“To burn the Witch is to admit that Magic does exist.” —  Erin Anastasia 

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CHAPTER I 

 

Devon, England… 

 

“I’m just saying, if you were looking at the road, then it’s strange that you didn’t see him,” Clarissa snapped as the car lurched forward through the maze of darkened countryside roads and looming hedges of thorns and brambles. 

“I was focusing on driving, actually,” Henry replied through tight lips, trying not to let his temper slip. “I didn’t see anything…” 

     The tight little car that had carried them all the way from London probed forward into the night. Two amber beams carved through the blackness ahead. It was beginning to feel claustrophobic, like an aluminium tomb. The abyssal night sky swam by Clarissa’s window in a smudge of inky darkness. On the horizon were high swaying pine trees and only the waning of the moon above gave any sort of illumination to the silent lands. The couple had been driving for over eight hours. 

     “But, the man was right on the side of the road. I saw his face,” Clarissa said, feeling more and more nervous as they drew closer to the isolated little village. Something was wrong and she knew it, yet she could not quantify it. All she knew was that she really did not want to be in this part of the country.

      “Honestly, Henry, it was really freaky,” she reiterated.

      “It was probably just a scarecrow,” Henry grunted. “This is Devon, you know? Farmer country,” he chided.

     “Then why did the scarecrow throw me a ‘Hail Mary’ at me?” she replied, looking across at Henry’s stoic face. He was glaring forward now, refusing to acknowledge her anymore. She knew he had lost interest in talking about it. The giddy conversation had faded long ago and all that was left now was the desire not to argue with each other. 

      “Well?” She demanded. 

      “I don’t know, Clarissa. A trick of the moon? A hitchhiker? Have you taken your pills today?”

      “Yes!”

     “I’m just asking! You know you sometimes see things. Let’s just check in then you can tell me all about it.” 

     Clarissa groaned and looked away from him and back out at the ranks of silhouetted pine trees jutting up into the blackness like skeletons.  “You wanted to come here. Not me. And I’m telling you I don’t like this. We should’ve just stayed at home.” 

     Henry nodded, acknowledging the comment, but still, he did not look at her. “And now I just want to get to the Wellington Arms hotel and have a shower…” 

     Clarissa folded her arms and went silent. The most frustrating thing about Henry not listening to her was that she was adamant that she’d seen someone, not a scarecrow, but someone else, all haggard-looking, back there on the side of the road. He was right there. As the car drew past a couple of miles back, she’d caught a glimpse of this creepy figure standing dead-straight half in the embankment. He stood in the mire like a ghostly soldier on parade and he had this gaunt and narrow face; almost sickly looking. All she saw back there in the gloom was his hollow twinkling eyes and a flat white face with sharp cheekbones. She’d gasped when she saw it. The gesture was clearly intended for her. But, Henry had not seen a thing. That was what really worried her. I swear I saw something…

     She shook her head and wondered if she was indeed just tired. Peering through the haze of light rain, she saw the road sign for Black Port. Two miles away. So close. They were almost there and she shuddered.  

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*** 

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The Wellington Arms hotel squatted in the middle of Black Port village like some dark stone spider in the centre of its web. It was a grand old hotel with sharp parapets and Victorian bay windows looking out from all faces and into the blackness of night. It was built long ago out of dark grey granite that was seemingly impervious to the salty sea spray sweeping in perpetually from the harbour below. Black Port was a brooding and gloomy old fishing port and village nestled somewhere in the deep valleys of northern Devon. The natural inlet from the rough sea had attracted smugglers sometime in the late 14th century, and since then, after the sea wall was built, the harbour had grown into a secluded and hushed village with quaint stone houses and thatched roofs. And there it stayed.  

     It was too far away from any of the main roads to attract the usual summer tourists. But that wasn’t the real reason people stayed away from it. It was a village shrouded in mystery and superstitions. The frequent yet vague accusations of black magic, witchcraft, and Satanic cults that’d fallen firmly at its doorstep had stopped being so easily dismissed long ago. They had instead given the place a dark reputation; somewhere that only local folk were now welcome. After a few people had disappeared under unusual circumstances in the 90s—and others were found flayed or burned in nearby fields—the local council stopped advertising the village altogether. Black Port was now an enclave, and Clarissa and Henry had no idea about it.

     The car crawled into the darkened village under the shroud of rain like a nervous nocturnal mouse. Henry and Clarissa pulled up to the hotel just after 8 pm. They got out and grabbed their bags from the boot. Neither one spoke. Faint streetlights twinkled in the drizzling twilight. But the stone houses all around had no lights on inside.

All around the Wellington hotel were those narrow, crooked streets, terrace houses, and cobbled stone pathways that spiralled around the hotel like the radial threads of the spider’s web. Upon the vast hills looming above the village, was a decrepit old stone church that had been up there for centuries. Its gambrel slate roof facing the harsh endless seas.  

     The streets were empty, and the eerie silence hung over the place like a smothering uncomfortable cloud. Clarissa wondered whether anyone even lived in the village. The smell of the sea air crawled up her nose and immediately, a vague sensation of familiarity washed over her. There was just something off with the place and she felt like she recognised it all from somewhere.

     Henry pulled the front door open and they shuffled into the faded reception of the hotel together. The couple were greeted only by stillness. They stood in the parlour alone. The decadent halls and rooms were empty. The carpet was a drab red and along the panelled burgundy walls hung various dull paintings of 18th-century game scenes. On the floor was a bearskin; on the far wall, glaring back at them from above the desk, was a moose’s head mounted in the typical fashion. 

     “Hello?” Henry then called out as he manoeuvred towards the front desk. “We’re here to check in,” he said as he slapped the bell on the old Oak desk. But no one came. 

     “Unbelievable,” he said after a pause, shaking his head and looking back at his fiancée. He rolled his eyes wryly and smirked. “Guess you were right. We shouldn't have come here,” he said. “Next time, it’s the Ritz.” 

     Clarissa gave a reassuring smile. “I guess this is what we get for a ‘free’ weekend away, huh?” she said.  

     “Courtesy of Harper Solicitors,” Henry replied.  She shook her head with chagrin and was about to retort when some decrepit old lady suddenly came out of the back office towards them. She had swung the old glass bureau door open and glided slowly over to the point where the couple were waiting. She had long black hair and a wrinkled face. She rested her wiry hands on the desk with the taciturnity of a headteacher and leaned in towards them, half frowning. 

     “Hi,” Henry said after an awkward pause. 

     “Now, don’t tell me,” the old lady rasped, feigning a warm smile. “Might you be Mr and Mrs Parker?” She grinned and her sharp old teeth glistened under the amber lights. 

     “Yeah, that’s right,” Henry said. “How’d you guess? Was it my car?” He then joked. 

     “That’s correct,” the old lady nodded without a hint of irony. “We have been eagerly expecting you…” she said and blinked strangely. 

     Clarissa and Henry shared a glance.

     “Are we the only ones booked in tonight?” Henry asked wryly. 

     “Yes,” the old woman said. Her face was a wall of stone. 

     Henry frowned. “Oh. I mean, I was joking, but—” 

     “Not many people book over the winter is what I mean,” the crude old lady tried to grin, doing that same unusual blinking again. Henry looked across at Clarissa, rolled his eyes slowly, and Clarissa wondered whether they should just leave now. 

     The old lady bent and reached under the desk to produce a rustic brass door key with the room number, and a small sheet of paper to sign. Her hand settled over the dark Oak desk and the key made a hollow clang as it was set down upon it.

     The woman looked at Henry. “Now, breakfast is between 7 and 9 am in the dining room behind you. And we ask that you do not leave your room after midnight so as not to disturb the other guests.” 

     “But, I thought you said we were your only booking?” Clarissa asked. 

     The woman did not look at Clarissa and simply carried on reciting her welcome speech dully, like an accountant reeling off figures from a ledger. “All the shampoos, soaps, and so forth are complimentary also; and room service runs up until 10 pm. Check-out is at 11 am…” 

     The couple stood before the old woman, awaiting some sort of conclusion to the laconic speech. The conclusion never came. The old lady was cold and unmoving and simply glared back at them with flat dark eyes.  

Clarissa then apprehensively reached for the key. “Um, okay, so thank you?” 

The old woman nodded, still not looking at Clarissa. Clarissa took the key in her hands and raised it up awkwardly with a nervous smile. The couple shuffled away from the reception, unsure of what to do or say next. As they navigated up the wooden balustrade stairs and onto the first floor, Clarissa could not help but glance over her shoulder, back at what had just happened.  

     “That was weird,” Clarissa said, shaking her head, still hearing the strange mutterings coming from the woman. 

     “I know, right?” Henry huffed quietly, tugging himself up the steps using the bannister. “No wonder we’re the only booking.” 

     When the pair were out of view, the woman behind the desk then picked up the phone and dialled. She said only one sentence, then hung up again. “It’s her. She’s back…” 

     The couple came to the top of the stairs. The hallway of the second floor stretched off into a shrouded dizzying amber haze. Dull ceiling lighting and Victorian faux chaise lounges made up the space. On the wall in front of them was an oil picture of King Charles III. His disinterested gaze looked back at them with a vague air of dismissal. Henry wandered off ahead and read out the room numbers as he passed them. “23. 24,” he called out absently.

     But Clarissa didn’t hear him. Something else took her attention. As she idly looked down at the old brass key in her loose in her palm, she noticed something. Something was not right. On the reverse of the key tag was this strange symbol—a unicursal maze, the labyrinth. It appeared like it’d been carved in with a dull knife, or maybe even a paperclip. She reeled back and stared down at it and felt the nauseous fear crawl up in her stomach. It was the same symbol she’d seen in her nightmares since childhood. She had blocked out everything else from her childhood but those nightmares still remained.

     “25! Here we go,” Henry exclaimed, snapping Clarissa out of her trance. She looked up at him with doe cow eyes. The door to the room opened and Henry went in first. He flicked on the lights.

Henry was right to ask. She hadn’t taken her pills yet. No wonder she was seeing things. Clarissa shook her head and went into the room. 

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*** 

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An hour since they checked in and Henry was laying on the bed watching bad TV. The room was a modest double suite. Nothing remarkable about it. The single bay window at the back wall overlooked the only road into the village, the road they’d driven in on earlier. In the corner sat a faux armoire wardrobe which was locked. Next to the Victorian dressing table was the small, dated TV in which Henry watched with ambivalence some old re-run of a soap opera. Above the bed was a drab oil painting of a lone schooner lost at sea.

     Clarissa went into the bathroom to put her earrings on and do her makeup.

     “Don’t forget to take your second pill,” Henry called out.

     “I won’t,” she replied. The tap ran with hot water and she washed her hands under it. She stood at the basin and as she then tilted her head downward to get her left earring in, she suddenly caught sight of the same marking carved into the soap bar. She froze and just looked at it—the labyrinth. Her hand fell slowly from her face and she took a step back. Why is it on that too? Is it a warning?

     She had never seen the symbol anywhere else but in her nightmares.

     “Henry?” She called out, still glaring at the soap bar. 

     “Yep?” He replied. 

     “I don’t feel very well. Shall we… shall we just go home?” She said, trying to stop her voice from shaking.  

     “What?” Henry replied in a hoarse tone. 

     “… I feel a bit sick. Can we just head off?” Clarissa replied as she came out of the bathroom. She looked down at her fiancée laying on the bed. 

     “We’ve just got here,” he said. 

     “Can we just go? I don’t like this…” she said, rubbing her hands meekly. 

     “I can’t. I’ve had three beers,” Henry sighed. “Even if I hadn’t, there is no way in Hell I am driving back to London now.” 

     “I know, but… Please?” Clarissa said and then trailed off. She looked away from him and up at the picture of the lone schooner, wondering whether she should tell him about the unnerving glyphs in the soap bar and key. Maybe then they could leave?

     “Hey, come on,” Henry said, standing up from the bed. “Look, I gotta admit, I’m not exactly impressed with this either, but it was free! So we might as well stay and try and have a good time,” he said and smiled. “Okay? I know how scared you can get sometimes. I know you have your… problems and those nightmares, but… it’s only one weekend away and I’m right here.”

     “Okay,” Clarissa replied timorously, not feeling satisfied. It was pointless arguing. She was stuck there until Sunday whether she liked it or not. “But, I did see someone by the side of the road.”

     “I know. I believe you,” Henry said and Clarissa could tell that he didn’t.

     The couple left the room soon after and headed down the stairs.

     After the room was locked, and the couple had left the hotel, the cloaked man hiding in the faux armoire the whole time slowly crept out and began looking through their bags. He then picked up Henry's car keys and held them in the same hand as his ceremonial dagger. It was almost time.

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CHAPTER II 

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The couple walked down the dingy cobbled streets together and towards the Cobweb Inn. Raindrops scintillated under the amber glow of the streetlights. Clarissa hung from his arm nervously as they passed the old village café, then the flint arch bridge over the trickling River Valency, then the old Witchcraft Museum. The symbol ran through her mind over and over.         What in God’s name does it mean? 

     The paranoia had begun to seep in. She felt like someone, or indeed everyone in the whole village was watching them somehow, even though there were no lights on in all the houses. Maybe they’d been anticipating their arrival the whole time? Just as she thought she’d seen a curtain twitch in her peripheries, she’d turn to look at the dark windows and expect to see veiled faces peering back at her. But there was no one there. Stop it, Clarissa. You’re being paranoid. You always think the worse is going to happen.

      She shook her head and the couple headed towards the only pub in the village. The Cobweb Inn was a five-story granite building half-built into the sheer cliff face around it sometime in the 17th century. On each floor were square single-pain Victorian windows that faced out onto the whole village. It was originally a meeting point for heretics and pirates. In the early days of Black Port, there were seventeen such spots. Now there’s only one—the Cobweb Inn is where all the locals and farmers come nightly to drink away the chill from their bones. 

     The couple came to the flint porch of the pub and Henry pulled the heavy iron-studded door open before stepping into the teetering dimness of the Cobweb Inn. 

    Grizzled and red-faced farmers huddled around the twinkling effulgence of various candles on the tables and by the bar as if they’d always been there. A great stone fireplace roared away in the centre of the cramped room. The ceiling was low and had jet-black jack-rafters running along it. Along the edges of the bar area were dusty and faded fabric chairs pulled up to ancient whiskey kegs that acted as the tables. There was a folk band playing next to the bar; a trio of fishermen wearing thick wool jumpers and smoking pipes. The patrons of the pub sang along to their sea shanties and shouted and laughed.  

     There was only a small pause as the couple entered the bar. A few of the locals turned to face them but soon went back to their idle chatter. The band played on. A giant of a man leaning on the long Oak bar next to them raised his glass of ale in their direction and then continued singing along to the lively folk songs. A Magpie’s claw medallion hung from his neck.       Everyone about the place sang and banged their glasses on the tables joyously. 

     Henry turned and smiled at Clarissa. “This is a bit more like it! Somewhere with atmosphere!” 

     Clarissa smiled back reluctantly and looked around at all the seemingly friendly people as a wave of déjà vu hit her. She had been here before. She was sure of it now. It all seemed so familiar, yet far away, like a fever dream. They ordered some drinks and went and found an empty pew in the corner of the room.

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*** 

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After another hour of drinking, one of the locals sauntered over to their table and stood above them with a wry grin. He was a soft-faced man about forty years old. Thinning hair and a small beard. A small Magpie's claw medallion hung from his neck and Clarissa looked at it curiously.

      “Now, don’t tell me,” he said, feigning contemplation. “Might you two lovely people be from London?” He then beamed. 

     “We are, indeed,” Henry replied joyfully while looking up at him.

     “I knew it!” The man said. He then gestured over his shoulder to someone behind him, someone sitting at the bar. “Me and him were beating where you were from. I said London, and he said Brighton.” 

     “Well, you were right.”

     “Fantastic. May I join you?” 

     Henry looked at the man with bleary eyes. “Of course.”

     The three began chatting casually. The rain outside hammered against the single-pane windows and all agreed that they’d dare not leave just yet. They talked about the weather and holiday plans. And after twenty more minutes of jokes and laughter, the man smiled and pointed over his shoulder. “Eddie, behind the bar, has a rather nice bottle of 40-year-old scotch that he’s been meaning to break out. If I were to ask him, would you two like to join me in having it?” 

      Henry and Clarissa looked at each other with indifference. 

     “Yeah, sure, that’ll be lovely,” Henry said. “I’ll pay for it.” 

     “No need,” the man said, already rising from his bar stool. “This whiskey is for only the chosen few. For those who can appreciate it.” 

     Henry shrugged at the compliment. “Well… thank you very much.” 

     “I’ll be right back,” the man said with a chagrin. “Just need to employ my silver tongue to get that old Bassett hound to pull it down for me,” he then winked. 

     Clarissa watched with intrigue as the man strode up to the bar and leaned in close to the bartender. He pointed up at the top shelf and then signalled behind him at Henry’s table. Eddie, the bartender, looked over at the engaged couple. His hands were flat on the bar and a dirty rag was thrown over his shoulder. Both men smiled and nodded. The soft-faced gentleman reached out and shook Eddie’s hand. Then, after the coy exchange, the man came back to Henry and Clarissa’s table with the bottle in his right hand and three tumblers in his left hand. He sat down opposite them and unscrewed the cap.  

     “Now, please do not shoot this, okay?” The man begged. “This is prestige stuff,” the man chuckled.  

     “I’d never do such a thing,” Henry retorted smugly. 

     The man smiled coldly. “I knew I could trust you,” he said and then poured the fine scotch out for them all. Clarissa giggled nervously. She’d had too much to drink and felt exposed. Her inebriated gaze fell loosely over old-time folks sipping ale, on the coal fire, on the various sepia-toned photographs hanging from the rough stone walls. All around them, the music and the chatter swelled and rose.  

     “To new friends!” The man exclaimed as he lifted his shot glass.   

     “To new friends,” the couple repeated back.  

     But, as the three went to take a sip, the mysterious man’s eyes darkened and he simply stared at them; the glass just about touching his lips. Henry and Clarissa did not notice. They sipped at the whiskey and closed their eyes as it went down their throats hard. He, however, threw the scotch over his right shoulder. He continued glaring at them with this menacing smile as they rolled around in delinquency. Both of them were so drunk that they couldn’t even see straight. But, more than that, the shot was taking effect quickly. Clarissa began to fade. The man opposite her blurred in her vision.  

     “Tell me something, Clarissa,” the man asked after a long pause. 

     “What?” She mumbled back, blinking slowly as she did. 

     The man breathed out calmly. “… Why did you run away? Your grandparents, Jim and Brenda, were trying to help you…” 

     She suddenly stopped moving and just looked across at him with wide-open eyes of terror. 

     “Huh?”

     “They were trying to cleanse you of your curse, and you ran away,” he continued. “They were your family.”

     “How do you know about them?” she asked furtively.

     “We know all about you. We know what you are. The conduit between this realm and his.”

     “Who’s?”

     “The Pale Man,” he crowed. “We were trying to help you. We are your family too…” 

     “What? That’s impossible! I don’t remember anything from my childhood…”

     “We do. We’ve always been there,” the stranger snarled.

     “… Sorry, excuse me, what the Hell are we talking about?” Henry asked in bewilderment. 

     “—Be quiet,” the man growled to Henry without looking at him. 

     Clarissa could not speak somehow. She could only stare forward at the darkened man before her. She was gripped into a dull paralysis. Unconscious fear soon became unassailable reality.

     The man grinned with a sheen of malice. “Then, if you won’t tell me that, answer me this—why did you come back?” 

     “… I don’t understand,” Clarissa mewed, shaking her head apologetically. 

     “You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”

     “No.”

     “You’re tired of running from it, aren’t you?” He said. “You want the darkness within you extruded. You’ve felt like something has been wrong with you your whole life, haven’t you? You’ve always felt… ‘different’. You have suffered those nightmares forever yet you cannot remember…” 

     A single tear rolled down her face. “I don’t understand. How do you know?”

     “We know everything. Just like you, we can travel great distances.”

     As the poison kicked in, she suddenly began to feel even more light-headed. Her eyes rolled and her head began to dip forward. The man noticed. He smirked.

     “Soon, this nightmare will be over for you,” he said. “That’s why you came back… You want it over with, don’t you? You want to wake up. We will help you. A new world awaits after your baptism…” 

     “No…” she said. Clarissa tried to stand up in a rush of panic. She went to escape, but couldn’t. Her legs were jelly and she stumbled. The man simply watched sardonically as she rolled around.

     "What have you done?" she mumbled as she slumped back into her seat and just stared at the man.

     “Saved you from your sin,” the man replied and stood up from the table. His dwindling form then dissipated in Clarissa’s vision like he was made of smoke. He vanished into the ranks of people standing behind him. With his disappearing, the people shuffled forward and snatched Henry away from her side. She tried to reach out to stop it, but her arm simply fell back down to her side.

     “No. You’ve made a mistake,” she slurred. “I’m not from…”

     Everything went faint after that. Clarissa couldn’t hold her eyes open any longer. She felt the world fall away from her.      The whirling noise of the band and the fireplace left her. Everything smeared into darkness.

     She fell.  

     Choking blackness. At first there was only that emptiness of an utter void and iced winds of cosmic space blowing through it. Then, shapes, vague, monstrous and evanescent came for her; a swarm of great hissing winged creatures like gargoyles swooped down and carried her off over illimitable plains. She hung lifelessly from their talons as she was carried over great dead volcanic expanses and ashen plateaus. Time was endless. The skies all around were churning masses of brooding clouds that groaned like giant wounded animals. It was all the same as her nightmares. Endless putrid black sands and infinite rolling waves of foam and ichor. She found herself walking along that beach—the familiar taste of seaweed in her mouth. The horde of inky-black gargoyles followed her loyally through the sprawl of half-sunken bones and the decaying corpses of ancient beings all buried in the sulphuric sands of eternity. They all flopped limply around her in a trance-like dance, half with their awful webbed feet and half with their slippery membraneous wings. She had seen it all before. Clarissa looked up to the monstrous black sun up above in the dim skies and heard one voice.

     “You will open the gate,” it echoed down from the skies. Clarissa stared up at the flaming obsidian-coloured orb and replied, “Yes.” As she always did in her dreams, yet she did not understand why. She only knew that the porthole was called  The Pale Man, the eater of time.

     The winged creatures surrounding her seemed to squawk and cheer in adoration. The black sun then grew, unfurled and spread out giant bat-like wings and spider’s legs, and it morphed into a giant clawing membranous cloud. It engulfed the vast dim skies and blotted out what little light there was. The waves of tar in the seas then swelled and rose tremendously up the beach, closer each time, until one finally crashed and enveloped Clarissa and everything went quiet once more.      Everything she had feared in her dreams was real.

     “You’ve always been here. You always will be…” The Pale Man’s booming voice said to Clarissa before fading into the emptiness.

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CHAPTER III 

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At some point, much later, Clarissa awoke in a daze. Her head pounded and she felt delirious. Bleary-eyed, she rolled around and tried to shake her head clear. She was cold. Her skin felt tight and numb. She was outside, she knew that much. No longer was she on that infernal alien beach. The raw nighttime air chilled her to her bones. It was unmistakable.  

     In a daze, she tried to move but soon found that her hands were bound behind her. The realization jolted her into alertness. She forced her eyes open and fear brought her hurtling back to reality. Cloudy-eyed, she peered around and saw the tall grass blowing languidly in the wind around her. Above, the stars barely glowed against the crushing blackness.      Somewhere near here, she heard the ocean waves smashing against the cliffs. She knew she was up on the hill by the old church. The large wooden stake she was tied to overlooked the village below. The amber street lights twinkled down there like an island of dull light against a sea of black.  

     She then angled her head to her right… and saw them. She gasped when she did. Twenty or so robed and unmoving figures stood in a loose semi-circle around her, all holding wooden torches. They stood silent in the bitter night like an ancient debt. The crude masks they all wore were fashioned from straw and twigs and dried leaves; shaped into faux Venetian carnival masks that gawked back at her with bulbous noses and contorted lips. The torch flames yawed in the stark blackness of the night winds around them all, vaguely illuminating the various figure’s hollow unblinking gaze behind the masks. Hanging from all of their necks were large golden Magpie's claw medallions. The sight made her snap up with energy.  

     “Oh my God!” Clarissa screamed when she saw them. “Henry!” She shrieked. “Henry! Where are you?” 

     “I’m here,” he groaned from behind her. “Ow! My arms are numb!” 

     “Henry, wake up!” She screamed. 

     “I can’t. I’m tied up.” 

     “Oh, Jesus,” Clarissa sighed. “Me too…” 

     Henry looked around. “What is this? Who are they?” 

     “That guy from the bar spiked us!” 

     “Why?” He sputtered. 

     “I don’t know, I don’t know,” Clarissa muttered softly, lying to Henry.

     The pair looked down from their gallows at the flock of dark acolytes before them. None of them spoke. None of them moved. They were waiting for something. 

     “Hello?” Henry said. “Help us! Answer me!” He shouted at them. 

     But they never did. The seconds drew on like a blade. Still, the crowd before them did not move; did not speak. They stood silent and obedient like the grave. 

     Then, through the middle of the assembly, came a tall figure in sheer black robes and a great horned cast-iron mask. Clarissa’s heart sank as he moved closer and she gasped. It was him—the tormentor from her nightmares. The horns were fallow deer antlers that seemingly sprouted from the top of the mask, like some vile dead tree. He was the great High Priest from her dreams. He walked slow and serene over unkempt ankle-high grass towards them. His footsteps flattened the stalks with each stride. 

     When he came to the base of the pyre, he turned to face his procession. Henry screamed and shouted at the High Priest. But Clarissa didn’t say a word. She could only stare at the man from her nightmares now rendered in pure reality.

The priest held his back to them, his arm was outstretched as if calling for order among his disciples. Then he began to speak his sermon yet Clarrissa could not hear what he was saying over the roar of the seas below.

This isn’t real. This isn’t real. I’m going to wake up in my bed any second now. This isn’t real. This isn’t real, Clarissa thought over and over.

     Henry pleaded and begged the whole time, but his words were lost too.

     Clarissa had begun tugging at her bindings desperately.

     “Stop! You’re wrong! You’re mistaken!” Henry shrieked as the High Priest approached with a stave in his hand. Then, as the sermon came to its conclusion, the High Priest slowly held his torch out and lit the pyre that the couple were standing on.

     Clarissa screamed again and began to cry. This was not a dream now. Steadily, the flames took hold of the kindling and began to burn through the thick logs at their feet. The figures sang and sang and watched the flames rise against their sacrifice. 

     “No! Stop!” Henry yelped.

     Clarissa, however, ripped down hard at her bindings. She tugged and wrenched at the heavy abrasive rope. “Come on!” She barked at the bindings, begging them to come loose. “Come on!” 

     Suddenly, with the help of the flames, the ropes ripped and gave way. Her arms fell loose from the stave. She slumped off the pyre unannounced like some newborn fawn. Then, in a euphoric blur—coupled with pure fighting instinct—she bolted up and started running. Without a moment’s hesitation, she sprinted off into the night, barging past one of the members as she did.  

     The assembly screeched after her. They bayed and clawed as they watched her soon disappear into the inky blackness of the hills surrounding Black Port.

     “Clarissa!” Henry shouted into the emptiness where she once was standing. “Don’t leave me!” 

     But she did. She had to. She ran and ran.

     Henry screamed as the flames enveloped him. His skin blistered and his hair singed. The last gasp of his mortal being came out as a guttural scream that echoed across the darkened shores. It was a slow and agonising death. The fire rose wild and went green with heat around him. Henry disappeared behind the wall of effulgence alone. The faceless people had begun chasing after Clarissa, leaving him to die without witness.

     Clarissa was halfway across the ridge when the glow of the fire behind her disappeared. It all left her behind. Her slender legs moved with a gazelle’s pace. Her heart pounded in her chest like an atom bomb as she sucked in oxygen. By the light of the moon, she ran and ran. She escaped into the deep black of the night. 

     “This isn’t real,” she panted over and over as she sprinted. None of it made sense to her—the man by the side of the road, the dreams, the stranger symbols on everything.

     YOU MUST OPEN THE GATE, she heard in her mind, over and over, tormenting her.

     Silhouettes of hilltops and cliffs streaked by her in a dizzying haze. The night was dark and heavy against her. She tried not to cry as she lurched forward over the rough barren hills. Her bare feet rapped against old flints and small mounds in the earth. She never looked back. Not once. Only the sole desire to survive kept her moving. 

      YOU MUST OPEN THE GATE…

*** 

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Much later. Clarissa had been running for what felt like hours. Her muscles pumped battery acid. Everything hurt. At some point back there, she’d lost sight of the cult chasing her. She couldn’t even hear them anymore. But she knew they were still there somewhere.

     She heaved and sobbed as she carried herself over the Devonshire coastline. Only the pure instinct to survive kept her moving. She was heading towards Dark Horse—A secluded little town about ten miles away. And somewhere behind her, the cult still lingered. They’d taken Henry. If she didn’t leave, she would be next. She’d heard his screams as she ran away from the scene. The death squawks he made felt like a harpoon through her heart, but she had to run. She had to live. She had to escape.

     Clarissa felt like bellowing and wailing into the night sky. If only she’d mentioned the symbol carved into their hotel room key chain, maybe all of it could have been avoided.

It was too late. Clarissa did not dare to go back to Black Port where the car was. Henry had left the keys in the hotel room and she was not about to charge back into the hotel lobby and snatch the keys back. Who knew who was a part of it? It could’ve been the whole village. Maybe even Henry’s work had set the whole thing up? 

      Her lungs were starting to burn with exanthema and her panting had turned into wheezing. She wept and wailed. 

     “This isn’t real. This isn’t real,” She wheezed upward to the stars as she came onto the road and ran down the tarmac towards the isolated town. Asphalt pounded against her bare feet. A dull slapping of flesh on the concrete. She was covered in soot and goat’s blood. She had been running for so long now that she’d almost forgotten her own name. 

     She came into the town much later, all bloodied and dishevelled and crying like some lunatic. The familiar glow of civilisation warmed her vaguely. There would be a local store, a petrol station, and a phone. She ran to the train station in the middle of the town, panting, desperate, feral. There, she found a taxi. She came to it and banged on the window. 

     “I’ll give you five hundred pounds to take me away right now!” She shouted. 

     The man sitting in the front seat merely glanced over at her, bored, disinterested, seemingly ignoring the blood and the state she was in. A Magpie's claw pendant was dangling from his rear-view mirror, yet she did not notice it.

     “Get in,” he said nonchalantly.  

     She did. The car pulled away. Slowly, streaks of yellow motorways and service stations glided by her and soon, somehow, the abominable terror of the night she’d endured dissipated behind her like the stir of autumn leaves. She wept deeply. Everything left her. She leaned her bruised head against the back window and just cried. The dried blood on her face did nothing to stop the tears. It was over. She had escaped. Before she knew it, she was twenty miles away from the scene. Then thirty. Then forty. She shut her eyes finally and cried some more.

     Somewhere back there, her fiancée was now a charred remain. She would never be the same again. They’d accused her of being something truly evil. Were they right? She hadn’t taken her medication in over three days. Was any of it even real?      But, the stranger at the bar was right. She had felt wrong her whole life. She had always felt the unyielding connection to that ‘other’ world of The Pale Man. Some unexplainable schism. She saw it in her nightmares and hallucinations: those outer realms where universes collided and all abstractions of life existed, and The Pale Man feasted upon them all. There was a presence simmering between the shades that humanity can see, yet she felt like she could see it. Were they right?

     Peering backwards in the rear-view mirror at his passenger, the old man muttered but one sentence. “We can’t let you leave…” 

     She looked up and met his gaze. Her heart sank at the sight. It was him; the man from the side of the road earlier that evening. The car began to slow and she noticed.

     “You’re her. The conduit to The Pale Man, the time eater,” he said. “We can’t let you leave. We must open the gate…”

 

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