by M. V. Stott
‘He was dead! Mr. Trick had killed my witches and I couldn’t let him murder David, too. I couldn’t.’
I looked down in surprise as L’Merrier rested one of his meaty paws on my shoulder.
‘I know,’ was all he said.
‘Well, this is all very heartwarming,’ said Eva, ‘but we still have a normal turned magic-godzilla-bomb knock-knocking on our door, and the way this bubble is looking, I don’t think it’s gonna stand up to much more punishment, do you?’
She was right. The field L’Merrier had created with the chalk circle was starting to become visible as it took more and more damage, David relentlessly throwing magic towards us as the safe house tore itself apart around his now grotesquely bulging body. He was no longer popping back into his normal shape, and glowing cracks were appearing across his skin, the magic burning to be released.
‘What do we do?’ I asked.
‘As I said, I believe you to be the key. You are the one who was able to reach him. You will help Detective Tyler fight.’
Eva stumbled and grabbed onto me for support as another volley of magic pummeled against the barrier.
‘How’s that?’ asked Eva.
‘Stella, he knows you, trusts you. He is lost and afraid, cowering inside of his own mind as the thing he is becoming takes ownership. Of his body, his memories, his history. If I can project you into his consciousness, you can find him. He will trust and accept you, and you can help him fight back.’
‘Couldn’t you just pop inside and grab him yourself?’ asked Eva.
‘His mind neither knows me well, nor trusts me,’ replied L’Merrier. ‘The memories would not accept me, but they would accept Stella.’
He was talking about a form of astral projection, something beyond my powers, or Eva’s, but not his. The ability to leave your own body behind and enter another state. To explore other realms, other universes, other people’s inner worlds.
Another volley of magic hit and I felt heat lick my skin; the protection spell was almost dead.
‘How will that help stop this happening again? Why won’t the power overtake him again later?’
He clicked his fingers and a small box appeared in the palm of his hand.
‘What’s that for?’ asked Eva, almost falling as the floor beneath us quaked.
‘When you use the dark arts, there is always a price. A splinter of hell has embedded itself inside of Detective Tyler. I can see it within him now. After you locate his true self, you must find the splinter. Remove it. Place it within this box and bring it to me.’
I nodded and took the small box, sliding it into the inside pocket of my leather jacket.
‘Okay, let’s do this,’ I said.
‘One small problem,’ he replied.
‘Only one?’
‘The circle will not allow you to pass through. When I release your astral form, I must break the circle.’
‘Hey,’ said Eva, ‘wouldn’t that, sort of, be bad news for those of us hoping to see tomorrow?’
‘Time moves differently when in the astral form. For Stella, inside of David’s mind, a second for us will be like minutes for her. She must move swiftly, or else he will turn us to ash, and London soon after. This is it familiar, the only chance we have left. This is all upon you now. The life of this city rests upon your shoulders.’
‘I think what he’s saying is: No pressure, love.’ Eva winked, and I found I couldn’t help but admire her attitude. She could have gone on her way, enjoying her traveller’s life as best she knew how, rejecting the life she’d been born to. A life that had, apparently, treated her so badly. Instead she was trying to save someone she barely knew, but still facing it with a wink and a smile.
I grabbed her by the arm. ‘Thanks. Thank you, Eva.’
‘You can do it,’ she replied. ‘You’re Stella Familiar of the mother-shitting London bloody Coven.’
I smiled. ‘Yes I am.’
‘The spell is almost dead, are you ready?’ asked L’Merrier.
I looked at David, swollen to almost three times his normal size, his entire head engulfed in blinding white fire.
‘Do it.’
I felt L’Merrier’s hand grip the back of my head as he waved his free hand in front of us and the circle was broken.
David was screaming. Screaming in a voice I didn’t recognise as his. Death shot towards us from his hands as L’Merrier leant close and whispered in my ear. ‘Go....’
27
The first thing I heard were trees.
Branches, leaves, swayed back and forth by the breeze.
Then I felt the breeze myself, against my face, flowing through my hair.
I opened my eyes. I was in a field. No, I wasn’t really in a field, I was in the memory of a field. David’s memory. L’Merrier and Eva were back in the safe house, a heartbeat from death, and I was in the memory of a field, of trees, of sky, of grass, of wind.
‘Who are you?’
I turned to see the back garden of a house, a small fence between it and the field. A young boy, maybe six years old, was looking at me, eyes wide, head tilted.
‘Hello, David,’ I said.
‘How d’you know my name? Are you a friend of my mum’s or something?’
Young David was small and skinny, a bowl-mop of hair that he kept pushing out of his eyes because it was past-due a cut, mud on his cheeks and on his hands from digging in the dirt.
‘It’s complicated,’ I said.
‘Oh, like maths you mean? ‘Cos that’s well hard and complicated, and I’m not even a stupid person.’
I’d never seen a picture of David as a child, but this was just how I’d imagined him. The house with the garden backing onto a field, he’d told me about this. It was in a small place called Hitchen, just outside of London, where he’d lived for a while growing up. This must be the field where one day some bad kids will torment him so badly he’ll pee his pants. No wonder this memory burns strong, no wonder it’s the first place I find myself after L’Merrier projected my consciousness into his.
‘Is it okay if I climb over the fence to join you?’ I asked.
David looked at me, then over his shoulder to his house, then back to me again. He nodded. ‘Okay, if you’re a friend of my mum’s, I suppose that’s okay.’
I gripped the fence and swung myself over as David dropped back onto his knees and picked up a trowel to continue his digging.
‘What are you looking for?’ I asked
‘Buried treasure, of course.’
‘Found any yet?’
‘Nope, but I reckon there might be, like, a chest of gold, or a mummy down here, maybe. Something old and cool. It’ll get me on the telly I’ll bet, make me famous and rich and really popular. I won’t have to go to school or nothing anymore.’
‘Oh, of course.’ I knelt down to join him, digging at the hole he was creating with my hands.
‘I suppose, if we find anything together, you can have a share of the cut. Not as much as me though, ‘cos I’ve already dug a pretty big amount of this hole before you even got here. That’s just fair.’
I smiled. ‘Oh, absolutely.’
We dug in silence for a few seconds.
‘David?’
‘Hm?’
‘How do you feel?’
He shrugged, ‘Okay, maybe.’
‘Why just maybe?’
He stopped digging and sat back, thinking. ‘Not sure.’
‘Try to remember, David.’
He rubbed at his nose with his wrist. ‘Hurts to try.’
‘Hurts? In your head?’
‘Yeah. Like, my head's too full of stuff. Sometimes it feels like it’s getting fuller and fuller and it’s just going to explode like a big balloon. Just go Bang and I won’t be me no more.’
David’s mind knew something wasn’t right. His memories felt the change. The intrusion. He knew that he was under siege.
‘You’re not supposed to be here, are you?’ he asked.
&nbs
p; ‘I came to help you. Help you stop the balloon from bursting.’
He nodded, face grave beyond his years. ‘Do you believe in monsters, Miss?’
‘Yeah. I believe in monsters.’
He sat back, his legs crossed, digging for mummies forgotten. ‘I’m not even talking about monsters under the bed, or in the wardrobe. I mean, I used to believe in that sort of thing, so I’d have my mum leave my bedroom door open a crack with the landing light on, just in case. But that’s kid’s stuff really, isn’t it?’
‘What sort of monster do you mean, David?’
He hugged his knees and closed his eyes tight.
‘It’s okay,’ I said, ‘you don’t have to be afraid. I’ll let you into a secret: My name’s Stella, and I’m the person monsters run away from.’
He looked up at me, eyes wide with wonder. ‘Really? You kill monsters?’
‘I kill monsters. Well, bad monsters. Not all monsters are bad.’
‘This one is. I know because I feel it here,’ he said, placing a hand on his stomach.
‘Then it’s a good job I came here today, because getting rid of evil monsters is my thing. What does your monster look like, David?’
He hung his head again, then looked back up, eyes watery, and pointed to himself.
‘It looks like you?’
He nodded. ‘Like me, but I know it isn’t. Though even my mum and dad thinks it is. They ask why I just did something and it wasn’t even me. It was the other David, and they tell me off for making up lies and send me to my room to think about what I’ve done and why lying to my parents is a rotten thing. He’s always up there waiting for me, then. The other me with the fire in his eyes that my mum and dad don’t seem to notice. Why don’t they see his fire eyes, Stella?’
‘Because he doesn’t want them to.’
David’s eyes snapped wide and he began to push himself away from me in a panic.
‘What’s wrong, what is it?’
David pointed past me to the hole he’d dug, a beam of light was shining out from within.
I stood, pulling David up to his feet and placing him behind me, his hand gripping my leg so hard it hurt.
‘It’s the monster!’ said David. ‘It’s other me with the fire eyes!’
An arm reached out of the hole we’d dug, shedding soil from its skin like scales. Then a second arm, the hands gripping the edge of the hole as a head rose into view, eyes burning bright and furious. Apart from the eyes, he looked just like young David. Same skinny arms, same unruly mop of hair.
‘What do we do?’ asked David, as the Other David pulled himself up out of the hole.
‘Don’t worry, everything is going to be okay.’ As I said the words, I had to believe them. Had to believe that I was going to save him. I tried to pull the magic into me, to conjure something to punch out of my hand and burn Other David to dust, but there was no magic. No magic in the air, no magic inside of me. Just my astral form, inside of someone else’s memories. I felt dizzy at the realisation as my body pulled again and again at nothing, not understanding the emptiness.
‘It’s okay, David, it’s going to be okay.’
A shiver passed over me and I realised I couldn’t feel David’s hand gripping my leg anymore, couldn’t sense him behind me.
There was a reason for that.
He wasn’t there anymore.
‘What did you do to him?’ I yelled at Other David, now stood before me, calmly smiling. I knew what he’d done. He’d erased him. Pushed the real David out of this memory. Now the only David that existed here was Other David. Memory by memory it was taking over, replacing him, until this other version owned him completely. No, didn’t own him, was him. There would be no David, just this thing with its fiercely blazing eyes. And when that happened—if it happened—David would tear open and London would die. Every person, normal or Uncanny, every family pet, every insect, every bird. All gone.
Other David stepped towards me and reached out a hand. I turned away, tried to run, but as I did the whole world seemed to be whipped away, like someone yanking a tablecloth from a restaurant table, the plates remaining still and unharmed upon it.
And then I was somewhere else.
It was getting dark, early evening, and I was stood in a park. In the distance I could see a set of swings. A girl was sat on one of the swings, a boy stood next to her. It was David, now a teenager.
He leaned in and kissed the girl.
What memory was this? His first real kiss? Or just some precious memory of an old girlfriend?
I began to move towards the set of swings, looking over my shoulders as I went, trying to find any sign of Other David appearing. I wondered what my plan would be this time. How would I stop David being pushed out of another memory?
I felt the small box L’Merrier had given me bouncing against my side as my jacket moved. A splinter, that’s what he’d said. A splinter lodged in David’s psyche, caused by the black magic giving him life. But where was it? Would I even know what it was if I saw it?
The girl had left, walking away from the direction I’d just come from. She turned and smiled and waved, young and happy and full of the fury of teenage love.
David waved back as he sat down in the swing, a big dopey smile on his face. He looked more like the David I knew now, though thinner, gawkier, with shaggy hair and a sprinkling of weak face fuzz.
‘David,’ I said.
He looked up, seeming to notice me for the first time.
‘Oh, hey… do I know you?’
No, not yet, but one day.
‘I don’t have time to explain, he could turn up at any moment.’
He looked at me warily, obviously taking me for a nutcase.
‘Right. Okay. I think I might just head off.’
As he turned I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back. ‘No, it’s not safe, you need to stay with me.’
‘Don’t touch me you weirdo!’ he cried.
‘What do you remember?’
He blinked. Was that a twitch of recognition?
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I think you do. When you try to think back on your past, it’s like there are holes, am I right?’
He shrugged, ‘Everyone forgets stuff.’
‘But not like this, not like you.’
Confusion crept across his face. ‘We dug a hole.’
Digging a hole; he could remember that? But he’d been pushed out of that memory. Maybe something clung on, maybe you couldn’t be made to forget everything.
‘It’s you. I remember you. I sort of remember you, I think. Only… we never met, but we did. A long time ago, but… I can’t quite remember it. It hurts when I try, like it’s a lie, or something.’
‘David, you—’
A sudden light from behind me caused David to squint and turn his head away.
‘No—’
I turned to see Other David moving fast towards us.
‘Oh. It’s the other me. But that’s just a bad dream, isn’t it? How can he be real?’
There was no time for explanations. I grabbed David’s hand and pulled him after me as I ran.
We ran across the park, not looking back, just moving, just going, going, going. The world shot past, streaking like a painting that someone had just knocked a glass of water over. The image blurred, the colours ran, and when I finally looked back I wasn’t holding David’s hand anymore. Other David’s eyes burned and I heard myself scream as I twisted, pulled my hand away, fell towards the grass and—
—I landed on a tiled floor, banging my head. The ceiling above me swayed drunkenly. I was failing. Another memory the real David had been pushed out of, more of him submerged under the new persona. I had to find the black splinter – had to search every memory until I had it. Did I have enough time? How much of the real David was left? How long did I have before L’Merrier and Eva were killed in the real world and this was all done with?
I sat up and looked around, rubbing at the b
ack of my head. I recognised the room, I was in David’s kitchen. What memory was this, and where was David?
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I turned to find my answer. Other David was stood behind me. I pushed away, scrabbling back with my hands and feet, sliding across the kitchen floor, as there was a flash and a blast of air and then suddenly another me appeared in the room. I knew what memory this was. It was when I first met David. When, moments from death, Mr. Trick had yanked me out of the street and deposited me into his life.
And now David had been pushed out of this memory. I felt a surge of pure, wonderful fury ransack my body. How dare they rob him of the first time we ever met? Standing, I grabbed a chair and threw it towards Other David with a scream. I wanted to hurt this imposter. Wanted the chair to shatter his skull. Spill his brains. I wanted to hold him down and choke the life out of him.
Other David lifted a hand and stopped the chair in mid-air. He tilted his head, regarding me curiously, then with a flick of the wrist, launched the chair back in my direction.
I jumped out of the way, rolling and hopping back up onto my feet as the room blurred—
—I staggered, heart pounding. I wasn’t in David’s kitchen anymore. It was night time and I was in the street, close to the coven. So when was I now? What memory had I fallen into this time?
‘David? David, where are you?’
I soon got my answer: he was nowhere.
I watched as a memory of me swayed and stumbled down the street towards home, clearly drunk as a skunk, as Other David accompanied me. The memory of me threw my arms around Other David.
It was the almost kiss. The drunken moment of stupidity on my part.
Other David leaned in and the fire in his eyes spread out, enveloped the memory of me. Tendrils of pure white began to worm their way out of the fire and rubbed at the surrounding memory of the street like an eraser removing a mistake.
I ran from it and the world blurred once more as I—
—Another memory, and another. What good was I doing? Each memory went by faster and faster as every trace of the real David was removed. All I found were partial memories with Other David, his eyes burning furiously, at their centre. Time was running out and I could feel panic beginning to overwhelm me. To make me sweat and shake as I moved through each old recollection, desperately trying to find a true David, to find the splinter in his paw and remove it.
