The Talented Blackwoods Chapter 4

David waited for his aunt to speak. She had been sitting contemplatively for around a minute, stroking the fabric of her luridly coloured skirt, with those irritating bangles rattling away like chattering teeth. They were in what she called her study – a small room at the back of the house, with just one window, across which she had drawn a curtain so they sat in a fake twilight, on hardback chairs, facing each other.

David coughed.

“Sorry,” said Aunt Stella, regaining focus. “I was just working out where to start.”

David cocked his head to one side. “Maybe start by telling me that our family members, descending from your great grandmother, are gifted with the ability to project their astral bodies, walk on several levels of the astral plane and, in most cases, enter other people’s dreams.”

Aunt Stella’s eyelids fluttered with surprise. “How did you learn all that? Did your parents tell you?”

“My parents told me that my ability was a family trait and that you would be able to help me understand it better and control it. I got the impression they weren’t entirely happy at the prospect of my coming here, but my mother felt it would be better for me to know the basics. I think she is mostly concerned that I learn not to intrude on any of her dreams again. My father was even more reticent, which is strange considering he is the Blackwood, but I’m guessing he’s learnt to block his talent. I think that’s what they’d like you to teach me. How to stop using this ability, rather than how to develop it. Am I right?”

Aunt Stella gaped at him for a moment.

“Yes, that about sums it up,” she said finally.

“And as for the rest of what I know,” continued David. “You and Angela reveal a lot more than you realise with your coded conversations. Even Jason has managed to decipher some of them, and he’s hardly the sharpest knife in the drawer.”

David crossed his arms and gave Aunt Stella an earnest stare.

“Okay,” she said. ”So, you have a basic grasp of the situation. And as for me teaching you to block your talent, well, if that’s what you choose to do with what I share with you, that’s fine, but I’m more concerned with making sure you understand what the talent is and some of the potential dangers. It’s not something your father has had to worry about. Jack, your dad, is the only Blackwood not to exhibit any talent at all. He’s never had to learn to block it, because he’s never had it. I think he was hoping it would skip you too.”

“When you say potential dangers, would that include a demon sneaking into your body while you’re not in it? Any news on poor Uncle John?”

“No significant change.” Aunt Stella’s stroking had now advanced to scratching, which was unnerving to say the least. David could practically see her thoughts, dancing round in her head. She was wondering how her prim sister-in-law and double-glazing selling brother had produced such an intellectual prodigy. It mystified him sometimes too.

“I do appreciate you trying to help me,” he said, thinking he should throw the poor woman a small bone.

“Well, I’ll certainly try.” His aunt finally ceased the leg scratching and instead began playing with her left earlobe.

“So…?” prompted David.

“So, the unusual thing about you, David, is that you have progressed straight to what is normally a more advanced attribute of the talent, entering other people’s dreams. Some of the adult Blackwoods can’t do that.”

“I wasn’t even trying.”

“I thought while you are here, we should focus on the more elementary aspects of the talent, such as walking on the lowest level of the astral plane. This is something a lot of people do without even realising it, particularly people who suffer from insomnia. It’s very easy to slip onto the astral plane when you’re in that state between sleep and wakefulness. Once you know what is happening and learn to control it, it can be great fun.”

“Super!”

Aunt Stella’s eyelids did the fluttering thing again. They were like louvre windows caught in a high wind.

“Actually,” she said, standing suddenly with a whoosh of fabric. “I’ve written a very comprehensive book on the subject, under a pseudonym, of course. The Blackwoods like their secrecy.”

She’d obviously decided that spending time with David in the small dark room wasn’t such a pleasant prospect.

“Here it is.” She plucked a slim paperback volume from a bookshelf and handed it to him.

“Adventures in Dreamland by Estrella Moonbeam,” read David, eyes widening. The cover image featured a near-naked woman lying on a bed with a ghostly outline rising above her.

“I didn’t choose the title,” said Aunt Stella. “Or the cover.”

“What about the pen name?”

“Oh yes, I love the pen name, don’t you?”

“I think it’s delightful,” said David, also standing. “I shall read this tome with all the interest it deserves.”

“Jolly good.” His aunt ushered him into the hallway, flapping her hands as if to clear an unwanted smell.

***

“Oh my God!” Angela stepped back from the living room window as if pushed with great force.

“What is it?” asked Stella, looking up from her book.

“Your mother is here,” said Angela, blood draining from her face.

“Good God!” Stella leapt to her feet, glancing round the room, maybe in search of a hiding place.

“She’s coming up the steps now.”

“Someone must have told her about John,” said Stella, yelping at the sound of the doorbell.

“We could go out through the back,” said Angela. “Grab the kids on the way.”

“If only.” Stella headed towards the front door.

“I’m serious!”

“Darling!” Miriam Blackwood stood framed in the doorway like a terrifying Gothic painting.

“Mother,” greeted Stella, standing like a small creature paralysed by the gaze of a predator.

Miriam raised her arms, revealing swathes of material like bat wings on either side of her ankle-length black dress. Her hair had been dyed to match her clothing, frothing round her luminously white face like a polluted cloud. The terrifying ensemble was completed by a plum shade of lipstick and dark green eyeshadow that had cracked like old pottery glaze.

“I left my bags on the street,” she said. “You’d better retrieve them. I saw a gang of youths eyeing them up as I ascended.”

Angela stepped guardedly from the living-room.

“Oh, Angela,” said Miriam, as if her daughter-in-law was a strawberry cream Quality Street she had accidently picked from the tin.

“Miriam.” Angela grinned inanely.

“Come and give me a hug!” commanded Miriam, holding her arms out like loaded weapons. Angela edged forwards until she stood between the outstretched limbs, her own arms stuck rigidly to her sides. Miriam engulfed her for a mercifully short time, before setting her free.

“And where is my favourite grandson?” asked Miriam, scanning the hall.

David emerged from the kitchen stairway. Even he looked hesitant.

“Oh, and David’s here too,” said Miriam, observing David with a blank expression.

Jason sidled up beside his cousin, peering cautiously at his grandmother.

“Here’s my precious boy!” shrieked Miriam, swooping down on him. “Look at how big you’ve grown. She kissed his petrified face several times, covering it with lipstick bruises.

“I’ve also grown quite significantly since we last met,” said David. “Although that’s not surprising as I was about two and a half.”

“Yes.” Miriam briefly placed a bejewelled hand on David’s unruly hair.

“And how’s Grandad?” asked David.

“Who?” Miriam sounded both confused and disgusted.

“Oh no, that’s right,” said David. “We don’t have one of those, do we. Well, not on your side of the family.”

“No, we certainly do not,” said Miriam. “Imagine if I’d married some man called Jones or Smith. Would you really want to be called David Smith, rather than Blackwood?”

“No,” admitted David.

“Or Bogglethwaite,” said Miriam. “How would you like to have a name like David Bogglethwaite?”

“All right, Mother,” said Stella, dragging two large suitcases across the hallway. “I think David’s got the point. I’ll put these in my room. I can sleep on the sofa for a couple of days.”

“Or you could get some professional help for your hoarding problem and clear out one of the other boudoirs,” suggested Miriam, floating through to the living room, trailing a pungent fragrance of mothballs, vapour rub and expensive au de toilette.

Stella and Angela reluctantly followed her, David and Jason close behind, like members of a guided tour none of them wanted to be on.

Miriam had already swamped the sofa, black dress draped like a throw across the entire seat so that it was hard to tell where she ended and the sofa began. She resembled an Egyptian idol, thought Angela, a cursed one.

“So,” she said, fixing her violet eyes on both women. “Do we need to send the children to another part of the house while we have this conversation, or are they up-to-date with recent events? Perhaps it’s just me that’s been kept in the dark.”

“Boys, go to the attic,” said Stella, and even David didn’t voice an objection.