by Emma Hamm
“Go ahead,” he encouraged. “They’re just as much yours as they are mine.”
“It feels wrong.”
They weren’t really hers. Well, they were hers, but not Lydia’s. Reading Sil’s words felt like prying.
But she couldn’t stop herself from reaching for a leather bound book. She chose the thinnest volume she could find, turned it over in her hands to feel the supple quality, the give of the binding, and the smoothness of gold leaf lettering.
“Volume one hundred and sixteen,” she read aloud.
“A personal favorite of mine,” Pitch replied.
Lydia shivered. What sort of book was this dark man’s favorite?
Curiosity won against the voice screaming in her mind to put the book down. She flipped open the first pages and started in the center of the book.
Yet how shall I describe falling in love with the night sky? He is both sanity and madness. Beauty and loathsome. He frightens me and yet I find I cannot breathe when I leave him.
He is the darkness inside of me. He is the beast which unfurls inside my breast at nightfall. To love him would be to love the perilous things I long for.
And yet…
I wish to see him. I wish to feel him. The smell of roses, the softness of his unmarred hands, the hymn of his beastly yearning….
She snapped the book shut. Her cheeks burned and her heart beat against the cage of her ribs.
This was a dangerous path to walk. Lydia should not step in this direction, she knew that even as her mind projected the image of Pitch on his knees before her.
She could not. And yet...
The ghost of the other woman’s voice rang in her ears as she looked toward the doorway. He lingered in the shadows which pulled at his arms and hair like strands of ink that floated around him.
Pitch, a man made of darkness who touched her softly when she was ill.
Lydia licked her lips and took the plunge. “This is your favorite?”
“It was the first moment she realized she loved me.”
“This is her declaration of love?” She waved the book at him. “This thin little volume?”
“There were more important things to her than our love.”
“Oh,” her voice was thin. “That’s rather sad, isn’t it?”
“In the grand scheme of things, it was how it needed to be.”
His shoes clipped the ground as he strode to her. His breath fanned across her face as he leaned down. She feared he would devour her. But all he did was pluck the book from her hands and gently slide it back into its place.
“This is not where you should begin,” he said. He walked two shelves down and pulled out a much larger book. “I have found starting at the beginning assists in understanding the story.”
“That is usually where people start,” Lydia’s eyes narrowed as she watched a strange expression cross his face. It was both dark and light. “What is it?”
“She told me once that we were starting in the middle of our story,” he murmured. “Perhaps now I am understanding why.”
Pitch handed her the thicker volume. It was chocolate leather, engraved with thorny vines. She traced the pattern with a finger before catching his gaze.
“Why?”
An arched eyebrow was his response.
She tried to find the right words. “Why are you having me read her story? Why do you want me to know these things?”
“So you understand.”
“What should I understand that you cannot tell me yourself? Reading through her personal diaries seems... wrong.”
He rounded the chair and pushed her to the back of the room. A large desk swallowed the space, framed by a circular window that peered into the shadowed and snowy yard. Soft cushions and a thin stream of light were to be her reading nook, so it seemed.
He didn’t give her a chance to speak. His arms scooped underneath her legs and behind her shoulders, pulled her out of her chair, and deposited her into the nest of pillows.
“Do you need anything else?” he asked her.
“What if I don’t want to read?”
Pitch leaned down and brushed a strand of white hair behind her ear. His fingers lingered and warmth spread like wildfire from the single point of contact. “You do.”
With that, he strode from the room.
“Men,” she grumbled as she flipped the pages of the book. “Ordering me around like I can’t make my own decisions.”
Lydia eyed the wheelchair. If she had been a little more stubborn, she might have slid onto its cushions and retreated to her room. But the book in her hands seemed to sing of hidden secrets and lost moments.
She groaned.
“I should not be reading another woman’s diary about falling in love with a man made of shadows!” Lydia blinked a few times. “On second thought, that isn’t that far off from a fairytale.”
The book held answers for her. She worried her bottom lip as she stared down at it.
“Oh fine,” she grumbled.
Curiosity had always been her greatest downfall. Lydia licked her thumb, flipped a page, and read.
Chapter 5
Line by line, she devoured the secrets which lay within the pages. A word here and there glowed. Golden dust rose from the words until it spilled out of the book into her lap like fog from the ocean.
“What?” she murmured to herself.
Her hands smoothed over the vellum pages, but found no trace of rune or etched spell. The book was not ensorcelled.
She recognized this magic. It was the same as the web of time in her mind although these strands were golden rather than silver. Her brows furrowed as she tentatively reached out.
Her chest clenched as though she were about to do something wicked and forbidden. Perhaps she was. This diary contained the innermost thoughts of a woman long dead. Prying like this was…
She shook her head. Over-thinking was useless.
In her mind’s eye, Lydia reached forward and grasped the strand of time firmly. She steadied herself with a deep breath and tugged hard.
Being disconnected from her body was impossible to describe. Everything simultaneously stopped and began. No longer limited by flesh and bone, she could create and destroy with a single thought.
Lydia could travel any lifeline she wished. Rich or poor, powerful or weak, no future was off limits. Time was the ultimate playground.
The golden thread tangled all around her, thrumming with pleasure. The deep aching call a request she could not resist. Lydia melted into the golden light and immersed herself in the magic.
She fell to her knees beside a lake. If this had been reality, her knees would be bruised and her palms bleeding. Jagged edges of stone jutted into her skin. The water lapping at their rough peaks had not softened their knife-like points.
Lydia licked her lips and pushed her corporeal body to a standing position. At least here she could still use her legs. Pale strands of her long hair tangled across her arms and in the tines of her antlers.
“Where am I?”
The water of the lake glowed bright green. The rough stones surrounding it were speckled with white and blue. Trees that looked like men held their arms to the sky.
She blinked as the tree nearest to her shifted.
“Good lord,” she whispered.
The distinct shape of a woman was carved into one of the trees. Voluptuous curves made of birch bark molded beneath an impossibly beautiful face. Her arms raised high while yellow leaves burst into color all around her hands and through her hair.
A real Dryad, Lydia realized as tears pricked her eyes. She never thought she would have the pleasure of seeing them in their true form. Now here she stood within an entire forest of Dryads and Ents.
Soft humming swelled in the air. The sound started with a light melody joining with guttural bases.
They were singing to each other.
Birch women lifted their voices to the heavens with bird-like song. Oak men called back with rhythmic b
eats of ancient stone beneath mountains. Willow women’s haunting melody echoed across the lake as their brethren sang.
Tears fell down Lydia’s cheeks. Her soul fairly flew with the beauty swirling in the air all around her. This memory was now hers as well.
A tingle of static danced down her spine. Lydia turned so quickly that the wind whistled in the prongs of her horns.
Streaks of color burst into view. It looked like a tear made by claws, hovering in the air. Thousands of riotous colors glittered in the marks as they grew wider, eventually coalescing into a round portal.
Lydia watched with rapt attention as a delicate foot parted the colors. The toes spread before touching the ground. All at once, the rest of the woman’s body plunged through the portal and into the symphony of song.
The air in Lydia’s lungs whooshed out of her chest. So this was Sil. This paragon of a woman who had been her predecessor.
They shared signature antlers, but that was where the similarities ended. Where Lydia’s hair was white, Sil’s was metallic strands of the finest silver. Where Lydia’s skin sparkled in the sunlight, Sil was light.
The other woman was impossibly tall. She was easily seven feet with a curved body that would have made even a priest sin. Silk fabric fell from her shoulders in twin waterfalls, tied at her waist, pooling at her feet.
Lydia had never seen such a woman before. A Goddess, Pitch had called her. If there were such a thing as a Goddess in other dimensions, this woman was one of them.
Twinkling diamonds hung in strands from the prongs of Sil’s antlers. They caught the sunlight and fractured it into hundreds of colors that danced all around her. Her face was perfectly sculpted with high cheekbones, incredibly full lips, and slanted eyes almost too large for her face.
It was the look of wonder that resounded within Lydia’s own chest. Sil may be beautiful, but something as simple as a song made her breathless.
“How wonderful,” Sil’s voice sounded like bells. “How incredibly wonderful.”
Lydia agreed. Her eyes devoured the woman who glowed like the sun. Lydia was a mere candle to Sil’s beauty.
Sil raised a graceful hand with fingers dipped in silver to cover her mouth.
A rustling in the brush had Lydia turning on her heel. Fear made her heart thunder even though it was a memory. She could not be harmed in this vision, but Sil could.
There were more trees behind them. Lydia hadn’t noticed them before. These tall goliaths felt different from the singing oaks across the lake. There were no faces carved into their trunks, nor were they answering the call of their kind.
They were silent and foreboding. A shiver danced down her spine as she eyed the shadows clinging to branches in inky strands. She imagined the soft snicking sound of spider legs crawling through the black leaves.
“Who’s there?” Sil called out.
Lydia looked up to see determination set the Goddess’s face into hard lines. She was both terrifying and cruel in that moment. Gone was the warmth which had made her so lovely. Instead, a cold hardness had taken its place.
“I should ask the same of you,” the satiny voice crawled from the shadows. “Who dares step foot into our dimension without permission?”
Lydia’s eyes widened. She knew that voice. She would know it anywhere as it had haunted her dreams for months. Perhaps even years.
He was here already?
And yet, she could not find the familiar lithe form. Neither, apparently, could Sil.
“I do not speak to those who hide in the darkness,” Sil’s voice was harsh and cutting.
“Oh, but I am darkness.”
A shadow detached itself from the base of a tree. More peeled away from every surface until a great cloud of gloom gathered. With lumbering movements, it floated toward them. He was a rolling thunderstorm with lightning sparks shimmering inside his depths. He loomed over them as billows convulsed at the edge of the dead forest.
“You do not intimidate me, creature.”
“Speak!” Angry roils of black ink punctuated his shout.
“I do not speak to those without a face.”
“You wish a face in the darkness? A nightmare to add to your stories of this realm?” Lydia trembled as he chuckled. “Then you shall have it.”
A face formed in the murky mass. It pained her to see the familiar features, so painfully elegant, twisted with such rage. He leaned closer to Sil, hidden within a tangled coil of shadows.
“I have no fear of you,” Sil declared.
“Why are you here?”
“To discover. To learn.”
“Lies.”
Sil hissed. “I do not lie!”
“I was born of lies, little moon. I know when untruths drip from your tongue.”
Lydia had not expected this. Pitch spoke as if he had loved Sil his entire life. This was not the fairytale she had dreamed.
There was pure hatred in Sil’s eyes. It vibrated through her entire being until she was glowing red hot. Pitch pulled his shadows, expanding until he blotted out the dead forest.
“You dare to speak to me in such a way?” Sil shouted.
“I do!”
“I am a Goddess!”
“And I am a God!”
Lydia reeled away from them. Her feet caught over each other and she fell onto her hands and knees.
Let the Gods argue as they wished. Her mind fragmented into pieces of disbelief and shock.
God? He was a God?
She peered over her shoulder at the quivering mass of shadows and realized the truth. Pitch. He was no mere mortal man. She had always known that.
But she had taken his word that he was a Trickster. She had read about their species that long ago they had come into the human world to make themselves gods among men. But the God?
The darkness in him meant that he was not one of the Five she knew. Not one of the light which had guided them from this cruel dimension and into the human realm. He was one of the lost. One of the other Five, whom no one spoke of.
“You are infinitely more dangerous than I gave you credit for,” she murmured as he continued to scream at Sil. “Far more than I could have imagined.”
His angular face, even in the many shadows, was still stunning. Gloriously angry and increasingly agitated, he was a force to be reckoned with. And Sil did not show fear.
She stood before him in a beacon of light, her silken wrappings fluttering in the wind. Her power met his and held. Two unearthly beings locked together for eternity.
Lydia’s eyes burned as the light flared ever brighter and the trees fell silent. All she could hear was the ragged sound of her own breath. They had exhausted themselves, or so it seemed.
Knees aching, back throbbing, stomach nauseous, she looked up to find that the two gods were staring at each other with equal interest.
Sil was the first to break the silence. “You are an even match for me.”
“I could say the same for you.”
“There are none in my dimension who are my equal.”
Pitch’s shadows began to pull together. “And yet, there are many here who could do so.”
“Is that the truth? Or is that a half lie?”
He shrugged. “How many is ‘many’?”
“More than ten I would say.”
“Then there are not many.”
Lydia could hear the huff of breath from Sil. “That is not an answer.”
“I do not know you, Goddess. Nor do you know me.”
“I believe I would like to.”
“Would you?”
The shadows pulled until there was some semblance of form. Lydia could not see him as he was, waiting in the shadows of her bedroom as a man. This form was impossibly large. He still loomed above the seven-foot woman. Shadows made his body seem in constant movement as the wind brushed past and dissolved his semi solid form.
“You are curious,” Sil told him. “Unlike anything I have ever seen before.”
“You are light. I have d
estroyed things such as you my entire life.”
“Why would you do that?” Sil’s head cocked to the side. “Light does not exist without darkness. And darkness is bleak without light.”
Pitch’s face crumpled in confusion. “I-I-”
“You don’t have to understand it now. Someday you will.”
Sil’s hands fluttered in small movements until she pressed them against her skull. Her eyes flew open with a shocked expression as she whispered a quiet, “Oh.”
Lydia somehow knew, deep in her gut, Sil was having a vision. And one which would change the course of her life forever.
The goddess of light stepped forward until she could reach her hand out to Pitch. Her long fingers trailed down his newly created cheek with a reverence that made Lydia blush.
“It’s you,” Sil’s voice softened to a quiet trickle. “It was always you.”
Pitch’s eyes widened, but he tilted into the gentle touch as though he had never been caressed. “What?”
“We meet in the middle,” Sil told him. “And for that I am infinitely sorry. But I have been searching for you my entire life, dear one. I look forward to seeing you again.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What is your name?”
“I do not have one,” he told her firmly. “Names are for creations. Not for creators.”
“Then I shall call you… Pitch.” Sil’s eyes wandered to the dead forest behind them. “For like this environment, you will be the sap which holds together all wounds. Both mine, and yours.”
Lydia’s heart broke as Sil stepped away. Not because the moment was beautiful in itself, but because she saw Pitch’s face as Sil turned her back on him.
She saw every muscle twitch as he shattered into a thousand pieces. She saw every bit of him ache for the fleeting comfort she had freely given. And in that moment, she knew without a doubt that he had never experienced kindness.
He pulled the shadows around himself like a blanket and disappeared into the murky darkness of the forest. He cast one lingering glance at the woman made of light who had so obviously impacted him. His eyes were large and luminous, reflecting a thousand stars hidden deep within their depths.