The Midnight Curse

Short story by Alex Nolan

Withered vines crawled up the side of the cottage, though they should have crumbled to dust years past, and Carolina traced them with a trembling hand. Her stomach growled and she shivered, pulling the wool coat closer around her shoulders. When she breathed in, her body felt hollow, the emptiness as much to do with the perpetual night as it was the lack of food.

For four years, the curse had endured and none knew where it had begun. Carolina swung her eyes back towards the town streets; very few people were outdoors and the dust swirled in low curls over the cobbles. Torches and lamps were snubbed out - the town had kept to a schedule of time, which included when to sleep, if only to maintain a routine. The oak door creaked inward on distressed hinges as she pushed it open. Inside it was like wading through ink, a thick darkness that had settled with the residence’s abandoned nature. With a minor fumble, she struck alight a candle from her bag with her now rusting tinder box. Orange-yellow flame danced awake and created nightmare shadows that flickered over the walls and between the rough-cut furnishings. She winced, but steeled herself. In the centre of the room, was a table that was strewn with papers, and it was not the only sign of a former home ransacked for items of use: wax residue stuck to sticks where the candles had been ripped away, the bed was stripped of linen, chairs were upturned and fragments of glass littered the floor. Sad though it was, she made a mental note that the wooden chairs and table would chop down to make kindling for a decent fire. Picking her way carefully across, Carolina held the candle aloft and searched.

The askew papers were pages ripped from books on herbalism and healing: the resident of this place, had been their last who was skilled in magic. Perhaps, there was still an answer left. Older tomes remained on the shelves: they were bound in leather and written in a language Carolina did not know how to read. Yet, she tucked some into her satchel — they might yet hold a clue and perhaps someone in town could read them, maybe even Tieren. She continued combing the cottage, moving old crockery and broken jars, but little revealed itself. She closed her eyes a moment, willing aside the tight knot in her throat and the pain pushing against her temples.

One last place to check. She hefted the bedframe to one side, pulled away the old rug and her heart skipped at the sight: hinges and an iron ring. She pulled, and the stiff hatch gave way, the light of the candle revealing a set of stairs that led into gloom. Without hesitation, she went down the steps, they creaked and groaned in protest but eventually led to a small square room with a large desk. On the wall, scratched in a tired and shaking script were the words, “There is no hope left here to seek. I have tried to save you, and I have failed.” Carolina sighed, outwardly, but inside her chest felt as though it was crunched inwards, pulling her heart into the back into the dark. For a moment she simply stood, hands still shaking gently and her head still throbbing, she then looked on the desk and opened its drawers, but there was nothing to find.

“So be it.”

Tieren was wrapped in blankets, weaving reeds into a basket to patch a hole in its underside - but they were frail and kept snapping under their unsteady grip. They threw it to the side and and held their head in their hands.

“There’s no fucking point.”

The front door opened. Carolina looked at the discarded and now crumpled basket.

“Did this do something to offend you?” she asked, picking it up.

“The reeds we grow get frailer with every crop. Whatever Ash says, they haven’t adapted to the dark. They haven’t had time.”

Tieren met her eyes, and in the light of the small fire Carolina studied their face: purple bags hung under their eyes, their hair was dry and sticking out at odd angles, the lines around their frown deeper than Carolina had ever known.

A faux smile played across their lips. “Anything?”

Carolina paused, and Tieren hung their head. “A couple of books, maybe you can translate them? I don’t recognise the script.”

“Yeah.” Silence for a few moments. Tieren breathed out in a way that sounded ragged, like the air was being pulled from their lungs in reluctant shreds. When they looked up again, their eyes were damp with fresh rolling tears. “Are we going to die in endless night?”

Carolina half pulled Tieren towards her, half fell onto them in an embrace. The stone floor was cold on her knees, Tieren’s skin was barely warmer under her fingertips, and she tried to speak but the words could not cross her lips. What platitudes were left for them to say to one another? They wept in each other’s arms for a while because it was a better accompaniment to the pain than the midnight sky outside, at least. They stayed close until they slept, a fretting and dreamless slumber that ended up in both once more wide awake, hands entwined.

Two days passed in solemnity and there was a funeral for a man that lived two doors down, he was in his sixties and refused to eat so his grandchildren could have more: an increasingly common occurrence. Not long after a town meeting was held to inform the residents of further rationing. Early in the curse, their scant few hedge mages had bolstered shade-loving vegetables with their spells in an attempt to make them thrive in the dark. It had been marginally successful, but the mages had been the among the first to die and the crops had failed increasingly as the months went by. Still wearing funeral blacks, Carolina held Tieren’s hand and they walked without direction or destination.

They found themselves at the outskirts of town, where the barrier of night resided: what looked like thick black fog to the eye felt like smooth glass to the touch. Carolina spread her hand across it, as she had many times before. To her it seemed as if there should be that tingle of magic, like faint lightning on the skin, but it was dull, unyielding and cold as stone. Her cloak billowed in a sudden gust, the wind that rushed across the plains the town was built upon seemed to blow in on occasion. When the curse had struck, they had been instantly cut off - the river dried up and outside wildlife could not make its way in. Only the wind. Tieren put a hand around her shoulders.

“We should go home.” Their voice sounded distant. “Carolina?”

“Yes.” Her eyes were transfixed on the barrier for a moment more before she turned back.

Their walk home took them through the town, some of its low, thatched buildings had already fallen into disrepair — in places hinges and awnings had been torn off to be used for fires. The sight reminded Carolina of the furniture in the old cottage.

“Let’s collect kindling on the way home. The old mage’s cottage has chairs and tables we can chop up.”

Tieren nodded, and they diverted down a different street. As they crossed the threshold once more into the abandoned home. Carolina lit a candle again. Tieren breathed in sharply by her ear.

“It’s been what, two months?” they asked. “It’s already in this state.”

Carolina frowned. “Desperation, I suppose. And well, we’re here for the same sort of reason, aren’t we?”

They stood in the pillaged home in silence.

“I saw an axe round the back. I’ll go and get it,” Tieren offered, grimacing as they left the room.

A breeze fluttered across the room and disturbed the papers, one falling by Carolina’s feet that she picked up. It was a diagram of runes inside a circle that meant little to her, but scrawled in the margins were notes: Artificial sun? —  A possible solution! and  Unsuccessful, the curse snuffs it out before it can form. Similar light-bringing rituals ineffective. Running out of ideas. There is one last possible solution.

As she placed the paper back on the table, she noticed a faint hum that she hadn’t been aware of during her last visit. It was from the basement room, she’d left the hatch ajar. Some kind of leftover relic or charm, Carolina supposed. But out of curiosity, she descended the steps. The sound was definitely louder here, it was low pitched and made her teeth buzz. In the desk? She pulled open the draw again, but they were as empty as before.

“Carolina?” Tieren called from upstairs.

“Down the stairs.”

Tieren appeared behind her, axe in hand. “Did you find anything?”

“Can’t you hear it? There’s a noise coming from the desk.”

They shrugged and looked through  the drawers, and when they reached the final one, their eyebrows quirked upwards. They pressed gently on the strip of wood below it and a tray popped out,  lying in it was a pebble sized gem that glowed with purple-black light.

Carolina reached out for it on impulse before Tieren could react, and the thing hissed. Veins of light snaked up her arm with alarming speed and covered her neck before twisting across her face. Her hair floated as if separated from gravity, her eyes became the same black-purple of the stone and the tendrils of light spread across her skin. Carolina’s body rose from the floor and the stone fell from her grasp. Her teeth chattered as her jaw clamped shut and threw back open over and over like a demented puppet.

All Carolina saw was black, her persistent headache returned at full force as she felt the alien presence worm into her mind.

Asroursyouredfaroursbanishfleewinoursours ours ours ours You are ours, all of you are ours. We banish the sun, we bring the black. We will not leave until you are all ours.

Visions passed through her mind, wisps of this black thing passing over houses and pulling the souls of the nearly deceased along with it and into the stone harvesting them and collecting them and building up to Our Freedom.

“Not bloody likely.”

There was huge crack, like thunder without the announcement of rain, and Carolina was suddenly free. The stone was in pieces, underneath the blade of an axe. Tieren was grinning at her and the floor began to rumble. Brilliant white flames poured from the stone and spiralled upwards from the ceiling. Carolina grabbed Tieren’s arm and pulled them up the stairs as dust and stone began to fall from above - the ceiling and walls were crumbling around them. They pounded out of the house in time to see the floor collapse into the basement.

Panting on their backs outside, they saw the spiralling light bouncing against the darkness. They picked up momentum, and soon the balls of light were zipping all around against the blackness - and it seemed to be thinning. White flames seared past their heads and the townsfolk were out in the streets. With a sound between a screech and a triumphant cry, the first ray of light broke through the years of midnight. The people on the streets cheered and more joined them. Rays of light were shining from multiple places - patches of the town bathed once more in glorious sunlight. People were singing, sounds of joy multiplied and layered in the air. The white fireballs ceased their mad dance, hovered above their heads in a circle and shone even more brilliantly than before, before shooting directly upwards. A pause, and bated breath. The remaining blackness melted away, and they all stood in the sunlight once more.

Carolina lifted Tieren onto their feet and into the air, kissing them in jubilation. When back on solid ground, Tieren took their hand and ran out into the open grassland around the town. Friends and neighbours followed just behind, whooping and hollering into the bright day.