Out of Control
There was no arguing with that perfect darkness.
Eugen was my first concern. He screamed not far from me, and I could maybe use that sound to find him. I doubted he had long unless I could stop the bleeding, judging by what I’d seen before the fire went out. The creature had taken a bite out of his side, maybe costing him a thigh and his flank at least. It was a miracle he was still conscious.
Beneath my hands, wet leaves slipped and confounded my efforts to stand. I half stood, half crawled in his direction, ignoring the gurgles and garbled mutterings coming from near the boulder where Rareș had been. There was only so much I could worry about at one time, and he sounded like he was breathing, at least.
Something grabbed my ankle, and I yelped and turned back as though I could have seen what it was. Before I could kick out, I felt a familiar double tap on my knee.
“Cheșa?”
The double tap again.
“We need to…I can’t see you. I’m going to find Eugen.”
He grabbed my arm and lifted me fully. With his fingers on the small of my back, he drew three short stripes up and down, the hand equivalent of a nod.
Yes.
“Are you injured?”
Left and right. No.
It wasn’t much by way of discourse, but it was something. I grabbed hold of his wrist and tried to make progress, but stumbled after two steps and went down to my knees. He lifted me again, and warm frustrated tears streamed down my chilled face.
“I don’t know how….”
A gentle shove propelled me forward again. This time, I took five steps or so before stumbling. My knee burned and throbbed, probably badly scraped, but I got up by myself and took more steps. My eyes were taking their time adjusting, if they ever would. By now, Eugen’s screams had turned to whimpers, but it was still enough to locate him by, and we were close.
I slowed down just in time. The toes of my boot knocked into his leg and I jumped. He quaked by my ankle too, and whimpered like a lost dog.
“Eugen? Eugen, we’re here. It’s all right.”
He whimpered again.
“Can’t breathe. It hurts. Help me.”
I reached down and got a handful of crumpled fabric. It was wet and warm, and as my hand lingered more warmth washed over it. I wasn’t sure where to reach next, for a moment frightened to touch any exposed injury for fear of getting it dirty and causing it to become infected.
Fool. Fool and a coward too. There were matters far more pressing than infections at hand. I still couldn’t bring myself to grope around and stick my fingers into his wounds, so I took off my apron and wrapped it around my right hand. I searched with my left, finally reaching up to his shoulder, and jabbed my padded right hand into where the bite in his side would be.
When I made contact, he shuddered and screamed again, then took a few quick and shallow breaths. Cheșa grabbed my hand and took it to where he’d tied more bandages around his leg. At least the leg was still there.
Eugen sputtered. “Thank…you’re here.”
“I’m going to take care of you.”
“I thought I’d never see you again.”
“It didn’t get me.”
“I thought I’d never get to tell you that I loved you.”
Halfway through drawing breath to reassure him further, I stopped, confused.
“Ever since we were little.”
He coughed. A warm spray hit me and filled my nose with the smell of iron. Cheșa shuffled by my side and squeezed my shoulder. I wiped my eyes clean and realized a little light was returning. I could almost make out my own hands.
“Eugen, it’s—”
“Mara.”
A niggling dread struck me. “No, no. No. This doesn’t count, does it?” I turned to where Cheșa’s vague shape huddled. “Does it?” I grabbed Eugen by the shoulders and put my face close to his. “It’s not Mara. Look at me. I’m not Mara.”
Fingers on my spine swayed their harsh horizontal flights.
No!
I brushed them off, smacking his hand harder than I’d intended, and he withdrew. Eugen convulsed next to me, choking and vomiting more warm wetness onto his own chest.
Frantic, I held his face and spoke into his ear. “I’m not Mara, you have to stay alive to see her! This doesn’t count as your wish. Eugen, look at me! I’m Anna.”
Again, Cheșa reached for me. I swung round and smacked at his hand even harder. That time he grabbed my wrist and pulled me up harshly, trying to drag me away. Coated in blood, my arm slipped right out of his grasp and I knelt back down by Eugen.
I held him and whispered, “Hold on, hold on,” under my heavy breath like a talisman that might keep us safe. He made no more sound, but his body twitched and twisted under my hands where I tried to press my apron to his wound. He pulled away from me in small jerky motions, almost as if he wanted to avoid my hands. The fact that he had enough strength in him to react to pain gave me hope.
Cheșa pulled at me again and I struggled against him, but that time he was prepared and dragged me away a few good steps in spite of my kicking and wailing.
“He’s going to die!”
His arms were busy, but I felt his head next to mine violently shaking, No!
In the corner of my eye, embers from the dying fire glowed a sultry orange. Either my vision was truly returning, or the fire was catching again. I wanted to go blow on them, revive them. By their light, we could tend to Eugen.
He gurgled and shuffled almost rhythmically, now, getting farther away from us.
“He’s moving, Cheșa! Stop it, he’s moving. He’s all right.”
Gripping my shoulders tightly, he turned me to look at him. My eyes were definitely adjusting, because there, inches in front of my face, I saw his. Pale and scarred, it shook no, eyes wide and looking over my shoulder. Frustrated, tear-washed, and more than a little scared, I whispered my anger and desolation at him.
“Why?”
He lifted his hands in front of my face, almost close enough to touch my skin, and signed hammering, then eating, then pointed.
The smith is eating. There.
I turned back to where Eugen lay and saw only vague mounds and moving shadows, but suddenly it was clear to me that the movements and slurping noises couldn’t possibly have been Eugen at all.
* * *
A light breeze picked up, coaxing the embers back to fiery life by degrees. It wasn’t much, but with my eyes adapted to total darkness, it afforded me enough light by which to see the unusually large thing that was working on Eugen.
Bloody fur covered most of its body, and live sinew still moved and settled under the skin. Horns were sprouting out the top of its head. It nipped and teased at the limp cadaver, and though Rareș’s features were plain to see on its vicious face, I couldn’t help but search the campsite with my gaze, hoping to still find him lying somewhere, horrified and as confused as I was.
Cheșa gripped at my upper arm and pulled me back into the dark. Whatever it was that used to be Rareș chewed on its meal intently, ignoring us. I tried to twist away, but we stumbled on one another and cracked some branches underfoot. Suddenly, reflective red eyes peered up at us.
A faint growl reached me. In a jerky motion, the toothy, but oddly horselike thing grabbed on to its prey and backed away, never taking its eyes off me. I backed away too, blindly, dragged by Cheșa into the undergrowth in an unknown direction. Tearing myself away from those glowing eyes seemed impossible; they glowed on the back of my eyelids long after trees and shrubs and distance hid them from me. They were burned into me, wherever I looked.
We ran for a long time. Darkness returned, but it felt safer than any campfire ever would again. I didn’t know where we were, nor how much time had passed. An hour. More?
Eventually, Cheșa let me fall onto a pile of leaves and pushed me back into the hollow of a tree. I shook so hard the rough edges of the trunk dug into my back and arms painfully, and was grateful when he huddled against me. He wasn’t shaking, nor did he move. All I could hear was his breathing.
It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes later when I woke up with a start, every joint aching and cold. I shifted, and Cheșa tapped my knee.
“I’m fine. Cold.”
He huddled closer, wrapping his cloak around me. He smelled of old linen and fresh leather.
Hours later, I woke again from a mercifully dreamless sleep. My left knee burned and ached to stretch that very moment. I couldn’t stop myself from kicking out, groaning.
Cheșa jumped and stood, holding his knife. There was enough light to see by. The sky had brightened from brick red to a watery dark pink. He pointed at me.
Are you well?
“I’m so glad to be able to see you again.”
I was. I craved Eugen’s gentle voice, but I still relished the ability to communicate with anyone at all.
“Everything hurts. Where are we?”
He shrugged.
Sheathing his knife, for a moment he seemed ready to lie back down and fall asleep again. Instead, he shook himself off and set about gathering wood. I watched from my leafy nest, my head empty and dark. After a minute, he dropped the bundle of sticks in front of me, pretended to shiver, then mimicked the starting of a fire. He used much simpler phrases and gestures with me than he ever had with Eugen, and I was grateful.
Here. Warm up by starting this.
He handed me his flint and steel and wandered off into the woods. I didn’t know how long I took to build the fire and start it, but he was right. My limbs were loose and hot by the end. When he came back, he had a skinful of fresh water and more apples.
“What now?”
Eat, drink. Rest more. Then we talk.
“We can’t leave without her. I won’t. Not until I learn what she wants to do. You can go if you want to.”
No. We get her.
“Are you sure?”
Have to. It still wants to get to the queen. They are still the only way down.
When he signed ‘it’, he crooked his fingers into vicious fangs and used his arms to make large snapping jaws. The effect made me shudder, and it was almost easy to forget he was talking about my friend.
“He wouldn’t hurt Perdy, would he?”
He only looked at me, ashen and grim.
* * *
We stood on a low rise, watching a pale icy blue sun go down on a salmon sky.
Resting by the fire was easier and doing so in daylight far more comfortable. We ate, we slept, we talked as best we could. I tried to ask questions that didn’t require elaborate answers.
“Does anyone know for sure where they come from?”
He shrugged, then pointed at us. Does anyone know where we come from?
“Fair enough. Is it true that they never die?”
Yes and no. He pointed to our fire, then drew symbols in the sand.
I had to ask for more explanations for some of his gestures, and he spelled some out, but I was learning his way of communicating a little more every minute. The thought I’d be almost as good as Eugen soon filled me with pride, then desolation. There was no more Eugen.
We tell stories by the fire. Over and over, he drew circles in the dirt, it’s the same story. It begins, and it ends. It dies. But then it starts again somewhere else. It changes over time, but always lives on.
“Rareș is part of that cycle now, somehow.”
He shrugged and nodded. Probably.
“Maybe we are too.”
Another shrug and nod.
“Sometimes I wonder how I ended up here. It’s like I had a dream of running away and woke up already in Whisperwood. But then I wonder, was the running a dream, or is this?”
I looked to him, and he looked back without a flinch. What I’d asked wasn’t really a question at all, but I was so used to being interrupted. I expected him to have opinions. Maybe he did; either way he didn’t let me know, only nodding encouragement instead.
“I saw horrible things before I came here. I even blamed myself for causing them. Life has been all about keeping things under control ever since. I’ve been on the move for a long time. Finding the right town in which to hide. Keeping coins in my knickers. Making friends in case I needed them. Making myself useful to them. Keeping them alive for long enough to help me. Trusting they would.”
The fire crackled, and we both stared into it, but I had no fear that he was bored or thought me silly. He’d been unendingly patient and kind.
“Whisperwood made me realize how much uncontrollable chaos is truly in our lives. Things you can barely understand, let alone do anything about. And I mean back in the outside world too. We just lie to ourselves better out there than you do over here.”
I thought about my village, and my family. There was only sorrow there.
“We wield family, history, and tradition to that end. I was the mayor’s daughter, to be wed to the marshal’s son, as per tradition. The truth is, I couldn’t even keep myself and my own emotions under control for long enough to explore what lay down that path for me. But what I chose instead was catastrophic. It all went to snot in a stew every bit as quickly there as it does here.”
I couldn’t help but look toward the lake where Eugen lost his life.
“And there was just as much death. Only difference is they were all people on both sides.”
Cheșa squeezed my shoulder and handed me an apple he’d been cooking over the fire. The warm sweetness poured some joy back into me and I was able to summon a smile.
He smiled too. I wanted to bask in the peaceful moment, but there were too many thoughts spinning in my mind for it to be still for long.
“Do you think it’s true that she’s going to be back tonight? Like Rareș said?”
He shrug-nodded. Probably. He seemed sure. From his wife. She knew much. And Perdy saw you. She seemed sad.
“And Rareș?”
He shrug-nodded again, this time with a vicious smile that made me immediately want to let the subject go.
The rest of the day passed quietly, and I doubted there would be many others like it for a while.