The Cross vf-2

by Scott G. Mariani

  ‘Here’s another piece,’ Rebecca said, reaching down between her feet and picking it up. ‘It’s got the same carvings on it. What do you suppose they mean?’

  ‘No idea. My dad would probably know.’

  ‘He’s a historian, isn’t he?’

  ‘Museum curator,’ Chloe said. ‘Lives in Oxford now. You know what, I think I’m going to take these back to show him.’ There were more pieces strewn across the stream bed, and yet more in the snow. She started gathering them up. ‘Whatever this was, it must have got smashed on those big rocks. The bits are scattered all around here.’

  Rebecca studied the fragment she’d found. ‘They kind of look like ancient runes to me.’

  Chloe found another, larger fragment in the snow. She dusted it off. Her little pile was growing quickly. ‘Runes?’

  ‘You know, ancient script. Spells. Maybe like some kind of talisman for warding off evil spirits.’

  ‘Oh, come on. You don’t believe in that stuff, do you?’

  Rebecca shrugged. She pointed upwards at the looming mountain above them. ‘You think maybe it fell from up there?’

  Chloe looked up. Far above in the distance, she could just about make out the tips of the castle battlements.

  ‘Something seriously creepy about that place,’ Rebecca said darkly. ‘Maybe that’s what the talisman was put here for.’

  ‘You don’t know it’s a talisman,’ Chloe said.

  ‘It’s something, though, isn’t it? And what was it doing here?’

  ‘So there you are.’ It was Lindsey’s voice from the top of the slope. She stepped out of her skis and scrambled down the slope to join them. ‘You two decide to hide from me for a secret coffee break?’

  ‘Rebecca took a tumble down the slope,’ Chloe told her. ‘Hey, don’t worry yourself though. She’s fine.’

  Lindsey pointed at Chloe’s little heap of stone fragments, and frowned. ‘Uh, Chloe, what are you actually doing with those?’

  ‘They’re bits of something,’ Chloe said. ‘We found them lying all around here.’

  ‘How fascinating,’ Lindsey said in a flat tone. ‘Listen, I hate to spoil your fun, but we’re really in the middle of nowhere here, guys. We need to move on.’

  ‘Rebecca needs to rest a minute,’ Chloe said.

  ‘Moving on’s okay by me,’ Rebecca said, screwing the empty Thermos cup back onto the flask. ‘I’m fine now.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ Chloe asked her. Rebecca nodded and smiled. Chloe started stuffing the fragments into her backpack.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re going to cart those bits of old stone all the way back home,’ Lindsey said. ‘It’s ridiculous.’

  For a second, Chloe almost felt like dumping them. Whatever kind of stone the fragments were made from, it was incredibly dense and she was worried about their combined weight on top of the rest of the stuff in her pack. But she couldn’t bring herself to leave them behind. ‘Lindsey, will you help me carry them? I really want Dad to see them.’

  Lindsey stared. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. Why don’t you go and grab a few bits of that castle while you’re at it? Let’s take the whole place home as a keepsake for Daddy.’

  ‘Come on, Lindsey.’

  ‘Why can’t she carry some?’ Lindsey demanded, pointing at Rebecca.

  ‘I will,’ Rebecca cut in.

  ‘No,’ Chloe said. ‘Because she’s hurt herself and I don’t want her carrying extra weight.’

  ‘Right then, Doctor Dempsey. So you want me to be your pack horse instead?’

  ‘These could be worth something,’ Chloe said. ‘My dad’d be the first to tell you these kinds of relics can sell for a packet. Help me carry it, and I’ll cut you in on whatever I make.’

  Lindsey eyed her. ‘Fifty-fifty.’

  ‘Thirty-seventy.’

  ‘Stick it.’

  ‘Okay, fifty-fifty and I’ll divide my share with Rebecca.’

  ‘Let’s just go, all right?’ Rebecca said, glancing up at the castle.

  ‘Deal.’ Lindsey unzipped her pack and started stuffing in some of the stone fragments. ‘Better be worth it.’

  After a few minutes, the three students climbed back to the top of the slope, fastened their skis and took off down the valley.

  The buzzard that had been observing them unseen from a high rocky perch watched the three tiny figures disappear down the hillside, then spread her broad wings and took to the air. She rode the thermals high over the mountain valley, making her unhurried way back to the nest lodged in the face of the cliff below the castle turrets.

  Returning to the nest, the mother buzzard found her half-grown chicks still at work on the remains she’d scavenged from the castle battlements the previous day. There had been more than enough fresh meat for the taking up there, after she’d chased away the crows that had started the work of tearing it apart. She’d ripped away some large bloody chunks with her powerful beak, picked them up in her talons and carried them back to feed to the squawking fledglings.

  Now a squabble was breaking out between two of the larger buzzard chicks, who were engaged in a tug-of-war over a choice hunk of meat. As they fought over it, a shiny object of very little importance to a buzzard fell with a dull thump to the bottom of the nest. The young raptors ignored it and went on squabbling until what was left of the severed human hand and wrist finally ripped in half and the argument was fairly settled.

  The grimy, blood-spattered gold watch had landed on its face so that its engraved back-plate could be seen. And if a bird of prey could have read human language, the buzzards would have known the name of the man whose flesh was going to keep them sated for the next few days. The engraving read:

  Jeremy P. Lonsdale

  Chapter Five

  As the sun eventually sank below the forest skyline and the lengthening shadows merged into the rising darkness, Joel emerged tentatively from the safety of his cave. He peered around him. It had been snowing heavily through the day, and the trail of his deep footprints leading to the mouth of the cave had been covered over. He felt the biting wind on his face but the rawness of the cold was something his senses registered only objectively. Like a machine. Like something that was alive but not alive. Something that was neither human nor animal.

  The night sounds of the forest filled his ears and seemed to press in on him from all around as he scrambled down the rocky slope from the cave and set off through the trees. The fresh snow crunched bright and sharp under his feet. He could feel every microscopic ice particle through the soles of his boots, every rotted leaf, every fallen twig.

  He trudged on, eyes front, jaw tight and fists clenched at his sides. Refusing to surrender to the tumult of thoughts that screamed in his head. Then, after a mile or so, he stopped. Sensing something. He turned slowly. From the darkness of the forest, glowing amber eyes were watching him. Another pair appeared, then another. Dark shapes gathering, alerted at his passage.

  The wolf pack circled silently around him, cutting off the way ahead. His nostrils flared at their feral scent. He could hear the rasp of their hot breath and the low, rumbling growls from deep in their throats. Fifteen of them, maybe twenty. Their heads low, hackles raised, ears flat back. All watching, intent. Ready to attack, move in and rip their prey apart.

  But something about this prey was different. As Joel stared back at the wolves, a ripple of unease seemed to pass through the pack. Growls turned to whimpers. The wolves backed off, then turned and melted away into the night.

  Joel watched the predators retreat, and he was afraid. Not of the savage things that lurked in the dark. He was the dark. The night feared him. And that was more than he could bear.

  He closed his mind and pressed grimly on. Leaping over fallen tree trunks, splashing through frozen streams and scrabbling up steep slopes, oblivious of the branches that slashed his face and the sharp rocks that gouged his hands.

  An hour passed, then two, before his sharp sense of smell detected a new scent. A hum
an scent. Woodsmoke.

  From the top of a snow-covered rise he saw the speckle of lights through the trees in the distance. Even in darkness, he could make out the fine details of the little houses, and the old wooden church steeple that jutted above the forest.

  He knew this place. It was the village he’d passed through on his way to Valcanul.

  Joel hesitated for a long moment, unsure what to do. He could easily skirt around the edge of the village unnoticed — but he couldn’t travel far, not in the state he was in. He badly needed to clean himself up and get hold of some new clothes. Someone would surely help him out. He still had some money left in his pocket — maybe enough for a cheap vehicle of some kind, to help him get back home.

  He made his decision. The forest thinned out as he approached the village outskirts and the first of the old wooden houses. Snowflakes spiralled gently down in the soft glow from their windows. Their white roofs glimmered in the moonlight. The sides of the main street were piled with gritty slush where a snow-plough had cleared the way through. Joel’s boots crunched over the icy ruts made by its tracks. He’d walked up this street before, only the day before — for him, a lifetime ago. The same hush of serenity hung over the place. It was just as he remembered it, like a forgotten throwback to a bygone era. Some things never changed.

  While other things had changed forever.

  Joel began to feel increasingly self-conscious as he made his way up the narrow, winding street. The feeling suddenly struck him that he did not belong here, any more than the wild wolves from the forest. His step faltered. He felt himself gripped by the overwhelming desire to turn and run, disappear back into the safety of the trees before anyone saw him.

  It was in that moment of panicky indecision that Joel heard the sound from one of the nearby houses. The scrape of a latch, the creak of hinges. He turned to see a woman leaning out of a downstairs window and peering uncertainly through the darkness at him. She was in her fifties, with shoulder-length black hair showing strands of white, a patchwork shawl wrapped around her.

  Joel realised he knew her. She was the teacher he’d met on his outward journey. The woman who’d tried so hard to dissuade him from travelling onwards to Valcanul, the place the villagers feared and hated so deeply that they wouldn’t speak its name or even willingly acknowledge its existence. ‘Then you will not come back,’ she’d said when he’d insisted on finding the place. She’d been more right than she knew, he thought.

  The frown on the woman’s face melted into an expression of surprise and relief as she realised it was really him. ‘You,’ she called out in English. ‘You have come back.’

  Joel forced his face into a weak grin. He crossed the narrow street and stepped into the light from the window. ‘It’s me, all right,’ he said without conviction.

  The woman stared at his tattered, filthy clothes. On his outward journey, he’d been carrying a rucksack and a photographer’s equipment case. Now he was empty-handed. The woman said, ‘What happened to you?’

  The wheels spun fast in Joel’s brain. ‘I never made it as far as Valcanul,’ he lied. ‘I got lost in the woods. Some hunters must have thought I was a deer or something.’ He poked a couple of fingers through the holes in his clothes and shrugged. ‘But I’m okay. They missed me.’

  ‘You have blood on your clothes.’

  ‘Oh, that? I know. It’s not mine. I … er … I slipped and fell on a deer the hunters had killed.’ He winced inwardly at how lame it sounded.

  The woman clicked her tongue and shook her head. She shut the window and disappeared inside the house. Seconds later, the door opened and the woman waved at him to come inside. ‘I have clothes to give you,’ she said. ‘And you must be cold. You want eat, no? Come.’

  Joel hesitated.

  ‘Come, come,’ she insisted.

  The house was small and warm and cosy, and smelled of freshly-cut firewood and chicory coffee. The wooden walls gleamed with centuries of varnish, the stone floors were covered in heavily-worked rugs. The woman smiled. ‘We were not introduced before. My name is Cosmina.’

  ‘It’s good to meet you again, Cosmina. I’m Joel. Listen, I don’t want to be any trouble …’

  ‘No trouble,’ she said. ‘My son leave home last year. To study business in Bucharest, yes? He leave behind some of his things. You are the same size. No trouble.’

  Joel reached into his pocket and brought out a handful of lei banknotes. Cosmina frowned at the money, then waved it away.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll be on my way.’

  ‘Later. First you eat. Then we get clothes. Then you stay here and wait for the autobuz in the morning. Yes?’

  ‘That’s really not …’ he began, then decided there was no use in arguing. A wave of heat slapped him in the face as she fussed him into a small kitchen at the top of the hall. Next to an antique cast-iron cooking range, a woodburner crackled, giving off a faint smell of smoke. A cat that had been curled up in a basket near the fire arched its back at the sight of Joel, spat ferociously and then scuttled into hiding under a tall oak dresser.

  Cosmina seemed not to notice as she sat Joel down in a wooden chair at the kitchen table. As if nothing could please her more, she battered about for a few moments fetching down an earthenware plate the size of a wagon wheel from the dresser, some cutlery and a huge stone pitcher from a cupboard. Using an oven glove, she slid a large iron pot onto the hotplate of the range to warm up. It smelled like some kind of meat stew.

  The kitchen door suddenly burst open and an old man walked in. Joel remembered him, too. Cosmina’s father. He was about eighty, whiplash-thin and bent, with a mane of pure white hair and a face like saddle leather. Snow clung to his boots. In one wiry hand he clutched a walking stick; under the other arm he had a stack of freshly-cut logs that he dumped with a loud clang in a metal bin by the woodburner. There was a big bone-handled Bowie knife in a sheath on his belt. He looked even more of a hard, mean old bastard than the rangy hunting dog that trotted into the room behind him.

  Cosmina stared disapprovingly at the dog and rattled off a stream of Romanian to the old man as she stirred the bubbling stew. The old man pulled up a chair opposite Joel and said nothing. His eyes were deep-set, wrinkled and inscrutable, taking in every detail of Joel’s appearance.

  ‘I tell my father you become lost in forest,’ Cosmina said, filling Joel’s pitcher from a jug of what looked like home-brewed dark beer.

  ‘That’s right,’ Joel replied, smiling at the old man. The old man didn’t smile back. Staring fixedly at Joel from beside the table, the hunting dog bared its fangs and let out a long, menacing growl. Joel glanced down at it. Its tail curled between its legs and it retreated behind its master’s chair. The old man’s stare was just as fixed on Joel as his dog’s.

  ‘Please excuse Tascha,’ Cosmina said, looking perplexed. ‘She does not normally act this way with people.’

  ‘Animals don’t like me very much,’ Joel said, as Cosmina ladled a mound of stew into Joel’s plate and set it down in front of him. She stepped back and watched him expectantly. ‘You eat now.’

  ‘This looks lovely,’ Joel muttered. He picked up his fork and spoon. His objective senses told him that the stew smelled delicious. He’d lost count of how long ago solid food had last passed his lips. Normally his mouth would have been watering so badly that wild horses couldn’t have stopped him diving in and stuffing himself.

  But some other sense, some internal voice that seemed to override all his lifelong instincts, was telling him that this food was worthless to him. No amount of it would satisfy his real hunger.

  Joel’s hand was shaking as his fork hovered over his plate. He swallowed. His mouth was dry. Cosmina was hanging on his every movement and expression. He speared a piece of meat, carried it up to his mouth and chewed it.

  Cosmina looked suddenly crestfallen. ‘Not good? You don’t like?’

  ‘No, no, it’s delicious,’ Joel protested, and tried to eat with enthus
iasm. He felt both daughter and father’s gazes on him in stereo as he ate. The dog was still snarling quietly from its hiding place.

  The old man let out a loud snort. He leaned back in his chair, slipped the big knife out of its sheath and began nonchalantly picking out the grime from behind his fingernails with the tip of its eight-inch blade. Cosmina scolded him angrily in Romanian. He appeared not to notice.

  ‘I go to find clothes for you,’ Cosmina said to Joel, and left the room.

  Joel went on eating half-heartedly. The only sounds in the room were the ticking of an old clock on the wall and the low growls of the dog. The old man went on ignoring him. Having finished reaming out his nails, he now set about using the knife to scrape dirt from his fingers. Joel sneaked the occasional glance at him as he continued eating, and for a few blessed moments he felt almost normal in contrast to this strange, mad old bugger. He watched out of the corner of his eye as the old man pressed the edge of the blade against the pad of his thumb. Hard enough to split the flesh. A fat splot of blood dripped down on the table, then another. The old man looked at his cut thumb, then glanced at Joel.

  Joel didn’t feel the fork clatter out of his fingers and onto his plate. He was lost in a sudden trance as he stared, mesmerised, open-mouthed, at the blood ebbing out of the old man’s thumb.

  Instantly, a desperate battle was raging inside him.

  No. It was too repellent. It was loathsome. Sickening.

  And yet it wasn’t. He could smell the blood. Taste it. Feel it flowing down his throat, warm and thick and filled with goodness. The desire, deeper and more feverishly intense than anything he’d ever felt in his life, threatened to blow away all resistance.

  As suddenly as it had appeared, the startling red blood was hidden from Joel’s view as the old man plucked a grimy handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped it around his thumb. Joel was shaken from his trance. He picked up his fork with a trembling hand. His breath came in gasps.