Page 54 of Presence

I stand there, watching the two of them as they exchange worried glances.

“There was already something targeting her…” Raven begins. For some reason, I feel a sudden urge to correct her.

“Presence,” I interject. When they both give me puzzled looks, I swallow hard. “Presence, not something. That’s what I’m calling it in my head.”

“Right,” the shop owner mutter. “This presence has been targeting her before. That means that it just needed wider access. It needed Claire to lower her defenses.”

A heavy silence falls over us, only to be shattered by a loud crash from the shop area. It sounds like a book slamming onto the ground, but with the force of someone hurling it down in anger.

Oh, no… Is it happening? Are the shadows creeping back into my mind?

Camilla sucks in a sharp breath, her eyes widening as she gently works her jaw side to side, biting the inside of her cheek. I see her reaction, but I have to ask anyway.

“Did you hear that too?” I manage to say.

“Yes,” the shop owner replies sharply. “Artemis! Artemis, where are you?”

“Are we not…” I point my thumb at the arch leading to the shop area as the owner calls for her cat two more times. “...checking it out?”

“No,” they both say at once, their voices so firm that my stomach clenches with nerves.

Then, everything happens quickly. Raven storms around the room, lighting new candles around the circle of salt. She takes out books, flips through pages, and directs Camilla to search for something too, while I stand frozen, too scared to move. Before long, Raven comes over to me, holding a small cup of some murky drink.

It’s as if that crash pulled them into motion. They’re feeling something I don’t. Because I… I only feel the presence tickling my spine.

It’s restless.

I feel like I’m alone in the woods, the sky cloudy, covering the moon and stars. In the vast crevasse of leaves and trees, it sees me perfectly, with its eyes all black and accustomed to the darkness. It sees me like I’m naked, my skin glowing among the shadows.

It keeps watching me.

“Drink this,” the shop owner says, snapping me back to the present. “You said you feel watched, right? This might help.”

I hesitate, looking at the murky liquid. Its surface shimmers slightly in the candlelight. The smell makes bile rise in my throat.

“What is it?” I ask, unable to hide my disgust.

“Would it matter even if I told you?” she asks hastily, her gaze darting toward the archway leading back to the main part of the shop. “It’ll help shield your mind from negative energy and make you less easy to access to whatever’s watching you. It’s made from herbs known for their protective properties—totally harmless. It smells awful to you because…”

“There’s something in me that doesn’t like it,“ I finish her sentence. Presence. It makes sense. I hate it, but it does.

“Exactly.”

I hold my breath to avoid the smell and down the liquid in one swift gulp. It burns slightly as it goes down, a sharp, acrid taste making my eyes water, but I manage to keep it down. As soon as I swallow, something weird happens.

Presence… lessens. This… existence, that has been with me for as long as I can remember, gets weaker. It’s there one moment, ready to wreak me, and the next, it’s just a faint tickle on my neck.

My head spins, my stomach clenching so painfully that I fold in half, hands clutching my belly, wheezing for air. I grip my knees tightly, trying to ground myself in the spinning room. My heart races, pounding so loudly in my ears that it’s all I can hear.

The sensation of being watched got weaker with the potion, but now something else fills its place—an oppressive, squeezing dread tightening around my chest like a vice.

“Oh god,” I manage to say. “What is happening to me?”

“It didn’t like that,” Raven replies, her voice muffled like through a fog. “Get into the circle with us.”

“What about... your cat?” I blurt out, a bad feeling gnawing at me. She pauses briefly.

“Artemis will have to wait. This is more important now,” she says. She grabs my arm, guiding me to the center of the salt circle where Camilla already stands, her face etched with worry. “We don’t have much time. Claire, tell us everything from start to finish. The presence can’t see you now, but the stronger it is, the faster it will get to us.”

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