Cryptic

by DA Chaney

  When she came to the end of the hall, she grasped the handle to the last door on the left and darted inside. Sometimes she’d privately use the room after Richard had fallen asleep to be away from him. As long as she returned before he woke, he had never known she snuck out in the night. Her secret room had already been prepared earlier and the tall candle had not expired yet. She snuck away the biggest candles for the room because she never knew when she’d be able to slip out in the night.

  With shaking hands she closed the door as quietly as she could despite the desire to slam it shut. Leaning against it, she let her wobbling legs go and she sat down hard. Wood carvings sticking out from the door scraped against the corset and dug into her back, but she didn’t care. Even as the position she found herself in made her pant for breath from the tight corset, she sat still.

  She stared at her hands in shock. Smears of Molly’s bloodstained them, and as if to confirm it was really there, she drew a line in her palm and rubbed it between her finger and thumb. With trembling hands she wiped everything against her stockings. She could not believe what had just happened. It felt as if it should have been a twisted nightmare.

  When the corset became unbearably uncomfortable, she pushed to her feet and crossed the room. It was musty and most of the surfaces had a fine layer of dust on them. The room, like all the other unoccupied ones, was on rotation for dusting and airing out. Meant to be a room for a visiting child, it was smaller than most of the other rooms and barely used. Richard didn’t care one way or another about the cleaning routine as long as something was available for guests when they arrived. It was something she made sure to pay close attention to if she wanted to go unnoticed using it.

  She checked on the candle then went to the shuttered window and pushed it open. Cold air swept inside, and her body broke out in goose bumps as rain blew against her. The floor was two stories up. She could possibly wave for help from the window since it faced the courtyard, but she wasn’t quite as sure if she could climb out to get to the ground. It didn’t seem like a safe idea. She scanned the darkness trying to find a solution when she heard someone shouting in pain in the shadows outside the manor. Esther strained to see who it was and what was happening, but it was out of sight, so all she heard was the horrible sounds of death.

  Listening to the rain, she swallowed hard and knew she needed to come up with a plan if she wanted to survive past the night. The letters from earlier assured her that help would come, though it would take some time for everything to come together and rescuers to begin to show up. And now the danger was different than what she’d described, so she’d have to keep a lookout to warn them when they arrived in order to prevent her rescuers from needed rescuing.

  She’d need safety, food, and something to drink. The shelter she might do all right with since the estate had many rooms, far more rooms than people, but the food and drink might prove to be a problem. She was a Lady and she’d never had to do anything manual to survive before. She’d never had to protect herself before; but one thing was clear, if there were more of the people like Richard—and by the sounds of it there were—who were attacking the others, she’d have to learn to rough it out for the first time in her life.

  3

  Ed streaked through the grass like a doe, making long strides, tucking her arms close to her sides. But before long, moving became increasingly more difficult. The constant stabbing sensation in her ribs began to take hold, sapping her energy and leaving her with mounting fatigue. Gasping and trying to control her breath against the audible groans became a sickening repetitious cycle as she wrapped her arms around her torso and forced her legs to keep moving toward the lights. She couldn’t let herself get caught after what she’d done. It was one thing to run, it was another to have stabbed, tripped, and sack-punched them. They’d be wild donkey pissed by now.

  Her left foot found a deep impression in the ground and she stumbled forward, throwing her arms out wide for impromptu balance. Dirty swearing followed the shriek that plopped out of her mouth, as a hot burst of pain streaked through her side. Cocking her jaw, she bit down hard on her lip to stop making any further sounds as she mentally continued the onslaught. Righting her footing, she pressed forward, this time a little slower. It was probably a close call by the way her ankle protested, but she hadn’t twisted anything. So she ran with the bulk of her weight square on her toes. The soles of her feet were not happy but it was that or to stop running and be caught. Not exactly an option.

  Sucking in dry shallow breaths, she kept her eyes in front of her and was careful not to look back and lose her footing completely. Trying to take her mind off her current plight, Ed went over the checklist in her mind. Run, hide, wait, meet up with Brock, and split the coin. There were ultimately two places to meet up if they’d been separated. One was outside the sawbones’ place and the backup was to meet at the The Slaughtered Goat, a shitty rundown little pub in town. Even the poor had standards. When they were sober.

  A loud thud rang out behind her and she smiled. One of her pursuers had found either the same hole that she had or the bitch had a twin. Either way, it was satisfying. Curses filled the air, and her smile widened. The men were just not having a good night. It served them right. She decided she’d wait and have a loud guffaw over everything when she was safe and her ribs didn’t hurt quite so much.

  Straining to keep her focus in two directions she figured that there was a double threat still on her trail. Taking quick inventory, she slid her hands down her hips and discovered that her dagger was missing from the sheath. Frowning, she replaced her arms around herself. The blade had been in sore need of sharpening and the handle wasn’t in the best of conditions but it was better than a loaf of bread in a fistfight. She simply couldn’t afford not to have it and would need to retrace her route to find it. Weaponry wasn’t easy to come by, let alone cheap. It would have been easier to afford sharpening the blade than she buying a whole new one. Later. She’d go back later, during the daylight. The men on her tail and the darkness gave her little other choice.

  Making out the shapes of houses with lit lanterns, she felt a spark of relief. Her lungs were sore from breathing heavily, and her feet felt numb from the pounding they were taking. Reaching the closest home, she ducked around the dark side, far out of the illumination of lit lanterns at the front of several homes. Ed pushed her back against the wood and slid down the exterior, out of breath. She came to rest on her haunches, one hand pressed against her mouth and one at her side while she tried to get more control of her breathing. Her heels sunk into the soil, making deep imprints in the softness beneath her. Craning her neck, she leaned out and around the corner trying to get a glimpse of the men.

  Ed watched with lowered lids as two large noisy shapes ran past her hiding spot. Relieved, she sagged against the wood, staring up at the sky. She’d rest a few moments and make her way toward the sawbones’ place as soon as she caught her breath and made sure the double thieving bastards chasing her were long gone.

  The squatting position was not comfortable, and she attempted to will herself to her feet, but there wasn’t a molecule in her body that actually obeyed. If anything, her feet begged to be put out of service. Adjusting herself, she sat on her fanny while her body cooled down. Tucking her knees close to her chest, she winced as she pushed experimentally against her sore ribs. As far as she could tell, they were bruised badly but not broken, despite that they hurt like hell.

  Leaning her head back against the wood, she watched as the moon began to peep from behind its blanket. She realized, from the corner of her vision field, that someone was standing not far from her. They were standing stock-still, holding something in their arms, and watching her without a sound.

  She held out a hand palm out, “I—” but her words were cut off as a powerful blow to the side of her head cut her off. Sharp pain exploded in her head, a white flash formed before her eyes, and her body decided enough was enough, as she blacked out.

  It was some t
ime later before Ed was able to pull out of the fog. When she managed to peel her eyelids open, her head felt terrible. She felt as if her skull was split open like a ripe melon at a fruit stand in the market. Her vision blurred and doubled when she tried to look through her lashes to see where she was. Pains shot down her neck to her shoulders as she tried to move and she couldn’t help the sounds that she made. She’d been hit with something. A log? She’d been hit pretty good from the feel of it. What day was it? Ed tried to sit up to get a better look around, but felt as if she’d be sick as the room spun around in front of her. She fell back, useless and weak, in a sweaty heap on something smelly and soft, then blacked out again.

  The next time she woke, Ed immediately leaned over and threw up over the side of the bed that she was resting on. As her hair hung down freely around her face, she stared at the pathetic puddle and she wondered where the chunks of potato and carrot had come from. Pushing herself back onto the bed, she stared pulled the ceiling into a hazy focus. Where was she?

  “Yer up then.” A creak in the floorboards rung in her ears as an old woman came into view, standing over her. It was a jarring sight to see a deeply wrinkled, toothless woman’s face above her; all brown gums and thick puckered lips as she smiled. Ed swiped out with her hand to ward off the old woman and missed—her aim off target considerably due to her disorientation. The woman laughed and went out of view. “Lost yer supper then? Not that I blame ya. It’s not that great. No meat to speak of. Mostly just what comes out of the ground mixed with whatever I have around the place.” Ed closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of the old woman cleaning up her sickly mess.

  Ed mumbled some words; she meant to ask where she was, but the words didn’t make any sense to her own ears. Somehow, the old woman knew what she was trying to say. “Well, I clocked ya when I saw ya sneaking ‘round my house. Old woman alone these days isn’t a good position to be in when some people are going missing around these parts.”

  As she talked, unintentional globs of spit speckled Ed’s bare arm. The woman talked with quite a lot of mouth noise that some other people might have trouble understanding, but Ed had her fair experience with toothless people so she understood fairly well. It wasn’t uncommon for people to go missing, even to get dead…happened all the time. It wasn’t really any of her concern. Though it explained the head bashing she’d received.

  “I reckon that I shook something loose in that head of yers because ya been out of it for a while. Ya should have seen yer face. All puffed up and purple like I ain’t never seen before. Thought mebbe I kilt ya, but ya kept hanging on, so I took care of ya since I don’t want no dead body hanging ova my head.”

  Ed frowned, reaching up to feel her face. There wasn’t as much pain as she expected, but she could feel where her cheek and eye was thick and swollen. “Yer face isn’t back to normal, no how, but it will be soon. It sure is better than it was. Nothing was broke neither, just swollen like bees were atcha. Took care of them ribs, too.” Startled, Ed pressed her hand to her ribs.

  “Ach. Didn’t know youze no woman until I checked on how come youze so bent on coddling yer side. I seen ya crouched there and thought youze the one causing all the trouble ‘round here, so I clocked ya good and solid. Felt bad after I realized youze a woman.”

  Ed tried to push herself away from the old woman and her flying spit, but she didn’t manage to get far. She started to peel off the smelly thin blanket and realized she was naked as the day she was born. Puffing her mouth, she glared at the old woman and forced herself to speak. “You like naked gals, you old coot?” Her words came out like she was out of breath, wheezy and quiet.

  The old woman hacked like a cat with a lungful of fur and spat onto the filthy floor. “I’ze checking ya for wounds, girl. Like I been saying, didn’t know youze no woman until the clothes came off. Expected to see a shriveled man’s cock, but no, seen a fur patch and cloth swaddled teats instead.”

  Weakly Ed grunted and tried to sit up. Less things spun than before, which she took to mean there was some progress in her condition. “Clothes.”

  “Yer in no good shape to get outta bed. Stay put and I’ll bring ya some stew. It’ll help cure what ails ya.”

  “What ‘ails’ me is the rutting bloody kick to my ribs and then my head got split open.”

  “Ach. Not split open, just banged up.”

  Ed made a noise in her throat and finally managed to get in a sitting position, then looked around carefully. The place wasn’t big. Had two rooms with all manner of strips of cloth and clothes hanging from pegs from the ceiling. Rope held up rusted out pots and worn pans. There were no table or chairs to speak of. It seemed like Ed’s was the only place to lie down on. A clump of orange carrots, potatoes, and green cabbage freckled with brown spots lay in a heap on the floor in a corner.

  The old woman stood upright from a small stew pot in the other open room carrying a wooden bowl at a slant. “Here, eat this. Watch this side though, there’s a crack in it, might spill out.”

  Ed looked in the bowl before accepting it. It looked harmless enough, but it smelled like old socks and cabbage. She wanted to reject the meal, but tentatively, she took a sip of the broth. Her nose wrinkled at the bitter taste; only, her stomach growled for food, so she began to drink it down. The clumps of vegetables in the stew were cut very small and were easy to swallow. When she was finished and her stomach gurgled, which she wasn’t sure was a good sign or a bad one, she repeated her earlier demand. “Clothes.”

  It was difficult to determine which of the dangling pieces of clothing hanging from the ceiling were hers. Everything was the color of coal, oat sacks, and mud. The old woman shook her head, “Yer not ready yet.”

  Ed groaned, rotating her head carefully. What was to stop her from getting up and leaving? She couldn’t exactly prance outside naked, but she sure could steal some of these clothes to aid her in her travels instead. Certainly didn’t plan on staying. Let the ancient hag keep Ed’s filthy, old tattered clothes. She just needed to find her binding cloth to truss her breasts down. Any bigger than they were and it’d be near an impossible task to be done.

  “When did I get here?”

  “This here be the fourth day.”

  Ed groaned and set her head in her hands. Four days? What would Brock have done by now? Would he have assumed she was dead and spent all the coin already? They had never planned on being separated past a few hours. ‘Days’ was a whole new territory.

  Ed tried to scoot to the edge of the bed, but the old woman stepped close and pushed her backwards. “Yer not going anywhere, Missy.”

  “To hell I’m not. You didn’t want a dead body on your hand, fine. I’m not dead. I’m up and I need to leave.” The thought that this old woman new her true gender made her hair want to stand on end. She had to get out of this place.

  The old woman shook her head and pointed a bony finger and Ed stared at it as it came closer to her nose. “Yer going to wait here for my boy, Hascom.”

  “You have a cork loose if you think I’m waiting around for any kin of yours.”

  “I took care of ya and ya owe me. My boy needs a wife. Yer here, yer a woman, yer staying.”

  Ed had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She stared, shocked at the old woman, who clearly had a very different agenda than what she’d originally professed, for keeping Ed alive. “To hell with that.”

  Ed shot forward, all of her focus bent on leaving as quickly as possible. Her head swam like a tidal wave, which didn’t help her efforts of escape, but with the threat of her freedom at stake, she refused to pass out. She slammed into the old woman with a jarring force and smelly the blanket fell between them. Ed pushed the old woman’s face away from hers, feeling the flabby skin stretch and move under her palms like wet clay. Hissing, the old woman lashed out with bony fingers and grabbed a handful of breast and twisted hard.

  Shouting, Ed pulled her hands back and balled them into fists. She quickly brought her arms up, striking
the old woman in the head above the ears while bringing up her bare knee into the old woman’s’ soft belly, forcing her away. The old woman gasped and began falling backwards with her arms pin-wheeling wildly around her. Her feet struck something on the floor and she tripped, landing on the vegetables. Her head landed, bouncing on the cabbage, which exploded in a flurry of green and white, indicating that it’d been quite softer than it had looked. Her thin skirt fell around her knobby knees exposing years of skin that was no longer firm and supple, but thickly veined, saggy, and pale.

  Ed looked down at the old woman, “It didn’t have to come to a fight, but you couldn’t just let me leave, could you? Tell your bastard of a son to find his own goddamn wife.” Ed tried to press down the rising hysteria in her chest as her heart thumped madly. Wife, bah! More like ‘slave’. This was too close! Fighting nausea, Ed rubbed a palm over her newly wounded breast, then whirled in place and began grabbing clothes down from the hooks. She found the chest-binding cloth in a corner and brought it around her body and wrapped tight until her chest was flat. She slipped the end down in the snug confines beneath her armpit before slipping on a stolen tan shirt. Keeping a keen eye on the elderly matchmaker, she grabbed three pairs of trousers, throwing the discards on the floor, until she found a brown pair that fit well enough to wear. Ones not too big or too small. Admiring a long but filthy, grass stained patchwork coat, she grabbed it and slung it over her shoulder. Finding her own cap, she placed it on her head and shoved her newly socked feet into long brown boots that were too big. Sure, they might be loose, but they seemed like they were of better quality and condition than the ones she had before. Hopefully these would last if she had to run in them. Time would tell.

  She looked over her shoulder making a disgusted noise in the direction of where the old woman lay groaning trying to get to her knees. She wasn’t very successful, but she was trying. At least the woman wasn’t dead. Ed had stolen plenty of things before, but had never had to kill anyone. She was glad it hadn’t come to needing to make the decision. It’d be a damn good idea to make sure she never came back around this little shack cluster ever again though.