by Xssa Annella
“I'm sorry,” I say, to the wind and the grass.
He is gone. He didn’t hear it.
* * * *
I creep back to the village. No worries. Most of the young warriors have gone to hunt. It will be days before they are back.
It gives me plenty of time to think of what to do about our future. His, mine, the tribe’s.
I pleasure myself, but it’s not the same. I see snippets, little bits, sand pieces of dreams, not enough to know the future. And my wrist is sore. And I have lost all interest in sex.
Father suggests finding a husband for me. I resolve to be quieter at night.
I can’t think of a husband when I don’t know my future. There’s so much nothing ahead of me.
The next day, there is smoke off to the side. Not like the fire I saw in the last vision, thankfully. It must be the hunters.
It’s very unusual for the hunters to camp so close that we can see their fire. That’s the point of the hunt—to go away to where the game is.
I help to treat rabbit hides and listen. They’re hides from my father’s last hunt and we need new clothing for winter.
We have enough to last until I can predict the summer—oh. I won’t be predicting that. Not without Redbush. More than that, I miss his body next to mine. I miss him. Holding him. Talking. Love.
By evening, the fire is gone, but our talk still lingers in the air, lasting far into the night. We can sense something.
* * * *
It’s early dawn. I’m in bed when Mother rushes in. “The hunters are back.”
“Did they find game?” I asked, not caring. No one consulted with me before they left. Why should I care?
“There was a stampede. The warriors are injured.” She is grabbing what little herbs we have, grabbing soft skins. She takes all the rabbit skins we have just softened.
I shove myself up and dress quickly. There is a definite chill in the air now. Winter will be here soon.
I crawl out of the teepee after her. The dirt is cold and dewy under my hands.
I stand and follow my mother.
Redbush.
He is dying.
There are others, but my eyes don’t see them, only him. He is bloody. Broken. I can see it in his breath, his eyes.
He is dying.
I fall at his side and weep, across from Dancing Dawn, who stops her own crying long enough to give me a dark look.
I don’t pause in my weeping. Who cares about our petty rivalry with him like this?
There is nothing I can do.
The injured are moved to a sick tent. The dead are treated, the bodies taken care of. Day turns to dark. Still he hangs on.
A warrior dies and the body is removed from the tent.
My mother’s hand is cold in mine, her voice chilly. “The chief wants to see you,” she says, tugging at me.
I don’t want to leave Redbush’s side.
The chief is here. When did he enter the tent? How long has he been standing there, watching us?
Mother gasps. He doesn’t often stoop to women, but he came here, to see me.
Dancing Dawn looks as if she would kill me, if she spared herself a second from Redbush. She has not stopped pestering him with questions, little dabs of cold cloth and sips of river water. As his wife-to-be, she can. I simply sit by his side, for all purposes a friend, stricken. What to do, how to save him?
“The men did not ask our new shaman where to hunt,” he says. “They saw you upset before the hunt. They know of your concern for our tribe.”
My face is turned away. I move my head slightly to listen, but that is all. I will not be the shaman. Not that shaman.
“There is talk that maybe next time we should listen.”
I close my eyes tightly against the tears. Too late.
“We will talk when he is better.” The chief ducks out of the teepee.
“What if he doesn’t get better?” Dancing Dawn asks.
I want to hush her with my hands, to hit her again and again.
Mother puts her fingers on my shoulder before I can say anything. “He is in a lot of pain. Death may be better.”
I whip my head around to stare at her. What? How dare she? Death?
I hear it in his breathing. A groan never uttered, but there in every breath. I see it in his chest, which hitches a bit. I feel it when I touch his skin—his muscles are stiff.
Pain.
Would I kill a child for him? I would sacrifice anything for him—
Suddenly, I know what to do.
I run up to the cliffs, the bushes tearing at my legs, the dirt crumbling beneath my fingers. It is our spot, where he poured out his heart to me, where before I could do nothing to ease his pain, but now I think I can.
I make it to the top just in time for the gloaming.
The point between day and night, life and death. The world is alight with the sun’s dying rays, the shadows are deep with the coming night. This is the in between.
Here the day spirits are leaving, and the night spirits are stretching.
I cry out to them.
Powerful medicine. I will sacrifice anything—everything—for him. I will not be a shaman. I will not have a future.
Just help him. Please.
Are tears a sacrifice? They pour down my face.
Is pain? My chest aches with guilt and fear. I will toss myself off the cliff, I will—
I jump.
Too late, I wonder, What if the gods do not answer?
I wish I had thought of that back on the cliff face and not now.
Because now a bush is clawing at me. Ouch. And a tree trunk slams into my side, slowing me. Hmm, maybe this wasn’t a good spot to offer myself—oof. Boulder. To the back. Wonderful, just wonderful. Another bush. The thorns were a surprise—thank you, fate. It’s the same bush that had the flower that I wove in my pubic hair that first time for Redbush, and the thought hurts more than anything on this never-ending slope. I gave away our future together—my head hits a rock, something hard, and I see a bright burst of pain and…
See? This bush will make him better. This will make him grow strong. Feed him. He must drink this. Give him feverbrew herbs. Remove that from his chest…
So much knowledge. It makes my head ache.
I welcome it. Every last shred of pain. I can sense my future is gone. There will be no more shaman powers for me. The chief god has accepted my sacrifice of my future as a shaman, and given me my love, here and now. Thank you, Allfather, greatest of the gods. I have slid to a halt partway down, by the path going up.
I run down the cliff faster than I went up. Twice, I almost join Redbush as a patient in the sick tent, but both times, at the last second, I grab a bush on the way down, the thorns digging in. Once, I trip on a log and it races downhill with me for a bit, before I let it win, chafing at the delay. It stumbles to a stop to one side, and I can go on past it safely, with my knowledge clutched to me. The gods don’t want what I offered—they don’t want sacrifices, pain and surrender. They want to be loved, and they talk to us when we listen, and who opens their hearts more than people in love? This was why the visions came to me.
I run into the tent and take off Redbush’s bandages. Dancing Dawn helps me, her hands shaking.
I see the piece of hoof in his chest. You have to know where to look. No medicine man would dig into an open wound blindly, because the person would bleed to death. I never would have risked his life if I hadn’t thought him already dead, if the vision hadn’t shown me.
Dancing Dawn says nothing.
Redbush barely groans. His eyes are open, looking at me.
The air reeks of death.
I ignore it, run to the fields and frantically look for the herbs. The grass has been crushed underfoot, but there are no herbs. I look everywhere. Women come to help and someone has some feverbrew from last year.
I make the teas. I make the stews.
I force them down him.
He gets better. I hunt for
more herbs. Dried fruit. Anything that might help.
Meat piles up at the door—rabbit and duck, squirrel and skunk. Small kills, local. Gifts, offerings from friends.
Dancing Dawn is gone and so is my future. I don’t care.
He can have her, because he will be happy. I said I would sacrifice anything for him, and when I thought of giving him up, of giving up the powers, I had that last vision. My legs ache from sitting still for so long, with my hands in my lap.
My back hurts from sitting with my head bowed, but this way I can watch him breathe. See him get better. I have eaten nothing and feel empty inside and out.
The day touches the earth outside, bright and cheerful.
People are talking, calling to each other. Redbush is getting better. There is hope, now.
I will skip joining them, I think in my sleepy state. I will…
* * * *
In my vision, I stir the fire. A rabbit is on the spit, ready to cook. I can hear the flames, can smell the ashes and the raw savoury meat. The fur of the rabbit’s skin is soft fluff beneath my hands. Redbush puts his hand on my shoulder. I know he wants sex. I know we will be having cold stew tonight because we will be busy beneath the covers. I know—
The vision ends. My head jerks up.
I have sacrificed everything. But so has he. Dancing Dawn is gone from his side and I can hear her with another warrior. This time, I think, her child will not end up under my knife.
This time, I may get to like cold stew.
It is good.
Also available from Total-E-Bound Publishing:
Sinful Treasure
Alcamia Payne
Excerpt
Chapter One
The Present
I had to pin up my hair, I thought, and do what all women did to make themselves attractive. Standing in my bedroom in front of the mirror, I was suddenly struck by a thought. Who was this stunning changed woman backlit by the lamp and surrounded in a supernatural nimbus of light? Of course it was me, but for a moment I didn’t recognise myself. Come along, Emma, you must force yourself to put on this gorgeous dress and walk out of Langhousa, just to prove there’s another world—a mortal world beyond these walls—and you’re still a part of it. Come on, you must. Touching my throat, I fought the feeling now descending over me in an invisible veil. It was very difficult fighting these forces, especially when I didn’t want to. By this time I realised Bem’s passion had taken me over and he’d bent and twisted my world into shapes of such dark desire I couldn’t break free—and did I really want to? I was partly to blame. You see, I Emma Spence, had committed a terrible sin. My wish had somehow come true and I loved a demon from another world, a demon called Bem who clothed himself in the flesh and blood of my dead lover.
“Yes, that’s it, Emma,” I chided, sliding a comb into my thick hair. “One step at a time and don’t think too far ahead.” Although it was hard not to, when I knew for a certainty David was planning on asking me to marry him again tonight. He’d always intended to. About nine months ago my suspicions had been confirmed when I’d overheard him talking about it to Lucas Fairweather at Granny’s ninety-eighth birthday party. I had slipped out onto the veranda to enjoy the cool night air for a moment and the two of them had been standing by the buffet table.
“Emma cuts a striking picture, doesn’t she,” Lucas had commented. “She’s the most beautiful woman for miles around.”
“Yes, and you know I intend to marry her one day?” David had retorted.
My heart had been beating a rapid tattoo and I’d been filled with an odd mixture of emotions as I’d strained to hear above the chatter of voices.
“God, are you crazy? All of the Spence women are touched.” Lucas, his best friend, had chortled.
“Touched? Oh, come on,” David had continued persuasively. “She’s simply different—she’s entitled to be, that’s what makes her an angel and so utterly fascinating. How many angels do you know?”
I smiled. Of course, I was different, at least David had got that right. The fact he appreciated I had more to me than most of the young women in Chandrapoor made me inclined to feel warmly towards him. David was always standing up for me and fighting my corner.
“She’s different, granted, but hardly an angel.” Lucas had elaborated. “The entire family are touched by the devil. I recall some exceedingly strange tales, tales to do with dabbling, you know? Why, the old woman’s a veritable entertainment piece. She’s into witchcraft and mediumship, not to mention that palaver of reading tea leaves and cards and seeing ghosts. My God, man, it wouldn’t be that other fascinating thing—the sex thing, that draws you to the girl, now would it?” At this point he’d clapped David on the back. “I can’t say I blame you in that respect. Rowena Spence is how old? Ninety-eight? And by all accounts she’s still feisty in bed and has that way of inciting and sashaying her behind like a whore. But Emma!” He had been turning his cigar around and around in his fingers. “She’s far crazier than the old lady and quite insane, walking about in a trance most of the time and talking to those fairies and spirits and suchlike. I wouldn’t blame you, though, old man. She’s stinking rich and perhaps you fancy a challenge.”
For just an instant my heart sank, but Lucas was right and why should I deny it? The Spence’s were different and I was glad that we were. Lucas annoyed me, though. I hated to be thought of as a rich heiress, hunted down because I was both attractive and the recipient of a small fortune. My heart had been in my mouth waiting for David’s reply.
“Good Lord, it’s not about the money.” David had paused. “And, it’s most definitely not about the sex. I find her lovely, stunning and charming and quite, how do they say, fey and whimsical?”
Once, he had pushed me into the corner next to the piano in Laura Godsey’s parlour. “Kiss me, Emma, I want to see.”
“See what?” I’d attempted to force him away. “What do you want to see? If I’m capable of kissing you, or if like a vampire I’ll suck your blood? Have you been having bets on me? Is that it David?” I‘d been fuming when I had pushed him back with my hand. “What do you say in secret to Lucas, that you want to fuck me and see if I’m a virgin?”
I think he liked my flaring personality and the anger that rose so easily to the surface, but on this occasion I had been easily quenched. He’d pushed me back, his expression one of being wounded. “Oh no,” he had said. “None of that. They speculate about you, everyone does, but I don’t care a jot. You’re extraordinary and I love you, Emma.” He’d been soft and persuasive as his hand cradled my breast. “Don’t be defensive and nasty. You’re just so ethereal and pure looking I want to see if you’re really like that. I don’t believe in all that airy fairy stuff I truly don’t, but when I kiss you a part of me feels compelled to believe it. I want to see if you’re enchanted like they say you are and if you’ll enchant me…if these lips”—he touched them gently with his finger—“feel as soft on me as I think they will.”
“Don’t be silly.” I turned my face away.
Undeniably David was good-looking. He had a pleasant round Nordic face with wavy blond hair and blue eyes. I think I was fond of him because he wasn’t a dynamic sex threat like most men and he wasn’t the type to put his hand on your breast or cunt. No, he was the kind of man who’d respond well to a domineering woman and something about that excited me. Especially when I imagined him naked and hands bound, crouching at my bed post whilst I whipped him. My escapism into fantasy was one of my small indulgences and I allowed myself it, because it gave me pleasure and pleasure was hard to come by. Anyway, if the whispers were true, I was insane so what was the harm? I was hardly going to actually gratify these daydreams was I?
Sitting naked in front of my dressing table, I leant forward, peering at myself critically stroking a little rouge over my cheeks and attempting to drag my thoughts back to the present. “Well, dear, this will never do,” I muttered, tracing my thumb under my eye. I’d become increasingly pale recently and I dou
bted that any amount of powder or rouge would hide the dark shadows. I’d always been very pale, and as Granny used to say ‘a true English Rose’, but now my pallor had translated into an ethereal and haunting kind of beauty—the beauty coming from being touched by the finger of darkness, and that rendered me a mortal walking in two worlds.
Bem was there in the corner, his smouldering dark gaze whispering over my skin.
“Why, are you doing this, why do you insist on this plan?” he said in his melodious, seductive lilt. “Is this the way you try to punish me, Emma, or are you trying to rehabilitate your soul before it’s too late?” He stepped forward his angular features cast into relief by the glow from the lamp. “You were so casual about the mortal you, so ready to release it, and now you seem to try and cling to it in desperation, like it’s a life raft or something.”
“You have such a lovely way with words,” I replied, pouting at the mirror and unscrewing my lipstick to dot the colour on my lips. “And perhaps you’re right because I feel that the tether holding me to mortal is exceptionally fragile indeed.” I stroked my mother’s double strand of black pearls, holding them up to my neck and tossing back my blonde hair.
I was finding it distressing having to think about David, but it was impossible to turn down his invitation, especially on my birthday. I had to attend the odd dinner party or shopping trip, but it was becoming increasingly harder every time. I sprayed my body in light rose eau de cologne—under my arms, behind my ears and inside my cunt as if I anticipated a man was going to thrust his nose or mouth inside me. I could tell that it annoyed Bem, whose eyebrows knitted together in a frown.
“You were made to be a mortal whore,” he observed a little nastily, stepping into the lamp’s full glare, his dark eyes flashing. “Do you want me to put your pearls on for you angel?”
“No thank you.” He reached out his hand and I moved away. I knew that a finger on my skin would be enough to weave the spell, enough to melt me. Instead, I fastened the pearls myself, and when I moved the chair back, the sight of my naked body in the mirror with just the black pearl necklace was enough to arouse even me.