by T. Wyse
"You do have a gift, child." Kokopelli had overrun his strange aversion to Collette, and sat between the two of them. "To understand that which you cannot see, to know that which you cannot touch; these are rare traits, and valuable ones." He purred softly.
"You are so strong, Amelie." The little girl said, finally. "You've been through so much, enough to fill the entire lifetime of any human. You've seen things, you still see them..." Collette glanced at the crows. "And you'll see yet more before your days are over, I imagine."
"You've seen amazing things too." Amelie smiled, but didn't turn to face the little girl. "You've made sacrifices, trying to hide yourself to comfort those around you. You seem to have amazing eyes, you see things that I didn't, and make me feel a little dumb."
"I've had to see these things, to perceive the unseen, because of my restraint. My mind has already grown tired of the world we usually see, so I tried to dissect them, to challenge myself to see further, to perceive further. It worked, to an extent, and I still struggle with the hidden world around us." Collette said, sadly.
"You are no lamb." Collette broke the silence again. "I saw that, I knew it, and I still think it's true. The people here, most of them know the world is waiting to breathe once again, they know they will return to their families, their comfortable homes, if only they wait long enough. That is not your path, I see the world outside and I see an opportunity, especially for people like you."
"But what are ‘people like me'?" Amelie asked.
“There is a word, but even with the depth of meaning within my language it does not encompass you. The word is a burden, a locked cage, and one the people in your life have sought to keep you from.”
“You are Enut, and he is Lo. Just as Lo was once in Enut’s place, and Tel stood beside Lo in mentorship." Collette motioned to the little creature. "The roles are playing out again, and you are being offered opportunity from the world, though it is being held out to you in secret." The little girl glanced at Kokopelli.
Amelie pondered the words, pondered the relationship repeating itself. She hadn’t seen that thing, hadn’t connected all that Kokopelli had said. The imprints of the lines lingered in her mind, still scrambling like huddled puppies to form into some greater wolf.
“You are no lamb, but you may yet choose to be. You must, however, speak your choice without coercion, arrived at by your own tinkering. Yet I think that even allowing that to remain open so is weighing upon him greatly. He walks eggshells and vagueness, selling half-truths because they must be so.”
They sat in ponderous silence a while then, the sun dipped down the horizon, the world below them glowed with lingering blue.
"I have dinner for the two of you." Lyssa declared, her voice echoing in the room.
They turned, in unison, even Kokopelli's shagged head joined them. They had missed the woman's retreat down the stairs, but saw the evidence of her passing.
Upon inspection of the bed stand there were a pair of bowls, with steaming stew. Beside them were a matching pair of odd objects, cylindrical, and steaming as well.
Amelie took one of them in her hand, and the smell reminded her of what it was. "It's bread." She smiled, handing one of them to Collette.
They ate together in silence, their lanterns lighting the room in the ever growing darkness. The crows began their tireless rotation around the tower once more.
"Are you going to be able to sleep?" Amelie asked Collette, worried.
"I'm not sure." Collette sighed. "It's not the crows though, they’ve never kept me from sleeping. My mind is still swimming with everything from today." She smiled.
The bread was strangely tough and somewhat bitter. It best served as a reminder of what bread was, most comforting in that respect. It was filling though, and gave the stew a much needed weight in Amelie's stomach.
Collette had been tired, evidently. After moving the tattered dress under the bed Amelie had insisted that she use it this evening. Amelie declared she would sleep on the mat, and whatever blankets were available to cushion her, though in truth sleep was far from her mind this night.
Finally, sure that the little girl was asleep, betrayed by the rhythmic and reflexive wind passing from her mouth, Amelie exited the small cloth cubicle and into the darkness outside.
"You look troubled." She said, seeing the figure of her little guardian staring at the machine silently.
“She has said too much, and yet too little,” he muttered, glancing back at the screen.
"I know of this, I know all of this." Kokopelli said. "I just can't tell you. The reasons I can't tell you, though..." He trailed off. "With her description of the paths ahead, I am freed by what you now know, free to speak a little more of these things. I made a promise you see, a promise to keep you away from one of the paths ahead, and yet everything I know screams that I must dishonor that promise."
Amelie looked at him, and regarded the silent, hulking machine. "Is it frightening, what this represents?" She motioned at the machine.
"No. It is beautiful." His voice was distant, sad. "This place is a scar, the remains of a severed limb in a way.” He purred, pensively. "Often the profound seems profane at first. I was disgusted, horrified by this place, and now I see it for what it is."
"And what's that?" Amelie asked the small white creature, somehow not reflecting the blue of the lantern.
"I...I cannot say. Even now, I cannot say," he said, the red glow of his eyes falling back between his eyelids. "I confess I too am deaf to the song she mentioned. Perhaps it is a mistaken memory forged into walls itself. I have seen stranger things, known stranger things.”
Amelie stood there a moment, then finally allowed the thoughts to flow. “There are two paths then, two decisions. Maybe more,” she muttered, allowing the feelings to flow as the lines had.
“One, I wait here, in relative safety, and fight Crow in my dreams every night. For the complacent path in waking times I pay not only with my nights, but also I lose my sight.” The words fell out of her mouth like that cold blue drool. “For whatever reason Crow seems locked onto me, but there is a reason, isn’t there?” She strained against the images, but gave up. “She seems to think that she has won by some kind of default, and now drains me dry like a thousand of your bargains.”
He shuffled his ragged fur, but gave no other protest.
“And somehow this is what my parents wanted—for me to hide and be safe, and lose what I am,” she muttered with a soft rage. “I need to know something that I can’t see, please: if I hadn’t met Crow on the first day, had found my way to shelter, would any of this have been different?”
Kokopelli struggled and winced, fighting and shifting within his skin. “No,” he coughed out, and slumped to the ground gasping.
“But then, the other…the other is no choice at all!” Her lungs lit up in a shrill childish whine. “You want me to go out, to fight her with…with my hands?”
“No. You will have my aid.” He trembled against that wall, squashing down to a prone state. “Whatever you choose, I have been sworn to protect you.”
“But last time, that didn’t work out, and now my dress is nothing.” Her breath trembled and sputtered out.
“Last time,” he licked his sullen jowls, a sinister grin appearing on his face, “I wasn’t prepared.”
And with that declaration, the choices became true. To shed her strangeness, to give up that escape that she relied on, or to embrace it.
To seize the opportunity, to embrace the silent world, and grasp tightly the potential within its very soil. To take the burning twig from the god of fire full knowing that in doing so you will be scarred and burned. To go forth, leaving the rutted footsteps carved into the stilled earth, and to begin your fable.
The words were unspoken, the creature had remained utterly silent. The meaning was clear however, and the sentiment finally understood.
18
The Escape
She watched the curtain of black ascend, and simply
stared out for some great long while, lost in the swirling blackness outside. She pondered what Crow might show her if their positions were reversed, what idle thoughts drove her frenzied orbit.
“Do you really think I have a chance?" she asked, stroking the little guardian, scratching behind his lopped ears. His response was brooding silence. She looked up, through the tunnel of black wings that ascended high above the tower, an ever swirling maelstrom. The stars at the end of the tunnel, at the ceiling of the night, twinkled silently, their secrets unshared.
"I bet you'd say something about perception, about seeing into its heart, and being unafraid." She said, remembering the lined warrior slaying the Aspects.
Crow was warped, driven, but also predictable. A kind of simplicity of thought, almost childish and base in desire drove her, glowed within her aura. When truly provoked, truly focused, they moved more in a clumped mass than a flock of birds.
“I think I’ve tasted it, or close enough to it.” The uniform hung on her without barbs or taunting itch. The thought of remaining here bore a real weight, a true possibility, but in the end… “In the end I can’t give up who I’ve always been.”
"First light then." She resolved. "They will be returning to wherever most of them go when the sun rises and will be more docile. Maybe."
Kokopelli gave no response, not even a flinching gesture of support. He sat there, silently, his tail twitching slowly.
"I'll need food though, I think. And something to carry things in." She listed things off. "Plus I'll need to be able to get out, past the night guards that Craig and Wendy mentioned." It was turning out to be more complicated than she had hoped. Even if she could leave, what would she possibly do once the mass of blackness caught up with her?
"Can you get past the door, at the bottom of the stairs? Even though it's locked?" She asked the little cat creature directly.
"I could, yes." He purred softly.
"Could you open it for me?" She asked, further.
"I'm not sure." He said, his voice seemed strange, conflicted. "I must warn you against doing this, it's not what—"
"Not what they want, sure." She said, dismissively. "But you won't stop me, will you? Or advise against me leaving directly, will you?"
"No." He closed his eyes, the glow of red stopped.
"Then let's do this," she declared, picking up her lantern, and heading towards the stairs. "Come on," she whispered at him, and he followed in a slow, prowling gait.
They arrived at the foot of the stairs, the star field seemingly reluctant to guide them down the narrow passageway.
"Well?" She asked, impatient.
"Look away. Look behind you to the lights, and wait until I whisper from under the door." He ordered.
She did so, looking away from his form. There was a sudden increase in the red glow emanating from where he had stood, a growing orange piercing against the blue orb, and before any form could clarify against the wind, it was done.
"I am here." The voice whispered.
Amelie turned, and knelt down, her face next to the crack under the door. "Can you open it?" She whispered as quietly as she could.
"I don't believe I can." His voice came, high up on the doorway. "It's strange, there are no lights on at all. The halls are completely dark."
"Isn't that normal?" She asked, pondering what he meant.
"No. There have always been a few lights on when I have moved about at night," came the whispered reply.
"They're saving power." Collette whispered over Amelie's shoulder. Amelie jumped in shock, smacking her head against the door.
"Here." Collette said, before Amelie could demand to know why she had followed her. The little girl produced a key and unlocked the door. "I'll wait here, I think you'll come back before you leave again, right?" The little girl smiled.
"Yeah, I will." Amelie said, uncomfortable about another knowing her plans.
"There are knapsacks in the laundry room, along with shoes better for walking. They moved all of the absent children's things down there, it'll be in one of the sealed bags." She whispered. "Good luck."
Amelie bundled the lamp under the apron, enabling her to direct the beam of blue, and to quash it if necessary. She opened the door carefully, the way one might handle a brittle explosive. The latch turned slowly, slowly opening, and then a click. She winced as it echoed faintly in the hallway beyond. She peered out of the door, the light covered, looking for any signs of blue wisps in the murky darkness.
None came. Amelie gave a final, parting nod at Collette, who had begun a lurking sentry, half hidden in the door of the bathroom's alcove. She then proceeded into the hallway, catching the door with her foot. She made an even more cautious motion with the door's closing, holding the latch and slowly letting the door close. The same click sounded, though more muted this time.
She peered down the hallway, more scrutinizing now. There was light, but it was incredibly faint. Rectangular light filtered in from the common's room, mingling with that of the front entryway of the building. It looked like an oasis compared to the darkness in which she stood. Her primal mind sought the light, wanted to stand within it, to be safer there. Everything would be better in the light, more comfortable, easier, her mind assured.
The watch lurked there, somewhere, she argued. The light was the last place she wanted to go to.
Her rational mind drove her to turn away from the oasis, and towards the darkness of the stairwell, and downwards, into the basement.
Reaching the entrance to the basement itself, she grew bolder, allowing her lamp to peer out halfway. She opened the door quietly and carefully yet again. This door was much more cooperative of her efforts, perhaps because it lacked the clicking latch. The door opened silently, and gave only a weak grinding sound when closed.
She now faced the labyrinth of corridors, the same maze she had been warned against moving in during her tour. It was an obstacle to overcome, not to be fearful of. The star fields seemed weary now, grey more so than white, they traced short paths to her right and to her left.
"Well?" Kokopelli's voice came from the darkness. Amelie let her light shine, bundling the apron around her free hand.
"Left, I guess." Amelie said, recalling the only thing to the right was a small alcove where the cleaning supplies were kept. Or was there more? She couldn't remember.
They turned left, then right, heading down the long hallway. Amelie realized where they were going, and her heart sunk. The little creature trotted off, she tried to keep the edge of the blue light on his form. He lead the way, guiding the blue against the gloom, they walked in determined silence.
Amelie saw the room. It came up upon her right, she tried to ignore it, to not look through the door, and was largely successful. Successful, until she saw the projected square of green light against the wall opposite the door.
That sound, like voices, like thousands of voices whispering just outside of sense rose up like a screaming chorus. She felt herself hypnotized, swaying, dreamlike. It was fully a hundredfold stronger than the tantalizing echoes from before. Unable to resist she looked into the room, and saw dancing shapes, creatures of shadows, impossible monsters. They beckoned her in, and she felt powerless to resist, she wanted to hear what they were saying, wanted to know the message they were trying to send. It sounded so urgent, if only they would speak to her.
She was lost, swimming in a swirling ocean of green wind, trying too hard to hear them. Why wouldn't they talk, why did they want to pull her out, to move her towards the edge of the darkness?
"Listen to me!" A voice screamed desperately.
She swayed, caught in the dreamlike vapors. "Wha?" She drunkenly asked the figure holding her shoulders.
"Listen to me, are you in danger, do you feel you're in danger?" It demanded.
"Danger?" She swayed softly. "It hurts my head, the voices. I want to hear them, want to see them." She said, reaching towards the wall. “But they’re pulling away, so far away.” It was so clos
e.
"That'll have to do." The man's voice mumbled, frustrated. "You are hearing voices, whispers."
Her mind had reached the wall, she touched it. The chorus of voices was too loud now, screaming. They were even more incomprehensible than before, it felt as if her brain was being wracked by knives. She screamed, clutching her head, trying to keep them out, to banish the sound.
"Don't resist them, listen to them. They aren't voices!" The man's voice resonated in the darkness. "You remember the flute, you remember its sound. Try to think of the flute, and listen to the voices as you did the music." The voice echoed, dying away in the nothingness.
The last of Amelie's rationality struck against the sound, the screaming nothing, and she heard it. It was like Collette's language, like Kokopelli's music, like the crows, like that monstrous thing that was everything fearful. It was something that one could see, one could touch, and yet trusting those senses were what was causing the madness, the pain.
Amelie heard it, not whispers of muted demons talking in the darkness, not things beckoning her to some strange fate. It was something else, like music, but rather than notes conveying emotions, it was as if memory itself was being communicated into her very being. Amelie threw her arms out, and plunged beyond the wall, knowing its nature.
There was a city, a great sprawling city. Its walls shaped of smooth earthen red. Red robed people moved in amongst the buildings, their business every part of a city that she would have expected, and yet there was something to it, something impossible to describe. This was a place out of time, beyond the world.
She saw its people, they traded, they spoke. They were born and they died. The great city's shape was incomprehensible in full. There were towers rising above smooth ramparts. A squared step like structure bracketed a singular torch at its centre. Through the numbness of the vision she recognized it, the towers were of mosaic glass, the dimensions and shape were the same, and yet this was different, the city pulsed, its blood was the people inside, its flesh was the buildings housing them.