Nadine

NADINE

Darcy knew there was something wrong with Nadine. No one else saw the distinction. No one else seemed to notice that Nadine’s smile was evil, that her eyes burned with a cruel fire. But Darcy knew. And she’d be trapped alone with her all night.

Her mother had made her accept the invitation to stay at Nadine’s house. “You’ll have fun, honey,” she’d said. Yeah. Like spending the night with a potential murderess was fun.

Darcy’s friend Valerie was originally going to come too, but she’d suddenly come down with some weird highly contagious disease. Still, over the phone, she’d convinced Darcy that she should go. “You don’t want to ruin your reputation as Little Miss Friendly, do you?” Val had asked.

But even her reputation was not a good enough reason to Darcy. She’d only gone because Val seemed to want her to. Anything to oblige her sick best friend.

So now she was trapped. Well, there wasn’t much she could do about it now. Her instincts told her to run in the opposite direction from Nadine, but her kind character refused. There was the house now, coming up over the rise in the street. From the chimney came smoke - Darcy refused to believe it - but there it was - pink smoke. What was going on?

Darcy finally reached the door and noticed, with a start, that the smoke was gone. She was certain it had been there before. Well, she thought, don’t overreact. Probably just sun behind some clouds or something. No big deal. She pressed the doorbell and waited for an answer, still staring at the sky, which yawned blue in all directions. The pink smoke mystery was confusing her. Something didn’t feel right. Darcy had just made up her mind to go visit Val instead, sick or not, when the door opened.

Slowly, creaking, like the gateway to some eternal doom, Nadine pulled the heavy oak door open. “Come in, Darcy,” she said in a voice filled with artificial sweetness.

Not even hello, thought Darcy. Just “Come in.” What’s up here?

She stepped into the wide hallway and instantly noticed how dark it was inside, even with the wide windows letting in the late afternoon sunlight. It was as if a shadow was laid over the whole room, or even, Darcy thought, peering beyond Nadine into the bowels of the house, the whole place. “Where are your parents?” she asked. Darcy had never seen Nadine’s parents. “I’m really excited to meet them.”

“Oh, they’re out right now,” Nadine replied. “They’ll be back in a little bit, I’m sure. Do you want anything to drink?”

Darcy could feel the hair on her spine quiver. In her gut was the feeling that if she drank anything she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t poisoned. “No, thanks,” she answered. “I’m just fine.”

“Well, I have to finish this project in my room, so make yourself at home and I’ll be right down,” Nadine said. Alarm bells jangled in Darcy’s mind. Why the secrecy? Unless... Maybe it’s some sort of surprise for me, Darcy thought. I bet that’s it.

Think positive. Don’t dwell on the ice in your blood.

Nadine turned without another word and walked - or maybe floated is a better word, Darcy thought - up the stairs and turned down the hallway at the top. Darcy, incredulous at the manners or lack thereof of her hostess, turned from the stairs and began to wander the house.

The windows were large throughout the house, but the shadow followed Darcy as she moved from room to room. Mostly, besides the creepy darkness, the house was normal, except for the fact that Darcy felt like turning and running from it. The air was thicker, she decided. She could hardly breathe in here. She turned to open a window and found her hands wouldn’t even obey the command. They were shaking. The harder she tried to make them open the window, the harder they shook. Finally she quit trying. Stop making a big deal out of this, she thought to herself. Get comfortable with this, now, because you’re not leaving.

Darcy came upon a room in which the air got thicker and the atmosphere more oppressive than even the rest of the house. Somehow, however, she was drawn to it, like she couldn’t have left even if she wanted to. There was a faint smell of incense burned perhaps a few hours ago clinging to the heavy air. The curtain was shut, and it was so dark it was almost impossible to see. Darcy flipped the lightswitch to no avail. Must be burnt out, she figured. She pulled the curtain back. Even the dimness was piercingly bright after the near-pitch darkness. Squinting, she peered around the room.

On one end of the room was an old wooden chair that looked like it might almost be falling apart. Darcy reached out to touch it but pulled her hand back, thinking of the possibility of splinters. The design of the chair was simple but old. A few wooden slats created a back, a little basket weave formed a seat, and two wooden arms stood out, curving slightly outward but still managing to convey the feeling that this chair was forbidden to sit in. In fact, the only truly interesting thing about this particular chair was the large rune carved into the top slat. Impossible to describe, the pattern of a circle and some lines appeared almost familiar to Darcy, though she knew she’d never seen it before. It looked just as old and infirm as the rest of the chair and seemed to have been dug deeply into the wood with a dull blade.

Darcy turned from the chair and saw an oval mirror hanging on the wall on the opposite end of the room. She was about to look into it when she noticed the frame and turned to examine that instead.

It was of the same old, unfinished wood as the chair and also had a creepy, forbidden quality to it, as though looking at it was an inescapable sin. The same strange rune was carved deeply into the wood at the top of the mirror, but along the side were carvings of much higher craftsmanship. These were well done but poorly detailed flames crawling up both sides of the mirror about two-thirds of the way to the top. Darcy couldn’t place the style of workmanship into any period or category she knew of, but she still had an odd sense of recognition of both the mirror and the chair. Apart from those two pieces and the thick atmosphere, the room was barren.

After leaving the room with the old wooden furniture Darcy decided to explore the upstairs. Nothing truly unusual up here. Parent’s bedroom, a linen closet, a bathroom, guest room, bonus room. There was one room at the end of the hall that Darcy had not yet explored and this, she guessed, must be Nadine’s bedroom. For a moment she debated whether or not she should wander farther down the hall. There was that highly secret project to contend with. But Darcy went ahead. I’ll just be surprised a little early, that’s all, she reasoned as she turned down a bend in the darkened hallway.

The room appeared to be a normal teenager’s room at first glance. A bed and table along one wall faced a desk on the other, and the wall across from Darcy was covered in bookshelves. But what was unusual was the items on the shelves. Sticks, like straw from a broom, gathered into small bundles. Small silver bottles with who knew what inside. Squares of velvet cloth and yards of satin ribbon. Leaves, plant roots, even - and Darcy looked twice to make sure she was seeing straight, but there it was - hair that appeared to be human. Even the titles of the books were odd, though hardly out of place - Witchcraft, Charms of Disguise, and The Modern Witch’s Guide to Spells, along with a large, old volume placed opened on its own shelf, which looked to be bound in leather and decorated in some white metal set with gemstones. One book sat alone as though it had been recently used, and the title on the side said simply, Disease. Darcy thought of Valerie’s sudden illness and shuddered.

On the desk was a large black cauldron decorated with a white metal in a flaming pattern. Pink smoke poured forth from the bubbling kettle, though there was no flame in sight. Nadine stood behind it, almost in a trance. Her eyes were shut and she was murmuring some mumbo-jumbo - that must be an incantation, thought Darcy - under her breath. Every few seconds or so she would take a silver bottle of the type on her bookshelf from a few that had been moved to her desk and pour some of the contents into the smoking cauldron. Powders and liquids alike were added, as well as some that Darcy couldn’t see that might have been a gaseous substance. Finally Nadine dipped a vial into the cauldron and filled it and then, after carefully selecting a ribbon from several on her desk, dumped the powdery contents onto it. This ribbon was then waved about in intricate patterns in the air, leaving a trail of dust hovering after it. Darcy, watching, thought she noticed the pattern of the strange rune among the designs. Finally the powder in the air burst with a small spark and Nadine tied the ribbon around her neck. At last she turned her eyes to Darcy, who had witnessed this strange performance in shocked silence.

“Surprised?” she asked.

“Surprised about what?” countered Darcy.

“That I’m a witch,” said Nadine matter-of-factly.

“Like a Wicca witch?” asked Darcy, frightened because she knew the answer would be no.

“No,” said Nadine. “A true witch, ordained from birth to do my charms among the living.”

While this terrified Darcy, somehow she was calmed and excited to meet a witch face to face. Somewhere in the back of her mind no matter how hard she ignored it was a belief in fairies and witches and monsters and damsels in distress and heroes that saved the day. To have that belief confirmed was a thrilling feeling, even if it scared her half to death. She was eager to learn all she could. “Does that mean you’re not alive?” she asked almost breathlessly.

“No, I live in cycles,” replied Nadine. “I live and die like people do but I am reborn unless my spirit is destroyed in my past life. I have to live to do my work.”

“What work?”

“The work of good.” The statement was so final that Darcy did not pursue the thought. At least she’s good, she thought to herself.

“So what were you doing?” she queried.

“Creating a charm to protect me in the battle to come.”

Darcy almost did not ask about this battle. It almost seemed like it was beyond her ken. But she was enthralled and wanted to learn everything about this life she could. “What battle?”

“As a good witch my duty is to destroy the spirits of the evil witches who come to plague man with temptations and harm.” Nadine did not seem to notice Darcy’s rapt fascination with her words; rather she was calm and collected like she told people about her weird lifestyle every day. “There is a new evil witch in this place, a witch who is beginning her cycles and can be destroyed before she does any harm. I have come here to find and destroy her, and I have finally traced her.”

“Do I know her?” asked the excited Darcy. A witch hunt! Already she was formulating plans to help catch and destroy this menace to society.

“Very well,” said Nadine, not looking up.

“Well, who is she?”

Nadine looked up and stared right into Darcy’s eyes, meeting her gaze for the first time. She leaned in close and whispered, “It’s you.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It was late that night when Nadine had taken care of all the rites and spells that came along with the destruction of a witch’s spirit. She went down to the room with the chair and mirror. Taking the ribbon from around her neck, she wove it skillfully into the chair’s seat, hiding it in the basket weave. Then she turned to the mirror and stared deeply into it. Soon the image of the flames grew until they filled the glass, dancing and reflecting an otherworldly light. Still looking deep within the flames, Nadine finally spoke.

“I took care of that new goody-two-shoes witch,” she said. “Who’s next?”