Screams in the Night

Melete had crossed several unspoken boundaries, and for this she must now be beaten. I do not pity her; for what she has done cannot be undone without great suffering. She is my woman, and I will do now as must be done; I am responsible for her, she is my property.

I can honestly say that for as long as I have known her, Melete has always been somewhat peculiar. She had always been a bit quirky in her manners; she frequently discussed things with herself, but silently. When I had first lain eyes upon her is the only moment that I can recall not thinking she was just a bit odd. I had never seen her before; and she was beautiful. She had moved among the golden tufted heads of many tall grasses with a slow fluid grace which for me had seemed to stop all other things. There was only her.

Many times now, beyond that single moment in my mind; I have said to myself "the woman is peculiar" when moments of unfathomable choices came over her. Melete often did strange things for no apparent reason; other than she could not win an argument with herself. She did not do the things she knew not to do; but with her you never knew what she might do not because she was bad, but because she was typically into everything. She simply could not control her curiosity and desire to explore things; it had often enough tripped her up as I had watched silently while she had become the woman she is. Make no mistake I love her but she is indeed a vexation in many ways; and this is another of those ways.

I can speak now only of what I saw with my own eyes; I cannot say what Melete saw, only she saw it. Much of what I say now is my own speculation; the function of sound mind trying desperately to explain what it has witnessed without seeing a thing.

I freely admit that it is a casually observable fact, that Nuqi does not much care for Melete. In her own mind she tolerates Melete; because she loves me and is pleased not to eat Melete solely because for some incomprehensible reason I enjoy having Melete. I am certain that if I ever change my mind about that, Nuqi will be most pleased. She would be most pleased indeed; although Ember being a different creature with a different perspective and a different opinion altogether, would not be pleased. In spite of this neither was she overly casual in Melete's company; Ember did not abandon Melete, but neither did she let her own guard down around Melete. This struck me as particularly peculiar. I studied it, observing it for myself several times. The animals simply avoided her if they could; and if they could not, they were suspiciously wary of her. For some reason my animals were now leery of her and this was highly unusual.

Also out of the ordinary now was the amount of time that Melete spent talking to herself in a manner which could easily mislead an eavesdropper to believe that she seemed to be holding a strange conversation in which only she could hear the words being spoken to her as she worked to fulfill the simple daily duties of camp life. She did not need to discuss such things as her hands had memorized long ago so her mind was free to wander wherever the conversation led her. It was in this way that I first became aware of the recently developed habit; it concerned me, but I did not mention it because I did not believe it to be of any significance beyond that of a bored mind amusing itself with a moment of meaningless banter. I was wrong, I can see that clearly now; I was badly wrong. She was in communication with a the Spirit of a Trickster. She had not merely taken a discarded child's toy, she had taken the bait of a carefully lain snare; and now she was trapped.

I did not discover this right away, it had taken repeated observations of such indicators before I began to ask questions; and Melete had somewhat reluctantly provided me with the descriptions of things which only she had seen or heard. My observable senses repeatedly tell my mind that what she says happened did not happen; and yet I witnessed every moment of it because I lived through it alongside her. I believe that she angered the spirits, and for this she was punished; and with her I was to be punished, because I am responsible for her. Melete had been keeping a secret from me and this also is a violation of taboo; and for this too she would be punished, and I along with her.

During an honorable trade negotiation she had taken my wisdom for granted; my woman had casually dismissed me to continue to the negotiations privately, because she was shown a vision which her unprepared mind had accepted. She had traded fairly and her obligation had been complete; yet a tricky spirit had been offended by her lack of understanding of our ways even as she sought to practice them. She had accepted, with no obligation to do so, conditions set upon the trade and thus obligated herself to fulfill them. The spirit had shown itself to her in the guise of an adolescent boy who would only accept her trade if he were also allowed to remain with the doll and to travel with us. In her trust she had accepted the terms, unknowingly trading for something far more sinister than she had realized. I had questioned Melete at length and in great detail about this boy she had seen and traded with, about the terms of the trade and the conditions set upon it by this child that I had never seen, nor heard, nor smelled.

I had taken her to the center of the village which stood in silent witness imposingly around us, as if unseen eyes watched from beyond the darkness of each door and window. I had shown her the towering twin Inukshuk which stood solemnly beside one another in ancient and watchful silence. From the ankles of these stone giants strong chains with thick cuffs lay stretched upon the ground toward the center of the space between them; from their wrists high above, fell matching lengths of the same strong chain beset also at their ends with the self same manner of cuffs; and it was between them, hand and foot that I chained Melete, displaying her spread eagle.

I had cast the cursed doll on the ground before her eyes and then stripped her bare to the waist, exposing her soft warm flesh to the ravages of the frigid and whistling night wind as it swept from across the wide Tundra behind us up into the craggy expanse of the mountainous fringes of the valley now spreading before us. Four miniature spears were driven through the effigy of the Kur; each precisely angled and aligned to represent a fatal blow. From the mouth of one of the Inukshuk I took the long thick black whip which represented the great beast's tongue; grasping its closely braided handle firmly, my arm sent it forward to stretch so I might learn its length and weight.

With a final look around, still I saw no eyes though I clearly felt their presence upon me. I heard no voice, I smelled no fire; but still the village stood, proud and strong as if watching and waiting. With an solemn inclination of my head and a flick of my wrist, I recalled the heavy braided leather to pool fluidly at my heel before sending it forward by leaning into a sweep of my arm to lick her flesh sharply. I felt the tug of the leather as it sank upon her flesh, wrapping itself tightly against it in a suddenly embrace of passionate fury. Again I recalled the whip to heel, shifting and rebalancing my weight before sending another blistering lash of the whip to meet her flesh by stepping into a quick forward sweep of my right arm. I heard her scream fill the air around us with a sharp and recognizable note as it carried on by the night wind to roll and echo upon the walls of stone beyond our sight.

Four times my arm sent the heavy whip to embrace Melete's bare flesh; four times her primal scream had broken the silence of the night, as even as I returned the tongue of the Inukshuk effigy to its place my understanding of things failed me entirely as I stood within the ring of an ancient village which had long ago crumbled away into the tattered remains which lay scattered around my feet as scraps of wind worn hides, kindling wood and cold stones. As I stood dumbfounded with the sudden change of my surroundings from somewhere within the darkness of the valley ahead, another primal scream rolled in answer echoing back to us.

As I moved to release Melete from the chains which held her, I noticed the doll before her on the ground was little more now than bare sticks, scraps of deteriorated leather, and the wicked sinew grimace of crookedly outlined teeth.

(Melete)

I stood between the towering stone figures, the bitter northern wind raising gooseflesh upon my exposed skin as Scar secured the cuffs around my wrists and ankles. I watched his hands as he worked, following each movement while the chains rattled and their cold weight settled against my limbs. I tested them instinctively, pulling once against the restraints, not because I believed I could break free but because some part of me could never quite resist testing the limits of anything that held me. When Scar finished securing me between the stones, I lifted my eyes to his face, searching for something in his expression that might tell me what he was thinking. I knew him well enough to understand that whatever I might find there, he had already made his decision.

When he cast the little Kur doll upon the ground before me, my gaze followed it, and my stomach tightened at the sight of those four miniature spears driven into its hide. I had traded for that wretched thing without understanding what I was accepting, and I had brought it into our company despite Scar’s questions and warnings. I knew he believed I had crossed boundaries that were his to teach me not to cross, and I knew the punishment awaiting me was the consequence of my own choices. Knowing that did not make me eager to receive it. As he removed the covering from my upper body, I watched him, my shoulders tensing when the wind struck my bare skin. I could not help wondering what he saw when he looked at me then, whether he saw only a woman who had failed to heed his wisdom or the same woman he had first encountered moving through the golden grasses of the forest.

I watched Scar take up the heavy black whip, following the movement of his arm as he tested its length. My fingers curled inside the cuffs, and I forced myself to meet his gaze rather than look away. I had faced dangers in the forest that would have made many a woman run, but there was little to be gained by pretending I did not fear the lash. Scar gave me nothing in his expression that I could use to prepare myself, and I found myself studying him all the more closely, searching for some hint of hesitation that never came. He glanced once more at my face then without a word, moved to stand behind me. Then I heard his arm move, and the first strike fell across my back.

The cry that tore from me was raw and involuntary, ripped from somewhere deeper than pride could reach. My body strained against the chains, my hands closing into fists as the leather bit into my flesh. I barely had time to draw breath before Scar gathered the whip again, and the second blow struck with a force that made my knees threaten to buckle if I had not been held in place by the chains. I clenched my teeth, trying to master the trembling that had seized me, but the next strike shattered whatever fragile control I had managed to recover. Another scream escaped me, carried away by the wind that swept through the valley. Between the blows, I caught glimpses of Scar from the corner of my eyes as he moved, his face and the deliberate precision of his actions remaining painfully clear even when the rest of the world seemed to narrow to the sound of the whip and the fire across my back.

Four times the whip fell. Four times my cries broke into the night. By the last, I was shaking so badly that the chains rattled with me, my breath coming in ragged gasps as I fought to remain upright. I could feel every place the leather had met my skin, each movement drawing fresh fire across my back, and the freezing air only sharpened the misery. Still, when the final blow had passed, I lifted my head enough to look at Scar. I tried to draw a proper breath as he returned the whip to its place, tears slipping down my cheeks despite my efforts to hold them back. I wanted to say something to him, though I could not have told him what. I could only look at the man who had delivered my punishment and wonder what he saw when he looked back at me. I looked down and away in my shame.

Then the world changed.

I had been staring at the ground before me, at the little doll and the scattered shadows cast by the towering stones, when I realized that something was terribly wrong. The village was gone. I blinked, trying to make sense of the emptiness where its weathered dwellings and scattered remnants had stood moments before. The towering Inukshuk were all that remained standing, surrounded by the old, fallen debris of what had once been a village. The doll before me had deteriorated into little more than tattered scraps of leather, crooked sinew, and bare sticks. I looked toward Scar, needing to know whether he was seeing what I was seeing, whether the confusion that had begun to creep through me had found any place upon his face. I could not imagine what he must make of it, having stood beside me through an event his own senses could not explain.

Before I could make sense of it, another scream answered mine from somewhere in the darkness.

A shudder passed through me so violently that my chains trembled. I looked toward Scar again, my attention caught between the darkness from which the sound had come and the man standing beside me. I had heard the cries of wounded animals, the warning growls of predators, and the eerie sounds of the forest at night, but this was none of those things. The answering cry seemed to rise from the very darkness surrounding us, and every instinct I possessed told me that something had heard me. Something had been there while I stood bound between the stones, and whatever it was had answered when my own voice broke the silence. I could not know whether Scar heard what I heard, but the thought of facing whatever lurked beyond the reach of our sight without him was suddenly far more frightening than I cared to admit.

When Scar moved to release me, the instant the restraints gave way, my strength abandoned me altogether. I stumbled toward him and folded into his arms, clutching at him as though my legs could no longer bear my weight. The sobs came hard and fast, wrenching through me until I could scarcely draw a proper breath. I buried my face against him, trembling against his body, my fingers gripping his clothing while the pain across my back and the misery of the night finally overwhelmed whatever composure I had left. I could feel the solid warmth of him against the bitter cold, and I held on as though the simple fact of his presence might anchor me to a world that still made sense. I did not try to speak or explain myself. I only held on to him and wept, no longer caring whether he saw how thoroughly the punishment had undone me.

Then I heard the second scream.

My sobbing faltered. I lifted my head, listening, and the fear that had begun to ease returned with such sudden force that I went completely still. My fingers tightened against Scar, and I searched the darkness beyond his shoulder before looking back toward him. The cold seemed to settle inside my bones, and I pressed myself closer to his body, suddenly unwilling to leave even the smallest space between us. There was nothing to see, nothing to follow with my eyes, yet I could not shake the dreadful certainty that we were not alone. I listened so intently that even my own breathing seemed too loud, acutely aware of Scar beside me and of how little either of us understood about what had just happened.

I had questions enough to fill a lifetime, and under any other circumstances I would have begged for answers until I had exhausted every possibility. But not then. Not with the village vanished, the doll reduced to ruin, and that terrible cry still lingering in the air. For once, my curiosity had nothing to offer me but fear. I remained silent with tears flowing down my half frozen face in Scar’s arms, my fingers still curled into his clothing as I listened to the darkness around us. I did not know what he was thinking, what conclusions he might draw, or whether he believed the danger had passed. I only knew that I wanted to remain close to him while we stood among the remnants of a place that had ceased to exist before our eyes. Whatever I had stumbled into, whatever I had unknowingly invited into our lives, I could no longer convince myself that it was finished with me.