Mary, Will I Die?

by Shawn Sarles

  The demon moved closer.

  You can’t stop me.

  “Doesn’t mean I can’t try.” Steph scowled, her jaw aching from the effort.

  No more games.

  The demon reached forward, its bony fingers outstretched, ready to claw at Steph’s face. Ready to end her in order to get to Mary. But as it closed the distance and Steph’s eyes narrowed on the sharpened talons, a blur moved in the shadows. It launched itself across the room and slammed into the demon, dropping it to the ground in an impressive tackle.

  “Get out of here!” Calvin yelled from the floor, his arms still wrapped around the demon’s waist, keeping it pinned for as long as he could.

  But the split second of surprise had already passed.

  Foolish boy. I give you the gift of sight and this is how you repay me? You should have run when you had the chance.

  The words slithered through the room as the demon flew out of Calvin’s grasp and grabbed him by the arm. It held him there, his cheeks going white with fear.

  Time for you to meet your fate.

  The demon tossed Calvin over its shoulder, batting him away as easily as Steph would a volleyball. The boy sailed through the air, flying like a kite. Then he came crashing back to the ground, glass shattering and wood splintering as he collided with the antique mirror and rolled onto the floor.

  Grace’s scream ripped through the room then, but Steph couldn’t stop to help. She had to keep her focus on the demon. The demon who’d turned around and started advancing on them again, a triumphant gleam in its eye, an arm ready to take what it thought belonged to it.

  Steph could feel Mary’s scared breath on her neck. She spotted Elena, and willed her to get up. To help. But the girl had gone dead in the eyes. Given up. She wasn’t going to come to their rescue. And Steph couldn’t fight this demon anymore. She could barely lift her arms. She didn’t stand a chance.

  She couldn’t do anything. She couldn’t save Mary. Her soulmate. She wasn’t meant for that happy ending. She could only hold on to the girl. Hold on to her and finally let her know how she really felt.

  “I like you,” she whispered, realizing that her confession was already too late.

  The demon leveled its gaze at Steph and then swatted her aside, knocking her away like a scarecrow doll. Then it reached for Mary, pressing its hand against her whimpering face. It squeezed the girl’s eyes open and Mary’s scream spilled into the room once more. A bloody tear fell from each of her eyes.

  It was happening.

  That was all Grace could think as the scream ripped out of her throat. As she watched Calvin fly across the room. As gravity caught him and slammed him back down in a terrible crash. As the antique mirror shattered into hundreds of pieces and Calvin’s body flopped onto the floor, settling there amid the shrapnel.

  It was happening. Fate had finally caught up with them. And there was nothing Grace could do about it.

  Why had he followed her? Why had he tried to help? If he had just stayed out of it, then he would have been okay. He would have survived. He would have—

  Grace’s lungs constricted and her scream turned into a sob.

  “Get up,” she murmured, willing him to listen, praying that this wasn’t the end he had drawn. “Please.”

  But he wasn’t moving. She couldn’t even tell if he was breathing.

  Another sob hiccuped out of her, and she fought the urge to go to him. She’d seen the drawing. She knew the details. That he died with his head in her lap. She couldn’t go to him. She couldn’t fulfill that part of the prophecy. She couldn’t make it come true.

  But if this was it—she couldn’t leave him there to die alone.

  “Get up, get up, get up,” she found herself murmuring. “Don’t you dare die on me.”

  Tears welled up and blurred Grace’s vision, turning Calvin into a dark splotch speckled with red polka dots. She let them pool, happy to lose the details. But then she had to blink. She tasted salt on her lips. Calvin’s body snapped back into focus, the cuts flashing red on his face, his glasses thrown off and lost somewhere in the room, no sign of a breath lifting his chest. Still limp. Still gaunt. Gone.

  A fresh scream filled the room, but Grace couldn’t turn away from Calvin. She couldn’t let him go. She couldn’t accept that this was it.

  And then his fingers twitched. They closed around an invisible pen, and Grace’s heart leapt. He was still alive. And he needed her. She jumped to her feet and scurried across the room, doing her best to avoid the shards of broken glass littering the floor.

  “I’m here, Calvin,” she whispered, kneeling down and pulling his head into her lap. “Hold on for me. We’re going to get through this. I’m not letting you go.”

  Calvin coughed, and Grace had never been so happy to hear him. To see him move. Even if he was in pain.

  He groaned, but this time it sounded like he was trying to say something. So Grace leaned down close, pressing her ear to his mouth. His spit bubbled up and spattered against her cheek, but she still couldn’t understand him.

  “What?” Grace spoke urgently, feeling his time ticking away. “What are you trying to say? What do you need?”

  “Help—them,” Calvin managed to croak.

  “But I—” Grace sputtered, lifting her head.

  She’d only had eyes for Calvin. Had only thought of his life. She’d forgotten all about everyone else. But now she saw them. She saw the devastation—Elena frozen in fear, Steph beaten and sprawled out on the floor, Mary in the demon’s grip, crying out in torture as the thing slowly poured its being into her body.

  “I don’t know how,” Grace whimpered.

  “You can do it.”

  And as Calvin uttered the words, his hand reached up and found Grace’s, pressing a crumpled piece of paper into her palm.

  “Save them,” he gasped, and then fell silent, his head laid back on Grace’s lap.

  Tears slid down her cheeks. Her fingers balled into a fist, crunching the pronunciation guide she’d worked so hard on, the one that Calvin must have picked up off the floor. She glanced down at it, the symbols swimming in front of her.

  He wanted her to save them. To lock the demon away for good. But how was she supposed to do that?

  The incantation had failed. In fact, it’d done the opposite of what she’d thought. Grace had let the demon out. She’d given it the chance to find a new host. She couldn’t figure out why it hadn’t worked, though. She didn’t know how to fix it. She’d translated it correctly. She was sure of that. She’d spent hours going over the pronunciation. And hadn’t Elena’s grandmother’s note said that the key was in the mirror? The script was the only thing in the mirror. The only thing on it at all.

  Grace lifted her fist and pounded it into the floor, shards of mirror clinking as she expelled her frustration. She’d done the work. She’d followed the clues. Nothing else made sense. It should have worked. It should have—

  Grace punched the floor again, letting the paper fall from her hand.

  The key was in the mirror. The key was in the mirror. The key was in the mirror.

  She wanted to scream. She wanted to pulverize something. She swiped a piece of glass off the floor and pulled her arm back, ready to throw it at the demon because that was all she could think to do. But her own reflection twinkling in the glass stopped her. Her arm stilled and she stared at it. Locked eyes with herself, her pupils quivering. Thinking.

  And then an idea struck her.

  The key was in the mirror.

  She grabbed the piece of glass and held it close to her paper guide, where she’d painstakingly written out the inscription and then filled in the pronunciation underneath. She stared at her writing and then at the shard of mirror. And right before her eyes, the incantation transformed, new words forming in the reflection. The right words—Grace was sure of it—hidden there in the mirror.

  “I’ve got it,” Grace breathed, not even believing it herself.

  She stole a glance up
at the demon. It still had Mary in its grasp. It still hadn’t completed its transference. Grace still had time.

  She held the mirror shard close to the page, her eyes whizzing over the words, trying to get some handle on it before she started. Luckily, it looked similar to the incantation she’d translated before. But she’d only have one shot at this. She couldn’t screw it up.

  She took one last glance down at Calvin, his eyes shut, his face contorted into a pained grimace, his chest barely rising and falling. It wasn’t too late. She could still save him. She could save all of them. She swallowed and opened her mouth, the first words slipping from her lips in uncertain syllables.

  But as Grace pushed on, something happened to her. The words somehow felt right in her mouth. Her voice grew louder and steadier. She was halfway through the incantation and she could feel the spell’s power moving through her, bubbling up in her gut and spilling out of her mouth with each word.

  It wafted into the room, growing in size, a beacon of light with Grace there in the middle. But Grace couldn’t let herself get distracted. She couldn’t get lost in the awe of it, in the power she was channeling into the room. She had to keep going.

  Because the demon had noticed.

  Its grip on Mary tightened, and the girl’s screams intensified, filling the room, bouncing off the walls and shaking the windows in their panes.

  Grace read on, pushing the words out as fast as she could. She had to finish. She had to lock the demon away.

  It’s over.

  A triumphant cackle echoed through the room before Grace could finish. She’d run out of time. She wasn’t going to save them.

  And then, out of nowhere, Elena seemed to wake from her paralysis. The light from the spell that had poured into the room surrounded her, pushing her forward. She launched herself off the ground and leapt across the room, wrapping her hands around the demon’s wrists, yanking them away from Mary and holding them steady. A fire reflected in her eyes that could have burned up the whole room.

  “Finish the spell,” Elena shouted over the demon’s roar, her hair whipping in the breeze, the light reflecting off its golden strands, her grandmother’s locket dangling from her neck.

  And hope welled in Grace’s chest. She focused her whole attention on the reversed spell, speaking as loudly and clearly as she could, pronouncing every word like her life depended on it.

  She made it to the last line.

  Only four words left now.

  Then two syllables.

  As Grace reached the end of the incantation, her teeth biting off the last letters, she threw her head back to see. Across the room, the demon screamed, writhing with fury to get out of Elena’s grasp. But Elena refused to let go. Somehow she’d held on.

  The light that had poured into the room when Grace had started reading the spell flickered. It flashed like lightning, popping and crackling, dancing around Elena and the demon. The air hummed with energy, loud and large, ready to blow. And then a final bolt cracked through the room, heading straight for Elena, striking her directly in the chest.

  But it hadn’t hit her in the chest. It’d connected with her locket, the silver metal glowing, smoking as its light reflected off the walls and the hundreds of pieces of shattered glass littering the floor, dazzling like a disco ball. But it didn’t stop there. The light grew. It became a blinding flash that blanketed the room in white. And then it imploded.

  A boom echoed through the room, a tornado pulling everything to its center. Grace braced herself to keep from flying away, holding on to Calvin as the wind whipped all around them. A howl cut through the noise and Grace saw the demon lifted off its feet, its mouth frozen in a furious snarl. The light flashed one last time and then disappeared, throwing the room into darkness. Leaving behind an eerie stillness.

  Grace stared into the pitch black, her breath heaving in her chest, her mouth dry, her throat aching from shouting her way through the incantation. She strained to see if the spell had worked. To see if the demon had vanished.

  And slowly, the daze from the blinding light faded. Her night vision kicked in and she could see again. Calvin’s head in her lap. Steph and Mary crumpled on the floor. And Elena standing all by herself in the center of the room, her grandmother’s locket pulsing against her neck, keeping time with her heartbeat.

  And the demon—there was no sign of it. It was gone.

  Grace squinted, not believing her eyes. Not believing that it actually could have worked.

  “We did it,” she murmured.

  Tears filled her eyes. Happy, relieved ones, for once. And she turned her gaze down to Calvin to celebrate.

  “It’s gone.”

  But the joy quickly died in her throat.

  “Calvin?”

  She tapped his cheeks. She shook his shoulders, trying to wake him.

  He couldn’t—

  She’d locked the demon away.

  The curse was over.

  She’d saved him.

  “Calvin?”

  The wind whipped all around him as Calvin fell, snatching away every breath he tried to take. He didn’t have any clue where he was or how he’d gotten there. Only that his body was trapped in the whirlwind of an unknown tornado, pitching and plummeting in the pitch black.

  He was falling. Or was he flying?

  His eyelids fluttered open and he could see stars, the pinpricks of light so far away, winking in the distance. They were so pretty. So dazzling. Did they want to tell him something?

  He squinted and tried to read a code in their pulsing. He perked up his ears and strained to hear anything over the roaring wind. But nothing came through. It was only nonsense. Impossible to understand. And he was getting tired, his head growing heavy, his eyes drooping.

  It didn’t matter. He could figure it out later. Right now he just wanted to lie back and let the winds carry him away. Let them sweep over him, pull him under their churning currents. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so relieved. So unworried. It was like a knife’s edge had been removed from his neck, and he could relax for the first time in years.

  He could sleep.

  His head tipped back and his eyes closed. The wind wrapped him in its arms, held him tight as it tugged him down into its spiral. Pulling him deeper into the darkness, the stars growing farther away with each passing second.

  He felt at peace. Finally. Ready to slip away.

  But then something called out to him, a whisper carrying underneath the wind. His head twitched to the side. Who was calling to him? What were they trying to say?

  Calvin …

  It was a voice so familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

  Calvin … look at me.

  His eyes opened, the stars pulsing brighter, sending spears of light down through the darkness.

  A face floated there in front of him, reflected in the starlight.

  Calvin … come back to me.

  The whisper found him again. And this time, he thought he knew it. It belonged to a girl. The girl.

  Calvin … don’t leave me alone.

  And he couldn’t. He couldn’t move on without her.

  He turned in the air, fighting against the wind. He forced himself free of its grasp and swam through the tornado, kicking his legs and stroking his arms. He pushed through the gale. He reached for the stars. And he finally broke through, gasping for air, leaving the darkness behind as he woke up.

  Water dripped against his cheeks as he opened his eyes and saw her—Grace—sobbing over him, her face hovering inches above his. He saw the moment she realized he’d woken up. The instant she knew he wasn’t dead.

  “You made it,” she breathed, apparently too worn out to shout.

  “I’d never abandon you,” Calvin whispered, and before he knew it, Grace had pressed her lips to his, kissing him, bringing him back to life all over again.

  “Is it gone?” Calvin asked, pulling away from Grace slowly, his head still buzzing from his near-death experience. Or maybe tha
t was just the kiss. “Did the spell work?”

  “See for yourself.”

  And Grace helped Calvin sit up straight, his head still throbbing from his collision with the mirror.

  Across the room, Steph had crawled over to check on Mary, who looked shaken up but okay. Then above them Elena stood all by herself, the locket open in her hand as she studied the miniature portrait and mirror inside. Calvin watched as she snapped it shut and tucked it underneath her shirt, her hand hovering over it, keeping it safe.

  He didn’t see the demon anywhere. But that didn’t mean—

  He held his hand out in front of him and focused on his fingers. But they didn’t tremble. They didn’t even twitch. He strained to hear the voice in the back of his head sending him premonitions of doom. But again, there was nothing. No flashes of the future. No deadly omens. Just quiet. Peace. And Grace sitting beside him.

  “It’s really gone,” Calvin murmured as he squeezed Grace’s hand in his. “You did it. You broke the curse. You saved me.”

  A whistle blew, long and shrill, and a quiet hum fell over the stands, the crowd leaning forward, on the edge of their seats for the upcoming match point. On the court, Elena bent low near the net, her entire focus trained on the opposing server, watching as the girl tossed the ball up into the air and sent it flying.

  She turned as the ball crossed the net, following its downward trajectory with her eyes. Julia was there underneath it, bracing herself for the pass. And then it’d be Elena’s turn to take over, to set the ball for the championship kill. But instead of bumping right to where Elena stood in the center of the court, the ball twisted up Julia’s forearms, shooting off to the side. Elena’s legs tensed and she sprinted after it, calling for her teammates to get out of the way. She needed to get under it. To set it perfectly. To get their team the win.

  She slid forward at the last second, her knee pads scraping the floor as she wriggled underneath the ball, both hands spread into a setter’s basket. The leather brushed against her fingertips and she popped it right back out, throwing it across the court, shouting out “FOUR” at the top of her lungs, trusting that Steph would be there.