Ankhara Codes: Allies Of The Soul

By Ellie Deighton

Almost no time has passed since Ankhara was left alone in the forest and yet, so much has happened. Djen lays in a coma. Noah has been sent to the human world. Kit finds herself with a new student. And for all her people know, Princess Ankhara is lost. 

Little do they know of the allies she has found in the forest. From trees, caves a

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ellie Deighton
• Release date: Dec 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9780645016031

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Ankhara Codes

ALLIES OF THE SOUL

Ellie Deighton

Ellie Deighton

Other titles in the Ankhara Codes Series:

Ankhara Codes: An Adventure To Essence

A Letter Of Disclaim

Dear Reader,

It is no longer okay to let slippery fingers slide down the path of a body saying no. It is no longer okay and in fact, it never was. It never was okay for a body to be forced open, for a heart to be forced to accept, for a mind to be coerced to separate, and yet, it also is. If we let it, anything can be okay. For me, it’s okay if it’s in my past. What isn’t okay, is if non-consent is in our present. What isn’t okay, is if non-consent is the byproduct of our teachings. 

What I love is teaching skills anew, empowering choice rather than persecution, finding forgiveness instead of self destruction. It’s all okay, really. All of it, if you are willing to claim your own power. Anything in our past, but what is not okay for me as a way of life is being aware of ‘it’, the pain, and consciously creating more of the same. What is not okay is forcing a silence in the hopes that change will happen. 

It will not.

Change happens when we share our stories. Change happens when we are willing to go first in our own lives. Change happens when we are inspired by the willingness of our neighbours. Change is a natural byproduct of our courage to face the conversations our ancestors hoped we’d never have and yet at the same time, begged for. 

Change is the purpose of this book.

If you can raise your hand and say #metoo, if you can raise your voice and say #nomore, together we can tell a different story. My hope is that this book is a new beginning for a brighter, louder, soul-led and celebrated tomorrow.

This is your trigger warning: Ankhara Codes: Allies of the Soul touches on highly sensitive subjects including violence and sexual assault. It is said (by the Sufis) that our triggers are the gateway to our soul. My request is that when the gateway comes you walk through. Keep turning the pages when they make you quiver and squirm. Allow your tears to paint over these words and see this story as an invitation to tell your own. 

You are brave. You are powerful. You are vulnerable. You are the voice. 

You can say yes and you can say no. 

Today that may feel hard, and yet, you will see the magic about creative people is that we are ever changing. Together, we can make tomorrow more blissful and today, we can start within ourselves.

What burdens us one moment, can relieve us in the next. The only question is whether or not we will let it, for our hearts can only break open. 

This is the story of Isette and Ankhara. If you are willing, you will see it is a story of you. 

I look forward to hearing from you on the other side. 

May you find the allies of your soul, 

From The Author

Ellie Deighton

A woman who found hers

Copyright © 2021 by Ellie Deighton.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permission, at the email address below.

Ellie Deighton

[e-mail]

www.elliedeighton.com

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Book Layout ©2017 BookDesignTemplates.com

Photography 2020 Lauren Couanon

Ordering Information:

Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the Special Sales Department at the email address above.

Ankhara Codes: Allies Of The Soul/ Ellie Deighton. -- 1st ed.

ISBN 978-0-6450160-3-1

Liberation is always available to you, if you choose it.

—ELLIE DEIGHTON

› CHAPTER 1 ‹

Jenny

790 Hours Left

Don’t stop, Jenny, just don’t stop. Run. One foot in front of the other. Run. Your life depends on it, run. Don’t stop, Jenny. You can’t afford to stop. Don’t you dare stop. Not now. Don’t give him that too. Run.

My mind races as I power through the forest path. The trees are scratching me with their branches as I pass but I don’t care. I have to train. I have to keep running. Ever since… I haven’t been able to stop. I haven’t been able to stop the thoughts. The feelings. The motion of energy that wants to move through my body but is trapped by my fear. This… this terror. I can’t shake it out of me.

And so I run. Every day I run. And if it doesn’t work, I run again. If I can’t sleep, I run in my home. I just run, fearful of what may happen if one day I can’t, but unable to do anything about it. I can’t stop running. I can’t turn around and face…. No. Just no. I can’t tell anyone. They’ll say it’s my fault. They’ll blame me for leaving the window open at night. What woman in her right mind leaves her bedroom window open at night? That’s what they’ll say. If they even believe me, that’s what they’ll say. Because they might not. Believe me. They don’t, you know. They just don’t. It’s always the woman’s fault. Or even the man’s. The victim’s. It always gets put on them for fear of ruining someone else’s life. For fear of ruining someone else’s reputation. Excellent. What a system. Freedom for the people. It’s like a silent code for do whatever you like and power to you if you don’t get caught. And even if they do get caught… prove it, they’ll say. Prove this wasn’t your own imagination doing the talking. Prove it wasn’t your imagination that raped you. It’s not your body anyway, they’ll say. Your body’s here for the pleasure of others.

So I run. Because I can’t speak. I can’t scream from the rooftops, ask for the help I need. It doesn’t exist. I’m pissed that it doesn’t exist. I don’t want to go to a group counselling session. I don’t want counselling, for that matter.

I want revenge.

But revenge is impossible when your assailant is make-believe.

This town has completely lost the plot in a week and a half. First, Mrs Jo. Murdered in her own living room, with her children almost home to be murdered with her. Thankfully, they weren’t there. I was though. I was just around the corner, minding my own business in my own bed. And that’s the funny thing. I was minding my own business. I wasn’t in anyone’s way. I wasn’t walking down the street being provocative. I wasn’t even wearing my nice evening wear. I was just minding my own business and they broke in. They broke straight in and he…

I shake my head to eliminate the thoughts from my mind. He’s had enough of me. He’s not getting my every waking thought too. I can feel my heartbeat pounding in my ears, almost to the same rhythm as my music. My footsteps are faster but my legs are burning, screaming for oxygen, just like my lungs, so I come to a stop. Pacing, I remove my headphones from my ears and look around, just to be safe. Just to make sure. I jump and duck behind a bush as a man runs around the corner of the path towards me, only to pretend I’d fallen over picking up my phone when I realise he’s just another track runner.

Far out, Jenny, take a chill pill, I think to myself.

But I can’t.

I can’t just take a chill pill.

Something has altered in me. I’m changed. I feel… broken. Broken apart and angry. I’m so goddamn angry. No one should ever have to rape themselves over and over again in their mind, but I do. I do every goddamn day. At least that way if it happens to me again I’ll be used to it. Maybe that way it won’t hurt so much.

› CHAPTER 2 ‹

Jenny

789 Hours Left

I come home to the shit show that is my apartment. The space is a mess. Take-out pizza boxes on top of dirty shirts from work on top of more take-out boxes.

I don’t want to leave the house anymore except to run and work, but I don’t want to be here either. My shower is the only space I feel remotely safe. It’s the only space I can lock the door and drown myself in water and emotions. It’s the place I give myself permission to not have it all together. To be the hot mess that I really am. It’s the only place no one is watching me and there are no windows big enough or weak enough for anyone to get through. The door is bolted and I’m alone. It’s just me, my thoughts and my tears. And my shower. I’d be dead without that shower. I wouldn’t have made it.

Having a shower at the end of that night was the most held and lonely I’ve ever felt. I needed to be held, but I couldn’t bear the thought of arms around me or eyes of sympathy parading across my body. I had to be alone. And I had to get clean. I had to get him off. I wanted to wash every molecule of myself down the drain that night. I’ve never felt so clinically cleaned and yet so boneless and dirty. I was empty. Trying to wash the emptiness away down the drain along with any hope that I may see him again and get to be there when they killed him. But I wouldn’t. This isn’t the fifteenth century, it’s the twenty-first. Here, rape happens every day and nobody cares enough to do a thing about it. Only after. After it happens to them, or their daughter, or their household. That’s when they notice. But then it’s too late. What about the next-door neighbour’s daughter? What about the women who lived alone? What about the children isolated on opposite ends of the earth who had no one to fight for them? It’s too little, way too late. It’s too late. And I’m just as bad. I never even stopped to care before, and now all I can do is rage and run. Run and rage. And pray that I will find a way to name the hooded men. I sit at the kitchen table and wipe away the pizza boxes and clothes, pushing them onto the floor with my arm so I can rest my head in my hands on the table. I don’t know how I’ll ever find these vile hooded creatures who watched as he did this to me, but I do know where to start.

I’ve got to talk to Josie.

› CHAPTER 3 ‹

Josie

788 Hours Left

How could Megan do this? Ten days. Ten days it’s been since I saw her in the diner and told her my mum had died. And what did she do? She ran away. She ran away under the charade of seeking help. I’m going to help you find who did this, she’d said. Yeah. Right. Well, Megan, it’d be helpful if you were anywhere to be found.

Not a lot has happened in the past few days. I thought it would be… more. I thought the police would be raiding our place for weeks. I thought the press would be on our backs and phones would be ringing off the hook with reporters begging for an interview. I thought Bransen would act like… anything, other than nothing. All he has done is beat his hands to a pulp at his boxing gym, but that’s not really that unusual for him. He always boxes. I would have thought losing our mum would inspire something different.

I look down at my nails, bitten back and chipped like there is no tomorrow. It feels like there’s no tomorrow without you, Mum. Maybe that is what is different. I don’t care that they are like that anymore. Even James had tried to take me to get my nails done but I hadn’t. I couldn’t. I can’t go on and pretend like the biggest and worst thing that has ever happened in my life hasn’t happened. It happened. It freaks me out that it happened right here, downstairs literally right underneath my bedroom. I think about it every night. Every night I lay in my bed imagining what it must have been like for her. How scared she must have been. How worried she must have been about us coming home to find her or, even worse, coming home to join her. I know that would have been what she was thinking about. She had fought - hard. That’s what the officials had said, and it was evident. Just from knowing her I could have told you that, but anyone who had seen the scene would know. She had fought nail and tooth to save her last breath. And she didn’t. She didn’t save her last breath at all. She took it. They took it.

Anger shakes my body and threatens me again with the welling of tears in my eyes. My hands start shaking. It’s a thing they do now. My hands shake. It’s how I know to stop thinking about it, but it’s also a fuel. It makes me want to roar, and yet I somehow hold it in. So far. So far my confusion and anger at Megan have been a good enough distraction. I want to blame her. I want to make it her fault I am like this, because she should be here. But it’s not true. I don’t know that I would feel any different if she was here. I don’t know what we’d do. We’d just be sitting here and she’d be trying to help, the loyal servant to her last breath. Or so I thought. As it turns out, maybe her loyalty isn’t so true after all. At least, I hope that is what has happened. I hope she’s being an arsehole and not replying to me and nowhere to be seen because she’s not coping and she’s a shit friend. Despite not having any evidence of that from our whole friend-life together, I desperately want that to be the truth. Because if it isn’t, if she isn’t just locked up in her room being an arsehole or ignoring me so she can hook up with that tattooed Noah kid again, then I really can’t cope. It is so out of character for her to not be here like this. Even when James and I have a fight she’s the first one here, with chocolates and her Netflix login, in a lame but effective attempt to cheer me up. I can’t fathom what would happen to stop her from being here right now. It isn’t like her at all. And yet, she isn’t here you idiot. Grow up and deal with it.

I sigh the deepest sigh I’ve allowed myself for days. Part of me is festering with confused sadness and madness towards her. The other part of me is terrified that the same people who came to kill my mum had come for her family too. I’ve tried to shrug it off as the only explanation as to why she and her parents are missing, but I can’t. Something about it just feels so off to me.

Please be alive, Megan I whisper out loud as I lie back on my bed, seeking a sense of comfort. Please just be an arsehole being alive out there somewhere.

I close my eyes and wrap my arms around myself, squeezing myself tightly as the tears that had threatened me earlier begin to fall down my face like a waterfall. Just as I finally give myself permission to succumb to the grief, the doorbell rings below and jolts me out of my heartache.

Shit! I speak under my breath to myself way too often these days.

I sit up and wipe my face. My emotions are going to have to wait for another day. I stand up and walk over to my dresser to check my appearance. Okay, so I haven’t changed that much. Approving to the best of my ability in my current state of affairs, I nod to myself and pat down my skirt before taking a deep breath and opening my bedroom door. Who the bloody hell would come and ring the doorbell at a house filled with a grieving widowed husband and two half-orphaned kids?

Anger pulses through me as I move down the stairs at lightning speed, each step down taking me one step closer to the hell on my earth that is the debris of the scene of my mother’s murder.

I grit my teeth and open the door, forcing my best version of a smile, and see Jenny, the waitress from the diner staring awkwardly at me, holding a hand-picked bunch of flowers. All I know of Jenny is that her usually outgoing personality had been squashed like a bug the morning I’d last met Megan in the diner. But that’s it. We don’t know each other. How does she even know where I live? I shrug off my thoughts. No one rocks up at a house like this for no reason.

Jenny. I nod at her, still half shocked that she’s actually here. Half shocked and half cautious. What are you doing on my front porch? I’m not usually this direct but I’m not usually this desperate either. I just stare at her standoff-ishly waiting for a response. Not for the first time, I wish Megan was here. She’d know exactly what to do.

I think the witches that killed your mum are the same people who raped me. She speaks matter-of-factly, as though what she’s saying is the most normal part of her day. It’s not. It’s crazy. Yet somehow, I believe her.

Bloody hell, Jenny. It’s all I’ve got. I wish I had something else to offer but it’s just all I’ve got.

Yeah. Bloody hell is a good way to describe it and I’ve had enough, she says, and with that she shoves the flowers into my arms and storms straight past me inside. Sorry about your mum. Are you gonna help me find these fuckers or what?

I shut the door behind her and brace myself. It’s time to do something no one else is bothering to do. My contemplation is short-lived. Okay. Yeah. I say in response. I know where to start.

› CHAPTER 4 ‹

Jenny

787 Hours Left

Okay. Yeah. Josie looks as though she feels about as stunned as I do to be here. I can’t believe I just said it out loud. She continues speaking. I know where to start.

Well, that’s a relief, cause I’ve got nothin’ I say to her. And it’s true. She was my thing. Coming here was my thing. It was the only thing I could think of that didn’t seem insane, which in itself is kind of insane given the nature of the situation. Josie gestures to the kettle, offering me a cup of tea, which seems to be the obvious thing to do as I’ve invited myself to take a seat at the kitchen table.

So, you were… She almost says it.

Raped. I cut her off before she falls over her face. She won’t look at me. She’s just holding the kettle staring at the floor. You can say it. It happened. You saying it out loud doesn’t change that.

She nods slowly. There is such sadness in her eyes and body it makes me want to vomit. I came here for answers, not a pity party. I thought she’d get it. I take a deep breath. Judging her isn’t going to help.

You can look at me. It’s okay. I mean, it’s not. It’s so NOT okay and I am so not okay. But that’s why I’m here. I figured you’d be the only other person in town as not okay as I am. I continue speaking, hoping it’ll snap her out of her pity for me and into some action-taking production.

Okay. Yeah. You’re right. I’m angry. Like, I’m sad, obviously, but I’m freaking out. I mean, someone, well a group of someones, came into our house and murdered our mother and there doesn’t seem to be a thing anyone is going to do about it. The police haven’t spoken to us for two days. Two days. How have they not made any progress in two days?!, Josie exclaims. She’s looking at me now with an angry-excited sparkle in her eyes. It’s a freaky combination and it resonates with me. It’s exciting, the thought of having someone to rage out and take revenge with. It’s exciting to think I may not be alone in this anymore. She’s sitting with me now at the table, exasperated crazy gleaming in her eyes. The kettle is still in her hand. She hasn’t filled it or made any move towards that cuppa, but I don’t care. I’m not here for beverages.

So where do we start? I’m assuming you’re about as ready to do something to these people as I am… I mean, someone has to. They can’t just run around killing and raping people and not have any consequences. They need to be punished. Hell, I need it. I need to punish them… I trail off and take my turn at staring at the floor. Maybe then I can stop punishing myself. I shake my head and look at her as she starts to speak.

Megan’s house. We’ve got to go to Megan’s house, I just know it. She shakes her head now, remembering that she has a kettle in her hand and stands up. Neither of us really want this, she says as she puts the kettle back on the stove. It’s one of those fancy old-fashioned ones that whistles when you boil it. The kind that used to be for poor people but somehow became fashionable with the rich. We could not be from more opposite ends of town.

Nope. Definitely not, I agree with her. I’ve made myself so much half-ass, not really comforting tea that the thought of it makes my nose hurt. The coffee I’ve been drinking at work has just been making me enough of a crazy lady. Lead the way, Princess.

I don’t mean to call her that but I can’t help it. She is literally the embodiment of the princess rich kid on the street full of the nicest homes in Fairfield. The only thing ruining her image is how messed up her nails are, and the size of the bags under her eyes, but they just make her look crazier. It fits. The perfect princess’s life ruined. Rich kid drama and parent issues and then there’s me, the broke one that works in a diner, lives alone, gets attacked and abused and has no one to care about it. I wince at the sharpness of my own thoughts. Paddy is like a father to me and he doesn’t even remotely have to be. He just is. The biggest heart on legs and he loves me like a daughter. That’s why you can’t tell him, Jenny. It’d crush him. I know it would and yet part of me wonders if it’d be worth it for one of his hugs. A hug that knows is different to the daily tap on the shoulder I receive affectionately when I walk into work. I let the thought go and bring my focus back to Josie, the Fairfield princess. Judging her somehow makes me feel safer. Like I can be a little more separate from her pain and just deal with mine. She’s a means to an end.

Are you coming? she asks. She’s got her perfect little bag on her shoulder and has fixed her perfect little hair-do. Stop being such an arse, Jenny.

Way ahead of you, I say, getting up and walking straight past her out the door. This is why you have no friends, you idiot. This is exactly why you have no friends. I pause as I step outside and turn to look at her, to really look at her. I set the intention to really see her. To get out of my own way and see her as the broken-hearted woman she is. And I do. I see the heartbreak emanate from every fibre of her being, but that’s not all I see. I also see power. I see an immense amount of power almost shaking off her bones, like she could explode all over someone if she intended it and somehow it would be perfectly graceful and on aim. Woah. That’s the real Josie. I smile; having seen her in a glimpse of her power she appears differently to me now.

Jenny… Are you okay? She asks me softly. She cares. She so actually freaking cares. Great. You’ve been sitting here berating her and all she’s done is try to help and support you. I’m going to start calling you ‘grey Jenny’. Grey like the ghost of a woman I have become. My mind is cruel.

Just… thank you. I look her in the eyes softly and shyly as I say it. It’s uncomfortable for me. It feels vulnerable but she just softens and smiles. Literally her whole body softens. I see her shoulders relax as she pulls the door closed and she places her bag back on them with her keys carefully tucked inside.

You don’t have to thank me for being a woman supporting another woman. Her reply shocks me. And you definitely don’t have to thank me for leading you down the path of revenge. That’s a dangerous path and we have no idea what we are going to find on the other end of it. I’d rather not be responsible for you with that one.

And there she is. The princess vibe is back: I’ve got you but also each to their own when it comes down to it. I sigh. It’s still better than sitting inside my apartment staring at my mess. I can’t escape myself there. I can’t escape him. At least here I feel like I’m doing something different.

Let’s go find out if there’s a reason my best friend has abandoned me at the shittest time of my life or if she’s really just a straight-up arsehole, Josie says matter-of-factly. I’ve got my work cut out for me with this one. If this is what she says out loud about her best friend, I’d hate to hear her internal chatter about me. But I thought you were soft and sweet so maybe I’m just shit at reading people, she continues and I have to laugh.

You got me, I chuckle at her. I’m a real ten-out-of-ten nutjob.

She looks at me and laughs. I’m gonna go with ‘arsehole on a mission.’

Well I’ll be damned. Maybe this won’t be such a drag after all.

We turn right out the front of her house and start walking down the street. It’s not far, we’ll be at her house in five minutes, she says and all laughter dissipates. I’m about to follow up the only lead I have to find my rapist. If this doesn’t turn something up, I don’t know if anything ever will. I’m scared, but I don’t want to be, so I roll my shoulders back and walk on beside her. She smells like lavender and chocolate. It’s so textbook how ‘rich-kid’ she is I want to barf. Better barfing over that than acknowledging my own internal shit show. I spend the next I-don’t-even-know-how-long completely consumed in my thoughts and judgements of her and her current predicament here with me. I’m jolted out of my bitchy ruminations by her arm grabbing mine.

Get off me! I yell, reflexively hitting her arm away and jumping back to create distance between us. She just stares at me, shock and pity oozing out of her. Bloody hell, Jenny, she’s not Him. Sorry, I… I’m not so good with touch right now, I announce to her as if it wasn’t already blatantly obvious. I’m good. We’re good, I continue as I brush my arms from shoulder to fingertip, as though I can shift off the energy that is pulsing through my body. Mentally I know I’m fine, but my body is setting off fire alarms like an adrenaline junky.

I was just trying to tell you we’re here, she says, gesturing to the two-storey slice of perfect suburbia before us. This is Megan’s house.

Bloody hell. The words fall out of my mouth before I’ve even had the chance to try and stop myself from speaking. Right in front of us, on the front of this perfectly decent-looking front door, is a burnt symbol that looks strangely familiar. It’s smoking as if freshly burnt but there’s no smell. As we approach the front door we find it unlocked, Josie pushes the door open and we see more.

"Got you, I whisper-read. What on earth does that mean?" I want to look at Josie to see if she has any answers but I can’t. My eyes are glued to the walls in front of us. The house looks perfectly normal. Everything is perfectly intact. Everything, that is, except for the giant burn marks dripping what looks like blood down the wall. Inside now, the rest of the words reveal themselves to us as we look around at them. Got you, Ankhara. That’s all it says. Over and over again, mixed with these straight bent crosses singed into the wall paint.

Who the fudge is Ankhara? I ask, not really expecting an answer but just needing to ask someone.

Ankhara is the reason my mum is dead, she says. She’s stiff. Fuming at the ears. Angry now. She knows something you don’t know. And I bet she’s the reason you were raped too.

And just like that it feels like my world has been turned upside down again.

› CHAPTER 5 ‹

Josie

786 Hours Left

How? How the freaking fuck is this in her home? What has this got to do with Megan? I’m beginning to wonder if she knew something I didn’t know. As soon as we saw those symbols… she ran. She couldn’t have gotten out of there fast enough and that’s the last time I saw her. Hell, that’s the last time I even heard from her. My mind is racing at a million miles an hour. Could it really be that she had something to do with this? Surely not. Surely she didn’t know. She’d said she was going to get answers. She’d said she was going to help me. Helpful as all hell though she was, wasn’t she?!

Arghhhhh! I grunt-scream in frustration. How is this happening? How is this - how is anything like this even fucking real?! I throw my hands up in the air and ditch my bag on the ground. I barely feel anything underneath the rage that’s brewing inside me. I don’t even care that my favourite blush palette is in that bag and may be broken now.

Josie, calm the frig down and tell me what the hell is going on here. Are we safe? Do we need to leave? What’s going on? I can barely even hear Jenny talking to me. I actually kinda forgot she was here. Dude. Take a breath.

I’m vaguely aware of her speaking to me from a distant far-away place, but everything in my world is fogged over by my rage.

Josie, snap out of it! Jenny yells in my face and then