Dark Winter (15 page)

My mother opened the door just as I put my key in the lock.

“Hi Mrs Winter,” said Toril in a bright voice, which could disarm even the steeliest of glares, something my mother was really good at. “I’m Toril Withers. You know my Mum from church.”

“Oh yes, yes,” said Daphne Winter, who was surprised to hear the girl mention church, as her mother, Tori-Suzanne Withers, said that her daughter was into some ‘funny stuff’. Daphne Winter averted her eyes from the pentacle around Toril’s neck.

“Well, if you’re a friend of Romilly’s, you had better come in.”

The glares continued. I just had to shoot one in my mothers’ direction. I ushered Toril upstairs, and locked the bedroom door. I hadn’t been allowed a lock until I kicked up a fuss about some strange goings on at school. Mum had heard it from Beth O’Neill’s mother, something about the caretaker, Curie. I took my chance and said that
I was scared of him too, and could I please have a lock on my bedroom door.
My father agreed whilst my mother protested.

“So!” said Toril. “Where is it?”

That’s not usually the first thing people say when they see my room. Not that many have – I’m not that kind of girl. They usually say something like ‘Well, it’s rather pink,’ looking around at the bedroom walls, before casting disapproving glances at my various teddy bears and cuddly toys.

I was about to answer Toril when she let out a huge gasp. “Oh! Oh my God!!! Where did you get this?”

I didn’t know what Toril was on about. My face must have told my feelings honestly, because Toril ran to the corner of my room where I had most of my toys stashed. I know,
I know
I’m too old for toys and teddy bears, but I just couldn’t bear to throw them away. But the doll that Toril picked up, I knew I had not seen before, because I don’t possess dolls.

They scare the hell out of me, with their vacant stares, and dead behind the eye expressions. The lips that never move. The arms and legs that stay still in some weird plastic state of rigour mortis.

“It’s a
White Roses for Dana
doll,” said Toril, happily.

I’d have never believed it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes.

I especially don’t possess dolls that look like that.

The doll had blonde hair, blue eyes. Just like Barbie and Sindy.

The doll also wore a white dress, and she was holding a posey of white roses over her stomach.

Then Toril pressed down on the posey, and they turned blood red, along with the dress.

Not at all like Barbie and Sindy
.

At that point, the doll started laughing
Hahahaha. Hahahaha.

The blood receded and she retained her vacant stare.

“
Barbie in Hell,” said Toril. She was clearly enjoying the whole thing. “Come on, where did you get it Romilly?”

I would have loved Toril to find something else to satisfy her curiosity, but she was raving about the damn thing. As she held up the doll in front of me, I got the most intense pain in my head. I could hear a girl laughing, and the sound just would not stop. It wasn’t coming from the doll. The sound was within my head. A name formed in my head, from the letter D which hung around her neck.

Dana.

Black and red dots formed in front of my eyes and joined in an unco-ordinated, maniacal dance. The room began to spin, and I fainted.

                                          *                            *                            *

I could feel something. It was really uncomfortable. In the haze, I could see Toril, at least, I think it was her. The dots formed again in front of my eyes. I passed out again.

             
                            *                            *                            *

A new sensation, the taste of blood, filled my mouth. But my view was clearing, and Toril was staring into my eyes, with a concerned look on her face.

“Romilly? Romilly? You fainted. Are you alright? Holy cow, you gave me quite a fright there.”

Toril shook me by the shoulders, and thrust a glass of water to my lips. The fusion of blood and water didn’t disgust me as much as I thought it would.

“What happened?”

“You fainted,” said Toril. “I had to pinch your lip to get you to come out of it, sorry. But you really scared me. Are you okay now?”

“I think so.” I was trying to get my bearings, but it seemed I had just flopped backwards onto my bed. There were drops of blood on my pink bedspread. It wasn’t a good mix. Mum would be mad, just like the time I broke the only bottle of milk in the house, way back when we didn’t have much money. I wish I had another bottle of milk just now.

“I showed you the doll, and you just like, phased out of there. But it’s not surprising. What a find this is!! I’m really grateful you showing me this.”

I was confused, because Toril was confused. We were both talking about different things.

Toril thinks that this doll is the ‘thing’. I haven’t even showed her the Mirror yet, and this doll appears from nowhere.

“Well, I don’t like it,” I said. “You can have it if you like.”

“Really? You mean it?” said Toril.

What was I thinking? That doll could have a terrible effect on Toril. This was the sort of thing you gave to someone you hate.

“Maybe we shouldn’t keep it, on second thoughts. I think it’s evil, Toril. You should throww it away.”

Images came back into my mind. The girl laughing. The bouquet of white roses turning red. Blood red.

Toril had a look on her face which suggested she had heard such things before about anything strange she was interested in.

“Throw it away? Oh no! It’s just a doll, Romilly. I can understand why you were freaked out, but you’re okay now. It’s okay, really. Fangoria did a whole piece on this doll two years ago. I still have the edition if you ever want to read it.”

I had visited the library intending to find something out about the Mirror and its origins, instead I find a weird doll in my room, which I have never laid eyes on before, yet I know what it is. Even more than that, Toril seemed to be the fountain of all knowledge on this subject as well.

Perhaps I needed to know why this doll was here. My feelings rarely let me down. I really didn’t want the horrid thing in the house, let alone in my bedroom. I was still reeling from the effect it had on me. I thought about the things that really scared me, and human-like dolls, along with wasps, were near the top of the list. Clowns came in a close third. I bet that Toril, who claims to have watched every horror movie and read every scary book committed to print, wasn’t scared of clowns at all. Or bloodied devil dolls that made anyone faint. Perhaps she wouldn’t be scared to look into the Mirror either.

“Nothing scares you, does it Toril?”

“Scares me? No. Seen some things that disturbed me though.”

I was intrigued. Toril seemed pretty unflappable about anything. She was like that Jacinta, only with a pulse. “Such as?”

“You remember Don Curie, the school caretaker, right? One time, when I was eight, Mum organised a birthday party. She had a clown come over to…
entertain
us. But I knew the face under all the paint, and the crazy mad wig. And a suit that didn’t fit him at all.”

“It was him. Curie. He did the clown thing as a bit of extra income, my father claimed, can you believe that? But what would a loner like Curie need extra money for? He absolutely freaked me out. The way his mouth was framed into a permanent smile was just so…oh, I just hated it, Romilly. After that, I always wore my Wiccan pentacle to school. I hadn’t before that day.”

“I see, I didn’t know that.”  I tried to get things back to where we had been, before that hateful man had came into the conversation.

“You still want the doll?”

“Oh yes, yes!” said Toril, happily. “You don’t know what this is, do you?”

“I’d rather not know.” I didn’t want Toril to confirm my fears of what I thought it it was, but I did want to know where it came from. Then it hit me. Nan – could it have belonged to her? It seemed reasonable enough to me.

How? The damn thing looked like the bloodied ghost girl I saw the other night. It seemed that Dana, Nan’s friend, the one whose soul was trapped in the Mirror, embodied that doll. She must have been the ghost who visited me the other night. It could not be mere coincidence.

“Well, I’ll tell you anyway, because I’m not going to even try this, much as I want to.”

A morbid side of me I never knew existed, wanted Toril to go on.

“So long as you don’t try anything, that’s okay. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

“You’ve got a deal there, Milly.”

Jesus!
Toril was using my Nan’s words right there. Toril had always called me Romilly. What was going on?

Toril continued, unfazed.

“You go to the bathroom, or somewhere in the house at night, the dead of night, look intensely into the mirror. Holding the doll –
this doll -
in front of the mirror, you’re supposed to sing this song.”

Pretty, pretty, pretty Dana, come and play with me.

I shuddered at the words, and the child-like way that Toril sang the song.

“But that’s not all,” said Toril. “You have to sing it three times in succession, and then…the doll disappears, and ghost of Dana appears behind you whilst you look in the mirror. Then, she draws her finger across her neck like this-”

Toril drew her finger across her neck, as if her throat was being cut.

“-and that’s when you die, forced to play with Dana forever.”

“Oh, Toril, you really are something else.” Dry humour was the only way to respond to this. “Is that a true story?”

“No,” said Toril, “ I’m just messing with you.”

Please don’t mess with me Toril, I’m upset enough as it is. I could feel another panic attack coming on.

I didn’t like this at all. Dana…that was the name of her friend who originally found the Mirror. It couldn’t be linked, could it?

Toril’s enthusiasm broke my concentration.

“You know what would be really cool?”

Yeah, you take that damn doll away and we never speak of it again. Take the Mirror too while you’re at it.

It seemed to me that Toril was the perfect person to look after the Mirror of Souls, the White Roses for Dana doll, and well, anything else. She liked this kind of thing. I expected she was the kind of girl who didn’t dream of how she’d look on her wedding day, but fantasise about the kind of funeral she would have instead.

“Toril,” I sounded like I was pleading with her more than I wanted to, but that’s just how it came out. “You won’t try anything
Wiccy
with this…with this doll, will you? You’ll be safe, right?”

“It’s
Wicca
, not Wiccy!” laughed Toril. Her correction reminded me how I corrected my mother when she used to offer me a biccy. “It’s
biscuit,
Mum”, I used to say. Wow. I must have been an incredibly annoying child, and sometimes it surprised me how I hadn’t been put up for adoption.

“Of course I won’t, Romilly. But there are friends of mine in the Circle that would love to see a real Dana doll.”