𝐖𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐂𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞

SEVEN: A Stranger Night.

CHAPTER SEVEN: A Stranger Night.

Duncan slept late that night; he'd gotten home at the height of the night ready to extort information from his sister about the legal situation regarding the Cottage. He'd found the house empty from any human life. He took a hot shower and slid on his night shorts before he switched off the lights and went to sleep.

The last thing he remembered was being in his bed sleeping but it was like in the breath of a second, he was in his bed one moment and in a strange situation the next.

Duncan watched Harold's hands in horror, they were stained with fresh blood, it was human, he could smell it somehow. He could also smell the air, he teetered falling on his back and picked himself up again disoriented.

"A Belhevenor." Harold spoke to the moon seethingly. Lips covered in blood and Duncan split in flight.

He ran blindly through the woods; the sky was painted black and the moon stood unbridged and glowing white following him everywhere. As if it was trying to tell him something. Branches tore at his sleeping shorts; the branches tore at parts of his skin but he wasn't bleeding, neither did he feel any pain. Nothing else was on his mind as he ran, gasping for breath, bare feet hitting the ground with a fierce need to run away from the Sinclair boy...or it. The horrid bloody creature that looked like the Sinclair boy.

Behind him the Sinclair's newly returned son's scream could be heard slicing through the air into the night sky.

Duncan slowed down looking behind him.
No creature was following him.

It was as if the Sinclair boy hadn't even seen him.

Duncan had no recollection of how he'd ended up in the forest. All there was within him was the need to run away from whatever Harold was. None of it made any sense, so Duncan came to an abrupt stop. That's when he realized he had been running in a circle, he took to surveying the area surrounding him almost menacingly. Trees and autumn leaves were all there was, the scream had gone and it was daylight now.

He closed his eyes, squeezed at them and felt a wetness on the face.

He rubbed at the skin to dry it off, it would have made sense if it was only perspiration but there was blood. His heartbeat drummed against his chest fighting to drop out of his body. He feared he'd been hurt, but how? The branches? he hadn't even felt them on his face.

"Are you alright, mister?" suddenly there was a hand on his left shoulder and a man with deep laugh lines around his eyes showing concern for him.

Duncan couldn't speak, no, actually he couldn't explain it. One minute it had been night and he'd seen Harold tear off the heart of a man in the forest. He'd tried to run away from that only for it to be daylight the next minute and in the next second he had a man in front of him. Suddenly in broad daylight but he wasn't in a forest any longer just like he wasn't in his bed all throughout this ordeal to begin with.

"Do you need assistance?" the old man asked.

Duncan's gaze roamed around himself, people were dressed as if it was still the mid-century times. The roads were dusty and literally everyone was looking at him weirdly. "Sir." The old man before him shook his shoulder for attention gently. He was draped in ragged pumpkin colored clothing and cracked; mud stained bare feet; Duncan looked at himself. He was no better but the old man was worse off.

Another voice; younger and coming from behind the man's back spoke. "You need help Sir." Duncan turned to look at the voice's owner. He couldn't believe his eyes so much so he audibly gasped. The young voice belonged to a boy with Peyton's face. There was no telling even within himself how he knew. But he could just feel it, that this was not his Peyton.

"What..." what is going on? Is what he wanted to say, but something gripped his throat with fierce strength and burned his lungs seizing him back like the heavy waters of an angry tiding ocean.

"Father!" The boy who looked like Peyton screamed, leaping on fast feet as if to save his father from something stray and dangerous. "He's a Belhevonor."

"Is he..." the Father seemed to marvel with disbelief.

"A witch. Yes." The boy with Peyton's face replied.

"Peyton." Duncan tried to beg for help but the pair just continued to stare down at him as if he wasn't dying.

"Strange, he's not from this time." The boy said to himself, shielding his frail father with his whole lithe body. That had little clothing and a love made bruise by the neck.

"What is going on?" Duncan finally managed to ask.

Their eyes met and the boy flinched then thunder cut through the sky even though it was sunny and warm. Before his very eyes the sun eclipsed and it was night again, the moon bled and the air started to poison his insides. Duncan clutched at his stomach, falling on the ground and coughing violently.

He looked up at the boy seeking help, the boy's face was as emotionless as it was beautiful.

"Help." Duncan managed to say through his half coughs and half gaggles. "Please."

"Please don't hurt him." The boy knelt before him and said softly. A finger gliding wistful over a gold band on his engagement finger. "I beg of you."

Hurt who? Duncan wished to ask, but he was dying. He screamed and writhed, the pain getting stronger and sharper with what would be the death of him.

"Give him this please." The boy clasped a cold, golden locket around Duncan's neck just as the moon bled even darker blood and the sound of rain started to threaten its befall on the bare ground as warm blood.

"Hel..." Duncan's throat was dry and tied together he had a hard time finishing the word this time. As his hands wrapped around his own neck as if that soothes the pain.

"Please." The boy said.

Duncan met the boy's stare, it would've have given him some sort of peace if those eyes looked cruel. But that was the thing; they seemed kind, hopeful and holy.

What was going on, really?

Something gripped his throat out, pulling him under like a heavy current of an antagonised tidal wave and then he was up in between his sheets. In his own bed, back in his room, desperately gasping for air. Duncan Everton propelled his aching body off the bed and onto the floor first, hands around his throat as if expecting it to hurt.

But he was fine.

Until he ran into his bathroom and saw the gold locket around his neck through the mirror. 'Please don't hurt him.' The words echoed not just in his mind but across the bathroom walls as well.

Duncan washed his face with cold water and before he got back in his bed, he reached to place a bible under his pillow. 'Please don't hurt him.' The words ricocheted in his mind and that's when he realized something was haunting him.

But what?

And why?