The Haunting of Violet Gray

by Emily Sadovna

  When you travel through time, know you are not alone because whatever you saw, I saw it too. Remember, everything you see, I see. Everything you feel, I feel,” Violet implored me to believe. “I can’t travel myself, but when I connect to you, I see what you are seeing.”

  “I am dreaming. This situation is all too fucked up to be true. I’m leaving.” I tried to run away, but the shock had taken control of my limbs, and I seemed to have forgotten how to walk.

  “Put your hands on the mirror, Cat.”

  “Why?”

  “Do it. I will show you.”

  “How?”

  “Use your mind. Travel into my world two years ago when I made you, and you escaped.”

  “No, this is ridiculous.”

  “What have you got to lose?” Tom pleaded.

  Hesitantly, I placed my hands on the glass. Warmth entered my fingertips and flowed through my arms and flooded my body. I felt heavy and sleepy. The edges of my vision blurred. The room spun, faster and faster. I felt sick, so dizzy and disorientated. My head felt like it would explode as the pressure inside my skull threatened to crack it open. Then when I felt like I couldn’t take any more pain, everything silenced, and I drifted into darkness.

  Two years ago

  Violet’s hands pressed against the glass. She held her breath so her breathing wouldn’t distract from hearing Annie’s words. Sometimes Violet wanted to be seen. Playing the “ghost” was the only interaction she had with people, but today she must remain invisible.

  There had been a trickle of guests flowing through the door all day. Violet gathered by the position of the sun and the changing colours of the trees she could make out through the kitchen window, the month must be mid-summer, the solstice, Violet’s birthday. If she were correct, her magic would be heightened; she may be able to conjure enough power to open the portal and make her escape.

  There were towers of discarded books around her, others flipped open with jagged edges where spells were ripped out and stuck to the walls. The red wallpaper of Violet’s library was covered in her scribbled handwriting where she had spent decades making notes and working out formulae for spells, all of which failed.

  She had paced the room. She had cried, wailed, hammered on the glass to be heard. The doors to the outside world were locked, the glass unbreakable.

  Today, the conditions could be right to try her new formula. Last summer solstice, she managed to open the door enough to throw small objects through. To begin with then as she mastered the spell, Violet got a little book through. Getting herself through would be almost impossible, but she had to remain hopeful. Every passing year, more of her hope trickled away and with it her sanity. Hope gave her purpose. She knew without hope of escape she would disappear into the darkness inside her mind. Perhaps madness would prove the escape from this vortex? She banged the side of her head with her hand. “Get a grip. You’re not a dribbling wreck yet. Focus, you mad old girl.”

  She gripped her necklace. It helped ground her when she felt her mind spiralling into despair. She knew it provided her with a clue to unlock the door, but what? She tried to interpret the symbols on the stone, but she couldn’t make sense of them. Even if she could decipher the riddle, without the power of the other three elements, the portal remained closed to her.

  This world was her prison, created by magic by the devil himself, the chairman of the board of Erubus. She was suspended in time in a secret dimension, lost to anyone that may have helped her.

  She wondered if there was an alliance between the New Forest Witches and Erubus. Did Annie have access to the portal that trapped Violet in her prison dimension? Annie undoubtedly knew she was there. But Annie made it clear to Violet her hatred of her since she apparently stole Joe’s affections. However seventy-eight years is a long time to hold a grudge.

  The room through the glass was filling up with raised but muffled voices. Violet watched Annie arrive holding the hand of a woman. She was tall, with ice-blonde hair and dressed in a sharply cut suit and impossibly high heel shoes. She possessed the air of someone with money and power. Her hand caressed the small of Annie’s back possessively, and she planted a lingering kiss on her cheek. A look that is normally reserved for lovers fleeted across Annie’s face. Violet gasped. Annie liked women now? Are they lovers? The woman retreated to a chair in the corner of the room where she glanced at her phone and crossed her legs and waited. Annie took her position at the head of the table. Her power had grown. Violet wondered if the woman she arrived with had helped her buy some influence. It appeared Annie assumed the role of the high priestess of the

  coven.

  “Our numbers are growing. Soon we will have enough witches to raise the Cone of Power. The tensions between England and Russia are growing, so now is a good time to launch our attack. The Cone of Power, strategically placed, will be raised to trigger an electrical storm over the city of London. The electrical storm will cut off power for seconds while our undercover team hacks the systems of key financial houses to harvest the data and accounts of the corrupt Russians dealing with our own officials. We will use the information to buy us positions of power and oust the corruption from the government.” Annie swelled with pride as she glanced at the woman in the corner. She smiled reassuringly. “Of course, a leak to MI6 will frame Russia, leaving us in the clear and teaching them a lesson for plotting against England.”

  “Fools, all of you!” Violet slammed her hands on the glass with disgust at their idiotic blackmail plans. Annie was suggesting to her seemingly naive audience. “Can’t you see? Russia won’t stand for it. They will be blamed for the attack. It could lead to war. What about all those people, all the witches who could lose their lives during the operation? Listen to me!” She banged hard on the glass. It was futile. She watched in despair as the coven politely applauded.

  Violet staggered back from the mirror, horrified. Why would Annie want to do that? Kill all those people? What did the woman in the chair have to gain from this? Power? Immortality?

  Influence?

  “We are still missing a crucial member. Erubus, who I am pleased to announce has invited me into their family”—Annie glanced towards the woman in the suit with a half smile—“has granted us permission to open the portal and release Violet temporally so we may recreate the Lammas night ritual. She will be safely reincarcerated after the event.”

  Violet gasped at the revelation she witnessed. So the coven knew she was still alive and imprisoned, and somehow Annie had convinced them Violet was a danger to them. Annie had also joined Erubus. Why? Did she know how evil the organisation was? It appeared everyone in the coven, not just Crawley, knew Violet was alive. Did Joe know she was here? Did Tom know? Her heart broke at the possibility they knew she was here and they didn’t help her escape.

  Violet’s mind was racing. She didn’t fully understand their plans, but raising the Cone of Power again? They were insane. She remembered with sadness the piles of bodies and the smoke billowing into the air when they burnt her friends and their families and how she was dragged away, helpless. She knew her power was the key to making the magic succeed. She was the last in the line of witches that can be traced back to the first Cone of Power that raised a storm and destroyed the Spanish Armada. No other witch was able to manipulate the elements like her.

  Violet knew the Cone of Power could not work without her. She had to take herself out of the equation. She could not kill herself. She had tried many times and failed. And if she was dead, she wouldn’t be able to take her revenge. If she escaped and ran away, they would find her. She needed a decoy.

  “Think,” she said out loud.

  She scoured the books. She heard about witches making doppelgangers before, often for royalty in distant ages. She picked books up, scanned them and discarded them in an unceremonious pile. She pulled ancient documents, journals and leather-bound books from the shelves. Nothing.

  “Breathe.” Violet had become used to talking out loud to the voiceless ro
om. Then it dawned on her, and she tapped the side of her head and passed the room. “I need a locating spell.” She drew a circle, positioned a bowl of salt, water and soil, lit one of the few incense burners she had left and summoned the goddess. She focused her breathing, her heartbeat and her mind on the doppelganger spell. She recited the words again and again until she found what she was seeking.

  “Got it!” she told the wallpaper triumphantly.

  She rummaged elbow deep in the book pile and produced a book bound in a dubious leather, which she hoped was not made of human skin. With crazed eyes and a sweep of her arm, she pushed all the clutter from the desk on the floor and slammed the book down in a cloud of dust, which made her wheeze and cough. Urgency rendered respect for the antiquated velum pages void as she turned each page until she found the spell. Following the spell, she slammed her goblet and athame dagger in the middle of her magic circle. She hacked at her hair until a handful came free, bit her fingernails and spat a small piece into the goblet. Next, she closed her eyes and held her breath and slowly brought the dagger to her little toe. The spell demanded skin, muscle and bone. The metal blade was cold metal against her hot flesh.

  “Come on, girl. You can do it.”

  She screwed her face up tightly and took three big breaths and grimaced with anticipation of the pain to come. Then she quickly without hesitation sawed through the fleshy, bony toe. She howled in agony. She grated at the bone. It squeaked and crunched as it wrenched loose. The adrenaline that surged through her suddenly left her body. She was exhausted and throbbing with pain. Blood flowed from the gaping stump.

  She took the goblet and collected the bright red liquid and plopped the severed toe into the cup. She could barely muster the energy to complete the spell, but she managed to decant the mixture into her pestle and mortar so she could pound it into a paste.

  Violet stood shakily on her mutilated foot. She looked at her reflection in the full-length mirror she had placed in the magic circle. She saw a different vision of the vivacious redhead who had been slung into prison. That Violet had been slowly eroded over decades of loneliness, depression, despair and plotting revenge. The figure she saw was tall, but her sexy curves were now jagged angles of a malnourished skeleton. Her vibrant dancing eyes were empty and sad. Her hair hung as lifeless tendrils over her white shoulders. “At least a part of me may be free, if only for a short time,” Violet said sorrowfully.

  “I see before me, my astral double. I release you so my body may become two. Leave the confines of my skin and escape the prison of my flesh. Leave.”

  Violet held the goblet in her hands and dipped her finger into the harvested liquid. She painted the word live across her reflection’s heart. Next, she put the goblet to her lips. She didn’t need to drink much, just enough to coat her lips, but it took as much determination to taste the vile substance as it did to saw through her toe. She gagged at the metallic smell. Fragments of the little toe bobbed on the surface. Her lips and mouth dried, and she swallowed the revolting concoction of body parts. Some hair got stuck in her throat, and she coughed and wretched, swallowing the threatened vomit and then the blood and bone concoction. She kissed the cold hard mirror. She felt the lips warm as life flooded through her veins. The eyes sprang open. Breath clouded the glass on the other side.

  She could hear Annie evoking the goddess and the collective chants of the witches in the real world beyond the mirrors. They were preparing to open the portal. Despite the sound of the spells rattling her brain, she couldn’t distinguish the words. Light began to pour in through the mirrors. She felt an immense pressure in her skull; the walls began to spin.

  Violet wiped away the residue of blood from her mouth with the back of her hand. She was on all fours, desperately holding her ground. She wouldn’t let them have her. She was still gagging and twisted in disgust from the taste of the bloody cocktail, but she refused to regurgitate her medicine.

  With aggressive determination, she glared at the figure in the reflection in front of her. She pulled her necklace from her throat and muttered a quick spell. “Take this to protect you from evil and those who plan to use you for their own gain. If you survive, find Tom and Joab and decode the necklace to free me.” She thrust it into the doppelganger’s bewildered hand. “Go!” she yelled and slammed her hands into the mirror, cracking the glass. “Go, go, go!”

  The fragmented image seemed to edge away from her and turned, placing the necklace around her neck. She glanced back at Violet and ran. There was a blinding flash of white light; the room seemed to shake. Then she was plunged into darkness and silence. The doppelganger was free.

  A new soul was free from the enchantment that trapped Violet. The prison repelled the girl and threw her into the real world. There was no need to unlock the portal. The coven of witches did it for her.

  Slowly, natural light seeped into the room, and her prison restored itself to the stagnant, festering state it had remained in for seventy years.

  Violet curled into a ball. She gripped her legs close to her and wept. Her body was shaking with sobs. She was alone and in pain. “Pull yourself together,” Violet said scornfully to herself. She knew the doppelganger’s fate was nothing more than bait to lure the eyes of Erubus and the coven away from the real Violet while she worked out the spell to open the portal herself to slip away to freedom. Violet couldn’t help but wish the girl would be intelligent enough to keep out of the clutches of Erubus.

  The doppelganger must work out the meaning of the necklace and convince Tom and Joe to work with her to free Violet if Violet were to ever have a chance of escape. She realised, with dismay, that was unlikely. She didn’t know much about doppelgangers, but they were created as shadows. If she were lucky she might be able to see through the doppelganger’s eyes and hear what she heard, like the elder witches used animals as their familiars. Right now she was too exhausted to move, let alone attempt astral travelling.

  Violet could hear movement and voices coming from the library in the real world. She shuffled her body close to the mirror to listen.

  Annie stood smiling from ear to ear. “It seems this enchanting midsummer’s eve, our magic worked and the portal to the prison dimension opened, enabled Violet to escape. I have just received word. A girl fitting Violet’s description has been spotted running to towards the woods. We must capture her. She was still wearing a black ceremonial robe.”

  A crash came from the door. Violet could see a familiar figure. The dark, curly hair and intense brown eyes of Joe. He dropped a glass in shock. His beautiful face was now cold and hard. His eyes, which once glistened with dreams, now seemed like muddy and unreadable pools.

  “Violet…is…free?” the boy stuttered. “Violet died.” He was ashen with shock.

  “Time for revenge, Joab,” Annie whispered out of earshot.

  Annie threw a robe at Joe as she approached him. She was holding a mask. She placed it over his face and whispered to him. The coven left the room to pursue their prey. The crows squawked their battle cry then swooped to join the hunt.

  Present

  I lay on the floor in the foetal position, cold and shivering. Tom crouched next to me, brushing my hair from my face. His face blanched. “Cat, what happened? You spoke, but I couldn’t make out any words, other than no. You seemed like you were having a fit. You were twisting and turning and then you vomited. I couldn’t wake you. I tried but…”

  “It’s—it’s true. I saw Violet. I saw the coven plotting plans about cyberattacks and the Russians. She made me. It was terrible. What she did…I—I. She cut…” I felt like I would throw up again.

  “If it were easy to make a doppelganger, the whole world would be full of them,” Violet said briskly from the mirror.

  “I saw myself run through the mirror. Annie and the coven and Joab, they put on the robes and masks. It was them. They were the ones that followed me through the woods in my earliest memory before I arrived at Dinah’s. They made the fire to trap me.” My brain was
spinning. I was numb.

  “Joe, or Joab as he calls himself now, followed you. He wanted to help you, I am certain. He was very much in love with me many years ago, but I wasn’t the kindest to him. When he saw you jump through the fire he had conjured, he thought you were dead. He stormed back to the house; he was devastated. His rage ignited the house into a huge furnace, and the walls crumbled down, and he left.”

  Violet was struggling to be heard through the mirror. My energy was depleted since travelling back two years, and Violet was using my energy as a power source to communicate with us. I felt exhausted.

  “In time, they rebuilt the house, thinking I was gone,” Violet continued. “I heard the voices of planners and workers, interior decorators. Then when they placed the mirrors on the walls, at last, I had a window into your world again.”

  “If they thought you died in the fire two years ago, why did they search for you—rather Cat—again?” Tom asked.

  “They were tipped off by someone connected to Erubus. That person told them that Violet or someone that looked exactly like her was still alive. They managed to find out Cat’s name and where she went to college. Annie traced her with a locating spell. The advert was strategically placed and enchanted, so that when Cat read it, the words triggered an entrapment spell, which forced her to apply for the job and come to the house.”

  Violet continued,“The possibility that I may have lived gave the coven a reason to plan again, but this time the scale was outrageous. I don’t understand exactly what they are trying to do. They are talking about raising multiple Cones of Power, creating massive electrical storms and wiping out power, destroying fire walls and a three pronged cyber-attack. What the hell is a fire wall? They are talking of blackmailing, even overthrowing our government.