VeronaHills, Round Twenty Five: Thyme
Life and death matters escalated quickly for the new roommates.
The days were a blur of stolen flirtations (Eartha in particular fancied more than one housemate and visitor) and failed flat dinner cooking experiments, until the bathroom door was burst down to the sight of Hi on the floor, not breathing. The lads had not expected that; they just thought Hi had pranked them by exiting the locked bathroom through the window in a silly disappearing act, or was ignoring the knocking while he took his sweet time with certain bodily functions. This was a horror show: from the state of the toilet, he'd clearly been having a bad time, and had mentioned a bout of food poisoning... but how could that have made him... not alive anymore?
Nobody could say the word. Nobody wanted to think about it. In fact, a great effort was made to undo it, one that would shatter the ways of life in the village in a history-repeating deed. Instead of calling an ambulance, who would only press fingers to Hi's paling neck and grimly make the call, Ida Juana called Hi's father. He was eternally on holiday in Spain, or some other such warm destination, but left a number in Hi's phone that thankfully connected. In between wraught gasps of breath, Ida said: "Hi's sick. We need money." And in that moment, she realised how much she loved him, and needed him back.
Money was wired to the account of Puck O'Mackey, the proprietor of Old Farm Garden and prince of the faerie royal family. He arrived with his mother, queen Titania, to attend to the housemates in the cottage basement. In times past, the faeries had not accepted monetary payment for this kind of service, opting to observe the fruits of their forbidden magic within the families affected instead. However, the modern age necessitated a boon to curb expectations of such a service being 'on-demand'. So it was lucky Hi was filthy rich.
"Now," Puck said, his playfully pastel facepaint clashing with the dark look on his face, "which of you is the offering?"
The housemates stood before the ritual circle, composed of black candles, with one of Hi's tracksuits heaped in the middle beside a cutting board. Cliff, grimacing all the way, had chopped a handful of Hi's current preferred strand of sativa as an offering (he rued his innate thirst for knowledge and how it led him astray into performing dark magic with devil's lettuce). Hugh had placed down a container of various scientific ingredients, like carbon from a blackened pot of forgotten boiled potatoes and drops of everyone's blood, to legitimise the process. At the sight of it, and after Puck's damning question, Eartha turned and fled the basement, her stomach making turns that were completely unlike those from the morning after beer pong. The door slammed and the remaining housemates turned to each other, jaws dropped and frozen to the spot: what the hell had they done?
"N-nobody," Hugh finally said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose as if to feign being a scientist in a normal, non-sacrificial lab. "We all want to see Hi again."
Cliff scoffed at this, Puck and Titania ignored him and shared a look that nobody could read, for the sweat beading into their vision. "Then our magic can only do so much," Titania announced. Her voice was clear and her eyes were twinkling; was she... excited? "Be warned, in lieu of a proper sacrifice, the toll will become clear in time. Now leave - your presence is no use to us now." Puck appeared to nod in agreement, though his bright violet head was bowed to his shoes.
No sounds came from the basement as Cliff, Hugh, and Ida Juana stood in the garden. Perhaps the faeries had learned their lesson from having unwitting witnesses to their spellcraft in the past.
But it worked... sort of.
Hi was grey, and couldn't stand up straight, and dragged his left foot on the ground behind him as he lurched into Ida Juana's waiting arms. She didn't seem to hear the groans bubbling from his throat as she held him, but Cliff and Hugh did. It reminded them of the themed movie night the housemates had about a week ago.
The zombie one.
