Broken Earth

by C M Blackwood

  But that was months ago.

  So now she descended to the fourth storey; and walked slowly, and not a little hesitantly, down that dark and empty corridor. All doors were shut, and there was not a sound to be heard. Lila was struck suddenly with a thought: and that thought consisted, wholly, of the possible departure of Heidi Bastian and her friends. What was to have made them stay, in those months that Lila could not help them? They certainly could have expected nothing from her, when she could do little, even, to help herself.

  Lila thought of all this; and she was surprisingly distraught on account of it. She walked more quickly through the heavy silence, cutting through it as a dull knife through thick bread, tiring with the mental effort of such a struggle; and finding herself, somewhere along the way, praying a wordless prayer, that Heidi Bastian might not yet have abandoned Eredor.

  Because of these thoughts, Lila knocked somewhat more heavily than was necessary upon the door to Heidi’s chamber. She knocked long and hard, but there came no answer. So she went rather to the door beside it, and knocked upon that. It was not long till she was answered, by a thoroughly miserable-looking Dera Black.

  “Why, Princess,” she said, seeming very surprised indeed to find Lila at her door. Her voice was not without its share of bitterness as she added, “We had all quite come to think that you had no more care for us.”

  “There is little excuse, I know,” said Lila. “Yet, if I may venture to make even one so pitiful, I will tell you that I have been ill; and have been of very little use to anyone at all.”

  Dera nodded stiffly, but said nothing in return.

  Lila peered over the woman’s shoulder, the better to see if anyone might be taking up time in the room there with her. But even as she looked, Dera said, “There is no one here but myself. David Misaria and Helena Makepeace take frequently, now, to riding upon the grounds outside the city. I warn them of the danger, but they tend to take no care.”

  “Do they often return?” asked Lila.

  “From time to time. It is my belief that David would have left long ago, if it were not for the state in which Heidi is in. He would have taken his sorrows, I think, to his own abode; but it seems that he has taken rather an interest in trying to cure her of her despondency. It seems to take away from his own grief.”

  “And what of Mrs Makepeace? How does she fare?”

  “Not well, I would suppose. All of her time and effort is placed into the attempted restoration of her sister. There are times when Heidi accepts these efforts; but much more often than not, she thrusts her sister quite as far from her as she can manage. She does that, indeed, to us all; but I do think that it injures Helena the most.”

  “And what – what of Heidi?”

  “What of her?” echoed Dera. “I know not anymore. She comes seldom from her chamber. She eats very little, and talks still less. She has not ventured out-of-doors since the taking of Jade. I think she would have run long ago; but she cannot seem to bring herself away from the last place that she saw Jade. I think she believes, some days, that she will return here, and that she herself must be present when it happens.”

  “Is she now in her chamber?”

  “I would expect nothing else.”

  “Why does she not answer?”

  “She answers no one. She locks her door each time she shuts it; and David has been forced, many times, to kick it in. But she repairs his damage always – do not ask me how – and draws the bolt once more.”

  Lila swallowed thickly, much from her own sense of guilt. “Might you try,” she said, “to bring her to the door? I expect that she will care very little, but I do wish to speak with her.”

  “I shall try,” said Dera, with a voice so very hopeless of the attempt, that it was obvious she meant nothing at all to come of the trying. But she came just the same into the corridor, and went to the adjacent door with a blank expression. Her fist upon the door, it seemed, was rather purposeless; but she spoke out into the silence, her voice raised more in annoyance, really, than concern.

  “Heidi,” she said. “Heidi, do come to the door; you have a visitor.”

  She pounded all the while upon the door; and spoke, Lila thought, rather sarcastically.

  “Come now, Heidi,” she said. “Come, Heidi Bastian – for Princess Lila Bier has come to call!”

  Lila waited with kept breath, what seemed a near minute; till she felt, suddenly, that she might faint; and remembered to breathe. This rather uncharacteristic response, to the feelings of another human being, served to assure her that her behaviour to Heidi Bastian – to all of these people – had been irresponsible and undeserved. To her own city, at that!

  Yet, strangely enough, this latter transgression seemed somewhat less important.

  Her mind was so full of these thoughts, that she was struck surprised when the door finally opened. Dera Black, it seemed, was far more shocked than she; for, of course, she had been the one to bear witness to Heidi’s manner over past months; and she certainly had more cause for astonishment.

  When revealed to the dim light of the torches, Heidi Bastian looked significantly less than that of the human that Lila had felt to have betrayed. Her appearance startled Lila, and inspired a chill there in the depths of her heart.

  This did not mean, however, that the woman had grown at all unpleasant to the eye of her beholder; but only that the effects of her pain and misery were so great, they had taken to her form and countenance like the pen of a child, and had scribbled the waste of angst all over her. She was thicker only than the bones of her body, that the flesh which covered them allowed her to be; and was not pale, but rather was bloodless. Lila could not tell, in that moment, whether her eyes were blue or grey; for they seemed to have been mixed with such an amount of some lightening agent, that they appeared only as two small sockets within her face, which were only slightly darker than the ashen, pallid skin that surrounded them. Her hair had grown longer, but glowed strangely brighter, flowing much less yellow now and nearly white, perhaps the better to suit her poor waxen face. It seemed such an effort for her merely to stand, that she shook there in the doorway like a woman of eighty, and clutched at the jamb with what little strength she seemed to possess.

  Lila’s first thought was to catch her arm, so that she might hold herself upright with less trouble on her own part. The trying seemed to exhaust her quickly, and she was indeed already drawing short, sharp breaths threw her pale lips. She spoke some amount of words that Lila could neither count nor understand; and she moved a little closer to Heidi, so that she might hear anything else she said.

  “I came to you – once,” whispered Heidi, falling nearly down into the emptiness of the doorway. Dera went to her aid, and propped her up on her own shoulder, so that she might not suffer a fall. “I came to you,” she breathed, “but you did not wake.”

  Anything else she may have said was lost to Lila, for Dera had already begun to move her out of her precarious position above the stone floor. She assisted her to her bed, and sat her down there in the place where she could just as easily lie back, and rest her head – what bobbed with the effort of keeping it raised – against the pillows.

  “Can I get you something?” Dera asked her. All of the anger and scorn, which had been meant only for Lila, had gone from her voice; and was replaced now with genuine distress at her friend’s sorry appearance. “Would you like a little to eat, or to drink?”

  Heidi shook her head weakly, but rested her hand on Dera’s arm. “I am all right,” she said softly. “You need not worry about me.”

  “If I bring you something to eat,” Dera went on, “if only a little broth, later on – will you eat? Will you eat, if only because I beg you to?”

  Heidi patted her hand, and said, “I will try. Now, go on with you – you need not linger over me. Leave me to speak with the Princess.”

  From the way that Dera behaved, it seemed that she had not laid eyes upon Heidi for some time. She was obviously reluctant to leave her;
and would only do so after having embraced her several times, and having laid a sorrowful kiss upon her cheek. Then she did go – but not without a look of the utmost displeasure cast to Lila.

  Lila answered nothing, either in word or gaze, for this hostility. As far as she could see, she deserved whatever the woman could think to deal her.

  When Dera left the room, she refrained from closing the door behind her. Lila expected that she would keep her own door open, as well, the better to hear anything that she might.

  “Thank you for coming,” said Heidi to Lila; speaking in a voice that was very soft, but which was, Lila thought, quite as loud as she could manage. “To look at you, I did not know if you would wake!”

  Lila looked upon her, for several long moments, in some sort of confusion. She thought of the words; and then asked, “Do you not know, Heidi, that it has been a long while since I spoke with you?”

  Heidi tilted her head slightly to the side, and smiled thinly. “Surely it has not,” she said. “A few days, perhaps, since you slept? But that was only to be expected. You lost much, just as I did.”

  “It has been longer than that, Heidi,” said Lila. She did not speak without some difficulty; for she believed that she was speaking words which had been offered to Heidi much over past months; but which she could not seem, on any level, to comprehend.

  “Some days more?” asked Heidi. “But that is no matter. What is the matter of the time? You have come, as I knew you would.”

  Here she winced, as if in pain; and made to lie back upon the bed. “I hope you will excuse me,” she said. “I am not feeling very well. I must lie down, and rest.”

  “Do you wish me to go? I might come back tomorrow.”

  “No,” said Heidi quickly. “I do not want you to go. Only stay, and sit you here beside me. Do you mind that?”

  “I don’t,” answered Lila, moving to the bed so as to take up her seat. She looked for a little into Heidi’s face, where the eyes had closed for a brief moment of respite; but which opened shortly afterwards, to shine dully above her grim smile.

  “And what shall we do, Princess?” she asked. “What shall we do for all this?”

  Though Lila wished that she could say anything other, she only said, “I do not know, Heidi.”

  “Something must be done, Princess. It cannot go on this way.”

  “I do know that much.”

  Heidi closed her eyes again, having appeared to newly tire herself. All about her was so very pale, and so very white, that she much resembled the woman who had once visited Lila’s dreams. In silver raiment, and shining brightly, had she been then; but now she was only lightened with weakness. But still, the effect was almost one of that same purity and power; and the terrible sadness that had come to tinge her beauty, which had been by no means diminished, served now to fairly break Lila’s heart in two.

  Lila knew not how long she sat beside Heidi; but it did seem that she slept for a good long while. When finally she opened her eyes, she seemed less weary; and she smiled at Lila, with a face that bespoke of the forgetfulness of dreams.

  “Is there more that you would like to talk of?” Lila asked her.

  “There isn’t,” said Heidi. “But does that mean that you will go?”

  “If that is your wish.”

  Heidi shivered, with a cold that was not present. So Lila shifted the blanket upon the bed, that it would cover her poor trembling bones.

  “I do not think that I want to be alone anymore,” she said. “If you should not be too very busy, do you think that you might stay a while?”

  “I shall,” said Lila. “Let me only take a chair, and I will sit up with you –”

  “Might you lie down here, next to me? It is so awfully cold! I do not want to be alone anymore.”

  And so, not without a good deal of discomfort at the act (which did not, it should be noted, constitute as displeasure; but rather as a disinclination for the return of Dera Black, or some other person, while she lay as such), Lila went to the side of the bed, and took up the empty space there. Heidi moved nearer to her, and rested her head against her shoulder. Lila wondered, for a long moment, whether the woman was wholly aware who truly lay there beside her; and she had rather prepared herself to move away a bit, when she had fallen asleep; but the last words that Heidi spoke to her that night, put this thinking away.

  “Thank you for coming,” she repeated. “Thank you for coming, Lila.”

  She took Lila’s hand in her own cold fingers, and seemed immediately to fall asleep.

  ~

  When Heidi came awake in the morn, she was greeted by a light exceeding bright – and though she was indeed thinking that it was somewhat less than pleasant to her own tired eyes, what had been used to such darkness in recent days, she was inclined more to wonder how such a light had come to be present there in her place.

  She looked to the windows, and saw that all the curtains had been opened. Certainly, she had not done that. She had grown rather used, and had rather begun to become fond of, the darkness. It much more suited the dank and heavy air that had come to be trapped inside her heart; and was much more conducive to the retaining of that heaviness, than was all this bright yellow sunlight.

  Yet, even though all of these things were true (and she did not doubt them an instant) she still felt strangely curious. If she were, say, to rise up, and to walk those few steps to the great high windows – what would she see? Was the sunlight only a ruse, to get her up and hoping, only to snatch away any cheer that it had inspired, when she laid eyes upon the black waste that surely must exist beyond the castle walls?

  How could there be anything other? She herself felt nothing more than that; and could not imagine there being something else, if that something happened to be one jot more pleasant than the things which her mind could create.

  She used all this as argument, to dissuade herself from going to the window. She would surely be much less devastated, if she only lay here, and imagined the desolation that the world had become. But to see it – well, that was another matter entirely.

  Yet she could not resist. So she rose up on shaking legs, that had grown so unaccustomed to any act of walking at all; and she made with some difficulty the short journey the windows. There were three in all, all in a row, with about five feet of stone wall separating each from the other. They were about two-thirds of the way rectangular; but when it came to the very top, they branched inwards to create something like the sort of peak which might be found on a house. In the dark, on a night when Heidi had for some reason thought to open the curtains, and the moonlight flowed in like the steady water of a little creek, those windows had appeared as three tall Kings, all crowned with silver and looking down upon Heidi, as if in some sort of final judgment. Perhaps it needs not be said, that she sprang rather quickly from her bed, and drew all the thick curtains over the stern faces of those Kings.

  It took her longer, she thought, to reach the windows (which little resembled, in the daylight, those dreadful monarchs that she had feared) than it would have taken a worm upon the ground, to reach its little hole that was perhaps a great distance away. She ventured to guess that it took her even longer, than it would have taken that worm to continue on, had even a vicious little child decided to cut it in half with the sharp of a spade, just to watch it crawl away bleeding.

  Yet she reached the place finally; and fell down with much pressure against the stone betwixt the second and third windows, when her eyes caught sight of an expanse of green down there upon the ground. Long grass swayed out in the fields behind the castle, swishing to and fro in a breeze that must really have been, had one desired to feel such a sort of thing, exceptionally pleasant. There was no blackness, and indeed, no foulness at all. These were not wastelands that she looked upon, but rather the lush and beautiful meadows of spring. If she squinted her eyes just a bit, she thought that she could even see some spots of colour, that represented the numerous little flowers, down there amongst the green.


  What with all the surprise that this sight wrought upon her weak heart, she felt the need to clap a hand there to her breast, and to hold tightly to it as it heaved up and down; else she feared that it would get away from her, and certainly lead to her demise.

  But finally the tremors passed, and her breath gradually returned to a state that could have been deemed as normal. Quickly, still, did it come and go, but not so much that she felt any more pain on account of it. She only continued to look on out of the window, with furrowed brow and narrowed eyes, really in a state of full consternation, as she pondered the discrepancy betwixt what she saw, and what she knew to be true.

  In all the days that had passed, she had come to see the castle as a place of dim light and shadow, of endless corridors which held nothing but emptiness and cold. There could have been placed a minstrel in each doorway; and these minstrels could have been ordered to sing, all in unison, the most beautiful song that they knew how to sing; and the air of the place would still scream of misery. In this way, the castle itself was something of a testament to Heidi’s own heart, insomuch as it was a place of dankness, and heaviness, that could not be cleansed so easily as anyone might have hoped.

  Now, considering this to be true, one could make the conjecture that, as Heidi’s own body was the shell that housed her miserable heart, so the green meadows were the shell that housed that miserable castle.

  And this, you see, is where the incongruity comes into place. Turning away from the windows, Heidi shuffled over to the great looking-glass that took up a portion of the East wall of the chamber. She looked upon herself, there in the glass, and could think of nothing to be at the sight of herself, other than frightened and affronted. As the heart did wither in her breast, so its shell had done also. She was nothing but a mere ghost of herself – a pale spectre of what she once had been.