A Witch's Curse (22 page)

“
Kidding. So what’s got you down, though? Is it Grady? James?”

“
What did I do?” James inquired with a mouthful of fruit.

“
Nothing,” Rose said, slamming her locker and trying to calmly walk down the hallway, hoping to make her presence absent from the two, praying that the bell would ring at any second. “This was an accident,” she clarified, turning a corner into another passage, one decorated with Sophomore art collages.

“
I see,” Melinda said, following her with James in tow. “Let me guess, you were trying to bake a cake, and while applying the frosting, you somehow tripped and fell on a stack of knifes. It’s okay. Happens to the best of us.”

“
Will you just drop it?” Rose said, surprised at the anger in her voice, turning around and facing Melinda. “I was brushing my teeth, preparing myself to comb my hair, when the mirror suddenly fell in front of me. My Dad’s already talked to the landlord, all right? There were some faulty issues with the bathroom when they built the house. Obviously. It happens all the time. People’s chandeliers fall, the ceiling caves in. I just had the luck of it happening to me.”

“
Speaking of luck,” James said.

“
Bad luck for seven years,” Rose said haughtily, turning around and continuing her fast paced stroll. “I know that.”

Going through the school’s courtyard, a pang of contrition hit her when staring at all of the fenced off, destroyed property.

The campus was a burned wasteland. According to the news, they still had not found a culprit, and she knew they wouldn’t. She hoped that no one who was innocent could end up taking the blame through a miscalculation in the investigation for something that was the black cloaked man’s fault.

Melinda and James were still behind her, despite her seemingly bad temper.

“
Do you know who could have done this?” Melinda’s voice said behind her.

“
I know,” James said, throwing the seed of the apple into a trash can nearby. “There’s no doubt in my mind it was Grady Bell. I’ve seen the way he walks around school with a swagger like he’s the king of the world. I bet you ten to one he’s the person who lit the match. Trust me, I’ve been keeping an eye out on him.”

“
Don’t be silly,” Melinda said, folding her arms and looking at the ground in a subtly passive aggressive manner. “It would be stupid to blame this on anyone except one of the goth students we have.”

“
Nice way to stab me in the back,” James said.

“
That can’t be,” Rose said.

“
I was going to ask you two to dinner tonight, but after seeing the way I’ve been treated, I’m rethinking the invites.

“
No anyways,” Rose said, facing them after taking in the wide and charred scenery for a second time. “I have a lot on my plate this afternoon.”

She had found a suitable, light long sleeved t-shirt which was not too uncomfortable to wear when the afternoon’s temperature was bordering on sweltering. It was orange and black, and even James had complimented her on how it accentuated her curves. She took this to be an admiring comment.

The sun was bright, and the sky remained blue. Worries of whether or not she would be able to actually vanquish her mother’s reign, even with Mary Worth’s advice, was taxing. She was aware that people watching would keep her entertained on her stroll to the Realm of the Out of Print, and maybe a long walk would help keep her mind off the matters at hand for a small while.

She went along a crowded thoroughfares at a brisk pace, trying her best not to make eye contact, despite how it seemed like everyone insisted on staring directly at her. It became apparent that a lot of the tourists who visited Lake Pines for Halloween still had not left yet. People of all sizes, shapes, and cultural backgrounds ambled along the few cobblestone streets, peering into the different shops and entering some of the seedier establishments, places suspected of being underground casino’s.

It was all the same to Rose. She liked her town, and yet as any other local, she was well aware of its dark side, and did her best to avoid it.

Passing the fountain of Webster Montgomery, one of the town’s famous historical founders, she could not help but notice a couple kissing. It seemed like it was the wrong time of day for them to show such strong public affection, but even that was not the strangest thing about them.

Rose stopped in her tracks, gazing at them as they visibly brought one another closer, their hands almost scratching other’s backs until they bled through their clothing. It was not long before the blonde stopped the French kissing, and stared at Whelan for a second with an iniquitous glare in her eyes. The man then did the same thing. He gawked intently towards her direction, and the first thing Rose noticed was how his eyebrows seemed overgrown for a male his age.

That was when the face transformed. The fair haired woman’s mouth contorted, her former pearly whites now converting into serrated and hollowed incisors. The ruby gums were now circular rather than two straight rod shaped forms, and her scalpel like gray dentitions became a more menacing contour than a shark’s gills. When opening her inlet, a scream reminiscent of fracturing violins issued from the wraith’s lungs, like an ocean of shattering, out of tune musical strings.

The man stayed the same, all the while continuing to smirk. Rose thought he was in danger.

She dropped her bag so that way it would not slow her down, and ran up to them. Readying herself to use a spell, she was astounded when she stood only a few feet away from the marble cascade and learned that both had vanished.

Panting, she turned to a passing citizen, a man who looked like he could have been a shoe salesman. He was donning a business suit and orange tie.

“
What do you want?”

“
When you were at the other end of the street, did you see two people kissing?”

He exhaled, frustrated. “No. Let me by, I have a place to be.”

As he walked on, she stared at the fountain again. People gave her accusatory peeks as she focused on the limitless amount of silver coins underneath the surface of the geyser’s water, wondering if any of the now wishful currency had more to them than she or anyone else could have known.

Hemera’s spell over this place made itself known again, even in a spot that’s supposed to bring good luck, a fountain where couples toss their coins. Nice going, Mom.

The rest of the trip on foot to the bookstore went smoothly, although she found herself peering over her own shoulder every second, staring at the rooftops for a pair of wary eyes. Rose did not find herself so much shaken as she was disturbed. That face had to have been the ugliest thing she had ever seen. It was a demon, there was no doubt. After years of browsing through manuscripts on magic, Rose had been trained, both formally and not, to recognize a fiendish spirit when coming across one. Yet it was still a mystery as to why no one else seemed to have become aware of the revenant.

Sometimes, she hated her conscious.

Your life is chaos, Rose. You will never be normal or fit in. You were born to be this strange byproduct of a strong man and an evil woman. Don’t lie, there’s no use in keeping it a secret from yourself anymore. Your mother is right, you will have no choice but to be like her, because that is how dysfunctional your life is. You can pretend to differentiate yourself all you want, but it’s no use. You can even cast spells of generosity for those in need of help, but there’s no arguing with what’s inside of you - Karen’s blood. You always let down the ones who love you, and seldom fail to fall short of their expectations. It’s difficult for you to love anyone,. Face it. Hemera is you, you are Hemera.

When Rose stood in front of the Realm of the Out of Print, she felt something was off. The air smelled like brimstone.

A peculiarity took her over, and while she stared at the side of the building, a kind of fear gripped her.

She walked by the alleyway in between the bookstore and the shop next to it, peering down the brick and stone antechamber to see if anyone precarious was there. It was barren, except for a black cat which tilted its head sideways when staring at her, the animals yellow gaze shining like a cloud of blond smoke. Rose felt her own breathing becoming heavier, before deciding to figure out what was going on.

After walking into the store, it took barely half a moment to see that chaos had come about.

Harvey was backed against the wall and levitating off her feet, both of her hands around her neck. Small flames were interspersed in spots of the room. After seeing Rose, the expression of pure consternation on Alexis’ face only elevated out of concern.

In front of her was the black cloaked man, her mother’s subordinate. His hand was outstretched towards Harvey’s direction. Alexis was trying to murmur something, and Rose soon knew it to be the word run. This was not a choice when so much was at risk.

She closed her eyes for a second, trying to focus intently on her extrasensory capacities within. After a millisecond of attempting to imagine the enemy’s insides becoming stone-like and crumbling to dust, he started screaming. He turned around and stared at Rose, his hood covering the ugly features behind it. His elbows flexed for a second.

Rose felt herself flying through the air, passing the complete works of Zweig on top of one of the shelves before slamming against a window, crashing through it and landing outside.

She smacked against the pavement with the side of her body, feeling grateful to at least control what she could land on. Her vision went blurry and bright, a sonic array of colors passing in front of her.

Shaking her head, feeling a dozen shards of glass fall from her locks, she quickly stood up to see the robed one jumping through the perforation. He screeched at her in anger. The wailing was so powerful it blew her back a couple of feet. She took a few steps in reverse, before he sprinted away to the right. Heads turned to stare at him, and then at her, a few citizens making their way towards her to see if she was alright. Or to verify that what they were seeing was not a delusion.

“
Come here,” Alexis said, after she was on her feet at last. She released a few uncomfortable sounding coughs, wiping blood from the side of her head.

Rose ignored her teacher and began chasing after him.

After running along three different streets, moving by everything from cinemas to record stores, she saw him turning a corner at 57th Avenue.

Trying to refrain from breathing too heavily, she went after him and made the exact same necessary cut, trying to go around a crowd of families shopping. Yet Rose could see him in the distance now, his long ceremonial uniform flowing behind him. Rose had to shove a few people out of the way, hoping that no one would grab her and slow her down in retaliation, or worse yet, put a halt to her permanently.

Soon she was going down Eleanor Trail, one of the only rough parts in the entire jurisdiction. This was considered to be the kind of area smart locals knew to avoid, unless it was in a car with locked doors and, preferably, a gun on the dashboard. Here she was on foot, scrambling everywhere to try and find him.

A path of solitary footsteps formed in the dust, leading in a particular direction.

Rose pursued it, before realizing that it stopped in front of the abandoned bell tower. It was a local monument which had been closed off for ages, generally due to security purposes. Knowing there was no other choice, she scaled one of the walls protecting the overlook, and then sprinted towards the brown roofed building.

After taking in a lungful of oxygen, she walked into it, finding a stone staircase leading upwards. After a half hour of walking along its windingly twisty steps, she found nothing. Going back to the shop was a drudgery. A part of her felt like a great failure.

By the time she was back at the Realm, Alexis was balled up in the middle of the room. The Out of Print market was in tatters. The glass was broken, the books were burnt and left in shreds, and most of the shelves were decimated.

“
Are you okay?” Rose asked.

Harvey looked up. “I’m fine. I hope you know we have to lie to the police.”

“
Easy. We’ll say a nutcase with a flamethrower and a broadsword did this.”

“
Not funny. This is so sad, you know? Seeing the bookstore gone.”

“
I tried to find him, but he vanished. What did he do this for? Did he find me out? Does he know that I gained access to his group a few nights ago?”

“
No,” Alexis said. “That I am sure of. Yet he wanted to know where you were, because as you said, he’s been spying on you for a while now. Rose, his eyes…”

“
Anything else that he asked for?” Rose tried to get the image of him out of her mind.

“
Yes,” she said, her voice tense yet shaking. “He wanted a book on summoning.”

People were already lining up outside, staring with open mouths at the obliteration that had developed. Droves of men on their way from work and tourists on vacation were stopping by to peer inside this place that they had probably barely noticed as open beforehand. Rose decided to leave the shop before any reporters came, since she did not want her father to see on her on the local news channel.

“
Will you be all right?” Rose asked.

“
Sure,” Alexis said. “As well as I can be. Besides the one thing I’ve worked half of my life to attain being shattered, I guess I’m fine. You better go before he comes back. Are you hurt? Don‘t lie to me.”