This story is about to finish soon x) Two chapters left :)
Disclaimer: Refer to all the previous chapters X)
The next day was a Friday, a school day like any other. Rin sat in her lessons, did what she had to do, answered if she was spoken to, but her mind was full of what had happened the night before, and she could hardly wait for the day to end. It did at last, and she was first out of the school gates.
It was drizzling, and the late afternoon sky was a ceiling of thick, purple-grey clouds, their bulging, damp undersides pressing down on the roofs of the houses Rin passed. Some of the cars swishing by already had their headlights on, and the beams were weak against the deepening darkness.
Mum was in when she got home, but Rin barely acknowledged her greeting. She took off her coat and went straight upstairs to her bedroom.
She dumped her schoolbag, opened the desk drawer and got out the badge and box of pins. She went over to The Junk Basket and took out the Lily doll. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, she put the three items on the duvet in front of her, carefully positioning them.
Rin scanned the trio objects closely. Then she leaned back and sighed.
She had decided to ask herself a simple question. Was she going mad? In the light of day it had been hard to believe in the voice and the creature that seemed to have appeared in her room – hard to believe that she had inflicted pain on someone by sticking a pin in a doll. If it hadn't happened – if it had been a dream or imagination, and Lily's pain that night just a coincidence – then yes, she was going mad. Not just a bit mad either. She must be totally crazy. But none of it had seemed like a dream...
And now she was in her room with the box of pins and the doll in front of her, the memory of how she had felt flooded through her again, that exhilarating mixture of fear and excitement.
Those feelings had been real enough. And it makes sense as well. A deeply satisfying kind of sense.
Rin looked up. Her window blind was raised, so she could see that the sky was almost black now. The shadows in the room were as thick as usual, and there was a hissing in her ears. She didn't have to listen to know what the voice was saying, to know that the voice was real, that somehow she'd managed to conjure up a demon.
A voodoo child. Yes, that's what I'll call him... she shivered as she remembered that dark figure. She wondered where he had come from, why conjuring him up had been so easy.
Did the voodoo child give the doll its magic? Or did sticking pins in the doll unleash the voodoo child?...Although none of that really mattered. Not compared to the choice the voodoo child had offered her last night...
Rin picked up the box of pins, opened it, took a couple out and held them in the palm of her hand. She looked at the doll, thought about sticking a pin in the place where a person's heart would be. Could it be that simple? Would it really kill Lily? And if it worked, could she live with herself afterwards?
"Yes," the voice suddenly hissed inside her head. "If Dad came back and life was the same as it was before, before, before..."
Rin closed her eyes for a second, listened to his voice, felt it pulling her deep into a pool of darkness somewhere inside her. Why not give in to it? Why not get rid of Lily once and for all? It would be so good, Rin thought, so very, very satisfying...
There was another voice in her head too, but Rin refused to let her conscience have its say. She opened her eyes, looked down at the pins in her palm, barely visible in the gloom of the room. She rolled them to and fro and smiled, beginning to enjoy the sense that she was in control, that she was powerful and dangerous*. Yes, she would do it, she decided. Perhaps she should even do it now, right this second, get it over and done with...
Suddenly she heard footsteps outside her door, and she froze. Mum was crossing the landing.
Rin held her breath as she heard Mum going downstairs. She relaxed, but decided to do the magic later. At midnight, of course. It would be much safer then, with Mum tucked up in bed and unlikely to walk in and catch her.
Rin put the pins back in the box, rose from the bed and switched on the lamp, the shadows scurrying away from its warm rays. She returned the box and the badge to the desk drawer, and the doll to The Junk Basket. She put the basket lid back on, lowered the window blind and sat at the desk. She stayed in her room for a while longer, doing some of her homework. Then she went downstairs to watch TV, a soap she usually enjoyed. This evening it was images and words, none of it penetrating her mind. She was strangely calm, her feelings of fear and resentment and confusion blended into something that felt strong, a determination to put everything right at last.
When the soap was over, Mum called her into the kitchen for supper.
They sat at their usual places and ate, Mum making all the conversation, asking about Rin's day at school, Rin shrugging or nodding or giving one-word answers. Eventually Mum sighed and put down her knife and fork.
"I think we need to talk, Rin," she said. "Or rather, you do. You're a thirteen year-old girl, you're mature enough to understand that things have changed, hun. You've got to stop being angry and move on, put the past behind you. We both have."
"I'm not angry," said Rin. "I was, but I'm not anymore."
"Oh?" said Mum, surprised. "Why is that? What's changed?"
At that moment Rin almost told her mum about the voodoo child, and what she intended to do. A dark eagerness was welling up inside her, and she wanted to share the certainty of her feelings. Surely Mum must want to get back at the woman who had taken Dad from them, right?
Then Rin realized Mum probably wouldn't believe a word of it, might even do something that would spoil the magic. No, this task was hers alone to perform. She would just have to keep it to herself.
*Rin is starting to get a little bit psychotic x)
This story is almost finished :') Still can't believe it xD