Marysvale

by Jared Southwick

  Suddenly, the door flung open, nearly rending it off its hinges. A body sailed through the opening, smashed against the opposing tunnel wall, and crumbled to the floor. Right behind her, a massive, dark shape filled the entire passageway. The shape barely had to stoop to snatch up the fallen girl. Lumbering, hunched over into the dim light, was the ugly, scarred-face Brean who had tried to attack me in Sarah’s house an eternity ago. I gasped in shock and terror, stumbling back against the cell wall.

  A rumbling, deep rhythmic sound issued forth from the monster and its colossal shoulders shook. At first I couldn’t make out what it was doing, and then I realized it was laughing at me as I cowered at the back of the cave.

  Lord Wright emerged from the room with the hair of the other girl grasped in his hand. She was bent over with her head at his waist. Her legs stumbled as she struggled behind him, trying to keep from falling over and thereby being dragged completely by her hair. Violently, he hurled her in front of him where she sprawled across the floor. She rolled over and, with her bound hands, brushed the hair from her face. Tears streaked down her lovely cheeks, and she flashed me those deep green eyes that I loved so much—they were filled with sorrow and pleading.

  Instantly, I jumped into Jane’s mind. She didn’t keep me out—instead, I could hear her talking. “I’m not hurt, John; it’s Hannah!” She was unable to hold back the images, though she tried to, of Hannah strapped to a table and long, thin, curved blades slicing….

  I closed my eyes, unable to bear the sight.

  Hannah, still grasped in the monster’s hand, seemed like a lifeless ragdoll. It threw her body across the room with an underhanded toss. She landed and slid nearly six feet before coming to rest against my cell, face down.

  I rushed to the bars and gently turned her over. Patches of blood grew on her dress where tears in the fabric had been made, revealing cuts on her body. Her face was scraped and her lip split open. Through the bars, I cradled her head in my arms the best I could. I watched her chest rise and fall. Slowly, her eyes flittered open and I leapt into her soul. With gratitude, I found that her virtue hadn’t been taken from her.

  She was physically much stronger than I would have given her credit for.

  Hannah smiled a feeble smile and her mind filled with the vision of Jane, her father, and me in their kitchen. The vision replayed back in my mind from her perspective. I could see and hear myself clearly, talking to her.

  “Hannah,” I said. “Sometimes simply knowing information puts you in dangerous positions.”

  She sighed, and I continued, “It may force you to say or do something you’d rather not, and it can be used against you and those you love.”

  I heard her voice reply, “I understand. Still, I think I’m perfectly capable of dealing with it just as well as you are. And I’m tired of people deciding what they think is best for me. I can choose for myself.”

  “Yes, but freedom to make your own choices doesn’t make you free from the consequences.”

  The vision blurred a bit as she rolled her eyes. “Are you going to tell me or just preach me to death?” Then she softened, “You told me to trust you and I do. Now it’s time you put some trust in me. I want to help if I can and I won’t betray anything. I promise to do the right thing should the time ever come.”

  The memory closed, and again I was looking at her battered face.

  In a whisper, she said proudly, “I kept my word. I didn’t tell them anything.”

  Tears gushed from my eyes and rolled down my face. I smiled back at her and whispered, “I never doubted that you would.”

  She looked pleased, and then closed her eyes. I brushed the hair from her face and gently laid her head back on the floor.

  “How very touching,” sneered Lyman. “But Jane told us everything she knows. She couldn’t wait to talk once I was finished with her sister.”

  I noticed the jewel-encrusted dagger sheathed on his belt. The hilt was covered in blood.

  “Now,” said Lord Wright. “We want to hear it from you. What else have you remembered?”

  “I told you everything. There isn’t much more,” I said meekly.

  “But there is something. Is there not? And remember, we still have one sister to go if you refuse to cooperate.”

  “No, don’t,” I pleaded. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  “That is better,” he purred. Then, gesturing toward the massive Brean, said, “Now let us begin with what you know about our leader, Naehume.”

  My mouth dropped as I looked at the hulking monster before me. His beady, red eyes stared at me, unblinking.

  Wright, missing nothing, said, “Ah, I see that Naehume is not as well known to you as you would have us believe.”

  “No,” I stammered. “I just heard the name and assumed that he was your leader. I didn’t know he was a Brean.”

  “And how did you come to hear his name?”

  “In the forest a long time ago, when I was a child. I saw some villagers doing something to a Brean.”

  “What did you see?” he asked with increased interest.

  I described the scene of chanting around the Brean. “I thought they were going to curse it or make it a sacrifice…” I looked at Lord Wright with sudden understanding and alarm.

  He simply smiled.

  “The Brean was Naehume,” I said in astonishment. “You were there, too. You weren’t hurting him…you were worshiping him.”

  “Guilty as charged,” he crowed.

  “But why?” I asked incredulously.

  “Why? For power, of course. It was the idea of our esteemed leader which made all of this possible. How could I turn such a gift away? I was not going to live like the average fool, and we never would have taken Marysvale without him.”

  “But what does he get out of it?”

  He laughed. “The same thing we get: opulence. No longer do they have to live like common animals and forage the woods for food.” He paused and then pressed, “What else do you remember?”

  “I remember the murder of my mother,” I said, through clenched teeth, while glaring at the ugly Brean before me.

  “Oh, we already know all about that. It was your father who saved you and gave Naehume his scar.”

  “Why?” I cried angrily. “Why did my mother have to die?”

  “My, my; temper, temper,” he said patronizingly. Then, with a hard edge to his voice, he said, “I think it would be imprudent of you to forget the situation you find yourself in and, more importantly, that of your friends.”

  Hatred boiled inside of me. However despite the anger, I forced myself to calm down.

  “Why did she have to die?” I asked again, more placidly.

  “You were all supposed to die: your mother, your father, and especially, you. It would have been a risk beyond foolish to leave you alive. You might have exposed our plans.” He thought for a moment, “Is that everything you remember?”

  “That’s all.”

  “Very well,” he said. “And did you tell anyone else?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked skeptically.

  “Yes. I promised a man…” I stopped, as another realization came to me. “It was you! You were the man in the forest! You charged me to keep it a secret.”

  He smiled a cold, weak smile. “So, did you keep that promise? You told no one?”

  “Only Jane; but that was just here, on our way to Marysvale. I didn’t remember anything before then. In fact, I don’t remember anything of my childhood before my mother died. Only bits came back to me when I started seeing familiar people and surroundings.”

  “See how easily it all comes out, once you decide to cooperate?”

  Naehume said something; but I was too astonished by his deep, animal, but strangely human-like voice, that I missed what he said.

  I looked at him dumbly.

  “He asked,” snapped Lyman irritably, “if you remember anything else about that day?”

 
; I shook my head.

  Naehume said something more in that low, rumbling voice that sounded like, “Come.” It must have been, because Lord Wright followed. So did Lyman; but Naehume held up a hand and Lyman remained where he was.

  They walked back into the torture room. I could hear them speaking, but again was unable to make anything out. After a moment, Lord Wright returned and Naehume lumbered off in the opposite direction down the tunnel. I watched him quickly melt into the darkness. Then something caught my attention. At the far end of the tunnel, so faintly that it was barely visible, flashed a brief pulse of illumination—the eerie, whitish glow of lightning. Instantly, it fell dark again.

  My hopes rose. Of course there must be another way out, I thought. The Brean couldn’t simply stroll in and out of the castle through the streets of the town.

  Unfortunately, my hope was short lived.

  “Excellent news,” said Lord Wright enthusiastically. “We believe you, John. Regrettably, we both have other business to attend to.”

  Then, addressing Lyman, he said, “I trust you can dispose of them properly? Any way you please.”

  “Yes, my lord,” he answered, with a wicked smile.

  “But we didn’t tell anyone,” I cried.

  “So you didn’t…nor shall you.” He disappeared down the tunnel leading back to the castle. Soon, he called back, his voice echoing faintly through the chamber, “Leave their bodies. The Brean will be back later to feast on them.”

  Chapter Nineteen: Overcome

  AH, let the fun begin,” sniggered Lyman. He leered at Jane, who was still sitting on the damp ground.

  “Oh, no! Oh, please no! Please don’t hurt her,” begged Hannah quivering. Her eyes were open and full of terror.

  I looked at Hannah’s broken, bloody body on the floor and how she shook with fright. I looked at Lyman, the evil being who had inflicted it upon her. There would be no reasoning with him; his eyes were already full of madness and lust. The rage I had been stifling now burned deep inside me.

  “Not to worry,” said Lyman derisively. “I have something special planned for her.”

  He walked over to Jane, yanked her up by her dress, and viciously kissed her on the mouth. She struggled with him, eyes wide. Then, unable to do anything else, she bit his lip.

  Lyman cursed while backhanding her hard across the face. She fell to the floor. Reaching down, he tore the dress from off her shoulder.

  “Don’t do that,” I threatened, through clenched teeth.

  He laughed and, withdrawing his blood-covered dagger, said, “Why John, are you jealous? Rest assured, when I am finished, I’ll make it swift…for her. Though, I can’t promise the same for the rest of you.”

  Hannah let out a small squeak of fear.

  The fire inside of me grew and burned hot, like a blacksmith’s furnace, to the point of consuming me. I rushed to the bars and grasped them tightly—my hands and body shaking with rage.

  “Come to get a better view?” jeered Lyman.

  Placing the bloody dagger between his teeth, he removed his coat and breeches so that he was only dressed in his shirt and undergarments. Jane scooted away from him in a desperate, but fruitless, attempt to escape. He removed the dagger from his teeth and, with a mocking, triumphant look, turned to me and said, “Now, watch.”

  Our eyes locked. And the serpent, so aptly analogized by Jane and Hannah, burst from me, past Lyman’s gloating stare, and bore into his black soul.

  He stumbled back a step in surprise and his eyes went wide. I had more power than I’d ever felt. Everything was open to me. I slithered through his mind, striking my fangs into a random thought. It was of him as an adolescent. A man was kneeling and pleading with him, “Please, don’t kill me, I beg of you. I didn’t mean to strike you. It was wrong. I’m so sorry. It won’t happen again, I swear it.” It was his schoolmaster.

  His father stood by his side, talking sternly. “He is lying. Kill him. If you do not, you will never be respected, and you will be worthless to me as a son.”

  I could sense his internal struggle; but the desire to please his father won, and he pulled the trigger. It was his first murder. He felt horrified…and exhilarated at the same time.

  Leaving the memory, I slithered further in and bit another thought. It was a man chained to the outside wall. He screamed in fear, struggling to escape, as two Brean approached him. Again, Lyman was fascinated by it.

  I released that memory and bit another, just a nip, and then onto the next without bothering to watch. I went on, faster and faster, striking and moving.

  Grasping his head, he moaned. His hands shook, causing the dagger to slip and clatter to the floor.

  “What are you doing?” he cried frantically, unable to break his gaze.

  Jane, with her bound wrists, lunged forward and snatched it up. Lyman didn’t notice. His whole body convulsed.

  Heaving back, and with all her strength, Jane thrust the knife into his gut. A terrific tremble rattled through his mind, and I was hurled from his dark thoughts. He came to his senses and looked at the weapon in his body, then to Jane. Rage contorted his face and he backhanded her, knocking her back to the floor. He struggled to remove the slippery weapon.

  Instantly, Jane’s head snapped back up; anger and determination flashed in her eyes. Springing to her feet, she raced forward and tore the dagger from Lyman’s hands and gut. He grimaced and cried out in pain.

  Lunging forward, he swung at her. But she was ready for him, and quickly ducked the flying fist. Again he tried, and she leapt lightly back out of reach. With the yell of a mad man, Lyman dove for her with surprising speed, despite his wound. She danced out of his path. As he passed, Jane spun around, building momentum. She flipped the dagger, reversing her grip. Then, with all of her might, she plunged the weapon deep into his back, between his ribs, and into his heart. Surprise briefly registered on his face as he arched his back; but there was no scream. Almost gracefully, he fell forward without making another sound, except that of his body hitting the cold, hard ground.

  The dark specter, that was part of his soul, immediately leapt to its feet. Its hollow eyes locked on Jane and charged with its arms wide, ready to tackle her to the floor. She didn’t even notice as it passed harmlessly through her.

  It glanced at its empty arms and, thinking that she had simply dodged out of the way, tried again—with the same results. Once more, it charged with no effect. It looked confused. Taking a moment to sum her up, it noticed that she wasn’t frightened anymore. Her chest heaved and her hands shook. Silent tears, from multiple emotions, flowed from her eyes and down her cheeks.

  Mistaking her reaction as one of surrender, the dark ghost gave a small, unnatural cry of triumph and thrust its hands around her neck, in an attempt to seize and choke her. However, they too simply passed through. Confused at this revelation, it stepped back, gazing at its hands, then at her, and back to its hands. Cautiously, it approached her and thrust its hollow fist through her chest. Her only response was a slight shiver. It studied her face. Then, realizing that she was looking at something, it followed her eyes and found what captured her attention.

  The corpse of a man lay on the ground, wearing nothing but his undergarments and a bloody shirt. A jewel-encrusted hilt, with only a small sliver of the blade, protruded from his back—a weapon the ghost recognized, having wielded it often.

  It took a moment for it to comprehend what everything meant; but eventually, the specter’s face morphed from shock, to fear, and finally, to outright terror. A horrible, high-pitched shriek, that no human could make, pierced my ears, causing me to cringe.

  By some unseen force, the darkness in the room began to gather and gravitate into the black soul. At first, it came as a trickle, but its power built quickly. The trickle turned into a stream, and then into a raging torrent, as blackness from every corner of the dungeon flowed into it faster and faster from an unending river of shadow. The screeching grew louder. Darkness flowed in so rapidly, t
hat the outer edge of the soul began to be sucked into itself. As the soul shrank, the shrieking became more and more faint, until finally, everything that was Lyman had disappeared into nothing, leaving only the empty shell of a body.

  A hand gently shook me, and a voice, as if from a dream, called, “John…John…John...What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

  Suddenly conscious that I had been holding my breath, I slowly exhaled. My hands were white from the strain of clenching the iron bars too tightly, afraid that I’d too be consumed in the devouring whirlpool.

  Releasing my grip, I answered, “I’m fine.”

  Sarah stood awkwardly with her weight on only one leg. Her right hand held onto the cold iron to steady her, while she reached through the bars to shake me.

  She looked skeptical.

  “Truly,” I promised. “But if we don’t leave this place soon, we will all be in trouble.”

  Jane was now kneeling by Hannah, and looking up at me with a pale face and a worried look.

  Addressing her, I said, “Please, get the key to our cells from the nail on that wall and bring it to me.”

  She turned, looked to where I was pointing, and then obeyed.

  “Good. Now move Hannah away from the doors.”

  As carefully as she could with her hands tied, she gently slid her wounded sister a few feet away.

  I stuck the key into the lock and opened it. Then I unlocked Sarah’s cell. Walking over to Lyman’s body, I removed the dagger and wiped it on a clean patch of his undergarments. Afterwards, I retrieved his sheath and fastened it onto my belt. Finally, walking over to Jane, I said, “Let me see your hands.”

  She held them out. Using the blade, I easily sliced through the binding cords. I did the same for Hannah, and then slipped the weapon into its sheath.

  Sarah limped her way out of the cell and knelt at Hannah’s side. She tore parts of Hannah’s dress open to expose the damage done to her body. I turned away to offer privacy, and heard cloth being torn into strips, as Sarah and Jane worked to bandage up Hannah’s wounds.