Nevermor (61 page)

“Ah, yes I do
recall that, but that was before I realized that there
is
a woman
between us.  And it’s
her
,” he said, indicating Wren.  “I thought we
might share her, you see, because we already do.”

“What are you
talking about?”  Rifter growled.  He didn’t like what the man was implying.

The Scourge came
down the steps, drawing one sword and passing it from one hand to the other. 
Rifter focused on his hands briefly – seeing that the man wasn’t missing an
appendage, as he should have been.  Both hands were covered by gloves, but
Rifter was sure he had seen the fingers bend.  This confused him.  The Scourge
laughed.

“I was oblivious
to it as well,” he said with a wicked grin, “but suddenly I see the light – or
rather, the mystical lure of the
dark
.”

Stabbing his
sword down into the deck, he took off his glove from the hand that Rifter had
severed, holding it up, and Rifter saw that there was indeed no hand there. 
There was no flesh, only a shadow that wavered like black fire.  The boy didn’t
understand.  The Scourge was inhuman – Rifter must have already known that –
but he hadn’t expected
this
.

“You see,” the
man went on, “It wasn’t long ago that I walked the moor of my subconscious, and
I recovered some things that I had lost – that I had forgotten.  I too
remembered this girl, Wren, from my own past.  How could that be, since she is
yours?  I’ve never seen her before and yet
I know her
.”

Rifter didn’t
try to answer, but he listened to this riddle that the man was offering him.

“I’ve gone a
long time, asking myself questions that I don’t know the answers to.  Who am
I?  Where did I come from?  Did I ever really exist, except through you?  Yet,
I have power.  How is that possible?”

Rifter just
stared at him.  He had forgotten how to breathe.  He suddenly felt very small,
or perhaps the man before him had grown bigger, stretching his height to loom
over him.

“It’s been said
that this place was born of a dream – your dream – when you wished for escape.  No
one knows what you wanted to escape from, but
I do
.  It was because you
feared the man that you would become.  What was he like that he scared you so
much?”

“He didn’t scare
me,” Rifter said, trying to stay strong.  “I
hated
him.”

“Was he like
your father?”

Rifter wasn’t
sure why that affected him, but it froze him in place.

“Your father was
a man of the sea, wasn’t he?  A criminal. 
A pirate
.  Weren’t you afraid
that you’d end up the same way?”

The Scourge was
growing even larger, his coat spreading out across the ship as a shadowy wall
with a life of its own.  The cloth was wavering like a mirage and Rifter
thought he could see strange red eyes opening across it, peering at him.

“I remember it
all now,” the Scourge said.  “It’s strange how it came to me so suddenly.  I
remember your brothers – your real brothers.  I know how you abandoned them
when they needed you most.  I know how you’ve tried to replace them, and how so
many of those have fallen.  I remember Wren – so beautiful, so pure.  I
remember seeing her
die –
today in fact.”

“No…”  Rifter
listened but he could hardly believe his ears.  How could the Scourge know all
of that?  Rifter himself didn’t even remember those things.  His enemy was
making them up – yes – not so hard to do, considering that Rifter didn’t have
any of those old memories himself.  Yet there was something about those things
that rang true to him.

“I remember the
other girl – the first girl.  The one that you died for.  You loved her too,
but of course it was in a different way.  She was far too young.  She was a
child.  Don’t you remember her?”

Rifter’s mind
was blank, but he began to feel sick inside, nauseous.  An acrid taste rose up
in his mouth – the memory of blood.

“You’re lying,”
he said, but his voice was weak.

The Scourge saw
his doubt and he smiled maliciously at it – the grin of the devil.

“I know
everything about you,
boy,
because I
am
you.  I am the man that
you feared you’d become – the one you dream about,” the dark one said,
narrowing his eyes sharply.  “I am your
Nightmare
.”

2

Wren had been
silent as she looked on, listening, and she had heard every word of this
exchange.

I am your
Nightmare.
 
She’d gasped when she heard that, and yet it made sense.  The Scourge had said
that he’d meant for her to
see it
– Rifter had said the same thing to
her before.  This was what she had been meant to see at the end of it all. 
These two before her: they were the same, but different!

The things that
the Scourge had just said about Rifter’s brothers – his real brothers – were
true.  His account was exactly what she had seen when Whisper had shown her the
memories.  She recalled that now, but still could not quite see it all.

The Scourge was
the bad dream that Rifter had been having over and over again.  This was why he
kept going away and coming back, even after being killed.  It was why he had
only shown up after the storm.

After Rifter’s
nightmare…

Wren wanted to
call out to him and tell him that it was alright, to say all those things that
she might never get a chance to, but she already understood that it was too
late.

She could hear
the thunder grumbling overhead in the swirling sky, and she knew it was time.

3

Beyond a locked
door in the realm of memories, where the ghosts and echoes lived – there was a
forgotten truth.  The fairy wisp had kept the place safe and secure with her
life, keeping all those horrible things locked away so that Rifter would not
know them.  She had done this out of love and concern, and because he had asked
her to long ago.

“
Please,”
he’d said.  “
I can’t live with it.  It hurts…”

Whisper had
taken pity on him.  Perhaps he could not even remember asking, but she had done
her duty to him, and none could say otherwise.  She had taken away those
memories, and with that, the pain.

Rifter may have
given up the images of his past life, but Whisper still had hers.  She
remembered the day she had first seen him.

She didn't recall the moment of her first breath, but she
remembered moving across the world, searching for a home.  What she’d found
instead was him.

Whisper had told herself that it was his goodness that had drawn
her to him.  She had sensed the decency in his heart.  Since that time, she
wondered if she had warped him from what he had been before she had taken his
memories, but she could not go back on that.  It was too late to change
things.  Back then, she had only known that she wanted to be near him.

He had been living in a shack with five other boys.  Unlike the
ones who were with him now, these were his brothers by blood, not just some
mismatched collection.  She had hovered by the windows, watching him.  The boys
didn't have any parents, as most children did, but he looked after the rest of
them.  He made sure they had food and clothing.  He protected them.

They didn't have much, but they seemed to enjoy being together. 
Sometimes at night, they would tell stories of battles and great feats in the
wilderness – of beasts and of savages.  Whisper had listened, fascinated by it
herself.

She kept close, not wanting to leave him.  She even remembered
when he had taken in the girl.

The wisp had been living in the rafters of the house, darting from
corner to corner when she couldn’t be seen.  She had watched them bring the
girl inside for the first time.  She was a tiny thing – only a child,
malnourished with stringy yellow hair.  The wisp hadn't thought much of the
girl beyond mere curiosity, but the girl had quickly become something special
to them. 
He
was especially protective of her.  Though they were poor,
he doted on her.  The girl contributed to the stories, adding mermaids and
fairies to the world that the boys had built.  She was a bright spot in their
lives.

Everything had been good until the day the dark man came home.

Whisper had never seen him before, but she could tell that the
boys knew who he was when he staggered inside.  They were nervous about his
arrival – unprepared.  Secretly, they urged the girl into hiding.  She was not
supposed to be there, and the dark man would notice.

The man stayed for a couple of days, during which he slept for the
most part.  The boys were uneasy.  They didn't say much, even to each other. 
There were no stories – only quiet whispers – and they only urged the girl out
of hiding when the man was asleep.

They were being careful.  They had promised that he would leave
soon, but one day, the man informed the boy – Whisper’s boy – that he would be
going out to sea with him when he left this time.  He was old enough now, and
he would have to leave the others.  It was time he learned what it was to be a
man.

The wisp hadn't understood it then, but she knew that this
infuriated the boy that she had fallen for.  He didn't want this, but yet there
seemed to be no choice.  This had worried Whisper as well.  If he left, would
she be able to follow him?  She had cast aside her own troubles when she’d seen
how it affected him, however.  He withdrew from his brothers – forgot to watch
after them – and they slipped.

One night, the dark man found the girl.

Whisper had been sleeping in the rafters above the boy’s head, and
they had both been awakened by the girl’s scream.  It had been chaos after
that, and Whisper had learned something that night.

A boy was no match for a man.

The boy that she loved was on the floor, bleeding.  His brothers
were calling for him, but he didn't respond.  Whisper knew she shouldn’t let
herself be seen, but she couldn't leave him alone.  She went down to him, and
though his eyes tried to focus on her, he was fading fast.

The light that he had inside him was going out.  She couldn't let
that happen to him.

The wisp gave him part of her own light, and in doing so, she saw
the dream that was inside him.  There was a world within, just like the stories
that the boys had told.  Whisper saw the place.  They shared that dream
together, and then they had found it.  Whisper knew the way.  She took him out
of the chaos while he slept and they passed through the veil.

She'd been with him ever since.

In the strange new world, she had been transformed into his own
idea of a fairy.  He had given her a name, and all the other wisps were merely
based on what she had become.  Binding to him had made her more human than
she'd ever desired, though she’d never given it much thought.  She felt
emotions she'd never had before, and some she’d never wanted.

Whisper craved nothing more than to protect him.  She had seen the
first time a girl had ruined him, and had known it would happen again if she
let another one get too close. 
She had given up everything for him when
she’d saved his life, and what had she gotten in return?

He had put
someone else between them.

That silly girl,
Wren, had asked for him to have his memories back?  She hadn’t known what she
was asking!  Whisper hoped that she realized that now, and secretly wished that
the girl was scarred by what she had seen in those images.  Human girls really
were very stupid.

Whisper had
thought of putting Wren behind the locked door in the beginning – or at least
the thought of her – but Rifter had not been willing to let go.  The girl had
intrigued him from the start and Whisper had not been able to pull him away.

The wisp had
known she would be trouble.  She’d known the girl would make him unhappy in the
end.  Now that it had happened, Whisper wasn’t surprised.  She had been
watching everything.

The fairy had
let him send her away, but she had not gone far.  How could she?  He was the
only thing that mattered to her.  She had followed him from the woods after it
had burned, to the natives’ camp and now to the mountain.  She had seen him go
off to the ship, but she’d not been invited to join him.  She may have thought
he was foolish – and perhaps she was sick with worry – but she wouldn’t go to
him unless he asked for her.

And there was
another reason.  The darkness churning here was too strong.  The land had begun
to react as these two opposites had come together – just as it had in the
beginning.  She didn’t want to go too close.  All she could do was wait.

4

“What’s going on
up there?  Can you see anything?” Finn asked.

The boys were
all huddled around Sly anxiously as he peered through the scope, watching the
floating ship, but he couldn’t see near as much as he might have liked.

“The clouds are
swirling, which means they are both there, but I can’t see them.  It’s too far
away.”