A Christmas Tale
written by Lilia Le Fay
Have you ever heard of ‘The Other School’? A wizarding institution that mysteriously emptied in the 1800s due to unknown reasons? This is the true story of what really happened to the Welsh School of Magic, told through the eyes of a curious witch as she uncovers the truth in a gripping short story for our festive season.
Last Updated
05/31/21
Chapters
10
Reads
1,382
Part Eight
Chapter 9
-PART EIGHT-
As soon as the knife entered her chest, Kathy felt herself leave the capsule as the clock struct only one, pealing chime above them. Suddenly she wasn't in the depths of a well speaking with a mutilated ghost, instead she was in the entrance hall of the school, but rather than it being filled with light, it was dusted and crumbling. Deserted. No lights from the party shone.
And beneath the ragged scraps of carpet that she quickly scuffed away with her foot, Kathy found the hole that the trapdoor had covered. Slowly, she peered down and found the steel ladder still in place. Turning round, she placed a foot on the third rung and her hands on the first. But as she was going to descend further, she found there was no step further. The rest of the ladder was gone.
Kathy, disorientated and confused, began to climb upwards again. But as she did so, a cold pair of hands found hers. Looking upwards, she found Stone's long, grave face. The face of the man she had met outside the village shop. Not the boy with which she had just shared a terrifying endeavour.
"Stone!" She smiled and tried to move a hand, but he remained gripping hers, his face stiff. "Stone?" she questione,d looking back up at him.
"I'm sorry, Kim." He spoke with a sad smile. "The angels spoke to me. And this I must do."
"What - what - no!" He was moving his hands to his pocket as she began, and then suddenly, a flash of silver came. Her hands bled as he plunged the pearl-handed knife into her fingers and she screamed and let go. The other one followed and Stone's hands came forward as she pleaded. "No...please..."
"I'm sorry Kim." He looked at her, hands read. "But you know, Santa Claus isn't real."
"I- what do you mean - STONE!" She screamed as he pushed her and she lost her foot and began to fall down the passage, tearing her clothes on the remaining shards of the ladder as she went before hitting water at the bottom and sinking in the deep store of the well. And as she drowned, the words he called down the well after her echoed in her mind.
"I should have been clearer. Santa Clause isn't real...if you die."
Whilst she choked and suffocated, Kathy understood. She had to die to defeat the curse.
And once she lay still, there was another splash in the water as an object followed her. Slowly, the knife sank to lie in her stiff, swollen hands.
