by T. Wyse
A sparking sensation broke through the lull in her mind, and it teased a base awareness as it repeated in threes.
Thoom, thoom, thoom. A low vibration wracked her with a disinterested fury, the sparking sensation a ringing rattling in her bones and skull. Her lazy awareness rose up from the silted depths of her watery grave, and the knowledge of having a face broke the surface.
Thoom, thoom, thoom. The sound, the feeling, came from all around. Her ears peaked above the surface of the water now, and she could feel shapes and colours. The memory of pain and her path into this darkness held a pleasantly fuzzy distance. She was safe here, warm here, familiar here.
Thoom, thoom, thoom. Angular grass shuddered around her; a black upon black silhouetted by a dim smearing blue that trailed the blades as they shivered with the vibrations. A blob of golden warmth around her slithered against the grass, and trembled with lazy disinterest at the touch of the shockwaves.
Her laying form emerged from the baptismal murk in full, and her mind noted the pause between each hit. She could ‘see’ the place, noting the textured walls that encircled the field around her. The walls bent and met above her in a dull shimmering dome. She was sitting rather than laying. Surely logic would declare that there was ground beneath her.
With that conclusion her sight stretched outwards, no wind to guide it, and no rules to restrict it. She could see through the holes in the enveloping walls, on to a forest of trees so tall that their canopy was still obscured to her dreaming vision.
Thoom, thoom, thoom. Curiosity roused her to her feet, though in the dull warmth she could only be sure that she was moving. The yellow blob shuddered and rippled as she glanced around out of reflexive habit. She swayed from side to side trying to pinpoint the source of that sound and allowed a sleepy lurch to move her towards one of the walls. The golden warmth followed, moving only as she reached its edge but ever keeping her tucked within. The light slithered against the grass which bent in awe of its passing, only to resume the gentle upright trembling when freed.
Thoom, thoom, thoom. She found herself at the wall rather than resuming her search. It was a bleak white, its brightness almost searing against her consciousness as she neared it, the darkness of the place like a pond whose silt had been stirred up. There were swirling patterns, holes surely eroded by time’s random chance, but they felt like the muddled shapes of a lifetime of dreams and emotions submerged.
A great rumbling cough alerted her to the figure beyond the wall, and with his placement pinpointed he shimmered into clarity.
Thoom, thoom, thoom. It was the strike of a hammer’s shape upon the angled roof of the enclosure, calculated and rhythmic. With each strike the carved marble of the wall trembled and a fine snowfall of glinting white dust shook loose from above. Surely the dust had been falling this entire time, and yet it seemed to have waited for her perception of it before it politely began to settle and accumulate amongst the grass.
The creature stood almost as tall as the trees beyond the wall, as he moved he smeared a faded red outline upon the darkness. His form was vague, arms and legs more like shifting blobs than limbs, but she could make out a great beard that lay down to his chest and was as wide as his shoulders. His face was weathered and wrinkled, great dark bags below his eyes, a set of deep creases on his forehead. Maroon spots tickled his cheeks as if he had lived so long and fully that he had cried tears of blood, and they had lingered on.
He shuffled around, carrying the hammer’s weight against his shoulder as he made his progress down the curved wall. With each step there was the muted feeling of him coughing, grumbling and the creaking of ancient and tired bones. He swung the great hammer, almost as tall as himself, with the force of both arms and again struck the pen with a mighty Thoom. He swung with such force but with such practice and control that surely he could have shattered its surface should he care to.
“Hello!” There were no words however, the sentiment seemed to burst forward from her in a trickling stream of coloured energy, only to leave a drizzling smear falling down from the line she had projected.
The shape paused a moment however, as if somehow taking note of this. He let out a sighing grumble that she felt as fully as any of the poundings. He continued his work without responding.
Again she tried words, each time they only trickled out not even having the decency to arrive at her own ears. She followed him as he hammered at the pen, in a world becoming a migraine static of white falling silt. He repeated it again and again, grumbling and coughing before each strike, until finally a lull came.
He leaned his great shoulders back against the pen, letting out a final and almost defeated sigh. His head rolled from side to side, ligaments groaning with the protests of a great rusty machine. His hammer rested on his shoulder again, but now he pushed himself off. Footsteps as muted and careful as a parent visiting a sleeping child began to take him away from her.
“Wait!” Again, lost in the frustration of the place, it tickled at one of the recesses in the wall, stopping short of crossing the threshold.
“Wait!” She pushed a hand against the crumbling side, a glove of dull electric numbness enveloping it.
The man’s form faded, disappearing into the forest beyond. She tested the wall and found a space where she could wiggle her finger through. With a furious desperation she wormed that finger around, working that flaw against the shocking and growing cold. He was too far away, would be gone in moments and with that final desperate push she broke her hand through with the briefest hint of a spark as it tore into the numb cold outside.
She was yanked forward up to her elbow, and it was wedged firmly in place. The chill nibbled at her arm with light interest. Even leaning hard with her other arm and her confused legs wasn’t enough to free the trapped arm. Not only would calling out to him be impossible now, but now she was foolishly stuck.
A string of silent and frustrated grunts traced themselves upon the wall, pooling in one of the cracks before dripping down into the grass. She tugged and pulled again, the golden aura jostling merrily as she did. Finally there was a firm, but warm and gentle push upon her hand and in an instant it was again inside, the chill thawing away.
“Can’t have you do that.” His voice was clear, a rousing and deep red that rose up with clear tendrilous sound through the grass and snow. She leaned into the hole, and tried to shout into it, but that barrier remained strong.
“Not sure how you did that.” He sighed, running his hand up and down the exterior wall. “Oh well.” The red tendrils gave a defeated chuckle, and he made a tired effort to sit, leaning on his hammer for support.
“Voice won’t work here, little one, not quite enough practice.” He sighed. “I can guess what you’d ask though, what you want to know. I didn’t quite catch you in time and I’m sorry for that, but the wall should hold now. I would tell you not to be afraid, that your parents are alive and well and have set things up to ensure your safety, but then you aren’t afraid are you? You don’t know enough to be afraid.” He gave another great sigh.
“You’re afraid of being alone, I think I heard you say that once. Know this: Wherever you are, you aren’t alone. I cannot walk with you, but they have sent another to guard you in our stead. He is a little odd, a stranger to you, yet you are no stranger to him. They have things that need doing you see, things that can only be done while this opportunity is in place.”
“Whatever you do, you mustn’t hate them. Mustn’t hate us. We’ve already ruined it, already spoiled it all.” He licked a finger and smoothed the spot where the hole had been.
He lumbered to his feet with cracks and creaks and one final cough. “I have to go now. Have some business that needs doing. Perhaps I’ll see you again, perhaps not. You’ll be fine, I promise.”
She reached out against the wall again but found it resolute.
“Wait!” The colour streamed out once more and failed. “Don’t leave me here, don’t leave me alone…”
“You w
on’t ever be alone, child.”
His figure disappeared into the forest, melting into the woven shadow fog that lay beyond. She rubbed the spot where he had smudged, the white snow all around her, and just paused there a moment, feeling the swaying of the blue blades of grass, the lapping of the golden sphere of light.
Her hand was still cold. She pulled it off the wall with a surprising amount of force, and glanced at it, needing to focus her entire attention to see what was covering it. Something was wrong, something sticky and tarry dripped from her hand, something warbling and hissing and dark.
Amelie rose up from bed with a jolted motion. It was that state, that frightening place when awaking from some terrible dream, when one cannot move, cannot speak, and all one wants to do is to scream. Her arms were numb, still at her sides, her head lay limply slouched down, unable to even twitch at her command. Worse than the paralysis was her state of mind. It was in that muddled place between dream and reality, still half-remembering images from her dormant self.
There had been something there, lost in the mud of time she had been alone in that pen, in the darkness.
There was a feeling not unlike ringing in her mind. It rang with an overwhelming intensity threatening to drown the last remnants of the message in overbearing presence.
Just tar, sticking to her hand, but so cold. It had slithered off in a singular mass, falling into the grass and hissing all the while. There was something there though, something familiar.
Amelie squinted out of habit, grasping at things that her mind could only graze. Not something she had seen, but yet something she had known for a very long time. The ringing grew louder, more insistent that she abandon this course of inquiry.
The scrambling clawing at her memory failed and reality snapped into place around her. The pen shuddered into physicality, the warmth now uncomfortable, the liquid feeling now a clinging sweat. The air was spent and hot, the dimensions a blurry box. She forced her eyes open but that only added to the confusion. All she could see was a burning rose colour, shifting and swaying, challenging her useless eyes. Her head snapped from left to right, up to down to try to understand the space, but the swirling mass of the hot air throbbed in her lungs and her ears.
Desperately she tried to sit, but found herself mired in something enveloping and soft. The wriggling only served to make it slip over her face, burying her in that stifling warmth. Her panic made her ears throb, a pounding and rushing sound deafening her. She groped at the stifling softness but found no grip against the suffocating warm. Finally, she caught on something solid, an edge, and with every muscle in her arms and legs she did her best to launch in one direction.
She erupted out of the rose prison and met the wooden floor with a softened thud. The clinging warmth still gripped her, still smothered her but her face was out at least, and her arms both served to drag herself away.
It was simply a bigger box, the air still too warm, too spent. Her lungs burned so bright, fought so hard against her racing heart that her vision blurred and dimmed. Still she crawled forwards, towards the glowing light, muted by a white filter of some kind. She twisted out of the thing’s embrace finally and found herself on her back.
“Can-o-py.” The words were hot as flame from her mouth, and yet saying it was enough to calm her slightly. It was a bed, just a bed, not some purgatorial trap.
She lay there, lungs cooling slowly, dew pouring from her forehead, arms numb and tingling from the desperate effort. With each breath her mind cleared a little, her heart calming ever so slowly.
She wiggled her fingers with a little numbed pain. Her toes proved more willing than her arms and she managed to squirm a little, causing small but satisfying movements in the covers across from her.
She lay there wiggling her legs free of the enveloping blankets and the unwelcome memory of what had pursued her into that darkness returned. She heard the shrieking sounds, the slicing beaks upon her flesh. With just the littlest bit of squeamishness she ran a finger gently down her cheek. Finding no evidence of scarring or wound upon its smooth surface, she looked at her shaking hand. The vision of it covered in crimson flashed into her mind, contrasting with its currently immaculate state. She could still feel it, she could swear it had been more than a dream, but yet she was alive now, she was unharmed now.
She dragged herself to the wall, propping her back against it. The room was almost as alien as the canopy had been. The glowing white was a set of translucent grey curtains, and served as the only light in the room. The bed’s canopy seemed to lap in this light and glow happily like a prism from the feast.
Dust hung in the air appearing as a loosened swarm of slovenly fireflies drifting lazily in the bobbing currents. Not bothering to glow themselves they reflected the dim light of the obscured window, dipping into her sight only to frame the squared beams erupting from the outside world.
She gathered her feet, and they immediately protested even the hint of weight upon their soles. They sat there naked and pink against the floor. The boards were rough, composed of deeply reddened wood of some inscrutable age though they were clean and shining and smooth. The walls too bore that elegant crudeness, as did the frame of the window, its wood carved into a twisting pattern ending in flowers at uneven intervals.
Standing finally she spread her attention outwards. The textures of the walls and furniture were a hazy reflection on the lazy air, but the light chased her eyes into hiding even through the curtains. A bed stand stood directly to her left, a sconce lamp hanging on the wall above it. The bed stand repeated itself on the other side, but a large dresser stood in its mirrored world, where there was nothing but a painting here. A slow draft indicated that there was a door out of the room.
The window tickled her temptingly, but there was something about the rawness of the light filtering through that held her back. It trickled down her spine and reminded her of that sickened fear, that thoughtless panic. No, there was surely more interest in the room around her, perhaps the floorboards had splinters that needed counting.
That darkness, the cold sinking water, was that death? It was an undeniable trembling thought that even the promised excitement of counting splinters could not drown.
It fell upon her shoulders, a leaden shawl that slipped smoothly down with a strange gentleness. She must have died, and yet this was unmistakably life. She was no stranger to injury, being all too familiar with floors, fists, and band-aids but she could still feel the severity of it, the merciless weakness of her final breaths.
She forced her eyes open, and immediately craved a balance to the burning outside light. The sconce lamp’s switch showed nothing but indifference to her meddling however, and the room remained unchanged.
Her lungs were bright again, the air growing unbearably hot. It was all real. I remember the burning cuts, the salty blood. Her hand hovered before the drapes, fingertips gracing the dry surface.
Just a moment longer, she rationalized, and before she realized it she reached for her hair tie. The smooth wood wasn’t upon her head, evidently her hair was held still simply from being so tangled. She wasn’t in her sleeping gown either, but the pajama set was loose enough that she hadn’t noticed the fabric grating against her skin until now. The warmth seemed to dull the itchiness a little at least.
The room seemed to be a library, or at least a stow room for incidental books. The wall opposite the bed and the dresser, from the door's edge to the wall where the window stood, was entirely taken up by shelves filled with books. They stood tightly sentried shoulder to shoulder, in an artificially perfect order. They were of differing shapes and sizes, but their sorting gave an illusion of similarity. None of the scrawlings upon the spines were clear enough in the light, whatever golden letters decorated them had been dulled and eroded with time.
The room featured a pair of paintings, one just to the right of the window, the other standing above the dresser, meticulous texturing giving them away. A mirror, reflecting the dim features of a shadowed st
ranger sat to the left of the window. She found herself drawn into that dark world for a moment. The darkened creature staring back with the raggedy hair and garish white and green pajamas was more alien than any she had ever seen beyond the glass. She managed to snap her eyes away before the swirling shadows behind the stranger could nip at her.
Running her hand gently across the spines of a number of the books, even the feeling of the texture being a welcome distraction from the source of the light, she caught a new curiosity in the corner of her eye. There was a dark shape upon the bed, a lump at the edge. The lump moved with a gentle rhythm, up and down.
She peered back into the bed, breaching the canopy once more. She saw a shagged white cat sleeping so soundly and gently upon the bed’s edge that it seemed to mesh perfectly with the sheets. It opened a single eye then shut it again quickly, apparently judging her of little interest.
Not wanting to disturb the little creature, she allowed the canopy to flutter gently back into place. Having another living thing in the room lessened that gnawing unease, and something as mundane as a cat helped fuel her delusion.
Her protesting pink feet took her finally to the curtains, proving braver than her hands which hovered trembling still.
With a final steeling breath she tore the curtains aside. Her heart sank into despair before the pendulous motion of the curtains had returned inwards.
It was empty, brown, dead. The window gave a strange distortion to her vision, apparently constructed of old unclear glass crossed by reinforcing wood patterning.
There were other things through the distorted lens though, shapes of the world beyond. She saw a tall wall, the furthest object from the window, stretching from as far left as she could see, to as far right as she was allowed. A path pierced the wall, pointing centrally towards what must be the bulk of the house. An ancient tree, wide with multiple centuries of bulk sat sulkily to her right. It was leafless and rose beyond her sight, but gave the impression that she was on the second or third floor of this house.
