Vortex

The Vortex

"Marin, help."

The voice, deep and soft and oddly familiar, drew Marin out of her dreams. Her eyes opened to darkness, but she found she was fully awake. She sat up, breathless. "Who's there?" she whispered.

The wind howled outside against the pouring rain.

She wanted to follow the voice, but reason had told her to stay. The servants wouldn't be impressed with her soaking wet clothes in the morning.

"Marin, help!"

She bit her lip and tried to wrangle her curiosity.

The rain bore down on Marin as she entered the courtyard. Kilyan Tor had not changed much over the years, though they had eventually cleared away the overgrown corner with the fountain, where new trees now grew. Marin was now nineteen, nearly a Lady in her family's household.

As she walked through the courtyard in the middle of the night, she questioned her sanity. Following strange voices wasn't something most people would do. And yet, she kept moving forward.

Ear splitting thunder ripped out from above. She cried out and covered her ears, stumbling back. In her haste, she tripped and fell back, splashing on the ground.

When she looked up, a darkness was hanging above the corner of the old fountain. She was up in an instant.

The strange sight seemed to be sucking inwards, blotting out the moonlight reflecting on the rain-soaked wall behind it, and leaving no rain beneath.

Unsure what to do, she looked up into the sky, blinking away the rain. "Help me!" she cried out.

Something brushed past her, light as a feather but cold and dark. She glimpsed that same shadowy figure she'd seen as a child; the figure that had been the centre of her drawings for the past ten years.

It moved so fast it was gone before she could call after it. Instead she stood frozen to the spot, unsure what she had just witnessed.

The rain lightened enough for Marin to hear the silence - the emptiness that seemed to come from it. She walked around the swirling blackness at a distance, trying to understand it.

Something creaked in the distance - a bad sign. If someone had seen what she had seen, she wouldn't know how to explain herself.

She darted away into the safety of Kilyan Tor's walls. This was a dream, just like the one she had had as a child.

***

Marin didn't get much sleep that night. The voice had gone, and something felt very wrong to her. It was like she had forgotten to do something extremely important.

As the servants walked off with her damp clothes, sullen looks on their faces, she chose a simple grey gown for the day. It flattered her form well, so she had been told. It had a high, loose waist, with a simple stitch line framing the underbust. Most of her closet lacked colour due to the way it clashed with bright hue of her red hair.

The servants made quick work of her hair, fashioning it the same way as always. They let most of the lovely red tresses of hair flow freely around her back and shoulders, but used strands from the front to weave into a braid that met at the back. The mermaid's tail, they called it.

She inspected her appearance briefly, before nodding. "Excellent. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have somewhere to be."

"My Lady?" Piper, a kindly woman who had been serving Marin's family for several years now, spoke up.

Marin nodded for her to continue.

She cleared her throat. "His grace, High Lord Penlock, has requested you make haste to breakfast, if you will."