by CJ Bridgeman
“Oh em gee!” Hollie cried out, jumping out of the armchair.
Jamie pointed at his sister, unable to contain the cackle that shook him. “That was brilliant!” he laughed. “Do it again!”
Hollie frowned at him. “Shut up. It just made me jump.” When her brother refused to stop laughing, she swiped at him with her open hand. “I’ve never heard thunder that loud before, okay?”
As he sat back in his seat, Jamie noticed that his good humour had not been shared by Felicity. She sat still, unnervingly still, and was staring unblinkingly at the window.
“What’s the matter, Fliss?” he chuckled. “You’re not scared of a little storm as well, are you?”
For a moment she didn’t say anything, and the look on her face drained the fun from the room and the merriment from his heart.
“It’s happening,” she said under her breath.
Down in the cellar, Oliver looked up as the sky went suddenly dark. He couldn’t see much from where he was, but as soon as the light drained from the room, he knew what was happening. The rumble of thunder confirmed it.
He could hear the others calling to him and using their powers to try and locate him. It would only be a matter of time before they succeeded.
Felicity wasn’t coming back. His magical ability may have been amongst the best at his level, but his powers of persuasion were clearly lacking. He had lost her, and what was worse was that he had lost the journal, too. All of the secrets it held, all of the power it could bestow upon one who could read it - all of it was gone, all because of a stupid, ignorant little girl.
He tugged at his ropes angrily and fruitlessly. The unfamiliar feeling of fear began to turn his stomach as he realised that the others would find him soon, and then it would all be over.
Felicity swallowed. “It’s happening.”
Hollie didn’t hear her. She was poised by the window, staring outside and clinging to the curtains like some kind of shield; the storm was frightening her more than she wanted to admit. Jamie, on the other hand, had seen Felicity’s expression.
“Fliss,” he breathed, trying to speak as calmly and steadily as possible in spite of his fear. “What’s going on?”
She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t.
Suddenly and without any warning, she leapt up from the sofa and darted out of the room.
Immediately, Hollie gave chase, with her brother not far behind. “Fliss! Hey!”
Their calls were ignored as Felicity hurriedly descended into the cellar. Her feet moved so quickly that her legs could hardly keep up, almost forcing her to lose her balance. She practically fell from the last few steps and had to steady herself on the iron banister before she saw a sight that made her stop dead in her tracks.
Oliver was gone. The ropes that had been used to tie him to the water pipes had been severed, their fraying ends swaying slightly in the breeze coming from the open basement window.
The three friends stared helplessly at the empty room. Jamie hurried to the window, using the bench to reach up and look outside, but there was no sign of their escaped prisoner.
“Damn it,” he cursed under his breath as soon as his feet touched the floor again. “This is all down to him, isn’t it? He’s making this storm somehow.”
“Maybe he used it to help him get away,” Hollie wondered allowed, her voice shaking. “But I thought he couldn’t do any of that magic stuff any more?”
Jamie shook his head. “Me too.”
“What’re we gonna do? What if he comes back for us?”
“He won’t,” Jamie assured his sister.
“But we kept him prisoner here!” Hollie cried, starting to become hysterical. “He tried to kill me once. He’s going to try again, isn’t he?”
Had the situation not been so dire, Jamie would have commented on Hollie’s previous infatuation with Oliver, but although it did cross his mind, it certainly wasn’t the time to mention it. He took her by the shoulders. “I won’t let him hurt you,” he told her, and he meant it. “I promise.”
The two siblings embraced. Felicity watched them and felt a yearning stir inside her. Hollie looked so afraid; her usually sunny disposition had faded, as she had seen it do so many times since all these strange things started happening. Felicity wanted to comfort her, to tell her best friend that everything would be alright.
And she wanted to be comforted by Jamie. Hollie was lucky that she had someone who cared about her, someone who would look after her and protect her no matter what. But the situation had become too crazy, too far from what they were all used to for Jamie - or anyone else, for that matter - to comfort Felicity with a hug and some simple encouragement, however much she wanted it.
She had to be strong now.
Jamie rubbed his sister’s back. “It’s okay,” he said, pulling away from her. “Let’s get to Mum’s. Maybe we’ll be safe there.”
Hollie smiled unconvincingly at her brother, and then she looked around. “Where’s Fliss?”
The two siblings were alone in the cellar. Felicity had gone.
Jamie’s shoulders slumped. “I really, really wish she would stop doing that.”
Felicity waited until she had cleared the house before stopping; she didn’t want Hollie or Jamie to follow her. She found herself in the park over the road, hidden by the tall, leafless trees and the evergreen shrubs. Her eyes darted as she looked for Oliver, but he was nowhere to be seen, and there was very little chance of finding him now. The deal that she had been prepared to break dissolved in an instant, leaving but one option.
It had started to rain. The freak storm had chased away those who had been enjoying the last of the snow in the park; it was empty, and the water was beginning to chip away at the remaining slush like millions of tiny hammers. Felicity’s hair was already soaked, as were her clothes. Her body was shivering, telling her that it was cold and needed shelter and warmth, but her heart was beating so fast and her adrenalin pumping so fiercely that she couldn’t hear it.
She stared up at the sky as the clouds swirled. She didn’t know what she was looking for. Oliver had said numerous times that the ‘others’ were coming but she had no way to identify them. The only information she had was that they were looking for her, so it was up to her to make herself seen. She headed for the centre of the playing field.
With each breath she anticipated the end. A part of her was screaming for her to run, to escape, to save herself, but she did not relent. She forced her legs to move her further into the open and towards the danger she felt certain was on its way. Her one and only comfort, the driving force behind her actions, was that the only two friends she had ever made would be safe. Her father’s words echoed in her ears: You can either hold on to the thing you love most, even if it would ruin them, or you can let it go and just be ruined on your own. That was the decision she had made, to protect the people who had shown her what friendship was when her mother didn’t, even if it meant facing what was to come.
“Felicity!”
She spun around, and her breath caught in her throat when she saw Oliver standing there.
He was a few paces from her, staring at her with that unnerving look of utter hatred. But in spite of that, he was calm and collected, as if meeting Felicity in the park at that very moment wasn’t entirely unexpected. His hands hung at his sides, loose and free to do with whatever he wished - and it was this that terrified her.
“Where is the book?” he said.
Felicity was too afraid to respond. Her fear had frozen her completely; her eyes were locked on his open palms.
“I’ll ask you again,” Oliver said, taking a step towards her. “Where is the book?”
Felicity opened her mouth and shook her head with genuine effort, unable to form the words in the face of her terror. She was imagining what Oliver was capable of, what spells he could wield with those hands.
Suddenly, his calm yet intense demeanour was replaced by anger as he shouted: “We do not have time for this! The oth
ers will be here any second - give me the book!”
It took a moment for her mind to focus on his words and process them properly, but when she did, she noticed something. Squinting in concentration as she tried to ignore her instinct to flee, she glanced up at the still overcast sky.
She felt a little braver. “This... this is all you, isn’t it?” she ventured.
Oliver stared at her, frowning. “What?”
“There are no others, are there?”
Oliver looked surprised and confused, almost as much as she was, and for a moment Felicity doubted her suspicions; but then she remembered that they had all been played by him before.
“Of course there is!” he cried out impatiently. “You have no idea.”
“So you keep saying,” Felicity persisted. “But I don’t believe you.”
She had no time to react as Oliver darted towards her, his arms raised and those dangerous fingers spread. She couldn’t even attempt to dodge as he grabbed her throat with one hand and a burning flame appeared in the other, undeterred by the falling rain.
She grabbed at his hand, which was tightly clasped around her neck, leaving her struggling and gasping for air.
Oliver moved his face close to hers. “You see that?” he asked her, glancing up at the sky. “As we speak, nature is being disturbed by the powers of the others. They’re on their way, and when they get here they will kill you, for you are a threat to them. You won’t be able to stop them. You won’t be able to defend against their magic - unless I help you.” His grip became tighter. “The only thing that stands between you and them is me, and I will not help you unless you give me that book, do you understand? I want that book.”
Felicity could barely tear her eyes from the fire being cradled in Oliver’s hands, but when she did, she saw that his eyes were wide, desperate and frustrated; beats of sweat clung to his forehead, and Felicity was left doubting herself.
“I want that book,” Oliver repeated. “Give it to me!”
Just as the fire hovered but an inch from her face, there was an almighty thunderclap that made both Felicity and Oliver stare upwards.
The clouds were parting. It was like staring into the centre of a hurricane, for the opening that emerged was circular and the other clouds appeared to be looping around it and closer to it, attracted to it like moths to the light. The speed of the wind picked up.
The pressure on Felicity’s neck and the heat on her face suddenly disappeared as Oliver released her. She gulped at the air, coughing and spluttering, and through watery eyes she watched as he took a few steps away from her, moving his arms in a complicated gesture. Then, before her eyes, he vanished. She could have been wrong, but she thought she saw an expression of fear on his face.
But that was the least of her worries, for the opening in the sky had lit up. It shone with its own light, a bright whiteness that couldn’t possibly have been sunlight, and something was emerging; no, not something, Felicity realised as she squinted to see better, but many things. They seemed tiny at first, shooting down from the opening in the clouds like stars, and as they plummeted down to Earth and towards Felicity, they got bigger.
She realised with a bloodcurdling horror that she had been wrong; Oliver hadn’t created the storm. The others were real, and they were coming for her.
The clouds closed up behind them and the light disappeared, but still the shapes that had emerged headed in the direction of the park. They could easily have been mistaken for pieces of a plane shedding its parts as it encountered trouble, were it not for they way in which they commanded their own flight path. Felicity felt her heart beat faster and her breathing increase as they got closer and closer to her. At the last moment her instinct of flight finally kicked in and she began to run, but by then it was far too late.
She had barely managed a few metres when the shapes had surrounded her, leaving a distortion in their wake; the air behind them seemed to blur. She stopped as two of them criss-crossed in front of her, blocking her path. At first their goal seemed only to stop her, perhaps to imprison her, but then she felt a stinging pain across her cheek.
She couldn’t see where the blow had come from, for she couldn’t make out any humanoid figures within the objects that had descended from the sky; she couldn’t make out any shapes at all. She was simply aware of waves of dull light and distorted air circling her and weaving in front of and behind one another. One of them struck her again and she cried out in pain. A thin red line appeared on her cheek where the flesh had been split. She raised her hand to her face and could feel the sticky warmth of her blood.
So this was it. This was how she was going to die. She hadn’t quite planned it to go this way - she had intended to make the deal with Oliver until she found that he had escaped the basement. She was going to take her chances with him, because risking her life was better than seeing Hollie and Jamie get hurt. But it turned out that Oliver had been honest about at least one thing - that the others were coming. And now they were here.
She was struck in the face once again, this time so forcefully and suddenly that she fell to her knees. Although this was the fate she had accepted, she was still hoping that she would somehow make it out of there alive, however unlikely it seemed. Her eyes flitted from left to right, searching for an escape route, but the objects surrounding her were moving so fast that they were weaving an impassable barrier. She felt helpless and weak, and shivered with terror as she cowered on her knees, hoping that the end would come sooner rather than later.
But the beings around her were determined to toy with her, it seemed, for just as she reached her lowest point, they stopped circling. They formed a regiment around her, hovering an equal distance apart from one another, and when Felicity looked up she could finally make out some kind of shape to them.
There was eight of them. They appeared to be human, but their image was so distorted and blurry that she couldn’t make out any facial features and could only identify limbs by assumption. She didn’t know why they had stopped - they could have been studying her, or deciding how to kill or torture her. Felicity could have used that opportunity to attempt an escape, but part of her knew it would be pointless, that her mortal abilities would be nothing compared to what these beings could do, and another part of her knew that if she were to get away then she would be putting Hollie and Jamie in danger. That was the last thing she wanted.
They didn’t hover there for long. After a moment, one of the shapes seemed to levitate towards her, towering over her menacingly. It raised what looked like an arm, and then the other, and Felicity could tell that it was performing the gestures and movements that Oliver had emphasised were so important to spell casting.
Her time was finally up. A part of her was relieved, for she knew it would be an end to the fear and anxiety she had been suffering for what seemed like an age. No more looking over her shoulder for the next magic-wielding creature to threaten her, no more wondering whether or not Oliver was trying to trick her with lies or manipulate her with the truth. No more friendships, no more laughter. She wouldn’t have to worry about anything. She wondered if she would see her mother.
She was just about to close her eyes, for she was not eager to see how her life was about to end, when she saw Hollie, closely followed by Jamie, the two of them hurtling towards her, waving wildly.
Their approach went unacknowledged by the others, who either didn’t see the teenagers as a threat or were too concerned with Felicity to notice them at all.
Felicity’s relief was swallowed up by horror. She pleaded with her eyes for the two of them to stop, to turn around, to get away from the park while they still had a chance, but they were too far away to read such tiny signals.
She could hear them calling her name; there was no way that the others could have missed it. Still, they appeared unconcerned - but for how long? Felicity couldn’t take the chance that they might decide that Hollie and Jamie were in their way after all.
“Get away!” she screamed
suddenly, finding within her an energy that she had thought had left her completely. “Get away from here!”
Hollie and Jamie had reached the circle now and were just a few yards from where Felicity knelt on the grass. The remains of the snow soaked into her jeans. Her body was shivering from the cold. Her skin was pale and her eyes red. It was clear that the two siblings wanted to get to their friend, but the strange, hovering beings before them were making them hesitate.
“Fliss!” Hollie called to her friend, daring to alert the others to her presence.
“Run,” Felicity called to them. “Please!”
Hollie shook her head.
The apparent leader of the eight beings closed in on Felicity. She was aware of a pressure beginning to push down on her chest, restricting her lungs and making her cough and splutter as she struggled for air. She didn’t want her friends to see her die, and though there was nothing she could do about it any more, she hoped that the others would leave them alone once they were done with her.
A dizziness started to overcome her. She could feel herself weakening.
Suddenly, she was aware of Hollie standing beside her. She felt her arm being tugged, forcing her to struggle to her knees - and then Jamie was there, too. Through blurred vision she saw him take hold of her other arm. The two of them were trying to save her.
The pressure on her chest ceased as she was dragged a few paces from the centre of the circle the beings had created, but they got no further than that. Felicity knew they wouldn’t. Hollie and Jamie had made themselves an obstacle, and the others wouldn’t allow that; as Oliver had said: they’ll destroy anyone who gets in their way.
She couldn’t let that happen. She had allowed herself to be caught because she thought it would save her friends, not condemn them, and now they were all in danger. The others had already resumed their circling barrier to stop Hollie and Jamie from dragging her away, and now the three of them were standing like red targets in the centre of a shooting ground.
