by Elle Lincoln
His hair is worse off than mine, ratty and full of dreads in what once would have been a chocolate brown. A single braid falls over his shoulder and sits amongst the frizzy locks. His beard is overgrown, unclean, and also ratty. His lips are hidden deep in the overgrowth, lost in the sea of hair. His flat nose gives way to hard lines, giving it more definition than any I have ever seen. The hair of his eyebrows are also somehow overgrown and bushy.
He also has a leather patch over one eye.
Cleaned up he would be exquisite. Exactly the type of man I would have gone for before I died. Except the power rolling off of him feels impenetrable and thick, it ensnares me like molasses.
I sit up farther, my own ratty shirt falling over my shoulder.
“Where am I?” Perhaps he will know what hell we were in.
He snorts, keeping his eyes closed.
“Where are we?” I try again. My voice is as soft as I can make it. I don’t feel panicked given the circumstances. After all, the worst has already happened to me when I died. Nothing else could compare.
“You wandered into my purgatory.” A chill of foreboding sweeps up my spine. My eyes flare to his hands as he clenches and unclenches them. Here was not where he wants to be—an obvious assessment.
“I didn’t wander anywhere. I was led here.”
“Lie.” The venom in his voice makes me pause, he laces the word with power and menace, and pure hatred for a stranger surges inside me, confusing me to my core.
I can’t judge him. Not when my own past is littered with that very menace.
He peeks through his one eye, gazing at me as though he could see through every bit of my soul. I feel naked beneath that gaze.
The tension grows until it breaks with me looking away. He wants to scare me, but that emotion died with me back in the forest.
At least it did when I killed that chipmunk.
I sit up straighter, the memory flashing through my mind at rapid speed. “Death?” I mutter to myself.
“No.”
I don’t expect his answer or his lazy countenance. I ignore the beast of a man either way. Killing the small rodent scared me. It still does scare me. I lift my hands, looking at their dirty surface. My nails are broken down to the quick and hold packed clumps of dirt.
My mother’s wedding ring is nothing more than a crusty clump of metal. The inlay stuffed full. The only reminder of her life now weathered down in this lost and abandoned world. I spin the metal around my finger, her voice ringing in my ears across time.
“A soul is more than just the body.”
Her last words have haunted me. She disappeared, never to be found again. My young self never got over the anger, fear, and desolation—abandonment. Yet that is neither here nor there.
“Why are you in purgatory?” My tongue feels heavy in my mouth, the words hard to form. My mom would have been disappointed in me, the emotion settles in my throat. I had no one to blame but myself.
His frame unfolds, growing until he towers over me. His eye cracks but doesn’t open. I push back, unsure of his intent. I feel small and dainty, but not in a good sense. No. He could break me with one brisk snap of his hands. Even now, as sick as he appears, he could destroy me.
“Bath.” He walks out.
Am I supposed to follow him? Do as he says? I snort and lie back down. While it’s better than the forest with unseen threats, I can’t help but wonder if I was safer there than here, with him. His monosyllable discussions will bore me.
I roll off the bed—or rather a pallet—and stand on shaky legs. I can’t stop to think of everything I’ve been through. Not unless I want to break down and lose all control. Control is the only thing keeping me sane at this point.
I push through the door. It holds no lock, no knob. It’s just a door on a hinge that goes in and out. There is no protection from the elements. But as I push outside I realize why.
There is still no sun. The sky is cloudy in the predawn light. A haze of white-blue clouds the sky, a milky bath that casts everything in an ethereal glow. Yet it isn’t magical. Anything but, really. It has an ominous presence that weighs heavily on me. The air is thick with moisture and the fog I’ve come to know so well sits just beyond a circular clearing.
There is no grass, no green foliage. This is no vacation home. It is an open prison, surrounded by acid, set somewhere unknown. Somewhere that tickles the back of my mind with a sinister presence.
For as dead as everything appears, it is as alive as I am. My faulty memory flits an image of the beach, the scent of salt teases my senses. The ocean there was alive, ever moving. The sand was full of creatures, the ocean full of predators. The dangers in the beauty that sat there were ever hidden beneath the waves. Just as the dangers hidden here are felt but not seen.
I can feel them. Even if at the same time they are no danger to me. I feel as though something is expected of me. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Not yet. That purpose, that soul-sucking purpose, that haunts me.
“Bath.” I can’t help but feel thankful for his interruption. I follow him to the side of the cabin where a wooden tub sits.
I run my hand over the smooth surface, amazed by the craftsmanship. “Did you build this?” It’s truly incredible. I look at him, that one eye patch giving him an edge of danger, as he stares out across the clearing.
“I made everything here.”
I follow his gaze, the cabin, an outhouse, and stacked trees. It makes sense, if this is his purgatory then he would have landed here with nothing. It is far outside of my ability to create this much. Yet, I don’t know how long he has been here. In time I may have learned. But that is giving myself too much credit.
I shake myself out of my thoughts to look back at him. His one eye is a piercing blue. It’s a striking contrast to his face. He jerks his chin toward the tub, which I realize he has been filling with buckets. Beside it, a fire heats a stone pot.
I peer inside the tub with is already halfway full. I yearn to crawl in there and soak. The only thing holding me back is whether or not I want to climb in with my dirty clothes on to wash them. No. I’ll wash them when I’m done.
“Soap.” He sets a small bar on the side of the tub where he precariously balances it.
I strip out of my clothing as quickly as possible. I ignore his sharp intake of breath as I slide into the warm water, hissing out on a moan as I’m encased is the luxury of warm water. I relax and let my body float.
“Warn me.”
I don’t even open my eyes. It feels too damn good to wash my body of the forest—or the nightmare that has become living. I also don’t reply to him. I’m not modest and it’s really the last thing on my mind.
“What’s your name?” His tone is soft, alluring in a way that snakes down my spine to settle there. If he spoke more I would listen endlessly with rapt attention. His voice has a faint accent. Worn away from years of isolation. I wonder if I’m the only person he has seen in who knows how long.
“Bette.” I peek at him from beneath my lashes. He’s standing over by the fire, trying his best not to look at me. But I catch him flicking his eyes over my body. They stare at me with an unbidden heat. As though he can’t help himself. I don’t mind, it’s been a long time since anyone has ever looked at me like that. His eyes hold unrelinquished passion that sends heat spiraling through me. Maybe I should mind my nakedness. “What’s your name?”
His entire body stiffens and he becomes ridged. His body throws off that power I felt in the cabin. It’s a simple question. One that shouldn’t cause such a reaction, and yet it does. I’ve hit a nerve.
“I have no name, not anymore.” I almost don’t hear him. I want to press him, but I allow him that enigma. I understand there are secrets that flash behind my eyes I’d rather forget.
“I’ll have to name you.” I chance a glance his way, and I’m rewarded with a slight upturn to his mouth. He catches himself and scowls. I stifle a laugh. His expressions are priceless and tell me more than his
simple words do.
“I don’t know if I would like that.”
“Then what would you have me call you?”
“I don’t know.”
I want to be frustrated with his response, but I realize he is already irritated by his own retort. A name to him means more than a name does to me. I see it in his posture, the way his muscles tense and in the way his jaw grinds.
“Until you are ready to give me your name I’m going to call you Guy.” I duck under the water, ignoring any argument he could impose.
I hold my breath, my eyes closed as I float back to the surface, my hair floating around me in a halo. My weightless body is free from the nightmare, from my odd reality. I’m not completely convinced it isn’t a dream. I fight to remember something, anything. Pieces of my life filter through a crack in the dam holding my memories prisoner. My mother. The odd feeling that I wasn’t a great person. A memory here of me giving favors, a memory there of me manipulating people with the secrets they hid.
I don’t want to remember. I sit up and grab the soap. It’s harsh, full of sticks, and smells like a foreign lavender mixed with eucalyptus. I scrub, and as images flash before my eyes, I scrub harder. The car accident spins through my mind. The crunch of steel makes me wince.
The raven.
Running.
Dying.
I cried enough and I refuse to cry again. My past is broken and jumbled, and I don’t want to remember. But the present tells a tale of death that I’m terrified to touch.
“Stop.”
I look over toward his voice, his hands are on mine prying the soap away. I look down to my bleeding arm. Who the hell puts sticks in soap? I drop it and watch as it sinks below the water. Guy is quick to grasp it before it reaches the bottom. I concentrate on each movement, the desire to stay out of my head too great.
“Talk.” So much for forgetting. He moves behind me, yanking on my hair before he begins to scrub it with the soap. Unless he has conditioner hidden somewhere that is a pointless endeavor.
I say nothing though because it feels so damn good.
“I don’t know what to say.” I want to talk, companionship is a lost art. I recall talking through a cell phone, sending a text. Never speaking face to face or if I did, not for long. Strange how isolation has changed my needs. Besides, I don’t know how long I’ll be stuck with him, may as well make to most of it. Though I wonder if he can even help me out of here. “I don’t know why I’m here.”
His hands still in my hair before they begin scrubbing again. “Dunk.” I dip below the water and resurface. I see him set the soap aside as he begins to work out the tangles. “Here is for the lost.”
“I don’t know what that means.” I try to keep the frustration out of my voice, but it’s impossible. “Can you give me any more than that?”
“I don’t know if I should.” At least he is giving some kind of answer. “Have you spoken to the raven?”
I can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of me. “He hates me and I don’t understand why.”
“That is a simple answer.” I try to peer over at him but he yanks on my hair, forcing me to face forward. I smirk at the slight sting to my scalp. His touch, hard and unyielding, causes small shivers of desire to flare through me. “You didn’t die.” And there goes my desire.
“I did.” My voice is quiet, as foreboding slithers down my spine. I did die.
“If you had met a true death then you would not be here.”
This time I do force myself to turn around. He’s far too close, and I am far too naked. But desire is the furthest emotion from my mind now. Something in me is surprised at that notion. I dismiss it as easily as it comes. I’m too curious to know more, the need for information overtaking all emotion.
“What do you mean?” I question him, eying every minute twitch of his facial expression. He gives nothing away, he is as still as a statue. His one eye stares into mine. I watch as it flitters back and forth, his hands resting on the side of the tub where he grips it, his knuckles white from the tension.
“Death is often a matter of perception.” He pauses and I wave him on. His lips hike up in a small smile at my impatience. “What you think is death isn’t always death, but a moment in time to move past onto something new.”
I don’t understand and my face scrunches up in confusion. “Guy, I died.” I shudder at the memory. “I remember breathing in the mist, the fog coating me to suffocation. It was all I could breathe in. The raven turned into a man. A man who gloated over my death. A sacrifice. He told me I was dying.”
“Did he?” One bushy brow rises, challenging me to debate him.
“He told me I wouldn’t be missed.” How is that not telling me I’m going to die? “He told me they wouldn’t allow my sacrifice.” That meant I died, didn’t it?
I look at him, yet he gives nothing away. I wait. My patience waning like the warmth in the water. The fire crackles as the silence between us expands.
“I didn’t die did I?”
“I can’t answer that.”
I growl at him. “You just questioned whether or not I actually died. It cannot be both!”
“Yes, it can.” Our staring contest is reaching a boiling point. He feels it, I feel it. Just as I’m about to argue my point once more, he cuts the tension and explains, “A human has but one death. There are those who are others that have transformations, an undeath.”
“What does that mean?” Like a vampire?
“It means, Little Raven, you have transformed.”
Chapter 6
Bette
A Painful Reminder
I don’t like the nickname he gave me and I don’t want any association with the raven. Liking the nickname means I agree to this world, I don’t. I stare into his cold eye, feeling my body shudder with the warning he struggled to give me in so few words.
“Why did you call me that?” My eyes dip down to his lips, to his hard jawline. He needs a bath more than I, and yet he kneels before me. Washing me. I squash the intimacy of the moment, choosing instead to stare at him, mentally willing him to give me more than just a simple worded answer.
“That is what you are.” I huff out my frustration. He’s impossible. His words make him impossible to deal with. “Get out, your skin wrinkles.” He moves away from me, and I immediately miss the loss of his apathetic sympathy. My body and mind are starved for companionship.
“Do you have a towel?” I glance around, not seeing anything to dry off with.
“A what?”
“Towel. You dry off with it.”
“No.”
I lay back, letting my body float as he walks away. I let all the stress of his words drift from my mind. When they return I’ll analyze them. But for now, I’m content to just lie here and allow the weightlessness of my body to take over. I stare at the sky or what is supposed to be the sky. My eyes drift, the haze turning into a three-dimensional puzzle that my brain no longer understands. It becomes close and then drifts farther away. Pulsing. Thumping. Again I am reminded of how alive this world is.
Something Guy never once divulged. I’m here. How can it be a secret?
I make a game of knowing secrets. An image of me throwing a packet of photos on a desk flashes through my mind’s eye. I feel smug, confident. There’s a man there and his face has turned white. He’s stopped breathing and sweat beads upon his forehead. He’s been a bad bad man.
Water crashes over my head, I’m sinking. I inhale, and my lungs burn from the pain. I shoot up, causing water to splash over the edge of the tub. My muscles are slow to obey my command to get out of the fucking tub. I stumble over onto the dirt. My bath is now pointless. My heart pounds and my own body feels sweaty with beading salt that mingles with the droplets of water. I try to cough, my lungs seizing against the foreign invader that is water. My eyes burn and my throat constricts. Still, I gasp for that sweet breath that lies just out of my reach. Water flies from my mouth as I sputter and cough.
I tak
e deep, steadying breaths until it no longer burns.
I let the memory drift away. Fading until it is but a shadow upon my soul. The irony is not lost on me. I stand and lift my legs back into the water, and dipping down, I let the dirt wash off before I climb out again. I grab my old clothing and dip them into the murky liquid, scrubbing them with the soap.
It takes a while before I can even get them to look like something other than a ball of dirt and grime. My once pristine silk shirt is damaged beyond repair, but it’s still together enough to cover everything important. I rip the sleeves off since one side is already full of holes and fraying. My pants are nothing more than a joke. There is no saving them, riddled with holes and unraveling. I keep them only because it’s all I have to protect myself from the elements and I’d rather not walk around naked in front of some stranger. A stranger who has a terrible time holding any conversation. Yet one who looks at me as though I’m a lost treasure.
I didn’t realize how desperate I felt for conversation until that moment. I long to talk to someone about anything. Except for maybe the weather, I peek at the sky. Yeah, not the non-existent weather. Maybe if I pester him enough, he will break down and give me something more.
I drain the tub with the small stopper at the bottom. An action I didn’t think through as water rushes over my feet and I’m now standing in mud. It is as though Murphy’s Law is in extremes here. You want to die? Sure, die, but we will bring you back to life and see how you enjoy living in purgatory. Want a bath? Great, but we have no real soap or any way for you to get clean. Clothing? Never going to happen. Hope is a teasing gesture in this realm.
Finding my purpose in this place is pointless, even though I know it is the only way I will escape. The only way I’ll get back to my life. A life I’m not even sure I want to go back to. My non-death erased most of those memories. And as they filter through me, what I see isn’t something I want to go back to. I groan at the paradox of it all.