The Endless Depths Of A Stolen Soul - Chapter Two.

Hello! Please find below the second chapter of my novel "The Endless Depths Of A Stolen Soul". Over the next few days, I will be uploading the first three chapters via Vocal.

If you are interested in this 'sneak peek', please feel free to look into reading the full book which is available on Amazon and kindle (+ Kindle Unlimited).

Once more, the second part of this series is also available in both formats too.

2

“Cannabis!” Ms Morton proclaimed! Rocking backward from the creaky wooden chair in which she sat. With the exaggerated wave of her arms, and quippy smile, she almost tumbled to the ground. All this, as though the tale hadn’t been told before.

She elaborated “A cannabis farm! In Chamomile. Could you imagine such a thing?”. Gavin could. Sat opposite her, he wrangled his tongue which begged the urge to say so. It was only eight years prior – 1985. He remembered the newspaper crumped in his mother’s grip. The article was opposite a small advertisement for Tobe Hooper’s ‘Lifeforce’. His mother flung herself backward in devilish delight, like Ms Morton did almost a decade on. Her fingers clamped about the paper and twisted the already twisted words of the Sunday tabloid. She jabbed at it, with an erect finger that almost prodded a hole right through it. The incident happened not three doors down from his family home, no less. But, for the sake of Ms Morton’s enjoyment, he chewed his tongue. It took some force to corral it. Like wrestling a bucking Belgian horse. Gnawing almost hard enough to taste the unsavoury and coppery flavour of blood. Then smiled warmly.

The lounge smelt of candles that were used beyond reproach, scolding the glass of their base. The wallpaper was peppermint green which bent and coiled at the corners. Paint on doorframes chipped away, with the shards presumably horded as relics for a bygone era. There was a box of assorted biscuits rested on Gavin’s lap. The best ones were growing stale, the worst were crumbling over the best. Rain pattered softly against the window, like tapping fingernails on glass.

“What a story!” He exclaimed. Then pivoted conversation firmly back on track with the tap, from tobacco-stained fingers, of a leaflet on the coffee table between them. A visual nod rather than a verbal was always the preferred method of communication with Ms Morton - especially when her hearing began to fail, and her mind led astray. She caught the hint, just about. Digressed. In spite of her failing mind Ms Morton was still given the responsibility of managing Chamomile’s winter festival. The topic of Gavin’s visit. Much like her mind, the festival’s quality was beginning to diminish in comparison to year’s prior.

It was beyond Gavin’s power to publish criticism in his article. A local reporter, he specialised in local curiosities. The goal of which, clearly, to embellish the truth. Leveraging an otherworldly standing of Chamomile to position it in the highest regard. A hard hitting and shocking expose’ of Ms Morton’s ill-fated festival wouldn’t please readers. Instead, Gavin ran his fingers through his bronze stubbled beard and fished for any teasers for upcoming events. The frail woman was never a difficult subject of interrogation. Simply offer the lonely widow an open ear and she’d talk her mind away.

Typical that it was on that day, one so dull and ordinary, that he might receive such news. A day camouflaged so impeccably amongst the rest. Perhaps, further fermenting the shock, leaving him more dumbfounded than he’d otherwise be. Though it was no lie, and even Gavin would attest, the days began to melt into one another. Evaporating into an all-encompassing mist, the haze could not differentiate. Some days he struggled to discern a Tuesday with a Thursday. Likely the drink that wetted his lips almost every evening, deprivation of sleep, or looming presence of mid-twenties anxiety to accentuate things. His stomach had twisted into knots and yanked at both ends long ago. They only pulled harder with each passing day, often when his mind wandered across the notion of his life’s direction, his stalling career or lack of financial stability. The true hypothesis could be attributed to all manner of deductions. Yet, whichever direction the finger may point, the matter remained as clear as his reflection in the tin atop him. He’d become entangled amongst the brawny webbing of normality. A matter of fact that he, and childhood chum Oliver, vowed to never fall victim.

“I should be going, Ms Morton”. He uttered in response to her ramblings and behind a clenched smile. He hadn’t found himself listening for much of the conversation, though he assumed that the event would much resemble the one before, and the one before that. “But thank you for your time, and I look forward to the festival this year. It only gets better with each passing year”.

“No, thank you! Now say hello to your mother when you get home”. She responded in excitement. Her inflection rising toward the end of ‘you’. Then she rose with caution and hobbled with him through the hall and to the door. All as she naively thought her comment to be bound in innocence. However, as Gavin trudged along that farmhouse hall slipping each arm inside his coat whilst maintaining a smile, Gavin felt no other option but to cringe. His mother had been dead for almost a year. This blunder, far from the fault of Ms Morton of course. He hadn’t told her. She was a lifelong chum of his grandmother; thus, she bore a striking bond with his mother too. He felt the urge to say something, but again clamped his tongue. Slotting his teeth into the indentations from his hesitation before. Only one month prior to his mother’s death, Ms Morton had lost her own husband to heart failure. At her age, a second blow, alike the sudden loss of his mother to cervical cancer, would quite possibly kill her – shredding her already fractured heart in two. Besides, she lived distant from town. In their family farmhouse, surrounded by several acres of woodland and some fields stretching east - all at her disposal. She enjoyed the privacy but would be lying if she said she hadn’t suffered an intermittent sadness regarding the solitude. Her Great Dane, Arthur, whom Gavin struggled by en-route to the door, was often the only soul available and willing to listen to her daily ramblings. Though, even he would probably find himself somewhat weary of pricking his ears to the ‘cannabis’ story once again.

Ms Morton’s pooch’s namesake was in tribute to her husband. His purchase was sudden, much like the human Arthur’s death. See, the widow couldn’t bear to accept the reality of her husband’s impending death. So much so, that she gave the pup the same name. It took much speculation about the village to understand the reasoning behind such a decision, but on one teary eyed night she admitted to her daughter that it was as simple as it initially seemed non-sensical. She couldn’t bear to go one day without saying his name.

Little did Gavin comprehend, as he reached the door, that upon each departure from her home, she would often spend at least a fortnight muttering for her and Alfie’s ears only. No matter how competent a reporter he was, he couldn’t clock the lies in her insistence of her daughter’s bi-daily visits. The reality was that these visits corroded slowly from bi-daily, to weekly, to bi-weekly, to (at their current stage) tri-weekly. All blame couldn’t be pinned on her daughter, however. There were another two sons, and Ms Morton would vehemently defend her Angelica’s loyalty due to the mere existence of her visits. The widow often felt a burden on the lives of others – especially with her newfound loneliness. Angelica, her daughter at a similar age to Gavin, had recently found love. The young woman had barely noticed her abrading relationship with her mother, and with each visit Mrs Morton would be seldom to point it out. She imagined the glint of love that must have been in the eye of her child and saw it a worthwhile sacrifice. Angelica always took her mother’s words for gospel, especially when she insisted that the irregularity between visits was entirely fine. Like Gavin, her daughter was unable to spot the glint of sadness in her mother’s eyes as these words of encouragement would slip from her lips.

He happened upon her that evening, actually. Only a few hours later. ‘The Green Man’. The central social hotspot for Chamomile, clear by its rampant popularity. It was often packed to the rafters regardless of the hour, and its décor had hardly renovated since opening. A mist of cigarette smoke settled just above the hairline of standing patrons and patrolled with care to pinch into every crevice and tighten about their lungs. Gavin often neglected wearing his glasses each evening, as he slouched against the bar and fixated upon studying each word on each pump. Fraying bark flanked him on every direction, with a network of cobwebs soaring above his head. Despite its bustle, Gavin would enter with the intention of not uttering a word. He enjoyed the backdrop of the noise. It was a fine tool to dim the unstoppable chatter of his mind until the effects of the alcohol took care of the rest.

Such desires were the reason that Gavin’s heart sank as his leered toward those heavy wooden doors. To his right, barging through them like the swinging pallets of a saloon entrance, there she came. Angelica. Jovial. Smiling wide, her hands were intertwined in the grasp of her newfound lover – Richard. Intentionally, Gavin hadn’t noticed her. He curved his line of sight left. Disregarding his surroundings and dedicating his energy to a bubble of relative ignorance. This, the daily routine for Gavin – especially of late. He’d conduct his interviews, scribble what he could onto a tattering notepad, then proceed to drown the world of all visual and auditory noise through the prickly, but loving, embrace of alcohol. He wasn’t dependent on these little vacations from reality. Or so, he’d tell himself. It had begun with two on a single day, several weeks after his mother’s death, but admittedly it had found itself gradually gliding upward after time – especially upon the arrival of winter. Not four days ago, he had miscalculated two for six. This night, he was countless beers deep into a pair.

“How was my mother today? I heard you had saw her this morning?”

A feminine voice tickled the back of his neck and brushed his shoulder. He turned, to reveal Angelica looking right at him. She bellowed the question behind tight lips that pulled outward into a teeth-revealing smile. She was over-encumbered with excitement for her old friend. He reached into his pocket, pulled his glasses and rested them at the bridge of his nose. In a manner that suggested he desired to appear older than he was, then allowed a moment for the blur to focus. It had been a long time. Not years, but several months. Quite some time to go without contact from a good friend – especially in Chamomile. All this because Angelica had recently returned from a three-month expedition to Barbados.

Then, before the trip, she’d secluded herself within a melancholy fuelled self-imposed banishment following her father’s sudden turn. She and her father were close. He was a good man. Quite possibly the proudest father Gavin had encountered. He was a rather tall man. Slender, and distinguishable by his consistent choice of clothing. Lincoln Green Farmwear, with steel capped boots and odd socks.

“Chatty as usual!” Gavin exclaimed, hurriedly crafting a sly grin in hope that she hadn’t spotted or perceived his otherwise grimace. She had.

“That’s typical. How have things been with yourself?”

He was unsure how to approach the question. All he could muster was a smirk with a shrug, and that was an endeavour. It was enough, at least for Angelica.

Richard, the stranger seemingly welded to her hip, glared against the corner of Gavin’s skull. His eyes were widened to circles. Neck twisting slightly with each interchange of the baton of conversation. It reached a point where Angelica felt inclined to introduce her lover. Even for her, behind the glee of her new relationship and the reunion with her old pal, there was a strange and palpable tension.

“Richard. Meet Gavin.” She giggled. “An old friend. From school, and… Onwards”.

Richard gave a performative snigger. Too quick to comprehend the introduction, and simply reactionary to his inclusion. There was clear discomfort that he had been absent to that point. Then, he nodded. Extended an open palm, which teased the briefest glimpse of a fake metal strapped watch, then repeated his name – ‘Richard’.

He was much taller than Gavin. Like he hobbled above him on stilts. Slender too, with good posture. The jet-black suit he wore was ironed to perfection. A white button up shirt was beneath. His hair was so black, it seemed that he washed it with shoe polish. He was overdressed for ‘The Green Man’, but it was rather a breath of fresh air. Hazel eyes that’s left pupil dribbled into an off-centre teardrop. It wasn’t uncomfortable to see, he wore it well. One of many endowed with the condition of Coloboma, which was medical jargon for missing tissue about the eye. He juxtaposed Angelica’s attire. She wore a floral dress, stretching just beyond the knee, with dyed brunette hair that rested gently on her shoulders. “Opposites must attract”, Gavin remarked to himself. His smile trembled, battling to stay afloat. Unlike Gavin’s struggles with an internal melancholy, Richard’s seemed different. Gavin thought, to himself, that it urgently required a scaffold. Otherwise, his lips may well droop from his cheek in the moment it buckled. Gavin glanced to Angelica, for reassurance, but her smile told him all seemed safe. She hadn’t beamed that way in years, even before her father’s passing. So, Gavin offered the benefit of the doubt.

“Gavin” he mirrored. Enthusiastically rattling the ostensibly brooding man’s palm. The suited man’s grip was tighter than the knots in Gavin’s stomach. If he desired, he could have snapped the fiery haired journalist’s wrist. However, it must be stated, his clasp was slippery. Like manhandling a frog. He seemed to perspire a lot, which admittedly initially revolted Gavin.

She’d met her lover in Barbados. A summer fling that snowballed into a relationship and bled into the chill of winter. He appeared too good to be true. They marked the week anniversary of their preliminary date, with a candlelit rendezvous. Exotic food laid in front of Angelica that she couldn’t begin to pronounce, and he seemed attentive to her thoughts. Leaning forward, narrowing his eyes and littering the infrequent nod as she told tall tale of Sunday walks with her mother and that field on the tip of the tallest hill. However, after some time Angelica’s feet were beginning to grow cold. She shushed all debate with denial and frustrated mutterings of doubt. The concerns were little whispers, suggesting their love was not for the long haul. Just, minor offense, to the smallest things which disrupted the comfort of general conversation. A walking detriment that physical attraction and chemistry are two separate entities. And that, for some, the lack of one can tragically prove poisonous and contaminate any budding romance. All this atop of a spontaneous vow on the final day of her vacation. All forcing the claws of a heavy weight about her shoulder, and her knees were beginning to buckle. Although company was company, and despite his un-necessarily protective nature she concluded that a lent ear was invaluable in a time such as her own. Feelings were beginning to develop but neglected to identify themselves as love or friendly admiration.

Neither Gavin nor Angelica were aware of Oliver’s fate. Officers had only recently succeeded in fishing the lump of skin from the lake. By that point, it had begun to shrivel and prune. Bumping, like gliding across the moors from a raised height. They were reluctant to identify it as the body of a man, in respect to its strange state. For now, Oliver just a heap of skin spread across a table less than a mile afar. But rumours had begun to swirl. None reaching the open ear of the pair so far. It was still a matter of hours before the news of Oliver’s assault was set to break. Two pints deeper in the night. Gavin excused his miscalculation for the shock of conversing with his childhood friend once again. There was always an excuse. To be exact, it was around three hours later. When hushed murmurs vibrated throughout the bar, booth to booth. There was rumour, but no official sighting, of an ambulance. The description was different to one that seemed natural, however. At the very least, there were several confirmations of police vehicles whizzing through the afternoon. In fact, their emergence eventually became the key talking point of the evening to the crowds behind the trio. Right about the point, coincidentally, conversation had shifted toward Oliver and the last time they had seen the man.

It was true that he hadn’t took much interest in Angelica. Though, their relationship was far from cold. She was never to know the true rationale for this fact, one which stemmed from a paternal confrontation for Oliver at aged fourteen. The spiteful swine had noticed young Oliver playing with the girl, with much glee, and interrogated him of their relationship. Mr Turner emerged from the kitchen and pinned the boy to the wall upon re-entry. He reeked of cigarettes and pastry. He wore an expression he would rarely wear. A glimmer of hope that reflected into a shine on the upper corner of each eye. He desired validation to squander a possibility of his worst fear. A nightmare regarding the slimmest potential that his son may be homosexual. The boy’s first girlfriend would be a great testament to his masculinity.

Most cruel fathers would internalise this unease into a passive aggressive antipathy of their boy, but not Mr Turner. He would go further. The phrases he’d utter had little variation and always carried the same virulent homophobic intent. All with dagger glances and cold eyes which, like the question of the boy’s desire for theatrics, offered one viable answer. Only this time, Oliver ignored the line of questioning entirely and simply opted for a snappy response of his own.

“Angelica is just my friend, not my girlfriend. She never will be”.

All oxygen sucked from the room. The rusted ticking of the clock on the wall above the fridge cried louder than it ever had. Seconds passed so slow, that Oliver thought on three separate occasions that he’d caught it break. That he’d noticed it click its final second. Not four passed until it happened. A closed fist cracked over the rear of his skull. Tossing him to the floor, without regard. Then, as he struggled and toppled to clamber back to his feet in shame, Turner had no sympathy. He only puckered his lips and ran his tongue across the tip of his teeth, ready to strum the evil words to follow.

“I asked you a fucking question”.

After that day, Oliver found it worthwhile to avoid the girl. Feigning a failed attempt to win her love to his father. The man knew the boy lied through his teeth. But turned his head and tutted with a dismissive roll of the eyes. As that friendship frayed, his bond with Gavin only gathered a colossal strength throughout their teenage years. In fact, their bond had only begun to corrode in the past half decade. There were many reasons, but primary amongst all was simply the cruel advancement of time. Chatter began to grow more awkward and disjointed in points that it once flowed. They found themselves reminiscing about their bond’s golden years more than making memories in the present. Once Oliver’s father became bound to a chair, the young man’s free time grew infinitely more finite. Phone calls were missed, and voice mails left read. Gavin struggled to make time away from the workplace’s keyboard. His career began to bud and, at first and for the time, he was truly satisfied. Sadly, the notion of such contentment with his life didn’t last. All this did not thieve them of the memories already garnered. There was a time they were inseparable, and Gavin looked to that period with utmost significance in each of their lives. Only more catastrophic, he expounded to Angelica and her boyfriend that struggled to hold interest in the journalist’s ramblings, that their unbreakable bond eventually became nothing more than clumsy exchanges of glances from across the stone cobbles of Chamomile’s streets.

It was on that sombre note that the pub’s hefty oak doors clattered open. They almost swung from their hinges, and their inner handle thumped the wall with such strength that it left a gash and splinter in the wood. On its other side, Chamomile’s most reputable source of gossip – Ruth. She was wide eyed, almost ravenous. Her wrinkled face contorted with shock and excitement. The image clasps the attention of all inside with an instant, like a robust magnet. Pinpointing her expression was a challenge in its own right. Terror? Eyes so tormented echoed the similar structure as those of his mother when she uttered the word “Terminal”. Excitement? A glint in the eye, and the frenzy pasted across each cheek did not exclude it from possibility. It was a challenge to navigate the plethora of options, and Gavin postulated with an inquisitive lean forward with an heir of eagerness and massage of his whiskers. Though, the alarm he found amongst her expression left a deep sense of unease within his gut. He began to suspect that, despite his occupation, he could go the rest of his life in content without hearing news she prepared to spill.

“Oliver. Harold Turner’s boy? Has anybody seen him?” She gushed. This ensuring that what little attention she hadn’t already stolen from her spectacular entrance was now entirely at her disposal. Every soul within ‘The Green Man’ needed to hear each syllable which escaped her dry lips. Despite which, she was met with no response. Opened her mouth to call out once again, until Gavin piped up.

“Not lately, no. What’s going on?”. He returned. Inquisitive at first. Intrigued as to why the elderly lady would be in such a rush to learn the present whereabouts of his old friend. Surely, he thought, it couldn’t be too drastic.

“He’s caved his father’s skull. Left him for dead. The police have been at my door.” She offered back. Stopping Gavin, and quite positively the entire room, in their tracks. In fact, the silence that followed was almost painful. Grinding nerves jamming spikes into the base of skulls like the shrillest slice of whiplash.

Gavin couldn’t trust his own ears. Nor Angelica. Their old friend? The boy that cried for three hours when his knee grazed concrete at the local park not one hundred metres from where they sat right now? The friend that begged Gavin to refrain from telling his father when the boy had accidentally tossed young Gavin from the top bunk of his bed? Surely not. An overt act of intentional violence was beyond character. But Ruth was not lying. In fact, for once, she was not exaggerating the truth for any further dramatic effect. Surprisingly, she was quite tame. The tarmac at the front of her home was still warm from the police car’s tyres. The Turner family were her immediate neighbours, so police felt it right to question her first. An oversight on their behalf that they hadn’t calculated her excitement to drop the inside scoop with the local townsfolk the moment they left. Unbeknownst to them, soon these very officers would need not look any further. This because Oliver’s body was already strung across a wooden table beside the town’s church ahead of four perplexed eyes. All endeavouring to comprehend why it was now a fleshy shell of the man it used to be.