Red Riding-Hood

“Don’t go out into the woods alone, Deirdre.”

The girl in red shrugged her shoulders, acknowledging her mother silently and almost sullenly. Deirdre loved being in the forest. It was the only place she could hear herself think. Her family’s comfortable home on the outskirts of the city was bubbling over with younger brothers and sisters, noisome creatures that scuttled about endlessly.

Deirdre slipped on her galoshes, scarlet like her ankle-length overcoat and shouted over her shoulder as she lifted the crossbar from the door, “I won’t, Mother. I’ll just pop on over to the neighbor’s, see if perhaps Jillian wants to visit a while in the garden.”

“That’s fine, dear,” her mother replied, her voice drifting off as she chased down the youngest pair of twins.

“‘Don’t go into the woods alone.’ What does she think will happen? There’s been nothing dangerous in the forest in years! It’s practically a public parkland, now,” Deirdre mumbled to herself once she sauntered into the neatly hedged yard of her family’s home. The rebellious girl kicked the bottom of the garden gate to speed its opening, her thoughts racing, her intentions outpacing her mother’s warning.

Outside the garden, Deirdre turned left, away from her friend Jillian’s country manor, and trotted toward the dark forest. The sun warmed her from its perch high in the sky and birds whistled happily as they flitted around the flowered fields on either side of the road.

“She’ll never know. The youngsters keep her busy. I’ll just go sit on my rock and relax for a half hour. I won’t be long,” Deirdre promised herself as she hurried along the dusty old carriageway.

Her delight in having outwitted her mother burbled up through her chest and burst from her lips in an airy, happy hum. She beamed at the joy she felt. Her teenage angst melted from her slim shoulders and her feet danced across the hard-packed earth.

Deirdre’s special place, her rock, was only a few hundred yards inside the edge of the forest and a few dozen feet from the road, at the bottom of a small rise in the forest floor. The boulder, its jagged edges worn away by the rough handling of wind and rain, was of a height with Deirdre, but its companion rocks formed a stable stairway to the top. Deirdre loved to sit in the sunken spot at the top, her feet curled up under her, and contemplate her existence.

The sun-heated concavity at the summit was welcoming and freeing to the girl. She relaxed, in her spot, more than she could ever do at home. Deirdre let her guard down, trusting her safety in the forest to the guardsmen who patrolled the old road regularly.

The young girl drifted in her thoughts, the current pushing her mind along in a spiraling circle of what-ifs and if-onlys. The cooling of the granite beneath her lightly-clothed legs tugged her mind sharply back to reality.

The darkening forest startled Deirdre. She had lost track of time.

The girl ignored the natural staircase in favor of a quick leap from the top of her boulder. Her feet thundered in the hushed woods. Deirdre quickly brushed stone dust and leafy debris from her clothes and scurried toward the road. Her mother would be furious and Deirdre would be forbidden from leaving the house without supervision for weeks.

Saddened at her fate, the girl turned to say good-bye to her special place. But the appearance of a tall, slender girl standing in the sunken seat of the huge boulder caused Deirdre to jump.

“Ahhh,” the strange girl purred, “I knew if I waited, patient as only a Hunter can be, I would find something to test myself upon.”

“Wh- who are you,” Deirdre whispered, her voice carrying across the tomb-silent clearing.

“I am a Hunter, beast, and that is all you need to know,” the stranger snarled. Her feet made no noise at all when she hurled herself from the boulder. Her laugh was harsh at Deirdre’s fleeing back.

The girl in red ran. Her coat caught and caressed every breath of wind, slowing Deirdre’s headlong rush, so she tore it off, letting the hooded garment flutter lifelessly to the hard-packed road. Her boots, in her favorite shade of red, followed the outwear to the ground. Freed from the restraints of civilization, Deirdre dropped to all fours and ran, the way her ancestors had run from generations of Hunters before.

Her mother’s face radiated fury when Deirdre crashed through the heavy oaken door of her family’s home. But the whispered, “Hunter,” changed her expression to haunted fear.

“Aa-oooooh! Run, children, hide,” Deirdre’s mother howled. She pushed the newest litter toward Deirdre, “Hide them. I’ll keep calling the pack together. No Hunter, no matter how good, will test an entire pack.”

Deirdre watched with horror as her mother strode from the front door, still calling the pack, to face the dreaded Werewolf Hunter.

The Admiral’s Galleon

Gareth knew he’d been told correctly when he spied the inn, “The Admiral’s Galleon” looming ahead of him, at the end of the massive stone pier. It was no place for hiding, shrinking violets. It was a place for sailors and other adventurers to gather and boast of their travels, near and far.

The first three floors of the inn were typical of most other inns, except in their extreme size. But when the two galleons atop the main building were considered, the size of the main tavern was understandable.

The small, quiet man stood contemplating the audacity of The Admiral’s Galleon. He wasn’t sure if the inn had been built, purposely, or if it had come about by some perplexing happenstance. Gareth was new to the area, but already he had found out that storms on the Sea of Torban could be devastatingly bizarre. He wondered, briefly, if the inn had simply been in the wrong place at the right time, or if the builders had merely been devilishly clever.

No matter, Gareth thought to himself, Lucallis isn’t going to wait while I ponder the local architecture.

With a sighed grunt, the raven-haired man lowered his stormy gray eyes to the door of the inn and set his shoulders. Lucallis, his contact and never a friend, had summoned him here, and the burly thieves’ guild master had never been known for his patience.

The smoky interior of the inn wasn’t much different, to Gareth’s eyes, than the misty, foggy grayness of the pier. Noisy patrons called for ale, dinner, or other delectables, but there was no sign of Lucallis.

Stomping the chill from his bones, the frail-looking man made his way to the main bar, perusing the occupants of the main room once again. The barkeep, a portly, balding man with rheumy eyes and scarlet nose, greeted Gareth cheerily. A grumbled question from the newcomer wiped the happiness from the barkeep, who shakily pointed the way to a set of stairs, along the back wall, that would lead Gareth upward, to his contact, and his fate.

The second and third floors of The Admiral’s Galleon were ordinary. Small rooms crowded in upon one another, dim lighting, and barely clothed women lounging in open doorways. Gareth snorted, his grim face and stormy eyes keeping the women from barring his passage.

At the top of the stairs, on the third floor, the simple staircase changed, becoming a serpentine switchback maze of stairs. The fourth floor, the belly of the first galleon, was nearly identical to the main floor of the inn. A solid wood slab made the bar top along the longest side of the room, where another barkeep stood, and round tables, full of people, crowded the middle of the dark room. The barkeep here was similar to the first in every aspect but one. This one wasn’t smiling and cheerful. Instead, he seemed to be waiting, sullenly, for Gareth to appear in his domain. His fat, sausage-fingered hand pointed to the opposite wall, to the dimly gaping opening that signaled more stairs.

Gareth grunted, a grim, sardonic smile tugging at his lips. The warmth from the levels below floated upward, making this second common area significantly warmer than the first. But if it was an attempt to make visitors loosen their warm, and concealing, clothes, it was lost on the fragile man, who gripped tighter to his cloak as he entered the portal that would lead him further into The Admiral’s Galleon.

The next three levels were rooms, doors spaced further apart, indicating larger, more luxurious appointments. There were no enticing women here. Neither were there guards, but Gareth’s sharp eyes caught the gleaming of various door locks and his senses tingled with the magic in each one.

The serpentine stairs continued, to the belly of the second, topmost, galleon. Here, as he expected, was another common area, although this one obviously courted the less-than-common patron. The barkeep, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, shapely woman in a deep cut emerald dress, grinned at Gareth as he emerged from the darkened stairway. Her slender fingers, dazzling with diamonds, rubies and other gems, pointed to a doorway. A perfectly groomed eyebrow lifted in mocking question when the small man paused to consider her.

The pause lasted mere seconds, before Gareth stomped his way to the doorway. Musical laughter rang out behind him when the heretofore unseen wooden door slammed closed on his back.

“Ahh, Gareth,” he heard from the darkness, “I see you’ve arrived, and on time for once.”

The small man heard rustling in the blackness. He guessed there were three others there, besides the guild master he had expected.

“Show me.” Lucallis’ voice was hungrily frantic.

From beneath his gray cloak, Gareth removed a simple, rope bound, linen bag. His fingers trembled, causing him to fumble a bit with the knot, but he steadied himself, willing his hands to do their duty.

From within the grimy bag, the slender man drew a gem, as large as his palm. The pale green peridot glimmered in the darkness, then flared into life as the magic drew the ebony night into itself. The closed, darkened interior of Lucallis’ private room empowered the lightstone.

The illumination flared brighter, until the room was washed in mid-day light. The two dark elves behind Lucallis shielded their eyes with slender, leather-clad fingers, but the portly thieves’s guild master and the crimson clad woman next to him simply stared, transfixed by the lightstone.

“You have done well, thief,” the goddess said. “Your wish is granted. Return home, to your grateful, resurrected, family.”

Last day of work

Landon left the office much later than usual. But it was Friday, just before his vacation started and he had a special project that had to go out, no exceptions. He was the only one left in the brightly lit office building except the night cleaning crew. He nodded to a couple of the cleaners on his way out of the building.

The short, balding man smiled a satisfied smile, confident that there would be no interruptions of his plans now that the project was finished and deployed. His boss wouldn’t have any reason to call, his co-workers would be impressed, overall, Landon was entirely pleased with himself.

The street in front of his office was nearly deserted. The slow city wind silently blew through, skipping discarded papers along the pavement to catch on darkened parked cars. Landon glanced at his wristwatch, the simple leather-strapped device a throwback to a simpler time that his colleagues teased him about. The pale, glowing dial read 7:13.

The pudgy man’s smile faded a bit, as the idea that he was wasting vacation time floated through his mind. He quickened his pace. The normal route home, along well lit streets, would take him twenty minutes. But, he knew a shortcut, through several alleys, that would cut that time in half.

Determined to get the most of his work-free time, Landon turned into the alley a half-block from his workplace. But just inside the mouth of the dark, narrow area, he noticed several men, speaking quickly and near-silently while hovering in a tight cluster. Being a long-time city dweller, Landon knew a decision to enter the alley would end badly, so he backtracked the few steps to the main street and resolved to take the long way home.

Moving his short legs as fast as they would move, Landon rushed past the alley, into the main thoroughfare. The area was brightly illuminated by the amber glow of streetlights, evenly placed along the roadway. The road was deserted as was usual after dark on a Friday. Relieved to have left the danger behind, the short man allowed himself a sigh and a slower pace.

His relaxed demeanor faded with the first giggle.

Landon’s balding head whipped around, searching for the small child whose laughter floated so eerily into the night. But he saw nothing. Ignoring it as his imagination, the small man continued his trek home.

The second and third sets of laughter stopped Landon in his tracks. Despite his frantic searching, the street remained steadfastly deserted.

“Who’s there,” he called, his voice cracking. But silence was his only answer.

Frightened, Landon darted down the street, anxious to reach the safety of his home, only five more blocks away.

Behind him, the yellow pools of light vanished, one by one, each accompanied by a peal of laughter. Then the light he was under flashed out. The man’s steps faltered and stopped. Landon was exhausted.

He watched in horror as every street light along the street blinked out. He tried to still his racing heart, but the approach of children’s laughing voices made that impossible.

The voices surrounded the vacationing man. Landon reached for the closest voice, hoping to connect with something solid he could push away, but empty darkness was all he found.

The giggling rose in intensity, driving Landon to the ground, arms atop his head. He was still cowering, frozen in fear, when the Saturday morning papers arrived on the backs of the big box trucks.

Experimentation

The egg-shaped white objects floated in the water just out of reach of Benton’s outstretched arm. He estimated them to be about a foot long and half that in diameter on the large end. The raft, made of hastily lashed together bamboo and shoe string, rocked with his movement.

The azure water was freezing. The waves sent splashes of icy wetness like daggers at his exposed skin. Shivers slithered up and down his spine, sending him into convulsions with every jab of the frozen water.

The nearly-naked man stretched out once again, groaning in agony as he reached for the strange objects. But, as with every time before, the devices stayed tantalizingly beyond his grasp.

Dimly, Benton heard a series of low, digital beeps, almost a melody, emanate from the nearest egg. It was the same sound that had led him to the trio in the first place. Wearily, he raised his shaggy blonde head to gaze in hatred and yearning at the prize he so desperately wanted.

Overhead, the fluorescent light that beamed down upon the deep blue of the water flashed, once, twice and three times. Startled, Benton jerked his eyes upward, the bleary green orbs straining to see clearly.

Inside a control room far away, two white suited figures turned toward another, suited all in ebony, handing over piles of tiny silver disks, each encoded with behavioral modification software.

“Gentlemen,” the black suited figure intoned, “I believe it is time our subject acquired his deepest desire.”

Benton tore his eyes from the flashing overhead light to the egg-shaped objects. The three devices were motoring toward his flimsy raft, beeping heartily.

Terrified, Benton thrust his nearly-frostbitten hands into the water, trying to paddle away from the menace of the eggs.

The overhead lights stopped flashing, plunging Benton and the frozen water into darkness.

Benton’s scream echoed through the facility.

The man in black nodded, satisfied at the outcome of the experiment.

The clearing

The sunlight streaming down onto her upturned face is pleasantly warm, knocking the chill from her body and thawing her smile. The yellow-tinted hue gives a spring-like freshness to the towering trees, clad in just-turning leaves. The springy moss under foot gives a satisfying bounce to her steps.

The girl is free and happy for a moment, until the heavy black chains on her ankles stop her sprightly steps. The rattle and clang from the thick links remind her of where she is and what she’s doing. Her masters wouldn’t hesitate to grind the smile from her face.

The looming specter of her masters brings her back to herself. She peers left and right, making sure she’s still alone in the forest clearing. Her purple eyes darken, piercing the deeply shaded areas around her. Her pointed ears pull forward, straining to hear unnatural movements, but she senses nothing.

The slim girl takes a few more seconds to commune with the early autumn sun before moving back to the tarred post she’s chained to. She stretches her legs out once more before crouching down upon the single moss-free spot of the clearing.

She is bait. The lure her masters use time and again to capture more magical beings. She hates being the meat for the trap, but this has been her fate since her mother was captured, long ago, the girl a mere spark inside, below her mother’s heart.

Her magical hearing allows her to hear her overmaster growl, “Cry, demon’s sake, or you’ll find me nothing!”

The girl begins crying, lightly but truly. If she coerces nothing into the trap, her masters will ensure she is even more pitiful on the morrow, with added bruises and bleeding. She would sob in earnest, then.

For several heartbeats, nothing happens. Then, the warm, comfortable sunlight fades, bringing a wash of frigidness to the clearing. The girl looks up, frightened by the abruptness of the change. She cowers, dropping to her bare belly on the hard ground, and throws her hands above her lank green hair.

The great sapphire dragon hovering above the clearing roars in anger and challenge. He is outraged at her condition. The trumpeting of his call echoes through the forest, sending lesser creatures scurrying for cover.

Even in her terror, the girl hears her masters’ voices, cawing in laughter and glee at their catch. They are sure the gem dragon is no match for their cleverness and greed. The ground trembles in her ears. Her masters are arriving.

Then a closer voice, gentle as the finest silk and chiming like glass orbs in a spring wind, whispers in her pointed ear, “Be calm, little one, your masters are masters no more. Look!”

The girl raises her purple eyes to gaze in wonder on the scene in the once-peaceful clearing. Her masters, all four massive, foul beasts with their piggish snouts and horned visages, are surrounded by magical beasts. The fear flowing from the masters is palpable to the girl.

Her lips spread in a slow, feral smile, showing her tiny, sharpened teeth. Her delight in the masters’ distress and terror tastes wonderfully crisp and sweet as it slides through her. She watches the sparkling, gem-encrusted sapphire beast hover above the masters, bugling orders to the other magical creatures of the forest. She admires the precious stones, craving the feel of the sharp edges, aching for the riches inherent in each pebble.

The dragon feels her greed, her lust for the treasure that adorns his body. He trumpets new demands into the crowd across the mossy clearing. As one, the group of masters is lifted bodily into the air, short stout feet flailing in impotent distress, and carried into the thickness of the forest.

Lost in her desire, the chained girl forgets her shackles, bounding her way to her feet. But the thick iron links hold her fast to her post. She cries out to the majestic blue dragon for help, but the beast’s cold-hearted reply leaves her gasping for air.

“No,” he says, “for you have become what you’ve hated. You, my child, have become a master, though you know not. I leave you here, to whatever fate finds you. You are no longer our concern.”

With that, the massive wings flapped, pushing frozen air like daggers at the girl’s bare skin, and the sapphire dragon flew away.

The girl turned her small, heart-shaped face to the warmth of the sun and contemplated her world. The small clearing, full of springy moss, teemed with possibilities. The masters had taught her how to take advantage. And she would, she thought, as she heard movement in the trees.

She whimpered, cowering next to the tarred post. Her purple eyes gleamed in anticipation.

 

Orbs

Kaden heard the muted thrumming mere seconds before he noticed the ebony disks floating above his bed. There were four of them, perfectly circular, hovering about three feet above the bed.

They hadn’t been there when he’d gone to bed. He was sure of that. He was also sure he had no idea where they’d come from. He wasn’t asleep, only having been snuggled under his blankets for about three minutes.

Kaden hadn’t seen them come flying in, they were just there.

He kept his green eyes focused on the one closest to his face, studying it. It was opaque, pitch-black, and just under a foot in diameter. The room, lit by a pale glow from the full-moon, was starkly visible around the perfectly cut edges of the disk.

The hum he heard emanating from the disks, each of the four having a different pitch, made an eerily melodic sound in the quiet room.

Kaden watched the disks warily, but they didn’t move. Until he reached toward the bedside table and the bronze lamp waiting there.

The abrupt movement of the floating objects held Kaden’s hand for a split-second, but, as if sensing his intention to turn on the light, the disks darted down, slamming into his prone body.

The searing pain, although only seconds long, knocked Kaden’s breath from his lungs. Gasping for air, Kaden rolled from his bed, knocking the lamp from the beside table. He scrambled for the light switch beside his bedroom door, flipping the lever up and flooding the room with bright light.

Kaden searched his legs, stomach and chest for signs of the disks, anything they may have left behind on their entry into his body. But he found nothing.

His heart beating wildly, Kaden crawled back into his bed, leaving the overhead light blazing. He dozed fitfully during the night, never fully allowing himself to drift into a deep sleep.

With the sun peeking over the tree-tops, Kaden sat up in his bed, relieved the night, and nightmare, was finally over.

When he went to wake his son up for school, however, Kaden knew something had changed, forever. His son’s usually bright blue eyes were darkened, turned from near royal to navy. The smirk on his eight-year-old’s face was menacing.

As was the boy’s voice, asking, “Why did you try to fight it, Daddy?”

Vertigo

He couldn’t stop the vertigo from happening. He’d tried Dramamine, he’d tried all his grandmother’s old folk remedies, he’d even been to the doctor. But nothing helped. Especially since no one could figure out what triggered the motion-sickness and feeling of falling that came over him two or three times every day.

The doctor had sent him for tests. Then more tests, then specialists who ordered even more diagnostic processes. They all told him there was nothing to find. He was perfectly healthy and normal, they insisted.

But every day, as Lyle went through his normal routines, a wave of nausea would hit him, square in the midsection. Then his body would tumble over a Himalayan cliff, hurtling him downward, to the depths of the Marianas.

At least, that’s what it felt like.

When Lyle would regain his stability, he would find himself elsewhere. Usually no where close to where the vertigo had started.

The first time, the dizziness had come on while he was getting ready for work, still in his boxers with a toothbrush in his hand. When he’d come out of it, he’d been at work, and a close look at his sales numbers showed that he was on top of the daily bonus contest.

The last time, the spell had hit while he was driving home to visit his family for his grandmother’s 90th birthday. He remembered being in his little Toyota, in the middle of the freeway at noon, travelling along happily at seventy miles per hour, thinking about the party, then all of a sudden, sickness in his belly and darkness in his sights. When he came around, Lyle was standing under an ancient oak tree at dusk, in some random person’s backyard, looking into the brightly lit yellow two-story.

He’d called his family, to let them know he wasn’t going to be there, but his brother insisted that he had been. The party was awesome, but grandmother, being 90, wasn’t up to a long visit, so they’d wrapped things up early.

Lyle had made it to his car, with a bit of help from his dying cell-phone. He’d found visitors at his home, when he finally wandered back there. Three uniformed officers and two detectives.

The police had confronted him about a set of times, all when he’d been in the midst of vertigo. He couldn’t help them. They couldn’t help him. They’d booked him into the county lockup.

Last night.

Now, as Lyle looked around, he found himself somewhere else. Not downtown, where he should’ve been. Not in the jail, booked for murder.

Right now, Lyle was covered, head to toe, in sticky crimson while a tall, thin shadow of a man smirked at him from across the writhing body on the lavender carpeted floor. The shadow bowed, then faded away as sirens blasted through the fog in Lyle’s mind.

Maternity ward

The hallway was long, longer than Jen expected it to be. The walls were white, sterile and cold and they seemed to loom together near the end of the corridor. Jen’s feet were freezing, even through the fuzzy pink socks and purple slippers her boyfriend had brought her last night. Her white nightgown, her favorite, was flannel and long with roses and violets, but it did nothing to ward off the cold. Even her robe, thick and soft, didn’t help much against the bone-chilling temperature of the hospital’s hallway.

“Hello,” Jen called, her voice echoing hollowly even though she’d nearly whispered her call. “Is there anyone here?”

Tears flowed unchecked from her eyes. She hurt, all over. She’d known that giving birth was hard, her mother had warned her, but she didn’t think it would cause her entire body to ache. Cramps cascaded across her tired muscles, running from her arms to her legs and back again. Her still-extended belly felt soft, mushy even, and the uncontrollable moving of it while she walked caused searing pain, from her belly button to her back.

Too-bright white lights flickered in the ceiling along the hall, making Jen’s head pound. She stopped at a cross-corridor, staring at a sign on the wall, looking for directions back to the maternity ward, but the usual arrows were missing and the words were all jumbled, looking almost like a foreign language to her burning eyes.

The sound of babies crying caught her attention. She listened, trying to close out all other senses to focus on the children, but the crying seemed to be coming from everywhere. Sobbing, Jen chose a direction, hoping she was going the correct way, and continued stumbling and shuffling her way along the next hallway, identical to the first.

“Hello? Is anyone here,” Jen’s voice was stronger than before, desperation giving her call volume. She stopped, waiting for a response, but nothing came back to her. Shaking her shaggy blonde head, she continued on her stumbling way.

The hallway was growing longer. Jen watched in horror as the narrow, white line of the corridor stretched away from her. She tried to run, but her feet didn’t respond. Instead she stumbled, tripping over her own feet, and fell to the hard, tiled floor.

Lying on the floor, the chill creeping and clawing its way inside of her, Jen sobbed. Her eyes clouded with sorrow and pain, she didn’t notice the trail of crimson, extending away behind her, marking her labored journey through the hospital.

Jen gasped, trying to breathe, but it was too difficult, air wouldn’t expand her frozen lungs. She ached to hold her newborn baby girl, to see her boyfriend’s rugged face, to hear her mother scold her once more. But she knew it was hopeless. She was lost.

The lights flared once, washing the white tiled hallway and the dying woman in brilliant white light.

In a maternity recovery room, a mother cried while holding her only child’s hand. A man stood silent, cradling his newborn daughter, while the love of his life took her last breath on the narrow bed. A doctor shook his head, sadly, and muttered, “Too much blood…”

 

The journal’s journey

(Part 5 of Jerra and the Ravers. Start from here: Surprises in the night, or just read the last episode, here: Death-day)

 

Jerra spent all night studying her mother’s book. It was part diary and part spellbook. Inside the thick leather covers, Jerra found her mother, her true, unabashedly honest self. All of Ambra’s fears, her wishes, her motivations, everything was laid bare for her oldest daughter to absorb.

And absorb, Jerra did. In the single breath that was her mother’s death-day, Jerra learned many of the secrets of Masica magic. She learned how to keep her Buranga facade strong, even in the midst of extreme emotion. She learned how to create the simple magics that would allow her to protect her family from Ravers, from Masica spies, and from her Buranga neighbors.

Jerra also learned the terrible reason her mother had run away from her golden city, so long ago.

When Ander and the twins awoke the morning after Ambra’s funeral, they discovered Jerra, still sitting in her mother’s rocking chair, staring blankly at the open pages of the leather-bound journal.

“Genn, go warm your sister’s bed. Tair, see if there’s still something left in the pot. Quickly, now, go!”

Ander’s barked orders sent his younger girls running. Gently, the big man removed Jerra’s fingers from the book in her lap, closing the covers and setting the book beside the chair. He rubbed her small fingers in his, willing warmth to enter the frigid digits. When he looked to her face, he saw the glistening of tears in her jade eyes.

“Jerra, my girl,” Ander whispered, “if I’d known it would trouble you so… I’m so sorry, my girl.”

Ander was still trying to warm his oldest daughter when Tair returned with half a bowl of hot stew, thick with root vegetables and venison. Together, the pair spooned the hot broth into Jerra’s willing mouth. Genn returned from her mission, standing uncharacteristically silent behind her father.

When Jerra no longer opened her mouth for the offered food, Ander set aside the bowl and stood. He motioned his twins away and then lifted the unmoving Jerra from the wooden rocker, carrying her to her bed, like he’d done so often when she was a small child.

Genn picked up the leather book from the rug where Ander had placed it and carried it into her sister’s room. The young girl tiptoed her way to Jerra’s side, keeping quiet in her fear. When she settled the book onto the bed beside her sister, though, her fear exploded inside her as her father roared at her, tearing the book from her hands.

“Get that thing away! I never should have let her have it.”

The angry man threw the book, aiming for the still-crackling fireplace in the main room of the house, just past the doorway of Jerra’s bedroom. But before the journal passed the doorway, it froze, floating in mid-air, a purple haze surrounding it.

“No, Papa,” Jerra’s voice floated to him, “don’t. I’m fine. Just tired.”

Ander turned stunned eyes on his elder daughter. She was still lying in her bed, still as stone, but her deep green eyes were fixed on him. Never blinking, never taking her gaze from his face, she guided the flying journal back to her bed, letting it fall free from the magic to land on the feather mattress next to her hand.

“Let me rest, please, for just a bit,” Jerra asked her father, including her sisters in her words. “Then, I’ll be fine, all back to normal. Like mother.”

Ander gulped, fear and anger battling inside his chest. He nodded and escorted Genn and Tair from the room.

Before closing the door, he said, “I’ll be back to check on you in an hour. Rest, now.”

Jerra smiled weakly at her father. She waited for him to close the door before sitting up in her bed. She reached for her mother’s journal, flipping the pages until she found the map inside, hand-drawn by Ambra, showing the way from Pason’s Crossing to Hyroma, her mother’s golden city.

It took less than the full hour for Jerra to pack her few possessions. By the time Ander opened the door to check on his half-blood oldest child, she was out of Pason’s Crossing and across the river.

 

Death-day

(Part 4 of Jerra and the Ravers. Part 3 is here: Masica fever)

 

True to Buranga tradition, Jerra and her family consecrated her mother’s body to the gods at sundown, the very day she died. Her pyre was strung with garlands of early autumn flowers and fallen leaves. Gifts of food, beads, feathers and furs were set around the base of her funeral bower, left by the villagers at the garden gate.

Funerals, in Buranga, were private affairs, with anonymous gifts left for the dead and solitude for the grieving family. Jerra and Ander were especially grateful for the isolation a death-fire begat.

Ander was near inconsolable. He and Ambra had loved deeply, for many, many years. Jerra knew that her father would never marry again, even if there were no fears about someone finding out his children’s half-blood status. Ambra had been the love of his lifetime, no one stood a chance at filling the hole her death had caused.

When the fire had flamed itself down to cinders, the younger girls already deeply asleep in their goose-down bed, Ander roused himself from his grief and went searching for his oldest child.

He found his red-headed, green-eyed daughter in the barn, roughly chopping her maiden’s braids from her head, an outdated but still accepted form of mourning in Buranga. Tears poured unchecked from her eyes as she sawed a leather knife’s blade through her thick locks.

“Child,” he whispered, his voice thick and gruff with his tears, “here, let me help you. That knife won’t do. Try this.”

Ander held forth his own knife, sharpened and strong, for his daughter to take.

Jerra’s hands fell from her head, the tanning knife falling loose from her grip. Her shoulders hunched and her body began to shake with her enormous sobs. The large, solid form of her father was suddenly at her back, his strong arms wrapping themselves around her, holding her tightly, while his tears mingled with hers in their shared anguish.

When they had both cried themselves dry, Ander gently finished cutting Jerra’s luxurious hair, trimming the ends so that, even in mourning, her hair was properly kempt. He watched his daughter, who looked so much like his beloved, carefully pick up the hacked off pieces of her hair and place them all into a white handkerchief. Then she tied the ends together and slipped the package into her pocket.

“Done?”

Jerra nodded at her father, answering his question without words of her own. She was afraid she’d begin to cry all over again if she dared to open her mouth. She took the hand Ander held out to her and together they walked from the barn, separate in their loneliness.

Ander stopped just before the pair reached the safety of their well-built wooden house and said, “Your mother… she left something for you. I didn’t want her to give it to you. We argued, yes, while she was ill, and I’m sorry for it, but, at the time, I thought it was best. Now, seeing you in your grief, I believe I may have been wrong.”

Jerra’s deep green eyes glistened with tears. “What is it? And why do you think you were wrong?”

“Jerra,” her father whispered in the dark, “look at yourself.”

Stunned, the girl realized that, in her angst, she’d forgotten to maintain the hold on her Buranga appearance. Her limbs were longer than they should have been. She was also taller than her father, who at 6’1 stood taller than most of the other men in the village.

“Papa… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… What if someone had seen,” Jerra’s voice faltered, bewilderment, grief, and anxiety all jumbled together in her tone.

Ander patted his daughter’s long-fingered hands. “Don’t fret, girl, it’s dark, it’s a death-day, you’re fine. But, it does make me certain that, once again, your mother was right. Come, let me give you her book.”

With that, the father and daughter entered their darkened house. Ander sat his daughter in the rocking chair near the fireplace and retrieved her mother’s book.

“I believe it’s all the magic she knew. All the tricks and spells, all the information she had gathered from both her time in the city, and her time here. It will help keep you safe. You, and your sisters.”

Jerra nodded her thanks, giving her father a weak smile, and flipped open the book. Ander quietly made his way to his empty bed, where he cried himself to sleep.