Darkling (9 page)

Oh dear. They know I am here but are afraid. I must try harder.

“Hello,” I say again, as loud as I can.

“Something’s watching us, all right,” one of the men says, readying his crossbow.

“You think it’s the beast?”

“Could be.”

Beast?
What beast? There’s a beast in these woods?

I run towards the men, towards the safety of their lanterns. I am not careful. I snuff out one of their lights. I didn’t mean to. One of the men shouts. They aim their weapons at the woods. I step up behind one.

“I’m sorry,” I say. He stares ahead and starts to move in towards the others. I rest a hand on his shoulder and am about to apologize again when he screams.

I let go. He jerks away. The others point their weapons at me. I am frightened.
So frightened that I can’t move.

“Something grabbed me!” the man shouts.

“What was it?”

“It was me,” I shout. They can’t hear me. I step towards the lamplight. I reach out my hands to show I have no weapons. I can see my scars in the golden light.

They see me now. But only the ugly part of me. They shout and one throws a knife. I leap into the air and latch onto a tree trunk. An arrow whizzes past my head. Is this the dead rabbit game?

I don’t like it. They are screaming to kill me. I scurry up further. Fire burns in my shoulder. I am paralyzed. The boy with the crossbow shot me. He hurt me.

I am sad. So sad that I shake. He hurt me. The men all want to hurt me. They are not my friends after all.

“Did you get him?” one asks.

Mean men. Mean. Mean. Mean.

I scream. My shoulder hurts. It hurts so much that my strength is fading. I draw energy from their lantern. It snuffs out, leaving them in darkness. It isn’t enough. I can’t hold onto my body any more. I scream again as I fall. I never hit the ground. I have no body.

I zip through the forest. I huddle in the corner by the fireplace. The hunters hurt me. Why would they hurt me? They weren’t my friends. I am empty and cold. Cold. Hollow.

Then she fills me. I can do nothing to push her out. She is amused by me.
You will never be one of them,
she coos.
You are mine, darling. Stay where you are safe…

Safe, yes, I am safe here. Nothing can harm me.
Except for her. Then she feeds. I hardly have anything left to give. But still she takes. Until all I am is quietness.

Tristan pulls his forehead away from mine. Suddenly I am back in my body.
My beautifully warm, solid body. I will never take it for granted again.

The dejection, that terrible despair that consumed me is gone. Tristan is looking at his hands, appearing smaller than he is. Red has blossomed on his shoulder, staining the white of his shirt, as if the memory made his wound fresh again. I don’t realize I have tears on my cheeks until they start to dry.

The happy emotions Tristan felt were so consuming, so intoxicatingly pleasant that I long to feel them again. Why can’t the living feel such passion? Yet the depth of his woe and hurt were just as strong. Even after Scarlet’s death, I have never felt so vulnerable within myself. So deeply shamed and unloved. So trapped. Yet that is Tristan’s existence.

I wipe my cheeks. Draven never knew his bolt had hit its mark. And the girl with the scarf on her head, shaking out the blanket…

“Did you know that was me you saw?”

He nods. “You’re the only living person I’ve ever felt.”

“Felt?”

“Your light.”
He smiles faintly as he looks to me. “We are like moths. We know you will listen.”

I have often wondered what I feel like to the dead. How they know I am a Listener. I barely recall the day Tristan saw me. I often hear stray whispers here and there. Bits and pieces that I can’t make sense of, so I ignore. This was probably one of those moments. Then I remind myself of what I learned before I slipped into his memory. If I can’t find a way to help him, no one will.

And if there is one thing I gained from his memory, it’s that the corpse doesn’t have as strong a hold on him as he thinks. She feeds on him until he is almost nothing, yes. But she needs him and he doesn’t need her.

Gloom is still bowing his spine. The memory is too fresh. “The hunters didn’t understand you. They acted in fear.”

Tristan holds a hand to his shoulder, wincing.

“And this spirit woman, this corpse, she is doing the same thing. She’s not the one with the power. You are.”

He considers this for a moment. “I can’t stop her from feeding on me.”

“But you’re getting so much better. The more time I spend with you, the more human you seem.”

He smiles faintly.

“It’s doing you good. And the stronger you are, the less she’ll be able to hurt you. So let’s focus on ways you gain strength.”

Tristan crosses to the fire. It dims as the wound on his shoulder fades. “I can use fire to heal.”

I smile. “Good. What else?” Something about the fire is sticking in the back of my mind.

“Um…” He looks around the room for inspiration. “Speaking with you helps my thoughts stay straight. That is a good thing.”

“It is.”

He paces as he thinks, his step quick and light and off the wall whenever he reaches one, reminding me that he has a ways to go. “The more I remember of life, the more… stable I feel. Like I belonged here once and might again.”

Drawing strength from fire is sticking in my head. “How can you feed off flames?”

“They’re a link to the Netherworld.” He stops pacing. “At least, that’s how I see it.”

I’m about to say that doesn’t make sense when I realize that it does. I’ve always felt kinship with fire. The flames warm my body and cook my food. They give me life and survival. Watching their shifting shades relaxes me and I feel like there has always been fire as long as there have been people. Like fire is so important to us that it’s emblazoned in our spirits.

Out of control, it is utterly destructive. It kills in seconds. It destroys lives. Yet in its wake is rebirth. Green shoots always stir from the ashes. It is a giver and a taker. A creator and a destroyer. And that amazing force that we experience as fire is experienced as another form of energy in the Netherworld. In the realm of the dead that isn’t a place, but a state of being. Fire is with us, even after we die, which would explain our primal connection with it. Our need to bring it into our homes.

And then I am thinking of the burning circle and grow cold. The sun is heat and fire. The corpse devours any light she can.

“Tristan,” I gasp. “It’s her. She’s the cause of all of this. She has devoured so much light that she has created a hole. A void in the spirit world. She should be there but she’s not, she’s here.”

He is studying me with large eyes and I know he is keeping up with me.

“She has caused a rift. She’s the source of the darkness.”

T
ristan falls to his knees. “No,” he whispers, as if the weight of being connected to such an individual is overwhelming.

My shock evaporates in the heat of my anger. Not only has she caused the darkness that killed the men who were sent for help, but also another.

“Elias thought she was a witch…” I whisper, my chest clenching.

“Who?”
Tristan squeaks.

“He blamed her for the darkness and burnt her at the stake, but it didn’t change anything.”

Hunger grew. Women became barren. I stopped bleeding each month. Then starvation claimed its first victim: the blacksmith’s apprentice. If the burly young man had starved to death, then the rest of us would soon follow. Fear spread like wildfire. And one by one, the families of my village consented to the sacrifice. It was all we had left. I wouldn’t be here, broken and bleeding, if it wasn’t for the Bringer’s selfishness.

I kneel before Tristan. When he doesn’t look at me, I place a hand on either of his shoulders. When he still won’t look at me, I cup his chin in my hand. Our eyes meet and my voice is firm. This is no longer just a battle for his liberty.

“Tristan, I am going to free you and defeat her.”

There’s a bang down the hall. Something must have fallen. Tristan’s eyes are timid. “You want me to pretend I’m human?”

“As human as possible.” There’s another bang, closer this time. They’re footsteps. Heavy, heavy footsteps. The lamps in the hall are suddenly all lit. The hair on the back of my neck stands on end.

She is coming. His eyes widen as he realizes it at the same time I do.

“Focus on life. On being alive.”

Bang
. He winces as another footstep falls. “She is summoning me.”

I slip my fingers into his and squeeze his hand. “Feel how warm I am.”

“It’s going to hurt.” He looks at our hands with dejection.
Bang
!

“Tristan,” I rest my hand on his cheek and am surprised by how soft it is. “Look at me.” He does. “Tell me who you were in life.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Yes, you do. Your name was Tristan. It came to me because I already knew it from your whispers.
Tristan. You lived in this house. You must have had a lot of money to have such a fine home.”

Bang
.

His eyes narrow slightly. “Yes…” He looks around the room with renewed interest. “Money… coins… gold… my father had gold. Then I had gold.”

Bang
. She is only yards away.

He rises and I keep my hand joined to his, trying to anchor him. He crosses over to the desk and runs his hand over the surface. “I used to write at this spot.”

“What did you write?”
Bang
. I squeeze his hand.

“I… I kept a ledger… no.
A journal.” He lets go of my hand just as the footsteps stop. She is outside the door. Tristan lifts the top of the desk and pulls out a leather bound book. He uses his sleeve to wipe away the dust. Then he goes unnaturally stiff and drops the journal.

I grab onto his shoulder. “Fight her, Tristan. Tell me what you wrote in the book.”

“Nothing.”

“Your name is Tristan. You live in this house.”

He is looking at me with the most horribly blank eyes.

“You kept a journal.”

He blinks, his face empty, then shoves my hand off his shoulder and moves like a puppet,  heading for the exit.

I run to the door and press my back against it, blocking it. I don’t care that there’s only a piece of wood separating me from the corpse that wants to kill me. My chest is heavy. I’m hungry, I’m tired, my ankle is getting better, and I’m sick of being afraid of her.

“Leave him,” I mutter, my voice deeper than I’ve ever heard it before. “Now.”

The door hammers in response, jarring my bones. I wince as it smacks the back of my head, but I don’t budge. Tristan is standing before me, as if waiting for a command.

I look him in the eye. “You are kind and gentle, Tristan. You have every reason not to be, but you’re a good person. Which means you’re strong.”

I reach out and take his hand in mine again. At our touch, he blinks and looks from our linked hands to my face with a small smile.

“Hello,” he says, as if we’ve just met.

I shake my head. “You know me. I’m Willow.” I squeeze his hand.

“Willow…” he whispers. His expression turns pensive. Recognition dawns in his eyes but then he jerks and falls onto his back. For a second, he looks like he is a fish out of water, gasping for air. Then he lets out the most terrible scream.

I wheel about to pound on the door. “I said leave him,” I shout.

Tristan’s scream peters out and he drags himself across the room and up the wall, whimpering. I want to go to him but there’s nothing I can do to comfort him.

“Leave him!”

Tristan screams again and I think his throat must be in shreds. There’s no other way he could be making those agonizing sounds. Blood is rushing from the wound on the side of his face which has opened up again. He falls from the wall with a thud then spasms. More screams.