Dark Winter: Trilogy

by Hennessy, John

  I decided I could put it off. I could hear Lunabelle screaming in my ears dig up her grave! The answers you need are in there. You know they are! But she also knew I was a process driven kind of girl. So the letter would come first. Depending on its contents, I would decide whether or not to dig her grave up.

  I looked around. There were a few people in the cemetery. The ground was quite hard for the time of year. A few busybodies were chatting to each other wishing a merry Christmas and so on. A cemetery worker in a JCB trundled behind me. When he passed on by a few hundred yards, I decided to make my move.

  I knew the weapon Lunabelle had given me was anything but a normal knife. I wondered was this the same blade that she had used to cut Toril? It would be sufficient for the task at hand, though I was still in two minds on whether to go ahead.

  If I delayed any longer, more people would come, poke their nose into my business, so I pushed the tip of the blade under Nan’s photo, and it came away with ease. To my shock, a small envelope fell to the ground; when I picked it up, it said

  Romilly

  With my name written in handwriting I did not recognise. It had to have been addressed by Lunabelle. Toril had her book, I had this letter; from beyond the grave, no less. I removed the contents, and this time I found a smaller envelope with my name on it, but I knew Nan had written it.

  The tears I found so difficult to find in the recent months suddenly gushed from my eyes. Nan had a scent, and her perfume rose to my nostrils as I opened the letter.

  I wanted to go to the chapel, or maybe sit on one of the benches, but impatience got the better of me. I opened the letter up and eagerly read its contents at her graveside.

  My dear Romilly,

  If everything has come to pass, you are reading this letter after my death. I am sorry for many things, though you know all too well that life is best lived in the present, not the past. However, I apologise for bequeathing this task to you. Yes, my dear, a task, not just a mere mirror, though I expect you realise that by now.

  I trusted delivery of this letter to Lunabelle Cree, a witch I have trusted since I was a little girl, and you can trust in her too. She will have no doubt told you of your Wiccan heritage. I have no doubt you will fight it, but think about it, Romilly. You can do things that maybe others could not. This singled you out at school as a freak (not my word but those of your schoolmates) and you will have struggled more than most to come through it. But you did, and the fact you are reading this letter means you have come further still.

  There are some that seek to be a witch, there are others who are simply special from the day they are born. Blessed are those who don’t even know it. Your naivety is actually a better friend to you than maybe you realise, but you are not actually naïve. As I told you, I could not and would not have trusted this to anyone else. You may wonder, now what you have learned about your parents – why not them?

  Well, your mother, Selena was always the pushy one. Ron was a laid back man who got in a little too deep. I learned a little too late from your grandfather, God rest his soul, that I tested the dark waters too often. Naming your mother Selena was my idea. I felt I could defeat Diabhal, and through you, I know I am going to.

  Inside my grave are two items. You already have a precious weapon from Lunabelle. Keep it with you at all times. It will kill those not of this Earth, and the time is coming, my dear, when you will need to use it.

  When you open the casket, you will find a pentacle around my neck and a wand placed underneath my right shoulder. Whatever the condition of my body, please do not be alarmed.

  The Mirror I gave you in life, the blade Luna gave you after my death. The pentacle and wand are my own, and they now belong to you. By God’s grace and the blessings of the Deity, I know that in the end, you will be the last one standing.

  One more thing, Romilly. I know you are fond of Bethany and Toril, but that cannot distract you from what needs to be done. Toril especially may not take it kindly that you have a superior wand to hers. That said, she may possess the wand of her mother. Both wands, and that of Luna’s are the only three wands left on this Earth that were made from the wood of the silver birch tree.

  Protect it with your life, Romilly. This wand cannot fall into the wrong hands.

  Finally, don’t ever lose faith. Don’t ever give in. And as you have come this far, come just a little farther. Seek out a man in the chapel. You may not like the face that you see, but look beyond that, just this one time.

  Your parents cherished you, nurtured you, and in a small way, I prepared you for this task. I hope I did a good job.

  Whenever hope leaves you and fear threatens to overwhelm you, remember, my darling, just how many people love you.

  See you on the other side. I hope it will not be for a very long time.

  Nan.

  The old girl certainly knew how to pique my curiosity. I had no interest in a super wand or magical pentacle, but just knowing they lay a few feet under the ground meant I could not walk away from this. It was timely too, with the mention of the man in the chapel. If I walked, I would never know.

  I had no magical way of getting to the coffin without disturbing the earth that surrounded it, also it was nearly 3pm in the afternoon, and would be fully dark within an hour. While I was fiddling about with the letter, the blade Lunabelle gave me fell from my grasp onto the grass covering Nan’s grave. I thought I could simply retrieve the weapon, but it had other ideas, and became too hot to touch.

  As I watched, the grass parted in two, with the earth underneath shooting up and settling in two neat piles either side of the grave. I looked around to see had anyone seen what I was doing. All seemed quiet around me.

  Perhaps this was how it was all meant to be. Relatively easy. I peered downwards into the open hole; thankfully the casket was secure and undisturbed.

  Nan was making this as easy for me as possible. Were these powers actually my own, or were Nan’s powers being projected through me? I did not know. The answers – at least some of them, lay within that casket. I would have to get it open.

  I jumped down into the open hole, fearing the worst, that I would not be able to climb out. Of course, Lunabelle, and now Nan would say that witches don’t climb out of a hole, silly girl. And of course, they don’t. They teleport, levitate, glide. If I was to embrace my Wiccan heritage, as Lunabelle had called it, my climbing days were over.

  I looked at the name on top of the coffin. Maria Hurley. Nan had requested this name be used on her coffin, that was expressed at the reading of her will, and anyway, it was likely my parents had already agreed to do this final act for her. I smoothed the dust away from the coffin with my hand, and although I couldn’t quite believe it, I heard a click, or at the very least, a loosening of whatever secured the lid to the rest of the coffin. It slid to the side with ease, and with all my heart I did not want to look. This was not how I wanted to remember my Nan.

  She had a serene calmness about her. I looked, and could not stop looking, knowing that I would be there one day. What a strange existence death actually is. We do not know death, nor can we understand it in any way, and yet, it is there, looming over us for our entire lives.

  Sure enough, the wand lay under her right shoulder, and the pentacle was hidden underneath her clothes. I raised it slowly, fully expecting the earth to be piled in on top of me. After all, why should I trust Lunabelle? She had returned the Mirror to me, but it was mine in the first place.

  I would have to hurry.

  ***

  Inside the chapel, a man waited patiently. He was waiting for me, and though I had been told that in the letter, I would be forgiven for forgetting the details at the time. After all, the last place I expected to be was at my Nan’s grave. Actually, in Nan’s grave.

  He too possessed a letter. He had done so for a long time, and sat on the chapel benches looking at the envelope, but refusing to open it. A man of his years and experience knew what it meant. He looked to his left as a bird perc
hed itself outside one of the windows. When he thought I would not come for a while longer, he decided to open it up and read its contents.

  My dear son,

  If everything has come to pass, when you read this letter, you will be a old man. I am sorry to have sent you away when you were so young, but there had to be someone at the end, at the darkest of times. I know you will meet resistance. I know everyone who looks upon your face will hate you. That is why I hope you chose the career I mapped out for you.

  With whatever means your brother used to dispose of me, just know that I forgive him. Perhaps I shouldn’t, but he was a troubled boy. I knew it, even when he was in my womb.

  As the eldest, I am sure you look on my decisions with disdain and regret. Perhaps you feel only hatred for me. I hope not. I really tried to reach him, you know. I wanted to believe he would not do those things.

  If you are reading this letter, somehow, a dark evil gives him life, and the means to carry on doing these things.

  Many of us make sacrifices in life that people may never truly understand. I hope, when it comes to make your sacrifice, and fulfil your part in this tale, that you will finally understand me.

  Don’t do this for me. Do it for Malcolm. Do it for yourself, and find some peace within you that allows you to do it for Donald.

  Your ever loving mother

  Eloisa

  He looked over at the bird, whose beak was tap-tapping at the window.

  “I bet you’d eat from the carcass of your brother if it kept you alive, right?”

  He turned the envelope over, and something from the light of the altar ahead of him reflected back onto the paper, revealing some writing. With his eyesight failing, he squinted to try and make it out.

  UNDERNEATH

  was all it said.

  “Underneath? Underneath what? Riddles at my time of life! Ridiculous!”

  He leaned forward, craned his neck to look underneath, but could see nothing. It was too awkward a position for him, so he stood up, pocketed the envelope, and cursed his mother under his breath.

  ‘Stupid woman. Why would she let her mentally deranged son kill her? And my brother? And I am sent away so that sixty odd years later, I have to stop him? She was crazier than I thought!’

  As he turned to walk out of the chapel, a dull sound of something heavy, something metallic hit the chapel floor, its sound reverberating through the building. He crouched down, and could now see what it was.

  A blade, gunmetal in colour, similar to the one I possessed. Its twin.

  ***

  It had been nearly five years since Nan’s passing, and I had not been with her in those final moments. In truth, I would not have dealt with it too well back then, and even now, I did not want to look at her.

  As I lifted the pentacle from around her neck, her body disintegrated into ash, with the teeth in her skull the last to disappear.

  So I had her wand and her pentacle, but destroyed her grave in the process.

  How would the Gods or the Deity look kindly on me now?

  ***

  There was no more I could do except scramble out of the hole. I believed I was a witch by proxy, nothing more. I could not see myself waving a wand and uttering a death curse. That kind of thing was for Toril, not for me.

  The tears that rolled down my face were a reaction to Nan’s body and its destruction. No doubt the part I played in it had been pre-determined a long time ago. I was still unconvinced that the world needed a saviour. Wars could be stopped if only there was the will to do so. There was no will here.

  It was then that I saw him. He was carrying a knife, and just like when he stuck it into me in the forest, I could now attack him. He wouldn’t even see me coming.

  ***

  Not that I knew it was him, but Danville Curie walked slowly to his car. With his failing eyesight and pains in his knee joints, he did not think he should be driving, but would be damned if he told the DVLA that. He placed the knife and the envelope in the foot-well on the passenger side of the car, and gently started the engine. Shards of glass hit his cheek as I kicked the window in.

  I pushed his forehead back, exposing his throat, and applied the knife to the raggedy skin around his neck.

  A little courage from me, and it would be done.

  ***

  “You….you are not her. Not the one who came to see me,” he said.

  “No more riddles, no more attacks in the dark,” I answered, dismissing his words. I no longer cared what Don Curie said, but as it come to it, I wondered why I was hesitant to kill him. After all, he had constructed a weapon that killed what could not be killed, so wouldn’t this blade do the same?

  “Kill me if you want. I’ve been set up to die. I expect you have too. We’ve both been used as pawns.”

  I couldn’t do it. He deserved to die, and this time, I expected that even Don Curie could not return. But I could not do it. I took the blade away.

  “What do you mean, pawns?”

  “I’m not Donald Curie,” he said. I would have laughed out loud, only I felt like crying.

  “Could have fooled me.”

  Was this the man my Nan was referring to? Seek this man out in a chapel, of all places? If he wasn’t Don Curie, he was his perfect doppelganger. He had about two seconds to explain himself.

  “I’m his brother. His eldest brother, sent away when I was just a child.”

  “No,” I hissed. I hate hearing the lies. “His brother was smothered to death.”

  “That’s right. Malcolm. But I am not Donald Curie, I am Danville, the first born. I see you have a blade identical to the one I have just found.”

  “Keep talking.” I still hadn’t decided if it was an elaborate ruse or not. “And give me that blade.”

  “You want it all, don’t you? A wand, a pentacle, and two special blades. As a historian, I would bet you have that Mirror too, don’t you?”

  I stood back for a moment. He didn’t seem to know who I was.

  “I’m Romilly Winter, and I didn’t want any of this.”

  “I’m Danville Curie, and neither did I.”

  I told him that we should play it out as was expected of us. So we both went back into the chapel, sat down, and talked like two civilised people. The only reason he was alive was because I believed him, actually believed him.

  “You know, your brother could have killed me many times, but he kept me alive. Why?”

  “Like I said, I believe we are just pawns in the game. The game pieces, the players, have to become more important than the game, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “You could have saved your younger brother, you know. You didn’t have to do everything your mother said.”

  He smiled. “You got a letter too? That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? From your mother too, I suppose.”

  “My Nan,” I corrected. I knew where he was going with this. We would have both done what was asked of us, even though we thought we shouldn’t. “I have recently discovered that my Nan was a witch.”

  “Better than finding out your brother was a killer.”

  When I didn’t respond, he said, “Ah. So now your opinion has changed. You thought your Nan was whiter than white. Perhaps she has killed too in her life. And when time caught up on her, she passed the devilry onto you. So how does it end, Romilly? How can you break the circle of evil?”

  All good questions, that if I were to answer them, would reveal that I had been winging it for far too long. I was good at playing the victim. Could I ever see myself as the hero?

  “I’ve seen this blade before,” he continued. “I am lawyer by trade but history has always been my passion. One of my books tells how Lucifer’s power was diminished for a thousand years because this blade, and its twin, were pushed into him.”

  I looked at him like he was crazy, but he seemed most sincere. After all, Donald Curie could not be hurt whilst a demon was in his body. Similar with me, the knife he stuck in my stomach probably would have bled me to deat
h, but Belial had been within me, keeping me alive, keeping the suffering and torment going on.

  “In the United States, when they execute someone by lethal injection, there are three stages. The first paralyses the body, the second relaxes the muscles, and the third stops the heart. We will fulfill two parts of the execution of him. I do not know who is to be the third.”

  “You’re going to stop him?” I asked. “You would kill your own brother?”

  “My brother has been dead a long time,” he said. “I will do what I need to do, though I don’t feel physically up to it. A young person like yourself would be a great aid at that particular moment.”

  “Where do you think he will be?” I just wanted confirmation from him more than anything else.