Emma and the Banderwigh

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Hurry up,” she whispered.

  “It’s cold. Can’t start.”

  “I know it’s cold. That’s why I’m telling you to hurry up. I thought you had to go bad.”

  “I does.”

  “The wind is blowing right through my dress. Let me in.”

  “No. Pi-vate.” The privy shifted as he moved inside. “You scared of a Bandy-wee?”

  “Am not.” She scrunched her toes in the grass. It had gotten quiet. “Okay, maybe a little.”

  He giggled.

  A twig snapped.

  Emma gasped, raising the lantern. She peered around the side of the little shed, finding nothing.

  “Please, I won’t watch. I’ll keep my eyes closed.”

  Silence. She imagined him blushing.

  She realized the night sounds had ceased. No crickets chirped, no birds tweeted, and no distant animals moved about―not even the low moan of the wind.

  Snap.

  She whirled to her left, light held high. A shadow slid over the ground as though someone crept behind the privy. Emma slapped her free hand on the door. “Tam, I’m not joking. Open the door, now.”

  “Peeing.”

  Emma cringed. Okay, maybe that was a cloud drifting by the moon. She stared at the patch of grass, finding no sign of anything moving.

  Crunch.

  Her breaths came in short rasps as she flattened herself against the door. Too terrified to risk a peek around the side again, she shivered. She wanted to scream for her parents, but all that came out of her was a soft whimper. Her left hand found its way to the handle, rattling the locked knob. She looked down past the glowing lantern in her other hand, over pale moonlit legs. The grass wavered in the breeze; the stone footpath waited three paces away. She considered running for Father, but she couldn’t leave Tam out here alone. Distant wind surged to life, hissing among the trees and chilling her through the thin garment.

  Snap. Closer that time.

  She didn’t look. Just a chicken, maybe Hadrath’s pig got loose again. She turned to face the outhouse, straining up to speak through the crescent moon hole.

  Her voice wavered, close to tears. “Please, Tam, let me in. I’m really scared.”

  The shadow of an enormous blade stretched over the glinting wood. The icy hand of fear gripped the back of her neck. Darkness fell upon her, as something muted the light of the moon. Emma jumped, staring up into pale, glowing yellow eyes. A man-shaped shadow loomed past the corner of the privy, a long-handled axe balanced over one shoulder.

  The lantern flew.

  She screamed.

  izziness swam through Emma’s mind. An overwhelming sense of vertigo mixed with the fragrance of pine and a hint of floating. Her right foot dangled in the path of a gentle breeze. The surface beneath her was hard and cold. She pulled her right arm up, bracing her palm against smooth metal and propping herself seated. Squinting revealed a dim space split into slivers by bands of black. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, the bands sharpened from blur to bars. Emma spun in a panicked flurry.

  She was in a hanging cage.

  Her first attempt to stand sent her falling on her backside as her little prison moved. She went still, staring past her knees at the mortared stone walls of a cottage as they swayed back and forth. The bars were irregular metal shards; nothing any man crafted with forge and hammer. Here and there, ‘thorns’ protruded, as though some demonic sculptor had attempted to make roses out of black iron. Above her, the bars bent together in a dome shape, passed through a ring, and flared out to angry points. Thick chains covered in rust and dirt connected the ring to the ceiling. The angular bars were too thick to get her hands around, but she got enough of a grip to pull herself upright. She could stand in the cage, though her head touched the top.

  In time, the sway came to a halt. Her hands migrated from bar to bar as she spun to look around the room. The space appeared to be a small one-room cabin, with walls of mortared, stacked stones. The only window sat high on the wall, within an inch of the roof. It was too small for even a child to squeeze through. Overgrown with shrubbery, it offered a narrow view of trees and blue sky, and gave her the impression the room was more underground than not. Roots poked through the mortar in places, some with tiny black insects crawling over them. The space had no doors, and the only furnishings were a single chair fifteen feet away against the opposite wall, and a plain wooden table with a small, grey brick at the center. Emma gasped at the sight; her father had used a similar thing to sharpen his axe. Something soft came between her foot and the cage floor. Emma raised her foot, glancing down at a crude burlap doll missing one of its button eyes. She brushed it to the side and continued looking around.

  Seven similar cages of varying sizes lined one wall, three to her left and four to her right. All but two were empty. The one next to her on the left held a girl a year or so older than Emma. She was grimy as a beggar and probably blonde. Silent until the moment Emma looked at her, she began muttering what sounded like an old nursery rhyme in a whispery rasp while clutching a petrified, half-eaten muffin she picked at and spun in her hands. Her primitive burlap dress had burn holes in places where patches of red and blistered skin peeked through. Smudges of char marked her cheek, arms, and legs.

  Emma’s heart thudded in her chest as she watched blood trickling down a dangling leg with cracked, red skin. Droplets gathered on the older girl’s big toe, falling to the floor with a sound as loud as blocks of wood striking stone. She shied away from the sight, whispering to herself.

  “I’m having a nightmare.”

  The sing-song chant got louder; Emma raised her head, staring through her disheveled hair at the strange figure. Her voice flowed upon the melody of an old rhyme Mother had used to lull her to sleep years ago, but the words were quite different.

  “Wrinkle, crinkle, burning bright.

  Flame disport, a dancing light.”

  The girl’s eyes widened as if gazing at something far away; she twitched and cracked an innocent smile. Smoke seeped from her lips as she spoke, filling the air with the scent of burned wood.

  “Hither, thither, rush and churn.

  around them all, reave and burn.”

  Emma held on to the bars, afraid to breathe for the sound it might make. The other girl rocked, cradling her pitiful morsel of bread as if it were a doll.

  “Ashes, ashes, o’er my bed

  Ashes, ashes, many dead”

  Her voice fell to a whisper. Emma covered her mouth to hold in a gasp.

  “Broken lantern, fallow dry

  No one wakes, no warning cry”

  Her somber rhyme became a fevered shout.

  “Runs and hides, the girl her shame.

  For now I know who to blame!”

  The unexpected yelling startled Emma away from the bars. She fell against the opposite side, sending the cage swaying back and forth. The other girl got quiet again, rocking and mumbling the same melody into the pittance of food she held close to her lips. Emma curled against the frigid metal, knees to her chin, trembling at the sight of the girl who’d gone nutters.

  Her brother whined in his sleep. Tam lay curled up two cages right, leaving one empty between them. He had not yet awakened. Emma cried at the sight of him, and knelt to reach down through the bars toward him. She could barely get her fingertips to the next cage over, falling far short of his. She shifted, searching around the bottom of her cage for any sort of latch or keyhole, but found nothing. The plate she knelt on was a simple, blackened metal disc, wedged in the curve of jagged bars that had no seams, no hinges, and no way to open.

  She sat, knees tight to her chest, trembling. This cage was impossible. She could not fit between the bars, and it had no door. Emma felt like a ship in a bottle. Ralf, the innkeeper, had one of them on the bar. That had mystified her with its impossibility at first, until Father explained how they build them inside, piece by piece through the neck. The cage had to be similar, a trick. Fingers traced one of the flange
s as high as she could reach without standing. This is a dream. Monsters aren’t real. Emma chanted wake up… wake up… in her mind for a few seconds. She pinched herself, and opened her eyes.

  Still in the cage.

  The older girl broke into fits of giggling, spraying crumbs out of her teeth.

  Overcome, Emma pitched her head forward and sobbed on her knees. Tears ran down her legs as she called out for Father, Mother, and Nan. Her pleas echoed in the underground room, answered only by the wheezing snickers of the girl to her left. When she had cried herself out of tears, she lifted her head, sniffling and wiping her face. The older girl stared at her, anger glinting in hazel eyes. She twisted about in a rapid lunge against the bars, startling a yelp out of Emma. The left half of the other girl’s face was blistered and oozing, with much of her hair on that side missing.

  Emma swallowed. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  The blonde girl’s lips quivered with an inaudible growl. Emma pressed herself into the cage wall, as far away from the malice radiating from her neighbor as she could get. The hateful stare remained unblinking―if cages did not separate them, she believed the girl would hurt her. A scalded left arm slid through the bars, reaching into Emma’s cage. She stared, paralyzed, until warm, slimy fingers groped at the top of her foot, leaving smears of bloody slime. Emma squealed and yanked her leg away, huddling in a ball.

  A red hand thrust forward, pointing at Emma’s face.

  “Runs and hides, the girl her shame. For now I know who to blame! You killed them! You killed everyone!”

  Emma whimpered.

  “You killed them,” the girl hissed.

  Fear turned to confusion. “Killed who?” Confusion became anger. “I haven’t hurt anyone. We’ve been kidnapped! My Da is the Captain of the watch. He’ll find us.”

  The blonde grinned, pressing her head to the bars. “Your father’s dead.”

  “No!” wailed Emma.

  “Your mother’s dead.”

  “No!” shouted Emma.

  “You been sleepin’ for days.” The older girl grunted, and snarled, trying to reach farther into Emma’s cage, slapping bloody handprints on the bottom. Clear liquid oozed from blisters on her skin as it scraped over metal. “You threw the lantern. The village burned. Everyone died.” Her eyes lost focus. “Ashes, ashes, o’er my bed.”

  “That’s not true!” screamed Emma, cowering away.

  “Your Nan, your Father, your sad little friend with the red hair too. Dead.” A croaking giggle hissed through grimy hands. “No one wakes, no warning cry.”

  “No, no, no!” Emma sniveled.

  “Your parents didn’t know you were outside. They went back into your house looking for you while it burned. They died because of you. Your Nan too. She was too old to get out of bed before the fire took her!”

  The older girl ceased her attempts to grab Emma, pulling her arm back and clinging to the bars with an unsettling, emotionless expression. She shifted, revealing more of the burned-bald side of her head.

  “I watched my Mum and Pa die. Pa pushed me out the window, but the roof fell on him before he could get out, and covered me with fire.” The girl gripped the bars as though she wanted to tear through them. “Look at what you did to me! I used to be pretty!”

  “No! I don’t believe you,” screamed Emma, covering her eyes.

  She shivered in silence for a moment before the memory came back. A dark figure loomed around the outhouse, she shrieked, and threw the lantern into the air. Emma couldn’t remember anything after that. Still cringing against the unforgiving metal, she curled up and bawled. Sorrow rippled through her body with each breath as her mind tormented her with images and sounds of what must have happened. She knew Nan’s time was short, but the actual moment of loss was still more than she could bear. On top of that, Mother and Father too?

  “It’s gonna keep us like that other girl. She’s dead inside.” The blonde hissed, trying once more to reach through to grab Emma. “I’m gonna remember. When he lets us out of our cages, I’m going to kill you.”

  Emma slumped down, curled sideways on the bottom, trying to stay as far away from the sinister girl as she could. Breaths stole in through gaps in great sobs; her cheek rested in a puddle of tears. The eerie melody of the bad rhyme echoed off the walls, too faint to make out words, but enough to mock the memory of her mother singing it. After some minutes, she caught sight of the older girl through blurry eyes. The burned waif had shifted to her knees close against the bars, staring wide-eyed with a diabolical grin, adoring Emma’s agony.

  Tiredness gripped Emma as her crying waned. Energy seemed to leech out of her like a physical presence, drawn towards the bloody figure in the other cage. She considered Nan’s story again. She couldn’t believe it might be true. She closed her eyes, trying to picture the silhouette of the shaggy man at the edge of the privy. Hand against the metal plate, she pushed herself upright, sitting and sniffling. The other girl twitched, white flakes peeling from her blistered cheek. She pointed, shaking an accusing finger.

  “Gonna kill you, someday.”

  Emma grabbed at the thorny bars, pulling herself upright. Warm tears splattered between her toes as she forced herself to look at the awful girl and stop thinking about her family being dead.

  “He doesn’t feed us much, but you can sometimes grab a bug on the wall and eat that.”

  Emma shied away from a demonstration. She looked back too fast, catching sight of a small black leg sliding into the girl’s mouth. Emma gagged, covering her mouth to keep from throwing up.

  “You’ll be hungry enough to eat them soon.” The girl giggled for a few seconds, falling cold and serious in an instant. “Not so nasty when it’s do it or die.”

  Scratching behind her drew Emma’s attention to dozens of roaches, beetles, and centipedes on the wall behind her cage that had, seconds ago, been clear. Their sudden appearance made her jump, but she did not scream.

  The older girl snarled.

  “Did you expect me to be frightened?” Emma scrunched up her nose. “They’re just bugs.”

  “They’re the only food you’ll have sometimes.” The older girl ran a finger through what remained of pretty, blonde locks, pulling a clump loose. She held her arm out to the side, fluttering her fingers until the hair fell.

  “It won’t kill us,” said Emma in a calm whisper, ignoring the discarded piece of skin. “It wants us sad, not dead.”

  The girl stuck out her tongue with a petulant noise. “I want you dead.”

  Emma could not recall ever having seen her before. She studied the other child’s face, trying to imagine her without the burns. As best she could remember, there were eight or nine girls around that age in town. Only two were blonde, one of whom was chubby. The wretched person in the next cage couldn’t be Julianna, the blacksmith’s daughter―she was far too sweet to ever say such nasty things.

  Emma thought and thought, staring at the bloody finger marks on the bottom of her cage. She huddled against the sharp metal, careful not to let even one toe get close enough to where the other girl could reach her. The burned girl went back to her bread, licking and turning it like a squirrel with a prized acorn, while humming her rhyme.

  Minutes passed until an idea formed. Emma squinted; her legs went still.

  “I’m sorry I killed your parents, Mary.”

  “Hah!” shouted the blonde. “Saying sorry won’t bring them back!”

  As sad as she had been, she became furious.

  “You’re lying!” Emma leapt to her feet, flinging herself into the bars with enough force to send her cage swaying. “My family isn’t dead! There’s no one named Mary in town. You’re not Julianna! You just wanna make me cry.”

  “Dead, dead, dead like rats. Dead like rats in the river,” sang not-Julianna, switching to an unmelodic screech that forced smoke out of her mouth. “Burned to a crisp!”

  Emma lunged at the older girl, pointing. Her body hit the bars hard enough to
send her cage swinging back and forth, spinning. Each time she spun past, Emma raked in an effort to scratch her tormentor. When the swinging slowed, she pointed at the burned child’s face. “I don’t believe you!”

  “Dead like rats!” Cackling, the older girl clapped and rocked, but made no effort to touch her. “They all died screaming, crying out for you. ‘Oh, dear little Emma! Where are you?’”

  A tug of sadness gnawed at her heart, but watching this awful girl so happy about her misfortune enraged her. “Liar! Liar! Y-you’re trying to make me sad so it eats my tears instead of yours!”

  Emma stood, pointing, breathing hard. Eventually, the wretched sight of the scorched girl made her feel pity. She lowered her arm to her side and gazed downcast.

  “I dunno what village you’re from, but I’m sorry you got hurt.”

  Not-Julianna’s expression of dire mirth fell to a flat line, followed by a sneer. The burned girl leaned back and closed her eyes. With a rattling hiss, her skin dried like paper before she burst into a waterfall of maggots. Emma screamed. A swarm of tiny, white worms writhed in a collapsing mass that melted away to a vaporous fog. Thick and clinging, the smoke pooled at the bottom of the cage, slipping through the bars in a gradual pour. Emma fell seated, heels sliding on the bare metal as she scrambled to back away as far as she could. She covered her nose and mouth with her elbow, trying to block the overpowering stink of burning meat. The vile fog cascaded to the floor, billowing out into a cloud that blanketed the hay scattered about the dirt. For a few seconds, she felt grateful the cage hung off the ground.

  Lies, all lies. They’re not dead. It just wants me to be sad.

  Heavy chain links overhead squeaked as her prison shifted back and forth. Emma glanced at where the burned girl had been; not even a single maggot remained. She got up, grabbed the bars, and shook her cage, bouncing and twisting in an effort to break it. When that failed, she climbed to the top again in search of anything she could move or that seemed loose enough to wiggle. One of the metal thorns bit her, and she cried out. She stuck her cut finger in her mouth and glared. Never had she felt so trapped.