Chapter 1
Mr. and Mrs. Brodie, both in their mid–forties, reside within
the small town of Cold Water, Montana. Both, humble folks, have grown up,
fallen in love, and hope to raise a family together.
Mr. Brodie ran the local gift shop, selling trinkets and
memorabilia to the seldom tourists that crossed through town. He is a very
tall, thin man that was most recognizable in his worn–out, tattered apron of
pale sage that read B & B’s Gifts and
Things. Mrs. Brodie was slightly shorter than her husband. She had short
dark hair that was always pinned back behind her ears. She is currently in the
third trimester of her pregnancy; a pregnancy that was diagnosed as very high–risk
due to her age. But Mrs. Brodie does not care because after being married for
over twenty–five blissful years, two miscarriages, and numerous times of trying
to have a baby, she was finally blessed with a child.
It was another Thursday like any other Thursday except when Mr.
and Mrs. Brodie woke up this morning at a quarter till six, they did not expect
that their lives would be changed forever. Mr. Brodie reached over to turn on
the television set and hope to catch a glimpse of the morning news as he wrestled
a shirt over his head. Downstairs, the humming of Mrs. Brodie can be heard as
she prepared breakfast consisting of eggs, hash–browns, and some left–over ham
from last night.
Neither of them had noticed that a corner panel of the yellow
polka–dotted curtain, draped over the small window, above the kitchen’s sink,
had slightly moved as though a gush of wind had forced its way through an open
crack –– when in fact, the window was sealed shut. Instead, they were both
intently listening to the news broadcasted on the tiny radio that was perched
atop the kitchen counter. It foretold of the upcoming blizzard heading their
way from the upper Northeastern corner of the state.
“Isn’t it a bit early for snow? We’re only in October,” fretted
Mrs. Brodie.
“Yeah, but we should be prepared though. I’ll try and close
early today and be home before it gets too dark,” answered Mr. Brodie.
At a quarter past seven, Mr. Brodie grabbed his coat and keys,
embraced Mrs. Brodie, and crouched to kiss her belly before he dashed out of
the kitchen door. As he made his way to his car, with the soft crunch of the
gravel path beneath his feet, he caught sight of something out of the corner of
his eye. His turned, out of reflex, and saw…nothing. Thinking no more than just
too much imagination and not enough sleep that has kept his mind occupied this
morning, Mr. Brodie went about his day.
He drove down the small, narrowed path that hugged the edge of Cold
Water Creek. He hardly noticed the scenic view that the path usually offered. Normally,
there would be shrubbery greens and massive giants that would line the edge of
the entwine route, but not this year –– or the last four. Cold Water Creek was
suffering from a devastating drought that has desecrated her heavenly green
folds of mosses, replacing it with thorny twine bushes that stood too naked
under the stripped branches of the towering giants. Their limbs hung limply
like crippled fingers of an arthritic hand.
It might be the dimly lit gray sky or the chilly morning air
that has crept up his spine and left him with a distasteful shiver. Or it might’ve
been the thought of the impeding winter storm that has added to his uneasiness
of this particular morning. Mr. Brodie could not help but feel as though
someone or something was watching him –– that inside his quaint little car, he
was not entirely alone.
Unable to help it, he darted his eyes momentarily from the road
to his rearview mirror. Only a fraction of a second and it only took a fraction
of a second for him to realize that the front of his car was bound for a head–on
collision with a bewildered doe. It stood frozen in the middle of the road with
fixated eyes that were hypnotized by the oncoming headlights.
It took less time than it took for Mr. Brodie to inhale his next
breath that he had managed to dodge the car’s nose slightly to the left,
narrowly missing the doe by a fraction of an inch. The car halted to a stop at
the end of a full circle spin, leaving it bridged between the two lanes.
Momentarily shaken, he took in another breath of air as though
gasping for it like a drowning victim plucked from a watery grave. He took a
couple more deep breaths air, enjoying –– as well as –– embracing it into his
lungs. He waited for his heart to calm down from its booming rage, spiked by
the adrenaline rush coursing through his veins.
He took a quick glance at the back window and locked eyes with
the mellow doe before it flicked its ears back in dismissal and galloped away
towards the creek.
“Stupid deer,” muttered Mr. Brodie.
Mr. Brodie was more than glad to have arrived at his shop in one
piece. The shop was lightly dusted with powdery snow, falling rapidly with
every passing hour. The absence of sunlight from the gloomy, tainted sky did
little to help lighten his mood.
He began to tidy the shop, all the while lending an attentive
ear to the news that was blasting from the corner radio. It was perched atop
the back counter, where a cluster of dust had left the outline of its back
visible against the wall like an imprint of a foot in wet sand.
“Folks, we are in for a bad one! This will probably be the worst
blizzard we’ve seen in years! If you do not have to be outside of your homes
today, then I highly suggest that you don’t!” boomed the static voice,
emanating from the ancient thing.
“Tsk, yeah. Tell me
about it,” muttered Mr. Brodie.
He walked over to the front window to survey the impending
damage of the advancing storm. Already, the snow had covered the ground evenly
from his doorstep to the other shops across the street. What started as a light
dust of fine powder had transformed into big, sticky white flakes of snow that
fell heavily as the afternoon dragged on. His car laid half–buried on the side
of the curb with thick, white stripes of snow across it rustic belly. The
falling snow had almost engulfed the whole car as though a pair of placid lips
was sealing its fate.
Dismissing this, Mr. Brodie returned to his work and ignored the
bellowing wind that rocked and shook the shop’s windows like someone was trying
to beat the dusts out of an old rug. He could only hope to finish soon so that
he might be able to go home early. The last thing he wanted was to be stuck
here all night. He bent to pick up a box when a noise at the back of the shop
made him jumped. Again, he felt an eerie feeling crept slowly down his spine as
though someone ran a finger down his back. Beads of sweat began to sprout on his
neck and palms as he slowly inched his way to the back of the store. His
stomach began to knot in anticipation of the unknown cause. Just like this
morning, with the deer, the uneasiness has come back to him and lingered like a
shadow behind its wake.
What or who would he find? Or hope not to find. The fact was
this, he was alone today. He wanted to finish the inventory by himself, even
though his wife had insisted that she should help him –– but he wouldn’t have
it. No, he wouldn’t have dared to allow his overly pregnant wife to thread
through this storm –– not to mention –– exerting what little energy she had
left these days from the worrying and morning sicknesses that she had to endure
throughout her pregnancy. No, he would not even have allowed her to lift a
finger –– if he could help it.
One more step, one more step and he would round the corner and
come face–to–face with whatever or whoever it was that was not suppose to be
here. He couldn’t help but wondered did someone break in last night? If so, how
could he not have notice it all morning? Who could it be? A raging lunatic? A
homeless person who was trying to get out of the cold? An axe–wielding murderer
escaping from the law? No, not likely, if there was a lunatic or murderer in
Cold Water he would have heard of it by now.
Nonetheless, he was not about to face whoever, or whatever it
was, face–to–face empty–handed. He grabbed the nearest thing that looked like
it could be use as a weapon. His hands gripped onto a book titled, “Guides and Activities in Cold Water Creek.” The
book, weighing less than half the size of a phone book, was not his weapon of
choice. But he figured, he could either whack the guy or greeted him to death
with the “enticing” avenues that Cold Water had to offer.
He took a deep breath of air and leapt forward with a ferocious,
“Aaaaaaah!”
His outburst was coincided with a fierce hiss from a frighten
cat. Mr. Brodie steadied himself and blew out a sigh of relief. He bent to
scoop up the frighten cat. It immediately relaxed into his arms, seething
warmth from his body heat. Its paws were ice cold and dripping wet. It
meditatively burrowed its head into the crook of his arm and continued the
business of defrosting itself, purring with self–satisfaction.
He placed his other hand onto the back of his neck and felt the
cooling effects of the chilly air. Quickly as it came and just as quickly as it
had disappeared, the beads of sweat on his palms and neck were gone. There was
nothing but the tingling feeling of utter relief.
“Get a hold of your–self old man,” Mr.Brodie muttered to himself.
He looked down at the cat in his arms; it returned the same look
with pleading eyes. He didn’t know how the cat had gotten inside, it might have
slipped in when he opened this morning, but he didn’t want to leave it freezing
here overnight and thought that it was best to call it a day.
He didn’t want to be left freezing here either.
The weather outside had turned from bad to worst since late
afternoon. Mr. Brodie had left his shop a little after five o’clock and had to inch
his way home on the thickening layer of snow. It had covered every inch of
everything like a thick, fibrous layer of matted leaves.
What little he could see through the half–frozen, half–thawed
patches of ice on the windshield from inside his car did little to help him
from slipping and sliding on the half–slush, half–iced snow that glazed the
road. Only within sight of his house did he begin to relax his shoulders and
loosen his grip on the steering wheel. He could barely make out the small coils
of smoke from the chimney. They reminded him of tiny, thin ribbons that were
caught in an updraft as they spiraled into the darkening sky and disappeared
from sight.
The house sat comfortably snug against the edge of Cold Water
Creek, surrounded by massive trees that –– like the house –– were momentarily
covered by a white blanket of snow. The house might be old and relatively
small, and by no means considered a luxury of expenses, but it was home –– his
home–sweet–home.
Upon closer view, Mr. Brodie sensed that something was not right
–– the porch light was not on. His wife always made sure to turn it on whenever
he was out. It was a way to ensure that he would not miss the house because if
you blink, you might. The house was quickly losing its battle ground against
its overbearing surrounding, consisting of dormant trees that stood frozen and
naked like giant icicles.
Mr. Brodie dismissed the thought, thinking that maybe the light
gave out or there was blackout which happened pretty often –– especially –– on
a night like this one. When he opened the front door, he found that his worst
fear had become his reality. He was greeted by the sprawled out form of Mrs. Brodie,
her swollen hand gripped painfully onto her belly as her fingers trembled
without ends. She moaned and twisted about as sweat doused her puffy cheeks and
crinkled brows. Her swollen feet twisted together as she bunched her knees in
deep agony.
Mrs. Brodie’s soft, hazel eyes found his dark brown ones
instantly. He slipped a hand underneath her neck and cradled her against his
chest.
“The…the…” breathed Mrs. Brodie.
Mr. Brodie nodded coherently and gathered his wife in his arms
as he made a mad dash to the car. She didn’t need to tell him, he already knew.
He could tell by her labored breathing and the faint red stain of her dress
that their life was about to change.
The baby was coming.
Mr. Brodie kept pacing up and down the hall, just outside of the
operating room where Mrs. Brodie was wheeled in hours ago. He stopped in front
of the large window that lined the corridor from side to side and inhaled a
deep breath. His mind, going a mile a minute, couldn’t stop thinking of how
lucky they were to have made it in time to the hospital –– not to mention –– in
one piece.
He stared hypnotically into the dark sky where it showed the
counter appearance of the ground below. The ground was the whitest of white,
lighted by the scattered lamp posts to become a shadowed gray under the
artificial glow. The sky, during the brief breaks of snow, was crisp black like
the ink from a pen that has suffused with the silky clouds to give a faint
image of the yin and yang symbol.
A deafening, ear–splitting rip of lighting tore through the calm
symbolism of peace and made him jumped. His ears were still ringing as he
placed a soothing hand over his chest while his heart shook uncontrollably
underneath. He had barely recomposed himself when a nurse popped her head out
of the room and motioned him inside.
Mrs. Brodie was drenched in labored sweat that streamed down her
face like sticky rain. She was having great difficulty with her delivery. Aside
from bleeding profusely through her nightgown and onto the hospital bed, her
child’s life hung in the balance of the rubbery umbilical cord that was wrapped
around its neck like the tightening grip of a hangman’s noose.
In the mist of Mrs. Brodie’s struggle, Mr. Brodie’s encouraging
endearments, and the bellowing of instructions from both the doctor and nurses,
no one seemed to have noticed the dark figure that stood at the edge of the bed
–– that is –– if anyone could see him.
The dark figure, cloaked and masked from head to toe, wore a silken
robe that glinted off the ceiling lights like the feathers of a raven in flight.
His hands were partially covered with a lining of black velvet at the cuff of
his long sleeves. He paid little attention to the scene before him –– instead
–– his eyes were locked onto the pocket watch the he held with long, pallid
fingers that paralleled his body.
The pocket watch, far from ordinary, had four hands attached at
the center but no number on its face. Its tawny outer shell, polished to
perfection, had a long linked chain attached to the bottom of a circular knob
that was fixated onto the outer edge. This particular watch does not tell time,
instead, it kept time –– more precisely –– the time a person had left to live.
His head jerked up as two more cloaked figures, wearing the same
hooded disguises, evaporated through the door. The only difference between his
black robe and that of the two strangers was the lining at the cuffs of their
sleeves. It was a deep majestic purple.
“What are you doing
here?” he hissed.
One of the hoods was
pulled back to reveal a weary face with lines of fatigue beneath a pair of
agile eyes. Her face still held a tinged of youth, but was slowly worn by the
creeping lines of age at the corners of her eyes. Her face was as soft and pale
as the white ceiling lights that lit the room. Her hair, curled up to half its
length, was cropped short to her neck. The bouncy curls of her soft auburn
locks would burn bright red in the sun, that is, if it had the chance too.
“You haven’t done it yet? Have you?” she asked hastily.
“No. Again, I ask you. What
are you doing here?” he replied, agitated.
“We need your help. We need to replace the soul you’re about to
take,” she said with a hurried, but hushed voice.
Taken aback, he pulled back his hood to reveal a glowering face
with furrowed brows above searing dark eyes. He stood a head above her with
high bony cheeks and a pale complexion that matches hers’ perfectly.
“Are you mad, Avenus?
You know that is prohibited,” he said
with a whispered edge.
“I don’t care what you’re doing here or who is with you,” his sharp tongue lashed at her as his dark eyes
flickered to the person behind, “but I’ll be damn if–”
“Toddus,” a soft voice from behind Avenus stopped him cold.
His face softened as his anger dissipate, replaced by a blank
expression that only his eyes betrayed him.
“Alphora,” Toddus whispered, almost inaudible.
The last hood was pulled back to reveal a rather tired and worn
face of a woman, whose face was slightly creased with age and worries. Her eyes
were deep gray like the smoke from a fire that could engulf a person whole –– body
and soul. Her hair, slick and straight, shined like polished marble. It ran
down the length of her back with a color that matched her eyes.
Toddus suddenly snapped back in a dignified stance and recomposed
his pale face into an inscrutable expression.
“You can’t be doing what I think you’re asking of me. You know
it’s forbidden. No, I can’t–” His voice broke as he shook his head back and
forth like a slow–moving metronome.
“Then I ask you as a friend,” Alphora paused. Her long fingers
touched the base of her neck, where the clavicles unite, to bear the outline of
an object hidden under her cloak. “For a favor, to let me.”
“So, you’re asking me for my silence?” His brooding dark eyes
locked with her soft gray ones. Alphora nodded silently into his bewildered
face.
“We need your answer now. We’re running out of time,” Avenus
intervened with a glanced at his watch.
He turned and watched a nurse administer CPR to the new infant. The
child’s body lay motionless in the crib. The doctor stepped in to stop her
frantic compressions and shook his head in replied to the question on their
minds.
“Nooooo!” screamed Mrs. Brodie with an ear–piercing cry.
The small, lifeless body of a baby girl lay in silence. Her
blue, crinkled skin was stained with bright red blood. And her eyes…
Eyes that will never open to reveal which parent she had
inherited them from.
“I have to take a soul back, but what happens after that…”
Toddus’s voice trailed off softly into the distant shadows.
“Thank you,” Alphora whispered.
He walked over to the lifeless body, rolled delicately across
the room, and placed his pocket watch over the crib.
Three hands of the watch were locked into place, pointing
upward, like a compass needle pointing north. The last hand ticked away to make
its final revolution and snapped into place, above the other three. Once
aligned, the circular knob on the outer edge popped open as a cloud of white
steam was sucked in from the infant’s mouth like a vacuum engulfing a cloud of
dust.
He replaced the pocket watch back into his cloak and disappeared
through the door without a backwards glance.
As fast as he had taken the child’s soul, Alphora had just as
fast replaced it. She held an object, hidden under the folds of her sleeve,
over the child’s mouth. As though by process of osmosis, a great gust of
sparkling cloud of powdery mist wafted into the child’s awaiting mouth.
The limbs of the lifeless body began to twitch under the towel
that someone had graced over her small and fragile body. A flourish of rosy–pink
began to replace the cold blue tones of her cheeks. Her eyelids struggled
against the fluorescent light as though it was the blinding rays of the sun. It
slit open, slowly, like an alligator’s second lid, to reveal a set of warm
hazel–brown eyes. The newly adjusted eyes blinked once into welcoming delights
of the two strangers that stood hovering over the crib. Another blink and they
were gone.
Overcome with grief at having, and losing, their child in less
than an hour have left Mr. and Mrs. Brodie in each other’s silent embrace. His
hands were closely knitted with hers as though it was his lifeline. They sat,
silent and still, like their bodies were frozen statues carved onto the
hospital bed.
The cold winter air had begun to seep into the room where it
mingled with the dreadful sorrows that lingered delicately upon unsaid words
and pitiful stares. Even though the room was flooded with bright lights from
the ceiling, there was an uneasy gloom that casted itself like a shadow over a
grave.
Quite suddenly, everything seemed to stop, as though time had
stopped. The room was dead silent. There were no footsteps scuttling across the
linoleum floor that was designed with specks and spats to carefully, or
carelessly, conceal any drops of blood. The room seemed to have gone dark,
leaving Mr. Brodie rooted to his wife.
He didn’t know how long he had stayed that way –– it seemed like
forever –– until a sudden chill ran down his back that caused him to shiver and
broke their frozen solace. Something caused Mr. Brodie to become awaken from
his solemn despair, his grievances, and his broken heart. Something jerked him
back to reality and made his heart skipped a beat. Something that suddenly
caused the room to become flooded with light as the darkness eased away.
His soft brown eyes hovered under a wide band of white like the
breaking of dawn from the sun’s intruding face as it ripped through the black,
silent night. He turned his head and met with the whites of his own wife’s eyes
and the others around the room. They heard it too.
It was a cry from across the room.
This book is available here:
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