Betrayal of the Light

Five

Red light is broken by the scattered clouds into rays, entwining with remnants of the night like an open wound bleeding over the land. I drink what was left in the bottle overnight. Not much; not enough to get my blood flowing the way it should. I lean before the open cabin door, hips anchoring my weight against the table and arms crossed. Not even a solitary moment is mine to relish in peace. The faces gathered atop the polished wood have been haunting me through the night only to stare at me in the morning. Slightly uneased, I pile them up neatly before setting the paper on fire from a match thrown lit over them. They turn to meaningless ashes, there to haunt me no more.

It matters not. I will comprehend the ink beneath my skin some time soon and then the targets will reveal themselves. No screams will echo as I cast them into creeping and… slithering shadows, that rip out throats so they can scream no more. Patience; I will bring their death so they can harm no more.

I am broken from these thoughts once I open the door. Reality engulfs me, as a gust of cold air bursts from the ocean. The glimpse of the setting sun glows; warm, it may seem. Such a gorgeous illusion it prevails. I take a step outside and shove the door behind me, gazing upon the dying horizon.

            Holding my boots in one hand, I march towards the end of the frozen sand strip. This mesmerizing sun does make the landscape look warm despite its icy touch. In fact, the air I breathe is so cold that it numbs me through my veins. I bite the inside of my cheek but feel nothing. This lying sun will soon go down and as it does, it will let the bloodless moonlight take over the beach and make it shimmer to its desire.

            After getting my boots on, I scout the denser woods, apposite whence I came. Through the separation between two trees, there lies a lonely path. I follow the unpaved road, wind still beating against my back. The bare branches around me hold but a few remaining leaves, as the rest fall to their death. The sun must be barely visible, for my shadow once contoured and dark, almost blends into the ground now. Since the view changed, the air has dried; catching on a deep scent of smoke instead of salt.

Not far, a town takes shape as it emerges from the surrounding fog. The façades are clad in rough blocks of ashen stone at their base, followed through exposed beams of ebony to the high sloped roofs. The exposed skeletal structures are filled with reflective panes of glass and a deep shade of purple. I stand still for a moment, staring from a distance. Through my single glance ahead, I wander where even dreams have not.

Then, I dare to enter the streets paved with cobblestone, deeper into the gloomy atmosphere of a ghost town. No… not as deserted as I thought; I hear life. Drawn to a house echoing strange, mingled voices, I stop in front of the door with a sign hanging above it:

The Apothecaries

I have been here once before. The reek of alcohol and its daze all seem familiar.

The rough wood opposes none of my force, opening into another realm. Fearless amidst uncharted territory, I stand facing the warm embrace of the light. Inside, I find but a few people, mostly men. They are dressed in a fashion similar to mine: worn-out boots, leather trench coats that they have thrown about and the gleaming metal of timepieces, earrings, belts, daggers and glasses. The two women around, one at a table and the other one at the bar, both have their ruffled skirts pinched in corsets matched in leather to their belts and hats. They seem to have gathered here from the streets, away from their penetrating cold. How do they not mind the suffocating stench of smoke, alcohol and cologne? No one seems to mind me either.

Under the twilight of dimmed gas lamps, I walk up to the bar in search of… answers? I suppose so.

“Finally, you show up,” says a skinny girl with blood-red hair from behind the counter. “Damien was in here daily asking and looking for you. Did hell swallow you up?”

She smiles, so familiar as if she has known me for ages and maybe she has. That name… Damien. I remember it so distinctly as if seared into my memory.

“Something of the sorts,” I reply

How could I ever forget my dear brother? I turn around on the urge to run out the door but stop dead in my tracks.

“I know how this may sound, but you’ll have to give me the directions to his home,” I ask of her.

“Strange, indeed, that you should ask me that,” she replies fluttering her eyelashes. “In case you’re too drunk to remember, though you seem steady on your feet, that’s… Never mind, I’ll go ask around. Try to not disappear for the next few minutes. Okay, Dante?”

In nod, then my eyes look away from her as she leaves, and into the mirror on the wall. The reflection stares back at me from behind a row of colorful, adorned bottles. Once again, I see my face. She called me Dante. That must be my name, but how did I not ask myself that when I first woke up? A sort of standard reality check I should have given myself: “What year is it?” … “What’s my name?” … “Who’s the king around here?” … I seem to have stopped at the first, believing nothing else matters. Well, my mental capacity matters. I avert my gaze to the left, where that same woman sits on a stool, elbows leaned across the polished black surface of the bar. She dangles an empty glass above her eyelevel and I catch a fragment of her interaction with the other apothecary. He seems the younger brother of the one I talked to; having the same, only darker, blood-red hair and eyes beseeching from behind a pair of round glasses. Their ornate frame is matching his cufflinks and the chain hanging down from the pocket watch he probably keeps in that slit across the chest of his vest.

“My sweet apothecary,” her tone sounds languid. “Pour me one more glass of vodka and then I swear I will get out of your face.”

He looked saddened at her. Now that I have drawn closer to her, I notice a little dishevel in her hair, eyes red as if she barely came down from a fit of crying and rusty stains on her skirt. I suppose a caring embrace would help her more than a glass. No one offers her that.

“The painkillers you gave me aren’t nearly as good as they look on my face,” she added as he was filling her glass.

It must not be the physical pain the one she hides from. He knows this as well, giving in to whatever her heart desires. I thought her eyes sparkled for a moment. Never mind, it was probably just the vodka being poured in her glass which reflected shards of light back into her grey eyes.

“Where have you been the past few days?” he asks, betraying a concern for her.

“How thoughtful of you to notice my absence,” she replies taking a sip, the alcohol so strong that it makes the corners of her lips twitch for barely a second.

“I’m always thoughtful when it comes to you and you know that,” he presses on. “So, where were you?”

“Away,” she replies sickened of whatever thought crossed her mind. “I’m constantly called away on commissions for my work.”

She drinks the last inch of her glass, then places it upside down on the counter and stands up, throwing a few silver coins next to it. One of them hits the crystal, sending out a sharp sound all the way to where I am sitting.

“Wait,” he says leaning over the bar and grabbing her by the arm as gentle as he can. “I can get my sister to cover and be off work in an hour, at the most. Stay; at least tonight.”

“My sweet apothecary,” her tone sounds much warmer and familiar towards him as she rests her knee on the stool, intending through this to neither stay nor leave for the time being. “Your efforts are misguided. It will bring you no good if I stay. I can’t offer what you seek.”

“You are only lost, my dear,” he runs his finger through her hair, but she brushes them off and stands back on both feet and ready to turn away and leave, this time while outside of his grasp.

“Take me with you,” he uttered in a single breath.

“I do not make the same mistake twice, my sweet apothecary,” her words already fading as the back of her silhouette was heading for the door.

Seeing him return resigned to his work, sends my indiscreet eyes back to the bottles whence they left. After a moment the barmaid returns, in a complete antithetic cheerfulness to her brother.

“Got it,” she grabs my full attention. “You will have to follow the road afront straight ahead, then go down the second street to your left. The last house at the end of it is the one you are looking for. Tell him I said hello.”

I throw her the warmest smile I could conjure, before my gaze veers off through the window, unto the loneliness. The moonlight has fallen over the frozen veil, covering the land, making it shimmer. No soul is to be seen outside. The streets remain untouched by life, save from the lights of this place casting shadows of the people spending their time here. Maybe they are the lost ones, just as me, with no other home. I know that feeling, brothers.

Satisfied, I venture outside where the howling wind throws tiny shards of ice in its path. The cold and solitude feel strangely comforting. Leafless branches are shadowing the clear night sky, as I wander down the street that she guided me to. Why do all houses seem to be under a spell of sorrow?