Sanctity

by S. M. Bowles

  Sanctity

  sanc-ti-ty: holiness of life and character

  By S. M. Bowles

  Sanctity

  Copyright: S. M. Bowles

  Published: March 2013

  Publisher: S. M. Bowles

  The right of S. M. Bowles to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  If you have any questions or comments for the author please use the following e-mail address: smbowles.sanctity@gmail.com

  For my daughter, my husband, my good friend Daisy (though she can’t read) and everyone else that has a special place in my heart.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  The End

  Other Works

  Chapter 1

  My head lolled backwards and I was looking up into the night. I could see the sky through the branches of the leafless trees. The moon had risen, high and bright and as I tried to follow it with my eyes I realized that someone was holding me. He had me clutched against his chest and we were running fast, so very fast!

  The world kept drifting in and out of focus while pulses of pain wracked my body. I tried to keep as still as possible and silently prayed that it would help but my head wasn’t the only thing that hurt. My whole body ached and it was like nothing I had ever experienced before. Something horrible had happened but I was so weak and confused that no matter how frantically I tried I couldn’t seem to remember what it was.

  “Can you put your arms around my neck?” His voice was deep, anxious and as he said it, it echoed in my thoughts and I felt as though I had heard it twice – once out loud then again deep inside my head.

  Some of the haziness was swept from my mind and suddenly I was aware of everything that was taking place. I knew I couldn’t do as he asked but somehow my body obeyed the compulsion to raise my arms and I clasped my hands behind his neck. As we passed a fallen tree and my fingers intertwined I felt his grip around my waist loosen. He shifted me onto his back then snapped a branch off of a decaying tree as we raced by.

  He turned suddenly to face the opposite direction and for a fleeting moment I caught a glimpse of something or was it someone crashing through the forest and heading directly for us. Instinctively I buried my face in the back of his neck and braced myself for the impact.

  It never came, though, and when I realized that it wouldn’t I looked over his shoulder. There was a man lying in the snow a few feet away from where we stood. Something was protruding from his chest but it was too dark to be sure of what I was seeing and the will to hold on was leaving me. The strength I felt just a moment before gave way. I lost my grip and fell to the ground.

  He dropped to his knees beside me and bent his face close to mine “Elayna,” he urgently called my name.

  For a moment I thought I recognized him but the flicker of memory vanished before I could make any sense of it. Then there was nothing.

  I felt my lips first. It was as though they were made of ice and had somehow been touched with a flame that was spreading heat across my face, sending a shiver through my scalp and to my neck and down my spine. The heat kept spreading like ripples on a pond and I was acutely aware of it flowing throughout my chest and expanding to my arms and legs.

  I opened my eyes but that was all that I could do. My body didn’t seem to be working. A fearful idea crept into my mind that I had died or I was dying, there in the forest lying in the snow; away from my mother and father. My heart wrenched when I thought of them and I began shaking with grief.

  “Ssh, try not to think about them now,” the man was back and tenderly scooping me into his arms. He began running again though not with the fierce intensity he had used before I blacked out.

  “Please,” I muttered and clutched at the lapel of his coat.

  Somehow he knew I was asking him to stop and when he put me down I doubled over. He squatted down beside me and gathered all my hair away from my face. A moment later I began to retch into the snow at his feet. Through the darkness I could see that most of what had come up was blood, my blood, blood from all the aches inside me.

  “Oh, God!” he cried out when he saw it.

  It terrified me and I helplessly tried to look up at him but he tightened his grip on my hair and prevented me from turning my head.

  He whispered an utterly anguished, “Please don’t. I don’t want you to see me like this. Just give me a minute.”

  I wondered what he meant but the retching had made my pain exponential and before I had a chance to ask I felt myself slipping from his grip as I slumped down into the snow. The flame touched my lips again but just before I lost consciousness I saw that it was his fingertip that was pressed against them. That was where the heat seemed to be coming from but there was something more to it than just a touch. I could taste…I could taste…something; something wonderful and warm and sweet and enlivening. It was heavenly and I smiled through my tears enjoying the sensation as it rippled through me once more.

  “Ssh, ssh,” he soothed and kissed my forehead.

  He eased me to sitting then carefully lifted me up before he began walking again. The strange feeling faded with every step and I began to feel somewhat stronger. The pain, though piercing at times, didn’t seem quite so unbearable anymore. I wanted to say something but I wasn’t sure what. My mind kept wandering from one incoherent thought to the next. I felt like there was something I desperately needed to remember but every time I grasped at it the thought was brushed to a corner of my mind where it was impossible to recall.

  Without warning he put me down again and whatever was left in my belly went spattering onto the snow. The pain was back with an agonizing ferocity. I could see stars behind my eyes it hurt so badly. I just wanted to let go of it all and to be swept into the darkness, nothing mattered any more except that the pain go away. I completely lost consciousness again.

  He touched my lips; just a few drops. After a few moments he realized that I was not coming to and cursed out loud, “Damn it!” Another few drops, he began counting “one, two,” a minute passed and still I was lying lifeless in the snow. He tried a third time and after the last few drops trickled between my lips he pulled his finger away and cradled me as he rocked me back and forth sobbing into my hair. “No, no, no…”

  I gasped as I came to. For a moment it felt like there was lightni
ng in my veins. The sensation passed as quickly as it came and I involuntarily moaned at the sudden release.

  Slowly I fluttered back to my senses. He took my face in his hands and tilted it from side to side studying it. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for but after a moment he began to smile, his grey eyes bright and the corners of his mouth turned up in complete and happy relief. Satisfied with what he had seen he took my wrist and checked my pulse. “Good, good,” he said. “Does it hurt?”

  I couldn’t answer; I was absolutely transfixed by his eyes. “Oh,” I felt myself grasping at some shred of a memory but I lost it when he turned away.

  “Elayna,” there was some urgency in his tone; “does it hurt? We need to keep moving.”

  He turned back to my gaze and I shook my head in confusion as his question replayed in the back of my mind. “No, I don’t know. I feel…I feel fine…I think. I’m cold…just cold.”

  Without remark he shrugged his coat off and tucked it around my shoulders, “Hold it tight, here at your chest,” he swaddled me in the heavy cloth. “There, better?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “We need to go, are you well enough?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK, if you feel like you’ll be sick again just let me know and I will stop.” He looked down at me, “Can you walk?”

  I nodded. I was still very disoriented but all the pain that I had been feeling was slipping away and dwindling into insignificance. He slipped his hand in mine and I clutched at it trustingly as he began leading us away.

  “What happened?” I wondered. Without realizing it I tried to remember where I was and why I was there. There were a number of images flashing in my mind but they were shadowy and impossible to make out.

  “Where are we going?” It was all I could think to ask.

  “I’m not sure; somewhere safe.”

  “I want to go home; I want my mom and dad.”

  “I know you do but it is safer for you to be with me right now.”

  “OK,” I said trustingly.

  He looked down at me and I couldn’t help thinking how sad and conquered he looked, “Are you tired?” he asked.

  That was the last thing I remembered until hours later when I woke. It took a moment but gradually I became aware that we were in a car and quite a bit of time had passed. It was still semi-dark, maybe close to dawn and I was very hungry. I was in the passenger’s seat, my head tilted in his direction. He didn’t seem to notice that I was awake as I studied him from where I sat and I couldn’t decide whether or not I should say something. I was still buried in the folds of his coat and began to wriggle about trying to free myself.

  “Here,” he reached over to help and his fingertips grazed mine in the process.

  “Michael?” I asked.

  He paused momentarily and a look of surprise swept across his face. “Yes, Elayna, my name is Michael.”

  “How did I know that?”

  He grinned and shook his head.

  “How do you know my name?” I asked curiously. “Is it the same way that I know yours?”

  He frowned suspiciously, “how do you mean?”

  “I think you can see it, see it inside my head. Can you?”

  “Something like that.” He had an expression I didn’t understand, a cross between anger and worry and disappointment. He slowed the car and pulled over. Then he reached for the dome light and flipped the switch, bathing me in the light. I couldn’t help squinting at the sudden brightness as he took my face in both his hands again and studied it once more. He tilted it forwards and back and side to side. Then he looked straight into my eyes.

  My breath caught in my chest and I was struck again by how familiar he was. I desperately wished I could remember him and was certain that I knew him somehow.

  “How do you feel Elayna?”

  “I feel,” I felt absolutely fine so his question seemed odd as I considered it, “confused.”

  “How much do you remember?”

  “It seems like I can’t remember anything. I want to and I try to but it feels like something won’t let me. I’m very hungry.”

  He looked away and curled his fist to his lips in contemplation.

  “We will stop soon and I will get you something to eat. I still need to get you somewhere safe, so I need you to promise me to do everything I ask. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Michael, I do.”

  Chapter 2

  Sixteen hours later Michael turned to me, “Here we are,” he said and smiled weakly at me.

  I glanced around and saw that we were in a neat little subdivision. The street we were on was lined with houses. They all had well-groomed lawns and manicured flower beds circling each of the orderly mailboxes that dotted the curbs. I followed Michael has he led me along the walkway and to the front door of one of the brick-faced homes then did my best to stand directly behind him as he rang the bell. I was terribly nervous and shuffled from one foot to the other.

  The door swung wide, “Michael? Oh, Michael, how good to see you.” A woman stepped onto the porch and wrapped him in a loving embrace. I felt a brief spasm of possessive jealousy but couldn’t help smiling as she looked over his shoulder at me.

  Michael was decidedly more reserved and self-possessed but the resemblance between him and the strange woman was remarkable. It was far too striking for me not to know immediately that she was his mother. Though her eyes were blue they were the same shape and set as Michael’s and as she smiled I could see a merry crinkle in their corners. I could tell that her hair was once nearly the same color as Michael’s as well but was then somewhat grey. She wore it all pulled back into a neat French braid that she had folded under just above the hairline of her neck. The smile that she greeted me with was intensely infectious and filled with a happy and curious warmth that melted my fear almost immediately.

  “And who is this?” She asked ducking behind him to get a better look.

  I started to answer but Michael interjected, “This is Elayna, Elayna this is my mother Margaret.”

  A look of confused recognition flashed in her eyes and when she glanced back up at Michael I couldn’t help thinking that she looked angry and disappointed for some reason. I pretended not to have noticed as Margaret’s smile returned and she held her hand out in greeting, “It is a pleasure to meet you Elayna.”

  I was overwhelmed with a sudden attack of shyness mostly because of what I had seen in her expression but I was intent on pleasing Michael. I took her hand and managed to stumble out the words, “It’s nice to meet you Margaret.”

  “Well, let’s not stand out here in the cold,” she opened the door and motioned us inside. She was still smiling, though somewhat nervously and I wondered what Michael had said or done to upset her. I looked up to him for approval before I stepped into the house and Michael looked down at me encouragingly, “It’s OK Elayna, follow Margaret.”

  Margaret led us down a short hallway into a bright and homey kitchen. It was warm and inviting and smelled of freshly baked bread. There was an island in the middle of the kitchen and a bowl teeming with bright, red apples sitting in the center of it. The bread was on a cutting board just beside it and when I noticed it my stomach turned in hunger. I was sure Margaret heard it protest as she looked back and gestured to a raised table tucked into a little corner nook.

  “Are you hungry Elayna? Can I get you something to eat?”

  I looked imploringly to Michael and he answered for me, “She would like that very much. In the meantime,” he stretched out his arm as we walked by the island and grabbed one of the apples. He half-heartedly polished it on his coat and handed it to me as we settled into the stools around the kitchen table.

  Michael sat quietly while I made quick work of the apple. After a few minutes of rummaging in the refrigerator and shuffling around the island Margaret brought a plate over and placed it in front of me. It was a simple, white plate and in the center was a slice of the fresh bread I could smell as we came into the
kitchen. It was still quite warm and spread with so much butter I could see it melting into little pools. On one side of the bread was an alternating array of cured meats and some cheeses and on the other side she had arranged some slices of carrots and red bell peppers. It was artfully done as though somehow Margaret believed that making the food look better would also make it taste better. I thanked her wholeheartedly and began to pick at the various offerings.

  On her second trip by me she placed a glass of milk at my elbow. While I cleared my plate Michael and Margaret made small talk. He asked her of the weather, how she had been feeling, if there was anything he could help her with over the next couple of days.

  “I have some things I need to do but I don’t expect any of it to take very long. I can stay as long as you like if there is anything you could use some help with.”

  “No, Michael, I cannot think of a single thing but thank you for asking.” She took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze then turned back to me. “Are you quite full?”

  I smiled a shameful grin knowing my manners had taken a back seat while they spoke and I had devoured nearly every last scrap that had been on the plate. “Thank you Margaret. It was very good.”

  “Well, not to be disrespectful, Elayna” she paused and briefly glanced back to Michael, “but you look like you could use a shower and some fresh clothes. Do you have any with you?”

  I looked to Michael, not knowing how to reply, “I’m afraid she does not. It was an...unexpected trip.”

  “I see. Well, I’m sure I can come up with something. Why don’t you come with me Elayna?” She reached out her hand to guide me away from the table.

  I was clearly nervous at the prospect of leaving Michael. “I can show her the way,” he hurried himself from his chair and drew me away before Margaret could make an interjection. “It will give you a chance to find something for her to wear,” he glanced back over his shoulder.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” she said.