Dark Winter (23 page)

She changed her red pentacle chain to a dark blue one, and brushed her raven coloured hair.

This was a normal ritual for Toril. At the back of her mind though, she continued to worry about her friends. Out of all of them, only Jacinta had a mobile phone.

Toril grabbed her phone and called Jacinta, who answered.

“Hey Toril,” Jacinta said brightly.

“Oh hi, Jay. You okay?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

What would be
up
?
Nothing, Toril hoped.

“Um, well, I don’t know. I wanted to see how you are, I suppose.”

Ugh. Not convincing. Jacinta would see through that.

“I’m fine,” she said, playing along. “But how are you?”

Oh. I’m fine. But I’m worried about Beth and Romilly. Care to talk about that?

Thought not.

“I’m alright. I just woke up with a bit of a funny feeling.”

Do you want me to elaborate on that, Jacinta?

“Well that’s good. Do you want to come over? I’ve just made some cookies.”

Cookies. Damn that girl, she knows how to get to me,
thought Toril
.

Toril agreed to go, and hung up the phone. It would be good to see Jacinta again, because since the hospital episode, all Jacinta wanted to do was stay at home, and not go out. Toril hoped that she would be prepared to come out with her, even if she thought she was crazy.

Worries about Beth filled Toril’s mind as she walked the mile and a half to Jacinta’s home.

             
                            *                            *                            *

My next sensation involved the expectation of seeing a white light, and also my Nan. Not that I believe in such things, you understand. It’s just what I expected, when I left the Earth, as Demon-Beth squeezed the life out of me.

Of all the ways I had expected to die, the absolute bottom of the list, would have been at the hands of someone who had became a very important friend to me.

Beth.  Why did you do this to me? I had my entire life in front of me. I trusted you!

Okay. She had had a hard life, I knew that, accepted that. But I could not accept that Beth was a killer. I was trying to recall if there had been hatred in her eyes, but the memory evaded me. Surely now, all that didn’t matter. The girl had taken my life.

Oh
God
.

Was this it? Was I really dead?

The out of body experience. Was that the real premonition I was having?

Yes. It was.

I could see myself. I was lying on my back, and Beth continued to squeeze my neck until she was certain I was dead.

As if sensing this, the rats scurried over each other to bite at me while the blood was still warm and the flesh was soft.

I could sense, weirdly, that I could not sense anything. So this is what death must feel like.

I wanted to shout out at Beth, and curse her for killing me. But as Curie came up behind her, I felt she was about to get what was coming to her. He brought his axe down on her, hard, and soon, her body was as limp and as lifeless as mine. There was one upside at least.

As she crashed down on top of my body, the rats scurried away. If our bodies were to rot, at least we wouldn’t be eaten so quickly.

Beth’s hands, so strong against my throat, had gone limp, and lay over my shoulders. Her face, riddled with anguish, pain and darkness, softened.

My breath went from regular to wheezing to a horrible, raspish croaking sound, then stopped.

I saw the demon leave Beth, and return to Curie’s body.

This would be the last thing I would remember.

                                          *                            *                            *

“Toril, will you stop it?”

Jacinta was frustrated with Toril’s rather vacant, far away look.

“Uh?”

“You haven’t said a word since we come out of the house. What gives?”

“Oh. That. Hmm.”

Toril was trying to process things in her mind. Jacinta pressed on regardless.

“Toril. I bet you are really focussed when doing your casting. Care to let me in on this?”

Casting.
The mention of anything Wiccan broke Toril’s distraction technique.

“Well, yes, you’re right of course,” said Toril. “We’re going to Curie’s.”

Toril must have said this in such a down to earth way, that Jacinta grabbed her by the arm and spun her around to face her.

“What? Why would you go there?”

“I don’t really know,” said Toril. “Something…something’s off, Jay. I can’t really explain. I just need to know that Beth and Romilly are okay. Okay?”

“Romilly?” said Jacinta incredulously. “What could she have to do with Curie? She’s not even that close to Beth anymore.”

True. At school, I hadn’t been that close to Beth, or anyone. We shared a unique bond now, and our fate was tied to each other.

“Jacinta, this is important, please.”

Toril rarely had to plead with anyone, they usually did what she asked. She had a forthrightness about her that many people found hard to deal with.

Jacinta ran her fingers through her white hair. Toril had gotten used to how her friend looked, of course, but maybe people still stared at Jacinta. Toril wondered sometimes how she could cope with it.

“Sure, okay Toril, whatever you want. What is it? What do you think it is?”

“I think Curie’s involved somehow too. I wish I could explain it. But I think the girls are in danger.”

Toril wanted to say more, but she didn’t think it was the time to tell Jacinta about the Mirror. After the ouija board incident, and the visit from whatever that demon was, her friend had made a good recovery.

At school, Jacinta had been singled out by almost everyone as being dead behind the eyes. Her parents were found dead in mysterious circumstance, and whatever had happened, Jacinta had not breathed a word of it to anyone. But overnight, her blonde hair changed to all white.

Toril had asked her a few times to tell her what had happened. Jacinta would not give it up.

So what was this, some kind of revenge? No, Toril wouldn’t do that. By not mentioning the Mirror, she supposed and hoped it would help to keep Jacinta safe. Toril couldn’t be sure about that of course, but still, by telling her, she would involve Jacinta.

What was there to tell, anyway? Romilly was convinced the Mirror had some kind of power. The fact that I didn’t see it or feel it doesn’t make Romilly a liar.

Toril was good at reasoning. But when she got feelings like this, logic and deduction were removed from the equation. Finally, after what must have seemed like an age, she spoke up to Jacinta, not really confirming or denying anything.

“It’s important I go. If I’m honest, I don’t really want to involve you, Jay, or anyone for that matter, but I need back up. You’ve just got to trust me on this. Don’t ask me any questions and I won’t lie to you.”

“Fair enough,” said Toril. “Do you think we’ll be coming out of this okay?”

Jacinta afforded Toril a rare smile. Toril smiled back. The question was just meant to lighten the mood.

Toril was considering her friend’s question, all the same. This Curie situation was coming to a head. Toril didn’t consider it a strength that possibly it would be a case of four against one.

Curie was dangerous, and even if half of what Beth thought of him was true, they would need all the spells in her repertoire.

Toril’s mind raced. In her Wiccan studies, she knew little of black magic, but expected that her white magic might not be strong enough against someone like Curie. There were spells that she could cast that could at least render some of his powers unusable, but would that be enough.

Jacinta uttered no words of comfort, but linked arms with Toril, who broke her train of thought and smiled a half-smile.

That was wiped out in an instant. The words were out of Toril’s mouth before she could stop herself.

“Jay, I think Beth and Romilly are dead.”

             
                            *                            *                            *

Curie’s house was an oddity. Within five hundred yards proximity to the school, it cast an eerie glow over the more modern school building. The kids had speculated that Curie hadn’t bathed in years. Others thought he bathed in rats blood, because one day, after the holidays, the school had to be closed for three days. It had gotten infested with rats.

The exterminators were called in, but to no avail. If anything, the rat population was multiplying faster than they could clear them out of the school.

Then, Curie, who, had returned from where-ever a man like him goes for a holiday, stepped into the school, and the legend has in that the rats followed him out.

Of course, Curie was no Pied Piper of Hamlin, nor did he possess a flute, but the rats followed him out of there nonetheless. People who looked on in morbid disbelief had said that he didn’t seem repulsed by them either. How could a man who welcomed rats into his home, be allowed to work in a school?

Brown rats, white rats. Brown and white rats. And some other colours too, perhaps affected by the diseases of which they carried, walked obediently behind Curie, until he approached his home.

He put his key in the door, and once the lock clocked, he gestured to the side entry, pointing towards it with his left index finger. The rats seemed to have understood. Stepping, scurrying and climbing over each other to get in the side entry, in there they went and made it their home.

They had not been seen ever since. Older schoolchildren would make the newest pupils terrified by stories of Curie the Rat Catcher, Curie the Axe Man, Curie the Hermit.

These were just some of the nice names for him. He was also known as
Diabhal
. The Gaelic word for
Devil
.

This was the one name that bothered the unusually unflappable Toril the most.

Not one for being talkative, Jacinta broke with tradition and spoke first. There had been a long pause whilst Toril tried to make sense of things in her head.

“Penny for your thoughts?” inquired Jacinta.

Still looking like she was trying to divide thirty-three thousand and one-hundred and twenty two by one-hundred and seventeen in her head, Jacinta repeated her question.

“Oh!” said Toril with a jolt. “I was just thinking how we would be able to deal with Curie, you know, once we get to the house.”

“That’s simple,” said Jacinta dryly. “You’ll cast a spell on him, that’ll do it.”

“If he’s human, probably. If he’s not, the outcome will be a bit more unpredictable.”

“
If
he’s human?” Jacinta was stunned out of her dry state of personality. “Whatever do you mean? Of course he’s human!”

“Well….”