by Tim Baer
"How did ye know?" asked Maeve, looking up into her ma's eyes.
Her ma lifted her bangs and pointed to a small scar on her own forehead. "I did that long afore I met yer da," she said. "I was not much older than ye." She went back to dabbing the dirt and blood off of her daughter's cuts and scrapes.
"Devlin," she called up to her husband in the loft after a few moments. "Toss me down some clean clothes for Maeve." Clothing came down, landing with a thup as it hit the floor. Adara quickly dressed her daughter.
"Ma," said Maeve. "I think it were the beastie what brung me home," she said, her eyes wide and solemn.
"Hush," said her ma. "I'll ha' none o' that talk."
"But ma, I dinna remember comin' home. Someone had to carry me. I fainted!"
Adara looked up at her husband as he came down the ladder. "Somethin' brought her home," he said. "It wasn't ye, nor me." He held out one hand with the long, silky black hairs in it. "Recognize them?" he asked.
"No," said his wife, shaking her head. "Should I?"
"They are all o'er her bed," said her da. "Looks like summat curled up wi' her."
His wife's eyes opened wide in shock. "In bed with her?" she gasped. Devlin nodded. "Ye barred the doors an' windows last night, yes?"
"No. I left the door unbarred. Maeve was still out when we stopped searchin'," he said, frowning.
***
That evening he made sure the door was barred, and the windows were nailed shut. "What about the flue to the chimney?" asked Adara.
"If I block that I'll ha' to put out the fire," he said.
His wife shook her head. "Still too cold at night for that." She sighed. Glancing up at the loft where their daughter was sleeping, she scowled. "Saints preserve us; if anyone—thing—touches a hair on her head, I will..." She let the rest of the deprecation dwindle off, unspoken.
"Should we stay up?" he asked.
"I dinna know. I'm so tired from being out lookin' for her last night." She paused. "An' what if summat do try to come in?"
Devlin walked over and picked up his axe. "We'll be discussin' what it's been doin' wi' me daughter," he said, his jaw muscles clenched.
***
Maeve felt something get into the bed with her. She drew in a breath, preparing to scream, but the something wrapped its soft arms around her.
"Mi iarda," murmured her ma into her hair. Maeve relaxed and snuggled up tighter to her ma's chest. She fell back to sleep.
It was still dark when she opened her eyes. Right in front of her face were two glowing red eyes. She reached behind herself to shake her ma awake. The eyes blinked. Briefly she felt the urge to smile at the blinking eyes, but something that felt like a cross between a paw and a hand caressed her jaw. The touch pulled away and the eyes closed.
"Ma?" whispered Maeve, shoving her ma's sleeping form with her bottom. "Ma!"
"Maeve, wha' is it?" asked her ma in a groggy voice.
"It be here. It looked at us. It touched me face!"
Her ma lunged out of the bed, bellowing for her husband, as she struggled to light a candle. Maeve could hear her da's feet pounding up the ladder.
"What?" he yelled, brandishing his axe. "Where is it? Come out, evil beastie! Show me yer head! I will be curin' all that ails ye!"
Maeve sat in the bed, her blankets wrapped tight around her body, her knees drawn up to her chin, as her ma and da searched all over the sleeping loft.
"Devlin," said her ma, pointing at the mattress in front of where Maeve's face had been. Long, silky black hairs had been rubbed off on the bedding. Her da got down on his hands and knees, peering beneath the bed.
"I know ye be in here," he growled. "Come out now an' I'll make yer death quick." He slashed his axe under the bed, but did not connect with anything. Peering up at his wife he shook his head.
"How is it gettin' in an' out?" she asked him.
"I dinna know, Adara. But in it has been," he said, holding up another tuft of the hair he'd pulled from beneath the bed.
Shaking her head, Adara gathered her daughter up in her arms. "Ye'll be sleepin' with us for quite some while, I am believin'," she murmured, her lips pressed into Maeve's hair.
***
Maeve slept in her parents' bed for almost a month with no further visits from the red eyes. She had all but forgotten about them when she climbed back into her own bed in the loft one night.
*Creak* went the one loose board on her floor. Maeve sat bolt upright in her bed, her eyes wide in horror as she stared into the dark, trying to find the source of the noise.
There! Over by the edge of the loft—two dim red eyes. She took a deep breath, preparing to scream, when the eyes blinked. The scream turned into a giggle. She couldn't help herself. Those evil, glowing red eyes were not supposed to blink. Blinking was funny.
"What are ye, then?" she asked in a voice barely above a whisper. The eyes blinked again, and she found herself rolling around in her bed, laughing while clutching her belly, trying to keep her laugh soft enough to not awaken her parents.
"Come here," she whispered, patting the end of the bed by her feet. The eyes blinked again, and began to draw closer to her. She could hear the sound of claws scrabbling on the wooden floor. "There's a goo' boy," she said in a soothing tone as the eyes drew nigh. She pulled back onto her pillows as the eyes reached the foot of her bed and began to rise up. She could feel the end dip down from the weight of . . . something. She could still only see just the eyes. But they were not glowing quite so red now. In fact, the glow was diminishing.
Gathering her courage, she put out a hand and reached over the eyes and down. She felt . . . fur . . . and large, pointed ears.
"Soft," she murmured, smiling as she stroked the ears. The eyes turned to slits, and a deep rumbling emanated from beneath them as she stroked the soft fur from the area in the dark between the ears. "Don' move," she said. "Please." She reached over to where her ma had left a candle, along with an ember in a tin box just in case she needed a light in the night. She dipped the candle into the box, poking the wick against the ember. It slowly fizzled into bright life. She held the candle up and gasped.
It wasn't a dog. It wasn't a wolf. It wasn't a bear. It wasn't one of the great cats. It was all of them together, and it was none of them at all. It had a medium length muzzle similar to the bears. It had the long pointed ears like a wolf. It had long tufts of hair on the tips of the ears like those of the lynx.
But the eyes—they were not red. They were . . . not an animal's eyes. They were a mix of green and brown, with flecks of gold throughout. They were strangely human.
"What are ye, boy?" asked Maeve. The creature cocked its head to the left as she spoke, making her chuckle. "Are ye a boy?" She leaned over and tried to see if it had boy bits as she'd seen on the neighbor's dogs. She couldn't tell from all the long, silky, black hair hanging down beneath the creature's belly. She put her hand up to its muzzle. It gently sniffed her fingers, then licked the back of her hand. Gaining courage, she touched its nose. It was warm and dry. She went back to stroking the fur on its head, occasionally caressing its ears. "So soft," she cooed.
The creature started as the sounds of her parents moving about down below reached up to the loft. In a flash, it jumped down off the bed, ran at the wall—and disappeared.
Maeve blinked, still looking at the location on the wall where it had disappeared. There was nothing to mark where the creature had gone. Not a spot. Not a crack. Not a smudge. She had been looking right at the beastie when it got to the wall. There had been no ripple. No door opening. Nothing. The creature had reached the wall, and then it was not.
She went back over to her bed and began carefully picking up all the long, black hairs, stuffing them in the bottom of a pocket.
"Maeve, why is yer candle lit?" called her ma from down below. Maeve gave a guilty jump.
"I . . . I thought I heard summat. It be gone now," she said, blowing out the flame and crawling back under her blankets. Her eyes still wide
open, she stared hard at the darkness where she thought the beastie had fled, hoping the eyes would return. They had not by the time she fell asleep.
***
"How did ye sleep, li'l one?" her ma asked the next morning.
"Good," said Maeve as she ate her porridge.
"No more noises?"
Maeve shook her head, chewing on her porridge.
"Naught touched ye?"
Maeve shook her head again, stuffing another spoonful into her mouth. Her ma peered at her daughter, cocking one eyebrow up. "Why do I get the inklin' that ye are not tellin' me everythin'?" She watched as her daughter quietly shoveled the last of her breakfast into her mouth, wiping her lips with the back of one hand.
"May I go play?" Maeve asked, tilting over the bowl to show her ma that it was, indeed, empty.
"Yes, mi iarda," she sighed. "Go play." She frowned, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms on her chest for a moment as she watched her daughter dash outside. After the door closed behind Maeve with a clack, Adara stood, turned to the ladder leading to the loft, and climbed it.
She peered about the loft looking for anything out of the ordinary. She looked under the bed first, then on it. She picked up the blankets and shook them out, looking for rips, or fur falling out of it. Nothing. She began to pace the loft, gazing about, hoping that something would stand out, yet at the same time dreading that something would.
There was a small smudge on one wall. She knelt down by it and put her face level with it. No stray hairs or fur were on it, or beneath it. She sighed, then sniffed it. Nothing.
She stood, shaking her head. "Summat ain't right," she muttered. "Summat."
***
That night her ma and da stood staring up at the receding bottom of their daughter as she fairly raced up the ladder into her loft. Her da turned to her ma and raised one eyebrow. "An' what is up with yon bairn?"
Adara shook her head, turning away and beginning to clean up the dishes from dinner. "Summat ainna right up there. I c'n feel it in me bones." She stopped picking up the dishes, straightening up her frame as she wiped her hands on a towel. "She come down this morn an' . . . I dinna know. Summat ha' been up there with her." She held up a hand as Devlin began to speak. "No. No proof. I found naught. But I can feel it . . . in me gut."
Devlin cocked an eyebrow again. "Ye be wantin' me to go up an' check?"
Adara planted her fist on her hips. "An' ye be thinkin' ye c'n see what I c'nnot?" Devlin shrugged, then dodged as Adara threw the towel at his face. "Men!" she snorted.
***
I opened me eyes. I? I! I blinked, then marveled at the act. I marveled at the fact that I knew I was I. Before? Before there was . . . what? Nothin'? No, not nothin'. Somethin'. Urges. Primal urges. Hunger. A need t' feed. A need t' feed on, what? Terror. Before that? Before that was . . . then there was nothin'. I was not. Then I was. I was called forth. I was created. How? Terror. Terror made me. From whom? The child. The girl child. But it changed. What changed? Her terror. Fear. She feared not. She now . . . what? What was not fear? 'Twas stronger. 'Twas different. 'Twas warmer. Hotter. Fear was cold. Terror was colder. Terror an' fear fed me before. This difference was . . . hot. It fed me better. It gorged me. Different. Much different. Yet . . . better. Much, much better.
She had touched me. I be likin' that. I be likin' that very much. I crave more.
***
"Beastie?" whispered Maeve as she lay in bed, the darkness surrounding her after her parents went to bed. She listened hard for the sound of those claws on the wood floor of her loft. "Beastie!" she whispered again, this time just a wee bit louder. She sat up in her bed, the blanket clutched up to her throat against the chill of the night as she peered hard into the dark void. She saw no red glowing eyes. She saw no green-brown eyes. She saw no movement from a shadow passing before another shadow. "Beastie?" she called again, this time a wavering sadness in the call. "Where ha' ye gone, beastie?"
"Maeve, li'l one? Who are ye talkin' to?" called her ma from below in a soft voice.
Maeve gave a startled jump, flopping back supine in her bed, pulling the blankets up to her nose. "Nothin' ma," she fibbed. "I were talkin' to nothin'." She listened as her ma shuffled about down below for a few more minutes, before going back into her bedroom. Maeve gave a huge, racking sigh.
"Beastie," she whispered, barely audible. "I miss ye. Come back."
She fell asleep, tears trickling down her cheeks.
***
Something breathed against the side of her face. Her eyes flew open in joy. "Beastie!" she cried. "Ye came back!" The eyes leering down at her were not green-brown. They were reddish orange, and slitted. Angry eyes. Hungry eyes. Evil eyes. Hate-filled eyes. She gave a squeal of fright.
"Ye are not me beastie," she murmured. Something wet splattered against the bridge of her nose and began to run down into her left eye. It stank of rot.
Outside the tiny window, the clouds moved away from in front of the moon. Her room brightened just enough. The creature looming over here was not her soft beastie. This one was . . . pointed. Scaled. It had great, sharp fangs. It was black, blacker than the soft fur of her beastie. This was . . . evil. It began to reach out for her with its long, bony talons. She screamed.
Down below her parents' door slammed open. She heard her da scrambling up the ladder to her loft. The creature looked over its shoulder at the top of her da's head as it crested the loft, then back at Maeve. It hissed once at her, snapping its muzzle full of needle-like teeth in her face, then darted at the same spot on the wall that her beastie had fled to the other night. It disappeared with a pop.
"Maeve!" called her da. "What is it, me bairn?"
"'Twas evil! 'Twas scaly. It had claws, an' huge teeth! 'Twas going to eat me, I know it!" she cried, throwing her arms around her da's neck.
Devlin sniffed of his daughter. There was a stench to her that was not of her. "Adara!" he called, handing Maeve to his wife as she reached the loft. "Smell."
Adara sniffed her daughter. "What is that?" she asked her husband, her eyes going wide in horror.
"I dinna know," he replied.
Adara kept sniffing her daughter, finally centering on her face. "It be comin' from here," she said. "Light a candle."
Devlin went back down the ladder and quickly returned with a lit sconce. They shined it on Maeve's face, finding the spot where the wetness had dripped on her.
"It looks like saliva," said Devlin.
"Aye, but it smell like death," said Adara. She continued gripping her daughter to her chest as her husband once again searched the bedroom. "Naught?" she asked as he came back over to her. He shook his head. "Get me a rag to clean this off me child," she told him. He nodded.
"Ma, 'twas horrible," whimpered Maeve. "It hated me. An' I did naught to it!"
"Shh, mi iarda," her ma soothed, stroking her hair with one hand. "'Tis o'er now. Gone an' away." She took the dampened rag her husband handed her as he came back to the loft, gently wiping her daughter's face.
"But Ma—it will be back. I know't!"
"An' how ye be knowin' this?"
"It told me. Oh, not in words. No. It told me with its look."
***
The other had warned me not to return, that the girl-child twas its own now. I could tell. The feedin' was no longer hot. 'Twas cold. Her terror had returned. It had marked its territory wi' the taint o' her fear o' it.
'Twas not right. I felt . . . I felt? What was it I felt? Anger towards the other. She was mine! Not its. I felt . . . I felt feelin's towards her. What feelin's? A feelin' I had ne'er felt before. I had no word for it. No description. 'Twas a feelin'. 'Twas warm—no, 'twas hot. It filled me. It engulfed me. It made me whole. It awakened me to thoughts an' feelin's I had ne'er perceived prior. It made me feel . . . alive.
T' other—it disapproved. It needed her terror to feed. I needed her—what was that feelin'?
I shook me head, the shaggy black fur around me face, neck, an' ear
s rustling with the effort. She stirred...
***
"Beastie!" she cried, sitting up, a huge smile lighting up her face. The shaggy black beastie was at the foot of her bed, its head cocked to one side as its green-brown eyes contemplated her. "Ye've come back to me!" She fairly threw off her covers and bounced down to the end of the bed, grabbing up the beastie's head in an embrace, her little arms wrapped tightly around its neck. Her face she buried in the silky fur just behind one ear as she began to sob. "I thought ye were gone. That other came in yer stead." She drew back from her embrace, fixing the beastie's eyes with her own gaze. "Beastie, it hates me!"
The shaggy black beastie whined. A simple, short note, but there was an empathy there.
"Ye don' hate me, do ye Beastie?" She peered deep into its eyes. "No. C'n see ye don'. Ye love me." She wrapped her arms around its neck, burying her face in its fur once again.
***
Love? Was that the word for the feelin'? I tasted it in me mind. I tasted it in me . . . where do feelin's come from? It seemed to dwell within me middle. An ache. A longin'. A need. Need for what? Her. Her happiness. Her joy. Her . . . love. Yes! That was the word. It tasted correct. 'Twas correct. It fit. 'Twas right. I love her.
The void opened an' its hatred began to ooze through. I knew what I had to do. I knew what was right. I knew 'twas me life for hers.
***
There was a hiss and the black scaly thing oozed through the rift in the wall. Maeve cowered back against her headboard, the beastie between her and the . . . thing. The thing's hatred was palpable. It was in the air as a scent, and as a tangible presence.
The beastie growled, low and guttural in the back of its throat, its soft pointed ears flattened against its skull. The scaly thing chortled, saliva dripping off its fangs and pattering against the floor. It took a step, making to go around the beastie. The beastie moved to intercept its path. The thing growled. Its growl was different from that of the beastie. It was menacing . . . evil . . . perverse . . . tainted.
Maeve gave a small whimper at the sound of the scaly thing's growl, watching in horror as it squared off with her own soft beastie.