Fleur Du Mal
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Chapter 2 – The Newcomer
Lars halted midway, just before pulling himself up on the last branch. Right before him, the attic window gaped wide open. The evening light was growing dim fast as he balanced himself high in the old maple tree and peered into the little room.
It stood half empty, a desk in front, a rug with faded colours on the floor, and a narrow bed looming lonely at the back, untouched and a cotton nightgown spread on it. She is not here, he thought, taking a better hold of the tree trunk while he started to scan all the other windows as well.
Downstairs, an oil lamp illuminated the kitchen. For awhile, Lars watched Mrs Arden preparing for dinner, her hands wielding a knife in a determined tempo. Three onions turned into a pile of slices and flew into a pot of stew. A hungry growl from his stomach reminded him that he hadn't eaten dinner yet.
While he observed her, the freezing winter wind rose to play with the branches of the tree and his straw-blond hair. Sharp shapes of bare twigs swooned around him as he pushed his curls behind his ears. Below, the last leaves of autumn rose in the air and begin to dance around the tree.
Then a spark of fire called for his attention. In the room beside the kitchen stood Mr Arden, holding the candle he had just lit. The used match died out and he let in drop while placing the candle into a holder. His other hand dove into the shadows, drawing an arch before returning back to the small circle of light, tightly grasping a doll.
Lars watched as the man pressed the toy against his chest. Broad satin ribbons, blacker than the despair and the loss they declared, tied the doll's hair in braids. Silently, Lars continued to observe the man in his grief until he dropped to his knees and wailed, hiding his face against the long skirts of the doll. Only then did he turn his head back at the room in the attic. Only then he saw that the door to the room was barred from the inside with a wooden chair.
She has climbed out the window using this route, scaling this tree, he thought. Quickly, he descended, the rough bark scraping his palms and tearing the knees of his trousers. A rush of blood warmed his cheeks and neck as he tried to figure out which way to go. This visit to satisfy his curiosity, this wish to see the foreign girl the Ardens had adopted after the loss of their young daughter had turned into something significantly more exciting he had thought. A tracking mission.
Swiping the ground around the tree with his eyes, Lars used the knowledge he had been taught so far by his father during his seventeen years of age. The likely routes people chose when they didn't want to be seen. How the depth of footprints varied according to the person's weight.
His heart beat steadily, his breathing calmed. He wiped his mind clean by imagining the grey wolf he had encountered in the mountains last spring. He tracked it for days until he had shot it down with one arrow. His first big kill. Sweaty palms. The taste of blood in his mouth. Copper and cold iron.
A depression in the sand a few feet away, leading away from the center of the village. Lars squinted his eyes, their blue taking a darker hue, and set off after the newcomer.
The moon was yet to rise. Surrounded by darkness, Lars cast his eyes to the sky and cursed the stars. What are you good for, you weaklings? Shining up there, your noses full of brightness and giving me none. Go back to the sea to entertain the wretched sailors, I have no use for you...
The stars continued their steady watch on him while he stood halted in the middle of a steep climb. Sweat ran down his back, seeping through his shirt. Nothing moved, nothing except his heaving chest as he waited for the newcomer to continue walking.
Counting the seconds it took for his breathing to settle down, he wondered how much truth the talks of the villagers held. That she had alien blood in her. That her mother had been a witch. That she had bewitched Mrs Arden in her time of mourning, luring her to take her in while Mr Arden was still too succumbed to his grief to object.
No doubt most of the outrageous rumours were contributed to the reservedness toward outsiders, against diversions from what was dictated by custom, tradition, and Ordenance. All often punished by exclusion. Lars knew the cost of deviation himself: the weight of the hours he had spent in his room, forcing his right hand to act instead of his left had taught him that.
Yet now, climbing up the hill, she moved way too fast for a regular village girl. Instinctively choosing her path through the rocks and devious vines that wriggled their way over the crust, she reminded him of a deer, a mountain lion. A wild animal.
First, he had followed her easily enough. For a good mile, she had trod the path to the hills that huddled the northern edges of the village, passing flocks of sleepy sheep on the one side and pieces of cast-away construction material on the other side.
Lars was certain he had identified her standing at the point where the road turned from gravel to plain rock. Who else could the unfamiliar girl have been, wrapped in loose grey cloak that billowed around her in the wind? Then she suddenly turned left, away from the path. Swift as a shadow, she had started climbing alongside one of the creeks that had carved its course into the hill side.
He couldn't figure out where she was heading, why she climbed this arduous route in the dark. While she had still been following the road, he thought she had business with the old herbalist who lived north of the village. But now, balancing between the boulders, he abandoned all his expectations, gave up trying to predict the unpredictable and focused only on the cue for her to move again
And there it was, the whoosh of clothes in the rising wind, the low rustle of small stones against rock, all moving towards the lake nested in a valley behind the hills. He shot after her as quickly as he could without risking too much noise.
Soon, roots started to slow him down. Biting his lower lip, he heard her gaining distance as more and more trees emerged all around him, weaving their arrays of roots on the ground. He stopped to support his weight against the lone tree that had just tried to trip him over. For a moment, he shifted his feet around, searching for a clear ground in the miss-mash of vegetation creeping over dead rock. A nighthawk screeched above him, its shape a mere wisp of ink flying against the sky. It spotted its prey and dove. He found his footing and continued his prowl.
Ten minutes later, the Well of Stars spread before him: a deep pool of water, glimmering at the foot of the mountains that quickly cascaded into the majestic form of Eskeleth.
Lars crouched to scan the area in the feeble light. He saw nothing but the transient ripples the wind crafted on the lake surface. Rather by knowledge than by observation, he pictured the mountain looming above him in the north and the half-dead tree trunks standing in cohorts to the south, behind him. Somewhere to his left he smelled a blooming chrysanthemum. He straightened himself and walked towards it.
After a couple of dozens of steps, his feet got tangled into a soft bundle of wool. In vain he tried to regain his balance by grasping whatever his hands could reach. His fingers brushed against the chrysanthemum, and he fell to the ground with a cloud of petals that dotted him in soft yellow. Blushing for his own clumsiness, he sat up and shook his head for a moment, sending the petals flying. Then, his eyes locked on the fabrics around his legs.
Carefully, he untangled his feet, pulling the wool onto his lap. The material felt so soft and warm against his palms that he automatically brought it to his face, breathing in deep. The smell of ginger and hibiscus filled his nostrils, warming his blood faster than he could realize it was her cloak he held. Stumbling up, he dropped the material as if it burnt him now.
The melody of water dripping into water made him turn and direct his gaze back on the Well of Stars.
From the east rose a swelling moon bathed in colours of carnage, its light licking the watery surface. The beams of glowing crimson bared a lone figure, sitting on an equally lone stone in the middle of the lake, shirt and trousers glued on her body and rivulets of painted water running down from her boots.
She stared straight at him.
He watched her hair flow as a curly mess framing her cheeks with glossy black. Her lips curled into a predatory smile.
He was caught and paralysed under her green eyes. He forgot to breathe. His arteries pulsed harder with each thud of his heart until he turned deaf to all sounds except the pulse of his own blood.
The water still dripped when he turned and ran, her laughter echoing unheard behind his back.
Scene three will be edited in here...
< Message edited by fabula -- 12/3/2009 16:35:56 >
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