Breaking Bloody Mary

by Stephanie Nichole

  I don’t stand frozen this time. I chase after her and catch up. I take the bleacher steps two at a time. The announcer’s box comes into view and I see all the windows are missing. Glass covers the top bleachers. I yank the door open to the box and inside sits Christina with Andrew’s head resting on her lap. The microphone to the speakers is dangling from the table. Blood covers the floor and table. Andrew’s eyes are lifeless, his body has pieces of glass stuck here and there. Olivette tries to get around me but I hold her back.

  “Penn, don’t,’ she says quietly.

  I shake my head. The need to protect her from the gruesome sight is all I can think about. “You don’t need to see that.”

  Olivette cocks her head to the side. “But I do, don’t I? I mean we both know that I’m not capable of killing her if I have to. Maybe, if I see all the bad she does I’ll be able to if it comes down to it.”

  I study her for just a few moments, but it seems like a lifetime. Finally, I step aside. I watch as she steps inside the announcer’s box. She doesn’t move at first then suddenly her hands come up to cover her mouth. She moves toward Christina. Danny and Trivitt are standing beside me, peering inside the doorway. Olivette kneels beside Christina. “We need to go,” she tells her.

  Christina shakes her head. I move into the announcer’s box and Danny follows me. Olivette is talking quietly to Christina. She’s clearly not planning on moving. Danny meets my eyes and I nod once. We’re going to have to move her. I watch as Danny moves around to one side of her. He never looks down. He doesn’t acknowledge Andrew lying in her lap. They had been friends since grade school and I wonder how he’s feeling right now.

  That thought makes me think how I’d feel if it was Olivette. She’s still trying to talk to Christina, so I place my hands on her shoulder and nudge slightly, so she’ll move. She does, reluctantly. I move Andrew’s head from her lap, not wanting to make Danny do it. We each slip an arm under Christina’s and help her to her feet. She fights at first then it’s as if she gives up. She comes with us calmly and silently.

  Trivitt stares in horror at Christina’s blood-soaked clothes. “What do we do?” he asks weakly.

  I meet Olivette’s eyes. “We need to try and get to our vehicles.”

  “And what about him?” Trivitt asks motioning towards Andrew.

  Olivette steps forward. “We have to leave him for now. We can call 911 when we leave out but for now we have to go. Staying here is suicide.”

  She starts to descend the stairs when Trivitt stops her. “Are we safe anywhere?”

  Olivette doesn’t turn around. She just stares ahead at the fog cloaked field. “I doubt it,” she replies before continuing the descent. We move through the fog quietly. We can all feel each other’s nerves, we are ready to snap but luckily there is no sign of Bloody Mary and we make it to our vehicles easily enough. Danny calls 911 to report a disruption at the school so they will find Andrew. I give them the same advice that Oski gave us and watch them leave.

  When I climb back into the truck Olivette says, “Let’s go get Chasity and Bannen.” I start the truck and we make our way through our sleepy town that now seems like a horror movie.

  Chapter 21

  Olivette

  I can’t get the scene I just saw out of my mind. It keeps coming back over and over again. I’m trying to block it out. I’m trying to act like I’m fine but I’m not. I know that if I look at Penn, he’ll know I’m not okay. He can read me too well. I study the fog as we move through town, waiting for Mary to appear again. We make it to Chasity’s, but her car isn’t there. Penn turns around and heads to Bannen’s.

  Both of their cars are sitting in the driveway. Penn puts the truck in park, but he doesn’t cut the engine. “Do you need to talk about it?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “No,” I reply as I climb out of the truck. I can’t talk about it. We make our way up the walk and before we can ring the doorbell Chasity opens the door.

  “We were just fixing to call you guys,” she says but her voice slowly starts to get quieter as she takes in our appearance. “What happened?”

  “We went to school,” Penn tells her.

  Bannen laughs from behind Chasity. “There is no school, nerds,” he says teasingly. Chasity whips around probably to glare at him. When Bannen appears at the door he turns as white as a ghost. He pulls us inside and locks the door. “What happened?”

  “We didn’t know school had been cancelled,” I tell her then Penn goes on to recap what happened while we were at the school. “Andrew’s dead,” I tell them when Penn doesn’t.

  Chasity takes a step towards me. “Christina?”

  “She was with him but she’s alive. I doubt she’ll ever be fully okay but she’s breathing for now.”

  We all head into Bannen’s oversized living room. “We need some kind of plan,” he says.

  Penn takes off his glasses and rubs his face roughly. “I know but we can’t do much of anything until Oski tracks down Cordelia.”

  There’s a defeated silence that follows. We are all feeling it. That feeling in the pit of our stomachs that tells us we are useless. That there is no way we can win. That death is just around the corner waiting for each of us. We have no way to stop it from coming, all we can do is hope that we’re not next.

  I really wanted to believe there was a chance for Mary but maybe Oski is right. Maybe, it’s just been too long, and she’s gone mad. Maybe, being trapped and killing innocent people for Cordelia has driven her to lose sight of who she really was. I wanted to save her, I really did but as I look around this room I want to save these people more.

  I just want to go back to the time when I was Olivette. I was just the girl who was trying to make her mom happy and disappointed her best friend. I didn’t have to worry about a reincarnated version of someone else. I didn’t have to worry about urban legends coming out to kill my friends. “We need to talk to or go see Oski,” I tell them.

  Penn looks at me and I could get lost in those eyes. When did he get so handsome? Somewhere over the last two years I watched him grow and change. I watched him from afar wishing I could mend our broken fences. Wishing he didn’t hate me when he looked at me. Wishing he could still know me the way he used to. Then the world that we knew got blown away and we were left with this chaos and I realized something. He was always looking at me, but it wasn’t hate. He watched me the way I watched him. He masked his hurt with hate, but he doesn’t hate me. He still knows me better than anyone. Just like right now I’d bet money on the fact that he knows what I’m about to say next without me even saying it. There was a distance between us but nothing else changed.

  “I need to know how to kill May,” I say, my tone steady and serious despite the nerves I have filling my body.

  Penn takes a step toward me. “Olivette.”

  I meet his eyes. They are so distracting without his glasses on. “I don’t want to and if it was just me she was after I’d wait until we found another way to save her, but every moment that she’s on the loose she’s hurting someone. She’s putting everyone in danger. She’s barely been out for three days and already there’s been three deaths. That number is going to continue to rise. If the choice is between you guys and her then I pick you guys.”

  The room is silent with the exception of the clock ticking on the wall. No one says anything, but I can feel all eyes on me. I try to look like I can handle this. I try to reassure them as much as myself. This is the only way.

  Penn nods once. “We’ll call Oski and see what to do.” He continues to study me.

  After a while the silence becomes comfortable. My eyes begin to drift off just as I hear Chasity asks, “What do you think our parents think about all of this?”

  “They’re adults. They don’t believe in stuff like this. They’d rather call it a freak accident then admit magic really does exist. They continue to talk but my mind is starting to drift into sleep.

  I’m in a house that is large enough to be a mansion
. The furnishings are old but expensive for the time. I look down and see I have a long baby blue dress on. My curls are pulled over my shoulder and cascade down. I can hear voices and I move towards them. The house is dark with the exception of a few candles here and there. Yet, I manage to find my way through the house.

  I move along the winding staircase quietly. When I reach the bottom floor I move down the hallway and stand outside of my father’s office. He’s talking to someone, but I can’t see them. “You are a fool!” Thomas says angrily.

  I hear someone sniffling on the other side of the door. “I didn’t mean to be,” I hear her whisper. Mary, he’s talking to Mary. “I never meant to fail you.”

  “Of course, you didn’t but it’s in your nature. You are no child of mine. You’re foolish and ugly. No one cares what you do but what you do affects Elizabeth. She will not marry until you do which mean neither of you will ever get married. You need to talk to your sister,” Thomas says as he paces through the room.

  I cower into the wall. My father’s temper is too much sometimes. “I’ll try,” Mary whispers.

  “You will not try! You will do! Do you understand?” he asks loudly. Mary whimpers and tells him that he’s hurting her, but he doesn’t care. I hear the sound as his hand lands on her cheek, the sound of skin on skin. Tears sting the back of my eyes. The thud from Mary falling to the floor is the next sound I hear. I want to run in and protect her, but my feet seem to be glued to the floor outside the door.

  I’m woken up by Penn shaking me. When I open my eyes, everything is blurry, and I realize that I’m crying from the memory. Penn pulls me into his arms and I rest my head against his chest. He lets me cry until I have nothing left.

  Chapter 22

  Penn

  The next couple of days are odd because they were normal. There is no strange weather or deaths. Terry and Leah were laid to rest yesterday. Andrew will be in the next couple of days. Of course, those of us who have seen Bloody Mary are still constantly looking over our shoulders. Everything is calm right now. It’s just like the calm before the storm. We know it’s going to change we just don’t know when.

  We have no clue on how to kill Bloody Mary either. I tried to call Oski the day that Olivette made the decision to kill her, but he didn’t answer. The next day Olivette, Bannen, Chasity, Trivitt, and I all drove over to Concord to see Oski in person after the funerals for Terry and Leah, but his shop was closed. I let us in through the back but there was no sign of him. We figured he’d be back, so we sat in the kitchen until it got so late we had to go home. Oski’s disappeared without a word and that makes me worry. I know him too well. He wouldn’t have left us to fend for ourselves like this. I’m just worried about what could have happened to him.

  Christina was admitted into the hospital the night of Andrew’s murder. She had a breakdown. I think Mary got to her in a different way. There was always the consequence of Bloody Mary driving you insane and I think that’s what she did to Christina.

  Danny has just started to avoid us like the plague, not that I blame him. We seem to be what draws Mary in. I’m sitting in English literature barely paying attention to what our teacher is saying. I watch Olivette out of the corner of my eye. She has dark circles under her eyes and they stand out against her pale skin. She looks like she’s lost weight too. She’s barely spoken since she woke up on Bannen’s couch in tears a couple of days ago. I don’t know what she saw but whatever it was shook her up. I wish she’d talk to me.

  I sigh and turn to look out the window and that’s when I see it. The dark clouds are moving in. I watch as the fog rolls across the ground, coating the houses and businesses, almost as if it’s swallowing up the town. I stand up without realizing it and I move closer to the window. The sky darkens as if it’s night and I watch as the lightning starts dance around the sky.

  Olivette is beside me in an instant. When I look down her cornflower blue eyes meet mine. She takes a deep breath, we both know what’s coming and we don’t know how to stop it. The fog continues to roll through, removing all the visibility. The rest of the class, our teacher included, has moved to the windows now.

  Thunder roars through the sky like an angry lion, rattling the windows in front of us. Olivette slips her hand into mine. Huge raindrops start to slap against the glass of the windows followed by hail the size of my hand. Mr. Blosser, our teacher, moves us away from the windows just as the electricity goes out. The calm is gone, now there’s just the storm.

  We sit in the same classroom all day until lunch time. As soon as we hit the hallway, Olivette and I take off in search of Bannen, Chasity, and Trivitt. They are standing at one of the doors watching the storm beat down our sleepy town. Chasity turns around and loops her arm through Olivette’s. There’s a worried look in her eye. “What do you think this means?” she asks.

  “I don’t know but nothing good I’m sure,” Olivette replies.

  Trivitt throws the door open and Olivette steps forward. “Where are you going?”

  He looks back at her for a moment. “To catch up with Danny and eat some food. Standing there looking at this storm rolling in isn’t going to stop what’s coming,” he tells us then disappears into the storm.

  We take the long way around to the cafeteria so that we can miss most of the storm. It’s a quiet walk over, none of us speaking but all of us worried. The air is thick with tension. We have to figure something out soon. Theres no way things can continue on this way. When the time comes that we reach the twenty feet to the cafeteria door we pull our jackets over our heads and make a mad dash for it.

  As it turns out none of us thought lunch through. Without electricity there is no lunch, it’s a total waste of time. “Have you tried calling Oski today?” Olivette asks halfway through lunch.

  I nod. “Yeah, this morning, still no answer. We might have to take a chance and head back to Concord and see what’s going on. It’s not like him to do something like this.”

  She nods in agreement. I know the last thing any of us want to do is head out in this kind of weather with Bloody Mary on the loose, but we may not have a choice. I know that at the mention of a car Leah flashes through everyone’s mind. Vehicles are one of the least safe places to be with her free.

  One of the teachers blows a whistle hanging around his neck to tell us our time is up. When we reach the main hallway again we all go separate ways. Each of us in a different class. I hate being separated from all of them but there’s nothing we can do about it right now. The principal stops by during the afternoon class to tell us that all extracurricular activities and sports have been canceled until further notice and the town has set a curfew for all residents. If they only knew that a curfew will save no one.

  The police have decided that we have serial killer on the loose that is targeting the popular teenagers of this town. They even believe Leah was ran off the road and killed. In reality, the adults of Newport are just grasping at straws. Trying to make sense of the chaos the most mature way they can. Most adults don’t believe in magic. They’ve seen the bad in the world and it’s changed how they think, act, feel and see the world. To them there is no such thing as magic and urban legends are just that, legends. I used to be one of them, but I see it differently now. I have no choice.

  Finally, they dismiss us, and I head out in search of Olivette. I find her easy enough. Between her blonde mess of curls and Chasity’s electric blue streaks they are easy enough to spot. Bannen steps out of his classroom as I approach the girls. “Hey, you guys okay?” They both exchange a look then nod. I guess asking them if they’re okay was kind of a dumb question.

  “Danny!” Olivette calls out suddenly.

  Danny turns around and smiles but it’s not the same smile he used to have. His smile used to be bright and carefree now it’s forced. “Hey,” he says looking between all of us. “Where’s Triv?”

  “He said he was with you,” Olivette tells him.

  Danny shakes his head. “No, he told me he was goin
g with you. That you guys had found some kind of solution.”

  Olivette turns and meets my eyes. At the same time, we say, “Oski.” Olivette sighs. I guess I should have saw this coming. There was a different look in his eyes when he left during to go have his supposed lunch.

  “Where’s Triv?” Danny asks again.

  I take my glasses off and pinch the bridge of my nose where the pressure of a forming headache has started. “My guess is that he went to Concord to the Conjurer’s Apothecary.” I go on to tell Danny the story of Oski and the shop. Explaining how Oski was searching for the solution.

  “We need to go get him,” Danny says seriously. Trivitt is clearly his best friend. I’d be doing the same thing for Olivette or Bannen.

  “We’ll all go,” Olivette says.

  “No,” I tell her. “All of us in one place makes it too easy for Mary or Cordelia. I’ll go with Danny and Bannen. You and Chasity stay here.”

  She starts shaking her head. “No Penn, I don’t like this idea.”

  “I don’t either, but Danny is right we need to go get him. We can’t let Danny go by himself either. If all of us are in the same place we’re just too easy of a target for either of them.”

  “Then let Bannen stay with Chasity. They get along fine,” Olivette says.

  I nod. “They do but that would leave Chasity and Bannen vulnerable because neither of them knows the legend like we do. It’s safer for them if one of us stays.”

  “Penn...” Olivette says quietly.

  “It’ll be fine,” I tell her.