Monstrous (Blood of Cain Book 1)

by J. L. Murray

  The children, a baker’s dozen of kids in ill-fitting clothes, hand-me-down corduroys and ugly shoes passed from neighbor to neighbor, had abandoned the trough, and I could see the apples still floating in the water that I knew was ice cold.

  “This wasn’t the moment, either,” said the raven. “The moment you changed.”

  “There wasn’t just one moment,” I said.

  “Don’t you think you should just accept it’s always been this way?” she said, crooning in my ear. “You’ve always been who you are.”

  “And who am I?” My eyes moved toward a tall, slim teenage girl, baggy dress not sufficient to hide her blooming womanhood, her cold beauty. Rebecca. I blinked and the scene changed. Black birds descended on the party, I could hear the sound of the children shrieking and running away as ravens cried, screaming at Becky as they landed in a circle around me, a perfect circle around the little girl who looked just as surprised as the others.

  “She was going to drown you in that horse trough,” the raven whispered.

  I blinked and Rebecca was watching me, her expression now one of fear as I stood laughing, a raven on each shoulder, pecking playfully at my fingers.

  “She was afraid of me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? Because of a bunch of birds?”

  “Come, Frankie,” said the raven. “You know it was more than just a bunch of birds. Look at yourself now. You’re talking to me, aren’t you?”

  “This isn’t real.”

  “It’s more real than you think.”

  “Are you going to answer my question, then?” I said. “Who am I?”

  “If you don’t know what it is inside of you, I’m afraid I can do very little to help.”

  “Inside of me?” I said. “Like a demon?”

  “Don’t be stupid. Think. You’ve always been different from them.”

  “Because I’m wicked. I’ve always been this way. I tried so hard, but I couldn’t be who they wanted.”

  “Because you’re more.”

  The raven flapped her wings, and when the feathers cleared, I saw the placid lake, reflecting a colorless sky, though I knew it had been deep sapphire that day.

  “No,” I said. “Not here. I can’t be here.”

  “Why haven’t you gone to the lake, Frankie? You could stop it. They told you enough. The bavuah―the reflections―told you it would all stop if you go to the lake.”

  “I can’t,” I said.

  “Why?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I just can’t.”

  “I know why.”

  I blinked and I could see us, frozen in time. My sister and me, Becky in mid-splash in the lake, and me, climbing a tree, looking nervous.

  “I buried them deep,” said the raven. “But he found them. He cracked open the universe to set them free.”

  “You buried who deep?”

  “My children,” she said. “And if you watch carefully, you can see my daughter. My sweet horror.”

  “What is this?” I said. “Who are you?”

  “Just a raven.” There was a coyness to her voice that hadn’t been there before. “Someone who understands.”

  “Understands what?”

  “The darkness inside you,” she said, flapping her wings. “In all its terror and beauty.”

  The scene changed. Black clouds filled the sky, turning a summer afternoon into the dead of night. I watched as the shape of a man emerged from the trees. Neither girl noticed him. But as he stepped from the shadows, I could see the horns, antlers that rose high off his head, spreading like bare branches from his dark hair. And the edge of the lake, touched by the tip of his shoe, began to freeze.

  “Who is that?” I said.

  “The first child of Earth,” said the raven. “The first killer.”

  The man walked out onto the water, each step freezing solid under his feet. He looked out to the shore when he got to the center of the lake. He looked right at the child nestled in the trees, watching her sister swim. I remembered the fear like claws around my heart. I couldn’t explain it at the time. But now I knew. We couldn’t see him then. Perhaps he was on another plane, as I was now. But as he watched me, surrounded by ravens on the branches of the pine tree, I saw his lips part in a smile.

  He set his focus under his feet. The lake was frozen solid in the middle now, a core of ice directly under the place where he stood. He crouched down and spread his fingers, splaying his hands atop the ice. For a moment, his eyes turned the same shade of white as the frozen lake beneath him.

  And then the crack. I remembered how the earth shook. The ice cracked apart, the man jumping aside, breathing hard as a hot wind rose up from the ground beneath the lake, blowing his long hair out of his eyes. He turned, panting, his breath coming like fog. He stopped when he saw me.

  He saw me.

  Not the vision of me as a child, screaming for her sister to come out, shrieking right along with the birds. But at me, standing here, but not really here. The man with the horns smiled, his teeth too white, then he looked at the little girl. The ice shook and I saw his feet begin to sink into the lake, the ice melting, and he moved steadily back toward the woods, sliding and slipping in spots, soaking wet up to his knees by the time he reached the shore. Then he turned and watched the girls who had come to cool off on a hot day.

  I watched as I screamed at Becky, as my sister froze, unable to move. I watched as the wings, made first of water, then more solid, rose above the water. I watched as Rebecca accepted her fate. I watched as she sank to the bottom of the lake. I watched as she died.

  And I watched as I walked on water.

  There was no ice under my feet. There were no logs or stones to stand on. I watched as the child Frankie Mourning set her grubby, bare feet on the surface of the lake and the water held her. I tried to run toward my sister and the water rose up. My small body went flying, hitting the trunk of the very tree I’d been climbing.

  “Jesus, how did I survive that?”

  “Now you’re asking good questions,” said the raven.

  “How did I do that? How did I walk on the water?”

  “You’re the preacher’s daughter,” said the raven. “You know the story about walking on water.”

  “No,” I said. “This isn’t some Christ story.”

  “No, it’s not,” said the raven. “Jesus didn’t have near as much darkness in him. Though I think people underestimate how much he did have.”

  I stepped to the lake, tentatively setting a boot on the surface. I put my weight on it and the surface held.

  “It wasn't real,” I said. “It was a dream I had. That’s what my father said.”

  “Your father said many things,” said the raven. “And then he died.”

  “You’re saying he was lying?”

  “No,” said the raven. “I’m saying he was just a man. But you’ve always been more.”

  “More than a man?”

  “More than human.”

  I stepped out onto the lake with both feet, stepping gingerly across, like walking on thin ice as a child. The water under my feet gave a little with each step, but held my weight. I reached the center of the lake and looked down into the center. Into the darkness.

  There was a crack, in the water and in the ground beneath. I could see mossy logs, still waterlogged, but there was hot air coming from a deep gorge in the stone bottom, a rift that went deeper than I could wrap my mind around. And something was slithering towards it. The creature I’d seen that day, its skin like a fish’s belly, eyeless and sharp-toothed, reached its webbed fingers into the rift, as if testing the water in a swimming pool. It reached its arm up to the shoulder into the crack in the bottom, then screeched in frustration.

  “Is it...is it trying to go back?” I said.

  “She was ripped from her home.”

  “You said your children,” I said. “Are you saying this is one of yours?”

  “Darkness seems ugly on its face,” said t
he raven. “But when you look deep and long into the dark, you see the beauty of it. Monsters become beautiful, and you see the grace of the unseen—the forgotten, the rejected, the abhorred. But the longer you look into the light, the more monsters you see. They just lack the depth of creatures accustomed to the dark. Why are you here, Frankie?”

  “It wasn’t my choice. I was forced to come.”

  “Wasn’t it a choice, though?” The raven raised her beak to the sky. “Perhaps you were drawn here. Perhaps you came because you felt it, too.”

  “Felt what?” I said. “What the hell are you talking about? Jesus. I’m talking to a bird.”

  “You and I both know I am not really a raven,” she said. “Just as we both know you are not simply a woman. You are mine and I am yours, and all of my kind belong to you. They obey you. And in turn, you obey them.”

  I stopped, looking down at the horrifying monster at the bottom of the lake. It was making pitiful sounds, like a wounded animal. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see myself, the child Frankie Mourning, standing on the surface of the lake, legs spread, arms out, blood dripping down my face where I’d hit my head on the tree.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” said the raven.

  “I don’t remember this,” I said, frowning. “I’m standing on water again.”

  “You’re standing on water now,” said the raven.

  “Yeah, but this isn’t real. It’s just a memory.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s not real.”

  I watched as the little girl stepped carefully across the water, tiptoeing as if play-acting as a ballet dancer.

  “Give her back to me,” the little girl said, her voice so un-childlike, so low and without innocence that it sent a shiver up my spine. “She’s mine.”

  The creature stopped mewling and stood then, rising up through the funnel in the water, raising its eyeless head, the water gathering once again to form wings, wrapping itself around the creature’s back. But something was happening to the child now. It was hard to connect this small figure to myself. I didn’t recognize her at all anymore. A raven came to sit upon her left shoulder, another on her right. A shadow passed overhead and I saw a dense black cloud of birds, all watching the girl.

  The creature was climbing up the wall of water now, using its long claws to grapple at the rift in the lake, fleshy and pale and angular and lumpy, it grasped its way atop the water and started for the little girl. But the child didn’t budge. Her yellow hair was wet and tangled with leaves and dirt, and the blood was drying tacky on her face.

  “Look at you,” said the raven. “Do you still think that you are changed?”

  “Shut up.”

  The creature was crawling toward the girl on awkward arms and legs that were too long, its skin shining.

  “She’s not yours,” said the girl.

  “Everyone is mine,” the monster said.

  “Not everyone,” said the girl. “Not me.”

  The creature hissed, opening its maw wider and wider, until it seemed like it would never stop. Impossibly wide, its sharp little teeth lining its wide mouth looking tiny as it stretched and moved its jaw wider and wider, crackling and popping. From inside its mouth came a shining, glistening like silver. And as it turned its head to scream across the lake, I saw what Rebecca had seen, and I knew why she thought this world was inside the monster.

  Resting in the creature’s mouth, blinking and peering around from within, were two eyes, shining and glistening a metallic silver and gold, winking a sheen of opalescent color.

  The monster’s eyes were mirrors. And its mouth was open an inch from the child’s face. I watched, transfixed, as the little girl who looked so much like me blinked calmly at the creature. Then she smiled a serene little smile. Innocence and piety were in that smile. I couldn’t remember ever looking that way. I couldn’t remember staring a monster down. But I must have.

  “I’ll take your eyes last,” said the girl, her voice level and unwavering. And then the ravens descended from the sky. Screeching and pecking at the creature, clawing its face, its fish belly skin. The monster closed its mouth to protect the eyes within, the ravens driving it back, colorless blood dripping from the wounds the birds were ripping and clawing into its soft skin. It retreated into the rift then and the birds drew back.

  I looked at the child, stunned. She looked pale, almost bloodless, and I could see it inside of her. Pumping through her like blood, jet black and without substance, I saw it coursing through her veins and her heart and pumping in her ears.

  Darkness. It had been sitting inside her – inside me – waiting.

  I watched as the little girl’s eyes rolled up into her head and she crumpled, falling to the surface of the water, the ravens cawing and exploding into different directions, leaving like they were flying as quickly as they could. Like they were flying away from something monstrous.

  For a moment it seemed as if the lake would hold her. But soon the girl began to sink, slowly submerging into the water. Then the man with the horns, the one who opened the rift and let the creature out, was there, pulling the child out of the lake. He held her in his arms, cradling her as he walked on top of the water, ice forming with each step to hold his weight.

  He carried me to the shore and leaned me against the tree. I watched as he smoothed tangled hair from my face.

  “You’re not strong enough yet,” I heard him say, and I recognized his voice. “But you will be. And then I will call you back to test you.”

  “Test me?” I said.

  “Hush,” said the raven.

  He stood, walking backward, as if unwilling to look away. Finally he turned, walking across the lake that was slowly turning to solid ice. As he approached the rift, he made a motion with his hand and the monster poked a wary head out.

  “Give me the child,” the horned man said.

  “Who are you to make demands?” the creature said.

  “I am your master, your savior who freed you.”

  “I didn’t want to be free. I was warm and safe. It is cold and wet and dangerous here.”

  “You will give me the child, Abomination. I have your mother. Obey or she will suffer.”

  The creature cringed away from him then, afraid.

  “Who is he talking about?” I said. “You?”

  The raven, for once, was silent. And as the man stood, waiting, the monster dived into the water and brought forth a body, lithe and beautiful and limp.

  “Becky,” I whispered.

  The man took my sister from the creature as it retreated. He set Becky’s body upon the ice. For a long time I thought she was dead. But then I saw her finger move. Then her toes. She opened her eyes, blinking at the sky. She turned her head to look at the man.

  “What am I?” she said, the words coming like Rebecca had marbles in her mouth. As though she’d forgotten how to speak.

  “You were a reflection, a bavuah,” said the man. “But now you are free. Do you want to be free?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come, stand by my side,” said the man, offering a hand to her. Becky stood on shaky legs, walking woodenly, stiffly.

  “How can this be?” Rebecca said. “How am I real?”

  “Because I opened the earth and set free something unholy. It is only the beginning. There will be many more. And you shall help me. Will you be my first? Will you become Harishona, Rebecca?”

  The thing that looked like my sister turned to him slowly, a cold smile spreading across her face.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Your task will be to protect the child,” he said, pointing to the unconscious Frankie, leaning against the tree. “You will want to kill, I think. You will refrain. Is that understood? The child is important.”

  “More important than me?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “She will be mine one day. She will be the one to kill my brother. And kill many more.”

  “I am yours.”


  “Of course you are,” he said. “I created you. She is...something else entirely. If you kill her, I will cut you open and make you eat your own innards.”

  Rebecca touched her stomach and looked surprised that she had such things inside of her.

  “I understand,” she said. “I will kill everyone else.”

  “Not yet,” he said. “In time we will call her back here. You may kill then. But not until I permit it. You may, however, mark a playmate of your choosing.”

  “I choose her,” said Rebecca, looking at the child.

  “No,” said the man, his voice harsh. “Not her. Anyone else.”

  “You love her more than me.”

  “I do not love at all,” said the horned man. “I am driven by something else entirely. Carried in the blood. Something wild and free and full of fury.”

  “What shall I call you?” said Rebecca.

  The horned man smiled. “My name is Cain.”

  The raven flapped her wings and the lake disappeared. My sister and horned man evaporated. I was standing under blue and gloomy light, looking up at an odd, crooked house, shining and black. It had no windows or door. I blinked, looking around. The mist was rolling again. The raven was still on my shoulder and I pushed it off. It landed gracefully on the ground with a flurry of black feathers, blinking beady eyes at me.

  “He’s real? Cain is fucking real?”

  “Of course he is. What did you think you were doing out in the world?”

  “I thought it was a story. A legend. A metaphor,” I said. “Shorthand, just a way to describe them. A flaw in their DNA. I didn’t think it was a real guy.”

  “He’s real,” said the raven. “He’s a monster.”

  “So am I. I’m a monster. Did you see what I did out there?” I said, crouching close to the ground so I could look at the raven closely. “I was just a little girl. What the fuck is happening?”

  “I assure you,” said the raven. “The children of Cain are real. It’s all quite literal. 'Blood of Cain' isn’t a myth. It’s a bloodline. A family.”

  “Is that who I’m working for? Cain?”

  “Oh, no. That’s another entirely.”

  “Who then?” I said with a dry laugh. “Abel?”