You’ve been through a lot. Probably the understatement of the year. Tori-Suzanne had said exactly the same to Beth, and soon after, had sent her on towards Rosewinter. Yes, Beth had been through a lot, but was not actually through with it. When would it be over?
Beth must have been too comfortable, because she lapsed into sleep.
Brendan returned to the Dying Swan, where he would get a complete view of the commotion in action.
Rosewinter was surrounded, but inside, I was not on my own.
***
I try to collect my senses. I go for the basics. My name is Romilly Winter. I am eighteen years old, and I am the former owner of the Mirror of Souls. I am not sure if I am alive or dead.
Then, I start over. If you’ve never had a disorientating out-of-body experience, you’ll never truly understand what I am going through, and I hope you never have to. The scene in Rosewinter is unlike anything I have ever known. Dense smoke robs me of my breath, whist throat-burning claustrophobic ash fills my surroundings. I am on my back, but my viewpoint is distorted. My neck seems turned far too uncomfortable to my right, whilst my body is horribly twisted to my left. Yet, there seems to be life in me, and something is present with me.
The smoke clears a little, and I can see something that is familiar to my eyes. I am grateful that my sight is returning. They had been bloodshot for so long, I don’t recall when I last saw so clearly. Then, I realise what it is.
I am standing upright, and my very own body – my body, I can see clearly on the ash covered floor of Rosewinter. It is not a pretty sight, and far worse than I thought.
I look broken. That’s the word I would use.
But I feel like the demon has gone. Had the Mirror worked after all?
I feel a hand on my shoulder, but I don’t jump in fright. It’s a kindly spirit, and without turning to face the owner of that hand, I know who it is.
Nan.
“It is good to see you again, Milly. But what in the world have you done to our old wood-cabin?”
I smile. Nan looks the same as in her healthy years, before her worries about the Mirror seemed to outweigh the care for her own health.
“It’s due a good clean, I agree Nan.”
Nan looked around. “The fire, and the smoke. You can sort that out too?”
“Oh yes,” I chuckled. “This kind of mess can be fixed up in a weekend!”
Nan sighed. “I’m not worried about Rosewinter. It can be rebuilt. But there’s only one of you, Milly, and you have not been looking after yourself.”
She gestured to my stricken body.
“There was some complications, Nan. I think you know what I’m talking about.”
Oh, she knew. The demon, Dana Cullen, had caused the death of my parents. In life, and in death, Don Curie threatened to end my own. But in the end, it was me, I was the cause of my own demise.
“Milly, I have some rather upsetting news for you. The demon, Belial – he is not going to let you go. Not now, not ever.”
“It doesn’t matter what he does,” I replied, disregarding her statement for the moment. “I’ve lost the Mirror.”
Nan did not reply immediately. She knew who had taken the Mirror, whilst I remained completely unaware. If I knew that it was Toril that had taken the Mirror from my petrified hands, I would have been beside myself with anger and rage.
Nan surprised me with her dismissal of Rosewinter. But she went further than that, dismissing the Mirror also.
“I don’t care about that Mirror, Romilly. All I care about is you. And you are in a mess.”
I could see what she was on about, though the damage to Rosewinter and my body seemed to have been frozen in time. Nothing was moving, not even the flames inside the old wood-cabin. It was as if someone or something had simply chosen to freeze that moment in time.
I regarded my contorted and broken body. Unlikely to ever stand again. My essence – whatever this existence was, felt separate to my physical body, and seemed to be controlling the elements surrounding me. But outside of me, Nan, or an entity of some kind, was controlling things and I didn’t like that feeling at all. I wanted to live my life, and I felt I was being used. I did not want to be a pawn in this game. I attempted to regain the initiative.
“You can’t freeze time forever Nan, if that’s what you’re doing.”
“Maybe not,” my Nan sighed. “But you’ve been through too much to let things end this way.”
Damn. Initiative lost.
“What do you mean, Nan?”
“When things go back to as they were meant to be, you’ll die in here Romilly. As for the demon, I meant what I said. Belial will never let you go.”
Two double negatives. There had to be something positive out of this situation. There just had to be.
“I know what you’re thinking, but it’s much worse than that. Your body dying here does not mean the end of the torment. Curie knows. He is tormented by Diabhal constantly. His torment will never end. Nor will yours.”
“Can you send me back to my body? Maybe I can move?”
“You always did have a strange sense of humour, Milly.”
I hoped that Beth was outside Rosewinter, and that someone was coming to rescue me. They would not leave me to burn, surely? Either way, the demon was going to have its wicked way with me. I would not let it destroy the world I love, and the people I love.
I am pressing PLAY, scumbag.
Nan smiled at me. “My brave little one. Whatever happens, I know you’ll be the one standing at the end.”
Nan’s loyalty was totally biased, but I had always loved her for it. The warm, reassuring feeling I had from talking with her was replaced by searing heat around my body, a chill in my stomach, and a burning sensation within my lungs.
The worst feeling of all was the demon. I could not see it, but I could feel its hatred of me, its malevolence. It hated my will to live, to survive, to exist. It wanted to take my happiness and burn it, just like it had savaged my body all this time. But my will to live is stronger, and too strong for it to kill me.
Nan says it will never leave me, but I know that she won’t leave me either. That comforts me, and I know that whatever happens, I can endure this. I don’t want to be the one left standing at the end. I need Beth, and if she’s around, I need Toril too. We need this to work. One cannot stand against all the evil and bad people in this world alone, and I don’t intend to.
I could no longer see her, but Nan’s voice was very much in my head. It scared me to hear her words, and I know merely saying them pained her too.
“If you return to that body, you’ll be burning, unable to see, unable to breathe, with only the demon for company. Do you really want this, Milly?”
No. With all my heart, I did not. But this thing was bigger than me, more important than me. I could stay in this afterlife with Nan. Perhaps I would see my parents again. How attractive this all sounded to me.
I could see a reflection of myself in this place; the place where Nan now resided. I looked like me again, but it was more than that. It was me, perhaps aged thirteen or fourteen, and certainly from a time before I came into contact with the Mirror of Souls.
Unlike my Nan, being in contact with it had aged me terribly. A gift, a curse, she had called it one time. For me, there was no doubt in my mind that it was definitely a curse. Then again, maybe that was too harsh. I had been attacked by a demon. If my Nan knew how to battle such an entity, she was still not revealing it. I knew better not to ask.
Still, the sight of my youthful complexion shocked me. My hair hung loose. My skin was radiant and fresh. My eyes were full of youthful wonder.
I had already lost too much. Staying with Nan was not an option. It was the easier choice and I chose to disregard it. I knew what it would mean. I could kiss goodbye to that youthful look forever.
I could force the demon from me though, and that was better than kidding myself that staying here in this existence, was the right thing to do. Nan wo
uld respect my wishes, no matter what I decided.
She deserved better, as did my parents, and Jacinta too. I had to force my body to move from the burning wood-cabin. If I suffered severe burns, so be it. But I could fight it.
“I’m going back, Nan.”
No chance to say goodbye. I felt the heat and the smoke instantly. The smoke would kill me, if the falling debris didn’t get me first.
Damn it.
I cannot move. It’s not a case of mind over matter. I cannot move, I can feel the demon’s menace rising again. I just cannot do anything. It’s hopeless.
***
There’s an almighty crash as someone comes through the entrance to what was left of Rosewinter. It’s a man. His strong arms grab me. At first, I think it is Troy. My mind is so simple sometimes, it’s funny. Yes, Troy could return from Hobs Hole, a mere four drive hours away, know exactly where to find me, and rescue me from oblivion.
Not only that, he’s rescuing me despite me striking him down. Oh yes, I can say he was hurting me, and he’d counter that, saying the demon was hurting me, not him. We’d laugh. Then I’d cry.
Then we’d kiss. Then we’d try again. No. That was not what was happening.
The demon wasn’t leaving me, that’s what my Nan had said.
Whoever this was, it wasn’t Troy, and it wasn’t the demon. He was pulling me to safety. Every move should have hurt me, but I could feel nothing, save for inhaling smoke from the blaze.
My next immediate thought was that my rescuer was in fact Donald Curie. But he was not given to kindly acts, so I scrubbed that thought from my mind.
Who was this man who said nothing, but was pulling me clear of the blaze?
A voice from outside gave me the answer.
“Michael Dean, this is the police. Hit the floor, now. This is your only warning.”
The police? What were the police calling out Michael Dean for? How could he have escaped from Gorswood prison? The details didn’t matter, not right now, because at this moment he was pulling my body to safety, and I was grateful.
The police should have been grateful to him too. But they saw him not as my saviour, but as a convicted killer on the run. A shot rang out, and he winced as it caught him.
I wanted to say something to him, but my throat was too dry. Nothing would emit from my mouth. He seemed to sense I wanted to say something, so he saved me the trouble.
“It doesn’t matter about me. In there, I’m Curie’s bitch. Out here, the police will hunt me down.”
Another shot, and this time, it took him down. I wanted to cry out, to scream stop shooting, but I was unable to do this, to do anything.
His breathing was at first rapid, then slowed. “You’re a friend of Beth O’Neill. I know you are. It has to be you, because I saw the other one, the girl with black hair. She set your place alight. I couldn’t leave you there. I know what it’s like to be left to rot. This is all I could do, to make amends.”
He took laboured breaths. I could not see where he had been hit, but I lay facing the stars, he was face down, his head lying slightly to one side. He was dying, and it seemed that this was the way he wanted to go.
A figure shadowed both of us. I wanted to shout out to the figure, who was holding a gun, the grip was true between his hands. A thin, raspy screech finally emitted from me, but it was too late.
A bullet was fired into the back of Michael Dean’s head.
“Don’t worry,” the police marksman offered as a comfort. “He can’t hurt you now.”
No. Michael Dean could not hurt me, even if he wanted to. The police had read the situation wrong. The demon could hurt me though, and my latest escape from death will not have pleased him at all.
The next thing I knew, I was back in hospital. The lights dim, but I promise myself just one thing. I am never going to be in a hospital bed ever again.
***
My grandfather had spent so much time to build Rosewinter; yet a combination of myself, the demon, and Toril, had torn it down in a matter of minutes. I could not leave things like that, and if I ever got the chance to make amends, as these words were the last spoken by Michael Dean, my grandfather could be sure that I would.
Through the torment of the demon, the smoke inhaled from the burning Rosewinter, not to mention my body having survived the most torturous amount of pain, the doctors held out no hope for me. I responded to nothing they gave me.
Still, I was aware at some level of my predicament. Then I heard them simply state; “There is no more we can do. She is in a coma.”
***
Beth was having the best sleep ever. The nightmares of her parents burning in their bed had stopped for now, but a new nightmare was rising, and in this one, I was the main feature.
In the dream, for that’s what Beth thought she was having, we were both very young. Ten years old, we were; or maybe eleven. We were walking through Gorswood Forest, walking around the larger of the two lakes.
Beth wore a red dress with small white flowers, her red hair looked almost golden in the sun. As for me, I wore a white dress with small red roses. She kept asking me was I okay, almost to the point that I was getting annoyed with her, but that was me being obtuse. Beth was just being nice.
She would ask me if I thought the lake was beautiful. I said that it was, but I had a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. As she smiled, my own smile faded. I could see in the lake, what she could not. Where she saw striking blue water, I saw a muddy swamp clotted with skin, tissue and bone. Where she saw the sun, I saw a blood red moon. Where she saw swans, I saw bony hands, dismembered heads, the ghosts of a thousand souls.
“Milly! Come on, snap out of it will you? Tell me you’re okay!”
Beth screamed as the small red flowers on my white dress enlarged into blotches of red. My young arms withered in front of her, and my hair receded, leaving only strands hanging over my cheekbones. I wheezed a death rattle before collapsing in front of her, and although she tried her best to stop my body from entering the lake, she could not. A grasp of my wrist was temporary, as my hand snapped off, withering to dust before her eyes.
As I began my descent to the bottom of the lake, the view darkened, and she could no longer see me. Beth had never been a good swimmer. She could never retrieve the brick thrown by teachers to the bottom of the pool.
Ahead of her, she could see something. It glistened its beauty to her eyes, but menaced terror to her soul. Beth coughed violently, and the darkness in front of her was turned into a reddish hue by the blood expelled from her body.
She kept her every effort trained on the glistening object. It was half buried in the lake’s surface, but yes, she could reach it. She outstretched her hand. Her fingertips were almost there. Almost.
So very close. Then, she could hear a voice.
“Don’t you ever touch that mirror, Beth. You’ll be cursed if you do.”
Dana Cullen’s clammy, cold hands pulled Beth away from the Mirror. At breakneck speed, they hurtled towards the surface. Beth breathed out hard once water had been replaced by air, but Dana had not finished, throwing Beth onto the embankment.
“You. You have it. They gave it to you. Now you will give it to me.”
Placing her hand over Beth’s heart, Dana attempted to remove what the Zeryth had placed there more than two years earlier. It had attached itself to Beth’s heart and digestive pathways. Removing it would cause Beth to die, but Dana was not concerned with Beth’s survival.
From Dana’s cold hands, came a heat of the kind that spewed lava from a volcano. Beth was powerless to stop Dana getting what she wanted. Beth felt she could not breathe, as if her airways were blocked. A few moments later, they unblocked, as blood gushed from Beth’s mouth.
The expelled blood even splattered on Dana, who laughed, because she knew, that once Beth was dead, she could live. The Zeryths thought that by placing it on someone else, someone who could unwittingly play the host, that they could finally be rid of Dana. All it serv
ed to do was assist Dana. It was like a homing device for her.
God, the pain. It was like someone placed a hot iron over her bare chest. Somewhere, in all the chaos, Beth could hear a voice, but it was not Dana’s. It was a male voice.
“Again.”
“We have tried twice already.”
“Again. Do it again,” said the voice, although much more sterner.
“Doctor!”
“Again. She is too young to die from a cardiac arrest. It will not happen on my watch. Now follow my orders. Again.”
Dark Winter: Last Rites Page 10