Children of the Silent Season (Heartbeat of the World Book 1)

by T. Wyse

“You. Crow.” Amelie stood behind her, or at least spoke from above. The words shot out in white ribbons, wrapping around the golden halo of the misshapen girl.

  The figure bobbed forward, but she did not respond.

  “I want to show you something.” Amelie shifted, down and in front of the intruder. The ribbons extended, tightened around the halo, and then dissolved into nothing.

  “I need you to see this, please. I think I know how to make you see.”

  The figure rocked back and forth, arms still clasped within the folded cloak.

  “No. No more of this. This place is mine, is me.” The words radiated out, tearing a globe of white around her. She raised a hand, trembling but somehow firm, and she punched through Crow’s bubble, and grasped the creature by the shoulder. The unsure cold oil of the cloak gnawed at her hand, but the form within was firm, defined, solid enough that she dragged the still silent creature towards the wall. “You will see this,” Amelie growled, and she shifted her hand onto Crow’s neck, and began to shape the clay of the wall for her audience.

  Discovery. Her hands shaped the earliest memories of the wind, weaving that emotional colour and meaning into the shapes as they were animated. She showed the sequence of flash cards, of them trying to get her to use her eyes. She wove the song of growth and learning.

  Crow watched, not struggling, her black eyes unblinking but making no squirming effort to turn away.

  Joy. Amelie etched the day she first flew using a kite her father had made, of taking off of her own volition and to her father’s fear and frustration. She wove her humbled form in their old house, listening to the terrified words of her parents arguing through the wall.

  Triumph. She shaped the blackened tornado, of flying upon it with her woven and treasured dress, of rescuing a single boy swallowed up into the storm, and bringing him back to the awestruck parents.

  Still Crow watched, shifting slightly, relaxing ever so little. The time passed with the memories observed in full, from second to second, yet strained through the shifted hours of the dream world’s logic.

  Fear. The girl sat alone, an endless march of doctors poured by her contained cell in the facility that became her prison. A smear of pale green traced an ever flowing path through her room, all of them coming with insight and leaving with frustration and a taste of her blood in a vial. She shared the moment when her ego shattered forth, screaming at the shape of the earliest doctor to observe her, and then her path out of the angry clutches of the facility.

  Confusion. With the traces of her newfound will remaining she told her parents of wanting to study with normal children, to leave the isolation they found themselves in. To seek becoming whole, to fill a void she couldn’t even express.

  That at least caught Crow’s attention, her head cocked in understanding, but Amelie continued, the play not quite observed in full.

  Her figure sat in the darkness, back to the biting concrete wall in her tiny, out of the way nook. Shapes came to her like the scientists, a brilliant streak of green now smeared on the pale blue canvas of brick. They left as frustrated and angry as the scientists, their toll in blood still taken.

  She then formed the coming of the season, to their first meeting, and let the story flow from her perspective. She painted the confusion and fear of her death, of being trapped in the houses. She wove her desire to be part of the communities, her empathy for those living there. Finally she painted the school, the restlessness here, the strangeness.

  And with that she released Crow, almost an entire lifetime shaped into the wall, and she slumped to the ground in whatever could qualify as a state of being spent within her own little world.

  “There.” The white ribbons trembled and limped out. “There. Do you see now?”

  “I see more. I understand…more.” Crow shifted again into the centre of the pen, her skin bearing more colour, her voice almost gaining a tone of humanity.

  “Yes, then…then we can figure this out. We can stop this.”

  “No.” Crow hunched over, arms ever clasped.

  “But you saw. You knew pain and now you know I know pain too. You said you thought but somehow you weren’t. Doesn’t this answer that, complete it?”

  “No, not complete. Not ever complete.”

  “This is my offering. You have taken from me, and bit and gnawed, and now I stand here willing to talk, willing to be the one to come in peace. You have seen that I am real, you have felt that I am real. I have enough of the sight to sustain me, and you are formed and thinking. I want to stop this. I need you to accept this and cease.”

  “All or none when the stillness ends. That is the rule, that is the game. You come now in your peace because the form of your loss is clear to you.”

  “That’s not true.” Amelie’s snarl shot out with jagged white.

  “Surrender to me, or play the game. I have already won, and you cannot fight. If you wait I have won, if you fight I can taste and chew and gnaw. I hunger for your sweetness, I wait for your blood. There is nothing more.”

  The exhaustion dragged Amelie to her knees, and she felt a further murky dark tugging at her spirit. “I need to know, and you owe me this if nothing else.” The white ribbon trembled into unsure and grasping green. “Did you kill? Did you devour the people at the second house after the season began?”

  “I hunger for you and you alone. I see you and you alone, unless nibbled, unless forced.” The words coughed out with a red sigh, and yet it rang of truth.

  “Come, play our game. I need you.” Crow shuddered, her form shifting in an oblong cancerous growth as Amelie fell into the dreamless void.

  The morning sun lapped against Amelie’s face, unwelcome light forcing through her tightly closed lenses.

  She tossed and turned, fighting wakefulness. It was simply too hot under the covers, even in the relatively cooler skirted clothing, the jacket removed sometime in the night. She finally tossed the blankets aside, emitting a frustrated grunt and rising to a seated position legs dangling off of the side of the bed.

  She held her head, it still pounded from the previous night’s tears. Her eyes itched and burned, her throat clenched with dryness. The room baked her even outside of the covers, the sun close to its apex in the sky.

  “So, did the story serve to give you the strength to follow through your project?” Kokopelli’s voice surprised her, but his knowledge of her dreams strikingly did not.

  “I couldn’t convince her.”

  “A foregone conclusion, but a delightful little try, and one entirely of your own choosing and design, even better.”

  “I was so sure.” She shook her aching head. “Now that’s it I guess. It’s done, and I lose. It was so clear, I understood it all. I could see all of it at once. Now all I can remember is that I can’t ask you.”

  “Hmm,” he purred, and let the silence fall a moment.

  "I can only assume something happened yesterday." Kokopelli declared, his location not interesting to Amelie. She rubbed her temples, hoping to ease some of the ache away.

  "It all went bad, pretty fast." She said, her voice a hoarse whisper. "I don't know what's going to happen now. He gave me an ultimatum, The Professor. He said that I'll be a prisoner here until I share the knowledge I have about the season." She kept her fingers, rubbing her eyes, the stars in front of them served only to increase the ache, yet they were something other than the room. "Do you know who The Professor is?" She said, finally.

  "I do. I know most of what there is to know in this place." The purring response came. "I also know that he is bluffing, he cannot be aware that you have some further knowledge..."

  "But he does. He does." She repeated, assured in the fact. "He knows about me, has clippings of those stupid newspaper stories, the magazines and all of that stuff." She tried opening her eyes, the glare of the room was bright, too bright. "He knows I've been dying, and somehow surviving, he saw me as bones, nothing more than bones..." She repeated, disbelieving what she was saying, the fog an
d ringing apparently uncaring of these declarations now. Perhaps it too had given up.

  "Still, he cannot possibly know..."

  "They say my body reassembled itself, what else is there to know?" She said, irritated with the little guardian. "Why can't we just give him what he wants, just explain it to him?"

  "Because he will want more. He will want answers that I cannot give, and then will want answers to the questions that even those answers will spawn." He sighed. "Even if he were open minded enough, intelligent enough to accept me and my reality, people like him are never satisfied."

  "I don't understand, why are you so afraid? You can't die, you can't die any more than I can!" Amelie shouted at the unseen creature. "Why do you care? I don't think anyone we've met would care. What's one more demon in a wasteland of oddities, what's one more idol when the terror of night walks the earth?"

  "I am weak now. Very few know me, even fewer remember the truths in my being." His voice was irate, but reminiscent. "If I were to be known, if I were to show myself as a god, as a trickster, as a man, then it's likely that my nature could change. It would take very few people, all they would have to do would be misinterpret my actions, brand me a cruel demon, and I would become one. As a ‘cat’ I am unworthy of worship, not idolized and as such free to move upon my own paths."

  "But...they know you, they know Kokopelli here..."

  "They know nothing. They know faded memories, scrawled upon stone monuments. They can't even decide on my form, and that is why I must walk obfuscated, a shadow of truth. Would that the only ones who knew me were your parents, at least then I could walk as I chose, rather than..." The voice faded, his anger echoing in her mind.

  "I'm sorry. I didn't know," But she did know, he had told her. Not directly, not before, but the truth was there in his words. Ushers were malleable, changing with belief. Perhaps when the world was like this, the force of belief was concentrated, each person becoming more an influence unto the hidden world.

  "Quite alright dear." Lyssa had arrived at the top of the stair. "I have your brunch, and a guest who will be sharing your accommodations."

  It was Collette. She had a bruise over her eye and was dressed in a school uniform that was several sizes too large.

  Lyssa had left quickly, giving no explanations as to why Collette was staying with Amelie. She did her best to feign frustration, knowing inside that her answers would be forthcoming. If Collette wouldn't speak, she would make her speak.

  "She's gone." Amelie announced, hearing the confirming lock of the door echoing through the stairwell. She returned to the bedside, sitting down on the mat, her bowl in her lap.

  Collette sat there, staring at her strangely. She too held a bowl, mirroring Amelie. "Things have all gone bad, it seems." Collette said, finally. Her eyes filtered away from Amelie. Amelie was relieved of the stress building in anticipation of having to force the words from the girl.

  "What happened, last night? What's going on down there?" Amelie asked, glad that the silence was broken.

  "The lights are dimming now, The Professor made an announcement at breakfast that we would need to start rationing power, that it was a staggering point and a sacrifice that needed to be made for the whole. The water too. Everyone's on rations, and they're none too happy about it." Collette said, her voice seemed more practiced now, the hoarseness gone. She ate some of her stew.

  "Are Craig and Wendy alright? The two who sat with us at the table."

  "The boy you punched." There was a vicious half smile on Collette's face. "They're fine. He's sporting a bruise, but he'll heal."

  Amelie turned to her stew, quickly disappearing.

  "I think what you wanted to happen, happened. They're both a little angry at you now, and will be less distracted by you." She smiled. "Though of course they were angry at me, in your place. Seems like that’s how everyone was." The little girl chuckled darkly.

  "It wasn’t either of them, that gave you that?" Amelie looked at the strange little girl, concerned.

  "No, no. I went to the bed, well, Melissan's bed, and was hoping to just sleep as usual. But...without her around, or anyone else, I guess they thought I was a good target, someone to take their frustrations out on." She grinned knowingly. “Didn’t even see them, but they got stopped anyways.

  "Were you hurt?" Amelie asked, horrified.

  "Not at all." Her hand touched her eye reluctantly. “Well maybe a little.” Collette's smile persevered in memory. "I could’ve fought back or at least ran, but I suppose I saw some value in your plan.” She trailed off, that sad vacancy reemerging in her eyes.

  “You aren’t like the others. I can see it in you, the way you walk, the way you talk, the way your eyes move. You’ve seen odd things. Odder than warped crows, odder than glowing artifacts.” Collette’s eyes scanned Amelie up and down.

  "I suppose so." Amelie replied. There was something odd about the line of logic she was pursuing.

  "Stranger than oddly articulate ten year olds, then?"

  "You're ten?" Amelie almost spilled her soup. She was small, certainly, but the moment Amelie had heard her speak she had taken her for older.

  "Afraid so. But that's the story of my rather short life it seems." Collette pointed over Amelie's shoulder. "I see you there."

  Amelie looked, and saw Kokopelli, he was hunched over, broodingly regarding the little girl.

  "That's just my cat." Amelie smiled. "He's a funny looking fellow, but..."

  "Not a cat." Collette interrupted. "Not with that jaw, not with those ears, or that spine, no. Not even an animal. Those eyes give you away." She turned back to her stew.

  "I told you, I don't trust her." Kokopelli whispered in Amelie's ear.

  "I heard that." Collette smiled, her eyes narrowing at the cat-creature. “I feel your name, the term for you, rolling somewhere in the back of my throat. Hmm.”

  "What happened to Melissan, did you see what happened to them?" Amelie asked, changing the subject.

  Collette allowed this reformation of dialogue, at least for the moment. "Melissan didn't return to the room in the night. I don't know what happened to her. I do, however, know a little more than you, I think. She used to talk to me, confide in me, especially when she was sure I couldn't talk. She probably felt it was something like talking to herself, something harmless, something to keep herself sane. There used to be more to clean, two others when I first came here. As they stopped coming, she became less talkative. When the second left, we worked for an entire day in silence. The second day she began talking to me, telling of her troubles, her frustrations."

  Amelie set her bowl aside, finished.

  "Some of it isn't fit to repeat, some of it's rather personal, some of it is inconsequential." The little girl shrugged. "What's relevant to now, is that she spoke of the great machine, underneath the tower Professor Barret resides in. It is a monstrous, screaming thing. It used to be silent, much like the one in this tower, but when the change happened, it came to life." Collette took a few more bites of her stew, eating with an elegant proficiency that she hadn't demonstrated before.

  "At first it was normal, relatively still. Melissan feared it though, and sought to escape from dealing with it, especially with their plans for it. It's not meant to produce electricity, at least not in the way it is now. It's not meant to be used to pump water either, again as far as they know, but that’s what it’s doing now.”

  “I’ve been here long enough to know when it was calmer. In the earlier days, she and Eilis would talk, she would visit the library in the evenings. Something happened, though. Eilis had her accident, and then the sickness started to creep in. They started becoming quick to anger, and weak, their eyes began to glow green, among other things." Collette trailed off.

  "Melissan was forced to work on the machine, then?" Amelie asked, horrified.

  "Yes, and I'm not sure if it's affecting her or not. Maybe the power rationing will help, maybe not." Collette sighed.

  "You're worried about
her." Amelie stated, looking at the slumped little girl.

  "I am. She has a kind soul, a glowing warmth, though she can be slightly conceited, somewhat self-serving." Collette remembered.

  "But you wouldn't talk to her, wouldn't be a friend to her when she was so lonely!" Amelie accused, angrily.

  "I thought...I thought I was protecting her. I thought that by remaining quiet, she would have an excuse to stay with me for as long as she needed to. I thought that she realized it. I'm not so sure now." Collette sighed, putting her bowl aside.

  "That doesn't make sense." Amelie glowered. "You would have had to play mute, from the beginning!"

  "True." Collette looked at Amelie, piercing into her. "For that I'd have to explain a few things to you, things perhaps he wouldn't understand."

  "But first," Collette had stood up, and moved over to the bed. "Speak to me, strange thing." She commanded. "I see your eyes of flame trying to pierce my soul, trying to dissect me. I want your honesty."

  "She did see the wolf, and the crows, and how they bled." Amelie said, to the air itself.

  "Not crows, pieces of Crow. They are of one being, like a rock rent into sand, but still whole." Collette corrected, still having a staring match with the little guardian.

  "I told you, I told you this one was strange, vile, out of place." He hissed finally.

  Amelie chuckled, happy that the confrontation had ended. "Collette, this is Kokopelli." She introduced him. "He is a most benevolent and kind creature, noble and wise. He is helpful and forthcoming, and he is certainly happy to meet you."

  "Watch your words, your introductions. You play with me girl, knowing what such speech might bring." He hissed.

  "I think the strange, mute little girl can keep a secret, can't you Collette?" Still sitting, she pivoted her head, to meet Collette's gaze.

  "Oh, keeping secrets is what I'm all about." Collette replied, returning to her spot across from Amelie. "I'll trust you with some of mine, hoping you'll share with me some of yours." She smiled.

  "It'll be nice to be honest for once." Amelie smiled.