Nightmarish Sacrifice (Cardew) (18 page)

             
“You already know the answer,” my voice was full of irritation but that was pleasing him and widening his charming bewitching smile. “Just that you didn’t give me any reply –”

             
“This is a delicate question –” Cardew drawled and burst into laughter as I – faking an enraged expression – jokingly flapped him on the cheek – not a real strike at all, but a genuine caress. “We can discuss it after your lectures in a nicer place –”

             
“Wait for me as usual,” I gave him a wink and hurried not to miss my class.

             
However, no sooner had I turned my back on Cardew and walked for several metres, when another boy stopped in front of me as if to start a talk; I had never seen his face before – or at least I couldn’t recognize him, maybe because he had blushed in such intense scarlet nuance that it was getting my shirt envious.

             
“Hey,” he managed to utter while I was still approaching him. “Do you have any problems with that guy over there?”

             
I raised an eyebrow in a complete lack of understanding, as he was pointing right behind my back, and I didn’t have to glimpse in this direction to know that the one standing there was Cardew. “Why should I?”

             
The nervous stranger obviously got even more embarrassed, and I was really losing my patience while listening to him stuttering, “I saw you slap him in the face and I thought –”

             
“You thought that she is free and you could impress her by playing the hero,” Cardew’s voice rang mightily above me. “But you’ve been wrong for both, as you can see.”

             
I rolled my eyes just for the sake of the play, and turned towards my stage partner to thank him with a wink, while my intonation sounded rather annoyed, “You can’t help showing off that I’m with you, can you?”

             
“No, lovely,” he grinned widely just for me as though there were no other people around, and caressed my neck, lowering closer with a gesture that was temptingly familiar. “I can’t take you for granted –”

             
“Save this for later,” I slightly pushed him away to prevent him from kissing me – however enticing his speechless suggestion was, I couldn’t accept it, as seeing it put to action would be too much for the poor unknown boy – and it would also make me forget about my hopes of not being late for my class.

             
“We weren’t really fighting,” I informed the stranger who was gradually turning crimson-already-reaching-for-dark-violet. “And it was very sweet of you to offer me to knock him down for me – just that it’s not the easiest thing, I reassure you – I’ve tried it myself –”

             
Cardew suppressed an outburst of laughter, and I smiled to the stranger in an attempt to compensate for being a bit rude to him.

             
“I appreciate your interest in me, but I’m a student, not a film star, and I have lectures to attend –” I gave him another smile, then turned to Cardew with what everyone else would have considered as hostile glaring, but he took it for a tender glance – and maybe the truth was far closer to his perception of it. “And you – don’t you dare be late tonight!”

             
“Yes, ma’am!” he jokingly saluted me and I blew him a kiss before waving to the unknown one and disappearing towards the lecture hall.

             
It would already be pure luck if I managed to get there on time.

                                          After another evening out during which Cardew and I had been feeling as though we were completely alone in the cafe, the desire to keep his hand in mine and take him on a night walk in the limitless dark fields out of town was burning more and more briskly inside me. However, when we really went outdoors and found ourselves alone, the strange mixed feelings of danger and safety confused me again, and I put up with the thought that the best decision would be if he simply escorted me to my hostel like in the days before.

             
“Are we friends since yesterday?” I raised my head to Cardew and his hand which was gently holding mine pressed my fingers lightly and caressingly.

             
All evening he had been absolutely charming without even trying to dominate over me in any way – not teasing me much even just in jokes – and I had repaid for that by not mentioning anything about the ‘delicate question’ he had hinted that he would discuss with me.

             
“Let me see now –” Cardew counted on his fingers and cast me a playfully thoughtful glance. “So, we date, we fight, we play, and we have such deep conversations like this one now –”

             
I burst into laughter and shook my head, “Sounds like some strange combination of lovers, enemies, fellows, and philosophers –”

             
“Then be it so –” he smiled and his hand delicately brushed my hair to make it crush behind the shoulders as he stopped to cover my lips in fervent kisses.

             
“Tomorrow is Saturday,” the boy announced when I let go of him and prepared to say goodbye. “Do you want us to go somewhere out of town for a walk?”

             
“This would be lovely but I can’t –” I made a face and shrugged; thanks to our hanging out every evening, my project was already on the disturbing way to remaining unfinished. “I have too much homework.”

             
A rebellious spark fluttered in Cardew’s eyes, but I shook my head with laughter to block his naughty ideas before he had managed to lure me with them.

             
“Don’t even say it aloud!”

             
“Okay, okay –” he played heartbreakingly sorrowful, but the chuckle in his eyes was giving him away. “I just don’t understand why you want to be a good girl, lovely?”

             
“You wouldn’t like me otherwise,” I teased and decisively turned my back on him before he had managed to invite himself into my room. “Go dream of me –”

             
“Don’t doubt in that,” Cardew smiled joyfully and his fingers brushed my shoulder as if to allure me to stop; however, I just cast him a smiling glimpse back as some faint form of compensation, and decisively went on alone towards the entrance.

             
I had no intentions to doubt at all.

             
The hot shower erased the memories of the cold endearments of the wind outside and got me more sleepy than usually; I had planned to start my project the same night, but the hands of the clock weren’t sharing my opinion, as the date had already changed, and I decided to leave it all for the next day when I wouldn’t have to stop because of exhaustion, or to fall asleep onto the textbook.

             
But – as soon as the room hid into thick pleasant darkness and my head sank into the deep soft pillow, I realized that I was afraid to relax. And this was not due to some fright that Cardew could come, effortlessly break the door and kill me – it was something far more rational: I was put off by the thought that I would have the nightmares again.

             
Whatever had stopped them before was not working anymore, as they had returned into far more various and realistic shapes, so much more real than reality itself that I was getting really scared.

             
Yeah, it was all so real...

             
I sighed and pressed my eyes closed; staying up all night was simply not an option, as unless I had some hours of sleep, I would feel completely worn out and frustrated the next day. Not to get distracted, I forced all ominous premonitions out of my mind, and urged myself to relax completely, trying to concentrate on blissful imaginary pictures of warm spring cloudless skies and soft coppery sunlight...

             
Terror-filled screams drowned my breath into hopelessness and I felt the hard hostile land under my knees as I collapsed there and tried to block the appalling sounds away from my perceptions.

             
The cruel offering again: Odda – the sacrificed girl in a long defencelessly white dress, standing in the middle of the opened circle of eleven...

             
The icy wave of a realization which my subconsciousness had wrapped hidden in itself not to scare me with suddenly crashed right onto me and overwhelmed me again with such immense fright that I froze into blank benumbing thinking: the nightmare hadn’t taken me to a pagan society in the Middle Ages.

             
The sacrifice had happened just three years ago...

             
“NO! –” I yelled as thought my futile resistance could stop the dream and return me into the comforting embrace of oblivion. “NO!!! –”

             
But nobody heard me!

             
Unable to rise from the ground where I had fallen – just behind the gray cloaks of the men with the torches, I buried my hands in the rich folds of my dark-scarlet gown, and raised my head to follow with my eyes the development of the rite like all the other times when I had dreamed about it. I already knew every movement of the participants so well that I could have performed every single role in that cursed play, from the victim to the executioner and the eleven motionless witnesses.

             
What a cruel play!...

             
Was I being shown the very same vision every night, I wondered while observing the familiar motions around me; the eleven beings – I was supposing that they were humans, although I had no rational clues confirming that – were as still as before, and poor Odda was stupefied again; the figure in black was as mysterious as always...

             
And just then something different happened – a detail which I had never been shown before for unknown reasons: the hood of the executioner suddenly slid loose on his back and left his head uncovered...

             
The waves of thick strong hair that splashed over his shoulders had an unusual intensely crimson nuance: glittering into dark reddish gold turning coppery and even purely fair where the flames of the torches were strewing it with their kisses of light; glowing into tender velvety brick-coloured shades like the warm dust-filled summer air through which the slant rays of a honey-magenta sunset were diving into mild enchanting refractions; and sinking into illusive unreal black in the curves where no reflections of sparks were being cast into it...

             
I gasped for air as the blast of astonishment was driving me to suffocation.

             
I had never seen another man with such colour of the hair – nobody but...

             
Cardew!...

             
‘No!’ my heart screamed in despair while tearing itself apart not to hear my rational mind doubt in the boy I had fallen in love with. ‘No, no, no, no, NO!!! –”

             
Cardew?!...

             
I couldn’t even think about him without shivering with mixed thrills of attraction and awe.

             
Cardew!... Was he the executioner!?!

             
But that was impossible!!!...

             
‘Impossible!! –’ I pronounced loudly inside my head and the word echoed like an order I had to believe in – sharp and uncompromising.

             
But the echo returned it several times to me, and in a way that made all the pieces of my heart sink into the darkness of mysterious fright in front of the unknown:

             
Impossible...

             
Possible, possible, possible...

             
“Cardew!” I screamed and, as though stricken by a lightning flash, suddenly jumped to my feet, and darted towards the boy in the black robe. “Cardew! Cardew –”