by Jenna Grey
“Well done, you two,” she said. “Nice to see that someone’s got some sense around here. What do you fancy for dinner?”
The consensus of opinion fell in favour of fish fingers and chips, although Sarah insisted that she wanted fish fingers and custard. Nice and easy, and as Lily was cooking it, edible ‒ if she left out the custard. The kids were both very quiet through dinner, subdued and not their usual chatty selves. Lily couldn’t help but wonder whether it was because they knew she was leaving and didn’t want her to go.
“Everything all right?” she asked. And there were two nods back, that really didn’t reassure her much.
“We don’t want you to go,” Sarah said, her bottom lip trembling.
“Oh, I know sweetie, but I’ll come back and see you all the time, I promise.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
They seemed slightly mollified, and seemed to forget about it for the rest of the evening. Lily got her chores done and read to them before she put them to bed. Whether Claire liked it or not, Lily had already decided that she was not going to abandon these children to the She Devil’s tender mercies. If she had to, she’d bloody well kidnap them and take them back to Elphame with her.
Lily went up to bed at ten, and Claire still wasn’t back, which probably meant she’d won some money and gone to the pub after to celebrate. It also meant that she could get on with her potions in peace. Kieran was already ensconced in his bedroom, and Lily could hear Shaun of the Dead playing on his TV, so he wouldn’t be bothering her in the near future – the first zombie hadn’t even turned up, so she had plenty of time.
Lily went to her wardrobe and pulled out her mother’s grimoire, her Book of Shadows. In it were all of her spells and recipes, passed down from generation to generation and added to by each daughter in turn. It was a massive tome, about the size of four A4 sheets of paper put together, and almost a foot thick. It weighed a ton and she could barely lift it. The cover was a dark leather, mellowed with age, like polished mahogany and embossed with a beautiful design, scrolls and curlicues, mystic sigils that made it look every inch of what it was. Its pages were old and tattered, fingered by so many witches over the years, made of some kind of parchment, and written in blotchy ink by ancient hands.
There was a difference between fey and witch magic, but there were a great many similarities as well. She could use all of these spells, but her mother would not have been able to use much of her fey magic. Her power didn’t usually need potions and ointments to work, she could simply will something and it would be done. Hers was the power of visualisation, the most powerful magic of all. She suddenly realised that she had a lot more to move to her new flat than she had first thought – she wasn’t going to be able to do all of this in one, or even two trips; her herbs and pots of ingredients would take a couple of trips all on their own. She only hoped that Gary had a strong back to take the weight of the grimoire, without anything else.
The recipe for the ointment wasn’t a particularly complex one. She had found a basic recipe: To reveal that which is hidden, and added her own ingredients to it, to give it a bit of a boost. She had tried out various recipes and found that when she got the ingredients right there was a kind of sparkle or gentle buzz to them – power of some kind infused into them. She had tried this particular recipe once in the spring, to help her see the Shadow People, but soon realised that as soon as she opened her eyes she could see them anyway, and if she couldn’t open her eyes there was no point in the ointment – so she’d abandoned that idea. She still had a lot of the dried ingredients, though. Not as good as fresh, but better than nothing.
Holly berry juice
Lavender
Rain water
Aloe
Olive oil
Hawthorn leaves
Eyebright
Elecampane root
Yarrow flowers
Marigolds
Hollyhocks.
The hollyhocks and marigolds she had growing in the garden. She could easily sneak out and get them without anyone knowing. It was dark now, not deep night, but deep enough for her to slip out unnoticed, although the thought of going out in the dark terrified her – she had no doubt the Shadow People would be out there waiting for her and this time she didn’t even have the false comfort of some imaginary protection. The trouble was, picking the blossoms by moonlight made the chance of the recipe working far greater, and she had to take the risk for Connor’s sake.
She slipped downstairs and out into the back garden, leaving the back door on the jar so that she didn’t make too much noise and could get back in quickly if she had to. As she stepped out she couldn’t help looking around, checking the shadows to see if there was any sign of movement. She’d brought a torch out with her, even though she didn’t need it to see. It had a bright ultra violet beam and if the enemy did appear she might be able to use it to drive them away. If they were there, they were keeping very still and quiet. The whole of the back garden was lit by startling silver moonlight, and she could see as clearly as if it were day; it looked so beautiful – she would have loved nothing more than to come and sit out here, looking up at the stars and feeling the fresh night air caressing her as she sat and played her music. There were many kinds of fey in the woods around the house: fauns, elves, banshees, goblins, pooka, she knew it, but they were all hiding and she couldn’t blame them.
She drew in a deep lungful of air and called her fey magic to her, because even picking the ingredients for the ointment was part of the magic. The hollyhocks and marigolds were close to the house and she could pick them in no time at all, she nipped off blossoms and popped them into the basket, not taking too many from one plant so that it could still thrive.
And then she became aware of the movement in the bushes. She started and turned towards the sound, her hand frozen in mid air as she was about to pluck the next blossom. The movement again, and she felt her heart quicken. The kitchen door was just six feet away – if she was quick she could get through it before anything could reach her. There was another rustle amongst the leaves, and she let out her breath in a great gush of relief, as the rabbit hopped out and sat just a few feet from her, looking up at her with bright eyes. She gave a nervous and very relieved laugh, which died almost instantly from her lips. Streaming from the bush, just behind the rabbit, swarmed a tsunami of huge black spiders, a seething mass of scuttering legs, moving with horrifying speed. They engulfed the rabbit before it had time to twitch a whisker, pouring over it, thousands of the creatures, completely burying the poor little thing, until all she could see was a swell of black scuttling shapes...
...and they were coming towards her.
“No!” she hissed, clicking on the torch and aiming it at them, swinging it in an arc across the seething sea of black shapes; there was a terrible shrieking sound as the light touched them, and there was a hiss of misty grey smoke where their flesh had been seared. They moved away from the light and she felt a thrill of triumph as she saw the damage she’d done.
Then the bulb blew and she was plunged into darkness again.
Fear had driven away her reason – no, not fear, sheer blind terror. She called on Hecate, the goddess her mother had always taught her to pray to, begged her for protection, watching the creatures heading inexorably towards her. She wanted to move, to run, but her feet seemed pinned to the ground, as if someone had driven invisible knives through them. Her whole body was paralysed, whether by magic or fear she didn’t know, all she knew was that as hard as she tried to move, she just couldn’t. They didn’t stop, but seemed to swerve around her, carrying on past, as if they had bumped into some kind of invisible barrier that they couldn’t break through and which they needed to flee from. Had she done that, had that been her power or Hecate’s? The black carpet of wriggling and scurrying shapes moved around her, disappearing off into the darkness, but more kept coming, and as she watched them, transfixed, arm outstretched, like Moses parting the Red Sea; they se
ethed around her, leaving her in an untouched island of bare grass. She watched in stunned horror as they seemed to swell up from the ground, sweeping upwards to form one great tidal wave, which morphed, twisting and turning in the air, forming itself into another shape. Limbs crept outwards from the central form, a head, elongating and becoming... something else.
For one terrible, heart stopping moment, she thought it was changing into Him – into that man-creature that she dreaded so much, that haunted her day and night, but instead the dreadful silhouette of a great black hell hound, leapt through the air towards her, yellow green eyes blazing, teeth bared. It smashed head first into her. The world exploded in darkness, as the black smoke poured inside her, forcing its way down her throat, choking her, filling her lungs and paralysing them so that she couldn’t breathe. Her head filled with chaos as a thousand images filled her mind, and she collapsed to her knees, lost in a world that was far removed from this reality, yet overlaying it. The world was on fire, burning buildings spewed flames into the crimson-gold sky, and huge billows of smoke poured upwards from a thousand infernos. Skeletons of twisted metal, stood stark against the mangled concrete of once great buildings, a vast modern city laid to waste. Great rolling clouds of sulphurous gases roiled overhead, an eternal maelstrom, shooting fireballs down onto the decimated world below. Lily could feel the heat from the fires scorching her face, see the molten streams of lava pouring over the rubble of what had once been buildings, cars... and God help her... people. Great piles of ash duned across the landscape, all that was left of humanity. Was this the future or some other reality? She felt the searing heat consuming her, and she let out one long scream.
And then it was gone and she was left standing in breathless, in terrified silence in the empty garden.
She dropped her arm and let her pent up breath escape in a great gush of relief. She felt giddy, her legs almost betraying her and giving way, but she forced herself to stay upright, and calmed herself. It hadn’t been real, couldn’t be real. It was just an illusion, a cruelty intended to unnerve her – to break her. The world around her seemed out of focus for a moment, as if this was the illusion, but gradually she pulled herself back.
“I don’t know what any of this means,” she said to the air, “but I do know that will never happen. Play your games, but I will never let you break me.”
She looked back at the rabbit. There was nothing left of it but matted bloodied fur, red meat and gleaming white bone.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered and picking up her basket of blossoms she went back into the kitchen, switched on the light, and collapsed against the door. She was shaking violently, her teeth chattering. She sat with her back to the door, sprawled like a puppet whose strings had been cut, unable to get her legs to move under her. She was not going to let those fuckers get away with this. She would not let them terrorise her. That terrible vision of Hell came back to her and for an instant she felt the heat of it on her skin, felt it searing through her eyeballs, the heat so intense that they liquefied, turning to jelly, her skin blistering, peeling from her bones, the fat melting. It was so real, all of it, so real that she could smell her own charred flesh. Why was this happening to her, she just didn’t understand. She wanted someone to explain it all to her, to tell her that everything would be all right. The note had said that she should take heart, that the game was almost over, but it didn’t feel like that. She was drowning in her own misery and these creatures were winning.
There was a movement just in front of her, and she looked up, startled, her heart skipping a beat. Her eyes were drawn to the large whiteboard fixed to the wall directly opposite the door. Lily watched with a mixture of wonderment and horror as words appeared across the cloudy surface, made smoky by a thousand mundane messages.
THE BLACK KING HAS MANY FORMS. KILL ONE AND YOU KILL THEM ALL. STAY STRONG. YOU WILL PREVAIL
It looked as if it was being written by an unseen finger dipped in ink, the writing on the wall, just like the story in the Bible with King Nebuchadnezzar. That had come from God, but she couldn’t help but wonder where this had come from. And she suddenly understood. All of these creatures, the snake, the spiders, the cat, the man, perhaps even the daevas – they were all one and the same creature, but which was its true form? Was it any of them. Was there some other creature lurking in the darkness that was its true and purest form? She took the message to heart, but had no idea what to do with it. It must have come from a friend, mustn’t it? It must have come from the blonde woman, whoever she was.
She went and wiped the message from the board – and it thankfully did wipe off, because she wouldn’t want to have to explain that to anyone. She collected up her basket and went back upstairs. She felt sick to her stomach, and realised that she wasn’t going to keep her supper down for long, so rushed to the toilet and hung her head over the bowl until the feeling passed. Once upstairs she felt better, and she calmed down enough to think more rationally. She was still shaking, her brain addled, but she gradually collected herself and turned her mind to practicalities. She’d have to go out as soon as it was light and bury the poor little rabbit – the last thing she needed was for Liam or Sarah to find it. Kieran would probably want to stuff it and keep it as a door stop. What about the ointment? It was even more important now, wasn’t it, to get Connor better? He seemed to have at least some mastery over these creatures and the evil magic they worked. He might even know the way home, but he was never going to be able to tell her anything with his mind in chaos. Yes, whatever else, she had to make this ointment work.
It was never a good idea to perform magic when you were feeling too many negative emotions, and certainly not a good idea to attempt it when you were terrified beyond measure. She had found that out long ago; it soured the mixture, usually making it worthless. But she couldn’t afford the luxury of waiting, could she? This was war and in war desperate measures were sometimes called for. She managed to get her mind into a good place eventually, thinking of how this would make things so much better for Connor – just how good it would be for him to finally see clearly. She grabbed her iPod and ran through her play list to find something to soothe her shattered nerves and found just the right one. She sang along to ‘What’s Up’, by 4NonBlondes a few times ‒ that never failed to cheer up. The first few times she was trembling and teary, but after the fifth run through she found that it had taken away most of her fear and anger. The large glass of cooking sherry hadn’t done any harm either.
She took her small oil burner from her wardrobe and heated up some olive oil on a low heat, gradually adding the ingredients and stirring it with a rose twig, letting them infuse. She could feel it working, each component adding to the mix, mellowing and becoming potent. When other mothers had been helping their toddlers make inedible jam tarts from left over pastry, Maggie had been showing Lily how to blend potions and ointments, steeped over the stove, making ointments for this and that. Lily might be hopeless at chemistry, but she certainly knew how to mix a potion. It would still take a day or so to mature, but she thought it would be ready by the day after tomorrow. She wouldn’t say anything to Connor just yet – she didn’t want to raise his hopes, just in case it didn’t work or something went wrong.
She put the ointment to one side, satisfied with her work. Job done she put it in her wardrobe in the dark to mature.
Lily went out and buried the poor rabbit as soon as it had got light, long before anyone in the house was up. There was little left of the creature to bury – it was nothing more than bones covered with scraps of matted and bloody fur and mangled flesh. They, or it, had stripped it in mere seconds. She knew that the djinn were shape-shifters, but she had had no idea just what that could mean in real terms. She put the poor little creature right at the back of the garden under a holly bush, where no-one was likely to find it. The djinn might not be able to actually touch her, but little by little they were wearing her down in this dreadful war of attrition; she was afraid to sleep, afraid of the darknes
s that had never held any fear, and she had no idea what they would do next.
She spent the day tidying up the house and playing with the children; they both seemed quite subdued and not their usual buoyant selves. She gave them their lunch and took them into the living room, settling them down on the sofa with colouring books and crayons.
Claire was online chatting to her friend Sonya – her second favourite pastime, although Lily could almost certainly guarantee that they were talking about some daytime TV show.
“I’m going up to see my new flat,” she told Claire.
Claire just nodded, only half hearing her, still typing.
“There’s a burglar upstairs ransacking the place,” Lily said.
“Okay,” Claire replied, not taking her eyes from the screen.
Lily just shook her head and made for the door.
Chapter Eight.
Lily had been instructed in the letter to pick up the key to her new flat at the reception desk of Hawthorn Lodge. The thought of seeing Connor again made the journey fly by and she finally found herself walking up the path towards her new home with a mixture of trepidation and excitement. It was going to be so strange living on her own, but just to have peace and quiet, more or less total independence, not to be constantly bombarded with crap TV shows and slanging matches – to finally be her own person, was a wonderful thought. She just wished she could take the kids with her.
Hawthorn Lodge, despite the rather quaint sounding name, was a brand new modern building, not even a year old – the plaster had hardly dried on it. There had been some protests, she remembered, about it being built here, because the rumours were that it was intended to house ‘disturbed’ teenagers. The locals had visions of juvenile delinquents ripping up their flower beds and pissing on their prize winning roses. Even when they had found out its true nature, their attitude didn’t really mellow much. Having ‘those sort of people’ around made them feel uncomfortable, as if their disabilities might somehow be catching, that they’d suddenly feel their own IQ dropping as the undesirable influence tainted the air.