This is precisely why Harry didn’t want that gag to come off. His shitty binding spell that’s kept my magic bound for so long was his only protection from me. But not anymore.
Now, I’m free.
Grayson steps back and watches me carefully. Gently, he tries to talk to me. ‘Lilly…I need you to-’
With a gut-wrenching surge of magic from deep inside, the glass in every mirror, every window and every cabinet shatters simultaneously with an almost deafening crash. And I send shards of glass flying in all directions. My anger guides two large jagged pieces as they soar through the air making a clear whoosh as they go, before stopping at the necks of Collins and Hendrix. The knife in my hand is pointed at Grayson who took too many steps towards me, making him close enough to hold the tip of the blade against his throat.
‘You try and hurt me, and I’ll kill every single one of you,’ I warn in no uncertain terms.
Now I have them all standing stock still with their hands up by their heads watching me nervously. I let go of the hilt and lower my hand, leaving the knife covered in Harry’s blood floating in the air. Grayson attempts a step back. The blade follows him.
‘This is not necessary. We are on your side.’ He presses his lips together in a tight line. I’m making him angry. I couldn’t give a shit!
‘I’m on my side. That’s enough. Just stay still. I need a moment with my uncle.’
There’s a storm raging outside in the darkness, and with no windows keeping it out, the wind and rain join us in the lounge. The heavy curtains billow against the gusts and the loose papers over the floor fly around us. My magic becomes a hurricane of fury that demands to be let loose. It’s seeping out into the world, making anything not nailed down, shudder and shake. I should step away, remove myself from the situation so no one gets hurt, but I can’t. I turn my full attention back to Harry.
‘What do you want? An apology?’
I take some very deep and purposeful breaths as I prepare to say the only thing I have left to say to him. The only question that I need answering now. The most important question in the world.
‘Was it you?’ I ask.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Yes, you do. Tell me, Harry. Was it you, or was it him? Who killed her?’
‘Who did he kill?’ Grayson asks, but this is between us. Not him.
‘Did you do it?’ I demand. ‘Or was it Toby?’
‘When you knew the answer to that question, you went mad. I may hate you and everything you are, but I will not willingly unleash your darkness onto the world.’
I make my way closer to him and laugh as I look into his cloudy grey eyes one last time.
Come on, Red…just do it already. You know you want to.
In the corner of my eye, I see him standing there like a ghost. His devilish smile and eyes that shine with evil intent.
‘Do it’ he mouths.
He’s there for a second before he fades as if made of smoke, nothing more than a memory that still lingers desperate to crawl out of my head into the real world. I know that. Toby Smith isn’t here. Not physically. But his voice and his face, the way he thought and made me think, is more real to me than the blood my toes are standing in as I stand before the man that ruined my life.
‘Who did it?’ I repeat. ‘You, or Toby?’
‘Will knowing bring you peace?’ Harry asks.
‘Yes.’
Harry leans forwards, as much as he can, given his restraints. A nasty sneer appears on his face.
‘In that case, bite me, Lilly Hooper. You disgusting, monstrous, lying murderer.’
Hatred. Utter hatred fills me as he just smirks.
‘Everything that happened to you, you deserved. Everything. All of it. If I could do it all again, I would. I hate you. Your mother regretted you. Your father disowned you, and when you die, no one will mourn you.’
With a hateful scream, my hands erupt in fire. Black and white flames cover my skin, but it doesn’t hurt. It never does. The heat is me. It’s mine, and I control it. The flames reflect in Harry’s eyes and in that second, he knows. He’s looking at death.
His death.
He screams as a black and white streak of fire leaves my palms and shoots towards him. Every inch of his body is ablaze in a second. His screams fill the room as it burns through his clothes and onto his skin. It’s ravenous and unnatural. He thrashes and writhes against the ropes as my magical fire consumes him. My aunt regains her senses just in time to watch her husband burn. She screams a blood-curdling scream before turning hysterical, which makes me laugh. As her screams get louder, so does my laughter.
‘Holy shit. Look at her hair!’ Hendrix calls out in sudden urgency. ‘She’s fucking Broken, Grayson. She’s a Broken Witch!’
‘I can bloody see that, Hendrix!’ Grayson bellows back.
‘Hooper’s right! She’s dangerous! Boss, you have to put her down!’
I spin round and turn my full attention to Grayson.
‘You can try,’ I tell him with a snarl. ‘I would stay there if I were you.’ I nod to the knife still at his throat. My fire still burns in my palms, and I’m more than prepared to use it against them. I’m done being threatened and controlled. I’m done being afraid. ‘It’s my turn to ask the questions, Grayson. And we’ll stick with your rules, shall we? Refuse to answer, and someone will get hurt.’ His dark eyes narrow on me, but he remains still. ‘Why are you looking for Toby?’ I demand.
‘Just calm down. I’m not a threat to you.’
‘You will tell me how you know Toby Smith, or I will use that chunk of glass to cut Hendrix’s head off.’
Grayson lifts his hand slowly and vibrant blue streaks of lightning start crawling over his palm.
‘You are threatening a fellow witch. Two fellow witches,’ he adds, nodding to Collins. ‘And a very temperamental vampire.’ He looks to Hendrix. ‘We’re on your side. For now. But if you do this…we won’t be.’ It weaves between his fingers threateningly. I can hear it crackling, and I know that it’ll pack one hell of a punch if he sends it my way. ‘If you cut anyone’s head off, I will kill you.’ Grayson gestures to my hands. ‘Put it out and calm down. And you…’ he looks past me to my shrieking aunt with disgust and hatred. ‘SHUT UP!’
Christa quietens but continues to whimper. As Grayson resumes trying to reach me, I look at him with the same smile Toby would wear. I always loved that grin of his.
‘I’m a witch, just like you and I only want to help. Lower the glass you have at my men’s throats before you kill them. Lower the flame and stand down-’
‘Before you kill me?’ I laugh, shaking my head. ‘I really don’t care if your men die. I don’t even care if I die.’
‘You don’t care about anything…right?’ He gestures to my hair. ‘Look at what’s happening to you.’ The long, ratted mess of red hanging over my shoulders is changing. I can see it as much as I can feel it. The power inside me is merging with overwhelming anger and hatred, changing me not just inside, but outside too. Turning my lovely red hair, a stark, chilling white. Just like Toby’s. The need to make anyone other than myself suffer is consuming me. There’s no guilt. The conscience that should prevent this violence is lost.
‘Your eyes too. They’re changing colour. Look.’ He points to a sliver of broken mirror by my foot. I look at the reflection and don’t see me. I see a girl with Toby’s white hair and his lilac eyes.
‘What the…’ I whisper in confusion. ‘What’s happening to me?’
‘Drop the weapons and I will tell you,’ he repeats as I lift my head to look at him. With another look at the two men I have pinned he loses his patience. ‘DROP THE KNIFE!’ he yells.
The confusion of what’s happening to me is nothing compared to everything else I’m feeling and for some reason, I do as I’m told. The knife at Grayson’s throat lands with a thud on the floor. Hendrix grabs the glass suddenly with his bare hands and throws it to the floor before making a beeline for me. But he’s suddenly tossed across the room by an invisible force and hits the wall with a heavy thud. As he gets back on his feet, I prepare to kill. But Grayson stands between us. He raises his hand in Hendrix’s direction and pins him to the wall with magic.
‘No one touches her!’ he says firmly. ‘You stay out of this, Hendrix. Do you hear me? You stay away from her.’ He lets him go and turns back to me. ‘The pain and suffering that these people caused you is taking over. It won’t stop till you end it, do you understand?’ He gestures to my aunt and uncle. ‘Finish it, Lilly. End this now and put it all behind you for good. Or you will lose control.’
I turn my attention back to my aunt and uncle. Harry’s stopped moving. He’s nothing but a burning mass of flesh. My eyes and Christa’s meet. She sobs and pleads for me to let her go. All these years it’s been my screams filling these halls. My tears. My desperation. But not today. Her face is the one twisted in fear and horror. She’s helpless, not me.
I spread the flame to my aunt with a simple swipe of my hand and she disappears screaming beneath a swirl of black and white. The fire on my own skin dies down as the fire on theirs rages on.
‘You were right,’ I tell him. ‘I feel much better now.’ The anger’s gone. The misery and hatred have left me completely, and now all I feel is…nothing. I feel nothing.
Grayson takes my face in his hands and stares straight into my eyes.
‘No, don’t do that. Don’t turn off your emotions. Don’t give in to it. Toby does, and you know what that turns you into if you let it. He’s a cruel, nasty piece of work. That’s not you.’
I have no idea what he means, and I don’t really care.
‘You have to focus,’ he insists. ‘Listen to my voice and calm down. I can see you changing, and if you let it win, if you don’t let your feelings back in right now, you may never come back. They can’t hurt you anymore. It’s done. Everyone that hurt you is dead.’ His eyes flick from my hair to my eyes. He weaves my hair between his fingers and waits. ‘This hair needs to be red. Not this. Come back.’
‘Why are you looking for Toby?’ I ask again. ‘If he’s one of your men, I can’t trust you.’
‘He was. But not anymore. He took off two years ago with something of mine which I want back. Which I need back. That’s all,’ he insists. ‘You can trust me.’
‘He took something from you?’ I ask.
‘Yes. A book. A very important book.’
‘Was it red? With the picture of the star on the front?’ It has to be that one. Toby treated it as if it were made of gold.
His eyes grow wider. ‘You’ve seen it! Do you know where it is?’
‘No. He took it when he left me.’
‘All I want is that book,’ Grayson says matter of factly. ‘I don’t care about Toby.’
‘And Harry’s son? What do you want with him?’
‘You and he are the last Hooper’s alive. Letting a magical bloodline such as yours die out is a terrible waste. I wish to make him an offer. That’s all.’
‘What offer?’
‘To come live with us. He’ll want for nothing. If he chooses to further his bloodline, we will support him financially. If not, then he is still welcome. Do you know where he is?’
‘No.’ I lower my hand and with it, my threat. ‘Look, I don’t know where Toby is, and Harry’s son left this house after they had a huge row. Last I heard, he’d taken a chunk of cash from Harry’s bank account and run off to France.’ So the story goes.
‘And Toby?’
‘He left me two years ago and took that book with him.’ Those words are painful to say.
‘You loved him?’ he asks.
‘I did,’ I answer truthfully.
‘And now?’
I shake my head. ‘No. Not after…not after everything that happened.’ The fire in my belly making me ready to fight fizzles out and I’m left with the realisation that I’ve just murdered the last people in my life I called family. I don’t feel bad that they’re dead, I just regret that I was the one that killed them. I turn away lost in confusion at my conflicting emotions and stare at the fire that continues to spread throughout the room. My hair returns to its usual dark red slowly from the roots to the tips, and tears silently fall down my face as I accept what I’ve done.
The sound of feet walking over the broken glass and pieces of debris is followed by a firm hand on the base of my back. His touch, although uncomfortable, is strangely comforting. I drop the final shard of glass at Collins’ throat, and the room falls still and silent. The inanimate objects remain inanimate, and except for the two human pyres, there’s no magic to be seen.
Grayson opens his mouth to say something, but there’s nothing he could say that I want to hear.
‘Don’t. I’m calm now, you can drop the act. I’ve told you all I know and let your men go.’ I turn and watch him as more tears fall down my cheeks, feeling so worthless and filled with such regret. ‘Harry was right. I’m a monster.’
‘You are not a monster. Believe me, I’ve seen monsters.’ He tucks my hair behind my ear as I lower my head and stifle a sob. ‘What you are is troubled and traumatised from years of abuse. That’s not your fault. It’s theirs,’ he says pointing at Harry and Christa.
I see the gag on the floor.
‘I’m sorry I took it off when I promised I wouldn’t.’ I reach down to pick it up.
‘You don’t need that,’ he tells me, taking it from my hand and putting it in his pocket. ‘You don’t need to be bound, Lilly. You just need to feel safe, and you are now. You listen to me. They were the monsters here. Not you.’ I turn so my back is to him, and close my eyes to stop the tears.
He walks around me and lifts my chin. Opening my eyes lets loose the pools of tears, but he wipes them away with his thumb.
‘You’re a Witch too.’ I reach up and stroke the hand that was covered in lightning not a moment ago. ‘I thought Toby and I were the only ones.’
He wraps his fingers around mine. ‘You are the last one to be born to date, but yes, I am a witch. Just like you. You are not alone.’ His confident and calming smile appears. Maybe it’s in my head, but that smile still seems…off. ‘It’s done. They’re dead. You can leave all this behind you.’
‘Thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘For saving me.’
He laughs softly. ‘No problem.’
‘You should go.’ I lower his hand but find myself reluctant to let it go. ‘I don’t know how to stop the fire when it leaves me. It was nice to meet you, Grayson Kendryk. Good luck finding your book.’ I let go of his hand, and it falls to his side. ‘And if you ever do find Toby, tell him I’m dead. I really don’t ever want to see him again.’ I walk to the door past Hendrix and Collins who watch me in stunned silence.
‘Lilly, wait.’
I stop and turn on the spot. Grayson’s wearing a dazzling smile as he slides his hands into his pocket and stands taller.
‘My offer extends to you too. Come with me.’
‘What?’
‘Come with me. I can take such good care of you. No one will ever hurt you again, and I’ll help you learn to control your magic.’
He waits. His eyes never leave me. His smile doesn’t falter for a second, and his confidence and authority fills the air. I can almost taste it. But I’m reluctant.
‘I don’t want kids. I won’t further the bloodline for you.’
‘I still want you to come with me. I still want to help you.’
‘I don’t know you. How can I trust that I’ll be safe with you?’
‘The world is still full of Hunters. We’re almost extinct because of them. We can keep you safe. My men and me. At my house. In my Coven. There will be no more bars on your window. No more chains around your wrists. You will never go hungry. No one will strike you. You’ll be safe. Free. I swear it. There is nowhere safer or more comfortable than with us at my home. What do you say?’
‘Free?’
‘Free.’
I’ve never been free before. And if anyone can offer me freedom, if anyone can protect me from Hunters and myself, it would be another witch. When I nod, his smile grows and excitement etches across his face. I feel the same expression on my own as suddenly I’m filled with positive hope for my future. I’ve been pulled out of hell and given a second chance.
∞∞∞
On the very top floor of my uncle’s home, at the far end of the long landing, is a white door with a large deadbolt screwed to the outside. I pull it across and unlock it. The hinges creak against two years of rust as I push it open. Beyond the door is a thin flight of wooden stairs. I flick on the light switch, and a single bulb at the very top of the stairs flickers on. Slowly, I make my way up the stairs with a pit in my stomach, even though I know that there’s no one behind me ready to lock me in once I’m inside. When I reach the top, I come to yet another door and another deadbolt. I slide it across and push it open.
The smell of damp and dust is pungent. It’s drawn into my lungs as soon as I take the slightest breath. I flick on the light switch and see the room I called home for most of my life.
The attic.
It’s enormous with a high ceiling, but the room is actually filled with very little. Harry would store his broken furniture up here. One of which was my old double bed that still sits beneath a grimy porthole window. Next to that is a wardrobe missing its two doors and rail so I could never use it. Not that I had any clothes to put in it really. Just old T-shirts and a couple pairs of jeans left behind after my mum died. Those and her black Dr Marten boots. I pick up her old rucksack by the door and think about what to pack. I don’t know why. I have nothing.
I stroke my neck where a beautiful silver pendant used to rest. It was given to me by my mother the night she died. The delicate seven-pointed star surrounded by a knotted triangle was a family heirloom. Her mother gave it to her, and she gave it to me. She slid it over my head before tucking me into bed. That’s the last memory I have of my mum. The next day, Harry woke me up screaming in my face that I’d killed her. That she was on the bathroom floor, dead. I was five and suddenly very alone in the world.
No, not alone. Surrounded by people who hated and feared me. Even after all these years I still don’t know what happened to her. In my darkest moments, I would cling to the necklace and talk to my mum. I would pretend that she was sitting beside me. But two years ago, I woke up in chains in the cellar, and my necklace was gone. The only thing that made me feel safe. The only reminder that there was once someone who loved me, was nowhere to be seen.
Maybe it’s in here?
At the base of the bed, covered in two years worth of dust and cobwebs are my mother’s black Dr Marten boots. I slide them on even though they’re heavy and ill-fitting, but they’re worth the blisters. They’re not as precious to me as her necklace was, but they’re all I have now. That and the book that she would read to me every night. A black leather hardback copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
I loved those stories.
Her reading to me and showing me all the illustrations before bed is another treasured memory I keep close to the forefront of my mind. I used to sleep with it like a security blanket and kept it under my pillow when I wasn’t reading it. The bed still has the same sheets on, and nothing’s moved since I was last here. The book must be here too. I lift the pillow, but it’s not there. I look everywhere, but neither the book nor the necklace are here. I turn to leave the room for the last time and see a glimpse of myself in the cracked mirror resting against the wall. I look half dead, and I’m beyond filthy. I’m thinner than I’ve ever been. Lifting my jumper, I run my fingers along my visible rib cage. I’m skin and bones. Barely recognisable from the last time I caught sight of myself in a mirror. The only things that have remained the same are my green eyes and red hair.
I ate up here, slept up here, and I cried up here. A lot happened to me in this house. Painful and fucked up things. Some of the worst were Toby’s doing. But also, the best. I know that having Toby in my life changed who I was. Before I met him, I wouldn’t hurt anyone. But I know, deep down, that by the time he turned his back on me I was someone else entirely. I saw a glimpse of her downstairs just a few moments ago and that girl, that version of me with white hair and lilac eyes, she’s Toby’s girl.
And she’s more than capable of causing the bloodshed that happened at the Miller’s farm.
Problem is, there’s a gap in my mind. A hole where six weeks of my life has disappeared.
Six weeks.
Faded from my memory like they never happened. It was in those six weeks that six men were murdered in the most unusual ways that the police had ever seen. But thanks to Harry and Mr Simmons, they ruled it as a human affair. It was in those six weeks that Toby vanished from my life. And it was in those six weeks that someone died. Someone close to me and I have no idea who was responsible.
I can’t think of that. Not now. Not feeling this vulnerable and volatile. I have to keep myself together. I won’t risk anything changing Grayson’s mind and leaving me here with nothing but bad memories and ghosts. If he knew that I have a gap in my memory right around the time Toby disappeared with that book, I don’t know what he’d do or if he’d believe me that I really don’t know what happened.
One thing’s for sure. I can’t let what almost happened downstairs happen again. I can’t let Toby and his influence affect me like that anymore.
I turn and leave the room closing the door behind me, and go in search of my mother’s necklace and fairy tale book elsewhere.
∞∞∞
The downstairs hall is filled with smoke and dust. Black and white flames block the lounge door, and there’s a loud groan followed by a sudden crash as the magical fire in the lounge weakens the ceiling, causing the room above it to crash through it.
‘We need to go, Little Witch,’ Hendrix urges as he appears from somewhere behind me. ‘Before that happens to the rest of the house.’
I take a step back giving him more than enough room to pass without touching me as he disappears outside into the rain carrying two large boxes and whistling his creepy lullaby.
‘Ready?’ Grayson asks appearing next to me as Collins follows Hendrix, also carrying boxes. He glances back at us both looking apprehensive but disappears outside into the storm.
‘Almost,’ I tell him. ‘I just need to find something.’
I turn down the hall into my uncle’s library. It’s a relatively large room with a heavy oak desk below the window and a grand piano in the corner. The walls are all lined with shelves housing books. This is where I would spend a significant portion of my day. Mr Simmons would have me in here studying for hours. There was nothing else to do with me, Simmons would say, so he would spend his time teaching me anything and everything. I start pulling the books out handfuls at a time, frantically searching for my mother’s fairy tale book. If I see the cover, I’ll know it straight away. I scan them littered over the floor.
Nothing.
I search the desk for the necklace.
Nothing.
After a couple of minutes and with no luck, I start to panic. I can’t leave without them. My Uncle’s bedroom maybe? I run out of the library and back to the stairs, but there’s thick smoke everywhere, and the heat from the flames are suffocating. I make it up the first couple when a hand grabs my wrist.
‘You can’t go up there!’ Grayson insists. ‘This house is coming down. We need to go.’
‘I can’t leave without them!’ I argue, pulling my hand free and taking the stairs two at a time up to the top as he calls after me.
The left side of the house is entirely ablaze. The white door to my room is lost in the inferno, Harry’s bedroom is to the right. I have time till it spreads. I throw open his door and start searching. The drawers have been emptied, the cupboards searched, and everything of value is gone. Is that what was in those boxes they were carrying? Have they robbed him? Maybe the book and the necklace are in one of those boxes. Maybe not. It’s too big a risk not to look now. If I leave them behind, they’ll be destroyed for sure. I have to keep looking! I search frantically for what I’ve lost, but it’s getting obvious they’re not here.
Devastation and loss erupt inside me as I start to sob. I continue to hopelessly search, tearing through his room like a hurricane. But nothing. My sobs turn into screams, and I start throwing and smashing everything and anything I can get my hands on. I’m not looking for anything. Not anymore. I’m just destroying. Destroying his possessions. Destroying the horrors he put me through. Destroying his life, like he destroyed mine. It’s not enough Harry’s dead. I want him to suffer more.
The room’s filling with smoke and the fire’s getting closer, but still, I yell and cry, tearing apart his room. All the hurt, anger and sadness that I’ve never been able to express is exploding. And I can’t stop it. Grayson wraps his hand around my wrist.
‘Lilly, we have to go,’ he says firmly in my ear. The room starts to groan and the windows crack as the fire beneath us burns through the floor.
‘I can’t leave without them!’ I cry.
‘What? What can’t you leave without?’
‘My mother’s necklace and her book. “The Brothers Grimm”. I can’t leave them behind.’ The despair I have in my heart pours out of me. As I fall to the floor, he comes too. ‘I’ve lost everything. I’ve destroyed everything. There’s nothing left.’
‘Yes, there is. There’s you. You’re still here, and you have us now.’
I just cry, unable to speak anymore as it all washes over me. I don’t care that I can see the flames out in the hall. I don’t care the room’s thick with smoke.
‘Shhhh,’ he soothes. ‘You are going to get through this. I have you now, and you are safe with me. Let’s get you out of here.’
He scoops me up in his arms and carries me downstairs.
∞∞∞
The rain’s coming down hard and it’s freezing outside. The wind’s vicious and I’m not wearing nearly enough to make any real attempts to keep warm. As I shiver in his arms, he tightens his hold on me pulling me closer to his chest. He walks away from my uncle’s house and stops by a black Mercedes. We turn back to watch the roof collapse. The flames grow higher and fiercer despite the wet weather.
‘Are you ready?’ he asks.
‘Ready for what?’ I lift my head, and he rests his nose by mine. His eyes drift to my lips, and he leans in to kiss me, but before he does, he says quietly.
‘To be free.’
