Nightmarish Sacrifice (Cardew) (6 page)

             
“Y is for yearning,” I informed him with jokingly cold conviction; unnoticed, I had risen to a sitting position so as not to feel intimidated by his height when he was so close to me, as he was sitting, too, but on the ground. “And what do the letters in your name stand for?”

             
“I’d love to hear your guess,” Cardew winked and that gave me time to sum up my impressions of him into six words.

             
Following his brave example, I showed myself as both impulsive and slightly embarrassingly sincere...

             
“So, that makes... Confident, ardent, reserved –” I suppressed my outburst of giggling as he grinned with playful satisfaction. “Defiant, enticing and... wanton –”

             
“Wanton?” obviously pleased and amused at the same time, he roared with content ringing laughter, and I shrugged imperturbably. “You have an interesting idea of me, lovely.”

             
“Not as interesting as reality,” I finished and started gathering all my stuff from the bench and the land. “But you’ll have enough time to think about it, as I’m leaving now –”

             
“Can I escort you to your place?” Cardew suggested gallantly and got to his feet, as I stood up, too. “It’s already dark and can be dangerous –”

             
“Don’t be joking,” I laughed cynically, as his expression was demonstrating overly touching concern for me in a rather comical way. “You and I are natural enemies – you wouldn’t even try to defend me if some accident happened – instead, you’d help my attackers kill me faster!”

             
“What are you speaking, lovely!” he chuckled light-heartedly, but there were not even traces of the intention of joking in his serious penetrating eyes. “You are my perfect rival, so I can’t let anyone else defeat you just like that – the honour has to be mine!”

             
“Besides –” the boy added while – despite not being verbally invited, he was already walking next to me in my direction through the thin forest that was dividing us from the town. “Nothing bad can happen to you while you’re with me.”

             
Playing more sarcastic than I felt, I burst into mocking scornful giggling, and that prevented me from noticing the large branch slyly stretching on the ground in my feet; Cardew’s hand suddenly fixed around my wrist and a strong pull of his saved me from a situation which would permanently change the shape of my nose in a rather unpleasing way.

             
Inhaling sharply, I instantly raised my face towards him, expecting to see ridicule or content in his amazing eyes, but – surprisingly, there was nothing visible inside them, as if he had used the utter almighty darkness as a cover so as not to show me a feature of himself he was subconsciously ashamed or afraid of.

             
“Thank you!” I breathed out with unfeigned gratitude, a bit surprised that his hand hadn’t left any bruise on mine – his hold had been iron-strong but somehow delicate, as though he had really been careful not to hurt me.

             
Cardew smiled rather neutrally.

             
“A good enemy can be better than the best of friend,” he winked at me carelessly and his fingers let go of mine with a slight endearing gesture, taking more time of contact so as to allow their invisible traces of inflaming enticing tenderness to irreversibly soak through my skin. “Especially when you have no friends and your enemy is someone like me –”

             
“You’re so modest: a real knight,” I laughed again but this time went on exploring the land in order not to fall in need of his assistance once more – at least not exactly after having joked with his qualities.

             
Not that his secret endearments neither of us had commented on had been in some way unpleasant for me – just the opposite, had I not been so painfully proud, I would have tripped again, merely to touch him once more...

             
“You can say it this way,” he answered calmly, and gentlemanly offered me his hand to help me climb over the large roots of an imposing oak boldly blocking our path, as I would get my hands all dirty if I leant onto the wet soil heaped in the basement of the tree myself, so as to overcome the ordeal without any assistance.

             
“Don’t you have dragons to fight so that you started saving girls who don’t need it?” I asked mock-cheekily, although the not-needing-help part of it was simply demonstrative showing-off, as in the current case I would really strongly prefer it if he didn’t leave me fight with the giant roots by myself.

             
Cardew chuckled amusedly and stopped beside me while I was wondering how to get over the obstacle in my way without taking his generously offered hand.

             
“Saving those girls who really need it is not as exciting,” he grinned cheerfully, negligently thrusting his hands in the pockets. “They glue themselves to you from then on and suffocate your desire to live for yourself with their constant weakness... Whereas those like you –”

             
And, without any additional warning, he rushed towards me, grasped my waist strongly, and, before I could even think anything in particular about his actions, he effortlessly transferred me over the roots, and I lightly landed on my feet on the other side.

             
“Cardew!” I yelled with obviously artificial ferocity, my supposedly enraged voice shimmering with surprised uncontrollable laughter, while he lightly jumped over the roots and adroitly fell next to me as if nothing special had happened recently. “What the hell did you think you were doing?!?”

             
“Helping you, lovely,” he smiled widely and went on walking with me while I was fruitlessly striving to present some convincing signs of realistically-looking anger. “I told you, I don’t like helping those who really need it – I’m doing it for my own pleasure.”

             
“What a knight!” I shook my head with purposefully fake indignation, and didn’t manage to suppress my explosive laughter.

             
“I’ll take it for a compliment,” he chuckled and confidently led me straight towards the hostel I was living in.

             
To check if he really knew where we were going, I remained half a step behind him, but he didn’t need my signs to direct him, and we soon stopped just in front of the door I had to walk in.

             
“How do you know that I live here?” I asked seriously, my suddenly rising paranoid fears urging me to glare suspiciously at him. “Have you been spying on me?”

             
In the thickened darkness, Cardew’s pupils were excitedly widened, and his eyes looked completely absorbing-black, the elaborate metal-gray lines on the outer part of his irises shining as though they had been set ablaze.

             
“No, lovely,” he lied insolently without even trying to pretend he was sincere. “I am just... overly observant –”

             
I raised one eyebrow with challenging sarcasm but the boy didn’t take offence.

             
“I also know that you have no friends –” his voice turned lower and more illusively tender, filled with the finest irony I had ever been caressed by. “And no boyfriend... which is a real pity, but at the same time, a very lucky coincidence –”

             
“You’re such a dreamer,” I laughed scornfully, shook my head and turned my back on him... but I was sure that he wouldn’t let me merely leave like that.

             
And Cardew really didn’t – just that he was a bit more direct than I had expected.

             
“Won’t you ask me in?” he suggested confidently as if my lapse of invitation was just a matter of poor memory, and he made a quick certain movement towards following me.

             
“No,” I stopped him with an unrealistically indifferent shrug. “I don’t intend to kiss you or to do whatever else you might be mock-secretly planning, so I have no reasons to. See you at the rehearsals.”

             
“Too bad there’s no reason –” Cardew bandied meaningfully and laughed lightly, too, just to reassure me that he had been aware I would not back down – but neither would he. “See you... Sooner than you think –”

             
“Dream of me tonight,” I pronounced it like a threat but by the joyful provocative grin he answered with, I knew that such a dream would not be a nightmare for him.

             
Actually, I asked myself after I was already alone and in my room, why were both Cardew and I behaving as though there existed some kind of fierce rivalry between us? We both had the main parts in the play – and obviously I couldn’t play his and vice versa – so we objectively had no reasons to fight, as we weren’t even hating each other.

             
Then were all those constant attacks only because we were both enjoying them so much...

             
I was still thinking about that while falling asleep.

             
                            The sudden wanton outburst of fire was so close to me that in the first moment the panic that the whole building was burning sunk my mind into frozen numbness, but – as soon as I perceived the familiar fondling coldness of imaginary wind, I realized that I was captured in one of my too realistic dreams...

             
Again.

             
And it was the same chilling pagan sacrifice – the agonizing young girl in the snow-white gown, the mysterious man with the blood-stained knife in front of her, the broken circle of eleven witnesses in passive gray... Nevertheless, this time I was seeing it from an excitingly different angle: standing in the frightening middle of the circle itself, I was so close to the victim and her executioner that I could deduce I was invisible to everyone – otherwise they would have noticed me, and there were no such signs.

             
In solemn silence broken only by the sobbing of the girl, all the twenty-two torches were emitting strong dazzling light as usual, and in it, I could see from appallingly short distance how the sharp silvery knife raised in the man’s hand and blazed in the darkness...

             
A choked scream escaped my lips and died away, muffled in my pillow.

             
I was already awake, but the gory halo of the torches was still casting shades inside my consciousness, filling me with freezing thrills of terror – and that was not the result of shocking images of massacre, as I hadn’t even seen the death of the victim itself – it was all because of a single sign...

             
The C-like rune of strength – the same one I had seen on Cardew’s metal tablet – had been painted with strong black ink on the back of the hand which had been holding the knife...

             
The executioner was wearing the same sign as Cardew!

             
Instinctively pulling the blanket above my head to let it give me the false feeling of security, I curled up in the warm fragrant darkness and tried to concentrate so as to think more clearly about the matter torturing me.

             
What could the dream mean? Was it a threat, was it a sign of inner nervousness...

             
Was it a warning?...

             
‘Stop it!’ I ordered to myself and bit my lips with fierce decisiveness. ‘There can’t be any secret messages in those nightmares!’

             
Runes were letters – sacred and powerful symbols, but still, letters – they could have various meanings and not mean anything at all outside of the words they were forming themselves – they could stand for the sound to be pronounced to form a certain letter, not definitely have an ominous meaning of hidden lethal threat...

             
‘Imagination working too hard,’ I pronounced my own verdict in my mind and shrugged to calm myself down.

             
The reason why I was dreaming of Cardew’s signs was most probably far more simple – the talk with him had left a strong impression in my sensitive mind, and my subconsciousness was painting the symbols I was associating with him all over my nightmares just because I was thinking of him even while soundly asleep – that rune could merely signify the direction in which my free thoughts were wandering, and this direction...

             
This direction was having scarlet-crimson wavy hair, penetrating grayish-obsidian eyes, elusive mysterious smile, and such hypnotic charm...

             
No, I was not in love with Cardew, I reassured myself firmly.

             
Not yet...

                                          The rehearsals that were set to follow later in the afternoon were roaming inside my thoughts and blurring them with the sense of obsessive attractiveness, so I was rather absent-minded while walking down the empty street. If I had to be completely honest, I would confess that the play was not the only thing occupying my head, so, naturally, when the voice I had been so intensely fantasizing about suddenly pronounced my name in reality, I tripped against my own feet and almost collapsed on the ground.

             
Cardew appeared from behind me and grinned victoriously, “So I managed to surprise you this time!”

             
“Damn, you did,” I admitted while taking a deeper breath. “Are you going to the rehearsal, too?”

             
“Actually, I came here for you,” he shrugged with well-played indifference and I smiled not without slyness when he added, “I thought you wouldn’t mind us going there together.”

             
“How would you feel if I did mind?” I teased boldly but Cardew raised a brow with amusement.

             
“I’ll never know this – you are far too lovely to make me find out,” he chuckled undeniably charmingly, and nodded towards the direction in which the hall was in an invitation I didn’t want to resist to; his voice was misleadingly negligent when he went on, “How were your lectures earlier today?”

             
“Now you sound like a jealous husband,” I shook my head with cheerful laughter aimed to embarrass him in a subtle tantalizing manner. “And I bet you already know the answer as you’re spying on me... What course are you doing, by the way?”

             
“Isn’t it obvious?” Cardew played offended in such a comical way that it was really beyond doubt. “Drama, what else?”

             
“What else?” I repeated jokingly, in a sincere confirmation of his obvious talent... But, skilfully pretending that he had taken it for a serious question, Cardew used the chance to gently shift the talk towards his hobbies, and smiled with delight I could not possibly act cruel enough to destroy – he seemed so flattered by my interest in him – which was indeed unexpressed but ardently burning for real – that he must have been dead-confident that I would not humiliate or instantly reject him...

             
Well, he had once more assessed my personality amazingly precisely.

             
“What else? I’m keen on music, literature, history, and… some mysterious sciences,” an almost unnoticeable but careful glance of his checked how I would react to the last one.

             
Pleased, though not much surprised, I didn’t prevent my genuine smile from widening, thus letting him know that I was not a person who would straightforwardly reject divination as immoral or too unserious and random.

             
“So then the runes on your tablet do make sense,” I nodded with understanding and his hand instinctively reached for the metal medallion as if to protect it from my not malevolent but piercing eyes.

             
“To me they do,” he uttered a bit more quietly and opened the door of the hall for me.

             
“Oh, Frigga! I’m so glad to see you!” Mr Shelton rejoiced as I entered but, at his call, I hid my face in my palms with purposefully over-demonstrative tragedy.

             
“Freya!” I moaned through my clenched teeth with drama-amplified annoyance. “My name is Freya, not Frigga!”

             
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the producer apologized sincerely and took a smiling step towards us. “I will remember it, I promise!”

             
“It’s easy,” having stepped in right after me, so close that his chest was almost touching my back, Cardew winked innocently. “Freya is the goddess of beauty... Besides, she’s not frigid at all –”

             
“How would you know?!” irritated or rather embarrassed because everyone’s gazes fixed on me with sick gossipy intensity, I nagged at him above my shoulder so as not to blush, and he smiled imperturbably, with such mock-innocent serene confidence that I could only admire him.

             
“Well –”

             
“Can’t you please go on with your obviously successful trials to impress her later, Cardew?” Mr Shelton asked him with a hidden inoffensive smile. “You have enough time to discuss your relationship after the rehearsals!”

             
“We’re not into any kind of a relationship with each other!” I protested stubbornly and folded my arms on my chest like a spoilt child throwing a tantrum.

             
“You’re not,” the older man agreed, moving his eyes between Cardew and me with light amusement. “But you both wish you were. Never mind, meet the crew –”

             
The bewildering blaze of various radiant shades of envy – some ferocious and attacking while other just passively wishful – glared at me from the hostile-looking army the other part of the cast represented in a rather mild way, and that instantly made me expect a cloud of over-excited up to the point of fainting female adorers to surround Cardew in the next moment. In fact, I turned out quite right, as the first from the mentioned category darted forward before being asked, and stretched her hand for his while her eyes were assessing him with embarrassingly submissive admiration.

             
“So you are our star?” she grinned in a sugary, over-sweetish manner, and mechanically threw her straight sparse blond hair behind her shoulders with an artificial gesture. “I am Claire, and the pleasure is mine!”

             
“True,” Cardew remarked below his breath as an answer to both of her pointless sentences, and just nodded shortly, without granting her with the pleasurable honour of touching her hand.

             
I hadn’t met him before long, and for sure didn’t know him well – and probably never would – but his expression as he was watching her – or rather, literally looking away from her – was so empty and different from the silent flattering content with which he had been attentively staring at me, that it made me feel really special, and I chuckled noiselessly. It was not too hard to guess that Cardew had classified the blond girl as a sticky and suffocating one needing help, and this thought made me giggle again cheekily.

             
Having heard this quiet curly sound, Cardew turned to cast me a friendly smiling glance above his shoulder, and that must have looked like a secret sign from aside, as the greedily envious eyes fixed upon me blazed with greater fury.

             
“Now, everyone, get one of these –” Mr Shelton announced loudly so as to get heard above the murmur that had risen around in the hall, and reached the first copy of the script for me. “Freya, dear –”

             
“Oh, thank you!” I smiled in not exactly a purely amicable way when Cardew gentlemanly made the effort to walk to the producer and take the script for me, and then return to place it in my hands without missing to endearingly brush my fingers with his; we were both playing more demonstratively kinder to each other than usual, but the insolent gazes fixed all over both of us were making us share the same perilous fate, and that was in the base of our voiceless agreement to stand by each other.