String Quintet WIN

More of the Pathways, Part 3

Just trudgin' along.....

More boring household/town descriptions here. The actual story should be starting sometime soon. When my writer's block is cured. Goshdernit, I should've PLANNED this.....

Ah well. I think this is fun, anyways. Cheers!

Of course, I could not stay out all day – my mother, while not as strict as some mothers are, still had her limits, and when I came in after the garden chores were done, she put me right to work with the dreaded mending and sweep

ing and cooking and steeping and stewing and drying and whatever else needed doing at the time.

One thing could be said of the cooking – I did have a shameful (to me) liking for it. I had a gift for it, too, or so my mother always said, when she could drag me to do it. I suppose it was simply the thought of cooking that had me avoiding it like a sickness – having to slave away in the kitchen while my brothers were outside. But the actual doing itself – that I enjoyed very much. There is something wonderful about taking so many different things and putting them together, to make something delicious.

At least, I tried to make it delicious. It was hard to make plain vegetable stew taste like anything but plain vegetable stew when all you have are a few dried herbs to season with and no fresh vegetables in the middle of winter.

Sewing, though, I could never learn to love. It was after one especially long and boring afternoon that I threw down my needle and ripped wool stockings and cried that it was boring and hard and I just quit, right there and then. My mother, picking up my discarded needlework and shoving it back into my hands, told me sternly that I could not be lazy. If I didn’t have the patience or the talent for sewing, then I would have to learn to live with it.

“How are you going to do your part in your household, when you’re grown up and don’t have a mother doing all the mending and sewing for you, Maria? Do you just expect it to get done all by itself? The needle just rise in the air and put thread through cloth?”

Being twelve at the time, and very stubborn, I refused to admit that she was right and I wrong. I just set my lip and sulked as I took up my struggle with the needle and thread once again (as stubborn as I was, I didn’t dare disobey Mother).

It seemed, as I grew older, there was more and more of this sort of talk from my mother. I didn’t realize until much later what she meant by it.

*

I’ve talked much of my family here – remembering those days, when we were so normal. Well, normal as could be, with my family’s situation. The town and its residents didn’t look on us kindly. To us, the mish-mash of buildings and smoke up on the hill always made me feel as though it were looking down on us, disapproving.

Let me tell you something of this town that we so carefully avoided. To begin with, it was very small. It was also very far away from the ‘civilized’ world – it was on a point exactly between the large, modern cities to the west, and the dangerous, unknown wilderness to the east. While it might have seemed refreshingly remote to our ancestors, it seemed to annoy the modern townspeople. News of exciting new inventions and ‘scientific progress’ came floating over Laktown. More and more of the children from the town were leaving to make their fortune in the city, leaving behind their families to brood.

My family had, for years, been left alone. Not respected, not well-liked, but alone. My mother dreaded having to go into town, to buy our ‘necessaries’ (or, as she liked to put it, to make sure that Josef still had at least one fitting pair of trousers) – being the friendly, talkative sort, it was hard for her to endure the residents’ curt treatment. They were never friendly to us. My father was used to it, having grown up with it, but it was the one thing that made my mother miss her old life – with the parties, the attention she received.

I found myself taking after her, when I followed her on some her visits. I don’t pretend to be a talker, or much for being friendly with strangers, but the looks the in-towners gave us made me nervous. It got to the point where I asked my mother to please just let me stay home, but she soon began insisting I come with her. She said it was for my own good – if I ever intended to make a life for myself, I would have to know something of the outside world. Secretly, though, I had a feeling that I was going more to comfort her than anything.

Experimenting with Elements of Nychtophobia

Continuing right where I left off, I was going for an old-folksy feel mixed with serious Nychtophobia. It's pretty experimental in its delivery. Lots of elements I'm not sure about. How does it come off?

“I cannot say how relieved I am to meet with a friend on this road!” Mother said, and the Wygar man stepped forward to take her in a strong embrace, and did the same to Aelwys. He smelled of woodsmoke and of the sweet spices from which the Wygars made their hot ciders, reminding her of that happy Dyreceald she spent with her uncle years ago.

“Help!” came a pathetic voice suddenly, seemingly from behind a clump of pine trees on the hillside near the path. “Please, help me!” The voice was weak, neither male nor female, and the sound of it caused the hair on the back of Aelwys' neck to stand on end. The three of them looked to the clump of trees. The pines were still save for a breeze that stirred them, and no sound but the crashing of the waves was audible.

“Help me!”

Again, in the very corner of Aelwys' left eye, she thought she saw someone standing on the bridge they had just crossed. She whipped her head around to see, and again found it empty.

“Please help –”

“Who is there?” cried the man, cutting the voice off as it spoke. It fell silent. Nothing moved but the wind through the needles of the pines. And then it returned, louder and shriller,

“Help me please help me please help!”

Movement inside another nearby clump of trees caught Aelwys' eye, but it ceased as quickly as it began, and the light was too dim to track it.

“Please please help me!”

“Pay it no heed,” said the man, “Let us walk quickly away.”

They began to continue their way down the path. The voice grew louder and more desperate.

“Please help me help me please help!”

Aelwys looked back to the pines from which the voice came, and still nothing moved within them.

“What's going on?” she dared to ask.

“The things in the night, the ones that the Sovereign's men have taught us to fear so much,” said Mother, “They want to get us off the road.” Another sound cut through the air, a horrible sort of song whose tune was familiar to Aelwys. She remembered hearing it sung in school at nightfall when she was younger.

The moon hath long risen; thou goest anon?

The curtain of night hath been unpinned and drawn;

The things in the darkness have naught to feast on!

The voice was sickly sounding, and eerily inhuman. Aelwys dared a glance backward to see shadows dart out of sight and back behind trees and rocks along the pathway behind them.

The shades that see many, no eyes have laid on!

So late be the hour, and where hast thou gone?

“I'm taking you to a safehouse,” said the man as they walked ever more swiftly, “We set up several in the past few weeks to make easier the journey to Ceadlund. These things cannot reach us there.”

“Cannot reach us, those things!” Came another nasty voice from beneath the drop of the cliff to their right, “Cannot reach us in the safehouse!”

“We will have to leave the path to get there,” the man warned, “But we musn't stray too far; we are being hunted.”

“Can those things hurt us?” Aelwys asked, her voice quivering.

“Yes,” the man said simply. There were no more questions. Aelwys wished she could close her eyes and run until she were safe, but she knew that she could not. She would have to endure this.

“We aren't far,” the Wygar said, “But we are being closed in on. We can no longer risk walking without a light. We must signal those at the safehouse.” 

More Aelwys/Mother Stuff

Starting to get somewhere?... We'll see.

 The storm had largely receded by the time they set out, removing their cloaks from the cave-mouth and donning them against the subdued chill of the evening. By the light of the pale moon they made their way along the sandy ridges of the beachside, backtracking the way they had come in their flight, to find again the road to Llynceth. In the half hour or so it took them to begin again their journey from whence they had fled, the steady crashing of waves and the much calmer ocean breeze greatly set Aelwys at ease. The moonlight was bright enough to cast sharp shadows everywhere, dappling the rock and sand in black and silver; at first Aelwys stared into each inky shade as though it might hide any number of horrors that would be unleashed at any moment, but with time she began to feel more at ease. She was much rested from their afternoon of hiding, and their new pace, though brisk, was much more manageable without the frigid wind and rain pelting them incessantly.

On they walked in silence. Continually the crashing of the waves kept a sluggish rhythm for them to march, as their path stretched ever further before them. Aelwys' eyes grew more accustomed to the dark, and with the moon shining so brilliantly between the inky clouds, it felt to her almost like walking on a morning just after snowfall at the first sign of sunlight: everything was eerily silent, yet serene and shimmering. Though she felt calmer than at first, she did not quite know how she liked this strange version of the world.

After they had walked for some time, they came to the stream Mother had mentioned earlier. The path led to a small stone bridge, beneath which the dark water flowed out towards the nearby sea. It was when Aelwys beheld this bridge that the feelings of unease came flooding back to her.

The moment she spotted it, she felt a small shock of horror; before she could identify it, it had disappeared. She thought she had seen a shadowy form at the base of the bridge ahead of them, but it was nowhere to be found. She shook her head and wondered if perhaps her eyes were not so well adjusted to the dark after all, if the moonlight was playing tricks on her eyes.

Again!

She saw the shadow in the exact corner of her left eye, the height of a man; she whipped her head around to see nothing but the rocky hillside. She felt her heart begin to throb, and she looked toward Mother, who was staring straight ahead and walking as though nothing had happened. Perhaps Mother had not seen anything.

They were at the bridge. Fear gripped Aelwy's mind as she set her foot upon the stone, wondering if there might be something beneath the bridge, waiting for them to tread above it before it emerged again from the shadows. Yet she and Mother walked it unperturbed.

They continued to walk the path on the other side. The cliffside the path topped grew quickly steeper, and the hill to their left grew quickly rockier.

There it was again! She jerked her head to look, and only thought she saw two shadows merge into one, beneath a rock. She reached out to hold Mother's hand, and was surprised when Mother squeezed hers back. She looked again to Mother, who, this time leaned toward her, and whispered,

“Only a little further.”

Aelwys now looked up ahead, and her heart nearly failed her when she saw a form that did not fade away. Some forty paces ahead was a cloaked figure, unmistakeably human, and walking at a slow, methodical pace. Mother picked up their own pace, and they began to walk very quickly toward the person. As they drew nearer, the cloaked one sensed their approach, and turned to face them, a sword suddenly in its hand, glinting in the faint light.

Mother drew up her hands in a token of peace, and stood quite still. Aelwys followed suit, her mind frozen in fear. They spent a tense moment regarding one another, the two maidens with their hands stretched high and the hooded being whose sword did not waver an inch.

“Wynclaetyrch!” Mother called out in loud voice, shattering the silence and giving Aelwys a start. The cloaked on regarded them for a moment yet, and then they heard a man's baritone reply,

“Wyndaecht!” The stranger did not lower his sword. “What be the business of Wygar-kin, alone in this country and at this unholy hour?” Mother let out a laugh, and replied,

“I should ask the same of you!” Still the sword did not lower.

“Draw nearer to me,” said the man, “That I might see you clearly.”

Mother took Aelwys' hand again, and they began to walk towards the man and his sword. As they approached, they saw that the cloak about his shoulders was very much like their own, and that from his hood hung matted and braided hair.

His empty hand reached into his cloak, and out it darted, tossing forth a powder that suddenly ignited with a loud crack, bathing them in white light as the blazing cinders floated to the earth and extinguished. In the light, they saw the man's face, blackened eyes above a braided beard that hung a little ways from his chin. He was unmistakeably a Wygar. After they were again plunged into renewed darkness, he finally lowered his sword, and said,

“Well met!”