If I Fall (2 page)

“Mother, please. Tell us. What is happening?”

Her pale eyes flit between the two of us with such a solemn intensity that my heart sinks before the words even escape her mouth.

“The village is under attack.”

“By whom?” Dela gasps.

The crow’s-feet around Mother’s eyes appear to deepen as she steps towards my bed. I used to associate those lines with the precious smiles I once believed to be rare gifts. When they gathered around her crystalline eyes, I knew I was receiving a special treat, my mother’s approval. But now, as she traces a hand over my tattered quilt as though it is the last time she will ever see it again, I know that those lines suddenly have a very different meaning. Gone are the lines of happiness and laughter. Worry and terror. That is what I now see in the contours of her face. Two simple words and yet all-powerful.
Worry and terror.

“The Radicals,” she finally answers, ripping her hand back from the quilt as though it has unexpectedly turned to ash beneath her touch. She pushes by us, moving towards the bedroom door before whirling around to face us. “They are setting the whole village on fire. Your father is bringing the carriage around back. Are you both ready?”

We exchange withered glances and nod.

“Let’s go, my darlings. Keep close, now.”

We trail her down the stairs, through the kitchen, and out the back door. I glance back, wondering if it will be the last time I see my beloved home. Father pulls around in the coach. Two mares whinny and neigh at the front, their nostrils flaring.

Jumping down from the perch, he runs around to aid Mother and Dela into the carriage. I stand behind them, unsure. Everything is moving so fast. Too fast. Only moments ago, I was lost in a dream, and now I am running for my life. My brain cannot process it all. Disbelief clouds my thoughts.

“Elvira! Come on!” my father calls.

Startled out of my stupor, I turn and run to him, wanting him to hold me in his arms. I do not get his warm embrace, but rather a sharp push into the carriage. I stumble inside and take the seat opposite Mother and Dela. My skirts tangle around my legs as I turn in my seat to look out the back window.

Father snaps the reins and the carriage bustles into motion. The horses’ fervent clip-clopping picks up tempo and the coach rocks back and forth. I watch my home grow smaller and smaller as we draw away. Another blast sounds through the air and I gasp. A plume of orange has sidled up the side of my house, leaving a trail of black in its wake.

Suddenly, my bedroom window bursts into a million shards of glass. They glitter in the firelight as they rain down upon the soft grass. The flames sitting atop the roof lick at the cool night air as another window breaks with a thousand pings. Unable to watch any more, I face the front once again. We sit in silence, listening to our world go up in flames.

Mother covers Dela’s ears, trying to protect her from the screams and cries around us. A green monster climbs up my stomach and I instantly push him back down. How silly of me; jealous of my sister for being younger, for having Mother’s warm hands wrapped around her ears. No, not so silly, really, to want someone to shield me from my fears. I wrap my arms around my waist, hugging myself—at the moment, I am all I have.

The carriage jostles and I am thrown roughly to the side. My shoulder bangs against the wall. Dela is thrust forward and Mother braces herself. I put a hand to my shoulder, trying to rub the ache out of it. My sister scrambles back onto the seat, her eyes wide with fear. We have stopped. The horses whinny.

“Woah!” I hear my father yell, but the horses are wild with fright.

Another voice meets my father’s and I tense. “Where you think you’re going?”

The Radicals,
I think, and my heartbeat quickens.

“We mean no harm. Please, just let us pass,” Father says, his voice surprisingly calm.

I hear the man snicker. “Let you pass,” he scoffs. “I say, show me your arm!”

“Please, sir. Let us be reasonable men.”

“You are no man,” he spits. “You aren’t even human! Now, show me your arm!”

Fear grips my heart with sharp claws and I can scarcely breathe. We are frozen, listening intently. What is happening out there?

“Let us pass,” Father says. His voice is stern. It is the same voice he uses for scolding Dela and I, except this time I cannot escape to my room.

“Who you got back there?” the man says, and I can feel his cruel grin from inside the coach.

“No one,” Father says, too quickly and the lie is evident. “It is just me.”

“Pete, Ray, check the back.”

Dela is crying now, tears streaming down her face in silent sobs. A hand grips my arm, fingernails digging deep into the flesh of my wrist. The hand pulls, slipping down around my fingers and squeezing. A shrill scream escapes my lips. I can feel my finger bones rub together beneath the skin and I fly out of the carriage, twisting my ankle. I bite my tongue to keep from crying out.

“Come along, poppet,” my attacker whispers in my ear. His breath smells strongly of spirits and I wrinkle my nose. He pins my arms behind my back, my already cut and bruised wrist blistering in pain under the pressure of his grimy hands. He leads me to the front of the carriage.

The grunts and whimpers of Dela and Mother struggling against their captors reaches me before I see them. Like me, they both have a Radical restraining their hands. It is hard to tell in the night, but something dark seems to stream from Mother’s right ear and I can only assume it is blood. I cannot meet my father’s eyes, but I know he is watching me.

“Please, let them go. They are not like me,” he pleads.

“We’ll see ‘bout that,” another man declares. He marches up to me, holding a knife. I try to back up, but the grip around my arms tightens. Around us, dark figures scurry and yells fly into the night, but they are in a different world. Separated by the circle of Radicals and far away from the nightmare I am living.

“Don’t hurt her!” Father yells. He tries to run forward, but another Radical catches him by the shoulder, wrenching him down. Someone’s knee jerks up with a resounding clap. Father falls back, rolling onto his stomach with a groan. He coughs. His lip is bloodied. A single eye begins to swell shut. It all happens so fast. A single yelp jumps from my tongue and falls unheard into the night.

The man looms closer, obscuring my view of Father and gagging me with the foul stench of spirits. Have all of these men been drinking? A cockamamie grin tugs at his lips. The few teeth left look as though they are decaying right before my eyes. I grimace, and his smile spreads.

“You a pretty one, all right. Can we save this one? Have a little fun before we kill ‘er?” he jeers. His words are slurred, but they still have the same effect. My blood turns to ice and sweat forms on my lip and brow. Liquid fear.

He jerks my arm to him and his knife slips beneath my sleeve. The metal is cold against my skin, its razor sharp edge resting only inches from my vein. Blood thumps beneath the point. It races up my arm and pounds in my ears. I can feel it—hear it—thrumming against my skin, drowning out the mayhem around me.

With a swift twitch of the wrist, the dagger slices through my sleeve, exposing my bare forearm. My breath catches. On the creamy white of my arm there is a Mark; a perfect circle with a cross in the middle like a compass. It burns a bright violet, the same color as my eyes. He drops my arm and backs up. The man imprisoning my other arm sees the Mark and hastily releases his grasp. I stand between the two men, hopelessly frozen.

“What is it?” their leader calls, jumping down from the coach’s perch. An explosion erupts behind us and we duck. A storm of debris showers over us; a fragment cuts across my cheek. Warm liquid bubbles to the surface and I press a finger to it. Hot and sticky, my finger is painted in a deep crimson. Wincing, I lean forward.

The explosion does not intimidate the Radicals. The leader continues to move forward, closing in fast. I catch a glimpse of his face in the flickering light of the battle raging around us. A long scar mars his features, threading across his cheek and over his lips. His eyes are a deep brown that appears black in the night.

“What is it?” he asks again. When no one answers, he grabs hold of my elbow and pulls me to him. He turns my arm in the night, this way and that. The Mark flares a brilliant violet in the firelight. His narrowed eyes widen, and he releases his hold in disgust. “What are your powers?” he bellows.

“I—I don’t know.”

He slaps me across the face.
Hard.
“Don’t you lie to me!”

“
Please.
She speaks the truth. We don’t know her powers,” Father calls. “We don’t believe she has any,” he lies.

“She has the Circle and Cross! Do not play me for a fool! I know what the symbol means!”

I shudder with fear. My cheek stings with the imprint of his hand. What will happen to me? The Radical’s suggestive taunts surface in my mind, but my Mark might have saved me from that fate. I may be fortunate enough to simply be killed like everyone else. A single blow and that is it. Gone from this Earth in the blink of an eye. Too fast to even feel it. Yes, that would be best.

The man in charge sighs. “What about the others?”

A Radical steps towards his leader. “The man has the crescent, as does the woman. The young girl has the cross.”

“A mediator?”

“Disgusting witches.”

“Speaking to spirits? It’s unnatural, I tell you!”

“I say hang ‘em all!”

The Radicals talk among themselves as though we are not there, as though we are not human. Then again, in their eyes we aren’t. We are lesser beings, unnatural, disgusting, and thus, we deserve to die.

Dela’s hair hangs in front of her face. It sticks around her jaw and forehead, held there by her tears. Her right sleeve is up to her elbow, revealing the Mark. Hers is a light blue, like glistening ice on the white of her skin. She meets my eyes and somehow, I manage a weak smile.

“Kill them all,” Scar-face agrees. “Except this one.” It takes me a moment to realize he is pointing at me. “We’ll save her for tonight.” My stomach churns.

“Please,” I barely whisper. That one word, so insignificant and yet so powerful, drifts away on the wind.

Dela is staring intently over my shoulder, but when I turn, I see nothing. She comes back to herself with a shake of the head and her eyes wander to mine. She answers the question in my eyes with a terse nod and smiles.

Lightning fast, the horses bustle into movement, as though spooked by a ghost. Caught by surprise, the Radicals fling themselves out of the way. I jump to the side, landing in the dirt. My elbows scrape against the earth and I rush to my feet. The man with the crooked teeth sees me and growls. He runs for me, hands outstretched.

“Elvira!” It is Dela calling. I see her standing on the other side of the road with Mother and Father, and I cannot get my feet moving fast enough. I run to them and Mr. Crooked-Teeth gives chase. I hike up my skirts, holding them immodestly above my knees. Pulse racing, skin slick with sweat, breathing nearly impossible, I force myself into a sprint.

Mother clutches me in her arms when I reach them, but it is short-lived. A Radical reaches us, grabbing Father by the neck.

“Father!” I scream. His face turns a deep shade of blue, his fingers clawing at the hands clamped around his throat. I search the road, looking for anything I can use as a weapon. A large stick lies on the ground and I grab for it. Coming up behind the Radical, I raise the stick and swing. It hits against his head with a sickening
thunk!
I can hear his skull crack beneath my blow. Bile rises in my throat. He drops to the ground, blood matting his hair. My father falls to his knees, wheezing.

I stare at the ruby red as the sickening crack echoes in my mind again and again.

Hit.
Crack!
Collapse. Hit.
Crack!
Collapse …

The blood pools around my boots and I step back in shock.

“Elvira. Elvira!” My father’s raspy voice filters through the endless song. Hit.
Crack!
Collapse … “Elvira!”

Startled, I turn away from the hideous sight. My eyes dart from horror to horror. People run all around me. We are indeed at war, but war is not how I would describe this scene. Chaos. That is the word. Pure and utter chaos surrounds me in a whirlpool of cries and fire, bangs and explosions, blood and last breaths. My senses are on overload, and yet, silence is all I hear.

A cool hand wraps around my arm, pulling me down. I collapse to my knees, meeting the face of the Radical with the scar. I scream and he laughs a hideous laugh.

“No escapin’ me, precious,” he purrs and next thing I know, he is on top of me. My breath whooshes out of me as his fingers curl around my hair, plowing my face into the dirt. I cannot breathe! I inhale and choke, dirt filling my lungs.

Kicking and punching, I squirm beneath him. I pull at his hair, try to bite his hand, claw at his arms; anything to get him off! He flips me around so that I must gaze back into his monstrous face. His legs clasp tight around my thighs and he pins my arms against my ears. Like being submerged underwater, the muddled clamor quiets into a soft hum. I move my head from side to side as I struggle, the lurid din undulating like the feral surf.

“I want ta see those violet eyes as the life drains from ‘em,” he slurs.

That is when I see the glint of his dagger in the moonlight, raised just above my chest. I let out a strangled cry and squeeze my eyes shut, tensing for the pain. Unexpectedly, the weight releases and I am sure I have died when I hear Dela screaming in my ear.

“El, are you all right?”

I open my eyes and she is hovering over me, worry creasing her brow.

“Dela,” I whisper in relief. She helps me up and we are off once again. I see Mother in Scar-face’s clutches and I scream to her. A mottling of purples, blues, and blacks paints his cheek and a thin river of blood trickles down his forehead. I stare at Dela and she shrugs. The strength of my little sister has always surprised me, but I do wonder if perhaps, this time, she had some help from her … friends.