The Twelfth Toll

I’d long since stopped being shaken by the hollow and reverberating sound of the church bell, that rounded every corner and shook you to the roots no matter how far you were from it. It no longer caught me by surprise when, hours deep into a late-night study session, delirious and drowsy in the heated seats of my car, a cold tolling woke me up again, and once more the moon was blinking.

This had been going on for ever. What was the point of looking when I knew nothing new would meet me?

But tonight was different, I could tell. I could tell it from the way my hands already trembled as I failed to take any more notes despite the page being nearly blank. I could tell it from the shallow breaths materialising into a fine mist that turned to a silver veil then morphed into green by the light from the dashboard clock reading midnight.

Four zeros, four nothings, staring back.

The second toll drew my eyes up over the steering wheel, and the third pulled them back for a double take that swept the remaining warmth from my limbs. A sick shade passed through my eyes, which I blinked away and ensured that what I had seen – what I was still seeing – was real.

And to my delight, and utter horror, it was.

The fourth toll gave me enough time to look at her again. Really look at her, or what I thought she was at first. Then, the fifth toll changed her, and so did the sixth, from a fallen star, to an angel, to something more terrible, and more exciting than them all.

The pale silver light in the street fell on her like a star-shower, coating her pale long limbs and white-blond hair in glitter, then stripped it all away with the seventh toll, when she stepped, drifting like a ghost, towards me.

The eighth toll made her human, and the ninth brought her to the passenger-side door.

The tenth toll reminded me to breathe when she sat down and asked me if I can drive slow.

It took the eleventh for me to figure out the answer, and by the twelfth, I knew, deep down, that she was going to ruin my life.