Dark Winter: Trilogy

by Hennessy, John

  I didn’t think there was a kung fu lesson advanced enough to fight off demons. Nonetheless, my Nan thought keeping fighting fit was the way to go. As she got older, it saddened me to see her sharp mind fade a little. That’s the horrid side of me. I wanted her to stay as she was, and I knew even back then how selfish I was.

  On the key points, no-one was sharper than her. But after a while, she forgot who Bruce Lee was, and even when one of his films would come on TV, she would say things like, “Look Romilly, he’s doing what you do, isn’t that nice?”

  Define nice, then. Bruce had just knocked O’Hara down twice, kicked him in the southern regions, broke one of his arms, then lined him up for a side kick.

  If it’s anyone else, it’s just a side kick. But this was Bruce.

  Bruce put his whole body into it. A man of 5,’7” in height, around 8 stone in weight, drops O’Hara like he is nothing. Then he launches himself into the air, landing two-footed onto O’Hara. The camera cuts to Bruce’s expression, which is a mix of hate, revenge, satisfaction, tinged with regret.

  He didn’t want to kill his enemy. But in that instance, he had no other choice.

  I’ve looked at that scene a hundred times. I wouldn’t want to kill anything either, even if it meant me harm.

  Now I understood why my Nan wanted me to learn martial arts. It meant that I would some day have to do something nasty, something brutal, to something that deserved my wrath. I would have to take emotion out of it in order to get the job done. But I am someone who always has her emotions on the edge. It keeps me sharp, and that’s just where I need to be.

  Ever since I had come into contact with the Mirror, the things I wanted in life got pushed to the back. I had to focus, and strangely, kung fu practise had given me that. I hadn’t become an expert, but I’d advanced rather well in Wing Chun. I could perform two of the three main forms to a satisfactory standard, and could kick hard and fast. I could spar well against the boys too. I figured my face wasn’t as beautiful as Toril’s, nor did I possess Beth’s high cheekbones. With no Troy nor any other boy to focus on, I didn’t care if my face got punched or not.

  When I came back from three hours training one night with a split lip and a sore rib, Nan didn’t waste any time ripping into me.

  “Romilly Winter, will you look at your face?”

  This was a peculiar Irish statement. How could I look at my face? I squinted my eyes and scrunched my cheeks in mock protest.

  “It’s been a long night, Nan. I’m rather sore.”

  She had already grabbed a tissue and began wiping my face down. “You’re not doing what you’ve been told to do. I told you to keep your kung fu training up. I did not mean get yourself badly beaten in the process.”

  Perhaps she understood, or maybe she didn’t, but the mirror had taken more than a part of my soul. I had actually started to let my appearance suffer. I didn’t care that I sometimes got hurt in kung fu class. I thought it was all part of the learning curve.

  “You’re right Nan. I haven’t been taking care of things. I’ll do better, I promise.”

  Her stern expression softened. “Of course you will. I have complete faith in you, Milly.”

  Her faith was well meant but misplaced. The training was good at the club itself, but one of the instructors was abusing his authority. It was another stupid thing that I did, because one trusts figures in authority. Martial arts teachers are supposed to be beyond reproach, yet one of them at the club clearly felt he was above the law.

  When I became his target, my training dropped off. I could not go to the club for fear that he would be there. But Nan was depending on me, so I would go as often as my unsettled mind would allow me. I would wait outside, then ask one of the students if Kurt – that’s his name - was there.

  Some would say I don’t know, I just got here. Others would be more helpful, and say No, Toni’s teaching tonight. Toni was one of the main instructors there, along with David, the head instructor. Kurt turned up every now and then. I thought he was a good, principled man. But I could not have been more wrong. I just wish the students had opened up about him, then we could have done something about it before others had gotten hurt.

  At least I had something other than martial arts to hurt someone with. When my hands were free of their gloves, they were a very deadly weapon. I thought Nan would be surprised that I had to end up using them on someone who was actually human in body, but a monster in reality.

  It all began when Kurt suggested to some of us after a lesson that we could go to his house, which was about three miles from the club, and do some extra practise there. We were all eager, because he was a competent teacher. David and Toni were better, but they never offered us extra tuition. We understood; they had a business to run.

  Kurt was married with two children, who never seemed to be there when we were there. I suppose we were just focussed on the martial arts training, so the little details, like photos of family placed down, plus the fact that we never saw him wear a wedding band, were easily explained away.

  One of the boys, Michael, looked a bit nervous amongst us. I punched him gently on the arm, and told him that Kurt would give us a good lesson. He nodded nervously before adding, “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  I saw Michael one more time at the club. He was in a heated argument with the head instructor David, and whilst I didn’t catch all of the conversation, it ended with David saying, “Well, there are other clubs…..” so I believe Michael was unhappy about his progress to date. Or perhaps it was something else. He never opened up to me. I wish he had done so. I never clicked, not one time. Had the Mirror stolen my intuition, too? I always went by my gut instinct, but that part of me seemed misplaced of late.

  The group reduced, one by one, until only I was left. I wasn’t too close with the girls at the club, no surprise there, but as I grabbed my things to go, Kurt’s demeanour changed. He maintained the air and authority of an instructor, but suddenly, he was more disarming, and it intrigued me, when what I should have done, was walk, and keep on walking until I arrived home safely.

  “Romilly, wait,” he said. “You can wait, can’t you?”

  It was 8:30 pm. I needed to be going home. Besides, I didn’t want to be in a man’s home on my own.

  “I should be going. Everyone else has gone.”

  “Ah well, that’s because they knew when to quit. You’re a better fighter than any of them Romilly. The way you interpret the forms and put them into practise - I predict you will have a black sash before anyone in that group.”

  I smiled. It was nice to receive a compliment, especially such a glowing one about my martial arts skills, but I really didn’t feel I deserved it.

  “Pretty much everyone in that group has laid a hand on me at one time or another. I need more practise, but I’m distracted.”

  I don’t really know how those words came out, but they did. He was playing me, and I could not see it. I could not bloody see it.

  “It’s my job to ensure you are not distracted. Have you watched any films lately?”

  I was still in martial arts mode. He wasn’t.

  “Enter the Dragon was on TV the other night. My Nan and I watched some of it.”

  I was still wearing a bemused, little lost schoolgirl smile on my face. That’s one benefit of split lips from being punched – I would not have been able to smile for some time.

  “Ah. I’ve seen that more times than I care to remember. Maybe we can watch a film later?”

  “Thanks, that’d be great,” I said. I was just being polite. I shuffled on my feet and grabbed my bag tighter. “Be seeing you then. Thanks for the extra class.”

  “I can give you an extra class right now. An exclusive one, just for you. Instructors don’t offer this kind of tuition lightly, Romilly. You’d be wise to take me up on it.”

  I was tired. Even the thought of walking three miles was exhausting me. The Mirror that I had kept in my drawer was exhausting me, even though that’s a
ll it was doing – staying in the drawer.

  I felt a little light-headed. Clearly I hadn’t eaten enough that day.

  “Romilly, you’ve gone pale all of a sudden. Come here.”

  I fell forward as my balance betrayed me. He caught me in his arms, and kept hold of me longer than I felt comfortable with. But I had over exerted myself. I needed to sit down before I fell down.

  “Let me just sit for a moment,” I murmured.

  I knew I had suffered from low blood pressure for years. In the words of my mum, “She’s forever fainting.” Mum was right, but she wanted me to go to the doctor. He would check my blood pressure and tell me what I already knew.

  “Your daughter has low blood pressure, Mrs Winter.”

  Great. So what have we learned? What do we do? Not a hell of a lot. He gives me some Prozac and tells me to come back within three weeks. Prozac. It was not the happy pill as advertised in the media. I took it for five days, and it left me completely exhausted. When I would be able to prise myself from the bed, I had been in it for fourteen hours, sometimes as many as eighteen in a row. By the weekend I just decided to stop taking them.

  It wasn’t just that. I felt dizzy when under extreme pressure. Little dots would appear in front of my eyes, virtually without warning. I would get that hollow sinking feeling in my stomach, with a barely audible wail of Oh No escaping from me. Then, no matter where I was, or what I was doing, I would hit the floor. Hard.

  I didn’t like how the evening was turning out. Kurt was looking at me, and though not that many boys have given me that look, I know it – I know what it means.

  This was wrong on practically every level I could think of. First of all, I wasn’t attracted to him in the slightest. Second, I had given him no indication that I was. Third, he was a martial arts instructor, for God’s sake – he was supposed to have an air of authority about him, not force himself on others. Fourth, almost needless to say, he was married and with children too.

  Try as I might to stay focussed and stay conscious, not for the first time, my body was defying me.

  My skin felt hot, and my legs had gone limp. I collapsed into the sofa, and I could not keep my eyes open. As I lost consciousness, I feared the worst, that someone in a position of trust was about to violate me.

  ***

  How long I was out for, I don’t know, but it wasn’t as long as I thought, nor as long as he wished. He was picking at the top button on my jeans and I could feel his thick fingers probing at the lace top on my underwear. I had to snap out of it, and soon, otherwise….what might happen really didn’t bear thinking about.

  I could hear him saying things, but whatever he had done to me came across all slurred in my head.

  I could hear words like ‘damn you are gorgeous’ but all I felt was helpless.

  I willed my body to react. Though I thought my legs would act first, it was my fingers. I heard him howl in pain, and it was such a strange sound that I managed to snap out of my stupor. I still felt disorientated and groggy, but through bloodshot eyes I viewed his own bloody eye – his left, to be precise. I had punctured his eyeball with my fingernail, and a mixture of blood and other fluids poured from the socket.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” I screamed. “You’re an instructor. You’re not supposed to do this.”

  I managed to stand up and get away from him, but he really was no problem anymore. He just kept on howling in pain on the floor. I thought about kicking him in his soft parts for daring to try and touch mine, but I resisted. He might be an instructor, but he was also a scumbag. It was his wife I felt pity for.

  “Rom! Romilly! Wait, for pity’s sake,” he protested. But I wasn’t listening. He disgusted me, he was a pig, and really, that’s unfair to pigs for me to say that. As I grabbed my coat and made for the front door, I told him in no uncertain terms what I thought of him. He was more concerned about me telling his wife, and I’ll admit, I thought about doing just that.

  Another feeling was to use the power in my hands, the power he didn’t know about, and burn the very skin off his face. He’d have trouble explaining that to his wife.

  In the end, I decided to leave him be. I pitied him, actually, and any so called man who would act that way. Especially those who held a position of power.

  I didn’t let it go entirely. I wrote a letter to the head instructor at the school and put it through the door. Later, I heard his abuse had left a trail, and was leading to a court case, in which I had no doubt he would be found guilty. He killed himself rather than go through all that.

  Finally, I had a shower just before going to sleep. I could have washed under the hot water for an hour and still not felt clean.

  It would be a long time before I would trust anyone again.

  (i)

  The Aftermath

  The Fall of Rosewinter:

  Chapter 1

  The flames had finally died down, but the post-mortem would take much longer to make sense of it all. Rosewinter had stood for over half a century, and yet onlookers from Gorswood would no longer have anything to look at, save for the trees, many of which burned to the ground thanks to the demon playing pinball with my body, not to mention Toril’s witchcraft.

  Despite heavy blood loss and going into shock, Bethany O’Neill had survived, and made a reasonably quick recovery. The recovery was all but physical. Mentally, it was uncertain if Beth would ever recover from her ordeal.

  Every day, it was the same. Take your medicine, Beth. You’ll be okay once you take your medicine. Pill popping was the doctors solution to everything. But for Beth, who had grown stronger since her last encounter with the evil, started to save the pills under her tongue, and would remove it from her mouth once the doctors and nurses had left her alone.

  One day, she found herself to be not alone. The bartender and landlord of The Dying Swan, Brendan, came to see her.

  “Well then, Bethany. You’re looking great.”

  Beth nodded, but said nothing. “Ah well, maybe you would like to be left alone. I’ll leave you be, so.”

  Beth tugged at Brendan’s arm. “You have to get me out of here, Brendan. I mean it. I’m going crazy here. It’s like St Margaret’s all over again.”

  Beth did not elaborate on her statement, but ghosts from St Margaret’s haunted the wards of Gorswood Hospital. Most of the time they would just walk by her bed. Other times, they would ruffle the curtains. Other times, they would stand by her bed. One to her left, one to her right and although she could not see the apparition, there was definitely one under her bed.

  She tried to scream. God, how Beth tried. No sound would come out. She felt paralysed with fear. The ghost above her bed hovering menacingly – that one was the worst. It would let its all- in-one clothing fall open, revealing charred bones underneath. A rib cage, blackened with soot and caked with blood.

  Its face would change to that of her friends, or her parents. Then, when Beth was at her most delirious, it would change into the face of Don Curie, or Dana Cullen. And to think that she had not seen or felt the scariest thing of all.

  She felt his presence though. He wanted her. She felt that so strong. He wanted her body and her soul, and would not stop until she had given herself to him.

  Save your prayers, Beth, and do something better with your time. You’re still worshipping God? Last thing I heard, he’d started worshipping me.

  How Beth wanted the man to go away.

  “Beth? Are you okay?” asked Brendan. “I lost you there for a while.”

  “No Bren. Jesus, will you look at me? I am far from okay.”

  “I can get you the nurse.”

  “No, that’s not what I want.”

  “What then?” asked Brendan, who wanted to help but was unsure how.

  “I want to see Milly. Now. Right now.”

  “Beth! Please, don’t do this to yourself. You are barely recovered yourself.”

  “Brendan Meaney, if you are not here to help me, you can go. I want to
see Milly now, and I don’t want to hear another peep out of you.”

  Brendan had been the landlord at the Dying Swan for twenty years. He had seen little Beth grow up, lose her parents, end up in St Margaret’s Hospital, and then – grow into a beautiful young woman. She’s been through enough torment for one life, he thought.

  How to dissuade her though? To put it mildly, hanging around with Toril Withers had made the rather reserved Bethany far more combative. There was good news at least - nurses had told him that although she had lost a lot of blood, Beth was expected to make a full recovery.

  Brendan stood up, ready to leave. He had given some blood that was used for Beth’s recovery. He didn’t want her to see, what she wanted to see. “It’s too soon, Beth. Please leave it a while.”