by D K Girl
‘Should we speak of such things in his presence?’ he whispered, low as he could manage.
Pitch was staring at Silas in a most discomforting way. At least, more discomforting than normal.
‘He does not hear me,’ Pitch said. ‘My words should fall on deaf ears. Tell me, Silas, what did I just say?’
Silas did not answer the odd question immediately, quite intrigued by the suggestion that Clarence could sit so close and yet not hear a word. But it did indeed appear the case. The young man was quite oblivious to his companions, working upon a dirty nail as though no one spoke at all.
‘Sickle, pay attention.’ Pitch snapped. ‘What did I say?’
‘Should I too be deaf to your words?’ He shook his head, utterly confused.
‘What did I say?’ Pitch hissed, the viper rising. The prickle of unease that came so readily in Pitch’s presence now charged its way along the back of Silas’s neck.
‘You spoke of archangels, one named Gabriel, and Melatron, I think?’ Silas tumbled over his words in his haste to release them.
‘Metatron,’ Pitch said slowly.
‘That’s right, Metatron, my mistake.’ Though Pitch’s expression was most peculiar, Silas could not help but continue on. ‘There are truly archangels…in this Arcadia?’
That he should ask such a question and wait on a genuine reply showed that all sensibility had fled from his world.
Pitch ran the tip of his tongue slowly across his teeth before he replied. ‘Most unfortunately. Archangels, and all the rest.’
‘And yet…you are,’ Silas coughed against the roughness of his throat. ‘You are a…daemon…’
Pitch nodded, far too slowly, and the hairs on Silas’s arms stood tall. ‘I am. I am the…’ His mouth hung open, and he appeared to strain, as though either on the cusp of speaking, or throwing up, Silas could not tell for sure. Pitch touched his fingers to his lips, and his eyes glittered. ‘What is your point, Sickle.’
Whatever had just occurred did not please him, the low burn of his temper unfurling from him like a flag struck by a breeze. The hairs on Silas’s arms joined those on the back of his neck that stood to attention.
‘Is everything all right?’ he ventured.
‘Quite wonderful.’
‘Might I ask…what is it, you were about to say?’
‘You can ask, but I cannot say. They are no longer my words to speak.’
Silas nodded. ‘I see,’ he said, but he could not have been more lost.
‘Ask me something more,’ Pitch demanded. ‘Let us see where my boundaries lie.’
‘Boundaries?’
Pitch stared at Clarence who had not lifted his head from his nail cleaning in all this time. ‘He is deaf to all talk of the supernatural world, as are all humans. And the same power that enables such a thing has rendered me mute with regards to…certain aspects of my sorry life. Pity, don’t you think, with a mouth so beautiful as this? But there it is. And that is how it has been. Until you.’
‘Me?’
‘So many redundant questions.’
‘I’m sorry if I seem confused, but that is precisely how I am. Why can you not speak of certain things?’
Pitch groaned. ‘And there you go again. You idiot.’
Silas took the criticism and did not protest at it, seeing full well that he was right. How could Pitch explain the things he could not speak of, if he could not speak of them?
‘All right then.’ He clasped his hands. ‘I shall ask you something more. How is it that angels and daemons reside in the same world together?’
Pitch curled a tendril of his hair about his finger. ‘Because the human lore of heaven and hell is all utter bullshit.’ He kissed the air. ‘Wonderful, I can tell you of how ridiculous the notion is that there is a heaven where beautiful beings of white and light flutter about and play their harps all day, complete and utter tommy-rot.’ He laughed, hard and short. ‘The only smidgen of truth is those bastards do tend to sit on their asses far more than is necessary. Sending daemons to the Hellfield to have their asses blown apart, rather than face the fight themselves.’ His face hardened, a shadow dimming the glow of his eyes.
‘Hellfield?’ Silas leaned into the conversation, quite entranced.
‘A quite wondrous place of perpetual bloodshed and endless loss. The last existing front between Arcadia and the Nephilm.’ Pitch pushed at his cheeks, as though urging the words clear. ‘It is where I should be, and would be, if…’
He gagged against the unseen binds that held his words in check. They had found another of his boundaries. Outside sounds came as though from a distance, as though the carriage was wrapped in layers of cloth. Silas took short, quiet breaths.
‘Nephilim?’ he whispered. ‘They are an enemy?’
Pitch closed his eyes, slumping back against the seat. He nodded. A tiny trickle of blood started from his nose.
‘Pitch, you’re bleeding.’
‘Very observant of you. We are done with this conversation for now.’ His alabaster skin had taken on an unpleasant green tinge, and his breathing laboured. From where he sat Silas could hear the wheeze of air through his chest.
‘Getting close now, gentlemen,’ Clarence suddenly declared. He did not appear to note the state of Pitch who wiped at his bloody nose with a lacy kerchief. ‘I’d say no more than a few minutes. We’re approaching the meadows that sit between the woods and the town’s edge now. We’ll need to travel to the bower by foot.’
Pitch sat up, some colour returned to his cheeks. ‘Walking? Not far I hope?’ Whatever affliction had come over him appeared short-lived, but decidedly brutal if it were to quash the life out of someone like Tobias Asteroth.
‘I shouldn’t think so, sir.’
‘You’re not required to think, you’re required to know.’
Clarence gave the outside world a longing glance before he replied. ‘You see, no one is sure where the bower is, exactly. It’s not like anyone who’s seen it has lived to tell. All’s we know for sure, is she lives in that wood up ahead.’
Pitch pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘I can assure you, Clarence, I am not one for trudging through the woods. If I wished to get hot and bothered, this would be the very last method on my list.’
‘If no one has seen it,’ Silas said. ‘How do you know it exists?’ With each press of a horse’s hoof to the road, Silas grew more doubtful of the sensibility of their trek here. The carriage bounced along the uneven surface of the road, throwing its passengers about. Outside, the huddle of houses and factories had given way to open pasture.
‘Well, we learned from tales passed down.’ Clarence huddled, miserable, in his seat. ‘I suppose someone must have found it. But you see Mr Mercer, I was hoping that, well, with your talents…perhaps, you would just know? I presumed the Order to have ways and means of doing such things.’
‘Clarence, I’m not certain that I…’
Silas grew rigid, all the hairs upon his arms standing hard against the material of his shirt. The tips of his fingers were painful with their tingling, a sharper edge to the sensation than when the bloodied apparition had appeared. He might as well have been digging them into a seamstress’s basket.
‘Are we to guess what you are not certain of?’ Pitch said, casual enough though his gaze was narrowed as he watched Silas. ‘A long list that would be indeed.’
‘You sense nothing?’ For Silas the heat upon the air had been replaced by a razor sharp iciness, cutting through the layers of his clothing as though he wore nothing at all.
‘I sense that you are quite beside yourself with some peculiar frenzy, that is all,’ Pitch replied.
‘Stop the carriage,’ Silas croaked, the air white with his breath. ‘Stop the carriage.’
Clarence pounded at the wall. ‘Stop the carriage,’ he yelled. The driver did so with impressive speed, and a suddenness that might harm one’s neck. ‘Mr Mercer? Is everything all right?’
Outside, the horses whinnied, and st
omped their hooves. Silas expected some droll, derisive retort to come from Pitch but the man was silent. Watchful as a bird upon a worm.
‘Clarence,’ Silas said. ‘You and the coachman should go no further.’
The red-headed man’s eyes widened. ‘Really, sir? Are you quite certain?’
‘Quite certain.’ And quite terrified, though Silas could barely wait to step foot from the carriage. ‘This is where we will begin.’
Clarence nodded with a grim set of his mouth. ‘Very well, Mr Mercer. We shall wait here for you.’
‘Shall we hunt, Sickle?’ Pitch adjusted his scarf, settling it more tidily against his throat.
‘We shall begin, that is all I know.’ Out, out, his tumbling thoughts urged. Silas must get out of this carriage.
Buttoning his coat, Silas alighted from the carriage. The clouds were being pushed by a breeze that tugged at Silas’s hair and coat folds, the strength of the wind enough to allow the sun to peak momentarily from its hiding place. But the rays held no warmth, most certainly not enough to bring relief to Silas who’s body bristled with gooseflesh and shivers. The driver stood alongside one of the dapple greys, one wide hand stroking the beast’s sweat-soaked neck. The other steed tossed its head and flicked its tail as though it were a whip.
‘Easy now, steady up.’ The driver murmured in a deep and rumbling voice. The man was well-built, at least in comparison to all but Silas himself, and his hands were calloused with use.
‘Something unsettles them?’ Silas said, though the answer was quite clear.
‘Indeed, sir. Young Tuppence here doesn’t take well to new roads, I usually keep him to the city. If you listen to the gossip, and the whispers though, people would be telling you it’s those woods that have set them off. Excuse my boldness, sir, but are you here to search for the old witch? Have the whispers spread as far as London town then?’
‘I’m not sure about that.’ Silas surveyed their surrounds. The cultivated fields gave way to meadow where a scattering of wildflowers still tilted their colourful heads to the sky. Some distance ahead the road disappeared into a wooded area, where the trees formed an arched canopy over the path. ‘We were informed of the disappearances of the children when we arrived here, Clarence asked that we might use our, ah, expertise in the matter, and investigate for ourselves.’ Each exhalation of breath moved as a white cloud from his mouth, something, he noted, did not occur when the driver spoke.
‘Well, I don’t mind telling you, you’re a braver man than I to go into her woods.’ The driver shifted his peaked cap, a red line across his forehead where it pressed too tight. ‘Not many are travelling this road these days, they take a longer route through the church grounds a bit west of here.’
Heavy cloud cover snuffed out the sun, lending tenor to his words.
‘Because hallowed ground might save them?’ Pitch stood a short distance away, relieving himself in the tall grass, and taking no care to stand at such an angle that his privates would not be exposed. He subjected both Silas and the driver to a full view of his generous member. ‘Best of luck with that.’
The coachman patted his horse with a firm palm. ‘Well, whether it’s a murderer using legend to frighten everyone senseless, or an honest to god witch in those woods, no one is going in there who wants to come out. That place will give you the shivers, make no mistake.’
Silas would agree with him on that. He shook as though he stood in an ice bath. There was a darkness here. A stirring that was chilling his body to its very heart. But lurking in the depths of his fear was the growing urge to lose himself in the strangeness of the place. He wanted to enter those woods. His feet itched to step forward. Silas slipped his hand into the pocket where the bandalore lay. The wood was warm but only from being in the folds of material, nothing untoward. What gripped Silas was something internal, instinctual.
‘Well, come on.’ Pitch strode up the road, quite fully recovered now from his earlier turn. ‘Who doesn’t enjoy a good shiver.’
Silas hesitated, studying the woods. With the paltry sun now gone, the depth of the shadows within the trees intensified, as though one of the storm clouds had descended and moved in amongst the trunks and branches.
‘Here boy, come on boy.’ Pitch mimicked a master calling to his dog. ‘And hurry it up, Sickle. I don’t intend to miss supper. For anyone, or anything.’
Silas felt Clarence’s gaze upon him. The young man’s desperation evident in the lick of his lips, the wringing of his hands. The naked vulnerability was disconcerting, and Silas turned away to face the woods. A shadow darted along the treeline. It was not Pitch. He sauntered up the dirt road, his whistling as horrendous as his singing. Silas fixed in on where the sudden movement had occurred. Was it merely a branch swaying? One of the horses let loose with a shrill neigh and Silas glanced back at the animal to see it rear in a half-hearted attempt to escape its harness. While the driver tended to the beast, Silas turned once again to the woods. There was nothing there now to give him pause, only the sullen, still darkness of nature. Silas hurried after the daemon. An urgency to his footsteps, and a hunger he did not recognise.
Chapter 19
After breaking into an undignified run to catch up to Pitch, Silas reached the wide reaching boughs of two great hornbeams that formed a vast green umbrella over the road. Stepping beneath them, it were as though he passed through an invisible barrier, one that banished the weak light of the cloudy day. He was quite stiff with cold, its grip upon his skin and bones more than a little painful. He grunted, rubbing with vigour at his arms, quite startled at his own rush to enter the place.
‘Why are you just standing there? Do you think the wench will come to you?’ Pitch moved further and deeper down the road, his teal coat the only note of bright colour in the dullness of the woods. The shadows curved around him, not quite touching upon his body, as though they dared not. Pitch, of course, threw no shadow himself which created a peculiar sense of him not being entirely present at all.
‘Have some caution, Pitch. If it is a teratism neither you nor I can confront it.’ Silas did not move from where he stood, one hand pressed into his pocket, rubbing a thumb over the rim of the bandalore. ‘Do you detect anything untoward?’ The device did not release any notes of caution, nor did it warm at his touch. Was there another sign he was missing? Silas had paltry knowledge of how the scythe worked. He may well be missing something subtle. Or perhaps the scythe assumed he needed no one to tell him what was as blatant as the prickled flesh on his body.
Take care. This was not a pleasant place to be.
‘Mr Astaroth, I asked if you sensed anything of note?’ Silas repeated his question with vastly more irritation.
‘It is dank and cold and smells of fetid rot in here. There you are, my notes in their entirety.’ Pitch stood at the centre of a road which could barely be classified as such. Two narrow tracks dug deep into the muddy earth, a trap for carriage wheels if ever there was one. ‘You are the one with a nose for death, Sickle. It is I who should ask the question of you. Did you think to ask your ghostly friend of the bowers location?’
‘No, I did not.’
‘And your little trinket there tells you nothing of note’
‘No, it does not,’ Silas said, with a pathetic note of despair. ‘I see the place as you do, and cold to the point where I cannot feel the tip of my nose any longer.’
Pitch sighed. ‘Wonderful.’ He cupped his hands around his mouth, and yelled, ‘Child murdering bitch, show yourself.’
‘What are you doing?’ Silas hissed. ‘Stop.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Pitch blinked prettily, quite returned to his bothersome self. The hint of vulnerability that had appeared when he tried to speak of his life, now buried. ‘You have a better idea? Come on, move. I wish to know now whether we shall enjoy sport here or not. For if we do not, then I have much greater things to indulge in. And they involve far less clothing and dirt.’
He flicked his scarf, as though to mark his
point, and continued down the road, leaving Silas little option but to follow or find himself quite alone. Silas’s initial fever to enter the woods had dimmed somewhat, and though he believed he may be as frightened of Pitch as he was the Black Annis, Silas hurried after him. The man’s lean figure spliced its way into the gloom, following the curve of the road as it wound to the right, heading ever deeper into the woods.
Silas could not help but feel that this place was perpetually damp, the sun never able to force its way through the tree canopy. The drip of water against leaves played on the air, though there had been no rain falling when they left the carriage. There was a distant twitter of birdlife, but he could not say if it were within the woods or without. They moved steadily on, less and less light made its way through the gnarled boughs and heavy foliage. Silas clucked his tongue, frustrated at futile attempts to keep his boots clear of the mud. He had just extricated himself from a deceptively deep puddle when a vicious ache struck his wrists. The joints of his fingers joined in a moment later. The cold that troubled him flickered deeper, finding its way into his bones with an ice-blue flame. Silas ground his teeth.
‘Pitch, would you—’
His words were buried by an awful renting scream. The sound tore the air to shreds, reaching a magnitude that threatened to shake the leaves from the trees.
‘Good god,’ he gasped.
The agonised notes came at them from all directions it seemed: above, to the right, to the left, there was no telling where the culprit lay. On and on it went, with no drawing of breath to give reprieve. Silas pressed his aching hands to his ears, seeking escape. Pitch did not appear as effected. He stood with hands on hips a few paces ahead, surveying the forest the way a general might survey a battlefield.
Silence collapsed upon them. Silas’s ears rang with the distant echoes of the gut-wrenching scream. No human mouth could produce such a cacophony, of that he was certain.
‘Well, then, not a wasted journey after all,’ Pitch declared. ‘There is to be a hunt, Sickle. This is indeed a good day. This way.’ He moved off the road, pressing on into the depths of the woods.