3 – Abduction

As soon as my thoughts wandered away from my Mother’s death, questions welled up inside me and flowed out of me with anger. My mouth erupted and words spilled out, sometimes jumbled and confused.

Where had he gone? How far away was it? Why hadn’t he written? How was he being treated? How long was this supposed to take? When did he rest? What had he experienced? How did it make him feel? Could he understand how we’d suffered without him?

While my father calmly answered each probe with sincerity, he knew what I was truly after. I understood at some level that Father had been forced to leave in order to spare our lives. Logically, then, he was home for good; he MUST be. But as he gently explained that was not the case, his kind smile was betrayed by the many new lines that had appeared on his face. I noticed how tired and worn down he looked, as if he had aged a decade in the past few years. His hands were shaking irregularly. He was thin and appeared frail. He needed me.

“I’ll come with you, then,” I said with complete confidence. When he seemed to be trying to find words, I added, “No one with a soul could let a child stay alone.”

“I’m afraid the Devil has neither soul nor compassion.”

He ran a hand down my face before resting it in mine.

“Even so,” he continued, “you are safer here. Trust in me, please. I’ve done what I set out to do. Everything is prepared. It’s only a matter of time now, a year at most.” He squeezed my hand. “I won’t give up hope, so neither can you.”

I stared up at him.

“Promise me that you won’t give up hope,” he pushed.

I wondered for a moment whether to tell the truth, that I’d already lost hope, but I merely nodded, as I had become accustomed to doing when speaking with the elders.

I fell asleep in his arms that night and had beautiful, fanciful dreams. The crops were bright and colorful, and flowers were in bloom. The horses and goats and even the chickens were plump and hearty. Father and Mother were laughing, and I was, too, as I played with the other children. Yes, played!

When I awoke, Father was gone, and in his place, the ghost of my mother kissed my cheek and wished me a good morning. I smiled, happy to see her in good spirits. I never questioned her presence because I needed her so badly.

I was twelve years old, an adult by our customs, and though I was regularly complimented on my maturity, I hadn’t learned much in the way of craft and etiquette. On days that I didn’t leave the cottage, others from the village made sure to come to me, bringing me sane conversation and better food than I could make. I was often invited to work with them in the fields, craft with them in their homes, and eat with them at their tables. I sometimes agreed. They respected my request to continue living in my parents’ home, but I could feel that the community’s worry for me was growing.

As the weeks passed, I left home less and less often. My sanity waned as my Mother comforted me and stayed by my side. Now free from her pain, she taught me all that she could, all that she had been unable to in life. 

She educated me with stories of our people’s past, of our amazing magic, and of our horrifying deaths. Many were stories from before she escaped to this village, but many others were those she heard in whispers and songs that she said called to her. She told me that they wanted her to leave me, but that she couldn’t bear to do so yet.

I listened and enjoyed her company, but I quickly realized that I much preferred study to craft, spell work to cooking, and pretty much anything to cleaning.

It was stable and pleasant in its own way, but it couldn’t last forever. As I waited for word from Father, I spent nights restless. I could sense that something was coming, but never could I have imagined how soon.

Deep in the night, I found myself awake again, unable to sleep. I felt tense, tired, and extremely thirsty. But no matter how much I drank, I wasn’t satiated. As the night dragged on, I fell dizzy. Unsteady on my feet, I clung to the dining table.

It was then that I realized that the air was thick and the village unusually silent. It had happened so gradually, unlike any of the times before, but as I spun to look outside, I found darkness all around me.

There was a simple knock on the door. I looked around for Mother, but she was gone for the first time since Father left. I called out for the person on the other side to identify themselves and was met with a louder knock and a strange hiss. The sound felt stuck in my ears, and a stinging sensation built up within them. The hiss intensified and so did the stinging. I placed my hands to my ears, but it didn’t make a difference.

I remembered Elder Alon’s stories of the Devil, and I knew that I couldn’t just sit there. I had to do something.

I forced myself to my feet and pushed the table in front of the door. I stacked chairs, books, everything I could get my hands on. I ran to the windows and threw closed the shutters, locking them tightly. I stood in the middle of the living room, looking around and trying to decide what to do next.

There was a breeze. I could feel its cool tendrils on my ankles. I spun around, rechecked my surroundings. Everything was secure. Then where was it coming from?

It wasn’t Nature, wasn’t magic. It was something different, primal.

A blast of wind tore through the front door, splintering the barrier and sending debris flying. I put up my arms to protect my face, but another blast threw me across the room and against the far wall.

Darkness, blackness, nothingness seeped into the house from outside. Tears streaming from my eyes, my vision was blurred from fear and pain.

I tried to pull myself up, to stand. I reached for something I could use to protect myself. I called out for help.

Nothing was working.

Then, a reply came in the form of a hissing laughter that sent a crippling shock of stinging pain through my body. I screamed, grabbing my ears in vain.

A shadowy hand touched my head.

“Are you well, child?” a terrifying voice came, burning my ears with shooting pain beyond what I’d ever even imagined.

“Let me go!” I screeched. Or at least, I think I did. I could barely hear myself, and I could barely form the words with my mouth.

Frantic and panicked, I hurried up onto wobbly legs. There was dirt under my bare feet. Was I outside? I looked around through foggy, spinning vision and tried to see into the distance, to see where to run. There was nowhere, just blackness in every direction. I spun on my heels as I sensed the dark figure behind me.

I couldn’t see it, but it took a step closer, gently ran a hand down my arm.

“Where is my father?” I demanded as best as I could.

“He’s dead. There was…an accident.”

Every syllable sent shooting pain, like lightning, through my ears, into my eyes, and down my neck. I stumbled toward him to see a shrewd smile in the darkness. Bright white teeth shone from between dainty, beautiful lips.

“Who are you?!” Tears renewed ran from my eyes. “Did you kill my father?”

Red eyes glowed out of the dark, dense muck that surrounded us. They sat above the distorted smile that terrified me, as if it would bite out my heart at any moment. The dance of its lips wove around air, tongue, and teeth as it formed beautiful words that felt as if they were cutting into my soul.

“I worked with your father,” it continued, as if not even hearing what I said. “A stack of building materials crushed him.”

The memory of Elder Alon’s words pounded between my ears, just loud enough to hear above the burning madness of pain that was crippling me.

“You…you’re that Devil!” I screamed. “You’re the one who’s made my father design that building! First you killed Mother, and now Father!”

A laugh more horrifying than anything I’d witnessed penetrated the very skin of my body. It tore at my flesh, bit at my insides, burned every inch of my being. The laughter filled the air, coming from everywhere but focused on sending pain into and through me. I was filled with the throbbing anguish of his evil.

“I would never kill anyone,” it howled.

Liar!

I fell to the ground from the pain.

“Now come,“ it said. “Wouldn’t you like to see what your father died to create?”

“I am not,” I struggled to say, unable to hear myself, “going anywhere with you.”

I put my hands to my ears. They were wet, and when I looked, my hands were covered in blood. It was the last thing I was able to do. I lost all motor control. I was the perfect prey.

It picked me up gently. Leaning its lips close to my ear, it whispered delicately.

“Don’t worry, my dear Danae. The pain will fade soon.”