Dark Humanity

by Gwynn White

  “I’m done,” Ariel declared and the women turned back around. She felt naked in nothing but her knickers and the nightgown. A coat to cover her would have been nice, even in the warmth of the spring evening.

  “Good, come down to the river,” Lilia started. “Ellula, will you help me?”

  “Of course.”

  The three of them waded into the river until they were waist deep in water. Ariel could feel the gown getting heavier as it absorbed the water. It was cold and she didn’t want to even imagine what creepy crawlies were swimming around her legs. There was probably everything in there from fish to eels. She hoped that was all it was and nothing… bigger.

  Lilia started chanting something Ariel quickly realized was in another language. She gave up trying to work out exactly which language. It could have been anything from Spanish to Latin for all she knew. It could even have been something entirely different, a language unknown to her.

  “Hold your breath, Honey,” Miss Perry warned as Lilia placed a strong hand on the top of her head. Trying desperately not to panic, Ariel took a gulp of air and held it in while she was pushed under the water.

  Completely submerged, Ariel couldn’t keep the panic at bay. She tried to remain still but her lungs were starting to burn with their need for oxygen. If she didn’t take a breath soon, she was going to pass out. Already her vision was starting to swim with black spots.

  Just as she had first suspected, Lilia’s hand was strong. Ariel started fighting against it, she needed to get out of the water. Seriously. Like right now. Her arms flailed about as she tried to push Lilia away from her and free her from her grip.

  The nightgown wrapped around her legs and arms, making them feel ten times as heavy as they were. She pushed and kicked, trying desperately to surface.

  Ariel was on the verge of giving up, her energy was at an all time low. She couldn’t fight against them anymore. A sudden realization hit her, she was going to die. She had heard somewhere that drowning was a peaceful death. You kind of just slowly floated off out of the world. They lied. Ariel thought it was anything but peaceful as she started to swallow the water. Everything turned to black.

  It felt like hours had passed, but Ariel started to become conscious of hands reaching under her shoulders and pulling her upwards. She wondered if it were the angels to take her to heaven. Is that what people experienced when they had died? Was it a pulling sensation, or did they usually float? She couldn’t remember.

  “She’s breathing, come on we’ve got to get her to the shore.” The voice belonged to Miss Perry. Was she in heaven too? Did the Shadows take them all away in one mass slaying? Or was it Reggie? Was he really a wicked warlock, chasing them away to heaven? She couldn’t concentrate on just one thought, they all started to get muddled in her head.

  “Ariel, Honey, Ariel wake up. You’re okay. We finished the ritual,” Miss Perry sounded urgent, panicked even? Or was Ariel just imagining it?

  She was moved to her side to let the water run out of her mouth. Ariel opened her eyes, needing to see what heaven looked like. But instead of the pearly gates, she saw the women of the coven standing around her. Miss Perry was on the ground, patting her to wake up.

  “Is this real life?” She whispered, her voice just a croak out of her burning throat.

  Miss Perry relaxed her wrinkled brow and managed a smile. “Yes, it’s real. Are you okay?”

  Ariel tried to sit up, she needed to move and see for herself that they were still in the woods. Miss Perry helped her on one side and Kourtney on the other. The trees all spun around her for a moment before she got her bearings.

  “Did it work?” Ariel asked. “Am I ready?”

  “You were perfect,” Miss Perry answered. “We’re all ready to begin as soon as Reggie gets here.”

  “Can I change?”

  “No, you need to stay in the gown. I’m sorry. Come and sit by the fire so you can dry off.” With their help, Ariel limped over to the fire. They had set it up just like they had the first time she was invited into the woods. The fire sat in the middle of a circle of stones, providing light as well as heat.

  The wet gown clung to her. If Ariel was thinking clearly, she would have been embarrassed about the way it stuck to her curves. Yet somehow she couldn’t find the energy to.

  Staring into the fire, Ariel became aware of the others talking amongst themselves. She could tell Lilia and Miss Perry were concerned about something but she couldn’t hear enough to know why. She hoped they weren’t going to call it all off. She doubted whether she could go through the start of the ritual again. Lilia had called it a purification but she didn’t feel very pure. She felt nothing but hollow.

  She tried to remember why she was there and focused on Gabe. She needed to help him, she needed to free him from the curse. If she left now then he would forever be compelled to kill people and run away for the rest of his life. She had to be strong, muster the courage to continue from somewhere.

  Ariel hoped the next part of the ritual would be easier. As long as it didn’t involve the river again, she would be okay. She would force herself to be strong and trust in the witches surrounding her. Miss Perry wouldn’t do anything to cause her harm, she knew that for a fact. She wouldn’t let Reggie do anything to her.

  But, then again, would she be strong enough to stop him? They had said he was a powerful warlock. Would he be stronger than them combined? How powerful was Lilia? Would she be able to turn against her friend if the situation arose?

  If it weren’t for all the Shadows at his house and the weird vibe she got from Reggie, Ariel wouldn’t have even thought twice about his motives. But she had seen them and she had felt there was something strange about the warlock. It did nothing to ease her fears.

  Footsteps approached as rustling sounded through the trees. All the witches turned to face the clearing, waiting. Ariel did the same, her instincts telling her to run and get as far away from there as possible. But instead, she stood with the others and waited.

  Reggie emerged from the trees. He wore a long black cloak that brushed the ground as he walked. He didn’t look like the eccentric old man Ariel had met at his house. He stood tall, confident and powerful. He had completely changed.

  “Are we ready, ladies?” He asked, his arms open and wide for his acceptance.

  “Everything is prepared how you instructed,” Lilia replied for the group.

  “Excellent. We shall begin.”

  Ariel’s brain told her to run but her feet stayed in place. Nobody asked her if she was ready and if they did, she would have said no.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Stay still and don’t move,” Reggie instructed Ariel. They stood next to the fire, the coven forming a circle around them. Lilia stood on one side and Miss Perry on the other. They all held hands to complete the circle.

  Ariel could feel her entire body shaking with fear. She couldn’t remember a time when she had been so scared. Not even when Gabe had tried to strangle her. She trusted him, she knew she could get through to him. Reggie was something completely different. He didn’t have an attachment to her, she was just a vessel, a means to an end. What if the power became too much and he reached the point of no return this time? Maybe that was his intention the entire time?

  She tried desperately to push the thoughts away. It was the negative thoughts that fed the Shadows and she couldn’t have them interfere too. The last thing she needed was them mucking everything up again. She tried to quiet her mind, switch it off altogether. It was for Gabe, she had to do it. She pictured him in her mind and focused on the happy future they would have together.

  Reggie started to chant, it sounded different to the one Lilia had used in the water. He was muttering something under his breath with his eyes closed. His brow was knitted with intensity as he concentrated.

  Slowly, he raised his hand and placed it on her shoulder. It felt heavy, too heavy, but she wasn’t going to shrug it off. It was just part of the ritual, she told her
self over and over again. Focus on Gabe, not Reggie, he was the important one. She closed her own eyes, hoping it would help.

  All of a sudden an intense heat ran through her body. It started at her shoulder and poured out of her feet into the ground. She flushed red with the sudden change in temperature and could feel beads of sweat starting to form on her brow. She glanced at the fire, it didn’t seem to change so where was the heat coming from? She could only conclude that it was emanating from Reggie himself.

  She looked up at Reggie, his eyes were now open and staring directly into her own. She tried to focus but it was as if her thoughts were no longer her own. She saw things in her mind that she didn’t recognize. Memories that weren’t hers and had no place in her mind.

  “Welcome, fellow Wiccan,” Reggie said, speaking to Ariel.

  “You shall not find us,” Ariel replied with a voice that didn’t belong to her. She was just as surprised to hear the words as the others.

  “This feud has been going on long enough. I demand you lift the enchantment. We must find your kin.”

  “Never!” Ariel screamed. Her arms shot up to grip Reggie’s. He tried to rid himself of her hold but it wasn’t as easy as he thought it would be. She was strong, much stronger than Ariel would normally have been.

  She put everything she had into fighting Reggie, feeling such a hatred that she knew wasn’t her own. Ariel wasn’t in control of her body and had no say about what she said or did. Someone else was pulling the strings, someone she didn’t want to think about.

  “Let me go!” Ariel yelled as Reggie managed to get both of her hands behind her back. She was facing the woods and unable to move.

  The trees started to sway violently back and forth as a wind started to whip around them. The fire burst upwards as the wind kicked it up into a frenzy. The witches in the circle had to grip each other tight to keep their hands together.

  Ariel felt a burst of energy from the wind, a part of her knew she was the one causing it. Not exactly her anyway, but the person controlling her body at that moment. She fed off the element and used every muscle she had to pull her hands down.

  Reggie was taken by surprise at the movement, he couldn’t hold her any longer as she struggled against his body. She quickly spun around to face him, his wrinkled face still in shock before it creased into a determined grimace.

  “We have to find your kin,” he warned. “You will not win against me. Concede now before I have to hurt you.”

  “My kin are safe. I will never let you find them.”

  “Watch me.”

  Ariel didn’t have a chance to react as Reggie raised his hands and started to yell a chant at her. “Spirit of the ancestor, you will be removed, your magic no longer able to fester, let the light and good be proved. So mote it be.”

  He repeated his words over and over again. Ariel could feel the power emanating from him. She staggered backwards, unable to stand with the force. She was losing energy, getting fatigued with just the act of standing.

  Inside her mind, the spirit that had taken over her body was struggling. She could tell it was trying to summon the power to fight back but a part of it also knew the warlock to be too strong to beat it. There was something else there too – fear. The spirit was genuinely scared about what would happen to her tribe if the protection spell was lifted. Even though Ariel herself was being kept to one small part of her own mind, she could still feel sympathy for the spirit. It was a primal urge to protect your family, even if you had been dead for hundreds of years.

  “I demand the breaking of the protection!” Reggie finally screamed, putting everything he had behind the action.

  Ariel felt the spirit inside of her grow weak. She collapsed onto her knees on the ground. She couldn’t take it anymore and, without the spirit, she had nothing to energize her.

  Little by little, the spirit left her, vanishing back into nothing before she regained control over her body again. Everything looked different. Reggie didn’t seem as big or powerful, the witches looked kind again. The forest trees were less green and the fire not as bright. Ariel didn’t even realize she had been seeing with the spirit’s eyes until they were gone.

  She couldn’t move or speak, there wasn’t one part of Ariel that didn’t feel like a lead weight. She looked around at the witches, still unmoving from their circle, they wore a mixture of concern and triumph. Miss Perry especially seemed more concerned than happy as she locked eyes with Ariel.

  “I’m okay,” Ariel managed to get out between taking gasps of air into her lungs. The ritual in the lake was nothing to going up against Reggie’s full force. It felt like she had been crushed in a vice and then run over by a truck. A conglomerate of emotions.

  Movement in the corner of her eye brought Ariel out of her trance. As she looked into the woods, Shadows were everywhere. Not just one or two but hundreds. She had never seen so many in one place before and now knew exactly what they could do after the incident in her bedroom.

  She wanted to run away, go somewhere to escape from the creatures, but where could she go? They seemed to be everywhere these days, nowhere was safe anymore. Ariel tried to point, tried to scream, but her body wouldn’t co-operate.

  They started to get closer and leave the safety of the trees. The Shadows approached the circle behind the witch’s backs. The women were completely unaware of their presence. Only Ariel could see them.

  She mustered every piece of energy she had and took a deep breath. “The Shadows. They’re here.” It came out as half a shriek and half a sob. The witches turned but they just stared into the trees, confused.

  Her voice seemed to fuel the Shadows. They started running towards them all, their sharp teeth bared as they moved on their haunches. Ariel wanted to run but she knew she was powerless against them. Even if she had the energy, she wouldn’t be able to outrun them. The Shadows were far faster than she was and far more cunning. They would have her before she could even take one step.

  “Shadows,” she muttered again. They were at the circle now, but they left the witches alone. Instead, they headed directly for her.

  “No!” She screamed one last time before they were upon her. Hundreds of the creatures were attacking her, crawling all over her like cockroaches. She was knocked to the ground, finally succumbing to their pushes.

  Before Ariel knew it, she was covered in the creatures. A sea of their black bodies replaced the whiteness of her dress. Through it all, she stared at the witches. They weren’t doing anything to help her. Were they sacrificing her? Was that what was needed to complete the ritual? Why weren’t they doing anything? Why were they just standing there?

  Ariel wanted to scream but couldn’t as she realized the Shadows weren’t just crawling all over her, they were eating her. Sharp teeth tore through her skin, sending waves of pain over her. The last thing she saw before she blacked out were the faces of the witches – just watching.

  Chapter Thirty

  “Ariel, wake up,” the voice belonged to Kourtney. “We did it, we lifted the protection spell.”

  Ariel heard the voice but she didn’t understand it. Perhaps she was just dreaming, lost in a sea of darkness, set adrift by the Shadows.

  “Wake up, come on.”

  “Is she any better?” Miss Perry asked from somewhere in the distance.

  “She’s not waking up,” Kourtney replied. Ariel felt herself being shaken, hands were gripping her shoulders. They were too big to belong to the Shadows, were they Kourtney’s? That couldn’t be right, they were standing in their circle.

  Ariel tried to open her eyes, she managed to get one open before the other. Everything was a little blurry but it was definitely Kourtney peering over her. To her side was Karen. They both looked worried.

  “What?” She managed to get out. Just the one word would have to do until she could remember how to speak again.

  Kourtney smiled with relief. “You’re okay, great. We broke the protection spell, we can find the Morbose people. You helped
us, Ariel, we can do it now.”

  They helped her to sit up. Once she got used to her body again, Ariel realized she had a killer headache but was otherwise unharmed. “The Shadows…”

  “There were no Shadows,” Karen said carefully, trying to work out what the problem was.

  “But they…”

  “You passed out but there were no Shadows.”

  Ariel pulled back the gown to show them the cuts and bruises that would be there from the Shadow’s attack. But there was nothing, just smooth skin. “They ate me.”

  “You might have been hallucinating,” Kourtney offered. “A whole lot of magic was sent your way.”

  It had seemed so real, so terrifyingly real. Ariel shook her head, trying to take it all in. The Shadows had been solid, they had been moving, surely it couldn’t have all just been her imagination?

  “We’re going to scry again,” Karen continued. “Do you want to come and watch?”

  Ariel didn’t know what she wanted. To have the whole world make sense again would have been a good start. Yet somehow she didn’t think she would be able to get that. Instead, she found herself nodding.

  The two girls helped her to stand and guided her towards the river. She sat on the edge where Lilia, Miss Perry, and the other members of the coven stood around a rock pool. There was only one person missing.

  “Where’s Reggie?” She asked.

  “He went home,” Kourtney explained. “He was pretty drained and we didn’t need him to scry so we suggested he left.”

  Ariel was relieved to hear it was just the coven there again. She watched them perform their ritual to get the rock pool to fill with images. She knew she should be keener to see what it would reveal but she was exhausted – both physically and emotionally. She left it to the experts to scry.