The Witches of Marble Falls

XII

Valerie looked up as she heard a thud on the second floor, standing from her chair at the dining room table. Marking her spot in the book, she closed it and walked to the bottom of the stairs. Placing her left hand on the banister and her right foot on the bottom step, Valerie leaned forward and listened to the sounds from the second floor.

'Hey, Emi? The tea is ready!' She called, straining to make sense of the noise.

'All right, I'll be down in a bit.' Emilia responded. Satisfied that her sister was coherent, Valerie returned to the table and stared at the book she had been reading. The information she had taken in thus far from the passages was disturbing but useful.

Grounding and protection techniques seemed to be the most suggested ways to counteract what had happened to her sister, at least according to the book she had begun with. She had three or four others she still had to search through, but she was willing to bet that they each contained similar information. She re-read the first passage on her marked page and committed it to memory.

Centring is the act of returning all of your scattered energies back to you. Grounding is the act of connecting with the energies of the Earth. Both aspects help you to not deplete your own energies, and to keep yourself from getting too involved with the energies of others that may be around you.

Emilia appeared in the doorway, rubbing her eyes, her hair tousled from sleep. Valerie gestured to the seat across from her and pushed a cup toward the chair.

'I found some information that may be helpful to get you back to yourself and keep this from happening too often in the future. I'm still reading through everything, but it seems promising.' Valerie explained, pushing the book across the table to her sister. Emilia turned the book around, looked at the cover, skimmed over the pages.

To centre yourself, call in all your scattered bits of attention and focus, and bring them to your body. You are compacting your energies around your personal centre of gravity. Where this is depends on you, but it is generally somewhere in the abdomen or chest.

Pull these energies into a tight ball in the place where they seem to be most at rest. Ensure that you are mindful of your breathing during this exercise—visualize yourself inhaling a white, balancing energy and exhaling a grey or dark chaotic energy.

This process should take an average of 10-15 minutes.

'It is worth a try.' Emilia finally said, her voice low, barely above a whisper. She picked up her cup and sipped the tea in silence, pushing the book back to her sister. Valerie nodded, but felt that there was something different about her sister, something off.

'Did you have another episode?' Valerie asked. Emilia shook her head, but chose not to meet her twin's gaze. 'You'd tell me if there was something wrong, right?'

'Yes, Val.' Emilia answered. She drained her cup and replaced it on the saucer. 'I'm tired, I'm going to head to bed.'

'All right, have a good sleep.'

***

Her sleep was plagued with dark images, shadows passing over her vision, the sounds of thunder like footsteps on hardwood. She tossed and turned against the visions, fought them at every turn as she moved through the hallways of her mind.

'It's the witch's fault!' The words were repeated, over and over and over, echoing in the halls, bouncing off of the walls, deafening her. She fell to the floor and covered her ears with her hands. Tears streamed down her cheeks, disrupted the dust that covered the floor in a thin blanket.

'Do not cry.' A voice called from down the hall. Emilia lifted her head and saw two girls, their hands locked, their faces identical. She recalled an antique, blurry image from one of the books her sister had handed her—the two girls before her were Hester and Bernice Wakefield, the eldest of the original Wakefield children.

Again, the cacophony of voices screamed and yelled: 'It's the witch's fault!' Emilia lowered her head and screamed out, trying to drown out the voices that beat at her senses. She felt the hands of the twins on her arms and shoulders, she felt their hair covering her in a curtain. They were protecting her.

'Emilia, please, you must stand and follow us. We must show you something that will aid you in your quest.' Hester said, lifting her left arm; Bernice followed with the right arm. They walked her down the hall to a bedroom where candles were lit. There, she saw herself—but it wasn't herself entirely, it was like she was seeing an image of Valerie and Daphne and Hayden superimposed over her own.

Beside her sat a young man who looked identical to what she remember her mother looking like as a child; the difference was his eyes, they were wild and crazed, and his mouth was twisted into a frightening grin.

Emilia didn't understand, she tried to fight against Hester and Bernice but their fingers gripped her arms tighter. She turned her head away, but she couldn't get the image of the boy's eyes out of her mind.

'What does it mean?' She cried, dropping to her knees. 'Why are you showing me this? I don't understand it!'

'You must figure the meaning out for yourself, Emilia. We are guides, and that is all. We can only show you—what you learn from what you see is entirely up to you.' Bernice explained. Emilia fell limp against their hands, she did not fight them; she turned her gaze back to the bed, where the boy and the pseudopodia remained, sitting, eyes on her.

'Together, we are one. We are whole. We need each other. It is not merely being connected with our own twin, the four of us are connected in the same way.' Emilia realized, gazing at herself on the bed. The faces of her siblings melted away, leaving just a mirror reflection of herself sitting beside the twisted image of her dead uncle.

'Harvey...' The name was heavy on her tongue, it tasted sour in her mouth. He snapped his attention to her and his grin widened. 'You died when you and my mother were very young. You were buried in the Mountain View Cemetery. I've seen your grave.'

'Aye, there is a grave.' His voice was low, dark, ominous. 'But I am not buried there. I am not buried anywhere.'

The revelation was shocking; she scrambled back a few inches, her eyes still focused on his face. A low chuckle, more like a broken growl, escaped his lips.

'I live. I walk amongst you and your proud aunts and your dimwitted siblings. I live, and I breathe, and I grow in my power. There is no escaping your fate, little niece. It is written. It is known.' He stood from the bed, took a step forward, moving as if he hadn't been mobile for years. His limbs jerked and jolted, fighting against each other. Hester and Bernice lifted her from the floor and leaned close to her ears.

'Run.' They whispered in unison, the word loud and echoing off of the walls of her mind. She turned and threw the door open, pushed herself to run down the hall. She fought against the hands that reached through the walls, snatching and grabbing at her, the voices screaming around her:

'It's the witch's fault!'