David Wilson - Hallowed Ground

The Deacon stepped out into the night. There was a light burning in his wagon, and he smiled. Colleen was awake. He breathed in deep, trying to taste her on the air. He exhaled. The child was awake. It took no magic to know it. He could hear the infant mewling. He wondered if Colleen was in the mood for a story?

‡‡‡

When Mariah finally woke, the wagon had long since lurched to a stop. It was dark, and her head felt as though it was stuffed with cotton, but when she pressed her palms to the wooden floor, she found she could sit up without much effort. Her body ached. It wasn’t a localized pain; it pulsed through her, every vein and every muscle. She felt her heartbeat, strong and insistent, but each beat burned like fire.

She was hungry. She rose shakily to her knees and crawled to the rear door of the wagon. She reached up to test it and see if she was locked inside. As she did so there was a rasping sound. The doors swung wide and Balthazar stood in the open doorway gazing at her with a mocking grin.

Behind and beyond him, lighting raked the sky. There was no accompanying rumble of thunder. There was no moon, and the stars had been doused by the storm. She heard the wind and the rain, but where she knelt, staring up into Balthazar’s dark, unyielding gaze, she felt no mist or breeze. She saw the rain, but it stopped somewhere short of the wagon leaving their camp dry. She heard the wind, but not a lock of her hair lifted from her shoulders, and Balthazar’s long coat hung around his legs, unruffled.

"I wondered if you would sleep your life away," Balthazar said. "There is bacon, and eggs. A tin of coffee is brewing. Hungry?"

"Yes," she said. She tried to rise, but dropped back to her knees. She gritted her teeth and levered herself to her feet. She had to brace herself on the wall, but Mariah managed to walk shakily to the rear of the wagon. Balthazar held out his hand. He provided no support as she stepped down, but her legs didn’t buckle under her.

"Much better," he said.

She grinned fiercely, despite the wave of nausea that rushed through her. She hated that his approval mattered, but for some reason it did, and it was suddenly important to her that something mattered. If he wasn’t lying to her, then her child waited for her somewhere in that storm.

Balthazar led her around the corner of the wagon. She tried not to think about what kept the rain at bay. She saw that the chairs sat before the fire once more. She stared out into the darkness. There were hills surrounding them, and a few gnarled, twisted trees were in sight.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"Not where we seem to be," was his cryptic answer. "We have little time, I’m afraid. We are going to need to speed your recovery, and your training."

"My training?" she frowned.

"Sit," Balthazar commanded. "Eat, and listen. I am not in the habit of saying things twice where once will do. There are a great many powers in motion, and my patience, which is rarely tested, wears thin."

Mariah took her seat by the fire. She had no idea what the man was talking about, but she’d caught the scent of freshly cooked bacon, and the amazing coffee he’d offered her the last time they'd talked. She reached for her plate and began eating without a word. Balthazar didn't sit. He paced beside the fire. Now and then he gazed out over the storm-swept desert, as though he expected to see something important out there beyond the curtain of rain.

When Mariah had finished, she washed the salty bacon down with coffee and set the plate aside. Balthazar turned. It was eerie how he sensed – or knew – the exact moment she’d finished, as though attuned to her. She thought about the moment she’d reached for the door to the back of the wagon and shivered.

"You had better get used to stranger things than that," Balthazar said, snatching the thought from her mind.

"I don’t understand," she said.

Balthazar turned to stare out into the storm. "There are things you need to know, and others that you need to learn, and only some few things that you need to understand . If you want to see your child again, there is work to be done. So, Mariah, are you ready to work?"

"What must I do?"

"First, I need you to remember," Balthazar said.

Mariah’s shivered. She had no idea why. It was though ravens had walked over her grave. "Remember what?" she asked.

"Everything," Balthazar said simply. "You must remember the journey that brought you to me. You must remember what came before. First, you must remember your name."

"My name is Mariah."

"Yes," he said with a smile. "That is the name they have given you. Names are easily given, but trust me it was not always your name. I believe that men and women deserve one name for each of their lives. In this life, you are Mariah. In your last life you were not."

"You aren’t making any sense," she said.

"It does, if you think about it, but that is by the by, nothing needs to make sense," Balthazar replied.

He turned back to face her, and she saw he was smiling again. There was no more warmth in his expression than before, but she saw a spark of – something.

"Tell me, what is your earliest memory?" he asked.

It was a simple enough question. Mariah turned her thoughts inward. She frowned.

"There were tents," she said at last. I was alone in one, and there were men – strange men – in the others. I remember thinking that they walked oddly. Their eyes were…cold."

She almost said like yours but bit the words back.

"They wouldn’t talk to me. They brought me food three times a day. One of them was always by the fire. I don’t think we were always in the same place . . ."

"What makes you think that?"

"The trees were different, but…" She fell silent. Then started again, haltingly. "I know we moved from campsite to campsite… but I don’t remember a wagon, or horses. Near the end I couldn’t have ridden – I was so heavy – but…"

"You traveled," Balthazar finished. "You remember nothing before that? Tell me, who is the father of this child of yours? If that is too difficult, tell me where you were born. If you cannot find the place, tell me the names of your parents. Tell me something that didn’t happen yesterday or last week or last month. Go back and tell me about kicking up leaves as a little girl and making angels in the mud."

Mariah felt an icy claw of doubt grip her heart. She had thought of none of these things since waking. Her mind had been full with the singular thought: her child. And then, as the needs of hunger had become overpowering, she had thought about food.

"I escaped them," she said at last, ignoring his questions. "I remember lying on my bedroll in that tent and thinking I would go crazy if I stayed another minute. Something was wrong with the child, and they wouldn’t talk to me.

"It was late afternoon. They mostly came out of their tents at night. One of them was watching the fire," she closed her eyes, remembering. "I walked past him. He didn’t look up until I had passed. I kept walking, right to the edge of the camp. I remember thinking that it was strange that the camp seemed to have an edge. There was a point where you were inside…and another where you were not.

"I stood right at that edge, as I’d done I don’t know how many times before. I felt his eyes on my back, but pretended I didn’t know he was watching. I don’t know how I knew when he turned away," she shrugged. "I just knew."

She turned her face up to meet Balthazar’s gaze. "I don’t even know who they were !" she said.

"It isn’t important," Balthazar replied.

She turned away. He was wrong. It was important to her, but she kept that to herself. She didn’t need to tell him. He could reach into her head and pluck the damned thought out. He almost certainly knew the story she was telling – and probably better than she ever would.