Darker London-Uncover what is underneath...

Teagan’s parents car rumbled down the highway, smooth enough as highways went, but to Teagan it was unbearable. The constant movement of the car made her feel sick, every slight bump threw the bile in her belly up her throat and she had to choke it back down. Her head ached; she thought she could ignore it to begin with, when they first started driving. Within the city limits of Liverpool the traffic was relatively slow, and the motion sickness wasn’t as bad. But out on the highway it was a nightmare. Sickness crawled up her body, clogged her brain, made her feel utterly miserable.

Being in her head without Kenzie was almost worse, though. As if every good aspect of Kenzie that Teagan shared had been torn out of her as well. All that power, that feeling she was something special, was gone, and had been replaced with grief, and hatred, and anger. She’d loved Kenzie, Kenzie was family, Kenzie was closer than her own sister, Kenzie was all the brightest bits of her, and Kenzie was gone. Not just dead, but gone.

Teagan had killed her.

( ... )

Joss had been almost asleep, his eyes closed, leaning against Leon as the sounds from the TV wound themselves into his half-dreams. Leon too had started to drift off, and Ellie and Geordie had gone to bed over an hour ago. Merry was the only one still properly awake, still feeling like she had to watch over them all, still too worried to relax, and she was curled on an armchair sipping peppermint tea, when all the lights went out.

Joss heard Teagan’s scream through his half asleep state, and jolted himself awake. Disorientation spun him for a moment till he saw Leon, recognised him even in the dark. Leon was there. Leon he thought, looking at his brother in the glow from the streetlights outside. Leon is here.

“JOSS!” Kenzie screamed from outside, her voice hoarse. “JOSS I NEED YOU!”

( Too much, too close )

In a couple of weeks, Joss would turn twenty, and he’d finally be older than Kenzie when she died.

Kenzie lay with Teagan, who was half asleep, thinking about this, her thoughts influencing Teagan’s dreams. Joss would grow up, Joss would continue to grow up, and so would Teagan. Did ghosts grow up, Kenzie wondered? Had Joy, the ghost inside her grandmother’s head, felt like she’d gotten older as Grace aged? Why was this something she’d never asked Grace?

( ... )

A few days after Stonehenge, Kenzie had taken the driving seat in Teagan’s mind and was speaking to Joss. Teagan let her, practising the talent of keeping her mind quiet, her body relaxed, so that Kenzie could, for want of a better word, drive. It was a windy day in Bristol where they’d decided to stop for a while and check out the city. Today Joss had found a pirate tour of Blackbeard’s (supposed) early life, and they were following the piratically dressed guide around the town, holding hands at the back of the tour, and giggling to each other.

Teagan found it impossible to quiet her mind completely, though. She felt every move Kenzie made with her body, felt her feet hit the ground, felt the movement in her hips and her shoulders and the tension in her back and her stomach and felt the turn of her neck and heard the sounds of her own voice coming out – and every time Kenzie spoke Teagan felt the urge to close her mouth, not because of the things she was saying, but simply because she wasn’t used to her own voice coming out of her own mouth without her knowledge.

( ... )

After their first day of driving, Teagan and Joss and Kenzie kept moving.

( ... )