by T. Wyse
She stumbled backwards, landing fully in the silt, and scrambled the final stretch to the door.
“What’s the problem? They’re just…” The conversation became muffled as she shut the glass door between them, a grey blur slipped in beside her.
"What are you doing in here!" She hissed with annoyance. "Get those things, before they hurt someone!" She ordered at him, reopening the door a crack to allow him an exit.
The little thing sat there, hunched and unmoving. "I am here to protect you, not serve as some house guardian," he said, glaring up at her.
The other four crows fluttered up to the wall, and Roger assumed a defensive stance apparently convinced of the threat.
"Well then, I'll go out there and hit them, and you can protect me then," she declared, opening the door, fully intent on doing as she said.
"I won't be able to fight off all that are coming, not without injury or worse. While my death would not be a permanent one, it would be time where I would not be by your side."
She shut the doors, leaning down to look in the cat's eyes. "What do you mean?" she probed.
"You saw eight, but there were ten out there. I managed to kill one, but another took flight." The realization of what this meant chilled her. "It's time to lay here, and protect yourself. They are coming, and there will be many more than before."
"But...they're out there with them!" She stared into the yard. The two men were now standing past the gate. The eight dark figures shivered with their rhythmic spasms, eyes all burning into her.
"They won't bother anyone, other than you." Kokopelli stated bluntly.
One of the black figures disappeared from its standing point, and she realized that Roger had smashed it with a rake. “Unless they do that.” Kokopelli sighed.
Quicksilvered blood exploded onto the white cobbles. The other seven disappeared upwards immediately, only to form a small flying snake of dive bombing at the older man.
Randal produced a wide brimmed rake and smacked at the chain. Three of the creatures fell from the link, but they fluttered back up, hopping onto the fence, and then onto his shoulders.
“You…you said!” She glared at the little creature.
“They shouldn't provoke things they don't understand. Any creature will act out of defense,” he said with infuriating dismissiveness.
It was Randal who pulled the older man away from his berserker fight. Roger had begun swinging the hoe with enough rage that she could hear his shouts. He was faring better than Randal, who had one of the things on his head and one on his shoulder, clawing furiously.
The figures made it to the door, and with a final, grunting scream Roger ripped the two off of the younger man and stomped them into the ground, each exploding into liquid silver.
She tore the door open for them, the flying serpent wounded and slow. Their chain separated and the remaining creatures returned to the white cobblestone fence.
Roger's hands were streaked with streams of blood, and Randal's forehead had a nasty gash across it, his shirt torn with some traces of scratching.
Donna burst through the door, an almost comical trail of earth kicked up behind her, the green tube in her hands. “What is this nonsense!” She bellowed, and her lungs burned with rage until catching into a gasp as she saw the two men.
“Stay here,” she ordered, and disappeared into the kitchen.
“Roger, you first, come in here.”
Amelie helped him with his shoes, and he marched slowly into the makeshift hospital, stealing a worried glance back at Amelie before the doors swung with his retreat.
“Don’t…just don’t bother them. Please,” she pleaded. “The crows I mean, they only followed me, and they only went crazy because you attacked them.”
Randal looked at her with held breath, and then leaned in. “No, I told you I see them. I remember seeing them at the underpass now. It wasn’t a dust storm. It was them.”
A furious scratching began above them. The remaining creatures now roosted on the skylight above, sitting in a vanguard halo above Amelie and slowly clawing at the glass between them.
Randal stood tall, and wiping the blood from his eyes, he walked outside. He stared up at the four creatures, who had since given up the scratching. They didn’t even turn to look at him.
“Fine.” He returned in, and removed his shoes. "What do they want from you?" Randal asked with a whispered tone.
"I don't know, I really don't," Amelie answered in a nearly inaudible whisper. "But it's just me they want. I think you're all safe as long as you don't bother them again. So promise you'll leave them be. Please?"
"Sure, whatever," Randal answered, his lungs glowing softly with sadness. He slipped into a chair, and put pressure on his forehead, gazing up at the darkened shapes.
“I’m going to go to the room.” She stopped beside him, Kokopelli trotting in tow. “Please make sure the others don’t bother them, okay?”
Randal nodded, and was called finally into the kitchen, Roger emerged from the doors, and looked at the creatures above.
Roger sat in his chair, his hands mummified gloves of gauze. “She went a bit overboard.” He chuckled softly, wiggling the fingers.
“Going up?” He asked, and a tremble went down her spine. She wanted to, she really did, more than he could possibly know.
“Y-yes, could you tell her I’m not feeling well?”
“Will do. I’m sure Meldice will get you when it’s dinnertime.”
She slouched her way back to the room of books, feet sliding so low that her socks were wrinkled porcupines when she wriggled them off.
She shed the work clothes and ‘Punk’ glared at her, now quite grungy from a mere two days. The pajamas gnawed through the toughened skin on her hands, and she paused, trembling.
“Going up?” It echoed in her head, and that watery nausea filled her stomach. She dropped the ugly green and white thistle beside the work clothes and opened the top drawer, her heart racing with a hiccupping force in her breath.
“What are you doing?” Kokopelli had retreated behind a curtain while she changed, and retained the manners, but his tail now flicked pensively.
She grasped the thing, that shredded mess of white and red, crossed with meek yellow, and she fell to her knees, cradling it against her face. It smelled of the heightened air, but mixed with a coppery rot.
“What are you doing?” he repeated, glancing over. “I wouldn’t advise that”
“Shhht.” She bit, struggling to don the dress. Twice her arms snagged on jagged tears across the sides, and twice she redoubled her care. She snaked her arms finally into the sleeves once more, and her head popped into place.
Only the strings in the gloves hadn’t neatly snapped around her fingers. Instead of falling in line their wire-fine weave cut against her fingertips, they twisted her outer fingers, and dug under her nails. The slicing and fine pain was nothing, however, as her lungs had gone completely dark.
Somehow the strings were so far askew from the twisting and tearing that they had wrapped a vengeful snare into the neckline, one that now cut deeply into her throat.
She fell backwards, the skin on her hands tearing as she tried to move them, the choking tether an unyielding noose.
He leapt upon her chest the second she had fallen, his claws out and yanking at the garrote with an admirable ferocity.
“No,” she gasped. “No, stop!” She coughed, forcing a slickened hand between the tugged cord, the wire cutting into the back of her arm as toll. She rolled, forcing the offending beast away, and with that the grip on her other hand lessened slightly.
“It’s fine.” Her lungs lit up again fully, her heart now smashing against the glowing tree. “It’s fine,” she gasped.
“It is not fine,” he growled as she squirmed her way under the fabric again.
“You, you stay back.” She wiggled her hands away from the wires, and let them join her inside the cocoon.
“There.” Her hot breath blew back in
to her face, but a few simple motions of her more able hand had dismissed the trap. She slid her hands with immaculate care, guiding them with all the speed and grace of a slug leaving a trail of ichor.
Her head popped up again, and she breathed fine. “There.” She trembled. “There.” She giggled madly.
“What did that accomplish?”
“Shht.” She bit again, rising.
“All you’ve done is soil it further, and cut yourself terribly.”
“It doesn’t matter!” she snarled. “It doesn’t matter.” She whimpered, wiping her slick hands on its body, the cuts already closed to a network of red lacerations on her skin.
“I just…I just need this. Just shut up for now. Please.”
And so she rose in silence, no longer a shining celestial being decorated with gemmed ice, nor a clumsy bat. She stood there, palms out, simply reveling in a memory, the cloth against her skin a balm against the stinging pain.
She explored it, laced hands summoned the pouches and wrapped them up again. The primer pouches fell lifeless and flat but followed her commands with recognizable haste.
“Are you satisfied then? I fear that the meal is approaching. It’s best you not be seen like that. You look rather…inhuman,” he muttered with a worried crackle.
The door opened, and to her infinite credit, Meldice managed not to drop the tray.
“What, what happened? Oh my God, what happened? Are they in here?” She slapped the tray onto the dresser and approached Amelie, who backed away quickly.
“Nothing happened, I just got, cut, I…” Amelie turned to avoid touching the bed, and Meldice slumped into the covers, jaw still agape. “Please just stay back, I don’t want you to get any on you.”
Amelie fell backwards, and sat there, hugging her knees. “I’m okay, I promise.” She muttered, eyes closed and head down, desperately covering the lines upon her neck.
“Show me.” Meldice hovered over her. “If you’re cut then we need to-“
“No, please…please just go,” Amelie choked. “I just needed to feel it against my skin again. It looks worse than it is.” She lifted her hands from her neck, and evidently the slices had closed enough to satisfy Meldice’s worry.
“Okay. Okay I get it.” The older girl stood tall, a great inhale burned in her lungs. “Really. It’s okay. You didn’t get the first two days like the rest of us.” Her figure nodded crisply. She repeated the motion, but a quivering exhale defied her courage. She began closing the door after her, but Amelie stopped her.
“Don’t tell anyone, please.” a tiny trembling voice came.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” The door clacked gently closed behind her, and Amelie was again alone in the shadows.
She hadn’t fallen asleep, but some time had passed in a meditative trance. It was a rhythmic sound that broke her from the stupor. “Tap, tap, tap.”
“I don’t want to look.” She shuddered, still hugging her knees, still hiding her face.
More tapping joined the chorus. It became a lazy hail.
“Drawn here by the scent of fresh blood I wager,” a crackled voice chimed from the window.
“How many?”
“All of them I would think.”
She paused, recalling the order, the force that had caused him to move before.
“Help me.” She looked up, focusing her eyes on the little beast, his form shifting in the unsure shadows. “Help me fix it.”
“Fix it?” His tail thrashed.
“I…I order you to help me fix my dress. Help mend the sails, help me fly again.” She bit down, doubling her force. “I demand you help me fix—”
“And how precisely shall I fix it for you?” His form trembled, a lingering hiss enunciated at points.
“You’re a magical talking cat. Fix it. What do you want? More tears?”
“Oho, the next price won’t be tears, I assure you. Alas, were I even to break the oath—”
“No, never mind your oath. I need this!” she screamed, echoing hard enough that the tapping at the windows stopped.
“I assure you my ‘magical’ days have passed. Were I a faded god of the loom perhaps I could mend and amend, but alas, this wound must remain. That was never my domain.”
“Fix it!”
“With my claws?”
“With your magic.” She bit, a hoarse and forceful whisper.
Deafening silence was her answer.
Tap, tap, tap. The hail resumed in vigorous harmony.
“Fine,” she muttered, her heart trembling again. “Fine.” She rose, and tore her way to the door. “Let’s do this then.”
“What?” He slid behind her, his form shuddering and growing into a knotted cloud.
“Let’s do this. I don’t care. You can protect me, or whatever,” she snarled, not daring to look back at what now followed. “At least I can feel the sky one last time.”
“No, hold. Stop!” There was a trembling hiss to his voice, and a shockingly firm grip landed on her shoulder, holding her firm from passing the threshold of the stairs.
Amelie stopped, but it was not the grasp that held her, but sound filtering up from downstairs.
Words, inscrutable but unmistakably jovial, rose up from the tired shadows below. Words, unified to the sound of music, a disharmonious chorus of male voices attempting to recall some beloved song.
She sunk down again, the rage ebbing, the trembling of her heart cooled. The unseen hand evaporated from her shoulder.
Andrea’s voice shot above the murmuring silence. “Come on, do it! You promised!” Her shouts were a tinny whisper, a hemisphere away.
“Go to them,” the form of the cat crackled, his tiny lungs rich and pure again.
“Like this?” she laughed bitterly, tracing a clinging wet sleeve. “You said I looked inhuman.”
“As you are. It was you who said you had no intention of hiding,”
A puff of self-derision shot from her nose.
“They are already seeing you differently. Come when they are laughing, and—”
She raised a finger and silenced him, and she simply listened as the music evaporated towards them.
She knew it at least passively, having heard it before, as the style was a secreted guilty pleasure of Amanda’s. The words were of venting anger and melodramatic rage, but softened by the slow resonance of the piano. Meldice sang the words alone, but even so far away the venomous angst bore authentic emotion, truth and worry, and the slightest taste of hope underneath it all.
And in the darkness, to the most foolish of sources, Amelie wept softly.
The two had retreated shortly after that, back to the room. She had slipped out of the bloodied dress, and donned the green pajamas in the absence of light. She bore slight hope that the blood wouldn’t carry over to her borrowed clothes, but knew better.
“Perhaps another story then?” Kokopelli purred as she set in under the covers.
“Yes.” She closed two sides of the canopy this time, leaving only the one at her feet to circulate air. When she was again beneath the covers, he stood framed by that yawning darkness and began.
"Once in the heights of the mountains of Germany's aged past there was a merchant. He was rich, surveying supply routes that climbed to the edges of the empire. He boasted of spice from the desert lands of the southwest through nomadic wilds that no other could have braved and survived to tell the tale. He spoke of incredible furs from the untouched recesses of the northeast's valleys and hills. He sold exotic dyes, of deepest purple and richest blue, the secrets of attaining them known only to him."
"He was wealthier than any around him, but it was a weight rather than an empowerment.”
"What was his name?" Amelie asked flatly.
"No name is necessary." Kokopelli retorted, slightly annoyed.
"Of course it's necessary. He had a life and identity, didn't he? He was a person, wasn't he?"
"A man yes. His name is unnecessary because of the item he possessed. You see this
man was the one who had inherited the Copper Egg from the other, the lineage of owners had continued, though the previous had faded into the nether of forgotten times. His name in the knowledge of the world is simply "The Copper Egg" and it is his story which differentiates him from the others who held it in their grasp."
Amelie lay silently, still aching, not having much energy to argue.
"He had been given the egg from its previous owner only after hearing his fantastic story. The man had been a travelling merchant who barely scraped a living with a trade in furs. He had shown kindness and respect to the farmer, and had received the gift with an explanation of its workings. His mind was open to its magic and he was able to harness it easily. Instead of giving prosperity of the field it had granted the merchant the power to travel with swiftness upon the world's surface. It had also granted him great insight and diplomacy, allowing him to secure the routes that others could not."
"His every material need was met by an iron knit set of routes, his living was established beyond possibility of disruption. He grew bored of the pleasures of life, and looked towards companionship."
"Unfortunately he knew well the power of the egg, and of its cost. If his routes were not as invincible as he had thought, if he would once again need the egg's magic to walk upon the earth, what would he do? Surely a wife would grow suspicious or perhaps stumble upon the egg, and when her eyes laid upon it its magic would be annulled."
"Knowing this he set out still, to find a suitor. He packed his belongings and rode alone, using the power of the egg to travel through the empire and its routes with ease."
"First he went to the northeast, travelling through its rugged and unforgiving terrain. The normal paths of men and beast were a tiresome thing for him, and he took foot to the edges of the very world.”
“There was little there, but the edges of the world are prone to produce the exceptional weather wicked or kind. He heard finally of a strange family of nobles who presided kindly over a farming village upon a remote mountain’s valley. The family had a single daughter of the appropriate age, and she was without suitor.”
