~OUT OF THE BLUE~
         A book of stories
         Chapter two part one

         by write hand blue
............................


                    King Richard III 1452 -- 1485

"I lived as a Christian King and died, slaughtered by the swords of traitors."
© Richard III 2014


                         ~ The Awakening ~




The following article has been downloaded from The SUNDAY MAIL, October 12th 2014 first edition page one Headline:-

'New revelations' -- The 'VOICE' of King Richard III ? Read all about it on page three.

****

Page three...

This breaking story has been scooped by The Sunday Mail. Stories of this type are normally assessed and passed on if appropriate to other publications. What has made this one so different is the eminence of the co-writers Dr Carol Buckley and Dr Julia Appleby and the verification they have given us. Please read this and make up your own mind.

(The following syntax has been partly adjusted to conform to early 21st century standards).


♦♦
"Greetings... greetings to you fair ladies" ... [pause]

Awake I be, the sleep of many centuries now past ~ I do speak to you ~ as if through some shiny bronze [mirror] ~ or some other devil's work. I beg you to listen. ~ Yes, I, once a King do beg, ~ tis true, the years make it so."
♦♦


These words were recorded on the eve of our very first interview.

Please let me explain, my name is Dr Julia Appleby, and I'm a Professor of Human Bio-archaeology at Leicester University UK.

King Richard III's remains were found on June 15th 2012 below a municipal car park in Leicester where they had lain undisturbed since August 1485. I was on the original team of three, working with lead archaeologist Dr Carol Buckley and Dr. Stephen Johns, when we unearthed them on the first day. As soon as the exciting news broke, experts came to join us from all over the world, including America. It was rated as the find of the century. We were thrust to the forefront of our profession in a manner that overwhelmed us all at first.

With help from these eminent persons, all experts in their associated fields, we were able to undertake a long and detailed study of this well preserved skeleton. The procedures we used have been well documented, so I won't repeat them here.

What has never been reported up until now, were the feelings experienced by two people on several occasions whilst they handled King Richard's remains. I was one of those two.

July 10th 2014.

On the evening of this day something happened that will soon be explained. I discussed it with my husband and we decided to confide in Dr Carol Buckley, who is senior to me. I have known Carol for years, and retain the greatest respect for her abilities. She is also the other person who has experienced exactly the same strong feelings as I. Of a presence, as if someone else was in the room looking over our shoulders -- watching us!

The next day.

I worked with Carol all day on the skeletal remains, I had kept quiet about what was running around in my mind. -- At last it was near the end of our working day, the time had come.

"Carol, would you like to join me in a glass of wine down at the Uni. bar? I've something to show you."

"Yeh! Why not? We're nearly finished here."

A little later.

We both used small voice recorders to record notes during our work, this was to help us later to type out our reports. I had mine ready to play.

"Now I want you to listen carefully. In the background before I speak, can you hear a faint voice?" I tried to be nonchalant as I re-set the digital playback. "There, I'll play it again for you. It only lasts for about five seconds."

"Sounds like a man's voice, really deep -- too deep in fact. Now, this is not what I think it is. Is it? -- I mean with the feelings that you and I..."

Her sentence made all the more poignant by the words left unsaid.

Now some concern showed on Carol's face as she put her glass of red wine down on the table between us. I looked at her and I knew her well enough to be able to see signs of her internal conflict, her face glowed slightly and the cause wasn't the wine.

"Carol, you have known me now for years, so you know that I don't have any deep beliefs about ghosts and the like?"

"No, of course not, I've always regarded you as level headed."

She watched me patiently.

"Well last night at home I started work on my weekly report. Like you, I heard this indistinct background sound. With my mind filled with what I intended to write, I didn't think anything of it. It was my husband John who picked up on it."

"Jewels," (believe it or not, this is John's pet word for me) "There's something--."

I looked up from my work and wondered what he was on about.

His attention was focused on trying to find the right cable as he rummaged through a drawer full of them. After a short delay he had the sound routed through our high quality speaker system. And guess what? A clear low frequency voice spoke for a few seconds. It sounded as if it had been slowed down. This grabbed my attention, my report forgotten for the time being. Next thing, John is on his mobile phone talking to his friend Andrew."

"Andrew, guess what? Have you got a minute?"

"After filling him in on the situation, John turned to me and said."

"He'll be here in 10 minutes, so I'll put the kettle on for a brew."

Andrew arrived with a small case, and soon the two of them were playing about with more cables. After he recorded the first few seconds on his machine, further time was spent as we listened to several play-backs.

"It needs speeding up and the volume increasing to fifteen."

He made the adjustments then we heard this.


♦♦
"Tis my wish [noise] eak to you [noise] this strange [noise] orld."
♦♦


My emotions fired up as my heart raced. -- For an instant I was overcome with fear. The kind you get as adrenalin kicks in when confronted by the unknown, for that dreaded, 'first', primeval experience. The seconds passed as I composed myself. Even so my first words were rushed and an octave higher than normal.

"Oh my...! Can that be him?" I eventually gasped.

John looked a little sheepish as he shrugged his shoulders.

"It's a man's voice, who else could it be?"

"King Richard III of course," Andrew had a half serious smile on his face, "He wants to talk."

We looked at one another. Nothing was said for a while. Then Andrew chirped up again.

"Julia, I've another sound recorder, more sensitive than yours..." He looked at me, "I'll lend it to you, then we'll know..."

*

And so it was, Carol had just bought us a second glass of Chilean red. I think we both needed it. I had just played Andrew's altered recording; those nine words. She looked pale-faced. The silence lasted a good two minutes as we both stared into our glasses of wine. Carol spoke first.

"First of all we have to be careful here. I've always been told that it's dangerous to meddle with the occult. We must keep this a secret for now. At least until we can be sure of what we are dealing with."

Carol looked determined. This was no surprise. I had expected this, so I knew what I was going to say.

"Yes I agree. We have to be careful not to bring public ridicule upon us, because there will always be those sceptics about. I'm one myself, or at least I was, before all this. I would like to see how far we can communicate and complete a study, before we even think of going public."

"Yes, we have to proceed with caution, and in a scientific way."

Carol was adamant.

"We will start tomorrow."

The mere thought made my heart beat fast.