Black Wood (A Witch Rising) (8 page)

Maybe there was something wrong
with it. It was an old house, after all. Should she close it, or
would it bolt open again? It freaked her out, but at the same time
she felt compelled to stay. With Muriel occupying her room now,
where could she go? She sighed and wrapped one of her grandmother’s
cardigans around her to keep warm, then returned to the open book
spread out on the bed.

A cool gust of wind blew in,
turning the pages. Emily rubbed the goosebumps on her arms as she
began reading.

For century, Ravencourt Manor
has harboured a secret so dark, it may cost the life of those who
know of it. Therefore, it must remain in the possession of the
Jones lineage, never open to uninvited strangers. For, of those who
will pass its threshold, at least half will be Witches of the
lowest kind, powerful in their Devilry to gain control over what is
hidden in the attic behind dark cloths: a special mirror, the most
powerful portal to the realm beyond, Black Wood.

Black Wood with its guards is
where the witch Queen—

Steps echoed on the stairs.
Emily stopped reading and lifted her head. Then a sound boomed in
the hall, and the door opened with a
click
. “There you are,
dear. We’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

Emily turned in time to see
Muriel, followed by her father, walk to the bed and snatch the book
out of her hand.

“Why’s it so freezing cold in
here?” Muriel said.

Her father glared. “Do you have
the window open? You know we can’t afford the bill.”

“It wasn’t me. It just won’t—”
Emily said.

“Come on.” Her father shut the
window and took her elbow, guiding her toward the door. “You’ll be
catching a cold.”

Emily planted her hands on her
hips. “No, I’m staying. And I want my book back.”

Muriel shook her head, smiling.
“Poor darling. She’s missing her grandma terribly, Edgar. What’re
we to do?” She grabbed Emily’s hand, her beady eyes glinting with
cunning as she threw the book on top of the others. Her palm was
red as a ripe tomato. “I’ll make you a cup of hot chocolate.”

Emily glared at her. No way was
this woman going to intimidate her. If she could deal with grumpy
Aunt Betty and her constant wise-cracking, she could surely deal
with Muriel.

“What do you say to that?” her
father asked with raised eyebrows.

“What?” Emily blinked. What was
he talking about?

He pressed his lips together.
“Where did you leave your manners? What did your mum teach you
about saying please and thank you?”

“Thank you, Muriel.” Emily
smirked.

The queen smiled,
self-satisfied, and they walked together to the kitchen where Sam
waited slumped into a chair. Muriel went about preparing hot
chocolate, her slim shape moving gracefully between the stove and
the cupboards. As she placed the steaming mugs on the kitchen
table, her father smiled. Emily’s heart sank in her chest because
she knew that look on his face. It was the same she’d seen him give
her mother when they were still madly in love.

***

As soon as they finished their
hot chocolate, her father excused himself and disappeared into his
study and Sam went back to his PlayStation. Emily poured her hot
chocolate down the drain and returned to her grandmother’s room.
Sure, the room with that window popping open just like that was
freaky, but she had to finish reading the story about Black
Wood.

Emily was almost out the door
when she felt Muriel’s hand clasp around her shoulder. “I saw what
you were reading.”

“I don’t care ‘cause I want you
to return from where you came. We don’t want you here,” Emily
said.

Muriel laughed, her voice loud
and shrill. “Speak for yourself. It seems everyone has grown quite
fond of me. Particularly your father.”

“Maybe, but once Mum’s here, he
won’t like you anymore. You’ll see.”

Muriel’s brow furrowed, her
beautiful face contorting into a hideous grimace. “Don’t you dare
cross me! You’re not going anywhere near that book again, you
hear?”

Grinning, Emily bolted out of
the kitchen. That was exactly where she’d be going. She entered her
grandmother’s room when she heard Muriel calling behind her. “Sam,
dear, would you join me for a minute?”

As she closed the door, Emily
frowned. What did Muriel want from Sam? That woman was up to
something. Should she warn her brother? Maybe later, she had some
serious investigation to do first. All she needed was half an hour
with the book. What could Muriel possibly do in that half an
hour?

The room was dark. Emily walked
to the bedside table to switch on the lamp. Muriel had tossed the
book on top of a heap, but which one? Emily’s eyes drifted to the
large piles on the floor and then to the closed curtains, her heart
hammering in her chest. Would it snap open again?

She focused on finding the right
book among the countless others. When she found it, she sat on the
bed and took a deep breath and began flicking through hundreds of
pages to find the one about Ravencourt Manor and Black Wood.

The window flew open. At the
same time she heard Sam’s faint cry.

“Sam! Are you all right?” Emily
shouted as she darted out of the room, leaving the book behind.

The corridor was as silent as
the night, the soft glimmer of a lamp barely reaching the shadows
in the corners. Panting, she peered left and right. Where could he
be?

She decided to check the ground
floor first, then move up. As she headed for the kitchen, she
thought she heard a second scream, faint as though coming from far
away.

Turning on her heels, she jumped
two steps at a time toward the attic. She reached the trapdoor and
stopped, listening for more sounds. Above, feet shuffled across the
floor, then some grunting and something, maybe a chair, toppling
over with a heavy thud. Her heart pounded in her ears like a drum.
She needed to call her father, but the sound coming out of her
mouth was barely more than a whisper.

“Sam, are you in there?” she
asked even though she didn’t expect an answer.

Slowly, setting one foot after
another, she climbed up half of the ladder, cold beads of sweat
gathering on her brows, the memory of the incident with Muriel
still vivid in her mind.

The trapdoor opened and Muriel
appeared.

“What did you do to him?” Emily
balled her hands into fists.

Muriel descended slowly.
“Pardon, dear?”

Emily squinted. “Where’s Sam? I
know you want to harm him.”

“Why would you think that?”
Muriel asked.

Well, Emily could see right
through her pretence. “Cause you aren’t who you say you are. Now,
where is he?”

“I don’t know where your brother
is, but I can tell you he’s not in the attic.” Muriel’s eyes turned
cold as ice.

Was she lying or was she telling
the truth? “What were you doing up here?” Emily asked.

Muriel laughed, but her gaze
remained cold, condescending. “I was looking for my shawl. See?”
She pointed at the thin, black scarf around her shoulders. “It can
get a little chilly at night.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Muriel shrugged. “Suit yourself.
Shouldn’t a girl your age be in bed already?”

Emily glared. Who did she think
she was? “You’re not my mother. I can stay up as late as I want on
weekends.”

“You may now,” Muriel said as
she walked past, “but I can assure you things will change
soon.”

After Muriel left, Emily
returned to the first floor to look for her brother. As she opened
the door to his room, she found him asleep, snuggled underneath the
covers, his snoring loud and clear from the door. Whatever happened
before, everything seemed fine now.

Emily closed the door again and
left for her grandmother’s room. No way was she going to sleep with
that dreadful woman Muriel in the same room. She’d rather deal with
a weird window that seemed to keep opening all by itself.

Maybe, now the portal was open,
the magic diary could help. She flicked it to the first page,
considering her words. When nothing special came to mind, she just
started writing.

Dear Diary,

Please, please, make Muriel
disappear. She’s a horrible person and I don’t want her here
anymore.

Emily

Then she closed the diary,
placed it under her pillow and opened her grandmother’s
leather-bound book. Under the covers, with her grandmother’s scent
enveloping her, she pushed her thoughts aside as she tried to focus
on the thick book next to her, but her head felt heavy from the
day’s events. Emily fell into a deep, tense slumber.

***

That night, she had the
strangest dream. She was walking through a dense forest with high
trees. All was quiet. No light seeped through the canopy of leaves
high above her head. She took a tentative step forward when she
heard a growl in the nearby bushes. Her heart racing in her chest,
she spun around, ready to run for her life.

Two glowing, red eyes peered
from behind a tree trunk. Emily drew in her breath sharply, unable
to walk, as the creature stepped forward. She starred in horror at
the cowered shape hidden beneath a black cloak.

With knobbly fingers and long
dirty nails, the creature removed its cape, and Emily gasped. Its
skin covered with fur, the fangs visible in its open mouth, it
looked neither human, nor like an animal.

Trickles of sweat ran down the
back of her nape. “Oh, no! Don’t eat me!”

The creature crooned, shooting
forward like a wolf ready to pounce. Whimpering, Emily cowered on
the ground and lifted an arm to protect her face, but the creature
didn’t attack. It put one paw-like hand on her shoulder and
regarded her through sad eyes.

Maybe it wasn’t bad. No animal
this miserable and sad could possibly hurt her. She rose in one
wary motion and wiped her face with the back of her sleeve. The
creature whimpered. Emily cocked her head. “What do you want? I
don’t understand.”

The creature darted a few
strides down the dirty trail, then stopped, its grotesque head
beckoning.

“You want me to follow?” Emily
frowned. Should she do that? Could she trust it?

Howling, it moved again a few
feet. It seemed more sad than frightening.

“All right. I’m coming.”

She followed the creature down
the narrowing path and through the dense thicket until they reached
a wall soaring high against the canvass of the night.

“What’s this?”

The creature scratched with its
nails against the naked wall and looked up toward the sky. Emily
lifted her head as she peeked up. There, tiny and quite
inconspicuous, overlooking the forest, was a window.

“How are we supposed to get up
there?” Emily asked. The creature snarled. “Okay, I get it. We’re
not climbing up. But what is it you want to tell me then?”

The moonlight flickered brighter
as the clouds retreated, revealing thousands of sparkling stars.
Behind the window appeared the face of a woman, so pale and
extraordinarily beautiful, Emily couldn’t mistake it for
another.

Muriel.

The creature snarled again.

“You don’t like her. Neither do
I. She’s mean. But I still don’t understand what you’re
saying.”

The creature roared, the sound
carrying through the night, and the woods shook. Emily gasped as
the approaching echo of hundreds of heavy footsteps and growls
reverberated through the trees. When she turned, she saw countless
cowered shapes gathering around them.

As she spun to inspect one face
after another, the sadness in their quite child-like eyes brought
her near tears. And then she remembered the face in the window and
gasped. “Muriel did this to you, didn’t she?”

The creatures whimpered, some
lowering their heads, others staring straight ahead, and Emily
could swear she got a nod from a few.

“I’m so sorry,” was all she
could say. The forest disintegrated slowly and she fell back into
deep slumber.

***

The next morning, she woke up to
Solace’s meowing. Forgetting all about her strange dream, Emily
suppressed a yawn. “What’s the matter? Are you hungry?”

Solace snuggled closer. “Okay,
let’s find something nice for you, shall we?”

In the kitchen, Sam already sat
at the table, sipping a huge glass of orange juice. Emily heated up
a bowl of milk for Solace and plopped down next to her brother.
“What happened last night? I heard you shout.” He just grunted.
Emily snapped her fingers under his face. “Hey, I’m talking to
you.”

Sam looked up and Emily
flinched. Dark shadows framed his bloodshot eyes. His lips had
turned a sickening blue. She could only stare, her brain devoid of
any thought.

“What happened to you?” Emily
whispered when her voice returned.

Her brother sounded wispy.
“What’re you talking about?”

“Muriel dragged you up to the
attic last night. What happened?” Emily probed.

“Can’t remember a thing.”

“But you yelled.” She knew she
didn’t imagine things. Why wouldn’t Sam tell her?

“Honestly, I can’t remember.”
Sam stood, groaning at every move like his bones were sore. “Just
leave me alone.”

As Sam walked out, Emily shook
her head and went about preparing herself for school. The people in
this house were getting weirder by the minute. She fully intended
to find out why.

Her father drove them to school
and picked them up. To Emily’s relief, Muriel was away for most of
the week, and so, every day after school, she stayed in her
grandmother’s room, doing her homework and going through her
grandmother’s things. The stacks on the floor grew bigger as she
opened one drawer after another, putting aside what she needed to
inspect closer. A few times, she caught Clifford’s gaze at school,
but he didn’t chat to her. In fact, Aurelie and he seemed to avoid
Ravencourt Manor.