Cursefell (7 page)

     "Thera."
     Galead had come to my rescue.  He gathered me up, cradling me to his chest as he whispered my name, his voice accompanying me when the darkness finally carried me away.

CURSEFELL

CHAPTER EIGHT

     I woke to the sounds of screaming erupting from my throat and the cold wreath my hands made as they encircled my own throat.
     A heavy wooden door carved with runic symbols in the unfamiliar room I awoke in shuttered in its frame.  It burst open with a second effort as Galead rushed inside.  His face stretched tightly in a grim ferocity that mirrored his wild eyes.  They swept the room quickly, darting about for any sign that might reveal a threat lurking in the corners, every square inched footage, before returning to the mysterious normalcy I had nearly become accustomed to.  Finding nothing, his body relaxed, but not the grip his hand held on the knife he carried even as he turned in my direction.  Not a knife, truly, it was too sharp, its metal folded edge polished too brilliantly, to be named so commonly.  My father had owned something similar in his collection.  He showed it to me once.
     "Look here, sweetheart," my father had called me into the room he used in our home to house such things.  "This came for you today from one of my cousins.  She made it for you."
     He held out a green and gold wool infinity scarf.  It coiled with knotted knit links around itself, no beginning nor end, in complex patterns.  At first glance I thought I caught the pattern forming an image, only to lose it when closely examined.  It was beautiful, I admit, but a completely wasted on me.  When would I wear it when we lived in such a dry, warm climate?
     "What is that?" I asked him as he went back to sorting through some mail.
     My father lifted the object I pointed at from his desk with practiced care.  The knife was odd shaped to my untrained eye.  Too big to be a letter opener and too narrow to be kitchen cutlery.  He held it out for me to hold, which I did.  The weight felt all wrong for peeling an apple, I told him.  He smiled, taking it back in those strongly gentle hands.
     "That is because it is not a knife.  This is a dagger.  A modern version, unfortunately.  The original daggers, the real blades, were much more than metal attached to a handle."
     "That's a dagger?  It doesn't look like what I imagined they would, not exactly.  They're described differently in the stories."
     "Modern blades are more art than actuary," he laughed.  "The truth is ancient blades were meant to be used, these aren't.  Their function dictated, to some degree, their look.  But the charmed making the old masters claimed for their craft has passed with the fading of time.  This might make a decent decoration with some honing, but it will never be the true instrument it mimics."
     The way he held the blade, Galead knew what he had, I was sure.  That was no knife.  It was a blade that could truly be called a dagger.  A slight sheen formed across my brow as I heard my father again say their function dictated their look.  This one looked as if it could easily glide through my breast to puncture my heart.  I think I might have even trembled in trepidation.
     "Where am I?" my voice came out as a dry cracking whisper.
     Dark circles ringed Galead's eyes when he cast his head up.  He took several swaying steps closer to the unfamiliar bed I laid in, trying to hide any unsteadiness.  The thing was I had some experience with gymnastics, and balance and poise were second nature to me.  I had seen these signs before, when I had competed.  He told a story of sleepless nights and exhaustion without even speaking.
     "Our home.  My brothers and I." I attempted to lift a questioning eyebrow, prompting him to explain, "Your house wasn't safe any longer."
     My eyes dipped involuntarily as he spoke of being safe to the wicked blade Galead still held in his hand.  It did not go unnoticed.  He grinningly slid it into what I suspected was a sheath hidden behind his back.
     "Better?" he asked.  I nodded.  "Good.  How do you feel?"
     "Sore.  Tired.  My eyes ache.  And I'm really, really hungry," I told him as a pang roiled through my stomach.
     "I will get you something to eat," he said, leaning down and looking deep into my eyes, his face inches from mine and searching.  Fear nibbled at my nerves as I stared back.  What if it happened again while he was here?  How could I control whatever I did to those two men?
     "What do you remember?" his tone was flat as he took a step back.  A hand inched just a bit towards his back and the dagger hidden there as he straightened up to stand there.  Sly, but I noticed.
     Everything, I told him.  And I did.  As I had lain unconscious the whole scene had replayed in my dreams.  One reason I was not in hysterics now was the voice that had been my guide during the playback.  It had been the same voice that had whispered inside my head the night of the attack.  I would have thought it was my own inner voice, but I was sure it wasn't.  It did not resemble any monologue I had ever had with myself.  This voice spoke with a distinct authority underlying every single word.  It, she, was decisive and commanding.  Maybe a hint that she lacked sanity as well.  Nevertheless, it had convinced me to accept the terrible truth at the heart of it all.
     "My mom?" I was afraid to ask.  I feared his answer.
     "She is here too.  She is recovering."
     Sweet relief dropped my head into my hands.  Tears I didn't know had been hiding in long dried ducts trickled over my cheeks.  Galead was there to wipe them away, as many as he could, with a gentle hand.  He smiled as I wept, understanding all the emotions I must be feeling, I thought.  Somewhere inside me I could feel the tremor of something sparking to life.
     "We will see her after you've eaten.  You have been sleeping for two straight days you know."
     "Two days?"
     "Yes.  There isn't much time to before Winter Break." He smiled, heading for the door.  "Lets eat before anything else.  I'll be right back with something."
     "No.  I need to get up and move around a bit."
     "Meet me in the kitchen then.  That will do for a start I think." I agreed.
     Galead shut the door behind him.  An old looking handle clicked as it latched closed.  Left alone I felt the walls close in.  I believed in magic and the fantastical camouflaged in the mundane.  My mother had raised me to believe.  I held truth could be found in acts.  My father had shown me this as I grew.  I knew, accepted it all without really thinking, and yet I didn't want to, not any longer.  Sitting there, with so many thoughts swirling, the sky felt like a crushing weight laid upon my head.  One drawn breath to slow it down.  A single exhale to hold steady.  The old archer's trick my father had taught me.  It helped to clear my head enough to focus.  My targets were set, I knew what needed doing.  Opening the door, I stepped into an unwalled hallway.
     The cabin the brothers shared was modestly sized.  Large rounded logs ran the length of the walls and ceiling.  Stained golden honey, the color gave the cabin a weightless airy feel despite the lack of many windows.  There would be few spots for the dark to gather within those walls.  They had an affinity for art, the brothers did, I noticed as I descended the stairs to the living area.  Rich tapestries depicting Celtic and Medieval scenes hung from the walls.  Greek sculptures from mythology were scattered about the room.  They clashed with the furniture and other furnishings, which were clearly more modern.  I included the kitchen in the modern category once I made my way over to eat.
     Galead placed a plate of fruit and scrambled eggs in front of me.  He went about some chores as I ate in silence.  Shoving the empty plates away, I asked to see my mother.  He hesitated, but I insisted.  He led me down a narrow side hall to a solitary room at the back of the cabin.  Inside lay my mother.
     She was stretched out on a small low sitting bed.  The kind that was more design and function than comfort.  It had that Scandinavian look to it.  Her forehead was covered in a long strip of wet white cloth dripping wide watery drops down her scalp.  Perspiration beaded her upper lip in shiny little pebbles dotting sallow skin.  Galead's brother, Wayne, sat on a stool beside her.
     "You told me she was recovering." My tone was accusatory.
     "You know what Isabel is.  You know what you are now." That stung me more than a little.  "Do you know what your mother is?"
     I shook my head, I did not.  Not exactly, I suspected.  Not in the face of everything else that had already been revealed.
     "There is more to her than you know, Thera.  For now that will have to wait.  We have treated her as best we can."
     "That's not good enough.  She needs a doctor!  We have to take her to the hospital."
     "We can't do that," Wayne said, removing her cloth to dip it in a basin filled with water and before placing it on her head again.  "Not without risk to herself.  And you.  Tristan has gone to fetch help if he can find it."
     "What are you talking about?  He has gone to find help.  What help can be better than a doctor?" I demanded, nearly yelling.
     My voice disturbed what troubled rest belonged to my mother.  She moaned, twisting the covers in pain.  Her eyelids fluttered, trying to lift enough to focus until they landed on me.
     "Thera," she whimpered, holding out a trembling hand lacking the strength to hold the gesture.
     I was beside her in an instant, wrapping my arm around my mother, glad to have not lost my only remaining parent.  The heat was a telltale sign of the fever ravishing her inside.  I hugged her, unwilling to let her go, even as the slick perspiration slid along the palm of my hands.
     "All will be well," she rasped in my ear.  "The Circle will help us."
     "Mom."
     "The book.  I need my book," she said.
     "What book, mom?" I asked.
     "Leather...locked.  My...closet.  Home." she said, her voice fading in and out as she struggled to find the strength to stay awake.  "Don't leave...unguarded."
     My mom's eyes opened wide, a wild look in them.  I didn't know if it was from the fever or not.  It unsettled me.
     "I'll get it," I told her.
     "Do not open it!" she said in a desperate whisper.  "You...needed...trust...love...you."
     She closed her eyes, slumping against me.  Wayne helped lay her gently back down.  The sheet became tangled and I gasped when her wound came into view.  I expected to see a bandage or open wound where she had been stabbed.  But instead there was only a narrow dark scar closed over her skin.  Granted, I was not experienced with such things, but that stab wound had looked dire to me when she had collapsed.  Now, only a fever remained.
     "What happened to her wound?" I asked them both.
     "The other lass, that Isabel, she healed it," Wayne told me.  "A Song of Healing she called it.  Healed the gash at least, but not the infection.  That is what Tristan is about now.  Finding one of her coven to help."
     "Her coven?  What, like a witch's coven?" that couldn't be right, I told myself.
     "Thera, she needs to rest." Galead took me from the room while the confusion made me pliable and an easier task for him.
     "Isabel helped my mother?  The girl who attacked us." I asked as soon as the door closed.  "Why would she do that?"
     "I don't know, but she volunteered to do it.  Your mother was in bad shape or else we wouldn't have even listened to her."
     "Where is she now?"
     Galead ushered me down a secret flight of stairs hidden behind a false wall next to the kitchen a short time afterwards.  Spongy moss, so sun starved its green shaded to black, sprouted from mortared cracks.  It felt slick under our feet to make each footfall a likely tumble.  The musty air wafted up from somewhere far below, each spiraling turn giving darkness another way to stay, the boogie man another home.  It felt as though I had fallen straight into a scene from a classic horror movie.
     By the time our descending steps had spiraled to a stop we were well underground beneath the cabin floor.  I had only counted two slips and neither had been by me.  A long, wide chamber greeted me, opening its great dank maw and daring us to enter.  My steps were gingerly laid over the stone floor, partly to avoid awakening the hopeless aura the chamber gave over.  And in part to avoid tripping on the uneven stones.  The four guttering torches lining the walls did very little to provide proper light.  The oily smoke they emitted drifted along a distant ceiling and out through micro fractured stone blocks as Galead led inward.  The flames gave off only the weakest warmth I realized, beginning to shiver.  I'm sure Galaed didn't notice or else just chalked it up to a trick of the flickering light.
     He led us to the first of three heavy wooden doors.  The stone amplified our steps and I was, momentarily, expecting a clown to lunge at us from behind one of them.  My childhood fear haunted me still, even after all that had so recently happened.  The thought sprang a lopsided grin to my lips.  Still, no painted face or big red nose shoved against the black barred panes set into that old, grey wood.  Yet something resided within that first cell.  I could hear the sounds brought on by shallow breathing slipping out between the bars, even as Galead made ready to open the door.
     "Wake up, Isabel.  You have a guest."
     The grating of the heavy iron key being inserted into the lock echoed hollowly throughout the enormous chamber.  The crisp click as Galead turned the key, unlocking the door, was loud as trumpets sounding in the dawn.  The hinges screeched just as loudly from disuse in the deep watching dark.  Torch light was too feeble to penetrate the cell's recesses.  I found myself taking an involuntary step away as the smell of surf and sand and withering flotsam washed over us.  My mother had kept the flowers from my father's funeral, the one reminder she kept from the new truth we were forced to live.  She had held them secreted in her bathroom even as the petals browned and gathered like dirt as they fell.  Finally, when they were no more than stems left in filmy water, she disposed of them.  The stench of that unclean vessel with the rotted florals was like perfume when compared to what we now could smell.