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The Witchwinds of Mire Manor


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This story is set in the same universe as Desperate DemonThis story will be considerably darker.

Chapter 1: The Kind Lady

Cassandra took a sip of her tea, which was lukewarm and tasted stale. She’d been at the books for hours, trying to make sense of things. Now the autumn wind was howling outside her window and the tree outside rapped rhythmically on the glass. Begging, perhaps, to be let in out of the cold and the rain. Cassandra had cross-referenced several ancient tomes, but now it was nearing midnight. The late hour did nothing to help her connect the dots.

She was a member of an informal group brought together by a shared love of mystery and the occult. The name of their group was an eternal subject of debate: The Dark Seekers, the Eldritch Explorers, the Scooby-Doo College Gang. It was a favored drunken pastime among them to come up with ever more ridiculous names for themselves. Although formally registered as a student organization, giving them access to a room on campus one night every week, they met more frequently in private apartments and bars. The core was made up of a group of six or seven people, all of them current or former students at the university, and they largely shared a distaste for the more mainstream expressions of occult fascination: Neo-Paganism, Satanism, black metal, ghost hunters with infrared cameras, anything with a flavor of New Age and the Age of Aquarius. Members largely came through one of two entry points: the Urban Explorers, who fancied boots on the ground and got an added thrill from any rumor that the properties they trespassed on might be haunted; and the Scholars, whose preoccupation was very old books and the secrets they might contain. Cassandra was a Scholar.

She drained the dregs of her tea and closed her eyes, almost resolving to call it a night. She just needed to gather her thoughts before sleep took her. A sharp knock on the window sent a jolt of fear through her spine, touching on her filling bladder. She opened her eyes. It was only one of the finger-like branches of her least favorite tree come a-knocking again. If only I owned a chainsaw and the guts to defy my landlord, Cassandra thought. Normally, she had a rule never to research the arcane long after sunset. She was mildly ashamed to say she was afraid of the dark, legacy of some disturbing childhood memories. The darkness gave everything a sinister bent, clouding her judgment.

She’d been researching the Salem Witch Trials, again. Twenty women and men were executed during that infamous witch-hunt: nineteen by hanging, and one man was crushed by heavy weights for refusing to plead guilty. Witch-burnings were common in Europe, but contrary to popular belief, no one was burned at the stake at Salem. No one, that is, except possibly one woman, a woman whose name only showed up in very obscure documents. Her name, if she existed, was Anna Mire. English spelling was still in its anarchic phase at the time, and Cassandra had also found her surname spelled Myr, Myre, Mair, and Mayer. But always Anna. Anna was a conundrum. Why was she alone burned, and why was her existence all but buried? Cassandra had a theory so ridiculous that she’d barely had the courage to bring it up with her fellows. Maybe, just maybe, Anna Mire alone had been possessed of, or involved in, actual witchcraft. And maybe, possibly, the whole affair had gone so horrifyingly wrong that even the witch hunters of Salem found it best to bury it. It was a blasphemous idea: Scholars all agreed that the witch-hunts were the result of a toxic mixture of superstition, misogyny, and mass hysteria. To suggest that even one of the victims of the mob was actually guilty of something resembling what they were charged with, was to disrespect the memory of all those innocent women (and a few men) who had suffered so grievously. Not to mention how much it flew in the face of modern science. And yet. Certain strands of evidence pointed in that blasphemous direction.

Cassandra got up from her chair, groaning. Her feet were stiff after sitting still for so long, and her neck hurt from bending over to decipher tiny Gothic letters. Her bladder screamed for release. She made her way to the hall, careful to flick the switch to turn on the light before she exited her room. She had learned a long time ago never to enter a dark hallway alone. She stopped to cross her legs for a moment, then made a mad dash around the bend of the hallway, away from the single light in the ceiling, and into the bathroom.

While sitting on the porcelain throne, she thought back on her last meeting with Amy. Amy was her favorite among the Eldritch Explorers. Like her, she was a Scholar through and through. A kindred spirit, almost. Amy was far more skilled at locating and making sense of obscure books and forgotten documents than Cassandra would ever be. But something had happened to Amy that Spring, something she wouldn’t discuss in detail. It was clear that whatever it was, it’d spooked her. She became withdrawn. Eventually, she stopped coming to their meetings altogether. Cassandra had called her and they’d met in a coffee shop, just the two of them.

Cassie, I’m sorry,” Amy had said. “I just don’t think I can be a part of the Scooby-Doo Gang anymore.” Cassandra, Cassie, Cas: her name became shorter the more intimately you knew her, with the exception of her mother, who called her by a different name altogether. Amy drained her cup of coffee and made to leave. Cassandra put a hand on Amy’s hand and squeezed.

“Whatever it is, you can tell me. I’m your friend.”

Amy looked her sadly in the eyes and said something that still haunted Cassandra. “I think we were always more like colleagues working in the same field, Cassie.” It hurt to hear that. Sometimes, Cassandra couldn’t sleep, and she lay awake wondering if her obsessions were pushing her away from genuine friendship. Did everyone she thought of as a personal friend see her like Amy did, as nothing more than a colleague or an acquaintance with a common hobby?

Trying to swallow the lump in her throat, Cassandra pressed on. “As a colleague, then. If you can’t tell me what happened to frighten you so, at least give me one last chance to pick that big brain of yours. If you won’t be my friend, at least give me the courtesy of sharing your notes with a colleague before you leave us all behind.”

Amy sat down again. Her brow furrowed, and she sat up straight as a ramrod, as if posture equaled resolve. “Oh, Cassie,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said that. It was unkind.” But it was honest, Cassandra thought, and now the cat’s out of the bag I won’t be able to forget it. “Okay,” Amy continued. “I’ll tell you a few things to help you on your way, but if you pursue this, you might find that some things are better left buried. You might come to harm, and that can’t and won’t be on my shoulders, you hear? I’m warning you now.”

Out with it!” Cassandra said, releasing Amy’s hand, which had gone clammy. “I take full responsibility.”

Amy sighed. “I know you’ve been looking into this Anna Mire angle.”

Yeah? You know something about her I don’t? She was real, wasn’t she?

Probably, yes. But it’s not her you should be looking into. It’s her mentor.

Cassandra leaned back in her chair. Now this is interesting. She hadn’t had much luck connecting Anna to anyone else. It was as if the woman simply appeared in Salem in 1693 just in time to die. But she must have come from somewhere. Someone must have been her father, her mother, her friend. And if Cassandra’s suspicions were correct, someone must have been her teacher and mentor in the occult.

His name was Adam Musgrave,” Amy said. “An old man, a very old man from England. Unusually old, you follow?” Cassandra nodded. “Author of a legendary manuscript presumed lost in the great London city fire of 1666, the Daemonic Dictionary. Presumed dead around 1660 in Plymouth. Before then, he had time to take on some students, including your mystery lady.”

Cassandra leaned across the table. Her expression must have been quite intense, because Amy involuntarily drew back on her chair. Cassandra cursed her eagerness and leaned back in her own chair. “Please,” she said. “Where did you find this information? What more can you tell me?”

I’m sorry,” Amy said. “That’s about as far as I can aid you. Going further would mean talking about things you promised you wouldn’t press me on.”

“I shouldn’t have been so forward.”

It’s not just me, you know. The secrets I keep? I don’t just keep them because it pains me to talk about them. I keep secrets for other people, people who trust me, okay?”

“Sorry. Is there nothing more, strictly business, you can tell me?”

Look into this Musgrave. His trail turns cold around 1660, and my best guess is the dude just up and died, after living well past his allotted years. But he has living descendants. Or at least, there are people alive with his name who can be traced back to him, although I couldn’t say if they’re genuine blood relations. Good luck, Cassie.”

They shook hands like colleagues. “Next time we meet, we’re gonna get stupid drunk and gossip about celebrities and who our friends are hooking up with,” Amy said. “And if you talk shop I will turn and leave the room.” There was a false levity to the first statement, a barely concealed threat in the second. Cassandra had heeded that last one. They had met early in the summer, and now it was October and she hadn’t seen Amy since. She’d watched Amy turn, pick up her backpack with a teddy bear motif on the back—Amy spoke like an aging scholar, drank like a sailor, looked like a young woman, and dressed like a middleschooler—and walk out of her life.

Cassandra rose from the toilet, relieved. She flipped a middle finger at the spider that sat on the bathroom mirror. She might be afraid of the dark, but spiders were simply a nuisance. She splashed some water on her face, studied her reflection for a moment. A woman in her mid-twenties, an oval face with dark skin, brown eyes, frizzy black hair almost reaching her shoulders, and rings under her eyes. She hadn’t bothered with makeup today but her meager skills couldn’t have hidden that haggard look. Cassandra had been driving herself hard, looking for answers to questions perhaps no one else in the world would even care to ask. The only other person she knew who was remotely interested had rejected her and her entire line of research. She brushed her teeth, then trotted back out into the hallway. Someone had turned off the light, and she could barely see in front of her. Damn it.

The familiar dread crept up on her. She felt a drop of sweat slide down her neck, and the shock of it nearly made her jump. Good thing she’d already peed, or she might have just then. Cursing her dumb housemate, she turned the corner, jogged down to her door, flicked the switch on the wall, and escaped into her room. Her housemate would turn off every light Cassandra left on in an unoccupied room, to save on the electricity bill. Sensible enough, except Cassandra had impressed upon her that she was pathologically afraid of the dark, that admitting this was kind of embarrassing at twenty-five years of age, and could she please just leave the hallway light on at night? Fucking bitch. She’d chosen the room at the end of the hallway, because for some inexplicable reason, that was where the light switch was located, right outside her door at the end rather than at the entrance to the hall. But that didn’t help much when you were going the other way.

Heart thumping like a marching band, Cassandra collapsed onto her bed. In order to distract herself and forestall a panic attack, she set about mentally sorting what she’d learned today. She’d begun researching this Musgrave fellow shortly after her meeting with Amy. She’d turned up little on the man himself beyond what Amy had told her, except for some whispers about the legendary lost manuscript he supposedly authored, the Daemonic Dictionary. Cassandra might be willing to entertain ideas that witchcraft might be real, but she wasn’t so eager to believe as to assume that any old myth or ghost story that came her way was true.

As best she could tell, this dictionary of demonology was just a tad more real than H. P. Lovecraft’s Necronomicon. Realer, insofar as near-contemporary sources claimed it was real—she could not trace it back to an outright work of fiction printed in a pulp magazine. But neither could she find any actual excerpt, nor any legitimate reference to any person who might have possessed a copy before the manuscript supposedly went up in flames together with more than half the city of London. Probably a myth, then, and certainly a dead end unless she could find some better sources, and her search had taken months and had been very thorough. The only person who might have found it, were it real, is Amy, she mused. She’d had better luck tracing the descendants of Adam Musgrave. As Amy had said, it was unclear whether any of them were blood relatives, but she had found references to the family name near Salem and Plymouth in the 17th century. Could be a coincidence, an unrelated family bearing the same name, but several scions of that line had published pamphlets, books, or written private letters later preserved in collections of correspondence with more famous pen-pals that referenced demonology and the occult. Two of these books were dedicated to Adam Musgrave.

Closing her eyes and kneading her eyelids with her knuckles, Cassandra strained to focus. There were three distinct, living lineages of the Musgrave family she’d found. The Musgrave-Lloyds had become wealthy industrialists in the 19th century. They had lost much of their fortune in the Depression era but several living descendants appeared to still be doing quite well for themselves. Old money. They were the least interesting for her purposes, because no one of that line had ever made any interest in the occult public. She knew there was a family mausoleum in town dedicated to that branch of the family, though, and intended to visit it soon. The second line bore the name Musgrave plainly, and one of them, a Bethany Musgrave, had lived in town until recently and might be living there still. She would have to find an excuse to visit the old lady. The third line bore the name Leclerk, or Leclerc, or more recently, just Clerk. The daughter of another Adam Musgrave had married a French officer who’d fought in the American War of Independence, and their descendants had spread across North America and beyond. They had once owned a family manor estate near Cassandra’s city, and the history of that place intrigued her. Trying to juggle these disparate strands of information, she fell asleep.

The Kind Lady and her two Attendants came to her that night.

Cassandra had always had terrible nightmares. As a young child, she suffered horrifying night terrors. Vague dreams she could never quite recall, but the fear they invoked in her didn’t abate when she woke. She would scream, and scream, and cry, and sometimes it took an hour of her mother cradling her to calm her down. To bring her back out of that twilight state between waking and nightmare. Once she got older, the night terrors ceased. But fifteen years later, she could still remember her first meeting with the Kind Lady.

Ten years old, Cassie had woken up in the middle of the night. The house was eerily silent. Usually, the floors and ceilings creaked and groaned at night. Usually, she could hear the soft patter of raindrops or the whooshing of the wind outside her window, or perhaps the meowing of the neighbor’s cat, which had annexed Cassie’s family’s yard as her own. This night, it was all so very still. Cassie tried to sit up, but found herself unable to move. It was as if her limbs were pinned down by heavy weights. This was unusual, but a strange calm had settled upon her. Cassie was not afraid, not yet. Then she discovered her eyes were closed. With effort, she lifted her lids and looked into the darkness. She was not alone. The sight that met her caused her to scream, but the scream was little more than a wheeze by the time it left her lips.

Standing at attention like soldiers, at the two far corners of the room, were two men. Cassie could just barely see them out of her peripheral vision from her vantage point, head glued to her pillow and weighed down by an invisible force. She could tell they were men, that they carried themselves in the manner of soldiers or perhaps personal attendants to some noble lady or lord of ages past, but she couldn’t tell you their height, never mind the color of their hair or the size of their bellies. Between them, at the end of her bed, stood an abomination. She was a tall woman, so light of skin that she practically glowed in the dark; impossibly thin, her arms all bone and sinew. Her cheeks were hollow, the eyes dark and blue. Her hair was gray and hung in tatters down from her scalp, and she carried a large scar from the top of her nose going up to where her hair line ought to be. She wore a stained white nightgown. The woman stood bent over Cassie in a manner that gave the impression that she had no spine. It looked less like she was bending over and more like she was a broken reed, whispering in a summer breeze.

Go away, ghost! Cassie tried to scream, but again, all that left her lips was a wheeze like that of a dying old woman.

I come bearing gifts, dear,” said the Kind Lady. Cassie didn’t know how she knew, but she knew: that was her name. The Kind Lady. “A present of knowledge.” Her voice was a rasping bass conducted through a tin can telephone, like the one Cassandra had made together with her cousin.

Go away! Leave me a-a-alone!

“I am afraid I cannot,” said the Kind Lady. “I understand that my appearing here frightens you. But I came to give you advance warning.”

Warning?

“Sad to say, dear, but Whiskers is not long for this world. Say your goodbyes, dear, say your bye-byes while you can!” She intoned. She sounded like a jazz singer in a dark smoky bar, playing on a broken record player. A broken, husky sing-song.

Whiskers was the neighbor’s cat, and Cassie’s surrogate pet.

The Kind Lady leaned over further and reached for Cassie, who tried to flee but was still held down as if by heavy weights. The Lady put her fingers gently on Cassie’s brow and pushed her eyelids closed. “Sleep now, sweetheart.”

Cassie slept until morning and woke up feeling ill. That was the first of many visits by the Lady, and the birth of an obsession. On those nights, and only those nights she was visited by the Kind Lady, Cassandra wet the bed. Her sheets were soaked, and she had to shamefully collect them and wake up her mother, who said only, “Oh, Millie,” and gathered her up in a warm, wet hug. Her mother never called her by the name everyone else did, but rather her middle name, which she shared with a dead great-grandmother.

There was a rational explanation, of course. Sleep paralysis. It had a name recognized by doctors and scientists, so it couldn’t be real. But Cassandra hadn’t heard of many people who were visited by the same apparition, the same hallucination, for years. Gradually, she came to understand that the Kind Lady intended her no harm. No, the truth was more frightening. She always came bearing gifts, just like she said, presents of knowledge. Without fail, it was an ominous warning that harm would befall someone Cassandra knew and loved in the near future, either a friend, a relative, a neighbor or a classmate or a pet. The warnings were always vague, vague enough that Cassandra could extract no useful information out of them. Nothing actionable. Even if she were certain they were actual prophecies, she could do nothing to thwart them. The morning after that first visit, after Cassie had tearfully related the events to her mother, who kissed her on the brow and sent her to shower off the urine that clung to her pajamas, she’d run out to find Whiskers. Whiskers was still alive. Cassie scooped up the cat and clung to her, long enough that the cat got tired of cuddling and swiped her with a claw, leaving a nasty red gash on her hand.

Two days later, Whiskers was gone. It took Cassie another week of secretly listening to conversations between grownups to learn the truth they were shielding from her: the cat had been run over by a car and died. Just like the Kind Lady had said.

So it went, for years. The Lady would come at night, her Attendants standing ominously in the back, the Lady performing blasphemies upon the human anatomy as she delivered her messages of doom. Sometimes, it was a minor misfortune. Sometimes it was major. But they always concerned someone close to her, and they always came to pass. It was the Kind Lady who had informed her first that her father was dying, that he would be dead within the year. Two months later she learned that Dad, who was somewhat estranged from Cassie’s mother but still visited his daughter once or twice a year and always, always remembered her birthday, had terminal cancer. Four months after that he was in the ground.

It was the Kind Lady who had inspired Cassandra’s obsession with the occult. But the Kind Lady had not appeared to her in years.

Cassandra woke, and the Kind Lady stood before her again. Her Attendants at attention in the back, as always.

Cold fear shot up through Cassandra’s spine. She did not fear the Kind Lady anymore, not as much as those first few appearances. She was still an unnerving sight, so impossibly thin and frail and moving as if she had no bones in her even though Cassandra could see the bones protruding, stretching her pale skin taut. But the Kind Lady had never hurt Cassandra, never made any move to hurt her. No, what Cassandra feared was not the messenger, but the message. Truth be told, Cassandra had become withdrawn, almost reclusive in the past year or two. Her social circle was limited to her Scooby-Doo Gang and her housemate and very rarely, lunch with a former classmate. Her father was dead, she was an only child. No boyfriend to speak of. If the Kind Lady came to deliver another forewarning about impending misfortune to her loved ones, there was only one person Cassandra could think of. One person left. No, please, not mother. Anyone but her. Please!

The Lady looked down at her with sadness. Her face was dry almost to the point of desiccation, but a tear rolled down her cheek nonetheless. “No, sweetheart, not your mother. Do not cry for your mother. I see no major misfortune to befall her in many years.”

Why are you crying, then? Cassandra had learned that, when she could reign in her fear, she could converse with the Kind Lady. Cassandra couldn’t move her lips, but the Lady responded as if she had. She would rarely answer a question plainly, but she would at least indicate that she had understood.

“I weep for you, Cassandra dear. I come delivering a message I had hoped not to deliver for many years. But deliver it I must.”

What? What is it? Whos dying this time?

I came to tell you that your fortune is at an end, Cassandra.”

What? Are you telling me I’m going to die?

“All mortals die. If I had seen your death, I would not foretell it plainly. But I have seen a terrible tragedy in your future, before the year is ended.”

The Kind Lady laid two hands on top of Cassandra’s. She squeezed them affectionately. Her hands, unlike her visage, were warm. They reminded Cassandra of her own mother’s. “Your inquiries,” said the Lady, “lead you down a path of ruin.”

My inquiries? You mean my research? What if I just, I don’t know, give it all up?

“You will not and cannot. Be honest with yourself. Good bye, Cassandra.” She leaned down and kissed Cassandra on the forehead, and then she was gone.

In the morning, Cassandra awoke to find out she’d wet the bed for the first time in years.

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  • 3 months later...

Chapter 2: St. Jude's Memorial

Cassandra threw the duvet off. She felt cold and sticky. She’d fallen asleep with her jeans on, and they were soaked down to the knees. There was an oval patch of wetness extending around her hips, down between her legs towards the center of the mattress. The bottom half of her shirt was sticking to her lower back, wet and clammy. A distinct tang of urine filled the room. She felt cold, wet, and very alone.

She came for me again. After all these years, the Kind Lady had come back to warn her. But of what? Cassandra strained to ignore the sticky wetness around her bottom, the cold wet sheets, and remember. Her inquiries would lead her to ruin. But how? What if I give it all up? She’d asked. You will not and you cannot, the Kind Lady had said.

Right now, though, she had more immediate problems to deal with. Cassandra crawled out of bed and pulled down her drenched jeans. She was too anxious to really be embarrassed by what had happened. If she’d wet the bed and the Kind Lady hadn’t shown up, she might have been embarrassed. But this always happened when the old ghoul decided to pay her a visit. She checked her phone and it was only eight in the morning on a Saturday. Cassandra figured her roommate wouldn’t be up yet. She ripped off the wet sheets, bundled them up with her wet jeans and shirt, left the wet panties on. She couldn’t quite make herself walk fully nude down the hallway, even if she expected it to empty.

She made her way down the hall and pulled on the door to the bathroom. It was locked. Fuck, fuck fuck fuck. Cassandra turned on her heel and was about to run back to her room when the door bumped against her shoulder.

She’s all yours!” Her housemate Nina chirped, far too bright for a Saturday morning. “Uh, what’s going on?” She followed up. Then: “Oh. Oh, oh, oooh.” Cassandra turned around, clutching the wet clothes and sheets to her chest like a teddy bear. Nina’s eyes searcher her, then fell on the wet half-moon stain between her legs, the bundle of clothes and sheets in her arms. “Oooh.” Cassandra felt her cheeks warm. She hadn’t intended to be caught wet-handed. Thankfully, her blush wasn’t quite as noticeable on her darker skin. Nina made to leave, but Cassandra seized her arm, caught in a sudden desire to explain herself. She didn’t want her housemate to see her like this, but she didn’t want her to make any assumptions either.

It’s just, I had a terrifying nightmare and I guess… I guess I wet the bed,” Cassandra said.

Nina held her gaze. Cassandra looked back, and she could see Nina’s eyes grow moist, sparkling. “Oh, dear. Sweet Cassie,” she said, and pulled her into a hug. “You go take a shower and I’ll make you some tea.” They separated, and as she watched Nina go down the stairs, she put a hand to her cheek, held it over the warm spot where Nina had made contact. Blushing, she shook her head and made her way into the bathroom. She pulled off her bra and her wet panties and dumped them in the washing machine with the rest of the wet and dirty, then stepped into the shower.

As the water fell over her shoulders, Cassandra found herself touching the spot where Nina’s cheek had made contact again. She shook her head. Her housemate, a little dirty blonde pixie who almost had to stand on her tiptoes to hug her, was a sweet girl. Nina was always trying to drag Cassandra out of her shell. She couldn’t quite figure out why she’d never really reciprocated. Nina wanted Cassandra in her life; Cassandra had been fine keeping her at arm’s length. But standing there listening to the warm water trickle into the drain and washing the sticky, filthy urine off her, she couldn’t quite put together why. Cassandra was often lonely. And she knew why: because she always pushed away the people in her life who could have become her tribe. She spent most of her time studying for her classes or studying the arcane, and most of her acquaintances were like Amy: they felt like colleagues, not like friends. But Nina hadn’t needed to drag her to parties, she hadn’t needed to offer to help her with makeup, she hadn’t needed to offer to share study notes. She could have laughed when Cassandra showed up in wet panties with urine-stained sheets in her hand, but she didn’t. She made a decision. She was going to let Nina in, just a little bit. She was going to tell her the truth. Well, a sanitized version of the truth. She couldn’t quite muster the courage to tell her housemate that a supernatural hag showed up in her bedroom at night and warned her of impending death. Nina would probably call the university psychiatry service on her part. But she could at least tell part of the truth.

When Cassandra emerged downstairs, dressed in gray dry yoga pants and a white top, Nina had already put a porcelain samovar and two cups on the table. A concession to her Russian heritage, she’d explained once. The samovar was painted with a flowery motif in royal blue on white. Nina poured her a cup of chamomile tea. She sat with one foot tucked underneath her on the couch, a smile in her eyes that didn’t quite reach her pink lips.

Oh my god,” Cassandra says, “this is so embarrassing,” because that was the kind of thing you said in this situation.

Don’t worry about it,” said Nina. “I totally pissed the bed freshman year when I went to my first party.”

Cassandra felt her cheeks burn again, not so much on her own behalf as on Nina’s.

I wasn’t drunk, though,” she said.

Still,” Nina said. “Try the tea. It’s one of my favorites!”

Cassandra took a sip. It was sweet, with an aftertaste of something else, like a promise.

I, uh, I have this recurrent nightmare,” Cassandra began. “It’s like, this ghost lady with bones sticking out in all the wrong places. She comes to me at night and tells me something really bad is going to happen. It’s happened ever since I was a child, and for some reason, whenever I have this nightmare, I end up peeing the bed.”

No way,” said Nina, leaning closer to Cassandra. Their knees were touching. “Do they ever come true? These, uh, visions or whatever?”

Cassandra looked down, unable to hold her housemate’s inquisitive gaze. Could she really pretend, for Nina’s sake, that this was actually real? She’d always known, deep down, that it was real, that it couldn’t be just a recurrent nightmare. But she’d never let herself admit it to anyone else. They’ll just think I’m crazy, she’d thought.

Uh, yeah,” she began. “Like, one time, the Kind Lady told me my neighbor’s cat was going to die. I’d more or less adopted that cat as my own pet. And she did, like, a few days later.”

The Kind Lady?” Nina asked.

Shit shit shit. She hadn’t intended to reveal that. Cassandra never knew where the name came from, but she’d always known that was the apparition’s name. “That’s what I call her,” she said, biting her lip and evading Nina’s eyes. “I don’t know why, but it just came to me. That’s what’s she’s called, The Kind Lady. She’s really scary, but she never hurts me. She always comes to tell me someone I care about is going to have a bad time.”

Oh my god,” Nina said. “Oh, poor you.”

Cassandra chanced a glance at her. Nina was leaning forward, pursing her lips, eyes eager for more. “You don’t think I’m crazy?” Cassandra asked.

I think you’re a lot less crazy than you think you are,” she said earnestly. “What did the Kind Lady say this time?”

That’s just it,” Cassandra said, taking another sip of her tea. “She’s never told me anything about myself before. It’s always been about someone else. But this time, she told me… I don’t know exactly. That something bad was going to happen to me. Because of, uh, my research.”

Nina tentatively put a hand on her shoulder. When Cassandra didn’t flinch, she began rubbing. “Oh, dear,” she said. “What research?”

My, uh, interest in the… the occult.”

Cassandra’s entire face was burning, and she knew it would be visible. But Nina just continued rubbing her shoulder and making soothing noises. “Oh, sweet Cassie,” she said. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” Cassandra almost believed it.

Once they had finished their tea, and Nina had made all the soothing noises she could think of, Cassandra thanked her for the tea and promised they’d talk again, really talk, soon. She was almost floating on a cloud when she gathered up her things and made her plans for the day. It felt like a new beginning of sorts. A new Cassandra. No longer the loner with her nose in a four-hundred-year-old book, sneezing at dust and flinching at shadows. A person who had friends she could confide in. It was almost too good to be true, but also seemed close enough to her grasp that she allowed herself to hope.

She’d considered giving up all her research. Of course she had. The Kind Lady had never been wrong. Whenever she showed up, something terrible was about to happen. And this time, the Lady had come to warn her, Cassandra. Not about her neighbor’s cat or her mother. Her.

But in the end, it was never a question. She couldn’t just leave things like this. The visit had confirmed that she was on to something. And how could she avoid whatever fate awaited her if she didn’t know what it was she was on the verge of discovering?

She decided that the order of the day was to check out the last registered residence of one Bethany Musgrave. She’d lived at a place on Cypress Lane seven years ago, together with her husband, and she might live there still. Cassandra hadn’t been able to find any more up-to-date information on Bethany Musgrave, so she decided to simply conduct a house call. She’d figure out a story on the spot. She stuffed a bottle of water into a backpack with a notepad and a few pens and set out. It was still a little early to go visiting someone on a Saturday morning, but she could always scope out the place in advance.

Cypress Lane was a cutesy little back street, all white picket fences and small middle-class homes fronted by lawns that would no doubt be well-manicured in the summer, but now in mid-October they were yellow or brown and coated in a thin layer of frost. The eponymous trees stood like sentinels groping at the sky, along the side of the road and inside gardens, watching her. Cassandra shivered. She’d put on a winter coat, but her legs were only insulated by a thin layer of yoga pants that would have been more appropriate in the gym. Curse my inability to get my clothes washed on schedule, and a pox on all bed-wetting monsters. She crossed her arms to keep the warmth flowing in her upper body, hoping it would bleed over into her legs.

The street ended in a cul-de-sac, and at its end sat a modest little house, tucked away behind a garden. Cassandra’s lips twitched into a half-smile. She was definitely in the right place, and she was definitely onto something. The garden was blooming, green trees, green bushes, green grass apparently unconcerned by the layer of frost on its branches. This isn’t natural. This garden looked nothing like the dead botany of the neighboring houses. It was lush, blooming like the living embodiment of a middle finger in the face of winter.

In the garden stood a young woman. She was bent over with a pair of gardening scissors, cutting off some unruly branches on a bush. Her butt was in the air and Cassandra flushed when she noted the perfect curve connecting her spine to her buttocks, like an invitation to bite down on the cheeks bulging into the fabric of her blue jeans. Cassandra shook her head. Nope, not into girls, move along. When the woman noticed Cassandra approaching, she rose, and Cassandra’s breath caught in her throat. She had brown hair going down to her shoulders, artfully unruly, like she’d made up her hair just enough not to actually be messy but to give off the impression that she’d just risen from bed and didn’t care. She was wiggling her wide hips side to side, shifting her weight from one foot to the other impatiently. Her eyes were the green of the Adriatic, and looking into them, she felt like she was seeing the bottom of the ocean—but a false bottom, like there were secrets hidden underneath the shallow sands through which crabs crawled and sea anemones grew. She was illuminant. The shadow of the bush under the low October sun seemed not to affect her. It made Cassandra deeply uncomfortable and, somehow, shamefully, aroused. She felt something sticky in her panties, a drop of sweat down her brow, her cheeks reddening. Cassandra shook her head. I don’t like this. It’s not natural. It’s not real.

May I help you?” Said the woman. Cassandra straightened her shoulders. It wasn’t like she had intended to: there was just something in the woman’s demeanor that made it impossible to resist.

I, uh...” Cassandra began. All the excuses she’d thought up on the way here were gone. “Um,” she began again. “I was looking for Bethany Musgrave. This was the last address registered on her. Does she, like, live here still?” She bit her lip. She sounded dumb. She sounded like she didn’t belong here. She’d make a terrible P.I.

Bethany Musgrave doesn’t live here anymore,” said the woman. “I’m Asha.” She held out a hand, and Cassandra was shaking it, and as she released the hand, she didn’t remember ever reaching out her hand to greet her. “’M Cassandra,” she heard herself say, even though she’d had no intention to reveal anything more than necessary. Asha crossed her legs discreetly as she let go of Cassandra’s hand. Her eyes were so deep, Cassandra could get lost in them. Only the echo of the Kind Lady led her to break Asha’s gaze: I came to tell you that your fortune is at an end, Cassandra.

Why do you want to meet Mrs. Musgrave, Cassandra?” Asha asked, in a tone so sweet Cassandra could practically taste the venom dripping off the poisoned apple.

Oh, I’m, uh, researching the Musgrave family. For my dissertation,” she lied. She couldn’t bring herself to look into Asha’s eyes as she said so.

I don’t think so,” Asha said simply. Cassandra felt compelled to match those ocean-bottom eyes. “Tell me why you’re really here, and I may just decide to help you.”

Cassandra’s eyes were burning. She was looking at Asha but all she saw was white, red, black. She closed her eyes. In the phosphenescent sight of her closed eyes, she saw only black, static, and faintly, darkly, as if there were a darker black than black, the outline of shoulders, of a pair of wings. They were flickering like flames. She opened her eyes. A trickle of sweat was tickling the roots of her hair near her nape. She nodded. She was in the presence of something not from this world, and she couldn’t help herself.

It’s not for my dissertation,” she heard herself say. She blushed at the sticky sensation of her panties against her lower lips, at the way her heart fluttered when she looked at Asha.

Tell me,” Asha intoned, and it wasn’t her speaking, it was a hundred dead men wailing in her ears. Tell me tell me tell me tell me. Cassandra felt her crotch grow warm, a chill down her spine, a twitch in her thighs.

It’s for my occult research.”

Good girl,” said Asha, sweet as a poison viper, and Cassandra’s crotch warmed again, something sticky and wet sliding down her inner thigh. Cassandra closed her eyes again. She saw the Kind Lady, a collection of bones assembling all wrong under a thin sheet of bone-white skin, and she heard her sepulchral rasp: Demoness. Succubus. She opened her eyes and found them watering, her lip trembling.

Bethany Musgrave doesn’t live here anymore,” Asha was saying, far away under the ocean. “She rented this house to myself and my fiancee this spring. She lives, oh, I don’t know her address, in an apartment somewhere in town, taking care of her sick husband.”

Asha, what are you doing?” A male voice. A young man was coming out of the house. Cassandra noticed Asha’s hand squeeze her crotch. The young man came up behind Asha. Her fiancee that she’d mentioned? He took her hand firmly, yanked it out of Asha’s crotch. Was that? Cassandra saw a shadow that could have been a small patch of wetness on Asha’s jeans. Did she just… Pee a little?

What are you doing?” The young man asked again.

Asha’s knees buckled. She tried to yank her hand free, but the young man held it firmly. Instead, she bent her knees, an aborted curtsy, then straightened her back. “I was just having a little fun,” she said, pouting.

Remember the last time you had a little too much fun?” The young man was whispering, but Cassandra could just about catch what he was saying. Asha’s radiant skin, a tanned white, went ashen gray. Her cheeks flushed, and she raised a hand and rubbed her neck, just above her clavicle. Cassandra found her eyes closed again, although she didn’t remember closing them. She saw the afterimage of Asha’s shoulders, her collarbone; above it, her neck, a faint red scar like she’d been choked. She opened her eyes and looked into Asha’s deep green gaze, and Asha’s eyes were watering.

You should go,” said the young man.

Wait,” said Asha, struggling to get the words out. She’s hyperventilating, Cassandra realized. She’s panicking. I should do something, but… Demoness, The Kind Lady intoned. Succubus.

 

There’s a man she goes to visit. Jeremiah Rodgers-Musgrave, at St. Jude’s Memorial.” She looked apologetic.

Cassandra found herself standing at the intersection between Morrow Road and Cypress Lane. She couldn’t remember walking back. Moreover, she couldn’t remember her lower half being so… Wet and sticky. Her panties seemed scrunched up, pushed between her buttocks, and they were warm and clinging to her like a drowning lover. She put a tentative hand between her legs. Her yoga pants were wet. I’ve wet myself, again. Awake, this time. Thankfully, they were black and it wasn’t visible unless the light hit just wrong. Not only was she wet downstairs, she felt parched. Her throat was dry as the Sahara, but when she fished out her water bottle, it was empty. She couldn’t remember drinking more than a mouthful out of it. Cassandra looked at her wristwatch. It was almost noon. Which meant she’d lost, what… Two hours? I can’t remember the last two hours, I’ve pissed myself, and apparently I drank all my water while blacked out. Great. Fucking amazing. Thanks, God. She spit on the ground.

Her bladder spasmed. Cassandra bent over. She hadn’t noticed it, but she could feel her bladder bulging over the waistband of her pants. Another spasm wrecked her. She sank into a crouch, leaning on her heel as if that might help. Another spasm. Fuck it, I’m already wet.

She tried to let go. Twenty-two or so years of potty training prevented her from letting go. She tried to push down, but no go. Then another spasm wracked her, and she couldn’t have held on if her life depended on it. Warm, wet urine pooled underneath her butt, spattered on the ground. She spread her legs, giving the urine a straight path to flow through her panties, warming her privates, through her yoga pants, to spatter shamefully on the ground.

When she was done, she rose. Put a hand on her pants. They were warm and wet in the crotch, and a little trickle had gone down the inside of one thigh. A little had soaked into her tennis sock, but it was black like her yoga pants. She satisfied herself that nothing was visible unless you were looking very closely. Then she remembered something. It was a far-off memory, like that time she fell off her tricycle when she was three or four and scratched her knee. But it was there somewhere in the haze: Jeremiah Rodgers-Musgrave, St. Jude’s Memorial.

St Jude’s was a nursing home in the middle of town, and visiting hours were just staring when she arrived. She felt a little guilty about leaving a damp spot in her bus seat for some unlucky schmuck to sit in, but only a little.

Cassandra had concocted an elaborate cover story on the bus, but she didn’t need any of it. “I’m here to see Jeremiah Rodgers-Musgrave,” she’d said, ready to launch into a series of lies. But the nurse at the desk had only smiled.

Oh, he hasn’t had any visitors in months. Usually Ms. Bethany comes along, but she hasn’t been here lately.”

Oh,” Cassandra said.

I’ll take you to his room,” the nurse said. She seemed bored—working the desk at a nursing home on a Saturday probably wasn’t very exciting—and glad to have someone to talk at. “Were you close? I have to warn you, he isn’t always lucid, but these past few days he’s been fairly clear up top.”

I, uh, no...” Cassandra said. “I’m, uh, remote family. I only just found out he was living here. May I ask, uh, why? I mean, why is he not lucid all the time?”

The nurse’s shoulders shuddered in what was clearly a calculated display of spine-tingling chill. “Mr. Rodgers came here in 1971,” she said. “Paranoid schizophrenia. He said he was born in 1734, and that there were people after him, looking to steal the secret to immortality.”

Really?” Cassandra asked, trying to conceal her excitement. There’s no fucking way this is just a lunatic in a nursing home. Not after… Whatever just happened to me.

The nurse repeated her exaggerated I’m-so-terrified shudder. “Mr. Rodgers’ birth records indicated he was forty-two years old when he first came here,” she said. Her next words were delivered in an ominous whisper: “And I swear, he still looks forty-two.” What the fuck?

The nurse showed her into a spare room: bed, wardrobe, gray curtains, a dying plant on the windowsill. Reproduction of a painting showing a scene Cassandra guessed was from the Civil War in a faux-gilded frame over a chair. In the chair sat a man in early middle age. He had black, graying her, a spotty beard with a trace of gray, and he was very, very thin. Almost as thin as The Kind Lady, his sweater enveloping him like a blanket, his dirty jeans not quite hanging onto his spindly calves, his atrophied quadriceps.

Mr. Rodgers?” The Nurse knocked on the open door. “You have a visitor. I’ll leave you to it. Visiting hours end at two.” The nurse hurried from the room, as if she’d seen a ghost.

Who are you?” The man fixed his gray eyes on her. His eyes had the spark of life in them, but his voice was raspy, like he’d smoked two packs a day for fifty years or he was suffering from lung cancer.

Cassandra,” she said.

I’ve been waiting for you,” he said, cracking a sad smile.

You’ve been waiting… for me?”

Well, not you specifically. But someone like you. I’ve been waiting a long time. Have you spoken to Bethany?”

Cassandra shook her head.

Good. She’s been trying to silence me for two hundred years.”

Wow,” Cassandra said. She couldn’t help herself. She grabbed a chair sitting in a corner, pulled it up alongside Jeremiah.

Wow is right,” Jeremiah rasped. “I had a feeling you would believe me. You’ve had contact with Hell, girl,” he said.

What? What the fuck did you just say?” Cassandra’s sweet, understanding tone broke.

I can smell it on you. Twice have you seen Hell, and twice you’ve come out of it, diminished,” he intoned. Like he was delivering an ancient prophecy.

What does that mean?”

Hell if I know,” said Jeremiah. “I just know it happened.”

She nodded.

So, you really did it? You, um, found the secret to immortality?”

A ritual at Mire Manor in 1776,” he said. “Year of the revolution. And only grief it’s brought me, all these years.” He spat on the floor. It was an angry gesture, an ugly gesture, and somehow it made Cassandra like this old man all the more.

I thought I’d rule the world,” he said. “And all I’ve been doing since then is running. Saving mine own hide, not rescuing orphans nor ruling over harems.” He sighed. “I’m sorry.”

Sorry? For yourself?”

Sorry you didn’t make it to the ladies’ room,” he said.

What the hell?”

Jeremiah reached over and grabbed her hands. She was too shocked to pull away. “Let me fix that for you,” he said. And before she could protest, he put this hands directly over her damp, cold crotch.

What the hell are you doing?” She managed, but then she felt it: A warmth, spreading from her crotch, down her thighs, down into her right foot, the one whose sock had gotten wet. Not the warmth of a shot of Tequila, or the euphoric warmth of an orgasm. It was more like the warmth of her mother, tucking her into bed at night, making sure the covers were just right to protect her from monsters and burglars and bullies and nightmares. Everything. Everything, save the Kind Lady. You couldn’t protect me from her, Mom.

The warmth faded away. Cassandra put a hand between her legs. Her crotch was dry. Not caring about the old man in front of her, she put a hand inside her yoga pants, squeezed her panties. They were dry. Dry and lukewarm like she’d just pulled them out of the drier.

What did you just do?” She demanded.

What I always intended to do, all these years. Not run away from witches and hide. Magic, dear Cassandra. Magic.”

Standing in the cold outside St. Jude’s Memorial, Cassandra knew one thing. She knew were to find the answers she’d been seeking. Mire Manor. I have to go to Mire Manor.

But she was too afraid to go alone. Who could she convince to go with her?

 

Author's note: I struggled for months with how to continue this. Finally, I decided to just have a few drinks and sit down and write it, and I did. This is a story that has omorashi in it, not a story about omorashi. So, it might disappoint those who are looking for pure smut. But I hope you'll find it worth it anywayIn this chapter, I tried to convey some of the pure horror that coming face to face with a demon would invoke, which didn't come through as much in Desperate Demon. In this story, Asha is just a side character, but she's unbound, and she's terrifying.

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I've been checking for an update every 3 or 4 days since chapter one, and Jesus Christ this more than delivered. This has got to be the hottest thing you've ever written. I was already and continue to be completely hooked on the story, but for this chapter, the sheer taboo eroticism of every sentence was the standout, and I can't come up with eloquent enough compliments. Asha is radiant. The interaction between her and Cassie is so charged that I found myself having to go back and reread it before I could keep going in the story because my eyes had sort of glazed over and sped up. It seems like Adam still has some level of control over Asha; I wasn't sure what to expect with that after the ritual. Man, Cassie is in some deep shit.

My only concern is that I'm never going to release my own story because everything I write is going to be outdone by this arc before I finish it. Good grief.

 

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