by Ross Turner
The witch Malorie glanced over to Marcii a hundred times and more during the course of that day, her eyes brimming with concern.
By the time the sky had drawn in and the dusky orange glow of twilight had faded, the strange woman walking close at Reaper’s side was all but convinced. If she hadn’t already been swayed, by that point Malorie believed with every fibre of her being that it was true; all that she had at first suspected was now confirmed.
She knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt now, that Marcii was everything she needed to be and more.
Chapter Thirteen
They rested that night in the forest.
Perhaps, considering the circumstances, it shouldn’t have been such a restful night for Marcii and her companions.
But exhaustion and fatigue consumed them all and even upon the cold, saturated ground they slept soundly. Huddled together, it was each other’s warmth that kept them alive: that, and the fear of truth that encompassed them all.
Reaper of course was the only one not to be consumed by the incapacitating weariness that engulfs humans so.
Instead, as ever, he stood watch.
Guarding his companions throughout the long night, his black coal eyes were everywhere.
His gaze swept through the trees and danced between the thick trunks like shadows, crawling up and over the vast expanses of common that surrounded them on all sides.
Such was the way of the world, at least for a time.
Wherever man did not settle, the world was not owned.
It was not wanted.
In time of course this was bound to change, for there is never enough it seems.
But at least for now, as Reaper looked out across the plains, part of the world was free from tyranny.
How long that would last, he did not know.
He was a wise soul and well attuned to the kinetic world that he was so much a part of.
That did not mean he could see into the future though.
Not even Mother Nature herself was able to reserve that right.
That was a matter entirely of its own.
Morning brought with it frost and ice as the ground that Marcii had dampened froze over.
Midnight had been the first to wake. Somehow he seemed the least affected by fatigue out of all of them, despite the fact that he was the oldest.
Marcii was beginning to suspect that his age made not the least bit of difference.
He had taken over Reaper’s watch, allowing the enormous demon to slip away into the still dim morning to hunt game for when the rest of them awoke.
Marcii and Kaylm eventually creaked up to sit and loosened the cold and damp slowly from their bones.
Malorie and Midnight seemed not to have the same problem. Again, Marcii was sorely convinced that there was something there that she wasn’t quite understanding.
As much as the answer might have been staring her right in the face, the young Dougherty couldn’t help but feel lost.
Reaper soon returned, hauling a hefty deer in his left hand. Only minutes after a fire was lit and his prize was upon the blaze.
The flames were not so obvious now as they would have been throughout the night and the trees were dense enough to conceal them while they ate and recuperated.
Soon enough, though of course she was ravenous, Marcii’s flaring curiosity overcame all other emotion.
She turned her eyes once again upon the old man Midnight.
“How long have you been on the run for, Midnight…” Marcii posed, shattering the air as her voice broke over the sound of the crackling fire.
The old man had given them bits and pieces already, but time had been too short. Now she wanted more detail.
She felt as though she needed it.
He thought for a minute or so before he spoke, gazing with pooling eyes into the fire. Marcii could tell he wasn’t just stalling.
Understanding, she gave him time to think.
“I have no idea…” He eventually admitted, sighing heavily. “Years. Decades. Many decades…”
A distinct impression had been growing in the young Dougherty’s mind. Whoever this man, Midnight, really was, she was convinced that he had lived more than the lifetime of a single man. Whether it was the equivalent of two, three, or perhaps even four mere mortal men, she didn’t know. But she could tell just by the look on his aged face that it felt much more like twenty or thirty.
“Long enough…” The old man added wearily, though his fatigue was not physical. Marcii could see just the mere thought of it draining away at his soul.
“Does he really hate you that much?” She questioned.
She had seen hatred.
She had known loathing.
Even in her very short life.
Most have.
But never had she known anything quite like this.
“I’m afraid he does…” Midnight confessed again, sighing once more. “With every morsel of his being…”
The old man’s voice still croaked, though now not so much from lying idle, but instead from sudden overuse in such a short space of time.
“Can’t he see it wasn’t your fault?” Kaylm piped up. Having just filled his belly with fresh cooked deer, his interest too had spiked.
Malorie and Reaper looked on curiously.
The old man shook his head slowly.
“I doubt it.” He replied, shrugging his shoulders slightly. He had already come to terms many years ago with the fact that there was nothing he could do to convince his younger brother otherwise.
“So…” Kaylm started, though he was unsure exactly how to say what he was thinking. “He won’t ever stop…?” He eventually asked.
Midnight shook his head slowly and the bright orange fire lighted the blackened depths of his coal eyes.
“Never.” He confirmed. “Not until he kills me.”
There was a chilling finality to his tone that seemed to resonate all around them as they sat, huddled close together as if that meagre gesture offered them additional protection.
Kaylm didn’t speak again.
He felt as though it was not his place to.
And besides, Marcii had a question all of her own that was burning a hole in her thoughts.
“Does he control the wolves?” She asked.
She had seen a taste of the pack’s desires and needed confirmation that she wasn’t going insane.
“Control them…?” Midnight queried in reply, as if such a thing wasn’t possible.
“Control, command, rule…” Marcii elaborated. “Is Alistair their leader?”
The old man’s reply, though only theoretical, was filled with certainty.
“I believe he is their Alpha.” He stated. “In fact, I doubt he’d accept anything less than that.”
“How…?” Came Marcii’s next breath, and indeed her question was valid beyond belief.
The whole thing seemed impossible.
Midnight sighed and a troubled look pooled in his black pupils.
“I really don’t know…” He eventually conceded. “But, however he’s done it, he’s probably more animal than he is human by now…”
“So, if he wanted, he could just tell the wolves to stop?” Marcii posed, though of course she knew that what she was asking wasn’t far off an oversimplified miracle.
The old man Midnight let slip a wry smile.
“I doubt that will be happening any time soon…” He replied. “Alistair believes with every bone in his body that I’m a coward for not defending our family. For not becoming a murderer. His lust for revenge has driven him past the point of sanity and reason.”
“So he won’t stop until you’re dead?” Marcii pointed out, quite abruptly, though not inaccurately.
“Yes…” The old man agreed, echoing his words from earlier. “But it will have to be by his hand. And not until he’s made me suffer for my cowardice. I doubt he’ll have it any other way…”
“Could he?” Marcii asked then, breaking Midnight’s trail of th
ought.
“Could he what?” The old man questioned, confused slightly.
“If he eventually found you, could he kill you?”
Marcii’s question was genuine and admittedly had value.
“Before I would have said yes…” She admitted, continuing before Midnight could reply. “But now I’ve seen you fight…I think you could win…”
“I don’t know…” He replied honestly. “I thought about it, once before…”
“What happened?” Marcii pressed. “Why didn’t you?”
“I never got the chance…” Midnight recollected. “I was living in Ravenhead at the time…”
That simple fact shocked the young Dougherty somewhat.
Nobody lived in Ravenhead anymore.
She’d had no idea he’d lived there before it had been abandoned.
She would have been even more intrigued had she noticed the looks on Reaper and Malorie’s faces, as they exchanged a brief glance between themselves.
The old man went on, enlightening Marcii as to yet another unbelievable portion of his past. The mysterious witch Malorie and her demon Reaper remained silent and motionless all the while, casting their faces into blank, steely expressions, hiding the writhing emotions that stirred and swarmed beneath the surface.
“He’s been hunting me ever since the storm. Every time I tried to settle anywhere, he always eventually tracked me down. His first port of call was usually to kill everybody I’d ever spoken to…”
Marcii gasped inwardly, but then she supposed she should have been expecting that.
That’s why the wolves had begun attacking Newmarket, she suddenly realised.
That’s why they’d been killing innocents. That’s why she’d found him that morning, amidst the massacred corpses…
“I couldn’t take it any longer.” The old man went on, hardly faltering. “I had to end it, one way or another.”
Marcii wanted to ask what had happened.
What had gone wrong?
But she knew she needn’t bother.
Midnight pressed on regardless.
“But I never got the chance. Something happened. In Ravenhead. Something changed. I don’t know what it was.”
Marcii leaned in, engrossed.
Kaylm too was totally absorbed by the old man’s words.
That in of itself was a stroke of luck though, for it meant that neither of them saw the flickers of remorse that crossed both Malorie and Reaper’s faces, saving yet another lengthy tale for a later date.
Even Midnight seemed unaware that his words were causing the witch and the demon such distress, as he continued obliviously.
“Whatever it was…” He went on. “It drove everybody out…”
“Drove them out?” Marcii questioned.
The old man nodded.
“I can hardly describe it.” He replied. “When it happened, I couldn’t think of anything else. Not the wolves. Not my friends they’d killed. Not even Alistair. All I could feel was repulsion. I had to get away. I didn’t even consider going back. And everybody else did the same…”
“But why…?” Marcii breathed, her eyes wide and her voice dripping with intrigue.
“I really don’t know.” The old man admitted solemnly. “But within an hour Ravenhead was deserted. I’ve never seen anything like it…”
“Did Alistair leave too?” Kaylm questioned.
“He must have done.” Midnight replied, shrugging slightly. “The next place I settled after Ravenhead was Newmarket, though it was quite a few years later…” He went on. “And it was many, many years before I even heard the wolves bay again…”
His entire story was filled with holes.
There were so many questions unanswered and so many phenomena left unexplained that it drove Marcii spare just to think of it.
But she knew the old man didn’t have all the answers.
Malorie and Reaper remained as stone.
“Did you abandon him?” Marcii asked then, cutting perhaps too close to the core.
But then again perhaps not, for Midnight answered her without hesitation.
Clearly he had spent many years reflecting on exactly that very question.
What had driven Marcii to ask it however, she didn’t know.
“I had no choice.” The old man sighed, admitting the solemn truth that he himself had realised, many years ago.
Silence followed.
“I’m sorry…” Marcii eventually whispered, feeling as though she’d overstepped the mark.
Midnight waved off her apology.
“He’s turned into something I never want to be. That I never could be.” He explained. “I’ve tried to distance myself from the world to protect people. But he always comes back around…”
“So we have to stop him.” Marcii asserted, her words filled with young, naïve hope. “We can’t just let him have his way. I don’t want to see you, or anybody else suffer.”
The old man smiled kindly at the young Dougherty. Her intentions were, as ever, nothing but pure.
He could see that she didn’t realise the truth however and it stung at his heart to speak again.
“But I have suffered…” He replied solemnly, though his lips were tinged with a dry, self-mocking, half-hearted smile.
Marcii’s eyes searched the old man’s face for signs of denial, but found only painful truth.
“The people that Alistair has killed. People I’ve barely spoken to. People who helped me. People I’ve loved…”
He sighed heavily and his black eyes were filled with sorrow.
“I have suffered, Marcii. Make no mistake…” He breathed. “For a very long time…”
He held her gaze firmly as he spoke, his voice unwavering.
“After all this time, after everything that he’s done, the only thing that can save me now is the end…”
Chapter Fourteen
Dusk came sweeping in over the hills and the fields and the trees, smothering them in her blackened maternal love. She brought with her an army of dense cloud, overwhelming Marcii and her companions with oppressive darkness.
The clouds were not heavy and black, nor were they carefree and white. Instead, filled to bursting with icy flurries that threatened to escape at any moment, they hung upon a razor’s edge somewhere in between.
“There’s a storm coming…” Midnight warned quietly as they moved steadily beneath the brooding grey sea above.
An ominous tinge to his words made it sound as though he wasn’t just warning them of bad weather, but that there was much more on the horizon for them to worry about.
Marcii didn’t answer him and Kaylm seemed so lost in thought that she didn’t think he’d even heard the old man speak.
Glancing upwards, the young Dougherty felt beset by the situation.
As seemed to continuously be the case, so much had happened and so many thoughts and memories and worries whirred through her mind that she struggled to keep track of them from one to the next.
There was still much that she didn’t understand. The reams of questions that scurried unanswered through her head piled atop her endlessly.
Midnight had answered some of her queries, but by no means all of them.
She looked across to Malorie and Reaper, walking slightly ahead and to the right of her and Kaylm.
The mysterious witch’s hand clung to the thick fur of Reaper’s arm, as if she were afraid to let go. Every hundred paces or so the enormous demon’s black eyes found Malorie’s face, even if only for the briefest moment, and she always smiled warmly up at him in return.
Marcii sighed, though she kept the sound of her distress to herself.
Malorie had been murdered by Tyran.
Reaper had saved her life when she’d fled Newmarket.
He and Vixen had helped her rescue Kaylm.
Malorie had reappeared, revealing that she was indeed at least partly what the people of Newmarket feared so.
Midnight too wasn’t what he’d a
lways seemed to be. He had a past so ridden with difficulty and so entwined with all that was going on Marcii couldn’t even begin to unravel it.
And yet, here she found herself, amidst these people, witches and demons and humans alike, completely at ease in their company.
She felt as if she’d known them all for an eternity.
Even though she’d discovered that, in actual fact, she hadn’t known them at all, now, somehow, she trusted them even more.
The young Dougherty’s confusion swelled and rose in vast, impenetrable columns. Spiralling out from her tiny body and spilling upwards relentlessly, the feeling met with the cover of the cloudbank brought on so eagerly by dusk.
That single emotion, complex beyond imagining, was more than enough to stir and split the clouds. Breaking their ranks and shattering their formation, Marcii unwillingly ushered the first few snowflakes to fall.
More soon followed and in only a matter of minutes glistening flecks tumbled down all around.
Their infinitely complex and diverse shapes shifted and moulded and merged as they collided silently with each other, settling upon Marcii’s thick sheep pelt before drifting down to the ground.
She examined them closely as they perched in perfect shapes, settling not only on her clothes but in her hair and on her flushed cheeks too.
In fact, as the minutes wore on and as the miles passed by, noticed only by her feet and by her legs, Marcii found herself strangely lost in the sight of the snow falling all about them.
It was something quite magical, for she had never seen or appreciated it in this way. Out in the wilderness, beyond the confining walls of Newmarket, it was a phenomenon all in of itself.
She imagined that she would only come to see more and more things in these new and profound lights over the approaching years.
She couldn’t envisage that to be a bad thing, provided she lived that long…
Midnight stole a quick glance across at Marcii. Malorie and Reaper too, without her noticing, found their gazes also falling upon the young girl.
They all three knew her power was growing exponentially, whether she even realised it or not.
Soon enough the snow had settled enough for them to leave a winding trail of footprints in their wake. It wasn’t deep enough yet to slow their progress too dramatically, but as they neared the canyon that marked the halfway point between Newmarket and Ravenhead, it was certainly getting that way.
