Ofelia (The Book of Davoth 1)

by Martyn Stanley

  Stefan turned to Ofelia and spoke to her in a scolding voice. ‘Nu vi se permite!’, then he turned back to the official. ‘I’m sorry, my sister, she... Doesn’t speak good English. I tell her she can’t go, she says she just wants to look. It won’t happen again.’

  The portly man, who’d caught his breath now, sagged as he relaxed. He raised a finger and shook it at Stefan as he spoke. ‘See that it doesn’t! If you want to walk among the stones, you have to book a tour at the visitor centre.’

  Stefan smiled. ‘Okay. Thank you.’

  His eyes lingered on Ofelia for a moment. Shaking his head, he headed off on his rounds again.

  Once he was out of earshot Ofelia grabbed Stefan’s wrist. ‘It is not there.’ She held up the map and pointed to the oblong marked ‘Sanguis Petra’. ‘The Blood Stone is missing, we can’t complete the ritual.’

  Stefan shuddered and looked from the map to the stone circle, then back again. She was right. ‘Maybe, we just need to perform it where the stone was?’

  She shook her head. ‘We can try, but I don’t think it will work. We go back to the visitor centre. We look around and see if we can find clue to what happened to it or when it was taken.’

  The walk back was painfully slow. Their sullen faces betrayed their lost hope. The visitor centre would have been interesting to the casual tourist, though Ofelia suspected many of the historian’s theories about the original purpose of the site and its construction, were wrong. There was no sign anywhere of the ‘Blood Stone’, nor of any maps or drawings, which included it. After separately scouring the centre for clues, they met back at the entrance. Stefan leaned down to her. ‘Why is the stone on your map? Where did you get that page?’

  Ofelia sighed and headed for the door with Stefan in tow. ‘It is a page from an ancient grimoire called "In Libro de Davoth”. I think it predates the modern history of Stonehenge. I bought it from a Russian called Vladimir Onatov, through a broker called Bercow. Without the Blood Stone though, it is useless. Maybe we get coffee? I need to think. ‘

  Stefan followed her to the cafe, a bright room with floor to ceiling glass along the walls. Ofelia took a seat on the wooden benches while Stefan bought their drinks. The mood was sombre. They sat in silence, sipping their steaming drinks and racking their brains, trying to work out where to go from here. Eventually, Ofelia finished her drink and looked Stefan in the eye. ‘We look around again. We read everything once more. If we don’t find any clues, we go to hotel and eat. Tomorrow we go to British Library in London, see what they have on Stonehenge.’

  Stefan nodded agreement, stood and binned their empty cups, while Ofelia headed back into the visitor centre for another futile search. Sure enough, after an hour of reading and studying, they’d found nothing. More in desperation than expectation, they’d even made another pointless trek up to the stone circle. The British Library seemed their only hope. Frustrated, Ofelia walked up silently behind Stefan as he was reading a poster and grabbed his elbow. ‘Come. We get in car, it’s time to go. I need to think`. She handed him a leaflet taken from the tourist information stand. ‘We eat, maybe try to get a room?’

  Stefan took it and stared at it. ‘The Compasses Inn?’

  ‘It’s only a short drive. Come on, I don’t want to waste any more time here.’

  Stefan flipped the leaflet over and saw the map. The Inn was south, inside the New Forest. They trudged back to the car feeling defeated. The future had looked so set and predictable. Now, she wondered if she’d end up returning to Romania unchanged and empty-handed. Stefan unlocked the car and started the engine while Ofelia climbed into the back. She removed her dark glasses now. It was autumn, and the sun was beginning to set, so the gloom of the car was protection enough. They pulled out of the car park onto the main road, headed for the Compasses Inn.

  Chapter 2 - A Car Crash

  They’d lost track of time scouring the visitor centre. Now the sun was creeping behind the tree line, casting golden shadows. Before long they’d been driving for fifteen minutes. The fading light forced Stefan to turn on his headlights. He’d not slept well on the ferry and his eyes closed momentarily, before he panicked and forced them open - his heart pounding. He corrected his steering, shook his head and tried to shake himself awake, it would be a long night. He opened his window, savouring the blast of cool air, hoping it would help him stay alert.

  Ofelia, barely awake, was going over everything she knew about the ritual in her head and exploring every possible reason the most important stone might have been removed from the site. According to the page, the Blood Stone was a square-cut block of black basalt. Had someone taken a liking to it? It would certainly have been an unusual rock for this part of the world. Just then, Stefan screamed and she heard the squeal of tyres. Disturbed, she opened her eyes as the car lurched sideways, narrowly missing a startled deer standing in the middle of the road. The narrow road was in a deep gully. There was nowhere to go. Stefan gripped hard and wrestled with the wheel, the car ran up the embankment and slammed into a tree. For a moment, life ran in slow motion. The front of the car buckled and folded as the dashboard crumpled then entered the cabin and pinned Stefan to his seat. As the car ploughed into the tree, Stefan’s head slammed hard into the top of the wheel. Ofelia was thrown forwards violently against her seatbelt.

  It was over in a second. The noise was deafening and shattered glass littered the interior of the car. While she was reeling from the impact, Ofelia felt the car tip. It’d ridden so far up the embankment, the wrecked car rolled over. Ofelia found herself upside down as the car tumbled onto its roof. The top of the car buckled, crushing Stefan further and pinning Ofelia’s foot under the driver’s seat. Stefan was pouring with blood and ominously silent. She reached up to slap him on the cheek. ‘Stefan! Wake up!’ He didn’t respond. She pulled on her trapped foot. The seat creaked and moved slightly, but not enough to get free. ‘Stefan!’

  Again, no response. The inside of the car smelled of petrol. Ofelia reached up to Stefan’s face and wiped some blood off with her hand. He was dead, there was no doubt in her mind. Stefan was dead, and she was trapped. Cursing under her breath in Romanian she started yanking on her trapped foot again. Her attempts proved futile, so she resigned herself to cowering upside down in the back of the crushed car, gazing desperately at her companion. ‘Stefan, Stefan...’

  She was willing him, willing him to live. Yet she knew he wouldn’t. It was a natural human reaction. What wasn’t natural was that aside from being trapped, she appeared unharmed. The blood rushing to her head and a sense of dizziness were her biggest discomforts. That and a dull ache coming from her crushed foot. She grabbed the back of Stefan’s seat and started rattling it back and forth and screaming.

  While she fought to free herself, the glow of headlamps swept over the car. She heard tyres screech to a halt and the slapping of trainers on tarmac as someone ran to the car. A gaunt-faced man leaned down and tried pulling on the door, which wouldn’t budge. ‘Are y’all right love?’

  Panic gripped Ofelia. She regretted not freeing herself and fleeing into the woods. If she’d gotten her foot out she could have crawled out of the broken window and limped across the fields. She tried to look like she was in more pain than she was. ‘My foot is trapped! I think my brother is dead.’

  The concerned motorist looked at the mangled corpse sitting in the driver’s seat. He turned back to her, trying to hide his true opinion of Stefan’s condition. ‘You don’t know that. Don’t move! I’ll call an ambulance. We’ll soon get you out of there.’

  ‘No police!’ Ofelia gasped, but the man had already stood and started tapping away on his mobile phone. She didn’t catch much of the ensuing conversation. Nothing more than ‘Steep Hollow’, ‘rolled’ and ‘ambulance’. When he finished, he leaned down again to the side window of the car. The roof had caved in completely. He reached in with his hand. ‘They’re on their way love. You’re gonna be alright. Give me your hand.’

  Ofelia gla
red at him and rattled her foot in its accidental prison again. ‘No! Get me out! I need to go!’

  ‘You’re in shock love. Just stay calm and try to keep still. I’m surprised you’ve not broken your neck.’

  Things were getting desperate, she did not want to converse with the stranger. The less she said, the less her story could be challenged. As a last resort, she closed her eyes and allowed her head to fall limp. The stranger gasped and tried the door again to no avail. She could hear him muttering to himself, with panic in his voice, but she kept still and feigned unconsciousness. It seemed like an hour, but the emergency services were there in less than fifteen minutes. Ofelia felt a hand reach in and take her limp wrist before shouting. ‘She’s got a pulse, and she’s breathing! ’ The voice was then directed at her. ‘Hello? Can you hear me? Are you in any pain?’

  For a moment Ofelia considered responding but thought better of it. Instead, she stayed limp and waited. There followed a heated discussion over whether to stabilise the patient or free her from the vehicle first. The firemen wanted to cut her out, the paramedic wanted to stabilise her. In the end, the firemen agreed to allow the paramedic to perform an initial assessment. Ofelia saw nothing but felt a mask placed over her nose and mouth while the paramedic told her she was giving her oxygen. Then she felt a stiff collar placed around her neck, whilst the person treating her explained what they were doing. Ofelia felt herself poked, prodded and patted all over. When the paramedic reported back to the fire officer, she sounded genuinely sad. ‘The driver has passed away, but the rear-passenger appears unharmed.’

  Ofelia heard the stranger who’d found the crash. ‘She said summat about her foot being trapped.’

  ‘Alright sir, please step back and let us do our job.’

  ‘Will she be okay?’

  ‘It’s hard to say right now, but I think so. Could you step back, please? Right people; let’s get her out.’

  Again, the urge to announce herself resurfaced. The temptation faded however, when she considered having to field questions while trapped upside down in a car with medical devices attached to her. Better to wait, remain silent - then make a break for it when the chance arose.

  The sound of the hustle and bustle of multiple paramedics, firemen and police officers filled the air for a spell. Then the whirring of machinery began. Gradually the sense of being enclosed ended. She could feel her foot still trapped under the driver’s seat. She heard a brief discussion over the best way to free her. Then the whirring started anew. She allowed her leg to fall limp as she was cut free. Then she felt multiple sets of hands on her, carefully extricating her from the wreck. The female paramedic who’d done the initial assessment continued speaking to her, urging her to respond. Ofelia kept her nerve though. She felt herself manoeuvred onto some sort of board, then strapped down, her head and neck fixed in place, and lifted on to a trolley. From there, she was wheeled into the back of an ambulance. Soon after, they set off. When they entered the busy main road, the sirens kicked in and Ofelia found herself lying limp, terrified and desperate to escape the situation she’d found herself in. Desperate for it to not have happened and for Stefan to be okay. She knew she’d never see him again. She also began to wish she’d taken up Stefan’s offer that morning to feed. She’d been in a hurry and had expected to have time later. She was getting weaker; her strength was fading. The shock of being in the car accident seemed to exacerbate her weakness. As it was, she ended up drifting into a genuine sleep, born of shock and exhaustion.

  ***

  Ofelia awoke feeling groggy. She ached all over. The oxygen mask was still on her face, but she was lying on a bed in a bay of an emergency department, hooked up to various machines. She had a plastic clip over her right index finger, a blood pressure cuff around her left arm and a cannula in the inside of her right elbow, with a tube of clear liquid connected. The machine to her left showed a graph and a set of numbers on its screen. It beeped out a steady rhythm. Fighting her way up onto her elbows, she turned to look at it. At this point, she noticed she was no longer wearing her clothes but was instead wearing a loose-fitting hospital gown. She’d seen them on the television, but had never worn one, nor had she ever expected to. It was curious. This was her first brush with the marvels of modern medicine. She’d wondered for a long time whether equipment like this, which she’d seen on the television, would work. Clearly, it did. Surprisingly, despite her unique status, her body appeared to function, at least superficially, in a similar way to that of a typical human being.

  As Ofelia stared at the beeping monitor, a young woman wearing scrubs, with a mask over her mouth and bright blue gloves on, entered. She had a stethoscope hanging around her neck. Before she could speak a nurse slipped in and tugged the woman’s shoulder. ‘Doctor, the lab report came back. It isn’t contagious.’

  The nurse vanished and the doctor removed her mask and gloves then stepped closer to the bed. ‘Ah, you’re awake. How are you feeling?’

  Panic gripped her again, she fleetingly considered dropping unconscious again but thought better of it. She pulled the oxygen mask off and sighed. ‘Weak. How long have I been-’

  ‘A few hours. I have to say, you’re lucky. I’m sorry to say the driver died at the scene. Was it your brother? I don’t know how, but by some miracle, you seem to have escaped major injury. We’ve taken X-rays and you have no broken bones, just bruising. You are anaemic though. We’re going to give you blood. Can you remember what happened?’

  ‘A deer, in the road. Stefan swerved, we hit a tree, then the car roll on its roof.’ she tried to soften her eastern European accent. The doctor eyed her with suspicion for a moment then held up a clipboard and studied it. Ofelia, shimmied up the bed further to sit up. ‘So I’m fine, I can go?’

  ‘We can’t discharge you yet. I want to give you some blood, monitor you and... I need to take some more blood. The lab found something unusual and want to double-check their sample wasn’t contaminated.’

  Ofelia froze. Alarm bells were clanging angrily in her head at this.

  ‘My name’s Doctor Sterling, but you can call me Julia. I really wanted to get you onto a ward tonight, but there aren’t any beds. Is there someone I can contact for you? Do you have any family?’

  Ofelia shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘I mean in Romania? I can call-’

  ‘No, no family in UK or Romania. I’m an orphan. Stefan was my brother and now he’s dead.’

  Julia stared. Ofelia could almost see the cogs turning. She could tell Dr. Sterling was standing there, critically analysing what should happen to a Romanian minor injured in a car accident in England.

  ‘The police will want to talk to you. I managed to put them off for now, but they’ll be back in the morning.’ Julia warned.

  ‘I know.’

  Always having an adult around to act as her guardian had made life easy. With Stefan gone, she feared she could end up at the mercy of the British social care system. Would they contact the Romanian Embassy? Try to arrange to send her back? She shuddered as her thoughts drifted back to a flash of memory, a time when she’d, unfortunately, ended up in one of the notorious Romanian orphanages, thankfully those institutions were now mostly closed as far as she was aware. The prospects of being sent back to Romania and given to a foster family was still annoying though. She’d come so close, she had to try to stay.

  Taking a syringe, Julia approached and made to connect it to the cannula in her arm. ‘I’m just going to take some more blood okay?’

  Ofelia wanted to refuse, but that would only raise suspicion. Besides which, part of her was interested in what they’d find. Science had come on a lot over the last century. Maybe the ritual wasn’t the only way of escaping her curse? As she drew the blood, Julia looked up to Ofelia, ‘We’ve contacted the Romanian Embassy. They’re sending someone over tomorrow to talk to you.’

  Panic gripped her. ‘I’m British!’ she blurted out.

  Dr. Sterling’s eyes widened at this. ‘Brit
ish?’ she said incredulously. ‘You don’t sound very British I have to say.’

  The cogs were turning fast in Ofelia’s head. Now she had seconds to concoct a story, and it had to be one she could back up later with Romanian officials and possibly British Immigration officers. The key to lying was to be vague, but consistent. Telling the truth was always the easiest and the best option. She knew the doctor wouldn’t believe her though. If she tried to tell her the truth, she’d likely find herself sedated and possibly moved to a secure psychiatric hospital as a delusional patient.

  Dr. Sterling’s stare bored into her. Eventually, Ofelia sighed and shrugged her shoulders. ‘It’s a long story. I’m tired.’

  At that, a nurse stepped from behind the curtain. She was a short, olive-skinned girl with a subtle Asian accent. ‘Dr. Sterling, that blood you asked for.’

  Dr. Sterling pointed to the bag with her pen. ‘Could you swap it for the saline solution please? And check her temperature.’

  Ofelia watched as the saline was unplugged and the blood inserted into the cannula. Seeing the crimson nectar through the clear bag sent her heart racing. She felt weak. She should have fed hours ago. Her mouth began watering at the thought of the rich, salty taste of fresh blood. She felt her canines begin to ache dully. She pressed her lips together, desperate to hide her elongating teeth. The doctor smiled at her, ‘Try to get some rest, someone’ll be back to check on you later.’

  Ofelia wanted to ask where her clothes were. The urge to flee was growing again. However, she didn’t dare open her mouth. Instead she smiled and nodded, then lay back and closed her eyes.

  She sensed a plastic tube being pressed gently in her ear and heard a beep. The nurse spoke again with an air of confusion. ‘Still thirty-four degrees C?’

  Ofelia heard scribbling coming from the direction of the doctor. She didn’t need to open her eyes to know this was confusing to them. She heard the beep again, but more distant this time. Then she heard the doctor’s voice. ‘I just don’t get it. Check her again when you come to do her obs, but use a different thermometer.’