The Merkwood Chronicles

Chapter 14

All night, Mabel tossed and turned, struggling to find peace in the dark hours of the night. Images flashed in her mind, the same images of before; Merkwood in flames, the ground covered in a thick layer of ashes from her life burning to the ground, darkness all around her, and a single face, the face of the man she was destined to defeat in the end. But this time it was different, the same images, just more.

There were new images, images that Mabel never wanted to see; her friends in chains, trapped in cages, just out of her reach. She reached out to them, trying to save them, summoning all the courage and strength that she possibly could. But it was never enough. She couldn't save them. She felt boiling tears falling from her eyes, burning paths down her cheeks. Her body shook as she sobbed, her new family being stripped from her. Walls grew around her, holding her captive within her own mind. She curled up in a ball, the darkness seeping down into her bones and lacing themselves around her brave heart. Mabel's eyes closed for a second, her skin growing pale, tears streaming down her face, her eyes shot open to reveal that they had changed from their usual magical golden colour and into a dangerous black colour.

She woke up, sitting bolt upright in her bed, her sheets engulfing her, the sun beginning to dance through the gaps in the curtains. Mabel brought a hand to her cheek to see that she had been crying, her head and heart were pounding in unison. Evie's voice came from her bed across the room where she sat too, Florence was also sat up in her bed staring over towards Mabel. Mabel looked at her friends, tears streaming down her face as the images began to flash briefly through her mind again.

"Right, we are taking you to Headmistress Chase, she needs to know about this," Evie demanded, pulling her friend out of her bed and lining her arm in Mabel's, Florence doing the same on the other side of Mabel, also with a stern and slightly worried look on her face as they practically ran through the school to the headmistresses office.

They sat in the office, Mabel's head was spinning. She didn't know what was reality or nightmare anymore, images still flashing across her eyes, clouding her own vision, distracting her from the words that the headmistress was saying. She couldn't focus on anything around her. There was absolutely no way that she could've brought herself to write it all down in the notebook that the headmistress gave her. She couldn't relive it all over again.

"Thank you, girls, for coming to me about this, as usual," The headmistress said, looking at each of the girls in turn. As she finished speaking, Arthur walked through the door to join them.

"You sent for-" Arthur started and then cut himself off as he saw the girls in there too.

"Thank you, Mr Davenport, now," the headmistress continued, the teenagers all nodded to signal that she could carry on. "These visions that Miss Waldgrave has been experiencing could be our clue to how to defeat Nox the-"

Suddenly Headmistress Chase was cut off by a loud crashing sound that came from behind her, along with a flash of what looked to be some sort of lightning. She turned around to see herself and reveal to the teenagers a dangerous-looking gigantic black hole forming in the air, a floating stormcloud that seemed angrier than they would've liked. The black hole brought horrendous gusts of wind around the office knocking all sorts of trinkets off the tables and books went flying off the shelves, everyone was struggling to stay standing.

Surprisingly, the wind seemed to die down after a minute or two, leaving everyone to ground themselves once more. Then, when they thought it was over, a voice came booming out of the cloud, a face that was all too familiar to Mabel.

"Oh, how hilarious," the voice said, the face appearing as if walking through a thick layer of black fog, "The Great Headmistress Paloma Chase thinks she can defeat me!" he cackled, making the thin scar down the left side of his face more visible in the darkened light.

"Nox," Headmistress Chase gasped, her eyes moved towards Mabel whilst moving to stand between her and the void, still trying to shield Mabel from his view. She wasn't ready, they needed more time. Nox seemed to have figured out exactly what she was trying to do.

"There's no use in hiding her Chase, she'll have to face me some time, some time very soon..." He replied, snapping at the headmistress with little to no respect.

Mabel's vision suddenly cleared and, hearing Nox talking to her mentor like that, she began to feel braver than she had ever felt. Something burning in the back of her eyes, Florence could see as she stood beside her friend that Mabel's eyes seemed to be brighter gold than usual.

"You aren't after the whole school," Mabel said, shifting from behind the headmistress and moving into Nox's view, "you're after me."

"Ah, so you are the brave warrior who is destined to rid the world of me," Nox said, staring Mabel right in the eyes, she could feel the darkness that had consumed his heart, then he began to laugh.

Then he stopped, looking them all dead in the eyes,

"How pathetic," he snickered. Evie stepped forward as if she was about to try and pounce on him, about Florence managed to catch her arm to pull her back before anything could happen.

"This isn't your fight," Florence whispered to her friend, then looking back at Nox, "not yet anyway,"

"So fiery, I have a feeling I'm going to enjoy this," Nox sneered, suddenly a sharp blast of lightning flew out of the black hole and hit Headmistress Chase just underneath her ribs causing her to fall, Arthur helping her down slower so she didn't get hurt any more than she clearly already was, even if the attack hadn't visibly injured her. With that Mabel jerked forwards, her hands reaching out to wrap them around Nox's neck and he disappeared, the grey clouds going along with him.

Silence engulfed the headmistresses office as the five of them stood as still as the stone statues that overlooked the school grounds. No one talked or made any sound, each and every person trying harder than ever to try and take in what had just happened before their eyes. It was almost completely unbelievable, and definitely a bit unexplainable. But one thing was for sure, Nox now knew Mabel's face, the youthful face of the 14 (nearly 15) year old girl who had been destined to defeat him since she was brought into this world.

No one was safe anymore.

The battle had started.

As soon as Michael got to hear of all that had gone on whilst he had been sound asleep in bed, he wasn't planning to leave too soon.

"I'm not leaving, I can't leave when I know that the storm is brewing," he decided, Michael turned to the headmistress. "Maybe I can stay and reason with him and-"

"It won't work," Mabel stepped forward, interrupting both her adoptive father and Headmistress Chase at once, "we can't distract him or calm him down," she took a deep breath, "the only thing we can do is give him the fight that he wants."