Clara dressed. This time she brushed her hair.
A speck moved near her head. She tried to wave the insect away, but there was nothing there. Clara wet her fingertips and rubbed them around her eyes.
She ate breakfast. Nodded along while her mother talked.
"I told Sven to stop serving her, but he didn't listen. Then she got up and started dancing on a table, kicking all the tankards over. She caught Dander right on the jaw, and he'll have a goose egg there today. And what do you think Sven did about it?"
Clara shrugged.
"That's right. Nothing. He just left it to the barmaids, as usual. He said he couldn't manhandle a woman. Me and Sasha had to pull her down. Sasha wanted to suplex her through the table."
The thought of the barmaid putting a customer through the pub's furniture shouldn't have been that funny. But laughter burst from Clara's mouth before she could stop it. A rain of egg porridge went with it, and a chunk splatted on Ella's shirt.
"Clara!"
But it had her too now. Both Mandrake women convulsed, and Clara wondered if madness was contagious. Then she realised her mother's laugh was the most beautiful thing she'd heard in a long, long time. She hugged her before she left for school. This time Ella was ready, and her warmth spread through Clara's body right away.
"Don't let Sasha suplex anyone."
They laughed again. Clara left the house with a smile on her face. It burned there and fought the breeze. But it was already fading when she got to the end of the path. Exhaustion came back and hit her like a mace. She traced the carvings on the gatepost, yawned, and trudged down the lane.
If she found a quiet corner, she could sleep forever…
No.
Because sleep meant… Memories surged around her again. A jumble of visions and sounds and things that stank. Clara bit the edge of her tongue to purge them.
Rayya was outside the Shimud house, perched on the garden wall with a piece of parchment in her hands. Cursive script covered its reverse. The missive engrossed her. She didn't notice when Clara stopped a few feet away. Clara opened her mouth, but the greeting died in her throat. A black shape curled over Rayya's shoulder and hung down her front. The serpent twitched. Clara gasped, flinched. Rayya's head jerked up. Clara wanted to kick herself. For a second, the plait had been about to sink its fangs into her friend's chest.
Madness. It turned braids into serpents. Maybe darkness into monsters.
Rayya jumped down from the wall. Her eyes widened and Clara tried to muster up the wakefulness she'd woven for her mother. It fled her body in a yawn.
"Didn't you sleep?"
"Not much."
"Nightmares?"
A torrent of words threatened to gush out. She'd say she didn't know, that maybe bad dreams kept her awake, or a monster tormented her in the night, or else her broken brain saw, heard, smelled, and felt things which weren't there. Then Rayya would help her. She'd… run back inside and tell her parents Clara Mandrake was a madwoman.
"Yeah," Clara said.
"Go home and get some rest. I'll tell Miss Jazrah you're ill."
She couldn't face school. Another day of lessons and loudness. But she couldn't go home either. Couldn't wipe the smile and laughter off her mother's face.
"I'll be fine."
Clara moved before she could protest. Rayya dashed to catch up, then matched her stride.
"Look, you should really-"
"What's the letter?"
"Huh?" She blinked at it, as though surprised to find it still in her hand. "It's from Sachin."
"How's he doing?"
Her friend frowned. Clara thought Rayya might renew the attack or even drag her home by her arm. But she sighed instead, then grinned, as she always did when she had news about her brother. Clara's lips shaped a smile, though it was like carving it in stone.
"His cat… Did I tell you he's got a cat now? He calls her Buskin. That's a type of boot actresses wear. Did I tell you his girlfriend's an actress? Anyway…"
Rayya's voice soothed her. It drifted around her head, fluttered inside her ears and across her eyes.
"…she fell in the mixture and it turned her purple…"
Clara envisioned a purple actress prancing around the stage, till it dawned on her Rayya meant the cat.
"…an apprentice for much longer. His master says he's the best apothecary…"
Specks danced in front of her. Spiders. Clara ignored them. That's what you did with things that weren't real. You ignored them. Until they stepped out of your wardrobe and painted the room with your entrails.
"…came in saying she'd gone blind, but she'd just forgotten to take her sleeping mask off…"
Would her entrails be purple, like the unfortunate cat? Did cats eat entrails? She'd lie there in the corner, gnawing away on them…
Voices sliced her thoughts. They cut into her brain and a headache bloomed around the wound. Their classmates cavorted in the field beside the schoolhouse. Leah and Kasey chased one another in circles, till their speed, their flowing hair and hems, transformed the twins into glimpses of the same girl. Kolbo tumbled like a jester nearby, his face half black, half white with chalk dust. Tommy had Sarah on the ground. He sat on the blonde girl's back and smeared leaves in her face, then looked up, stopped, cackled.
"Monster!" He jumped and waved his arms. "Monster's comin' to get you!"
Clara winced. Her brain was about to burst.
"Monster! Monster! Monster!"
Tommy loped towards her like the hunchbacks in the winter pantomime. The other kids followed. They converged on Clara and Rayya, grinning and giggling.
"Clara's scared of the monster!" Tommy said.
More of them took up the cry.
"Clara's scared of the monster! Clara's scared of the monster!"
Sarah spat out bits of leaf and jeered along with them.
"Clara's scared of the monster!"
"Stop it!" Rayya turned this way and that. Glared at each of them. "Leave her alone!"
Some of them shrugged and went back to their games. Others held their ground but shut up and dropped their gazes.
"Monster's gonna kill you!" Tommy thrust his face close to Clara's. Flecks of spittle wet her nose and cheeks. "Monster's gonna kill you!"
"Go away!" Rayya pushed him aside and pulled Clara past him.
Clara's head hurt too much to speak or think or live.
"The monster's coming! Rawr! Rawr! Monster!"
Clara and Rayya trudged into the schoolhouse.
***
Silas' eyes narrowed. So did his enemy's. He tensed. So did his enemy. Silas lunged, dived, and grasped. The squirrel darted away. Silas smacked the earth, grunted, glared. The rodent stared back. Its eyes glittered as it nibbled the brown flag.
His bones ached. But he got up, because he wasn't going to lose to an acrobatic rat. Silas frowned. The squirrel gnawed. Human and rodent watched one another. Silas tensed again, and the squirrel did the same. He paused. Hunters didn't catch squirrels by hand. And after his slapstick endeavours thus far, he felt they were on to something. There wasn't time to make a snare and lie in wait. He didn't have a bow or shuriken. So Silas looked around for a rock to throw. He spotted something else instead.
The animal tilted its head. It gnawed the flag a couple more times, but with less enthusiasm. Silas plucked the sprig of berries from the tree. He tossed it over and it landed inches away from the squirrel. The flag emerged from the rodent's maw. The grey snout twitched twice. It looked at the berries, performed whatever calculations squirrels were wont to make, dropped the piece of cloth. It climbed the nearest tree and the sprig wobbled between its jaws.
Silas picked up his prize and his cudgel. He walked on, added the flag to his belt. Seven. Not bad going. He might even-
Silas rounded a trunk and she emerged from behind another. Lucy's gaze went to his waist and his to hers.
"Good haul," she said.
"You too."
Her flags clumped tog
ether. She might have the same as him, maybe more. But it didn't matter now.
He took up his stance. So did she. They both advanced and Silas struck first. Wood clacked on wood. And again. Silas probed her defences, watched for signs of injury and weakness, and knew Lucy was doing the same.
Lucy's right ankle shifted. Only an inch, but Silas was ready. He swung while she was open. Her eyes gleamed. Silas pulled back but it was too late. Her feint became a counterattack and her club smacked his forearm. Pain shot along the bones. His fingers opened and his weapon fell.
Silas threw himself at her, jammed her next attack. Lucy didn't fight for it. She dropped her cudgel and grabbed him with both hands. They clinched, seized neck and elbow. Fought for balance and control. He couldn't shift her. Lucy was built like a boulder. Their eyes met and thoughts merged. Their instructors had taught them the same thing. If an opponent clinched your upper body…
He hesitated.
Lucy's knee exploded in his groin. He doubled over, moaned. She threw her arms around his middle. Her hands locked together, drove up into his gut. Silas dropped his weight. But she heaved him up and over like a sack of grain. His insides lurched. The world flipped round, then bashed his back. Lucy landed on top of him. Muscle and bone ground him into the dirt.
She shifted, moved into a mount. Open hands battered him. Palm strikes rocked his skull and slaps burst every nerve in his face. He threw up his arms, rolled over to shield himself. Desperate. Instinctive. Stupid. Silas knew what was coming, but couldn't stop it.
Lucy's arm wrapped around his neck and squeezed. His head swam. Pressure built against the backs of his eyeballs. He kicked for purchase, but her feet hooked his legs. Stretched them out.
Silas' vision danced and blurred.
He clawed at her arm. It didn't budge. Blackness squirted through his arteries, filled his head. And Silas tapped. His fingertips beat a rhythm on the blade of her forearm. But nothing happened. This wasn't the wrestling ring, and there was no referee to pull her off. Veins swelled in his face. Her grip crushed his throat and he was going to die here in the forest in blood and black and-
Silas gasped. Lungs and brain found air and sucked it in.
Lucy rolled him. He flopped onto his back. Her eyes hardened and sharpened above him. The rest of the world coalesced around them. She held his gaze, raised her fist. Silas lifted his hands, palms out. Lucy nodded. He grimaced as she looted his flags, but didn't move.
She picked up her weapon and looked down at him.
"I beat you. Fair and square. No coming after me, okay?"
"Okay."
Their eyes stayed locked for a moment. They both knew. She might've knocked out one of the others. Dislocated their shoulder. Popped their knee. But Silas' word was good. Silly, noble Silas. He sighed.
Lucy disappeared among the trees.
Silas picked himself up, retrieved his cudgel, and went hunting for flags. Maybe he could still cobble together a respectable score…
***
"…anapaest goes short-short-long, short-short-long," Miss Jazrah said. "Anapaest. Say it with me…"
"Anapaest!"
"Anna pissed!"
"Thomas!"
"What, miss?"
Clara mumbled along with the rest of the children.
"Di-di-dum! Di-di-dum!"
The syllables chanted. They drummed into her head.
"Poets sometimes use it for the sound of a galloping horse…"
Miss Jazrah recited a poem. Clara propped up her chin. She needed to rest her eyes for just a minute…
Darkness. The wardrobe door-
Her shin exploded. Her jaw fell off her hand and her eyes opened. Rayya kicked her again for good measure.
"You were falling asleep."
"Yeah. Thanks…"
Her eyes closed. Rayya's shoe scraped the floor.
"Okay! Okay!"
This time they stayed open. She half-listened to the poem about bandits on horses till Old Joss rang the bell.
Miss Jazrah glanced at Clara when the kids got up. The teacher's lips pursed. Clara hurried out before she could say anything. Rayya dashed after her.
"Go home."
"Can't."
They walked across the field, towards their oak. Rayya inhaled and Clara steeled herself for the argument.
"Monster's gonna kill you!"
He ran in front, between the girls and the tree.
"Tommy!" Rayya swerved and shouldered him out of Clara's path. "Bother someone else!"
"It'll rip your face off and wipe its butt with it!"
Sniggers surrounded Clara. A dozen feet clomped after her and each one stamped on the inside of her skull. They were behind the tree now, in its shade. But the din continued.
"It'll eat your guts, crap them out, and eat them again!"
"Ew!"
"Gross, Tommy!"
His audience tittered. Clara and Rayya stopped. There was nowhere left to go. Nowhere he wouldn't follow, with his jeers and stupid face. He posed in front of Clara. Jumped up and down.
"Mons-ter! Mons-ter! Mons-ter!"
"Get lost," Rayya said, "or-"
"Rawr! Rawr! Rawr!" He clawed the air. "Rawr! Rawr! Rawr!"
An inferno blazed in Clara's brain. She shrieked and leapt at him.
"Rawr?"
Her hands closed around his neck. His soft, squishy neck. Her thumbs stabbed the hollow spot in the middle. They dug in and she imagined them bursting through flesh and blood and whatever lay beneath.
"Clara!" Rayya said.
Tommy grabbed her wrists. She slammed the top of her head into his face. He spluttered. She headbutted him again. And again. Impact shuddered through bone. His nose was soft and squishy too.
"Clara! Stop!"
Redness slathered Tommy's face. She liked it better that way. Clara's fingers squeezed and her head drew back for another hit.
Hands and arms ensnared her. Yanked her off the wretched little boy who bled and moaned. Clara thrashed. She dragged the whole pack and they clamoured at her. Tommy lay on the ground. He stared up at the heavens, made idiot sounds. Clara strained against her classmates. She wanted to stamp on his face. Stomp on it again and again till it went squelch and-
Rayya's face flashed past. Her mouth hung open and water glistened in her eyes. Rage drained from Clara's body. She went limp, and the arms fell away.
Tommy groaned.
Clara ran.
***
"Mawlana! Mawlana!"
"Look! Mawlana!"
Fahmaia blinked. A maelstrom of dark imaginings held together for a moment longer, then parted to reveal the children who called and cheered and fought. She'd wandered all the way to the training grounds.
"Look what I can do!"
A smile etched itself on her lips. Their joy, their passion, was purer than a prayer.
"Watch us, mawlana! Please?"
"Please! Please!"
Fahmaia laughed and held up her hands before they dragged her by force.
"All right!"
They capered around her, whooping and touching the scriptures on her forearms for luck. A pair of men gasped nearby. Beards and moustaches obscured dangling jaws. Fahmaia didn't recognise them. New converts, most likely. Unlike these children, who'd known her their whole short lives. She'd held them as babes. Whispered Allat's wisdom into their ears when they emerged from the womb.
"Show me what you've learned."
The boys and girls waved their practice weapons. They paired off. Soon war cries mingled with the click and clatter of wood on wood. Fahmaia armed herself in the same manner before she walked among them.
"You're not chopping firewood, Aisha. Smaller motions. Like this…" She cut and thrust at the air. "Wild swings let in enemy blades."
She'd fought alongside many of their parents. It amused her to see the same quirks of martial style pass from mothers and fathers to sons and daughters.
"Good, Shahid! Good! Barzik Khan will be proud."
A
blade flew at her face. Fahmaia tapped it aside with her own.
"Careful, Salman! The One Goddess didn't put these scriptures on my skin so you could knock them off."
"Sorry, mawlana!"
A bruise had once taught her never to instruct the children without a weapon in her hand.
"That's enough for now," she said, when their limbs tired and more mistakes crept in. "Eat and drink. Warriors must nourish their muscles. Even the Khan himself."
They protested, as usual, but did as bidden. Fahmaia swung her sword back and forth while they jogged away. It'd been too long since she last sparred. Perhaps that would help settle her spirit…
She went to the adults' swordplay ground. But only new recruits were at arms there, and that made things awkward. Fahmaia covered her limbs and wrapped her face, to spare them the impiety of striking Allat's scriptures. Yet they still hesitated.
"Anyone?" She smiled her least threatening smile. "I'm not as ferocious as you've heard."
After some moments, a young man stepped forward and she thanked him. They fought. He was too timid. Her mind wandered, dwelt on the dread she'd felt at prayer, and he still couldn't find his way past her defences. She scored a hit to put him out of his misery. Fahmaia thanked him again, put her sword away, and walked the camp once more.
She ate with some of the servants. Visited the invalids. But at last she chided herself and returned to her own tent. She couldn't procrastinate any longer. The One Goddess must have some purpose at hand, and it was her duty to discern it. So Fahmaia lit her incense. Sat cross-legged. Ate more honey, in case that helped. Willed her mind to enter the prayer trance.
And then she was back on the hilltop.
The sun shone and cities sprawled. Magnificent. Glorious. But again a chill fluttered through Fahmaia's bones. Wrongness oozed inside her blood. She whispered holy words. Her markings quickened, spun across her skin in a black blur. And the sky parted.
Two eyes opened in the heavens. They stared down at the world they had wrought and nothing could escape them. A hand descended, cast its shadow over the civilisations below, and Fahmaia trembled. The end time had come. The peoples of the world had angered the One Goddess with their sins, and she would crush them all. The mawlana's scream built in her throat but wouldn't come forth. She flinched. Raised her arms, as though they could shield her from the cosmic avalanche, and prepared to perish.
Clara Mandrake's Monster Page 3