Marshsong

by Nato Thompson

  Conner held his head and lay on the ground. He was terrified. Why was this child haunting him? Fennel bent over him and got his minty breath right up close to Conner’s delicate nose.

  “Don’t blame this on the Raven. Blame it on me. Fennel. That’s my name and that’s who is doing this to you. I won’t hurt you too much, but I just can’t let it go. I just can’t.”

  Fennel pulled back Conner’s pant leg as he writhed on the ground. The cobblestones were slick and they stained his silk suit. Fennel looked down at Conner’s goose bumped leg to see the slightly red-stained bandage on the spot where he had bit the poor man last. He ripped off the tape and pulled back the bandage. Small holes still revealed the site of puncture where his tiny teeth had entered.

  “Aw, it’s like a photograph of us,” said Fennel.

  He put his mouth down and took yet another bite. Conner screamed into the night and Fennel let his incisors cut deep down into the meat. It was a hardy bite and he let the blood run into his small mouth. Iron, blood, salt, and what was that.

  “Holy moly,” said Fennel excited. “I would have never guessed. Is that coriander?”

  Chapter 12

  Despite their mutual big night out on the town, Isabella and Fennel had managed equally to get home before daybreak. As such, they lay on their mats as the sun moved from east to west in a boomerang shape across the sky. As the light bid the day adieu and hid itself behind the curtain of earth, the eyes of the twins equally opened up. With the opening of their eyes, the neurons in their brains equaled the buzz on the marsh, which occurred at that witching hour when all creatures took on a last frenzied attempt to take a bite out of the living, breathing world. And as much as they were eager to share their new odd insights, they mutually desired to keep to themselves, which meant they had to hide their excitement.

  Isabella got up and shuffled her way to her desk. She sniffed herself. She smelled of horse. On her mind was that amazing balm—the key to her escape!—the end of that debilitating Marty illness. She could sense she was close. The end of this wretched chapter in her life was coming to an end. The excitement pushed through her veins as she set about at her desk to decode the sauce.

  Fennel, on the other hand, shook the sleep out of his hair as he slipped on his slippers and made his way toward their library. He chuckled to himself about his last night's exploits. He really had an unquenchable thirst when it came to being pleased with himself. Last night had been on the verge of just being yet another night of purely stirring the pot, but that last bite into Conner Deville’s leg had revealed something most telling: coriander.

  They sat quietly for some time; Fennel reading and Isabella scrawling. She was trying as best she could to figure out what was in the liquid. She would taste a drop and make a note. She figured the best way to decode this balm would be in utilizing her amazing sense of taste. Surely all ingredients could present themselves to a slew of gumshoe taste buds.

  Fennel turned the pages of his tome, Heretofore, The Divine. It was a chronology of the School of the Divine Line. Reading wasn’t Fennel’s forté and he flipped through the pages searching for the pretty historic illustrations. The School, which held no small presence in the city of Barrenwood, also happened to be the home of the ever so ubiquitously known Coriander Monks—exactly, coriander. Wherever the monks went they carried with them that extremely distinctive odor: a smell of spice, sweat, and lusciousness. Their robes also were the color of coriander and their presence had been a part of the fabric of Barrenwood for as long as people could remember.

  The twins had only some knowledge of them, however. They had visited them quite frequently in the Billington Hills as Marty often had them deliver goods to their doorstep. The monks would answer the door with their hard drawn faces and barely evoke a word, just bow, take the package and disappear inside. Nevertheless, as boring as the visits tended to be, they also comprised a large part of their workload for Marty. Since Marty often had them delivering goods to different organizations and individuals in town, the School was clearly a large part of whatever he was up to. They also were quite aware that the sickness weighed on them as soon as they reached the doorway. Whatever lay beyond that door, was off limits for them (like so much else).

  It should also be clarified that the School wasn’t a real school—not in the proper pedagogic sense. The School of the Divine Line was the major religious order of Barrenwood. They had churches; they had books, scriptures, and psalms. From what Fennel knew, the scriptures were taught as the result of pure divine analysis. They professed a belief in God, but not a judgmental God, not a destroying God, not an angry God, but an even keeled sort of know-it-all God. A God that left clues to his presence in the divine natural laws of the universe of which the priests were adept. Kindness, virtue, benevolence and modesty were not simple dogma, but God’s inherent presence in the laws of social construction. The celestial made its presence known in the perfect functioning of society. Their belief system could be interpreted as ecology, a series of various beliefs and values that wound its way from concepts of death to those of daily living.

  Even with its hyper-rationalist methodology, the School of the Divine Line maintained an abundance of macabre rituals and weekly sermons. They loved paraphernalia and a baroque sense of adornment. Statues of wily eyed goats, cranky hawks, multi-armed blue women with their tongues out, black as night crocodile-headed men, and humble shrouded holy figures of antiquity riddled their many ministries. Their altars were rarely humble and their churches built with a deep sense of surplus: marble floors, velvet curtains, gold plated cornices, even the finest wine at sacrament. It was maintained that, just as humans, God enjoyed the finer things in life.

  But, of course, what truly zapped around in Fennel’s mind was the question of why that man Conner smelled of coriander. The obvious conclusion was the School had something to do with the removal of the mad. The idea bothered and excited Fennel greatly. Could the Raven’s justice spread itself to those that arbitrated morality? The prospect sounded most sweet. He never liked that school in the first place. So arrogant they were. Tip-toeing through their contradictions, the monks hid in hoods but nevertheless provided so much sage advice. Silence would suit them better than their churches.

  But being Fennel, he was—as usual—of two minds. He appreciated the churches as well. He had to admit it. He liked their visual sense of passion. They at least looked like something the world should provide. Why they chose to be dour in the face of their amazing buildings, he could not say. It often seemed to him when he would pass by the churches packed on a Sunday that in their own somber way, the School pointed toward a wild mad world—a world worthy of the lives they had been given. So why cart away the mad? The shamans of the lived lands.

  The Coriander Monks could benefit greatly from thinking through the implications of their own teachings. The mad were the keepers and providers of water. They fueled the world with cosmic wanderlust and their psychic meanderings were poignant in the extreme. It made him angry just thinking about it. He slammed the book shut. He didn’t need to read up on those monks. He knew plenty already. He looked over to watch Isabella walk out toward the river.

  She was smiling to herself as she made her way barefoot through the mud. She was making progress. She had been right all along. Trout scales was a major ingredient. She had named it the fish sauce. Tadpoles swam about her feet. The pussy willows and rushes stretched around her. Isabella would soon possess a homeopathic remedy. It was a tonic. Dragonflies whizzed. Out on the shore, she noticed a package on the mail table. Seemed as though Marty had yet another round of deliveries for them today. She had planned on seeing the Persembes. Oh well.

  She stared back toward the cave where her brother was curled up in the big chair with a candle lighting the massive tome on his lap. It made her smile all the more. Her brother reading. Such a funny thought. She could see how much it agitated him as he scanned for the pictures. She felt the river wash past her spindly legs and knew the
feeling of sadness was going to shortly descend on her. Was she really going to go through with it? Leave all this?

  She had only known the cave. She and Fennel had been there for as long as she could remember and loved much of it. Fennel would never leave. She knew it and she pushed that idea out of her mind. She had to talk him into it. Marty was a nightmare. Not just to her, but to him as well. Leaving could only be for their mutual benefit.

  “Fennel,” she called out over the sound of the gurgles in the water. “Come here, Fennel. Let's play in the river together.”

  “Ew! How can you pillage your feet like that? So disgusting! Isabella, you’re fortunate I still appreciate you even with your hygienic inadequacies.”

  He jumped out of his chair and went to his closet.

  “I don’t relish the idea of playing in the water, I’m afraid. You will have to do so on your own.”

  “I am fortunate, Fennel. You are ever so understanding. How you put up with me, I’ll never know.”

  She made her way back to the cave and began getting dressed. Fennel went over to her desk and scanned over her notes. Shouldn’t he be allowed to take a look at what his sister was up to? No need for secrets.

  “Iz, what are you working on?” he asked, seeing the words sea bass, bluegill, herring, fluke and monkfish crossed off, with the word TROUT in bold letters.

  Isabella turned in a quick whirl and smiled widely. “Fennel, my brother, I think you should call me Derrilous. Yes, I am a bit of an alchemist myself. I am working on a cure for the sickness and I think I might be very close.”

  Fennel finished tying his bow tie and stood speaking to himself in the mirror.

  “Isabella, why do you force me to be the wise one of the two of us? You have always seen that sickness as a curse, but I think it is a warning. Marty may be evil, but he reserves most of his vile behavior for the vile world outside. First of all, we both know you don’t have the skills to prevent the sickness. Lord knows what you will talk yourself into. Please, when you do finally think you have cracked the code, don’t take too much of that stuff. Sure enough it is going to have its own side effects. Second of all, what the hell do you think you are doing?”

  Fennel was fuming. She could sense it. He had that wild look in his eye that scared even her.

  “Fennel, this isn’t for me. It is for both of us. Aren’t you curious what is in the big beyond? Don’t you want to find others like us? They are out there. We have seen them! We have seen them with our own eyes. Why are you so adamant that we have not! You are so curious about everything and yet you seem so determined to stay in your cage!”

  Isabella’s eyes were tearing up. This conversation made her sick with sadness. He was so infuriatingly stubborn. Her love for him at times overwhelmed her. It was an ocean that surrounded her. He was as much a part of her as air or water. He had to come with her when the time came.

  “Enough!” shouted Fennel. “I warn you, sister. Don’t push me. These are merely games and they will come to an end. Maybe you will have to experience it because you sure aren’t listening. But, whatever the case, your life is forever circumscribed. That is life. Period. You will find out.”

  Isabella stood still, staring at her brother’s back. He hadn’t even bothered to turn and face her. He would not bend and a slight chill went through her. She realized in a flash that not only would Fennel not come but, in fact, he might actively try to stop her. He wasn’t just the brother she loved, he also was in cahoots with the devil himself. The thought was too much for her. She shook it out of her head.

  “On another note, dear brother, it seems we have a package from Marty out there on the mail table.”

  “Really. Let's check it out.”

  Fennel ran out onto the shore to gather up the package. Isabella walked out to join him and she noticed quite clearly that something was wrong.

  Her brother squished up his face. “He has duties for us again.”

  Isabella’s heart sank. She had so much to do and none of her plans consisted of running around town delivering packages for Marty. It was almost as though he knew she was ever so close and he had intervened to keep her busy. Idle hands.

  Fennel opened up the package on the shore, divvying out the small boxes that hid within. They were addressed to different bland addresses. Who knew why they handed over what they did? Fennel hoped for a few packages to the School and sure enough, they were there. Of course, they were. Not the worst news, he thought.

  “Well, sis, looks like our reindeer games for the moment have come to an end.” He gave his sister a wink.

  Isabella turned away. “Let's get this over with,” she grumbled.

  For the next week, the twins were busy being the celestial UPS deliverymen of Barrenwood, handing out packages to the homes of the wealthy, surreptitious, and divine, but rarely the poor. Fennel did have a chance to visit the doorstep of the School of the Divine Line on a few occasions, but on each and every visit, the sickness welled up in him and prevented him from saying much of anything other than, “here are you packages, good monks.” It was all he could do from not belching onto their coriander sandals.

  Isabella tried her best to make progress in the small window between when they left and when they got back to the cave. But progress was not on her side. Try as she might, the fish sauce still just gave her indigestion and did nothing to prevent that wretched illness. Fennel found her exploits increasingly amusing as her failure confirmed in him the superiority of ol' master Marty.

  During that week, Isabella became increasingly sullen. With the sauce fading and Marty’s packages showing up every twilight, filling up her time, she felt the window of opportunity shutting most severely. Looking forward, she could only hope that she could follow that Duke of Izmir to some remote island where he could tell her the truth of her and Fennel’s situation. He would sit them both down on a couch and regale them with tales of the true beginnings and their proper role in the universe. He would tell them what a fool Marty was and he would, with just a nod of his head, remove the sickness as though it was the most paltry of desiccated ropes. He would love the water as much as they did and they would go out at night and hunt to their heart’s content, slurping on the traumatic joys of humanity. These thoughts helped her go on day to day.

  It was on the eighth day that she woke to see Fennel holding a different kind of package from the mail table. She was just opening her eyes and Fennel was already dressed and ready. He had become all the more dutiful and Isabella already slipping into sloth.

  “This is odd,” said Fennel, turning the package around in his hand studying it. “This package isn’t from Marty and more than that. It is addressed to us.”

  He handed the box to Isabella and sure enough, written on the side of the box, were the words:

  To The Twins

  Located at mouth of the Cave in the Southwest corner of the Aliber Swamps

  A letter of most importance from the Guild

  It was from the Guild—the order of assassins.

  “The Guild writing us?” queried Fennel as he opened the box which held a single letter.

  “Strange tidings,” mused Isabella.

  The letter read as follows:

  Dear twins,

  As you know it is not in our customary nature to either write you or your master, but we have had a unique opportunity present itself that we had to act on. Your participation in this venture is purely up to you without any obligation whatsoever. Our only task it to let you know of its potentiality. We have been approached by members of a renowned and lucrative business to set up a meeting with you. We can assure your total safety and assure you that if we didn’t think this would be of great benefit to you, we would have never broached this. They are interested in discussing business and felt that the nature of the meeting should be most candid. If you agree to join us, the meeting is this evening at 3 am at the Guild. We assure you that we have never confirmed your existence or that you would ever arrive, only indicating they w
ould wait whether or not you existed at all. They are most determined. We will wait for you, but please feel no obligation to arrive. This is a matter that is completely up to you.

  —The Guild

  “How exciting!” said Fennel. “The Guild setting up a meeting with us and who? I am ever so eager to discuss business, of course. I say we make a pile of cash before Marty returns and we can even buy him a mansion instead of the squalid shack he resides in.”

  Isabella shook her head. Her brother seemed to live in a constant present tense. Even his dreams of the future seemed to live in only instant gratification. Nevertheless, this was the only package. Marty’s deliveries, at least for this eve, had stopped. They had a night to themselves and that was good news for both of them.

  “Fennel, Marty would never live in a mansion. We know this. And as for the business aspect of this, one can only wonder what kind of power these people must have to talk the Guild into contacting us? They seem to know already too much from what I can glean from this letter. Frankly, I am just glad that Marty’s deliveries have stopped for now. I can’t say I was enjoying that. I am up for attending this meeting if nothing else than to know who these people are.”

  “Of course we are going to this meeting! Are you crazy? This is most exciting indeed. We can really get our fingers into some dirty dirt.”

  “Don’t get too excited. I have no intentions of doing anything they request. The whole thing assumes too much and our covert status remains of the highest priority.”

  Fennel’s smile faded as he realized not only was Isabella right but that he was also as impetuous and unprepared for most things just as Marty and Isabella had always indicated. But it wasn’t exactly a surprise that the deliveries had stopped. He had asked Marty to give him a night off. Isabella didn’t know and that was fine. He had plans tonight and he needed a break. Marty acquiesced. He really wasn’t that bad. And now he had this letter from the Guild. Of all things!