Dark Winter: Trilogy

by Hennessy, John

  Toril sat back down in her seat. She didn’t doubt Dana’s intent. If she wanted to kill her, she had all the means to do it. Her mother’s wand, Toril’s wand and pentacle, and of course, her own wand. Then, there was that knife with the serrated edge. The kind of knife that could only be the weapon of a killer.

  “I might have mimicked your look, but to be honest, that’s where the similarity ends,” said Dana. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Toril. First, you gave Romilly that sweet but rather inaccurate tale about me, scaring the crap out of her in the process. Second, you gave Beth the doll, even though you knew she would use it to try and summon me because she was driven crazy by her desire to destroy Curie. Third, you let your best friend Jacinta take the hit for you, and fourth, you let your boyfriend succumb to Diabhal’s void, whilst you got off scot-free. And I thought I was top of the cold-hearted bitch tree.”

  Toril wanted to reply, but no sensible words would come. Dana pursed her lips. She was clearly enjoying herself. Finally, Toril was able to say something.

  “You want me to feel remorse for Jacinta’s death?”

  “I’d like you to take responsibility for your actions, just as you told Romilly that you would. But you didn’t listen. You had to play your damned ouija board game, didn’t you? You even got the warning at the door, and the fool that you are, let him in. Then, you are told by the spirits that two would die. Remorse? I don’t care. Responsibility? You damn well should care.”

  Over the course of her existence, Dana had not only mastered the art of a brutal method of killing someone, she was now meeting Toril on her level. Toril did not like where this was going. She tried to regain the initiative.

  “Give me back my wand, and my pentacle. Now.”

  Dana smiled even more widely. “You’re not in any position to issue demands. You cocked things up. Admit it.”

  “I’m admitting nothing. I’ll see in you Hell. Jacinta died because of you. Romilly’s parents died because of you. How many more have died because of you?”

  “Well, you should know,” shrugged Dana. “You’re the bookish one of your little group. A group that is getting smaller all the time. I wonder which out of you, Romilly and Beth will die next? Someone has to keep Jacinta company. The cemetery earth is cold, even in summer.”

  Toril stood up. “I’m tired of your games, Dana. You just kill for fun. You are the scum of the earth.”

  “I have to say Toril, that kind of talk is beneath you. You’re still better than those others, they don’t know me, and in any case, you’re better than that. You survived an encounter with me, and you’re the first to do so. That….changes things. I’ve changed. I have a new found respect for you.”

  “Get out of my house!”

  “Come on Toril, analyse the situation, that’s what your pal Holmes would do. Why do you think I am here?”

  “I don’t care why you are here, when you have three wands and that knife pointing at me.”

  “Is that what’s bothering you?” quizzed Dana. “Well, I’d like us to be friends. How about this?”

  To Toril’s amazement, Dana levitated Tori-Suzanne’s wand back to the hole behind the cupboard, all the way back to its usual hiding place. Second, she placed her own pink wand up her sleeve, and jammed the knife into her back pocket. Finally, she rolled Toril’s old wand towards her, and unclasped her pentacle.

  “There,” said Dana, smiling with content. “We can be friends now.”

  Toril was trying to analyse the fast moving situation. None of this made any sense.

  “If you know so much about me,” said Toril, “then you know where I was before I turned up here. Before you turned up here. If you know all that, you would know that you and I could never be friends.”

  “Why ever not?”

  "Because I'm a nice person, and you're a sick, twisted bitch.”

  Dana bristled at Toril’s curtness. “I’m trying to help you, Toril. The wand isn’t cursed, if that’s what you’re thinking. I haven’t hexed it, and that pentacle does belong to you. I’m giving you them back, but I’m buying something too. Go on, pick it up.”

  Toril picked up the wand. Its power coursed through her. It felt so good to have it back in her hand again. She wondered why Dana, now apparently defenceless, would do something like this.

  “You want to know what I’m buying, Toril?” said Dana. “My peace of mind. I’m giving you your things back, so that you don’t come after me. Take responsibility now, look after your parents, your friends and yourself. Come after me, however, and I’ll leave you bleeding slowly to death in the kind of agonising pain you wouldn’t want even me to experience. Or maybe I’ll kill them first, so you’re the last one standing. When all those you love are gone, will you still want to come after me?”

  Toril thought back to that night in the cemetery. She had been paralysed by the fear of the dead that populated the graves. She was immobilised with distress over Jacinta’s death. She had been far too slow to deal a death blow to Dana, and even at this range, Dana would be too quick once again.

  “You promise to leave my mother and my friends alone,” said Toril icily.

  “I can only promise that, if they extend me the same courtesy,” sang Dana, with equal iciness. Then, her composure softened, and she twitched her head in the cute way Jacinta used to. It was extremely unsettling for Toril.

  “For a while there, I really thought you were in cahoots with Diabhal,” said Dana. “I couldn’t quite figure out how you’d survived. When I analysed your hair though, the traces of the dillfern were there. So tell me, how long ago since that was in your body? How long? The truth, now.”

  “Since I was born,” replied Toril honestly. “My mother told me a nurse rubbed the oil into my body, because I was born two months premature, and several bones were broken upon delivery. I could have died in the process.”

  “But you didn’t die,” said Dana. “You were given the oil of the dillfern. You can hardly find that anywhere in Gorswood. Unless you know where to look. Or, you know someone who knows where to look. They in turn, need to know where to look to find you, and find you they did.”

  Dana paused, before adding, “Somebody wanted you to live, Toril. The question is, why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh come on Toril, have I not shown that I can be a friend, even to someone as cold as you? You know, alright. The Circle wanted you to live. Do you want to tell me why?”

  “The prophecy.”

  “Oh, spare me that Wiccan claptrap, Toril. You know full well…I mean, now you’ve experienced The Circle, you know full well that the Toril Withers Day of Light and the almighty Prophecy were a ruse to get you to go there.”

  “You stole my wand, and my mother wouldn’t give me a new one. I wanted to avenge Jacinta’s death. What choice did I have?”

  “You speak with all the authority of a spoilt little girl,” said Dana. “You wanted to go to The Circle, to prove what a great witch you are. Then you meet two that know dark craft, and you failed to handle them. Miserably. You’re no threat to me. You’re no threat to anyone. The only things that would fear you are tabby cats with a nervous disposition. I’m giving your wand back out of pity. And to think that they handed you a wand of your own, and you turned them down. If you really wanted to destroy me, you would have done as Lunabelle said, and picked the wand up. If you want to avenge Jacinta, you will have to do a lot better than that.”

  “For all I know, you have cursed my wand.”

  “You knew the moment you picked it up again, that I had not.”

  “None of this explains why you are doing this,” said Toril.

  “That’s what you need, isn’t it?” said Dana. “Something logical. Well, I already told you. I’ve returned what belongs to you so that you don’t come after me. I will tell you something else for free. Your mother is with Beth, and Romilly isn’t exactly on her own. You know what I’m talking about. All three are in the gravest of danger. But they are in different
places, so you’re going to have to choose who to go after first, there won’t be enough time to go after both. I’m getting you to take responsibility for who you save, and accept the gravity of the decision of who you can’t save.”

  Dana pinned Toril against the wall in her living room, and Toril was stunned by her strength, because she could not move at all. Dana leaned in towards her and said “So we have been face to face again, and you still haven’t shown any fear of me. I respect that. So I’ll tell you this. If we meet again, if you somehow become illogical and come after me, I’ll tell you, I won’t like doing it. But I will kill you. No messing. No warnings. No after life. You simply won’t exist anymore.”

  Whilst Toril was running this information through her head, Dana’s hair returned to her traditional blonde, and she reduced in height, looking as an eleven year old girl, just as the last time Toril had faced her. Dana relaxed her grip on Toril, but not before biting at the skin on her neck, but confusingly, chose not to bite deep.

  “When you go back to Lunabelle and Denzel, and hah…your nurse, Winnie – they will ask you to make a very difficult decision. If you find yourself feeling confused, remember that one of your little clique would have messed around with your former boyfriend. You know of whom I speak.”

  “I’m not going back to The Circle,” said Toril. “I’ve got my wand back.”

  “Yes, you’ve got your wand back. You agree not to come after me.” It was more of a statement from Dana than a question.

  “So long as my friends are not in danger.”

  “That will require them to be good people and not do anything….illogical. As for going back to The Circle, you’ve got no choice in that.”

  “I do too,” said Toril. “I have made my choice.”

  “Look around you, Prom Queen!” Dana said as she began to fade from view. “You’ve never left The Circle. You’ve been here all the time!”

  Toril Faces Her Demons

  Toril observed her surroundings. Whatever Dana had said, would turn out to be correct. It seemed to Toril that her way to go forward now lay with trusting the words of a long dead girl, who continued leave terror and death in her wake.

  Something had changed, that was for certain. Dana returning Toril’s wand was illogical, surely? Unless, just as before, Dana felt that Toril posed no real threat to her.

  There was something wrong with the house, but for all intents and purposes, it was the Withers’ household. Toril pressed the answer phone button on the home phone, only for it to fill the house with the summery tone of her mother, announcing how they were unable to come to the phone right now, but would leave a message later.

  Toril could at least believe the first part to be correct.

  Where is my mother? Thought Toril, getting more agitated with each passing moment. Just where is she?

  Looking behind the wardrobe, what she knew to be there, was still there. The wand. The one that her mother would not even loan her. Maybe mother really did know best, as the saying goes. Toril knew that for all her spats with her mother over the years, Tori-Suzanne would die before letting anything happen to her daughter.

  Toril had now survived two encounters with the Dana demon. Three, if you count the initial meeting in the woods, though back then, Jacinta was in danger. Toril had just miscalculated by how much.

  Stop it, Toril scolded herself. Just stop it now. For God’s sake…focus.

  Yes, Toril needed to focus. There had to be a way to rationalise this situation without her emotions getting the better of her. She was struggling to know what was best to do, and then prioritise things. At times like these, Toril felt it was okay to speak out loud, it helped her reaffirm things.

  “Alright then, Toril. What we have here is a very strange situation. As Dana has gone, I won’t focus on her. So that leaves the Circle, which I may have already left, or not. As Dana can be relied upon to tell the truth, I have no choice to believe I am still at the Circle. If I am not, I can go up to my front door, walk outside, and be in Gorswood. I doubt that even the Circle could replicate that.”

  Toril picked up her wand again, and put it into her bag. Whatever Dana had done, or not done to it…it seemed right, felt right. No doubt there would be a chance to use it soon enough.

  “If I am still held captive by the Circle, well, at least I am armed now. I do not fear Denzel, Winnie…even Lunabelle.”

  I do not fear anyone or anything, Toril said under her breath.

  “Regardless of whether I am at the Circle or really here in Gorswood, my next step is to check my friends are okay. I will see Romilly first, then Beth, and finally, my mother.”

  God. It all sounded so nerdy, so overly bookish. What Toril had in good looks, she blotted her copybook with such geeky overtones. All the same, now she had a plan, and could execute it.

  Hunger gnawed at her, but she felt time was not on her side. She marched up to her front door and pointed her wand at it. It stayed stubbornly shut. “For God’s sake,” growled Toril, and wrenched the door open.

  She could not stop herself falling forward. The darkness and nothingness below eagerly welcomed her, silencing her screams as she fell.

  ***

  Toril didn’t recall hitting anything hard, but as she came to, very slowly, and feeling extremely groggy, her face was in immersed in something soft. She fumbled around with leaden hands, and felt the material….a kind of lace, perhaps the lace hem of a dress or skirt.

  “Hold me Toril, it’s so cold here, out in the woods. I can’t sleep,” she said, snuggling up towards Toril.

  Toril’s heart quickened, although her eyes remained shut for the most part, and her head dulled with the pangs of a late night at the bar.

  That voice belonged to eleven year old Dana Cullen. But Dana Cullen was dead. She had been dead for over seventy years. Everyone knew that. Toril recoiled in horror as she realised she was holding the remains of the dress that Dana’s mutilated body had been found in. There remained the hole in the front of the dress where her stomach had been hollowed out, all those years ago.

  The shock must have made Toril pass out. At least you can’t feel pain or hurt when you’re unconscious.

  Toril then lapsed into sleep once more, and was having the most pleasant of dreams, which included Troy taking her to the fairground, trying to impress her at shooting ducks, only for him to miss the last two, and for her to blast them away with a spell, much to the annoyance of the vendor.

  Another was a shopping trip with Beth, and yet another was with her mother, who could conjure up the most wonderful of foods for breakfast. An unsettling moment revealed itself to be a strangely happy one – when Toril had last held the Mirror of Souls, helping the souls of two lost girls to return to their bodies.

  It was a very pleasant dream, no doubt about that. But Toril was rudely awoken from this dream by the sound of hammering.

  She tried to turn around, but it was difficult in such a small place. She tried to get a sense of where she was. She lightly touched her pentacle to usher some light to the area.

  The pentacle worked at least. Toril realised where she was, or more accurately, what she was in.

  A coffin.

  The smell of mahogany hung in what air was available to Toril. But then, the sound of soil hitting the top of the coffin was what made the young witch scream out loud. Soon, the soil overrode the sounds of her screams, and the air became less and less.

  A coffin constructed of mahogany was not meant to release its occupant. Of course, most occupants could not be released, because they were dead, and Toril was not dead. At least, not for the moment.

  Another voice. A male one, this time. “Oh Toril, it’s so dark here, all the time. I can’t breathe, or think, or speak. If I had only known, I would have requested to have been cremated instead.”

  In the darkness, save for the light that Toril’s pentacle emitted, the shattered skull rolled towards Toril, its dead skin brushing her cheek.

  The dismembered head of
Don Curie.

  Toril screamed the kind of scream that made no sound. She was feeling something that was most uncomfortable to her, something she had fought her entire life.

  Fear.

  Trapped in this coffin, with Dana’s bloodied dress and Curie’s head for company, Toril had to believe that there was a way out. Logically, at the Circle, they would not let her die, surely? They held this Day of Light festival for her, after all. They wouldn’t let her die.

  “They will, Toril, just like they let me die,” said the voice of Dana. “We both held the Mirror, you and I. We know the power, the terror it holds, and we will die before its truth is revealed. Just accept your fate, Toril.”

  That was the one thing Toril was not prepared to do. Inside the coffin, and outside – wherever outside actually was, these terrors were meant to break Toril mentally, and she was having none of it.