Ward of the White Worm

The sky was getting darker but if she looked straight up she could see the faint shape of the moon pushing through the clouds. But even that was being gradually consumed and Olli could smell the faint traces of rain hanging in the air.

She had to walk fast.

The park’s playground was quickly left behind as she followed the cement pathway between the thin trees towards the dark street on the other side. Somewhere past those far houses a dog barked but otherwise the only sound was the soft hissing of the breeze and her own sneakers squeaking against the ground. There was a distant roll of thunder that made her jump in surprise as she looked back at the sky.

No rain came from the burgeoning twitching clouds yet, but the air itself got colder as she walked. The trees clustered closer and closer to the path with their branches reaching over like thin hands and the roots becoming thick and serpentine. The breeze tugged at her clothes like insistent fingers. Olli felt a chill creep past her sweater and shivered. Her shoes at least stopped squeaking as they hit dirt instead of concrete.

Gradually the wind picked up more, going from tugging to giving her the impression it was pushing against her back to make her walk faster. Not entirely unlike an impatient parent trying to get their child to move faster. Olli stubbornly hunched in the wind to resist its push and to wrap her arms around herself in the cold.

The road was no closer to her and in fact it seemed like it had vanished behind the trees. Even the lights of the houses had disappeared behind thick tree trunks and drooping branches.

“Huh,” she stopped mid-stride and looked above at the sky peeking through the dense branches. The thunder drummed louder and closer, but she saw no lightning and there was still no rain yet. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was beginning to wish she had brought an umbrella.

Olli’s mind then drifted elsewhere as she walked. She wondered if her parents would peek outside the door to look for her after a little bit, or if they would instead go to bed and wake up in the morning fully expecting her to be back in her own bed only to find her still gone. She smiled with the cold splitting her lip at the thought. She tried then to imagine her mother weeping, her father yelling and calling for her. That would show them, she thought, that would show them for everything! Yet as much as she tried to conjure imagery of her mother’s face full of tears or her father’s desperation… nothing came. She grumbled, pulling a water bottle from her bag and took a big swing from it before sputtering as the cold water hit the back of her throat too fast. She spat up some of the water onto the dirt and wheezed while her mind wandered back.

Perhaps school then? Her teachers were a nameless blob whose faces melded together into one bland mask. The faces of other students were distant and featureless in her mind. There were tons of kids in her class alone, who would notice she was gone?

Who would notice?

Thunder echoed ceaselessly in the park and Olli wrapped her arms around herself, the thin sweater doing little against the growing chill. Lightning flashed to twist the trees into strange spindly shapes with branches like arms and hollow eyes lit up in their trunks. There was another noise too, a persistent metal and wood clicking sound that followed the rumbling thunder.

The frantic neighing of a horse shot through the trees behind her and Olli rapidly turned on her heel in confusion to look for the sound. She could no longer see the playground, only a thicket of trees cut through by a small bobbing light that was rapidly growing closer along with the thunderous noise.

Olli yelled in shock and finally found her feet as four horses emerged from the dark their gallop rapidly slowing as an elderly man in a long coat pulled the reins with a dark carriage rattling behind him. A single lantern no bigger than Olli’s hand stuck out from a small hook beside the driver’s head.

The carriage came to a complete stop right beside her and all Olli could do was stand still in a mixture of confusion and fear.

With a loud bang that jolted her the door opened up, a pale figure was sitting inside the dark interior.

“What are you doing out here, child?” A voice asked. “Get inside! It’s Saint Clara’s Day!”

Olli stared at the figure, then at the carriage, before looking back up towards the branch-shrouded sky. The clouds now looked almost like dark wings. Olli pinched herself

A pale hand with an iron grip clutched her arm and with only a shout, Olli was yanked into the darkness.