Halloween I.F. – “Going Dark” – Day 29

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Two things very quickly became apparent to Fern as they stared at Madoc’s twisted, living corpse, his daughter forced down to her knees, his body decaying around whatever force of will was still inside it. It looked… fragile, though Fern imagined looks could be deceiving given that Madoc was somehow still in there. They still had a hammer in their pocket, and their hand closed around it in a quick spasm.

First, that they were going to have to do something about this. Aris and Bannick were gone, and Miranda was in some kind of distress, and there was nobody else here to do it. 

And second, they didn’t know if they could kill anyone. They didn’t want to kill anyone, even someone who really, deeply, truly deserved it. They’d been indirectly responsible for one death already and it had nearly broken them. This man was the worst person Fern had ever been face to face with—had enslaved two other thinking beings, had tortured and murdered his own daughter—but the idea of using a hammer to cave in his head and then just walk away made Fern light-headed with fear and nausea.

They weren’t cut out for this, they thought helplessly. Why them? Why this? They came here to get away. To recover. Not… this.

“You’re so quiet, child,” Madoc said. “Come closer. It’s hard to see with these old eyes.”

Involuntarily, Fern took a step closer before locking their knees and refusing to budge any further, tearing their gaze away from Madoc’s watery eyes. “I’m thinking,” they said. They slid their hand off the hammer, moving instead to their phone. As best as they could without looking, they turned it on recording. For evidence, at least. But maybe Bannick was still out there somewhere, listening.

Madoc let out a dry, scraping laugh. “That’s understandable,” he said. A shiver ran through Fern’s body; they got the abrupt, unshakable sensation that they were being read like a book, words on a page. “Ferd… no, Fern Grant, is it? A pleasure to meet you. I am Madoc Kemp.”

“I’m aware,” Fern said. They forced themself to stare at Miranda. She seemed to be …bleeding? No, there was no blood, but she was clutching at her gut like there was a wound, doubled over, head down, eyes furious. As if she’d been forced to bow even as she curled around an injury. “Why are you… like this? Nailed. To this wall, I mean.”

“Well, my body grew weak, and I hadn’t found a solution. I wanted not to be easily stumbled upon, and I wished to stay upright on legs that couldn’t hold me well,” Madoc said. “It’s an embarrassing state, I’ll grant you that. But you can help me. You’re a helper, aren’t you?”

“I don’t want to talk with you. I want to talk with Miranda.”

Miranda’s gaze flicked to Fern.

“Don’t be foolish,” Madoc said. “Why would you want to talk with Miranda? You’re the one who is craving power over your own life. I can hear it, your desire for my journals. You’d love to learn from them, wouldn’t you? From every experiment I ran, every note I made on how to bend and break the spirit world around me. I am a master of binding things. I can teach you how to bind anything.”

They did want power. But was that kind of power what they wanted? There was nothing in there of kindness or compassion, only control and harm. They focused on Miranda, trying not to listen to Madoc. “Miranda, what do you want?”

Her lips pulled back from her teeth. “Revenge,” she said. It was actually audible to them this time, the same way that her body was actually visible. Fern wondered briefly if it was them changing or if it were something she or Madoc was doing.

“Oh, you can hear her?” Madoc murmured. “You’re changing. You’ve become so open to what the world could be. We could work on it together, you and I, you know. It’s not that I would destroy you, unless you didn’t have the will to stand up to me. I think, if you reject my journals’ teaching, you will have a much harder time mastering the power you want. You’d have to do studies from scratch. If we were together, I could help you with that. I have all the basis for understanding, even if what I wrote down was… specifics.”

Fern kept their eyes on Miranda. They were shaking. Fear and adrenaline were draining them fast, too fast, and they weren’t sure if that was the only thing. They’d just done a bunch of magical contract-breaking, and Bannick had mentioned before that Fern was spending their energy in ways they couldn’t understand or notice. “Only revenge?” they asked softly. “Is there more you want? A new life?”

“If you want to give her one, that’s simple. Once we’ve mastered giving me one, we simply need to find a good host, and that will be easier when I’m… mobile again. You can’t build flesh out of nowhere, you know. Age, mortality, death are all inevitabilities of the body. It’s the spirit that can survive, but finding a young, sensitive woman shouldn’t be so hard,” Madoc said lightly. “Come here, child, let’s discuss our daughter’s future—”

Miranda said, “Rest. I’m dead. I’m gone. I don’t know this world and my child is gone and I do not know who came after, nor do I care to. I want revenge and to rest and to see what comes after on my own merits.”

It was impossible not to feel a little sad about that. Her life had been cut so short. Maybe she didn’t know what she wanted—? 

Fern almost saw that thought form, imagined themself strangling it. They didn’t have the right to overwrite anyone’s will. “She doesn’t want to.”

“It’s a parent’s job to guide unruly children.”

“That’s not what you did,” Fern said, voice rising and cracking. “You call that guidance?!”

Madoc fell silent for a moment, watching Fern almost with disappointment. Fern drew a deep breath and tried to focus. The world felt overly sharp, surreal. Something felt… wrong about what Madoc had been saying, eating at them. Age, mortality, death are all inevitabilities of the body. 

How, then, was Madoc still here, if he hadn’t yet had a body to transfer his will into?

Fern drew out the compass. They focused their will on it. Something to defeat this man, something to destroy his plans, something to free Miranda—their thoughts were going a mile a minute, but slowly the needle began to tick backward. Toward Fern? Or something behind them? 

“I’m tired of this,” Madoc said, sadly. “I had hoped to have you accept me willingly for the ease of it, but we can do this the hard way. Aris! Bannick! Attend me.”

Fern almost laughed. Those two were gone, couldn’t serve him—

But both spirits appeared, Aris with shadows crawling across them (What? When? Why?) and Bannick naked, unveiled, his face a bottomless hole where features should be.

“Ugh. Who took your veil? Unbecoming,” Madoc muttered. “Seize this human for me.”

Fern began to back away. “You can’t,” they stammered. “I let you g—”

Aris was suddenly on them, arms winding around Fern, pinning them to their body, Fern’s backpack squished awkwardly between them, the harsh edge of a book digging into Fern’s spine. “Shh,” Aris whispered, soft, direct in Fern’s ear. “Don’t tell him that. He hasn’t realized yet.”

Their heart started beating again. They nodded, hopefully imperceptibly, then began thrashing to try to get away from Aris, putting on a show. “No, stop! Let go of me!”

“Yikes,” Bannick said. He looked at Madoc. “Both of us? Aris can handle one skinny human.”

“No,” Madoc said, after a moment. “You can detach my body from the support structure. Help bring me over.”

“Yessir,” Bannick said. 

Even if the spirits were still on their side, that didn’t necessarily solve anything if Madoc still got his hooks in. Fern turned their attention back to Miranda. “Fight back,” they begged her, not having to fully fake their panic. “Please! You can do it. He can only kill or coerce you, right? You’re not bound!”

“His will… is strong,” Miranda breathed. “He’s drinking the edges of me… Break… his focus, and I…”

Break his focus, but how? Fern closed their eyes, frantically thinking again of that incongruity. Why was Madoc still here? It had to do with his magic. What had he said about his magic? Experiments. Bending and breaking and control. Binding. That’s right, he was a master of binding.

He couldn’t be under his own control, so that one was out. Binding it was. He must have bound his will here somehow. The hunger beneath the cottage. He bound things to objects previously; Aris’s freedom to the bud and Aris’s imprisonment in the tree. Bannick’s obedience to the contract, Bannick’s imprisonment to the mirror. Miranda’s spirit imprisoned inside the wardrobe. Even his body-stealing plan had to be some kind of binding.

There must be some object that Madoc had used as a focus to remain in his withered flesh. If Fern could destroy that object…They’d already learned too that there were specific methods of disposal. Blood had worked for Bannick. Maybe for Aris, too, given how the root had dug. 

They were a sensitive, and they hadn’t really asked much about what that meant. Madoc wanted them for a reason. A suitable body for a sorcerer. They had energy they could spend, they just hadn’t learned how. Fern looked down slowly at where the compass had fallen. It was still pointing at Fern—no, slightly behind them.

Bannick had lifted Madoc off the wall and was carrying him over. Impossible to read Bannick’s face, but he tilted his head at Fern as if in questioning, arms tensing around Madoc.

“Faster, Bannick. What’s wrong?” Madoc asked, an edge of suspicion entering his voice.

[Comment below with a suggestion for Fern]

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