Aeonian: Chapter Sixty-Eight

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Aeonian is a novel I am publishing in serial form, two chapters per week, on both Medium and Substack, to reach a wider audience.

Aeonian

A diary found at the back of a bookshelf in a local library brings excitement and solace to a lonely young woman seeking peace, but as events of the past begin to happen again in the present, the reader must ask herself… what is her connection to this story?

Copyright © Gemma Lawrence 2025. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this manuscript may be reproduced without Gemma Lawrence’s express consent.

Chapter Sixty-Eight

The coach rocketed through the little windy lanes at an unnatural speed. I sat, staring, wondering at all I had seen and heard, my back against the seat, my eyes fixed, frozen on the prostrate body of Philomena on the floor of the coach. Opposite me, her face lit with a smile almost gentle, was Beatrice. The smug smile on her lips was unnerving; it made me shudder to see it. Bess was dazed, her eyes rolled and she moaned, but I was fairly sure she wasn’t conscious. Part of me hoped she wasn’t. This was a nightmare.

My mind was racing, racing over the events of the last hour. Where was Bartholomew of my time? He seemed to have disappeared again. The Bartholomew of this time was on top of the carriage with Gray, driving on the horses, snorting, gasping and whinnying, with a cruel whip which I could hear cracking over the top of me. But where was the Bartholomew who had brought me here? I was now alone, set on seeing whatever it was which was about to unfold, alone.

I shivered a little, shifting my feet, which passed through the forms on the floor of the coach. I wished I could return to my own time and see no more. Why had I said I would do as he wished? Just to see the end of this story? Was that worth what I had promised? Was that worth perhaps the cost of my own life?

I looked out of the window and saw the countryside whirling past me in a blur. Night was falling and the grey-blue light of the gloaming skies was folding in around us. Night air whipped at my cheeks, and I trembled, not only with cold. The carriage flashed past the turn to the town, and upwards, heading past clumps of prickly gorse and outcrops of grey stone, shining like silver in the dim light. Overhead, the moon was starting to show in the heavens, and as the sun vanished from the land, I felt a sense of terrible foreboding wash over me. The moors were in sight, yet still we climbed. The snorting breath of the exhausted horses plumed out and swept over the coach, and then, finally, Bartholomew pulled up on the reins, shouting to the horses to stop and hold, and the coach came to a grinding, squealing halt.

I heard him jump down from the driver’s seat, and walk to the side of the carriage, where opening the door with a wide grin, he stood like a gallant in a historical novel, his white teeth and beautiful face illuminated by the rising light of the moon. “M’ladies,” he said, as he opened the door, and Beatrice laughed, happily, as she took her brother’s hand and all but skipped from the coach.

I watched Gray pull Bess and Philomena from the carriage, and drag them, by the necks of their dresses, their feet bouncing from the stones on the springy grass of the moors. Gray pulled them effortlessly, like a child dragging ragdolls behind itself as it walks to bed. I jumped from the coach and followed, over the springy, hard grass, stepping over grey stone and around gorse, watching herds of sheep disappear into the darkness, running from the shapes that came towards them. I grimaced at that; the sheep had the right idea, obviously they could smell when trouble was on its way. I wished for a moment that I could be like them, but I had paid a high price, and one I did not understand fully, to see this. I must see it through.

As we marched across the moor, I could see a shape appearing. A ring, a circle of stones. Perhaps half as high as me, the stones stood. It was an old monument, I realised; one of the many stone circles erected by people of pre-history, like Stonehenge, but infinitely smaller. The stones, which were as high as my waist, were shining in the moonlight, some of them bent, leaning in the ground, sunken with the passage of time and shifting of earth, some still erect and strong, standing fast against the changes of the world. Into the circle Gray dragged the two forms, dumping them as if they were sacks of oats rather than people, and behind them, walking as though asleep, came Anna.

In the centre of the circle they all stopped. Bess was lying, her face in the mud, and Bartholomew stepped over her, taking hold of Philomena. In the centre of the circle there was one last stone, and to this Bartholomew dragged her. Beatrice tied Philomena to the stone. Bess was left on the ground, where she lay. Then Beatrice turned to Anna.

“You will come here,” she said, pointing to a spot next to Philomena. “When the time comes, you will have everything you need.”

The little girl nodded, and walked to stand not far from Philomena, not looking at her but staring into the distance, her lips moving still. Bartholomew and Beatrice seemed busy at the outer ring of the stone circle, so I walked closer to Anna, trying to hear what she was saying.

I had to lean in close; her mutterings were indistinct, mere words and phrases tumbling over each other again and again. As I listened, I came to believe that I was in fact hearing two voices, as though two people battled within her, speaking over the top of each other. One was speaking a language I didn’t know. But the other one was not.

“No. Yes… I will not, I will…” Words kept coming, fighting over each other for space in the girl’s mouth. Although her face looked as passive as the moon in the skies which lay over us now, lighting the moor with eerie silver light, I could see that within her there was something terrible going on, a struggle. Something was inside Anna, and it wanted to come out, but perhaps worse than this was the understanding that Anna herself was still there, still within her own body, as something forced itself over her, subduing her to its will.

I shuddered and stepped back, looking at Philomena, whose head was nodding on her breast as if she was trying to wake. I almost did not want her to. To awake to this? It was horrific, to find herself captured, bound and tied, unable to defend herself, if it was even possible to do anything at all against these two monsters. I understood how she would feel, because I felt the same. What could I do? My hands passed through anything I tried to touch. I could not fight for Philomena and Anna; I could only watch.

At all times before in my life, I had enjoyed that sensation of being outside the story. It is the greatest pleasure of a reader; to join another world, if only for a short while, to watch its story unfold, to travel with people but not be in actual danger yourself. I wasn’t in danger here, that was for sure, and I found myself almost wishing I could be. I wished I was not the reader. I wished I was here in truth, able to help. I almost willed Philomena to remain as she was; to pass through whatever was about to happen to her unconsciously, it might be better than knowing what was to come.

But my wish did not come true. Philomena opened her eyes, blinking, her eyeballs rolling in her head so only the whites could be seen, and then, slowly, they shifted into place. She blinked, dazed, as she let out a small groan.

As she awoke to the horror before her, I saw Anna’s face twitch, as though she was in pain too. Her small pale hand moved at her side, as though she wanted to reach out to her friend, tied and bound to the stone at her side. But she did not move, she remained where she was, staring into the distance and muttering over and over as she fought her harrowing, quiet battle, with whatever it was that was inside her.

“Our cousin is awake,” purred Beatrice, looking over at Philomena, and smiling at her brother. “And just in time too. Welcome, cousin,” she called with a laugh to Philomena.

Hearing those words, Philomena’s head came up. She looked around wildly and, unable to twist to see Beatrice, she started to struggle against her bonds. Her face was white and her lips a terrible shade of grey as she realised not only where she was, but the position she was in.

“What are you doing?” Philomena cried out, tears starting from her eyes as she struggled, pulling on the ropes which bound her. Her struggles only pulled Bartholomew’s clever knots tighter and she cried out against the pain in her wrists and ankles. “Let me go!”

“Why would we wish to do a thing like that?” asked Bartholomew, walking to her and squatting in front of her, “just when you have come to realise your destiny? This is a glorious moment for you, coz. All your life you have felt apart from everyone else, unloved, unwanted. Poor little Philomena, but you never knew you were more special than anyone else. That you had something that no one else could offer to the world. That you had a power within you which would bring something great and noble back to this world.” He reached out to her face, almost gently. “You are more precious than you ever dreamed, cousin.”

Philomena wrenched her face away from his touch, pulled her head back and spat full in his face. Bartholomew did not move as her spittle lashed against his face, but merely wiped it from his eyes and then, almost making me retch, licked it, smiling at her. Philomena blanched at this repulsive gesture.

“Don’t call me your cousin,” she hissed. “I am nothing of the sort. How could I be? Brown told me what you are. You are monsters!”

Bartholomew smiled lazily. “Thar be monsters,” he said. “And yet, dear cousin, while you may not be a direct relative of my darling sister and myself, the blood which flows in your veins is the same as that which runs in ours. That was what was so important, you see? That is why you are so important. It is your blood. The blood of a woman, descended from the ancient line of our own dearest mother, our creator. That is the only blood which we could use, the only blood which had the power to restore her to life… your blood.” He smiled wider. “We have been waiting for you, Philomena, waiting for you for a very long time.”

“What are you talking about?” she said, her voice rasping from her, grating over the fear which constricted her throat.

“Shall I tell her the story, sister?” he asked, shouting over to Beatrice.

Beatrice shrugged. “Do as you will, brother,” she said, lifting her hands to one of the stones, as if in benediction. “The door is oiled, but still, it will take time to open. Amuse yourself as you see fit.”

Bartholomew turned to Philomena, his smile like that of a wolf in the light of the moon. “Then I will tell you all, dearest cousin,” he said.

Bartholomew sat back on his heels and smiled at Philomena. I crept forwards, perhaps stupidly, since they couldn’t see me, and crouched at his side. His face, so beautiful and so horrible in the falling darkness, watched her eyes with a wolfish glee.

“Our story begins long ago,” he said, as though telling a fairy story, “in a time when man was new to this world and lived only to survive through the short days of his existence. There was nothing more than survival, no time to rest or play. In this time, men knew, as they do not know now, that demons walked amongst them.”

Philomena snorted. “There is no such thing as demons,” she said, although her voice did not sound entirely sure on that matter.

“Oh, but there are,” he whispered, reaching out to stroke her face. She flinched, turning her face from his, and he sighed, but smiled. “There are such things, dear cousin,” he repeated and continued.

“In those days, man and demon walked side by side in this world. And as man hunted the beasts of the land and the water, so they were hunted by the demons. Creatures who fed on the blood and the spirits of their prey, creatures who could feed on dreams, just as they fed on the life force of humans. This was good enough, for a time, but eventually, the demons found a new power, a way to conceal themselves, a way to hunt unseen, even within the families and hearts of their prey. As a demon, in their true form, they could be seen and recognised by the humans, but when their spirit was inside the body of a human they could walk unrecognised amongst them, could feed upon their dreams in the night as easily as they laughed beside them in the day, and in time, the spirit of the demons took form inside bodies, vessels, if you will, of their own prey. Only to each other, then, could they be recognised, and when the spirit of a demon rested within that of a human, they became more powerful, and more beautiful than any human was capable of, a disguise most wondrous. In time, all demons came to take on the forms of their prey and lived amongst them.” He sat back on his heels. “Your people have many names for us. Many cultures knew that vampires had integrated themselves amongst them. Some of us were found, and destroyed, but most lived on.” He smiled. “… and that takes us to the time of our glorious mother.”

“Your mother?” Philomena asked.

“The demon spirit who found two lost children, and took them into her home,” he said with a glimmer of something like affection in his eyes. “The demon who saw our true potential, when our human families did not.” He glanced over at his sister, standing with her hands stretched and head bowed at the edge of the circle of stones. Beatrice’s mouth was moving, muttering words in a language I did not recognise, over and over again. She did not pay attention to her brother. Clearly, whatever she was up to was the bit I should be worried about, and yet not having any power to stop her, I figured I might as well listen.

“When we were born, dear coz,” he went on, “Humans were just as stupid and foolish as they are now, but they were even more violent. Quite a thing to see. You are all capable of just as much violence now, but you’ve repressed it, thinking it unseemly to enjoy it so obviously. Back then, they didn’t care. Our human mother was taken from us, burned at the stake, for the elders in our village believed her to be a witch, but they were fools, as I said, for they did not realise that the power they thought came from her was actually coming from us, her sweet little children.

“We were born with powers, weak and ineffectual in our human forms, which had started to show themselves. Your people call it magic, but that is a crass word, unsuited to the wonders within us. Our father killed himself a month after our human mother died, and it seemed as though we might starve to death, the children of proved devil worshippers, as they called us, and lost souls are, after all, not welcomed into many homes, but there was one, one woman who took us in as wards.”

He leaned forwards and whispered into Philomena’s ear. “We came to her house as children, cousin, but we left as demons. She was our true mother. She was our saviour. She took us in, and taught us the delights and wonders of pain. She chained us to the walls of her dungeon, and took delight in ripping skin from flesh, and after many years, she taught us the honour and wonder of pain and suffering. Finally, when we were grown, when we were worthy, she imbued us with her own spirit; poured her own blood down our throats, and brought us from human death into a life of power, and brilliance. On the day my sister and I awoke with the spirit of the old demons within us, we looked on this world anew. It was no longer a place of fear and hunger for us, but a place where everything and everyone could be ours for the taking. The world was there to feed us. Our mother set us free, and as new demons we wandered not only her lands, but the lands of other countries. For many years, wandering, killing, torturing, placing our hands inside the soft bowels of humans and feeding on their blood and souls as we pulled their insides out, on their dreams as we crushed them, we were all-powerful, or so we thought.”

Philomena had turned grey, her lips almost white. “You honour someone who made you into a monster,” she said in a whisper. “You would thank someone who turned you into a murderer?”

“Oh, but she did so much more than that,” he smiled. “Our mother set us free of the bonds which had held us as mortals. We cannot be killed by mere human means. Our bodies feed on diseases and plagues which humans cannot withstand. Our forms and minds never age. We are immortal, may only be destroyed by means most dangerous for humans to undertake, and even then, our spirit endures, waiting for a time when it can be brought back, to take life once more in the form of another human. We are immortal,” he grimaced, “but there are times when we can be… reduced.”

“Good,” she said bitterly, “tell me about those times.”

He tapped a finger to his lips. “Ah, no, dear coz. If only I could trust you, but I know I cannot. Those things remain a secret, kept only by us, but there are other things I will tell of.”

He sat back, picked at the grass on the floor. “Whilst we, the children of our mother, wandered in happiness and freedom, spreading out, wondering on all the glorious pain and suffering of the world, we had not realised that danger had come to our beloved mother. It was a mistake for her, you see, to remain in one place, and the humans about her had grown suspicious. She liked children, and children disappeared with regularity from the villages and towns about her estates. She had perhaps grown complacent in her situation. They came for her one night, and they discovered the secrets of her house, the blood which stained the walls, the young people on whom she fed gathered in heaps within her dungeons, the children shackled,” he smiled with a soft look of happiness. “She wallowed in the pain of others, coz,” he said happily, “and she was a master of the art of pain.”

Philomena thrust her face from his, looking away, quite green. “You disgust me.”

“Ah, and there was me thinking that you loved me,” he whispered, stroking her face. She flinched from him, trying to throw him off, but he grabbed her face and held it so that she was staring into his eyes. “And you did love me, didn’t you?”

“I loved something I thought I saw beyond your cruelty and malice,” she spat. “But now I understand that was the illusion, the trap you use to capture people. I will not make the same mistake again.”

“Ah, but you will,” he smiled. “Humans always do.”

“So tell me, then,” she said, gritting her teeth. “Tell me what mistake your hideous bitch of a mother made.”

Without changing the expression on his face, Bartholomew reached out and slapped Philomena hard about the face. The sound was like a great crack of lightning on the still moor, and instinctively I leapt forward, trying to stop him, and found myself doing nothing more than waving in the air. My hands passed through his face, and I fell forwards. I was useless.

“Weren’t you told to respect your elders and betters?”

“She is not my better, neither are you,” hissed Philomena, and Bartholomew smiled wider.

“The elders of the community, and the people in the towns found out our mother’s secret,” he continued as though nothing had happened. “They came for her in force. My sister and I heard her calling for us on the other side of the world. We came for her, but we were too late.”

He frowned. “Our wanderings in pursuit of pleasure had taken us too far from our mother. Even we can only run so fast, and we tried, Philomena, how hard we tried. By the time we arrived, the humans had found a way to destroy her earthly body, her vessel, but in the winds and in the earth, we knew that her spirit yet remained. We knew there were ways, ancient ways, to revive her spirit and bring it back within the vessel of another human. But there was much we had to learn and there were things we needed, and those things were taken from us, hidden from us, by a sect of humans who knew our secrets, the Wards, and they were determined that we would never bring our glorious mother back to life. For years we searched for the items we required, for years we found nothing.”

He let go of her face, tapping her lightly on the bruise he had made which now spread over Philomena’s pale cheek. “You see, coz,” he continued. “Before our mother was made a demon, part of her was a human, as we were, and she was a wife. Before she was turned, she bred children. Little human babies, who were taken from her when her foolish relatives suspected what she had become. We needed their blood, or more specifically, we needed the blood of a female of her line. To restore our great mother to life as a demon, to restore her with her previous glory and power, we needed the blood of a female human descended from our mother’s human form. We knew that it existed in the world, and we knew that it was hidden from us. For years and years we looked, and for years the line of our mother’s blood was hidden from us. And then, we found it.”

She turned her head. “What are you saying?” she croaked.

“That you are more special to us than you could ever imagine,” he smiled. “That you are the person who we have been looking for, for longer than you could ever imagine. We have walked centuries alone, searching for you, only you, and now you will help us to restore our mother to life. You are of the line of our mother’s human form, the line hidden from us for so many years, the line that we found, eventually, here in England.”

“You are insane,” she whispered. “This is a fantasy.”

He laughed. “This is no fantasy or dream. This will become truth.” He breathed in and shook his head. “For generations we watched your family, waiting for you, Philomena. For generations, as though Fate herself wished to thwart our plans over and over, there were only males born to your line. We watched and we waited, and then you were born. And when you were born, we knew that the time was here. We went to the country of our mother’s birth, and selected a child, one who we could keep with us, one who we could watch until she was grown and bled to become a woman. For our mother to come back at her strongest, we needed a vessel born of her own country, you see? And we brought you to live with us. Your father was happy enough to let you go, and never see you again, wasn’t he? Foolish man… he blamed you for your mother’s death and could not stand to see you, but he never knew how important you were. But we did. We brought you to us, so that at the right time, my sister could reach through the passages of time and draw the spirit of our mother from the past, into this time.”

He nodded to the others, Bess on the ground, Gray lolling at the edge of the stones. “We needed other things, too,” he said. “Blood of the blood we had spilt. Each of them, we collected them as we waited for you. Each of them born of the pain we inflicted on the world, the last of the hearts of their families. We had to change them a little, to make them live long enough, but here they are now, to bring you to your final destiny, to release our mother, to make her strong when she comes back.”

“How?”

He looked about him and gestured at the stone circle. “This place, it was built by people in a time you cannot even imagine,” he said. “They built it to honour their gods, and so that the passage of the sun and moon would tell them when to plant and when to reap. But it is more than that. This place is one of few in the world where memories have been imprinting themselves on the world for more time than any other, and if you feed those memories, if you have the power, if you can draw the energy of them into you, if you can find ways through the gaps and spaces, you can reach a hand back through time, and touch the past. There are many such places, my sister and I have known about them since before we were turned. We understand their power, and we can wield it.”

“What are you saying?” Philomena asked, staring at him. “That you are going to bring your mother back, from the past?”

“Her spirit can be reached, by us, through time,” he nodded, looking almost pleased that she understood. “In places like this, time touches time of the past, the future. There are gaps, doors if you will, and they can be opened. We have been feeding the circle with the spirit, the dreams and blood of others for some time now, long before you arrived here. And this evening, we will open a door and draw the spirit of our mother through it. We will reach back to the moment when her original vessel was destroyed, when she was at her strongest in this world, and we will draw her through time, to us, here and now, and she will live again. We will be alone no more.”

Philomena twisted to look at Anna, who was stood at her side still muttering. “What are you going to do to Anna?”

“She will be awoken to a new and glorious existence, the spirit of our mother within her. Together, they will become more brilliant, more glorious than anything she could have ever been as a mere mortal. She will be awoken, and the spirit of our mother will overtake her. After this night, Anna will be no more, but as the vessel of our mother’s spirit, she will live forever.”

“No!” cried Philomena, struggling helplessly against the bonds. “You cannot do this… she is just a young girl!”

“As were all the others I or Gray or Beatrice coaxed from their beds and brought dancing merrily to their deaths, here,” he grinned. “Do you think that such a statement, a plea of her youth will produce pity from me? I have taken more lives than you can ever imagine, dear cousin, and I have looked on each of them as you would look on a bowl of soup.”

“Stop calling me your cousin,” she shuddered. “I claim no allegiance or kinship with you, no matter what is within my blood.”

“But you are my cousin,” he purred, “or would you prefer to be known as my sister? That is probably closer to what you are.”

She stared at him, ignoring his last comment. “And what are you going to do with me?”

“We need your blood,” he said with a wide and terrible smile. “When the time is right, dear Anna here will be consumed by the spirit of our mother; we have already started the process. Anna already feels the spirit of our mother flowing within her, and when the time comes, Anna will drain your blood, our mother will drain your soul, and the vessel will be filled with all it needs; with blood, with spirit, with the demon, and our mother will live once more.”

He put his hand to her heart. She struggled but could not shrug him off. “This night,” he whispered, “you will die, and our mother will be reborn.”

G. Lawrence.