Wenclair - a New Term at Nevermore

Chapter 87

The First Vision

A shabby youth hostel.

This room contained six wooden bunk beds, each with four low berths where teenagers lay awake. Not teenagers - sirens, obvious by their eerie oceanic eyes. One of them climbed awkwardly to the blue-carpeted floor; the awkwardness being due to how tall the girl was. She had a warm, dark complexion, hair cropped almost to the scalp, and pale blue eyes as stormy and incomprehensible as the sea itself. She appeared to be wearing suit trousers with a grubby t-shirt, and on her little bunk lay, not a rucksack like all the others, but a briefcase and a rather ornate sword.

She spoke.

"I understand it's been a boring day today, and the day before that, and the day before that. And it's going to be a boring day for - what is it? - three more days. But, look, we've got halfway. Nevermore Academy in no time. Then we'll all be somewhere safe. Spirits up, kids!"

General noise that might have been assent or dissent, and the scene dissolved.

The Second Vision

A bedroom that ought to have been warm and cosy but was instead chilled by an aura of quiet anger and determination.

An old man was packing a suitcase, with polo shirts and beige trousers and decrepit old carpet-slippers. Arranged on the bed were a series of photographs: all of one boy, it seemed. As a sweet, chubby baby, then as a smiling toddler, then as a serious boy, often dressed in a chorister's robes. In the very latest picture he looked to be about eleven, and it looked like that toddler's smile had not graced his face for years.

The old man gathered up the pictures into a small sheaf of paper and tucked them into the suitcase before zipping it closed. He wheeled the case into a corridor and down it to the front door, but instead of walking out, he turned and looked at the phone. From his pocket he produced a scrap of paper, marked MAVIS and with a number scrawled down. He picked up the phone and hovered his index finger over the keypad, ready to punch the number in, but stopped and paused for what seemed like an eternity.

He dropped the phone, leaving it to hang down the wall from its wire, and tore the scrap of paper in two. Then he muttered, "Fitzroy.", seized the suitcase, and hobbled out of the house, leaving the phone receiver where it hung, still swinging slightly from side to side as the world crumbled.

The Third Vision

A forest of deciduous trees, the grass on the ground slightly frosted over, the full moon hanging directly overhead to indicate midnight.

A boy stumbled out of a thick wall of shadows between the trunks of looming oak trees, out of breath. His left jumper sleeve was slashed from shoulder to cuff, revealing a pale, trembling, skinny arm covered in goosebumps. The competition between the glaring moonlight and the reaching shadows revealed frown lines on his miserable face, as if he had not lightened his expression for years, despite being only a child.

He slung from his shoulder a rucksack and spilled its contents hurriedly out onto a floor that was already littered with nature's debris and coated in a fine layer of ice crystals. There was a book entitled Necromancy, two ampoules filled with thick, dark fluids, a conical flask, a lighter, and a trowel.

Discarding carefulness as a time-waster, the boy flipped open the yellow- and crackling-paged book, studied the page for a moment and picked up each ampoule in turn, snapping off the glass top and letting the viscous fluid drip from the shards into the conical flask. The two shades of greyish red did not seem to mix when they met, so the boy held up the conical flask by the neck and lit a flame beneath. At this heat the two liquids swirled in a mesmerising vortex until it was a singular mixture of deepest black, seeming to drink in the light that hit it and pour out dark shadow in return.

The boy, trembling even more now, dug a small hole in the earth with his trowel and poured the potion in, burying it with as much reverence as fear. He sat back, cross-legged, and lifted the book into his lap, then began to read from it in a high, shaking voice.

"Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and potion bubble."

Dark mist began to seep from the earth before him, but it did not dissipate; it seemed to be assembling itself into a shape.

"I seek the darkness once, twice, thrice, and offer it a sacrifice."

The mist thickened into swirling grey smoke, and continued to issue from the ground while assimilating itself into three distinct, tall figures.

"They that die far from lunar observance join your ranks as Shadow's servants."

The figures became humanoid, but at the same time monstrous. They seemed abnormally tall people, dressed in three different military uniforms and carrying a range of weapons, but at the same time, their facial features were unrecognisable, and their entire forms were constantly shifting with the will of the dark smoke.

"And rest this three when fighting's done, when the battle's lost. And won."

The final two words seemed to be spoken by a thousand different voices issuing from the darkness: souls, crying for vengeance or screaming with pain.

Silence reigned over all for one blessed microsecond, before the hellish chorus was opposed by one single voice: the howl of a werewolf, reverberating through the whole cold forest, and with its sound waves rushed a wall of consuming bright light that erased the final vision.

(I went back to reread the first few chapters and I realised I've really gone a bit off the rails. 😅)