HEX

by Stacy Charasidis

  “Things are going to get worse, with the townsfolk as well. There’s a witch craze going on. It’s not rational, like Joe said, but that’s what’s happening. People are starting to believe what we would normally consider nonsense. Of course, the irony is…”

  “It’s actually true?” Luke finished.

  “Yes,” Sadie said with a laugh.

  “So, if this event is inevitable, this hex, then we need to change our tactics and do everything in our power to sabotage it and stop it.”

  “Exactly, so I’m going to spy on the other side, go deep under cover,” Sadie said. “I’m sick of being used. I’m going to show her a thing or two, myself.”

  “So tonight…”

  Sadie shook her head. “I won’t be going. I suspect that once Willow is strong enough, she’ll be able to access my knowledge and memories and use them against you. Better I know nothing from now on. I’m going to need to bury this conversation somewhere deep.”

  “So, just until Halloween…”

  “Luke, you are the smartest boy I know. Nathalie is proving to be unusually perceptive. I have no doubt that together you two will figure this out. I’m expecting that All Saint’s Day will be our first date after we destroy that witch.”

  Luke nodded. His face was bleak.

  “I’m not gone yet, though,” Sadie said as she pushed him back down on the blanket.

  The Fairgrounds

  Wayman and Taline watched from the stable as Beth distributed drinks and flirted with the men lined up for their free cup.

  “There is something wrong with that girl,” Wayman muttered. “I just can’t put my finger on it.”

  “She has definitely been tampered with somehow. Damn this hex. Since it was put in motion, and the town sealed, I can’t see. It’s like I’m blind,” Taline complained. “She must have a glamour.”

  “We couldn’t see anything before,” Wayman growled in frustration.

  Taline shifted over, her long silvery hair swaying. She kissed Wayman on the neck, pressed her front to his back and wrapped her arms around his waist. She looked at Beth carefully. “I feel mortal.”

  Wayman just laughed.

  Then something interesting happened.

  “Hellooo,” Wayman said in surprise as he watched a large, leather clad man elbow his way through Beth’s line.

  “Oh my God, Wayman, is that Venius?” Taline asked in shock, stepping out from behind Wayman to get a better look. “I thought he was banished.”

  “He was,” Wayman said grimly. “I didn’t know he had come through.”

  “Me neither. He’s hard to miss. Where has he been?”

  “Probably hiding in shadows…and hunting. I should have known when they reported it in the newspaper,” Wayman said.

  People were grumbling as Venius stopped and looked at Beth. He grabbed her arm and she laughed. “Take over for me,” she yelled to one of the girls near her and she allowed herself to be dragged off.

  “That can’t be good,” Wayman said. “Stay here.”

  Wayman followed the couple discreetly as they left the fairgrounds and entered the encircling woods. Wayman watched as Venius looked briefly at Beth before waving his hand in front of her face and giving her a kiss. Setting a human “no-see” spell around them, he set Beth against a tree, and lifting her skirt, started thrusting himself into her like a power drill. Beth moaned and wrapped her arms and legs around him while Venius grunted as he worked his hips. Within minutes she gasped and he roared, his eyes glowing blue as he ejaculated. She lay against him bonelessly, and they stayed like that for a few minutes before he withdrew and set her on her feet.

  “Okay?” he asked in his guttural voice.

  “Okay,” she replied.

  Venius took her in his arms and kissed her thoroughly before disappearing into the woods. Beth smiled for a brief minute and looked into the air, but before Wayman could check what she was looking at, Beth gave a frustrated “oooh!” and stomped angrily back to the fair.

  Wayman was shocked. Intercourse, public or private, was something he was used to with his race, but a kiss? Venius kissing? Something was definitely up with that girl, and very wrong with Venius.

  When he arrived back, Taline was waiting impatiently. “So?”

  “She’s pleasuring him…”

  “Oh,” Taline said losing interest. Big deal.

  “But…he kissed her.”

  That got her attention. “WHAT? That’s impossible! Venius is…”

  “I know, but he just made out with her like a mortal teenager. He asked her if she was okay! I am completely freaked out myself, to use a human expression.”

  Taline spread her arms out and tilted her head back. Power rolled along her arms. “I think I just figured something out.”

  In the evening, when Dean and Nathalie arrived, Wayman had just watched the hay wagon head off for the Witch-Hunt Excursion. “Playing with fire,” Wayman muttered.

  Luke arrived without Sadie.

  “What happened?” Dean asked

  “Sadie and I broke up.”

  “What! Man, what’s she thinking?” Dean asked angrily.

  “It’s the right decision,” Nathalie said to Luke, with sympathy.

  Luke nodded.

  “The timing is wrong for both of you to be together in every way, publicly and privately,” she added.

  Wayman nodded his agreement and his eyes shone with approval as he looked at Luke.

  Luke basked in the glow.

  “It’ll look like you deserted her, especially after all the press she’s been getting. They’ll call you ‘Bastard Barrington,’” Dean said.

  “I’ll support that one hundred percent. Display her as the victim,” Nathalie said. “Maybe she’ll catch a break and finally get some empathy from this town.”

  A true friend, Luke thought, pleased. “That’s a wonderful idea, Nat. Sadie will get some sympathy…let’s hope this works in her favour. Right now she needs all the help she can get,” he said worriedly, remembering the hate coming from the old woman. “It’s only until Halloween,” he added.

  “So she confirmed the date,” Wayman said.

  “Yes, the date’s important on the witches’ calendar, and to Willow as well. She needs to be at the height of her power to pull this off.”

  “God, why do we have to wait? Just get it over with,” Dean whined grouchily. The constant tension and worry was draining.

  “The time has to be auspicious, young Mr. Croft,” Nettie answered as she entered the barn with a plate of cookies.

  “Sadie broke up with me,” Luke said mournfully, reaching for the goodies.

  “Smart lass,” Nettie replied briskly, smacking his hand as he tried to take the plate.

  Luke rubbed his hand and looked at her balefully.

  “She has her part to play, and she’s going to do it. You do yours,” Nettie said sternly.

  “What’s mine? What help can I be?” Luke asked in despair, reaching and taking one cookie.

  “You mean you don’t know? Och, laddie, are ya dense? You see true, dontcha? Aren’t you The Seer? Do you not have the gift of true sight as passed down from your ancestor, Jacob?”

  “Er…” Question marks seemed to be popping out around Luke’s head.

  “Have you not seen Willow with Sadie plain as day?”

  “Yes…funny that, I thought I was going crazy. You know, geniuses…”

  “Pah! The rest of us just see Sadie, that’s why no one suspects anything’s wrong, least of all possession. You can see the other entity. Nothing is hidden from you. It’s the gift of true sight, ye have.”

  Luke was thinking furiously. “She called me that, on the library steps. She called me The Seer.”

  Nettie nodded. “One of the reasons Willow hates you is because she can’t get away with things under your nose. It was the same with Jacob. It was verra disorienting for him at the beginning, to be sure. He had the true sight. Good thing too as Willow had bewitched half the coun
cil to believe her…”

  Again Nathalie looked at her strangely. Wayman caught the look and cleared his throat. “Well, enough with the history lesson, Nettie my dear.”

  “Och, of course, ahem. Didn’t mean to bore… Just one more bit of history to clear up. The Seer always has a chronicler, a Lore Keeper. Not blessed with true sight of course, but one able to put the pieces of the puzzle together, and one who can’t be bewitched. A strategist I believe you’d call it now.”

  “That’s me,” Nathalie said quietly. “We’re a pair, just like Jacob and Dame Parqhuar were. Luke and I are paired.” She knew it in her bones.

  “As it should be. The curse is meant for revenge, so the circumstances have to be the same.”

  “Do you mean she’s going to kill more children?”

  “Och, no. She’s marked her people for death. She has touched them all in some way, and marked their homes with blood.”

  “Sadie’s dance around the square,” Luke breathed as realization struck.

  Nathalie was looking at Nettie suspiciously. “How do you know so much? You’re a stranger.”

  “Hmmmph,” was Nettie’s reply.

  “Well, to Barrington, anyway,” Nathalie amended apologetically.

  “As Wayman said, I have a knack for history, and keeping up with current events is not hard. Lots of talk around the ovens at the bakery…gossip at the fair. A daily newspaper full of interesting tidbits.”

  “Hmmmph,” was Nathalie’s reply.

  “There’s something else you should all be aware of,” Taline said seriously. “Since the hex was set in motion, the town has changed.”

  “Yeah, I’ll say,” Dean replied.

  “People are wild, and now they’re getting violent,” Luke said, looking toward the fair crowds.

  “They’re also more…how shall I say it…amorous?” Taline asked archly. Startled, they all turned red and she laughed. “I know this because Wayman just saw an emotionally dead being kiss a human girl.”

  “So?” Dean said curiously.

  “Kissing is…very private for us. It’s an act of love that means more than sex. Now, I don’t want the details of your love lives, trust me. But Willow used sex as a means to an end. In the 1590’s she would have been considered a scarlet woman and shunned.”

  “Aye, if it weren’t for the powerful spell she had cast so people wouldn’t pay attention to what she was doing.”

  “Except she couldn’t fool the strategist in town. Am I right, Nettie?” Nathalie asked pointedly.

  “My, you’re a smart lassie, putting two and two together like that,” Nettie said with round, innocent eyes.

  Taline frowned at them for interrupting. “My point is, if people, and beings, who don’t normally love are falling in love, then we can surmise that there’s a foreign influence magnifying, even modifying, people’s normal emotions. Love, passion, lust, jealousy, revenge…all these emotions will be very much enhanced with Willow’s presence.”

  Wayman looked out over all the people milling around the fairgrounds. “And with the containment spell, the feelings will cycle back on themselves and mutate. Love, even more than hate, can drive incredible levels of violence. Crimes of passion are legendary.”

  “So, the love fest is for an evil purpose?” Dean countered.

  Wayman smiled. “It’s a distraction. People are so involved with their emotions they may forget important things, do reckless things, or worse. What’s happening in Barrington is not natural. I just saw that with my own eyes.” Wayman shuddered.

  Nathalie spoke slowly. “So…no one’s watching. Even our adults have been swept up in this magical frenzy.”

  Taline nodded. “And possibly powerless to help themselves. They are caught in the throes of whatever obsessions they have, like everyone else. What has been unleashed needs to run its course.”

  Dean groaned. “Another two months of this to endure.”

  Wayman agreed. “The next eight weeks will be painful. More painful than you can imagine. Be on your guard, everyone. We are trying to find out what Danner is getting out of this, and what his connection is to Willow. It’s no coincidence this is all happening now. Beth is in league with him. She has been consorting with a mercenary we know follows a more, let’s say, evil path.”

  Nathalie was staring at Beth. “I’m not surprised. She’s been a bitch since she got here. Almost everything started when Beth arrived in Barrington. It seems to coincide exactly with when Willow started possessing Sadie.”

  “Och, well that’s a good point, lassie. Tell me then, when did the windmill start to turn again?”

  “The windmill?” Nathalie said, perplexed.

  Nettie looked at Luke and hesitated, indecision showed on her face momentarily before it was gone. “The windmill is enchanted, lass. It won’t turn unless there is resident evil. It was placed there by Jacob Barrington, who also oversaw the construction of the four barns. The windmill is turning, dearie. I noticed when I got to Barrington.”

  “That rust bucket is working?” Dean asked in amazement.

  Nettie turned to Luke. “Your father knows about this. You need to be speaking to him, lad. As the Barrington heir, the records of Jacob Barrington would have been handed down to him, and now should be handed down to you. Your father is following the protocol set out by Jacob himself.”

  Nathalie looked at Nettie suspiciously.

  Nettie was looking at Luke with concern. “You need to tell your father that you’re The Seer, Luke, and he needs to give you Jacob Barrington’s diary to read. It’s probably not safe for you to be roaming around alone.”

  “Luke, is your dad around?” Dean asked.

  “Nah. He’s out playing cards somewhere, or so he says.”

  “What about your mom?”

  Luke looked shocked. “You want to tell my mom? Are you crazy, dude? You want martial law instituted in the town?”

  “Yeah, what was I thinking?” Dean muttered. “Never mind.”

  Wayman cut in. “Try and talk to your dad as soon as you can, Luke. It’s getting close to supper time, so I suggest you all head home.”

  The gang nodded and turned to leave.

  “And guys, take precautions to protect yourselves. Wear your amulets. Protect the other kids. You know things they don’t. Make sure no one takes advantage of them. Act—lead, but don’t panic anyone,” Wayman said grimly, thinking of Venius. Because where there was Venius, his brother Clovis wasn’t far behind. Clovis was bad news.

  Nathalie headed out of the barn. “While I understand that the hex Willow put on us is having an interesting effect, I’ve noticed that some of us haven’t degenerated as much as others have.” Nathalie looked towards Beth’s booth and Town Circle. “I think it’s time I got a sample of Beth’s little concoction and had it analyzed.”

  “That’s a good idea. Have any of you had any?” Taline asked curiously.

  “Only when she first opened, but not since,” they said.

  “Only Sadie never had any. I drank hers,” Luke added.

  Taline nodded. “Let us know what you find out.”

  Wayman stopped Luke. “Seer, do you see anything odd with Beth? Similar to what you see with Sadie and Willow?”

  Luke looked startled, but thought back. “Not really, but I’ve never taken a really good look at her.”

  “Do that for me. Something’s off with her.”

  “Absolutely, Wayman,” Luke said, but when he passed by her booth, Beth was nowhere to be found.

  The Barrington Estate

  When Luke got home, his father wasn’t there. He debated for a minute then called Sadie. He fidgeted in anguish while he waited for her to pick up the phone so he could hear her voice. She answered on the first ring.

  “Luke, why are you calling me?” she whispered softly.

  “I can’t do this without you,” he whispered back. “We were talking about the windmill…”

  “Don’t tell me anything!” she said anxiously.

&
nbsp; “I won’t…I won’t…but we need to know when it started spinning. I’m guessing it happened around a major feast this summer.”

  “Luke, you could have looked this up yourself in two seconds,” she said with amusement. She sighed. “The last major feast was the summer solstice. Look around June 21.”

  “I love you Sadie,” Luke said in a heart-broken whisper.

  “Luke, don’t call me again,” Sadie replied coldly before she hung up.

  Luke searched and found the article by Xander. It was confirmed. Badness arrived in Barrington at the summer solstice.

  THE BARRINGTON BUGLE – SUNDAY, JUNE 23

  It’s Alive! Eyesore On West Road Works After…Well, Never!

  By X. Agerate

  I have complained for years. Take it down! Take what down? The view from my house. The eyesore that can be seen from most homes in the South West Residential Quad (admittedly through the trees). The big, old, ugly, rusting windmill on West Road, that’s what.

  “Why is it still standing?” is a question I’ve asked the town council many times before they made a law forbidding me to ask it. Why? It doesn’t work, not even under gale force winds! It has never worked.

  Well today I have something new to report!

  During the storm on Friday night, the rust bucket actually started spinning! Imagine my surprise! My incredulity! It screamed bloody murder when it started to turn, but there you have it. Now, there’s only one problem. It doesn’t stop spinning! EVER. Even without wind, the piece of junk spins! What kind of windmill does that? And it’s still ugly! For the love of all that is holy, the rust bucket needs paint! This is a big HINT to the town council. PAINT!

  Or better yet… Tear it down!

  The Rock

  Wayman and Taline were in the woods near the place they had arrived, which was very close to The Rock. They tried to communicate with their people but couldn’t. No portal would open.

  “Our way is lost,” Taline cried in frustration.

  Wayman held her close. “The way is never lost. There is just no door right now. We have a hex that has bound three worlds together, mortal, spiritual, and demon. To force a portal now will tear a veil somewhere between dimensions. We need to be patient and accept that we’re stuck here until Halloween too.”