The Crazed

The Crazed

It was a typical December day, and even more so for that particular area. The world was drained of colour, a void into which no warmth could penetrate. The sky was robed in a steel grey, swirling mass of icy, bitter cloud, and the vast mountains which towered up around the small village of Llanweledydd were a bulky, threatening mass of charcoal heather and darker veins of coal, capped with snow. They huddled around the quiet village, angry and threatening, as though they saw the tiny pin-prick lights of open fires through cottage windows, and lusted after the comfort which the small sparks seemed to give.

Despite the mountains, a stinging wind was sweeping down the narrow valley, with ice on its breath and a malice in its jaws. It didn't wrap itself about the village, as such, more ravished it; it tore at loose slates on roofs, a last few, solitary leaves on bare, buckled trees, and anyone foolish enough to venture out, even for a moment. It howled down the deserted cobbled streets and up the empty, crooked alleyways; and old Morgan the Mayor huddled in his small house beside the old Village Hall, fearful that the decrepit old building next door might finally give in to the years and the wind, and collapse onto his home.

Only one person was out, braving the wild weather. A little girl, wrapped in a coat and scarf and with a schoolbag on her hunched back, was battling her way through the vacant streets against the invisible wrath. Her skin was red, raw from the cold, and her eyes squinted against the gale. Her walk was stiff, but brisk; she was close to home now, and nearly by her own fireside, nearly with a mug of tea in her hands and a bowl of cawl on her lap, scalding her legs through her skirt but without her caring. But before she could get there, she had to fight the cold.

And yet, despite her discomfort at the cold, Reiko Dafis was eager to get home for another reason than the fire, and the tea, and the cawl. All day she had felt it from the moment she had woken to the harshly pallid world that morning. Deep in the pit of her stomach, in the back of her throat, in her chest; that strange, indescribable Feeling, like nausea and fear and hunger and adrenaline all rolled into one. Reiko had had the Feeling before, on a number of occasions, just before she had one of her - well - images. But she had never felt it this badly.

The twelve-year-old wanted her mother.

She passed old Morgan, deep in thought.

It wasn't far now, only half a street. Half a street, and then she could tell her mother, and drink tea, and eat cawl by the fire, and everything would be alright. It always was.

She was at her front door, just turning the partially rusted handle, when she caught the first Image.

...a young man, dark, with scraggy old robes...

...excitement...

...papers thrust on a table...

...green lightning...

She blinked. Would that be it? Was that all there was going to be? Reiko hoped it was, but she didn't think so. The Feeling inside her had not lessened.

Sighing, she pushed the door open, and was immediately enveloped by warmth that made her eyes sting and her fingers ache. Her mother came round the corner of the doorframe to the living room, concern in her dark eyes.

"Oh, Reiko, bach!" She began. "Oh, cariad, I've been thinking about you all day. Have you been warm enough?"

Reiko attempted a weak smile. "No, not really," she answered, as her mother hustled her into the living room and beside the snarling fire. "There's a bit of a wind, out. I've been shivering most of the day."

Through her numb hands, she felt tea and cawl being pushed between her stiff fingers.

"Well here you go, bach. Get warm. Mam-Gu said she might drop by later, but I doubt she will now because Duw, there's cold it is today!" Mrs Dafis sniffed, as though the weather was purposefully worsening, just to spite her mother's plans. "She'll freeze solid if she comes out. And she's been under the doctor for a tidy while now, I don't want her getting worse. And - "

"Mam?" Reiko interrupted the start of her mother's rant gently, looking up from the cawl. "I've been having one of my Feelings again, today. Only, it's been really bad ..."

"Oh, cariad." Mrs Dafis knelt on the rug, and wrapped her arms around her daughter. "I'm sorry, bach. Here I am prattling on. This day must have been miserable for you."

Reiko nodded. "It has. But, it doesn't feel like normal. Normally, it goes away after an Image, but I've already had one Image, and it's still not getting any better."

Tears welled up in her eyes as she spoke, and her mother tightened the embrace.

"I remember this happened to Mam-Gu, once," Mrs Dafis began softly. "The Feeling was particular strong, like. Oh, there's agitated she was! She had about sixteen Images before the Feeling would go away."

"Sixteen?" Reiko breathed, astonished. She had only ever had three, at the most.

"Aye, cariad. Sixteen. For the last couple, she had a bit of a turn, so she did. A bit of a trance. But afterwards, she was fine."

Reiko said nothing. Despite their shared gift, she little understood Mam-Gu, who had appeared insane for as long as she could remember, and very definitely not fine.

"Anyway, bach, what I'm trying to say, is that however bad this Feeling is, it will go away."

Reiko smiled. It was reassuring. "Thanks -"

... "My God, I think that's it!"...

...excitement...

...disbelief...

... "but how?"...

...raw emotion...

" - Mam."

She blinked again. "I just had another one," she whispered.

"It'll pass," Mrs Dafis said soothingly. "I promise."

* * *

It was a strange Gift. No one could trace when it had begun, but then, no one ever tried. The earliest any living person could remember it happening was another two generations above Mam-Gu, to her own Mam-Gu. It seemed the gene for it was female, and it always skipped a generation. Mam-Gu had it. Mrs Dafis did not. Reiko did. Reiko's children would not. Her grandchildren would.

But, insofar as Reiko could see it with her twelve-year-olds mind, it was not so much a Gift as a curse. When she was younger, she hadn't understood the Images, nor the terrible Feeling that proceeded them. As she had grown older, she had learned to control the Feeling, and learned to endure it.

Now, it was the Images she despised.

Each one was a tantalising, forbidden glimpse into the future, but each was never complete enough to act on. Reiko would hear a sentence or two being spoken, might see one particular object, might taste one or two emotions, but then that would be it. Only afterwards, once it had already happened, could she see how the Image was threaded together. When it was too late.

So far, Reiko had never seen anything bad, which was just as well. Llanweledydd was a small, remote Welsh village, where the people had superstitions that dated back aeons; salute the magpie, beware the broken mirror, keep new shoes off the table, and always cast salt over your left shoulder. Abnormality was a thing to be feared in a place where no one ever saw the outside world, and children still played bare-foot in the dirty streets to entertain themselves. Never kill a spider, beware the full moon, stay indoors on the Solstice. They all knew of Reiko's Gift, and Mam-Gu's. But they wouldn't speak of it.

It was foolish, really, and they all knew it. There was no such thing as witches anymore, if ever there had been, the villagers all knew it, but still the irrational fears remained. Keep away from the black cat, avoid the raven. Chapel on Sundays, never forget. And be wary of abnormality.

And so Reiko never spoke of her Gift to anyone. She couldn't tell them much anyway, really, as she could never piece the Images together in time. But it would have killed her if she'd had to maintain her silence after seeing something truly awful.

She had only ever talked about her Gift once...

* * *

By tea-time, Reiko had had twelve Images.

It was annoying, really. She could have asked Mam-Gu about it, but she felt bad enough, and she didn't want to go out again, it was far too cold. And there was no chance of Mam-Gu coming out; as Mrs Dafis had said, she would freeze solid if she did.

But it still worried her. As Reiko helped Mrs Dafis lay the table, she fought the panic that was rising inside her. She had never been this bad. Ever. Even when she'd had her three Images, the Feeling had lessened each time, but this time, after twelve images, she was feeling worse, if possible. And so far, all she had managed to work out from the Images was that someone with brown hair had discovered something important.

And he was dressed strangely. With a funny accent.

Reiko had no clue as to what the accent was. She had never heard any accents beyond Welsh, and the occasional English tourists that passed through sometimes when heading for the mountains and needing refreshments. To Reiko, this new accent was outlandish and harsh, frightening but oddly exciting at the same time.

As her mother served up, she continued to be haunted by the Images. They were coming faster now, one every five or ten minutes. It disturbed her. The Feeling was very definitely not going away, and her suspicion of it intensifying was becoming seemingly more likely as the minutes were ticked away by the woodworm infested grandfather clock in the corner. She felt like crying.

It was around nine o'clock when Mrs Dafis looked across from her knitting to her daughter, hunched miserably by the fire. She sighed.

"Why don't you go to bed, cariad?" she said, gently. "You won't feel any better if you're tired as well."

Reiko looked up, her eyes exhausted.

"I think I will," she murmured, and clambered to her feet.

But she was barely half-way across the rug, when she collapsed.

Within seconds, Mrs Dafis was out of her chair and by her daughter's side, knitting cast away, forgotten. Her normally calm composure was torn away by raw panic, and fear for her baby girl. "No," she sobbed, praying with all her might. "Come on baby, be okay, be okay..." Hands shaking, she rolled Reiko over onto her back.

She froze at what she saw.

Her daughter's normally dark eyes were blazing scarlet, a frightening shade.

"No," she whispered, stroking the soft face. "No," she said louder, voice breaking, "No, no, no, no, no, this is not happening! Reiko! REIKO!"

The last word was a scream, a horrific sound of despair and terror and anguish. It brought the neighbours tearing around, despite the biting wind and bitter cold. It sent messengers haring to Mam-Gu's small cottage on the edge of the village, to drag her to her daughter by means of force. It pushed old Morgan down the street to the only phone in all of Llanweledydd, the rickety ancient phone box outside the bread shop. And yet, it did not reach the one person who mattered, the one person in the whole world who it was aimed at.

Reiko did not hear her mother's desperate screams.

* * *

It was midnight.

Exhausted, Verity Howell looked up from the small manila folder of papers she was holding and into the eyes of the nurse standing in front of her. Desperately, she tried to fight the tiredness she felt, and gave up.

"You want me to do what?" she asked, fatigue pouring out of her voice.

The nurse, a squat sort of woman with badly-died blonde hair, gave her sympathetic, if rather clipped, smile.

"We want you to go and help with a recently admitted patient who is causing the doctors some confusion," the nurse repeated. "I'm sorry, Verity, I really am. I know you want to get home, and I know you have work to do. But you seem to have a skill in working out what's wrong with a patient that everybody else is baffled by. Dr. Logan's over there, she would really appreciate your help."

Verity sighed. "Fine," she said, rubbing her eyes with her free hand. "What symptoms is she showing?"

"All in there." The nurse indicated the envelope she had given Verity moments before.

"Okay, you are delaying my sleep and now you expect me to read? Do I look capable of reading right now?"

The nurse said nothing, and flashed her clipped smile once more.

Verity sighed again. "Fine," she repeated. "Which ward?"

"Gwanwyn three."

Verity turned, and wandered down the quiet corridor. This happened to her altogether too frequently, but then, she couldn't really complain. The nurse was right; she did have a talent for discovering the ailment of a patient. And there was a good reason for it.

Verity Howell was a witch. She had been through Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and had left as the best student Ravenclaw house had ever turned out. She had achieved a degree in Magical Medicine three years after leaving Hogwarts, and had been granted a placement in St. Mungo's hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries almost as soon as she had completed the course. However, her post at St. Mungo's, she had been told, would not start for another two years. Meaning that Verity could sit back for two years and enjoy life.

But this seemed unacceptable to Verity's Ravenclaw mind. Therefore, she had decided to get some experience of working in medicine before taking up her post, even if it was slightly unorthodox. And so, Verity had decided to come to a Muggle hospital.

But Verity was armed with simple spells that could tell her what the problem was with any patient, spells which the Muggle doctors did not possess. As a result, she was frequently called upon to solve the problem cases, the patients with diseases or injures so obscure they were impossible to determine. Which was usually fine. Verity enjoyed being skilled at her work; she was a Ravenclaw, after all. But sometimes, as with tonight, when she had already had a long, tiring day, and was already into her casual clothes, and she was all set to go home to bed when she was suddenly called away to another patient with something strange like Cxhozobellose's Inflammation of the spleen, it got slightly wearing.

Sighing, Verity courageously attempted to read the notes in her hand, an exercise made difficult by her eyeballs, which were trying to turn inside-out. Right...Reiko Dafis, age twelve, mother Welsh, father Japanese. Showing seizure-like symptoms, closer to a trance than a fit. Eyes glowing -

Verity stopped, blinked a few times, and looked closely at the writing.

Eyes appear to be glowing red.

She stared.

Well. That definitely was not a Muggle disease.

Verity suddenly speeded up, striding quickly down the corridor. Eyes glowing red? No, that definitely was not right. A witch would have been taken straight to St. Mungo's, so the girl had to be a Muggle. Possibly she had come into contact with magic in some way...? A strong magical artefact? A spell gone wrong? Either way, that could prove to be infinitely dangerous.

When she got to the room, she was shocked at what she saw.

Verity saw a small school girl, lying stiffly on the bed. She saw a pretty girl, with the facial conformation of her Oriental father, and the cream-and-raven colouring to match. And she saw a girl possessed.

Reiko Dafis was lying flat on her back, almost unmoving. She was staring up at the ceiling, her mouth working in a soundless whisper. Her hands at her sides kept clenching and unclenching, the fingers running grooves into the thin mattress of the hospital bed, and she seemed to be sweating profusely, beads forming on her forehead and running down her temples.

But the doctors had been right. Her eyes were indeed glowing red.

After a split-second pause in the doorway to survey the scene, Verity rushed in. Doctors were swarming by the bed, shouting streams of medical jargon to each other, and trying vainly to remove a hysterical dark-haired woman from the room, whom Verity supposed was Mrs Dafis. Carefully, Verity allowed the very tip of her wand to fall out of the end of her sleeve. Then, lifting her arm as though to put a hand on the woman's shoulder, she whispered, "Sedare."

She finished by actually touching the woman's arm, just as the charm took effect.

"I'm sorry Madam, but could you wait outside, please, just so we can see to Miss Dafis?" she asked, her voice kind but firm.

The woman nodded, still clearly upset, but calm, at least. "Okay," she whispered, and allowed herself to be led from the room.

Verity turned back to the bed. "What's going on?" she asked, briskly. Gods, if this was magic...

Dr. Logan looked up.

"I'm buggered if I know," she said, flatly. "I would say a seizure by the way she's gone stiff, but it's more like a trance. Almost like she's comatose, but..."

"...But she wouldn't have this behaviour in a coma," Verity finished for her. She looked down at the girl on the bed. "Any clue about her eyes?" she asked reluctantly, dreading the answer.

Dr. Logan shook her head. "That's what's got me, Verity," she said, sounding bewildered. "I have absolutely no idea what could be doing that. And before you ask, I have no idea what she's whispering. I think it's Welsh, but no one here speaks Welsh. But if you touch her..." The doctor trailed off.

Silently, Verity reached out and touched an arm -

"Mae llwyddiant yn dod gyda aberthau! Ni anghofio byth!"

Verity jumped, and withdrew her hand. "What?" she said loudly.

Dr. Logan sighed. "No idea," she said. "And apparently she's not actually a Welsh speaker normally, beyond being able to say 'Hello, how are you?'"

Despite herself, Verity smiled. "'Bore da, sut wyt ti?' Even I know that one, and I was younger than her when I dropped Welsh." She looked at Reiko, who had gone back to her whisperings. "Does she say the same thing every time someone touches her?"

"From what I can tell, no. It seems to vary." The doctor looked up suddenly, impatiently pushing a lock of auburn hair out of the way. "Verity do you have -"

"None at all," Verity interrupted quickly, her mind racing. And it was true. But she did have to get Reiko away from these Muggles...

"I think," she said slowly, "there might be someone who does..."