The Evil Inside

Chapter Four - KATE: The Spell

What was up with Alex? He was normally quite short tempered, but he kept it under control, so what happened in Maths was out of the ordinary. Completely. After he left, everyone started whispering loudly. Mr Miller was in a state of teacher shock, just kind of stood there, indecisive to what he should do/ should have done. Jordan reached over and shut the door. Thirty seconds later, the bell rang and everyone hurriedly picked up their stuff and scuttled like small insects out of the door. No one wanted to be the last victim when Mr Miller finally came to his senses and ultimately blew his top.

I knew why Alex was so annoyed. Earlier, I didn’t stop to think how worked up he’d get. About the fact I didn’t tell him. Now he thinks he’s done something wrong… oh Lord, but I can’t tell him otherwise. Can I? Yes. No. I don’t know. Why is my life so confusing???

In tag afterwards, hiding behind the old ash tree, Em and I spied on Alex and Kelsey.

“They’re talking about you.” Em whispered. Carefully, I listened in and saw that she was right. I watched them talking, getting more and more annoyed.

“¿Por qué no puedo decirle cómo me siento?” I said stamping my foot hard in frustration.

“What?” It was good that no one else in this year spoke Spanish. I really didn’t want Em to know what I had said. Thank you, St James’.

“Oh, nothing…”

I ran home, letting the wind blow through my long, dark hair. Slowing down to turn the corner, I spotted a smiling couple holding hands, the man kissing the lady gently. I closed my eyes and imagined, hard. When I reopened them, they were stinging with salt water. A fat teardrop ran from my green-grey eyes, all the way down my coffee coloured skin. Quickly wiping it off, I sprinted swiftly on, not stopping again, not even thinking, until I came to the tallest block of flats. Home.

I didn’t have a dad. Well, I guess I did if you want to be technical about it, but I hadn’t seen him since I was five years old. I lived with my mum, and my stepdad, Owen, in a very crowded block of flats, but next year, Owen had promised to get us a house of our own, so that we had more space. I like Owen. When I was seven, Mum met him at the public library, and they started going out. They got married the year before last, and I was the bridesmaid, with a beautiful white silk dress, so that I looked just like a mini version of my mum. It was a public occasion; my mum was a very sociable person, and was lax about who came. Alex couldn’t come though, unfortunately. I don’t think he’s ever seen me in a dress before.

Pressing the lift button several times, I groaned. How could it be broken, again? With a dismal expression on my face, I walked towards the lengthy flights of stairs.

Twenty flights of stairs later, I arrived. Mum smiled. “Hi honey. Why the grumpy face?” she enquired

“Why’s the lift not working?” I asked, massaging my aching legs. She pulled a sympathetic face.

“Probably those boys playing with it again. You know how they are…” I did know, all too well. Everyone living in the flats recognised an unruly gang of teenagers from the third floor to be the culprits if anything went wrong, probably because it normally was their fault, at least partially. “Owen won’t be happy about that,” Mum frowned “He was going to get milk from the shops on his way home from the office. Ah well. Good exercise for him, carrying those weights up the stairs.”

Smiling, I gave my mum a hug, and ran into my room. Setting my schoolbag down on the old fairy princess desk that I had got when I was eight, I rummaged frantically in the heavy rucksack and triumphantly pulled out the book from the library. Holding it tightly, I jumped backwards onto my bed, where I chucked my phone down and flicked through the pages until I came to the one that I was looking for. The summoning enchantment.

Next, I freed the sapphire from the loo roll I had entangled it in. It was too precious to be shoved into my bag carelessly, like the rest of my stuff. I had carried it home in my coat pocket, being sure to check that it hadn’t fallen out every twenty seconds or so.

Grabbing wildly for the paper and scissors on my desk, I silently pondered what the book was doing in the school library anyway. It was so old that it should be in a museum or something. And that sapphire… I knew I shouldn’t have even taken it out of the library, let alone taken it all the way home. However, it was curiosity that had driven me, and anyway, once I had tried the spell, I would put it straight back, precious stone and all, right?

Absentmindedly, I glanced at my watch, and a jolt of recognition shuddered through me. I was supposed to be going to Alex’s house in fifteen minutes! Quickly and hurriedly now, I picked up the paper from where I had clumsily knocked it on the floor. Come on Kate…

Holding open the book with one hand, I read the instructions. “Lay the papyrus on a flat surface.” I shoved an armful of stuff off of the desk and hastily spread out the sheet of A4 paper. “Hold the sapphire over the paper at a 45 degree angle.” Right, protractor time.  I turned my bag upside down, which effectively messed up my bedroom, before producing a very old protractor, coved in gunk and other things that I really didn’t want to know about from the very bottom of my satchel. “Make sure there is light shining through the sapphire, onto the papyrus.” One window with sun pouring through: check. The sheet of sapphire that I was holding cast a really strange shadow; blue but not blue and completely the wrong shape for the object it was imitating. “Slash the edge of the papyrus with the knife, in any way.” All right. I grabbed the paper and hastily cut the edge roughly with the scissors. “Say the summoning words while holding the sapphire in place.” That was the end of the spell. What summoning words? There were none on the page! Then I spotted a small footnote telling me I would find the incantation at the back of the book. Flipping to that section, I read out the strange words on the worn page.

Nothing happened. My heart plummeted. Slowly, I shook my head, as if to clear it of any exciting visions in my imagination. Well, what had I expected to happen exactly? Rainbows, sparkles and unicorns? Yeah, right.

Standing up, I got changed, fast. I was supposed be at Alex’s in the next ten minutes and now I would have to sprint all the way. Damn. I pulled my jumper out of the wardrobe and as I did so, a whole bunch of other clothes fell out on top of it. Come on Kate… you can do this. Deciding to tidy up later, I walked over to my bed and picked up my phone. As I was there, something caught my eye. The pages of the book were flipping over, one by one, as they do. The page that was on view now had the heading ‘Side effects’ and a subtitle reading ‘The Summoning Spell’. Side effects? Surely not. Disbelieving, I stared at it. It read, “After the spell has been cast, one of the pair of the beings will possess you, and the other will go into the closest opposite to you.” Alex. Starting suddenly, I could hear my heartbeat pounding boom-boom, boom-boom, boom-boom. Then, suddenly I quickly laughed, a loud, but still fairly shaky laugh. I didn’t believe in magic.

A/N: Wow! another chapter! three in ONE NIGHT. I am on freaking updating FIRE! 

dedicated to MidnightDawn_ for 'Percy Jackson Discovers Facebook'. soo funny!