Broken Earth

by C M Blackwood

“I’m looking for Shonin Welk,” Heidi said pointedly. “Can you tell me where I might find him?”

  The barkeep’s face fell flatter than a flapjack.

  “Sir?”

  “Oh, sure,” said the barkeep, making a point of moving away from Heidi. “I can tell you where he is – if you promise not to make any trouble.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “People having things to do with that fella don’t often have good intentions in mind, if you know what I’m saying.”

  She did; but she did not say so. “Where is he?” she asked.

  “He’s a-ways down the road there, where you turn onto Shickle Street. It’s the biggest house you’ll see. I doubt you’ll miss it.”

  “Thank you,” said Heidi, turning to go.

  “You’re welcome. Just don’t come back.”

  ~

  At first, she considered only waiting in the street. And yet, after almost a full hour had passed, she began to grow impatient. So she hopped down from Eriah’s back, and strode purposefully across the front lawn.

  She pounded hard against the door. She waited for a moment after having done so, listening for any sound from inside the house; but, when she heard none, she pounded again. Soon, she was just pounding and pounding away, making a genuine ruckus that could be heard all up and down Shickle Street.

  “Quiet out there!” yelled a woman from the next house, her head sticking full out of her bedroom window.

  “I suggest you shut your mouth,” said Heidi, “before that window falls down on your head.”

  “What a dreadful girl you are!”

  Heidi cursed loudly, and flicked her wrist towards the woman’s house. A moment later, the window came crashing down.

  The woman pulled her head out of the way – just in time. When the window fell, the glass fell all out of it. Heidi could hear the woman calling for her husband, her face white as the snow into which the remnants of her window had fallen.

  “Unfortunate,” whispered Heidi. “I never miss.”

  What with all of that going on outside the door, Heidi was altogether startled when it actually opened, revealing a bit of what was going on inside.

  A tall, handsome, shirtless fellow stood in the doorway, smiling at her as though he had heard none of what happened. (Which was next to impossible.)

  “Hello,” he said. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m sure you can,” said Heidi. “I am looking for a friend of mine.”

  His tone was friendly, but his question was pointed. “And how would I know where your friend is?”

  “She is in your house.”

  “I can assure you, dear girl – there is no one here but me.”

  To solidify his assurance, a piercing scream rang out from somewhere behind him.

  “Heidi!” Dera hollered. “Heidi, help me!”

  “You were saying?” said Heidi.

  He began to look flustered. “You’re going to have to leave now,” he said, trying to shut the door against her.

  But she was having none of it. “I assure you, sir,” said she; “I have been through quite enough today, and I’ll take no more from you.”

  Welk kept on with his efforts. Heidi reached past the door, and laid her hand on his bare arm; she pushed, and he went flying into the opposite wall.

  Heidi entered the house; straightened her cloak, took a breath, and cast a look towards Welk. He was slouched against the wall, holding his bleeding head.

  “You should have just let me in,” she said.

  He was trying to stand; but Heidi raised her arm to hold him down, pushing with all her might against the air between them. But then Dera called to her again.

  “I’m coming,” said Heidi, running from the parlour. “Where are you?”

  “In the kitchen. Hurry, will you?”

  “All I’ve done today is hurry,” she said under her breath. She dashed through the doorway to the kitchen, and slammed the door behind her, holding up a hand to hold it steady; but she could feel Welk ramming against it with his shoulder, and painful shocks were running all up and down her arm. She ran straight to Dera, who was bound to one of the chairs at the table.

  The farther she moved away from the door, the harder it was to keep it shut. Welk’s strength was returning quickly.

  “Be still,” said Heidi, directing her voice towards the door. It stopped shaking for a moment.

  “Come now, Heidi!” said Dera, twisting her head about. “Put a bit of muscle into it!”

  “It’s easy to say,” Heidi snapped back, “when you’re not the one who has to do it.”

  “Just get these things off of me, can’t you?”

  “I am doing my best, Dera!”

  Dera cried out in aggravation, rocking her chair back and forth upon the floor. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders, damp and sticky with sweat; her arms were tied behind her, and her legs were fastened to the chair, the ropes having cut deeply into her skin. When Heidi felt that she could turn her attention aside, she threw them off with a single movement of her free hand.

  “He found me out,” said Dera, attempting to stand but nearly falling to the floor.

  Heidi grabbed her arm, trying to avoid touching the places where the ropes had cut.

  “What happened here?”

  “I could make no sense of it, Heidi, even if I tried. His Power is more than we thought.” She only looked into the darkness, and said, “We have to go. Through the back door.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Through the next room.”

  “Wait outside for me.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “What do you think? I’m going to hold him off.”

  Dera slipped silently from the kitchen; and Heidi turned her attention back to the door. She inverted her palm, pulling the door slowly towards herself. As she did such, she moved so that she could see Welk through the opening. She continued to pull the door with her right hand, and used her left to push Welk (who was steadily clawing his way inside) back into the parlour.

  Yet Welk managed to run forward a few feet; and these few were just enough, to bring him bursting into the kitchen. He reached towards Heidi with fingertips, and pushed out with them.

  It was she who was flying now.

  She hit the floor with a thud, and then rolled under the table. She pushed back –

  and Welk was knocked onto the floor. It seemed he had had the wind thrown out of him, and his delayed reciprocation gave Heidi just enough time to send him sliding back out of the kitchen. She crawled out from under the table, and ran to the next room.

  Dera stood awaiting her in the open doorway. She motioned for Heidi to hurry, looking impatient; but then her face changed to fear.

  Before Heidi could turn about, Welk had reached his arms around her, and grabbed both of her wrists.

  “You are a persistent little wench,” he said.

  Her wrists were held fast in his huge, hot hands. She could not move them, and she could not free them.

  “Perhaps you should have minded your own affairs,” said Welk, pulling Heidi towards the kitchen. “Let me see, now – where’s that rope . . .?

  He found it lying a few feet away from the table. He stretched his left arm farther around Heidi, so that he could reach down with his right; but he was not holding her tightly enough. With a savage burst of strength, she broke free of him, and was turned towards him before he could regain his grip.

  She threw him back into the cupboards. He struck his head for a second time, and

  was still for a long moment. Heidi turned back to Dera, ready to make a quick getaway.

  “Watch it, now, Heidi!”

  She looked back to Welk, who seemed not yet to have had enough of her, and was rising quickly.

  “Stay down!” she screamed – feeling sure that she was about to lose at least a small part of her mind. She ran at Welk with arms outstretched, laying hands on him and clutching with no hope of release. He opened his m
outh, but could not speak. He did not move; he did not fly. He only stood there, still as anything, till his body began to tremble. The trembling evolved into spasms – and then into a rather nasty seizure what sent him sprawling spread-eagle to the floor.

  But Heidi did not let go. She would have, if her mind had not been so full of the sight of Josephine, sitting dead by the hearth; she would have, if she had not remembered Jade’s note in her pocket, full of words of leaving. She would have – but she could not.

  Welk’s body was flopping about on the floor. His eyes were bulging, and his teeth were clenched. Yet Heidi made no move, till her nose was invaded by the smell of burning flesh.

  He was cooking like a side of beef. From the inside.

  Now he was screaming. Screaming and shaking, flopping and tossing. And burning. There were curls of smoke issuing from his mouth and his nose, which slithered up to the ceiling like snakes.

  Heidi felt Dera’s hands on her shoulders. “Come now, Heidi. Come now – we have to go!”

  But she could not stop. She did not take her hands from him, until he was still. Still as the water on a windless night; still as the trees before the storm. Still as death – as the death he deserved.

  Still as Josephine.

  “All right, now,” said Dera, hitching her hands up under Heidi’s arms, and pulling her backwards across the kitchen floor. “He’s gone! We can leave now, Heidi.”

  Heidi watched him for just a moment more; but then turned on her heel, and hurried from the house.

  Even in the crisp, clean air of the yard, her nostrils were still full of the smell of burning flesh. She sniffed once, twice – and then lost her stomach into the grass.

  ~

  “They shall find him dead,” said Dera. “They shall know we killed him!”

  “I know,” said Heidi flatly. She felt, a little more each moment, that she had quite all she could take – for the rest of her life.

  But even through her bitterness, she could see a new problem taking shape. Dera’s manner was not easy; but it was not sufficiently uneasy, for her to have guessed anything about Josephine’s death. She had not seen it. She did not know it.

  They rode on for some time, with no words passed between them. Heidi filled her mind with thoughts of Josephine, so that Dera might stumble upon the truth – but she was having no such luck.

  “Did you learn anything from Welk?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” said Dera, “but that he was due with them next week.” She laughed, and shook her head. “It’s amazing the things that a man will tell his whore.”

  Heidi winced slightly; but Dera did not notice.

  It was a few moments more, before Dera realised that there was a riderless horse among them. She looked at him, at the first, only as a mild oddity, and asked:

  “Why is Josephine not here with you?”

  Heidi said nothing.

  With perhaps a little more severity this time:

  “Why did you bring Jedediah?”

  Heidi closed her eyes, and called into her mind the cold and lifeless face of Josephine. It was not a very thoughtful way of telling Dera; but what more could she expect? There were no words, for such a thing as that.

  Dera brought Dillyn to an immediate halt. She pressed a hand over her eyes, and reached wildly for Heidi’s hand. She was some seconds in the piecing; but she finally dropped Heidi’s hand, as if it were some vile thing that she could not stand to touch.

  “You could have told me,” she whispered. “Why did you not tell me?”

  “I knew not how to do it.”

  “Where is Jade?”

  “She is gone.”

  “Not her too, Heidi!”

  “No, no,” said Heidi quickly, fumbling for reparation. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant.”

  “Then – she left?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “After she found Josephine, I suppose.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You have no idea?”

  Heidi did not want to say any more about it; but she knew that she could not keep all of the truth from Dera.

  “She is after the Dúnanen.”

  Dera stared at her for a moment or two; and then a look of unhappy wonder came over her face. “You were going to go with her!” she said shrilly, pointing an accusatory finger into Heidi’s face.

  “Stay away from my thoughts, Dera.”

  Her warning went ignored.

  “Before any of this happened,” said Dera, “you both made plans to leave. You were going to leave us.”

  Heidi felt a desperation coming upon her, and searched blindly for words that might make sense. “She didn’t want you to be hurt,” she said. “She wanted you both to be safe.”

  “Then why would she take you?”

  Heidi said nothing.

  “This is unbelievable,” said Dera. “This is – this is terrible! I trusted both of you!”

  “I will explain later,” Heidi lied, with a coldness that was not intended for Dera. “We need, now, to decide what we should do.”

  As Dera looked upon her, her face was utterly blank. It did not seem as if she were she was going to say anything else; and Heidi did not ask her to.

  ~

  When they arrived home, they shut the horses in the stable, and walked the line of a death march towards the front door, feeling a mixture of both gladness and sickness (which contained perhaps a significantly lesser amount of gladness than sickness) at having made it home.

  Heidi led the way into the house. She went softly and slowly through the first room, and then into the second. She halted so suddenly, Dera ran into her.

  She looked all around the room, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. When things began to come into focus, she turned her eyes to the chair beside the hearth.

  “Oh, Josephine,” she sobbed.

  Dera stood just behind her, eyes fixed almost unwillingly upon Josephine’s still form. Then she took a step; and then another, and another. Finally, she was standing beside the chair, looking down at her friend.

  She reached out to touch Josephine’s face – but pulled her hand away quickly, when she felt the coldness of the skin, and the truth of why it was cold.

  “What are we going to do?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know,” said Heidi, choking just a little on her words. “The ground is frozen solid, and it won’t be easy to dig. But I can’t bear to burn her.”

  “No,” said Dera quickly. “No, we can’t do that.”

  “Then let’s get to work.”

  Dera looked back at her, then – and her eyes were as full as Heidi had ever seen them.

  ~

  It was hours’ worth of work – exactly how many Heidi did not keep track of, but she felt their passing as a mound of rock through the narrow opening of an hourglass. She felt the sweat pouring down her face, and her neck; down her back, and under her cloak.

  She and Dera spoke not at all; for the task at hand required quite all of their breath. But even if they had had any to spare, Heidi doubted that they would have been able to find anything to say to one another.

  Heidi could have made the hole without lifting a finger – and Dera knew it. Neither of them mentioned this. The grave must be dug, with sweat and tears poured down upon it.

  They owed Josephine at least that much.

  Every now and then, Heidi’s spade struck an exceptionally hard piece of ground. The handle of the spade vibrated with the impact, sending its shudder all up and down her arms to leave them sore. She cursed loudly, screaming into the night; to the complete and total obliviousness of Dera.

  When they had finally reached a sufficient depth, they collapsed for a moment in the hole. Yet Dera rose first, and removed herself, turning afterwards to offer her hand to Heidi. When they were both out of the ground, they stood together staring at the house.

  “All right,” said Heidi finally. “Let us do what
we came to.”

  “That’s a good deal easier said than done.”

  Heidi looked her in the eye. “And you think I don’t know that?”

  Dera took the lead. Heidi followed her with leaden feet – and an even heavier heart.

  Dera lifted Josephine under the shoulders, and Heidi took hold of her legs. They tried to carry her as respectfully as they could; but the sheer difficulty of the task (despite Josephine’s small size) left a discrepancy between the desire and the actuality. Heidi would have brought her to a hover, and floated her out the door; but that process, with something so large as a person, was so imprecise, that she would have suffered an unacceptable battering.

  As they laid Josephine upon the ground, Dera said bitterly, “I wish we had a casket. It feels wrong to just – cast her in.”

  “Everything about this feels wrong,” Heidi murmured.

  “Why can’t we bring her to the coffin-maker?” Dera asked desperately.

  “Because there will be an inquest. We will be bound to the house; and we will be killed.”

  But then she had an idea. She turned quickly, and ran back to the stable. The horses watched her, perhaps wondering what she was about to do – or simply why she was so covered in dirt.

  “Please let it be here,” she whispered, feeling all around in the dark.

  And then her fingers brushed against it. She pulled it out of the corner, and into a shaft of moonlight that flowed through a hole in the roof.

  It was the wooden crate in which the horses’ feed bags were shipped. Once a month, one of them would ride into town with the wagon, and return with a crate. Each crate packed ten feed bags – the total volume of which was far more than that of Josephine. They usually broke each crate down for firewood.

  Heidi wondered, if Josephine had ever wondered, whether one of these crates would make a good coffin.

  It was anything but elegant – and it was not as dignified as Heidi would have liked. She stood staring down at the crate for a long while, unable to make a decision.

  She called Dera’s name.

  “What?”

  “Come here!”

  Dera appeared in the doorway. “What is it?”

  “Look at this.”

  Dera moved a little closer, eyeing the crate. “You’re not thinking – what I think you’re thinking?”