The Named
Authors: Marianne Curley
MARIANNE
CURLEY
Contents
This book is dedicated to my mother
And to the loving memory of my father
History is always written by the victors,
and the defeated create a new set of myths
to explain the past and gild the future.
Morris West
Her hair is black and thick with bouncing curls that bob around her shoulders. Her eyes are blue, deeper than his, a much more attractive child, he knows. She is their parents’ favourite but he doesn’t care. Her name is Sera, and at ten she is the driving force of his life.
‘Hurry!’ Sera turns back once, urging her little brother forward. ‘It’s going to bloom for the first time ever. I can’t miss it!’
The boy hurries as fast as his short legs can move. ‘What’s going to bloom?’
‘The flower, you idiot. The one I’ve been waiting for. The giant black iris!’
He stamps his left foot and stops still. ‘Don’t call me an idiot.’
She turns, impatience making her eyes widen. ‘I didn’t really mean it. Now come on!’
He follows and asks in youthful innocence, ‘How do you know it’s going to bloom?’
Sera pauses long enough to give her brother an exasperated look. ‘I’ve been watching the bud form for the past three months. Today is the first day of the spring equinox. Don’t you know anything?’
The boy takes off again, struggling to keep up. He wants to see the black iris bloom – an event that will occur for the first time this morning, apparently – but not nearly as much as his sister does. It’s Sera’s excitement and the privilege of sharing it that propels him over the grassy hills and into shrub and bushland at the first stirring of a misty dawn.
Sera stops suddenly, collapses on her heels and moans in relief. ‘We didn’t miss it! Look, there it is.’
The boy finally catches up, and, standing beside his sister, glances at the long green stalk supporting a perfectly formed black bud. His head tilts sideways. ‘Is that it?’
‘Of course it is!’ Sera snorts without taking her eyes off the bulb. ‘Now shut up and watch! It’s going to be spectacular.’
For all his short life the boy has been aware of his sister’s love for all things strange or extraordinary, like unusual flowers, orphaned woodland creatures, vivid sunsets. And many times he would simply sit in awe of her adventurous spirit, wishing that he too were old enough, or large enough, to swing down those cliffs with only a single rope tied around his waist. He shrugs and sits on the moist grass beside her, content in the knowledge that he won’t always be four years old.
A sudden snapping of twigs nearby to their right has both their heads swivelling sharply towards the sound.
‘Whatwasthat?’
Sera swallows around a sudden lump in her throat, the hairs on her slender body standing on end. She turns to the boy with a brave face. ‘It was nothing. Don’t be such a baby.’
Another twig, this one closer, startles the boy again. ‘Is something coming?’
‘Shhh! How should I know? But if you’re very quiet, whatever it is will surely go away.’
But it doesn’t go away. A moment later, a hideous creature of enormous size, in human form but with only half a face, appears through the mist to stand before them. The children scream and stumble backwards, grasping each other. Sera starts shaking. ‘Wh-who are you?’
The creature appears to grow before their eyes as he straightens his broad back. ‘I am Marduke.’
Sera gasps as if the name somehow explains the giant creature’s presence. Her frightened eyes grow as wide as cannonballs and she flicks a look at her brother. He pulls on her arm. ‘What did he say?’
Sera squares her shoulders. Brushing her brother’s question aside, she turns and asks the monster, ‘What do you want?’
In a guttural voice the creature with half a face replies, ‘I want to take you to a place where it is midnight every day and black irises glisten under a bleeding moon.’
Shaking her head, Sera takes a tremulous step backwards. The half-faced creature stretches out one hand, the largest hand the boy has ever seen. He watches as the hand curves around his sister’s face, and in that moment his heart is stricken with the certain knowledge that this monster is out to harm. But the boy finds himself unable to make the slightest motion, not even to lift a finger to his trembling lips.
The monster’s hand shifts; the boy’s eyes move with it to the top of Sera’s head. The monster catches his eye and smiles with half a mouth, then squeezes his fingers. Sera screams, loud, long and in agonising tones that reach far into the surrounding woodland. When her body goes limp, the creature lays her down on the grass, where she moans and grasps her head with both hands, her eyes open wide and staring. The creature stretches his massive arms into the air, making him appear even larger in the boy’s eyes, and releases an almighty roar that has the surrounding trees shaking to their roots. And within that roar the boy hears his father’s name called for all the world to hear, but his thoughts become confused as terror rages through him.
Cowering and trembling at the power in the giant’s hands and rough voice, the boy’s eyes shift to his sister squirming and groaning at his feet. But he feels the monster’s eyes on him and looks up. Staring down with one golden-coloured eye, the creature slowly and horribly smiles. As suddenly as he came, and without another word, the monster disappears, leaving the boy to gaze at an empty space.
Suddenly Sera hisses, clutching her brother’s ankle with a feeble hand.
Released from the creature’s spellbinding hold, the boy gathers his much larger sister into his arms, cradling her black curls against his chest. ‘Who was that, Sera? What’s happening? What’s wrong with you?’
She tries to speak but blood trickles from her mouth. This scares the boy half to death. ‘Sera!’
Sera screams again and blood begins to seep from her eyes and ears. The boy becomes frantic, his whole body rocking and shaking with tremor after tremor. Tears form a crooked path down his face. He tries to rise in search of help, but Sera’s grip on his ankle momentarily tightens. Her eyes begin to lose their vivid colour. ‘Wait,’ she says with enormous effort; and as he leans his ear down to her mouth, she whispers her last ever spoken words, ‘Remember the name.’
‘The creature’s name?’ the boy asks, glancing up as if the strange-sounding word still lingers in the mist-filled air before him. But all he sees is a scrawny green plant that has now collapsed and withered, black petals fluttering slowly to the ground.
With nothing but pain in his heart, the boy screams.
It’s the scream of the boy child that finally wakes Ethan. Sweat pours off his bare shoulders, quickly chilling him in the crisp night air. He wraps his quilt around his shivering limbs as his bedroom swims into focus and his heart rate starts to slow. A strange sense of relief fills him as he slowly understands: the dream is over, and he has at last woken from another of his vivid recurring nightmares.
Ethan
I wake with the heavy feeling that my brain turned to lead during the night. It was the dream again. Well, what else is new? For twelve years now I’ve dreamed of that hideous monster. You’d think now I’m sixteen those childish nightmares would leave me be. If they had some meaning, shouldn’t I have worked it out by now? Surely.
A sound penetrates the dull throbbing of my head. At first I think it’s Dillon. Sometimes he drops in before school and we get the bus together. But then I realise that today is Sunday and my slowly awakening mind begins registering that this mournful sound is coming from my parents’ bedroom. It’s Mum. She’s crying, her sobs growing more intense, even while it’s clear she’s trying to muffle them with her pillow.
I drag myself out of bed, groaning, and pull on a pair of jeans. At Mum’s door I breathe in deeply. The last time she cried like this she couldn’t stop for three days. Pushing open her door, I glance around for Dad, but I’m not really surprised when I see no sign of him. When Mum’s depression kicks in, he’s usually the first to run.
She sees me and attempts to dry her face using a corner of her sheet. And through the tears and red eyes she smiles, but she can’t hold it for more than a fleeting moment before her face tumbles again. ‘Cup of tea?’ she whimpers. I nod and back out quietly, relieved to be doing something useful.