by A R Davis
Young Aubrey stood staring for a few moments at the scene before him. He didn’t understand; he thought they had caught the demon. Who on earth is this poor soul?
Lord Aubrey smiled when he saw Young Aubrey at the threshold. “Ah, here he is,” he said and motioned for him to enter. Young Aubrey tentatively obeyed. When he caught the eye of the guards, he saw them quickly look away.
“Captain Yendel’s men found this lowlife in the forest beside a dead man,” Lord Aubrey continued. “I want you to take a good look at him and tell me –”
“I didn’t do it!” the man cried.
“Be silent,” Captain Yendel commanded.
Lord Aubrey continued as though no one had interrupted. “I want you to tell me if this was the man who hurt you.” His eyes roamed over Young Aubrey’s bandage.
Young Aubrey stared right back into his father’s eyes.
“I swear,” the man cried out again, “I swear I didn’t hurt your boy! I didn’t kill that man! I just – I woke up and there he was –”
“I said be silent!” Captain Yendel shouted, raising his hand threateningly.
“He didn’t do it,” Young Aubrey said quietly.
Everyone stopped. The man spoke up after a moment. “Th-thank you, boy. Thank you. I told you, I told you I didn’t. I harmed no one, sirs, no one.”
Lord Aubrey’s brow furrowed in confusion. “You haven’t even looked at him properly,” he said.
“I don’t need to. I know it wasn’t him.” Young Aubrey balled his hands into fists. His father suddenly looked frightened of him. “I told you it was a demon.”
He could feel everyone’s eyes on him. He was sure Captain Yendel and his guards were slightly stunned. It did not matter; his focus was entirely on his father who seemed to be trying to come up with the right words to say.
“When you said it was a demon,” Lord Aubrey said, “I took it that you were referring to a savage.”
“You said you believed me.”
“I did. I do. But the evidence is all here, son. He was wearing a black cloak, as you described –”
“I said it was a demon,” Young Aubrey said. He did his best to keep his voice even. “You said you believed me.”
Lord Aubrey turned his attention to Captain Yendel who looked too stunned to do anything. He was no longer scolding the prisoner, who was still protesting his innocence. Lord Aubrey opened his mouth, closed it, and then covered it with his hand. Finally, he said, “You’re all dismissed.”
“And the prisoner, sir?” Captain Yendel inquired.
“Whether he hurt my son or not, he’s still a murderer. Take him to the dungeons. Hang him in the morning.”
“No, no, no!” The man screamed. As the guards grabbed hold of him, he resisted. “Tell them I didn’t do it!” he cried. “Tell them I didn’t –”
Captain Yendel punched him in the gut. The man let out an “oomph” and doubled over. The guards dragged him out of the room.
When they were gone, Young Aubrey moved to one of the windows and stared outside toward the forest. “If you didn’t believe me, you should have said so,” he said.
“I do believe you, son,” Lord Aubrey said.
“You said you did believe me. You did.”
The trees looked so still in the distance, so peaceful. You would have never thought they were hiding anything menacing.
“What do you want me to say, son? I believed he was the one who did it.”
Young Aubrey turned to face him. “You think a human did this to me?” he asked.
“Because of the evidence,” Lord Aubrey said firmly, “I was certain that – What are you doing?”
Young Aubrey raised his hand up to his face and started to pull the bandage off. His father begged him to stop, but he would not obey. It was horribly painful; it felt as though his skin was on fire the moment it was exposed to the air. He curled his hand around his wound for a few moments and sucked in air through his teeth, trying to push beyond the pain. When it had subsided some, he pointed to his wound.
“Look,” he said in a voice that did not seem like his own. “Look at me and tell me you still believe a man is capable of doing this.”
Lord Aubrey went pale as his eyes traced over the scars. A penetrating cold filled the room like water, and Young Aubrey swore he could see his father’s breath clouding in front of him.
When Lord Aubrey failed to speak, Young Aubrey said, “If you will not hunt the demon, Father, then when I am Lord, I will.”
Without another word, Young Aubrey left his father’s office. His father did not even call him back. I frightened him, he thought as he hurriedly walked down the corridor to his room. One of the servants jumped when she saw him; the bundle of blankets she was carrying nearly fell out of her hands.
“Forgive me, Master Aubrey,” the woman piped up, “I almost didn’t recognize – I mean, I nearly –”
“It’s fine,” Young Aubrey snapped. “I want a mirror brought to my room. Immediately.”
“Y-yes, Master Aubrey.” She gave a quick bow and scurried in the opposite direction.
Young Aubrey absentmindedly reached up to touch the right side of his face. His touch burned; the uneven ridges of his stitches made a chill crawl up his spine. I have to see it, he thought as he marched to his room. I have to see what that thing did to me. And I have to know that I have not gone mad, that I am telling the truth. I know what I saw.
Several minutes later, he met the servant at his door. She stuttered when she asked him if there was anything else he needed. Young Aubrey snatched the mirror from her and closed the door in her face. He grabbed a chair from the corner of his room and leaned it against the doorknob. He did not want to be disturbed by anyone.
Young Aubrey sat on the bed for a long time, the mirror face-down on his lap. His throat went dry, and he wondered when it had become so unbearably hot in his room. I have to. I want to. But he was utterly afraid of what he would see. He was afraid of the image that had frightened his father. What did that thing do to me?
After a few deep breaths, he turned the mirror over and held it up to his face.
It felt as though his heart shriveled up smaller and smaller the longer he looked.
Angry red marks trailed across the right half of his face. They cut into the corner of his lips, the bridge of his nose, and at the corner of his eye.
He stared at himself a long time. His lungs felt as though ropes coiled tighter and tighter around them. It was still so unbearably hot. Everything about this was unbearable. He no longer looked like an Aubrey.
He no longer looked like any human being he knew.
How am I to face my people? he thought. How am I to claim my seat looking like this? When they wrote about him in that history book, they would call him the first Lord Aubrey to ever be horrifically disfigured. Everyone would remember this face and recoil from it.
Young Aubrey threw the mirror across the room in anger. It gave a satisfying crash as it broke into pieces. Someone knocked on the door and asked if he was all right.
“Leave me alone,” he said.
Alone.
My father doesn’t believe me. He can barely stand the sight of me. I can’t stand it myself. I have to kill the demon. That will be the only way to make this right.
A ball of energy was growing in his belly. He could no longer stand to be alone, so he decided to leave his room and go to the cellar.
At least she will have the decency not to look me in the eye, he thought as he ignored the questions from the passing servants.
The door at the bottom of the stairs was already partially opened. As he drew closer, however, he could hear something, like a strange clapping. He had an image of someone hitting his mother. He was about to burst through the door when he heard a soft moan. A man grunted not long after.
Young Aubrey felt embarrassed and ashamed. Was that his father in there? Then he remembered that his father was probably still in his office.
Who was in there
touching her?
He stood there long enough for them to finish. Eventually the moans and grunts stopped and all that was left was the sound of heavy breathing.
And then the man spoke, “We shouldn’t do this again. You remember what happened last time. We – we can’t.”
I know that voice, Young Aubrey thought. Though he knew who the man was, he knew not how to feel.
Captain Yendel bid Young Aubrey’s mother goodbye.
Chapter 8
Valerie got dressed and equipped herself for the forest as usual, but when she went into her father’s office, she found that he was already awake. She couldn’t tell for how long, but she suspected he hadn’t slept at all the previous night.
“You’re going back there again,” he said.
Valerie timidly walked up to his desk. The Beast was in her father’s good hand, and he kept turning it around and around as though he was looking for a flaw in the design. Her father’s stump was hidden under the desk. It seemed as though he could not bear to have it exposed in the light.
“I don’t want you to go,” her father said.
“I know,” Valerie replied.
“I want you to have a good life.”
Valerie did not know what constituted a good life. She had a life, and that was enough for now. “I’m all right, Papa.”
He started to cry. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Valerie went around the desk and embraced him around his shoulders as he cried against the Beast. “I know,” she said again. Then she added, “When I get home, I’ll help you fix the pistol. OK, Papa?”
He didn’t appear to have heard her. She let him go and was about to say something else when he nodded and said with a tight voice, “OK.”
Valerie kissed the top of his head. “I’ll see you soon, Papa.”
*
The smell of burnt wood rose in the air as Young Aubrey reloaded his rifle with trembling hands. He could not escape the image of Captain Yendel’s hands crawling over his mother. He couldn’t decide whether it filled him more with revulsion or agony. All he knew was that he wanted it gone. So many wooden dummies laid defeated on the floor, yet he could still hear the moaning as though his ear was pressed to the cellar door. Behind him, he felt the cold hands of the demon.
Young Aubrey didn’t bother to replace the broken dummy. He raised the rifle and took the shot. There was a blast of splinters and a puff of smoke. The dummy swung wildly in a circle. Most of its face was full of holes. Young Aubrey was sweating, and yet he felt so cold. When he made to reload the gun again, the bullet slipped through his fingers.
What is wrong with me? he wondered. Everywhere I turn, I feel like I’m not real. Like I am not a part of anything. He bent down to pick up the bullet. As it lay in his palm, he could not understand how such a tiny thing could be packed with so much power.
“I am glad to see you out of the house, Master Aubrey.”
Young Aubrey whipped around. Captain Yendel was the last person he wanted to see at this moment. He took his guardsman’s stance and smiled at him. How dare he smile at me! How dare he stand there and act as though he were still so honorable? Young Aubrey contemplated raising the rifle and blowing a hole through Captain Yendel’s smile. Frightened, he dropped it.
He did not know how he could have thought such a terrible and ugly thing.
“Is everything all right, Master Aubrey?” Captain Yendel asked. “You look unwell.”
Young Aubrey turned his back on him. “I want you to leave me. I don’t want to see you.”
“I – I beg your pardon, Master Aubrey?”
“I said I don’t want to see you. Now leave.”
He heard Captain Yendel take a step towards him. “Are you ashamed of your injury?”
Young Aubrey winced as though he had been stung.
“I want you to know,” Captain Yendel continued, “that I still see you as Master Aubrey, regardless of what happened and that my men and I are doing everything they can to bring that monster to justice.”
Young Aubrey closed his eyes. He almost wanted to believe the good captain’s words. He was sure he would have before he made his discovery. He would have given everything, even the Aubrey seat, for things to be how they were before. Knowing that tore into him deeper than any demon ever could. He turned to face Captain Yendel, his hands balled into fists. “Don’t stand there and act like you’re still good and honorable. The honorable Captain Yendel; what a joke.”
“What are you talking about, Master Aubrey?”
“Don’t act as though you’re thick in the head. I heard you. With her.”
Captain Yendel turned stark white. “I – I – M-Master Aubrey –”
“I don’t want to hear your reasons. None of them would be good enough.”
Captain Yendel lowered his gaze. They all do in the end, Young Aubrey thought. No matter how much they profess that I am the same Aubrey, they can never look me directly in the eye.
“I…am ashamed,” Captain Yendel began.
“Only because I caught you, no doubt.”
“I never meant for this to happen.”
“Of course. No one ever means for it to happen. I assume you just tripped and landed in her bed.”
“Master Aubrey, you do not understand –”
“No, and I don’t think I ever will. Nor do I desire to.”
Captain Yendel was a fiery red. “Have you spoken with your father?”
“You would know if I had.”
They fell silent. Captain Yendel’s head hung low. It was such a pitiful sight. Young Aubrey hated him more for that.
“What would you have me say, Master Aubrey?” Captain Yendel asked the ground. “You will neither accept my apologies nor my explanations. I want to make this right to you.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you as though you were my own. Because I hate that I’ve disappointed you.”
Young Aubrey laughed and shook his head. “You love me, yet you can’t look me in the eye. All you have are your pretty words and now that they’re meaningless, you have nothing.” He turned his attention to the dummy that swung idly on its post. “I know you really want to inquire if I’m going to tell my father, so go on and ask me.”
Young Aubrey looked down at the rifle. It lay gleaming in the sunlight, deadly and beautiful.
“Are you going to tell your father, Master Aubrey?” Captain Yendel asked.
Young Aubrey’s hands shook. He could feel the demon breathing down his neck, its teeth near his throat. He picked up the rifle from the floor. He aimed at the dummy and tried to imagine the face of the demon, but all he saw was Captain Yendel’s face and then his mother’s. He trembled with fear.
“Aubrey.”
Young Aubrey whipped around once more to see his father striding across the grounds. There was a smile on his face and his arms were spread out for an embrace, but he lowered them as he approached. “I’m glad to see you out here, son,” he said gently as though Young Aubrey was delicate. Unlike Captain Yendel, Lord Aubrey looked at his son’s face, but only the good half.
Young Aubrey and Captain Yendel exchanged a look. Lord Aubrey’s smile faltered.
“Is something the matter?”
“Yes, Father,” Young Aubrey said. He glanced at Captain Yendel one last time. He paused for the full effect, enjoying the sight of the captain’s face growing pale. “I wish to have someone else attend to my combat lessons.”
Lord Aubrey raised his eyebrow. “Why is that, son?”
“The good captain has other pressing matters to attend to, like finding the demon that did this to me.” Young Aubrey raised the rifle once more and held it steady.
“That is not necessary, Master Aubrey,” Captain Yendel said. “I am happy to continue your lessons in addition to my duties.”
“No, Captain,” Young Aubrey said before he took the shot. “Justice must always come first. Evil must be punished.”
He fired.
And mis
sed.
*
On her way back from the bookshop, she saw clusters of people huddled together, whispering. Valerie vaguely wondered if another body had been found. She was walking through the marketplace, and a frumpy old woman named Mrs. Colt stopped her.
“You poor dear,” she said.
Valerie stared warily at her. “I’m – sorry?”
“Your father was a good man,” Mrs. Colt said, patting Valerie’s hand. “Troubled, but good all the same.”
Valerie lost all feeling in her legs. “What are you talking about?”
“You don’t know, dear? Have you not been by your house, yet?”
Without hesitating, Valerie charged past Mrs. Colt. She could hear the old woman shouting behind her, “You might not want to go over there, dear!” She said other things, but the quickened pulse in Valerie’s ears drowned out her words.
The old woman is stupid, Valerie thought as she ran down the lane, ignoring the stares from the townspeople. Mrs. Colt didn’t know what she was talking about. Her father was fine. She had just spoken to him this morning. He had probably gotten drunk again and passed out. He was probably doing a million other things, but he was not dead.
Down her street, she could see a group of her neighbors gathered around the front of her house. Most of them were craning their necks to see whatever was going on. Guardsmen blew their whistles and called for them to get back or get away. With her lungs on fire, Valerie ran closer to the scene. She pushed past the crowd, not caring whether or not she was being rude. She had to get to her father. This was all just a stupid misunderstanding.
Her father was fine.
He was fine.
“Miss, you need to stand back,” said a guardsman as he grabbed hold of her elbow.
“I need to get in there,” Valerie said frantically. “I need to see my Papa.” Why weren’t they letting her go through? Why was everyone acting as though something terrible had happened? He had only gotten drunk, that’s all. He did it all the time. “I live here. I need to see my Papa.”
“Your father’s gone, girl.”
Even after he had said it, Valerie still refused to believe it. She tried to fight past the guard, scratching at his armor with her nails until one of them broke painfully. She screamed hysterically for them to let her see him. She needed to see him. She needed him to be all right.
