Eight Rivers of Shadow

by Leo Hunt

  “Let’s put it in the mirror,” I say. “It doesn’t have anything to say to us.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do!” Ash screams at me.

  “Ash! Can we just —”

  “You don’t know! You have no idea!”

  “Ash!” Elza yells.

  “And you!” Ash shouts at her. “Both of you —”

  “Ash!” Elza screams back. “There’s someone here!”

  “What?” Ash asks. Her anger is gone, like it was never there.

  I follow her gaze. Ilana is standing at the edge of the clearing — long, dirty hair, mint-green hospital gown, her left arm missing. She’s staring at Ash and the demon.

  Elza is backing away from the ghost. “Is that your twin?” she asks Ash.

  “What’s she doing here?” I ask.

  “I don’t . . . She must have followed us. . . .” Ash says. She calls out to Ilana in their twin-speak, but the spirit doesn’t respond. She’s still looking at the demon.

  Just as I’m wondering what on earth Ilana is thinking about, she starts to scream. The scream is high and brittle and seems to split the clearing in half.

  The Fury opens its mouth and screams in response, a deafening choir of agonized voices.

  “Ash!” I’m yelling. “Get the mirror! Seal it away!”

  Ilana is making noises that actually beat the demon for volume. Elza is cringing on the ground, hands clapped against her head. Ash can’t hear me; she’s pelting headlong at her sister, shouting in their shared language.

  “Ash! The mirror! Ash!”

  Ash reaches out to Ilana, and her one-armed twin grabs at her and, still screaming, lowers her mouth to Ash’s. Ash lashes out with her sigil hand, but Ilana ignores it. White light is streaming from Ash’s nose and mouth into Ilana. It’s more than last time, much more.

  “Elza!”

  I still can’t move from the magic circle. All I can do is watch.

  “What can I do?” she yells. “Is that her sister?”

  “Get Ilana off her! She’s going to kill Ash!”

  “How?” Elza asks.

  “Use your knife! Do something!”

  Elza pulls the pale knife from her jacket, and at the sight of it, the Fury cringes, the first emotion I’ve seen from the thing since we summoned it. The demon isn’t scared of us, but it knows what that blade means.

  Elza steps toward the twins. Ash is lying on the moss, eyes open, not moving, and Ilana, no longer screaming, is sucking long, greedy drafts of white light out of Ash’s mouth.

  As Elza approaches them, witch blade held toward Ilana, something comes rocketing out of the trees, striking the twins with enormous force. Elza gasps as Ilana is literally sent shooting right through her, twirling high into the air and drifting down to earth as though she were made of feathers.

  The Widow stands over Ash, spear held in her right hand. She bellows at Ilana in twin-speak, and Ilana screams back. The one-armed girl turns and flies away into the woods.

  “Help us!” I shout.

  The Widow doesn’t reply. She rockets off after Ilana, ignoring me, Elza, and the demon.

  “Yeah, thanks so much!” I yell as the ghost vanishes into the trees.

  Elza leans down over Ash.

  “Is she alive?” I ask.

  “I think so. She looks . . . old.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “She’s gotten wrinkles. It’s bizarre.”

  “Well, what do we do now?” I wave my arms. “I’m stuck in this circle! We’ve got the Fury here and . . . Elza, the mirror! Get the mirror!”

  “How do we use it?”

  “I . . . I don’t know! Ash didn’t explain that part.”

  I look helplessly back toward the demon. The Fury is floating in the middle of the standing stones. The creature is just waiting for me to break my circle, I realize, and then it’ll be free as well. I can’t mess this up.

  “So we don’t know how to bind it?” Elza asks.

  “No! Not until Ash comes around.”

  “Oh, fantastic,” Elza says. “So we can just sit up here all night, then.”

  She slumps down next to Ash, knife still held in her right hand.

  “It could be worse,” I say, sitting down as well, slowly and carefully. The magic circle gives me room to sit cross-legged, but sleeping isn’t going to happen.

  Elza rests a hand against Ash’s neck.

  “Heart’s beating,” Elza says, “but who knows when she’ll come around?”

  “What a mess,” I say.

  “Her twin . . . What on earth was happening?”

  “I think Ilana got upset,” I reply, “because she saw the demon. I don’t think she really knew what she was doing. She just wanted the thing that makes her feel better.”

  “Ash’s life,” Elza says, running a finger over the knife blade. “Yuck.”

  We sit in silence for a few minutes. The clearing is darkening rapidly. I don’t know if we brought flashlights. I think there’s one in the car. It doesn’t seem too cold, at least.

  When I glance over at the demon, I see that it has contracted into an orb of shadow, swirling and twisting like a gas giant. It’s strangely beautiful, something I never expected to say about the Fury.

  There’s something I haven’t thought of.

  The Book.

  “Elza,” I say, “the Book of Eight! It’s still inside the reading machine.”

  “I don’t want you looking at it again,” Elza says sharply.

  “Come on! Ash could be gone for hours! And I’ve got the reading machine this time —”

  “No, Luke. We don’t know what it’ll do to you. What if you go into a fit and break your circle? What if me passing it into the circle counts as breaking it?”

  “Point,” I say.

  “Besides,” Elza says, “the Book is —” She cuts herself off and gets to her feet, putting the witch blade back inside her jacket.

  “There’s people,” she says.

  “What?”

  “Voices,” Elza says. “People are coming up here.”

  “No,” I say, looking from the magic circles to the demon to Ash, lying unconscious on the damp moss. Just when it seemed like things couldn’t get worse.

  Because Elza’s right. I can hear voices now, a girl’s laughter, coming this way. And through the dark trees, I can see the searching glare of a flashlight.

  I’m willing them to choose somewhere else, but the light comes closer and closer. I can hear voices now, two of them, male and female.

  “Hide!” I hiss at Elza, but she shakes her head.

  “What’s the point?” she asks me. It’s true; I can hardly go anywhere. Ash is still laid out on the wet moss, unconscious. I think of telling Elza to drag her somewhere at least, into the bushes, but there’s no time. The Fury still seems to be sleeping, or waiting, whatever it’s doing. It hangs silently in the middle of the Devil’s Footsteps, expanding and contracting slowly, occasionally letting a tendril of blackness escape its main body in order to probe the edge of the circle. It looks like ink dropped into a glass of water.

  The voices are audible now, a boy and a girl.

  “— telling you, it’s creepy up here.”

  “I’m terrified,” the girl’s saying, but in a teasing voice.

  “Really,” the guy says, “it’s spooky. It’s some pagan stuff. They say the Devil put the stones here.”

  “I can’t believe it’s so near the school,” the girl says.

  I think I recognize the voices.

  “Yeah. Well, better than Holiday’s thing, I’m telling you.”

  “I can’t believe she would say that to me. I mean, I worked so hard on this fashion show with her. It was my idea, basically, and then she says Emily can go before me —”

  “Harsh,” the guy says. “Well, we can have some fun, right?”

  “Yeah.” The girl laughs.

  Elza looks over at me with panic. The couple are right on top of us, just coming throu
gh the bushes at the far end of the clearing.

  “I’m telling you,” the guy says, “they used to have human sacrifices —” The flashlight’s beam sweeps over me, the light searing my eyes.

  “What the hell?” the girl shrieks.

  “Hello,” I say, palms open, making sure to stay inside the circle.

  The Fury has formed back into the dog-headed human shape it likes to take and is watching the new arrivals with unpleasant interest.

  “Is that Luke?” the guy asks.

  “Yeah, mate,” I say. “It’s me. Hey, Kirk. Hey, Alice.”

  “What are you doing here?” Kirk Danknott asks.

  “Oh, my god!” Alice Waltham shrieks. “His dog’s here, too!”

  At first I think she means Ham, that Ham’s followed us somehow, and then I realize Kirk is pointing the flashlight at Elza. With the light off my face, I can see the pair of them in the dimness: Kirk in a gray tracksuit and neon-orange sneakers, Alice dressed in jeans and a hooded red Adidas jacket. She’s holding a big bottle of beer.

  “What are you doing?” Kirk asks me.

  “There’s someone on the ground!” Alice says. “Kirk! There’s someone on the ground! It’s Ashley!”

  Oh, great.

  “Look, if we can all calm down —” I begin.

  “They’re sacrificing her!” Alice screams. “They’re trying to sacrifice Ash! I said they were, like, satanists! I told you!”

  “We haven’t hurt her,” Elza says as calmly as possible under the circumstances. She’s squinting in the flashlight beam.

  “Oh, yeah?” Kirk says. “Looks pretty hurt to me.”

  “She’s . . . asleep,” I say lamely.

  Alice gets her phone out and waves it at me like she’s holding a gun.

  “I’m going to call the police!” she says. “I’m calling them now!”

  “There’s no signal here,” Elza says.

  From the way Alice is frowning, I imagine Elza’s right.

  “Look,” I say, “you should really just go. This isn’t a safe place.”

  “Why?” Alice snaps at me. “What are you two freaks doing?”

  “They’re psychos,” Kirk says. “Let’s just go.”

  “What? And just leave Ashley?” Alice sneers. “Are you scared of them?”

  I remember Kirk in the park, watching my body eating an entire dead bird. I think he’s pretty scared of me.

  “We’re not going to hurt anyone,” Elza says. “But you really should leave.”

  “Or you’ll what?” Alice asks. “You’ll put a spell on me?”

  “No,” Elza says sharply, “of course not.”

  Alice turns to me.

  “This is your idea, isn’t it, Luke? You’re playing a game? You think you’re magic?”

  “Yeah,” I say, “it’s a stupid game.”

  “Come over here,” Alice says. “Help us with Ash. Your game’s not funny. She needs a doctor or something.”

  “I can’t,” I say.

  “Oh,” Alice laughs. “You’ve got to stay in your magical circle. Is that the game?”

  “No,” I say.

  “So come here and help me with Ash.”

  I don’t move.

  Alice Waltham stalks over to me. She’s grinning.

  “You’re really messed up, aren’t you?” she says.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing,” I say to her.

  “Alice, seriously,” Kirk says.

  “Run away,” she says to Kirk. Alice turns back to me. “What if I go in your magic circle?” she asks.

  “You’ll die,” I say, staring at her, trying to convince her with my expression.

  Alice just laughs.

  She takes a step toward the rim of the circle, the big one, the circle binding the Fury. The demon is pressed up against the magic barrier, as close to her as it can get. One of its long black hands is nearly touching her shoulder. Alice turns to me again.

  “You’re ridiculous,” she says.

  “Alice!” Elza runs toward her, trying to drag her back, but Kirk blocks her with his body. Elza screams at him and draws out the witch blade. Kirk leaps out of the way, but it’s too late.

  “You need to get this into your weirdo heads. There’s no such thing”— Alice steps across the spray-painted white line, into the middle of the Devil’s Footsteps —“as magic.”

  She turns to look at us, grinning, and the Fury pushes one of its spidery black hands into her face, through her eye.

  Alice is still smiling, but she’s frozen in place, like a statue. The Fury, seeming to find what it was looking for, slips into Alice’s face, dividing into strands of living black smoke that crawl into her body through her ears, her eyes, her mouth, her nostrils, and the pores of her skin. Within a second, the demon is completely inside her. She’s still facing us. Her mouth is smiling, but her eyes look desperate. They roll in their sockets, as if she’s trying to move her body and can’t. Then they close.

  I’m moving backward, breaking my magic circle (what does it matter now?), backing away toward Elza and Kirk, who’s looking from Alice to the knife in Elza’s hand as though he doesn’t know which to be more frightened of. Alice’s eyes are still closed. Her mouth is open as if she’s screaming, but no sound is coming out.

  “What?” Kirk gasps. “What?”

  “Shut up,” Elza says. “She’s being possessed.”

  I point my sigil toward Alice, and Elza takes her place beside me, holding the bone knife out toward the stone circle. Kirk is still whining to us.

  “What the hell do you mean, she’s possessed? That’s not real. You’re nuts. I’m gonna get the police, mate. This is, like, a human-rights abuse —”

  “Be quiet!” Elza snarls.

  Alice’s eyes snap open. Her mouth is drawn out into a pained-looking smile.

  Before any of us can say anything, she lets out a shrill scream and turns away from us, vanishing into the undergrowth on the far side of the clearing. She’s gone before I can even let out my breath. Kirk’s flashlight illuminates an empty stone circle.

  “What just happened?” he breathes.

  “She’s been possessed by a demon,” I tell him.

  Kirk looks at us with the panicked eyes of someone who’s been told the plane is going down and there aren’t any parachutes.

  “Mate,” he says, “are you . . . are you, like, magic?”

  “Yes!” Elza shouts. “We’re, like, magic! And we’re all in big, big trouble!”

  “Kirk,” I say, “thanks to you and Alice, there’s an evil spirit loose in Dunbarrow. I hope you’re happy.”

  “I’ve got human rights,” he repeats.

  “This thing isn’t human!” Elza yells.

  “Well, what did you bring it here for?” he asks us.

  “Excellent question! Kirk bloody Danknott hits the nail right on the head!” Elza shouts. Why did we bring it here, Luke?”

  “What we’re going to do,” I tell Kirk, “is go and kill it. You”— I point at him, letting him see my sigil, in the vain hope it might confer on me some kind of authority over the living as well —“are going to stay here. And you are going to make sure she”— I point down at Ash —“is OK. And if she wakes up, tell her Alice Waltham is possessed and she went toward the school. Are you clear?”

  He doesn’t look at all clear.

  “Sit down!” Elza snaps in a schoolteacher tone. “Look after Ash!”

  Kirk sits down. He looks like he’s going to cry. He scratches his stubbly head.

  “I’m going to sue both of you,” he says. “This is, like, emotional abuse.”

  “I look forward to hearing from your lawyer,” Elza says. “Luke, we have to go!”

  I give Kirk one last look, and then I turn and rush off into the forest. We’ll just have to hope he stays put. Alice has a head start, but I can clearly hear her crashing through the undergrowth downhill. The demon is covering ground fast, trying to get out of the woods. Elza has taken Kirk’s
flashlight, and the beam casts crazy roiling shadows over the landscape as she runs. I’m already breathing hard; I haven’t been training properly since I got kicked off the school rugby team. I slip in mud, get my jeans caught in brambles.

  I can hear Alice ahead of us, and at one point the light illuminates a flash of her red Adidas top in the distance. I think we’re gaining on the demon. What I don’t understand is why it’s running.

  “Where is it taking us?” I yell to Elza.

  “I think it’s afraid of the knife!”

  “How do we get it out of Alice?”

  “I don’t know, Luke!”

  Hurtling downhill in the dark takes its toll. I fall twice, scrambling in the wet earth, pulling myself up and running on without even thinking about it. My Lacostes are going to be completely ruined. Branches clutch at my face and slap my arms; stinging nettles brush my hands and cause patches of welts to rise on the back of my fingers. We keep running.

  We break out of the woods, into the empty lot that separates them from the school playing fields. It’s full dark now, with a big white moon hanging above the rugby grounds and Dunbarrow High.

  There’s a small silhouette sprinting across the moonlit grass, heading for the school.

  “I can’t believe this,” Elza gasps beside me.

  “Bad luck,” I say.

  “I knew this was stupid! I said so!”

  “Yeah,” I say, watching Alice recede across the school grounds, “you did. Come on, we have to follow her.”

  Elza is flagging.

  “It’s the cigarettes,” I say. “Clog up your lungs. I’m always telling you.”

  “Shut up,” she rasps, “just shut up and run.”

  The possessed have the advantage of endless stamina, as far as I can tell. We manage a pained half-jog across the playing fields, and by the time we reach Dunbarrow High, the demon-ridden girl is nowhere to be seen. Elza has to stop and lean against a wall to catch her breath.

  “Where do you think it went?” I ask.

  “I’m not sure. . . .” Elza huffs. “I think those doors that are wrenched off their hinges might be a good clue.”

  Sure enough, the doors that lead into the school from the main yard have been smashed open. We make our way across the yard, crunching as we step in the broken glass around the doors.

  Alice Waltham is lying in the entrance hall, facedown.