She looked up to him and sniffed, wiping away the tears with the back of her sleeve and nodding. ‘You promise for real?’
‘For real.’
‘Amy,’ I said, ‘What happens if you say the rhyme? What are you all scared of?’
‘It’s just stupid, dumb kid stuff, that’s all. It’s just, the word is, if you say the rhyme out loud, it will come for you when you sleep. It’ll find you in your dreams and you’ll never wake up again.’
Wake No More.
‘What’s the rhyme, Amy?’ I asked.
‘I don’t wanna say it out loud again. It’s just, it gets under your skin. So Uncle David asked me to write it down instead.’
She stood and made her way over to her little dresser table and picked up a piece of paper. She held it away from her, pinched between two fingers as she walked back to me, like she was afraid it would bite her if she held it any closer.
As I took the note she gave a slight shudder of relief and quickly made her way to the other side of David, hiding behind him.
The first line of the note was familiar, the rest was new…
Wake no more
Said nobody’s child
Kicked and beaten
Turned mean and wild
Wake no more
Said the fearful small
For now I am here
To punish you all.
10
David and Amy talked with Angie for a while as I sat on the couch and sipped my tea, re-reading the rhyme over and over as Jessica Fletcher taught the police of Cabot Cove how to solve a murder.
‘For now I am here, to punish you all,’ I said under my breath.
The words had weight. On paper, they were nothing, just ink. But as I spoke them, I could feel the darkness that existed within them. Feel the magical shapes they cut in the air around me.
A curse activated by being spoken out loud.
The shapes of the words were strange and made no sense to me. But I could feel things in them. Feel dread. And terror. And pain. It was like I could hear a small voice, crying out in pain, at the back of my head. Something alone and terrified and angry. No, not angry, furious. A white hot, blind fury.
And there was something else too.
A hunger.
A relentless need to go on and on and on. This wasn’t some one-time phenomenon. Six kids went to bed the same night and never woke up, but that was just the beginning. The opening act.
I looked down at the piece of paper again and muttered the rhyme under my breath so only I could hear it. I felt the mess of feelings wash around me again...
More, more, more, never enough, never, never, never—
‘For now I am here, to punish you all.’
All.
The children of London were in danger. Every single one of them.
Amy had spoken the rhyme out loud, so there was no way we could leave her behind. The only place she could be was with us, even if that meant filling her in more on the nature of what was happening. Filling her in a bit about me and about the Uncanny. The alternative was leaving her behind and vulnerable to whatever it was that was behind this… this bewitchment.
‘She’s gonna stay with me for a few days,’ David explained to Amy’s mum. ‘A little uncle-niece bonding time, isn’t that right, Amy?’
Amy nodded, looking guilty as hell. Angie shrugged and made sure her daughter packed a bag with enough clothes to last a few days.
‘She was a bit easy to convince,’ I said later, as the Tube train roared and rocked.
‘She’s okay. She wants us to have a close relationship, so any time I wanna drop in, or take Amy out, she’s all for it. I can’t say I feel great about lying to her, though.’
‘What would you have told her?’ I asked. ‘That her daughter might be prey to some malevolent sleep curse? She’d have thought we were crazy.’
‘I know, but still. Got a little guilt-seed in my belly.’
‘The worst thing we could have done was leave her behind, David. Trust me. I spoke the poem out loud. I felt it. There’s something going on with the words when they’re all together. Something awful living inside of it. And Amy’s spoken them out loud.’
I looked over to Amy, stood holding onto a bar, swaying back and forth, earbuds in and listening to music through her phone.
She was just a kid. A little girl who wanted to listen to music, scowl at her Mum, and talk nonsense with her friends on the internet. And now she was in the sights of something I couldn’t quite see.
I scrunched up the note that contained the full poem, hand in my pocket, and hoped we could come up with something before Amy fell to sleep.
11
‘You two are proper mad!’ said Amy, as we tried to convince her to walk into a brick wall.
‘Go ahead,’ said David, ‘Just walk right ahead and the wall will disappear, honest.’ He looked up at me, grinning, obviously happy to be on the other side of this for once.
To someone like Amy—a normal—there was no alleyway, just a brick wall. That’s how it had looked to David, too, until I opened his eyes.
‘Go on then, Magic Lady, do your thang,’ said David, rubbing his hands together.
‘You’re enjoying this a bit too much,’ I said.
‘What can I say? Small pleasures for small minds,’ he replied, winking.
I smiled, shaking my head, and pushed a spell towards Amy.
‘See,’ I said.
Amy began to blink in surprise. ‘Uh. No. What? Where did that—?’ She pointed at the now visible blind alley, her mouth agape
‘Oh, you see the massive opening to the obviously there alleyway now, eh?’ said David, and put his arm around her, leading her forwards. ‘Come on kiddo, things are only going to get weirder from here.’
Minutes later we were sat around the kitchen table, each cradling a cup of tea.
‘Um. What?’ said Amy.
‘Stella here is a Familiar.’
‘A witch’s familiar?’ she asked.
‘You know about that stuff?’ I asked.
‘Well, yeah. My mate Jenna, she’s well into, like, Wicca and the supernatural and all that stuff. Said she saw a ghost once. But she also said she kissed Tom Bellow, and we all know she was chatting shit there.’
‘Whoa, young lady, less of the no-no words, thank you,’ said David.
‘No-no words? How old are you?’ replied Amy, folding her arms.
David laughed and Amy joined in. It was obvious they had a pretty good bond together, even if he’d only known her for a few years.
‘So, you believe me?’ I asked.
Amy turned and looked me up and down. ‘Sure, why not. If Uncle Dave says you’re a witch’s familiar, then that’s what you are. And that alleyway definitely wasn’t there until, you know, suddenly it was. So that seems like some real straight-up, legit magic to me.’
‘Well, you’ve taken to the idea a lot quicker than your Uncle,’ I replied. ‘He threw up.’
‘Oi! I had just been attacked by a demonically possessed cafe owner!’
Amy giggled.
‘So, are you magic and that, too, Uncle Dave?’
‘No. Well, I don’t think so. I can see ghosts though!’
‘Wow! Cool!’
David swagged his head back and forth, ‘Yeah, I suppose so. No biggie.’
‘So, you two do what? Solve magic crimes stuff, yeah?’
‘That’s right,’ said David.
‘Well, that is pretty cool.’
I smiled, ‘I suppose so.’
I pulled the note with the rhyme on it out of my jacket pocket and placed it on the table. Amy sat back in her chair as though it was radioactive.
‘So, when did you first hear this rhyme?’ I asked.
‘Not sure,’ she replied.
‘Can you think back?’ asked David. ‘Could be important.’
She shook her head, ‘No, it’s just… it’s been going round the playground for a few weeks. Someone had it wr
itten down and it was being passed around everywhere. The rumour was if you said it out loud the thing would get you in your sleep. That you’d never wake up. We were all, you know, joking about it. Trying to get each other to say it out loud. Pretend like we weren’t scared of some stupid rhyme.’
Amy’s hands were holding tight to each other, fingers interlocked, knuckles white.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’m not that small anymore, but I still get scared of the dark sometimes. Scared of waking up in the middle of the night and being on my own. I suppose… I suppose I’m not that grown up. Not really. You must remember what that feels like? When you were a kid?’
‘I was never a child,’ I replied.
‘What? That’s stupid, everyone was little once.’
‘Not me. I was born like this.’
‘For real?’
‘Yep,’ said David. ‘She’s a bit of a freak, this one.’
‘So, like, you never had a childhood?’
‘Well, no. No, I didn’t.’
‘Oh. That’s sort of sad.’
I shifted in my chair uncomfortably, then lifted my cup to take a swig.
‘Okay, Ames,’ said David, ‘Go on.’
She smiled weakly at him and nodded. ‘Okay. Well, I didn’t believe in it. In the rhyme and the curse and stuff. Well, I did sort of, but not really. But when I said the words… it’s like I felt something, you know? Like a bit of ice was suddenly at the centre of me. And then I heard about all those kids not waking up, and I just sort of knew they’d said the rhyme. I just knew.’
David placed a hand on her arm, ‘That’s okay. That’s enough. You did good, Ames.’
She flashed a pained, tight-lipped smile at him and nodded, her eyes a little too wide.
‘Is that gonna happen to me, Uncle Dave? When I go to sleep tonight am I gonna get taken by the thing and never wake up?’
‘Hey, come on,’ he took her head onto his shoulder and stroked her arm as her body racked with sobs. ‘Don’t worry about anything, okay? Trust me. The best thing you could have done is tell me and the magic lady over there. We kick monster butts for a living, alright? Nothing and nobody is gonna lay a hand on my family, you hear me?’
She sat up, snotty and sniffing, wiping the tears away and nodding. ‘You definitely promise?’
‘Definitely.’
She seemed a little relieved by that and excused herself to go and use the toilet.
‘You know, you shouldn’t have done that,’ I said.
‘Shouldn’t have done what?’ David replied.
‘Promised her. We don’t know what’s going on. Not yet. All I know is it’s something very, very bad, and none of them are safe. Not Amy, not any of them.’
‘You’ll figure it out,’ he replied. ‘Got faith in you, magic lady.’
It was a good thing someone did.
12
So, any ideas?’ asked David.
We were sat in the main coven room staring at the slate tile I’d drawn the pentagram on. Amy was upstairs in one of the spare rooms, settling in. The coven has eight different bedrooms, though only four of them had ever been used in the sixty years I’d been living there: three of them by my witches, one by me. I’m still not sure why the other four were needed. Why they hadn’t converted them or used a spell to get rid of them.
‘Oi, daydream believer,’ said David, clicking his fingers. ‘I said any ideas?’
‘One or two,’ I replied.
‘I don’t suppose we’re going to be able to just, you know, find the thing, punch it in the kisser and toss it into a cell? Because that would be just smashing.’
‘Afraid not.’
‘You’re a real dream-crusher, Stella. So what do we do?’
‘Well, it’s obviously got something in for kids. Whatever it is, it wants to harm them. It’s not interested in adults, it just wants to take their children. Wants to make them scared. A spooky rhyme, an urban legend, a monster who comes for you in your dreams. It’s all designed to spook kids.’
‘Not just kids, I have a touch of the willies myself.’
We sat in silence for a minute or two as we contemplated the shit we were in.
‘Oh, I didn’t bring a toothbrush,’ said David.
‘What? Why would you need a toothbrush?’ I said, face flushing, my thoughts drifting back to the stupid, drunken, almost… what? Kiss?
‘Well, Amy is staying over, so I’m staying over. We can have a slumber party, minus the slumber: me and you two gals. What d’you say? Hair-braiding, pillow fights, Dirty Dancing on the telly…’
I arched an eyebrow, ‘We’re doing this to protect your niece, not to have a party.’ I smiled. ‘Besides, I’d murder you in a pillow fight.’
We took it in turns to sit up with Amy. I’d placed a simple alertness spell on Amy, to stop her falling asleep, but someone still had to be with her at all times. Just to make sure. Also, just to keep the terrified teen company.
The London Coven is fierce with magic. David and Amy can’t see it, but to me it’s like living inside of a dry ocean. Multi-coloured waves roll around me the whole time, ebbing and flowing, crashing off the walls. It should be a safe place for Amy. Should be.
Two things bothered me. One: I didn’t know what the hell was going on. That was a big one. I didn’t know what sort of magical, dark force was behind that rhyme. Behind the kids falling asleep and slipping into comas. Who knew how strong it was? Was it strong enough to seep into this place? If Amy were to close her eyes and let sleep take her, would she ever wake up again?
Then there was what happened three months earlier. Mr. Trick. My witches, murdered in their own seat of power. Was this place really as safe as I thought it was?
I couldn’t assume anything anymore.
I was on first watch and asked her if she’d like to see a film to eat up a few night-hours.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Do you have Dirty Dancing?’
David threw a pillow my way from the corridor. ‘’Ave it!’ he yelled, then scampered away.
‘This means war!’ I shouted back, launching the pillow back in his direction with a little magical force behind it.
We found the film online—which turned out to have a pretty good soundtrack—and Amy mouthed along to all the lines. I pulled some of the available magic toward me and pushed an extra protection spell in Amy’s direction. I infused it with the right words, the correct phrases, and settled into my chair a little easier as the spells of protection drifted over her like a comfort blanket. Would they actually do anything against a creature that could prey on her in her sleep? I had no idea, but at least it felt like I was doing something.
‘Stella,’ said Amy, as Johnny lifted Baby high above his head.
‘Hmm?’
‘Am I really in danger? Like… properly in danger?’
I suppose I should have found a comforting way to say it, but if I were her, I’d have wanted the truth. ‘Yes. You’re in danger. A lot of danger.’
‘Right. But I’m going to have to sleep at some point, aren’t I? No one can just stay awake forever. I mean, I’m already tired now, even with the magic over me. I can feel my eyes wanting to close and I just want to curl up in this chair and drift off. At some point I’m gonna sleep and the monster will get me.’
‘Maybe. But I’m going to do whatever I can to find out what’s behind this. Me and your uncle both are. And once we’ve found the thing, we’ll kick its teeth in.’
Amy smiled and nodded and went back to the film.
‘So are you and Uncle Dave, like… ’ She let the sentence trail off and grinned at me.
‘Like what?’
‘You know? Doing it.’
I felt blood rush to my face.
‘What? No! Of course not. Gross. Nope.’
She lifted her hands up, ‘Hey, you know, okay, God. You just look like a couple and that.’
‘Well, we’re not. At all. I mean, no way. Anyway, you’re only thirteen – aren’t you a little
young for this sort of conversation?’
‘I’m a teenager, Stella, I’ve had boyfriends you know!’ She caught herself. ‘Don’t tell Mum though.’
As the night wore on, David and I swapped back and forth, taking turns to keep Amy company for a few hours at a time, until finally, the sun rose and I sighed with relief. We’d made it through one night.
David entered, yawning and scratching at his midriff, his hair pasted to one side of his head.
‘Good morning,’ I said, standing from my chair and stretching.
‘I know, you two don’t have to say anything, I look beautiful in the morning.’
Amy giggled, then faux-gagged.
‘Hey, don’t be a hater just ‘cos I woke up this pretty.’
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘Who’s up for some breakfast?’
David twitched and reached into his pocket, pulling out his vibrating phone.
‘Detective Tyler,’ he said, answering. ‘Crap, how many? Okay, right, thanks.’ David hung up and looked to Amy, eyes wide.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
I already knew.
‘Fourteen more kids didn’t wake up this morning.’
I looked at Amy, who sat back in her chair and hugged her knees.
13
I left David to take care of his niece. The plan was that he drag her around the city to keep her awake and active until he heard back from me. Amy grumbled, yawning, but headed off with her Uncle with promises of “enough ice-cream to make you puke.”
Fourteen more children now resided within a ward in Ealing Hospital. That made twenty in total. Twenty kids over the last two nights who went to bed like it was any normal day, closed their eyes, and were taken in their dreams by…
...by something.
‘For now I am here, to punish you all,’ I said under my breath as I marched towards my destination, Amy’s note still in my pocket.
I was heading towards L’Merrier’s Antiques, a shop I’d been ordered to stay away from after my last visit. It seemed more like a warning than a request, but I didn’t have a choice. I needed help, and Giles L’Merrier was going to give it to me.
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