Clara Mandrake's Monster

by Ibrahim S. Amin

  "Good luck on the road," Silas said. He offered his hand.

  "Thank you." She gripped it. "Remember to guard your right."

  She released him, clenched and unclenched her fist. The side of his face ached again. Silas stepped away so the last youths could take their turns and pay tribute to the black colossa. He tried not to sigh.

  Cryze was better than him. She'd outraced him and outfought him enough times to prove it. Stomped him into the mud both figuratively and literally. She deserved this. And she'd do their school proud, burnish its reputation with her deeds. But Silas felt it all the same. In his stomach and mind and every muscle.

  The clip-clop of hooves broke his reverie. Cryze turned on her heel and the others parted to clear her path. A groom led a mare over by the reins. Saddlebags and packs swayed against the animal's flanks. Everything Cryze would take with her, to her new life. She vaulted into the saddle. Silas grimaced. She even mounted a horse better than he could.

  A stocky, iron-haired man sat atop the other steed. He looked at Cryze and nodded. She nodded back. And that was it. The two of them rode, and in moments they were gone.

  The trainees didn't disperse. Raindrops plinked on their shoulders, but no one wanted to go inside first. Instead they glanced and muttered. Many eyes flicked Silas' way. Jonas' and Lucy's too.

  He joined Silas, then she came over and no one bothered to hide their interest any longer. The other trainees kept their distance, but Silas felt their collective gaze — locked on the three of them.

  "Black beauty's gone," Jonas said. "It'll be one of us next."

  "Maybe," Lucy said.

  But they all knew it was true.

  They eyed one another, while the rain fell. Lucy, short but broader across the shoulders than either of them. Jonas, lanky and sinewy. Almost as tall as Cryze though half as heavy. And Silas, who still wore the last traces of his old life's fat but knew he could contend with either of them.

  Lucy put her hand out. The boys followed suit. They shook, and none of them blinked.

  ***

  Darkness soothed Clara's bedroom. It pressed against the shutters, sealed the window. Muffled the moonlight. The wind was gone. Swaying branches, cats' wails, owls' hoots. It silenced them all. Shut them out so she could sleep in peace.

  Across the room, something bumped.

  Only the wind, Clara told herself. The wind. Nothing else. Just the wind. But there was no wind, was there? It was gone and she was here. A rat! That was it. Must be it. Yes, a rat looking for food or a place to sleep. Disgusting but harmless.

  Hinges rasped like dying men.

  And Clara knew the darkness wasn't her friend, wasn't there to keep out the world while she slept. A floorboard groaned. The darkness trapped her. It would feed her to the monster.

  Another groan. Closer.

  Clara rolled over on her mattress. The shape loomed above her.

  "Mum! The monster! Mum!"

  Clara blinked. Everyone in the schoolroom stared at her, and drool trickled down the side of her chin.

  Rayya's eyes were saucers. Her friend reached over as though to touch Clara's hand, but faltered. Other kids gawped too. Rabbits in front of a baying hound. Some sniggered.

  "Mummy!" Tommy rubbed invisible tears from the corners of his eyes. "There's a monster! Help me, mummy!"

  A few of the boys around him laughed. Miss Jazrah glared at them

  "Thomas!"

  "Save me, mummy! Save me from the monster!"

  The teacher grabbed her cane and swished it. Tommy covered his mouth with both hands. Mirth shook his body but didn't escape. Miss Jazrah turned to Clara. The end of the cane wobbled.

  "Sorry! I'm sorry! I… I just…"

  The teacher's expression softened. Clara could only imagine how she must look, if she was getting sympathy instead of a rap on the knuckles.

  "Wipe your mouth, Clara."

  "Oh."

  She brushed her sleeve across her face. More sniggers broke out, but a fresh glare suppressed them. Miss Jazrah put the implement of destruction down and carried on talking about poetry.

  "A dactyl consists of three beats. Long-short-short." Chalk scratched the blackboard and shuddered through Clara's skull. "Dum-di-di, dum-di-di. Say it with me."

  "Dum-di-di, dum-di-di."

  Clara joined the general drone and tried to pay attention. But the lesson dribbled into incoherence. Stressed and unstressed syllables danced around her head until the bell scattered them.

  Old Joss walked by the schoolhouse window. He swung his contraption, more like a mace than a handbell, and waved to the children.

  "Go on," Miss Jazrah said. "Go play. No murders."

  Rayya took Clara's hand and pulled her to the door before the crush. The two girls made their way out into the field.

  "I thought she was going to kill me," Clara said.

  "She probably would've, if you didn't look dead already."

  They sat under their favourite oak, on a blanket of russet leaves. Its trunk hid them from the schoolhouse.

  "Take a nap," Rayya said. "I'll wake you up when the bell rings, or if you have another nightmare."

  "Thanks. I-"

  The thing burst out from behind the tree. Limbs flailed. Teeth snapped. Rayya shrieked. Clara's heart thumped, then her eyes narrowed.

  "The monster's come to get you!" Tommy raked the air in front of her face. "Rawr! Monster!"

  "Get lost!" Rayya threw a handful of leaves at him, but he swatted them aside and they ended up in Clara's face.

  Clara clawed them away.

  "Monster!"

  Tommy jumped from foot to foot, more like a jester than a beast. Clara sighed.

  "Come on." Rayya took her arm.

  The girls walked back to the schoolhouse. Tommy capered after them, still hopping about and making finger-claw slashes.

  "Monster! Rawr!"

  ***

  Fahmaia stood on a hilltop. Sunlight poured down on her, soaked her tresses and lent them its heat. The breeze played with a single lock. It warmed and tickled her cheek.

  All the great cities of the world sprawled before her. Colours rioted across Kessalonia, where painted marble made rainbows of its streets. A thousand jewelled minarets glittered beside it in Lakmahd. Each vied with its neighbours for height and splendour. Other settlements surrounded them. They stretched to every horizon. Scrazmar's buildings floated on water, wooden sculptures in the image of marshland beasts. Zerkan's satin tents. Khalib's grand squares and bazaars. The hexagonal heart of Oled-Thar.

  Thousands of miles had collapsed in on themselves and brought all these wonders together, so the mawlana might gaze upon each and every one. She thanked Allat for this blessing. To see the world, as only the Goddess had ever seen it before…

  Fahmaia shivered.

  Something gnawed at the back of her brain. The sun, the breeze, and all those magnificent cities were unchanged. Yet the wrongness spread through her skull. It pressed against her eyeballs.

  The universe shuddered.

  Fahmaia clung to the vision. She had to stay, had to know what it meant. But her true eyes opened and she was back in her tent.

  The mawlana shook. She tried to steady herself, but the palpitations trembled through flesh and blood and bone and mind. She hugged her limbs to her chest. Muttered prayers. Begged the One Goddess to protect her people from unseen horrors.

  2

  Clara's head slumped. She jerked back, and winced when her skull tapped the wall. Clara forced her eyes open. She refused to fall asleep in the outhouse, and add yet another embarrassment to the tally.

  A black speck moved at the edge of her vision. She flinched, went to brush the spider away, but it wasn't there. Her eyes and brain needed sleep. Until then, specks and spiders. Clara sighed.

  She picked up the candle and left the outhouse. Evening had already set into the sky. Her light swept shadows from her path. Clara reached the house, joined her mother at the kitchen table, and shivered before the
fireplace embraced her.

  "Feel any better?" Ella said.

  Clara nodded. Her mother thought she was sick, and she hadn't argued. That'd be so much more respectable than getting scared of the dark or screaming at nightmares.

  Chunks of lamb, golden potatoes, rivulets of mint sauce stared at her from the plate. Her head dipped and they rushed up to meet her. She caught herself and stopped her face a couple of inches above her dinner. Clara sniffed it.

  "Smells great."

  Her mother smiled and Clara exhaled. In truth, the aroma did make her mouth water. Stomach and brain had another fight. She was too tired to eat, but too hungry not to. Clara managed the first bite. Then the second. She kept going.

  "What did you learn at school today?"

  "Nothing."

  "Nothing?"

  Clara sighed.

  "Poetry. Dactyls. Dum-di-di."

  She skewered a potato and thrust it into her maw. Ella Mandrake didn't like it when her daughter spoke with her mouth full, so this was usually the best defence against conversation. Sure enough, her mother did all the talking for a while.

  "…the pub. And they didn't even order the…"

  Clara finished her meal. The aftertaste spread through her skull, warmed her cheeks. But fatigue crept after it. She excused herself and wished her mum goodnight.

  Clara Mandrake reached inside and found the strength to close her bedroom shutters, pull her clothes off, and drop them in piles on the floor. Folding them up would've required heroism worthy of an epic poem. She wrestled her way into her nightshirt in the dark. The bed caught her when she fell. A second grappling contest mangled the blanket, wrenched it around till it was on top of her. She huddled. Coolness shifted to heat.

  Dark and soft and warm.

  Dark.

  It was dark, and it was there. Its weight pushed all the air in the room, squeezed it around Clara till she swore she'd break beneath it. Her lungs collapsed and pumped and collapsed. Each breath burned and choked her. They tasted of fur and flesh and blood and death.

  She couldn't scream. Not this time. Couldn't scream and couldn't bear to look. She curled up, crumpled into a lump of girl and cloth. The blanket wouldn't hide her from the monster. But it would hide the monster from her, and that was enough. She wouldn't see its claws. Its teeth.

  Clara screwed her eyes shut and waited to die.

  ***

  The last of the morning mist clung to Silas' ankles. He peered into it, frowned, and prodded it with his cudgel. Wisps and nettles shifted around the stick. He felt like a cook stirring his spectral broth. But he stayed low to the ground, poking and prying. And almost missed it all the same.

  He pinched a green triangle that was almost identical to the leaves around it. Silas plucked it out, and the rest of the flag emerged from the vegetation. He put it in his belt.

  One point for Silas Renshaw.

  His lips hurt when he smiled, but he couldn't help it. This game reminded him too much of childhood treasure hunts. He ran the end of his club through the foliage. Autumn had ignited the forest. Last time they played, everything was emerald. Now red and orange, yellow and brown had consumed most of the green. That meant…

  A hundred paces. Then another. A twig cracked under his boot. He winced, crouched, raised his weapon. The leaves had hidden it. He'd have to watch out for that. But the air was quiet, save for the trill of birdsong. Nothing rustled in the bushes. So he continued.

  There.

  Above, at the end of a branch that was like a flaming torch. A flutter of orange a shade brighter than the leaves. There'd only been green ones before, and if he was lucky, some trainees wouldn't expect anything different.

  Silas pursed his lips. It was high, but doable. He leaned his cudgel against the tree, rubbed warmth into his hands, and braced himself. Silas jumped. His fingers scrabbled at the bottom branch and he dropped back down, jarred both ankles. His muscles twinged. Stupid. He shook his legs and stretched them out.

  He sprang again. His grip closed around the limb and he dangled there. Still too much flab around his middle… But his arms and core were stronger now. He pulled himself up and clambered onto the branch. Silas paused for a moment, lay there like a cat. Drew in the tree's primeval smell. Then he took a deep breath and stood. He swayed. His arms twitched, ready to thrust to the sides for balance. But he kept his footing, and it was easier from there. He climbed from branch to branch and didn't look down. Pretended he was only a few feet off the ground. That stratagem worked until he found himself pressed against the trunk, at the base of the flaming torch which held his prize.

  Had it looked that narrow from the ground? Silas' brows knitted. It should be safe. One of the instructors had managed to put it there, and some of them were far heavier.

  He crouched, wrapped his arms and legs around it, and slithered. The branch creaked. He stopped, waited. It didn't break, so he slithered some more. Another creak. This time it dipped and his stomach lurched. But he was close now. So close… Silas crawled and grabbed. He took the orange flag, pushed it into his mouth, and clamped it between his jaws.

  Victory!

  The branch cracked.

  He clung on, too startled to drop or jump or do anything else. The branch swung. Silas had an instant to realise it hadn't snapped clean through, that its wound was a splintering hinge. Then he smashed against the trunk.

  He fell. His boots landed on a branch and he bear-hugged the tree. Pain hammered in various places, but no broken bones shrieked. He released half his death grip and put the flag into his belt beside the green one.

  Silas climbed back down to the branch he'd started on, dangled from it, and dropped to the ground.

  "Nice one."

  He sprang away from the woman's voice. Jocasta grinned at him. Mud splattered half the trainee's face and a mess of red hair which'd come loose from her ponytail.

  "Thought you'd break your neck for a minute there."

  "I got lucky." Silas smiled and inched towards the trunk. "What happened to you?"

  He kept his eyes on her, but his fingers twitched. They reached out. Then he saw what hung from Jocasta's left hand, and they fell back to his side.

  "Had to roll around in the dirt yanking these things off Cardew." She brandished his cudgel by the middle and tapped it against the flags on her belt. "Came off better than him though. He's still lying there. Give me those, and I won't crack your head open too."

  "Make it a fair fight?" He nodded at his club.

  Jocasta shrugged and held it out to him. He moved. She tossed it aside and swung her weapon.

  Silas twisted away. His shoulder screamed where the cudgel clipped it.

  "Last chance," she said.

  He lunged. She swung.

  But he was inside her range, and her arm hit him instead of the club. He clinched. Entangled the limb. Drove the heel of his hand into her nose. Cartilage crunched. Crimson spurted, wine from a freshly tapped barrel. Jocasta crumpled. The strength drained out of her limbs and Silas held back his second blow. He loosened his grasp.

  She swept her leg against his.

  The back of Silas' knee buckled, twisted. But he kept hold of her arm. He wrenched it towards him, threw his other arm around her neck, pivoted on the balls of his feet. Jocasta flew over his hip and hit the ground.

  Silas dropped his knee on her sternum. She moaned and deflated. He snatched the cudgel away. Jocasta squirmed when he went for her flags, tried to throw him off. But he put more weight onto her. She spluttered. Red droplets spattered her jerkin. He took his prizes. One of them was purple. Where had they hidden that? But the mystery wasn't important. He put them on his belt and their eyes met.

  The thought passed between them as if spoken aloud. A knock on the head would keep her out of the game, stop her coming after him. Jocasta waited for it and didn't flinch.

  Silas sighed. He pushed his weight down on her sternum to keep her winded, then got up. Jocasta grimaced. Or maybe it was a grin. He glanced around,
decided he didn't have time to root among the bushes for the other cudgel, and left her there.

  ***

  Everything mashed itself together inside Clara Mandrake's head. Doors creaked. Floorboards groaned. Shutters rattled. A horror shifted around inside the wardrobe. The shape loomed beside her bed. Heavy breaths, like a panting dog. Fingers stroked her flesh, and they were soft and warm but chilled her. Clara's skin quivered. Her organs pounded. Heart and lungs and liver and things she couldn't name. They thumped out the same tune that filled her bedroom and her brain.

  Clara lay there while the room brightened beyond her blanket, as all these things rose and sank through her memory, and couldn't separate nightmares from reality. Or from madness. Because there was madness too, wasn't there? In the world and inside people's skulls. Like Old Joss' wife, near the end. When she ran through the street in her nightdress, eyes rolling, froth dribbling from her mouth, and screamed that the walrus would eat them all.

  Would that be her? Clara Mandrake, the mad girl? Or would teeth and claws rip her apart?

  "Clara! Breakfast!"

  Her mind was a mess, but her mum's voice made her move. She threw the blanket back. It wasn't an aegis now anyway, and only suffocated her. She looked under her bed but expected nothing and that's all she found. No malevolence thrummed from the wardrobe either. In the morning things were different, and that meant it wasn't real, didn't it? Or the monster only came at night…

  Clara opened the shutters and gazed into the mirror on her wall. A pale girl stared back. Colour had drained out of her olive flesh, spilled into the darkness and vanished with the dawn. She looked more like her mother now. But her eyes were even older.

  Her mother.

  Broken bowl. Spilled porridge. Blood.

  Shame and guilt and love churned in her guts. She couldn't let her mum see her like this. Couldn't let Ella Mandrake worry, or question her daughter and hear answers that'd… Make her ashamed of her cowardly girl? Scared of her mad child? Both visions made Clara want to vomit.

  So she went to her washstand. Poured water from the jug. Filled the basin and plunged her face into it. She shivered. Fingers on her skin… No! She shoved that away and submerged herself until cold killed the dream. She lifted her head. Droplets rained. Her skin burned. But she was awake.