The Sharded Blade | Part 1 (A Dark Fantasy Novella)

Part 15

Offering my daughter's ghost a seat by the fire, I could see the genuine confusion in her eyes as she reappeared with the deepening of the next night.  By the look of her, and how she traced back and forth between where I had been standing during our previous encounter and where I now sat, she questioned that something wasn't entirely right.

Yep, I'd been sloppy.  I'd completely forgot to stage myself where I had been to alleviate the possibility of just this sort of scenario.

As she continued to search around from where I stood the previous evening to where I was now, I again attempted to placate her burgeoning questions with food.  "You look hungry," I said.

Carli's spirit never replied as to whether or not she was, but she approached and accepted the piece of bread which, up until then, I had been toasting on the bricks of the hearth.

"Where's that rat of yours, mister?" Carli asked.

"I think she went out for the night."

Gertrude had been gone for about the past hour, leaving the two of us alone and, I assumed, to bring me information on my next target.

As my daughter munched on the sustenance given to her, I decided it was time for me to ask some questions and generate some persuasive small talk.  "Don't know that I've seen you around these parts before.  How long have you been in town?"

"About a month," she replied, followed by more chewing.  "I lived here years ago, but we moved away."

"Where are your mother and father?"

"Mom's been out of town since we got back.  She's always busy."

"Busy?" I asked.  "Doing what?"

"Working, I suppose.  I'd been staying with a friend of her's who came with us.  One of six friends, actually."

Interesting, I thought.  Something in the back of my mind told me that these "friends" of my ex-wife might be people I'd want to consider paying a visit to at some point.  Just to get answers to some lingering questions.  "Why don't you go back there?  They're probably looking for you."

After some quiet moments and more gnawing on her bread, my daughter answered.  "I don't like mom's friends."

"Why's that?"

"I dunno.  They're just... weird."

There was a way that she said those words that made me think the line of questioning was not something to keep pursuing at that moment.  So I shifted my inquisition.  "What about your father?"

She shrugged.  "He left us when I was little."

"He... left?" I choked on a toxic cocktail of rage and hurt.  Forcing my voice to calm, I tried to get the words out once more.  "He left you?"

"That's what mom says."  Few crumbs fell as Carli ate.  She was very meticulous at getting as much of the food inside her as possible and not on the floor.

"Why would he do that?" To hear her say those words, repeating obvious lies she'd been told, was like being stabbed once more in the gut by that wizard and with my now cursed blade.

"I don't know, guess he didn't love us enough."

To remind myself of just how egregious those slanders were, my hand tightened around the twin lockets I was holding tight to; one with the bit of Carli's once beloved red dress inside and the other with a piece of my old, black cloak.  The sheer force with which I held onto it was sure to leave an impression upon the skin of my palm.  One that might never remove itself.  "Surely you have something to remember him by though?  Something he gave you that showed you that wasn't at all true?"

My words were on the verge of exploding out of me.  And they would have, save for the god-like self-control I managed to keep such from happening.  What I really wanted to know was, did she remember the locket?

"I used to have this necklace," she said, causing me to exhale a heavy breath upon hearing her say those words.  "I think he gave it to me.  But I seem to have lost it."

Think?  And she didn't remember what the piece of fabric inside represented?  Oh, I was on the verge of losing my shit.  It was as if my memory had been all but erased from her thoughts except for some vague perceptions.  And all because I wasn't there and hadn't gone after her when I had the chance.

To shield her from the anger fulminating within me, like thunder building inside a storm cloud, I bolted up from my place beside the fire. Stalking off about ten feet, I stared into the darkness cast from my shadow as my undying body blocked out the light from the paltry flames.

"Mister?"  I heard my Carli call out and ask.  "Mister?  Are you all right?"

No, I wasn't all right.  But I didn't know how to respond either.  "I don't think your father left you," I cursed into the darkness. "He wouldn't have done that."  I had to say something.

"How do you know?"  Her voice chirped with an eagerness at where my knowledge came from.

"Your name's Carli, right?"

First came a pause, and then, "How do you know that?"

I needed to come up with a convincing lie to cover up for the words I'd already uttered out of hurt.  "Found out last night when I was doing some research on who those men you said kidnapped you were."  It sounded good, and I hoped she bought it.

"Wait.  What?  Last night?  But we just met tonight."

Shit.  Everything was unraveling.  So I ignored her question and asked with the blunt force of a club, "Is that your name?"

"Yes," she answered.

"And you say your mother took you away from this city when you were about five?"

"Yes."

I nodded.  She was buying my clumsy attempt at recovery and distraction.  "I knew your father," I said.  "He would never have abandoned you."

"Wait.  You knew my father?" Carli asked, an eagerness ringing in her voice.

"Yes."

"Where is he?  Can you take me to him?"

Although I was pleased to note the excitement her words contained, my head drooped.  I couldn't tell her who I was.  I just couldn't.  Not at this time.  "He died.  Two years ago."

That wasn't exactly a lie.  But also not the whole truth.  Almost two years ago was when I took my own knife to my gut, becoming wedded to that demon rat belonging to the wizard I'd been hired to liquidate.

"Oh."  Carli's voice sank.

"He was very fond of you," I said, building up the imaginary man, myself, for her imagination.  "He always spoke of you with great fondness.  So, you see, that's why I don't believe he would ever have willingly left you."

Carli cast her eyes downward. "I'd have liked to have gotten to know him."

"I know he would have enjoyed seeing what his daughter had become."

"Did you—" Her voice hitched.  "Did you work with him?"

"In a way, yes.  He and I were very similar.  And—" Turning around to look once more upon my dead daughter, I was left staring at the empty spot by the fire where her spirit once sat.