Grey October (East Hollow Chronicles)

by Charlotte Munro

  ‘So, Elli… why did Charlie give you my necklace?’ I drop the question, it is like throwing a stone into the still ponds of anguish in Hell, and the ripples exaggerate and then fade into nothing. There is a silence that hangs between us, one that I am sure will stay, until she turns towards the antique shop – where I had thrown my pendant – her eyes haze over with an emotion, one I do not see often. Love. Happiness. This Charlie, he must mean a lot to her, the slight smile that brightens her face, only to retreat when she turns back to face me.

  ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t have taken it if he knew it were yours.’ She pauses, ‘but I’m sure it would have fetched a little more, coming from some Royal Cult of Womanisers.’

  ‘Royal Cult of Womanisers?’ I echo, I cannot help but laugh, leaning my head back into the cold tiled wall, looking up above me, into the second floor railings, my smile broadens. Kaiser is perched like an eagle, broad and proud, by his side I see Alpheus scraping back his hair and holding his hand to his forehead. I’m not doing that terribly.

  ‘You left a harem of heartbroken girls when you left Avalon.’

  ‘Then they are foolish girls to give out such a prized possession so eagerly.’

  ‘Their hearts?’ she says, the way she lifts her chin to meet my eyes, it accentuates her neck, fine and swan like. I see her eyes cloud over, a memory fading her from reality. It is one she holds dear, one that causes her eyes to blur with tears, sorrow catching in the corners of her eyes but refusing to fall. I would not probe for her memories, for her thoughts right now. If they are private enough to cause tears, then I will let them, they are doing one of my jobs for me.

  ‘No, their brains, because girls like that, do they really have brains if they throw themselves at some stranger?’

  ‘People are desperate to get out of East Hollow. They jump at the chance to escape…’

  ‘Really?’ I raise an eyebrow, extending my arms to each of my sides, gesturing to the vastness of the Mall, ‘escape all this? I can think of a place far worse to be imprisoned.’

  She says nothing, I wonder if she is trying to think about what I have said. I can be philosophical if I want. I can work.

  ‘You didn’t answer my question… why did he give you my pendant?’

  ‘He thought I deserved something special, thought I deserved something to take my mind off of the…’

  ‘Pain.’ I finish off her sentence. I said I wouldn’t probe her mind, but I can see it, sitting right there, right behind her eyes. The pain lines them, it frames her pretty little face with a darkness, a sorrow that will never leave her until she sees her sister again. Well, I’m afraid the pain, it will never cease…

  ‘I…’ she murmurs, in the space of her staring mindlessly, I capture her chin with my fingers, silencing what words that want to slip from her lips. She stares up, caught finally in my dazzling eyes.

  ‘Pain often becomes a regret. You regret feeling pain for someone, when you see what they have done to you.’ There’s my philosophy, but with a double edged sword, cutting her deep.

  ‘She has never hurt me. She has done nothing to hurt me… just her leaving... Just her leaving me here, alone.’ Those tears that had clung so tightly in the corners of her eyes start to fall, they run down her cheeks in warm lines of sorrow. She is so vulnerable, so easy to take into my arms right now and drag her back down to Hell with me. Her bottom lips quivers and I see she also starts to tremble; her sobbing has caused a few of the hierarchy to look over and I meet them with a glare, back off, she’s mine, she is my soul. My failure I must rectify.

  ‘She... she left me. I did everything with her, we had all the dreams, all the ideas… she just... Left me.’

  ‘How selfish of her.’ I word, it does not get an answer, but I hear Kaiser laughing above me, Alpheus saying something hushed. I take her shoulders with both hands, urging her to look up at me, which she does, but her watery eyes, teary and hazy do not see me, they see a handsome young man with a gentle touch, a warming smile and a reassuring eye. She does not see the Demon that killed her sister. She does not see the one that tore them apart…

  ‘Those dreams were both of your dreams; make your own, pave your own way, Elli. It’s what she would have wanted.’

  ‘You don’t know what she wanted, you don’t even know her, you don’t even know me!’ her voice raises and I keep my fingers gripping into her shoulders, trying in vain to silence her, to stop the stares and the voices lowering in the groups around us.

  ‘I know that you say things you don’t mean. You wish every day that it was you and not her. You believe inside of you that it is your fault she is gone. You cannot see that your friends are trying so hard to help you get out, meet others, try and forget. But you’ll never forget, it is something that will haunt you to the end of your days.’

  She says nothing, all I get is her mouth falling slightly, her eyes widening, the tears drying against her cheek, dying off into a single tear from each eye. And her hand lifting towards my face, and then a slap, hard and fast against my cheek. It resounds, like an echo in the Mall, bringing all to silence, eerie and impossibly stifling. I do not move, keep my head where she had forced it aside. I close my eyes and laugh, only watching her inch backwards, step by step.

  ‘You know nothing! You are a twisted, spoiled Prince in some weird cult who doesn’t know anything but trying to get his own way.’ Her voice quivers with rage, it boils and bubbles, bursting from her chest in a flurry of hate and tears. She has bottled up so much anger, so much bitterness, no wonder it floods from her lips an falls from her eyes. She turns and races away, she is surprisingly nimble, for someone sobbing and falling over themselves to get away.

  With her departure, the festivities start up again, only because of Merihim’s loud and obnoxious mouth spitting out how terrible I really am at trying to woo the females, how I may just have to resort to scraggly human scum – little did he know exactly who or what that female was.

  Alpheus and Kaiser join my side, each flopping to the ground from the second tier, brushing off their lapels, each with a chuckle, but it is Kai that speaks, close to my ear, out of the others’ hearing.

  ‘You do know she is still wearing your pendant, don’t you?’

  ‘Precisely what I planned.’

  ‘Her just running out of here?’ he laughs, but then catches on when I smile, smirking broader and broader, following the trail she ran with my eyes.

  ‘With that pendant, I can see where she is, I can find her again.’

  ‘And have a reoccurrence of this?’

  ‘I won’t fail this time, Kai. I won’t fail.’

  I can see it now, in my mind’s eye, my fingers brushing over the jewel of the pendant, the heat burning into her skin from the gold, molten against her neck. A simple spell cast upon the pendant and her, the longer she wears it, the more I can see. I can see her now, running out of the Mall, standing just outside of the entrance, cursing to herself as the wind slices into her. She has words upon her lips, they fall in sobs and I feel her ache in my hollow chest.

  He’s right. Oh god damn it, he’s right.

  Ellison –

  He’s right. Oh god damn, he’s right. How does he know? Am I that readable?

  My thoughts are all a rush, all a whirlwind; it matches the cold gusts that catch the leaves and whips the tree branches in my direction. It is late, but early for some; the clubs are still buzzing with excitement and alcohol. The pubs are still as busy with pool games and live television, but out on the dark, streetlamp lit streets, it is quiet, eerily so.

  The wind whips and howls past me, picking off a few stubborn leaves that cling to the naked branches; I dodge them as they fall into my path. I have an aim to get home, and quickly. Eyes forward, arms wrapped tightly around my frame, hood up. I ignore the flickers of the streetlamps as I walk under them, the loud cheer coming from a group of leering men and the loud cackle of drunken girls standing beside them.

  Keep walking. Just keep walking. My pace
is quick, foot after foot, straight and staying on the pavement. Home is just up and around the corner, give or take several minutes. Perhaps it is paranoia, but having a dead phone useless in my pocket, and feeling the creepy urge sliding up my spine and around my skin, like spiders crawling, is not making me feel any less paranoid. I’m alone. No phone, nothing to defend myself. Of course! Of course I am paranoid, I’ve just relived a great pain that tortures my insides every day, the memories still flash through my mind and I find myself stumbling, falling to my knees I grip the cold concrete, the wind whipping back my hood and my hair, slapping it against my face, matting against my tear-stained cheeks.

  How can he know how I feel? He’s just some spoiled, rich Prince from some… wait. He spoke with no accent, he spoke fluently English, a silver tongue with golden words. Was he twisting my mind with gullible lies? No, no he wasn’t, that was my assumption. I claw at my arms, lifting myself back up; the darkness surrounding me does not fill me with ease, the light above flickers, the time between it flickering back on takes longer and longer, before eventually the bulb dies out and drapes me with shadows. Velvety dark shadows.

  I have no moon or stars to light me, just the dark navy skies, rumbling with thunder and threatening to strike a few bolts of lightning, which are ready to pierce through those ominous rainclouds. I really should hurry up and get back home.

  I feel a sting in my palm, from slapping Evan so hard – I don’t know where that had come from. I have never lifted a hand to anyone. I have never thought of ever doing that. He brings out a whole new side, a whole new feeling of hate, of bitterness, not at him, but at my sister.

  Madi. No. I don’t know what I’m thinking… I’m torn, confused. But you did, you left me, you abandoned me here, alone, without you.

  The hurt still bites inside, it claws at my chest, numbing my heart with an iciness that I cannot shake. Losing part of your world, a big part, it numbs your insides, it tears you apart and leaves nothing but sorrow and a sadness that grows and grows and transforms itself into an ugly bitterness and anger. Jade said it is the grieving process; she had gone through it when she lost her Aunt. Though she was not as close as I was with Madi (We shared the same womb, we finished each other’s sentences, we were each other’s half and now I feel like I’m missing half of me.) Jade had been torn apart, she barely ate, and she barely slept. All she could think about was what was on the other side and why did it have to take her Aunt? Then came the anger, the bitterness. I think it has taken a year for me to push through the sadness and find that anger, that bitterness, but why am I directing it to someone that means so much to me, even now?

  ‘Hey, you got a light?’

  I raise my head up, the cracked pavement slabs had become a distraction from the billowing trees and the icy wind grating at my cheeks, but because of staring at my feet, I did not see that I was in the path of a stranger. I pull at my hoodie, tugging it as close as it can get to my body.

  ‘No, I don’t smoke.’ I say, staring up at him; his breath smells of stale smoke, of beer and something rather garlicky, herbal. I take a little step back, eying up the man with a curious stare, ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You alright?’ he places the cigarette behind his ear, underneath a slight flop of honey coloured hair; it flashes beneath the streetlight, but it does not pick out his eyes, they are dark, dark and threatening.

  ‘Fine.’ I state, taking a side step around him, only to feel his fingers clutch around my wrist, so tightly that I feel that my bones might splinter. I try to shove myself out of his grasp; all I see in the flashes of yellow light is his grin, it’s twisted and hollow. Sick and disturbing. I’ve read many things about this sort of thing. Horror stories emblazoned all over the tabloids. Men picking on girls at night. It fills me with a sinking nausea, in the pits of my stomach.

  ‘Where’s the fire?’ he seems to purr, it sounds more like a hiss, snake-like and eerie. The feeling of spiders crawling along my skin returns and I feel bile rising in my throat, a sinking feeling clawing at my stomach.

  ‘I need to get home.’

  ‘Oh, I can make you feel right at home.’ He leers, I feel his hot and stale breath upon my face before he shoves me back into the wall, his hand engulfing my neck, his fingers gripping into the soft flesh of my jaw. The clout with the wall sends a shudder up my spine, I lose my footing but force myself to stand. He leans in so close, his hips working their way close to mine, so that he pins me between himself and the wall. I cannot breathe, I fight it, I lift my hands, clawing at his hand with my nails, but he does not falter, he leans closer and closer until his hot breath pools my cheek, forcing me to close my eyes, trying to stop myself from throwing up the intensifying bile in my stomach.

  Ice fills my veins as the wind cuts through the street; all I can see in the darkness is the quiver of trees, their shadows dancing up the side of the buildings underneath the flicker of light, until the light then cuts off completely, leaving me to stare out into the darkness, anything but his pasty face, his gaunt cheeks and hollowed eyes.

  ‘You do realise that throwing yourself at women will never get you another date?’

  I whip my head to the side, doing so causes the man to let go, his grip faltering to his side. Through streaming eyes I see a figure standing just behind him, I cannot pick much out, but even through the darkness I can see the glint of sapphire.

  ‘Screw you.’ The man hisses, again like a serpent, but I feel his hands move to my waist, my thigh and then I hear him chuckle, the shadow behind the man. The lecherous guy turns his head, trying to make out the shadow behind him and I use this to my advantage; I pull my leg up and kick him square in the groin, sending him to the floor, him curling into a ball, the cigarette dropping to the floor from his ear, he writhes and swears, he tries to stagger to his feet but the distraction moves, placing his foot on the man’s chest.

  ‘No thank you.’ He chuckles, ‘You’re not my type.’ His laughter cuts even through the chilly breeze, even through the rustle of leaves; it chills me more than the wind itself. Whilst they are distracted, I take this as my getaway, racing off into the darkness I try to find another streetlight, one that works and doesn’t flicker, I cannot stand to be confined in the pitch dark.

  My heartbeats are thundering, even when I place my hand over my chest, to try and suppress it, it feels like it will explode out of my chest and run down the street without me. Once around the corner I brace myself against the wall, curling my fingers into my palm as I rest it against the cold brick of the old buildings, just outside of East Hollow town centre. It may only be several minutes’ walk away, but there is a broad spectrum. The heart of the town with its large Mall complex, rows and rows of shops, club and bars and pubs, a place rife with feeling, life. Just outside, the paths get darker, the houses grimier, the pavements more worn. Only then do you realise just how old this town really is.

  ‘The rat has crawled back into his hole.’

  My heartbeats stop, a pulse throbbing a vein in my forehead, with quaking fingers I pry my hand from the wall and step back, observing under the yellow light, the sparkling blue eyes I couldn’t get away from quick enough earlier. The quirky and mischievous smirk toying upon his lips, the slight superior lift of his chin as he looks down at me.

  ‘What are you doing?’ my teeth clatter against each other, the cold grips into me, clawing deeper and deeper into my bones; it doesn’t even feel like I am wearing a hoodie. I feel so exposed, so icy. I stare up, in the darkness I feel safe enough to keep eye contact – he cannot read me if he cannot see my eyes. I’ve learnt my eyes give away far too much, that is probably why he knows how I feel. He must have a good eye for staring into peoples souls through their eyes. Like they really are windows and he some expert voyeur.

  ‘East Hollow seems to have quite an infestation of Rats. How human they look nowadays.’ He muses, something I find quite strange, the way his eyes are steady upon me; I’m foolish, even through the dark and the flicker of light, he can read me
.

  ‘Did you follow me?’ I ask, trying desperately not to sound as suspicious as what my high voice is giving away.

  ‘You seem to have a draw to you. The Rat in Avalon, the Rat out here. You seem almost… enticing to them.’ He ignores my question, so I turn away and start up the pavement, the chattering of my teeth the only thing I hear above his footsteps, he’s following me. I don’t know if I should feel safer with him or the guy who had just accosted me…

  ‘And I’m not following. Simply passing through.’ He matches my pace, his strides almost glide, so graceful and elegant – he certainly holds himself like royalty; the push of his chest, the shoulders reclined ever so slight, it makes him appear taller, broader. But the glimmer in his eyes do not match the superiority. There is something darkening them, a taint to the flawless gemstone of his eyes. I tear my gaze from him, realising I am gawking. I quicken my pace, but he matches me once again, this time slightly ahead of me.

  ‘Not that you needed my help. A good kick to the groin would render any man helpless.’ He chuckles, and I cannot help but feel that between the two of them, this guy seems the safer of the two, even if he has a hauntingly beautiful smirk about him, a slight unease in his shoulders that tenses his arms as he drops them to the side.

  ‘Should I try it out again?’

  ‘You’ve slapped me once already.’

  ‘I… sorry about that.’ I slow my pace, seeing his shadow loom ahead, stretching out like crow wings his arms extend above his head, stretching in a lazy way he turns back to me, still the smirk upon his lips, still the mischievous glint in his eye. I see my house in the distance, the porch of the flats are still lit with the fluorescent bulb. I catch the glimpse of movement on the top floor, the kitchen light is on. Jade or Olivia must still be up.

  ‘And if I’m not mistaken you fell into me at Avalon, if I didn’t know any better, you were trying to get my attention.’ He breathes a long outward breath, his chest heaves and I can see all the knots in his shoulders loosen as he stops just outside the path to the flats – I am praying it is merely coincidental.