Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

Unlike all the rest of the pictures, Violet's had been done with colored chalk. Rachel remembered all the time Queen Violet had spent on it- back when she had been the queen-all the careful instruction Six had given her, all the careful sequences of lines and angles and elements. Rachel remembered having to stand there for hours at a time, listening as Six explained the why and how of everything Violet was to draw before she had been allowed to put chalk to the stone wall.

Rachel stared at the drawing of Richard for a moment, thinking that it had to be one of the most awful, sinister things she had ever seen.

But then, ever terrified of what was coming for her, she rushed onward, scrambling over rock and along ledges, going deeper back into the darkness.

Whenever Six had directed Violet in practice drawings, or when they had wanted to draw something new, they had always had to go deeper and deeper back into the cave to find fresh walls to draw on. Rachel remembered all too well that the picture of Richard was the last thing they had drawn, so she knew that beyond it the walls would be barren.

As she went past the colored network of lines and symbols radiating out all around Richard, Rachel was startled to see something she had never seen before. She came to a halt. There was a new drawing.

She stared in astonishment. It was a drawing of her.

All around the picture of her were swirling creatures. Rachel recognized the symbols that forced them in toward her. The awful beasts were like ghosts made of shadow and smoke. Except they had teeth. Sharp teeth. Teeth made to rip and tear.

Without any doubt whatsoever, Rachel knew what they were. They were the ghostie gobblies.

She stood frozen staring at the picture of the terrible deadly things that had been sicced on her by vicious spells drawn there on the cave wall.

She knew from the long hours spent listening to Six lecture Violet what many of the symbols represented. Six had called them "terminal elements." They were designed to eliminate the principal agents of the spell after the end of the sequence of events the drawing was meant to start. She understood the nature of the picture, and what it all meant. It meant that after the ghostie gobblies got her, they would melt away out of existence.

In the drawing the things made out of nightmares were all around her, coming ever in toward her. She could see, now, that there was no escape. The safety she had thought she was running toward was merely the center where they had been chasing her toward, the center where she would be trapped, unable to ever escape.

She heard a sound and looked toward the dim glow of light from the cave's entrance. For the first time she saw the shadows and swirls. They were in the cave. They were gathering, just like in the drawing on the wall. They were coming for her.

Rachel stood frozen in terror. She realized that she could no longer get out of the cave. She could only go deeper. But by looking at the drawing she could see that going deeper into the cave would not save her-there were ghostie gobblies back there, too. She was trapped, unable to go deeper, unable to get out. She was at the center of a spell that was designed to continually close in around her.

"Like it?" someone called out.

Rachel gasped and spun toward the voice echoing in the blackness.

"Queen Violet."

The face, faintly lit in the light of the oil lamp, grinned out from the darkness. Violet was there to watch, to see the ghostie gobblies get her, to witness the results of her handiwork.

"I thought you might like to come and see where they came from before they rip you apart. I wanted you to know who was getting even with you." She gestured to the wall. "So I drew it in a way that would make you have to come here in the end. I made this the place where they would finally have you trapped." She leaned out a little from the darkness. "Where they would finally get you."

Rachel didn't bother to ask Violet why she would do such a thing. She knew why. Violet blamed her for everything bad that ever happened to her. She never blamed herself for the trouble she brought upon herself; she blamed others, blamed Rachel.

"Where is Six?"

Violet gestured dismissively. "Who knows. She doesn't tell me her business." Violet's glare turned as dark as the cave itself. "She is queen now. No one listens to me anymore. They do what she says. They call her queen. Queen Six."

"What about you?"

"She only keeps me around to draw for her." Violet pointed a finger at Rachel. "It's all your fault. It's all because of you."

Violet's glare twisted into the smile that had always given Rachel chills. "But now you will pay for your disrespect, your evil ways. Now you will pay." The smile widened with satisfaction. "I made them so that they will tear the flesh from your bones. Pick you clean."

Rachel swallowed in terror.

She wondered if she could fight her way past the smirking Violet. But what good would that do? They would soon be coming out of the deeper darkness as well.