Ashley smirked. “You’re a witch? Prove it.”
Rita rolled her eyes, more like a teenager than an elderly woman. She pointed a crooked finger at Ashley and said, “That bruise on your nose. Your dad done that, yes? Hit you this very afternoon, he did.”
Ashley gasped.
The old lady shrugged as though it was nothing. “Easy to read pain when it’s so fresh. Am I right, lamby?”
“Yes! But how did you… How the fuck did you know that?”
“Because she’s a witch,” said Jude.
Rita nodded. “That I am, and I’ll ask you not to soil the air in here, girl.”
“Sorry.”
“With all that’s happened,” said Jude. “You being a witch isn’t so strange. I’ve always wondered if such things were real.”
Rita smiled warmly at Jude. “You have an open heart. People might call that a weakness, but I don’t. In fact, one day you might find it’s your strength.”
“Wait!” said Ashley. “Everything you’re talking about happened when you were a young woman, right? We saw Rose in the farmhouse and she was in her thirties. It makes no sense.”
“Rose is as old as I am, lamby.”
“How can that be true?”
“Because it is. You see, once I got her confession, I dealt with her accordingly. My dear old ma helped me, although she were dead less than a year later from the grief.”
Jude leant forward, eyes locked onto the old woman. “What did you do?”
“We invited the bank manager over to our farmhouse for dinner, pretended we wanted to talk about a loan. He were arrogant enough that he came. My mother slit his throat in the kitchen and we used his bones to make Rose’s chains. We bound her to the very spot where she had murdered my brother. Then we forged a locket from copper and pig flesh and placed it around her neck with photographs of my niece and nephew so that she could never escape the truth of what she had done. Finally, after we pierced her flesh with the bones of her dead lover and cursed her with the image of her dead children, we trapped her inside the farmhouse using ancient spells passed down through our family for generations. A triangle, the strongest of all shapes, was painted on the ground with her paramour’s blood. Finally, my mother and I used the last of our power to invoke nature to fall upon the farmhouse and keep people out. Over time, that magic has probably faded, but as extra protection, I sold the farm to an organisation that deals with… unfit properties, you might say.”
Jude jolted. “You mean there’s a company that buys haunted houses?”
“They think of themselves as caretakers. It’s their job to make sure nobody goes inside places like my family’s old farmhouse. Given the two of you, it looks like they failed, but I’ll give them some credit, it’s been more than fifty years. I always knew Rose would be discovered one day, but I only cared about making her suffer. The locket around her neck is cursed. It gives her eternal life. Eternal suffering. If I had just killed her, her wickedness would have been at an end, but my darkness demanded more. I let it win out over my conscience. Perhaps it’s finally time for me to pay for my sins. Tell me, lambies, did you enter the triangle? Is Rose free?”
Ashley shook her head. “We didn’t enter the triangle.”
Rita exhaled. “Thank the Lord. The triangle is the only thing keeping her—”
“But someone else did.”
Rita went rigid. Her eyes stretched wide. “Rose is unbound?”
Ashley swallowed a lump in her throat. The fear in the old woman’s eyes was not comforting at all. “There was a girl named Lily Barnes. She went into the triangle. Rose killed her. She… she couldn’t see Rose.”
“Only the pure of flesh can see the wicked of heart. This girl, Lily, she was no longer a virgin?”
Ashley grimaced. “What? I don’t know. Gross.”
“She probably wasn’t,” said Jude. “She was kind of off the rails.”
Rita exhaled again. She seemed to be growing tired, like continuing the conversation was hard work. “Only virgins, or those who have only ever known the body of a spouse, can see the likes of Rose. The locket around her neck pins her to the in-between, keeps her soul thinly bound to existence, never able to be truly alive and never able to pass on to the next. I admit, my revenge upon her was grave, and yet…”
“And yet what?” asked Jude.
“And yet to this day, I do not regret it. Perhaps I will pay for embracing such hatred. I fear the day may be soon.”
“What do we do?” asked Ashley, not wanting to get sidetracked. She could see that Rita was losing focus. “How do we stop Rose?”
Rita shook her head. “I fear you cannot, lamby. To finally give Rose rest, one would need to obtain her locket and destroy it.”
Ashley reached into her pocket and pulled out the locket. “You mean this one right here?”
Rita gasped and reached out a hand. “Give that to me! Let me see it!”
Ashley looked at Jude, unsure. Did they really want to hand over the one thing they had to a woman they barely knew? Did they trust Rita? Jude gave a subtle nod to suggest he did.
Ashley leant forward and handed over the locket. Rita took it carefully in her withered hands and stared at it like it was the world’s finest diamond. She struggled with the clasp but eventually got it open. Tears came to her eyes.
“Those were your niece and nephew?” said Jude.
Rita nodded, although she kept her focus on the photographs inside the locket. “Yes. Elizabeth and George. Oh, how I miss them. I used to teach them nursery rhymes, dozens of ’em. Nowadays, I can barely remember the words to a single one. Age is a funny thing. Gets to a point where the past is unbelievably long and the future terrifyingly small. My days left on this Earth are few, but I’m glad to have lived this long.” She looked at them and held the locket up so that it dangled from her fingers. “You must take this back and destroy it.”
Ashley raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, okay. No problem. We can just throw it on the carriageway and wait for a lorry to drive over it, or burn it or something.”
Rita shook her head. “You can’t destroy this locket so easily. It’s full of power. Not just the power that my mother and I placed inside it, but several decades of Rose’s suffering. Pain and torment, over time, can grow into something real. Rose’s hatred and anger are inside this locket. I can feel it.”
Ashley grunted. “What, then? You said destroy it, so how do we do that?”
Rita looked her in the eye, her expression weary and possibly afraid. “The magic inside this locket can be undone only in the place it was forged. You must return it… to… to its birthplace and bury it beneath wood, stone… and flesh. Nature must reclaim it.”
“What the fuck does that even mean?”
Rita wheezed and sat forward. She pointed a finger at Ashley and wagged it. “I… I told you, young lady… I…” She coughed and hacked, her frail body rattling on in the recliner. The door burst open and Peter hurried in. He went to his grandmother and started patting her on the back. Rita tried to push him away, but this time she was too weak. “S-Something is wrong,” she moaned. “I… I feel her. Rose is here!”
“What do you need, Grandma? What should I do?”
Jude stood up from the sofa and started to fret. Ashley shuffled to the edge of the sofa cushions, expecting to be dismissed now that Rita had clearly grown tired and stressed. The locket had somehow found its way onto the floor. Rita must have dropped it. Ashley leant forward to reclaim it.
Rita reached an arm past her grandson and pointed at Jude. “You must leave here. You must leave before she finds you. The locket. Take it home. Destroy it. Destroy Rose like I should have done a long time ago.”
Ashley got to her feet and stared at Jude. He’d turned as white as a sheet, and she assumed she didn’t look any better. They had come here seeking answers, but those they had received were frightening. Rose wasn’t a witch or a monster. She was a remorseless killer trapped in place for over half a century, wait
ing for her chance to get free, and now Ashley had something of hers.
Rose will be coming for this locket.
And a moment later, she arrived.
Chapter Seventeen
The lamps in the room turned off, leading Ashley to realise it had grown dark outside. Things fell off the walls as if there was an earthquake, except the floor did not shake. Peter moved away from his grandmother and looked around. Rita remained in her lounger, deathly silent.
Jude looked around nervously. “What’s happening?”
“She’s here,” said Rita. “She’s come for her locket, the thing that gives her life eternal. You must go. You know what to do.”
“Help us.” Jude put his hands together in prayer. “Please.”
“Go.”
Peter turned to them, his cheerful demeanour completely gone. “I understand this is to do with my grandma’s past, but she’s an old lady now. She can’t help you. You need to leave.”
Ashley grabbed Jude by the arm. “Come on, we have to go.” She moved over to the door, which had closed after Peter had rushed in. She opened it again and screamed.
Rose stood in the doorway, exactly as she had appeared in the farmhouse when Jude’s camera had flashed – snakelike black hair down to her naked hips, and mesmerisingly green eyes. Grey patches of corpse-like skin covered her body in several places, and pulsing blue veins throbbed in her cheeks. Her ruined hands had somehow healed, but despite that, she was halfway between a living woman and a rotting cadaver. She reeked of evil. Rage and violence flowed from her in waves. It made Ashley’s eyes water. She backed off, crashing up against Jude, and the two of them retreated to the edge of the small sitting room.
Peter turned to see what had startled them, and when he saw Rose, he gasped. He studied her nakedness for a split second and was clearly repulsed, then he threw up a hand and began to mutter something under his breath, some kind of chant. He obviously knew a certain amount of witchcraft himself.
But not enough.
Rose threw an arm out and struck Peter across the side of his face. The blow was so strong that it lifted him off his feet and sent him sprawling onto the sofa. Ashley turned, intending to help him get back up, but he was unconscious. Or worse.
Rose took another step, moving further into the room. She turned to Ashley and hissed like a snake, exposing her brown, rotting teeth. “Give it back to me,” she whispered, her voice like a distant echo.
Ashley was so scared that she reached out the hand that was holding the locket and attempted to give it back. When Rose’s eyes fell upon it, her thick red lips twisted into an unnatural facsimile of a smile. Maybe if she had the locket back, she would leave them alone.
Rita leapt out of her chair and stood up. She was a tiny thing, barely taller than a child. Her back was twisted and bony lumps covered her shoulders. All the same, she stepped in front of Rose and faced the abominable woman down. “I knew we’d meet again, sister-in-law. Your punishment has been long, yet utterly deserved. Let these lambies go. Let them put you to rest so that your suffering may finally be at an end. It is better than you deserve.”
Rose snarled, her broken teeth grinding together and a grey worm-like tongue poking through the gaps. “I have waited. Waited for this.” She lifted a long-fingered hand in front of her face and snapped it closed into a fist.
Rita clutched her chest and moaned. “No… No, you must be stopped. Your evil… must be…”
Ashley yelped as the old woman collapsed to the ground at her feet. She wheezed and clawed at her chest while thick blue veins popped up all over her bulging neck.
Despite her suffering, Rita locked eyes with Ashley and spoke. “Go… before it’s… too late.”
Ashley looked at the locket in her hand and didn’t know what to do. Should she stay and help the old lady? Or run?
Jude grabbed her wrist and the two of them took off, racing through the open door and exiting the house as quickly as they could. By the time they made it through the gate at the end of the driveway, they were both sobbing. Inside the house, they heard Peter screaming.
Chapter Eighteen
It was dark, but not quite night. The sun had disappeared, replaced by the moon. The odd cloud still drifted overhead, barely visible against the dark blue sky, but there was not yet a single star. Half-an-hour, and night would settle in comfortably. It meant they would have to visit the farmhouse in the dark, which was not a pleasant thought.
Ashley had never run so far without a break in her life, and by the time she and Jude stopped, they were sweating profusely and struggling to breathe. They had made it just over halfway home and were walking alongside the main road. They had just passed the embankment full of daffodils, but this time they didn’t stopp to pick any.
I think we just left two dead bodies behind us. Rose gave Rita a heart attack. How is that even possible?
And what about Peter? Is he okay?
Why is this happening?
Jude doubled over and heaved. For a moment, it looked like he was going to puke, but nothing came out except a mouthful of stringy saliva. Once he was done, he turned to Ashley with a grim expression on his face. “I… I don’t know if I can go back to the farmhouse. I-I just want to go home, no matter the consequences. The police can pin everything on me and lock me up for life; I don’t care.”
“Yes, you do. If we have any chance of getting through this, we need to do what Rita told us. We need to destroy the locket and put Rose to rest. Otherwise, this will never end and more people are going to get hurt. We have to do this, Jude. Your whole life, you’ve wanted to go on an adventure, to be brave, so here’s your chance. Rose is an evil, twisted bitch who murdered her own children, so let’s do what Rita should’ve done in the first place and finish her. One down, two down, right? What type of person do you want to be?”
Jude took several laboured breaths, still winded. Several cars passed by and hit them with their headlights. After a couple of minutes, he straightened up and gave himself a shake. “Once again, the warrior princess shows no fear. Her trusted mage is honoured to be by her side.”
Ashley shoved him playfully and smiled. “You’re such a nerd. I love you, Jude. Thanks for being my friend all these years.”
“No one else would have you,” he said, chuckling, “but that’s their loss.”
“Damn straight!” She threw out her arms and kicked out a leg. “I’ll remember you when I’m a famous backing dancer.”
“Nice moves.”
She did the robot, being silly and making him laugh. “You reckon I have what it takes?”
“Fuck yeah!”
Ashley was surprised by Jude’s bad language. Usually he left the foul mouth stuff to her. She pulled him in for a cuddle and the two of them embraced for a full minute before getting going again in a rush. Rose could be anywhere, and if she caught up to them before they got to the farmhouse, there was no telling what she might do.
Maybe she’ll stop our hearts in our chests like Rita’s. Or maybe we’ll put that bitch to rest once and for all.
This warrior princess is coming for you, Rose.
They reached the woods less than an hour later, and by then it was fully dark. Stepping into the trees with nothing except moonlight was terrifying, and every snapping twig and rustling insect set Ashley’s teeth on edge. The hairs on the back of her neck came alive like caterpillars. Now and then she deliberately bumped against Jude just to feel him there. They were both silent, and she knew it was because they were thinking the same thing: that they might die out here tonight.
They made it to the top of Devil’s Ditch and wasted no time in sliding down on their butts. They slid to the bottom and rolled back onto their feet with ease.
We’re becoming professionals at this.
The trees and bushes were trampled, and there was an empty plastic water bottle lying on the ground. The police had obviously stormed through the area, but where were they now? Were they still searching for Lily, or had they given
up?
“We need to make sure we’re not seen,” said Ashley. “The police could be out here.”
Jude nodded. “When I tried to get help this morning, the woods seemed to fight me. It must have been Rita’s spell. Maybe it will keep the police from hanging around.”
“Maybe. Come on, let’s do this.”
A few minutes later, they passed the NO TRESPASSING sign. A minute after that, they were standing in the clearing and staring at the old farmhouse.
In the silvery moonlight, the farmhouse appeared ghost-like. The jagged shapes and sharp angles were unnatural among the trees and bushes, and Ashley sensed now how cursed the place was. It smelled of death and decay, and her skin tingled just being there. Something deep inside her mind – instinct, perhaps – told her to run, and screamed that she was in danger. It took several moments to override that fear.
The clearing was trampled, but there were no police officers around. They must have come, searched, and left. She imagined they were now searching the estate for Jude and Ashley.
Jude spoke. “Rita said we have to bury the locket beneath wood, stone, and flesh. Any ideas?”
Ashley strode forward into the clearing and stopped at a certain spot. She nodded at the floor where the rotting carcass of whatever animal Jude had stepped in was. “Here’s our flesh. All we need now is wood and stone.”
“Well, there’s plenty of that about.” Jude turned a circle and started kicking at the ground, sending leaves and twigs flying. He moved back towards the bushes where they had entered the clearing, and there he found a thick branch that he brought over. He threw it down next to the dead animal. “Two down, one to go.”
There was a sudden chaotic uproar, and Ashley and Jude instinctively pressed against each other. The screeching came from everywhere as birds took flight from trees and small critters bolted through the bushes. Something had disturbed the wildlife. Ashley had a good idea what.
Rose appeared in the centre of the clearing, stone-still like a statue. The only parts of her that seemed alive were her bright green eyes that cut through the darkness like sparkling gemstones. Leaves and moss swirled around her feet as a cyclonic wind rose up from the ground. Then a full-on gale spiralled through the clearing.
Witch: A Horror Novel (The Cursed Manuscripts) Page 14