PTSD
"Let's go."
How long had I been sitting there, holding her in my arms?
At her quiet murmur, the carriage began to move, slow and deliberate.
Who was driving it? I had seen with my own eyes the horse-like beasts that pulled it along — but who, exactly, was the one holding the reins?
"Here… look."
She opened the iron-shuttered window and showed me the world outside.
It was a village. Houses stood in rows; streets ran between them. And yet it was quiet to a degree that was almost unbearable. The only sounds filling the space were the rattle of the carriage wheels over the road and the strange, labored breathing of the beasts, their hooves striking the ground in an uneven rhythm.
"The people?"
"There aren't any. A village for just the two of us. At least for now."
She took my bound right hand gently in hers, as if sketching something against the backdrop of the village beyond the glass.
"…Unless the gods are complete fools, they won't simply leave me alone after I set an Outer God free. They might even come looking for you."
As she spoke, a dark alley swept past the window. Something was there. Something shaped like a human, walking.
"A person… wait."
But it was far too large to be human — tall as a house, elongated and wrong. The words died in my throat. A giant, stooped, with arms that hung all the way to its knees, simply walking through the dark. I blinked once, and it was gone.
"You don't need to worry about them. They're only here to protect us from the outside. They won't approach you. They won't hurt you."
Watching the scenery drift by with a contented little smile, she rapped twice, hard, against the wall of the carriage.
"Burn it."
"Burn it? What do you—"
A heavy thud sounded from the roof — something landing up there. The carriage rocked hard enough that I nearly lost my balance, and she pulled me into her arms again.
"…Hold on. Tight. Don't try to look down. Just turn your head for the view."
"What was that just now?"
Something was clinging to the ceiling. And yet the carriage picked up speed again as if nothing had happened, rolling on through the streets. The faster we went, the more often I found myself face-to-face with the things that populated those streets.
Some of them were ransacking houses. Others crouched in the shadows cast by chimneys on the rooftops. They were everywhere — all of them, somehow, around me. Even in the darkness the sunlight made. Even in the shadow that should have belonged only to the carriage, something was there.
"…It's hard, isn't it? Just relaxing and enjoying the time together."
As if trying to ease the tension locked into my body, she stroked my hair again and again, offering a faint smile.
"It's all right, Evan. Don't be so tense. As long as I'm here, you'll be fine. This time for sure. This time it will be all right. This time… this outing is for you."
Her breath spilled hot and heavy across my face. There was no ease in her — none at all. She watched me and everything around me the way someone watches when they are still furious, still nowhere near calm.
When a distant door creaked open somewhere far off, the hand holding me clenched tighter into my flesh.
The houses fell away, and we entered the forest she had always loved. A cool breeze began to slip through the carriage, chasing out the stuffy heat — and then the window slammed shut.
"I'm sick of things leaping out of the woods."
She turned her head sharply, as if she couldn't bear to look, and faced me instead. Her eyes were half-lidded with exhaustion. But the smile never left her mouth. Every time she looked at me, the tension seemed to drain from her just a little.
"Still… I'm happiest when you're here…"
She pressed her lips to mine as if it were the most natural thing in the world, pulling me closer with a desperate, almost frantic strength. I closed my eyes, my heart a tangle of things I couldn't name.
There was a wound in every word she spoke. In everything she did for me, her loneliness lived. And that was why I was afraid. Afraid of what she might have done in the time I was gone — of what she had become, trying to survive the terrible memories and the emptiness. An elf who had never been welcomed by her own kind, who had known only contempt — what kind of heart did she live with now? I felt certain I would never fully understand.
She had been diligent, and earnest, and solemn, and beautiful. In the woman I had found again, all of that light had faded.
The carriage finally stopped in a clearing at the heart of the forest, where the grass grew thick and lush. Shafts of sunlight filtered through the branches and leaves in intermittent streams — a sight that could only be called magnificent.
"It's a lovely place."
"…Yeah. I thought you'd like it."
A heavy sound came from above — something climbing down from the roof of the carriage. Thud. Thud. Whatever it was, it carried real weight; the footsteps rang out loud and clear. And then a long black hand — the arm must have been long indeed, for the rest of the body remained invisible — reached out and gently opened the carriage door. I flinched without thinking and shrank against her.
"You don't have to be tense. It'll protect us. That's what I made it for…"
My heart lurched. At the same moment, her mouth stopped moving.
Something that resembled a human, but was not human. Livestock that resembled horses, but were not horses. I had steeled myself for this, to a degree — but facing it in the flesh still demanded more composure than I had to spare. They had probably been human once. The horses that pulled the carriage had probably been horses once, too.
"C-come on, Evan. It's an outing. Our first in a long time."
She stammered as she pulled me by the hand, and I followed her out, trying not to acknowledge the thing still holding the door.
"…Stay out of his line of sight. Keep yourself as hidden as you can."
She went down the steps first and whispered something to the presence on the right. At once I heard footsteps that set the carriage rocking slightly, and my nerves tightened again. Even from a distance, the height of that thing had been unmistakable. How tall it truly was, I didn't dare imagine.
"Evan?"
But Thea kept calling my name. She looked at me with such desperate need, her hand stretched out toward me — and I pushed the thoughts aside and set my foot on the ground.
…The earth was remarkably soft. With every step, the fragrance of grass rose sweetly into the air. The blades tickled my legs. The clarity of those sensations cleared my head a little. After the crushing dark, it felt almost like meeting light again — and for a moment I simply breathed.
Then her hand clamped hard around my arm, her voice gone rigid, and my feet were pulled back toward the shadows.
"It's dangerous, so slowly…"
She was watching the dense undergrowth. She kept glancing up into the trees. And more than anything, she kept touching the handcuffs, checking again and again that she still had a firm hold on my hand. The woman who had promised this would be enjoyable, that it would make me happy — that woman was nowhere to be found. She was hunched in on herself. With every step she took, anxiety rode her.
"An outing… It'll be fine if Evan is here. I have to protect him… the way Evan protected me…"
I was the one who had died. And yet she was the one trapped in the nightmare. The body I had thrown away so that she might live was now bound so tightly to her that it could never be thrown away again.
With trembling hands she walked with me, step by careful step — and then she stopped, having barely left the carriage behind.
"Here. Let's sit here, Evan. There's a tree and everything. Right?"
It was a place that somehow recalled the hill where she had first greeted me — a twisted, sprawling tree. She led me beneath it and urged me to sit. The moment we settled, she began searching frantically, scanning the ground around us.
"The basket… where is the basket… Was it still in the carriage?"
The little basket that had held fruit and bread was not in her hands. Instead, something I had never seen before: a long staff. At some point it had found its way into her grip. A dull purple gem was set into what looked like a priest's staff gone wrong — one edge of the blade broken off, a branch growing from the black wooden handle to clutch the gem in a tight, living hold.
I frowned at the strangeness of it for only a moment before a sound from the carriage turned my head. The door had opened again. In an instant the basket was set down. The long hand that had reached out from behind her vanished in the space of a single blink.
"I packed peaches, and bread from the village… I prepared all of it for you. Someday we'll farm together and make things with our own hands, won't we? That would be so, so much fun… The garden we used to tend is ruined now, but this time will be different. This time it can be different. Better. Wider. More beautiful, for certain… for certain…"
A soft slice — the peach split cleanly in half.
"Eat, Evan. Quickly. These are the peaches I love. The ones you always used to carry around with you. Right?"
She had said it would be enjoyable. She had said a walk would make us happy. And yet her face held no ease, no comfort — only fear and dread. Even as she tried so hard to take care of me, her eyes were not on me so much as on the things that surrounded me.
She still could not tear her gaze from the undergrowth. And I did not know what to do with the sight of her.