Sil in a Dark World: A Paranormal Love-Hate Story

by Brindi Quinn

  I grip the side of the grave and lean forward. “You think it was a language of Dhiant!?”

  “How should I know?”

  Ugh. Something else then. “Did she and her minion pass through here just before I did?” I ask.

  “I was sleeping. If people behave as they should – with consideration – I will not waken. As of late, your aura alone is grating enough to stir me.” A chilled bout of air rushes past. “Brrr. To sleep again for me. Keep shut your gape, and let me rest.”

  Sigh. “Fine by me. You are worthless if you have nothing more to divulge. Be gone with you!”

  The sound of a yawn invades my thoughts. An urnk’s yawn. “Worthless? Rude to the core you are, foolish prince.” And just to prove me wrong – “How’s this for worthless? Be careful, lest you fail. That boy’s words are his clout.”

  Keek’s words? You mean his ‘thoughts’, dear Urnk. I stand from the grave and leave the mistaken creature to rest. It is another cool day of lacking light. A week’s time remains before I’ll be returned to the all-encompassing under-light of Dhiant. A week’s time . . . or my fate shall be sealed; I’ll be doomed to tread the dark earth forever.

  No. I will find out what Keek knows. And then I’ll destroy him and take Sil for myself. If she sees how serious I am, she’ll have no choice but to give in. She’ll have no choice but to love me.

  But when I think deeper on it, I realize it’s easier said than done. If Keek’s thoughts are his power . . . How am I to combat something neither seen nor heard? How am I to combat thought?

  Cutting off his head seems about right.

  But is it worth it? Sil would be sad to see the head of her beloved minion fall. I know she would. Then again, I’ve heard Sil’s sobs in the night. She is already sad. What’s a little more despair to a despairing girl?

  Either way, one thing good will come of it. If I kill treacherous Keek, Sil will have no choice but to pay me mind.

  The next thing on my agenda? To find an ax.

  ><

  Axes, as it would turn out, are extremely hard to come by. In Sil’s abode, at least. I search the yard, garage, and shed, but remain empty-handed. Sil’s owns not an ax or scythe or tomahawk. She does, however, own plenty of yard art. I rarely pay attention to specific pieces within Sil’s clutter, but after an hour of avidly searching for a suitable weapon and coming up dry, I begin to study the statues and cutouts tossed aside during my search, the things kept so systematically within her shed and garage.

  Many are made with recycled garbage. Fitting, when you think about Sil’s lifestyle. Painted bottles and shaped metal strips all in all make for tawdry décor. Regardless, I can’t help but wonder why they don’t keep them out – visible to the rest of Count’s Fieldbo. Within their messy life, the pieces stored in the garage seem to be the only things Sil and her mum keep orderly.

  Hm. Even slobs are meticulous about certain things, it would appear.

  No ax hides behind any of them. It’s fine, though. At the end of the hour, I am no longer in a murderous mood. What sort of mood am I in? It’s hard to say. I want to speak to Sil. Does that mean I wish to . . . reconcile?

  Entering the house itself by way of bobbin knob, immediately poses a problem. Young Tally sits in the kitchen grooming her fingernails. Her skirt is ironed; her blouse is tucked; her hair is smooth. It is a wide contrast to Lady Libido’s pheromoneous table pampering.

  When I enter, Tally does not hesitate to eye me up and down in her way. “The elusive Wayst makes an appearance,” she says.

  It’s a tragedy. A fine creature like her lingering around, yet all I can think of is – “Sil. Have you seen her?”

  Tally purses her glossed lips. “Upstairs.”

  Such terseness from the proper lady. Or maybe tempestuous brevity would be more accurate. I can speak to whether or not I deserve it – frankly, I don’t care enough about her to waste time contemplating it.

  I send a nod her way, and in return, Young Tally locks my gaze and bows her head. “If you get bored,” she says suggestively.

  I am to her what she is to me. A cure for boredom. I feel no guilt in abandoning her to seek out Sil.

  At the top of the stairs, I groan. The door to Sil’s chamber is shut. A dastardly indication that tonight will be as unrewarding as the past several. Lately, I’ve had to use the first floor bathroom for any and all needs, for Sil refuses to comment or budge though I jiggle the knob and knock the wood and call her name.

  Keeping to routine, I call to her: “Sil?”

  No answer.

  Next, I try knocking.

  Even after allowing time for her to consider, I hear nothing.

  Lastly, I attempt the knob. Not that I expect it to work. Sil’s been disconcertingly adamant about keeping the lock hitched.

  But, as luck would have it, the lock is undone. I hardly believe it when Sil’s door pushes open with nothing more than a small prod. A trap? A trick? Something is not right. It shouldn’t be so easy to enter the twit’s forbidden dwelling.

  I enter with caution, half-expecting the floor to give way so that I should go crashing down atop of Tally. I check for signs of misconduct, but it doesn’t take long for me to conclude that Sil isn’t in her room. I check her nest and her desk and even her closet. She is in none of these places, but her mint loiters fresh, as though she were recently here.

  And then I notice that the bathroom door is also shut. My routine begins anew.

  “Sil? I must speak with you.”

  Nothing.

  I knock.

  Still nothing.

  And now, for a jiggle of the handle and then to retire to my room with nothing more than disappointment and frustration. I give the handle a turn. Locked. Tremendous.

  But before I can withdraw, something happens. Routine breaks again. After attempting the knob, I am rewarded with a,

  “Just a sec!” It’s Sil’s voice. Her words and her scent reach me through the squalid door.

  I am not certain what to do. After behaving humiliatingly for days, I am about to come face to face with the person plaguing my thoughts. Searching my memory for how I was before this entire debacle, I pause and try to recover my lost self.

  Wayst. Prince of Dhiant. Royal immortal. Outcast to Earth. Shackled to Sil.

  A moment later, I am overcome with a blast of white steam as Sil opens the door and allows for an escape of her leftover shower vapor. I have several beginning points rehearsed, but when I lay eyes on her, everything I wish to say flees. Sil stands, encompassed by steam cloud, wearing a bright yellow shirt that goes to the ankle.

  “What the fruck is that?” I ask.

  Sil puts her chin to her chest in an attempt to see what might possibly be unbecoming of her apparel. “It’s a nightie,” she says, shrugging.

  Of course.

  She shoulders past me. “‘Scuse me, demon boy. Gotta grab a binder for my hair.”

  My mouth falls open. She behaves so normally! I was expecting . . . Well, I’m not exactly sure, but it wasn’t this. “You’re speaking with me again?” I ask watchfully.

  “Again? Ur, guess so.”

  Hm. I’m not entirely sure. It’s as though she’s speaking in my direction, but not necessarily TO me. I keep up a guard and expect the worst.

  Sil gathers her siren’s hair into a wet ponytail, then turns to face me with non-enthusiasm. “Can I help you with something?”

  “I was able to read more of the book,” I tell her, squinting. I squint because I’m sizing her up. Is she angry? Is she annoyed? I cannot tell what she’s thinking.

  “Really?!” Sil is excited. “That’s great! Just now?”

  “N . . . no. Last week. The night that . . .” I stop.

  “For reals?! Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  I blink at her. Once. Twice. Three times or more. Honestly? She is honestly asking why I didn’t tell her sooner?! She cannot be serious! But by the looks of her unmindful expression, she is.

  “BECAUSE
YOU’VE BEEN AVOIDING ME FOR DAYS, HAVEN’T YOU?!”

  “Oh.” Sil cocks her head in contemplation. “Yeah, forgot about that.”

  So she admits it! “You have been avoiding me! What’s more, you’ve been avoiding me when we’re so close to our deadline! Fool!” I stomp to her and take both arms with force. “Tell me why! Are you angry that I and your cousin . . .” I can’t finish. My rashness subsides.

  “Angry?” She thinks about it. “No, I told you I wasn’t angry.”

  “But you WERE avoiding me?”

  “Yup!”

  Unbelievable! Yup, she says, treating it like it’s no big deal! I, on the other hand, am more desperate than I care to admit. “If you weren’t angry, then why!?”

  “I dunno.”

  “SIL! There has to be a reason! I have been in peril for days!”

  She looks at me head on and wiggles her nose a few times. And then she chuckles evilly. “For reals? In peril, even?”

  “Well –!” Damn. I’ve made myself out to be dependent.

  Sil shakes my grip away and begins a slow, calculating pace of her room. “You know, I’ve been wondering about it myself. Yeah, I was avoiding you – guess you could say that – but I’m not sure why. I wasn’t mad at you or anything. I mean, why should I be, right?”

  My thoughts precisely!

  She continues, “But I had to avoid you. I wasn’t trying to be mean. I didn’t have a choice! Because every time I looked at you . . .” Her voice trails.

  “Yes?”

  “Every time I looked at you, I’d think about you.”

  I don’t understand. “When you looked at me, I’d cross your mind? That’s hardly unusual, wouldn’t you say? Thinking about someone within your view is ordinary.”

  “Yeah,” she says, “but I’d be thinking about you . . . like how you were with Tally. All pervy like.”

  I choke on an obtuse piece of spit. NOT what I wanted to hear. “Oh. I see.” I grit my teeth and stare at the ceiling and try to even my breaths. “But you wouldn’t get angry?”

  “No, I’d get . . . I don’t know what the feeling is,” she says.

  “Sil . . .” Something occurs to me. Maybe, just maybe . . . “Would you get jelly?”

  Sil stops her pace between her bed and her desk. She is silent for a minute or more of deep pondering, and when she is finished, she shows revelation. “OH.”

  Oh? Oh, she says. Birdbrain! Incorrigible moron! How could she not be aware of her own feelings?! How can any person be so disconnected?! But in spite of the ridiculousness – or perhaps due to the ridiculousness – it’s humorous. Sil is the most entertaining creature in existence.

  “You’re – just – so – unbelievable!” I huff because I cannot contain my laughter.

  Sil rubs her forehead. “What?”

  I shake my head. Explaining it to her would be all too exhausting. In place of reason, I walk to her and place a hand atop her damp head. I allow my guffaws to subside before asking her coolly, “Are you yet jealous, Sil? Is it still difficult to look at me?”

  Sil averts her eyes stormily to the ground. I’ll take that as a yes.

  “Shall I cure it for you?” I ask.

  Sil brightens. “Can you?”

  “I believe I may.”

  Sil searches my eyes before returning her stare to the rug. Once there, she gives permission by a slight nod of the head. “If you say so.” Although she isn’t at all motivated.

  I waste no time putting my lips nearly to her earlobe, “Siiiil,” and selfishly breathing in a bit of mint. “My mark.”

  Under the spell of her taste, my debonair air abandons me. I waver. The rest comes out choppily: “For some reason, I have experienced remorse over the action of pursuing your cousin. I can only assume that it would have been better had I not.”

  Experienced remorse over the action? No, that isn’t how I want to put it. That isn’t what I wish to say. Sil waits for me to finish – waits for me to ‘take away’ her jealousy – but the rest won’t come. The true words are lost in my throat.

  What does it mean, I ask myself, to feel remorse over something?

  Sil stands stiffly, neither objecting my lips on her ear, nor embracing them. She possesses unexpected jealousy over my interaction with Tally – and what’s worse, I care that she does. What am I to say for her sake in this situation? What am I to say for my own? How can things be changed so that she no longer avoids me? So that I am no longer consumed by her?

  The answer reaches my tongue before my brain:

  “I’m sorry, Sil,” I speak into her ear with a voice as quiet as a whisper and as uneven as an earthquake. “I do not know why, but I am sorry.”

  I remove my mouth from her ear and tip her head upwards so that it cannot shy from me. I wait for her eyes to find mine. In time, they do.

  “Your irises went red again,” she says.

  “They’re always red,” I tell her as I begin to near my face to hers.

  She pulls away just enough to make me wince, and asks, “Whoa there. What are you doing?”

  “Making it even so that you’ll be fixed.”

  “How do you figure?”

  I answer by closing the gap between us and landing a kiss on her bottom lip – her full, soft, minty lip – until I am forced to stop. Sil’s mouth has just unexpectedly uncapped the tightness in my chest.

  Apparently it has not done the same for Sil.

  “More punishment?” she says, demeanor unsure.

  It is pointless to answer. I’ll kiss her again until she no longer needs to question what I’m doing. I press my mouth to hers again, fully this time, but Sil does nothing but stand limply. I don’t care. The taste of her is better than anything. The greatest release of any and all frustration I have regarding my circumstances – Sil’s taste takes it all and warms my stomach with a thawing sensation.

  I pull away for the need to exhale.

  Sil remains confused. “Done?” she asks.

  Throughout this process, she’s been so submissive. I should be done. I should be satisfied. And I am, to be sure. Indeed, if it were only me, I’d be satisfied enough to take my leave of her. But . . . I am at the same time, unsatisfied. It’s a foreign concept, but if I’m not mistaken . . .

  “Done? Are you, Sil? Do you want to kiss me more?”

  I think I might want Sil to experience the same thing I do. Sil’s mine. She’s all mine. And as someone that belongs to me, I want her to be . . . full. I want her to have her drink of me, as I’ve had mine of her.

  “Uh . . .” Sil wrinkles her mouth. “What do you mean?”

  There’s no use explaining it. I don’t really know how to describe it, for I don’t fully understand it myself. But I feel like I may be able to show her. I drop my hold of her face, and instead take one of her hands that are wilted in bewilderment. Like at the graveyard, she weaves her fingers through mine. An automatic response, perhaps?

  Let’s hope for another.

  I bring my mouth near to hers, but do not force my kiss on her, leaving a small space between us.

  You decide, Sil.

  . . .

  She does. She makes her decision.

  It does not include kissing me.

  “So . . . is that it then?” She slips her hand away. “Is your experiment over, demon boy?”

  Experiment? The dense girl hasn’t taken anything from what I’ve just done. We are clearly on different wavelengths. It is even possible Sil is on a wavelength all of her own.

  I sigh. “We have a week until All Hallow’s Eve, Sil. Do you know what that means?”

  She nods. “We need to find you a costume.”

  Um, no.

  “First, though,” she goes on to say, “tell me what else it says in the book.”

  The book . . .? HOW COULD I HAVE FORGOTTEN?!

  “SIL! Do you know someone named Galvin Tenor!? Are you of known relation to any such person!?”

  Sil’s face becomes contorted. “G-Galvin?” she
sputters. “W-why? Why do you ask?”

  “First of all, the book’s heptagonal spell is not a spell of binding, as I previously worried. It is, in fact, a spell of searching. Someone . . . Ahem.” I refrain from saying Keek. “Someone is searching for . . . someone. And I think the person they are searching for is named Galvin Tenor. Ring a bell?”

  But there’s no need to ask. Sil’s cheeks have turned insipid – a stark contrast to the rest of her golden skin. She surely knows this Galvin person, and if I had to guess, I’d say he is someone of importance to her.

  “I know Galvin Tenor,” she says once she gains balance enough to speak without stutter. “Because Galvin Tenor is my dad.”

  Sil’s . . . father?

  “He was last seen in the graveyard behind the house five years ago. He was last seen by me.”

  Sil’s wanderlust family. Complete with a wanderlust father who went for a walk one day and never returned. This wanderlust father, who was last witnessed entering the wood at the far side of the cemetery, hasn’t been seen in five years. Behind was left a wanderless daughter to chase after him. Wanderless Sil was left alone. A child alone to sift through the marker stones until exhaustion.

  She was found curled in a ball at the wall of the church.

  Sil tells me the tale, then tells me to go.

  Chapter 10: Murdering the Milkman

  “Hey, Tran-a-lan. What’re you up to tonight? Being that it’s Friday and all, any chance you’d want to come –”

  “Not today, Chif. I have plans.”

  “That so?” The tick looks past me to the girl I’m staring at. “Right on. With Sil Tenor?”

  “And her minion. We’re to look for costumes.” Costumes. Each time I say the word, it slides against my tongue with great friction. Too great. I fear my mouth may start on fire.

  Sil, on they other hand, rejoices over the word. She’s been squawking it all day with birdy delight. She slinks to my desk the instant the bell rings to signal our release. “Excited, demon boy?” She makes her teeth wide so as to show off all of her wickedness.