Third Time's the Charm // chapter 3
For group 10 of the improv fic, @fern-daysss @frenchtoastbuzzbuzz @floofmoon
organised by @sfth-improvised-fic
‘I will not let you stalk these halls’, the lone schoolmaster bravely called
‘you shall not terrorise this town or grow your hell’s bells within these walls’
The devil laughed, the devil grinned, a sound that made his temple wince
‘Don’t you know you’re soon to fall? Then my own trumpets shall mock you all?’
‘Don’t you know it’s a dangerous game? To try and best what you cannot tame?’
A small smile tugged at the corner of Alice-Laura's mouth as she read the bedtime story. Call it childish maybe but it always seemed to help her relax in moments of crisis or stress. Her father had always read to her, almost every night, when she was small. In fact, Alice-Laura wasn't even sure where he had gotten it from, the book seemed to have been with their family for as long as she could remember.
Tears blurred her vision as she tried to read on. ‘Oh dad…’ she sniffled, ‘I don’t know what to do..’
Maureen really wasn't sure what to do, John David had fallen silent and she was unsure whether she should reach out to him, to press more on what reasons he may have for being down here.
‘I know it might be hard to talk about…’ she started, ‘but surely.. surely you know that you are free from judgement here, I certainly can’t judge, I’ve killed like 20 people..’ She winced as she trailed off at the end there, maybe reminding someone that you’re a serial killer is not the best way to get them to open up, but she’s trying her best.
John David sighed, wringing his hands as he tried to get the words out.
‘I’ve just.. Never really told anybody about this’, he looked up at Maureen, ’I mean really nobody, I’ve not even let myself think about it for prolonged periods of time’.
Maureen tried to nod understandingly.
‘I mean… the truth is I don’t even remember what happened fully, not really’, there was a bitter edge to John David’s voice, one that hinted at past sorrows and deep regrets.
He turned away from Maureen once again, shifting his eyes to gaze out over the fires and brimstones of Hell.
‘I guess there truly is no place more suited for this story than here though..’ he let out a feeble chuckle.
He plopped down on the ground, and Maureen followed suit, shuffling forwards slightly.
‘When I was a teen, not much older than Alice is now, I was incredibly fascinated by Satanism, I was introduced to it by a friend of mine, Drefan and my brother Braen. They were a part of a larger group of teens, a couple years older than I, who all practised Satanism.’ John David paused, giving Maureen time to process the information.
‘Drefan introduced me to his group, they called themselves the ‘Order of Datura’’ He laughed again, ‘God it seems so childish now, but they had books, filled with runes and incantations, they had camaraderie and a level of understanding with one another than drew me in’.
John David paused again, this time looking out over the boiling seas of hellfire with a mournful smile.
‘And I wanted that, to be a part of something’.
His mournful smile suddenly fell to a resentful scowl and Maureen almost flinched at the whiplash of emotion.
‘They used my desire to be included. They used me to conduct their rituals. It started out small, I was to fetch an ingredient or two, then I was to help lay them out, soon I was drawing the runes and before I knew it they were making marks on me, on my skin’. He seemed to shudder in remembrance. ‘By the time I realised that I was to be their sacrificial lamb I was already bound to the chopping block, ready for the slaughter’.
John David faltered, brows furrowing as he tried to conjure up the next sentence.
‘They tied me up I know for sure, and they made markings on my body…’ he rolled up his sleeve, turning his arm over to give Maureen a better view of his forearm, revealing jagged scars that curled in the shape of familiar runes.
He let out a frustrated sigh, ‘Yet I can never quite remember what happened that night. I remember passing out from the pain and when I came to.. the room was empty. My friend, Drefan, his body lay mere centimetres away from me and the state he was in is an image I could never scrub from my mind’. A pained look crossed his face. ‘In that moment I didn’t know what to do, I was only sixteen and my friend lay dead in front of me. So I did the only thing that made sense to me in that situation and I ran’.
He pulled back down his sleeve and turned away from Maureen.
‘I ran away from it all and hoped that I could just leave it all behind’. His voice became choked with emotion as he spoke once more, ‘but I guess it had to catch up to me eventually’.
There was a pause, now that John David had finished his story. A silence filled with grief as much as it was with regret and anger. Maureen was reeling, not having expected such a horrific story, but unphased enough by her own experiences to ask what was weighing on her mind.
‘Do you think you killed him?’
John David’s head whipped around.
‘Your friend- Drefan, I mean’.
‘I don’t know’. Came John David’s response. ‘I feel like I would know in my soul if I had done such a thing but I really don’t know’.
‘It’s just… if you had just been a pawn, their ‘sacrificial lamb’ as you said.. Then you were the victim, you should have no reason to be trapped down here’.
‘I know’ sighed John David, ‘and that’s what worries me.’
Maureen looked him over, he was a man defeated by strife yet she was certain of his character and couldn't quite believe that he could have done something deserving of eternal damnation. Suddenly a thought struck her mind.
‘Do you remember what the ritual was for?’
John David raised an exquisite eyebrow, ‘I’m not entirely sure but I believe they were trying to exchange me, or my blood or soul or something like that in return for something else…’
‘Wait- sorry, say that again? The bit about exchanging something of yours?’ She clarified.
John David was confused as to where Maureen was going with this but repeated himself anyways, ‘I think they wanted to exchange my blood or soul for-’
‘That’s probably it!’ Maureen exclaimed, cutting him off by accident. John David just tilted his head, perplexed at Maureen's newfound excitement.
‘What’s ‘it’?’ He questioned.
‘A soul, your soul- that's what ties people to heaven or hell and maybe if they were trying to exchange your soul for something else, if the Order of Datura got what they wanted but you managed to keep your soul in that moment, then that means when you died Satan dragged you down to hell as repayment for whatever they took!’
‘That’s... possible’, for the first time since he’d arrived in hell that day John David started to feel a kindling of hope burning in his chest.
‘Maybe if we can find out what they took, and return it, your soul will no longer be tied to hell?’
John David all but grinned. ‘That might just work!’ Jumping onto his feet with a newfound determination he waved over the ferryman who was just coming into dock.
Turning back to Maureen he beamed with anticipation, ‘Let’s go find Beelzebubette and ask if she knows what they took all those years ago!’.
Teatime and then bedtime went by and still Alice-Laura found herself slumped over her books in the bathroom. She found it easiest to work here where she could lock the rest of the world out and focus on her texts. Not to mention the mirror in here was clearly some sort of odd window to the other side. The incredibly upsetting experience of seeing her recently deceased father screaming through the mirror just a few days prior was still very fresh in her mind.
Two quiet knocks on the bathroom door pulled her out of her thoughts.
‘Alice… when will you come out?’ the very small voice of her younger brother questioned from the other side of the door. Following but slightly more muffled came, ‘I’m sorry we had an argue earlier… I miss spending time with you, you’ve spent forever in the bathroom since dad went away again…’
Alice-Laura bit her lip, careful not to let Jimmy hear the wobble in her voice.
‘I know Jimmy I’m sorry, but I think I’m almost finished..’ Lies. ‘Just a little longer then it will be back to normal again, yeah?’ More lies. ‘Okay… nighty night then’ Jimmy replied.
Alice-Laura waited until his shuffled footsteps faded away before hanging her head in her hands and collapsing in sobs.
No matter how much she lied and wished it was true. Nothing would ever return to normal. Not anymore. Not if she went through with what the devil asked of her.
She’d been trying for hours and yet nothing in any of her books explained why her dad was being taken to hell, nor what she could do to get him back and keep her own soul at the same time.
‘Your time is running out…’ a faint voice whispered in her head. Alice-Laura shot up, looking around frantically before realising who had spoken.
‘Please…’ she begged, ‘I don’t understand why it has to be this way’.
She could almost sense the devil’s irritation before he even spoke.
‘It’s really not hard to understand-eh…’ he muttered in annoyance. ‘Since you want to return his soul to the living realm your soul must be exchanged in place. Surely you understand this buttercup?’
‘But why mine? Why not someone else’s? Even an animal-?’
The devil’s voice boomed in her head, ‘No!’, she flinched at the loudness. ‘The Datura ritual requires a blood relative- oh whatever I really do not have time for this!’
Alice-Laura perked up, ‘Wait what ritual-’ but before she could even finish her sentence she felt his presence vacate her mind.
Wasn't that a flower? Grabbing one of her books on various nature-related rituals she flipped to the index, scanning the names under ‘D’ until- there! ‘Datura’, written in red ink right under a couple other rituals she’d already tried with Daisies and Daffodils. She flipped backwards in the book until she reached the right page. Her eyes widened, how had she not noticed this before? The page was incredibly detailed, in fact it looked like someone had been writing in the margins.
Reading over both the book’s original text and the handwritten notes, two key phrases caught her eyes; ‘common names include; hell’s bells or devil’s trumpets’ and hastily scribbled next to the title of the page ‘used in the exchange ritual’.
Alice-Laura mentally reprimanded herself for not checking these pages out earlier, she’d skipped over them initially since Datura weren't native to England but clearly that’d been a huge oversight. Not to mention, now that she thought about it, she remembered helping weed out the Datura from their garden. Dad hated the sight of them so she and Jimmy would always have fun getting to cut them back.
Now.. why did those common names for the plant stick out to her so much?
‘Hell’s bells’ and ‘devil’s trumpets’.
Where had she heard that before? It felt shockingly familiar… her eyes wandered until they caught sight of her old storybook.
‘Just a minute please!’ Beelzebubette’s shrill voice called from within her office. John David and Maureen stood waiting on the other side. He let out a sigh of relief as Beelzebubette’s door finally swung open. They entered her office and the door slammed shut behind them.
They felt Beelzebubette’s gaze on them as they approached her desk.
‘Maureen… and John David. Again.’ Her voice carried a tired and somewhat exasperated tone.
‘Yes hello..’ John David replied, echoed by Maureen's ‘Hi again’.
‘What can I do for you this time? Do you need to speak to the devil again? Because I’m afraid you won’t find yourself in such luck as the last two times’, she asked, muttering the last part.
‘Uh no actually-’ John David started, ‘We wanted to ask you about- wait what do you mean I won’t have the same luck?’.
Beelzebubette just waved her hand in dismissal. ‘Never mind that, what did you want to ask me?’
Slightly unsure now but still desiring answers he started to explain his situation, with Maureen coming in at times to explain her theory on why his soul is trapped in hell.
‘Hmm..’ Beelzebubette sat pondering. ‘Well I suppose it is bizarre that you returned here once again even after I cleared your name…’
‘Right? That’s what I said!’ Maureen exclaimed.
Beelzebubette was quiet for a moment before turning to meet John David’s eye with a grave expression that made his stomach flip and his small flame of hope flicker.
‘If we assume that this is the truth of what transpired that day. Then it is of great importance that you find this object they supposedly took, and fast. I can help you by looking into previous missing items of importance in hell, but that will take time.’
John David didn’t like the sound of that.
‘Is there any particular reason for the time pressure?’
Beelzebubette sighed, ‘I’m not really supposed to tell you this… but since you’ve died three times now your soul is much more permanently tied with hell, therefore, if you wish to return to the land of the living you will either need to exchange your soul for this object, or…’
Beelzebubette’s eyes seem almost pitying for a moment before returning to their natural apathy.
‘Someone of your same blood must give their soul in place’.
John David’s heart plummeted.
‘As I’m sure you’ll now realise, that would mean-’
‘Alice!’ He gasped in horror at the prospect of his daughter being stuck down here.
‘But surely she’d have to agree to something like that? The devil cannot just take her right?’
Beelzebubette’s stoney exterior once again softened to one of gentle sympathy and the next words that left her lips turned his stomach cold.
‘I’m afraid she’s already agreed’.
Alice-Laura cannot believe how blind she’d been. The answer had been in front of her all along! She can’t believe it’d taken her this long to put it all together. Compiling the information from her satanic books, her childhood bedtime story and the scribbled notes whose handwriting was far too similar to her father’s for it to be a coincidence, she had started to form an idea of what happened.
Her dad had somehow been a part of the ‘Datura’ flower ritual, which seemed to be used in order to exchange things between the land of the living and hell, although which part she was unsure of. She had also not quite figured out why that meant his soul was trapped in hell, but she was confident she could figure it out with time.
Additionally, it seemed that a large portion of her bedtime story had been written by her dad. Although the handwriting was different, older, when compared directly next to the handwriting in the nature book it was obvious that it was written by the same person.
Therefore she wondered if the ritual could somehow be reversed… or revoked? Alike how the schoolmaster had managed to use his words and wits to stop the devil from destroying his town… maybe the story held the final clue to fixing all of this!
Abruptly her thoughts were interrupted by a cry of- ‘Alice!’
She whipped around, half-expecting to see her mum at the door but instead the voice came from the mirror… her dad!
She scrambled to get up, resting her hands on the sink as she peered into the mirror. There was nothing for a moment until suddenly her reflection warped and in its place was the pale reflection of her dad.
‘Alice, I can’t hear or see you so I don’t know if you’re getting this. But please. Please. Do not sacrifice your soul for me.’
She gripped the sinkbowl, how could he ask her to do that? To just let him die?
‘There is another way… but it requires an object, one that you have to find’
She steeled herself, she had already done so much, she would not stop until she brought her dad back, whatever object it was, she’d find it.
‘I can’t explain everything now, but I was involved in a ritual where they exchanged my soul for that object, if you can find the object then you can exchange it in return for my soul’
God… Alice-Laura didn’t want to think about what that meant her dad had been though…
‘I’m sorry to have to ask this of you my darling…’ He faded away and there was quiet muttering for a moment, as if he was talking to someone else before he appeared again, ‘We’ve been trying to figure out what the object might be and so far the only missing item of importance from hell that fits the timeline of events is a small necklace with carnelian engravings, I know that's not much to go off but it’s all we’ve got…’ his voice started to fade again, ‘I’m sorry my darling, I wish I had more time, I love you so mu…’.
And just like that he was gone, her reflection appearing once again in the mirror.
A necklace…? Didn’t their Uncle Braen give Jimmy an odd looking necklace just last year…?
