She pinched her nose and drank slowly, relaxing the pharyngeal nerve at the back of her throat to prevent gagging. The sickening warmth lingered on her soft palate, and then descended the length of her windpipe. The woman could feel the pulp of her victims organs catch and then release in her esophagus, and she lamented that, although she’d always spent days pestling, she had never been able to thin out the concoction completely. This part had always been the hardest—in the early days often inducing violent spasms of choking and expectoration. What she had coughed up over the years! The amount could have sustained her for another generation.
But those reactions had subsided long ago; aside from the taste, she had mostly gotten used to the process. Like the gypsy sword swallowers she had seen as a girl, so nonchalantly on the backs of their wagons immersing those giant blades, inconceivably, down into their bellies and back up again, before packing up and quietly moving on to the next village, she had learned to ingest the pungent broth with little effort.
But there was still the taste. She could never get used to the taste.
She placed the ceramic cup on the edge of the cast iron stove and gently walked to the lone wooden chair that occupied her kitchen. She sat wide-eyed and rigid on the edge of the seat, anticipating the impending experience of which she never tired. Then the slight hint of a bubble began in her abdomen, and a smile formed on the ancient woman’s face.
WHEN SHE AWOKE IT WAS just before dawn, and she could hear the first whistling of the woodcocks as they began to pester the sun. Spring had arrived weeks ago, but the chill of the morning stung the back of her neck and prompted an exaggerated shiver. She reached instinctively for covering, and instead created finger tracks in the thick dust of the wooden floor. She grasped her hand again in a slight panic and was now quickly awake.
This wasn’t the first time she had gone black—it had happened several times over the years—but those incidences had occurred mostly in the beginning, and never lasted this long, apparently, judging by the position of the sun, almost a full day. She was weaker than she thought, and the truth, which she had numbed her mind to, was that the mixture was old and diminished. Perhaps even toxic. She thought back to when the batch was originally concocted but couldn’t recall. Forty years perhaps? Certainly well past the period for which she could reasonably expect it to remain fully viable. What if it had become inert and didn’t deliver the effects this time? That seemed unlikely, since the immediate burn and thrill in her abdomen was just as magnificent as ever, but the unusual side effect of unconsciousness suggested a serious problem.
She tried to stand and was prostrated to the floor by a stab of lightning to her back. In disbelief, the old woman tried again, this time using the seat of the chair as a crutch. She was able to rise to her knees before the pain delivered another bolt. A scream attempted to escape her mouth but was immediately intercepted by phlegm and sickness. She laid her forehead on the chair and took deep, panicked breaths. It hadn’t worked! This couldn’t be happening! She lifted her head and glanced frantically around the room searching for the empty stone cup, hoping beyond reason that whatever trace amounts remained at the bottom of the urn would somehow be enough to release the magic. Maybe one last drop was all she needed.
She spotted the cup. It had rolled to the door of the cabin, the rim edging against the jamb as if waiting to be let out. She got down on all fours and crawled slowly toward the door, exaggerating every lift of her knees for fear of the returning agony to her back.
The woman reached the cup, took a deep, labored breath, and assumed a sitting position, leaning her back against the door for support. She sat that way for several moments until her breathing slowed and her thoughts leveled, and then closed her eyes in an extended blink. She then lifted the cup gently, cradling it from the bottom with both hands as if preparing to offer it in sacrifice, all the time feeling its cruel emptiness. She didn’t bother to look inside, and instead placed the cup softly beside her before pushing herself forward and resting tall on her knees.
She closed her eyes again and bowed her head, thankful for the clarity that had presented itself. Her survival would not be dependent on whatever residue remained at the bottom. It would take faith and action. It was time again to accept what is and move on.
Of all the lessons she had learned in her long life, this one had come most grudgingly. But it had come, eventually, and once she embraced it, once she’d moved beyond just repeating the words to herself and had finally felt the power and truth of the phrase, it had been the greatest lesson of all. In the past, her reaction to this ruined batch of potion would likely have sent her into some uncontrolled rampage, screaming maniacally for hours, cursing the universe and destroying what few possessions she had. And then, once the fury subsided, she would conclude the episode by erupting into wild tears of self-pity, and then spending the rest of her precious day thinking of suicide and vengeful murder.
But that was in the past. Those futile thoughts of injustice and revenge were pollution to her mind and, for decades, had only weakened her. They were antithetical to what Life craved. She was still somewhat envious of those who had come to realize this fact in the span of a normal lifetime, but she was thankful it had eventually come to her. And thankful for her secret of immortality.
“I’ll find it,” she said softly.
She lifted her chin and stared out the window, as the sun’s first rays provided just enough backlight to silhouette the multitude of lush trees that formed the spring forest. It was going to be a beautiful day. The sky would be clear, and the cool nip of the morning promised relief from the unseasonably warm days of the past week. It was perhaps a harbinger of a new start, she thought. The pain had vanished from her back, and her mind was as clear and unpolluted as ice. And silent. She reveled in the stillness, allowing every sensation of the surroundings to wash over her and soak into her skin. Yes, it was time to begin anew.
The old woman smiled widely, unleashing the large, jagged incisors and canines that crowded the front of her mouth. They were in need of replacement, but they were serviceable.
She stood from her kneeling position and walked to the makeshift wardrobe that anchored the rear wall of the small cottage. The wonder of faith now overwhelmed her, and she had no doubt that renewal loomed. It was only a matter of time—though time was leaking.
She removed the only piece of clothing that hung from one of a dozen wooden hooks that lined the back of the wardrobe’s interior. The garment was a moth-ridden wool cloak, heavy and dark—a piece of clothing designed for frost and survival, from an era harsh and bygone. She placed the coat effortlessly over her torso and raised the oversized hood. She would undoubtedly be uncomfortable while the sun was up, since the day was likely to be warm and dry. But the cloak would protect her skin, which had become sensitive to direct sunlight—a thing she rarely received through the canopy of the forest—and if she were forced to camp overnight, the wool would keep her warm in the evening chill.
But such an adventure shouldn’t be necessary, she thought. There was still time. Perhaps plenty of time. Going black was simply a sign that her moment had come to awaken and begin identifying the fresh source. To reconnoiter the landscape for the new point of supply. She had done it dozens of times since that first night so long ago, and, in fact, had become quite adept at tracking viable sources.
But identifying meant travel, a practice about which she had always been anxious and leery. Even as a young woman, before the Discovery, the unknown wilderness had always invoked feelings of dread and tragedy. By seven or eight years of age, her mother had so often explained the seemingly unlimited evils of men that she couldn’t imagine any woman stepping off her property without being raped or beaten or enslaved. And she soon learned that the tales, though perhaps exaggerated, weren’t simply cautionary. She had seen the truth of them first hand, and, indeed, had performed many of the cruel acts herself. Had those women she tortured been as cautious as she, they would have not been in tha
t position, she often rationalized.
Yes, it was the quality of caution that had served her well and preserved her existence since The Enlightenment. But as always, caution was always overruled by necessity. It was time once again to hunt.
She stepped down gingerly onto the crude stone landing that served as a porch and settled for a moment without moving. She listened as a distant breeze pushed through the green of the forest, moving deliberately past each leaf and limb, before finally catching her in its wake. Yes, this would be a fine day. She lowered the cloak’s hood, deciding she would begin the journey exposed to the wonders of the woods, figuring the sun would not be a factor for several miles, and the chances of encountering another person were remote.
She took another step on the porch and immediately recognized the adrenaline that had surged during her earlier moment of clarity was now waning. She could already feel the weakness of her joints and muscles returning. The sting of old age, a feeling she had forgotten, or perhaps never known, billowed down her spine and limbs, and the pain choked in a breath as she tried to exhale. Alarmed, she moved quickly toward the edge of the porch, convincing herself that by reaching the boardwalk at the bottom of the steps and beginning her journey on the overgrown pathway that led into the forest, she could somehow outpace the inevitable.
She reached the ledge of the stairs, barely, her legs giving out on the last stride, and narrowly avoided tumbling to the bottom. Only the stone wall that bordered the descent saved her from catastrophe. She held the barrier in a comic clutch, as if trying to keep a battleship from leaving port, and looked out at the seemingly endless timberland before her. She laughed aloud at the idea of venturing ten yards from home, let alone the ten miles or so it would require to reach the nearest source population. It was impossible. And rest was not the answer. Rest meant time and time meant decay. What the woman needed was help, and help—even more than companionship—had always been the greatest price of her isolation. The lack of companionship, or even the sound of another’s voice, could certainly be brutal realities, but there were ways to deal with those. She had come to consider the trees and animals and insects important companions in her life and addressed them with respect and appreciation. And she had long since shed any embarrassment of speaking aloud or taking on different character roles. This, in fact—along with her baking—had become one of the few joys in her life, invoking the characteristics of women from her past that she had always envied or admired, playing the roles of huntress or princess or whore. Early on she had discovered that for even the most primal of human relationships there were always alternatives, as any thirteen-year-old boy could attest to.
But there was no substitute for the strength of men to remove an old iron stove, or fell a dying tree before it collapsed and demolish a house. Or for hands to help gather and hunt when the crops have failed and starvation is no further than a bad snowstorm away. She had paid for help in the past—and even kept slaves when the social climate allowed it—and though these servants had certainly alleviated many of the normal personal and practical burdens, the threat of loss had been too strong, and they never stayed on for long. Most of them she killed while they slept. Many were buried on this very property. Sadly, none of their innards were used for blending.
And now isolation would cost her immortality. The motif of so many legends and religions would evaporate with her last breath, as it may have done, for all she knew, with hundreds of other possessive hermits in the past.
She lowered herself down to a sitting position on the first step of the porch and rested her elbows on her knees. She coughed several times as if she had just finished a brisk winter walk and her lungs were struggling to adjust. She hung her head between her knees and watched as the wooden planks beneath her began to blur. She was about to go black again, perhaps permanently this time. Instinctively, she slid her buttocks to the next step down and continued this movement on to each lower tread until she reached the bottom. If she were going to die, she decided, it wouldn’t be from a broken neck. There was one last impulse to get to her feet, but the message was never conveyed from her brain to her legs. Defeated, the old woman rolled onto her back and spread her arms wide, encouraging the world’s embrace. She took in the bright blueness of the sky and wished that she could feel the wonder of rain one last time.
The blue canvas above her turned shadowy, not from the arrival of clouds, she assumed, but from her brain’s lack of oxygen. She smelled the warm air rising from the ground, and tried to appreciate the last of life’s sensory experiences. Surely this was death. She had escaped it for so long, but now here it was in front of her. The brew of life on which she had relied since the early times of the Northlands had finally failed her. Or she had failed it. It was true she trusted a source would come—her dreams had told her of its delivery—but it hadn’t come, and she’d waited too long to move on. She’d trusted in her dreams and they had betrayed her, but it was her life, her responsibility. She had become careless and complacent. The supply was larger than ever these days, and she needed only to pull from it.
If only there was more time. A week. A day.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.” She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing, as that relentless resistance to death which had dictated the bulk of her life now turned to acceptance. Without contention, she awaited sleep.
And then she heard the voice.
ANIKA MORGAN WAS COLD, and the mud that had gently cushioned the soles of her feet when she set out now enveloped her ankles and threatened to swallow her shins. Every step felt like someone was pressing down on the tops of her knees. She thought of quicksand. Was that a possibility? That this was quicksand? She knew—or at least had heard the stories as a child—about quicksand existing in the jungles of Africa and places like that, but not in the Northlands. Truthfully though, she couldn’t be sure where it was found. Or if it was real at all. Was she really going to die such an improbable death as drowning in quicksand?
Anika cleared her head and focused. If she wanted to avoid death today, she figured it wasn’t quicksand she had to worry about. Besides, quicksand was absurd, the forests of this territory were infamous for their swamps and mud; she had waded through much worse in her life. She had to stay on task.
“Just go,” she scolded herself.
She wanted to scream the words, but her overworked lungs wouldn’t allow it. Anika slowed her breathing and down-shifted her effort to an easy walk. The depth of the mud was making her progress comically slow, and trying to run through it was doing nothing but edging her closer to exhaustion. Adrenaline had its limits, and hers was almost reached. She would have to rest soon. In a few hours, the early morning chill would be giving way to the warmth of a typical spring day, and Anika could see the sun beginning its morning stretch upward. The sky was almost staggering in its clarity and blueness, and she was thankful at least to be dry; though had it been raining, she reasoned, she would never have attempted the forest to begin with, and probably would have been rescued by now.
But she had chosen the forest, and at the time had done so quite casually.
But why?
Why would she have made such an unconventional decision? Such a bad decision? She was normally much more conservative in her approach to problems, and the woods in this country, even on a clear spring day, were risky to explore for the most well-conditioned of men, let alone a thirty-eight-year-old mother of two. So why hadn’t she just walked the road? Or waited for help at the place where the car drifted off the shoulder? It was true she wasn’t thinking clearly after the accident—everything had happened so quickly—but she hadn’t suffered any trauma to her head. In fact, she was miraculously uninjured.
So the question remained: why?
It didn’t matter now, she thought, the decision was made; all that mattered now was finding shelter and a telephone. Besides, with her car nestled at the bottom of what must have been a fifteen-foot embankment, with little hope of being seen from
the road, it seemed somewhat reasonable that finding a place to call for help on her own was a safer play than standing alone on the side of a quiet road in the southern Northlands. Not that this part of the territory was particularly dangerous, but one could never be sure.
Anika spotted a log about forty yards in the distance and decided it would be a suitable place to rest. She wanted to keep going, but she knew forty yards was about all she had left in her. If she pushed beyond that, she might not come across another place to stop, and would end up having to rest in the mud she was desperately trying to escape.
And she was getting scared. And fear, she knew, would only make her judgment worse.
She needed to stop and think, try to orient herself with what little she knew of the land here, and get out of these woods and back to her family. She could only imagine the fears they would conjure if they didn’t hear from her soon. She should have been home by now, and it wouldn’t be long before they started to worry. Soon they would call to check on her and learn that she had left ahead of schedule and should have been home even earlier. And that would be bad. She loved Heinrich, but for all his pretensions of strength and masculinity, he was emotionally weak. And combined with his injuries, he would be in no condition to comfort and reassure the children.
She reached the large log and climbed atop to a sitting position, throwing one muddy leg to the far side to straddle it. She sat this way for a moment, legs dangling while she caught her breath, and finally lay down on her back, bringing her legs together and linking her hands behind her head for support. Under the circumstances, it felt strange to be assuming such a relaxed position, and she imagined that someone looking in might conclude that she was on some spiritual journey—albeit one that was oddly messy—and had come to the forest to contemplate the meaning of life or something.
The Sighting Page 12
