8: A gripping dark fantasy mystery

by Georgina Bartlett

  “Hello, Miss Brick. Does that help?”

  “Hi, er yes, that clears everything up. Thank you. Please send my thoughts along to your aunt,” Justine said and ended the call. Holding up the file she met the eyes in the picture. “You’re connected.”

  ***

  “Well, I definitely prefer the way out to the way in,” Mort said, and looked around.

  “Yeah, why couldn’t we have stepped through a magic mirror on the way in?” Amour teased and skipped up to Madame Arbre.

  “De tree has its own rules. We don’t question it.”

  “Right.” Amour sighed and rolled his eyes to Mort and Forrest who walked ahead.

  “A travel crystal?” Mort queried and spun it around in her hands.

  “Er, I think you’ll find they called it an Iter crystal,” Amour corrected, and snatched it from her hands.

  “I think you’ll find some of us have a brain and know how to translate Latin,” she mocked, and tried to snatch it back.

  “Both of you stop now!” Forrest snapped, and a root burst from the ground like a giant pride rock.

  “Woah, no need to spike us, Forrest. Calm down,” Amour snipped and held up his hands.

  “I-I didn’t,” Forrest stammered, and looked at his hands. “That’s never happened before, Amour. Try to light a twig on fire.”

  “Ah, here.” Forrest grabbed a twig from the ground. “Set this alight.”

  Amour turned his fingers as if to make a fire ball, but before his palms had a chance to make a flame, the entirety of Madame Arbre’s allotment set alight.

  “What the?” Amour said and looked down at his hands.

  “Hey, hey, boy! Yuh had better put dat out,” Madame Arbre warned in her thick Bajan accent, hands on her hips.

  Amour snapped, and the fire disappeared.

  “I normally have to try harder to make flames go out. What’s going on?” he asked the group.

  “The marks on your hands,” Doc said, sitting on a piece of old wood. “The marks on your hands were containment spells,” he yelled, his eyes wide. “Of course, it all makes sense now! The king has been controlling how powerful you are.”

  The siblings looked from him to each other, all of them still fresh from the conversation.

  “That son of a bitch,” Mort whispered, and covered her mouth with both of her hands.

  “Hey, hey,” Doc said, by her side in a second. “What’s with all the fear?” He tried to touch her arm.

  “No, don’t!” she yelled, and took a step back. “I am not like the two of you. I have control over death. I don’t need to be more powerful,” she choked out. “For all I know, all you would need to do now is to touch me, and you would die.”

  “Mort, you know that isn’t going to happen. Out of all your siblings you have always been the one with the most control over your powers. You still have that control. Even if that power is a little stronger,” he said, and inched closer to her.

  With raised eyebrows and a soft grin he silently asked her permission to touch her. With the smile she saved only for him, she said yes. Slowly, Doc lowered his hand onto her forearm. He let it sit for a moment and gave a small sigh and chuckle as nothing happened.

  Mort ran into his arms and snuggled into his chest. “Thank you,” she cried. “Thank you for being a father to all of us, and for everything.”

  Doc laid his cheek against her forehead as his bottom lip trembled.

  “Child. Yuh need to stop thinking of yourself as de enemy. Yuh power is natural, as natural as breathing. Tis something dat has to happen to every living being in dis world and de next. And if someone is going to have power over something soo serious, I am glad tis you.” Madame Arbre cupped Mort’s chin between her fingers. “Now, let’s get yuh on yuh way,” she said, and walked into her allotment.

  She stopped in front of the green beans. There were two long bean poles in place to help them grow. She placed her hand in between them, and a gloss, like a mirror, took over the space.

  “Dis is de part of de forest we hid from King Tinc and his soldiers. It hides de spiders and de Somnium Bellator’s. When yuh step through de portal, think of de word Iter and it will deliver us to de tree.” She stepped through the fluid mirror like liquid and disappeared as it lit up.

  “Great, another portal,” Amour mocked and walked in backwards with his eyes closed.

  “Well, I really hope he was concentrating,” Forrest walked into the portal with Doc and Mort on his tail.

  Twenty-Two

  The woods on the other side of the portal had the same purple glow from the moon that they had just left, but it shone a spotlight onto the spider’s web that draped the trees. A perfectly formed tunnel had been woven in web that connected all the trees together.

  “I’ve never seen so much spider’s silk,” Mort said as she reached out and touched a piece. It stuck to her finger and sent out a vibration. “Er, did I just call a spider to come and eat us?”

  “No, child. De spiders know dat I am de only one who can enter here, so dey will not attack,” Madame Arbre assured and clasped her arms together as she chuckled, her grey hair bouncing around her brown cheeks.

  “So how do we tell which one of these is the Iter tree?” Amour asked, his hands out as if ready to take a plate to a table.

  “Well, Mr Smarty Pants, yuh would know if yuh came through de right way, we all landed exactly where we are meant to be,” she taunted and pointed to the tree in front of them.

  It looked like a tree from Halloween night, dressed in cobweb. The branches were void of any green and stretched up to the sky with twisted limbs.

  “Dere is a hole in de front. Place yuh hand and de crystal inside,” she said to Forrest. “Make sure everyone is connected and think of where yuh need to go. De tree will do de rest.”

  “Are you the guardian of the trees or the guardian of the portals?” Amour asked as he pulled some web away from his baby pink tunic.

  “De mouth on dis one,” Madame Arbre fumed and hit him with her cane. “Go now. De future needs you,” she declared and moved aside for Forrest.

  Forrest walked up to the tree and pulled the webbing away from the trunk to reveal the void in the middle. Grubs and insects crawled from the centre and wove around the tree.

  “Yeah, this seems like the perfect job for you, Forrest,” Amour assured and stood behind him.

  “Aren’t you glad I bought you along old man? You can be our guide,” Forrest mocked Doc as he laid a hand on his back.

  “Yeah, I am,” Doc commented and smiled.

  “Here we go,” Forrest started and glanced around to make sure Mort and Amour were linked to them, a hand on each other’s shoulders.

  Pushing his hand into the chasm it was covered in slime and creepy crawlies that climbed up his blue-black skin. Grimacing, he pushed it in further and thought of the Earth realm over and over in his mind.

  ***

  Justine waited for the coffee machine to finish, a glazed look over her eyes. As it was dripping, and hisses came from the hot plate, an email pinged into her folder.

  She sat back at the desk and read:

  ‘Here you go Justine. Hope this helps.

  - Rick’

  Attached was the sharper image of Donovan stood behind his open car door, in front of the shop where they had taken the footage. She double-clicked it and sent it to the printer. She took the picture and added it to the board with her A4 picture of Melody.

  ***

  The ground was wet from the downpour that afternoon, but his shoes were made for this. The jogger ran through the park and breathed effortlessly as his lungs were used to this pace, the moon making its appearance in the new night sky. His shorts swung around his muscular legs as he turned the corner, the same way he did every evening, and stopped at a bench, before he lifted his leg to stretch. His earphones played a podcast about brewing your own beer as he moved his head from side to side and rolled his shoulders, ready to continue.

  Presuming it
was a cyclist, he thought nothing of it when a bright purple light shone through the darkness to the side of him. He glanced in its direction and slowly took out one of his ear buds as he saw the light was being projected through the hole of a tree. The light spun and turned into a vortex, gaining speed and size, before it emitted a large flash, then disappeared.

  A group of people stood in front of him. They were led by a man with midnight black skin. Taking no time to ask questions, the jogger sprinted away from the phenomenon he had just witnessed.

  “Did it work?” Amour asked with his eyes closed.

  “I don’t know,” Forrest confessed as he looked around. “Why is it so bright, and where is the purple?” He blinked.

  “It worked. We are in London,” Doc assured and stepped forward. “There is no purple blossom moon here, only a blue moon and a yellow sun that appear at different times of the day.”

  “Pfft. That makes no sense!” Amour laughed as he looked up into the night sky. “Without the petals of the moon, how do you tell how many days are left till the sun blooms?”

  “Here they use watches to track time over a twenty-four-hour period,” Doc told them and met only confusion.

  “Twenty-four-hours is one day here?” Mort asked. “But their lives must be so short.”

  “Humans live to be around one hundred years old, if we are lucky,” Doc laughed.

  “So, how old does that make you Doc?” Amour quizzed.

  “It’s not polite to ask that question here.”

  “So, no flower sun and moon, no eternal youth, and only one hundred years of life. Why would you ever want to come back here?” Amour asked and turned up his nose.

  Doc looked up to a moon he hadn’t seen in over twenty years and breathed in the cool night air. “You’ll see. This realm has its own magic,” he stated, and smiled with his eyes.

  They were near a large fountain with two marble sculptures either side holding vases, sat in the middle of a grassy circle and beautiful walkways.

  “We’re in Hyde Park,” Doc told them as he looked around. “We aren’t far from my old office. Come on.”

  “Which direction?” Forrest asked as he tried to catch up.

  “North down here,”

  “Come on, guys. Keep up,” Forrest yelled and disappeared into the night in a green blur.

  ***

  Justine snored herself awake and pulled the file with of the young girl with mud brown hair from under her face. She stretched, and looked at the time on her watch, unaware that she had drifted off.

  She flicked on her office lamp and rolled her head around her shoulders to get the feeling back in her spine. She stretched her arms above her head and held a yawn. She poured herself a cup of cold coffee and downed it, before heading out of her office to the communal bathroom down the hall.

  Justine locked the door behind her, yawned and strolled down the corridor. The bathroom wasn’t in the best condition, but it wasn’t the worst she had ever used. She closed the door, looked in the mirror, and found the bags under her eyes.

  “Oh, I really have to start bringing face cream with me,” she hissed to her reflection, and smoothed out the skin around her eyes.

  Splashing some water on her face, she shook her head and licked her lips, welcoming the cool fresh liquid and its jump start to her brain. She heard a noise from the hallway and wondered if the bail bondsman next door was working late. She opened the bathroom door and peaked out, but saw that her office was open.

  “What is that stench?” a man’s voice asked and made a noise that sounded like he was being sick.

  “Amour, that’s the smell of coffee. It helps you stay awake,” another voice answered.

  “Really? It’s awful. Why don’t you all drink tea like civilized people?” the man asked again.

  Justine pushed the door, and it released a small squeak. The people in the room turned to see her in the doorway. Two people in renaissance clothing stood behind her desk and another by her coffee pot was dressed in a white lab coat that had seen better days. A man who stood closest to her had the most beautiful black skin paired with a set of stunning green eyes.

  “I don’t know who you all are, but I have my friend from the police station on speed dial,” Justine said and held her phone up in the air, a shake to her hand.

  “What’s speed dial?” a petite woman asked, paler than anyone she had ever seen.

  “Where did you get this?” a man with the arms of a weightlifter asked, his skin as black as night. He was holding the picture of Donovan she had pinned on her board earlier.

  “That’s none of your business, leave!” she yelled.

  “Justine?” Doc asked as he came forward.

  “What, how?” she started, but stopped as she saw Doc’s face. “Dad?” she said, her voice high and trembling.

  “Baby,” Doc whispered, his eyes full of tears and his mouth sagged open with a smile. “You’re alive.”

  “Yeah, no thanks to you. What are you doing? Where have you been?” she asked, tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “It’s hard to explain, my love. But know that your mother and I did not leave you. We love you so much,” Doc promised and stepped forward to hug her.

  “I don’t know what the fuck is happening, but you all need to leave,” Justine screamed, her finger still on the call button.

  “We can’t leave, not till you tell us how you came across this picture,” Forrest stated, and pushed it forward again.

  “It’s a perp in a case I’m working, someone of interest in a murder,” she answered with a heavy sigh.

  “This all makes sense now. The king couldn’t have done all of this alone. He had help, and of course it was from these four,” Forrest said, and showed the others the picture.

  “War,” Mort hissed, her eyes wide and her jaw clenched

  “War? His name is Donovan,” said Justine.

  “He may have changed his name to fit this realm, but this is definitely War. One of the four horseman of the apocalypse,” Forrest announced. “They left Tincture so long ago I didn’t even realize it.”

  “That must mean the rest are here, too. Famine, Strife and Death. There’s no telling what they are up to, or what carnage they have already caused.” Amour mirrored the shock on Forrest’s features.

  “I’m sorry. What is happening here? Are you all crazy people? Is that where you’ve been all these years, Dad, in the looney bin?” she asked, her lips in a thin line.

  “I know this is hard to take in right now, honey, but I can explain everything,” Doc assured and smiled at her, his eyes shining.

  “Wait, Forrest. You missed this picture,” Amour said and un-pinned the picture of Melody Davies.

  “Please don’t play with that. This is very important information on a missing persons case,” Justine warned and cradled her head, still stood in the doorway.

  “I’ll say,” Amour whispered. “Forrest, look,” he revealed the picture to Mort and Forrest. “It’s Harmony. She’s alive.”

  ***

  His footsteps echoed through the corridors as he descended the wet, aged stone steps. A lantern in his hand to guide him through the darkness, a part of the Palette Palace he hadn’t visited in a long time. When he reached the bottom, a Tincturian soldier unlocked a set of gates with just his touch, the king walked through and found the crumpled husk of a man he’d left to rot.

  “It seems that your spell has been broken,” the king snarled and tossed three smooth rocks onto the cell floor, each with a circle that had been broken, a slash through its centre. “I believe it was you, Wayne, that told me this spell could never be broken. I have hunted witches and warlocks to extinction but kept you alive because you helped me. And this is the thanks I get,” he spoke softly.

  “There is only one way this spell can be broken, my lord,” Wayne rasped, his throat full of dust and his ribs showing through the ripped and torn brown sack he was wearing.

  “And what would that be?”

  �
�They have travelled to the Atheneum tree. It’s covered in protection charms that break any spell,” he choked, still crumpled in the corner. Long, shabby hair covering a sunken face.

  “Well, it seems I celebrated too early. That witch is still alive,” the king barked, and paced the cell.

  “I have failed you, my lord. I offer up my life in return for my negligence,” Wayne vowed, a smile on his lips.

  “No. You will not taste the sweet freedom of death today. Not while I can still use you. You there,” he commanded the Tincturian soldier at the gate.

  “My lord?”

  “Prepare the travel tree.” The king smirked and drew a small hand-mirror with a chunk missing, from his coat pocket. The small slither of broken glass lay in his other hand, and he passed it to Wayne. As the warlock took it, the king found his ghostly face staring back at him through the looking glass. “Wayne is going on an adventure,” he declared, and looked down to the three stones on the cell floor. “You’ll never be rid of me,” he promised, and left the cell.

  THE END

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