by Casey Herzog
They were banding together, and the magic of their union really did put things into perspective. I was seeing William and me in the way they were looking at each other. She claimed not to love my father, but I wasn’t sure how much I believed her. The bond they shared was too strong to be broken so easily with mere words.
“I can’t in good conscience let my mother stay here for one minute longer. There’s nothing worse than knowing she is here and there’s nothing anybody can do to bring her home. If I know I can, then I should, before I lose my nerve altogether.”
I took a deep breath and I could feel it coming up until something made me come to a screeching halt. The one shroud wasn’t enough to break through, but teaming with the rest gave them the opportunity to speak without being censored.
I wasn’t sure if I believed the voices, but they seemed adamant and quite vocal on the subject. They were telling me my mother was the cause for what had happened to them. She was keeping them prisoner for her own selfish gain.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I was still trying to figure out a way to save my mother, but the voices were not exactly silent. I had to be very careful, and their insistence this was not my mother was something I could not ignore. I could see how happy my father was, and to break his heart would be the worst.
“Mother, I do have a question about those who call this place their home.”
She stopped short. What I had said had affected her deeply.
“I would have been exactly like them, but somehow I survived what they couldn’t. They are trapped and they tend to gravitate to those they consider to be easily manipulated. I know you want to believe they can be trusted, but nothing they say is something you should listen to.”
I think she was surprised when she learned I was the only one to hear them. My father confirmed he was unaware of the voices, but he had noticed the shrouds ready to take what they thought was rightfully theirs.
“I get this feeling you’re not telling us something.”
Again, what I was saying was getting on her last nerve, and I could see how hard it was for her to stay cordial. I wanted to believe it was because I was interrogating her. I wouldn’t have liked it in her shoes and I felt bad for putting her on the spot.
“There’s really nothing to tell. I was sent here without any thought about what it could mean. How they could believe this was some kind of test that anybody could possibly pass is beyond me. I still don’t forgive your father, even though I know how selfish and harsh it sounds. He can tell you himself how sweet I was, but things change when you feel abandoned.”
I felt she was purposely misleading, and I was cautious, waiting for her to do something to mar my opinion of her. I didn’t know why she was being cooperative and it wasn’t like there was a way out for her.
“You found us another way; this path would have been helpful on the ascent.”
“I wasn’t there when you decided to take this half-baked journey to save your friend. I’m surprised your father didn’t put his foot down.”
I felt the red hot hatred coming off of her in waves. It was hard for her to hide. What she said certainly didn’t match up with her actions.
“You know our daughter better than anyone; she would’ve come regardless of my orders to the contrary.”
I needed some time alone away from them to converse in private with the voices. There could have been something they knew to help my mother, but I didn’t think they were inclined to do so.
“If you really wanted to, you could have found a way to prevent her from coming here, and we both know it. Imprisoning her for her own good would have been preferable than coming here to witness her mother’s predicament. I can’t leave, and no amount of wishing is going to change that.”
I didn’t know why she was so cold. There were even times she didn’t even seem like she was my mother.
“I don’t like either one of you talking about me like I’m not even here. It’s disrespectful, and I deserve more. There’s no reason for either one of you to bite your tongue when you’re around me. I know how the both of you are always at odds; you’re only deluding yourself into thinking it could be different.”
I was feeling the fatigue in my legs, and the pain was something I wasn’t going to be able to ignore forever.
“We were just having a spirited discussion; there’s no reason to get upset over nothing. I can only take you so far, and then, regrettably, we will have to say goodbye. I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” she said, looking towards the both of us to see if we had come up with any useful information.
“Your mother has always had an opinion of her own, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. If she didn’t, I would know something was wrong.”
I wasn’t going to lie to them, but I certainly wasn’t going to tell them the truth about what the voices were saying. I was not only keeping what the voices were saying from them, but also, what I perceived as a hallucination of a man in white. He was there for a moment and then he was gone. It was easy to disappear within the swirls of snow courtesy of the unforgiving climate from this altitude.
“I’m as much a prisoner as those voices; I have heard them speak to me on the wind from time to time. They are not very nice, but thankfully, they haven’t been able to hurt me.”
I was walking and listening to her with the nagging voices trying to instill urgency.
“I know you’re a prisoner and I’m doing everything I can to finally set you free.” If she really was something else or had changed into something malevolent, then I had to believe she would want me to use whatever was at my disposal.
“You are my daughter and I love you very much, but you really don’t know much of anything. The voices are trouble and they should be excised from your life. If you’re lucky, you won’t hear them when you finally leave this place,” she said, as I looked at her and tried to gauge whether or not her response could be truthful.
“I don’t see any reason why we can’t just get along. Maybe working together is what is going to find the answer,” my father said, leaning forward to be heard over the wind that was picking up as we made our descent.
“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.
