by Amy Casey
She’d grown the Hemlock. She’d killed Krissy Palmer with it. She’d made sure Peter got hold of some Hemlock, putting the idea in his head to use it to hurt Mark.
She’d framed him.
She was behind all of this.
“My dad might’ve been afraid of you and your people—whoever they are—for whatever reason,” I said. “But I’m not. And that’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m here in spite of everything you’re telling me.”
Janice’s smile widened. It widened to its biggest length it had been since I’d stepped into the tunnel. And as it did, I thought I saw something behind her eyes. Something less than human. Something… demonic.
“And that’s the mistake you’ve made,” she said. “You’re too arrogant. You’re too confident. And that’s exactly why you are perfect.”
She lifted her hands and I felt something. Something building up deep inside my chest. A force. A force unlike anything I’d ever felt. A force that made my heart race, my mouth dry, my muscles tighten. I tried to fight back against it. Tried to resist it. But it was too strong. Too powerful.
And I started to wonder if perhaps I’d been naive coming here after all. If I’d made the wrong decision, and that I wasn’t powerful enough. Because of closure I had powers. I had abilities. But I hadn’t really built myself up. I hadn’t really trained myself.
Janice saw that. She saw me and she saw my weaknesses and she was making the most of them.
I gritted my teeth. And the more I gritted them, the more I felt the force deteriorating. Which was a kind of weird irony because I’d always had a bit of a tooth grinding problem. Who knew that it might actually be my saviour after all?
I fell to the ground. Hurt my right side. Tasted blood in my mouth. My eyes were blurred. My head span.
I looked up and over at Janice. I knew I needed to cast a spell. I knew I needed to do something. I needed to act—fast.
But then I noticed something else.
Janice wasn’t facing me anymore.
She was facing Mary, who was still propped up there, still dangling in thin air.
I saw the way she was looking at her. The malice in her eyes. That smile across her face.
And I knew that something was going to go wrong here.
Something was going to happen.
Something I had to try and prevent. No matter what.
I reached out a hand. Tried to cast a spell. Something that would knock Janice out of her trance. Hard magic, I didn’t care. If there was any time to use it, it was now.
But then just as I prepared to use it, Janice turned back at me and glared.
“We have more than enough people here to complete the square now,” she said. “Krissy Palmer. Sarah Seeks. Just two more…”
Then she looked back at Mary.
“Time to start with your friend.”
I tried to push back.
But then my body froze.
And Mary began to descend…
Chapter 44
I watched Mary begin to descend and I knew there was no more time for messing around. There was no more time for stalling. There was no more time for playing games.
Janice was the murderer. And whether I liked it or not, it was up to me to bring her to justice before she killed Mary. Before she killed me and closed the square once and for all.
I pulled myself to my feet. It was an effort to do so. I was going weak at the knees. Janice must’ve cast some kind of spell that was weighing me down, pushing back against me.
But I couldn’t give in to any of this. I had to fight. Only through fighting could I ever hope to prevail.
I stood up as Mary edged closer towards Janice. And as I saw my friend descending, totally unconscious, totally peaceful-looking, I felt guilty for not listening to her. For allowing myself to get caught up in the web of this mystery. Perhaps if I hadn’t, she wouldn’t be here right now. Perhaps if I hadn’t, neither of us would be here right now.
But I couldn’t dwell on that. I couldn’t allow it to consume me.
So I took a deep breath and lifted my hands.
If I wanted to win here, I was going to have to invoke magic as well as I could.
It might get messy. It might backfire.
But it wasn’t like I had many options right now.
I saw Mary getting further towards Janice. Saw Janice’s evil old eyes widening as she did, preparing herself to take Mary out.
And then I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and focused as much as I could on the dark forces inside me.
“Carrilius Septermus,” I said.
I expected something more dramatic when I said those dreaded words, in all truth. Because uttering those words was supposed to invoke a harnessing of pure, unfiltered power. The kind of power that you weren’t supposed to invoke because it was far too much for a mere witch to handle, usually.
So I at least expected a tingle in my fingers, or at the back of my neck.
When none of that happened, my scepticism began to grow.
I looked over at Janice. And then at Mary.
Mary hadn’t stopped descending.
Janice’s focus was still clearly there.
I felt a grumble in my stomach. Did I want to say the words again? Was that the kind of risk I really wanted to take? It was risky enough harnessing the dark forces in the first place. If I tried harnessing them again, I could do myself real damage. I could do everyone in the surrounding area real damage.
I tasted bitterness in my throat and remembered what Dad told me all those years ago about getting involved in the “battle of generations.”
“Once you’re in it, there’s no getting out, Stella. You’re either a soldier or a passer-by. And believe me, there’s no shame in being a passer-by in the battle of generations.”
I heard him. I heard exactly what he’d said.
But as much as I wanted to honour his wishes, I knew I couldn’t give up.
I was in too deep as it was.
“Stuff it,” I said, taking in a sharp deep breath. “If this backfires… well I’m sorry. But stuff it.”
I closed my eyes.
Took a deep breath.
And this time, I calmed myself, steadied myself, as well as I could.
“Carrilius Septermus.”
I didn’t feel fireworks when I said the words. I didn’t feel a tingling in my body, or anything like that.
But I felt something.
A shift. A shift in my consciousness, almost as if a door that had always been there without me realising was opening up.
And as much as it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, I knew that this was it. Or at least it had to be it. Because there was absolutely no chance I was making it out of this alive—and making sure Mary survived—if it wasn’t the dark forces I was invoking.
I brought my hands together in a swift motion. They felt fluid, like they were knives cutting through soft butter.
And then I focused my attention right on Janice.
“Bring her down,” I said.
Something remarkable happened.
Something that, although I should’ve been prepared for, I had to admit was still totally unexpected.
Mary stopped descending.
But Janice didn’t.
In fact, Janice came tumbling down, crashing towards me.
She landed in a heap right in front of me. And the old, caring part of me wanted to go over to her. To check she was okay, and that she wasn’t hurt.
But when she looked up at me, there was something… inhuman about her. Like something had cracked and shifted inside her, and there was something behind her eyes, staring right at me with total malice.
“You… you should not have done that,” she said.
She reached out a hand and out of nowhere, a blast of energy surged towards me.
I tried to jump out of its way. Tried to dodge it, to shimmy past it.
But it was too late.
The energy bolt hit me.
It sent me flying back.
When I landed, I hit my head. Hard. Very bloody hard.
And as soon as I managed to regain my composure, to bring myself to roll over and turn around, I saw Janice crouching right over me.
She looked demonic. Possessed. And I realised that whoever I thought Janice was, was long gone. Whether the poor old woman had even been in there at all, or whether she’d been waiting for this moment her whole life, biding her time, I didn’t know. I got the feeling that one day, I’d find out. One day, when I was ready to understand.
But right now I just knew that I was screwed.
I went to throw some more magic at her.
But then my hand slammed down beside me.
I tried to shake free of the invisible grip of this woman.
But I was stuck.
“Maybe you don’t have to be the one who dies, after all,” she said, a smile stretching across her face.
I narrowed my eyes. “What?”
“Maybe Mary can be the third. And maybe, just maybe, I can be the fourth.”
She pressed her weight against me, the full force of darkness behind her.
“And then you will be blamed for the murders for the rest of your life.”
Chapter 45
And you will be blamed for the murders for the rest of your life…”
I heard those words as Janice pinned me down and I heard exactly what she was threatening me with. It wasn’t me that closed the square. For some reason, it was Janice herself. The entity that possessed her body took her life and closed the square for another seventy-seven years, until the time came for the square to be closed all over again.
And I was the powerful one who was going to be framed for the murders.
I was the one who was going to be held responsible for the killings.
Just like how Marty Wilkinson, the scientist, must’ve been framed all those years ago.
Janice glared down at me and smiled, wickedness across her face. “Of course, that’s one way it could play out. But now you surely see that the possibilities are endless. That my opportunities are limitless, and yours are running out, moment by moment. So give in, Stella. Stop resisting and allow it to happen. The square has been closed every seventy-seven years for a millennia. And it will close again.”
I wanted to tell Janice that I wasn’t exactly doing much in the way of resistance as it was. She had me pinned down and on my arse, for one.
But then I felt that force field between us and I wondered. The hard magic I had invoked. Was that what I could feel between us right this moment? Was that the very thing stopping Janice from taking the next step towards closing the circle?
Hell. Whatever it was, I wasn’t complaining.
“I want… I want to know one thing,” I said. But in all truth, as I lay there in the darkness, speaking wasn’t easy. My lungs felt like they were being compressed. Truth be told, I didn’t think I’d ever felt this broken down; this weak.
“Anything,” Janice said.
“Were you ever, like, a sweet old lady who admires Piers Morgan? Or have you always been this… this monster?”
Janice laughed. “The very fact that you have to ask that question at all shows how naive you are. It shows just how little you understand.”
“Yeah. I’m well aware that’s what ‘naive’ means. Thanks for the gran-splaining.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Just… just cut through the crap and be straight with me, okay? If you’re going to kill me then you might as well stop speaking in riddles.”
I saw the displeasure on Janice’s face then. It was as if my sudden shift in how I was speaking had thrown her, somehow. “Then what do you want to know?” she asked.
I looked down at Janice’s frail old knees. “If you’re still Janice, then you still have her ailments, right?”
Janice frowned. “I don’t underst—”
She didn’t finish talking.
I kicked at her knees as hard as I could.
Part of me thought it was going to be in vain. Part of me suspected that my idea of Janice as a frail old woman really was just that—an idea, after all.
But something remarkable happened when my feet made contact with her knees.
She buckled and fell face flat onto the ground.
Like a little old lady.
I jumped back to my feet. Took a few steadying breaths, even though I knew time wasn’t exactly on my side.
And then I held my ground, lifted my hands and shouted a paralysing spell, directing the hard magic right at Janice—and hoping to God I hadn’t pushed my luck with all this hard magic invoking.
“Parillyus Hardicus!”
A bolt of electrifying energy blasted from my hands. It was so sudden and so jolting that I didn’t even aim it correctly, and it went flying past Janice and off into the distance.
Janice looked up at me. I saw the concern in her eyes. Like for the first time, she was realising that the person she was messing with wasn’t just going to back down anytime soon.
She snarled, muttered something under her breath, and lifted her hand.
I felt sharpness hit my chest. And the urge I felt right away was to give in to it, because it was harsh and it was painful.
But no.
Instead of doing that, I held my hands up, twisted my arms so they were shielding me from the power surging my way.
And then, confidently, assuredly, I looked Janice in the eye and I took a deep breath.
“Reverso.”
Nothing happened.
Janice raised her eyebrows. “Reverso?”
“Well. It’s kind of like ‘reverse’, isn’t it? So I just figured…”
“Jesus,” Janice said. “You’re an actual idiot. I can’t allow myself to be defeated by an actual idiot.”
Then she slammed a bolt of energy across my legs and I fell to the ground again.
I lay there, rested on my back. I saw Mary close to my side. It felt like this dark void we were in was disconnected from reality somehow, out of time and place as I knew it.
And as I lay there, weakened from the blow, I watched as Janice crawled on top of me.
“I take back what I said about framing you,” she said. “I’ve decided I’ve got more life to live yet. That’s just something you’re going to have to live with. Or die with.”
She lifted her hands and wrapped them around my throat.
I felt myself struggling at first with just how tight they were. My heart began to pound. I tried to kick out, tried to thrash around, but it was no use.
And as I lay there, struggling like a fish out of water, I felt lost. Like I’d totally lost. Like everything I’d been working towards had been for nothing. Because although I knew the truth about the killings, knowing the damned truth wasn’t going to make even the slightest bit of difference.
I was still going to die here.
I looked over at Mary and I felt my eyes welling up. She’d always warned me about my nosiness. About how it was an asset of mine. How I should stop sneaking into people’s heads because it was unnatural. And now she was going to die too. All because of me. All because of me.
I looked at her and as the strength seeped from my body, I managed to open my mouth as I shed a tear and say the only two words I could.
“I’m sorry.”
But then something happened. Something happened, right as I was on the brink of giving up. I couldn’t explain it. But it was like a memory was flashing in my mind. A memory of something Mary had said. Something she’d told me as we stood in Witchy Delights watching the world go by.
“If there’s one thing you are good at, it’s getting people to do what you want them to.”
I thought about how Mary had said that. And although I’d never thought I’d been delving into people’s minds and swerving their opinions, although I convinced myself that went beyond my ethical code… I thought to the times I’d been in deep upset or states of distress and how I’d managed—so
metimes, just sometimes—to change people’s minds. How I’d managed to reverse their opinions.
Maybe there was nothing in it.
Or maybe there was something in it.
Maybe I’d been harnessing hard magic without realising.
Just maybe…
I took a breath, knowing damn well it might be the last breath I ever took. Then I looked up at Janice. Right into her eyes.
“You’re going to let go of me,” I said.
Janice smiled. And that smile was enough to confirm what I suspected already. She wasn’t going to let go of me. She’d already won. I was weak, and there was nothing I could do.
But no.
I couldn’t think like that.
I dug my teeth into my bottom lip and I refocused on Janice. I imagined I was staring into her mind, but that her mind was a big, vast pool of water. If I could look into it deeply enough, I could see what was in there.
I could plant something in there.
“You’re going to let go of me!”
I felt a pushback. Like Janice was resisting me. And that just buoyed me even more because it made me realise that this wasn’t just an execution. This was a fight. I had a chance. I actually had a chance.
So I brought to mind all my pain. I brought to mind the pain of losing my mum. I brought to mind the detachment with Dad. I brought to mind Mary, and how guilty I felt for her being here, and Rocky and Annabelle wherever they were, and Beatrice back at home wondering… well, screw Beatrice, actually. She was probably happy to have me out of the way.
I felt all this power inside me, all of this negative energy. And even though I didn’t understand how this was working, how any of it was working, I felt like I was pushing it up. Up towards Janice. Up towards her, into her mind.
I gritted my teeth, my body still pinned to the ground. I felt myself being pressed down, harder and harder. Every instinct in my body told me to stop this because I was putting myself in danger, like I was holding my hand towards a fire.
But with all I had, I pushed back.
