Mist upon the Marsh: The Story of Nessa and Cassie (17 page)

“Ra vai miern d’aben!” he cried, throwing his hands into the air. “Ra vai feir sepo do’capin, kan ian ra’mets! Ra vai cardo vin o’pac, kan den ra’custen.”

There went up a great shout through the hall, and many rose to their feet, so as to repeat the words that Morachi had spoken. Some of the younger Endai, however, sat rigid, with expressions that lacked comprehension. Not all of them were so well-versed in the Endalin tongue, as were their mothers and fathers.

Nessa, however (and all others of her house) understood well enough what was said.
We will kill them all,
said Morachi.
We will tear their leader apart, with our bare hands. Then we will rip him to shreds, with our very teeth.

Caramon, Faevin and Orin took a fierce gleam into their eyes, at these words; but Nessa and Dechtire only glanced doubtfully at one another. For the time, Nessa’s feud with Leyra was even dissolved, and they looked without pause into one another’s faces. Leyra’s eyes were wide, and her hands were trembling. Nessa did not even think, before taking one of them up in her own.

“What is happening, Nessa?” asked Leyra. “First Dechtire was hurt – and now Huro and Kael? Two of our strongest sires? How can they do such things? They were once the same as us!”

“Not anymore, Leyra,” said Nessa. “Not anymore.”

As if bridging the gap back to his right mind – a gap engendered by his immeasurable rage – Morachi began then to speak in English, wanting quite all of his audience to understand his words.

“Once upon a time,” said he, “our lives mirrored almost the lives of humans, in their invariance and mediocrity; their silly and inane careers, meant to keep us from standing apart in the eyes of the community. But ever we had the wealth of past generations of the Endai, passed on to us by the hands of centuries gone. If we were the first – well, is it not only fitting that a great majority of the world’s monetary value should be ours, as well? We own a greater stake in this multitude of nations, than does any culture, ethnic group, corporation or monopoly! But are any aware of us? No! And yet – if it were not for us, the world as all know it would not exist. This world belongs to
us!”

Again, the occupants of the hall grew somewhat riled. Nessa, on the other hand, grew merely irritated by the arrogance of Morachi – just as ever she was.

“Yet now we have come back to ourselves,” said the King. “We have come back to our true natures, and our true purpose. We hunt out what foul things lurk in the night, what black and offensive creatures pose a threat to our very lives. And in doing so – well, we have humbly volunteered for the positions of the humans’ very greatest protectors!”

Nessa caught sight of her father, sitting with Baer and Ayo in the front row of benches. She tried to read the expression of his face; but could make out nothing save for his calm, composed profile.

“First we must assure the safety of those houses apart from Mindren,” said Morachi. “We shall all remain within the fortress, until all areas have been deemed secure. When finally our houses are filled again, they shall be done as such with increased occupancy. The houses of Dahro and Huro – oh, dear fallen brother Huro! – shall remain together. The houses of Kaegan, Silo and Fendon shall all join together at Ulo’s Head. But for now – for now, brothers and sisters, make yourselves comfortable at Mindren! You shall remain here some time.”

~

Mindren was filled to capacity that night, and pairs were forced to share chambers. This, of course, posed no real problem for most; but Nessa was so very discomposed by the day’s events, and by the divisions which had existed already in her heart, that she found it difficult to lie beside Orin. She was thankful, at least, that he was so greatly wearied, and that he fell asleep almost immediately after getting into bed. She could hear him snoring lightly, scarcely a foot away.

She imagined the bodies of those two young women, torn into so many bloody pieces by the teeth and claws of the Ziruk. She imagined the heads of Huro and Kael, affixed to two wooden stakes, with eyes wide open, and necks ended in raggedly cut flesh.

She pressed her fingers to her eyelids, to rub the images away. She chased them back into the farthest recesses of her brain, where they became entangled with sticky cobwebs, and large patches of dust. Covered in these materials, however, they did not disappear; but twisted instead into terribly deformed versions of what they had been previously; splashed all over with blood red and cold, got perhaps from the dead bodies in the forest; or perhaps from the severed throats of the brothers; or perhaps from some other place entirely, where the blood was offered up as a warning to those whom death pursued: some other place entirely, where it was simply waiting to be shed.

She pushed these thoughts, back and back, and tried to replace them with the very brightest image she could muster, from a place in her heart that shone ever with warm, golden light. From this place Cassandra MacAdam emerged, and served for a little to comfort Nessa, better than anything else ever could. But she realised too late that such warmth and beauty could not be called upon in the wake of such cold ugliness. She imagined that she lay again, on the faded pink sheets in Cassie’s bedroom; past the corridor with the threadbare carpet, which lay in turn past the pink door. She opened her eyes, and saw Cassie sound asleep, with her head on her shoulder. But the pink door turned quickly darker, and seemed presently to drip with some thick, rolling liquid; the
sheets were stained suddenly scarlet, as if whole bucketfuls of the stuff had been tossed over them. Nessa held tightly to Cassie, then shook her, and tried to wake her. But there crept suddenly the image of the murdered women, there on the forest floor, lying in a blanket of dead leaves. She opened her eyes; and saw Cassie there in her arms, covered with blood. She shook her again, and again – but she would not wake.

Nessa cried out. The sound of her own voice woke her; and she sat up quickly, clutching to her chest the bed sheet, which was soaked through with sweat, which dripped slippery and cold from her forehead, and the nape of her neck.

A candle burnt low on the bedside table. She looked to Orin, and saw him sleeping peacefully, his handsome face reminiscent of nothing so much as an angel’s. His short locks of golden-brown hair stood out against the whiteness of his pillow; and his face, complected more perfectly than freshly fallen snow, was half-bathed in shadow. His arm lay atop Nessa’s waist, but he had not stirred, when she woke.

Nessa lay down on her side, and stared at his face for a long while, till finally she drifted into another, more peaceful slumber.

Chapter XX:

Bobby-Ray W
illiams

N
ow, as is most always the custom, the ill things taking place in Nessa’s part of the world could only have been balanced by the presence of such in Cassie’s part (the latter of which Nessa had so recently begun to understand, was so very far away from her own).

On a particularly and most unbearably hot evening in late August, Cassie lay asleep on her bed, having only come through the door from a double-shift at Wiley’s Diner, thirty minutes prior. She was working again at filling her small safe-box with funds; and was, perhaps, stringing herself out a little more tightly than usual, in the attempt to avert her mind (a rather unsuccessful attempt, most of the time) from thoughts of Nessa. She had neither seen nor heard from her, since their return from the Red Pavilion; and was presently entertaining a whole host of unsettling emotions, which ranged from mild anger, to stinging offence, to a sort of dull and heavy depression. But she thought of nothing at this specific moment, and indeed, did nothing at all but sleep – a sleep blissfully free of dreams.

But it was not to last for long. Nothing at all did she know, of course, of what was taking place downstairs – but at that very moment, whilst her breath flowed steadily in and out, and her chest rose softly up and down, there was come a loud knock at the front door.

Birdie Post glanced up from a hazy-eyed stupor, and dragged herself from the sofa. She had lain there so long, with the steadily increasing impression that her body was melding itself partially with the fabric, so that she should never again be able to rise – that she had considerable difficulty, in even persuading herself that an attempt could be made. Yet the knocker persisted, and her headache was inflamed, quite to the point where she would have tried anything once.

She staggered to the pink door, and yanked it open. “Why,” she exclaimed, passing an unsteady hand over her sweating face, “if it ain’t Robert Raymond Williams!”

“Hello there, Miss Birdie,” said Bobby-Ray. A most charming smile spread across his handsome face; and his pale eyes twinkled in the moonlight. “Do you think I might come in?”

“Whatever for, now, Bobby-Ray?” Birdie swayed uneasily to and fro, like a weak and useless willow reed; and fell forward, so that she was forced to take hold of Bobby-Ray’s strong arm, in order to remain upright. She frowned, and said: “Well, I’spose I’ve got to let you in, now.”

She stood aside, and let him pass.

“Well, I thankee kindly, Miss Birdie,” said Bobby-Ray. He removed his oil-stained baseball cap, and tipped it to the drunken woman. “I remember, I do, you ‘n me always did get along right nicely.”

She pondered for a moment; and suddenly an expression of realisation broke slowly over her face, with almost the very same amount of bemused wonderment, as would have accompanied a life-changing epiphany. “Well,” she said loudly, reaching out to pat the top of the young man’s head, “I s’pose we did, Bobby-Ray. I s’pose we did.”

The young man bestowed upon her a last, but no less bright and charismatic smile; and then took to the stairs without a word, leaving Birdie alone in the narrow entryway.

She heard a door creak softly; she heard a scream, a thump; and then, a continuation of muffled sounds of protest. She placed a shaking hand on the banister, and looked up towards the empty landing, till all had come to silence. Then she let her hand fall, and shuffled into the kitchen, where she went to work searching for a misplaced bottle of Jim Beam.

~

Upstairs (a region of space which could have been, for all Birdie Post knew of it, another universe entirely), Robert Raymond Williams sat at the edge of Cassie’s bed, inspecting a deep gash on his left forearm – made, some minutes before, by the fingernails of Cassie’s right hand. His countenance was unaffected, unperturbed, and indeed most innocent. He looked at his arm with some interest, wiping continually the blood from the wound, each time it rose again to the surface. After he had passed his fingers across it, he cleaned his fingers on the pink bed sheet.

Cassie lay on the floor, in a corner of the room. She had struck her head when she fell, and her vision was blurred and distorted; but she reached several times, in separate attempts which were never fruitful, for her scattered clothes. Constantly she was forced to stop, and to put a hand to her throbbing head. She crawled to the bed, and knelt there beside it, with her head resting atop the mattress.

Having finally managed to stanch the blood from his wound, Bobby-Ray swung his head towards Cassie, and smiled a wide, beaming smile. “Well, whatcha doin’ there, darlin’? Put yer clothes back on, fer heaven’s sake!”

Cassie moaned, and dropped away from the bed.

“What’s the matter, darlin’?” Bobby-Ray inquired. “Dincha miss me? I thought you’d be happy!”

Cassie lay prostrate, down on the floor, holding tightly to her head with both hands.

“Well, dincha miss me?” repeated Bobby-Ray, rising from the bed. “Well, dincha? It was just like old times, wasn’t it? I say yes – you say no – and then we do it anyway!”

He came to stand over Cassie. Then he reached down and took hold of her hair, so as to make her face visible to him. She screamed; and downstairs, in the kitchen, Birdie Post raised her head, huddling like a greedy rat over the bottle of bourbon.

“Well, I say it was fun,” said Bobby-Ray, letting Cassie’s head drop. He jammed his cap back on, and added, “I s’pose I’ll see you around, darlin’. You just let me know, when you decide you wanna come on back home.”

He exited the room, leaving nothing behind him but a slamming door; and it would indeed be most pleasant to say, that all this had occurred due to some strange whim he had temporarily entertained; and that Cassie saw or heard no more of him, after that night. But this would be untrue. Most unfortunately, Bobby-Ray returned to LeMontagne Boulevard some dozen days after his first visit; was ushered in with as much pleasantness, but as little reserve from Birdie Post; and found Cassie as he had found her before, alone and unsuspecting. Perhaps, she suspected a little more on this occasion, than she had on the previous one; not really having expected him to return, but seeing it now with less surprise. And so he promised, that he would come to call yet again. And where could Cassie run? Nowhere, it seemed.

~

Rather than dedicate a whole chapter (not that the sparing of such would be the issue; but rather the matter is only, that the chapter in question would be incredibly short), we shall say a few words, now, concerning Arol. Perhaps this is the appropriate place, anyway, for such words; seeing as our intentions have been so far directed towards describing some of what significant things took place during the course of the Endalin hibernation at Mindren.

While Qiello plotted with his sons in the marshland, Arol worked unwitting of them, in the stone chambers of Curu-ga. Each day he cursed – and cursed, and cursed, and cursed – his inability to gain an upper hand over the Endai. His soldiers retained a fear of their enemy that was not reconcilable with their own possessions of speed and strength. They came upon the houses of Dahro and Huro in the forest, but were afraid to declare battle against so many. They were braver with the house of Silo, whose numbers and might were less; but still they had not done what damage Arol desired. They were too afraid!

Yet even Arol was forced to admit, that the race of the Voranu was somewhat less susceptible to cleverness (all besides himself, of course) than were the Endai. They harboured an ungrounded, persistent fear of Morachi – and, moreover, of the house of Dahro. All knew that that house was home to the two very strongest of the Endai beneath Morachi; and, hence, was of a rank that perhaps even superseded the singularity of Morachi’s impressiveness.              

So how to kill them – how to
kill them?
Each time their demise seemed near, or even perhaps only plausible in a very small way, they slipped directly through Arol’s claws! This night, all that was got was old Huro, and his petulant child brother. Arol wanted them not! But slightly amused he was, still, at the story with which his soldiers had returned, concerning the sticking of their severed heads atop a pair of stakes.

Yet he laughed but little – for the pain of the death of his most beloved son was still fresh, still powerful and disabling. Some days he could do little but lie, and then rise, for perhaps a moment or two, to order the death of something. A deer, a bear – or possibly one of his own people.

It was the latter of these activities, however, that served as fuel for the aforementioned fire in the marsh: the fire kindled by Qiello, and his clever son Niono.