by Jay Swanson
“What?” Thruss wrinkled his nose. Pegg never made sense.
“I know!” Pegg drained the rest of his pint in one go. “But sadly you can't keep up with me on the drinking either, Aimelia old buddy.”
“You're buying the next round then,” Aims said as he tried to drain his beer in kind, failing miserably in the attempt. “And don't call me that!”
“I feel like I oughta buy the next,” Pegg said, ignoring the rebuke. “Just to make you feel better for such a sad display of manliness, Aimelia.” Pegg got his feet under him on the old leather-bound bench and jumped over the marred wood back to land in the next booth over. He teetered a second before he caught his balance and stepped down. “Drain yours quick now too, Chalky Chalk, and I'll help you feel better for old Scissor-Pants' hypothetical 'No!'”
“Scissor-Pants?” Thruss asked as Pegg stomped off to the bar like he was on parade. Pegg really didn’t make sense.
“Her father's a shepherd,” Chalk said. “They shear sheep? Yeah, poor jest.”
“He's like an animal barber?” Thruss was still trying to picture Melina’s father wearing scissors, but couldn’t figure out where he would find any large enough. Melina’s father was pretty big, after all.
“No, he's not a... well I guess he is kind of an animal barber.”
“Wait wait.” Aims fought down a laugh that threatened to burst out of his rosy face. “Now if you think about it, that's the oddest, creepiest profession you've ever heard of. Cutting people's hair and making clothing out of it!” He did guffaw at that, spilling some beer in the process. Then he shuddered dramatically with a grin. “How disgusting a thought is that?”
“He makes clothes out of hair?” Thruss looked from one back to the other, squinting as if he was trying to read through a tank full of water. No one made sense at all. “Why... hic! Why on earth would he do that?”
“Oh don't start hiccupping.” Aims pushed his empty mug to the side as Pegg put four new mugs in the center.
“I didn't!” Pegg said as he motioned for Thruss to move over.
“I'm talking to Tubby.” Aims pointed as he grabbed the handle of the nearest mug, Thruss hiccupping again as he shuffled to the side. “See?”
“Oh don't start that,” Pegg said as he slid onto the bench. “In five minutes we'll sound like a chorus of stuttering frogs.”
The door burst open and the lanterns flickered and threatened to die.
“Who keeps letting that confounded wind in?” Aims asked as he huddled against the wall. “It's freezing!”
“Chakra!” A broad-shouldered man stepped through the door, black beard stiff against the breeze.
It was Chakra’s father. Why is Chakra’s father here? Thruss wondered. He never drinks. He didn't even bother to close the door behind him. He’s always so stiff and wooden. Thruss laughed quietly to himself at his own private joke. Wooden woodsman. Heh.
“Chakra, son, we need to go.”
“Father?” Chakra turned in his seat and stood to meet his father as he closed the distance. A shorter man dressed in a woolen coat and leather apron followed.
“Son, we need to go.”
“What's wrong? Why is Fots with you?” Chakra turned to put his mug down on the table as his friends listened silently.
His father glanced at them nervously before putting his hand on Chakra's shoulder and staring into his eyes for a moment. He didn't say anything. It was almost as if he couldn’t. The focus of his father's eyes wavered between Chakra’s own.
“Lina...” Chakra went stiff.
“She's dying, son.”
It almost looked like Chakra’s knees buckled at the words.
“Her father sent Fots for you, not twenty minutes past... I came straight here to get you, son. It's the flux...” His father said the words with deeper empathy in his voice than Thruss had ever heard from him. “I'll walk you to their home.”
“I was just with her...” Chakra's mind worked furiously, his eyes darting around the room until they settled on Thruss. “Thruss!” He grabbed his friend by the collar over the table to control his attention. “Thruss, tell me, please tell me there's some way to cure it.”
“I... you...” Thruss stuttered on for a moment before Chakra yelled at him. He had never seen Chakra so angry before.
“Answer me!”
“You know there isn't.” Pegg reached between them to grab Chakra’s arms. “There's no cure, Chalk. All you can do is lighten the pain.”
“Damn you!” Chakra hollered at them both, tears breaking on his cheek as he shoved Thruss back into the corner. “Isn't there anything you can do?!”
“N... no!” Thruss stuttered again. The black flux was a death sentence. Like lungs full of water, the final breath, his father used to say. But then Thruss remembered something else. Something forbidden. But Chakra was in such pain… forbidden or not, he had to help Chakra. “There's the woods doctor. People say he can do it, but Pa says he's a liar.” He tried to wrack his brain for anything helpful. Anything he knew about the flux. “Pa says it's the worst way to go, 'cause it’s so painful and you know it can't be stopped.”
“Shut up, Tubbs,” Aims said as he reached across the table to smack him on the head.
“The woods doctor is not a doctor, Thruss. He's an evil Expressionist. A sorcerer,” Pegg said.
“C'mon Chakra, we'll come with you.” Aims started to get up.
“No.” Chakra backed into his father, then stumbled to the side. “No, I'll go on my own.”
“Son, let me walk you there.”
“NO!” Chakra backed into a table, skidding it back slightly as he almost lost his balance. “No! No, I... I need to do this on my own.”
Thruss felt sick. How could the son of a healer have no hope to give for one of his best friends? He had failed Chakra, someone who had never let him down. Not once.
Chakra found his way out as quickly as he could, knocking over a few chairs before he made it to the door and ran out into the night.
“I'm so sorry...” Thruss lowered his head.
“Don't worry, buddy.” Pegg shook his shoulder gently. “He's not mad at you.”
- - -
Chakra ran towards Melina's family's cottage at a pace that cost him a few scrapes on his hands as he stumbled in the night. The moons were nearly full. Aura, the smaller of the two, seemed especially bright. Together they cast plenty of light to walk by from opposing horizons, but not when obstructed by the numerous trees that surrounded the village. Thankfully her father had cleared a substantial swath of land around their cottage. He had built stables for his horse and a fence to separate the sheep from the cottage itself, though, to his eternal frustration, it rarely succeeded.
Chakra had been there countless times and knew the way as if walking to his own home, but found his sense of direction confounded by the terror and denial that battled within him. She can’t be that sick, Chakra thought. She can’t be dying. Not her. No one has caught the flux in a decade. Why should she be the first?
He finally burst into the clearing, sprinting the rest of the way to the cottage and leaping over the gate into their garden without hesitation.
Her father was waiting for him in a chair by the door, legs crossed and pipe smoking in a calmly familiar scene. The warm glow under his chin was visible across the pasture, growing and shrinking from view like a watch fire in the mists. It made Chakra hopeful for a moment that it had all been a massive mistake.
“Chakra,” her father said as he stood, grabbing Chakra before he could dash past and giving him a bear hug. “You can't just rush in there, boy. Not yet.”
Chakra wanted to fight the hug, to dash through the door and see her now, but he feared her father wouldn't admit him at all if he did and so he forced himself to calm down. But the calmer he made himself, the more terrified he became. The reality of the illness was settling in. “I need to see her, sir. Please...”
“I know boy, I know. Gods damn it, would you stop moving?” Her fath
er pushed him out to arm's length but held on to his shoulders. “I’m sorry. I just–son... I know how much Melina means to you.” He smiled sadly in the light of Aura, composing himself against his agitation. “I mean you only asked for her hand in marriage three times. But she's leaving us. Her lungs started to give out tonight, and the apothecary says she'll be gone by morning.”
By morning?! Chakra's eyes widened to hear it. “No...”
“I’ve accepted it.” Chakra could see the muscles tighten in his jaw as he said it. He could feel the tension coursing through every part of this man.
He hasn’t accepted it. How could he? He can’t just let her die like this.
“Son, I want you to know that you're always welcome here... she said you were going to the war to win her dowry and... well I want you to know that when you return, if you need anything, her mother and I will be here for you. Just like she would want.” He almost seemed to mean it too, but Chakra hardly noticed the authenticity in his tone. His fear choked everything.
“Can I see her?” Chakra couldn't stand talking like this, like she was already dead. Was there no hope? No hope at all?
“Of course.” Her father turned to let him pass.
Chakra stepped into the cottage as quietly as he could. The table in the hearthroom was still set for dinner, half of the food still cast flickering shadows under the lantern that hung from the rafters. The only other light that burned was the one coming from Melina's room. Even the embers in the hearth seemed subdued. Chakra swallowed hard against the knot that formed in his throat.
He walked around the table, unaware of anything save the few steps between himself and the door to her room. As he entered he saw her mother leaning over her with a wet cloth, dampening her forehead as she struggled to inhale. The raspy sound of each breath cut deeper into Chakra's heart than any blade could manage.
“Hello, Chakra.” Her mother's smile to greet him was outlined in glistening streaks. Almost as heartbreaking as the sound of Melina breathing. “I'm glad you could come.” She stood and came around the bed to give him room to take her place. “Here,” she said. The word caught in her throat as he squeezed past in the tiny space. “Take the cloth. Keep her cool.”
She stared at her daughter for a moment longer. It looked like she might say something, like she might throw herself on the bed and trade places with her sick child. Chakra knew she would do anything for Melina. They were alike in that where her father had always been distant. And then she left, closing the door behind her.
Chakra lowered himself to the stool. Tears welled in his eyes as he fought the compounding sense of grief that threatened to undo him there on the spot. His throat was quivering, hands shaking as he dampened the cloth and reached out to wet her cheek. She looks so pale… gods be good…
“Chalk?” She croaked as her eyes flitted open. “Chalk?”
“I'm here.” He took her hand in his as he wiped her forehead. “I'm here, Lina.”
“Chalk,” her voice broke with a sadness that spoke a thousand more words than his name alone. He could feel the pull of his name, as if she would use it to pull him down and into her heart where she could curl up and hold him forever. Chakra could barely force the tears back as he swallowed a sob and squeezed her hand.
“I'm here, Lina. I'll take care of you.”
“Chalk...” She shifted in the bed to better see him, but coughed and lay back the way she had before. “I don't want to die...”
“I don't want you to either.” He said it with as much of a smile as he could muster. “I don't want you to either.”
“I want to wait for you.” She smiled before she coughed. “I want you to marry me.”
“I will, Lina. Don't you worry.” He placed the cloth on her forehead and stroked her hair, pulling it between his fingers so that it shimmered black against the light of the lantern by her bed. He loved her hair so much… “I'll marry you. And then I'll build that house I always told you I would. It'll be so big, Lina, just you wait to see it.” He swallowed back another sob as he forced a smile.
“Will there be a creek?” She coughed as she looked up at him.
“I'll find you a creek.”
“I like to dangle my feet in the water.” She nodded weakly. “I like the way the current feels along my legs.”
“I know you do, Lina. If I can't find you one, I'll go get one and move it so that it runs right past your window.”
“I can have my own room?”
The hope in her voice only broke his spirit further. “Yes...” He couldn't keep from crying now as he brushed her cheek. “Yes, you know you will... with a loom for your father's wool... I'll build everything for you just the way you like it. You'll see.”
“Can you really, Chalk? Will you?”
Oh gods... He wiped his own cheek as he nodded. “Yeah, Lina. Yes. I'll use cherry for the loom, just like your nightstand here. And I'll find the nicest piece of oak you can imagine for a chest to place your fabric in.”
She coughed, but smiled. “I like oak.”
“I know, it’s your favorite.” He couldn't bring himself to smile again. She was so pale, and all he could give her was false hope. “I'm going to make things right, Lina. I promise.”
She nodded again as she closed her eyes, exhaling softly as she relaxed under his touch. “Tell me again Chalk.” He could barely hear the words. “I want to go with you.”
Chalk bit his lip as he forced himself to speak, the words coming far more steadily than he knew they should. “I want to run away with you, Lina. If it was possible I would take you somewhere they would never know to look.” He squeezed her fingers as he clenched his own eyes shut. “We would go where light would never find us, where day and night dissolved. I would take you somewhere only you and I could go, where nothing existed save for you and I.”
He swallowed hard as she tried to squeeze his fingers back.
“Save for our love.”
- - -
Chakra stood in the doorway to Lina's room as her mother finished checking on her, making sure she was sleeping comfortably before she blew out the lantern and walked into the hearthroom. Her father sat at the table. He twirled a piece of wool around his fingers as their dinner grew stale. His eyes were distant, rheumy and red.
“I'm so sorry, honey.” Her mother came over to give Chakra a hug. She held him tight for a minute seeking comfort as much as giving it. She had always been the more affectionate of the two. But then Chakra realized she was crying. “We don't know how it happened... but we know that she loves you very much.”
She let him go, wiping the tears from her cheeks before she busied herself about cleaning the table.
“Is there nothing we can do?” Chakra asked, unwilling to leave but so scared to stay.
“No, Chakra,” her father said with finality. “You know there's nothing anyone can do for the flux. No one has ever survived it.”
No one yet, Chakra thought as he weighed the options. “What about the woods doctor?” he asked with a quick ray of hope. “Thruss said he claims he can cure it!”
“No!” The shepherd slammed his fist on the table in a ferocity augmented by grief. “You will not bring such filth into this home!”
“The woods doctor is an evil, evil man,” Melina's mother said as she placed her hands on her husband to calm him. “A fallen Expressionist. He cannot do what he claims, Chakra. You should know this.”
“But we have to try something!” Chakra said as loud as he dared, not wanting to disturb Melina nearly as much as he wanted to burst into her room and throw himself at her feet. “We can't just let her die without trying everything possible!”
“There is nothing to try,” her father said as he rose from the table, his voice taut with anger. “She is gone, Chakra. There is no hope for her to recover... you know this. Please do not desecrate her spirit or her memory by invoking evil like the woods doctor.”
Chakra knew he was being excused, and though he felt sorry for bringing up
the possibility it wasn't because he had discarded it as an option. “I understand,” he said as he backed into the doorway. But he didn’t. How could you just let someone you loved go when there was a chance you could save them? You have a chance, he thought. Use it. “I'll come around tomorrow to check on her.”
“Please do,” her mother said, trying as ever to smooth out the tensions in the room. “If nothing else... to say goodbye.”
“Of course,” Chakra said.
Her father had no more words, and so Chakra backed out into the night and began the long walk back into the woods.
- - -
Chakra ran home as much in anger as from a desire to escape Melina's death. He flew through the broadly-spaced cottages and houses as the village bedded down for the night around him. How could they be so callous as to sleep? Didn’t they know Melina was dying?
The moons lit his path well now that he was away from the forest, and though his father's home was on its verge he knew that road well. He slowed as he came close, his father and little sister waiting for him on the porch of their house.
“Son.” His father walked down to meet him and give him a hug. “I'm so sorry.”
His father was a widower, and Chakra knew this only opened the pain he had left behind a decade before. “I know, father.”
His father’s lower lip worked its way up into his mustache as he held Chakra at arm's length, giving his sister room to rush in and wrap herself around him. “We'll get through this.”
“I'll miss her...” Flora said into his jacket. “I love Lina.”
“I do too...” Chakra said as he put his hand on her head. “I do too.”
“Come inside son.” His father squeezed his shoulders. “I have some ale left in the stables.”
“I just...” Chakra pushed his hands away. “I just want to sleep.”
“Of course.” His father put his arm around Chakra’s shoulders to walk him up the short steps into their home as Flora held onto him from the other side. “We can talk in the morning if you like.”
