Drifter
By Amber Andersen
Disclaimers:
see part one.
Feedback: angelsslayer99@hotmail.com or cathycriss@earthlink.net
Notes: Thanks so much to Don Woo and Christi
for your kind words. Sorry about the wait!
Part 9
Alianna:
A slightly lumpy cushion pressed into the small
of my back. My head lay against something soft and warm. I felt up my arms,
involuntarily checking for injuries. I had good reason. Lately, I didn't know
where I'd awaken or in what condition. I found my wrists chafed and stinging.
Satisfied that I was in one piece, I opened my eyes.
The source of the warmth turned out to be Rickie's
leg. I lay in the far back seat of an SUV, my legs tucked beneath me. I sat
up slowly, rubbing my head.
"What . . ." I whispered, but I heard
nothing. I can't speak, I thought, panicking. I'm mute, somehow.
How can this -
I froze, all thoughts forgotten, when I saw
the reflection in the front mirror. Raven. I knew it could only be her, despite
the row of seats separating us. She looked exactly as I remembered, her light
brown hair plastered to her head in a severe bun. Her blue eyes were narrowed
to slits, and her lips were drawn tightly. She didn't see me yet; too busy
concentrating on the road to notice me. I looked more closely into the mirror,
into the reflection of her eyes, and swallowed in disbelief.
Long ago, I had made myself forget the details
of that last night, my last night as a normal person. I made myself forget
the grief I'd seen in Raven's orbs, reflecting back at me.
Now I remembered.
I lay back down quietly, haunted by her eyes,
which were shattered by glass and distorted by pain.
Stop thinking. I thought. Stop thinking. Stop -
She's hurting too, the words came unbidden.
Rickie's hand touched my shoulder, and I jerked
away, a little surprised.
"How are you?" Rickie whispered.
I turned away from the mirror and looked up
at Rickie. I licked my lips and willed myself to speak.
"I know you can't say anything," Rickie
continued, not even waiting for me to open my mouth. "She's cast some
kind of spell on you."
Yet another spell, I thought dryly. My sarcasm must have showed
on my face, because Rickie asked, "What's so funny? Sorry," she
said quickly. "I forgot."
It's all right. I thought to her, helplessly. Think, Alianna.
You have to communicate with her somehow.
I had about given up hope when I noticed the
small bulge in the front pocket of her T-shirt. I was glad to see it that
I reached over and patted and pulled at it without giving her any indication
why.
“Hey!” she said indignantly. “What do you think
you’re –“ She made no protest as my fingers brushed her breast though, but
watched me with a mixture of curiosity and puzzlement.
I flashed her a huge grin and waved a notepad
at her triumphantly.
“Oh, brilliant Ali!” she exclaimed eagerly.
“I have a pen in my back pocket!” She pulled it out while she said, “Next
time gimme some kind of warning before you do that.”
I nodded and took the pen from her outstretched
hand.
What’s going on? I wrote. How did we get here and . . . can
I borrow your sweater? This hospital gown isn’t a good substitute for clothes.
Rickie read it, and replied, “You went into
some kind of coma. I came to see you before you . . . “ she trailed off, somber.
“But Raven came in and made you float out of the room somehow. She knocked
me to the ground, then floated me up too. She put us in this car, and now
she’s driving us to ‘Hell.’
“I’m sorry,” she said sheepishly. “I know this
isn’t the best news you’ve ever heard. Oh, my sweater! Here.” Rickie picked
it up from where it had fallen onto the floor and gave it me.
I put it on, then wrote on the notepad, Why
doesn’t Raven notice us back here? They had to tie me down on the bed, didn’t
they?
Rickie sat silently for a moment. “I kind of
pissed her off,” she said. “I told her it wasn’t your fault her daughter died,
and it wasn’t her fault your wife died. She got mad, and has been avoiding
looking back here for the last hour.”
I nodded, remembering the blankness in her gaze.
“They . . . did have to tie you to the bed.
I guess you were struggling pretty hard.” Rickie said softly. “Ali, do you
remember anything before Raven came? What set you off like that?”
I did some exercises with a nurse in the gym, I wrote slowly. But I got tired quickly
and she wanted me to stop. I kept going though, onto some leg exercises. But
I couldn’t do them after all, and I almost fainted. When I could see clearly,
Raven stood over me. I went back to bed, and thought about you and what hap
– I paused in my writing. No way was I going to tell Rickie that our kiss
had been foremost in my thoughts for hours afterward. I crossed out "thought
about you and what hap-" and replaced it with, I went back to bed
and went to sleep. But my dreams were disturbing, and I remembered Kendra’s
death. My hand shook as I wrote the last two words, and I gave the pad
back to Rickie without finishing what I was going to say.
She finished it for me.
“And then you started convulsing,” Rickie murmured,
her eyes focused on something far away. I squeezed her hand reassuringly.
I’m sorry, I wrote. I know that was hard for you.
Rickie read it, shaking her head. “I didn’t
actually see you. But when I found you lying there . . . That was hard.” She
said, so softly I strained to hear.
I didn’t know what to say, let alone write,
to that. I released her hand and stared down at the blank piece of paper for
several moments.
Rickie, I started, hesitant and shy, though I knew she had no idea what I was
thinking and couldn’t see the paper because I hunched over it protectively.
I love . . .
The car stopped with a sudden squeal. I was
knocked off the seat and the pen and notepad flew out of my hands. Up in the
front, I heard Raven breathing heavily.
"You know what it is, don't you?"
she muttered. Rickie helped me up and together we stared at Raven with growing
alarm.
"You know why you did it?" she asked,
twisting in her chair to glare at me with startlingly lucid eyes.
I bit my lip, shaking my head.
She ignored me for a moment, staring at Rickie.
"If I killed her, would you care?"
Raven said softly. "Would you weep over her body? Would you tear her
skin, saying over and over, 'Come back to me. Come back to me, and everything
will be alright again.' Well?!" she screamed the last word. "Would
you?"
Rickie glanced at me out of the corner of her
eye, and licked her lips. "Yes," she whispered. "Yes, I would."
Raven laughed and shook her head.
"No, I think you're lying." She sat
silent for an instant, then said abruptly, "Get out, both of you. Go
into the field on the side of the road."
I spared a glance at the window and saw that
we were indeed a few feet away from a grassy meadow. Heavily populated
by trees, an open grove lay some distance away.
Cautiously I sat up and followed Rickie as she
got out of the car. She landed on the ground and wobbled a little bit. Her
breath was warm on my face.
"Run," Raven said shortly. "Run,
like you're about to die. I want to see you hurt."
Rickie and I stared at Raven for a moment in
silence. I don't know what Rickie was thinking, but I was wondering how in
the holy fuck were we going to get out of this.
"Run, damn you!" Raven exploded. "Run,
or die!"
I shook myself out of my trance, and ran away
from Raven, towards the grove. Rickie kept up with me easily, far too easily.
I began to stumble after only a few minutes, the effects of being bed-ridden
for days hitting me like sledgehammer. Rickie clasped my hand, forcing me
forward. We fell together, into the moist grass that caressed me like a lover's
kiss.
I rolled over and stared at Raven, who walked
calmly several feet away from us.
"She's crazy, Rickie," I panted, sitting
up, not even realizing I'd been able to speak aloud. "She's gonna kill
us; we have to get away."
Rickie looked at me with a sudden sadness, completely
unsurprised that I could now speak. "She's not crazy, Ali." she
said softly. She gazed at the figure striding towards us, staring down at
the ground with a meticulous concentration.
"She's human."
Part 10
Raven:
The
way you touch me,
The
way that you ache for my skin,
This
exquisite agony,
Lingering
forever within,
Two
long gone, dead and buried,
One,
my daughter, skin of a dove
Two,
my husband, struck by mischance,
These
two I love
And
hold to my breast
Painfully
aware,
Of
my existence,
For
all these days have been wasted,
Something
shall happen; I feel it's soon
Spinning
away from the hatred that threatens to destroy me,
This
ice cold room
Wavering
in my consciousness
Alone
Hopeful
At
peace
Free
Who?
Where
am I? What am I thinking of? I can't quite recall, though I've tried my best.
Ah, I remember now. I'm driving the slayer of my daughter to her death.
Driving
. . .
I
closed my eyes, and let the stillness flood my sense. Quiet in all the corners
of space.
Except
one.
Through
my banned sight, I heard clearly Alianna's rapid breathing, her hands as they
quiver over something. I opened my eyes, amazed to find that my little doze
hadn't killed us all.
It'd
be quicker if I had, I thought, irritably. I wouldn't have to
bother driving them 300 miles to some place I'm not even sure still exists.
I drove on in silent contemplation, sorrowful. I didn't really want to kill
anyone, even Alianna. But her cashier-lover certainly didn't deserve to die
the painful death I had planned them. Several decades ago, I'd found a hot
spring, made naturally hot by underwater currents. It lay hidden in a forest
in the middle of nowhere, and with a simple fire spell, I could turn up the
heat to boiling, excruciating temperatures.
I
don't even know if I have the power for that anymore, I
chided myself, letting a single tear roll down my cheek. Centuries of untamed
magic had taken their toll on my body and my spirit. I barely had the energy
to maintain the mute charm on Alianna, let alone levitation.
I
can't do this for much longer, I
thought. I have to end it. Cruel irony, that. By casting such a powerful
spell on Alianna, I'd bound myself to her.
We would not be free of the guilt, the pain, the terrible nightmares,
until one of us died. By cursing Alianna to eternal life, I had cursed myself.
By casting the most powerful curse I'd ever learned, my power had slowly dwindled
over time, leaving me with a perpetual exhaustion and fading body.
I
was dying.
But
not quickly enough.
I
broke away from my thoughts, and gazed out at the window at a grassy glade
a few miles off the road.
"It
ends," I whispered. "One way or another, it ends."
I
stopped the car.
* * *
Minutes
later.
I
stumbled through moist grass, and loose roots, staring down at the ground.
Though I'd told the women I wanted to see their pain, it was the farthest
thing from my mind. All I wanted was to sleep.
I
tripped on something, and didn't bother getting up. It didn't matter anyway.
No one came. No one cared.