Magz abandons the pain and returns to his own body.

  He knows their minds now, can sense the coherence of their putrefied fear. Walking among them, he is a dream they can never escape or control, a nightmare abrupt with reality. Warriors weep and call for help that does not come. Magz watches them die through each other's eyes, now gray and bright, now dark and blind, the stares of the fallen, windows that shut one after another, slammed against him.

  He is only a glimpse, an illusion. He talks to them in their own language without a sound, reaches in and peels their souls away.

  The last three form a circle while flaming torches sputter nearby. Screaming snaps the chieftain's head around, and one of their number is gone, dragged away in steaming tracks of blood and piss on the snow.

  Only the chieftain and one other remain. Through the terror of his host, Magz observes the crimson boy standing in the cold. He is transfixed by shadows that spread to either side of him like wings.

  To his left, the man is split in half and falls separately, leaking blood and guts into the diamond snow...

  As soon as Magz returns to his own body, he is too cold to move. Liana finds him at the edge of the forest and carries him into the house. He feels her wash him in the basin of water by the fire, thawing his skin. He wakes huddled warm next to Jackie. She is not crying because it is too painful on her face, lacerated in two parallel lines where the flat of the blade has struck her. The wound will be infected, he knows. He holds her close and Liana on the other side. They are still for a long time.

  They need the alcohol their mother had used for minor hurts. Serri might do this usually, or Gavin, but never for a wound this bad. Jackie’s face is beyond repair, plowed in sections by deep cuts on either side of her tiny broken nose. She cannot blink, and blood streaks down her cheeks like red tears.

  Magz holds her, and Liana applies the cotton swab. The smell of alcohol burns his nose. He wants to calm Jackie, and watches through her bloodied eyes, closing them for her, hiding the pain from her consciousness and enduring it.

  Jackie struggles without a sound. She faints when the alcohol touches her overturned skin.

  They examine her body carefully for damage and see the bruises where her ribs are broken. They change her clothes gently, each toe checked for frostbite. Magz rubs the swab on Liana’s lips and bloodied cheek next, washing her wounds. Still in shock, she does not flinch. Magz has no injuries, cold but alive in front of the fire. He wears woolen socks and washes the knife, folding it in his tunic. Then they sob quietly together, careful not to wake Jackie beside them.

  The next morning, they bury their parents and brothers, but dump the carcasses of tribesmen into a shallow pit and burn them. These are only the ones they can find; there are many more in the forest. Jackie’s wounds leave her blind and she wants Magz to talk to her, and then Liana to tell her stories. It hurts her too much to cry, so they distract her, and Magz or Liana hold her hand every second of the day. She calls for their mother and father at least once an hour, and does not cry when she hears the answer.

  She will ask again later.

  “Where is Serri?” she wants to know. “When my eyes heal, Serri will carry me. He is my pony.”

  “He can’t now, Jackie. Don't cry,” whispers Magz.

  “Why not? Don't you want to play with me when I'm better? I will make you and Serri snowcakes. When are Gavin and Serri coming back?”

  “They are gone now, Jackie.”

  “They will be back for dinnertime or mother will be mad.”

  “No, Jackie,” whispers Magz.

  It is not until they run out of food on the third day that Liana suggests a venture all the way to town. Magz and Jackie do not want her to go, and finally she agrees that they can come as well. Foolish, but they must stay together. They do not trust each other to come back once apart.

  The weather has warmed and the sun shines as they ride. The sickly scent of burning hair reaches them before they see the village. Once in view, the bodies are everywhere, blood curdled in frozen puddles outside houses. Magz is glad Jackie cannot see, although she senses everything and clings to his arms.

  They find no one alive, and Liana and Magz do not have the strength to bury any more. Even those they knew they leave for the crows. Liana spurs her horse without warning and dismounts by the blacksmith. Magz calls out to her hoarsely. He tells her not to look, but she does so anyway. Joshua is not there. Magz trots up the cobbled road and finds him on the road, body splayed the way it fell, an unthrown spear in his hand. Liana cries on her knees, wanting to touch him and knowing she must not. Magz cannot go to her, because Jackie is in his arms. He calls Liana's name softly, the only way he can, and finally she returns, holding Jackie up so Magz can climb down.

  They begin to gather any food they find, placing vegetables and hard bread in woven baskets that their mother used to make from reeds along the riverbank. When this is done, they ride again, away from the cold stench of decay.

  Each night they have to hold Jackie to apply the swab of alcohol to the wounds on her face. She never screams, but she shivers and faints from the pain that Magz hides from her each time, enduring it with gritted teeth. She cannot feel it, but her body can, and so can Magz, keeping quiet not to scare her. Every noise scares Jackie, and Liana is little better. By the fourth night, Liana's hand is shaking too much, and Magz whispers for her to let him have the swab. He is careful, but it’s alcohol on an open wound, and outside himself, his face burns away. He knows that Jackie lives this every moment that he cannot, and forces his mind not to leave her, never to abandon her. It seems to work. Her tears are always silent and sometimes bloody in the deep red rivulets of her cheeks.

  Liana prepares vegetable soup, since it reminds them of their mother's cooking. Jackie likes it and cannot eat anything solid anyway.

  "When can I open my eyes again, Magz?"

  "Soon." He whispers, feeling her forehead. It is hot. From here on out, either Magz or Liana stays beside her day and night, her little body so tired and hot with fever, they cannot move her, and don’t want her to cry, which she does only when no one's there to hold her hand.

  Liana tells her stories about castles, and Jackie reminds her about the moat. Liana says,

  "Yes, and the city of Bane has a moat that is as wide as twenty horses standing in a line. It is filled with water so deep you cannot reach the bottom! And alligators and evil fish bite you if you try to cross, and no army has dared to attempt that fearful swim for a thousand years..."

  "What kind of fish?"

  "Big fish, with big fins like in the Median Sea."

  "Oh don't they eat the agillators?"

  "Nope, they have learned to live with them in the moat, to protect our capital city."

  "Father said he will bring us jam when he comes back."

  "What?"

  "Yes. Magz, do you remember what I told you? Father said he will buy us jam."

  "I remember, Jackie," says Magz. He gets the little clay pot of jam they'd found in the village. "Would you like some now?"

  "Yes please."

  He dabs the sweet on her lips. It's strawberry, her favorite. It comes from the southern merchants, and they can barely afford it on her name day, usually. By now, they know she'll never have another.

  "Does it mean father and mother are back?" she asks.

  "Don't you want to hear Liana's story about the castle?" says Magz.

  "Yes. Liana, how tall is the outer wall?"

  "It is very tall. It is so tall that standing in its shadow, you have to wait 'til noon for the sun to rise... It's as tall as a mountain."

  "Maybe we can see it someday."

  Magz knows that she is dying, as he takes her pain away and hopes that Jackie will not leave him, because he would never leave her. Never.

  Her fever breaks and spikes over the next week. They cover her with the thickest blankets when she shivers, and keep the fire going, frightened by how hot she gets to the touch, her little limbs shaking.

  A snowflake that would melt.

  He walks outside when she is finally asleep. She has been delirious, calling him Serri, retelling how she and Magz had made a snow castle and not to let Gavin inside because he is too big. He promises not to let anyone break it. He looks for Liana and finds her on her knees in the snow, looking up at the pale sun, lips moving.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Praying to the gods. They should take me, but only let Jackie live."

  "No, no. Please, stop it..." Magz can hardly whisper.

  They hear Jackie's sobs from the house and Magz runs back, leaving himself as he goes, falling to her side with the sudden shaking pain and tightness in his face, staring at darkness behind her closed eyelids, enduring without a single moment of betrayal.

  Marise

  His horse was alive with the touch of his fingers on its skin. Marise knew its legs were freezing, and the animal should have been dead by now. It was an old thing, gone with him to all corners of the world. Not as old as Wrex's destrier, of course, which had survived inexplicably since their childhood, but this was his palfrey, and so long as he was near, it could succumb to neither its age nor the elements.

  Marise and Jorry had cut through the forest for days in their haste southward, and they were taking a rare break, filling their waterskins from a flowing stream. Marise judged that the chieftain's injury was almost a month old, unthinkable the time they’d wasted. Jorry stood beside him and pointed,

  "We are near. I hear the river. See how the trees change." He was right; the pines would soon give way to a forest entirely deciduous.

  "Good, then lets go," Marise climbed onto horse, which bobbed its head. They trotted down the trail, listening to the cawing of the crows and the occasional scuttle of deer. Marise thought about the chieftain's words; had questioned Jorry time and again; had heard the story verbatim and with a translator's interpretation. Jorry explained that the ghost child was a boy called Magz, who lived in a farmstead north of Riverrun. It was said that the boy could see in the dark and had silvery hair and black eyes that turned golden at night. Marise could make no sense of it. And could a young warper be that dangerous? He thought of Aryana and decided that it was possible. But a war-clan was at least a dozen mounted men, and not surly, average fighters: their sole occupation and purpose in life was war. True, by the age of twelve, Littleimp could have brought down wind from a clear sky and flayed them all alive. Or was this child a firestarter, like Steel?

  No, the chieftain's wounds were made by an edge. So why the name? Marise sighed in frustration. Let me be in time, he thought.

  They left the woods before nightfall, and Marise would not rest with the Danuv in their path. Its raging waters wound more tightly upstream and weren’t frozen anywhere across. But still he led the palfrey forward. No wind blew with the setting sun, and Jorry grew uncomfortable:

  "Should we look for crossing?" he asked.

  "No time or need, follow me and take my footsteps."

  They walked single-file onto the riverbank, and Jorry hesitated again. Ignoring him, Marise lifted the redwood staff, and when its end emerged from the snow and hit the water, it did not sink. It struck solid ice. The palfrey was tentative and pulled on the bridle, but Marise held tightly and continued. The water rushed around them when they stepped onto it, and Jorry had no choice but to follow across the frozen bridge. Terrified, he slipped more than once, while jagged slabs fell apart behind them, swallowed by the frothing water.

  They reached the other side together and turned to watch the frozen path collapse.

  Then Jorry pointed the way in the twilight, and they rode on through snowflakes, melding among the white dunes that rose and fell in the background, until Marise no longer needed directions. What he followed now, he would not say, but in his mind it was the shifting in the night, an invisible glare that only he could find.

  "We are close," he said, as they cleared another snowy hillock. A breeze pulled the cloak around his feet, and Marise saw the farmstead. He smiled with gladness. They came down the slope almost at a run, dreading what they would find inside.

  The windows had been shuttered and no light escaped, though there must be a fire. Marise could smell the smoke and see the small footprints outside.

  He placed his hand on the door and pushed it open.

  The darkness was diluted by the glowing embers of a fire. A clay flute angled from the fireplace and disappeared into the ceiling. A young woman with circles round her eyes and matted golden hair sat next to a bundle furs that was a little girl, who looked dead.

  Marise took a step inside, boots clunking softly on the woodwork. The door frame was low, and he pulled his hood down, leaning to enter, revealing his messy black hair and what he hoped was an expression of kindness. Behind him Jorry stepped into the room as well, the old man's eyes wide with curiosity beneath thick eyebrows.

  Instantly Marise could feel the boy in the darkness. And he saw the flaming eyes.

  His mind was wiped blank. He understood and laughed inside his head, brushing the emptiness aside as easily as it had come.

  The knife sang out invisibly. Jorry fell back, too stupefied to make a sound. His blood sprayed all over the wall, and the old man stumbled backward through the door and crashed in the snow next to the horse.

  Marise shifted his shoulder, and the second silver gash missed him. He glimpsed white hair fade away like smoke. The blade shot out of nowhere and hissed over him again and again, the child rushing in frustration. Marise side-stepped easily. For a moment it seemed that Magz would crash into the wall, but ghostlike he was gone.

  He is very young to be warping, thought Marise. Then, knowing Magz could hear, he added: I mean you no harm, little brother. The knife flashed out. He caught the wrist, blade shaking. His grip was gentle, and he pulled the skinny hand up and looked at it. The knuckles were white with tightness around the handle.

  "Relax your hold," said Marise, "You do not need to hold your blade so tightly." He let him go.

  The hand lowered stiffly, and Magz responded in a hoarse whisper:

  "What do you want? I'm warning you..."

  "Warning me? If you could do me the least bit of harm, you'd have done so already. Now, is this any way to treat guests? You've practically murdered Jorry, by the way, disturbing him more than a little." Marise pointed a thumb backwards over his shoulder. There was a spray of blood on the wall and out in the snow. It ended at Jorry's eviscerated furs, severed clean to reveal his stomach. The old man sat up, moaning and rubbing his head. He suddenly snapped to life, clutching at his stomach. The skin was healthy, if a bit saggy. Blood covered his hands and clothing inexplicably.

  When Jorry rose, Magz's mouth fell open, and he whispered, "I killed him..."

  "You can't kill easily while I'm around, little one. You are Magz, yes? How do you do. My name is Marise. I am Carnage, and so are you. Now, would these ladies be your sisters?"

  Marise nodded courteously, expectant eyebrows raised at Liana. She sat up automatically, then sagged again. Magz eyed him dubiously. Marise noticed the boy had loosened his hold on the knife. That was a good start. He sighed and pushed past him.

  "Jorry, would you like to join us?" said Marise without turning. "And close the door."

  "I am alright outside, thank ye." Jorry was still examining his bare midriff through the sliced clothing.

  "Don't be such a fearful mermaid."

  "I no heard of mermaid, and I aint one neither."

  "That's a double negative, Jorry."

  The old man came inside, tentative at Magz's deadly stare. He closed the door and sat down heavily, cross-legged on the floor by the fireplace. When he saw the fright on Liana's face, his features relaxed a little.

  "You be Timoty's girl, the oldest, if I be not mistaken?" He said.

  "Yes. I am Liana."

  "I am called Jorry, of Riverrun."

  Marise frowned and leaned over the bundle of furs.

  "Is this your sister?" he asked Liana.

  "Yes. Her name is Jackie. The spirits have taken her."

  "Or she has septicemia."

  "What?"

  Marise held up a hand over the child. "How long has she been sick?"

  "Three weeks."

  "And she is still alive. Incredible..."

  "Jackie's a willful girl," said Liana smiling sadly. “She must always have her way, and she does not want to leave us, I know it."

  The room brightened. The little girl's face began to heal. Thin scars formed on each of Jackie's cheeks, until there was no other sign of her wounds. Her nose was straight and tiny again, the swelling gone. Her lips parted, and her breath evened. She groaned and scrunched up her eyelids against the light.

  When Marise lowered his hand, the crackling fireplace was the only sound.

  "I'm hungry," murmured Jackie, opening her eyes for the first time in almost a month. "Look, I can see you... Ow, Liana, you're squishing me."

  Magz dropped to his knees, knife slipping from his grip with a clatter. Liana sobbed out, cradling Jackie, who grinned beneath her two siblings.

  To Be Continued…

  For questions or comments, contact the author at yeahiknow2@gmail.com

 

 

  Simeon Stoychev, The Ghost Child

 

 

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