‘Go!’ she yelled. The group dispersed quickly with faint cries of ‘witch’ when they thought they were a safe enough distance away. And then it was just the girl and Marek.
‘Come,’ she said. She did not look at me as she handed the knife back to Marek. His gaze had been fixed on the girl as in a trance before finally tearing himself away and turning to me. With his knife he cut my bond and examined the burns on my leg.
‘We do not have much time,’ said the girl. ‘They will come back for they are idiots. I will take you to a safe place. Leave her. Save yourself.’
Marek paid no attention to her; instead he continued to help me up. When I coughed harshly it redirected her focus. She looked directly at me as if seeing me for the first time, her eyes narrowed and unsympathetic.
He helped me stand as I struggled to breathe from the smoke still trapped in my lungs. There were strips of flesh missing from my ankle and raw flesh on my thigh. Although I was in great pain I knew I had to move quickly to put those barbarians far behind me. We followed the girl away from the village and into the Black Forest where dense, tall black conifers stretched for hundreds of lonely miles. I had a vague memory of this place where many had died in the winter, losing their way in its vastness.
There was a partial moon to light our way, enough to see tints of gold bounce off the girl’s hair. I leaned much of my weight on Marek, and it was only when we had put some distance between ourselves and the village that I noticed Marek’s difficulty in supporting me. He was also very poorly.
‘They were yelling strigoi. What does that mean?’ Marek asked the girl.
‘It is another word for demon or blood-taker.’
‘Why are you helping us?’
‘Later. Don’t talk now.’
It must have been an hour of walking over slippery, rotting leaves on narrow, dark trails and I stumbled often. The throbbing pain in my leg, which increased with every step, made me feel nauseous and cold. I leaned closer to my master to feel the warmth from his body. Eventually we came to a hut where an old woman sat by a fire. She was singing softly to herself and unaware of our arrival until the girl tapped her on the shoulder. Her expression was vacant, as if she had never laid eyes on the girl, and then she turned back to the fire to continue her tune. I suspected her mind was also vacant.
The girl instructed me to lie on a low hammock.
‘Just let her sleep. In the morning she will be much improved.’
‘I can’t,’ said Marek. ‘I must help her.’
‘You can heal her if you wish but I must warn you that if you do, you will be depleted of strength and we do not have the time to rebuild.’
‘How do you know about me?’ asked Marek incredulously.
‘I can sense your power. You could have killed all the villagers if you really understood what you are.’
His eyes widened and I could tell he was curious but too distracted by my leg with its gaping wounds, where the flesh had been burnt away.
‘I cannot leave her like this. If it wasn’t for me she wouldn’t be hurt.’
‘Courageous and admirable I must say, but sometimes you have to let go of things you don’t need.’
‘It is not a question of need. It is called humanity,’ he replied curtly.
I did not understand the girl’s words. They frightened me and Marek looked like he might collapse with exhaustion. He was badly hurt too – I had witnessed it happen – but somehow he miraculously escaped death. He reached for my leg and I flinched at the touch of his fingers. With his other hand he pressed my forearm to comfort. I was confused. Marek acted strangely, and the pretty girl’s eyes wandered over him intimately, as if she had known him forever, as if she was testing him.
I felt my leg, right up to my groin, go warm and then numb. Marek stumbled backwards his eyes rolling into the back of his head before he hit the floor. The pain in my leg was gone and the girl threw me a skirt to replace my burnt one.
‘Put it on,’ she barked, and only then did I notice my naked and perfectly healed leg.
It could not be! My wound was sealed. My master was a fallen angel. And the girl, she was something else – something worse – whispering in my ear that she wished me gone.
Marek
My head felt strange and the room seemed to move around me as I lay on the hammock. I found that my eyes just wanted to close and when they opened it took several moments to focus. The girl was talking to Celeste in low tones in the corner, and then crossed the room to sit beside me on the bed.
‘Who are you?’ I asked, groggily. I tried to sit fully upright but my head felt almost too heavy to lift. The girl pressed her hand against my chest to lie back down and I was too weak to resist.
‘My name is Zola.’ Her hand then rested on my leg with familiarity. It was both unnerving and appealing at the same time. ‘In time you will grow stronger. Your skills will not deplete your body of so much strength.’
‘How do you… how did you know?’ Zola stood up to pour some hot water into a cup then sprinkled in some herbs. She explained that the herbs would restore my health quicker than my own body could, along with a good sleep. With long graceful arms she spooned the liquid into my mouth, and this allowed me time to examine her properly. The reflection of the flickering fire made her red hair glow, long curls spilling loosely over her shoulders. Her skin was the colour of the Madonna lily, and several freckles dotted her nose and the top of her cheeks.
‘I have a skill and eventually you will be able to sense others with it when they are nearby. You might have done this already – maybe thought you heard someone whisper to you and turned to look over your shoulder, only to find no-one there. Or perhaps you felt a cold rush of air on the back of your neck when there was no breeze. These are the signs of someone with the skill.’
‘Is that how you found me?’
‘I felt you near, yes, as I can feel others now: others who aren’t even aware that I am here. This special tracking sense is my gift, and much stronger than many of our kind. We are all healers, but we each have certain levels of power and sometimes with unique gifts also. You showed some of your potential back at the village.’
I remembered leaving the barn and feeling so much rage I was almost blinded. And when I saw Celeste tied up over the fire all I wanted to do was kill. There was shouting. People were pointing at something near the fire and throwing rocks at me.
‘There was a dead man near the fire.’
‘Yes,’ said Zola. ‘They thought that your little girlfriend killed him with magic.’
‘Was he murdered?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Zola.
I thought of the other man who was killed and guilt compelled me to confess. ‘I killed another man.’
Zola laughed softly. ‘Are you sure?’ she challenged.
‘Yes. The knife pierced through his neck. I saw it.’ My aim was perfect. The rage did not seem to cloud my judgment of distance; in fact, my anger seemed to enhance it.
‘But are you sure you killed him?’ she asked, her voice low and hypnotic, drawing me into her. Something was not quite right with the memory. The knife left my hand cutting through the air before I realised what I was doing. The man was knocked to the ground, blood oozing from his wound. Could I have guided the knife with magic?
Zola answered. ‘Sometimes in the early stages we need some help with our craft.’
‘Are you telling me that I did not kill him?’
‘Marek, your knife hit him in the neck but it was my skill to guide the weapon that put an end to his life.’
I did not know which shocked me more. The calmness with which she admitted such a deed, or the fact she knew my name. I was relieved that I had not killed anyone. I thought to check on Celeste, but I was unable to move with the feeling that my body was being weighted down with invisible forces. The herbal concoction had eased my headache and warmed my chest, and tiredness shortly overwhelmed me.
‘Sleep now,’ whispered Zola, and I do not rem
ember anything else from that night.
*
The next day I felt restored and the gash on my forehead gone. The old woman was still in the chair in front of cold embers, and her eyes were closed. Both Zola and Celeste were missing. Celeste’s shawl lay sprawled at the bottom of the cot.
I pushed open the shuttered windows, breaking apart the frost that had sealed them together in the early morning hours. The view was of dense forest and I wondered how we came upon such a hut the previous night. I walked into the early morning to greet the sun glinting through a heavy green cloud mass nestled on the horizon. It would be a dark day.
There were footprints in the earth encircling the house. At the back was a garden of herbs and another with vegetables. An axe rested near the entrance, the blade covered with a reddish brown stain. Fresh skins hung over the chopping block.
As I turned back to enter the hut I was confronted. The old woman was pointing her walking cane close to my face, her faded and filmy eyes boring into my own. You will be next, I heard, even though her lips were still. This line was repeated twice before I realised these were her thoughts. I believe my confused expression at her words was what set her to begin wailing uncontrollably. I tried to calm her but to no avail. Then she continued in an even stranger manner waving her arms about her person as if fighting an invisible presence, her bulging eyes roaming aimlessly around in their sockets.
Something in her step suggested she might strike me with her cane. I took a step back to find Zola behind me. With several logs under her arm, she looked both rested and striking in a full lemon skirt and silk blouse. She did not look like someone who had spent the previous evening fighting barbarians. Zola locked eyes with the woman and the effect was instantaneous with the elder lowering her cane.
The woman, by then submissive, was guided by the younger back into the hut and placed gently near the fire. I could see from the woman’s hobble that one leg was much shorter than the other. I did not get a chance to ask Zola why the woman had been so hostile towards me.
‘Celestina is gone,’ she said. ‘She ran away in the night.’
I retrieved Celeste’s shawl from the bed, thanked Zola for her help, then began in the direction of the footprints.
‘You cannot leave,’ said Zola, the softness of her voice fragmenting, almost brittle, before a sudden return of composure. ‘I tried to find her, but she has been gone for many hours. It is probably for the best. She would have slowed us down.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I must find her. She will freeze to death, or worse,’ as I remembered the treatment by the villagers.
Zola stood in the doorway blocking my path. Her irises were shimmering pools, the deepest blue on the inside, with flecks of green around the edges, reminding me of the colours of Gildoroso’s waters. Her hair was even more vibrant in the daylight, and her lips sat slightly apart to reveal long, even teeth. If we had been on my island, Zola’s breathtaking appearance would have filled up every space in my mind, but the old woman had unsettled me along with Celeste’s disappearance.
‘Zola, I must go,’ and I waited for her to step aside.
‘Without me you will not find Oleander,’ she said, walking away from me.
‘You know her?’ Perhaps in my delirious state I had revealed this information.
‘She has the gift like us. We’ve all been waiting for you to come.’
I was both shocked and relieved that my quest was now validated, but why I was suddenly so important was beyond me. ‘I will come back but first I must find Celeste… I cannot leave her like this.’
Zola looked at me, her head inclined curiously. ‘Marek, she is just a girl, a mute one at that.’
I could not explain why I was drawn to Celeste. It was an obligation that I had taken upon myself to find her a safer place. My father had taught me to always finish what I started, to see everything through to its natural end. My time with Celeste was not yet over. She needed me.
As if she had read me once again, Zola agreed to help find Celeste and then continue on to see my half-sister; though, I detected that she was very disappointed in this change of plans.
We came to a clearing and Zola touched the ground, rubbing some soil through her fingers. ‘She is going this way.’
A well-used pathway wound its way through the tall forest pines and gloomy skies. I hoped that we could track Celeste before she was lost forever and the cold trapped within her bones.
‘Are there really such creatures as the strigoi?’ The incident in the village resurfaced as we walked and I found myself replaying the event in my mind.
Zola grabbed hold of my hand. Her hands were supple and clean for someone who collected wood. ‘There are many creatures like us, born with extra skills. Skills to heal, or read minds, move objects, so many, I cannot tell you all of them.’ It did not fully answer my question. Was she talking about witches then, or strigoi?
‘How well do you know my sister?’ I asked her.
‘I met your sister many years ago.’
‘It is so confusing,’ I said. ‘I never knew of this gift growing up and do not understand it, or where it comes from. I don’t even know how to use it. Sometimes it just happens.’
‘That is why you should be with your own kind. We can show you.’
‘Is your mother a witch…?’ I asked referring to the old woman in the hut.
‘She is not my mother,’ said Zola curtly. ‘I am just her carer.’ From Zola’s tone she did not want to talk about her. ‘I do not live there. I live near your sister but I came this far south to catch you on the way, to watch over you. I promised Oleander I would.’
How Oleander knew me at all was a mystery. Had she been watching me from afar? Even more puzzling was how she knew I’d come on the word of a delirious hag. Oleander herself was an enigma at the time, something not yet real in my thoughts.
I told Zola about my mother and she nodded her head as if she already knew. ‘Witches must have protection from their coven.’
‘But I do not understand. We do not do anything bad. Why do people want to hurt us?’
‘They are scared.’ Zola stopped suddenly. ‘She is not far now.’
At first I thought she meant my sister and then I caught movement through the trees. It was Celeste. ‘If she left hours ago how did we catch up to her so quickly?’
‘We move swiftly, though we cannot see that ourselves,’ said Zola. ‘It feels perfectly normal. With your growing and unaccustomed powers, you have to be careful when you walk amongst humans. They will notice our speed, but sometimes we can move so quickly that we are not seen at all.’
I felt strange when she said the word ‘humans’ as if it was a terrible thing. I could not look at myself as anything else. At least I understood why Zola could visit the reclusive old woman and take care of her when she lived so far away.
I was sure Celeste had seen us and yet she ran with her face full of fear.
Zola
There were moments after I scared off the girl when I thought of hunting her down. I followed her for a time with improper thoughts of feasting on someone young and sweet, instead of the human vermin of which there appeared to be an endless supply. And perhaps if I had not sensed Marek awake I would have acted on the urge to sample her scarlet nectar, to put her out of her small, miserable life of sickness, hunger and a futile future begging on the streets for every meal, before turning to more dubious means to survive.
It had always been code amongst our kind to choose the degenerates over the clean blood. Yet occasionally we would slip, should the opportunity arise. And, though it was not said out loud, Oleander turned a blind eye to this especially when it came to Jean. The code wasn’t always so loosely deciphered as it was in Oleander’s circle. Clean blood was once totally banned.
Oleander said ‘only Marek’ which is why I first attempted to get rid of the girl. Though, I eventually saw that it was this insignificant feline that motivated Marek more than his sister. And, of course, there we
re other possibilities for her. Oleander would be pleased if I returned with such a prize.
I would humour Marek as long as I needed with my pretence of helpfulness. Not only was he amusing me with his innocence, and pleasing to look at, it was also my duty to Oleander and her circle. He was yet another of her whims, and another distraction, like so many she had called to join her flock.
Celeste
A hand shoved me hard in the back and I fell forward on the hard ground covered with fallen thistles. When I turned there was no-one there. At first I thought I had imagined the touch. A few moments later, Zola appeared and I knew it was her witchery that had done such a deed.
‘Get up! At the first chance I will be rid of your soul for good. But for now you suit my purpose.’
Zola narrowed her eyes, and her mouth twisted into a vicious smile. She was dangerous. I felt the evil back at the hut. She was a demon that moved faster than my eye. They were perhaps both demons for Marek had used dark magic to cure me.
Marek arrived seconds later and looked at me, his expression full of concern, so deep were the grooves above the bridge of his nose. He had brought my shawl and wrapped it around my shoulders.
Zola helped me up straightening my skirts with motherly concern, yet I knew the truth. We stared at each other both remembering what had happened early that morning when the moon was still high.
Back in the old woman’s hut I had been dreaming of falling from a high cliff. When I awoke I was suspended in the air above my bed, hanging in unseen arms. I could hear Marek’s heavy breathing from somewhere else inside the hut and knew this couldn’t be him. I brushed at the air below me frantically trying to return to the cot. All of a sudden, I was dropped back onto the bed with a thud, the wind crushed from my lungs. Before I could compose myself, more unseen spirit hands seemed to grab at me in the darkness, pulling me from the bed. I grabbed at the cot pulling it from the wall without success, my fingernails nearly torn back from their beds of flesh. I was dragged across the floor towards the door by my legs, like a hunter dragging his kill, as happened in that hellish village.
Marek (Buried Lore Book 1) Page 6