylar came too and after greetings she sat to eat too

"how's your dad Skylar?" Shreya asked

"I don't know, not spoken to him yet" she shrugged after swallowing her food

"oh I thought I heard you speaking into your phone" I told her she looked at me like she was thinking hard then as if she remembered she went on to say

"oh that, no I was talking to a friend from my old school" she told me, and for some reason I was having a hard time believing her, but I said nothing and carried on eating.

After breakfasts we stayed in the kitchen playing card games Skylar brought a deck with her, she was amazingly good at poker, let's just say I was glad we weren't playing for money, enough said, she even beat Shreya this woman has been around for over seven hundred years, and until now she thought she was an expert at poker, but she was an amateur in front of Skylar. we also played black jack and go fish it was brilliant.

We watched some dvds too we decided to get takeaway that afternoon so we ordered chinese. Skylar excused herself to go to her room and quickly left, Shreya and I were worried

"she has a secret, there's someone who wants her to tell me her secret but she doesn't want to" I shrugged when Shreya looked at me expectantly

"hmm it can't be easy keeping, or revealing, secrets" she said I nodded at that.

Skylar had been gone for fifteen minutes and we were starting to worry, Shreya told me to go check on her. I got up reluctantly, I mean come on give her some privacy but I still went up.

I was about to knock when I heard Skylar say my name

"look I know you have a lot to say to Raven, both of you, but I can't say anything to her about you unless I tell her my secret, and that's a no no" there was a pause "what secret?" she said after another pause she went on "wait, you're saying Raven has a secret too?" I gasped when she said that, how could this person know about my secret?, I've not told anyone, not knowing what to do I went downstairs

"Shreya, Shreya someone knows our secret" I told her running to her and grabbing her by her shoulders

"Woah, what are you talking about?"

"Skylar, she talking to someone again, the same someone who wants her to tell us her secret, but that someone told her that I have a secret too, Shreya, what are we going to do?" I panicked

"Ok, first calm down, second its ok we will talk to her, maybe she's talking about a different secret" I nodded as I sat down, maybe Shreya's right maybe its something else. We discussed the pros and cons about telling her my secret we then decided that it must be important to this person Skylar had been talking to, about revealing her secret and we also figured that Skylar will trust us enough to tell us if we reveal a secret too so with determination I got up off the sofa I had been sitting on, I rubbed my hands together, then turned to the stairs ready to climb them and talk to Skylar, but I stopped after taking two steps, why?, you ask, well because Skylar was there

"Um, hey, can I talk to you Raven, it's important" she asked twiddling her fingers nervously, I looked at Shreya then at Skylar and nodded I went and sat down on the sofa I had been sitting on, one leg off the sofa, one leg on the sofa, I was sitting on the leg, my one elbow was on the back of the sofa and the other was on my lap I was facing Skylar who sat the normal way she looked nervous Shreya left the room and went into the kitchen.

"You can talk to me Skylar, I promise I won't judge" I told her honestly she laughed lightly

"I know you won't judge, I also know you have secret, only I don't know what it is apparently only you can tell me" I nodded at that happy she didn't know yet. "It started when I was nine, I had this friend that no one else could see, my parents thought he was an imaginary friend, he was called Derek three socks"

"Three socks? What kind of name is that?" I asked interrupting rudely

"I don't know" she shrugged "but please don't interrupt I might lose my nerve" I nodded "he would play with me he even taught me how to play poker, apparently he was an expert" this confused me, Skylar was brilliant at poker and yet she says an imaginary friend taught her, it didn't make sense but I didn't want to interrupt after the last warning so I decided I would ask at the end "anyway a few months later Derek told me to tell my mum not to go shopping, when I told her what Derek had said she told me Derek wasn't real and she wasn't going to listen to someone who is fake and she left anyway. An hour later the police rang and told my dad to get to the hospital, when we got there we found out mum had been in an accident, she died instantly on impact. We cried a lot me and dad. On the day of the funeral, in the church I saw mum in a box sleeping but I also saw mum standing next to the box I asked my father why we were here he told me we were here because my mum was dead I told him she wasn't dead and that she was standing next to the box, my dad whisper shouted at me saying not to make things up when I looked at mum she put a finger to her lips telling me to sush I did, I sat quietly. That evening when I went to get ready for bed mum was there and so was three socks I introduced them to each other, my mum told me Derek wasn't an imaginary friend he was a spirit. She told me I could talk to spirits, lost spirits it was my job to help them go into the light I nodded. In the morning my mum told me to tell dad to take me to the library. Once there we looked at some old newspapers we came across an article about three socks it said that he was a gambler who was always lucky, he always won so one day he went to a casino to play, the manager knew who he was so he had him killed. My dad saw this too and he started to believe that I could see and talk to spirits and after I gave him messages from mum he was convinced. In high school a boy named Daniel lost his dad in a fire, his dad came to me with a message for Daniel when I gave the message he told everyone in school that I thought I could talk to spirits students started to hurt me and started calling me a freak, I had to quit being a cheerleader, things got worse as my dad got fired for being the father of the freak, we couldn't leave the house without having rotten eggs and tomatoes thrown at us so in the end we decided to leave the country and make a fresh start. Dad told me never to tell anyone again, but these spirits won't listen" she said the last bit looking at a spot over my right shoulder then my left, naturally I looked too and obviously saw nothing.

"Who are they?" I asked

"Well that's the thing, they're saying that both of them are your dad" I gasped

"My dad's" I whispered Skylar nodded "where's Shreya, there's something James, your biological dad, wants her to do"

"She's in the kitchen .... SHREYA JAMES WANTS TO TALK TO YOU" I shouted, Shreya came running into the room five seconds later

"I'm sorry, did you say James?" Shreya asked we nodded

"Shreya, Skylar can speaks to spirits and James wants to tell you something" I explained quickly

"James says go to the attic and look in the leunam, there's a spell in there that will help Raven?" Skylar told Shreya although she didn't sound sure

"Ok, follow me" Shreya ordered as she left the room and started ascending the stairs.

When we got the attic I saw a lot of junk around, there was a sofa beside a small window and there was so much stuff there was also a podium type piece of furniture the kind of podium that an auctioneer would use and on it there was a brown hard back book it had a symbol of a star with a cross

"Ok, now what?" Shreya asked

"Now look for the sharing spell" Skylar told her, Shreya started to flick through the pages nodding to herself

"Done" Shreya informed

"Great, now we join hands and you guys will be able to share my gift therefore you'll both be able to talk to the two men that are here" Skylar told us as she joined her right hand with Shreya, her left hand with me, and I joined my left hand with Shreya's right hand (I think ). Once our hands were joined Shreya started to read the spell that was in the book

"What's mine is yours,

What's yours is mine,

Let our powers cross the line,

I offer this gift to share,

Let the gifts of different beings combine (AN the first four lines of this spell is copied from charmed the last line was made up by me)

Once Shreya finished the spell I felt a tingling sensation in my right hand, the hand that Skylar was holding, the tingling travelled from my fingers and went up my hand, then my arm, then spread through my body then like it came suddenly, it disappeared, I opened my eyes, not realizing they were closed, I saw Shreya I front of me, her mouth was hanging open,

"Shreya? What's wrong?" I asked worriedly, she didn't answer, I realized she wasn't looking at me, but next to me I turned my head to the right thinking I'd see Skylar but to my surprise I saw a man he had black hair like me, and blue eyes, like me he was wearing a white shirt with a black blazer and black pants to match

"Hi Raven, nice to finally meet you" he said putting his right hand out

"Umm .... You too?" I said as I shook his hand

"I'm James" he told me, I nodded then thought for a bit James? I've heard that .....

"Huhhhh..." I gasped and let go of his hand I put my hands to my mouth and walked backwards away from the man I now knew to be a ghost but as I moved back I walked into someone thinking it might be Skylar I turned but instead of Skylar I found my dad, the dad who adopted me

"Oh my god" I gasped again as I tried to step away, but my dad grabbed me

"Relax pooh bear" he said over and over again hugging me tight although I wasn't hugging him back, once I was calm he let go " are you okay?" He asked I nodded not trusting myself to speak I sat down on the floor where I was stood, Skylar came and kneeled next to me with a glass of water, I took it gratefully and drunk the whole glass in one go, now realizing how thirsty I was,

"Welcome to my world" she told me I looked up at her then cried whilst I hugged her, don't ask me why I cried, I don't know all I know is that I was overwhelmed with emotions

When I was finally calm I spoke with my two fathers like there was no tomorrow because there really wasn't, after this hour we could never do this again, the spell only lasted for an hour

"We're sorry we did this Raven, but we really needed to speak with you" James told me

"We wouldn't have done it if we didn't think it was important" my dad Zanda was saying

"You're in danger" James said "during your sixteenth, there was an uninvited guest, he is after you,"

"We think He wants to kill you" Zanda finished

"Kill me? Why?" I asked confused wondering why so many people wanted to hurt me

"You have something he wants" James said

"What?" I asked both of them shrugged "well that's brilliant, my dad's know I'm in danger but don't know why" I got up and started pacing

"Ray you need to calm down" Shreya advised

"Calm down? You want me to calm down? Some one wants to kill me for something I probably don't have and you want me to calm down" I shrieked "oh god, oh Jesus help me" I chanted Zanda, my dad, laughed at me no don't read that again he actually laughed at me, my own father laughed at me I glared at him and he put his hands up in a surrender motion

"What now?" Shreya asked cleverly I stopped my glaring and calmed down ready to listen to the solution, but both men looked at each other then James scratched the back of his head

"We thought you'd know what to do" Zanda told us

"Oh for the love of...." I started pacing and started chanting for Jesus again (AN I'm not trying to be offensive by using the name of Jesus like this I have great respect for all religions, I promise, but Raven Is very religious she always has been so now she's in trouble she's calling Jesus to help her this isn't meant to offend anybody I'm sorry if it does)

"Raven please we'll sort it out, calm down" Shreya told me "come on come sit down" she walked me to the sofa by the window and both of us sat down Skylar joined us but the men stood a few feet away, "ok then first, James how do you know this person is a danger to our daughter?" I wanted to hear this to so I looked towards James

"Well he was taking pictures of Raven when she got her powers" all us women gasped

"What if he was mortal, and tells people?" Skylar asked worriedly but Shreya just shook her head

"It's been over a month, if he was going to go global he would've done it by now, no this is something else" she was thinking hard

"What?" I asked she shook her head

"I don't know but we'll find out" she told us she stood then walked to the leunam and started flicking through the pages whilst James sat next to me taking Shreya's place he held my hand in his

"I'm sorry I gave you away Ray, I truly am, trust me it wasn't because I didn't love you, it was..." I didn't let him finish

"I know" I told him I hugged him hard my dad came to us, so I stood and hugged him too "I miss you, so much"

"I'm always here, next to you" he told me I shook my head

"You shouldn't be, you should go into the light" I told him he laughed

"I will, as soon as we've finished helping you" he told me holding me at arms length

"Ok people got it" Shreya said.