The Darkness

An unoriginal title for a (hopefully) kind of original story...idea...thing. A bit of an exposition dump in form of a story for a possible universe that I'm working on.

The Darkness

            Fall was always busy in my house.  We didn’t do Spring Cleaning, we did Fall Cleaning.  My father said it was so we wouldn’t spend the winter in a dusty house.  I had no reason not to believe him.  Lucky for us, the habit followed me into adulthood, when I finally moved out on my own.  Of course, it helped that my grandmother always managed to find her way to my door on the 1^st of September.  We’d spend the next few weeks digging into every corner of the house, dusting, sorting, clearing space, in a methodical, almost trance-like way.  I’ve gotten used to it by now.  When I was younger, it always bothered me though.  Why were we on our hands and knees scrubbing the floors when we could just use magic?

            I think some explanation may be in order.

            I am a witch.  Yes, you read that right.  No, I’m not on drugs, and no I didn’t escape from a mental institution.  Yes, I’ve heard all the jokes.  Witches, as it turns out, aren’t as rare as people think.  My mother was also a witch, and my grandmother before her.  My father is human, not because men can’t be witches or anything, but because he was born that way.  I don’t know my mother very well.  She died when I was about five.  I don’t know why; my grandmother and father never seem to want to talk about it.  When I asked, they’d say they’d talk to my later and then sent me off to sweep the kitchen floor again.  My grandmother is the one who taught me magic, mostly simple stuff, cleaning spells, spells to help cook like making water boil, a couple of charms for things like good luck or intuition, and one or two defensive spells.  I’ve been learning on my own as well, but magic is a tricky thing and much easier to learn from a teacher than a book, but I try my best.  I’ve learned to scry, the picture is still fuzzy, but when I’m looking for my keys, I can tell they’re on a chair or under the bed or next to the sink.  I can summon from anywhere in my house as long as the item I want is in the house and there are no walls in between us.  I’m working on imprinting, that is basically writing with your mind.  You think the words and they appear on your paper.  Once I’ve mastered that, I’ll be able to start the reverse, and then I’ll know what my bills are without even having to open them.  I’ll still have to pay them, but still…it’s cool, okay.

            My father was always supportive, or as supportive as he could be about something he didn’t understand.  But he encouraged me to study and listened when I complained about the complexity of a spell, even if he had no idea what I was saying.  I couldn’t ask for more.  He was clearly uneasy about it, something I always found strange considering he had married my mother.  After some time, I started to realize it wasn’t the magic that had him on edge, it was me.  He loved me, but my magic scared him.

            This last fall my grandmother came to my door as she always did, knocked once and walked in through the locked door to my living room.

            “Grandma!”  I groaned from the couch, a bowl of soggy cereal on my knees.  “I keep telling yo not to do that.”

            “Hmph, then work on your locking spells and I won’t be able to.”  She sniffed back.  My grandmother is ancient.  I mean, she’s got to be in her 90’s at least, not that I’ve ever asked.  I’ve always been too scared.  Because no matter how old she is, that woman will always be formidable and terrifying.  She’s only about 5 feet tall, her hair is gray and tightly curled in that perm-look most grandmothers have.  But she’s not frail.  She’s steel.  Her eyes glinted as she looked at me, and I cowered slightly behind the back of the couch.  Even if I had been wearing jeans and a sweater, she would still make me feel underdressed.  As it was, I was still in my pajamas, a pair of cotton shorts and a tank top so old and stretched the straps didn’t like staying on my shoulders.  “Well, get dressed.  It’s time.”  Grandma ordered, and I leaped to my feet, abandoning the cereal on the coffee table and scurried upstairs.

            It’s time?  I thought to myself as I discarded my pajamas on the bed.  There wasn’t a point to throwing them in the laundry, I’d be do it all later anyway.  But why?  I’m an adult now, why does she insist on treating me like a child who can’t keep my own house clean?  Okay, full disclaimer here, I’m 24 and I can’t keep my house clean.  I mean, it’s alright, but I hadn’t dusted in three months, and what other people call sweeping, I call sliding around in socks until all the dirt has been pushed to one corner of the room.  But the point is, if I wanted to, I could absolutely keep my house spotless.  I just don’t want to.  For some reason this time it bothered me more than others, and by the time I had changed into baggy jeans and an old sweater, I had come to the realization that I wouldn’t let her derail me this year, and I would make her tell me why she was so intent on my cleaning in the fall.

            I clattered down the stairs to be greeted by a gust of chilly air.  Grandma had already thrown open all the doors and windows for the dust to escape.  “House slippers.”  She said curtly, nodded to the pair of ugly old flannel slippers she had brought me.  I stuck my feet in them, shuddering slightly feeling of the old and cracking fabric against my socks.  “Now.”  Grandma paced the house, frowning, clearly trying to decide where to start tackling this titan of filth.

            I took a breath.  Might as well ask now.  “Grandma�"” I began, but before I could put my question into words, she gestured to me.

            “Well start in the kitchen.  Go pull all your dishes out, I’ll start running some water to wash them.”

            I went into the kitchen.  What?  Look when that woman talks to you, you automatically feel like a five-year-old, completely terrified, but wanting to please her at the same time.  I was dragging a stack of plates I had forgotten I even had out of the back of the cupboard when she came into the room carry a bottle of her special cleaner.  Word of advice, don’t let that stuff touch your bare skin.  It burns.  Now, I have a dishwasher, I usually use it instead of bothering to wash anything by hand.  But my grandmother was always insistent on doing everything by hand.  And you don’t argue when that woman insists.

            That day we did all the dishes, unclogged the pipes, wiped out and replaced the paper in the cupboards, cleaned out the fridge and microwave, took apart and cleaned the toaster, and climbed face first into the stove to scrub until it shined.  It wasn’t until Grandma had left me with a kiss on the cheek, some soup for supper, and a promise to be back first thing tomorrow, that I remembered what I was going to ask. 

“Goddamn it!”  I groaned, made a mental note to ask as soon as she came over tomorrow, ate my soup, and dropped off into a dreamless and exhausted sleep.

 

Unfortunately for me, I didn’t have a chance as soon as she came over.  By the time I was up, she was already setting up for the day and ordered me into the bathroom.  We went through my various shampoos, conditioners, and body washes, throwing out anything I hadn’t used for three weeks.  Grandma tsked when she found my hoard of facial scrubs.

“I’ll make you some soap that will actually work on those acne spots.”  She sniffed, throwing the whole lot into a trash bag.

“Grandma�"” I started again, trying to seize the moment, but she held up a withered hand.

“We’ll talk over lunch.”  She said curtly, then handed me a scrub brush and pointed to the toilet.

For lunch we sat in the cleaned kitchen and Grandma pulled out sandwiches.  Beef and ham with lettuce and cheese on homemade bread.  “So, anyway Grandma, I’ve been wanting to ask…”

“How’s work?”  She interrupted me again.  I stared at her, surprised.  This was the third time she had kept me from asking a question.

“It’s…fine.”

“You’re still designing?  Tell me what that’s like.”

Next thing I knew I was going over the details of computer web design, explain the gritty details, and complaining about a client I had been working with for two months who still wasn’t happy with my final project, but refused to ask someone else.  By the time we had finished our break, I finally realized how easily she had distracted me.

You devious old woman.  I’ll show you who’s mind you can manipulate…  I was a little sulky.  See, this is a technique that Grandma has used on me since I was a child.  It’s subtle, so subtle you don’t usually notice someone is using it at all.  It’s like charisma and steering the conversation…with a little bit of a push.  A magical push.  In theory, it’s simple, you suggest something and use a spell to sort of…guide someone’s mind into thinking about that thing.  I have a question, and I will ask it this time.  I thought furiously as Grandma lead me back into the living room.  But I hadn’t even opened my mouth when she began issuing directions at me again.

“We’ll have to start by moving all the furniture out of the way.”

“Grandma.”

“We’ll need a clear floor, it really needs a good sweep and a mop.”

“Grandma!”

“We’ll do the dusting first, after we move the couch and what not of course…”

“No!”  That got her attention.  It was only then that I realized the fog had cleared from my mind.  “Have you been manipulating me this entire time?!”  I asked, furious, my other question once again forgotten, but this time by my own annoyance and anger than by her magic.

Grandma stared at me, speechless for a moment.  Then she sniffed, straightened up and replied, “If that’s what it takes to keep you working and not asking silly questions.”

For some reason her condescending tone really messed with me that day.  “Silly?  Do you know what I’m even going to ask?”  I glared at her.  “Well, if you think a simple explanation is too silly for you, then you can feel free to leave my house!”  The front door swung open, punctuating my statement.  “Why?”  I demanded.  “Why do you feel the need to barge into my house every year and force me to clean like a child who can’t clean her room?”  For some reason this seemed to surprise Grandma even more.  It clearly wasn’t the question she had been expecting me to ask.  “What?”  I asked when her expression didn’t change.

“That…well, I was expecting you to ask…”

“Ask what?”

“About your mother.”  She finished.  This time I stared at her.  “You always used to ask around autumn, don’t you remember?  Well, it doesn’t matter anyway, they have more to do with each other than you might think.”  She sighed and sat heavily on the couch, still unmoved, in the center of the room.  She pat the cushion next to her.  Utterly perplexed, I plopped down next to her.  “Now, let me tell you a story.”

“I don’t want a story, I want an explanation.”  I said irritably.  Grandma ignored me.

“There is a part of our…history, as witches that I neglected to teach you.”  She was using big words, her listen-to-me-I’m-teaching sort of language.  “I told you where our magic comes from.  It comes from nature, left there by gods and fairies, by our ancestors and other being that no longer exist.  But there is one other place it comes from.  It comes from us.”

I crinkled my brow.  “What, like some sort of power-within-you thing?”

She started to shake her head, then abruptly stopped.  “Well, in a way.  There is a legend, a legend of the Darkness.  We don’t know much about it, just that it has plagued us as long as our history can remember.  In every community, across the world, there have always been reports of it.  Sometime in autumn a young witch begins acting odd.  Staring off in the distance, almost like in a trance, they forget where they are or what they’re doing and are only pulled out of it when someone grabs their attention.  By midwinter, they disappear.”

I grew incredulous.  “Oh, okay, I have to go on a stupid cleaning spree every year because of a ghost story.”

“Not a ghost story, I told you, there are reports, all over the world.  This isn’t some legend from long ago, this is still happening today!  These men and women, they feel compelled, pulled by something they can’t explain, and they disappear, chasing after whatever it is, never to be seen again.  That’s what happened to your mother!”

For some reason, this made me angry.  “Oh!  That makes so much more sense!  My mother walked off and abandoned me and Dad, that’s why I clean!”  I jumped up from my seat.

“Listen to me!  They say this…this darkness, this madness is where our magic comes from, that witches disappear to join with the magic to make us stronger.  It happened to your mother, that’s why we have you clean, to keep you focused, to keep you from falling into the madness as well!”  Grandma was on her feet as well.

“So those are my choices then?  Either my mother abandoned me, or some bedtime ghost story about witches being swallowed by the dark?”  I think I had always suspected it.  My mother had left us.  It was no wonder that no one ever talked about it, it can’t have been a fun subject.  Still, it hurt that they felt they had to hide it from me, even as an adult, and it was more angering than anything that Grandma still felt like she had to come up with silly stories to keep me believing the lies.

“You need to listen, it’s important that you listen!”  She sounded like she was getting hysterical.  “It happened to your mother, it may very well happen to you to!  That’s why we keep you focused like this, that’s why we watch you, to protect you!”

I scoffed.  “Yeah, well, don’t worry, I have enough work on my plate now to keep me focused for a good long time.”  I turned.  “You can go now.  I can clean my house myself.”

“Dear, please�"”

“I have work to do.  I can’t keep setting aside weeks just to clean, I have a job, I need to focus on that instead.”  I was being curt, cold, and I knew it probably hurt her.  But what can I say, I was angry.  It was just an argument, I wasn’t trying to keep her out of my life forever, just the next couple of days.  And every autumn

That night I brooded.  I sat up in bed, unable to go to sleep.  I had cracked the window for some fresh air, and the nighttime seemed to beckon to me.  I’ve always found it easier to relax when it’s dark out, to wonder the streets and clear my head after arguments or particularly hard algebra problems.  I pulled jeans on over my pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt over my tank top.  I shoved my feet into shoes and slipped out the front door.

The stars were brilliant, winking brightly in the velvet sky.  I let my feet lead the way until I found myself out of town near the forest.  The forest outside our city was sprawling.  I had played there plenty as a child, and looked for herbs and fungi for my lessons, but I had never gone very deep.  Where I was now it was still sparse, trees growing straight and strong, separate, not tangled together and dense like it was farther on.  Out here, the trees were like a maze, wondering from one to the other, sometimes hitting the dead end of open plains or the wall of trees where the forest really started.  Legends and fairy tales.  I thought scornfully.  It was ridiculous.  Fine, yes, magic was real, but it was almost insulting that she would think I’d fall for some myth like that.  Trying to scare me, yet here I was anyway, wondering on the edge of the dark forest, not a care in the world.  Take that Grandma.  Your scheme didn’t work.

I stopped in my tracks, shivers suddenly running up and down my spine.  I turned my head to peer into the darkness of the deeper forest.  For a moment, I swear it felt like something was watching me.  I had often felt like that as a child.  I laughed, shaking it off.  Okay, maybe she had creeped me out a little bit, bringing back those childhood thoughts like that.  No one was watching me, no one had ever watched me.  It was just the forest, stoic as always.  I turned around anyway, and started toward home, losing myself to my thoughts as I walked back.

 

Grandma and I made up the next week.  I still haven’t let her clean my house, I really do have too much work to bother.  It’s winter now, and not once have I exhibited these signs of her silly story.  I had planned to confront my father about it, but every time my mother is brought up, he always had this horribly sad look on his face, and I haven’t been able to bring myself to ask him yet.  I can see why he’d be so sad, after she left us like that.  I’m sitting in my room, trying to work on a small project I had left for work.  It is a simple thing, just a header for a website, the kind of thing I can relax to, I can use my laptop and lounge in my bed, but for some reason I can’t make my hands listen to me, what I have in my mind won’t transfer on the screen.  In fact, what I have in my mind won’t transfer into my mind any more.  An hour ago, I had a perfect idea of what it needed to look like, but now all I can remember is the green color scheme I was going to use.  I play around with the colors a little more.  The window is open, even though it’s winter.  I want a breeze.  But the breeze soon isn’t enough.  I long for the stars, the open sky.  These walls are suffocating.  I gently close my laptop.

The night air is chilly on my bare skin.  The t-shirt I’m wearing for pajamas isn’t much coverage.  It is as though I can feel every detail of my body, the fabric rustling against my body, my hair blowing in the breeze.  My necklace, a pawprint on a slender silver chain laying on my breast.  The frosty grass presses absent the soles of my feet, sliding between my toes.  Am I dreaming?  I think I must be.  I have work waiting for me, I should wake myself up, but for some reason, I slumber on, as though pulled forward.  The night surrounds me, cradling me, safe.  I no longer want to wake up.  My feet lead me forward.  The forest.  I pass the maze of trees, the thicker, stronger trunks surround me now, leading me to my new home.  Behind me…what is behind me?  A part of me feels as though I’m leaving something.  But my home is here, among the trees, the moss, the stones.  I lay down at the roots of the tree, thick, strong.  I feel the ivy growing around me.  For a moment, I feel the urge to leave, to run, but the next moment that urge is gone, as though cut from my body, and I lay limp as the ivy grows.

Author's Note

This is a very, VERY rough draft. I've found that the more I edit a piece before asking for reviews the less likely I am to take advice, even good advice, because I get too attached. So I know this is far from perfect, and I'd love to hear feedback on the way it's written and the idea it gets across. I did try something I haven't before by switching tenses for the climax. I thought it might work, but I'll admit to not being convinced yet, so that's definitely something I'd like some feedback on.