by David Haynes
She started to weep, the tears freezing to her skin and then shattering as she took one lurching step after another and tried to stay on her feet.
“Father!” she called. “Chichi!”
He would hear her, he would come.
She stumbled, staggering down an incline that she did not recall taking before. The trees gathered tightly about her, making bleak tunnels for the wind to drive through. She was weak, tired and afraid.
She knew all the words of her past life, keeping them close to her breast. They did not serve her, yet she needed them, needed to remember how those words felt, and to recognize them. And if they ever came close again, she would suck the life from their letters, rend them as she did with the bones of the men she despised.
The gradient became too steep, the wind too strong and the snow too spiteful. She fell, tumbling down the hill, crashing against the trunks of the trees she once called friends. She came to a stop in a little clearing, her head spinning, her stomach bruised and painful. She tried to hold onto the sight of the stars up above. They were falling, falling from the heavens like dead tenshi. She tried to hold on but the mountains, the forest and the snow had turned against her; they wanted to keep her there with them. They wanted her for eternity.
She had not been able to fight them, they were too strong for her, too elemental. She succumbed to the pain, fatigue and fear, and slipped into a place where only those feelings existed. It was a stark, grim world. A dark and dismal pit.
When she awoke this time, it was not through the gentle mists of a dream but by a painful pressure on her bruised ribs. Her neck and head bounced up and down, jarring her brain against her skull and sending waves of sickness through her stomach.
Where am I, she thought? Where am I that I can smell the dusty, sweet warmth of a horse? She knew it well; her father had such an animal to help in the field. Had he come for her?
She tried to lift her head, to look at the man. It was not father; she knew from the smell. This man smelled bad, of sweat, filth and death.
“Who?” she asked. But he did not turn, he did not halt the horse or acknowledge her. He rode silently on, through a forest she did not recognize and now despised. She tried to lift a hand but both came up together, tightly bound with strong rope. Her feet were also tied, hanging from the horse’s flank, rapping against its sweaty muscles.
She had been placed on the beast’s back. Her head and arms on one side and legs the other, like a sack of rice. Luggage. She called out, shouting for the man to stop, to untie her and take her home.
But he rode on, guiding the horse through the trees, slowly and surely, climbing up the mountain, over the huge boulders and rocks that marked the boundary of her people’s land. Up here the air was colder, thinner somehow, and the snow fell heavier on gusts that could take a man and throw him from a precipice.
Panic gripped her stomach, sending flutters of fear into her brain. This was the land of the mountain people. The Sanka. She screamed, begging the man to stop, to return her to her own people. They would reward him, give him food and wine and let him sit by the fire. They would not harm him.
The fear was almost too much. She wished to stop thinking, for her mind to slip into that bleak world of unconsciousness where thought no longer existed. The Sanka were a miserable people. They communed with the akuma, the oni: the demons, the fiends, the evil ones. They made their homes in the caves and dark places. They sat in the darkness and conspired with the spirits and the monsters; searching out people they could steal away and feed to the devils. She screamed again and again until the cold air burned her lungs and her throat grew sore and bled. She would be one of them now. They would feed her to the demons.
When finally the horse stopped, she saw dawn breaking, gray and cold over the jagged peaks of the mountains. Lower down, blooms of pine grew in clumps, trying to climb the peaks but failing, remaining below; their scent forgotten, dismissed by the wind.
He climbed down from the horse, pushing her off the mount. She landed on her back in the deep snow.
“Walk,” he said. His voice was deep and thick.
She shook her head. “Take me home!” she pleaded.
He knelt beside her, his scent rank and stale. He took a blade from his waist and cut the binds.
“Walk,” he said, standing. “Now.”
She lay where she fell, “I will not walk with you,” she said.
The man, his face covered by a hooded blanket, spat into the snow. He reached up to the saddle and pulled out a long cane.
Without another word he brought it down on her head. “Walk!”
She shook her head again, afraid to speak.
He brought it down on her exposed fingers, not once but twice. The pain was intense, making tears spring from her eyes.
Again, she shook her head.
The blows that fell on her head, hands, legs and body were not heavy, not enough to break her bones but they were like a whip, stinging the flesh, cutting through sinew and drawing blood. He did not stop when she wept, he did not stop when she screamed, or when the snow turned red. He kept on with the cane until steam rose from his body and drifted into the gray sky. Only then did he relent.
“Walk!” he barked and took the horse’s reins, leaving her on the ground. She wished to die, but when she did not follow behind, he lifted the cane and turned back to her again.
Her legs bled, her arms and face dripped with a thousand stinging blows. She followed him to where the rocks rose steeply again, reaching upward into the clouds themselves. The horse, its nostrils flaring, released a plume of steam into the air, whinnied and then collapsed.
He looked down at the animal, took his knife and then slit its throat until the whole mountain was awash with the beast’s blood.
“Taste!” he snarled. “Taste the animal, savor that which saved your pathetic life!”
She shook her head but the cane flicked across her skin again, opening up a deep fissure in her cheek. She knelt by the dead animal and took a fistful of bloody snow.
“Taste!” he roared and then opened the horse from throat to belly with a single stroke of his knife.
She watched him sink his hands beneath the warm hide, gathering the viscera, pulling it free and then gorging on it. The sounds were sickening. Their eyes met and for the first time she saw a glimpse of the man. There were no whites in his eyes, only redness, only the spilled crimson of the horse’s blood.
He smiled, his teeth sticky and stained. “You are one with us now…tenshi.” He laughed and continued with the hideous feast.
She threw the snow away and sat back, unable to watch him. She would run at the earliest opportunity. She would be away from this place and from this man. It did not matter where she went, for anywhere was better than here.
2
The days were long and joyless. The cave where the man lived was littered with detritus, the remains of things that had long been granted the death she so dearly wished for. But he would not allow her to starve, he would not allow the thirst to overcome her.
The beatings were frequent and cruel; delivered with relish by a hand that was as rough and callused as her father’s but in no way as kind. With every shake of her head or word of objection, she was beaten. The cane soon became stained, browned, where her blood soaked into the fibers. If she refused to eat, she was beaten. If she refused to drink, she was beaten. If she wept, she was beaten.
The welts, scars, scratches and fissures were opened, scabbed and then reopened by the blows. When she ran her fingers over her face, she no longer felt the smooth, unblemished skin of a young girl but the aged and leathery face of a crone.
She slept at the back of the cave, in a dark and dank corner where the rocks were always covered with a greasy carpet of moss. This was their water source and the man lapped at it like a dog, closing his eyes and muttering words in a language she did not recognize. The water was bitter, tasting of stone and the ore through which it trickled.
A heatle
ss and smoky fire burned always at the mouth of the cave. The man huddled next to it, always watching the storm rage outside. He pulled strips of meat from his pocket, stuffing them into his mouth one after another until he was sated. When it was her turn, he would grab her face in a huge hand and squeeze her cheeks until she opened her mouth. Then he would force the meat into her throat and hold her mouth closed until she swallowed. It was the horse, she knew that, and the thought of it made her sick to her stomach but her hunger kept it down. Her belly groaned almost constantly, knotting painfully, her bowels emptying in an agonizing seizure.
She did not know how much time passed, for each day was like the last. The storm raged outside the cave, the snow dancing in a great swirling flourish, rising up into the great, gray sky and then disappearing. The man spoke to it, calling out names, howling with the wind, raising his hands in prayer. One night she woke and in the dim light of the dying fire she saw him standing naked in the entrance, dancing, swaying and cutting himself with the knife. Inky blood dripped from his torso, falling, sizzling and smoking onto the fire. His skin was covered in marks, in long scars that had healed and were reopened. Great flaps of flesh hung from his back, blackened and scabrous. He was old, much older than she’d thought. Older even than her grandfather.
He crouched in the snow and fouled where the snow lay deep and fresh. This was no man; it was a beast. She closed her eyes, unable to watch any longer.
He kept her alive but for what reason she did not know. It was not for company. It was not to make a wife of her. The thought of his hands on her in that way made her feel such a revulsion that her insides screamed. It crossed her mind that once the horse flesh was gone, he would consume her. Slitting her open with that knife he carried and gorging on her insides just as he had done with the horse.
Yet other than keeping her alive, he was almost oblivious to her presence. He did not attempt to communicate with her other than to order her to eat or drink. Even then the words seemed alien to him, difficult to say, as if it were not his natural tongue. She did not understand. Did not all folk of the country, whether from the sea, mountains or forests, speak the same language? Perhaps the mountain folk, the Sanka, possessed their own tongue. She did not know. All she understood of them was the stories her father had told her. All of those stories engendered fear in any that heard them.
She grew less afraid as the time passed. One morning she woke to find him gone, the fire nothing more than a mound of glowing embers. She got to her feet. Once her legs had been strong, just like all the people who lived in the foothills of the great mountains. Now they were bony and weak. Her head swam but she stayed upright, taking one step after another toward the cave entrance. She peered out onto the bleak vista. Her eyes stung; she was used to the half-light at the back of the cave and not this brightness.
The wind screamed at her, whipping her matted hair across her face. She could try and run away, make it as far as she could and then shout for her father to come and rescue her. He would kill the man with his sickle. She took a step out into the snow. She had no shoes; the ice ran up her legs and into her belly, making her groan and double over. She would not get far like this. But did it matter? Was there anything worse than this…this existence? She would not live long anyway, not here. It would be easier to…
“Stop!” The man’s deep and booming voice echoed off the jagged rocks above the cave.
She dropped to her knees and closed her eyes. She was too weak to move, too weak to go anywhere. She looked up, gazed into the dark abyss of his eyes just in time to feel the sting of the cane across her cheek. She did not scream, she did not weep, she simply waited for the next blow to land.
*
When she woke, she felt the cold nakedness of her skin against the earth. Her clothes were gone. She tried to move but she was bound again. Her hands were tied together with coarse rope behind her back. They felt numb. She could not move her fingers. Her legs and feet were not bound but she couldn’t lift them. The stinging beating she’d taken had been the worst she could recall. He was angry, shouting and cursing, using words she did not understand. He hit her with the cane. At first. Then he used his fists.
Her legs were bruised, she did not need to look at them to know that. It occurred to her while he was hitting her that he was trying to break her legs, to smash them into fragments. It would stop her trying to escape again. Not that she had enough strength to do that.
She propped her elbows into the earth and raised her body. She was closer to the fire. Although it gave off little heat, the dancing flames made her feel as she were being warmed by it. Her wet, bloodstained and ragged clothes lay on the rocks beside the fire. Beside them, the carcasses of three slaughtered hares.
The man cut a length of meat from one with his knife and stuffed it in his mouth. She heard him crunch through the little bones in the animal’s chest. She urged her body not to respond but saliva built up in her mouth.
He looked at her, his hood pulled loosely about his head, then threw a strip of meat onto the floor.
“Eat,” he barked.
“My hands,” she replied.
“Eat!” he roared.
She could not stand another beating so she shuffled to where the meat had landed and lowered her head to the filthy floor. The stench of his filth, his urine and excrement were strong in her nose, but she ate the meat and was hungry for more.
Part of his face glowed in the weak flames. A crust covered half of his mouth. The hare’s blood and sinew dripped from it. It was probably what made his language sound unlike anything she had ever heard. She remembered how his back had looked when he danced naked. The flaps of skin that hung from his back, the bloody fissures that he repeatedly sliced at. The meat she had just eaten tried to come back up, but she swallowed, forcing the nutrients deep inside her.
She peered up at him again, catching his eye and then looking away again. He threw down more meat which she ate like a beast from the forest. She was no longer tenshi. She was something else now. Just as he was.
He squeezed the moss above her head, allowing the bitter water to trickle into her mouth. His fingers were covered in blood and the water tasted metallic and sour, but she did not care.
She felt his eyes on her. On her naked body. Yet he was unsure of himself, as if he had never seen an unclothed woman before. He looked away quickly, walking back to the fire. She wished to cover herself, to hide her nakedness from him, but the only thing she could do was pull herself into a tight ball and shuffle back against her corner. She was safe there. That was her place now.
She watched him for a while, examining the contours of his face as the flames danced across them. Beyond him, icicles jagged down from the roof of the cave, slowly dripping water onto the ground. Soon the weather would change and the sun would break through the clouds, the snow would retreat and…
Did such a thing happen here, above the clouds? Or was it always winter? Was this a place where the snow swirled on the violent wind in a perpetual state of furious resentment? Had the weather shaped the man, or had he chosen refuge here because of how he looked? She drifted off to sleep; her body shivering and trembling, her hands cold and numb.
*
She woke, not to the gray, morning mist of the storm but to the never-ending darkness of the night. Not a sign of light came through the cave’s entrance. She heard and felt movement beside her. Had he come to beat her again? She flinched, waiting for the sting of the cane against her breasts. It did not come. She waited and still it did not come.
She lifted her head. He was above her, standing tall and naked. His grotesque form was laid bare.
“No.” She shook her head.
“Lie!” he barked.
She pushed herself against the cold, damp moss. “Please,” she whimpered.
He slapped her across the face with an open palm and grabbed her legs. He pulled her away from the rocks like a carcass, dragging her behind him toward the fire. He dropped her as she kicked out at him.
The blow was ineffectual and weak. He did not notice.
As he turned, she tried to push away, edge back to her safe spot, but he was on her. Lying across her body. His hideous, deformed body rubbing against hers, pushing her down, down into the bones of the slaughtered animals that littered the floor. She could smell them, smell the blood, the muscle and sinew that she’d eaten.
He pushed her legs apart, pinching her loose skin with his sharp nails. He pushed his vile face against hers until she felt she would suffocate beneath his scaly flesh. He grunted and then there was a pain. A terrible pain that snaked through her body like the black snake’s venom. She screamed.
He was tearing her apart, gutting her just as he had done the horse, the hares. He was butchering her.
And then he grunted again and fell away from her, his face greasy and pained. She dared not look down for she knew her belly would be open, her guts exposed. She lay still for a while and waited for death to take her.
But it did not. She felt her breath in her chest, felt the pain in her hands and arms. She remained alive. The man lay still beside her, his eyes closed, his breathing loud and steady. Her belly had not been cut; it was as it should be. Her ribs poked through her skin, her stomach a scarred depression but it was intact.
Yet there was blood. She screamed again, waking the man. The blood was between her legs, warm and sticky. She wept, for this was not death. This was worse. This was far, far worse.
She rolled toward him and sank her teeth into his cheek. He grunted and batted her head but she hung on, chewing on his flesh until he too screamed. She tasted his blood, his flesh and beneath that, his bones. She bit down and heard something crack beneath her teeth.
He smashed his fist down onto her head, jarring her jaw against his cheek bone. She bit down again, this time pulling something free. She swallowed it whole, a bone as pure and white as any of the spring flowers on the meadow. It tasted good, the pain he suffered tasted so good, the agonized screams were like her mother’s soup. Nourishing.