Page 2 of Eldritch
En route to the heavy wooden door at the end of the corridor, she swiped one of the baskets used to gather herbs in the garden and paused to lay the child within. She lifted one of the small oil lanterns that had been left beside a wooden chair and turned up the lit flame.
Lifting the hood of her cloak to conceal her face, the acolyte pushed against the wooden door, fighting against gusts of wind, and stepped out into wintry air. Frosted vapors of breath dissipated into the moonless night, and the icy snow crunched beneath her boots. God weeping, the child needn’t have fearedan animal’s vicious teeth, as that unforgiving bite of cold would surely be her demise before anything else.
While the lamp’s flame remained housed in glass and brass, it flickered as it dangled from her outstretched arm, and with the basket clutched in the crook of her elbow, she held her cloak and took swift steps through the slumbering village, past the small shops and the stony fountain. A few burning hearths offered a small bit of light as she kept on toward the narrow footpath beyond the village, where the darkness swallowed her. Eyes scanning her surroundings, she watched for any sign of wolves that were said to attack a lone passerby on occasion. Needles of cold air sliced at her face on a strong gust, and the quiet wailing from inside the basket sent a fearful shiver down her spine.
She groaned when her hood flew back, exposing her ears to that punishing chill.Damn the cursed child for refusing to quiet!The louder she cried, the stronger the acolyte’s urge grew to smother her, until, by some grace of God, the child finally stilled. Unsure if she preferred the sound or silence, she scurried faster, contemplating leaving the baby along the footpath instead. Except, if Mother Vona found out she’d not offered it up to The Eating Woods? Oh, what punishment that would bring.
When she finally reached the stretch of woods, she scampered along its edge, keeping her distance from those trees that might’ve been inclined to reach out and snatch her up. The wind settled to an eerie stillness, the child finally calm, until only the sound of the acolyte’s panicked breaths could be heard beneath the crunching of snow.
Giggling echoed through the adjacent woods, and she snapped her attention there, her eyes scanning through the dense fog and thick tree trunks that she could see by the light of the lantern.
Nothing but the stench of rot and decaying vegetation.
Even so, she slowed her steps, not daring to keep her eyes off those trees, until something struck the tip of her boot. Angling the lantern toward the ground, she frowned at a small, bloody mass lying in the snow. An animal, given its bent form and cloven feet, but the lack of skin and only stringing bits of flesh clinging to its bones made it impossible to identify.
A creeping terror crawled up her spine. Swallowing back a gulp, she stepped around the poor beast, and a glance at the child’s glowing, silvery eyes reminded her that she’d soon suffer the same fate.
She looked away, shaking her head.
The will of The Red God.
Even if she thought The Red God was merciless and cruel at times, who was she to question his will?
At last, the acolyte reached the archway to the forest, where vining branches, twisted around weathered bones, served as the entryway to the forlorn-looking trees beyond. Teeth chattering, the acolyte lay the basket on the stones, not daring to share so much as a hand across the threshold.
A sharp skitter of claws against snow had her whirling around with her heart pounding in her chest. A half-dozen ravens had gathered at her back, the sight of them unnerving. Still, better the ravens than whatever lived amongst those trees.
“Eleanor.”
The acolyte gasped and jumped back from the archway.
“Mine sweet Eleanor.” The voice that reached her ears sounded too much like her mother's. “What dost thou hold there, my daughter?”
The acolyte frowned at her mother’s archaic tongue. Such formality of words had not been spoken since her great grandmother’s youth.
A spectral shadow slipped through the trees, a flash of white reminiscent of the stark, white shift her mother had worn thenight they were captured and taken to the temple’s undercroft. The acolyte had been no more than a child then, terrified when both she and her mother were forced into the padded carriage that collected those accused of suffering lunacy. In the months that followed, she’d watched her mother endure cruel interrogations, poked and prodded by witch prickers, and made to undergo treatment for bad humors. In time, that stark white shift had collected dirt, grime, and blood—a motley collection of her mother’s suffering.
“Come, Eleanor. Escape with me to the woods.” Another flash of white, followed by the telling red of her mother’s long hair, as if she were trifling about through the trees. A distant echo of her mother’s laugh, one she’d not heard in years, brought a tearful smile to her face. “Let us make merry until night giveth way to dawn!”
The ghostly figure twirled and slipped behind the trees, and the acolyte stepped closer.
“Come, Daughter. Cast off thine shackles and live as thou wilt.”
The ancient tongue still troubled her, even if her mother had slipped from time to time herself and spoke as her own grandmother had before her, but the whimsy in her mother’s voice compelled Eleanor closer. Closer.
A wailing cry from the child in the basket failed to break her focus, as she watched the figure mince through the trunks of the trees, stoking the fallen brush.
Mother!She reached out her hand, her fingertips stretching just past the archway.Wait for me, Mother!
The child screamed in the basket, her cries so filled with terror, the acolyte broke from her trance to see those tiny glowing eyes staring up at her amid a face as red as a beet. The ravens had flocked closer, cawing as if to chastise. One flew at the young acolyte, and she threw up her hands, swatting at it.Another joined the first, their sharp claws scratching against the exposed bits of her skin.
Get away! Get away!
She swatted at them with the frantic thrashing of her hands, unknowingly inching backward to avoid their attack.
Something cold gripped her wrist, and she turned to find a tall, beastly creature with bark-like skin and antlers staring back at her.
The wrathavore.
