Chapter 3

  An hour passed. The shop had still been closed while Mirabelle made call after call in behind a locked office. She refused to tell Yuki or Isabella what she was talking about. Isabella kept crying the whole time.

  For Yuki though her old feelings of self-loathing and disgust came back. She remembered what that guy in the forest had said. That she was all so ugly, no man would have looked at her. While she knew he was pressing her buttons, in a way he was right. No men noticed her, women didn't notice her either.

  And while her magic activating made her feel strong, it also made her feel disgusted with herself.

  She still remembered how it felt when he was unbuttoning her jeans. The pain, the humiliation and most of all, the feeling of being helpless.

  A feeling she had lived with her whole life, but it had never been this bad.

  “I am useless. I am cursed,” she said before she realised she said it out loud.

  “What?” said Mirabelle? “Why do you say you’re cursed?”

  “Because I am. Every time I do dark magic it increases my bad luck.”

  “Shut up, dear,” said Mirabelle, coming in. “It most certainly does not increase your bad luck. Stop this pathetic self-pity party.”

  She sat down.

  “I have been making a few phone calls to find out where this group could be keeping Isabella's sister. All that I've done is narrow it down to one of five places, but I don't know which one. We'll have to visit each one secretly and try to gather hints that way.”

  “Okay, that's fine,” said Yuki. “I'll go home, I'm tired.”

  “No,” said Mirabelle very emphatically, “When I said we, I meant you and me, not Isabella. She'll been hiding. They know her, and if they see her, they'll immediately go in red alert and might even attack her. The two of us need to do this secretly.”

  “Why me? I have no experience in either magic or detective work. I didn't even finish school.”

  “That's okay, I don't need a college graduate. I don't need a BA in Applied Mathematics. I just need somebody to help me with investigations.

  “But I don't know anything. I'm tired. I can't do this. Sorry, I'm sorry but I can't. This has been a hard day, this is too much for me.”

  “Yuki, I said I need your help. This is far too much for me to deal with alone. I had a very good friend who usually helped me with these sorts of things, but at the moment he is lying in my storeroom, his eyes and ears bleeding. He can't help me, so you have to.”

  “Why me? I'm not good enough. I barely managed to do the work here. I'll only mess it up and get you into more trouble. This whole thing started because I interfered. No, I'm not interfering anymore. I'm sorry. I'm leaving. You can't stop me. I quit.”

  Mirabelle made no effort to try to stop her. Instead she just smiled and spoke very coldly.

  “Oh, are we back to the pity party again? Are you going to tell us how life has been so hard to you? How you are just a poor, poor child who cannot do anything right? How life is too tough for you? How you need to hide under your bed so the evil people don’t get you?”

  It wasn't said with malice or sarcasm, but it hurt Yuki anyway. She felt an anger arising in her chest, an anger she had been suppressing for almost ten years.

  “I'm sorry, I can't help you. This is not my fight.”

  “And will you let Isabella’s sister be sacrificed? Do you have no pity?”

  All the anger, all the hatred and all the disgust Yuki had been bottling for the last 10 years exploded out of her like a volcano that had been bubbling for decades.

  “I do not care,” she screamed. “Why should I care? When I was seven, they killed my parents, and for the next four years, they tortured and experimented on me. Every night I cried myself to sleep thinking that some hero would come and save me, that God would send an angel to help me. But nobody came. Do you understand? Nobody came. I had to rescue myself. There is no God. There is no justice.”

  She turned to Isabella in anger. “I'm sorry your sister has been kidnapped, and I'm sorry she's in danger. But you know what? I don’t care. The world is a cruel and dangerous place. It's better she learns her lesson now rather than at a later age. It will serve her well. There's no one coming to save her, just like there was no one to save me. There is no god. There is only pain!” She spit out the last sentence.

  As soon as she said it, she realised she’d said too much.

  She immediately put her hands on her mouth to stop herself saying any more.

  But it didn’t matter. What was said could not be taken back.

  She had said all the things she should not have. Things that should not even been thought about, let alone said aloud.

  She tried to mumble an apology and was sure that Mirabelle would fire her or throw her out of the office. Instead, Mirabelle gave a tight hug.

  “Oh, you poor baby, how long have you been holding the resentment inside of you? I'm sorry nobody came to hug you, I'm sorry nobody rescued you. I truly am. I witness your pain, I witness your agony, I witness your hurt.”

  Isabella hugged her too. “I witness it too.”

  Mirabelle continued: “But will you let another girl cry herself to sleep like you did? Will you let her down like the grown-ups in your life let you down? Will you let the other girls' heartbreak as they realise nobody is coming to help them? Or will you break the cycle for once and help those too weak to help themselves?”

  Yuki started crying. There was nothing to say.

  ***

  That night

  Mirabelle was very coy about the details. She wouldn't tell them much, she wouldn't even tell them how she got the file with the names in it. Yuki suspected it was something to do with a man who was locked up in their storeroom. From whose room Mirabelle came out few times a day carrying towels dripping with blood.

  And, in spite of their efforts, Isabella refused to hide or run away and there was nothing they could do to stop her.

  So they hit on a compromise. They dyed her hair blonde and they gave her thick, heavy nerdy glasses to make her look different. Mirabelle, who clearly had experience in acting, gave her tips on how to change her body language so nobody will recognise her.

  “There are five places, and we need to visit each and get clues. Isabella, you have already seen the place, so you might be the best person to discover it but you're also in the biggest danger of being discovered. Yuki, you and me, we don't know what the place looks like, but we can take a guess from Isabella's description. It's a large factory or a large warehouse-type area where they're keeping the kids. Isabella, are you sure you don't know more?”

  “No, sadly. When they took us, they made us wear masks on our eyes so we wouldn't see the way. They only took me to threaten me about what would happen if I tried to escape. As soon as I'd seen my sister, they brought us back. If I see the place again, even from the outside, I'll recognise it. But I have no idea where it could be.”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  It didn't help Isabella wasn't local and knew nothing about the city. Her captors had been smart to keep her locked up all day.

  “Okay, I'll give you both one address that you need to check out. Remember, your job is only to see if you find anything suspicious - notice the smallest details, but do not REPEAT do not do anything to draw attention to yourself. If you feel in the slightest danger, just run away. I’ll investigate the last three places by myself. I have some friends who can help. We will start early tomorrow morning and meet up in the evening to compare notes.”

  Yuki had no interest in just exploring. She waited until the other two had gone to sleep and quietly slipped out of the shop, taking a spare key with her. She knew she would be the one to find where the missing girls were. She was sure because her magic told her so. Whatever address she was given would be the right one.

  And tomorrow she would prove she wasn't some helpless babe in the woods who anybody could grab by the throat, push down on the hard grass and try to undress.

  No, no man would do that to her again.

  The next time this happened, she would be the one on the top. And she would be the one doing the throat squeezing

  But she needed to create her curses. They took a few hours, and the best way to create them was to do it in the graveyard; using grave dirt and bones (animal or human).

  Human bones were 10-100 times more powerful. Of course, human bones were hard to find, and Yuki had never actually made a curse out of human bones, but her magic told her that today would not be a problem.

  There was a graveyard 20 minutes' walk down the path, and she made her way there. The gate was locked, of course, but the wall wasn't too high and she jumped over it. Next came the hard part. She realised she hadn't brought a shovel.

  She hadn't thought that far, but a voice inside her said:

  “Just dig, dig anywhere.”

  So that's what she did, sitting on the ground, she started using her hands to dig.

  The night was cool and a fresh, a cool breeze was blowing. It wasn't cold, just very pleasant. The graveyard smelt of fresh flowers left there by relatives who must have come during the day. She could hear an owl in the distance. And briefly, she saw it chase after a small rat and grab it and fly away. Other than that, the graveyard was empty and as silent as, well, a graveyard. For once in her life, Yuki didn't feel scared at all. This was natural. This place was home.

  She started using her fingers to dig into the ground and pull the dirt out. She kept digging like a dog looking for a treat it had buried.

  Within five minutes, she had found two human fingers whittled down to the bone and a few other bone pieces. She had no idea which part of the body they came from. For once, she was so surprised that she fell back on her bottom to take a breath. She put some grave dirt and the bones in a small pouch she had brought with her.

  “Yes, it is surprising, isn't it? Normally, you have to dig 5-10 feet to find any bones, and here you are finding bones within a few inches from the dirt.”

  Without even looking, she knew who it was. The Storyteller.

  “But do you know why you're finding bones so easy?” he asked her.

  She didn't, of course. “I'm sure you'll tell me,” she said.

  He laughed. “Mirabelle might have told you, but I see the whole world as a story. Each of us playing a part. The more important people play parts that are usually taken from fairy tales or other such similar folktales. You have already met Red Riding Hood. She was about to be killed by the Big Bad Wolf today.”

  “And who am I then?” she asked.

  “I think you know, Yuki. I think you suspect. You are the archetype of the Dark Witch. The bone witch. That's why you can find bones so easily.”

  She thought about that. “No, I don't think I am. Today when I cursed that man, I actually blessed him. I blessed him that he would see things. I blessed him that his eyes would open. But the blessing was actually a curse. It opened his eyes not to the world of angels and gods but to the world of demons. And they all came rushing towards him. Dark witches don't bless people in a way that sounds like a curse.”

  He was quiet for a few minutes, and she heard the owl come back.

  “Don't tell me you're hungry again,” she thought to herself.

  The owl stared at her like she was an intruder in his playground and left. After this long pause, the Storyteller suddenly clapped his hand. “Marvellous,” he said. “Of course you're correct. You're not the dark witch. You're a fairy godmother, but a cursed one. Instead of blessing people, you give curses.”

  “Is that even possible? I thought fairy godmothers always blessed people?”

  “Not really, no, not always,” the Storyteller replied. “You've been reading too many of the Disney versions of the stories. The old tales were often grim and dark. I told you, in most versions of the stories—Snow White is murdered in the forest, Red Riding Hood is raped and killed, Sleeping Beauty never wakes up and is buried alive. No, real fairy tales were dark because life is dark.

  Coming back to your point, if you remember the story of the Sleeping Beauty, the reason she was cursed was because her parents didn't invite the one dark fairy godmother to her birthday party. This fairy godmother wasn't invited because all she could do was curse, and that's what she did. And she alone was so powerful that the other 16 good witches couldn't cancel her curse. That, unfortunately, is the power of the dark side.

  Yuki, do you know what I'm going to say next?”

  She didn't. A little more digging and she found three more pieces of bone. That was enough. Now she just needed to focus the cursed energy on each bone. That would charge the bones with dark magical energy. And these being human bones, they would be easily ten times, maybe even a hundred times powerful then any animal bone she could have used. She just had to decide which curse to focus on. Normally it took her hours to create a curse, but she just knew she would be able to do it in a few minutes today.

  The Storyteller was quiet, and she didn't know if he was expecting a reply. “I don't know what you're going to say next,” she said. “Again, please enlighten me.”

  He laughed, “Thank you, I will. I told you that I see life as a story. You can call it fate or destiny if that sounds better to you, or karma if you come from an Eastern Hindu or Buddhist background.

  The thing is, that you can choose a path, but then you cannot choose what will happen on that path. If you choose the path of the cursed Fairy Godmother or a Dark Witch, you will end up like the witches of those stories: Living alone in the graveyard with people hating you and fearing you, but not realising why. To misquote Spider-Man: With great dark power comes great fear and great hatred.”

  “So you are saying I will live alone, miserable, people will hate me and ignore me. Wow, that's surprising. Then no change, that's my life already.”

  Even though she couldn't see him, she could feel him tense up. She didn't know if he was angry or frustrated.

  He spoke to her very slowly, like he was having to think each word. “Listen to me very carefully, Yuki. I am the Storyteller, not the story creator. I don't write the story. I don't know who does - the Goddess of Fate? Destiny? Karma? I don't know. I don't care.

  I just tell the story. I am not allowed to interfere. That said, I can guide you, and I can be a mentor. The story allows that, and that is even happy for me to do so.

  Now you said that you will live alone and die. That is not necessarily true. Look at your boss, Lady Mirabelle. Her powers are dark, and she is the archetype of the Evil Seductress Witch.

  Yet, she accepts her role completely.

  The more you accept your role, the more powerful you will become in the story, and the story will start helping you. But remember this: You don't have to be evil; you can choose to be good.

  You can choose to be the heroine, like Lady Mirabelle has. She does her best to help whoever she can, wherever she can. So while you are a character in the story, you are not a helpless victim.

  Today, Lady Mirabelle scolded you about not having a pity party.

  If you want to become powerful, and you want the story to help you, you better start acting like a main character. The main character in a story doesn't run away when it gets tough; they often charge headlong into trouble.

  But just remember this: there is no guarantee of a happy ending. Less than 30% of stories I follow have a happy ending. But don't let that lose your courage and start living like a coward. Still live with your head held high, even if most likely you will end up dead by the end of the week.”

  “Thanks, Yoda. I appreciate the wisdom,” said Yuki, and as soon as she said it, she felt stupid. Why was she being irritated with him? He was only helping her. She turned around to apologise, but he was already gone.

  Time to create the curses. She needed to focus on each bone and the type of curse she wanted to place on it. She had no idea of the type of enemies and problems she would face, so she would need a wide variety of curses that could get her out of any problem. The curses themselves would last multiple uses, seeing as how she had found human bones. So she decided to focus on quantity, creating many different types of curses for every bad situation she could imagine getting herself into.

  It was almost 4 o'clock before she got back to the shop. She wasn't tired at all. That was another interesting thing. As long as she was creating curses or planning to curse anyone, she could stay up all night and not need to sleep at all. This had been a problem in school. As soon as she opened her book to study, she would fall asleep. But staying awake for creating curses was fine. Her magic was weird that way.

  She had a quick shower, made herself a toast with butter and jam, and a quick cup of tea. She went to the table where Mirabelle had placed the five addresses and, closing her eyes, she randomly picked one and put it in her pocket. She didn't even need to look at the address; she knew it would be the right one.

  She was going to find the girls and she would rescue them today. Or die trying.

  The local bus started at six in the morning, and she was going to leave early. She knew Mirabelle would guess she was up to no good and would try to stop her.

  She quickly ate her breakfast and decided to spend some time meditating. She spent the next two hours sitting quietly trying to plan for every possible thing that could go wrong.

  ***

  7 am: When Mirabelle and Isabella woke up and came down, they found the shop empty and a small note on the table by Yuki.

  “I'm leaving early, don't worry about me, we'll meet up in the evening.”

  As soon as she read it, Mirabelle let out a stream of curses so unladylike that a sailor would have been shocked.

  “What is it?” asked Isabella.

  “That foolish girl is trying to be the hero, going in all alone. She thinks I'll try to stop her, but I won't. Sometimes the best way to learn a lesson is to get slapped around a few times by life until your arrogance is beaten out of you. Come, darling, let's have some breakfast.”