The Man Who Vanishes

by J M Gonzalez Riley

  Kayn turned his attention to the chapel at the end of the mansion and wondered if she might be looking out of one of the many windows at him. The thought filled him with sadness.

  Presently, his thoughts turned to the dead girl, Eva. He could remember meeting her here for the first time, watching her playing in the square with the other children, glowing with happiness. At once, the world seemed to come back into sharp focus, with its noise and its smells and its sadness. Kayn realised he was crying. Tears were falling freely down his cheeks, thick and warm, tears for Eva, who he would never see again.

  Kayn spent the rest of that day on the square, filled with an aching loneliness and a sadness that he could not shake off.

  I need to go home, he thought. I need to return to Dayna, to be back where I belong.

  That night, when the sky had turned dark, Kayn made his way up the hill, to the glade. He walked slowly, brooding under the overcast heavens as if his mood had set loose an army of black clouds. After much thought, he had resolved to seek out his past and face the circumstances. He needed to know who he was.

  When he reached the glade, he found Tiffany waiting for him and ran to her. They kissed, and suddenly it was as if they had never been apart. But Kayn was filled with a terrible sadness because he knew sadness because he and Tiffany could not be together without hurting Titch.

  He tried to tell Tiffany about how he felt, but his signs were poor. Before long, he was seized by frustration at his inadequacy to communicate the simplest of things to her. He knew that he had to try harder, that she would remember the sound of words. He yearned to know her mind, but the abyss between them seemed insuperable and he felt himself grow desperate and sullen.

  Tiffany looked at him sadly and caressed him, sensing his troubled mind. They sat under the moonlight that slid behind the black clouds and plunged the hill into darkness. They sat together, yet a million miles apart.

  Kayn wondered suddenly whether he had upset her with his brooding. Perhaps she thought she had caused his dour mood. At once he tried to look happy, caressing her, trying to kiss her, cursing himself when she would not respond to his affection. He tried harder, stroking her hair, and her face. To his relief, she seemed to grow warm toward him again, and he continued caressing her until each of his kisses invariably drew out one of hers.

  Presently, he found that her squirming had aroused his passion. Sensing this, she took him aside and laid him down on the grass, climbing on top of him, undoing his belt. Kayn slipped his hands inside her loose garments and caressed her full breasts.

  She gasped, struggling out of her robes, grabbing his hands where they stroked her, pushing them harder into her body. And then she was straddling him, hard and fast, and Kayn felt himself rush toward her, and she was rushing to meet him, locked together in a race of heat and passion.

  Under the moonlight they lay, breathless, side by side, gasping in the cold night air.

  Kayn sat up and Tiffany sat up next to him.

  He looked at her and she was beautiful. But Kayn grew uneasy, his mind racing.

  ‘Tiffany,’ he said, looking at her and wondering how he was going to reach her with his words. ‘I have to go into the forest,’ he said.

  Tiffany watched him silently.

  ’The forest of Bluebell,’ he said, pointing toward the tree line above the glade.

  Tiffany’s expression changed at once.

  ‘I have to go,’ he nodded, seeing the fear in her eyes. ‘I think the witch can help me.’

  Tiffany stood up suddenly.

  He tried to stop her, but when he got up to his feet she was already running down the hill, away from him.

  Shit, he thought. How many people must I hurt? But he had to let her go. As much as he cared for her, there was little he could do to spare her feelings. He felt useless with the emptiness he carried inside and would remain so forever unless he filled it with a past.

  Kayn climbed down the hill slowly, brooding about what the future held for him. He felt the first rain drop running down the back of his neck and, before he had taken another ten steps, it seemed that the heavens had opened up on him, punishing him for his deeds.

  Tiffany ran in the night, her tears mixing with the rain, pouring down her cheeks. The stranger was going to the forest. She had read it from his lips. She had somehow made him sad, driven him away from her, and he had chosen to go where nobody had treaded for nigh on a hundred years, despite that he knew the danger of doing so. Thus she knew that she would never see him again.

  When she reached the doors, her heart was thumping hard from the run and she was shivering with cold. The guards were waiting for her, leering and a grinning.

  ‘Hello, my lovely,’ the first guard said, coming through the gap. But Tiffany pushed his hand away from her and sidestepped him. The second guard heard the protest and appeared at the gate, blocking her way.

  ‘Now then,’ he smiled. ‘You wouldn’t be thinking of just passing through here without paying your dues, would you?’

  The first guard came up from behind her and grabbed her wrists, pushing them up behind her, thrusting her forward toward his companion who cupped her breasts and rubbed himself against her.

  ‘Where have you been all night, my little slut?’ he whispered in her ear.

  Tiffany closed her eyes and threw her head back in hopelessness, tasting her salty tears.

  The guard pulled away from her at once.

  ‘Let her go,’ he whispered harshly. ‘Something’s wrong with this wench tonight. Just look at her. She’s crying!’

  The other guard let her wrists go and came round to look at her. When he saw her crying, he raised his eyebrows and put a hand on her shaking shoulder.

  ‘Are you alright, my dear?’ he asked her.

  Tiffany shook, making herself small.

  ‘Do something,’ the first guard said to his companion.

  ‘Has somebody been bothering you?’ the other asked her.

  Tiffany was silent.

  ‘Would you like us to escort you home?’

  ‘Let her go through,’ the other guard said behind him.

  ‘All right. You go now. But be careful. We’ll keep watch.’

  He pushed her gently toward the gap in the door and watched her disappear into the night.

  The guards exchanged glances.

  ‘I wonder what was up with her,’ said one of them.

  Then, a movement caught their eye and they both looked in the direction of the huts. They tensed, reaching for their swords when they saw the two dark shapes approaching in the night.

  ‘Who goes there?’ the first guard cried out, drawing his sword.

  ‘Sire’s men,’ answered one of them. And as they stepped closer, the guards could see that indeed they were, their hearts shrinking as a feeling of impending doom seized them.

  ‘So,’ said the tallest of the men, a thin man with a hooked nose: the sire’s right man. ‘I see with my own eyes that you know the sire’s daughter quite well…’

  The guards swallowed hard, fearful.

  ‘No,’ said one of them. ‘Not at all. We did not know who she was at first. We thought we had seized a rogue, or a thief, sir.’

  ‘By the breasts?’ asked the sire’s man, darkly. His companion, a stocky man with a bald head, eyed them hard, his top lip curled back over pointy teeth.

  ‘And what of yesterday, then?’ asked the tall man. ‘Did you think you were fucking a thief too?’

  The guards spluttered and started, shaking their heads, bowing down on the mud.

  ‘Please,’ said one of them. ‘Sir, don’t tell the sire. I beg you. I will give you anything you ask for.’

  ‘He will have you hung immediately, as soon as I tell him,’ said the man with the hooked nose, coming closer and kicking the guard in the side.

  The guard toppled, yelping in pain. His companion looked up fearfully, his eyes brimming with tears.

  ‘Please, have mercy’ he begged.

  ‘Anyth
ing, you say?’ asked the stocky man eyeing them with disdain.

  The guard nodded vigorously, desperately.

  ‘Anything, sirs,’ he croaked. ‘Anything at all.’

  The sire’s men looked at each other for a long moment.

  ‘Next time the sire’s daughter comes by at night,’ said the man with the hooked nose, ‘you keep her here and you alert us. And you don’t touch her.’

  The guards nodded in unison.

  ‘We’ve got something for her too,’ laughed the stocky man, dribbling down his chin. The man with the hooked nose laughed shrilly and the guards joined in nervously.

  Tiffany sat on the flat stone in the square, where Titch loved to sit every day waiting for her to be let out. Her clothes and her hair were soaked with the rain, but she did not care anymore.

  She had not seen Titch lately and she knew the time she was spending with the stranger, instead of with him, must be hurting him. But she loved the stranger in a way that she had never loved Titch.

  Tiffany's eyes clouded. She had thought she was done crying, but every time she thought of the stranger going away, her heart filled with ache. She began shaking uncontrollably, becoming aware how cold she felt. She stood up unsteadily and walked across the empty square, her teeth chattering. She headed toward the chapel. But when she reached the centre of the square, she came to an abrupt halt.

  Something was wrong.

  It was in the air, a sudden, subtle change in the atmosphere. She could not know of the hidden watcher in the trees, she could not hear the gasp of excitement carried to her in the slight breeze, nor the heavy footsteps that followed. But she could almost feel and taste the ether, and the malevolent resolution behind it.

  Tiffany turned her head round slowly in an arc, unwittingly giving the watcher precious seconds to dive back under the cover of the trees.

  She turned back and ran the rest of the way to the chapel, where she could see the dim light of a candle burning through the gap under the door - her father always left one aflame during the night.

  A twig snapped loudly under her delicate foot and she looked down to see what she had trodden on, wondering if it had made a sound. Chiding herself for not picking her way more carefully, she started toward the door once more, feeling herself grow weary and uncomfortable under the weight of her sodden clothes.

  She pushed the heavy portal open, unaware of its creaking hinges, and before she looked up, she sensed that her father was there, waiting for her.

  And he was not alone. The man with the hooked nose stood alongside her father, smiling a thin, evil sneer.

  Tiffany froze with terror.

  The man pointed straight at her, nodding his head, sneering. His eyes were bright with anticipation, her father's dark with hate as he unfastened his thick leather belt from around his gross waist, mouthing the word slut over and over.

  21

  Middle Ages

  Kayn sat facing Titch, a candle burning between them. Both men were silent, listening to the rain outside the stable.

  ‘I have to go,’ Kayn said finally. ‘I think it’s what I was meant to do.’

  Titch nodded, his head hung low.

  Kayn had not mentioned the gypsies in the forest, nor any of what they had told him. Only that he felt he must go and meet his destiny.

  ‘Perhaps I will find the witch,’ he told Titch encouragingly, ‘and bring her to trial for the ills she has committed.’

  Titch nodded miserably.

  They both knew it was a lie.

  ‘Look. I have to go,’ Kayn said. ‘I feel that is where I must head, for better or for worse. I need to find out who I am, Titch. I really do. And if anybody knows, the witch knows.’

  Titch nodded and sighed.

  ‘Will you be gone in the morning?’

  Kayn nodded.

  ‘First thing. But tell me, how many people have gone before me, to seek the witch out?’

  Titch looked gravely at him, then sighed.

  ‘First, the Witchfinder General and his men. But the witch cursed him and he died soon after his journey began, felled by the river with a poisonous thorn in him. The rest of the men went missing soon after that. Some say they were ambushed by the gypsies, whom she has enchanted with her magic spells. Since then, pointers have ventured to seek her out, but never returned.’

  Kayn was pensive.

  ‘But all that is before my time,’ Titch added. ‘None have gone into the forest after her since, that I can remember.’

  The sound of the rain filled the stable, made the candlelight flicker wildly.

  ‘She must be at least a hundred years old and more,’ Kayn said at last.

  ‘Yes, and even now folk won't go and fetch her,’ Titch told him. ‘Better to let her die, they say, at the mercy of God, for she is a powerful one.’

  ‘So why is the Witchfinder General on the way?’ asked Kayn.

  Titch stiffened. ‘The prophecy is nigh,’ he began, but suddenly he seemed apprehensive to say more.

  Shaking his head, he knuckled his way over to a corner and rummaged in the shadows, returning with a clay jug.

  ‘I’ve been brewing this for a long time,’ he said, placing the jug between them. ‘It’s wine made from elderberries, sweet and strong.’

  Titch tipped the jug into his open mouth, gulping back wine. He wiped his mouth with a rough hand and offered the jug to Kayn, who accepted it and took a swig.

  The little man watched Kayn. Secretly, he was happy that he was going at last, far away from Tiffany. But he did felt a little remorse, for he had also come to like the stranger, despite his failings, in a strange sort of way.

  ‘You haven’t been going up to the hill with Tiffany lately,’ said Kayn.

  Titch raised his bushy eyebrows and sighed.

  ‘I don't like going up that hill,’ he began. ‘The climb takes it out of me. I'm not half the man I used to be,’ he said, laughing out loud.

  Kayn nodded, but he knew that Titch would be going up to see Tiffany when he was gone and he felt suddenly jealous at the thought.

  ‘Good enough for me that I see her in the square,’ said Titch, taking another swig of the wine. ‘I never did like that hill much, when I think of all the witch burnings…’

  Kayn nodded, lost in his own thoughts.

  Suddenly, Titch grinned.

  ‘They ran out of witches, you know?’

  He laughed at his own joke, and then drank more wine. How I love Tiffany, he thought, gulping hard, thinking of all the years passed with his heart burning away, and Tiffany loving him back, but not the same kind of love. He might have waited a lifetime for her but that Kayn turned up. Kayn was a better man - a whole man - and so he would be better for her. And she deserved only the best.

  Titch brought down the jug hard on the straw and wiped his chin.

  ‘She didn’t come into the world deaf,’ Titch said.

  Kayn looked at him.

  The little man shook his head sadly.

  ‘Some say that she made herself deaf on her sixth year to stop her father's cruel words from hurting her any longer.’

  Kayn felt the numbness washing over him.

  Titch drank more wine.

  ‘But she's strong, is Tiffany,’ he wiped his lips.

  And beautiful, he thought. Very beautiful indeed.

  Sensing that the wind had loosened Titch’s tongue, Kayn chose that moment to feign tiredness.

  ‘I best get my head down, for a tough day awaits me tomorrow.’

  As Titch looked up, a mighty crack of thunder sounded above them, making them both jump. The rain pounded the roof.

  Titch looked up fearfully.

  ‘I'll not sleep,’ he slurred. ‘Not in this. And I’m full of restlessness tonight, thinking of the murders.’

  Kayn nodded, settling down on the straw.

  Titch tried to focus his bleary eyes on him, shrugged and drank more wine. Soon after, Titch blew out the candle, though not out of kindness: he simply could not
bear to look at Kayn any longer. The jug was empty of wine and his head full of ugly thoughts. Here was he, sharing his home with the very man who had stolen Tiffany's heart from him. Here was he, watching over him like the faithful dog that he was.

  Kayn muttered something in the dark, already asleep.

  Titch squeezed his eyes shut, trying to clear his head. There was another flash outside, lighting the stable up for a moment, then plunging it back into darkness. A bolt of thunder followed, roaring above them.

  There was a hard knock on the door.

  Surprised, Titch lost his balance and toppled forward.

  ‘Open up!’ a harsh voice ordered outside.

  In the gloom, Titch saw Kayn jolt up. Both men looked at each other, fearful, then at the door.

  ‘Open up this instant!’ ordered the voice outside. Then the door took a blow, and another, and the wooden bolt began to buckle.

  Kayn was up on his feet, looking about him wildly.

  Sobering up with fear, Titch was galvanised into action. He knuckled his way over to the corner and pulled back a loose plank of wood, then another, and then a third. Kayn felt the cold night air rushing in through the hole.

  ‘Get out!’ hissed Titch. ‘And be quick about it!’

  The stable door took another mighty blow.

  Kayn dropped to his knees and backed out of the hole. Before his head went through, he looked at Titch long and hard.

  This was it.

  ‘Go!’ Titch shouted, pushing him outside.

  The door imploded, showering Titch with sharp splinters of wood. The sire and three of his men stepped in, looking all about them.

  ‘Where have you hidden him, you mongrel?’ spat the sire.

  Titch froze with fear, staring up at the men.

  ‘Make him talk,’ the sire ordered.

  The man with the hooked nose took a step toward him and Titch began screaming and pointing to the hole where the loose planks had been a moment ago.

  ‘He escaped!’ Titch shouted. ‘He’s outside now.’

  The sire hissed.