Mother and the Spirit
a Cadovis story (pt 2)
Perhaps a fitting story for Halloween, it is not intended in the same spirit (pun intended?) as other supernatural horror stories. This is Cadovis’s origin story, to put it in the modern parlance—where he first discovers who he is by discovering what he can do in the midst of tragedy.
If you haven’t read part 1 yet, you can do so here. And don’t forget to comment and share!
It was as Cadovis thought. He had barely gotten the gazelle back to the barn and strung her up before the bell rang on the other side of the bluff. He wiped his hands and shut up the barn so no wild animals could enter and steal the meat, then made his way across to the log cottage he and his mother called home.
As he drew close, he paused, thinking he saw a figure on the far edge of the forest. An image of the boy, still unclothed, imprinted on his mind. The boy in his vision smiled grotesquely, teeth not quite human revealed, and raised a halting hand, jerking in unnatural movements. The water that before had dripped from him had grown into frost and icicles. The boy did not seem perturbed by the cold.
As quickly as the vision had come, it was gone, and the shape at the forest with it, folded into shadows of underbrush and leaves. Cadovis wrapped his arms around himself against a cold wind that blew up. With a shiver, he wrested open the cabin door.
The smell of stewed rabbit drifted out and created its own net, pulling him in. He had thought himself thoroughly tired of rabbit, but hunger has its caprice. His mother set two bowls on the table as he walked in, steam pouring from them.
The memory of the man--the Wanderer--stuck in his mind, but something about it seemed too strange to tell his mother. Not yet. Later. After he'd thought about it awhile yet.
A man left alone is a soul without bone.
His mother hugged him without saying a word and went about dipping water into mugs for drinking, then handed the bucket to him with a bar of soap. He scrubbed the blood from his hands before sitting at the table and sifting through the potatoes, leeks, and strips of rabbit hiding in the bowl.
"Say your gratitude," Mo'r commanded, and he did, lowering his face and thanking Onyé for their bounty.
They ate in silence for some time, neither looking at the other, eyes set on their food. "What'd you get for us?" she said as he scraped the base of his bowl.
"A gazelle, Mo'r."
She perked up. "Ah. We can make strips and jerk with that."
He nodded. He was mostly looking forward to the steaks and chuck, but jerk would be a nice treat on those cold winter days when game was scarce and the store of crops grew thin. Ever since Fa'r had died, life for young Cadovis had taken on the role of primary breadwinner.
"Run along," she said, standing up.
He'd been staring at the inside of his empty mug and looked up at her with a start.
"Make us some meat." She smiled at him, something he'd not seen from her in a long time. "I'll clean up in here, don't you worry about that. Be along to help you shortly."
He carried his dishes to the counter where she had a trough of water waiting, then she shooed him outdoors.
He ran back to the barn excited and began the task of preparing the carcass. He replicated everything Fa'r had shown him, being especially careful in gutting so as not to compromise the meat, and skinning so as to have as much usable leather and fur as possible.
He was still skinning the hung carcass when the bell rang at the house. Until now, he had not considered that his mother had never turned up, as she normally would. It must be important if she was calling him back. With a start, he realized the man may have returned. He wiped his hands clean and locked up the barn.
The bell was still ringing. That was unlike his mother, who usually rang intermittently. It quit ringing just as he rounded the knoll and he saw that she was not standing there. The door was closed. How had she rung the bell just seconds before?
He broke into a run, worried now, confused. An indistinct image of the boy flashed across his vision, more of a silhouette shaded over his eyes than actual sight. He stopped cold, studying the forest edge. Nothing was there, and the vision faded. It was only a premonition, then. A fear harbored inside from his earlier nightmares. He slowed all the same at the steps before the door, imagination too jumbled for any clear picture, and poked inside.
"Mo'r?" He opened the door a crack. He could see the dinner table beside the front window. "Mo'r, you rang?"
He stepped inside and looked around, finally spotting her. She lay sprawled across the floor in front of the kitchen counter. Blood oozed from every orifice on her head, from her ears and mouth and nostrils, even her eyes. The knife she’d been using lay harmless by her side, still stained with the sheen of fresh vegetables. He knelt beside her, stunned, knees giving way with a thud as he bent toward her.
"Mo'r?" he croaked. His sight blurred. He wiped away the blood from her face as best he could and held up her head. "Mo'r come back," he whimpered. "Mo'r come back. Mo'r come back." He rocked back and forth on his knees, clasping her in his arms, letting the tears river across the top of her head.
How could this happen? She was so alive, so vibrant. He needed her. How dare she leave him! How dare--!
He couldn’t go on with the thought. Instead he sobbed and rocked, sobbed and rocked.
He didn’t know how long he sat there. Tears continued flowing, filling up his nostrils. With all his face wet, he quit sobbing with a hitch and listened. Something had come. Had he heard it, or was it in his head? He became so still he almost stopped breathing. Only the rapid-fire of his heart drummed away.
No, he could hear nothing, nor was there anything to see. But something was there all the same. The room became thick with it, like an unseen fog filling up the house. He stared, straining to see, turning his eyes from doorway to window to rafters to any tiny alcove he could find. All was as normal.
The bell began clanging, startling him into a gasp. It was much louder from inside the house, almost deafening. He could see the bell through the hinge of the door, rapping back and forth, its rope dangling along, no hands propelling it on.
Then he felt it, like cold hands wrapping around his throat and squeezing. But it wasn't that at all. His breathing labored and he gasped for air, clutching at his chest and throat, but it came from inside him, like the air passages themselves had constricted and no longer allowed air to come or go.
He fell to the floor in a heap, letting his mother's head drop to the boards. He writhed and tried to scream but nothing came. He could feel himself dying. Feel the pressure building in his temple and his ears. Feel that awful burning in his nose like he was drowning. Taste the salt of nasal drainage in his mouth.
His gasps lessened, his writhing withered. He mouthed words and thoughts he could not verbalize to an unheeding ceiling. Spots formed before his eyes, in beautiful colors at first, then in grays and blacks, and soon they danced and bounced all over the room, spreading into sheets.
He stopped struggling. Stopped trying to breathe. Closed his eyes.
He could see it. A black mass in front of his eyes. In his eyes. His mind shouted at it, but it did not move. He still couldn't breathe.
The next thing he did he could never explain. Not to himself, certainly not to anyone else. No amount of thought or skill or learning could have taught him. It simply was.
He sucked the blackness in.
And just like that, he could breathe again. He opened his eyes and could see. The spots were gone. He inhaled deep breaths, drawing in air at huge drafts and exhaling heavily. He lay on the hard wooden floor for some time, beside his mother's body, just breathing and seeing. He could feel that something--that dark mass--deep inside him like water in his bowels, but it felt weak and powerless. Soon all sensation of it dissolved.
He got up and went outside, doubled over on the ground, and vomited a black, oily bile. It came for several minutes, in heave after heave, and when it came no more, he kept heaving.
Finally he got up and went back inside. He took a sheet from his mother's bed and covered her with it, then spent the rest of the day beside the table, staring through the sheet. That night after the moon had gone down and the darkness was at its blackest, he pulled the sheet-draped body outside away from the house to a pit they used to burn old and rotted things.
He dropped the body into the pit--it was not his mother anymore, he kept telling himself--it was not her, there was no more Mo'r. She was gone. It was as if she had never been. This was just old meat now. The only difference between this one and the one hanging in the barn--he had forgotten about the gazelle.
It didn't matter. There was no difference, really. He didn't think so. Not with her dead, not with her gone. When he looked into her eyes, she didn’t look back. Nothing looked back. He might as well look at a knot in the cabin logs and expect it to blink.
He started a fire on the sheet and waited long enough to see the flames spread and flare. Afterwards, he went back inside, threw his few belongings into a sack, and left, heading for the woods opposite the barn and the towering mountains beyond.
END
This is a harsh tale in many ways. A young boy, let’s call him ten years old, is already without his father (that story may come someday) and now loses his mother. The newfound ability here will not improve his life for many years, if it ever does.
It does, however, distinguish him from an early age, and lead his life down many strange paths. Do not mourn merely for Cadovis here, for his mother is a victim to his own abilities, through no fault of either of them.
Tell me your thoughts in the comments and what you would like to see next!
Until next time, keep reading!