Dark Winter: Trilogy

by Hennessy, John

  "Beth, just lay still. Curie’s gone, the old devil. Don’t worry about him. I will take care of you, alright? Stay with me Beth, please."

  "No…I mean, the man," said Beth. "In my family…in Irish families, the man means the Devil. This place…is the Devil’s House. That’s what Diabhal Takh means."

  Beth wasn’t making a lot of sense to me, but I let her talk anyway, because her talking, even if it didn’t make much sense, could only be a good sign.

  Beth was still bleeding heavily. I knew that this was not the time to make a tourniquet, so I did the next best and safest thing, and dressed the wound with one of the sleeves I had torn off my blouse.

  Blood was still coming through, so I ripped off the other sleeve and hoped that this would stem the flow. She looked rather pale, and I was worried that she may be going into shock.

  If only Toril were here, perhaps she could fix it.

  "Beth, keep with me, keep talking. Did Toril send you here somehow?"

  Beth nodded slowly, but it was a definite nod for yes.

  "Can we get back to her, you and I? Don’t faze out on me now. This is important. Can we, or not?"

  "I…I don’t know," said Beth, with increasingly slurred speech. "Maybe we can only get back when the job is done, you know?"

  I could not accept that we could be stuck here. By my count, we had dealt with the Zeryths that had been sent to destroy us. We should be able to go home. I would not be able to move Beth by myself. We needed help. Transport, if we could get it. We had none of these things.

  Curie had gone, and I didn’t expect he would be back. It was just Beth and me, stuck in the darkest part of Gorswood Forest.

  I was trying hard to recall what had happened with Toril, back when all of us found ourselves in Curie’s house. It seemed that she had an ability to read my thoughts, but I could not read hers, it was just one way.

  I couldn’t leave Beth, not like this, but I also felt that we would be doomed if we stayed in this Godforsaken place any longer.

  We had secured our safety, for now.

  While I was thinking what to do, a voice broke my concentration.

  "Milly…"

  Beth was still conscious, and tugged at my jeans.

  She didn’t look good, but better than a few minutes ago. It seemed her condition wasn’t getting that much better, but from what I could see, she wasn't getting worse, and I would take that set of circumstances over the other.

  I really didn’t know what the next stage was, but staying put was rarely a good option. I felt that there were no more Zeryths to attack us, should we decide to up and make a run for it, but there was the possibility we could run into other things. Curie. Troy. Dana.

  Suddenly, it seemed the decision to stay right where we were, was better. But how could it be? If Curie or any of the others were to return, there was no guarantee that we could fight them all. In fact, make that just me – Beth was in no fit state to fight anyone.

  "Milly, I’m okay…a bit woozy, but I’ll be alright," said Beth. "You can go, okay? I’m sure you’ll be back for me."

  I could only smile. Beth was so self-sacrificing, but I really did wish I could take her with me. If I did so, we could both end up getting killed.

  "Milly, you know what you have to do." Beth grimaced in pain as she pulled her leg to the side.

  Beth was right about one thing. I would have to do something. But what that something was, remained unclear to me. Was I supposed to use the Mirror on Curie, or on Dana? Maybe on

  the Wood Cutter, Diabhal himself?

  Did the Wood Cutter even actually exist? We had heard about such things as kids, but the more I grew up, and the more I knew about Curie and the rumours surrounding him, I believed two things were possible.

  The first was the fact that Curie was the Wood Cutter, or the reality of his existence was in his head, and in his head only.

  The second, was that the Wood Cutter did not exist at all, and that it was in fact Curie, who somehow could manipulate the authorities to evade punishment.

  There was something else niggling at me though. My Nan had told me the story of her and Dana, and the wretched house that by foul circumstances, Beth and I found ourselves in.

  If the way Dana met her end was true, then, the Wood Cutter had to exist, didn’t he?

  I looked at the Mirror. I could see only my reflection. How strange it was that I could not see it, the first time it was handed to me. Maybe after it imprinted itself on me, it could show my reflection.

  Either way, I had a very strange feeling well up inside of me.

  Evil can be found in the most innocent of things.

  I turned to look at Beth. Sweet. Beautiful. Innocent.

  The overwhelming feeling I had was about Beth. She had tried to kill me, after all. Innocent no more then.

  She must die, Romilly. They all must die.

  The demon within me was reasserting its power over me.

  I was unsure of pretty much everything now, as the room swam around me, the heads of long dead animals that hung on the wall, opened their mouths. I was sure they were mocking me.

  Out of the madness, came clarity, and a sense of purpose. I knew two things that I had to do now.

  I must use the demon’s power to break the Mirror. I simply had to kill Beth.

  Set the Evil Ones Free

  For her mother, the birth of Toril Withers had been an extremely difficult one. Complications at a late stage meant delivery by Caesarean section would be impossible. Even so, the baby made its way into the world. Many of her bones were broken during the delivery. The doctor had been a bit too rough with the forceps.

  A kindly midwife who went by the name of Winnie, had rubbed some ointment into little Toril’s body, which she claimed would help her heal properly. With the oil making her difficult to keep hold of, her mother remarked to the midwife, "Oh, dear God! I nearly dropped her!"

  "I wouldn’t worry about that," said Winnie, slipping a bottle of the oil into Mrs Withers belongings. "That ointment will take care of her. With that seeping into her skin, the Devil himself could not defeat her. Rub it in for a week, then she’ll be fine. Her skin will be as soft as petals on a peony, but she’ll be as tough as nails. So, have you decided on a name yet?"

  "Oh..well, you might make fun of it, but my name is Tori as you know, my husband’s name is Bill. We’re going for Toril. We thought a mix was better than anything else."

  "I like it!" said Winnie, clapping her hands together. "That girl is going to go far, you will see."

  ***

  Ever since she had been a little girl, all Toril Withers had ever wanted to be was a witch. She remembered how it all started. She had been in her room, one Halloween night, when she saw her. Saw It.

  Nine year old Toril was absolutely convinced of what she had saw, and become entranced by it so much, she told her mother who, took an uncharacteristically charitable position, and said she believed her.

  "A witch, Mum! Can you believe it?" said Toril, excitedly.

  She remembered what the witch looked like, and recounted this to her mother in vivid detail.

  Up until that point, Toril had expressed no interest in witchcraft. She hated scary movies, and could not understand all the fuss about Halloween.

  Her father sometimes wanted to take her to bonfires, but again, she hated things like that, and fireworks, though she admitted were wonderful to look at, were too loud, and frightened her a lot.

  So her excitement over the sight of a witch, on a broom, above the road where Toril lived, seemed all the more curious to her parents.

  The following Halloween, her father revealed a surprise to her – a witch costume.

  Toril, now ten years of age could not hide her dismay.

  "It’s not a joke, Daddy! Why would you want to make fun of me?"

  Without waiting for an answer, she ran up to her room, and continued working on her project.

  "One day, they will know, and they won’t make fun of me,"
Toril would say to herself.

  She could hear her parents sounding confused downstairs, the murmurings went from ‘But I thought she loved Halloween!’ to ‘Just let her stay in her room then.’

  Such are the joys of parenthood. Toril couldn’t imagine having children though in her future, believing they would get in the way of her project.

  She tried to talk to some of the other kids at junior school, but whilst some were interested, they soon got cold on the idea, and Toril found herself without anyone to talk to.

  Perhaps she was getting in too deep. She was grabbing books on all kinds of subjects. Witchcraft. Paganism. Rituals and Sacrifice. The Occult. Perhaps most disturbing of all – Satanism.

  But she needed to know everything, she could not do this by halves. Also she could not join a group whereby she could get in serious trouble, not so much with them, but with her parents. She would be grounded for eternity if they ever knew the depth to which she found herself.

  "If there isn’t a Banish Parents Spell, I’ll bloody well create one," Toril mused.

  It had started pretty innocently, with the stories of witches told in fables or short stories that Toril would lend from the library.

  Pretty soon, Toril had read everything she could, and the library soon outgrew its usefulness. She would lend three books on witchcraft and one of the Sherlock Holmes stories, just to keep her parents off the track. Not that she truly believed that they would fall for that though.

  Even so, they didn’t bother her about it, and one summer’s day, her mother opened the door and gasped in horror.

  "So what do you think?" said Toril, in all her home-made regalia.

  "I think you look like a witch!" said Mrs Withers. "Halloween is not for another four months, you know."

  "I know," said Toril brightly. "Who said anything about Halloween?"

  Her mother stayed resolutely non-plussed, and let Toril get on with it, thinking it would be a phase, but Toril knew better.

  That year, Toril wore black for the entire twelve months. After that, things did change. She didn’t want to be feeling darkness all the time, and when Jacinta came along, Toril changed her wardrobe back to what it was, and her mother was relieved to see her going out with friends again, instead of being stuck in her room.

  Even so, Toril had learned not to talk to everyone about this subject. Jacinta, with her snow-white hair and oddball behaviour, was a possibility though.

  Toril was too young to join a coven, because who knows what that would entail? She could not risk it. Besides, she envisioned lots of midnight sacrifices and so on. The Wicker Man freaked her out. It wasn’t for her. Also, her parents wanted her in bed by ten at night. There was no way to even check if her thoughts were way off the mark or not.

  So, she became practised in the arts on her own, and became a self confessed solitary Wiccan.

  This in itself was dangerous, but with all her heart, this is what she wanted to be. The danger element was if she tried to involve any adults, because they were sure to shoot her down.

  Toril would have never envisaged having to fight some evil entity. Perhaps, in her dreams, she would think like this, but such thoughts were dangerous, as they had a way of coming to pass.

  Yet, here she was, standing in front of Dana, who, for reasons known only to herself, was hell bent on taking a life – Toril’s life.

  This set a new dangerous precedent for things, because Dana had only killed when being summoned by someone. Whilst it was true that Jacinta had been well meaning when she summoned Dana, it was foolish to mess with such things. Jacinta, indirectly, had paid with her life.

  The memory of the axe burying itself into Jacinta’s back, and her final fleeting moments in her arms, came flooding back to Toril.

  The tears, which had been flowing, stopped almost immediately.

  Dana smiled. She knew that Toril would have to do something, become something in order to destroy her.

  Raising her wand, Toril knew that either she would be left standing, or Dana would.

  With her feet already steadied, Toril marched with steely determination towards Dana. She whispered under her breath, not caring if her nemesis heard her or not.

  "This is for you, Jacinta."

  ***

  I turned to Beth, who was sitting up on the floor, trying not to clutch the gaping wound on her knee.

  "Milly? Are you okay? You’re really spooking me there!" said Beth. I wasn’t really paying attention though. Something had changed in me, and I could no longer say that I was in control of my actions, much less my thoughts.

  Beth had tried to hurt me, and she had the power to take the Mirror as well. Now, she wasn’t in a position to hurt anyone.

  But I could hurt her.

  It was all so clear to me, what I had to do.

  By smashing the Mirror over Beth’s head, I could hopefully bring it down with such force that in one, I could kill her, and release the Zeryths, maybe even another entity like Dana to help me with my quest.

  It never occurred to me that to carry this out would be wrong. It all seemed perfectly plausible. My Nan’s words were far from me now. Two years of my life had been taken up by the Mirror, but now, finally, I could let it go. My eyes flashed with a blood red.

  I crouched over Beth, and jammed my fingers into the wound on her knee, and dug my nails in until I felt bone. Beth screamed in agony and her face went a rather greenish pallor, but that did not stop me.

  Beth’s eyes bulged at the Mirror, as I held it aloft.

  With the collective force of every part of my being, I brought the Mirror down towards her head.

  ***

  Toril had felt fear before, but not like this. The White Roses for Dana doll was one thing. Dealing with the reality was another.

  What was for certain, was that Dana had been responsible for Jacinta’s death. The fact that Troy had thrown the axe was lost on Toril for that moment.

  As she ran towards Dana, spells, enchantments, curses all ran through her head at breakneck speed.

  She needed to think of one that would break Dana, because, injured or not, she remained dangerous, perhaps moreso because of the wound.

  Toril knew some dark craft of course, but had never used it, never tested it. She knew that at best, she was only going to get one shot at this.

  The spell she was going cast combined a number of things.

  First, it would have to disarm Dana. She had a wand, just as Toril did, however Dana was much more practised in these evil arts and Toril knew she would be at a disadvantage fighting hand to hand.

  Second, it would have to make Dana comply and leave this world, never to return again.

  Third, Toril would aim to infect the wound, to ensure that Dana never regained her full powers.

  Fourth, and most seriously, the spell could cause Dana’s destruction.

  Dana had a completely different point of view, of course. Toril was just an insect to be squashed. She had been injured, yes, that was a surprise, even to her, but that axe was not of this world, and she did at least, have a sense of respect for it.

  This witch, was a white witch, at best. A tree-hugger, a sun worshipper. A joke. She didn’t have the skills to win, the genetics to win.

  One swish of her wand, and Toril would lay dead, another addition to a long list of people. One more would not matter. There was nothing special about this girl, except to say that vengeance had replaced the calm look that had been in her eyes when they had met previously.

  Her death then, would be even easier. Fear drove her. Anger consumed her.

  A simple wave and it would be done.

  "Fare-you-ill, Toril Withers," said Dana, with a sense of dead-eyed malice that she had become accustomed to.

  Toril’s wand was already at full stretch. Dana took hers out the sheath, and swished in a circular motion.

  The force sent Toril back so hard she must have been sent twenty five or thirty feet. She was only stopped going further because her body slamm
ed into the crumbling brick wall of the chapel, where Jacinta lay at rest.

  Dana licked her wand and put it back in its sheath.

  "Deary me, that was pathetic," she said.

  There would be no need to check the body. She had done far less to others, and they had not survived to tell anyone the tale. However, Dana always liked to have a keepsake.

  She had been walking away, towards the exit of the cemetery, when she suddenly turned and raced towards Toril. Dana could see what she wanted, and yanked it viciously from Toril’s neck.

  Dana laughed and put it back in her pocket.

  "Why these fools put faith in such trinkets, I’ll never know."

  She was about to walk away once more, when she realised there was some use for this girl after all. Resisting the urge to scalp her, using the serrated edge of her wand, Dana removed a clump of raven coloured hair from Toril’s head and picked up her fallen wand for good measure too.