by T. Wyse
“Sir, if you want, I can do a test for you. You can see it for yourself if you like. I don’t mind, if that would help…” Even against the burning rage within him, she wanted him to understand, to understand why they had left, the inconclusiveness, the frustration, the pain. She wanted to show him, open up her mind, show her mother breaking down from stress, her father's distant gaze. She wanted to show him how she had cried so much in those days, that it seemed her tears had all gone, for years and years. It was like explaining to the probing scientists again, she simply couldn't find the words to express it, to paint the reality of her experience to this demanding man in front of her.
"My life had not been without its own," He paused, "Unique challenges."
He leaned forward, as if to share some secret with her. "I met my challenges, and won. New challenges came, and I mastered them too. I faced ridiculousness, foolishness, and I turned them on their side and made them into stern reality. And yet this...all of this! To even think of what is happening to the world now, what has happened."
"I ask you, who could have foreseen all of this?" He leaned back in his chair. Amelie looked to where he was watching, and was suddenly aware of the crows. The black ribbon of bodies were orbiting around the tower now.
"I tell you. I foresaw them." His voice was calmer, stronger now. "I saw them, in dreams, in impossible whispers beyond perception. Dreams are all too vague, and imagined voices insubstantial, yet there is always that small chance, and preparations for the worst are prudent. They didn't tell me what was to come though, I couldn't have expected this." His hands formed a pontificated triangle.
“I was prepared for anything though, prepared for famine and drought, prepared to feed many more than could have possibly resided here. Yet I am beset in this time with nothing but foolishness, nothing but utter fantasy.” He growled, glaring at a trio of potted plants sitting atop three different cabinets. “Yet I’ve met the challenges again, met them with reality, forged their truths.” He glared at her now, his gaze fired like Chala’s own rage. “Yet every day I am beset by more, and I find myself at my very limit!” He bellowed finally, then caught himself, collected himself.
"I take these things, the oddities in this place, and I make them into certainties. I deal with machines, they know off and on, they don't know shades of colours, fancied square glass. They know their created purpose, at least that's something I could hold onto before all of this."
On cue, the lights in the room seemed to flicker slightly, and with the dimming The Professor winced, his breath cooling as if wracked with pain. Amelie thought she could hear something, the echoing of some far away screeching, screaming, inhuman.
"Heard that, did you?" His body shuddered with a suppressed chuckle. "Of course you did."
"This time seems to come with a hefty price, for defiance of its desires. It rusts machines, tears buildings apart, yet leaves others untouched. I am fascinated by it, and I would like to share in the knowledge you have of the matter." His voice was calm now, he still looked away.
"I...I'm sorry sir, I really don't know anything." She replied, her voice fearfully timid. “I couldn’t possibly know more than you do.” She offered a coy compliment.
"No, no of course not." He quaked with derisive, angry laughter. "The crows want you, they seek to devour you. You've brought terror and bad luck to everyone and everything you've come into contact with." He paused, leaving her to her thoughts.
She saw something out of place there on the desk. It was a box, blue with singular white stripes along each of its two visible sides. Something felt familiar there, something like home.
He caught her eyes, tracing them quickly back to the box. "Oh. Yes, yes, of course." He hissed, fierce menace spitting from his face. He took the box in hand, and pulled the lid away, it sat there open on the desk, still invisible to Amelie's eyes.
"You are a pariah, girl." He concluded, softly. He reached into the box. "You've died no fewer than two times, that I know of. Want to tell me more?"
Amelie's teeth gritted, the words ripping open her veil of denial. The images flashed in front of her face, the feeling of being ripped apart. The darkness came in her memory, and the things within that darkness. “I…don’t know…” She begged, fighting the boiling nitrous dread, she just needed more time, needed another day.
"Of course not. You heal from it every time, return to life every time. Even my precious salve was nothing compared to your own strangeness. When you came here, we soaked you in a bath of the stuff, hoping that perhaps it would help you somehow. You weren't even a corpse, you see.”
He leaned in on the desk, locking into her eyes. “You were bones, bleached bones picked clean, devoured entirely by those...things."
He lifted the object from the box. It was red now entirely, tattered and ragged. The familiar triangle toothed pattern barely shone through the rips and stain.
“Down to the hair, gnawed on like spaghetti, and yet here you are. Preposterous.”
She could feel every cut of the beaks on her flesh, recall the tearing down to her bones.
"That's your blood on this." He chuckled, madly. "We found you, your bones, but I knew you by then, knew what you were. Lyssa thought me mad already, but I was nothing of the sort, no. How surprised she was, when she saw you regrow. I lied, said it was the salve, said it was more powerful than before." He grinned. "She doesn't believe me, and why should she?"
"I think that's traumatized her, seeing you grow from nothing into skin again. Poor poor Lyssa. Never been quite the same." He looked up, away from Amelie.
"Protected you, even then. Clothed you, fed you, gave you a home. You would have been fine, really, except for that outburst." He choked on the words he planned to speak. "It's one thing to have the sky blackened, taken away from us along with the trappings of our civilization, but to have it returned, returned to us like some silly fable." He let out another maddened chuckle. "Ridiculous. Absolutely mad."
"That outburst, ordering people to stop denying themselves. Brilliant really, helped them to see what needed to be seen," There was another of the shrieking, grinding sounds, it seemed to emanate from the tower itself. "Unfortunately it's lead to some problems, and they will have to be dealt with." His mind trailed off into silence, he let her dress fall into the box.
"Then...then that boy comes again. He told me things about you, things I KNOW you are aware of, girl." He snarled.
"But I don't know anything." Amelie insisted, her lip scowling in rage. It was half to answer him, half to bring words to what she had found within the memories. What was his right to know her mind? How could he make such demands.
"FINE!" The Professor screamed, his rage boiling over. "We will, of course, keep you in. We turn none away, even the pariahs." He hissed, his voice venomous with accusation. "Though unfortunately our residents seem to know what a harbinger of misfortune you are now, pieced together the little things, and I'm sure this demonstration by our winged friends has cemented it." He motioned to the wall of flapping figures behind, between them and the rounded glass.
“You see, they know you’re here now, and they can see the crows here now too. If there was any doubt in their minds, surely they will piece it together with one another’s help.” He said with a malevolent darkness.
"I suppose we'll keep you in that tower, the unhelpful girl with the unmoving machine.” He stood up, finally, turning his back on her. "Until you decide to share with me what you know, what you've learned, and your little silly powers, you will remain in that tower, and you will be disallowed from leaving. We will feed you two meals a day, since you won't be doing anything of value that seems fair. I will, of course, not hide the fact that you are no longer helping with what needs to be done." He clasped his hands impatiently behind his back, gazing at the wall of black across the room.
"Go. I trust you can find your way out." He ordered. He stood there, silent.
"Sir..." Amelie welled up her anger, her outrage, and used it as coal f
or her courage. "May I have my dress?" She said, the furnace of her courage quickly cooling.
"Why, of course." He sneered. He lifted the dress up, and tossed it at her. It landed smack into her face, the smell of earth and blood soaked it.
“Oh, and don’t forget this.” The small hair tie fell from the box as well, now utterly coated in red but still somehow completely whole. “That’s your hair tangled in it, and yet you are missing none now. How interesting, how mad.”
She stumbled up, and snatched the ornament in trembling hands. The ragged dress slipped through her arms, pieces falling onto the chair and floor, and she slipped gathering them, clinging to every precious fiber as she reached the top of the stairwell. The ice reached her feet when he spoke again, and her breath left her with his words.
"Oh. You wanted to know, what happened to that man, M'grevor. And his bunch of scavengers, didn't you?" He hissed, now beside her, speaking into her left ear.
She wanted to move, wanted to allow that one lingering denial to live on. No, no she didn’t but the ice crushed the breath from her lungs, and she merely squeaked.
"They guarded you, took you in. But you lied to them, you hid yourself from them, and they paid for your deception, for your selfishness."
"What...what happened to them?" Her mouth whispered beyond her volition.
"They protected you, they tried to save you. You ran out, and they tried to save you from the crows, and for their loyalty, they were torn apart, devoured. There was nothing left of them, nothing but blood soiling the sands, not even bones." The hissed whisper finished.
"No..." Amelie's head swum, her spirit shattered. M'grevor, Lilim, Timothy, all gone, dead, to defend her life, her stupid, foolish life.
"Donna doesn't even ask about you, those two who were cut still bear the scars from the attack that day. You are not welcome anywhere, not in any safe respite away from the wastes. THIS is your fortress, your safe house. We are all you have. When you choose to stop lying to us, to stop deceiving me, you will be set free."
He was away from her now, she didn't dare to look back. "Now take your filthy, ragged dress, take it back to your tower and wallow in your selfishness."
She ran down the small stairs, fumbling with the stupid doors. She could hear the whispering cacophony beyond, but tore through it. The whispers seemed to be taunting, laughing at her as she ran by. She stormed down the steps, lower and lower, down to the first floor.
If only she had taken the short and unfamiliar route, the one on the third floor, it might have gone without further incident. In her crazed state, her feet operating manually she had gone the only path she knew, the one of the closest stairwell.
The lower steps were covered with that silted grime once again, almost causing her to slip. She tore through the first floor doors, beyond the cafeteria. She choked down the tears, trying to stop them, trying to retain some dignified semblance of pride.
She ran past the commons room, and heard a familiar voice call out to her. "Wait, what happened!? What's wrong?" It was Wendy. She didn't dare to look back, pushing faster, running now. She wanted to hide from the person, yet another stranger in this place, wanted to hide her shame from the world.
A firm hand caught her, causing her to scream in fury, lashing out with one of her arms, causing a tattered section of the dress to fall to the floor. She furiously tried to pick it up, and was met on the floor by Craig, breath deep with worry.
He placed the scrap of cloth in the bundle she hugged tightly. "Look, whatever happened, whatever he said..." Craig began.
"Let me go!" She began to sob, unable to control herself with the added fury. "Leave me alone!" He held her shoulder, and she twisted madly to escape his grasp.
Collette and Wendy had joined behind him.
"We're here for you. No matter what's happened." He said, his face cold and sober.
Heads popped out of the fire room and games room, a spirited shout of "Get her Craig!" Erupted, to laughter.
"Shut up, you idiots!" He shouted, his voice booming with something she hadn't seen him demonstrate before. He made a threatening gesture at the heads, who erupted with dismissive laughter. They began to pour out of the rooms, to encircle the four of them.
"Craig, just back off, let’s-" Wendy was knocked down, drawn back by the forming crowd. The people rolled over her like a wave and she disappeared.
"Just let me go!" Amelie snarled, her breath coming in pulsing pants. She tried to skew her face into anger, tried to look as hateful as she could. His face didn't change, and her rage melted slightly. Perhaps he was more courageous than she had thought. "Please," she begged in an exhausted sigh. Enough people had been hurt, enough people had died. His grip didn't weaken, and a brief clarity scrambled up through the haze.
Her hand already balled into a fist, she wound up and punched him, across the face, enough to move him, enough to look real and leave a light mark. The crowd gave delighted hooting hollers as Craig fell to the ground. She slipped away, bursting through the encircling wall of bodies. The look of astonishment, of hurt on his face brought another barbed ring to orbit around her already dizzy mind. Shouted threats chased her, unsure insults nipped at her heels, but she arrived in the safety of the tower just as a roar banished the chastising taunts.
"ALL OF YOU, STOP THIS AT ONCE!" Lyssa snarled, rending the jeering chorus into dead stillness. Amelie hooked the door shut behind her with her still clenched fist and braced, prepared to attempt to hold it should they chase. The click of the latch banished that idea, and a chorus of sarcastic disappointment echoed in the hallway beyond.
She staggered upstairs, her mind a garbled mess of images and thoughts. Uncountable tendrils yanked against her brain, her skull aching and throbbing with delirium. All sense of priority, of order to her thoughts and the things prickling into her shoulders with icy teeth, disappeared. All of them needed to be addressed now, needed her attention now.
She slid against the curved walls of the stairs, barely aware of her feet clumsily climbing. Maybe it was enough. Maybe Craig, Wendy and Collette would be safe.
She stumbled on the top of the stairs, and she spilled out onto the floor, the cloth exploding from her braced arm. She hoped Craig would be angry enough at her.
She lay there a moment in the twinkling rainbow temple of stars, red slips of cloth spattered with shining sparkles.
Kokopelli came to her, silent and low to the ground. He peered over the stairs, then came to her side without a word.
“It’s…safe. I just…” She stammered, her heart trembling, her lungs now as bright and manic as The Professor’s had been.
“I just…I need…” She lay on her back and the pounding of her head spotted her vision. The blank spots mixed with the starlight, and she could almost reach into the dream world, feel its oncoming presence.
“No, I need to…I need to be ready.” She rolled onto her stomach, and raised up to a crawl. “I need to tell her, need to make her see, tonight.”
She rose with drunken water inflating her legs. The scraps collected with a wiping sweep.
She dropped the tatters of her dress onto the bed, and stared at her trembling hand, still balled in a fist. Dread rose and the drum inside her head pounded with clarity. It had been a fist because it carried her precious wooden tie, now shattered by her strike, either in anger or planning, it didn’t matter.
She closed her eyes, not wanting to see it, but saw its shattered remnants with the colourless vision that the wind provided. She couldn’t turn that sight off, couldn’t stop herself from seeing it as she deposited it in one of the tattered pieces of rags and shifted the whole hateful mess under the bed.
Splinters of cracked wood had made their way into her hand, and it bled with a throbbing pain. Good, she mused with lingering hate. Good.
She lay on the bed, over the covers and without bothering to change, and stared at the blood pooling on the wooden shards in her hand. The blood shone in the darkness, sparkled with the coloured star
light
The veil of flapping ascended up the tower, swallowing her in darkness.
“How can I make her see?”
The bed trembled and shifted, and the silhouette of the white creature sat at the edge as the last of the rainbow light winked out. He said nothing, and waited. She stared out into the blackness, feeling the flow of air in the cylindrical prison.
He began without asking, without notice. The words echoed in the silence of the place, in the cooling night air around them. As she desperately attempted to search for expression to move an inhuman heart, Kokopelli began his fourth tale.
"The Copper Egg and Oaken Coin had slept a great long while. The kingdom above had turned to dust, leaving only stone monuments and little record of its history. It was a single manuscript, a simple and ancient scroll which finally ended the sleep of the idealistic man and woman's tombs."
"Before they had chased after the thieving boy they had foreseen the possibility of their deaths, and in a somewhat vain attempt to be remembered, or perhaps to explain themselves to any who the scrolls would fall to, they had transcribed their stories within. One scroll recanted the history of the Copper Egg, down to the point where the great wolf had granted it to the man. The other recalled the story of the Oaken Coin, and the firebird's gift."
“Though its castle was since turned to rubble, buried by the dirt of ages, the graveyard still stood untouched. Perhaps out of reverence for the dead, or fear of disturbing them, the site had remained sacred beyond its time.”
“The scrolls had fallen to two who eked out an existence scavenging the ruins of the world, two who knew the value of such stories, and knew to follow them regardless of the sanctity of the resting place. The man and woman had a little experience with artifacts such as the ones described, though they had never been able to take title from any they had found. The relics seemed to be something prevalent in the ancient past of their continent, though every one seemed to have died from disbelief many millennia ago."
