by Casey Herzog
“I need a few moments to rest. I know we don’t have a moment to lose and the shrouds could decide to strike when we slow down long enough for them to touch us with their influence.”
I saw they were hesitant, but they finally gave in when they saw I was out of breath and in desperate need of getting my second wind.
“We can stop for 5 minutes, and not a moment longer. The shrouds are devious and they will use whatever advantage they have to get their claws into you,” my mother said, making me feel like she was on our side. But still, there was something preventing me from believing in a fairy tale ending.
It was a meaningful time in my life, and having both my parents here to give me their support was more than I could ever imagine. I stepped away from them while they were bickering incessantly and not paying attention to what I was doing.
I felt like I had to talk to the voices, even if the one person I had considered to be above reproach warned me against it. Trust was a commodity not paid for, but earned, and this woman had done nothing to answer my questions to my satisfaction.
“I know you have doubts, Gillian, but I have never lied to you and I never will. The others might say and do anything to get out, but I’ve always believed karma has a funny way of balancing the scales.”
The voice was an echo of many speaking at the same time, which was the only way they could get through to me to clearly warn me of the danger of trusting my mother.
“I need something more than your word. There has to be some kind of concrete proof to back up your claim about my mother. How was it even possible for her to be responsible for imprisoning you here? I don’t understand. I need something more than just hearsay,” I said, feeling like I was being pulled in two different directions and having no idea which one to trust.
“Do you really think it’s easy for us to say this with the threat of retaliation lingering in the air? She already knows we are talking to you, and we doubt she is going to be very happy with us. We’ve tried to keep our distance when it’s better not to antagonize her. She treats us like we are here for her amusement.”
I didn’t want to believe them, but I did feel the cold icy reception she gave even her family.
“You need to tell me in plain English what happened, and start at the beginning. The only way I’m going to get to the truth is by listening to both sides of the story.”
I had realized the stories told by the voices and by my mother were exaggerated lies and half-truths; I would find the unvarnished truth somewhere in the middle of the tangled voices.
“We were sent away a long time ago by those who feared what they didn’t understand. We were young, but magic was a lure to the darker side of our personality. I’m sure you know all about that. Anyway, our bodies were torn apart by wild animals, making our consciousness float aimlessly into the ether.”
Hearing the voices speak as one was a little hard on my constitution, and it was causing my head to pound.
“What you say has a ring of truth considering the bones we found. We have been unable to make a proper identification yet,” I said, giving them the opening to continue their story and garner sympathy from me.
“We didn’t ask for any of this, but we have grown tired of your mother’s torture. Those who speak out against her are destroyed to serve as an example. What we are risking by telling you any of this is far worse than death. She will want us to suffer, and we only have ourselves to blame for going against her.”
What they said sounded plausible, but I was reluctant to believe them because it was my mother .It would stand to reason that something trying to break the chain around their ankle would use my mother’s image and likeness to make us less suspicious of her motives.
“This doesn’t sound like my mother. I want to apologize profusely for what you have gone through. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to believe. I’ve tried to hide from it, but my mother hasn’t been acting the same way,” I said, trying to justify what they were saying with suspicions of my own.
“It was never our intention to give you false hope. We regret to tell you our true motives. We are scavengers and we do take what magic we can find to feed and protect ourselves. We don’t feel good about it, but this fight is one we cannot win without help. They have requested that I speak with you.” This voice made me believe the threat was closer than I wanted to admit.
“You don’t want me to believe anything my mother says, but if there’s even the slightest chance she is my mother, then how can I be her enemy. She wasn’t there for me, but I would feel horrible if I weren’t there for her.” I was trying to deny the possibility this was not my mother.
“The truth has been staring you in the face, and you just don’t want to see it. Think about everything you’ve seen, and what makes sense and what doesn’t. It’s there, but you just want to remain blind to what you know in your heart.”
I had to look at this with an unbiased view without the need to have my mother back at any cost.
“I don’t want to hear about this. I just found her, which is leaving me with a lot of doubts about what you have to say about her.”
I didn’t want to get angry at their honesty. I could only hope the truth would be easier to see when I was ready to open my eyes.
“There might be a way for you to learn the truth, but it means finding something resembling a flaw. There’s no way for this thing to know your mother down to the slightest scar or imperfection. Think about what you know about her, and then the answer will reveal itself.”
I heard their screams, and I fell to my knees with my eyes closed and my hands over my ears to try to block out the death knell coming to collect them.
I managed to open up my eyes, and I saw my mother standing there with concern on her face, but it wasn’t the only thing to draw my attention. Behind her, wielding an axe was the same hallucination of the white figure. I didn’t have to guess what he was going to do with the weapon in his hands. He was going to kill my mother, and I didn’t have the fight inside to stop him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The hood was pulled back to show me my best friend in the world was about to kill my mother. Julian had somehow followed us, and what he planned to do with the axe was going to create enormous problems. I didn’t know how he had come to be here, but the look in his eyes was as if he was seeing right through me.
I was breathless from something taking my energy away from me, and there was no way for me to do anything to prevent him from hurting my mother. I tried to warn her, but the words would not leave my mouth for the life of me.
The axe came closer, and then she was pitching forward with her eyes rolling into the back of her head. Julian had struck her with the back of the axe with enough force to render her unconscious at my feet. The screams inside my head diminished and the voices were out of commission for the time being. I tried to reach out to them, but they were in no shape to say anything of any importance.
Julian wasn’t acting like himself. Apparently, this kind of behavior was going around. He moved efficiently, like a seasoned soldier, tying my mother up until she was in no condition to raise a finger to anyone.
I saw him shaking his head, and then he dropped to his knees with a look of pained recognition in his eyes. They blinked into focus and he stared at me like he couldn’t quite believe I was right in front of him.
“I don’t know what is happening, but the last thing I remember is helping Penelope. It would appear there are forces at work here unlike anything I have witnessed before. I recognize this woman, and I believe she is supposed to be dead, for lack of a better word.”
He wasn’t doing anything under his own free will. I couldn’t blame him for any of this. He staggered to his feet, barely able to stay standing without somebody to hold him up. He helped me to my feet, and we used each other as support while still looking down at my mother. She was not saying anything. Hitting her with the axe to the back of her head had left her unable to raise any kind of objection.
I heard the gasp of surprise, and I turned to see my father racing to help my mother. I stepped in-between them and put my hand on his chest, stopping his forward momentum.
“I don’t know what the meaning of this is, Gillian, but you better have some kind of explanation. I know you have been through a lot, and I hope to God this isn’t the evil trying to break free of the chains you imprisoned it with.”
He tried to get around me, but I was insistent he listen to reason before he did anything he was going to regret.
“Julian came to my rescue, but I’m not even sure I was in danger. I do know the voices fear my mother and any kind of reprisal for talking to us. They’ve given me a lot of information. Then, mother decided to hurt them, which gave credence to their claim she is the threat to worry about. Their screams hammered into my skull, and I thought my head was going to explode.”
I was trying to instill in him some of the suspicions I had without coming out and saying I didn’t trust her as far as I could throw her. I wanted to trust her, and I did at the time, but my opinion changed with the words of conviction from the shrouds.
“The voices were probably lying to you to get you to lower your guard long enough for them to use you in some way. I would think after what you’ve been through you would know better than to fall into the trap all over again. The evil persists, and you only have to open yourself up to it for it to gain a foothold.”
He was using what had happened to me in the past against me. I suppose I had that coming, considering the problems I made and the death toll by my hand.
Julian was still feeling the effects of whatever had taken him over, and he was walking around in a daze, completely confused and bewildered by all of this.
“I know you’re probably right, but I can’t be entirely sure, which leads me to believe there might be something to what they said about her.”
I didn’t know why, but for some reason, my mother didn’t want me to use the darker arts to my advantage. It was there within my reach, but I was keeping it down for my own good. The chains my father had mentioned were made by the willful spirit of my mind. It was the only way to prevent what happened before from happening again.
“I understand this is a lot for you to wrap your mind around, and I’m right there with you. She has given us no reason to suspect she has ulterior motives. Why you did this to her is beyond me.”
It was hard to look at him and see the judgment in his eyes.
“As hard as this is to believe, I had nothing to do with what happened to mother. Julian, under some kind of influence, attacked her, when he could’ve easily killed her, when her back was turned.”
Julian was puzzled, trying to figure things out and having a hard time coming to terms with something taking over his body without his consent. I knew the feeling, but I had allowed what happened to me to make me complicit in many deaths still haunting me to this day.
“Julian shouldn’t be here. I have to question the reason why he came. You say he had no will of his own, but he has always been one of the strongest to reject any kind of mind altering drug or influence.”
I had heard in passing that Julian had withstood many forms of psychological torture, coming out on the other side relatively unscathed.
“I can’t explain any of this, but I do feel I’ve let you down in some way. Penelope and the others were my responsibility, and being here makes it easier for them to act out without any kind of guidance. I need to get back before things unravel. I’ve seen some disturbing things when it concerns Penelope,” Julian said, his hand to his forehead.
She was a willful child with a mind of her own and a distinct moral compass a little bent out of shape. I had given her a purpose of teaching others to avoid the pitfalls she had found herself falling into. It was supposed to give her some direction, but maybe I was asking too much.
“Whatever took over your body decided to use you against my mother. I don’t know how you got here when the terrain is quite treacherous, which my father and I can attest to. We almost lost our lives a couple of times; hanging by a thread was not one of our finest moments.”
Julian was standing, but he was teetering back and forth like the ground wasn’t steady underneath his feet.
“I don’t mean to be the bearer of bad news, but we can’t possibly carry her like this. She can’t go very much further without whatever is keeping her here holding her hostage. What you have done certainly does leave a lot to interpretation. We’ll take her with us, but we need to fashion something to carry her. I’m going to leave it up to the two of you.”
It was obvious he blamed me for this even though I had nothing to do with it. I wasn’t sure how to convince him otherwise without sounding like I was trying to hide something.
Julian went with me and we found some trees with long branches to make a sled. He helped me carry the bigger pieces of wood, but it looked like he had a lot of questions and not very many answers.
“Do I even dare to ask how your mother can be alive after everybody believed she was dead?”
I would’ve had the same question, but there were no easy answers. I told him what my father had said, and my recollection of what my mother had gone through left him speechless.
“I do have to wonder if your suspicions about your mother might have merit. She has been gone a very long time, and for you to put your trust in her so implicitly is foolish.”
He did make a valid point and I was going to have to give it some thought.
My father was kneeling by my mother’s side, and she had not come around, which I was sure did not exactly endear me to him. He helped us to get her onto the makeshift sled, and then he took ahold of it by both sides and began dragging it down the icy slope behind him.
“I would really like to hear these voices you have been hearing, Gillian. You might believe them, but I don’t have any reason to without something convincing me. I don’t think it’s right to accuse your mother of something she probably didn’t even do.”
I couldn’t give him what he wanted and it resulted in an impasse.
“If Gillian isn’t going to come to her defense then let me be very clear so there is no misunderstanding. I don’t know what happened, and I wasn’t aware of any wrongdoing on my part. I know it’s hard to understand, but you only have to look at your daughter to know anything is possible.”
The shrouds were silent, not even a peep to indicate they were even there. Whatever my mother did had the desired result of leaving them unable to fight on their own behalf.
“Gillian does not need you to fight her battles for her, and I don’t want her to have to depend on any man. She listened to the wrong people and felt influenced by their very words. She should’ve been leery of that kind of power landing in her lap.”
They were fighting over me, and this heated debate was making tempers flare.
“I was branded by evil to do its bidding, and I lost a lot more than just the trust of the people. I have to constantly concentrate to keep the evil from coming back out at the most inopportune times. Do you have any idea how hard it was to see mother suffering and know there was something I could do? I tried to get her to take me up on my offer, but she was reluctant to put her daughter in harm’s way.”
I didn’t know what else to say. It wasn’t like I had any kind of blueprint to tell me what to do and how to act.
“I know you blame me, and believe me, there’s not a day that goes by I don’t blame myself. That’s no reason to lash out at your mother over something you can’t even substantiate. We have to give her the benefit of the doubt. She deserves more after everything she has gone through.” He was blinded by the lost love coming back into his life and I was right there with him having my mother back.
“I think you both have valid points which should be addressed. Madeleine was a part of both of your lives in very different ways, and only the both of you should be able to see something is wrong. I might be a little biased, but I know there’s something not
quite right. It’s not from personal experience, but I think it comes from the phantom of whatever took control of me.” Different forces were working against us, but the shrouds were honest to a fault.
“What exactly are you suggesting, Julian. Out of the three of us, you might be the only clear head, which will help us to determine what to do next. My father might be resistant, but you are the tiebreaker in whatever decision we make about what we do with my mother.”
There was no sign of the shrouds, and their presence in my head was virtually nonexistent. They had said a lot, and my mother had apparently taken exception to some disparaging comments about her character.
“The only thing we can do is wait until she comes around and question her further. Being here for any length of time can warp any mind, even one as strong as your mother’s. Cautious is not unreasonable when you’re dealing with things out of the ordinary.”
This feeling was gripping me by the throat, like some foreboding shadow ready to swoop down and cover us with certain pain. This mountain had become one obstacle after another. Even my mother had turned into a curse instead of a blessing.
“She can probably use her rest; her head injury needs some time to heal. I still don’t agree with any of this, but I will compromise for the good of our relationship.”
My father was trying to be magnanimous and see both sides of the story without making any snap judgments.
“It might’ve been easier to have her walking on her own steam, but this is a lot safer for all of us. If what the voices said is true, then we need to be extra vigilant when we’re dealing with my mother.”
I was too close to all of this, and my father could be accused of the same thing. I could only take it as a good thing Julian that had shown up when he did.
I was still trying to contact the shrouds, hoping my voice would be the one thing to wake them. I didn’t think they were dead because killing them was too easy when suffering had become a way for her to play with their lives, or so they said.
