Haven: Book Seven of "The Liminality"

Chapter 6 - Cannibals

Grehl slunk off when the darkness was at its deepest and hid herself away in a ravine just down the shore and inland from the camp. A panoply of snuffling noises startled her upon entering the ravine. No big deal. It only meant that she was not alone. There were likely others taking advantage of the relative shelter from the wind to camp here, most likely Grovelers, though their kind would never admit to seeking comfort. Their numbers were thick on the shore of the Sagmire.

She kept her footsteps light and climbed most of the way up the ravine, just below its first shallow cut into the ashen slope. She nestled herself deep into a cleft and commenced to wait.

Nights lasted twice as long as the daylight in Sheol. No doubt that was another part of the grand plan of the Makers. Yet another means of torture. Of course, some nights, like this one, seemed longer than others. It did not help that sleep came to Grehl as often as contentment, that is to say: never.

Dawn on Sheol was merely a twilight glow that stretched three hundred sixty degrees around the rim of the horizon. High noon looked much the same, as did dusk. The climate was far different, but in some ways being in Sheol was like being on the Arctic Circle ever on the verge of Winter.

For the first time in what felt like forever, Grehl had spent this night without the comfort of her famous cloak so that Tara could get an early start at pulling off their deceit.

Their plan had evolved into three parts. First, Tara would remain in camp all morning pretending to be an exhausted and bedridden Summoner. Barth and Erasmus would remain close by her side to allay any suspicions. However, Gijantus would lead a patrol of volunteers down the shore, ostensibly to secure the area against hunters, though they were really heading out to provide security for Grehl. Gijantus intended to take his patrol on a long and sweeping jaunt down the shore, then up and around the side of the caldera till he converged with Grehl's transect across the interface. If all went perfectly, they would meet about an hour after Grehl reached the seam and had a chance to work it open in solitude.

Grehl was to proceed when she saw Gijantus and his squad pass the mouth of the ravine. To help him time his excursion, he had an hourglass with him that had been calibrated with an actual pocket watch someone had stolen from an overseer back in the days when overseers were in residence. Grehl would have nearly an hour alone on the slopes to do her thing.

She felt naked without her cloak. Lucinda had lent her a tattered shawl but it was small consolation but it barely covered one shoulder. She didn't feel cold as much as she felt exposed. It was never actually cold in this basin, but there was a cool breeze that poured down from the caldera in the wee hours of the morning. Yet another oversight of the slipshod Makers no doubt. There were bound to be souls who took pleasure in it. She cloaked herself as best she could in deepest shadows and continued to wait for first light.

In lieu of sleep, she immersed herself in waking dreams. She was well-practiced in the art. The trance she entered could be broken by a whisper but when was alone it could feel like she had entered another realm. And that was the point of them—to imagine what another realm could be like. She assumed it would be more like life than this place, though it was getting ever more difficult to remember what her life had been like.

Her parents were Irish, but she had lived in Maine near the border of New Brunswick. They had a house in the pines. She had gone to high school, but her dyslexia had made her find work in the Bar Harbor hospitality trade before she could graduate. She had died young under circumstances that still puzzled her. She could not imagine a cause. She had been fairly devout with her regard to her Catholicism so her soul's arrival in a place like Sheol was grounds for considerable consternation and despair. It had to have been a mistake.