Pebbles: A Collection of Short Stories

The Seven Sisters

The cruelest use of magic is the bewitching of the mind. Seizing a person's freewill is a punishing treatment that the Clarke sisters knew all too well. They had suffered through the corruption of their mother's mind at the hands of their father. And while one would think this would cause them to stand up to the monstrous act, quite the opposite became true.

The first mind they drove mad was their own father's. Despite his keen powers, he was no match for the power of the seven sisters. But this retribution was not enough. Once they had a taste of evil, it spread through them like a ravenous disease.

They started small, entrancing a young mother into releasing a baby carriage atop of Fox Hill. But they were hindered by a good Samaritan catching the carriage before the disaster. Other such cases continued but were frequently dismissed as clumsy accidents or childhood indiscretion.

Most dismissed the incidents, but not all. Dr. Emmitt Robert noticed correlations between the experiences and his patients. At first, he ignored them. Of course, his patient's clumsiness had caused them to bump a boy on a bicycle or spook the horse pulling an occupied carriage; it was from the headaches and sleep ailments.

While he accompanied a patient, Mr. Edmund Pook, out after a long day of appointments, Mr. Pook's ailments took an alarming turn. Pook came to Dr. Robert with headaches, insomnia, depression, and irritability, which were quickly attributed to a recent family scandal's stress. Pook's brother had married below his position to the disdain of their father. When Edmund arrived for his appointment, it was difficult for Dr. Robert to overlook the body odor, blemished skin, and curious voice inflections. Still, he contributed the symptoms to the lack of sleep. But as they began to part, Dr. Robert witnessed an episode that set him on a new course.

Pook grasped for his face in such a jerk of force that the palms of his hands were sure to leave his eyes blackened. He stammered of blinding pain. As fast as it started, Pook was standing straight as a pole with his hands now slacked to his side. It was the sudden greying of Pook's dark brown eyes that made the hair on the back of Dr. Robert's neck stand up. As casually as opening a door, Pook gave a swift shove to a passing newsboy. If Dr. Robert had not caught the boy's arm, he would have been trampled by a passing horse. Dr. Robert returned his alarm to Pook as he was blinking away his bewildering trance. Others crowded them, drawn to the near spectacle. But Dr. Robert noted a bustling group of women who clicked their tongues as they walked away from the scene.

Months later, when the days had started to warm from Spring, Mr. Pook would be on trial for the murder of his mistress, a young girl of only 17 found barely conscious and bloody from an attack with a hammer. She survived long enough to call out Pook's name and beg for death.

While the display of the trial riveted the city, Dr. Robert was conducting his own investigation. It was the eyes that led him to the evils of magic. The symptoms of a curse aligned: headaches, sleeplessness, a failing temperament, poor hygiene. But he was unable to correlate the victims to one person. He was close to giving up when he slipped into the back of the court gallery to witness the trial of his former patient. There sat the seven sisters that had been quick to click their tongues and turn away from the scene months earlier.

Dr. Robert was drawn to them, following them in the shadows as they made their way home, including a peculiar delay at a confection shop. Dr. Robert knew the shop; it was a favorite of his colleagues, Dr. Charles Beard's wife. The women did not go in; they simply gazed in the window giggling excitedly as a young woman purchased a box of chocolate creams before they continued their way.

Incidences began to mount as several people in Brighton fell ill, but no one would believe Dr. Robert's theory that someone bewitched innocent people into nefarious acts. It was just over a year when Dr. Robert knew he had to act. A young child of only 4 visited London on holiday with his family. After eating chocolates from the precise shop that Dr. Robert witnessed the seven sisters congregate around, the boy died. The corner ruled the death accidental, but Dr. Robert knew better.

He baited the sisters with an anonymous letter hoping to draw them to Tottenham. He had done his research and knew a new railway station was still under construction. If needed, he would be able to slip into the maze and hide in a shadowy corner. His plan was simple, draw them to Page Green, where he would have a black candle lit before a mirror. From his research, he knew that a lit black candle set before a mirror would absorb the negative energy that surrounded the sisters.

The sisters were cunning and arrived scattered to surround their foe. But their eyes fell on the mirror before they were able to avert their eyes. The pull was strong and unexpected, tugging at their very cores. It was only the youngest, cruelest sister that was clear-headed enough to enact one last piece of revenge on their adversary. In a calm voice, she marveled at the beauty of the scene within the mirror. It was instinct that drew Dr. Robert's eyes to the mirror, pulling him in like a magnet.

In the morning, the village was puzzled about what they found; seven elms circled a single walnut tree in what had once been an empty park. No one even thought of the relation to the missing doctor and seven sisters.