Earth Unraveled

Chapter 1

Prologue      

The woman was in the water, her limp body swept forward by the river.  A man ran along the embankment, straining to keep sight of her in the fading light.  Her hair billowed like seaweed as she sank beneath the surface.  

He leaped.  The river slapped his face as he plunged deep, water ramming up his nostrils, his body sinking at first, then rising as he stroked upward.  He broke into the open air, choking on water that streamed down his face.  The woman was nowhere in sight.  He cast about searching, seconds ticking away the odds of her survival.  She was there, the dim light revealing her in the eddies.  His fingers caught her hair and he wrenched her head up.  He pulled her close.  There was warmth in her body.  There was still time.

They were in a stretch of the river bounded by stone walls, no way out, but the man knew of a place ahead.  They were swept toward it.  It appeared as a dark arch against grey stone and he swam hard, pulling her, crossing the current toward it.  The river tugged at them but he kicked into the tunnel to calmer water.

His gasps echoed in the dank space.  Light from the entrance showed a stone jetty sloping up out of the water.  The man swam to it, holding her head above the water, stroking with his free arm, the last swing scratching across stone, peeling back nails.

Their clothes were heavy as he dragged her onto land.  Her breathing was shallow but she was alive.  Her eyelids fluttered open.

“It’s all right now,” he whispered.

She tried to speak, but coughed instead.

“It’s me.  You fell in the river.”  A half-lie.  “You’re safe.”

His hand found hers and he squeezed.  The woman was too weak to give a real squeeze back, but he felt her fingers move.

“I have something for you.”  He reached back and pulled it from his belt.  Somehow, it was still there after his struggle in the river.  It reflected grey and metallic in the dim light as he held it high.  The woman saw it and her eyes filled with confusion.  He clamped his hand down on her throat, squeezing off her air, pinning her.  The woman’s hands flew to his, struggling feebly, her legs trying to kick.  He saw the fear in her eyes.

“It’s the only way,” he whispered, “I’m sorry,”  and he plunged the dagger into her heart.  The woman’s eyes bulged and her mouth opened in a moment of shock, shock that her life was ended by a man that she trusted, even loved.  Then, as her life faded it hit - energy ran up the shaft of the knife with a sound like a jet of wind, searing his hand.  He rode the pain like a roller coaster, enduring it rather than letting go because he knew that her life would open the door. 

Fate

up against your will

Through the thick and thin

He will wait until

You give your soul to him.

      -  The Killing Moon

If man is five

Then the devil is six.

      - The Pixies

  

Chapter 1

 The counter top was too high and the edge dug into his ribcage.  His back ached from the awkward position, but the clean dish pile was getting bigger and the dirty one was shrinking.  Solero Costas pulled his hand out of the sink, shook off the soap suds and rolled his wheelchair back.  He worked his arm and shoulder around to get the kinks out.  There were five clean dishes on the counter.  Five less dishes for Lyn to wash.  His niece had plenty to do without adding her crippled uncle’s dishes to the burden.  He was surprised at how proud he was over the accomplishment.  A year ago he could have done a sink-full and then gone out to split cordwood, but that had been a year ago.  Now he was a taker.