Banish

by Nicola Marsh

  She nodded in approval and I could have sworn Persephone did the same. “Sounds very civilised.”

  I wondered if I should mention the jazz club, considering I was underage. Angie might believe in liberation but would she freak about something like that?

  “What else?”

  She pinned me with a laser stare and I chugged the rest of my soda, mentally composing an answer she wouldn’t ground me for. “You know he’s a musician, right? He had this gig where his band played a set, then we went to a deli for supper.”

  “What did you eat?”

  Angie’s calm gaze never wavered and I exhaled in relief. She knew Ronan was older, she knew a gig would involve fake ID at a club and she’d let me off. She rocked.

  “Pastrami on rye, pickles, fries.”

  The usual since I’d come to New York, and far removed from my previous favourite, BLT with a side of coleslaw. I couldn’t see bacon, lettuce and tomato in the same aisle at the supermarket without being mentally transported to the diner at Broadwater where Noah and I had hung out for hours, talking, holding hands, staring at each other.

  Before it had all gone so horribly wrong.

  Angie’s stomach grumbled. Persephone leaped off her lap and scrambled for the kitchen. We laughed. “Fancy some more supper?” she asked.

  “No thanks.”

  Duty done, I wanted to shut myself in my room and check emails to see if Ronan had forwarded his latest clip. The song he’d written. For me.

  Resisting the urge to pinch myself, I crumpled the can in my hand and stood. “’Night.”

  “Sweet dreams, honey.”

  Angie unfolded her lithe frame from the cushion, her easy elegance in stark contrast to Mom’s shaky movements. Where Angie’s skin glowed with vitality, Aurora’s paled under the ­constant confinement indoors. Where Angie wore free-flowing skirts and peasant blouses, Aurora was having a good day if she could pull on sweats and a clean T-shirt. Where Angie laughed and joked and smoked stinky herbal cigarettes, Aurora drifted and hibernated and drank vodka straight from the bottle.

  The two sisters who’d once been alike were now as different as New York City and Broadwater, and while I felt guilty for leaving Mom behind, I deserved a break from her. Five years as the primary caregiver in our intense mother–daughter relationship had been enough. I’d hit my teens and she’d hit the bottle, withdrawing until she could barely look at me.

  I still didn’t understand why. Gone were the mother–daughter bonding sessions: baking lavender cookies, planting rosemary bushes either side of our front door, warming wassail—her favourite holiday drink—in the slow cooker. Nothing smelled as delicious as the richness of allspice berries, cinnamon sticks, cloves and ginger simmering in apple cider and filling our cottage with a welcoming aroma. When it was done she’d ladle it into mugs, top with slices of apple and orange sliced crosswise in a pentacle shape, and we’d shout “Wassail!” in a toast.

  While she’d never pushed her Wicca ways on me, I’d liked the rituals, herbs, crystals and candles. She’d answered my questions but acknowledged my need to distance myself once I’d wised up to why she only used a boline—curved knife—to harvest herbs to be used magickally, and why the copious amount of salt in our kitchen was rarely used for cooking.

  In fact, the older I grew, the more she hid her Wicca side, as if she didn’t want me anywhere near it. Angie had been the one to ram it down my throat every chance she got—sending spiritual gifts and books, plying me with questions if I happened to answer the phone—until Mom had told her to back off in an explosive argument I still couldn’t fathom.

  Crazy, to think I missed Mom’s rituals, even celebrating ebbats every month beneath a full moon, once she’d deliberately distanced me from that part of her life. It made the changes in her harder to accept, almost as if she was struggling with some great inner secret only she was privy to and she didn’t trust me enough to help her.

  I’d wanted to. I’d tried. Boy, had I tried. I’d even faked believing, by stringing the protective red jasper Mom had given me as a five year old onto an old pentacle necklace and wearing it for a day. I hadn’t worn the jasper for years, not since around the time Mom had started withdrawing from me. Because every morning I looked in the mirror and saw that smooth, red stone hanging around my neck, I could have sworn it mocked me, reminding me of better days. Days when Mom had bestowed gifts on me just because she could, days when I’d snuggle on her lap and hold the jasper tight in my fist as she read my favourite fairytales, days when she’d stroke my hair and call me her princess. Days I’d give anything to have back.

  I’d thought seeing the defensive magick stone hanging alongside the pentacle around my neck might jog Mom’s memory about our good old days and shock her into trusting me enough to divulge the truth. It had shocked her all right. She’d had a major meltdown, ripping the chain from my neck and flinging it into the trash while screeching about failed protection and futile fate and disastrous consequences.

  We’d never spoken of the incident again. She’d continued to retreat emotionally and I’d accepted the inevitable: the mom I’d grown up with was gone, consumed by inner demons only she was privy to. Who knows, if Noah hadn’t killed himself and small town mentality turned on me, maybe I would have left soon anyway?

  I’d reached my room when Angie called out, “Gigs are fine, so long as you stay clear of the alcohol.”

  Like I’d touch the stuff after what I’d seen at home.

  “Sure thing,” I said, moved by her caring, but shutting the door quickly in case she had more moral proclamations for me.

  I tossed my jacket and scarf on the bed and made straight for my desk. I’d worked my butt off since I started at Fields High six months ago, not wanting to give Angie an excuse to ship me back to Broadwater, and my grades hovered between A and B. The laptop had come with the room and I’d been rapt she’d bought me a welcome gift. It did everything bar reheat pizza, but sadly I used it only for word processing and researching projects. I stayed clear of social network sites, desperate to maintain my anonymity.

  Escaping Broadwater, leaving my old life behind, had been imperative. Why would I want to advertise the fact or stay in touch with a bunch of losers who’d blamed me for Noah’s death?

  Screw that.

  I powered up and sat back, popping a few M&Ms from the secret stash in my top drawer, essential for late-night sugar hits during exam week. Most of the time, the packet didn’t last that long.

  My inbox glared white, predictably empty. Just the way I liked it. Making friends hadn’t been a priority when I started at Fields, and flying under the radar didn’t exactly inspire people to hang out with you. The only friend I’d made was Seth Harris, a newbie who’d started four months after me, and he preferred texting to email.

  A ping had me sitting up straighter as an email from Ronan landed in my inbox. I opened it, a slow warmth spreading through my chest as I read it.

  From: SaxMachine@gmail.com

  To: LysWoods@gmail.com

  This one’s for you, Lys. Don’t burn out your hard-drive watching it over and over.

  Thanks for a great night.

  Ronan

  I loved that he’d started calling me Lys. Smiling at his cockiness, I clicked the attachment, then wrapped my arms around my middle and imagined Ronan doing the same. The clip took a few seconds to load and I turned down the sound, not wanting Angie to poke her head in while I was savouring Ronan’s personal love note.

  A black screen popped up and suddenly Ronan was there, caressing his sax like a lover, eyes closed, totally in the moment. God, he was hot. His rapturous expression sent a tingle of longing through me. The first note filled me, then another, as the haunting melody lifted me up to a place I hadn’t been in a while—a place where a guy wanted to be with me, liked me enough to do this.

  Noah hadn’t been big on romantic gestures and the fact Ronan had composed a song just for me enhanced the divide between them. The fewer reminder
s the better.

  I knew little about music, but I’d watched enough of Ronan on stage tonight to know he had talent. When he’d picked up the sax, he’d become one with it. Corny but true. His dad may have been right in insisting Ronan get a college education, but my naïve bias insisted he could make a living out of music too. Ronan’s sax had stolen the show.

  The last note lingered in the air and I sighed, wishing the song didn’t have to end. Then he lowered the sax and smiled at the camera, probably set up on a tripod going from the angle. “I’d planned on inventing some super cool name for your song, Lys, but couldn’t come up with anything. Hope it speaks for itself.”

  It did, considering he must have made the clip before his impromptu offer to help me study tonight, before our evening out, before The Kiss. Which meant he liked me. Hopefully as much as I liked him.

  There’d been signals the last few weeks. Nothing overt, just a subtle connection I now knew I hadn’t misinterpreted. Little things, like the music videos he sent me when he discovered my passion for watching them on YouTube, like staying back at the end of his tutoring sessions after I’d filmed him and helping me edit my assignment, and offering me his orange soda and choc-covered pretzels as we worked.

  He could have just been polite and friendly and helpful, but there’d been the odd occasions when our gazes would lock. Those had been enough to feed my secret crush and sustain me through classes when I couldn’t wait for after-school music tutoring to finish my assignment, the highlight of my day.

  I’d known then that I’d finally moved on from the past and was ready to have fun again. For a long time after I’d left Broadwater, I didn’t know if I’d ever want to hang out with a guy or date. And then Ronan had come along. I didn’t know where this was going and I certainly didn’t want a hot and heavy relationship, but tonight, for the first time in a long time, I felt great.

  On the screen Ronan stepped out of frame and I almost hit enter to replay the song when the camera angle shifted.

  I hadn’t been to the recording studio yet so I had no idea of the layout, but something about this angle seemed off, like I was peering into a bedroom. Gone were the framed vinyls hanging crookedly on the rough brick wall I’d seen earlier in the clip. These new walls were dirty grey and cracked around the cornices.

  Curious, I shifted closer to the screen. The shot narrowed and swivelled lower, moving past a bucket chair in a dingy corner, grazing across pockmarked floorboards, before landing on a handpainted wooden trunk in the middle of the floor.

  I squinted, making out some kind of Chinese carving of two ladies posing in front of a jade screen, with a whole bunch of letters etched around the edges. It jarred, surprisingly exotic and out of place with what I’d seen of Ronan’s recording studio in the clip so far.

  The camera swept upwards, showing a stainless steel oblong calendar, a chrome lamp, a pale blue porcelain bowl filled with Tibetan prayer beads and a leather-bound journal perched on top of the trunk. Odd, I’d never picked Roman as the prayer type. As the shot swung wider I glimpsed two pillows propped behind the trunk on the floor and, as the camera panned, someone sleeping on their side.

  A girl. With bad taste in clothes, going by her faded ­camouflage harem pants and splotchy crimson halter and purple sneakers.

  Annoyed at the instant flare of jealousy, I closed my eyes for a second and rubbed them. Ronan seemed like a stand-up guy. He wouldn’t have asked me out if he had a girlfriend—one with shocking fashion sense who liked to take naps on the floor.

  Taking a calming breath, I opened my eyes and refocused. On that ugly red halter top. And how the splotches seemed to have seeped into the girl’s skin, tattooing her in a random gross pattern.

  My breath quickened as I leaned so far forward my nose almost touched the screen. The crimson darkened in patches. At odds with any commercial dye job.

  That’s when I saw it.

  The deep red pool spreading beneath her torso and staining the floor.

  The puckering of her skin beneath her arm.

  The gaping gash as the arm fell forward, revealing a horrific crisscross pattern of slashes.

  One-second time frames depicting a horror I couldn’t contemplate.

  I stared at the screen in revulsion, transfixed, not daring to comprehend.

  The camera panned back to the calendar: November 11.

  Seven days from today.

  A whole week leading up to the murder of a faceless girl.

  Slain on my boyfriend’s floor.

  A silent scream wedged in my throat, choking, struggling to get out. I shut down the clip with shaky fingers.

  This couldn’t be real.

  Unless…

  I almost wished the horror I’d glimpsed on that screen was real, for if it wasn’t then I had a far greater horror to face.

  The possibility I’d imagined the entire episode.

  Just like Mom.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  NOT DARING TO contemplate that I could be manifesting the same crazy symptoms as Mom, I replayed the music video.

  Over and over.

  When Ronan finished playing, the screen cut to black. Except on the eighth try, when the same horror unfolded: the odd, stilted shots of the room, the Chinese trunk, the pillows on the floor and the girl bleeding to death.

  This time there was no mistaking the crimson splotches for anything other than blood. Lots of blood. Spreading outwards from her body like a red oil slick.

  I slammed the laptop shut. Pity I couldn’t erase the images from my memory as easily.

  None of this made sense. How could I see a dead girl on one viewing of the clip and not on the next?

  I rubbed my temples, ineffectively staving off the blinder of a headache building behind my eyes. The type of headache I’d suffered all too often after Noah’s death, when Mom’s madness kicked up a gear.

  A light knock sounded on the door a second before Angie stuck her head in. “Everything okay? I heard—” She took one look at me and bustled into the room. “What’s wrong?”

  I opened my mouth and shut it again, trying to form the right words and coming up empty.

  Concern creased my aunt’s forehead as she sank onto the bed. “At the risk of sounding like a spiritualist cliché, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Worse,” I croaked, clearing my throat, but doing little to ease the tightness squeezing it like an iron fist. It was like my vocal cords were telling me to shut the hell up. Seeing the determination pinching Angie’s mouth though, it was clear she wasn’t going anywhere until I gave her something.

  “Tell me,” she said, attempting to clasp my hands.

  I let her hold them for a second before yanking them away on the pretext of hugging my middle, not wanting the ­unstoppable trembling to show her how badly shaken I was. Jerking my head towards the computer, I shelved my reluctance. Angie cast spells for goodness sake. She’d understand ­something as bizarre as this. If I couldn’t confide in her, I couldn’t tell ­anyone.

  “I saw something.”

  Her frown deepened. “Did someone send you porn? Who was it? I’ve got a friend on the force who can—”

  “Not porn.”

  “Then what?”

  I hesitated, wanting to blurt the truth but knowing how completely crazy it’d sound.

  “Whatever it is, you can tell me, honey. I’ll help—”

  “A dead body,” I blurted.

  To Angie’s credit, she didn’t flinch or raise an eyebrow or appear in the least surprised. Then again, she believed in spirit guides and hanging protection charms at her front door to ward off evil, and tying knots to bind the power of a spell. I guess a run-of-the-mill dead body was nothing out of the ordinary.

  She glanced at the laptop, a dent creasing her brow. “Can I see it?”

  Great. Now she probably wanted to communicate with it.

  I screwed up my nose and reluctantly flipped open the screen. “Ronan sends me music clips he makes.” My fi
nger hovered over the play button. “Tonight he said he’d composed a song just for me. It’s amazing.”

  “But?”

  “At the end of the song, the camera panned into another room and that’s when I saw…”

  My voice trembled and Angie’s lips thinned. “Show me.”

  I hit play and braced.

  The haunting melody embraced me, so familiar now I’d heard it repeated so many times over the last ten minutes. As the final notes faded, I stared at the screen, wanting to look away but unable to. Would Angie see it? Would she convince me I wasn’t going crazy?

  I waited. Five long, excruciating seconds.

  And nothing.

  The screen went black.

  I couldn’t look at Angie, my disappointment acute.

  She jabbed a finger at the keyboard. “Play it again.”

  Wanting to hug her, I hit the button. Another eight times. All the while hoping the gruesome scene was on some weird cyclical repeat.

  Nada.

  No girl, no body, no blood.

  No freaking idea what the hell was going on with me.

  Expecting speculation or pity, I finally glanced at Angie. Her thoughtful, benign expression acted like a calming balm on my shredded nerves.

  “Describe what you saw.”

  I winced. “Maybe I imagined it…”

  “Tell me,” she said, her tone unusually sharp.

  Her faith in me went some way to restoring my confidence and I swivelled away from the screen, hugging my knees to my chest.

  “First time I played it, when the song finished the camera panned into a different room. A few mismatched furniture items and a girl lying on the floor, facing away from the camera. She wore grungy camouflage pants and purple sneakers and a red halter. Though it wasn’t red…”

  My voice trembled as the memory slammed into me.

  In full technicolour.

  “It was weird, like slices of different shots had been layered. The first time I saw her lying there I didn’t see the gash under her arm. Then another frame popped up and I saw the cuts, the blood…So much blood.”