(Background ambience while writing: https://youtu.be/vz91QpgUjFc)
The air was so cold. She hadn’t felt it at first, upon leaving the inn. Her skin was numb. Bloodless. Lifeless.
She bent her head and squeezed her eyelids closed. Fisted hands swung at her sides, propelling her down the sloping, cobblestone path. The west-gate was closest. The fastest avenue to get out of the village. It was time to run again. To run away from everything and everyone.
To run like a child.
There were voices about her. Townsfolk. Merchants. Passersby. The rattle of wagon wheels and the laborious clop of tired hooves. Let them get out of the way of the petite fury storming along the street. She knew the way by heart, and only needed to peek occasionally at the toes of her thrusting boots to ensure no collisions with fences or structures.
Why now? Why HER?! Why now?! Her inward voice bellowed demandingly.
Tiny specks of icy coldness began to patter on her brow and cheeks. The gate couldn’t come soon enough. She longed to break into a wild run. Past the stone steps leading to the Scholar’s Walk. Past the smithy’s forge. The stable loomed ahead. She willed her legs to churn faster.
I’m sorry, Nathan. I’m sorry, Egfor.
They’ll be fine. They won’t miss me. They’re onto a fresh round of drinks and a bit of merry laughter by now.
At last, the dark rectangle was at hand. The guard knew her by sight, so often did she pass through. He lifted a weary hand when she hoisted her hooded head a small fraction, just enough to make eye contact with him. Through the portal she hurried.
The world opened up, leaping wide and vast before her. As ever, there was an instant mite of relief. The wooden gate and hedge-wall were behind, and with them, the constraints of society; the eyes, the ears, the whispers, the needlings. Her feet turned north from the road, and tromped at the dried, lifeless, knee-high grass.
Fecking bastard. How dare he! How DARE he?! Missed me, did he? Aye, aye, missed me so bloody much he couldn’t wait to get into her arms again.
The air was specked with fluttering bits of white. She threw her hood back and looked at the sky. The tiny flakes materialized out of nothing, dancing down on whimsical, uneven paths to tease past her eyelashes, or nestle into her hair. Beyond them, there was nothing but blackness. Thick. Empty. Stretching upwards forever.
Oh, aye, laugh and giggle, you conniving minx. You with your dead eyes and cold smirk. Back to suck the life out of him a second time, are you? Where’ve you been hiding your pale, peaked self? Waiting, aye, that’s where. Waiting like a fecking black widow.
Her heart slammed violently in her breast. Her hands were shaking. A quarter mile, she had walked, but couldn’t remember walking it. She cast a glance over her shoulder to orient herself. The stream was still to the west, on her left. The flowing Bree-fields spread out in front of her, dim and grey under the overcast night sky. A faint glow kissed the landscape, as the snow began to settle.
Another mile to the first of her traps. North and east.
Her hand kept moving to the hilt of her dagger. She didn’t know why. There was nothing and no one to cut. Yet the urge kept building up in her gut, to yank it from its sheath.
Where are you going? You checked the traps this morning. It’s too dark, too cold. It’s bloody snowing, for crying out loud. Turn around. Back to town? Feck, nay! To where?
To Ivan’s house…
NAY.
A growl rumbled up within her throat. She allowed it, letting it spill out of loosely parted lips. There was no one to hear. A snowflake batted against her eye, making her squint and grunt.
I can’t keep running to him for every damn thing. Like a fecking baby.
He deserves better. So much better…
I hate this fecking town.
Unbidden, the sounds of the two voices behind the closed door echoed in her ears. Bounced around inside her skull. Sweet, happy, flirtatious, coaxing voices.
She lifted her hands and violently slapped at her temples.
I don’t care! I don’t CARE! Why am I so fecking angry?!
Another quarter of a mile swallowed up, with no memory of having walked it. She flung her eyes around the landscape, seeking familiarity. To the north-east, she spied a clump of trees, ink-black against a grey-black sky. Within them was a deep hollow. She knew the place.
She broke into a jog. Trying to outrun the thoughts, and the swelling heat that was churning up behind her ribcage. Disjointed images began to flash in her mind’s eye. Long-forgotten memories that she had no wish to recall.
That smile. The taste of whiskey on his lips. So much pain in his eyes…
“It’s not mine anymore!” Her throat suddenly exploded with a guttural shout. A terrible sound followed. A spasm in her chest.
Nay! I will not! I will NOT!
Her steps began to slow. The snow was pelting down, so heavily she couldn’t see but a few feet ahead. Her breast was heaving like a bellows. She was surrounded by nothing but air, but there wasn’t enough of it. Her mouth gaped, sucking at the cold.
Cry. Let it out.
NAY!
Her hand landed against a frosted tree trunk. She sagged upon its strength, bowing her head. Open palms curled into fists, and she struck a hard blow against her own skull.
Behind her clenched eyelids, faces and visions flashed and danced.
A sunlit farm, where a hoary-haired man and portly woman stood side by side, laughing. Big arms around her. “You’ll always be my little fox.”
An envelope in her hand. Two headstones. No graves. No bodies.
Fireworks. His grin is pointed at the sky, and then at her.
Falling. Falling forever. Forever until the water. Churning, choking rapids. Blinking up into the sun. His face silhouetted by the blinding halo.
Hair as red as her own. Boisterous laughter. Scones and butter and jam by a river. “Come south with me…”
Floating in a forest pond. Naked. The sun so hot where it pierced the verdant canopy and struck upon her white skin. So alone. So peaceful.
A voice screaming. “Narys! Don’t go!” The sound is a blade in her heart.
Black-tipped arrows. Sitting by a campfire in the trees. He wasn’t trustworthy. But she trusted him. His hand touching her cheek. Gone the next morning. Running through the mist, looking, searching. Falling.
Deathly cold. Gapped boards that couldn’t keep the winter wind outside. Her skin was on fire.
Go back. Go home. Tell him. Let him comfort you.
“Nay,” she heard herself sobbing aloud. She had crumpled to the base of the tree. Her hands clutched at her head while the wind unfeelingly bombarded her with snow. Abruptly, she seized the dagger from her belt and turned to plunge it into the tree. The flesh was stiff and unrelenting in the frost, and the blade only sank in a tiny measure. Her teeth gnashed together, she could feel her eyes bulging in their sockets. The knife was yanked free and then thrust in again. Then again. And again. The dull, metallic ringing increased, becoming an erratic percussion against the low moan of the wind. Chips of the tree’s bark flew, striking her on the cheek, scattering on the ground.
Time faded into a meaningless thing. Her muscles and joints became stiff with the cold. She was vaguely aware of her own voice weeping in a manner she felt was most pitiful. It repulsed her. Once or twice, her breast heaved and she howled at the callous darkness like a raging, wounded animal.
Whether it was a span of minutes or an hour, the strength of her passion gradually spent itself. The strikes upon the tree slowed, and then ceased, and she slumped against its mutilated skin. The wind had quieted along with the woman’s tempest, and when she lifted her eyes, a gap was opening in the clouds. The tear-tracks on her cheeks felt like rivulets of ice, but she did not wipe them away.
A solemn calm seeped through her exhausted limbs. There was no energy left for anymore anger or sorrow. She righted herself, sniffling and blinking away the last of the wetness from her lashes.
Just a bit further to the first trap…
I’m not going back. I’m not going to apologize. The door is closed. Enough.
Quaking hands moved to set her knife back in its scabbard. But just before it slipped out of sight, she caught a glimpse of the blade. She brought it close to her nose and tilted it slightly in the fresh starlight.
“Well, feck.”
