Nightmarish Sacrifice (Cardew) (17 page)

             
“Who is she?” Cardew asked the one standing beside him, without taking his eyes off me, while I was pretending to observe something else, but was frequently glimpsing back at him with obvious – and sincere – interest.

             
“The goddess of Fire, adorable,” the asked boy said to present me both to the supreme god and the imaginary audience. “Humans made an element called Fire, and a new deity was born to rule it –”

             
“Fire?” Cardew repeated with well-played surprise; we were rehearsing exactly this extract for the third time that day due to others’ mistakes, and I could sense how his versatile nature was already so bored with it that it was craving for improvisations, but, luckily, he didn’t change his words not to confuse the cast. “What is Fire?”

             
“A source of light and warmth for the humans,” the answer followed, and I turned back to enjoy Cardew’s dreamy expression, as his next retort was my favourite.

             
“Light, warmth –” he pronounced it absent-mindedly, almost in a sigh of bliss, and with such melodious intonation that even the not-so-sharp-witted in the audience would have noticed that he was falling in love with me right in that moment. “And loveliness –”

             
I suppressed my giggle: he should have said ‘beauty’ according to the script, but everyone was so used to his adding of the word ‘lovely’ and its derivatives every time it was coming to me, that nobody really took notice of the minor change in his text.

             
The music had already started, together with a new fresh part of the play we hadn’t performed before, and Cardew was walking towards me across the stage – slowly, solemnly, a secretive mischievous smile on his face; for a single moment, I caught myself wondering what ideals of goodness humans worshipping him as a supreme god would have – given that he wasn’t a relevant example for compassion and mercy – but then I concentrated on my curtsy as he offered me his hand and took me towards the centre of the stage.

             
Dancing was something I didn’t enjoy much, even when my partner was someone like Cardew whose each movement was so precise that he couldn’t confuse me, and was indeed leading me in a flawless and graceful way; thankfully, his presence itself was helping me much, as I was feeling myself endlessly light and transparent in his arms, as though while he was so tightly pressed to me that his breathing was defining mine with its caresses, my feet weren’t touching the land – and I doubted that this effect he was having on me had anything to do with his brilliant dancing abilities.

             
We had never practiced that dance before, but Mr Shelton had promised to help us figure out the exact movements in another rehearsal, so this time I didn’t concentrate much, simply letting Cardew lead, and relishing his closeness without even trying to hide this fact.

             
His intense-grey eyes were heavenly serene as he made me twirl in my place, and I smiled more freely; the expressions of the people around us, who were forming a circle open towards the stage, were going through all shades of envy to amusement and boredom, but my partner was smiling calmly, so I didn’t care about them at all – he was the only person I could possibly fear, and – strangely, being with him was making me feel secure that he wasn’t planning anything behind my back...

             
As if he couldn’t do it in front of my eyes as well...

             
With his back towards the imaginary audience, Cardew twirled me again, and, not to lose my orientation, I started counting the faces that were passing in my sight...

             
One, two, three...

             
Eleven!

             
Oh dear!...

             
I involuntarily inhaled a bit more sharply than usual, and my partner must have noticed that, as he immediately grabbed me in his embrace and pressed me more tightly to his chest in an instinctive reaction to secretly give me the support I was too proud to ask for; not to let the others know about my passing fit of weakness, he didn’t cease the dance, but his grip on me remained so strong that I wouldn’t collapse on the boards and hurt myself even if I fainted in his arms.

             
However, this couldn’t erase my horror of what I had just realized!

             
Cardew and I were standing in the middle of a circle of eleven – and the twelfth place was empty and right behind his back!

             
It was all like a nightmarish déjà-vu from the visions about the gory sacrifice I couldn’t forget – just that this time I was not observing it from the point of view of someone invisible who wasn’t concerned with it at all.

             
This time I was the victim!!!...

             
And Cardew was smiling to me so calmly, so confidently – was there a long silvery knife in one of his hands behind my back?...

             
Oh gods, why hadn’t I taken the warnings seriously!?!...

             
Hoping that the smile bending my lips seemed natural enough, I went on as though nothing unusual had happened, although all the blood was freezing in my veins while I was boiling in the desperate desire to escape – to wrench out of his arms and disappear from the circle, the hall, and his life!

             
Not that the last one was possible unless he let me...

             
But, strangely enough, even though being close to Cardew was making me feel in utter danger, I was at the same time perceiving myself as protected from everything else – as though he would never let another one hurt me...

             
Because he would love to do it himself...

             
I was so distracted that I finished the dance mechanically, and the applause of Mr Shelton came to me as a gulp of fresh air as they meant an end to the rehearsal.

             
“Amazing! Just amazing!” he assessed with a large smile, when the music finally stopped and so did our dance. “You’re doing it so naturally that it looks utterly easy –”

             
I was a bit relieved to let go of Cardew, but as well, subconsciously sorry that I had to.

             
“Our supreme deity has only one fault,” Mr Shelton went on with an indulgent smile. “He obviously is deaf.”

             
“Oh –” Cardew chuckled lightly, and exchanged glimpses with me, as the hint had been about his belated coming on stage after being called.

             
“Not deaf,” the only boy in the cast who admired him and at the same time wasn’t having a crush on me said with a friendly smile. “Just in love –”

             
I made a great effort not to bite my lips or show in any way that I was thinking of the evening in the pleasant cafe when Cardew didn’t make the desired confession – and I didn’t answer to his stare, although I sensed his eyes on me – whatever I could possibly see in the abyss of their ultimate gray, it would arouse a million of unanswerable questions inside my soul.

             
Questions whose answers I feared...

             
“Ah, then I forgive him,” the producer smiled good-heartedly and turned towards me, “And you, Freya, you were brilliant! Are you sure you don’t want to take a drama course instead of whatever you’re having now? You were born for the stage!”

             
“Oh, a great compliment, thank you,” I gave him a smile, and finally cast a look at Cardew, who added so silently that only I could read it on his lips, ‘You were born for me!’

             
This sentence of his made me shiver – both with the pleasant thrill his smiles were giving me, and with dread...

             
Would I die for him as well?...

             
“You’re both great!” Mr Shelton summed up. “Just that the way you kiss is not so appropriate for the stage –”

             
Cardew blinked in comical surprise and everyone burst into laughter.

             
“She rules Fire, after all, how do you expect me to kiss her!” he mock-protested while the others, including me, were still chuckling. “Change the script and make her a goddess of dandelions, and I may change the kissing style, too!”

             
The producer waved his hand with laughter and we all left the hall in groups, inside a thick fog of joyful careless talks and giggling.

             
“Where are you taking me?” I stopped Cardew when he caught my hand with a charmingly alluring smile, and – using almost only the power he had over my subconscious wishes – pulled me towards himself. “I have a lecture in half an hour –”

             
“Just for a minute,” he insisted mildly and I followed him – a bit more obediently than I wished I had – to a more isolated place where nobody would be listening to us.

             
“What’s wrong?” I asked quietly, a bit alarmed as I noticed that his face had become more earnest.

             
“Now nothing,” Cardew shook his head and unnoticeably shortened the distance between us so that he could gaze at me from hypnotic closeness. “But something was while we were dancing –”

             
“Oh –” I played surprised, although my heart was about to explode with tension. “I’m sorry, I don’t really dance very well –”

             
“You do, but that’s not what I meant,” he didn’t sound threatening at all, nor joking – his tone was soft and quiet, as if he wanted to make himself seem trustworthy. “I felt that there was something worrying you then –”

             
Gods, he was so flawless in reading my subconsciousness…

             
“No,” I shrugged innocently, and hurried to turn the conversation in another direction, “And even if you were right, nobody should have noticed... Am I such a bad actress?”

             
Lightly shaking his head to show me that he wouldn’t give in, Cardew gently laid his both hands on my shoulders, and stared into my face again, his magnetic eyes gleaming like moonlit ashes in the dull, mournfully gray daylight.

             
“Look, Freya,” he started frankly and his saying my name made me realize how serious he really was. “It wasn’t something visible on the outside, but I felt it – I already sense you –” he made a pause, but I didn’t cut in to ask what he meant – I knew it instinctively – so he went on, his palms slightly pressing my shoulders. “If you have any problems, you can share them with me – I will always do my very best to help you.”

             
And his eyes were radiating such pure angelic good faith that – for a moment – I wondered whether to release myself from the maddening burden of secret hypotheses and to trust him completely, no matter what this radical and impulsive decision would lead to – to spontaneously tell him everything about my nightmares, the circle of the eleven, the sacrificed girl who had died just some three years ago in an appalling pagan offering, and the ghost that was appearing on her gravestone...

             
But it was just then when it happened!

             
The rune of destruction – the same one that had given me the answer to what would happen if I started a relationship with Cardew – blazed into the inside of his eyes themselves, its shape burning into dazzling white against the granite-gray background.

             
I didn’t even have time to scream – it all happened for a single fraction of the second – a blink and it was no more than a memory of a vision for which I couldn’t even be certain if it had ever been real at all.

             
“What happened?” Cardew asked with alarm, as I must have been staring inside his eyes more intensely than usually, but I couldn’t throw off the astonishing surprise quickly enough to give him an instant answer.

             
I had seen the rune of destruction in his eyes! Was such a thing possible?!...

             
Had it been a strange reflection of a sunray which had by some wonder fought its way through the overcast skies?

             
Had it been another warning?!...

             
“Freya?” Cardew repeated gently but I couldn’t trust the concern in his voice, however genuine it sounded – I couldn’t trust my perceptions at all, not when it was coming to him. “Freya, lovely, are you alright?”

             
I had to be strong, I was repeating to myself: if that had been a warning, I mustn’t let him know about it!...

             
“Oh! –” a smile was mechanically forced to bloom on my lips, but that didn’t make it look less natural. “Sorry, I... just got carried away –”

             
“Are you in love?” merciful, he winked playfully, and I rolled my eyes, a bit regretful for the confession I had made to him the day before, but happy that I had obviously distracted him in the current moment.