I hid behind the Mirror as he rushed me. Either he was going to be banished or the Mirror was going to shatter, with legions of zombies released into our world.
In my head, I prayed for Alix and the demon within to disappear.
* * *
Toril suddenly stopped chanting and fell backwards. Beth reacted first, and grabbed her from behind.
“Toril? Toril? Are you okay? Toril!”
Toril’s eyes rolled back in her head, but after a few seconds, she started to get herself together.
“Toril, stop freaking us out here. Say something if you can,” said Jacinta, her usual calm replaced with abject worry.
“Something…if you can,” said Toril, wearily.
“What ever happened?” asked Beth.
“Something – something is wrong,” said Toril. “I can’t explain it to you, but it is, just - wrong.”
“Maybe there is our answer,” said Jacinta, pointing to the wood-cabin.
Inside Rosewinter, the lights had been switched on again.
* * *
But also, off again. In fact, the lights kept going off and coming back on again like car indicators.
“What do we do?” said Jacinta. “I mean, we should go check, shouldn’t we? Find out what happened? Toril? What do you think?”
“We don’t know what’s happened in there,” said Beth. “We should wait for whoever it is, to come back out.”
“Why do you assume someone will come out?” asked Toril, groggily. “I’m with Jay on this. We need to go in. I…I need to do some kind of protection spell to get us over the thresh-hold.”
“It figures,” said Beth under her breath. Whatever Jacinta did, Toril followed, and vice-versa. “You two are joined at the hip. Can’t you see Milly needs our help? Will you not help her?”
Walking ahead of the girls, Toril suddenly turned around. You two have to stay here. I may have to kill off whatever is in there.”
“What? Are you crazy?” screamed Beth. “That’s our friend you’re talking about.”
“Friends,” said Toril, enunciating the ‘s’. I expect one of them is already gone. Maybe both. I have to see for myself. Romilly herself might be possessed by Diabhal. At least, I can’t shake that feeling.”
“Toril, stay right where you are,” Beth screamed.
“I can’t do that,” said Toril. “Look at these markings on my hands.”
“They’re getting deeper,” said Jacinta. “It’s like you are getting branded or something.”
“Like Romilly at school, remember?” said Toril.
“So, is Romilly…is Milly dead?” asked Beth, tears streamed down her face, replacing the anger from a few moments ago.
“That’s why I’m going in,” said Toril, “to find out. It’s awfully quiet in there. I’m taking the deepening of these marks, as not a good sign.”
“Alix. Is he alive then?” asked Jacinta.
“I suppose so,” said Toril. “But I can’t live on suppositions. I need facts.”
“I’m going with you,” said Jacinta.
“No way,” said Toril. “You’re staying here.”
“It’s not like my hair can get any whiter,” said Jacinta.
Toril smiled, but Jacinta understood that she would not be allowed to come along.
As Toril walked calmly towards Rosewinter, the two girls looked at each other.
“Jacinta, did Holmes ever die in those Conan Doyle stories?”
“I don’t know,” said Jacinta. “But I wish I had read every one now.”
The police and ambulance service said that Jacinta Crow had not shed one tear the day she was found next to her parents, who were stone cold dead, and had been so for at least a week.
As Toril approached the woodhouse, a single tear plucked itself off Jacinta’s cheekbone and splatted into the snowy ground.
She didn’t believe she would see Toril Withers alive again.
* * *
“Can you see anything?” asked Beth, straining her neck.
“No, nothing,” said Jacinta, in an almost disinterested kind of way.
Beth quickly picked up on this. “Jacinta, don’t worry, Toril wouldn’t have gone inside unless she thought she was safe. She can handle Alix.”
“It’s not him I’m worried about.”
“What? Are you crazy? Romilly would never-“
“-never what, exactly? Never hurt anyone? Of course she would, and she can. A possessed girl in charge of the Mirror of Souls?” Jacinta shook her head at Beth. “ Toril is in mortal danger.”
* * *
Toril pressed her Wiccan pentacle to provide some consistent light. Whatever was going on in the wood-cabin, she would find out soon enough.
The place was eerily quiet. She didn’t want to call out, but she didn’t want anyone jumping out at her either.
She surveyed the first room she entered. The lights flickered on and off, then fizzled out of existence. It was completely dark, save for the light around Toril’s neck. It wasn’t a good place for the light source, so she took the chain from around her neck, and held it in her hand, directly in front of her.
She moved it from the left side of the room to the right. She couldn’t see anyone in here. The room was clear, and save for the door, which had sustained some sort of damage, and a bust up cd player on the floor, the room looked normal.
Squelch.
“Oh, disgusting,” said Toril. Checking her boots, she knew she’d walked into something horrible. Closer inspection revealed it to be skin, but looked like it had parted with its owner a long time ago.
This sort of situation though, was what Toril longed for. In the Sherlock Holmes story The House of Fear, seven wealthy men had retired to live in a remote Scottish castle.
One by one, they would die in a most violent way, and preceding their death was the delivery of some orange pips.
“No pips around here,” said Toril under her breath.
Still quiet.
Another squelch. Toril pointed the light towards her boots again, and as she walked on the floorboards, blood seeped around her boots.
Unlike the girl she had came for, Toril was not squeamish, though these were her best boots, and it pissed her off that they were spoiled.
Given that Dana and possibly several zombies were on the way, Toril decided she could wait no longer. She pulled the door open that lay right in front of her.
She could see something huddled in the room, half sitting up, half lying down. Not knowing if the skin she had trodden on belonged to this figure, she kept her distance, and slowly raised the light in its direction.
“It’s too small to be Alix,” Toril deduced, under her breath.
“Romilly – is that you? Speak up if it is. It’s me, Toril.”
* * *
Beth would not believe that I would hurt anyone. Still, if she knew what I knew, that because of Toril, ultimately, I didn’t get my chance with Troy, Beth might just have reason to believe I might just hurt her.
The battle with Alix had taken it out of me. I didn’t really know what happened, but I as I lay here, with the lights still flickering on and off incessantly, I felt strangely safe. The demon was still there within me, but had quietened down some.
I wish I had some kind of cloak that kept me shielded from view, all I had was an old blanket, almost certainly marked with my blood, and that of the Zeryth I had killed.
Of course, I still had the Mirror. My hands were bloodstained and yet the Mirror remained unspoiled. In the pale moonlight I could see wisps of blood sink into the frame of the Mirror, like some kind of nourishment for it, then disappear. Just what the hell was this thing?
Would Toril have to suffer the same fate as Alix? I really didn’t want to do that. Something had changed in me though, and I didn’t like where this was going. If the demon got more powerful, I was sure Toril had no spell that could stop me. Forced to kill my friends…is that how the future rolled? Shouldn’t Nan have told me about this.
If the demon was stronger than me, we would find out soon enough. Toril lifted up the blanket that was my temporary shield.
* * *
“What the hell is going on?”
Beth and Jacinta spun around. It was Troy.
“Oh, you’re okay. Great.” Jacinta could be so acerbic sometimes, thought Beth, but on this occasion, she was right. The last thing this situation required was Troy meddling with things he didn’t understand.
“Jay, I asked you a question!” Troy grabbed Jacinta and shook her.
“Leave her alone,” said Beth, surprising herself. “Toril’s gone into the house. She will know what to do. You had best stay out of this Troy.”
Despite the coldness of Beth’s voice, she had Troy’s wellbeing at hand. There simply was no need for him to go inside and get hurt.
Troy looked towards the house. “She’s in there? On her own? Where’s Alix?”
Jacinta brushed Troy’s hands viciously from her shoulders. “I’m not Toril, you know. You can’t touch me like that.”
“Alright, okay, calm down will you?” said Troy. “Aaah! It still stings.” He covered the deep scratch from Toril with his hand.
“Here,” said Beth. “Let me help.”
The wound healed almost instantly as Beth placed her hand over it.
“Truly amazing, Beth,” said Jacinta. Turning to Troy, she said, “Now listen up Jackson. You are not going in there, unless you want Toril to tear up the other side of your face.”
“I’ll wait. For now.” Troy didn’t look like he had convinced himself. “Hey Beth, thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Could you cover up the hole that is her mouth?”
“Why you-“ snarled Jacinta.
“Alright, that’s enough out of the both of you!” said Beth. “We will wait and you will both calm down.”
This situation could explode. Beth suddenly felt she would be safer inside the house than outside in the woods with these two at each other’s throats.
* * *
“Hi, Milly.”
Toril looked at me with those big chocolate button eyes of hers. She looked kindly enough, but I could see the markings on her hands. She knew I had seen them too. I clutched the Mirror to my chest a bit more closely.
“Toril,” I acknowledged, a bit more icily than I meant.
“Are you hurt?”
“A little.”
“But you’re okay?”
“Yes, Toril, I’m alright. But you should know you are trespassing right now. You shouldn’t be here. Alix was here, and he shouldn’t have been. Now look what’s happened to him.”
I didn’t mean to blurt all that out, but I was scared. Very scared, in fact. I couldn’t shift the feeling that Toril had come in to take the Mirror from me. I did not know if it was my true feeling, or the demon’s.
Take deep, slow breaths, Romilly. And again. And again.
Toril fetched me some water.
“What exactly did happen to him, Romilly?”
Now that is the million pound question. I hadn’t a clue. I could not come up with a precise answer anyway. I gulped down the water.
“He wanted the Mirror. I explained how I couldn’t let him have it-“
“-and then you murdered him, didn’t you?” said Toril.
“No, of course not.”
“He wasn’t the first to feel your wrath, was he, Romilly? Don’t you know that murder is an insidious thing. Once you’ve dipped your fingers in blood, sooner or later you’ll feel the urge to kill again.”
“What are you talking about? It wasn’t like that at all!”
“Calm down, Milly,” said Toril. “I’m just messing with you. It’s a line from Holmes, I just never thought I’d get the chance to use it, much less use it on you. Of course I believe you.”
Okay, maybe she’s not trying to take the Mirror after all. Trying to lighten the mood.
“Milly. What happened?”
Jesus. I can’t believe I had this girl in my bedroom, showing her the Mirror before anyone else had seen it. I had no reason to dislike Toril. But I realised it was all down to how I felt about Troy Jackson. I stood by and did nothing whilst she swooped in on her broomstick.
But right now, I needed her help.
“The truth is, Toril. Alix rushed at me, I warned him not to come any nearer, but he did. I pointed the Mirror in his direction and wished him gone. He is gone. That’s all I know.”
I sank to the floor, and the tears flowed out. I could not reveal anything about the demon. It fell dormant for now. If I angered it, by involving Toril, it would kill both of us.
“Milly. Milly. Come on. It’s okay.”
Toril crouched down besides me and hugged me. She was being sincere, but it didn’t matter. She didn’t see it, but the demon inside turned my eyes a fire red at that moment.
I was just about holding it together.
“No, it’s not okay. Alix was a good guy, Toril. Whatever affected him to make him behave like that, it wasn’t him, you know?”
“Men, are pigs, love. I’ve got one lying on the ground outside.”
How did she do it? Amongst the darkness, Toril had achieved the impossible, making me laugh a little.
“Maybe he’s not, you know, gone, Milly. Maybe we can bring him back, out of the Mirror, you know?”
“Believe me Toril, you don’t want Alix back, at least, not the way he was.”
“Do you know what that zone is, where they go?” asked Toril.
“I have no idea,” I said with total honesty.
“So the Mirror does work. You trapped someone. Whose skin is it that is attached to my boots? Anyone you know?”
“There was a zombie here, but not like the ones in Dawn of the Dead. She had no legs. She was bleeding and pussing all over the place. I touched her, and she’s gone too.”
“Hmm. Which brings me onto this,” said Toril, showing her hands to me. “What am I supposed to do with my hands like this? Do I have to wear those special gloves like you did all the way through school?”
“I don’t know, Toril. There’s only one set of gloves as far as I know, and only one Mirror. Let’s get this straight. You are not having the Mirror.”
That wasn’t me talking. The more Toril quizzed me, the more angry the demon became.
“I don’t want it,” said Toril. “Don’t you get that? I don’t want any of this. You can keep the infernal thing. I did use it, however, to get you and Beth back, so a little gratitude might be in order.”
I wanted to believe her, I really did. But it was Nan, or some entity up there, who sent us back. I don’t think Toril knew what she was doing at all.
“Okay Toril, you’ve made your point.”
“I’m not sure that I have. We have bigger problems than just Alix and your zombie gal-pal. More of her kind are on the way, and best of all, Jacinta just summoned Dana. You do remember Dana, don’t you Milly?”
“Vividly.” The red D flashed through my mind again. I chuckled inside, but again, it was the demon, not me. Toril remained oblivious to this.
“So you see Milly, there will be more blood spilled tonight, I just want to make sure it’s not our own.”
That same, booming, nagging voice in my head implored me to stay within Rosewinter’s battered walls. Then Toril said what I didn’t want to hear.
“It’s not safe here, Milly. We have to get out of here.”
“I can’t do that, Toril. I won’t be safe outside. If not you, fair enough, but the others, they might turn out like Alix, and then more of you have to go inside the Mirror. I wouldn’t have any say in the matter.”
I was beginning to understand just how powerful the Mirror was. Toril had some idea too, because she and I shared a unique bond. There was no-one else on the Earth that had gotten the Mirror to do our will.
“Do you trust me, Romilly? Because if you don’t, I don’t know what I have to do to convince you.”
It was a good q
uestion. Could I trust Toril? What if she tried to take the Mirror from me? I understood finally why the Mirror didn’t work the way I thought it would the first time I really did trust her – way back when I showed her the Mirror. She hadn’t called for the men in white coats back then, so maybe, I could trust her.
Dark Winter Page 25
