We fell silent for a moment, almost as though we were paying respect to the depth of the eternity that we shared.
“I think I know what I have to do,” I said at last.
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“I have to face Lathiaus.”
“What!” Oscar spluttered. “Are you out of your mind? You must be suffering some sort of delirious after effects.” He touched my brow with the back of his hand.
I sat upright. “The spell did what I hoped it would. It helped me to understand all of this. You, me, Lathiaus… I’m part of this. I am this.”
Oscar groaned under his breath. “I knew I shouldn’t have carried out that spell. I should have trusted my instincts,” he ranted fervently. “I knew no good would come of it—”
“But good did come of it,” I insisted. “I found out why it has to be me. I was Lathiaus’s first kill, and I have to be his last.”
“You will not be his last kill!” Oscar shouted, his temper mounting. “You will not be his last anything! I will not allow him to even look at you.”
I placed my hand on his forearm. I could feel the muscles tense beneath his skin as his fists clenched in anger.
“This is my destiny,” I said, for the first time feeling quite accepting of it. Proud, even. “It’s my prophecy.”
“And what about my prophecy?” he retorted. “It’s my responsibility to protect you.”
“You’ll die!” I exclaimed. “Along with the line of witches. And then Lathiaus will have won—again.”
“He won’t have won, because he won’t have got you.” Oscar’s tone was pleading now.
I flinched. I hated putting him through this, but I couldn’t give in. I couldn’t let a demon prevail. Not after what I’d seen—and what I’d lived hundreds of years ago.
The insight into my previous life had changed me. It was the missing piece of the jigsaw. For one thing, it explained my not-so-irrational fear of fire. But more importantly, I’d died for Oscar, and he was offering me the same sacrifice in this lifetime. I adored him for it, but I didn’t accept it. I wanted to fight.
I felt around in the darkness for Oscar’s face and then held it in my hands, just as Emily had held Oliver.
“I have to do this,” I told him.
His eyelids dropped. “Then don’t expect me to watch. If you insist on this suicide mission,” he spat, “then you’ll go alone.”
“Okay,” I accepted valiantly. I savoured the touch of his skin for one last time, and then I crawled across the tree house and lowered myself through the hatch.
“Yeah, that’s right!” Oscar yelled after me. “Just go!” I heard him kick his feet.
“Bye, Oscar,” I whispered back as I descended the rope ladder. It was still raining heavily, but I was already soaked through so I didn’t care anymore.
When I reached the bottom, Oscar peered out of the hatch. “If you think I’m going to follow you, you can think again!”
I looked up at him. “Okay.”
He scowled.
“Bye,” I said, giving him a heroic little salute.
He pursed his lips tetchily. “What is this? Some kind of reverse psychology? Because it’s not going to work!”
“Nope.” I waved at him. “Bye.”
“Oh, so this is how it’s going to be, is it?” Oscar drawled. When I didn’t answer, he tried again. “Rose?” He paused. “You’re not really going, are you?”
I smiled obscurely. “Yes, Oscar, I’m going.”
He muttered a few profanities. “Wait for me, then.”
The next thing I knew, he’d jumped to the ground and landed beside me. The wind swept through our hair and the branches of the trees swayed overhead.
Oscar took hold of my hand. “So, you want to fight a demon?” he said as he gave me a look of reluctant cooperation.
“Yes, please.”
“You’ll die,” he told me matter-of-factly.
“Or you will.”
He returned my salute. “Our destiny awaits.”
“Well, we’d better hurry up then. We wouldn’t want to keep destiny waiting.”
And on we walked, hand in hand, heading back towards the manor. We took our time, because I, for one, was sick of running.
Invictus
OUT OF THE NIGHT THAT covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond the place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
—William Ernest Henley
I led the way through the forest, walking with a confident stride. Each foot seemed to hit the ground with strong, controlled determination.
I guess there’s a certain strength that comes with clarity. For the first time in a long while, I knew exactly what I was doing—and more importantly, why I was doing it.
Oscar didn’t speak, but he marched loyally at my side. We were like soldiers, front line until the end.
We stepped through the trees, emerging out onto the road. Probably around the same spot where Oscar had found me. We weren’t far from the house now.
Oscar stopped in his tracks.
“No!” he wailed.
The sound made me jump.
“What is it?” I asked frantically.
“No!” he howled again. “That sadistic animal!” He broke into a run—heading in the opposite direction from the manor.
“Who’s a sadistic animal?” I called, hurrying after him.
“Marco!” Oscar shouted back.
I saw him drop to his knees and hunch over something that lay on the road.
It was too dark for me to make out what it was. My legs felt like jelly at the thought that it might be Caicus.
I sprinted the last few metres and, with bated breath, peered over Oscar’s shoulder. The object of his despair lay on the ground.
It wasn’t Caicus.
In fact, I didn’t know what it was.
“How could he do this?” Oscar murmured. “Have you ever seen anything so horrible?”
“No,” I agreed sympathetically. “What is it?”
Oscar collapsed onto the ground and slung his arm over a deformed lump of metal. “The engine,” he grieved, wretchedly.
It dawned on me that the dented object was Oscar’s car. Or part of it, anyhow. I glanced along the road and noticed the rest of the vehicle scattered in chunks every few metres for as far as the eye could see.
I sat beside Oscar. He was taking this badly.
“It was just a car,” I tried to console him.
He sat upright and glared at me. “It was not just a car. She was a Lamborghini Gallardo, and she was beautiful.”
I tried a more sensitive approach. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” he sighed, mournfully.
I looked back to the other parts: slashed metal, crushed hubcaps, bits of seats…
I grimaced. “You think Marco did this?”
“Yes.” Oscar’s eyes narrowed. “It’s got Marco written all over it.”
“But how could he have…” I trailed off. I didn’t need Oscar to answer that question. Marco had torn the car apart with his bare hands.
I shuddered.
All of a sudden Oscar sprang to his feet, hauling me up along with him.
“They’re near,” he hissed.
“Marco and Caicus?”
“Yes. I can sense them.”
I looked around. We were alone.
> “Are they at the manor?” I asked.
“No,” he murmured, gazing into the dark maze of evergreens. “The forest. They’re in the forest. Moving quickly, though.”
He frowned as though he were listening to something. I tried to listen too, but all I could hear was the moan of wind and the lashing rain.
Oscar’s hands balled into fists. “They’re coming for us,” he stated.
My breath caught in my throat. “What should we do? Run?”
“You won’t outrun them,” he told me.
Of course, he was right.
“Go to the tree house,” Oscar said abruptly. He gave me a little nudge in the direction of the forest.
“Without you?” My eyes widened. “And with Marco in there?” I gestured loosely to the trees.
“You’ll be fine. They can’t track you—it’s not their power—but they’ll pick up my scent and I’ll draw them out to the road.”
“What about Lathiaus? I have to find him—”
“Forget Lathiaus!” Oscar shouted at me. The severity of his tone made me shrink back. “Forget Lathiaus. Go to the tree house and just… be safe.” His eyes blazed with urgency.
“But—”
“No,” he yelled again. “Please, do as I say. I don’t have time to argue about it. Go to the tree house and stay there until midnight. Please.” His hands clasped together.
Hot tears stung my eyes.
Oscar’s expression softened. “Don’t cry, Rose.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“I don’t want to leave you, either,” he whispered.
I took his hands. “Then don’t. We’ll stay together.”
Oscar stiffened. “They’re onto my scent,” he said. “I have to move. Please, go to the tree house and stay there.” He kissed me with a heartbreaking passion. “Take care.”
And he was gone, leaving only a tingle on my fingers from where his touch had once been.
I SPRINTED DOWN THE ROAD as fast as my legs would carry me. I probably should have gone back to the tree house, but I didn’t. I couldn’t hide away while there was still a chance. Granted, I wasn’t exactly sure what I planned to do. I kind of assumed something would just come to me. I was banking on that, anyway.
My feet crunched down on gravel. I was almost at the house now.
Oh my God.
My aunt’s minivan had been overturned. Oil seeped from the exhaust pipe like a river of black blood.
More of Marco’s handy work.
I decided not to linger, and instead made a final dash for the manor.
Once inside, I took a moment to catch my breath. I leaned against the door, looking straight ahead into the chasm of the unlit hallway. As far as I could tell, there was no one else there. No Marco, no Caicus. No Lathiaus.
Now what?
I flipped the light switch, just in case. Zilch.
Blindly, I edged forward, feeling my way through the house, still waiting for that fantastic plan to miraculously pop into my head. Several steps into my totter, my hand brushed against something. It was bigger than me and dressed in coarse, woollen material. I flailed my arms around in distress and the thing wobbled and crashed to the floor, landing in my path.
“Demon!” I screamed, then covered my mouth reflexively.
Breathe. It was just the coat rack.
What? It was an easy mistake to make.
Okay, phase one of The Plan, I strategised with myself: toughen up.
I kept going, heading for the dining room.
Phase two of The Plan: find the torch.
When I reached the dining room, I crashed straight into the upturned table, right on the shin.
Ouch. Good start.
I crawled through the table legs, feeling less cat woman and more elephant woman. Somehow I managed to clobber every limb during my sightless table-assault obstacle course. When I finally made it to the other side, things didn’t get much easier. Marco had turned the room into complete disarray: toppled cabinets, snapped chairs, smashed windows… He’d pulverised the place.
I stayed low—less chance of tripping if I was already on the floor. Unfortunately, that meant substituting tripping for another of my favourite pastimes—cutting my hands on broken glass. Which I did. A lot.
I felt around for the torch, but it was like searching for a needle in a haystack. A very sharp-toothed haystack.
Come on, torch, where are you?
“Ouch!” I yelped. Chair leg to the eye.
I’d been told that everybody has a breaking point, and apparently that was mine. I drew the line at chair leg to the eye. Abort phase two of The Plan.
Phase three of The Plan: get a new plan. Which was not impossible. There was one other way of obtaining light. And I decided I was up to the challenge.
I backtracked to the hallway, sustaining a few more see-you-in-court-Marco injuries on my way. I now had a clear run to the staircase and, hopefully, to my bedroom. As it turned out, this was easy. That saying ‘I could do it with my eyes closed’ was actually true in this case. I burst through the attic door and was instantly in sanctuary. My room.
I rushed to the dressing table and picked up my toffee candle. The silken wax cylinder soothed my sore, nicked hands. I rummaged through the top drawer until I found the box of matches. I was going to light a candle. Me!
I wondered if my bravery came from a needs-must mentality, or if my vision of the past had actually turned out to be therapeutic. I mean, it was safe to say that my fear of fire originated from my death by fire, so perhaps revisiting that moment had given me some sort of closure.
Whatever the reason for my courage, I was eternally grateful for it.
I struck a matchstick on the box and a tiny flame darted out. Of course I flinched, but the mettle of my action also made me feel kind of fearless. Like if I could overcome a lifelong phobia, then I could overcome anything.
I lit the candle wick and listened as the dust sizzled.
“You’re living out your destiny, too,” I said to the candle. I suddenly felt a deep affinity for that inanimate tube of wax. And as it burnt, I could smell the sweet aroma of toffee. The smell of victory.
I took a moment to recap.
Bravery? Check. Light? Check. Plan?
Hmm.
The prophecy seemed like a good place to start. My candle companion and I set off for Oscar and Caicus’s bedroom. I snuck in and seated myself cross-legged in the gap between the two beds. I took a pillow from Oscar’s bed and cuddled it to my chest, breathing in the scent on the material. It was the closest thing I had to Oscar.
I placed the candle on the floor and heaved the trunk out from under the bed.
Oh, what the…?
The stupid trunk was locked.
I fiddled around with the combination, not really applying any logic to my guesses. Who had time for logic?
Unfortunately, randomness wasn’t getting me anywhere. I felt like the loser contestant on some low-budget cryptic maze game show. I glanced around the room.
Hello, heavy object.
I grabbed a hefty, old-fashioned lamp from the bedside table and brought it down as hard as I could on the lock. My first attempt had no effect, but I learned that if you kept bashing a lock with a lamp, then it would eventually bust open. Good old brute force!
I lifted the trunk’s lid and scooped the book out. The piece of string still marked the prophecy page, so I flipped straight to it.
Laying the open book on the floor, I hovered the candle above it.
THE PROPHECY OF LATHIAUS
It is foretold, on the day of his end,
so doth life begin
At the stroke of the eleventh hour,
he shall awaken
All will bow before him
All will perish at his mercy
Only one can end the blood spill
She, the girl with the heart of a witch
Okay, that was the part I’d read up to before, wh
en Oscar had closed the book on me.
So that was me, the girl with the heart of a witch. The girl who had Oscar’s heart.
I read on…
Before the hour turns to twelfth,
she must grant him her death
Two will take her to him,
and all will be spared
Two will turn away,
and all will be slaughtered
Our fate awaits.
I glanced to the window. The weather was wild. I tried not to think about how somewhere out there, a demon lurked. And I tried not to think of what may or may not have happened to Oscar. I was in survival mode—his survival. As far as I was concerned, it wasn’t midnight yet, so the war was still on.
I returned my focus to the candlelit prophecy.
“Before the hour turns to twelfth, she must grant him her death,” I murmured into the empty room. “Two will take her to him, and all will be spared. Two will turn away, and all will be slaughtered…”
I leaned back against the bed.
Was that really it? Was it really that cut and dry—I died or they died?
“Before the hour turns to twelfth…” I said the words again. It was strange hearing myself use such old language. My voice became almost unfamiliar, different somehow.
All of a sudden, it was as though Emily was speaking through me. It was not my voice that I was hearing—it was hers. “She must grant him her death.”
And then I understood.
Final Thoughts
COME ON. SHOW YOURSELVES.
I could sense them, and they could sense me. Why weren’t they coming for me?
I lingered on the estate road, a mile from the manor. I was hoping to lead Caicus and Marco out of Millwood, but they weren’t taking the bait.
Standing completely motionless, I listened to every noise. I was losing them. As much as I was trying to draw them out, they were trying to draw me in. And I had no choice but to go. Because if they didn’t have me, they’d go after her.
So I went. I tracked them, heading knowingly into their hands.
I couldn’t pinpoint their exact location, but there was no denying that they were close. Hesitantly, I strayed off the path and into the forest. It was even harder to see amidst the shadows of the trees, but at least the foliage provided shelter from the downpour. The constant barrage of raindrops was getting on my last nerve.