Chapter 4

Snuffled of being upset and cold. I was forcing the other two away from the compact mound of soil. I gave love and treats to them, not that they wanted the treats. Neither of them wanted to eat and I felt that same way. Lacking hunger. I sighed in the other worries I have to care about for now, forcing me to get on. I have guest with me. I need to get dog food out for the three... ugh, two of them. I think there is cat food. I will get up later.

"I am sorry for your loss." I slightly smiled in my pain to the kind gesture Shade meant. I didn't really have the voice to thank him for it. Only my nod and sorrowed silence. I got a drink of water and remembered about candles.

I guess I have to make hers too. A small one, I don't like dog candles. They are stinky for a reason. Candles. Yes, I have three make to orders. They all were the same things, putting me a little weird for me. Lavender, Jasmine, Rose and Lily. Purple and blue wax. Sand from a beach. If I make my dog a candle, it be beef fat base with her fur and some veg chucks. Her favourite was broccoli stems. Mud from her grave. It don't have to be a pretty, nice smelling, or long lasting.

If I am going to make a candle that embodies everything I knew of my grandparents, then the ingredient list falls to short. I would also make them a candle each, not assuming together. I will use what I got to hand, shorting down the list much further. Enough to be perfect. But I wonder if I have enough wax for all of this, excluding the beef dripping for the dog candle.

"Looks like I need to make a trip to the craft shop." I checked if it be open today and the times, "Did you want to come with?" I asked the undertaker, he laughed nervously, "I need candle supplies, that's why." took out his notepad about this, "If it was the choose of staying here in the haunted house or following me around, its up to you." He posed to say give him a moment.

"You can use mine." He brought out a box from no where. I had to take a double of where and how that worked, "But in return, would you make me a few too."

"Sure... what did you want in them?" I asked taking the heavy box, I nearly dropped it. I managed it to the counter. I got my other parts of this candle stuff on the ready like the winks and the jars. the dog one is easy test for how hot the stove gets, and was finished first due to it. I set that one to the side and have the more important ones to start melting the plain wax. I set up the three customer jars. The two for my grandparents. I have a tray empty at the ready for whatever the undertaker wanted, who kept stepping around me looking at my methods. I had not done the twist to these candles yet, which is often to mark them up with ruins or add a paper reel with the prayer. I add that last, sinking the prayer into the heart of the candle as it cools. sometimes I remove them from the jar and cut the prayer marks into the wax then reapply in new colour with a dipping method. That dipping always layers of wards onto the candle but it can also be tricky to not loose the middle prayer by the fourth dip.

"Would you make the demon proof?" He asked.

"Like salt and good prayer?" I asked and he shrug to that, "You would know a recipe I can follow for you? I can improve it as I go." He checked his notebook and the transferred something to my phone. I have a quick read and think deeply about each part, "I can do that." I fix the set up of the tray so that wax paper is added for each candle, makes for easy removal and the paper is part of the candle. I made this wax paper myself, harvested from places I had been to and seen. Natural enough. According to the recipe the layers of the candles need to mix when lite but not in making. So partitioning the sections for the candle is best. The wax was hot enough to pour soon, melted to pour but not burn. It's this part that I put a twist to their creation. I add my own blend of seasonal herbs that would add to the scent of these candles. Each herb is about healing illness and evoking good thoughts. I also make the last touch of a 'forget me knot'. I pour every candle space with the share of wax and stir where needed. Plenty of candles cooling down. It was about time I wrote and folded the paper prayers... but my shadow has done that for me. A small dish of the paper star folds for each.

"You're really good at making candles." He leaned looking at them, "You managed to make all of these from the little we both had." I add little paper star prayers in all his candles too, each a warding against harm and ill intent. He stop me at five candles to go, "I don't need them all warded." I shrug, "How come you know how to do this?"

"Somethings are a tradition to carry with. My mom although doesn't like the cult. She does like these candles, they a little memory to go by when they are gone. The smell of the candle is to remind you of the good memories of those people. It's a personal thing. The more personal it is, the better it evokes they imagine in your mind." I stir the customer candles plenty, "Whomever ordered these candles had no touch with the people that these were for." He tilted about those candles too, "I dislike making candles to order when they are not personal. But I sort of realize that sometimes my candles are being ordered by folks like you."

I stop playing about the candles and finally let them set. I picked up the small dog one and I brought out my matches. I set it safely on a spot my cats don't go, and I lite it. I send my best prayer of good memories about my little pup dog, sensing that I was letting her go. I am sure in so spirit way, I was letting her leave. The smell perked the other two to be hungry, knocking me and begging for food. I sit with them and let the candle die out. Standing back up and back to the kitchen checking the other candles. Now that everything was solid. I removed and tied all the undertaker candles. Back into the box. He picked one out and had a close smell. He opened it. He wrapped it back up, putting it back.

"You're very well known for the candles." he noted, "I had your candles before. Or rather, one was used near me."

"It be whoever these were brought for. I am shipping the to the USA." I directed about the three customer candles, "They are repeat customers for odd candles. I had a salt one made for them before. I was sent several ingredients exact ones and now I sell those exact types separately." I think about it, "I would normally tint those candles orange or red. But for today they are natural." His set I directed about, "I add orange zest to add to it." He looked scared of me for a second but I capped all these candles and added the labels were need. I stuck my business sticker at the bottom of the candle just to be sure. The two personal ones are capped and put into my display can bent of all my personal candles. Some were improvements of the ones I made to order before and others were just fun experimental smells with theme. He stepped to my back looking at my personal collection.

"You have a lot of strange candles. What are you planning to use them for?"

"I like the smell of them. They are candles." I simply replied, "I use them when I want. Not really warding anyone or anything. Not like what you use." I laughed a little, "Which candles are a problem?" I asked and he looked at them all and back at me and them.

"All of them." I closed my display and laugh at him.

"All of them are a problem? Even the sun set one that took me a month to make?" He peer at the case then nods to my question, "Not all of them have wards or prayers. Only the ones with a memory have prayers in them. I do have a sleep set too but they are for me." He frowns deeply and all of these candles, "I could add wards to them but I don't know what I am warding against. It wasn't my intent of making them wards when I made them. They are just candles."

"These are danger to keep together like this." I don't actually recall much about what candles are used for by the dead in that handy guidebook. Maybe this is one them as a dead person - you know. Thinking about it, this undertaker has avoided direct sunlight all day. I haven't really seen a dead person in the sun. Even the dream walkers are moody dark. Angels are in light but not sun light. Does this include for candle light? This reminded me of my dog candle was put out, lid on and added into the display.

"I don't know about among the dead but candles can't light themselves. Only if you had the perfect set up for the sunlight to caught through a curved glass or some electrical shorting would there be a fire. These candles in there aren't going anywhere." I sit down and turned the tv, "There isn't much to worry about." He walked around the display and sits down.

"What else do you do?" He asked.

"Have you ever shopped online before?" I asked and he nods in knowing, "Well I sell charms, candles and luck pouches. Not exactly anything illegal to my knowledge. But since it doesn't pay well, I work part time in a retail store to pay the bills. I might of made if it has my signal on it." He had one my stickers, "Yup. That's it."

"Question uses your candles and pouches all the time." he remarked and I was confused if he was questioning my making ability or if he meant a undertaker with that nickname. He muttered a lot to himself and was pouring through a lot of notes. I stopped trying to keep up with his words. He made me jolt when he gasped loudly, "Question is a society member." Answering if it was a person he meant. He was really up and pacing about in many thoughts, "But he isn't like them." He would often take sudden stops, freeze up again and then slowly pace back to walking again. He would then mutter more with changed volume with eventually jolting again, stopping and starting. He eventually was stood at a corner doing nothing at all. I choose best to leave him be.

Mail through the post came, reminding me that it still late morning and the near lunch time. I made sandwich for myself and enjoy a little daytime tv. I do a few house chores and clear the spare bedroom. I am not sure how, but I got the undertaker in here. Laying on the bed. He was totally asleep it seems, although I didn't really think the dead slept. I clipped the curtains closed for no cats to open them again. I head back down stairs and sorted my evening out. I have a early work morning to worry about, so it was about time for dinner and lunch pack making. The little laundry I needed to do is hung up. I was baking the meatloaf for tonight, so I lingered about the back door watching the outside. I felt that I wanted to be out there for something but there was also a bad vibe about it. The hairs on end sort of feeling when something seems wrong. I learnt my mistake about opening the door wide, so peering a quick peek was better. There is a demon in a red suit in my back garden, his back to me but for sure total demon. I close my door softly and then locked it, go back to the kichten.

"When did I fall asleep?" Shade walking through from upstairs.

"About a few hours ago. There a guy in a red suit in the backyard." He walked over to the back door and peers. He walked through my door and seemed to be fine. I took my finished meatloaf out and peer at how he didn't take his box of candles with him. I made sure that to put the meatloaf in the cooler grill instead of letting it burn the dogs and cats. I get to the door and open it just enough. Shade sitting at my door step, he sort of nearly fell on me as I did. I sighed in getting him back in and posed my right hand in stopping whoever it is there. Not only did it stop this demon but the world around me was at pause - all the clocks stopped ticking, the wind outside was not russling leaves, and no other breathing thing draws breath around me. I pulled the undertaker more out of the way and I sharply looked to my mask staring to me.

"We are starting to be a part of the veil that they come from, this moment of stopped time is a segment between two veils. Demons and angels are limited to two veils. A undertaker can go through four. We... although its ill advised, can walk through them all. We are one soul, but it's complicated to explain this now. Return this demon home... do so as we have always. a spray of salt water."

I happen to use this on my plants outside, so there is a spray bottle right at my back door. I take it and things began to slowly move again. I am still acting faster, having spray plenty of the salt over this demon and watch them be snatched through the floor by chains. I closed my door and checked if everyone was inside, yes. Even the undertaker.

"Mister are you alright?" I wasn't sure if checking for a pulse was going to work for a dead person. Yet him sitting up on his own and backing into the candle display cabnet is plenty, "Shade?"

"Oh, right. Your the living human girl." He sighed at relief, "What about the guy?" He asked.

"Sprayed with salt water and sent wherever chains go. I guess hell?" He nods softly and tries to have some composure. Yet he kept looking at me off. I felt my face, my mask is there. I can actually feel it on my face. I move it to the side for now and he relaxed a ton more, "You don't have one, do you?"

"Only the cursed or damned." He says without raising or lowering any sort of pitch. Which the more I thought about it, every dead person has the same level of speaking. They don't breath nor do they speak using the air for sound. The reason people can't hear the dead is because they don't speak the way living do. Which in the grander scheme of avoiding the living knowing, makes sense. Distraction aside, I gave him room to move on his own. If his injured in someway then he would have to sort it, "You said everyone in the photo i showed you has one." He remembered, "Do you know why?"

"Well if a mask is because its from a curse or that we are damned.... then everyone in that photo was without a doubt got a mask. I don't know which of two it is though. A educational guess tells me that we are a family with a curse. Assuming that I believe in being in that same stick." he looked annoyed or was it he was in pain, "Did you want to go back up stairs?"

"No." He makes to the sofa and laid across, "You really know nothing about the soceity?" I sighed in sitting with my dogs on the foot poof. I know that i finished cooking but having it cool down is fine.

"I told you everything I do know about my family. The assumption that they are a cult seems to gone unchanged ever since being more tuned into the veils. Nor has this changed my opinion of having bad feeling about anything to do with them. The creepy necklace that sent the demon to attack me sort of set the bar for me to not trust them." I looked at how in that jar was it purple sand among a rusted broken chain, "I am so glad to not be wearing it." I put the jar down, the other jar was used up. So all that was in it was more flower petals from my card - having folded the card into it. Further zip locked to prevent my pets being ill. No taking second chances. I got up with how frowny he was. I plated up food for us both, I felt bad for not offering something sooner. I just didn't really understand how it all worked. He takes the plate just fine and ate as normally as I expected. He clearly enjoys it, the plate being cleaned off.

"Would you like more potatoes mash?" I asked and he smiled like a children. I smile to and gave him the rest of of the mash. I finished at the same time as he did with the mash. He seemed full now and I collected all the dishes, "So being dead is sort of like living a second life?" I asked putting the dishes to the sink.

"Well, it is and not. The longer you been dead the less living habits you retain. Everything sort has a difference. Demons and angels are ageless beings that have completely different life styles. In other cultures like the fey and wendigos are sort of like second lives. They die again to be reborn new, eat and whatever as needed." I take a long time accepting that human eating creatures like that do exist among us and that fey are real. I am happy and not... about it, "You're cat... the one that scratched me is an example." Oh, ok. I can accept that I have a fey thing as a pet. Maybe I am the pet? I can understand that logic, "We as undertakers are holding on what little remains of the lives we lost among humans. Each of us has a nickname either stolen from another or assumed given it was how we died or how we were. We can't go become angels for not suiting the definitions of crossing and we aren't exactly sinners. We could become sinners if we break the law enough. Yet we are sort of... stuck. You would call it purgatory but it isn't really purgatory we come from. Nor is our land created from a share of any realms." I don't really understand that last part. It's not made from any realms? So there is no world per say. That doesn't make sense. Be there to see it jobs, for sure.

"You remind me." I did spend my art degree drawing strange things and places, "You would be interested in some art I draw as a kid." I used to have strange dreams and try to draw them. I used to believe in all these things and now I am told by someone that they are, sort of real. But going by what my mask told me, veils. In that guide book it talked about perception to be a sort of hard concept for the dead to retain, hints that they use veils as a way of making sense of something they understand little of. My mask said it was ill advised that I see through all the veils. I wonder if I did as a child, before I moved to England. Then I stopped because it meant being a voodoo weird foreigner, and feared not making friends.

"Not right now." he pats his stomach, "I don't want to be freaked out." I shrug to this and finished my evening preparations. Sandwich box in the fridge.

"I have work tomorrow morning, did you want to join me? I seen plenty of demons and angels around when I do. But I guess its the transporting that is the problem." I pondered, "I never seen anyone use a bus before."

"Pardon? Bus? What?" he looked totally confused, "Them large metal tins on wheels?" I laughed at this, "It is not funny. Out of all the weird things i know about the afterlife as you call it, I find the modern living ways utterly terrifying. Why have a living mirror in your pocket?"

"A phone is..." I stop there and think deeply on his assumptions, "I guess for someone who died in the past, fearing new technology makes sense." I was cupping dog meal amounts and stop myself at the third bowl. I put it all back because I can't feed them the normal food tonight. I go back to the main part of my kitchen and got out the rice. Plain rice is safe for soft tummies. They were really upset and this gives my dogs bad poops. I have to be the one to clean the backyard at some point. Doing myself a favour really. Dishing out the rice for the two dogs and letting them eat while I snacked a chocolate - showing that I am with the pack and we together. Pet some heads while they finished, showing no aggression of taking food away from them. I peer to how the undertaker has fallen asleep again and he disappeared. My mask must be the cause of that. I wrote a note that sat on top of him or placed in his hand. I pet my dogs again with know I was in the living room, I check for coast clear and let them out for the night.

I step out to pet the mound too, since it felt wrong to not. I am sad at seeing her gone, but she may have been tired of her old aching body. I had her on special aphorists tablets, I bet she was just happy in sleeping beside me. I remember a time she would play chase the ball for hours, no matter how tired she got. That enough to smile about, the good times. No sadness of someone the lived a happy long life. Best I get back inside my house before another creep shows up and attack us. Claps for telling them back in. They finished business and run in. Hop all that mud on my sofa covers, which is why I have spares. Pets for good night. Lock the door and make sure the wards were there. Head up stairs, the spare room open with the what will seem like a corpse on it. I don't let that thought linger long with me making touches. Clean up the bathroom that I totally forgotten about. the towels and everything in the washing basket. The attempts to roll about for a comfortable sleep, the lift in remembering to plug my phone on charge and back into bed for a few more attempts. Dogs eventually settled in their spots as I drift.

My mind plagued of sounds of books being open, written into and closed. The muffled taps of someone annoying touching pages. The passing echo of many languages talking. Swallowed up in a chanting that make me hug up in fear, loud and hollowed feeling. I shiver cold for a moment and held stronger to the book at my arms. My mask on my face, sharing the same fear and issue. Afraid of distance and reaching nonsense. Not only did I wake glaring at my phone alarm, but also that it isn't just my hand grabbing to it. I stare to the undertaker that then backs off. As normal, I am not a morning type of person. I held my arm around me in sitting up, I swipe the alarm off with my thumb.

"Working?" he asked. I say nothing and get up. My dogs already thundered down the stairs and dancing at the back door. I peer back to my bed of what a mess it is in and sighed. Thank you mother nature... again. I do try to prevent having to change my sheets this often. I will run out of clean sheets otherwise. At least its not hard to use stain remover. Bathroom with uniform. Shower changed, brush teeth and neaten my hair. Out of the bathroom through PJ into the same wash basket. Walking past the undertaker staring at me weird. I fetched my phone off charge into my pocket. I head down stairs, dogs with breakfast? No breakfast for those smelly pups. I go outside to be sure, because being a pet owner - the health of a outside bomb is a mirror to theirs. Vomit a little from the stench and back in. A coffee put into my hands, my work bag all neatly packed and i took out my phone to check bus times. I stare back up to the open back door, because ignoring the other thing out there might be a mistake on my part. It was chasing my two dogs... but it seems all... freindly for now.

"Hey, your third dog came back." the undertaker pointed out.

"Umm... that might not be a dog at all." I added and he peers, "When someone or something dies, they don't come back. A normal living person can see them back." he thinks about it, "So it might be the spirit of my dog... but i don't know." I sip my coffee and snap my fingers twice. The two living come bouncing past me and through the undertaker. I clear my thought, "Are you my puppy?" I asked it and it walked in cautious of me, "Were you my dog?" I changed and it flexed up with making a direct line to me. It stops short of the house and smells me. It sneezed and lost shape of being animal or dog. It shook itself again and sits at the floor like a dog.

"Oh... i think i know what that is. But something like that doesn't belong here."

"Ugh... did you have message for me?" I asked it and it spat something at the floor and wagged a tail about this. It was a lot of metal, strange weird metal, "Ok. You want something. Meat? Or... candles?" It tilts about. I suddenly have something slimy in a hand, i throw it. It caught it and disappeared. I shivered at this encounter and for sure vomited again... because what I throw smelled yuck. I pour my coffee out my back door too and my mask too the metal. I am sure I knew what it was about to do. I just knew it. I vomited more after that. Shivering at the disgust of lacking logic that you don't eat something else's stuff. Ugh... then again, my mask eats them books. Who knows where those books have been.

"I remember them." I try to keep down my acid and took some meds. the undertaker looked outside and back at me. My mask closed and locked the back door, "Slowly the haze of my past is lifting... and its making sense." I checked my bus times, "I am heading to work now. You coming with or not?" I asked the undertaker, "More of those things will come around, they always do." he jolts with stepping into me. I felt his hands on mine, "Ugh... this is so weird." I look at my phone a late time and get out the door. Lock gates, lock doors and light on since I might come home late. The trip on the bus was interesting, as he wanted to look at everything and I had to with him. I would make peeks at my phone for any work related messaging. But overall I let him look at the world passing by the windows and I pressed the bell at the stop.