by Darcy Coates
Avery knew her voice was getting so loud that she risked waking her parents, but she couldn’t keep the urgency out of it. “Then you shouldn’t be meddling with it.”
“No, listen,” Zoe insisted. A manic light had entered her eyes. “It says a witch can never truly be killed; her soul just passes into a new body. When a witch dies, her conscience and powers are transferred to the next-born child in the family.” Zoe pointed to herself. “Grandma Pearl died just two months before we were born. I think… I think she might have passed her powers on to me.”
“You are crazy!” Tears pricked at Avery’s eyes. She snatched the book out of Zoe’s hands and flung it across the room.
“It makes sense, though! Think about it—why did Grandma Pearl leave her house to our family? It’s so that she could give her home and her witch’s hut to her new body. I feel like if I can just study a bit, learn how it works—”
“Keep talking, and I’ll scream,” Avery threatened. “I’ll scream and wake Mum and say you’ve been telling me horrible lies. She’ll ground you for years.”
Zoe’s lips twisted. She carefully shifted back onto her haunches. “You’re such a brat.”
“You’re not a witch. But you are freaking me out. I want you to leave that hut and all its junk alone,” Avery spat, and rolled over before Zoe could argue any further.
When Avery stirred the following morning, Zoe’s bed was empty. She bolted up herself and struggled into her shoes, already dreading where her sister might have gone and what she could be doing.
Her mother called something about breakfast as Avery ran downstairs, but she didn’t even wait to respond. She tore across the clearing to reach the trees and found the narrow path.
She was breathless and had a stitch by the time she reached the hut. As she’d feared, the door stood open and a figure shifted in the dark interior. “Zoe?”
No response. Avery crept towards the cottage door, her skin prickling, and peeked inside.
Zoe sat at the table, multiple books open ahead of her, her eyes distant as she recited incantations to herself.
“Zoe!” Avery balled her hands into fists as she entered the cottage, and finally, her twin glanced up from the books. Her expression darkened.
“Get out of here. This is my stuff; I don’t want you poking around.”
“You’re not a witch,” Avery repeated, her voice rising to almost hysterical levels.
Zoe stood and loomed closer, her expression ferocious. She reached a hand forward and began reciting one of the phrases.
Avery’s anger boiled over. She reached forward, snatched her twin’s wrist in her hand, and channelled some of her power into it. Zoe yelped then screamed as invisible fire burnt a ring around her hand. She pulled it back and cradled it against her chest, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.
“You are not the witch.” Avery summoned additional power to rattle the jars on the walls and flutter the pages of the open books. “If you were, you would have had to work your whole life to keep your identity secret.”
“But…” Zoe fell back against one of the bookcases, her face sheet-white. “But I’m the oldest…”
“No. Our parents mixed us up when we were babies.” Avery stepped forward and sent a red thread of power out from her hand. Zoe tried to shy away, but it looped around her throat and tightened threateningly. “I’m not going to kill you,” Avery whispered, leaning close to her twin. “You’ve been a good sister so far. But this is your last warning… don’t ever come into my nest, touch my ingredients, or read my books again.”
27
The Woman in the Morgue
Frank leaned on the surveillance room’s doorframe and glanced over the dozen screens set up above the desk. “Hey, Lest, how’s it going?”
Lester, chip packet in one hand, swivelled his chair to give Frank a wide grin. “If it isn’t my favourite nurse. Get your butt in here and grab a drink.”
With a final glance at the nurse’s station down the hallway, Frank slipped into the room and relaxed into the spare seat. “Thanks,” he said, taking the offered soda. “It’s been crazy tonight.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, three patients coded. Can you believe it? Things have quietened down now, thankfully.” He let his eyes skip over the screens, which showed every floor of the hospital. Frank loved coming into the security rooms during his break or when the nurse’s station went through a quiet patch; he found it soothing to watch the bustle of the hospital without having to be involved. “Anything interesting happen tonight?”
“Not much,” Lester said. “Had a family that tried to get out of the wrong door. They spent at least five minutes pushing and pulling on the handle before a nurse took pity on them and showed them to the right exit. Oh, and check this lady out. I reckon she must be from the psych ward. I have no idea how she got down there, though.”
Frank leaned forward to look at the indicated screen. “Isn’t that the morgue?”
“Yeah, it absolutely is. She’s not a doctor. I have no idea how she would have gotten in there.”
The woman, dressed in slacks and a singlet, walked up and down the length of the room, pausing to look at the labels designating which body was stored in each unit. She had her back to the camera, so all Frank could see were her fluttering hands and long black hair.
“You going to do anything about that?” he asked, shooting a critical glare at his friend. “It’s a restricted section.”
“Relax.” Lester shook the chip packet at Frank, who waved it away. “I’ve already sent Paulo to bring her out. He should be there any time now.”
Even before he’d finished speaking, the morgue’s door opened. Paulo, their lanky security guard, ambled inside. He stopped just inside the door, his back to the camera, and faced the woman. She showed no signs of acknowledging his presence. After a moment, Paulo unclipped his walkie-talkie and spoke into it. Its partner, which rested on Lester’s desk, crackled, but no noise came out.
Lester swore at the black box as he picked it up. “Piece of garbage is malfunctioning again. Hey, Paulo, I can’t hear you.”
Paulo turned to look at the security camera and spoke again, though the footage was too grainy for Lester to read his lips.
“You’re not coming through, idiot,” Lester said, but Paulo didn’t seem to hear him, either. The security guard turned and left the morgue, locking the door after himself. The woman either didn’t notice or didn’t care. She continued to pace, her hands twitching by her sides as she read the labels.
“Why’s he leaving her there?” Frank leaned forward to scowl at the cameras.
Lester huffed in frustration and threw his empty chip packet to one side. “Jeeze, no idea. Maybe she really is psychotic, and Paulo needs one of the nurses to help subdue her.”
“Dibs not me.” Even though his tone was casual, Frank found himself unable to look away from the woman on the screen. There was something disturbing about the way she moved, pacing awkwardly with her hands fluttering about her face, as she glanced at each of the tags. She was searching for something… or someone.
Paulo entered the surveillance room, ducking to fit his tall self under the doorframe. “Where’d she go?” he asked Lester.
Lester blinked at him then frowned. “Nowhere, idiot. Why’d you leave her?”
“What? She wasn’t there. Did she leave the morgue or something?”
Frank tuned out the argument as he stared at the screen. The woman had turned to look behind herself, and in that second of seeing her face, he recognised her.
He’d seen her only briefly an hour earlier, but he knew he would never forget that face, with its bugling eyes and froth bubbling over the blue lips as he and a team of two doctors and four other nurses tried, and failed, to save her life.
28
Undeparted
Mark started awake and stood, knocking his chair to the floor. His heart thundered from a sickening nightmare, but the details were already slipping away
like water through his fingers.
He ran his hands through his hair, pushing it off his sweaty forehead, and looked about the kitchen. Late-afternoon, blood-red sunlight sifted through the curtained windows to cling to the rough wooden furniture. Papers were spread across the table in front of him, but Mark merely glanced at them before crossing to the sink to fill a glass with water.
The sunset bathed the fields and bushes behind his rural property with a dim, sickly light. He’d never liked sunsets and never considered them romantic. They boded ill; it was the day’s painful, final struggle to live before the night overpowered and smothered it.
That summer had been difficult. Infrequent rains had left the land parched. Red-tinted dirt blew across the property in thin gusts, dragged along by the hot wind.
The one thing that had never suffered was the billabong nestled behind the house. Even as the water table dipped, the natural lake maintained its rich-blue tone and bright-green water plants. It was the only soothing colour for as far as Mark could see.
The billabong had been disturbed, though. A strange woman stood waist-deep in it, brushing her fingers across the surface as water dripped from her dark hair and white gown.
Mark dropped his empty glass back on the bench and grabbed the handgun off where he hid it on top of the cupboard. Mark’s property was a long way from town, and he didn’t recognise the intruder.
Mark tucked the gun into the back of his jeans as he pushed through the house’s swinging door. He let it slam closed behind himself. The crack was loud enough to carry across the flat, barren lawn and reach the pond. But if the woman heard it, she gave no indication. She continued to sway gently, almost as though the wind were moving her, as she swirled her fingers through the water.
“Hey,” Mark yelled, stalking across the lawn. “Hey, you!”
The woman said nothing, and she didn’t turn. As he drew closer, Mark realised she was humming a low, sombre tune. It seemed familiar, but he couldn’t remember where he knew it from.
The hypnotising swaying was unsettling, but he couldn’t just leave her in his pond. With a final glance back at his home, Mark pulled off his boots, took a deep breath, and waded into the lake.
The water felt unexpectedly cold as it swirled around his legs—far colder than it should have been during the height of summer. It was colder, even, than it felt in the middle of winter. Mark shuddered but moved deeper into the water, closer to the woman. She continued to sway, humming the tune that teased at the corners of his memory.
“Hey,” Mark said, as shivers ran up his back. “Hey, what’re you doing here?”
The woman rotated slowly to face him at last, and Mark choked back a cry of shock.
Her face was ashen white and sickly. Dark smudges circled her eyes, which stared sightlessly into the distance. The water plastered strands of her dark hair to her face and dripped down her sunken cheeks.
Mark finally recognised the tune. It was a funeral dirge.
He took a half step back. The corpse opened her pale lips to speak. Her voice was faint, barely a cracked whisper, but the words carried to him as clearly as if they’d been screamed. “Murderer.”
“What?” Mark took another half-step back and nearly slipped on a mossy rock. He staggered, splashing water around himself, and the woman swayed towards him. Her eyes were directed at him but focussed somewhere far behind his head.
“Murderer,” she repeated, and her voice had developed an angry, dangerous note. Mark stumbled farther back, but his foot became tangled in a water weed. He fell, and the icy billabong enveloped him in its cruel embrace. As he struggled to pull himself upright, two horribly cold, viciously hard hands fixed around his neck. The woman’s eyes, maniacally wide and bloodshot, gloated at him.
She was forcing him deeper under the surface, intent on drowning him. Mark fumbled behind his back to where the pistol was tucked then pulled it free and aimed it at the woman’s face.
He could hear the crack even beneath the water. The pressure on his throat finally slackened. Mark lurched upright, exhaled a lungful of water then gasped in fresh air. The low sun painted the water a violent red. Mark took two steps backwards, staring at the woman’s body as it rose through the water to float just below the billabong’s surface.
Her face was awfully, terribly familiar. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t recognised it before. It was the same face he’d fallen in love with four years earlier. It had beamed at him from behind a long white veil. The face had smiled at him, sadly, anxiously, as they gazed at each other above a table littered with final notices and creditor’s letters.
A strangled sob escaped Mark’s throat, and he raised the gun, almost automatically, to point at his own head.
Mark started awake and stood, knocking his chair to the floor. His heart thundered from a sickening nightmare, but the details were already slipping away like water through his fingers…
29
Doll
“Okay, this one next!” Carol’s mother threw her a present wrapped in plain brown paper.
Carol caught it, turned it over, and felt along the string for a tag. There was none. “Who’s it from?”
“Not sure, sweetie. There might be a card inside.”
Carol’s family had gathered around their small, cramped living room for her birthday. In addition to her parents’ presents, Carol had received an odd assortment of gifts from friends and distant relatives, and she was opening the stack of gifts while her parents let their lunch digest.
Carol, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the fireplace, tore off the string and paper wrap. Inside was an equally plain brown cardboard box, and she used her father’s scissors to slice through the masking tape.
Inside was the strangest gift she’d ever received. Carol stared at it, a mixture of confusion and revulsion smothering her happy buzz.
“What is it?” Carol’s mother, her wine glass nearly empty, sat in the large couch with her head resting against her husband’s shoulder.
Carol wasn’t sure if she had the words to explain, so she mutely held out the box so that they could see. A doll lay inside. Paint had been chipped off its cheeks, and its once-blonde curls were dirty and frizzed. Its blue smock was torn on one sleeve and muddied around its hem, and its tiny hands were balled into fists as though it were angry at the indignity it was suffering.
“Ick.” Carol’s mother recoiled and set aside her wine glass. “I’m sorry, honey. That wasn’t a nice gift. Who sent it?”
She shrugged. “No name. No card.”
“Probably your brother,” Carol’s father grumbled to her mother, who shot him a disapproving glare and shuffled back so that she was no longer snuggled against him.
“Barry’s been clean for six months.”
“So he says.”
“Besides,” she continued, as though she hadn’t heard, “even on his worst day, he wouldn’t send my daughter this.”
“Maybe it was a prank from one of the kids at school,” her father conceded. “That little Hannah brat or something.”
As her mother and father argued, Carol found her attention drawn back to the doll. Its ice-blue eyes stared up, seeming to fix on her with an intelligent intention. Hannah, the so-called brat from school, yelled insults and pushed people into the dirt when she wanted to prank them; she was nowhere near smart enough to come up with such a nuanced idea as the doll. Carol swallowed and closed the box’s flaps over the neglected doll.
“Give it here,” her mother said. “I’ll get rid of it for you. What else did you get?”
Carol obediently handed over the box and picked out a new, brightly wrapped gift, but her attention was only half-focussed on the task. As she unwrapped tickets to the concert she’d been begging to go to, she found she didn’t care about them as much as she would have thought.
Carol snorted her way out of sleep. The night was chilly and quiet, and her room was cloistered in shadows, thanks to a sliver moon. She rubbed sleep out of her eyes as sh
e tried to remember the dream that had woken her.
Something knocking… knocking to be let in…
As if on cue, a quiet tap, tap, tap came at her bedroom door. Carol’s whole body stiffened. The sound was gentle but insistent—a polite request that wouldn’t stay passive for long if it wasn’t answered. As she’d expected, the taps came again after a moment, louder and harsher. Carol ran a tongue over her dry lips and slid out of bed. Goosebumps popped up across her flesh as the night air touched it, and she found her heart galloping as she neared the door. She opened it and let her eyes drop towards the floor.
The hallway was pitch-dark. Only two small shapes were visible: faintly glowing ice-blue eyes that stared up at her.
Close the door, her mind begged. Don’t let it in. Her fingers twitched on the handle, but she kept the door open. Locking the doll out wouldn’t keep it away. Denying it entrance wouldn’t remove it from her life.
She reached out, her skin crawling, and picked up the small stubbly-limbed figure. It felt unnaturally heavy and warm in her hands, as though flesh were hiding under the plastic shell. She was seized by a desperate need to kill it, to remove it from the earth, and turned towards the bathroom.
The room’s light was harsh, so she shut the door to keep it from disturbing her parents. The light made her squint as she blinked at her pale reflection in the mirror. She hadn’t noticed before, but the doll’s hair colour was an almost perfect match of her own.
She plugged the sink and turned on the tap’s cold water—the monstrosity didn’t deserve heat for its final moments—and waited until the water had risen two-thirds up the basin before plunging the doll under.