Chapter 1
None of us really knew Mrs Rosewell, but it was still sad when they dragged her body out in a bag. It was smaller than you'd expect, the body bag - it surprised me that that was all it took to contain a whole human. The body, I thought, is not very much without the soul.
She'd sort of always been there, in the house next door. I'd lived here all my life, and for as long as I could remember, there'd been a batty old lady with four or five cats and not much of her memory left. It was remarkable she'd lasted as long as she had. She'd always been very sweet, waved and smiled and occasionally brought baking around, like old ladies do. I was sure she'd gone to heaven, that she was happier now, in the perfect paradise. Somehow, the thought wasn't as comforting as it should have been.
"Pathetic, isn't it? That nobody noticed she was in there for three weeks until your Dad went to check on her. Also, it reeks. I can smell it from here." Eva said, flicking a strand of dyed-black hair out of her eyes.
I glanced at her. She was dressed in black, like usual, with black hair, purple highlights and too much eyeliner. 'Death is my aesthetic' she'd always said. I would have thought she'd be fascinated considering her obsession with death and the afterlife, but she just looked a little sickened.
"Yeah, I know. Poor thing. Remember how she always called me Grace, even when I told her my name was Cassie?" I replied, sticking my hands in my pockets and leaning back against the wall of my house as they loaded the body into a black van.
"I think she thought you were her daughter or sister or something. It was sad. I wonder what happened to the cats?" Kate said, strolling up in jeans, a t-shirt and frizzy black hair tied back in a ponytail.
Kate was my neighbour, and made up the other half of my total number of friends. She had big, wide-rimmed glasses that made her eyes look bigger than they really were, and freckled dark-brown skin. She aspired to be a lawyer, like her parents, and spent what Eva said was 'far too much time' with her nose in a book. Her, Eva and I had banded together long ago in our first year of high school after realising that nobody else was going to be friends with a pastor's daughter, a law geek, and a vaguely arty self-proclaimed emo.
"I don't know. I think they're still in there. Hey, Kate, are you all good for the concert on Thursday?" Eva asked.
I groaned. "Yeah, about that, my parents are not going to give me the money. My dad's a pastor. He thinks I should spend my nights studying the bible."
Eva rolled her eyes. "Well, that sucks, your dad being a pastor, but we can figure something out, right? Hey, Kate, can't you just get some more money from your lawyer parents?"
Kate shrugged. "I've got the same problem. My parents are lawyers, and they want me to be one as well. They're barely letting me go at all. I was hoping to get a loan from Cassie."
We stood around in silence for a while, wondering what to do. I was unsure what to think - it was probably the only chance I'd ever get to see my favourite band live, but l didn't want to have to disobey my parents. I wouldn't have even agreed to go if Eva hadn't insisted it would be 'the best thing ever'.
Suddenly, Eva whirled around. "You're kidding me. Look in front of us. We've got the perfect opportunity! I knew that old bat died for a reason," she exclaimed.
I stared blankly at her. "That reason being a heart attack?"
"No, look! That house is filthy!" Eva insisted.
"Yeah, we know, we can smell," Kate said with a look of distaste. "She had four cats, and she's been dead for three weeks."
"No, no, don't you see? This is brilliant! We can clean it out. For money." Eva stared at us, waiting to see our reaction.
I considered it for a moment. "Won't her son just hire a cleaning company? Plus, that's going to take forever."
"Nah, we'll offer a way cheaper rate, and all three of us can get it done in a few days. Think, this won't just pay for the concert, this'll pay for all our plans for the summer! "
Me and Kate looked at her doubtfully.
"Oh, come on, it'll be fun!"
*****
The son came by the house not long after we made our decision. He was a large, bald man with very pale skin who didn't resemble his mother that much. He introduced himself as Matt. Eva talked animatedly to him as we watched, and finally he gave in and agreed to pay us five hundred dollars to clean it out. It was far more than we had expected, but he acted like it was nothing, adding he'd give us an extra fifty each if we caught the cats and delivered them to his house.
Two hours later, I was desperately trying to stuff a very angry, very skinny black cat into a box. It was very much not at all fun. It swiped at my arms with its claws, drawing blood. After a lengthy battle, I finally came out the victor, carrying a yowling cardboard box of hate.
"See, just like I said. Fun. Now, we'll take the cats back, and get started on the cleaning," Eva said with a grin, holding her own box.
"Why are we even doing this?" I moaned. "Shouldn't we calling animal control or something?"
Eva shook her head. "Nah, he wants them. Not animal control's problem. They probably remind him of her. Anyway, he paid extra for us to get the cats. Trust me, it'll all be worth it."
Having just had a near death experience with an emaciated feline hell-bent on my destruction, I was starting to doubt my friend's sanity, but nevertheless we loaded the cats into Kate's brother's car and drove to Mrs Rosewell's son's place a few blocks away. We dropped the cats off in front of a large grey stone house.
It looked very old, probably Victorian with a few more modern renovations. It was covered with carvings, gargoyles and lichen. I shivered - it didn't look like the light of God had touched it in years. I got an inexplicable feeling of repulsion at the sight of it.
"Let's leave." I said quickly.
Eva rolled her eyes. "Ugh, you're so bland. Those gargoyles are like, sooo my aesthetic. Hang on, I'm going to take a photo."
"Look, can't we just leave?" I asked.
"What, scared?" she taunted. I was sort of creeped out by the place, but I wasn't going to admit it, so I shrugged and knocked on the door while she snapped some photos on her phone. The son came and got them with a curt 'thank you', and after Eva took a few more pictures we finally left.
Once we were back at the house Kate started to clean up the mess the cats made while me and Eva dealt with Mrs Rosewell's belongings. Neither of us went into the bedroom where she had died, not even Eva.
Mrs Rosewell didn't have much, mostly just furniture, clothes, cheap jewellery, stupid ornaments, gnome statues and other clutter that her son had told us to take to the dump, but she did have four bookshelves full of dusty old books that looked like they hadn't been touched in years, that he'd specifically requested we bring to him. Me and Eva got a heap of cardboard boxes from the supermarket and started to pack them up.
I wondered if they had value. Most of them were gardening books, but one shelf was full of vintage volumes bound in cracked leather, with faded gilt lettering. I ran my hand along the leather spines absently, feeling that strange vibe that old books and second hand bookstores give you.
Most of the books were, on inspection, not nearly as exciting as I had imagined - just boring antiquated dictionaries and classic novels. My mind started to stray, thinking of what the Black Devils concert would be like as I pulled out one particularly thick tome. I yawned, and stumbled a little under the its weight. Before I could add it to the box, my foot slipped on the rug beneath me and I and the book crashed to the ground.
I winced, and pulled myself up.
"You alright?" Kate asked, poking her head in from the next room, where she was working. "I heard a crash."
I nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine, I just slipped." I replied.
"You sure? Is the book alright?" Eva asked with a frown.
"Yeah, like I said, I'm fine. The book..."
I looked around for the book I'd dropped. It had landed open. It was a French dictionary, but most of the pages had been carved out to make room for a small black book with a red star inside a circle on it - a satanic symbol. I lifted the book out, and flicked through the pages curiously. I could hear my father's voice in my head, lecturing me on how curiosity killed the cat, but somehow it didn't stop me. The pages were thin, and covered in diagrams and drawings, scrawled handwriting covering every inch of the paper. The last few pages were blank, presumably left unfinished. I found myself reading one of the pages almost without meaning to. It was, of all things, a spellbook. I almost laughed. I wouldn't have taken Mrs Rosewell to be a pagan. I was about to put it back, to forget about the whole thing, but somehow I felt myself slipping it into my pocket instead.
I'd burn it, I decided. After all, these things shouldn't exist. Books like this should be banned, burned. Yes, that's what I'd do. I'd burn it. It wasn't theft, especially not since the book had been hidden. Who was to know that it existed? I'd be doing the son a favour, really. He wouldn't want to have to deal with the fact that his mother had been a witch.
"Is the book alright? Hey, Cassie, hurry up, will you?" Eva called. "We need to finish this."789Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2BjVgt8LEU
789Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNvPgbP612h
"Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, it's fine. Yeah."
I got back to cleaning and thinking about the concert, and somehow the whole matter slipped from my mind.
*****
Finally, Wednesday night rolled around - the night of the concert. We had finished cleaning that day and Eva had managed to buy and print out last minute reserve tickets online.
Eva tapped on my window. She, Kate and Kate's brother Troy were all waiting outside. I got up, opened the window as quietly as I could, and slid out.
"All ready for the concert?" she asked.
I nodded. The time had finally come - the time, Eva promised, of our lives. It was my first real act of rebellion against my parents, and it was exciting and terrifying all at once.
It was in a neighbouring city about two hours away. Troy drove, since he was the oldest and had a full driver's licence. We sang Black Devil songs the whole way there. We knew them all by heart. It was our favourite band - we'd loved it since Eva discovered it in sophomore year. We'd spent countless nights on the phone or skyping each other, listening to the songs together, and innumerable weekends at each others' houses.
The concert was perfect. We felt like we were one with the crowd, and shouted and danced and forgot who we were. We lost ourselves in the songs. It was so perfect, so fast, so ecstatic, that we thought it would never end. And then it was over, just like Mrs Rosewell, and we too were leaving in a black car.
We left at around eleven, and Troy was tired, so I drove since I'd gotten my learner's licence last week. I concentrated on the road, Kate fell asleep, and even Eva was silent for once. The songs we'd heard were still stuck in my head, the lyrics repeating themselves over and over. Something about dying young. It started to rain, more and more heavily, and I turned the wipers on. The next half-hour went by uneventfully. Troy started to hum tunelessly at some point, and the rain intensified.
Suddenly, there was a boy, about my age. I nearly didn't see him. Just standing there, in the middle of the road, not moving, dark eyes staring back at me. I panic and slammed on the brakes. He disappeared.
It was all too quick, the road was too slippery, and no matter how fast I turned the wheel the car just kept going the wrong way, spinning out of control. It all happened so fast - I tried to get it under control, my hands slippery with sweat and my mind screaming with panic, Kate woke up, we all screamed, the car veered off the road and my head hit the ceiling, and everything went black.
*****
A trickle of water ran down my face.
I wiped it off, blearily, and then opened my eyes. Not water. Blood, trickling from my head. My vision swam. It was such a bright red...I was upside down, I realised, hanging from my seat belt. My head pounded, and my throat felt like sandpaper. Next to me, Kate was still. Too still.
I scrabbled frantically at my seatbelt with numb fingers. It gave way, and I slumped to the roof of the car. I shook Kate. She didn't move.
"Kate, come on. Wake up. Come on, Kate, you need to wake up. Kate. Kate! Kate, come on wake up wake up..." I pleaded, shaking her. I dragged her out and onto the grass outside, and checked her pulse. It was faint. I got up, and fell down to my knees again as blood drained from my head. The steady pounding got louder, became a blinding boom, boom, boom that blocked out everything else.
I dug my phone out of my pocket, tried to turn it on. It was flat. I pressed the button again and again, as if it would somehow be different next time, but there was no hope. I screamed, and threw it against the car. It cracked and fell to the ground. I tried Kate's. There was no reception. My breaths started to come faster. I crawled over to the car.
Troy was already dead when I found him. His head was turned at a wrong angle. The airbags hadn't worked. I didn't bother checking his pulse. Eva had a massive piece of glass in her chest. There was blood everywhere, and she wasn't breathing. No pulse. I checked Kate again. Nothing. She was dead.
Standing by the tree line, I saw the boy again, my age, with messy black hair, watching me - I realised I recognised him from the concert - he'd been in the crowd, always in the corner of my eye.
"Help me! Who are you? Why were you standing there? Why did you do this?" I shouted, but when I blinked, he was gone, and I realised it must have been my concussion.
I screamed, the sound ripping out of me, tearing into the air. Tears rolled down my face. I muttered prayers almost unconsciously, praying, begging for God to help, to perform a miracle. This, I realised belatedly, was punishment. But how was this fair? It was a concert. Just a concert.
"They didn't deserve this!" I shouted. But there's nobody left to listen. Kate looked less and less alive by the minute. I stared, wide eyed, at the muddy ground. I did not find a miracle there. I did not find an angel there to save me.
I found a black book that I'd forgotten to take out of my pocket.
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Thank you so much for reading! I would really, really appreciate anything in the way of criticism/praise as I don't usually write in this genre, or write webserials in general, so it would be amazing if you left a comment telling me what you thought and/or offering advice. :)
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