The Hex Breaker's Eyes (20 page)

When my hands
are numb and my feet are sore and my voice can’t take another
shout, I drag myself back to the wall where I curl up for warmth
and stare at the door. Eventually, someone turns out the light, and
the little sliver of hope beneath the door disappears, and I manage
a few more screams before I give up.

At some point,
I fell asleep. I wake up now to see light under the door, as well
as a shadow. I pull my feet under myself, crouching with my back to
the wall, And hear someone slip a key into a lock. The door opens,
and the light is blinding. I can barely keep my eyes open to look
into the silhouette that stands in the doorway. She holds two
things, both of which she places at her feet. There’s a bottle of
water, and a bedpan.

“If you need a
bathroom, use this.”

I see the
silhouette of short, spiky hair and realize that this is the
redhead, the woman who was going to drown Marlene in the bathroom
sink. “Where am I?” I ask. “What am I doing here?”

“We’re keeping
you safe. Alive and safe. It’ll take some time to create a new Urn
of Durofa. We can’t have your soul escaping before then, now can
we?” She kicks the bottle of water and it rolls to my feet. “Drink
up. You’re going to be here for a while.” She uses her foot to
slide the bedpan closer to me. “Dinner’s in a few hours. Try to be
quiet until then.”

She slams the
door, I hear her lock it, and I’m left in total darkness again
until my eyes can readjust. I try to resist the things she brought,
but I’m desperate for both a drink and bathroom, so I end up using
both. I slide the bedpan into the corner of the room, trying to get
the waste as far away as possible, but soon enough the whole room
smells like urine.

The redhead
comes back a few hours later with a paper plate of food that she
sets on the floor beside me. No utensils. She also offers to trade
my empty bottle for a full one. Once we’ve done all that, she asks
for the bedpan. Seeing an opportunity for some revenge, I pick up
the metal pan, crawl closer like I’m going to politely hand it
over, and then I throw the contents in the redhead’s face. She’s
splashed with hours-old urine, and she screams in shock.

While the
door’s still open, I scream “Help” as loud as I can, over and over,
until the stinking, soaking witch retreats and slams the door
again. I eat the food—a bologna sandwich and some apple slices—but
keep the water for later. I think it might be a while before my
caretaker returns.

It’s impossible
to gauge how much time is passing when I’m trapped in total
darkness. I feel like I’m sleeping more than I should, like I ought
to be more vigilant and ready to attack whenever they come for me.
But then, how will I know? They could have already cast a hex on
me, and without a mirror, I’d never see it. They could already be
draining my life just like they tried with Tam.

I know, at the
very least, that by breaking that clay urn I saved Tam’s life. She
might have threatened that breaking it would kill Tam but I don’t
believe that. I can’t, because that would mean I killed her and
somehow I know she’s safe. Maybe once they craft a new urn they’ll
just attack her all over again, but I feel confident for the moment
that my friend is getting better. The witches seem to value my soul
more than Tam’s, since I’m the so-called seer. That means they’ll
attack me first, and as long as I’m alive, that must mean that my
friends are too.

Marlene got
out. She would have called the police. The police would have to
investigate. Maybe, somehow, the witches were able to drag me to
the basement and lock me up down here, but as time goes on and I’m
still missing, the police will have to come back. They’ll get a
search warrant and tear the house apart until they find me. I’ll
get out of this.

I wake to the
sound of the door opening, and once again the light is blinding to
my sensitive eyes. I can tell that this time it’s the grey-haired
witch who has come to see me. She has another paper plate, this
time my meal is bread with peanut butter smeared on top. She sets
it by the door.

“I can’t reach
that,” I say.

“What’s
that?”

“I can’t reach
it, it’s too far.”

I can’t see her
face. My eyes are too used to the dark. She’s just a silhouette to
me, but somehow I know that she’s smirking at me. “Whatever do you
mean?”

“I mean I can’t
reach it because my chains don’t reach that far.”

“I think you’ll
manage.” The grey-haired woman kicks the metal bedpan in my
direction. “There. You can reach that.” She slips back beyond the
doorway and slams the door, returning me to the darkness.

I’m so hungry I
have to try to get the food. I have to lie on my back and slide
toward the door, my jeans soaking up the disgusting puddle I made
when I attacked the redhead, and feel around with my sock feet.
Eventually I find the plate, and using both feet to grasp it I
slide it close enough that once I get back on my knees I’m able to
pick it up with my hands. She didn’t give me another drink so the
peanut butter sticks in my mouth, but at least it’ll stop my
stomach from growling for a little while.

A few hours
later the grey haired woman returns, this time with a bottle of
Gatorade. She holds it up and waits for my eyes to adjust, so I
know what I’m looking at. “You can have this drink,” she says.
“After you nicely slide that bedpan over here. You will not be
splashing anything in my face, understand?”

I grunt in
agreement, and begin to carefully slide the bedpan toward my
captor. I slide it toward her until the chain pulls taut, and my
hand can’t go any farther. “There,” I say. “It’s all yours.”

She takes a
couple baby steps closer, and crouches to pick up the pan. She
grabs it carefully with both hands, not wanting to spill the foul
contents, and that’s when I shift all my weight to my right foot,
pivot sideways, and use my left to kick the pan straight into her
stomach. She lets out a surprised “Oomph” sound, and then I grab
her by the hair and pull her closer, where I’m not so limited by
the chains.

There’s a
reason I was so careful to slide that bedpan across the floor. It
was empty and I didn’t want her to notice that nothing was
splashing inside of it. I had to keep it flat on the floor so she
wouldn’t realize that. But now she sees. I pin her to the floor,
straddling over her, and pick up the pan. I raise it over my head,
ready to smash down on her defenseless face. “Gimme the key,” I
say.

“What?”

“The key!
Unlock me!”

“I don’t have
any key.” She’s wide-eyes, shaking. Either I’m really scaring her
or she’s a great actress.

“The key that
gets these chains off my wrists! Get me out of here or I’ll cave
your head in!” I sound like a lunatic, but that’s OK. She needs to
believe that I am.

“I don’t know
what you want from me,” she pleads. “Please!”

“Maybe your
friends will,” I say. I swing the metal bedpan down hard. I don’t
aim for the face, but for the top of her head. I want her
unconscious, not to cave her face in. The sound it makes is awful,
a metallic clang that absolutely chills me to the bone. Even though
this witch is trying to kill me, and already tried to kill my best
friend, I feel bad about knocking her out like that. The sound it
made is still ringing in my ears, but she’s gone limp now. I climb
off her and shove her farther back into the room, against the same
wall where my chains are hooked to the cement. Now if the other two
witches want to get her back, they’ll have to go through me.

“I got your
friend,” I scream through the open door. “I got the bitch and you
can have her back if you let me out of here!”

There’s a
scraping sound like a chair pulled back from a table, and then I
hear footsteps. First Sydney’s mother appears outside my door, then
the redhead. My eyes have adjusted to the light enough that I can
see outside the door. I’m in an unfinished basement: cement floors,
stud walls, boxes of junk lying around. The two women stand at the
bottom of the stairs and look back at me, and what they see is a
crazed, defiant girl crouching over their friend like a primate
over a fresh kill. “You toss me the keys, I let myself out and once
I’m gone you can have your friend back. That’s the deal.”

“We don’t have
the keys,” Sydney’s mother says. Oh, please. Like I’d believe
that.

“Then how’d I
get locked up in here? You have magic padlocks too?”

“Just let her
go,” the redhead says. “Or you’ll be sorry.”

“Maybe I’ll hit
her in the head again,” I say. “Harder this time.” I know that
these selfish, crazy old bats will not listen if I beg for mercy,
but maybe threatening to kill one of their coven sisters will make
them reconsider keeping me hostage.

“OK,” Sydney’s
mother calls. “We’ll give you the keys. Just don’t hurt her
again.”

Both women
approach the door of my makeshift prison cell, and Helen reaches
into her pocket, pulling out a small set of keys.

“Just throw
them to me and stay away.”

“I can’t do
that,” she says. “You’ll lose the keys in the dark. Just let me
hand it to you.”

“Only you. The
other one can stay back.”

She nods, and
the redhead takes a step back. I hold out my hand for the keys,
straining against the wrist straps. I feel the small keys, warm
from all their time in Helen’s pocket, rest in my palm. And then
she seizes my wrist and twists it. The redhead rushes me, grabbing
me by the hair. I get out a high-pitched scream that I hope the
neighbours will hear, and then I’m fading. She must have given me
something.

So weak...

I’m still in
the little room in basement when I wake up, but I’m alone now.
They’ve tied me up, my hands behind my back, bound at the wrists,
but at least I’m not chained to the wall anymore. I pull myself to
my knees, then to my feet, standing erect for the first time in
days.

How can I still
be here, still captive? Aren’t the police looking for me? Marlene
must be screaming at the cops, telling them that I’m at this house,
and that they need to get in here and find me. It doesn’t make any
sense. Could these women possibly be so powerful as to make the
entire town forget that I’m missing?

I stand on my
tip-toes, feeling my calf muscles stretch for the first time in a
long while. My whole body is sore from lying on that cold cement
for so long. They’ve limited my ability to attack them by taking my
hands away, but by untying me from the wall they’ve given me a
great gift; the ability to stand. I lean on the back wall, feeling
for the metal hooks that my chains were attached to. I feel around,
up and down the wall, and can’t find them. Maybe I’ve got the wrong
wall? No, that would make no sense. I was always facing the door.
Perhaps they pulled out the hooks and patched the wall, or used
some kind of magic to repair it.

Or maybe while
I was unconscious, they moved me to a new house, a new basement, a
new prison. They could have felt that the police would eventually
search Helen’s house, so they moved me somewhere else. I think I
remember Helen threatening to lock me up at a country house. This
could be it. Another small, windowless room, but without the fear
of nosy neighbours hearing my screams. If that’s true, if they
really have taken me to some new location outside Blue Ribbon, then
the police will never find me.

I’m on my
own.

I walk around
my tiny room, bouncing off each wall to test it out. Two of my
walls are cement. Two are just ordinary drywall. I know that the
sound will draw attention, but I start to kick at one of those
walls anyway. Standing with my back to the wall, I kick backwards,
knocking at the drywall with my heel. It takes a few kicks before I
discover just how hard I can strike before it hurts my foot, but
soon I’m breaking through, knocking out chunks of the wall.

I hear a key in
a lock, and the door opens. It’s the redhead again. “What do you
think you’re doing, Mindee?” she scolds me. “Don’t make me knock
you out. It’s much harder if we have to keep you unconscious on top
of everything else.”

“I’m not going
to stop,” I say. “You might be able to kill me, but you can’t keep
me here while I’m alive. I’ll find a way out.”

“You won’t make
it three steps before Helen floats you back here. The only reason
you’re not floating right now is that it’s tiring to work that kind
of emotional mojo. But if we have to, we will. So just sit down,
wait for your food and stop making noise. You would have a better
time if you just learn to behave.”

“OK,” I say.
“I’ll leave the walls alone.” She’s about to say some sarcastic
comment, when I break her complacency by rushing at her full-speed.
I put my head down and aim to collide with her as hard as I can.
But then she whispers Latin and suddenly I’m not on the ground any
more. I’m six inches off the floor, my feet kicking under me but
not actually stepping. In fact, I’m moving backward, away from the
door.

“I warned you,”
the redhead says. “Now you’ll have to pay.”

She slams the
door, and only after the lock clicks does the floating spell end,
dropping me to the floor. I don’t even know I’m falling until the
floor hits my feet, so I roll my ankle and fall to the floor in a
heap.

They must have
done something to me. Some new hex I’ve never seen before.
Something to create pain. Because as soon as the floating hex was
removed, my whole body began to ache. And now, lying on the floor,
it feels like my bones are too big for my body. Every joint is
screaming, every tooth feels broken, every nerve ending sending
electric jolts to my brain. I weep, but I can’t even properly cry
because the hard breaths only burn my lungs. So I lay there, curl
up in the fetal position, and endure the agony. It’s pain like I’ve
never felt. It feels like every millimetre of my skin is on fire,
like I’m covered in napalm.