Nightmarish Sacrifice (Cardew) (25 page)

             
If only I didn’t believe imagination was more real than anything else!...

             
‘May your soul find peace, beloved Odda.’

             
In a quest for this inscription, I was wandering with increasing despair among the gravestones and scanning the land for any fallen tombs, my whole body shivering with tameless instinctive dread.

             
And that was not the horror of death most people have tasted at least once in their lives – usually in their last moment; it was not the fear of getting hurt or being tortured, of suffering and physical or emotional pain, no.

             
It was something far deeper...

             
Something on a deeply spiritual level – something whose destructive power wouldn’t simply disappear with the end of a single lifetime...

             
It was the horror of eternal perdition...

             
The minutes were chasing each other inside my mind like the hands of a windmill – in a furious dance, like dozens of pagan priests revolving into an unbreakable circle around the luminous flames of sacrificial stakes, and the burning glorious sparks of that imaginary fire were leaving black burnt marks of uneasiness in my soul without even touching me.

             
“Damn!” I suddenly jumped with a loud horrified scream and the unusual for me nastily high-pitched sound echoed over the graves, together with the one that had startled me:

             
TING!!!...

             
The bass nasal voice of a funereal chime tolling...

             
Harmless and quiet, but utterly ill-boding!...

             
Breathing heavily, I had a fast look around: no belfries were visible anywhere close, but still, the sound that had made my heart race repeated as emptily and spookily as before.

             
TING!...

             
Breathless, I stood still on my place to count the tolls – my body felt so stiff and frozen that I could swear the whole world was spinning around in front of my eyes and I was only staring from aside – not so much apathetically as helplessly...

             
Deader than the granite tombs around... They were at least spinning with the rest of the world.

             
And my soul was so impassive, petrified with fear...

             
Four even strikes of the chime informed me that the thinner hand of the clock was pointing upwards, and I listened to the following set of ringing that would indicate the exact hour.

             
Higher and more piercing, the new type of tolling resonated somewhere towards the skies hidden under the opaque veils of layers and layers of solid clouds, and my heart shrank while I was counting feverishly...

             
Ting!...

             
I overstrained all my perceptions to sense the pulsation of the world around, the brisk refreshing and benumbing coldness of the wind, the gloominess of the night...

             
Ting!

             
Exhaling with difficulty, I forced a step forward, my feet sinking into the marshy land as though the graves were trying to clutch me into their muddy sticky suffocating embrace that would never let me go...

             
Ting!

             
An empty, ominous sound.

             
The sensation of being watched was reinforcing inside me, as though the darkness itself was chasing me...

             
Ting!

             
Had clocks been invented only to scare late visitors of haunted places with the sound of prowling danger?

             
Ting!

             
Wasn’t it Fate itself that was staring at me from behind and slowly reaching its long forefinger to point voicelessly at me...

             
Ting!

             
Closing my eyes, I took another step simply forwards, without thinking about the direction; the blackness behind my eyelids was more calmingly friendly than the one of reality, so I stayed into its warm misleading safety not to sink into despair...

             
Ting!

             
The sound made me quicken my steps and I was already running as fast as I could before the sound of the chime echoed again:

             
Ting!

             
Scurrying with no direction but with reckless speed, I was hitting against the large unbending stones and the collisions were casting me backwards, but I was frantically going on...

             
Ting!

             
A loud sharp metallic sound that had nothing to do with the echo of the chimes rang clearly behind my back together with the ninth ting and that made my heart almost explode; the thousands of pictures my imaginations offered me as possible sources of that noise were so appalling that I desperately jumped forwards...

             
And my knees surrendered at once, and I was flung towards the land...

             
Ting!

             
The creepy sound was resonating inside my heart while I was falling closer and closer towards the ground...

             
TING!!!...

             
Had I lost the count? No way! It was just that they were...

             
ELEVEN!...

             
My curse!...

             
Having landed onto a sharp stone edge, I suppressed the moan that was about to escape from between my lips, and opened my eyes with dread.

             
Yes, exactly like in the dream, the gravestone I had fallen onto was laying downthrown on the land, and the name engraved on it immediately struck me with mixed feelings of relief and shock...

             
ODDA!?!...

             
So that person really had existed in fact?!

             
Did this mean that everything else I had seen in my dreams was true as well?

             
Was my Cardew a murderer?...

             
I had no time to reason over that – the metallic sound from behind repeated and I turned my terrified face in that direction...

             
HORROR!!!...

             
I had been uneasy in my life, I had been afraid and even appalled, but nothing I had seen had ever stricken me with such immense unrestricted horror as the sight that opened up for me as I glanced over my shoulder!...

             
The scythe – its large silvery-steel blade collecting all inexistent moonlight from the absolute darkness – had hit against a granite gravestone...

             
Again.

             
So that was what the metallic sound I had heard had come from...

             
And the figure holding the deadliest of all weapons was a black silhouette wrapped in a long mantle...

             
The lady with the scythe!!!

             
DEATH!!!...

             
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” I yelled out in absolute shock, my heart simply unable to beat anymore.

             
All my senses were terrifyingly blurred, no thoughts of mine could fly, no feelings existed anymore...

             
The figure in the black cloak was quickly approaching – faster than I could realize it, as if it wanted to stifle at once my desires to live, to struggle...

             
To escape...

             
One more step and it would be too late to even try...

             
With another scream of agony, I recklessly rushed forwards in a pitiful attempt to run away from Death...

             
Useless.

             
Odda betrayed me post-mortem: her gravestone tripped me again and I fell backwards on the soil, my head hitting against the land from where it would never lift anymore...

             
I couldn’t take another breath – not that it would make much difference.

             
Death was already beside me – and, after a sole fraction of the second, she bent over me...

             
And stretched her hand...

             
                            My cry of shock rose loudly to tear the satiny gray skies apart and to break all harmony that could exist in the ghostly haunted graveyard.

             
Death’s hand had grabbed mine!

             
Her fingers – wizened but iron-strong and colder than ice – had wrapped themselves around my wrist, as though that touch could absorb all my energy at once and instantly deprive me of my life...

             
Why wasn’t I dead already?!?...

             
And wasn’t I really?...

             
My own sudden outburst of pride and boldness surprised me – it seemed that the more aggressive features of the character were the last to leave the person – but still, they were too strong for me to suppress, and I insolently raised my chin and tucked my head closer to the hood of the mantle where I wasn’t seeing a face.

             
I could at least demonstrate arrogance if not genuine bravery!

             
“DO IT!” I yelled with insane uncontrolled voice which was far more pitiable than inspiring with awe. “COME ON, DO IT! I AM NOT AFRAID TO DIE! DO IT, TAKE ME! –”

             
But no strike followed.

             
Instead, the freezing-cold fingers immediately let go of my hand and reached to take the hood off.

             
For the nth time that night, I was about to faint: I was to face everybody’s ultimate fear!...

             
Having decided to die but not to live through any horror anymore, I closed my eyes not to see the inexpressive always-happy skull Death had for a face in my notions, and my voice didn’t even tremble this time – that filled me with pride.

             
“Kill me, Death!!!” I ordered coldly, really proud of being able to show calm behaviour literally in the face of death. “KILL ME, DAMN YOU, ARE YOU DEAF!?”

             
“WHAT!?!”

             
The sound of that voice shocked me so much that I couldn’t but open my eyes...

             
I had expected anything, any kinds of horror – all the mindless mortals’ fantasies I had ever read about, all the imaginary unreal conceptions of death I had heard of had passed through my mind in a fraction of a single moment – and yet, I was not prepared for reality!

             
For an instant, the black mantle had even reminded me of the executioner from the nightmare with the sacrifice, and Cardew’s name had blinked in my head dazzlingly briskly – then I had expected to hear his voice, to feel his tenderly lethal grip around my neck and his kisses inflaming me in the last moment before he would toss me right into the depths of death...

             
But what I hadn’t been prepared for was what I indeed heard – a mild caring female voice sounding a bit taken aback when its possessor pronounced, “What death, my dear? Are you alright?”

             
Empty blinking – I wasn’t capable of anything else in that moment.

             
The figure in front of me had taken its hood off and I could clearly see the face of an elderly – human – woman gazing at me with gentle concern – my screaming had obviously made her worried for me.

             
“Did you think that I was Death?” she asked quietly, her intonation anxious and compassionate. “Oh, poor girl! Calm down, I am a human being like I believe you are... Have a look around, my pretty, we are surrounded by Death in all forms – just the two of us are still alive –”

             
Gradually regaining my ability to think relatively rationally, I was beginning to realize what a trick my imagination had unintentionally played on me, and everything suddenly appeared so ridiculous to me that I was about to roar with laughter – thankfully I didn’t do it.

             
Yes, it was a fact that the old woman was wearing a long black cloak and carrying a scythe in her hands – but that wasn’t making her Death! The whole atmosphere had had its effect upon me and my mind had turned something completely harmless into a shocking breath-taking experience.

             
“I... I’m so sorry, madam –” I managed to say and quickly got to my feet while wondering how to apologize. “I was so stupid, I just –”

             
“It’s alright, dear,” the unknown lady smiled, her face radiating goodness into the night air. “I would have thought the same if I had seen myself from aside –” her hand pointed at the scythe she had left on the ground. “After all, I walk around with Death’s famous attributes – but that’s only an ordinary scythe, I reassure you, and I need it simply to clear the weed off the graves.”

             
I smiled, already at ease, and nodded, still breathless.

             
“I had to finish with the whole place for tomorrow, but I was late,” the elderly woman explained with her mild voice. “That’s why I’m here at such an unusual hour, I didn’t mean to scare anyone.”

             
“It’s my fault, I shouldn’t be here,” I was still feeling disorientated but managed to mechanically give her another smile. “I’m sorry I panicked –”

             
“No problem, dear,” the granny smiled warmly and reached her hand for mine again, “My name is Amanda.”

             
“Freya,” I presented myself and pressed her hand which didn’t feel so cold anymore, as my imagination wasn’t playing with me.

             
“Freya?” Amanda’s features went a bit uneasy and her blue-violet eyes looked at me more warily. “Freya the goddess?”

             
“No, just a namesake,” I laughed quietly to prevent another misunderstanding. “Only my boyfriend calls me a goddess.”

             
“This reminds me of my youth,” the granny giggled and let go of my hand. “I may not look like a goddess now but when I was your age –”

             
I smiled with a nod – I believed her: those amazingly azure-violet eyes currently kind on mine looked capable of having broken many hearts several decades ago.

             
“I won’t ask you what you are doing here,” Amanda reassured me politely. “I can only offer you my help if you need it –”

             
It seemed that my luck was working perfectly well that night!

             
“Brilliant!” I rejoiced and hardly restricted myself from beginning to jump around the place – that would be as irrelevant as ominous.               “Can I ask you some questions? I really need so speak to someone local!”

             
“Of course, dear,” the granny smiled warmly again. “What is it about?”

             
My hesitation lasted only for a single moment.

             
“Odda,” I pronounced the name with quiet respect and couldn’t help noticing how it startled the woman. “Who was she, what happened to her? –” not to gaze at Amanda in a sinister way, I shifted my eyes so I’d be watching the fallen gravestone with Odda’s name engraved on it. “How did she die –”

             
The pause that followed wasn’t tense, rather empty – but at the same time filled with numerous imperceptible emotions.

             
Like a burial-ground at night...

             
“Did you know her?” the granny asked quietly as if the silence had somehow become fragile like crystal that shouldn’t be touched or it would break into millions of lucent filmy pieces.

             
“No,” I confessed sincerely, completely aware that this fact would probably make her less talkative, and turned my voice almost desperate to win her mercy. “But knowing those answers is crucial for me, please help me, please! –”

             
Thoughtful, Amanda slowly nodded once, her face somehow distantly sorrowful, as if she was sunk in a memory which wouldn’t let her go back to present.

             
“Come with me,” she suggested after a moment of silence, and noiselessly picked up her scythe. “Let’s not speak here not to disturb her spirit – since the moment when I started working in this place, I became superstitious –”

             
I agreed willingly; I had never been religious, but lately I was beginning to believe in some superstitions...

             
Or at least to fear them.

                                          The hot cup of tea felt calming in my hands, however little I usually enjoyed this type of drink; the lights were on to display in front of my eyes an old-fashioned but cosy kitchen, and Amanda was sitting across a small round wooden table and thoughtfully staring at the dried field flowers in a graceful white vase with pleasurably blue decorations.

             
“I don’t think I have the right to ask you any questions about yourself –” the granny finally spoke after some minutes of silence; her voice was quiet and comforting, just like the atmosphere in her house. “What do you want to know about Odda?”

             
“What was she like?” I asked and left aside the refined porcelain cup that seemed to be from the same set as the elegant vase. “Why did she die so young? And... who was she connected to? –”

             
“She wasn’t a relative of mine,” the old woman began without asking me anything else. “But I know her – the town isn’t big and I basically know most people here. Odda was a beautiful creature – beautiful in every way, both physically and mentally; her soul itself was beautiful –”

             
I nodded lightly that I had understood; my nightmares had presented Odda as an innocent victim – probably weak, but not evil for sure.

             
“The official explanation for her death was that she committed suicide,” Amanda went on, more quietly than before. “But... I don’t believe it.”

             
“Why?” I asked immediately, my heart suddenly leaping with inner horror.

             
The old lady bit her lips not to let her worry show, and glanced at me with her concerned eyes.

             
“You’re not from here, and I doubt that anyone spoke to you about Odda,” she started slowly as if not to startle me. “I won’t ask about anything else, just tell me... did you have any nightmares about her?”

             
“Yes!” I exclaimed at once, impulsively clapped my hands, and my eyes widened with strenuous expectation. “How do you know?!”

             
The granny didn’t even take a breath.

             
“Because I had such, too! Recently, some weeks ago –” she was in a hurry to share everything with me, hoping that there was finally someone who would understand her. “In my dreams I saw some kind of a ritual that looked like an ancient sacrifice –”