by Ross Turner
It was Alexander Freeman, her father’s childhood friend.
She could not see him, and she daren’t move for fear of being discovered, but she recognised his heavy tone.
“The Priesthood cannot bend to this! It goes against everything we stand for! And Gold knows it!”
Gold, Marcii thought for a moment.
They must have been talking about Francis Gold.
He was the head of the Priesthood.
“I don’t care what Gold thinks!” The first voice cried again, irritated. “He can think what he likes! Tyran has the power now! Not Francis!”
“You underestimate him…” Alexander warned, and tense silence followed for a moment.
“Oh, do I?” The first voice asked, a note of smug menace in his voice.
Alexander did not reply.
Marcii could almost feel his hesitation seeping through the air. He may have known something she didn’t, but that was irrelevant; even she could tell he was losing ground, and fast.
“Francis Gold is an old fool…” The voice of the first man concluded. “And if he doesn’t stop opposing Tyran, if he doesn’t join the hunt for the witches, he’ll find himself closer to God than ever before…”
Chapter Seven
Marcii awoke to the sounds of screaming.
Her room was nearly pitch black as she shot bolt upright, sweating and panting heavily.
At first she couldn’t tell if the screams she had heard were real, or if they had just been part of a dream.
But then she heard them again, clear as day even in the night.
They resonated from some ways off in the distance, but still carried far enough in dark of the night to sound much closer than they probably were.
She rushed to the window of her tiny bedroom and rubbed her hand on the filthy glass to try to wipe a small patch clear enough to see outside.
Eventually she was just about able to make out a handful of figures racing up and down the streets through the darkness. There weren’t very many of them that she could see, but some carried torches or lanterns, whilst others cried out for help and reached for what looked like pitchforks.
Having not a clue what was happening, but knowing instinctively that surely it wasn’t good, Marcii crept back into bed and pulled her thin, patchy quilt back up and around her neck.
She was growing more and more afraid by the day, though her fear seemed to be not entirely rational, for she had not been directly threatened by anyone, or anything.
She only wished Kaylm could be with her to calm her and to soothe her worry.
He would have been able to make her see sense.
He always made her see sense.
Heavy raindrops began to patter against the dirty window and the night drew on long and cold and wet.
Morning couldn’t come quickly enough.
But when it eventually did, it didn’t bring with it solace for young Marcii Dougherty, but instead a whole new meaning for her growing fears.
The ground was sodden underfoot and long deep puddles lined the cobblestoned streets, drenching Marcii’s feet as she paced quickly through Newmarket.
Her eyes felt heavy and her legs were weary and it took quite some time before the dull ache in her thighs finally subsided.
She didn’t care however, for her heart still raced after her sleepless night, and something told her that it wasn’t over yet.
Whatever it was.
She didn’t even really know where she was going.
Usually she found herself pacing the streets on seemingly limitless errands for her mother, but this morning Marcii had left of her own accord, and without a word. Undoubtedly she would pay the price for that later, but for reasons unbeknownst to her, the young Dougherty knew this was important.
Suddenly she became more aware of the water at her feet.
Her feet were soaked, yes.
Nonetheless it was not that which drew her attention, but instead the puddles themselves. They were dirty, as everything was; vast quantities clay and mud were traipsed through their streets daily from far and wide, stuck upon the wheels of carts and wagons that ferried goods to and fro.
Still though, she bent down and peered closer, reaching out with her right hand and dipping her fingers into the puddles.
When she withdrew her arm and inspected her fingertips her heart nearly stopped. The colour mixed upon them like paint on a palette and the water swirled them together as a natural catalyst.
It combined the brown from the mud, and the grey from the clay, and the red…
The red…
The red from the blood…
Gasping under her breath, Marcii shot to her feet and stumbled back. The only thing that stopped her from falling was her hard collision with the wall behind her, for the street was not wide and she met it very quickly.
It took her a minute to regain her composure as she struggled through the short, sharp breaths that wracked her body.
The water trickled by her along the edge of the street and she glanced up to her left.
The street ran on an incline. It was only very slight, but it told her where the blood was coming from.
With new determination, and evermore dread in her heart, she followed the trail, seeking its source.
The trickling water grew heavier and tumbled through and around and over the stones set so firmly into the street, staining them a deep, lustrous red. As the water grew thicker and ran more heavily with blood, Marcii’s stomach churned.
Soon though, looking up at last, for her eyes had been glued to the ground, she found the source, and her body went cold.
There were bodies everywhere.
Littered across the street, strewn all over carelessly, they were just abandoned in an enormous pool of red.
There were others there too. Others who had found what remained of the massacred carcasses in probably the same way Marcii had.
But she wasn’t paying attention to them.
Instead, her eyes were upon the torn up bodies of the mutilated men and women that lay discarded across the stones before her eyes. Something had ripped the flesh from their very bones, and it had done so most brutally.
The blood was everywhere, she suddenly realised when she eventually looked up and all around. It caked the walls and was smeared thickly across the row of houses to her left, along with other things that looked decidedly more solid, which she tried her utmost to ignore.
It was too much.
But then, as she glanced fearfully around, out of nowhere, Vixen appeared. She stood over on the other side of the bodies to Marcii.
She felt her body twitch, instinctively wanting to run over and shield the young girl’s eyes. But Vixen’s expression, when Marcii saw it, didn’t allow her to move.
The young orphan’s eyes darted over to the other side of the street, and Marcii followed her brief gaze, only to find that she was indicating to a door to a shed at the end of the row of houses to her left. The wooden shack was covered in red just the same as everything else, though also with some revolting solids mixed among the blood that caked the small building.
She looked back to Vixen, but the girl was nowhere to be seen, and Marcii took a deep, nervous breath.
Almost even unconsciously she paced the half a dozen feet or so to the door, stepping over the torso of a man that she fortunately didn’t recognise.
Stopping at the face of the door, she examined it quickly with her eyes, wondering why Vixen had drawn her to it so.
It was nothing special. It was not even somebody’s home. It was just a shed at the end of a row of houses, probably used to store spades and axes and the like.
Still, as she reached out for the stiff looking iron door handle, Marcii paused fretfully, her heart racing.
She felt the eyes of other townsfolk on her cautiously, watching her movements suspiciously, for it seemed to them as if she knew something that they did not.
Gritting her teeth firmly, Marcii turned the handle forcefull
y and yanked her arm back. The door to the shed flung wide open and she stepped back fearfully even as it did so, for she had no idea what she would find beyond.
Blood.
Lots of blood.
The awful, metallic stench invaded her senses and she recoiled instinctively from it.
Limbs.
Solids.
Semi-solids.
Yet another mutilated carcass.
And Midnight.
“Oh my God…” Marcii breathed in horror, though her words reached no further than her own ears.
The deaf, dumb old man was sat amidst the carnage, covered from head to toe in blood and ragged flesh and discarded organs, unable to move, for an almost unrecognisable human carcass was sprawled across him.
Marcii was frozen still in horror.
“Midnight…” She whispered.
The pit in her stomach was deep and cavernous and filled with dread.
He looked up, but he did not speak.
He trembled visibly. His eyes were wide and clearly had seen far too much.
For some reason then Marcii looked down, just as the crowds began to assemble and swarm behind her, eyeing her warily and suspiciously, for they presumed that somehow, impossibly, she had known he was in there.
At her feet, upon the wooden floor of the shed, traced in the torrents of blood that lined the floorboards, were the markings of claws upon the timber, deep and thick. The claw marks were interspersed with the footprints of some kind of animal, though Marcii had never seen prints so large in all her life.
But then, within seconds, as the huge bulk of the town blacksmith surged past Marcii, startling her in the process, all evidence of the footprints was erased as his enormous boots smeared the blood afresh.
He tossed the carcass negligently to one side as if it weighed nothing and scooped the poor old man, trembling and dithering, up into his strong arms.
Midnight caught Marcii’s gaze as the blacksmith carried him away and the look in his eyes was beyond haunted.
Soon enough, when he was out of sight, Marcii’s eyes fell yet again upon the crowds that surrounded her, keeping their distance, eyeing her with evermore caution.
It seemed, and perhaps irreversibly so now, that their distrust in Marcii was greater than it ever had been.
That spelled relentless trouble for the young girl, even if she did not yet know it.
Chapter Eight
Marcii was still shaken and the longer she spent out on the streets the more and more people avoided her. Avoidance now however was not simply a case of others walking around her. Instead, wherever the young Dougherty went, as soon as she appeared, the entire street cleared almost instantly, leaving her stood alone and deserted.
Had she had her way, Marcii would have returned home and stayed there. But, as was always the case it seemed, she had been forced out by her demanding mother, and sent on another bout of errands.
This time it was not the market though, thankfully. Marcii didn’t know if she would have been able to take that.
No, this time her mother needed herbs and spices, and whilst there were merchants in the square who sold such items, their prices were always too steep, and their family had little money for such luxuries.
And so, as she regularly did, every few weeks or so, Marcii was on her way to visit Malorie.
The walk was not far: not even half the distance to the other side of town where she often stole away to meet Kaylm. Nonetheless, the journey felt as though it lasted a lifetime. There were eyes upon her from every corner of every street, and even when all around her the streets were emptied in avoidance, Marcii somehow still felt them watching her.
She was more than a little relieved to finally see Malorie’s odd little cottage appear before her.
It’s not that there was anything wrong with Malorie’s home, Marcii thought as she approached. But rather, like Malorie herself in fact, there was just something different about it: something unique that Marcii had never quite been able to place.
It was a squat little house built from rugged stone blocks that seemed to be forever crumbling away here and there. There was a feel to it that Marcii had never found anywhere else, and when she visited she always felt more at home than she ever had done, even with her own family.
As usual, though Marcii never managed to work out how, Malorie was waiting in the low, wooden doorway when she arrived, with a look of both sympathy and intrigue painted across her face.
“Good afternoon Marcii…” Malorie greeted her gently. “Come inside child, you look troubled…”
Marcii smiled gratefully and, without even the need to reply, Malorie whisked her immediately into her welcoming little home.
The young Dougherty instantly felt better, for Malorie was a kindly lady.
She was older than Marcii, though hard as she tried the young girl could never guess exactly how old.
Certainly no older than forty, she imagined.
But then, she had been wrong before.
Whilst she was not tall, and only very slight, there was most certainly something to Malorie that went beyond the physical. It was some kind of presence that Marcii could never quite place.
Her deeply lined, yet youthful face was intriguing. It was framed with neat, dead straight, jet black hair and her eyes were so vividly violet that they engulfed Marcii whenever she looked into them.
She too had lived in Newmarket, in this very house in fact, for as long as Marcii could remember, and probably even longer still.
Marcii had yet to speak, as Malorie poured her a cup of tea from a mottled old mug. Her kitchen was tiny, with barely enough space within it for the wooden table and chair upon which Marcii sat.
Still though, for some unknown reason, it felt like home.
Three large black cats paced casually about the kitchen around where Marcii rested. They rubbed themselves on the table legs and up Malorie’s ankles and occasionally mewed and jumped on and off the table top, quite often finding themselves beneath Malorie’s affectionate hands.
“I heard about Midnight…” Malorie finally spoke again, seating herself opposite Marcii and folding her tiny arms across the table top. Her voice was light and carefree, regardless of the fact that she was referring to a dreadful massacre.
Marcii nodded in agreement, sipping her tea, but Malorie didn’t fill the silence, and eventually, only able to resist filling the quiet air for so long, Marcii finally spoke.
“Is that all you heard?” She asked, and rather pointedly at that.
Malorie smiled mysteriously.
“I heard you found him…” Her voice had suddenly a much more serious tone to it. “I heard you knew exactly where to look. I heard people think you’re involved…”
“I am not!” Marcii denied immediately, half rising to her feet in the face of adamant truth.
“I know.” Malorie replied calmly, not seeming in the least bit surprised.
Marcii’s cheeks flushed at her outburst and she took her seat again, dropping her gaze.
“I’m sorry…” She apologised, embarrassed.
“Don’t be, child…” Malorie replied immediately, and very kindly. “Rumours very rarely spread the truth…”
“Why do you always believe me?” Marcii asked her then.
It was not that she was ungrateful, and Malorie knew it. It was simply that this kindly lady, so unseemly and inoffensive, always believed Marcii without ever a scrap of evidence.
“Let’s just call it intuition…” Malorie replied. “I know you’re telling the truth…”
“Thank you.” Marcii replied immediately, though she was unsure what else she could say.
“How did you find him there?” She asked next.
Her violet eyes searched Marcii’s face as she spoke, looking for every subtle hint that they could find. Not that Malorie relied on her eyes all that much for such things.
“Vixen showed me.” Marcii replied immediately, as if that made perfect sense.
�
��Vixen?” Malorie questioned, raising one eyebrow behind her perfect black fringe.
“She’s an orphan…” Marcii tried to explain. “At least, I think she is…”
“You think?” Malorie pressed, wondering who in the world this Vixen character was, and how she had come to know such a terrible thing.
“She’s never spoken of parents…” Marcii attempted. “She’s only young. Eight? Nine? Something like that. I don’t know how she knew Midnight was in there…”
“Do you think she was involved?” Malorie asked, and quite directly at that.
“I should hope not!” Marcii replied, her words adamant once again.
“I doubt she would have been…” Malorie mused aloud.
“Why?” Marcii asked, seizing her chance to ask the questions.
“Midnight was the only survivor.” Malorie explained. “I doubt an orphan child would have stood much chance.”
“What chance would an elderly, deaf, dumb man stand?” Marcii questioned, and Malorie smiled in response.
“Good point.” She replied, inclining her head slightly. “What chance indeed?”
“What about you?” Marcii suddenly asked, and Malorie returned her gaze blankly for a moment.
“What about me?” She repeated.
“Do you have a family?” Marcii elaborated, realising all at once she’d been more than a little ambiguous in her question, and that her tenuous link from the mystery of Vixen’s parenthood had not been all that clear.
“I used to…” Malorie replied and her eyes wandered off into the distance for a moment or two, lost in a memory. “I had my mother, and my brother…” She continued.
Marcii sat by in silence, intrigued by the mysterious woman’s words.
She had never really asked Malorie such a direct question before, and she didn’t know why now, all of a sudden, she felt so obliged to do so.
“But not anymore…” Malorie sighed. “All I have now is Reaper…”
“Reaper?” Marcii breathed, admittedly a little afraid even at the name of which Malorie spoke.
“He’s all I have left in the world…” She elaborated vaguely. “But even so, I haven’t seen him for so long…”
