Ander - Part 1: Subchapter 15
15
This is it, Hezzi. Just - Just go on in there and wake her up. No problem. It's not like she's gonna eat you or anything. That's ridiculous! She's your mother! She loves you, probably. Yeah, so just go on in there and...
Urgh, even the outside of her tent was creepy enough to make him want to run back to his father and ask him to send somebody else instead. There were all these weird symbols painted in deer blood on the outside, strange markings without rhyme or reason, flowing across and weaving into each other like serpents.
And then there was Grandmother's skull stuck on a pike by the entrance. Everyone was supposed to touch it before they entered, but he never did unless someone was watching.
Like they were now. The whole tribe. Watching him stand outside his own mother's tent, too scared to go in. He supposed he could just call her from here, but that would really make him look like a coward, so he stepped up and placed his paw on top of Grandmother's skull, perfectly proper. It was slick with rain, and he had to fight the urge to jerk his hand back. When that unpleasant task was done, he opened the flap to his mother's tent and poked his head inside.
"Mother?" It took a while for his eyes to adjust, and when they did he was greeted by the usual sights: strips of snakeskin hanging from the roof, bowls of foul-smelling mixtures and concoctions, skulls from various rodents strung together and woven through the supports, bushels of feathers, countless effigies of Cora, the mountain god, and in the farthest corner, lying atop a rickety cot with her back turned, was his mother, Shekka, the Witch of the tribe.
"Mother? Are you awake?" Hezzi said in barely more than a whisper. He really, really didn't want to stick any more of his body inside this tent than was absolutely necessary, but it looked like that wouldn't be an option this time.
He entered and let the flap fall shut behind him, cutting off what little light managed to trickle in from outside. He made his way over to her bed, carefully ducking underneath all the animal parts hanging from the ceiling and stepping over all the questionable gourds littering the floor.
"Mother?"
She grunted, sniffed, and slept on.
If he took too long with this, Father might get impatient, so he slowly reached for her shoulder, meaning to shake her awake as lightly as possible. "Mother? Father wants -"
She spun around and grabbed Hezzi by the wrist, quick as an adder, her milky eyes flared with veins of red. "What do you want, pup!?"
"F-Father w-wants to -"
"Spit it out, you snivelling whelp! You come into my tent and wake me from my slumber! Why!?"
Hezzi felt his tail curl between his legs, and this time he was powerless to stop it. Her claws were digging into his arm, and her eyes were boring right into his very soul, as if they weren't really blind at all, but just pretending.
"Father wants to talk to you!"
"Why, pup!? Why!?"
"Because we caught a Fox!"
She stopped, as if frozen solid by his words. Hezzi wanted nothing more than to get out of this dark place, but she was still holding on.
"What did you say, pup?"
"W-We caught a Fox. It's just outside, in a cage."
Shekka let go of Hezzi's wrist and placed her bony hand on his shoulder instead. "Take me to it. Now."
"Yes, Mother. Of course." Hezzi absolutely hated leading her around like this, but what choice did he have? The way she hunched over by his side, he could hear every wheezing breath from her nostrils, could feel her mangy fur, thin and patchy. The bonecharms she wore on her wrists swung back and forth as they hobbled out of the tent, and Hezzi found himself thinking, not for the first time, about her name. In the Old Wolven tongue, it means...
*
... the Empty One. Ander has pondered the meaning of that name many times, but he has come no closer to understanding it. And yet, as he watched Hezzi lead her to the cage, her claw-like fingers hooked around his shoulder, he couldn't help but think it was fitting. There was just... something... missing. Even though she was almost completely blind, her eyes always darted from place to place, never coming to rest. Unless they happened to spot you, of course. Then they'd lock onto yours, perfectly still, focussed and unblinking, as if she wanted to suck the sight right out of your eyeballs. It was a silly notion, a grim leftover from Ander's childhood thoughts, but even now, he was unable to shake it. There was just... something... missing.
Hezzi finally reached the cage, took Mother's hand, placed it against the bars, then quickly backed away, not doing a very good job of hiding the relief in his face.
Shekka travelled along the length of the cage, grabbing each bar along the way, until she reached the far end, where the Vixen was still curled up in the corner.
She looked at their captive. Or, at least, she seemed to look. Nobody quite knew how well she could still see, not even Father, but there are those who claim she doesn't use her eyes at all anymore.
She uses the Cora instead.
The Fox kept perfectly still, but the look on her face was one Ander could understand fully, since he has stared into what she is staring into right now many times before: his mother's emptiness. Her white eyes, crisscrossed with lines of red like cracks in an egg, no doubt wet and glistening from the rain. Sometimes puss would leak from the corner of her right eye, and she'd just let it accumulate there, day by a day, a custom no one has had the courage to enquire about.
Eventually it all became too much, and the Fox pulled down her hood, hiding her face from the sightless abomination staring in at her.
How Ander wished he could know her name. How he wished he could go over there right now and tell her everything will be fine. How he wished -
Lightning tore through the sky, and the rumble that followed was loud enough to shake the very ground beneath Ander's feet, but that wasn't what had cut off his thoughts so abruptly. In that instant, when the lightning was still bright in the sky, he saw it reflected in the Fox's eyes, turning them a pure white, just like his mother's, as if her sight, as if her very life had been sucked right out of her, as if that childhood thought had become a reality.
In a way, he was right.
Shekka stepped back from the cage and uttered two words, two simple words that would impact the rest of his life.
"Burn her."
This has been the fifteenth subchapter in my serial novel, "Ander". If you enjoyed it, please help keep my face un-mauled by irritable ostriches by dropping me a donation. Thank you! ^_^
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