centre of the universe - the dreaming: Tramontane

08/29/2008: "Tramontane" "For the love of thunder, Maeve, what the blazes are you doing?" Marek's deep voice pealed through the room. By the dim glow of dawn, Marek gaped as the scene unfolded: Maeve huddled beside the table, dark red streaks forming a nimbus around her on the floor. Blood from her shredded fingers spotted her cotton nightgown. She rocked jerkily back and forth, every now and then scrabbling at something under the floor.

He burst through the doorway, tossing aside chairs and kitchen pots, and hauled her up into his arms. She screamed again and covered her bloodless face with dark stained hands. He whispered her name, carried her to their bed, and tried to smooth her wild hair away from her face, but she groaned and held up her hands as if to ward him away. Marek grabbed a cloth from the nightstand to clean her fingers; as soon as his back was turned, she scrambled off the bed and bolted back out to the kitchen. Again crouching by the table, she began to scratch at the floor, the meat of her fingertips shushing against bare wood.

"MAEVE!" He shouted, leaping after her. His feet pounded the floor in seven steps to reach her; he again gathered her tiny form up in his arms, but instead of taking her back to the bedroom, cradled her on his lap in front of the dying embers of the fire. Though she twitched and stared at him with a wild, blank look in her eyes, she allowed him to hold her. Now and then she would moan and cover her head with her arms.

Her condition did not change when the sun crested the horizon. Marek tried waking her, tried feeding her small pieces of bread and sips of water from a spoon. She remained catatonic, and every time he left her, she scrambled back to the spot on the floor still striped with blood from her scratching. The only thing for it, he thought, was to take her with him to do the chores, to have her sit beside him in the barn while he milked; to carry her with him, and maybe in the afternoon take her to Mrs. Baistingthwaite to see what could be done.

Even in the barn, she scuttled from the bale he'd set her on, batting loose straw, dust, and manure away from the bare wooden boards of the floor. He'd managed to bandage her hands, but still she scraped away at the floorboards, looking for something buried there. Marek didn't even try to stay the tears that came to his eyes as he watched her furiously digging.

"Americans for the Arts" "Les diologues"

1 Comment

turk182 , on Monday, 1st September:

ive been reading lots of the classics
grey eyed goddess Athena
Omp pah pah
and even
Omp Omp

distractions