Josephine Marlin and The Alternatives

by Karen Eastland

  ‘Don’t banshee’s also kill with their scream?’ I asked Pony when we reached the gravel at the beginning of the pathway.

  She shrugged her shoulders as we took our first tentative steps to the banshee’s Keep. We walked very slowly, hand in hand. It was dark and scary, but I was still feeling annoyed and didn’t notice until I heard the running water of the creek. We stopped for a minute and sat on the river grasses along its edge. After a short sit and a quick drink to ease my parched throat, I plunged my head into the water, to remove the last of the blood from my face, and Horse from my hair.

  Pony and dog waited for me to finish before they had a drink. The creek was rushing along smooth river rocks. The moon occasionally reflected in its ripples, and I saw what I’m sure was a golden bell frog. It was a nice size too.

  ‘Sue would be interested in you,’ I said to the frog.

  ‘I would’ve liked to have stayed there for a while, rather than find a banshee’s keep,’ I thought.

  After a few minutes of rest, I stood up and looked down the path towards the entrance of the cave, with a healthy reactive fear bubbling inside me. Not one of us wanted to take another step, and I didn’t feel as annoyed with my friends as I had been. I’d started to regret my sulking. Making sure Pony was with me, and Dog remained by my side, I took a deep breath as we began our walk to the entrance of the cave.

  When I saw the opening, I squeezed Pony’s hand a little more than I should’ve, but I couldn’t help sharing my fear.

  ‘How are you feeling Pony?’ I asked in a whisper, hoping she’d say “gwaith”, to give me a false sense of hope.

  ‘Scare. Pony scare,’ she said and gripped my hand tighter than I had hers.

  Looking down at Dog by my side, I put my free hand on his head to give him a quick pat, hoping some of his bravery would somehow magically shift to me.

  No-one was sharing.

  When we reached the opening in the rock, I saw it wasn’t very wide. Looking at it, I didn’t know if we’d all be able to slip in through the crack. Dog and I’d just be able to, but Pony was going to have to almost fold in half to squeeze through it.

  ‘At least she has the slime thing going for her,’ said Brain. ‘It may help her slip through, and we have seen her bend in half… remember Bob?’

  ‘Thank you Brain, thank you.’

  ‘I’m sorry I insisted on bringing you with me,’ I said to Pony, squeezing her hand a little tighter.

  She squeezed mine back so much tighter; I’d begun to lose feeling in my hand. It felt as if she thought we were competing with each other over who could squeeze the hardest. She was winning! I stopped squeezing hers, allowing mine to become limp. If I had a white towel, I’d have thrown it in.

  ‘Pony! Let go for a minute,’ I finally said, squeezing it out in a coarse whisper, hoping she’d release my hand enough to ease off her grip, now that I understood the rules of the game.

  Pony relaxed her hold, and released my hand, but didn’t let it go.

  I pushed my way through the slim opening of the cavern, and a few small rocks fell around me from the top. Stopping to hold my breath, I hoped it wouldn’t collapse. The rocks stopped falling, and I made it all the way into the cave. Pony came in after me and, as she tried to make her way through while still holding my hand, a few larger rocks fell. We stopped, held our breath and waited for the rocks to stop falling.

  It seemed like it was working, but just as Pony made her last move to get inside, we heard the sound of something large moving above the door. Dog ran in just as a huge boulder fell from the roof, bringing with it a landslide of smaller rocks, gravel and sand, sealing the entrance, and our escape.

  ‘There goes your element of surprise,’ said Brain.

  ‘I hope there’s another way out,’ I whispered to Pony, who’d decided she liked being the winner and had squeezed my hand until it’d become limp in hers again. It was probably blue at that stage.

  All I heard Pony say was, ‘Uh Oh,’ just above the pounding in my chest, as the last rock fell. She pulled me closer, twisted her arm around mine, and locked my elbow in place, so it sat up against her dress.

  I wasn’t going anywhere without Pony. She was so scared; her glow had started to pulse. That was good but of course I didn’t tell her that. I felt Dog rub against my jeans and reached down to give him a reassuring pat, to reassure myself more than anything else.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I whispered, even though I was shitting myself. ‘Dog and I won’t let anything happen to you, will we Dog?’

  Dog made a quiet whimpering noise as he looked up at me. All I could see were the whites of his wide eyes through Pony’s glow.

  ‘See,’ I said, looking down at Dog, who hadn’t even convinced me with that whimper, ‘Dog said yes too.’

  Pony squeezed my hand one more time before releasing her grip.

  We walked single file down a long, a narrow stone carved passageway. Our backs were pressed up against one wall, and our knees were rubbing against the other. The passage was so thin; Dog was the only one who could walk it without having to crab walk.

  I wasn’t sure if they felt it, but I was certain we’d walked through an invisible, rubbery wall, where the passage finally began to fan out into a larger cavern. I could see a light flickering ahead of us, twinkling off the smooth rock. We stood in the darkness, far enough from the light of the fire, so we couldn’t be seen.

  I caught sight of Pony’s face and saw the fear in her eyes. Looking down at Dog, he sent a wide-eyed look back. I could still only see his whites.

  ‘Shush,’ I said to Pony, lifting my free hand to my lips, then whispered, ‘wait here for a minute, I’m going to have a quick peek inside the cavern to see if the banshee’s there.’

  Pony refused to let go of my hand, so she held tight to me as I stretched my body around into the cavern for a quick look. A brief scan told me the banshee had lived there for a long time, maybe centuries. I wasn’t sure how long banshee’s lived, but I was sure she’d be something ancient, especially if time stopped inside the cavern.

  It looked like a laboratory. There were benches and chairs, carved from both stone and wood. On one bench was a stack of old parchments with odd writing on them. Small jars and bottles, cups and pallets, filled with all manner of things sat on unstable shelves. There was even a human skull or two sitting on a stone bench.

  Some of the jars had what looked like herbs in them; others looked as if they contained animal body parts: eyes, frogs and bird’s legs, birds, and I’m sure one or two jars held human toes, but don’t quote me on that. There was also a row of test tubes on the bench. They were old, I mean so old, I only knew what they were from the ancient chemistry books I’d glanced at in history classes.

  Talking about books, while Pony kept hold of my hand, I saw a natural formation in the bedrock. It had a large pile of books stuffed into it carelessly. They were covered in dust and cobwebs, and I’d be guessing when I say they were probably antiques. The books were on poisons and medicines. One book caught my eye; it was the “Traitê, De La Chymie”.

  It’s all French to me, but the book had 1676 embossed in gold on it. I might not have excelled in my French lessons, but I knew enough to know that an odd-looking jar sitting next to it, with “intoxiquer” on its label, was poison.

  There were other bottles and jars throughout the cavern, and all had different liquids, herbs and coloured granules in them. Some looked like they contained blood. I’d wager a guess and say the blood of several types of creatures. Other bottles had runic symbols scratched into their stone crafted plugs. I couldn’t make them out from where I was, but I did know I didn’t want to go any further.

  There was a ring of stones, burnt black by many fires, just like the one already burning in it, but I couldn’t see the banshee.

  ‘Pull me back,’ I whispered. ‘I can’t see the banshee, so let’s be quiet and go in… Oh, and Pony?’

  ‘Yep?’

  ‘Don’t touch anything,�
� I said.

  ‘Okay,’ she whispered, but I could hear the tremor in her voice, although she seemed to have gotten her wheezing under control. Fear of the unknown will do that. Also, her glow had become paler, it was almost a pastel purple colour.

  Pony still had my hand, and Dog was at my feet. Thankfully Pony had begun to get a bit of higher brain function back because her questions and answers were becoming more precise.

  I twisted my body to lead them into the cavern, but as I turned my head, my nose brushed against the nose of the banshee. We all screamed. Even Dog yelped. We tried crab-walking back to the now sealed entrance, but the banshee grabbed me around the waist.

  ‘Run Pony,’ I yelled.

  ‘No leeb Jo,’ she screamed and refused to let go of my hand. I tried to twist mine free from hers while fighting to get away from the banshee, but no matter how hard I twisted my fingers, Pony refused to let go.

  Dog was barking, and I watched him try to bite the banshee’s legs, but she didn’t seem to have any, not that I could see. She was wearing souls. They were vestured to her body. Stolen souls! From the Man of the Trees? I didn’t think so. I thought the souls had been stolen from visitors to the point.

  The gown was held together with a thick blue mist. It was vestured to the banshee, bound by the pains of the souls. Arms, like small fraying cotton threads, reached out from it, fashioning a horrific fringe. It was held to the banshee by a tapestry woven from their terror and screams.

  Every time my skin touched the gown, each one of the thousands of souls bound to her screamed for release. Images would flash in my head, and I could see their pain, feel the terror of each soul worn by this witch, in her gown of damnation.

  This banshee, still trying to drag me into her lair, clothed herself in the dead. Somehow she’d locked the souls in a type of limbo. Picking me up, she pushed me under her arm and carried me into the cavern. Pony, who was still holding my hand, was being dragged along behind us.

  The banshee threw me to the ground in front of the fire and started pacing from one end of the cavern to the other. She was muttering in a strange language, and appeared to be speaking to the souls.

  Her skin was almost the same green colour as Pony’s had been earlier, except she had a few darker spots running down from her chin to the edge of each shoulder. They stopped just above her chest. Her hair was so long it swept the dusty floor as she paced back and forth. It was white silver in colour. Her ears were long and pointed, and she had razor-sharp talons on each of her twisted fingers.

  My hands instinctively went to my face, remembering the talons of the creature in the forest. I even thought for a minute that the banshee might have been my attacker. Then I remembered the feathers. My fear tripled as I realised there were more creatures out there with large, sharp talons.

  The banshee stopped pacing and stared at Pony sitting on the floor next to me sobbing. I was about to talk when the banshee bared her jagged black teeth and hissed at me.

  Lying on the ground watching the banshee move from one end to the other, I felt she’d broken my arm when she threw me to the floor. The pain I felt was unbearable, but I kept it to myself because I didn’t want to worry Pony any more than I had. I looked around to see where Dog was, but I couldn’t see him anywhere.

  ‘I hope he’s gone to get help,’ I wistfully said to Brain. We both knew it was a false hope because of the rock fall.

  Pony was afraid, but she was also angry. I knew if we were ever going to get out of the cavern, we’d have to do something while the banshee was busy talking to those bound to her.

  The banshee was talking at the souls, but those souls were talking to me.

  They were showing me images, flashes of the cavern, and its long winding system of tunnels, also, there was another way out deep within the cave. And I saw a blue bottle with a magically crafted black stone plug, hidden beneath a flat stone in the floor somewhere. The souls were trying to claw their way out.

  Pony pulled me to her lap and wrapped me in her arms. We both sat on the floor wondering what was going to happen.

  ‘There’s another way out,’ I whispered, as I noticed the pain in my arm had stopped. ‘I think if we run at the banshee together, we could fight our way out.’

  Pony nodded, and while I watched the banshee pace to the other end of the cavern, I took hold of a sharp rock that’d been half buried in the coarse sand.

  ‘Now!’ called the souls.

  ‘Now Pony,’ I whispered.

  Pony put her hands on my back and pushed me to my feet. Launching from the ground, I ran at the banshee. I could hear Pony behind me and, using the rock as a weapon, pointy side out, together we stabbed it deep into her neck. She screamed a blood-curdling scream and turned to look at us. A thick green ooze trickled out and collected around the rock; then we watched as the wound closed. It was then that I realised, all the rock had done was piss her off.

  Pushing Pony away, I watched in horror as the banshee raised one taloned hand. It was as if I was outside of my body, when I watched the banshee slice her talons across my throat. They struck my flesh, and I watched as I slumped to my knees in the dirt.

  On the ground, my body swayed as if in slow motion. Even though I watched on, I knew my sight had been distorted through the streaming blood, because everything had a reddish hue, even Pony. Then I watched as she raised her talons again. They hovered above me, and I knew there was nothing I could do about it. I saw my blood drip from their ends, and watched as she sliced down the side of my head, and across my throat, to make sure the wound was mortal.

  I watched myself fall to the floor. Pony’s screams… Dog’s barks… they sounded like a beautiful song, than screams of terror. It cradled me as I fell. Falling to the cave floor, I could see the blood spurt from my neck, and even though I was not in my body, I could still feel the warmth of my blood trickle down to gather at my nape, in the sand beneath my neck.

  I lifted a hand to my throat in an attempt to stop the gush of blood; my hair was red as it dripped from its ends. Then I felt pressure on my neck, and looked to see what it was. It was the banshee with an odd looking bottle in her hand. She was filling it with my blood.

  ‘Probably collecting it,’ I thought, then fell into a black haze.

  Pony’s terrified screams followed my fall, and I saw the banshee restrain her as I fell. Something caught my eye just before the blackness, something towards the back of the cavern.

  ‘Dog?’ I whispered.

  Then I died.

  The We and me

  I was falling in and out of darkness, and I fell for so long I didn’t think I was going to stop. Eventually, I must’ve reached my destination because I wasn’t falling anymore. I didn’t know where I was, but was lying on what felt and looked like, a smooth black glass floor. Staring up at the sky, I could only see myself mirrored back from the same smooth blackness, and there were gold stars in the sky.

  Some of the stars looked like they were dancing, others stayed in place.

  ‘Those stars are different to the usual stars,’ I found myself thinking. Then I saw there were planets and constellations. I was so close to them; I felt I could lift my hand and touch them.

  Wherever I was, it was quiet, yet I thought I could hear singing in my head, just like I hear Brain talking to me. I lay on the floor feeling too weak, or too lazy, to move. I felt peaceful and happy. The music in my head was bewitching, and I knew it would be okay if I stayed right where I was. I knew I would never want anything other than that song. I looked around and saw the black glass was edged with an intense gold flame. It was beautiful, and it pulled at me. I wanted nothing more than to go to it.

  ‘Is that where the singing’s coming from?’ I asked Brain but got no reply.

  I placed my hands over my ears and was certain it was the flames I could hear, they were singing in my head. It was a beautiful song being sung by millions of voices all at once, and they were calling me by name.

  ‘Andoré,’ they called
, and even though it wasn’t my name, I recognised it as being mine, and knew they were calling to me.

  After a few minutes, I remembered what’d happened, and my stomach began to churn from the panic. My hands flew to my throat, but I couldn’t feel any blood, or tearing. Looking at myself in the sky, I could see I didn’t have a scratch on me.

  ‘Am I dead?’ I asked Brain.

  There was still no reply; even the voices had stopped singing.

  ‘Where am I?’ I called, only to have my question echoed back at me.

  Laying on the floor, looking up at the most beautiful night sky I’d ever seen, I didn’t want to move. I wanted to stay right there. I’d momentarily forgotten about my friends. Then the voices began singing, calling to me, pulling me out of the peaceful oblivion I’d begun to sink into. They made me feel like I was floating in the air.

  I wasn’t sure if I was able to stand. I mean, I’d never died before.

  Placing my hands on the cool, smooth black of the floor, I lifted myself to a seated position. Sitting up, I took in my surroundings. Even seated, everything was beautiful, even though it all looked the same. Stranger still, it looked and felt familiar.

  It took me a while to feel stable enough to move from the floor after such a long fall. Standing slowly, I was a bit wobbly at first and almost fell over. I tried again, this time certain I would fall, and there was nothing to hold on to if I did. When I finally did stand, I could see… everything.

  I didn’t know where I was, but, oh it was beautiful.

  It was a huge round black glass room with gold flames flickering all the way around it.

  There was gold etching on the floor. I couldn’t make out what it was until I remembered the stars and planets in the sky. Looking up, I walked across the floor and noticed the etchings in the black glass were reflected from the solar system beneath my feet. The planets and constellations were a large map, but it didn’t look like the sky from Earth. It looked like a map of many solar systems.