Christopher Buehlman - Between Two Fires

She turned now and looked for Thomas, conflicted about whether she hoped to see him. She knew he would be following her—there was no mystery about where she was going—but she was sure she had a long head start. Her heart sank just a little to see that the road behind her was empty.

She wanted to play her bird flute, but it had fallen out of her pouch in the river. Her mother’s comb had not, and she put it to her lips now, blowing through its teeth, but unable to get anything like music out of it.

She walked on.

As late afternoon came on, she found a pretty little farmhouse roofed with the lazy U-shaped tiles they used here. Whoever had been here must have left; she found nothing in the house but furniture and tools. She went to the well in the back, her throat parched, and started lowering the bucket. She stopped, though, when she first smelled, then saw how rancid the well was.

Very little water pooled in that well, not at all enough to cover a man’s mostly skeletal remains bunched at the bottom, his back twisted so his skull and torso faced the wrong way, the eye sockets drilling up at her.

An accident? Did people still die of those?

Then she saw the child’s skull, just the top and one eye visible, one small foot perched on a rock.

No. He threw the body in and jumped.

May God forgive him, since he couldn’t forgive God.

Can I?

She crossed herself.

Did the child’s skull move?

Were two eye-pits now visible?

Join us! Tell us stories about the world where the sun shines all day!

She went back toward the road.

The bucket’s rope creaked.

Her hand went to the flute-shaped box around her neck.

She walked faster.

She couldn’t find any water near the road or in the several houses she visited. She did, however, spend nearly an hour crouching in a vineyard where the dark little grapes had missed their harvest time, some of them beginning to pucker at the stem. She stuffed her mouth with them almost to the peril of her fingers until she vomited, then slowed down, eating a little more and napping under an iron-wheeled cart; she got her strength back, but after another hour on the road her thirst returned.

Still no Thomas.

She chided herself for looking.

One house was occupied, its shutters flung wide, but two men quarreled there; she saw their shapes move in the darkness of the house, their angry, bearded faces illuminated in flashes as they circled each other and took turns passing through a swath of sunlight where roof tiles were missing. Likewise, she could understand only flashes of their southern language, which was like French but not French:

“Hate you… your… kill you… No, no, You… MINE… CHRIST… last time…”

She hugged the limestone wall near the house and kept on, tempted by their well but not wanting to risk being seen. A skinny pig in an enclosure of twined-together branches saw her and snuffed the air at her, but then rolled in the little bit of mud near its trough. She leaned over and stole a palmful of water from that trough, and then scurried on, her thirst worsened.

It was only when she was out of earshot that her fear gave way to pain and her limp returned.

She went to the Rhône an hour before sunset—she would want to be away from it before the sun slipped behind the hills.

No bodies floated there, and no monsters shouldered up from the river’s middle. She saw nothing but weeds on the sandy bottom near the shore; half of a wrecked fishing boat mudded in the shallows looked to have been there a long time, perhaps since before the world and Hell began to couple.

The wind stung her with grit and chopped the surface of the river, but she knelt in the shallows, happy for the cool water lapping at her knees. She cupped her hands to her mouth and slurped, her lips stinging insignificantly just before she swallowed and her cooled, slaked throat became the glad center of her awareness.

She took off her stiff, almost formless shoes, delicately so as not to snap what was left of the thong that wrapped around her ankles, and put her feet in the water.

It was good.

She felt herself smiling for the first time since Père Matthieu died.

Delphine started awake with the feeling that someone was watching her. She opened her eyes, but the night was so dark they were useless.

Where am I?

Think!

The old man’s house?

No.

She remembered now; the priest was dead and she had left Thomas—she was alone. But where?

The convent.

The wind whipped outside, moaning in little nooks of the stone building. She panted, scared of the dark, scared of her solitude.

But someone was watching her—she was sure of it.

Who or what could see in this pitch?

“I hear you breathing, child.”

A woman’s voice. Not unfriendly.

But all the nuns in this little grotto convent were dead; she had seen them arranged in the garden, their faces wrapped tightly in cloths, nearly skeletal arms clasped as if in prayer and wound with wooden rosaries. She remembered that several of these cadavers had no arms on them, but she had seen the human body so abused in so many ways in the last three months that she gave it no further thought.

Despite the sadness in the garden, the building itself had been empty and had offered protection from the wind. She liked the stone cross over the chapel.

But now.

Who was in the room with her?

“You needn’t breathe like a hunted thing. You rest in the arms of the Lord tonight.”

She was in the chapel. She remembered now, an old stone dome near rows of lavender past its blooming time, and a palm tree! She had never seen a palm tree before. The wind made its leaves rattle, and it was browner than she thought a healthy one should be, though not from thirst, surely? It inclined gently toward a statue of Mary with neither crown nor scepter nor babe.

“Who are you?” the girl asked.

“A sister. Sister Broom, if you like. I clean up here.”

“Will you light a lamp, Sister?”

“I haven’t one. I see quite well in the dark. The older sisters who did not see so well have no need of lamps now.”

Delphine forced herself to breathe more easily.

“That’s better,” the other said.

She felt a hand on her chest, patting her as if in reassurance, but it seemed to be feeling its way toward what she carried around her neck. She shifted away from the hand. The hand was withdrawn.

“My, but you’re a nervous little thing.”

“Forgive me. I am…Forgive me.”

“What is it that you’re so worried about?”

“A gift. My father gave it to me.”

“I love gifts. What kind of gift is it?”

She struggled to see but could make nothing out.

“A… an instrument.”

“Of song?”

“…Yes.”

“May I see it?”

Delphine swallowed hard, trying to think of a response, but she couldn’t. Then she remembered not to think at all, but just to speak and see what came out.

“My father told me not to let anyone touch it.”

“That’s too bad. Well, I shouldn’t be selfish. All the things of the convent are mine to amuse myself with now.”

Delphine heard what sounded like a sack being dragged closer, and then the sound of someone fishing around in that sack.

“Here,” the woman’s voice said, “what do you imagine this is?”

An object was placed in Delphine’s hand. It was round and thin and made of metal.

“A bracelet?”

“Yes. The Mother Superior bought it with money from the convent treasury. She wore it over her elbow where the others could not see it, and looked at herself nude in a glass, imagining she was Salomé. Can you imagine? It’s silver with little grape vines and jeweled grapes on it. It was from the time when this place was called Gaul. I do wish I had a lamp. Can you feel the vines in the metal? They’re exquisite, aren’t they?”