Bone Pattern

Fisher Burning- October 1, 2014

Wayland came for me today.  I rose from a nest of scattered papers, books, pens, and found my knees aching on the hardwood floor.  Heard pounding at the door.  I rose and staggered on legs made weak from sitting curled upon them, head swimming.  Wayland stood upon my doorstep.  His face was grim as he looked down at me.  Any friendship I might have gained from him was lost.

"Lydia sent me," he said, and pushed his way into my apartment.

He glanced only briefly at the scattered papers.  Kicked the copy of Shroud from his path as he searched my home.  I darted after the book numbly, my mind still taken up with the pattern of the bones, in the earth, with the shape of the words in the book.  Wayland found what he was looking for and flung my shoes at my bare feet.

"Put them on."

"Why?"

"You are coming with me."  He pulled a jacket off a hook and tossed it on top of the shoes.

"But..." I groped for words not concerning the circling void, or the things that might live within it.  "Why?"

"Put your shoes on."

I did as he asked.  Shrugged on the jacket and laced up my boots.  As soon as I straightened up, he had my arm and dragged me out the door.  I was only just able to lock up behind us.

Back then, through the alleys of Denver until they faded back into whispering and ghostly grassland.   Back to that little house, huddled against the land.  The journey took hours before, I remember.  This time I stumbled and could not keep my way.  Could not keep my eyes on the world around me. Wayland kept his grip on my arm and pushed me ahead of himself at times, dragged me behind him at others.  Despite this, it seemed to take very little time before we crested a low rise and saw Lydia and Fisher's house, smoke rising from its chimney.

Lydia stood in front, arms folded, waiting.  She did not come out to meet us, just stood glaring on her porch as Wayland pulled me to her.  A shove sent me stumbling to my knees at the foot of her stairs, looking up at her cold face and crossed arms.

"I brought her.  Not for you, but for the Weaver.  It will be a long time before I come here again," he said.  Briefly, I heard footsteps retreating behind me.  The sound vanished quickly as he climbed up toward the shallow world.  

I was left alone, looking up into Lydia's face.

"I told you to stop," she said.  "You didn't listen."

I pushed myself to my feet.  "I wasn't doing anything.  I was just reading."

"You know that isn't true.  Come inside.  Come and see what you've done."  Without looking to see if I followed, she turned and slammed open the door, vanished into the darkness inside.  

I stood for a moment, looking into the open mouth of her home, listening to the wind in the grass.  To be honest, I thought about leaving her there in her cold little house with her comatose brother.  I was only reading a book after all.  The same book Fisher had read.  But even if I left, I couldn't find my way home.  I followed her into her dark house, smelling of meals left heating too long, of burned meat.  The house was cold, and while there must have been a fire lit, I could see no sign of it.  Lydia stood in the hallway and turned as I crossed her threshold.  Together we walked back to Fisher's room.

All the candles were out.  A cold draft sighed in through the open window.  The room was very cold.  Fisher lay no longer on that altar to his fallen beauty.  He curled on bare floorboards, his thin frame trembling.

"You did this to him," I said.  "And you brought me here to blame me for something that you have done!"

"Shut up," she snapped.  Lydia took her brother's shoulder and turned him gently toward me.

Fisher turned and I saw the smolder in his belly had begun to burn.  Low and hungry flames licked at his flesh.  His serenity shattered, he moaned now in his sleep.  He twisted and shook.  One eye was blackened, deep purple and swollen.  Just as Lydia had said. There was a scorched place on the floorboards where he had been laying. 

"This is your fault," she said.  She cradled Fisher in her arms, half lifting him.  The holes in his face had grown wider, gave me a clearer look into the black within them.  Within him, now.

"I didn't!" I said.

"You did.  You went poking around in his thing.  You are doing the same thing he did and now he is worse."

She stood and dropped him.  His head dropped to the floor and made a dull thump.  Lydia ignored him.

"Stop putting your nose in where it's not wanted.  You think you can play with this shit, and skip away?  You are hurting people.  Stop it.  Or I will make you stop."

I took a step back from her.  I was ready to run, then.  To take my chances in the deep grasslands alone.

But another voice came into that room.  A cracked and dry croak of a voice.  It threaded into the room, no more than a whisper.  But we both heard and we both froze.

"Too late," he said.  His mouth stretched into a grin.  "They have heard our invitation."

Silence fell into the room again.  Fisher had never opened his eyes.

"I haven't heard him speak in years," Lydia said.  Her face was slack, empty of anger.

I took my moment, then,  Turned and fled out into the shifting grasses.

I don't know how long I wandered before I stumbled and fell.  

Woke at last in an alley near my home.

My back hurts.

My knees are raw.

I can still hear his voice.  And that eye he opened is still pinned upon me.  Upon us.

But that's not all

A tiny hole has opened in my palm.  Only the size of the head of a pin.  But I can see the night within it.

And he said they've heard us.