In the Forest of Light and Dark

by Kasniak, Mark

  Katelyn let out shriek and then lunged her face forward at me like she was going to bite me and I had to turn away from her or risk having her plant her teeth on my already bloodied nose.

  As she continued to gyrate on top of me, I could feel the ground shifting underneath me, and in the small of my back, near my hip, I could feel the round, dull hardness of a stone. I quickly reached under my back for it with my remaining free hand, and with everything I could muster, I bucked upward with my hips pushing Katelyn momentarily up off me and allowing me just enough time and room underneath me to grab the stone.

  With it now firmly in my grasp, I gave it everything I had and swung it as hard as I could. The rock connected with Katelyn’s dome just above her left eyebrow, and she tumbled from me not even making the faintest of a sound.

  I then struggled to take my next couple of breaths and coughed harshly as I did.

  Pulling myself to my feet I stared at Katelyn’s lifeless corpse wondering if she would be back. I still had the rock clutched in my hand and was ready to strike her again if need be, but she remained still so I then turned my attention to Abellona.

  As my eyes searched the darkness for her I couldn’t see anything but the white-paper trees until a blinding light hit me square in the face. I quickly threw up a hand to shield myself from the glare until my eyes adjusted.

  “Come get me you bitch!” I yelled out from the darkness.

  “Cera!” a voice called out.

  “Tucker?” I called back.

  “Yeah, it’s me, and Owen and your—”

  “CERA!”

  “Mama!” I shouted towards the light not being able to see her yet.

  “Cera, are you okay… What’s going on here?” my mama called out—her voice anxious. But, before I could answer her, I’d been distracted when Tucker had moved his flashlight’s beam down to Katelyn’s body which was now no longer acting the way a good dead body should. The beam of light had lit her up like a ghost in the darkness. Katelyn’s voided eyes absorbing the illumination and drawing it in like a couple of black holes.

  “Sugar tits?” Owen said, his voice breaking at the sight of Katelyn.

  Katelyn started moving again, quickly picking herself up off the ground as she went for another go at me, but I wasn’t letting her have the jump on me this time. This time I caught her by the throat, but she was still more powerful than I’d been prepared for as she pushed me back.

  Another garbled cry of rage came from deep inside her corpse freeing up a chest full of the Genesee River, which spurted out from her mouth and onto my face, then down my chest.

  I swung at her, and there was a flash of reddish energy from my hand that caused her head to snap back. But before I could hit her again, she was abruptly torn from me.

  Tucker and Owen each had a hold of her and they were pulling her away from me.

  Katelyn turned and violently head butted Owen in the face, causing him to cry out in pain.

  “What the fuck, Katelyn!” Tucker shouted, as he tried to wrestle her to the ground. “What are you doing?”

  “She’s dead!” I yelled at him as I wiped my eyes clear of the blood, sweat, dirt, and river water that were stinging them closed. “That’s not Katelyn anymore. Abellona killed her and now has control of her body.”

  “Oh, the way you carry on-and-on, making me sound so evil.” Abellona then said, having reappeared in between some of the trees before us, that luminescent glow of her lighting up the forest beyond. “And, Janine, it’s nice to see you again. I didn’t think I would after our last encounter. I really thought that by now you would’ve tucked your tail between your legs and had run away like you did all those years ago.”

  “Screw you, Abellona!” My mama shouted, scolding her with an anger so primal, so intense, that I had never seen anything like it ever come out of her before. It had frightened me and yet made me proud.

  I looked down at my mama’s feet where Midnight now stood, her back arched, fangs drawn and letting out a seething rear aimed squarely at Abellona. Not far from her was another cat as equally angered and ready for a rumble.

  Off to my right, Tucker and Owen still struggled with subduing Katelyn who looked as if she might have been even more than what these two Southern boys could handle.

  “You know, Janine… When I killed your mother.” Abellona said with a smile curling up from her lips as she swung playfully like a child around a birch tree with an outstretched arm. “It was too bad you weren’t here to see it. But, the good news is, you will be here to see me kill your daughter.”

  “Leave Cera alone, Abellona. If it’s me you want, here I am.” My mama said.

  “It’s both of you I want!” Abellona snapped spitting her poison at us. “I want the souls of all you Barretts.”

  “But, Cera isn’t even a Barrett, she’s a Singer.” My mama contested.

  “Don’t play dumb with me!” Abellona again fired back at her and then turned her attention to me. “She has Barrett blood coursing through her veins. I can smell it. I can see her aura radiating from her soul. And, soon…” Abellona then let out that wicked little laugh of hers. “Soon I will taste it.”

  I knew I couldn’t just keep standing there doing nothing. Eventually, Tucker and Owen were going to lose out to Katelyn, and Abellona was going to make her move, but what the hell was I supposed to do? I had no plan. I had no way of getting all of us out of there. I was cold and wet and bloodied, and just about ready to give up.

  “Alright, fine then, you and me, Abellona.” My mama said stepping towards her with a train of a half-dozen cats in tow. “I challenge you. You hear me? I challenge you, Abellona!” my mama yelled at her. “Unless you’re too chicken shit to die, just like you were all those years ago when you sold your soul?” She then added showing a cockiness that again I had never known existed in her.

  Abellona stared down my mama looking almost beside herself over my mama’s bravado. Then, I watched as all the emotion drain from her face as she said, “Challenge accepted.”

  In a flash she was on my mama slamming her hard to the ground.

  Shit, I thought, I got to do something. I got to do something now or I’m going to watch my mama get killed. But my attention was quickly pulled away by Tucker and Owen, who still weren’t fairing too well in their tussle with Katelyn. She had Tucker straddled to the ground like she’d done to me and was pummeling and slashing at him. Owen was behind her trying to pry her off with a choke hold.

  I turned back to see Abellona on top of my mama in a similar position to which Katelyn had Tucker in, only Abellona wasn’t all flailing with her arms, she had her hands firmly wrapped around my mama’s throat. As she squeezed down on my mama’s windpipe harder-and-harder I could see my mama’s face beginning to transform, and I could hear her struggling to breathe. It was surreal what I was watching. My mama’s face wasn’t turning different shades of red, blue, and purple like you would have expected someone’s would have after being cut off from oxygen. But she was becoming gaunt—hollow—as if Abellona was now somehow squeezing her energy from her, pulling her soul from her body like a pump.

  I ran over to my mama as fast as my legs would carry me and without even thinking I slammed the rock that I was still holding against the side of Abellona’s head. The sound of the impact was like that of two billiard balls coming together and Abellona tumbled off my mama just like Katelyn had tumbled from me when I clocked her. The blue light which radiated from her then wavered and flickered in and out intermittently.

  I looked down at my mama and she appeared unconscious. So I quickly bend down and began cradling her head in my arms.

  “Mama… Mama!” I cried out touching her face, but got no response. I could feel that she was still breathing as she lay in my arms, but it was shallow at best.

  Panicking, I looked for anything that I could use to help her regain consciousness but found nothing around.

  I then glanced over towards Tucker and Owen for help. Owen was still stan
ding behind Katelyn who was still on top of Tucker as they both tried desperately to fend her off. Owen now had in his hands the large rock. The very same one I was going to use to destroy the symbol etched into Abellona’s grave. He brought it down hard onto the back of Katelyn’s skull, the impact making a sound like an egg cracking as her skull fractured. Katelyn’s head slumped forward, her hair covering her face, and then she fell away from Tucker. Her eyes remaining open and negated when she hit the ground as if staring endlessly into the dark emptiness of the forest.

  “Oh, so sad, they break so easily, don’t they?” Abellona asked having gotten back up from the knock on the head, I’d given her. “And, it looks like your mother won’t be around to watch you die after all either.”

  Furious and finding a renewed sense of strength growing inside of me. I rested my mama’s head down on the forest floor and almost immediately my mama’s body became blanketed by all the strays that’d been coming in from all around the surrounding forest. They piled on covering her with a layer of fur. It freaked me out a little, but I knew they weren’t going to hurt her. They were only trying to protect her.

  I stood up cautiously and faced Abellona. Then, before giving myself a chance at a second thought, I went for her like she was the bitch who’d just stolen my boyfriend. I can’t really recall what happened in that fury but… I was on her in less than a blink of an eye, having teleported across the forest floor just like she could.

  Slamming into her with a tremendous force I sent both of us careening into and then off of a birch before tumbling to the ground. I then pushed my fingers into Abellona’s eyes screaming, “Die!” as I clawed my nails ever deeper into her eye sockets.

  Then, as I worked my way further into her skull that strange sort of red light poured from my fingertips boring its way in Abellona’s flesh and mixing with the pale blue light she emitted.

  Abellona screamed out in pain as I dug deeper into her. But she wasn’t going to just sit there and take that, and before I could do anything to stop her, she shot up an arm catching me on the bottom of my jaw, pushing me back and breaking my grip on her.

  It hurt… It hurt badly, like getting hit in the face with a hammer, and I winced in pain almost to the point of blacking out as I fell back away from her.

  I shook it off the best I could and countered her punch with one of my own that caught her in one of her eyes that I had just assaulted. The blow snapping her head back violently in a wave of red light that was full of energy.

  I had no idea as to what the ever-increasing reddish light pouring from me was and didn’t have time to figure it out. But just like my sudden ability to teleport, I reckoned it was my powers growing.

  Abellona lunged for me and had grabbed a handful of my hair in one hand and with her other she dug her fingernails into the flesh along the side of my face. I tried my best to block out the pain as I felt her nails puncture my skin but that wasn’t easy.

  As we tussled thunder cracked off from above and lightning began irradiating the surrounding forest exposing an innumerable amount of strays that were now weaving in and out of the tree branches and endlessly meowing and hissing giving the forest a haunted sound.

  I had gripped Abellona by her wrist and had tried to yank free her grip on the side of my face. Then with everything I could put into it, I swung a left catching her in her ear, a red glow flashing brightly in the darkness and then trailing my fist as I swung.

  Abellona fell away from me crying out in pain and I used the moment to breathe again.

  Thunder sounded off again and the trailing flashes of sudden lightning lit up the area with its brilliance. I looked over my shoulder between the flashes and saw that my mama was now being attended to by Tucker, Owen, Terra, and the other witches who must have finally found where we were.

  “Fucking Die!” Abellona screamed as she pounced back on top of me, pinning me to the forest floor. She then hit me across my face and it felt like being in a car accident, my mind blinking out momentarily. She then hit me again and then a third time and I wasn’t sure just how many more I could take. Each powerful blow making me weaker-and-weaker, taking more-and-more out of me until I thought I was about to go unconscious.

  Straddled on top of me, Abellona grabbed a fist full of my hair again and pulled me up bring my face close to hers. “Fucking die, Barrett scum!” she screamed directly into my face, and the thin blue light that radiated from her mouth and eyes stung my face with the heat of her hatred.

  Exhausted, and not knowing if I could keep going on. I turned my head, looking away from her, down towards her chest. And then… There it was dangling from her neck, hidden under her tunic the entire time.

  We had been all wrong. The source of power that had kept her here wasn’t the weird symbol etched into her gravestone at all. That hadn’t been created by her. That had been made by the villagers to mark her grave, of being that of a witch. It wasn’t the source of her power, allowing her to stay in this realm, but the gold medallion she wore around her neck was.

  She hit me again, and I felt myself giving into her unrelenting power. It felt as if somebody had opened up a tap somewhere on my body and my essence—everything I was—was being sucked into her, consumed, like water flowing down a drain.

  “Don’t worry…” Abellona said and then giggled as she whispered into my ear after drawing me in close to her. “At least when I’m done with you, you won’t have to see what I’m going to do to those hicks over there you call your friends.”

  I didn’t even hesitate, and I don’t know where I found the strength, but I drove my knee right up into Abellona’s midsection screaming, “Get the fuck off me!” and when I had created separation I kicked her, causing her to fall back away from me.

  Rising to my feet I went for her, flashing through the air and teleporting right on top of her. Once back on her I hit her with a right, and then another. Red waves of energy shooting out from my fist as I connected with her face.

  Abellona’s head jolted back, and a choked moan came out of her when she came forward resettling herself for me to hit her again.

  I struck her a third time and then a fourth, the rage welling up inside of me, peaking to a climax and now beginning to erupt.

  Abellona grabbed a handful of my hair as she struggled to maintain herself from my onslaught.

  I hadn’t noticed it at first, but in my torrent of erupting hatred we had both come up off the ground and were now floating above the forest floor.

  I hit her again and again and I felt her power begin to drain into me just as mine had drained into her a moment ago.

  Striking her yet again I watched as her eyes rolled up into their sockets.

  “GO TO FUCKIN’ HELL YOU FUCKING CUNT!!!” I screamed at her as I landed one final blow to her bloodied face. And when my fist landed with her nose there was a great flash of light and I was thrown from her by a wall of heat and energy.

  I don’t know how long I was down after that, but when I had picked up my head I was back on the ground. It had taken me a moment to regain my vision, but when I did I saw that the birch tree that’d been directly in front of me while I was pummeling Abellona now stood ablaze. Its branches engulfed in flames lighting up the area. Other branches were lying around me on fire, and autumn colored leaves were floating gently to the ground smoking and smoldering.

  Stretching out from the base of the burning tree where the lightning had struck now stood a fissure cleaved opened several feet wide and billowing steam. Red fires glowing from down deep within.

  Abellona lay prone about fifteen yards away from me, but I could see that she was beginning to move and come too. I sat upright and watched her as I struggled to catch my breath, my breathing heavy and belabored from my outburst.

  Abellona picked up her head and looked at me; her long, black hair matted with blood and dirt, and was now clinging to her face. She smiled that ugly little smile of hers at me and lifted up her hand slowly. Nestled in it was a crop of my blond hair that
had been torn out of my skull from its roots when the lightning had struck separating us.

  I put a hand up to the side of my head and felt the sore bald spot where my once long and golden locks had been anchored.

  “Looking for this?” Abellona said, smiling at me as she held my hair up even higher.

  I just returned the smile and held up my other hand. “Looking for this?” I asked her as I let her see her golden medallion dangle from my fingers.

  “What? No.” Abellona panicked as she pressed her hand to her chest, searching for it, the color draining from her face from its absence. She then pulled forth her tunic looking down at her chest only to see it missing.

  “No,” she said to herself softly, then pausing in shock. “Give that to me, it’s mine.” She called out to me flushed with terror.

  Standing up, I looked over at my mama, Tucker, Owen, Terra, and all the other witches, who each by then had gotten to their feet after the lightning strike. They were all now grouped among an army of cats who were hitching and riving in a cacophony of meows and hisses.

  “You want this?” I asked Abellona as I neared her and the fissure that lay between us, which had grown ever-wider in diameter since the lightning strike.

  “Yes, give it to me. Please!” she pleaded with me while still on her knees. “Give it to me and I’ll let you and your family go. You have my word.”

  “Your word,” I said mocking her words. “What the fuck did I tell you an Abbott’s word is worth to me? You had your chance. Now go to Hell where you belong.” I say this to her in a pitiless tone and then I threw her Medallion down into the fissure where a sudden eruption emerged from deep below, causing fire, smoke, and steam to blow forth up to the surface.

  “NO!” Abellona cried out. “Nooooo, You fucking bitch! I'LL KILL YOU!”

  From her crouched down position Abellona blinked out of existence only to reappear, having teleported across the fissure and was now standing before me.

  The fissure burped and expelled gas along with thick, black smoke which caused the ground to quake. From behind Abellona a wall of fire, ash, and soot rocketed skyward lending her a demonic look.