The Things We Need

~Beaufort, South Carolina.Earth. The Past.~

The hot summer day beat upon her as her head bowed and she closed her eyes to shut out the light. At least some of the trees were keeping her cool, offering some potential protection.

Shawna had always been pale, had always had the midnight black tresses and cupid born mouth that as a child seemed permanently fixed into a pout but black hair and pale skin never seemed to be the summer's favored and the shade of the trees was her ward from the cruelty of the sun.

Another funeral. Another wake. Mourning and grief, the welcome celebration to death. It was such a contradiction that left Shawna ignoring the whole spectacle and staring out into the hazy lines of the horizon. Eyes so dark they near seemed forged of midnight itself blinked in surprise before they squinted.

If only to make herself believe what she was seeing. The man in the top hat and the black coat and skeleton painted face stood before the rest that lingered in the heat of the horizon.

Beyond her will Shawna took a curioius step forward before her wrist was grabbed and she turned around sharply to find the eyes of her grandmother resting on her.

"What is it?"
"You see them don't you?"
"Who?"
"The Shadow Man and his... friends."

Shawna nodded silently as her voice was kept level and soft, something to not disturb the ongoing event before her.

"What do they come for?"
"Why honey, they're here for you..."
"Me? Why would they want me."
"The same reasons they wanted myself and your mother at this age. It's in our blood... we were born for it. The generation of the women in our bloodlines carry the strands of power."

The strands of power. Shawna almost laughed as it seemed too far out there, but when she'd been seeing the dead since she was a small girl, she didn't have a reason to laugh.

Intuition. Ghost watching. Soul sight and emotional bonds. All of it she knew so well. Her mother had taught her not to fear the things she watched and saw. Then again her mother also advised her to never speak of those things to people outside of the family.

That they wouldn't understand, that they'd lock her away.

Her mother was gone now and still the words haunted her.

"They need you child, and what they need, they eventually come for."

The words brought her from her thoughts as she smiled absently to her grandmother in reassurance. Those cinnamon dark eyes of the woman seemed to hold a strange emotion... something akin to longing and perhaps jealousy.

Expressions that never should have been on an elder's face were there and Shawna couldn't shake that uneasy feeling as she turned away from the Shadow Man and her grandmother and everyone else, mumbling some soft excuse. She needed to get away from this twisted gathering of death and shadows... no matter how much it was 'in her blood', she just needed to get away.

No looking back, and at that hour it wasn't heat she felt on her skin but the cool of the grave.

This would only be one of the first signs, only the beginning.

~Beaufort, South Carolina. Earth. The Past~

The sky was a canopy of darkness, the stars glittering fireflies as she lounged in the heat of the summer night wearing a light cotton dress of gray even as she watched the rest of the young girls cavort and flirt in the water in bras and panties like they were sirens tempting their next victim.

Shawna was a bit more modest, she knew the whispers and giggles were about her, the strange little girl that rarely spoke and remained with her manners and proper ways like it wasn't the date and time of the present but so many years past. The days of debutantes and soldiers, civil war and distinguished classic ladies.

Her grandmother blamed it on Shawna being an old soul, but she knew what her grandmother really meant was that Shawna was touched, was already carrying the mark of a memory of times long since past.

The water looked so refreshing and cool, an alluring temptation and she sighed as she rose to her feet. She looked at the group of girls as they giggled and splashed each other, casting coy smiles to the boys roughhousing a bit down the way.

Shawna stared vacantly out at the gathered even as she felt somewhere else in that dark hour.

'Is it them you worry about, those that do not see you?'

A side glance of those velvet black eyes flickered to the Shadow Man as a weary smile crossed her lips as her quiet answer.

'Come child, let me show you the way.'

The words were dark allure, powerfully pulling and hard to resist. He had claimed her spirit as likely as he had claimed the spirit of her mother and her grandmother.

'We will make you something more... something for them to adore and fear... something that they will never be able to take their eyes from. Something they will never be.'

A mute nod and she followed after him as he took her hand, the influence bewitching as the stars seemed frantic in the sky, warning her and yet she did not understand their silent screams.

Would it matter? Was this not what she was born to do.

Standing on a cliff edge then, staring down at the deep waters where the girls and boys played and splashed around.

She felt no emotion towards them. A sweet indifferent apathy stirring in her spirit as she took a step back from the cliff edge, then another....before a rush forward and in that cotton dress she dove from the cliff edge into the water below.

Glimpses of images flashed before her eyes as she hit the water and was pulled deep into its pure blue chasm, the liquid possession of the lake.

She didn't understand the images in her mind of the blond and the one with the sideways tilted hat, or the image of the other man that had no name but felt like he belonged to her.

So many images until the dark claimed her, giving in to the darkness of unconsciousness as the deep blue water became black as it took her down into its depths and claimed her.

Distantly she heard the screams of horror and surprise, never aware that their screams were for the limp figure of Shawna that had surfaced on the water.

~Beaufort, South Carolina. Earth. The Past.~

She was being carried, her body as lifeless and limp as a rag doll in the man's arms.

Vaguely she heard the whispers that always would haunt her thoughts. The voices of the Shadow Man and his kind.

Rituals they spoke of. To truly become one they would need her to understand the baptism again. A dark baptism of near death.

"Breathe."

She heard the whisper soft and sensual against her ear before her lips were brushed by his own. Breathing life into her lungs until she was sputtering up water.

A turn of head, hacking and coughing as ragged gasps brought her back to the veil of the living rather then of the dead.

"Breathe for us...for our path."

It was not the Shadow Man or his kin that whispered in her ear but another.

The one of dark dreams and velvet secrets. She turned to see him, to see his face, to touch him again... but he was gone.

Had he ever truly been there?

Vaguely as she eased into an exhausted slumber she heard the distant laughter of the Shadow Man.

It was done.

Soon she would belong to them.

~Beaufort, South Carolina. Earth. The Past~

"Nothing but the blood of..."
"Don't say it. We know he's not here."

The Witching Hour. The time of ill deeds. After midnight it had nothing to do with letting it all hang out but something far worse. Bad Mojo.

Against a tombstone in the southern cemetary Shawna swayed, feeling ill at ease and ill at rest.

She had felt that way since the Shadow Man became more prominent in her dreams.

The dark whispers in her mind made it hard for her to deceive the subtle changes that were taking place.

In another place, another town, almost another world it seemed Shawna could close her eyes and catch of glimpse of a golden haired glory girl. A goddess on earth. Venus in disguise.

A flicker movement of eyes behind closed lids and another glimmer of a slick man with a hat crooked to the side and a dangerously playful light to his eyes. The Devil Incarnate or perhaps just a Smooth Operator.

Another... the outline of a man. Her fingers stretched as if to push the haze away from the vision but it left the vision to dart away as Shawna did something ever so classy and southern.

Shawna swooned.

The chanting stopped and she heard the whisper in the trees as she opened her eyes to stare up at the stars.

Night after night those soft dark eyes were bleeding crimson ruby shine.

Night after night fate and destiny seemed to cord. She flinched as the stars above seemed to snap like cameras going off and she shielded her eyes.

Shawna felt nothing more then crowded. Crowded and Suffocated.

"You'll forgive me one day..."

A whisper. A promise. A token breathed in the night.