Dark Winter (17 page)

One day, Mum had taken me to one of those beauty salons to get my legs waxed. I protested, because I didn’t think I had hair on my legs. Mum insisted that they were there, and had to be removed. I didn’t have a say in the matter.

At the salon, the attendants hosed down my legs with water, and applied something I would later learn was a wax strip. What I didn’t know at the time, was how painful all this was going to be.

The strip was yanked back, with incredible force, and the attendant kept a blank look on her face.

Back in my bedroom, I realised that opening the drawer was pretty much like the wax strip. It would be painful to do this, to open the drawer, and reveal the Mirror with all its powers, to Toril. But I had to do it, and do it quick.

For all her knowledge about Dana, the legend wasn’t filled in.
Sketchy details
, as Toril had put it.

I yanked open the drawer with a similar force, and it near came out of its runner, spilling everything on the floor. Except the Mirror, of course, which stayed dutifully in its box.

Toril sat obediently on my bed, but must have wondered what was going through my mind. She wasn’t alone there. I really didn’t know if I was doing the right thing by involving her.

“You want to know how Dana really died? She tried to take this from that cabin in the woods.”

Toril regarded the item in my hands, which were covered by the lace gloves.

“Well,” said Toril. “I thought you were bringing out the twin sister of Dana or something.”

She shrugged her shoulders, wore a confused look on her face, and not for the first time today. “It’s a mirror.”

I blurted it all out. How my Nan had given me this Mirror, and when I held it the first time, how my hands went all dark and hard with protruding veins, just like her old hands.

How the Mirror captures souls. How I have no idea how it works or might reveal itself.

“You can understand why I’m asking you, Toril. I don’t know anything about this stuff.”

Toril seemed to know plenty about the Dana doll, and that was just lying around in my room, and I had been totally oblivious to that fact. Just how long had it been there?

“I don’t know what to say, Romilly. I mean, it just looks like a normal mirror to me. In all the reading I have done, I’ve never heard of a Mirror of Souls, or whatever your Nan called it. How cool though. Your Nan was best friends with Dana. So cool.”

Not cool enough for me. I decided that Toril should hold the Mirror. Maybe then, she would see something, feel something. Anything. Anything to prove I’m not going crazy.

Of course, Nan had been on a lot of pills back then. She could have imagined things.

But the marks on my hands, they were not imaginary, and the lace gloves did work when I put then on. The gloves would mesh with my skin, and the markings would disappear from view.

I decided to take the gloves off, and give them to Toril.

“Here,” I gestured. “Put these on.”

My hands turned into a blotched messy union of blood red and purple vein marks.

The handful of people that have seen this happen generally turn away in disgust. That’s okay, I can live with that. It was the opposite with Toril, as she was genuinely fascinated.

“That’s pretty trippy,” she mused.

“I guess,” came my weak reply. “Beth didn’t think so.”

I don’t know what I expected to happen once Toril held the Mirror. She took it in her hands, and looked at it. She ignored the reference to Beth for now, whilst she concentrated on the Mirror.

“Well?” I asked, realising how impatient I sounded.

“Well. It’s a mirror,” said Toril. “What else could it be? It doesn’t make me look prettier, if that’s what it’s supposed to do.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You mean you can see yourself?”

“Sure. Am I not supposed to?”

I was being made to look silly. The
Mirror of Souls,
as my Nan had so grandly called it, could be nothing more than a party trick between me and her.

I must have paused a long time, because Toril jumped back in again. “But these gloves are cool, definitely something strange about these. I’ll have to look that up. What’s the story behind these?”

“My Nan gave them to me, that’s all. I don’t understand how you can see yourself in the Mirror,” I said, uselessly. “That’s not what’s supposed to happen.”

“What
is
supposed to happen, Romilly?”

“It’s called the Mirror of Souls,” I said simply. “It’s supposed to catch souls. In Nan’s version of the story you told me, it was Dana’s soul that went inside. Was
sucked
inside.”

“Oh really? And then?”

“And then… I don’t know what it’s supposed to do.”

“Why would you want to catch souls?”

The questions, though they needed to be asked, and answered, annoyed me. They annoyed me because Toril asked better ones than I did, at the crucial time, when I was last talking to Nan.

“I really don’t know Toril. But it was my Nan’s last request of me, so I just took it on. I didn’t really think about anything else. I thought she was going a bit…you know?”

I felt thoroughly ashamed of myself. Nan knew exactly what she was saying, and was coherent right up to the end.

I wanted to tell Toril about the devil sitting on my bed, just about the same place where she was sitting now, but I figured I was getting nowhere. I just couldn’t accept that the Mirror was playing up now.

“You’re sure you can only see yourself in the Mirror?”

“Yep. Unless you want me to call out Dana.”

“I wouldn’t even joke about that, Toril.”

“Trust me,” she said. “There’s no chance of that.”

Unless of course,
I
should be the one to call out Dana. Maybe that’s how she gets released. Maybe that doll has been in the house all along. I’d have to ask Mum about that, but at the Will reading things were divided up, there was no mention of it in her estate.

£11,000 in money. A cottage in Clondalkin. A crazy devil doll in a bloodied white dress.

Nan didn’t believe Dana was a malevolent spirit, but in Toril’s view, she was. Some
legend
.

“Just give me the Mirror, Toril, and I’ll show you.”

Toril set the Mirror down beside herself, and slipped her hands out of the lace gloves.

“Here you go,” she said. “I’m fascinated, I really am, Romilly.”

I wouldn’t have Toril Withers questioning my sanity. She hadn’t directly, but in her head, she might just be wondering just how crazy I actually was.

I kept my gloves off, , not that I had to, but it felt better to do so, and held the Mirror in such a way that Toril could see that I wasn’t playing tricks on her.

The Mirror mockingly showed my reflection. No blue light, no four foot tall gliding zombies, no soul of Dana. Nothing.

Toril wore a sympathetic look on her face, but I could feel her saying
Well, what were you expecting? It’s a mirror. You’re supposed to be able to see yourself. What a doozy.

I wanted so much to smash the Mirror on my bedroom floor, but if there was even a small chance that my Nan was right, I would have to restrain myself.

Be cool, Romilly. Your hormones are being a bitch, that’s all. Be cool.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “The first time I held this, my image disappeared. I was looking at myself, then all I could see was the wallpaper in my Nan’s room. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.”

Toril sat quietly, as if in contemplation. Finally, she said something.

“Maybe it is how it’s supposed to be. Maybe your image was captured by the Mirror, the first time you looked at it. Were you wearing the gloves at the time?”

“No, I wasn’t,” I said. “My Nan just handed it to me, and I held it, and the markings on her hands appeared on mine too.

“The Mirror was bequeathed to you, right?”

“Yes, it was.”

“So that’s why it doesn’t work on me. You would have to bequeath it to me, or wish it with all you heart, if it was going to work. It’s like it is imprinted on you, so something would have to happen to you, in order for it to work for someone else.”

Everything Toril said was done so with authority. She knew her subject well. I started to have some sense of relief for telling her.

“As for the bigger picture – what you should do with the Mirror, I can’t guide you on that. But I would say this. The Mirror is probably a weapon against evil, otherwise your Nan wouldn’t have given it to you, and according to your version of the story, Dana wouldn’t have died because of it. I would guess, that you would use it on someone bad. You know, like Curie!”

Toril laughed heartily. At first, I didn’t, but then I joined in with her.

As Toril left to go home, she said “Forget what I said about using it on Curie. You’d probably need help to do that. Beth would be the first in line if you did. Wait until it reveals itself, like your Nan said.”

“Sure, Toril,” I said.

As Toril closed the gate outside my home, I couldn’t help but feel that I had found the right time, the right justification, to test my understanding of the Mirror’s powers.

Inside my head, a plan formed, and was ready to hatch.

Ch
oo
s
in
g A Victim

Toril Withers had waltzed through school with hardly anything untoward happening to her. She was a straight A student, and adored by students and teachers alike. It seemed very odd to many people that Jacinta Crow, a C+ student (who only ever excelled in subjects like Biology because she could dissect things), became her best friend.

Beth O’Neill seemed much more like me. We had some things in common. We both liked books, and would read heavily. We both liked The Cure, Depeche Mode, Siouxie and the Banshees, The Smiths, The Corrs, the latter maybe a given for her as she was Irish already. Not forgetting that Toril had chosen her for a friend too.

There was something else in common that we had. A visceral hatred of Curie, the school caretaker, or
the
undertaker
, as we called him. There was something not quite right about him, and if anyone deserved to have their soul taken from them, it was Curie.

The question, in my mind never came up about whether or not it was the right thing to do.

The time might come where I really might have to use the Mirror could come without warning, and there was no telling who would pay the price for that. I didn’t want any of my family to be hurt, and I kind of liked Toril and Beth.

Beth was easy to find. I caught her reading a book in the park.

“Hi Beth.”

Beth sat up. “Well, if it isn’t Romilly Winter. What are you doing here?”

“I was on my way over to you, when I passed through here. Actually, I saw Toril yesterday.”

“Yeah, I know. I think you’ve got a new best friend there, if you want. She’s ecstatic over that horrid doll you gave her. But you know Toril, she’s a bit, you know, weird. But still cool.”

If Beth thought Toril was weird, God only knows what she would think of me. I had the Mirror, the thing that had made me a fool in front of Toril, did it again in front of Beth, I really didn’t know what I’d do.

“Beth, that’s not what I showed Toril.”

“Oh?”

“She didn’t tell you?”

“No, she didn’t. But then, she’s always been as good as her word. But it does beg the question why, having talked to her first, why you’re talking to me now.”

“Things didn’t quite work with Toril the way I thought they would.”

“Must be that damned pentacle she wears,” said Beth, lightly fingering her crucifix.

Oh boy. Toril was never without that. But it was just a pendant of sorts, surely. Unless it was given to her by her Nan, or someone special in the family.

Now you’re asking the right kind of questions, Milly.

Nan’s voice was never far from my head. I’d never really figured that the pentacle would protect her from the Mirror, that’s if it did at all. But like Toril, Beth was never without her crucifix. Anything I wore around my neck had no significance at all.

“Beth, why do you wear that?”

“My religious upbringing. Dragged to church whether I wanted to go or not. I’d give anything not to be dragged there by my parents again. But an Irish Catholic upbringing is like no other, Romilly. I wear this cross because, no bad luck has befallen me since. You know what happened my parents, right?”

I had heard, but all was hearsay at school, and sensationalised stuff in the newspapers.

But Beth’s version was the scariest of all, because to me, it was totally believable.

Beth said that her house had been set on fire deliberately, and that Curie was responsible. The police never believed her version of events, saying that everything pointed to just a tragic accident, and Curie had a water tight alibi, because school children and other teachers said they could see him clearly in his office, at the time of the incident.

“I heard all sorts of versions, Beth. It doesn’t remove the fact that your parents are no longer here. I’m sorry for that.”

What a way to go. It made me wonder what I would ever do if I lost my parents. Burned to death in your own home, the charred remains merged with the bed sheets.

“You know he did it, don’t you? Curie?”

“I know
you
believe that.”

“It’s not simply what I believe. It’s a fact, even if I have been unable to prove it so far. But one day, I swear to you, he’ll get what’s coming to him.”

I didn’t doubt Beth’s resolve, only the means to do it.

Maybe the Mirror will reveal itself to you.

Yeah, maybe it will. Or me and Beth will be committed to the funny house.
A pity St Margaret’s Hospital stood as a ruin, close to Rosewinter. You and Beth could stay there with all the other loonies.

“She washes it in rat’s blood, you know.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Toril,” said Beth. “She washes that pendant of hers in rat’s blood. A Wiccan thing, she says.”

“I keep my faith in God.” She clasped at her crucifix. “Bad people can’t get away with it forever. One day, Curie will get what’s coming to him, you’ll see. The Lord is good.”

“Well then Beth, maybe there is a way we can make this work.”

Beth moved over and I sat down next to her. There didn’t seem to be anyone around for miles, and it was a very large park. I took the box containing the Mirror out. I had my lace gloves on too, After my absent-mindedness in the library, I wore them all the time now.

“Is this what you showed Toril?”

“Yes,” I said. God, I hoped this worked this time. “But it didn’t reveal itself to her.”

“I think the pentacle she wears has its own power.”

“You think so? It’s just a pendant, isn’t it?”

Beth looked at my crescent moon-shaped pendant.

“What you are wearing is just a pendant, Romilly. But for Toril, that pentacle contains something she believes in. Makes it a lot more potent, don’t you think so? Or maybe you just think this is a simple cross I’m wearing. Well, I’m telling you, it’s not.”

I totally believed Beth. It meant I had to ask her something she wouldn’t be comfortable with.

“Do you think you can take that crucifix off?”

Beth bristled. “No, I can’t Romilly. I don’t do that unless I really have to.”

“I can’t guarantee this will work if you don’t.”

“Not sure I can take the chance then.”

“Not even if it could bring Curie to justice?”

“This cross protects me. I wouldn’t expect you to understand. You’ve never believed in anything, have you?”

How prophetic. Nan had said I didn’t believe in ghosts. Mum said I didn’t believe in God. There was enough evidence of late to suggest I should believe in something. I didn’t altogether buy Beth’s religious stance, but I respected it. I wasn’t about to join Toril’s Wiccan coven either.

“I’m learning to change that part of myself Beth, I really am. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Now, what have you got?”

I looked around. There was no-one there. I took the Mirror out of it box.

“My Nan gave me this. It takes people’s souls, Beth. I’m not to ever let it be broken. That’s all I know.”

“People’s souls? Come on Romilly. It’s a mirror. Your Nan was just messing with your head.”

She doesn’t believe me either.

“Don’t you believe that Jesus really walked on water?”

“Don’t start, Romilly, I’m warning you.”

“No. Come on Beth. If you believe that, can’t you believe this?”

Beth bristled, but then calmed down.

“Okay then, how does it work? Do you think it would work on Curie? Not that the old slievine devil has got a soul. Scum like that wouldn’t have a heart, pumping blood running through his veins, right?”

Too many questions Beth, that I simply don’t have the answer to.

She took my silence as a cue to continue. “Maybe you just point it towards the person you want to capture, like a camera obscura. Do you know what happens if it gets broken?”

I gave her what information I had. “The souls contained within it, good, bad, indifferent, all get released. You can see why I have to protect it.”

I gave her my gloves, just as I did Toril. If it didn’t work, maybe the Mirror had to be held with bare hands, like the first time I held it. I couldn’t risk Beth imprinting on the Mirror, even by accident. Nan was very clear about that.

“Yes, I do,” said Beth, giving the Mirror a clean and peering into it. “Ha! Cool! There’s no reflection!”

Well, I’ll be damned
.

“Hang on, there’s something appearing…”

A skeleton-like zombie-girl, wizened and diseased, appeared in the mirror, and then, seemed to come out of it. Her hands appeared to reach out towards Beth, who continued to hold onto the Mirror even though she was shaking a lot.

Beth, don’t drop it. Don’t-

“The cross, girl. Damn your soul.” The zombie-girl hissed and cackled so loud, I was sure it could be heard for miles around. But it was for our eyes and ears only.

The zombie-girl’s eye sockets filled with blood, and leaked through the cuts in her face. Beth began to scream, but held onto the Mirror nonetheless.

“
The crossssssss
.” The zombie-girl’s voice rang terrible in our ears.

The zombie-girl spat blood in Beth’s face, and the cross fell from her neck-chain.

“No!!” cried Beth.

In her fright, she let go of the Mirror.

Somehow, I dashed across and caught it, just before it hit the ground. Fortunate for us, that it was only grass, and not the walkway.

The zombie-girl had escaped from the Mirror, and we’d made it happen.

As we watched her head towards a man who had just appeared from nowhere, we wanted to shout out, but were unable to.

We recognised him straight away, as the zombie-girl vanished into his body.

He turned and bore a sick grin at us. Curie had seen and heard everything.

                                          *                            *                            *

Where had he come from? That was the first thing on our minds. Well, my mind, anyway. For Beth, she scrambled frantically amongst the grass to find her crucifix.

When we looked up again, Curie had disappeared, and in his place, the weather changed from chilly but sunny, to dark and wintry. Beth screamed “Got it!” as hailstones hammered down from the sky.

Ever since her parents had died in that fire, Beth had lived at her grandparents home. We ran until we got there, and did not stop to look back.

                                          *                            *                            *

Beth dried her flame-red hair. She handed me a towel and I did the same.

“Romilly, what the hell happened back there? What was that
thing
? Jesus, I nearly lost my cross!”

“It will be okay, Beth, I promise you.”

These days, the only things I felt came out of my mouth, were lies. The cross was more than just a simple trinket to her. It was the only thing not damaged in the arson attack. The priest, Fr McArdle, had asked Beth if she wanted to keep the cross.