Black Wood (A Witch Rising) (7 page)

She walked along the ragged
hedge toward the back of the garden, breathing in the clean scent
of pine trees and lush greenery, her eyes fixed on Urquhart Castle
on the hill. Dad had promised to take her there, but in the two
weeks they’d been in Scotland, he buried himself in work and forgot
all about her. Maybe Muriel could work her magic here too. Her
grandmother had told her so much about Scotland’s beautiful,
haunted castles. She was old enough to visit one and finally see
her first ghost.

As she reached the outer gate,
Emily stopped dead. The ground beneath her foot was covered in
countless hoofmarks, extending along the fence into Aurelie’s
garden. Emily knelt beside the tracks and touched the stomped
grass. They were as big as the palm of her hand. She stood and
peered over the fence. The marks led in a criss-cross pattern
toward Clifford’s house. Lifting her chin, she noticed Clifford
watching her through a window on the upper floor. She waved, but he
didn’t wave back.

“Emily! Lunch’s ready!” she
heard her father shout, his voice faint in the December wind.
Sighing, she threw a last glance at the tracks, and then returned
to Ravencourt Manor.

Emily opened the kitchen door,
sudden dread gripping her. At her grandmother’s large kitchen table
sat Sam, Muriel and her father, laughing at something Muriel
whispered in his ear.

“Hello, dear,” Muriel said, her
green eyes sparkling with amusement. Solace bolted in through the
open door and hissed at the queen. Muriel paled instantly. “Get
that thing out,” she shrieked.

Emily scooped up the cat and
pressed him against her chest before pushing him out the door. She
took a seat and inhaled the aroma of fish and chips. Her stomach
rumbled, but she didn’t feel hungry. What was Muriel doing down
here? And how could she explain the woman's presence to her
father?

“Muriel said you know each other
already?” her father asked with raised eyebrows. Emily nodded,
unsure where he was heading.

“Emily was kind enough to let me
wait here until you got home, weren’t you, dear?” Muriel said,
taking a bite of her food and chewing slowly. Emily nodded, and
Muriel continued. “Your grandmother let me stay at Ravencourt Manor
every year during the festival.”

“What festival?” Sam asked. His
eyes gleamed as he stared at Muriel. When she returned his gaze, he
turned bright red and looked away.

“The supernatural festival at
Urquhart Castle, of course.” Muriel gestured with a bejewelled
finger and poured Emily’s father more tea from a teapot. When he
took a sip she smiled and continued. “It’s said that for three days
a year, the portal between the physical and the spiritual planes
opens, and one can catch a glimpse of what lies beyond. Now, I
don’t believe that.” Muriel winked at Emily. “But as one of the
performing actors I have no other choice than to attend.”

Emily breathed out, relieved,
and took a bite of her battered fish. Good excuse, but she didn’t
like Muriel lying to her father. In fact, she didn’t like beautiful
Muriel talking to her father at all. She dropped her fork on the
plate and turned toward him. “Muriel can stay in my room. I don’t
mind.”

Her father laughed. “I shouldn’t
think that necessary. Ravencourt Manor has plenty of guestrooms.
Muriel can have her pick.”

Emily frowned. No, Muriel
couldn’t because Emily needed to keep an eye on her. She pushed out
her chin and regarded her father intently. “But Muriel said she
used to stay in my room. I think it only fair nothing changes.
Grandma would have liked it so.”

“Okay, if that’s what Muriel
wants and you don’t mind.” Her father stood, gulped down the rest
of his tea, and pointed at Emily’s full plate. “Please finish your
dinner. If you need me, I’ll be in my study.”

***

“Who’s she? Not in a million
years is she an actress,” Sam whispered after their father
retreated to his study and Muriel to Emily’s bedroom to rest.

Emily put down the kitchen towel
and turned to him. “I was going to tell you, but you were too busy
with your
PlayStation
.”

“Well, tell me now.”

“She jumped out after I summoned
the mirror like Clifford told me. Apparently, she’s a queen,” Emily
said.

"A queen? Really? Sounds like
bollocks me to me." Sam raised his eyebrows as he gazed at her.
“Clifford said the mirror’s some sort of portal to another world. I
wonder what she wants.”

“Maybe she comes every year like
she said.”

Sam laughed. “I doubt that. Did
you see what she’s wearing? No one dresses like that nowadays. And
we had Halloween already.”

“Do you think Clifford knew
Muriel would turn up?” Emily moved closer to her brother.

“Why would you think that?”

Emily shrugged. “I don’t trust
him. He’s strange. Remember how he kept prodding about the
mirror?”

“You can ask him when he comes
back. He and Aurelie have gone to spend the day with his
family.”

“Are you sure?”

Sam nodded. “Yep, saw them leave
this morning after I borrowed a few videogames.”

But that was impossible. She had
just seen him half an hour ago, peeking out of the window. Had she
just imagined it?

***

The rain pounded against the
windows. A strong wind rattled the loose panels on the roof. With
Muriel visiting Urquhart Castle, Emily spent the day reading. It
was evening when the rain stopped and she got the chance to return
to the garden to inspect the tracks.

She slipped into her heavy
raincoat and opened the balcony door to let in the brisk air. The
ground was damp, the marks almost invisible. She should have shown
Sam straight away, because, now the imprints were gone, he may not
believe her.

Solace hissed somewhere behind
her. Emily patted the cat’s head. “What’s wrong with you today?”
The cat swished around Emily’s knees, meowing. “You can sleep in my
room if you want.” The cat hissed again and disappeared into the
bushes. “I guess that’s a no then.”

With slumped shoulders, Emily
returned to the house and knocked on the door to her bedroom.
Muriel slept through the entire afternoon. Surely she was awake by
now.

“Come in," Muriel’s voice
called.

The first thing Emily noticed
when she entered was the photograph on her bedside table turned
upside down.

“Did you do that?” she asked,
her brows furrowed. No one was allowed to touch her grandparents'
pictures.

Muriel smiled, clasping her
hands in her lap. “I’m sorry, dear. I thought you wouldn’t mind.
You see, pictures give me the creeps.”

Emily lowered herself on the
bed. “Right. Well, now you’ve had your rest, can you make Mum
appear?”

Muriel blinked. “Your mother?”
She laughed. “Why, dear, that takes quite a bit of strength. I’m
not sure I can do that just yet. It may take a few days until I’ve
gathered enough magic.”

“Can you at least try?” Emily
said. She didn’t have a few days. Muriel seemed to be getting a
little too comfortable with her dad.

“Oh, no! No! No!” Muriel shook
her head. “I need to have enough magic because if I don’t, bad
things might happen. Like your mother disappearing forever.”

Emily groaned. “Okay, I get it.
Tell me more about where you come from.”

Muriel sat up, holding out her
hand. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

***

They stood in front of the
mirror in the attic, Emily watching Muriel murmuring strange words
she didn’t understand. As the woman’s eyes rolled in their sockets
a thick, grey fog gathered at their feet and the mirror’s smooth
surface turned black.

“Why don’t you take a look?”
Muriel asked, pointing at the blackness.

Emily took a step back. “You
want me to walk in there? No way!”

“Well, you asked to know where I
came from, dear. This is your chance. But hurry up. Keeping the
portal open wastes a lot of magic.”

“Why don’t you just tell me what
it’s like in there?” Emily asked. She never liked dark rooms; she
wasn’t going to walk into one now.

Muriel looked at her, wide-eyed.
“But you must! I haven’t wasted my strength for nothing.”

“I don’t care ‘cause I don’t
want to,” Emily said, taking another step back.

“Just a tiny peek, dear.” Muriel
grabbed Emily’s shoulder, shoving her forward. “It’s perfectly
safe, you’ll see.”

Emily pushed her hand aside, but
Muriel’s grip tightened, pulling Emily closer to the mirror’s
surface that now looked like a gaping black hole. “No, you can’t
make me.” As Muriel gave her another shove, Emily felt the
blackness suck her in. She shrieked, her fingers clasping the
frame, her nails digging as deep as they could. “Stop it! I don’t
want to!”

Through the gloominess, she
glimpsed a dark forest with thick, tall trees. No chirping of
birds, but there were hundreds of wilting leaves on the damp
ground. A cold breeze blew the scent of decay into her face. Emily
jerked back, falling to the wooden floor of the attic and bumping
her head against the mirror’s border.

“What’s going on here?” Sam
called from the trapdoor.

Emily stood on shaky legs,
rubbing her aching head. “She tried to push me in.”

Muriel’s eyes popped wide open.
“I didn’t, dear. You must have misunderstood,” she hissed through
tight lips.

“She’s telling the truth,” Sam
said. “When I arrived, she was pulling you out.”

“What?” Emily glared at her
brother throwing Muriel puppy eyes. Sam could say whatever he
wanted; she knew Muriel had just tried to get rid of her. And she
wouldn’t rest until she found out why.

After dinner, Emily ran up to
her room with a bowl of sausage scraps in her hand. Solace rubbed
against her legs and meowed.

“You don’t like Muriel much, do
you?” Emily placed the bowl on the floor and waited until Solace
licked it clean. “Muriel said she was here before. Let’s see what
we can find out.”

As she entered her grandmother’s
bedroom, the heavy scent of sandalwood, candles and old paper
drifted past. Countless gemstones, old books, trinkets and other
clutter occupied every surface. From the cupboard hung the straw
hat her grandmother used to wear for gardening. Even the fancy
bedspread was the same as last time she remembered.

Emily opened one drawer after
another and pulled out a white summer dress and inhaled her
grandmother’s scent. “I wish you were here. Miss you so much.”
Solace meowed and Emily patted the cat’s head. “You miss her
too.”

She arranged the dress back in
its place and continued searching through her grandmother’s things.
Most of the drawers contained clothes, rusty pieces of jewellery
and small bottles of lovely-smelling oils. In others she found more
books and old photographs.

Solace meowed from beneath her
grandmother’s desk and rolled on his back.

“You like it here, don’t you?”
Emily knelt down to rub the cat’s tummy when her gaze fell on a
brown bundle hidden between the dark wood and the wall. She pulled
out the bundle, realising it was the thick, leather-bound book she
still remembered in all its gory detail. As a child, Emily would
often sneak in to look at the drawings of hideously withered frogs
and to read the scary poems about the earth shaking and all kinds
of creatures crawling from beneath.

Lifting the heavy book, she set
it on the bed with a loud thud. Dust particles swirled about,
settling on her nose. She swallowed to supress the sudden sneeze
and wiped the cover with the back of her sleeve.

“What did Grandma need all this
for?” Emily turned the first page to a strange recipe when
something creaked behind her. She spun around, holding her breath.
At the same time, Solace jumped up from the bed with his ears
strained.

A scraping sound came from the
window. Stepping over the heaps of books on the floor, Emily walked
slowly toward the drawn curtains. The drapes were of thick, red
brocade, built to stave off the chilly Scottish wind. With a flick
of her hand, she pulled them aside.

The window was open; an icy
breeze blew her hair in her face. Goosebumps formed on her arms and
she shivered. How strange! She didn’t notice it before. Why would
it be open? Dad ranted and raved about the high heating bill all
the time. He would never allow it.

Solace hissed.

“What’s the matter? There’s
nothing here. See?” Emily said.

The cat scurried past and hid
under the bed. Emily shook her head and rose on her toes, straining
to close it shut. She pulled the curtains back in place, then
returned to her grandmother’s book with a sigh. As soon as she sat
down, the creaking started again. Her heart thumping, she turned
back to the window and peeked through the curtains. It stood wide
open, the panels rattling in the wind again.

How could it have opened on its
own when she had a heck of a time closing it? Solace jumped out
from under the bed and meowed at her feet as she shut the window,
but this time she left the curtains agape.

“Good kitty.” Emily returned to
the bed, peering behind her from the corner of her eye. Like on
cue, the creaking came again and the window sprang open. Emily
gasped. She grabbed Solace, jumped off the bed, panting, and backed
up a few steps toward the door. What was happening? Why wouldn’t it
just stay shut?

Solace bolted toward the bedside
table, knocking over a photograph. The sudden noise made Emily
jump. The window forgotten, she lifted the picture to put it back
in place when she recognized the woman almost hidden behind her
grandmother’s smiling face.

“It’s her.” Emily patted the
cat’s head. “That’s what you wanted to tell me, isn’t it, Solace?
So Grandma knew Muriel. I’m wondering whether they were friends.”
The cat hissed and spit. “I guess not.” Emily laughed when she
suddenly remembered the window.