Chapter 1

  2 days earlier

  “Who's that dumpy little girl in that ugly Scooby-Doo sweater? You should fire her. She's sucking all the energy out of the place, my good woman,” said the woman in a posh voice.

  They were talking about her, of course, and they were rude enough to do it while she was still standing there. But Yuki had always been invisible; it was like a superpower.

  People went out of their way to ignore her.

  Her boss, the glamorous and beautiful Lady Mirabelle, answered, “Oh, I hired her because she's underage and I can pay her half-rate. Plus, she also does overtime without pay. And she's not a bad worker, seeing as she doesn't have a boyfriend or anything. You know, she wouldn't get into any trouble.”

  “I might have a boyfriend,” Yuki mumbled to herself. “How do you know I don't have a boyfriend? Maybe I have an active party life. Also, I turned 18 today. But no one remembers. It’s my birthday, no one even wished me.”

  But nobody heard her, because she had the habit of whispering everything she said. If she had been a bit more normal, people might have bullied her for being so weird. As it was, even the bullies didn't notice her. At her school, the local bully who stole everyone's lunch money would often bump into her like he hadn't seen her and say “Oh sorry, who are you? Are you new here?” He said that same line the five years she was at school. Every time she would just mumble, 'mhmm' and move on.

  “She may be cheap, but I still think you should fire her. I mean, look at you - so glamorous and sexy that customers want to be in the shop just to look at you; and her, well she's driving them away.”

  “Come now, madam. Don't be rude. She's a bit conventionally unattractive, but I hired her to stock the shelf, not do a fashion show. Now, were you looking for something?” said her boss.

  As a customer went to look for something, Mirabelle turned to Yuki, “I know it's a bit early, but do you mind taking your lunch break now? I know for a fact that a German tour bus is coming in half an hour, and it'll get really busy then. You might have to help out in the cafe.”

  Yuki nodded; she was hungry anyway. She made a point never to eat in the cafe; she wanted some privacy and some alone time. Grabbing her purse, she started walking to the small corner shop which was about 10 minutes' walk away. 10 minutes there, 10 minutes back, and then she would quickly eat in the small park nearby. At least, that was the plan.

  But fate had other plans for her. She didn't even notice him when she bumped into him.

  A non-descript man wearing non-descript grey clothes. Yuki was surprised. It was a nice sunny day and he had been standing in the middle of the road. How had she not seen him?

  “Oh, that's fine,” he said, smiling sweetly and reading her mind. “Like you, I am also invisible. People ignore me and walk by me. But listen, this is very important: the woman in the red dress. Don't try to save her; let her go. Okay, I know he will make you angry, but you must not interfere—it's her story, not yours. Don't interfere.”

  He walked away before she could say anything.

  She had no idea what that was about. She got her lunch and decided to go to a nearby wooded area to eat. She knew the place would be empty at this time and she could eat in silence. It was a nice lovely, wooded area with a tiny stream running through it, but no one came here. At least, not in the weekdays. She was lucky if she saw one woman walking her dogs. Today was even quieter as she couldn’t hear any birds. Maybe they were resting?

  She had barely taken a bite from her cheese and onion pasty when she heard a scream nearby.

  She saw a woman in a red dress running and what looked like a huge, bearded man running after her. Without thinking, she ran after them.

  As she reached into the woods, she saw the bearded man had the red-dressed woman by her throat and was squeezing the life out of her. “Where's my money? Where's my money? You think you can get away with this?”

  Without realising what she was doing she ran and hit him with her purse.

  “Stop it, you brute. I'm calling the police.”

  Quickly she realised her mistake. She had no strength while he was all muscles. The man turned to her and punched her so hard she was sent flying back towards the ground. As he came to hit her again the woman in the red dress ran away.

  “Why did you interfere? This was between me and her.”

  “I'm calling the police. I'm not scared of bullies like you,” she said.

  He pushed her down and looked down at her.

  “You should be scared of men like me. I'm gonna teach you a lesson you'll never forget. Look at you: What an ugly and plain girl. You've never even been with a man, have you?”

  He sat on top of her chest and started squeezing her throat just like he had been with the other woman earlier. Yuki tried to fight him, but he was too strong.

  “Still a little girl, aren't you? Don't worry, I'll turn into a woman today. You can tell all your friends.”

  And he started reaching for the button of her jeans, trying to unbutton it with his left hand while he squeezed her throat with his right.

  Yuki kept trying to punch him, try to scratch his face, try to spit at him, but it was no use; he was too strong for her. He just laughed at her and she could feel and smell his stale sweat as it dripped on her. He had finally found the button and had opened it and pulled her jeans down.

  “Relax, this will only take a minute. You can close your eyes if you want. Feel free to scream, no one’s coming.”

  Hot tears of shame and fear started flowing into her eyes. Today was her 18th birthday. Nobody had remembered. Nobody had wished her. She had been planning to buy herself a cake and a gift this evening, but now it looked like she wouldn't even make it to the end of the day.

  And then she heard the voice of that strange man again. The man who had warned her to stay away from the red woman. “Are you going to give up so easily, Yuki? What are you, a scared little kitten?”

  This made her really angry and she looked into the eyes of the man who was about to violate her. She took a deep breath because she needed her full energy to say what she needed to say. He smiled and relaxed his grip on her throat a little. “You wanna say something, little girl?”

  “Yes, I want to say something.

  I am a Fairy Godmother, and I want to give you a gift - the gift of sight, the gift of eyes. Let me bless you, let me open your eyes, my child.

  May you see the truth of the world. May you see the truth of your own soul wherever you look. Take this blessing, child of mine, and be free.”

  She didn't know why she had said that. But as soon as she said it, a cold wind blew through the forest, and the man jumped back. Yuki used that moment to pull up her jeans and button them again. He looked at her and then around the forest in shock. “What did you do? You bitch, what did you do?”

  The cold wind kept blowing. It was as cold as the freezing plains of the north pole.

  In a strange moment, Yuki could see not only through her own eyes but she could also see what that crazy bearded man was seeing. She knew he could see invisible things all around - things that shouldn't exist, things that had never existed, things that broke the laws of physics.

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  A caterpillar the size of a large python crawling around a nearby tree. Another tree having a dozen spiders all as large as footballs and with human skulls for their heads. Mosquitoes the size of eagles flying in the air looking for human blood to feed on. And what looked like a large mound of human shit crawling towards them, screaming Hungry! Want food! Human meat eat!

  The huge caterpillar jumped on the bearded man and broke up into thousands of small scorpions, each of which started biting him. She could hear the scorpions moaning in pleasure. “Yummy human, yummy human, come to our world. It's been so long since we tasted human flesh. Yummy yummy. Today's a treat day, mummy.”

  The bearded man screamed in terror and ran towards the main road. Not knowing what to do, Yuki ran after him.

  She still had no idea what had happened and how she had cursed him (or why she had called it a blessing). She knew she had used a curse magic of some sort, but her curses had always been small, like causing someone a nosebleed or giving them a bad tummy for three days. This had never happened to her before.

  “Because you interfered,” said a voice in her head, “and now you have become part of the story.”

  The bearded man was now being followed by the shit monster as well, who was also trying to jump on him and pull him down. All the monsters were trying to eat him alive while he kept crying in pain. People couldn’t see the creatures, so they thought he was a junkie and ignored him.

  Finally, the bearded man ran to the middle of the road and was hit by an incoming bus. His body cracked like a walnut, and the invisible monsters finally let him go. Or at least Yuki couldn't see them anymore, now that he was dead.

  But she could sense they were still around. Still looking for food.

  In a state of terrible panic, she ran back to her shop. She crashed at the door and fell onto the floor, only to find Lady Mirabelle staring at her with crossed arms.

  “You foolish little girl! You idiot coconut brain monkey! Why did you use your magic so openly like that? You realise what you've done, right? You have invited those demons into our world and they followed you here. That crazy man wasn't enough to satisfy their hunger, so they're going to come for you.”

  Yuki was too surprised to say anything. “How the hell do you know about that?” she mumbled. She was sure she had been alone in the forest and there was no way Lady Mirabelle could have seen her. The shop was at least half a mile away.

  “I can see beyond the normal world, and I can see things that do not exist, things that should not exist, and things that cannot be allowed to exist. Why do you think I hired you? Because of your good looks? I wanted to keep an eye on you. But I didn't think you would be so stupid as to open a portal to hell and bring hell to my door. What the hell were you thinking, woman?”

  Yuki was really angry. She had never been so angry in her whole life. She felt her face go red and she felt so hot she wanted to take her hoodie off and scream at her boss. For the first time in her life, she did the closest thing to a raised voice.

  “He was going to rape me. What should I have done? Should I just lie down and open my legs for him?”

  “No, but you could have cast a smaller curse. Maybe blinded him temporarily, or given him a nosebleed, or caused his skin to go extremely itchy and red. I know you have done those things before. Don't look shocked, girl. I am not stupid. I know you have been cursing people in your school. Small curses, sure, but enough that they brought you to my attention. Those minor curses would have saved you from that man and would have also saved us from the situation.”

  Yuki was finding it hard to breathe. In addition to her first experience of extreme anger, she was also having her first panic attack. She tried to form words but couldn't. “I…I….I….I didn't know what to do. What's going to happen now?”

  “Look at the door, child. You'll see what's going to happen.”

  The shit monster was there, as was the huge caterpillar. Behind them were at least a hundred things that looked like zombies but she knew they weren't zombies. They were something else, something that had only taken a shape of zombies to terrify humans.

  “I'm sorry, I don't know what to do. It's all my fault. It's always been my fault. I always mess things up.”

  “Oh shut up. This is no time for self-pity. Help me now. There's only one way to send them back, but it'll cost a lot - more than I can afford.”

  Yuki knew how magic worked and that there was a price to pay. She knew every time she did any dark magic, a part of the curse attached to her and increased her bad luck. “That's fine,” she said. “I'll pay the price. I'll give my life to stop them. It's all my fault anyway. Tell me what to do. Do I offer my blood?”

  Lady Mirabelle burst out laughing. “You watch too many movies, child. When I saw the price was too high, I meant literally. My shop is barely making a profit, and now I'll have to dip into my savings.”

  She opened her safe and took out a few gold coins. “These are pure gold bought from the Royal Mint, worth 8000 pounds. Took me two years to save up for them, and now I'll have to spend all of them to close the gate.”

  She put the coins in a large bowl and added a few herbs. She also added salt, vinegar, a few spices, and some crystals from her crystal shop. Yuki always thought she was a fraud who claimed to be psychic to get people to spend their money, but it seemed like the Lady Mirabelle knew exactly what she was doing. She chanted a long and complex spell. And when it was done, there was a large explosion of purple light from the bowl and all the ingredients in it, including the gold coins, vanished. Outside, the demons vanished too.

  “There are gods in other worlds that will close portals to hell for you, but they need something you deeply value. For me, it was my gold, my life’s saving. And now, it’s all gone.”

  She then turned to Yuki. “And since it's your fault, you now owe me eight thousand pounds. I'll accept cash or credit card.”

  Mirabelle put her hand out, like she expected payment there and then.

  “You know I don't have the money. I don't even have ￡8 in my account!”

  Mirabelle came and smacked her in the back of the head. “You should have thought of that before you opened the portal to hell.”

  For the second time in her life, Yuki almost screamed. Since she had no experience of screaming, it came out like a high-pitched mouse trying to sing loudly.

  “I didn't know what I was doing, it happened by itself.”

  “Yeah, with magic if you don't control it, it controls you. But I'm surprised you didn't know how to control your curses. This isn't the first time you've cursed anyone. Why so out of control this time?”

  Yuki didn’t know, she couldn't explain it. She burst out crying.

  The door to Mirabelle’s office opened and a nondescript man in a grey suit walked in, like he had been hiding in there.

  “I can explain why. It's because she interfered in another story and her magic activated in an uncontrollable way. It was going to burst out anyway, but the fact that she interfered made it worse.”

  “Oh, it's you” said Lady Mirabelle. “That would explain it. What are you calling yourself these days? Jim Jones? Henry the 8th? Rumplesliltskin?”

  “Jim Jones is fine. Yuki, I am The Storyteller, and you have interfered in the story and you have become a part of it.”

  “What the hell does that even mean? Interfered in a story?” said Yuki.

  “The woman I asked you not to follow. She was going to die today. She was wearing red because she was Little Red Riding Hood for today. Don't look so confused, I'll explain what it means later. For now, all you need to understand is that she was supposed to die but because you interfered, she survived; and now you have become intertwined in her story. The rules of fate are unbreakable. Someone has to die. If not her, then you.”

  It all felt too much and Yuki burst out crying again. She collapsed on the floor and went into a child position. She was back to being seven years old when her life had gone to hell and everybody around her had died. Nothing had worked out for her; everything she did turned out bad, and now she was going to die.

  “Well, why cry now?” she thought. She had been expecting to die any day. Today was as good a day as any.

  “Oh do stop crying dear, it's not that bad. Jim Jones here is a bit melodramatic. He watches too many movies and thinks real life follows story-like rules. Oh shut up Jim, there's no need to scare the girl. Since it's your birthday, I baked you a cake-- strawberry and cream, like your favourite.”

  More from surprise than I think. Yuki stopped crying. “You remembered it was my birthday? But I never told you.”

  “You underestimate me as always, Yuki. You think I'm an empty-headed bimbo who flirts with her clients and pretends to be a psychic to steal their money.”

  Yuki was too polite to say it, but that was exactly what she thought.

  “And you're right. I am. I am shameless and I do flirt with my clients to get their money. And I can be a bit tarty at times, I’ll tell you that.”

  Mirabelle fixed her dress as she said that.

  “But I'm more than that. I've been keeping an eye on you for almost five years. I know what you had to do to survive, especially in that place they locked you up in. Don't look shocked, your secrets are safe with me. So I damn well know it’s your birthday today. And I’m not deaf, I can also hear you mumbling no one wished you.”

  Yuki blushed. She didn’t realise Mirabelle could hear her barely audible whispers.

  “Anyway, let's have cake while we plan our next steps. Jim, you staying?”

  But The Storyteller had already vanished.

  It was her strangest birthday yet, but at least the cake was good.

  ***

  They went through half the cake, and Mirabelle packed the rest for Yuki to take home. Yuki was still in shock and she noticed it.

  Mirabelle said, “Why is your face so pale? Even more than normal.”

  Yuki replied, “Well, I was almost raped and killed today. I indirectly killed a man, zombies and demons attacked our shop, and now you're feeding me cake! You've always been so mean to me.”

  Mirabelle burst out laughing: “I've never been mean to you, silly! I may have been a bit cold and harsh, and I apologise for that. I'll try to be warmer now. I didn’t want to use my charm on you, seeing as how you’re a witch like me. Well, not like me, but you understand.”

  Yuki didn’t.

  Mirabella said, “Tell me about your day.”

  Yuki tried to tell her but it was all strange and confusing, and she told things out of order.

  “I see,” said Mirabelle. “We need to find this woman in red and see why she's in danger. If your destinies are intertwined, as the storyteller says they are, then you are both in danger. We must figure out what's happening.”

  “Who is the storyteller?” Yuki asked. “What's his deal?”

  “Explaining him would take hours, and even then, I doubt I could because even I don't know who or what he is.”

  There was a large knock on the door. “Go away,” said Mirabelle. “We are closed.”

  “Actually,” said Yuki, “you might want to let her in. That's a woman who was about to be killed.”