Dark Winter: Trilogy

by Hennessy, John

  I was stirred by Beth’s quietness. We all knew she could talk like no-one else. As we walked from the cemetery, she stopped abruptly and placed a hand over her chest. She winced a little, and I asked her what was wrong.

  “It still hurts sometimes,” Beth said breathlessly. She recalled the zombie-demon who had masqueraded as Toril, and had reached into her chest and squeezed her heart.

  “She’s gone now, Beth.” I tried to reassure her as much as I wanted to convince myself.

  “She’s never left me,” said Beth. “Through that zombie, Dana left a mark, though it’s different to those on your hands. If I could see inside my chest, I would know for sure.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know, really,” said Beth. “But that day changed everything for me.”

  “I am sorry Beth. I never wanted this.”

  “I was punished for saying your Nan was messing with you.”

  “Not a chance. Her ghost stories were always true,” I said. “I just didn’t think I would end up being in one.”

  Beth stared into space for so long that I just had to snap her out of it.

  “Beth, quit that, will you?”

  “Milly….how do you think this story ends?”

  That was a good question.

  “Beth, I believe you, me, in fact, everyone in Gorswood could live out their entire lives and never see that Mirror again. I’m very comfortable with that. Very comfortable.”

  “Have you been back to Rosewinter since?”

  “No.”

  “Shouldn’t you check? You know…that it is still there?”

  “It’s there, don’t worry about that Beth.”

  I had accused Beth of stonewalling me before, now, here I am, doing it to her. But the Mirror was safe. I knew that because the ghosts of St Margaret’s circled by Rosewinter. Good spirits? I wasn’t for certain. But it seemed that while they were interested in what lay within Rosewinter, their interest did not stretch to any attempt to free the mirror from its constraints.

  Yes. Toril had cast a spell. But spells could be broken, couldn’t they? She was a novice in some ways, but very skilled in others. All this time had passed and yet the Mirror remained safe.

  I may have told Beth not to worry, but I worried. Oh, how I worried. You know that feeling when you wake in the morning feeling exhausted, even though you know you had a good night’s sleep? My snippets of peace were few, but you would think I would get them at night.

  No. Sometimes the zombie girls would visit me, sometimes one on her own, hissing and shrieking at me, clawing at me to get me to release the Mirror into their keep.

  At other times it would be a group of them, pulling me apart, tearing me limb from limb. The last thing I remember before waking up is that they do have their hands on the Mirror, and the group of Zeryths dumping my bloodied body over the edge of Gorswood Forest. I’m still breathing just as I hit the ground. Well, as my body lands on a spike sticking upwards from the ground. On impact, I wake up, my clothes drenched in perspiration. I hate any dream where I’m falling.

  Other times still….it’s Dana who visits me. She’s laughing at me of course, but she looks different somehow. It’s definitely her, but she looks like someone else I know as well.

  These images…even in the haze of the morning sun, affect me the most. Dana Cullen is dead, and has been so for over seventy years. Yet she is as real to me as the marks on my hands.

  I don’t know the day, nor the hour, but I do know this: She is coming for us.

  ***

  A sharp pain in my side.

  “Milly?”

  “Oh. Sorry Beth. I was just thinking about stuff.”

  “You can share, you know.”

  “I know. But in this case, it won’t help.”

  “You’re having the nightmares aren’t you?”

  I stopped walking abruptly.

  “You know? How did you know?”

  “It’s not ESP, if that’s what you’re thinking, Milly,” said Beth. “It’s written all over your face. You’re riddled with worry. You should let me help.”

  Oh Beth, you can’t help, not with this.

  “I’m okay, really.”

  Liar.

  “I’m not,” said Beth with total honesty. “I still think, you know, sometimes, about all that happened. I could be doing anything, and nothing, even fun things. Then it comes back to me. I went crazy for a while, I think you did too, but that doesn’t mean we should punish ourselves forever.”

  Absent-mindedly, we had arrived at the family home. It was my home now, with my parents gone. I ushered Beth inside, and we sat down once I had put the kettle on.

  “I know we shouldn’t punish ourselves Beth. But things aren’t resolved. Just as you sought the truth about your parents, I need the truth about mine. Look at the crap the police wrote about my folks.”

  I thrust the police report in front of her. Accidental death due to careless driving.

  “This sucks,” said Beth. “Your father was the safest driver I ever knew. Did they mention the red ‘D’ on the window?”

  “No.”

  “Very convenient.”

  “Not really, Beth. It’s not convenient at all to me that my mum and dad lay cold in their graves whilst that….that thing does whatever she wants to do, without care to anyone else.”

  “Like Curie,” said Beth. “It’s like Curie all over again.”

  “He’s in your nightmares too, isn’t he Beth?”

  Beth’s brow furrowed deeply. “Every week. Sometimes it’s three a week. I wake just as he throws a match onto my bed. After he’s poured petrol over it of course.”

  I felt I had grown up since I had been given the Mirror, but I still had much to learn. I felt a whole range of emotions over my parents’ death, but the strongest emotion was rage. Fury. I realised I wanted vengeance too, and I hated how destructive these feelings were to all around me.

  “Maybe we should leave Gorswood. Move on with our lives,” I said, gulping down some tea. “Mum and Dad wouldn’t want me moping around like this.”

  “Jesus, Romilly! We’ve only laid them to rest and you’re thinking of upping and going?”

  “What more can I do Beth? This isn’t home. Not without them!”

  Beth wanted to say something, but clearly her time hanging around with Toril had made her think twice. But I wasn’t Toril.

  “You don’t have to walk on eggshells around me, Bethany. Out with it.”

  Beth rocked from side to side in her chair before speaking.

  “Romilly, your work isn’t done, don’t you see? If we moved away from here, the nightmares would still follow us.”

  “My work?” I said, stiffly. “For all we know, everything I have done, or haven’t done, has caused…..all this! I tell you now, Beth. I’m done. No more work for me.”

  “You can’t mean that. Your parents and Jacinta, don’t they deserve better?”

  Some time back, when we were all dealing with our personal level of crazy, Beth strangled me, literally to death. Oh, I know she wasn’t in full control of things, but still, I wondered what it would be like, to strangle someone. Before the Demon decided to share my life with me, I would have never had such thoughts.

  She was driving me crazy with this talk.

  “Beth, you do have this annoying habit of winding people up. Upset anyone lately?”

  Beth shifted awkwardly in her seat. “Well, Toril’s not very happy with me at the moment. But then, Toril is not happy with anyone at the moment.”

  I was glad not to be the topic of the moment, so jumped in about Toril.

  “Is she….still grieving?”

  “Well, that’s just it,” said Beth. “Outwardly, she’s fine. She doesn’t seem to be upset, but it seems she is only one wrong word going her way to exploding on someone.”

  “Would that explain why you’re here?” I ventured.

  “Well yes! And no…! I did want to be here, to be a support, a
friend. You know? I’ve been accused of being a bit flaky and well, maybe it’s a reputation I deserve. I want you and Toril to know that you can rely on me.”

  I knew Toril well enough to leave her well enough alone. At least for now. Beth was right. I had seen Toril sometimes. She’d be staring blankly, walking up the road, completely oblivious to anyone else around her. She seemed to have enough presence of mind not to bump into anyone, but maybe it was the case that they avoided bumping into her.

  ***

  Somewhere, buried deep in her mind, Toril knew the location of the Circle. She had never been told, but she knew. She’d been there once before, and even though that was shortly after her birth, she knew.

  Her mother had left the Circle once Toril had been born. The nurse, Winnie, who had rubbed ointment into the sickly baby Toril, must have been one of them. It can’t have been coincidence that she had on her some magic potion, some healing ointment containing the very properties that little Toril needed.

  For Tori-Suzanne, it was a bit too much.

  “She’s just a baby.”

  “She is that, aye,” said Lunabelle.

  “She’s also a very special baby,” said Denzel. “She has a prophecy to fulfill. Look!!”

  Denzel brought out a book. The Book. The book that all Circle members were supposed to know. They needed to know the contents off by heart, but they could not own a copy themselves. That was not allowed by the Circle.

  “The first prophecy,” said Denzel brightly, “is that a child born under the sign of the Scales will die almost at the point of birth, only to be saved by the oils of the Dillfern. The second, is that the child will grow up not wanting to know the ways of the Wiccan, until one Halloween she sees one of us. The third prophecy is that the child will help the Circle defeat all its enemies, and restore order to the world.”

  Tori-Suzanne Withers knew the prophecies very well. All in the Circle did. They were ecstatic to know that when Toril was born, she had been administered to by Winnie.

  They knew, because Winnie had told them. Tori-Suzanne was none too happy about this. She did not want her only child coming to harm, and actually, was delighted that Toril showed no interest in witchcraft.

  “It’s Toril,” said Lunabelle, in her Scottish brogue. “You know it is, Tori.”

  “It is not,” said Tori-Suzanne. “I don’t believe I would be the mother of….the One.”

  “Well, you are,” said Denzel.

  This was nonsense. Tori-Suzanne had read The Book, the same as everyone else in the Circle, and much like the Bible, knew that there were incredible inconsistencies that she simply could not accept. Being the mother of the One Child was not something she believed she was capable of.

  “You might not think so, but the prophecies say so, don’t they?” said Lunabelle.

  Childbirth for some was a routine thing. For others, complications happened sometimes. Tori was glad of the nurse’s help, even if she was revealed to her as Winnie, a Circle member. She was also glad that Toril showed no interest over the years, until one Halloween around her ninth birthday.

  That in itself did not mean she had given birth to this fantastical child. The Circle, on the other hand, were convinced, and could not be told otherwise.

  “I will not have my child in the Circle. I mean it!” said Tori-Suzanne.

  “It’s not your choice. Toril will be here one day whether you will it or not. So be careful what you say,” said Lunabelle. “You know what that kind of talk means.”

  “I do know,” said Tori-Suzanne. “It means I have to leave the Circle.”

  That was that, to some extent. With no other fantastical childbirth to deter them, the Circle deemed Toril Withers as The One Child, and designated a Day of Light for her.

  Tori-Suzanne Withers did not like the direction the Circle was taking. It seemed to Tori-Suzanne that certain members, like Denzel and Winnie, were meddling with dark craft, and she wanted nothing to do with it, much less have her daughter designated as some kind of icon. One night, Tori-Suzanne slipped out onto the streets of Gorswood with baby Toril, and had not stepped foot in the Circle since that time.

  “Stick that in your prophecy,” thought Tori-Suzanne.

  Toril had not been there in some seventeen and a half years. All that was about to change.

  ***

  Toril did not even have to knock on the door. She stood in front of it, and watched in mild amusement as it opened slowly. She afforded herself a smile, something which had been missing from her face of late. She had no idea how she got here. Her mother had been quiet about the requested wand, and Toril was on the point of giving up when she arrived. At this place. It looked just like a normal house. Could this really be the Circle?

  Lunabelle Cree missed Tori-Suzanne. Most of all, she missed knowing what the real Toril would have grown into, had she been in their care from the beginning. Yet the real Toril stood in front of her now. Lunabelle knew who she was in an instant.

  “Well, my dear,” said Lunabelle warmly, “how lovely, how lovely to see you.”

  Toril had not been welcomed like this in a while. Her half smile turned into a full beam.

  “Your mother was a pretty girl, but you – oh my!” said Lunabelle, clapping her hands together. “You must come in. Please!”

  Toril walked in slowly. She wanted to take in the surroundings. For all intents and purposes, the building looked normal. Nothing witch-like at all about it.

  “You were expecting to see a moose’s head on the wall, right?” said Lunabelle. “There’s none of that here.”

  “I didn’t know what to expect,” said Toril. “The door opening by itself was pretty cool though.”

  “How do you know you didn’t cause that by yourself, Toril?” said Lunabelle.

  “My powers…all this Day of Light stuff….”

  Toril trailed off and went quiet.

  “Yes?” said Lunabelle, inquisitively.

  “My powers are vastly over-rated.”

  “Nonsense,” said Lunabelle. “You are a legend, my dear.”

  “An overused term these days,” said Toril ruefully. “Some legend. Legends don’t let their friends die.”

  Lunabelle put an arm around Toril’s shoulders, who shuddered as she did so. “Maybe legends keep the spirit of their friend’s memories alive. So when it comes to you, calling you a legend is not misplaced at all. Not when it comes to you. Sit down, dear, and I’ll get you a cup of tea. Milk? Sugar?”

  Toril nodded. Something about the place was affecting her. At home, she felt angry, isolated, confused, even. Here, apparently in the grounds of the Circle, she felt safe, secure, warm. Happy. Yes. Happy.

  Lunabelle’s light steps were replaced by the sound of heavier ones. A man’s footsteps, that was for certain.

  Lunabelle seemed to be in a heated exchange with the man. Her Scottish brogue was tempered by his deep, Jamaican sounding accent.

  As the sounds got louder, the shh’s did too. Toril found she could not read their minds. Not here. Or maybe she had lost the ability to do so.

  “I will talk to her first!” said Lunabelle. “You just get back there, I’m not kidding.”

  When he refused to go back, Lunabelle marched up to him. “Not now. I mean it.”

  “Don’t matter what you mean or what you don’t mean, Belle. But the Book, it’s all in there. About how those three girls all turn into something they’re not. They will kill for us and any who stand in our way.”

  Lunabelle was highly irritated with him. “All that remains to be seen. Back, Denzel.”

  The man retreated slowly. His dark skin merged back into the shadows. Toril could see his smile. “Soon,” he said. “Soon, we will talk, you and I. Soon.”

  Lunabelle hurried back with tea and an array of biscuits and placed them on the table carefully.

  “Here you are, dear.”

  “Thank you,” said Toril.

  “Your mother brought you up right,” said Lunabelle. “What a lov
ely, decent, polite girl you are.”

  “Thank you,” repeated Toril, blankly. She didn’t know what else to say.

  “I expect this is all rather overwhelming,” said Lunabelle, “but don’t worry, it will all be fine. We were expecting you, you see.”

  “How could you possibly know that?” said Toril.

  “That book over there,” said Lunabelle. “The book. It said you would come, and well, here you are. You must be here, because my imagination’s good, but not that good. Naturally, I’m delighted you are here. So is everyone else. Everyone who is in the Circle. May I?”