Looking down at the card in my trembling hand, I heard a small voice inside my head. My voice, though far younger and higher than it was now. It was from a memory, a day in sixth grade when we had to recite a poem in front of the class. Everyone had been nervous and was desperately trying to hide it, and I was no different. I’d picked an Emily Dickinson poem I’d read the year before from a book my mother had given me for my birthday. Reading poetry wasn’t something I shared with my friends or my classmates, and as much as I loved this particular poem, I didn’t relish having to get up and say it in front of the class. All those eyes staring at me, weighing me, judging me. I’d just wanted to sink into the floor.
When it had finally been my turn to go up, I got two lines in before my throat seized up. I coughed and tried to start again, but it was no use. I could feel my eyes beginning to well with a mixture of embarrassment and frustration. It was so stupid. I knew what to say, why couldn’t I just say it? When the kids started snickering, the teacher, Mrs. Milsap, had waved me back to my seat and said I could try again later. She must have taken pity on me, because she never made me do it the rest of the year.
Maybe she understood something about me that I didn’t realize until a few years later. I wasn’t a fighter or a hero. I wasn’t brave. I didn’t think I was a bad person, but then most people don’t really think they are, regardless of what they’ve done. What I did know was that when things got hard, I didn’t stand my ground. I folded. I ran. I’d been running since the day I saw what was underneath that house, witnessed the first dim outlines of the web I was caught in. Instead of fighting back or working to understand, I’d just abandoned my life and spent all the years since trying to avoid the dark cloud that seemed to follow me wherever I went.
Today, in that other place, was the first time I’d really tried to do something. And now Andy and Connie were both dead. So I’d just run again, with the help of that strange woman this time, back into a world I thought I knew and understood. Run right into this silent man with his ominous card. I should have been terrified, and in a distant way I supposed I was. But I was also relieved. I’d caused so much pain over the years, and the fact that it hadn’t been intentional or in my control seemed irrelevant at this point. I knew without knowing that this man was not just a man. He was my ending in the flesh.
Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me…
I raised my eyes to meet his gaze, my heart thudding as I saw the smile had fallen from his face. There was only cold hunger and determination there now, his eyes pinning me to the spot as he began to gesture with his hands. I could feel enormous pressure around me, as though I was being sent to the bottom of some black and unfathomable sea. It would crush me soon, but at least then it would be over. It would all be over.
But no.
He wasn’t killing me after all, at least not yet. Instead he was pulling me, dragging me along on some invisible tether toward an off-kilter door that had formed in the far wall of the office lobby just below the poor hanging woman. I knew that door and the symbol that was burned into it. He was carrying me back. Carrying me back to that thing in the field.
I started to struggle, but it was no use. I could hear the soles of my shoes scraping softly across the floor as I drew closer and closer. It would open in a moment, and then I’d be right back where I…
There was a flash of light, and the man was flung against the wall, his body slamming hard next to the woman’s before sliding down to the floor. I felt the pressure around me fade, my breath coming harsh and fast as I looked around. That’s when I first saw the fox. If you could call it a fox at all. It was over four feet tall and standing on its hind legs as it walked toward me with a tip of its small, brown bowler hat. A sense of new unreality washed over me as I started to back away, but it shook its head as it spoke in a gruff voice.
“No time for that, Daniel. I’m here to help you. To get you away from here. From them. But you have to go with me now. You have to trust me now. Answers can come later.”
I paused, thinking back to what Lark had said. She’d told me to trust the fox, and she had saved my life, if only briefly. Besides, anything was better than going back to that other place. So I nodded.
The fox was close by this point, giving only the briefest of nods before grabbing my arm. I felt a flash of hot and then cold as the world disappeared and then reappeared around me. We…we were…well, I didn’t know where we were actually. A library maybe? It looked like the reading area of a closed public library, but who knew? The only thing I knew for sure was that we weren’t in that slaughterhouse of a lobby any more. My head was swimming, and I staggered over to a wooden chair and pulled it away from a table before dropping into it.
“Did…we just…teleport or something?” I was gasping, my lungs burning as they tried to get enough air.
The fox let out a small clucking sound that might have been a laugh. “Or something, but close enough. It’s not safe here, but it’s safer, and for now that will have to do.” His bushy eyebrows furrowed. “Lark. She’s still in the other place, isn’t she?” When my heavy breaths kept me from answering right away, his tone grew harder. “Answer me, boy. Stop hyperventilating and speak. Is she still with Burke?”
I forced myself to slow down and nodded. “I think so. She sent me out of there, but I didn’t see her come too.”
Slamming down his fist on the table, the fox let out a quiet curse. “She’s going to get herself killed or worse. I told her to...” His gaze had grown sad and distant, but then he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Done is done.” Turning back to me, his expression softened slightly. “I know this is very confusing, and while I don’t know everything, I know enough to know you’ve had a hard run.” He sighed. “I guess we all have, of late. My name is Rupert. You’ve already met Lark and…well, Burke.”
I nodded. “Um, yeah. Is Lark going to be okay there with him? Can she beat him?”
Rupert stared at me for a moment as though weighing how much he should tell. Finally, he looked away as he gave a slow shake of his head. “No. Not as he is now. Burke is not what he was. He was a good man and our friend. Brave and smart. Skillful in our arts, if not…” He glanced back at me. “…naturally talented like some are.” The fox pulled out a chair and hopped into it, lifting off his hat and sitting it on the table. “But this world we’re a part of, it’s highly dangerous. We tried to teach him, protect him, but…but we failed. He fell prey to something very old and very strong. It’s a part of him now, and I’ve tried to convince Lark that there is no bringing him back.” Rubbing his head, he shrugged. “But she won’t listen. She’s determined that…” He trailed off.
“That he can be saved?” I offered, my voice sounding loud in the shadowy silence of the library.
The fox nodded sadly. “Yes. That. And it’ll get her killed.”
Swallowing, I forced myself to say the words that had already sprang up in my head and heart. “We need to go back. We need to help her.” I felt my chest tightening again at the thought of returning to that place, but tried to ignore it. “We need to do something.”
Rupert shook his head. “I appreciate the offer. It’s good of you. But not until you’re safe. There are places that the Silent One…the guy in the purple get-up…can’t follow or find us. But they only have limited windows where they can be entered. One of those windows is opening here in about half an hour.” His voice sounded pained as he went on. “After I’ve got you there, then I’ll go and try to help her if I can.”
I stood up from the table, anger flaring in my chest. “No. That’s stupid. I’m scared as shit of going back to that place, but we can’t just leave her. If you don’t want to take me, then at least go yourself. Magic her out of there like you did with me. I’ll be fine here.”
The fox stared at me for several seconds before letting out a sigh. “You don’t get it. The Silent One? He’s an assassin. A hunter. The only reason he’s not already here is because I’m here actively warding this place. If I go, he’d find you and drag you back in a handful of minutes. And you cannot be exposed to B…that thing.”
“Why? Why the fuck am I so important?”
Rupert shrugged. “I’m not saying you’re important. Maybe you are or maybe you aren’t, I don’t know. What I’m saying is that you have a deep wellspring of natural talent. Call it an affinity for magic. It’s what has protected you so far, and its what makes you such a prize to the thing that has taken Burke from us. If it can take you…well, things can be far worse than they already are, I assure you.”
Sinking back into my seat, I felt a new sense of dread crawling over me. “It’s never going to stop, is it? It’s just going to keep coming for me.” I glanced up at Rupert. “You should just kill me. If I’m that big a danger if he gets me, and I can’t help get your friend back, just kill me now.”
To my surprise, the fox gave a clucking laugh again. “Kid, if I thought it would help, I would. But death won’t end it. Believe me, we’ve been working on stopping this, on either bringing Burke back from the dark or stopping him for good, for years now. I…I still don’t know how to beat it. Or if it can be beaten.” His eyes grew hard for a moment. “But believe me, if I thought killing you would help stop him or get Lark back, you’d already be dead.”
It was then that the world exploded with light.
The orange, sickly glow of the field flooded the room as a door suddenly swung open in midair, a bloodied Lark staggering through the threshold. Rupert jumped out of his chair to go to her, but she held up a hand as she shook her head.
“No. Don’t come any closer. Listen. Please.”
Rupert stopped and nodded as Lark went on.
“I…you were right. I couldn’t get it out of Burke. Couldn’t beat it. The best thing I could do was offer it a deal. A deal to go into me instead.”
I felt my stomach drop as Rupert’s lip raised in a snarl. “You fool girl! Why would you…” Lark interrupted him.
“No time, no time. It thought it was tricking me. Making me believe it would let Burke go. But it didn’t. Burke’s in here too, along with all the rest it has ridden with. So many voices in here now, and overall of them, I hear that thing laughing.”
I broke in. “Can we get it out of you? Exorcise it or something?”
Lark turned and gave me a pained smile. “It’s not like that. It doesn’t take you over. It convinces. Persuades. I can hear it laughing, but I can also feel it whispering to me. To my heart.” She swallowed. “And I can feel my heart turning.”
Rupert let out what might have been a small bark or whimpering cry. Taking another step forward, he growled, “I’ll rip it out before it can finish its nest. It won’t take you too.”
The woman shook her head. “You don’t understand. I knew what I was doing when I agreed. It wasn’t tricking me. I was tricking it. This is how we stop it, at least for a time.”
Rupert frowned. “How? It’ll be more powerful with you than it was with Burke. And at least before it was trapped in…” His face fell. “Oh no.”
Lark gave a sad nod as I looked between them in confusion. “What?”
Rupert spoke first, his voice rough. “The house…we trapped him in the house with a ritual. Turned his own sigil against him and sealed it with flame. At the time, we did it to save you and to buy time to help Burke.”
Lark turned back to me. “But he corrupted the house over time. Created his own reality around it and began to slowly gain enough power to push back into ours. So it’s time to give him a new, more secure prison.” A tear rolled down her cheek as she smiled at Rupert. “Me.”
I went to protest, but Lark let out a scream that stole the air from my throat. She was doubled over and on the verge of collapse, but when she looked up at us, her face was hard and determined. “Now. It has to be…now. Two…it takes two for the ritual. Twin wills to bind it.” Her eyes focused on mine. “You know his sigil?” When I nodded, she went on. “Find something and mark me with it, but in reverse, as though you were seeing it in a mirror. Can you do that?” I nodded again. “Then do it.”
I ran in the direction of what looked like the front desk of the library, though it was still hard to see in this part of the room. Pilfering through drawers in the shadows, I finally found a red marker and ran back to where she was still arguing with Rupert.
“…that there’s no other way. And this is something we can’t risk. You know that.”
Rupert shook his head. “No, I just need time. There’s…my old friend may able to help, if I can just find a way back…”
Lark shook her head. “No. You know the Nightlands aren’t an option. No time and it’s too dangerous, especially for us. This is the only…” She sucked in a hissing breath as she gritted her teeth. “Daniel, do it now. On my back. Remember, like you are seeing it in a mirror while you think only of trapping this thing inside.”
I went to her, crouching down as she lifted her tattered shirt. I expected my hands to shake, my memory to fail, my will to falter when I finally moved to do more than run away. But somehow, the opposite was true.
The red marker was steady in my grip as I set it against her skin. The image from the doors was clear and sharp in my mind, as was its mirrored twin. As for my will…well, as much as I hated to condemn Lark to being this thing’s prison, there was nothing in the world I wanted more than to see the monster that had ruined so many lives brought down to ruin as well.
I had finished the last line when she stood again on trembling legs. “Thank you. Now step back.” As I did, she looked at Rupert and then me. “Take care of each other.” Looking back at Rupert, I could see fresh tears flowing down her cheeks. “Do it, Rupe. Please.”
The fox was weeping as well, a small whimper coming from deep in his throat as he closed his eyes and lifted a hand in Lark’s direction. He muttered something that I didn’t understand for several moments, but the final word was clear, ringing out like the tolling of a funeral bell.
”Burn.”
Lark burst into flame, a brief scream escaping her before the flames burned away the air around her. I thought she would collapse and be consumed, but no. She just burned without burning, twisting in agony as she stepped back through the door into that other place. A moment later, Lark and the door were gone, leaving the two of us in darkness.
I stood silent and numb for several minutes, not sure of what to do or say. I would give Rupert glances occasionally, but there was no real comfort I could offer him. For his part, he just sat back at the table and held his face while silently crying for a time. I jumped a little when he finally spoke.
“Years ago…many, many years ago, I lost my family and kin. The place I’m from…it’s a dangerous place, but the thing that took it all from me…well, it was worse. I left my home and remaining friends behind because I felt like I had nothing left. Nothing left to live for or offer the world.”
Lifting his face, his dark eyes met mine. “And then I met Lark. She became like a second daughter to me. I’d been studying the arts for years before then, but more as a distraction than anything else. Lark gave me purpose and hope. She showed me I still had value to others and myself. I could still do good in this world and others.”
He slid out of the chair and approached me. “I know you’ve lost a great deal as well, Daniel. I have no way of healing that any more than I can heal myself. But if you’re willing, I can help you find a place. A place that is safe. A place where you can keep going and perhaps find you still have more to offer than you realize.” He held out his hand. “If you can trust me…and yourself…enough to take that chance.” Wiping at my eyes, I nodded and took his offered hand.
And we were off.
---
Credits
Comments