Page 14 of Devour the Dark

“Mother?” he calls.

She keeps playing, the moving bowstring catching a slant of waxing moonlight.

There is stillness in the garden. The air is misty, and it swirls around her willowy frame.

He crosses the garden to her and reaches out…

And she disintegrates into ash.

Someone laughs behind him.

He turns to find the witch.

“So pathetic.” She claps slowly. Deliberately. “I never would have taken you for a mommy’s boy.”

He steels himself.

The music continues in the dark, now too far from his reach.

“What do you want?” he asks.

“I need you to come here.”

“To my childhood home?”

She stares at him and says nothing.

Trapped in his body, in his mind, the witch is somehow sharper, more demon than woman. Her fingers are capped in black ink, her teeth stained red. She wears a black dress that has no silhouette, just shadow edges.

Her eyes are bright, though. Full of something he can only describe ashunger.

“I will not take you to Darkland,” he tells her.

“Then I will make you devour everything you love.”

She hangs her head back and laughs.

I am suddenly,achingly awake.

I hear his breathing first.

The Captain shifts in the wingback chair. A scrape of fabric. A rattle of a watch chain.

Has he been keeping time for me? The man terrified of a ticking clock?

The flicker of candlelight gilds the Captain in gold, but it does nothing to hide the swollen underside of his eyes, the shadows that darken his skin.

I’m only vaguely aware of the destruction I have caused him, but I already know the price has been too high.

There is a sudden sinking feeling in my gut and I know right away what it is:guilt.

I quickly bury it.

The witch is always there ready to exploit a weakness and guilt is an emotion I cannot abide by. Not now. Not ever.

The Captain’s eyes trail up my body and then settle on my face. There is a distance to his gaze, like he is lost in thought, and it takes him several seconds to realize I’m staring back.

He lurches out of his chair, pulls his pistol from its holster. His hand trembles a little. His breathing is shallow.

---