The Magpie Effect - The Magpie Chronicles Book 1 (#Wattys2015)

Chapter 29

I felt strangely calm as I came to a stop outside Thousands Cemetery. It was as though the run had dulled down my hysteria, had extracted the adrenaline and left me with only fear. I was a single, shivering entity of fear.

I owed this to Carmen, I told myself. I had to be regimental about this, otherwise I'd turn and flee. It was my duty. I couldn't leave her the way she was when it was my fault that it had happened. I had to help the only way that I knew how, and that was to join her. After that, goodness knew what would-

My phone began to vibrate against my leg, the volume turned down low. I pulled it out and, without glancing at the screen, tossed it into the shrubbery at the foot of somebody's grave. I didn't need to see who it was. Whether if it was my parents, Jet, Debbie, Ivana, it didn't matter - seeing would only prolong the pain. Reading one of their names would be enough to convince me to turn around and head back.

The gates were locked. I had to find a way in myself, before dawn arrived and gave me back to the world.

I finally found one on the eastern side of the cemetery. There was just enough of a gap for me to squeeze through if I sucked my belly in. It had been made by some kids decades before me, no doubt looking for their fix of ghosts and ghouls during some long-gone Halloween. I wondered if they'd found some. I certainly had.

When I popped out the other side it was into a patch of undisturbed darkness, as perfect and continuous as fresh snow. The blackness festered amongst the tombstones. A torch, I thought to myself. I knew there was something I should have brought with me.

There was just enough moonlight for me to pick my way through the graves and work towards the archway that led to the newer section of the cemetery. This time, as I stepped over the plots where the dead lay, I didn't quite feel as though I were trespassing.

It was more like I was shaking their hands.

When I reached the new quarter, I saw that there were two silhouettes waiting for me at the far end, near the catacomb that looked over Mona's grave. My heart beat steadily in my chest, still in military mode.

It was Rigatona, her coppery hair glimmering like molten wire in the moonlight. And beside her, a shovel in his hands, was Oliver. I recognised his face from the news, with his espresso dark hair and his glasses. He was still wearing the hooded garments that he'd used to ambush the Halloween Ball.

Ivor, I corrected myself. The foreign invader who'd kicked Oliver out of his own body and claimed it as his own.

My eyes traced across the shovel in his hands, caked with dirt, and followed it downwards. In the ground beside Mona's grave was a rectangular hole. I couldn't tell how deep down it went, but the saying 'six-foot-under' sprung to mind.

"I knew you'd come," said Rigatona. There was an affection in her voice that made me feel repulsive, like I needed to cleanse my body. "I've brought an accomplice, to help make things a little more... ceremonial. Perhaps you've seen his face already."

She flashed her menacing teeth at me.  Ivor's expression, on Oliver's face, remained stony. He looked awkward standing there, clasping the shovel, as though he hadn't quite figured out how to stand without looking unnatural. He made Oliver's face look cruel. He wore it in entirely the wrong way. Was she going to do the same thing to mine?

"I hope you know that we don't usually make things so ritualistic when we do this," Rigatona carried on, gesturing to the hole in the ground. "Usually it's a quick transaction, push you out then I jump in, simple. But I thought this was a little more apt. Symbolic, if you like, of everything that we've been through together. A bond like we have only deserves to be celebrated, doesn't it, Sapphire?"

"We don't have a bond," I spat, and Rigatona looked pleased.

"After everything I've done for you, Saffy. I didn't think it would take such drastic measures for you to return the favour."

"What favour? What have you possibly done for me that's been good?"

Rigatona winced, as though hurt. I doubted she was capable of such a thing. "Well, I helped you out tonight all by myself. The one thing we've been planning all along, and I had to do it alone. Doesn't that stand for something?"

"You killed her."

"Who, dear?" 

I couldn't say her name. My teeth were grinding themselves to dust.

"Oh, you mean Carmen?" Rigatona clapped her hands together in delight. "That silly ox? I disposed of her, dear, yes. Wasn't that exactly what you wanted? She's gone, and now you can claim your rightful place on the throne. Once you've upheld your side of the deal, of course."

"I didn't want anybody to get hurt," I said. A single tear rolled down my cheek. "Nobody had to die. Why are you making me do this?"     

Rigatona almost looked sympathetic. Almost. "Is that why you're here? To be a martyr? Are you dying because you feel you now must? How very noble of you, Saffy. I hardly expected it of you, not after you were such a coward your whole life. You with your plywood bones."

"You won't get away with this."

"But I have been," she corrected me, "for centuries."

"Then why are you still doing it?" I screamed. "What's going so wrong for you that you have to keep jumping from body to body?"

Something rippled under her skin, like a tentacle passing underneath the surface of the water. I'd angered her. "Enough. Come, do your duty as a human being of high moral standard."

I didn't move.

"Come!" Rigatona barked. "This is only temporary, remember? In twenty-four hours, you can have your body back. You're just returning a favour."

"Why are you lying?"

"I'm not," she grinned. "We'll even do a pact in blood."

I glanced at Ivor. His face was like steel, his eyes bearing into mine. He was the proof of the catch. It had been far longer than twenty-four hours, and Oliver hadn't been given his body back. He was out there somewhere, wandering with Lucy Lidlow and all of Rigatona's other past victims.

Perhaps Mona was out there somewhere, too, I wondered. The real Mona. It was a very slight comfort as I stepped forward and reached to take Rigatona's extended hand.

"Come," she said, "be a good friend."

THE END

************

That's it guys! Thank you so much for reading and voting and commenting - this has been such an amazing and worthwhile journey and I've been so happy to share Saffy's story with you. Not that it's over, of course... ;) Stay tuned; if enough people enjoyed the story, I'll get started with writing a sequel.

Thank you so much, everyone. A story isn't quite a story without it's readers.