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Tarot Stories #2: The Reaping
Jul. 2nd, 2012 07:49 amNo one else saw them coming.
It was a hot, sticky day in midsummer. The village green could be more accurately called the village yellow, grass sickly from the heat. Even Abrams' goats looked wilted, listless as they grazed in the shade of the big oak. The old men were sitting beneath the canopy of the store porch, fanning themselves and drinking beer from Martin's cold cellar. I was fetching water from the well, with Gabriel's firefox kit, Spark, gamboling at my feet. Spark was the only living thing that didn't mind the heat.
The old men watch everything that happens in Granville, always alert for any new gossip. They noticed the cool breeze blowing in from the east and welcomed it, leaning back and closing their eyes to savor it. Spark lifted her head, ears pricked, and yapped at the wind. I sighed and splashed water from the well bucket on the back of my neck to cool off. The whisper-thin membranes of the wings I don't have spread to catch the cooling air.
It was that, and not Spark's yips, that made me look east. I can feel my wings, flicking and shifting like a dragonfly's at my back, even though I know they're not real. But I can't usually feel things with my nonexistent wings.
What I saw made my breath catch in my throat. I knocked the bucket back into well, took a step back, screamed, turned, fled.
A storm of tentacles boiled behind me. They chased the dust of the road before them, sent the air churning ahead of hundreds of thick black sucker-laden ropes that quested through the village, snaked through open windows to invade the small houses, along paths, under and over the goats. Searching. I could not see where they began, whether they belonged to a hundred creatures or just one. The eye traveled back but there was nothing to trace them to, just more tentacles all the way to the horizon.
No one else saw them.
Martin turned to Old Bill on the porch as I hollered, "Dark One! Dark One!" What else could it be? We'd all heard the stories, of towns torn apart and looted by the Dark One's monstrosities. Until now, his presence had not been felt in our province -- but I knew in my bones this could be nothing else.
"What's gotten into that fool boy now?" Martin said, and then yelped as a tentacle snagged on one of the canopy posts and pulled it down on top of the men. They cursed and struggled out of the canvas as the tentacle roared past them. Even then, they did not see it. It did not touch them. It was not looking for them.
I saw because I kept looking over my shoulder in my headlong flight. I needed to know if they were still coming my way.
They were, faster than I could run. I veered between houses, wove into Georgia's apple grove, trying to lose them between the trees. Spark fled with me, crying and baying at my feet. I don't know if she saw them too, or if she'd just been infected by my panic. Whichever the case, they were still closing, snapping like whips at my heels. I heard the roar of the river and knew I was nearing the cliff that runs at the back of the orchard. But they were right behind me.
I leapt off the cliff. Maybe the wings I don't have will catch me, I hoped wildly.
But the tentacles did instead.
( Story cut for length, content is G-rated )
It was a hot, sticky day in midsummer. The village green could be more accurately called the village yellow, grass sickly from the heat. Even Abrams' goats looked wilted, listless as they grazed in the shade of the big oak. The old men were sitting beneath the canopy of the store porch, fanning themselves and drinking beer from Martin's cold cellar. I was fetching water from the well, with Gabriel's firefox kit, Spark, gamboling at my feet. Spark was the only living thing that didn't mind the heat.
The old men watch everything that happens in Granville, always alert for any new gossip. They noticed the cool breeze blowing in from the east and welcomed it, leaning back and closing their eyes to savor it. Spark lifted her head, ears pricked, and yapped at the wind. I sighed and splashed water from the well bucket on the back of my neck to cool off. The whisper-thin membranes of the wings I don't have spread to catch the cooling air.
It was that, and not Spark's yips, that made me look east. I can feel my wings, flicking and shifting like a dragonfly's at my back, even though I know they're not real. But I can't usually feel things with my nonexistent wings.
What I saw made my breath catch in my throat. I knocked the bucket back into well, took a step back, screamed, turned, fled.
A storm of tentacles boiled behind me. They chased the dust of the road before them, sent the air churning ahead of hundreds of thick black sucker-laden ropes that quested through the village, snaked through open windows to invade the small houses, along paths, under and over the goats. Searching. I could not see where they began, whether they belonged to a hundred creatures or just one. The eye traveled back but there was nothing to trace them to, just more tentacles all the way to the horizon.
No one else saw them.
Martin turned to Old Bill on the porch as I hollered, "Dark One! Dark One!" What else could it be? We'd all heard the stories, of towns torn apart and looted by the Dark One's monstrosities. Until now, his presence had not been felt in our province -- but I knew in my bones this could be nothing else.
"What's gotten into that fool boy now?" Martin said, and then yelped as a tentacle snagged on one of the canopy posts and pulled it down on top of the men. They cursed and struggled out of the canvas as the tentacle roared past them. Even then, they did not see it. It did not touch them. It was not looking for them.
I saw because I kept looking over my shoulder in my headlong flight. I needed to know if they were still coming my way.
They were, faster than I could run. I veered between houses, wove into Georgia's apple grove, trying to lose them between the trees. Spark fled with me, crying and baying at my feet. I don't know if she saw them too, or if she'd just been infected by my panic. Whichever the case, they were still closing, snapping like whips at my heels. I heard the roar of the river and knew I was nearing the cliff that runs at the back of the orchard. But they were right behind me.
I leapt off the cliff. Maybe the wings I don't have will catch me, I hoped wildly.
But the tentacles did instead.
( Story cut for length, content is G-rated )
