Snow Heart

by Knight, Arvalee

  Wilhelm felt his head swim—mind losing its ability to hold on. “Damn,” he muttered under his breath. He mentally went over his calendar then realized. “Tonight is the night.”

  †

  Alric shifted. He felt relieved with the night’s sleep. In fact he felt rather well and wanted nothing more than a large breakfast filled with all his favorite foods. Going over all the delicate options Alric suddenly remembered the events from earlier—he had passed out.

  His arms were wrapped around the warmth of a body too soft to be male thus meaning a female and thus even more meaning Nieves. His eyes flew open as everything around him became solid.

  He was starring right into the perfect ivory skin and the contours of her face. Alric gasped a large breath of air his lungs could hardly take in. All too quickly Alric sat up with burning lungs and backed away from her. The bed, being too small for the both of them, ran out of space for Alric to back up. Instead he went crashing to the floor in the tangled grasp of the sheets.

  “What…” Alric shook his head, swallowing to get enough air in his body. “She…” His breathing was heavy while his mind lost its grip. “What the hell?”

  “Sir,” a maid inquired while opening the door. “Is something the matter?”

  “Get out!” Alric screamed with anger. He quickly grabbed the closest item and chucked it across the room. The maid, knowing all too well she shouldn’t have entered his room, scampered out with a racing heart.

  His thoughts felt displaced for a second. As he gathered himself mentally, he unraveled the sheets from around his legs. In an odd way he found it amusing to find Nieves in his arms simply because she would have been utterly terrified—in the depths of his heart he was hoping she had awoken before him. Alric loved the idea of waking up to screams.

  The ache along his body warned him to take it easy but Alric refused. He lifted himself up using the bed as leverage. Alric’s knees quaked beneath him and suddenly gave up. His body went tumbling down onto the bed—the one thing he was trying to get away from.

  Alric sighed, giving up.

  “Don’t! Don’t do it! I don’t want to see anymore abuse!” she had yelled.

  Nieves, Alric found to understand, was insolent and rebellious to him. She cared too much for the people around her. He had to find a way to break that spirit of hers. Her collapse was enough proof of fading energy.

  Nieves released a breath of air that could have been mistaken for a moan.

  Alric tried to move but his weakened body remained stiff and lifeless. His lungs burned with acidic breaths. He wanted to scream out in agony but his throat was clogged. Even if he could have screamed, who would care to help him?

  “Erika,” Nieves muttered, swiftly sitting up and taking glances about the room. Her eyes found Alric’s and froze. “Alric…” She slid her eyes to the bed, and then the tossed sheets that were gathered about the floor. Her hand slid to her heart and froze there—she could feel it pounding inside of her chest and even behind her skull.

  Alric slid his eyes closed lazily and waited for the darkness to embrace him like many of his other attacks. He’d never had them so close together. It reminded him that he had such a short amount of time to live.

  The idea pressed against his clarity of mind.

  “Alric!” Nieves shook his shoulder. “Please. Please speak to me.” She shook him again then pressed her icy cold hands against his forehead.

  Snow, he thought briskly. Her name meant snow.

  Something dropped against his cheek, something he’d never felt before. It rolled down the side of his face until it was stopped by the barricade of his ear. He moaned turning his head to the side at the feel of another warm drop. She… No, he thought. He couldn’t believe such an idea. Nieves couldn’t possibly be crying.

  “Alric,” she said with relief at the sight of his fluttering eyes.

  He scowled beneath her. “Stop getting your stupid tears on my face.”

  Nieves gasped, wiping away the tears from her face with the back of her hand. “I… I thought you died. Your heart wasn’t beating and you stopped breathing.”

  Alric felt his hand rise—he would have touched the tear on her cheek if he hadn’t stopped himself. “Imbecile,” he said. “You actually thought I’d die?” He sat up pushing her away from him.

  The paper door slid open to a very smiling Rusuto. “The two of you awake yet?”

  Alric tossed him a hate-filled stare.

  Rusuto laughed. “I thought you might feel that way.” He pulled his hands behind his back. He looked like a child who knew something that was important and a wonderful piece of blackmail. “You’ll never guess who is here, Alric.”

  The Head Macter grumbled, “I do not like games.” He stood up taking note of the coldness around his bare chest. Not only had he slept next to Nieves but he had done it without a shirt. It made his stomach twist with disgust at the possibility of her seeing his back—he snatched hold of the sheet and wrapped it around himself.

  “Hand me a shirt,” Alric barked to Rusuto.

  Rusuto moved his eyes between Alric and the chest of drawers. “What?”

  “Get me a shirt, Rusuto.” Alric didn’t like waiting.

  With a heavy sigh he gathered a white button-down shirt and tossed it to Alric. Rusuto tended to sing when he spoke—especially when he said, “Well, since you’re so eager to know I’ll tell you.”

  “Well?” snapped a woman’s voice. “Where the hell is my nephew?”

  Alric’s eyes widened considerably at the sound of her voice. “Aunty…”

  “Precisely!” Rusuto giggled. “Aunty has come. Aunty has come. Aunty!” He spun around like a child in a candy store. “I cannot believe she’s honored us with her presence.”

  “Nerd,” said a cool mellow voice of a woman. She leaned against the door draped from head to toe in black leather. On the tip of her nose rested of pair of sunglasses that matched well with her black layered hair. “You’ve always been the dork in the family.”

  Rusuto smiled with a wink. “You bet I am!”

  “Aunty?” Alric could not believe it—had she returned to the main house?

  She smirked before saying, “Nice to see you too, punk.”

  CHAPTER 13

  “He wasn’t always like that, you know?” Rusuto twisted the stem of a dying flower between his forefingers. For once his face looked serious. He seemed like the type to make a joke about everything until the right moment came around.

  This was one of those moments.

  Nieves was lying out on her stomach; her feet were still inside the room simply because the chain around her ankle would only stretch that far. Her arms were folded beneath her, elbows digging into the wood of the porch. She felt rather uncomfortable being in a kimono but she was getting by.

  “What do you mean?” she asked Rusuto.

  Rusuto looked up with a half given smile and replied, “Alric used to be a happy free spirited boy. It was his… parents who changed him. It was their abuse—their hatred.”

  Nieves knew abuse. But she felt there was a difference between a stranger’s abuse—Boris—and abuse by a loved one—Parents. She could hardly imagine her mother or father inflicting pain upon her. Maybe when she had done something bad they’d pop her on the butt. That seemed like nothing compared to what Rusuto began to explain.

  “The scars,” Rusuto stated bluntly. “They’ve never been kind enough to go away. It’s simply a reminder to Alric. When he was little Alric’s mother would slap him around and smile about it. She liked making Alric work around the house even though he was only a few years old. When he did something wrong she’d… lose herself mentally.”

  “Enough,” Nieves said, drawing away. “I can’t bear the thought.”

  Rusuto nodded his head. “Yes. I hadn’t a clue it was going on until we were older. I was a teen when I first learned the history of Alric. He never left the main house and never went to school with us. Meeting him was rare and it was usuall
y at family gatherings.”

  Nieves shook her head. There was a burning behind her eyes, an acidic feeling. “Oh, poor Alric. I had a feeling he was in a lot of pain but I would have never known.”

  Rusuto tossed the dead flower into the grass and sighed. “He has an older sister.”

  “He does?” Nieves didn’t remember hearing about that before. Alric had never mentioned any siblings not that he would. “Where is she now?”

  “When he was only eight years old, and she ten years of age, Sailles left to a boarding school.” He turned his eyes to Nieves with sympathy. “She left him there to deal with the torture by himself.”

  “He was alone…” Nieves gazed into the porch.

  Rusuto placed a hand on top of her head. “He doesn’t remember that. He knows it happened but he can’t recall the actual events—just things we’ve told him.”

  Nieves didn’t understand and Rusuto saw the confusion on her expression.

  “Alric couldn’t take the pain anymore.” His voice lowered as if he weren’t allowed to speak the next words. “Alric killed both his parents and the only person who ever tried to comfort him, a ten year old boy named Jared.”

  Nieves’s eyes widened and a breath of air rushed into her lungs. “What?”

  Rusuto nodded. “After that, Alric’s mind pushed away those memories destroying every trace from existence.”

  “Is that why he’s so abusive towards everyone?”

  Rusuto pulled his hands into the pockets of his pants. “No. Alric wants everyone to suffer the way he was forced to suffer. No one in the family tried to stop his pain yet everyone knew it was happening.”

  “That’s horrible!” screamed Nieves.

  Rusuto gave a smile. “I know. He’s so mean.”

  “What?” Nieves pounded her hand against the wood of the porch. “No! I mean it’s horrible that no one tried to stop Alric’s parents!”

  “Oh.” Rusuto paused for a moment then turned his attention to her. “Yes. I suppose you’re right.”

  Nieves turned away from him and the setting sun. “To think he was born into pain. Not to mention he’s lived through pain since then.” Her eyes leaked heavily with tears. “Now he’s going to die and he never knew what happiness was.” Nieves couldn’t stop herself, even when she tried to end her sobs. The more she tried to stop weeping the more she wept.

  Rusuto sighed, gathering the girl into his arms. He softly muttered—too soft for her to hear, “Yes. But that’s why you’re here.”

  †

  Alric walked about the path of the garden. Heavy gray clouds were already heading their way—not the normal soft gray skies that usually come with winter. These were clouds that held snow, clouds that signaled the end of Alric’s days.

  “Why did you come here?” asked Alric, all too dryly.

  Aunty walked in a relaxed posture, thumbs hooked around the chains of her leather pants. “It’s your birthday,” she said with a shrug of a shoulder. “Why else would I bother coming here? Those old wraiths couldn’t keep me out forever.”

  They both stopped their advance along the path.

  Alric remembered that night—he’d awoken in her arms. It was a cold icy night but his aunt’s arms were warm and tranquil. The elders were yelling, enraged about something. But Aunty stood her ground, yelling just as hard. He remembered the look of terror in their eyes at the sight of him—Demon, they would whisper under their breath. They wanted to kill the Demon with all their hearts.

  Aunty stopped them. She reminded them that Alric could not be touched unless they wanted to die from the evils of the curse. Alric couldn’t die until the first snow of his twenty-first birthday.

  Instead, the elders forced her off the Macter land—exiled her very existence.

  “Oh, god.” She pulled off her sunglasses with anger to reveal stunning blue eyes. “I was never good at sappy stuff, you know that. And hell, I tried my hardest to take care of you. I would have taken you away from this place if the curse hadn’t stopped me.”

  Alric remembered that night too. She tried to pass him through the north gate into the city but the curse had grabbed hold of his body—it had pulled him with the strength that could be compared with nothing in existence.

  “So, you’re here to tell me this?” Alric asked. “Well, I already knew that.”

  Aunty raised her hand and slapped his across the side of Alric’s face. “Don’t give me attitude.”

  Alric eyes widened a moment then relaxed. She was the only person he would ever allow to hit him. He gave a weak smile and turned his head away.

  “What happened to that sweet kid I knew?”

  Alric replied, “He’s dead.”

  “Dumb-ass,” she blurted. “You’ve wasted your entire life sulking in that house.”

  His mind wondered around trying to recall who those words sounded like. Then he remembered Nieves and how she yelled at him for being so childish. For acting like he was already dead when he was still alive and breathing.

  He turned his head away, tilted it and rolled his eyes down to the main house. He could see his room through the flowerless branches. Nieves was on the porch listening intently to Rusuto about something that must have been important—because Rusuto hardly ever had a serious face.

  “Thinkin’ about that girl?” asked his aunt.

  Alric pried his eyes away and gawked at Aunty. “Simply wondering the best way to watch her die.”

  Aunty let her hand fly hard against Alric’s face yet again. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “How dare…” Alric yelled then paused. He’d lost his composure for a split second. This was Aunty and he couldn’t allow himself to yell at her. She was important.

  “Tch.” Aunty turned away from him. “You’re just like your parents. All you ever think about is hurting people. Those bastards might have hurt you in ways you’ll never be normal again. But still, Alric, you don’t have to be like them.”

  He ground his teeth together and started to walk away. “She’s said similar things to me. Every time I hurt her that girl never stops trying to help me.”

  Aunty smirked, following after him. “And?”

  “And I want her dead,” Alric replied.

  She snatched hold of his arms and forced him to turn around. “Stupid fool. Stop pushing everyone away from you. Don’t you get it? There are some people out there who care about you. Me being one of them.”

  Alric moved his attention to an empty space on the dirt path. He couldn’t stand looking her in the eye.

  “Stop being such a jerk,” she barked. “From what I hear she needs you too.”

  His attention snapped to her and froze.

  “Stop acting like your parents towards her and start acting like…”

  Alric smirked. “You?”

  “Hell yeah.” Aunty laughed, pulling Alric into her arms. “You’re my nephew, Alric. I might not have been here a lot but I’m here now.”

  He slid his eyes closed and absorbed her warmth—the same warmth that embraced him on the night he murdered his parents. It was the same warmth that took him in even while everyone else called him a Monster and a Demon. Aunty was finally back on Macter land and there to be a mother to him—something he never had.

  CHAPTER 14

  “You’re having one,” Aunty said bluntly. “And that’s final.”

  Alric glowered at her across the table, almost wishing he could strike her down with a bolt of lightning. Aunty wasn’t a Cursed-One so his powers over her were zilch. She’d already insisted on unchaining Nieves which was a drawback on his future torture. Nieves was even given a room of her own. The arrival of his aunt put major blockades on his plans.

  Then again, if Nieves tried to leave the Macter land he would enjoy demonstrating a little of his power. He could hardly wait to see the look of surprise and terror on her face when the time came about.

  “Alric!” Aunty bellowed, tossing the outer shell of a shrimp at him. “Are you even listening t
o me?”

  He swallowed down his anger and gave a forced smile. “Yes. Of course.”

  “Then what did I say?”

  “Well.” He thought, “Maybe I should have listened after all.” He turned his eyes to Nieves who was sitting a little crouched at her end of the table. Her shoulders were slouched as if she wanted to shrink away from Aunty’s view.

  Alric smiled and turned back to Aunty. “Why don’t you spend time with Nieves tomorrow?”

  Nieves’s eyes were surely widening, Alric thought.

  Aunty let her face change into an expression of ‘Are you stupid?’ but for some reason it slowly moved into something calmer and more sweet—something that was new for the hardcore Aunty. “I guess. Who knows, she might become part of this family.”

  "What is she suggesting," Alric growled wishing he could blurt it out loud.

  The door slid open, scraping lightly against the floor. “Aunty,” muttered a soft child’s voice. Alric knew the voice belonged to Eliza even before she came running through the doors to galumph Aunty. Jacob as usual followed slowly behind her, being sure to remain silent as possible.

  Rusuto walked in with a smile on his face. “Guess who I brought?” he joyfully sang the words.

  “Let me guess,” Alric said dryly. “The whole god forsaken family.”

  “Uh…” Rusuto stood their dumbfounded. “No. But I’m sure if you give me time I could round everyone up in the large gazebo. Then again it is rather chilly outside and we wouldn’t want anyone to catch a cold.”