Chapter 30: Personage of Supernatural Significance
Katrina held the magnifying lens to the image and tried to focus on the indistinct shape of the country mansion, hidden by a nebula of multicoloured auras. The derelict house, which sat abandoned on the border of the town, was encased in a shell of lifeless colour with a single brilliant speck piercing through like a newborn star. This auragraphic business was giving her a migraine – she swore she knew more about them then she remembered – but her curiosity wasn’t satisfied by John’s insistence that auras were just ‘electromagnetic fields’. How did that explain why her pictures of Torhout Forest were vibrant and filled with brilliant pastel shades, but those of the western Industrial Zone looked like archaic sepia prints because of the lifeless shrouds surrounding every old warehouse and collapsed chimney?
She checked the notes she’d been keeping. Auras surrounded everything. They appeared to reflect moods and emotions, and living creatures had the brightest, most complex auras of all. The inkblot pattern of radiance coming from the attic of the mansion was no ordinary aura – that would be the ‘ghost’.
She pinned the image alongside the rest of her collection. Over the past few weeks, Katrina had catalogued most areas of Torsten with her new camera and had images of almost every major location. Her favourite was the panoramic of the town she’d created after clambering onto the roof of her home, taking a film’s worth of pictures, and spending hours piecing them together. It revealed what the smaller, stand-alone images couldn’t: that all these auras appeared to be affected by an invisible stream or wind that ran through the town, and that this flow was somehow distorted by certain places, landmarks and even people.
Such things transcended average human understanding and were too much – too deep – for her teenage mind to comprehend. What was important right now was this apparent evidence to support Phoenie’s belief in the haunting. It was just the thing the Veritas editor needed to lift her out of the depression caused by Amanda’s odd behaviour, and Katrina really didn’t want to be thinking about that – it gave her a worse migraine than the auragraphs!
***
Phantasia was about to push open the glass doors leading to Sapphire House when Phoenie’s bellowing voice filled the main hallway, calling her name. Ignoring the contempt looks from the first years, the would-be paranormal investigator came bounding over, eyes gleaming with excitement. It was the happiest Phantasia had seen her since before the incidents surrounding Godhand.
“I have some wonderful news!” she said, “I have been informed that a mansion on the fringes of town is believed to be ‘haunted’ by a personage of supernatural significance,”
She twisted her clipboard around and thrust it in Phantasia’s face. More auragraphs, this time of a large, run-down house on the edge of a dead forest. Judging by the environment and aura, it was from the decrepit northwestern boundaries, beyond the former territory of Godhand. Phantasia had noticed it from atop the church on several occasions, like a swamp of despair leading into the mire of wastelands beyond. This close-up image showed the local auras in greater detail than her eyes could see from the spire, and judging from their complexion, interaction and alignment (as best she could judge from a still image, anyhow!) there looked to be an ethereal entity residing in the upper floors of the mansion. There was every chance it could be the ‘ghost’ Phoenie looked desperate to find.
“These spirits are a tricky business,” said Phantasia, “You can never be too sure what they really are until you confront them. Psychic imprints, emotional corruption—“ She stopped – too much information. “So, are you going to investigate?” she asked.
Phoenie grabbed the clipboard back. “Of course we are! How could we let an opportunity like this slip away? We won’t get those headlines if we don’t follow up every lead we find, will we?” She leaned in close, her hyperactive voice turning to a serious murmur. “I’ll be expecting your co-operation, of course. If events of an unscientific nature are indeed involved, everyone would feel safer with our resident psychic around,”
Phantasia knew there was no point in arguing otherwise. She couldn’t stop them going, but she could at least protect them if they did. “Meeting after school in the office?” she asked.
Phoenie straightened up and looked ready to explode with pent-up enthusiasm again. “Absolutely! Make sure you’re there!”
***
