and the eyes watch, unblinking | a one-shot
Mar 10, 2019 11:08:52 GMT -5
» ѕнαdσω ⚔️, Mᴏᴏɴ - -, and 3 more like this
Post by ѕωιƒтƒαℓcση on Mar 10, 2019 11:08:52 GMT -5
And the eyes watch, unblinking
4,573 words
--
Do not walk the cornfields at night.
It’s the first rule, the one that elders tell kittens woven into bedtime stories, and plead to those young and restless, full of that wild, youthful energy and far too much confidence.
No matter how much the things within the corn call to you, no matter how safe and inviting the tall golden stalks may seem, as soon as the sun touches the horizon you do not step foot past that barrier, from the relative safety of the hard-packed dirt road into the almost invisible pathways that will lead you deeper, deeper, deeper.
Do not walk the cornfields at night, the elders warn, because you never know what may be waiting.
-
She is a wanderer.
She has always felt the call of the road, felt the tug behind her ribcage, some strange sense leading her onward, onward. Leading her here, to these dirt roads and deep, slow rivers and seemingly endless fields of corn. She comes here, and that tug in her chest relaxes for the first time in her memory.
She is an orphan.
Born of the blood of her mother, thrust into this world among the waters of life and the blood of death, and she takes her first breath as her mother takes her last.
She is raised by a shadow of a father, haunted by the ghosts of love lost, withering away slowly until he is a creature made of hollow eyes and ribs visible through thinning pelt, and his death is slow and wheezing and painful.
She is…
She is Merricat, daughter of the dead and the dying, and she feels as if she standing on the edge of something.
-
They watch her with suspicious eyes, tails flicking and ears pinned. It feels like a thousand tiny pinpricks down her spine, but she walks with her shoulders set and her head tall, and eventually, the locals return to their own business.
Only one speaks to her, a tiny, slip of a thing, a she-cat resembling more cloud than cat. Her name is Nelly, and she offers Merricat a bed, a meal, and a warning.
“Do not wander the cornfields at night,” Nelly says, in a voice as delicate and crystalline as shattering glass. “For things lurk in the shadows.”
“What sorts of things?” Merricat peers out the entrance of Nelly’s tiny den, searching for hints of movement in the tall, golden stalks. A cool night wind rustles them gently, and she sees no danger in the plants.
“Unnatural things, unholy things,” Nelly says with a shudder. “Things that are best kept in the shadows where they belong.”
It is not the answer that Merricat desires, and curiosity stirs in her chest. But Nelly seems to sense this, and she scolds Merricat, as if she were still a tiny kit thinking of causing trouble.
“It is not good to wonder, or to wander. The road keeps us safe, and the fields of sweet grass keep us fed, and we have no need to discover what lies beyond the barrier between road and corn.”
And for now, Merricat listens.
For now.
-
Merricat sees her for the first time at sunset. She waits just off the road, the corn dappling her pelt with sunlight. She is beautiful in a way that is almost painful, and Merricat feels drawn in by her eyes, an amber as rich and warm as honey.
“You are new to the road,” the stranger says, and Merricat stops at the edge of the road, Nelly’s warning to not cross the barrier echoing in her head.
“I am,” Merricat admits, and feels a little ashamed that this stranger saw her newness so easily. “I arrived two nights ago.”
“And tell me, what is your name?” The she-cat sits up, sweeps an elegant tail over dainty paws, her eyes still fixed firmly upon Merricat. Merricat’s fur itches and warms, and she repeats the question back. The she-cat considers for one long, slow moment, before offering up a name.
“I suppose you may call me Caroline.”
Merricat nods slowly, turning the name over in her mouth, tasting the flavor of the name. It’s like the smell of the dirt road, steady and familiar and solid. The opposite of her own name, which tastes of fog and thick forests and wind, a name fitting for a wanderer but not for someone who stays.
Caroline is the name of someone who stays.
And she does not want to give her name for this reason, because she suddenly and surprisingly wants to be someone who stays.
So instead she says, “I am glad to meet you, Caroline, and perhaps we will see each other again.”
“Perhaps we will,” Caroline says, just as a flock of ravens let out distress calls and take to the air, calling Merricat’s attention to them. And when she looks back, Caroline is gone, having left as suddenly and silently as she came.
-
Nelly has a mate, and his name is Fairfax, and he is tall and broad of shoulders and thick with muscles, and he makes Nelly look even tinier in comparison. He looks over Merricat with a sort of barely hidden distantain, wrinkling his nose in distaste. It takes everything Merricat has not to let the fur along her spine prickle, because she does not want to make Nelly angry, and Nelly is her warm bed and food in her belly.
Merricat knows what it’s like to be cold, to be hungry. She has no desire to return to that if she does not have to.
Fairfax is a rather unpleasant creature, loud and arrogant and annoyingly sure of himself, but Nelly seems absolutely enamoured by him. She hangs on his every word, a star-struck expression in her eyes as if she cannot believe her absolute good fortune to exist at the same time as him.
“We’ve known each other since we were kits, grew up with nests side by side,” Nelly tells Merricat one day, as they lie in the small patch of shade cast by a single, struggling tree. The oppressive heat beats down, and Merricat regrets her dark gray fur, which seems to soak up the sunlight, a heavy coat she has no need for in this weather.
“I had a crush on him starting very young,” Nelly admits, rolling onto her back and tucking her paws close to her chest. “And I thought it was unrequited for so long, but I suppose it wasn’t, and I can’t imagine life without him.”
Merricat hums noncommittally. She doesn’t understand why Nelly is so taken with him, doesn’t understand that feeling of infatuation. When she considers it, it’s an alien feeling, something that belongs in the fairy tales told to kits rather than in real life. But then she looks across the road, and there sits Caroline under the corn, with her mesmerizing eyes, and maybe, that feeling isn’t quite as alien as she thought.
-
The night air hangs heavy and hot over the den, only the slightest wisps of breeze hinting at cooler weather. Merricat stirs, overheated and restless because of it, tossing and turning until she finally gives up sleep. She carefully steps over Nelly, into the night.
It’s cooler outside, not by much, but the air is fresh and feels clean in her lungs, rather than heavy. For a minute she just breathes, eyes closed, and lets the air wash her thoughts clean. But when she opens her eyes again, she notices them.
Creatures watch her from the corn, with eyes that burn like fire. And she watches them back, searches for the dark shapes that the eyes belong to, her paws urging her closer, a hum in her chest telling her to search, to find.
“Merricat!” Nelly’s voice is sharp, cutting through the strange, rolling fog in her brain. Merricat turns, and Nelly stands before her. It surprises Merricat, faintly. This tiny a cat should not be able to carry so much fierceness in her voice.
“What are they?” Merricat asks, because even as she looks away, she can feel the burn of their gaze prickling along her spine.
“There is nothing there,” Nelly says, angling herself so she stands between Merricat and the corn.
“But…”
“There is nothing there!” Nelly snaps, her voice shrill, carrying a hint of panic. “There is nothing there, Merricat, and there never has been, there never will be. There is nothing in the corn.”
And perhaps it’s the fear in Nelly’s voice, perhaps it’s the unease that has settled in Merricat’s gut, but she allows herself to be led back into Nelly’s den, and does not look back.
And the eyes watch, unblinking.
-
His name is Julian, and he offers up salvation.
“Are your souls clean, my friends, my family?” he cries into the air, tail lashing. “Will you be welcomed into the afterlife alongside your kin?”
Merricat does not like him. He looks up and down, slowly, in a way that makes her skin crawl. He corners her, a manic light in his eyes, wearing a leer that’s pretending to be honorable.
“You are new to the road,” he says, stepping closer to her even as she steps away from him. “You are Merricat.”
She doesn’t like the way he says her name, as if he is tasting it, as if he wants to eat it.
“Tell me, Merricat,” Julian says, leaning in, washing her face with his sour breath. “Do you want salvation?”
Merricat says no. She does not want to know what kind of salvation he is offering.
-
Merricat is not used to the heat, not used to the way it clings to her very bones. She’s not used to the way that moisture hangs heavy in the air, even as walking down the road coats her tongue in dust.
It’s cooler by the river, and by the river, Caroline waits.
“Where did you come from?”
“A place of green trees and tall grass and water crashing against cliffs,” Merricat says. “A place of seagulls and salt in the air and sand beneath your paws.”
Caroline’s eyes fill with wistfulness, a strange sort of wonder. “It sounds wonderful.”
“Where do you come from?” Merricat asks, and Caroline smiles, wry and a little sad.
“Here. I have always been here, and I will always be here. Surrounded by corn and the road and the endless sky.”
The river burbles softly, water flowing dark and lazy, and dragonflies buzz through the air.
“Why don’t you leave?”
Caroline stares off into the distance, her tail flicking. “I have considered it,” she admits, “but I am tethered here, as much as these trees are tethered to the riverbank. I could not leave, even if I wished.”
Merricat watches her, watches Caroline and her strange, beautiful eyes. She does not pretend to understand. Around her, dragonflies buzz, and it seems as if they are trying to whisper to her. But no matter how much she listens, she can never understand.
-
Nelly calls it heat sickness, but Merricat does not particularly care what it is called. She simply knows that she feels awful, her head throbbing and her stomach churning. She lies in the shade of the den, and thinks of the river.
She thinks of Caroline.
-
Even though she is not hungry, Nelly brings her a meal, drops the bundle of fur at Merricat’s paws. Merricat stares at it, confusion churning in her belly alongside the nausea.
“What is that?” She asks, staring at the creature that Nelly has presented her with. Nelly looks as her as if she has lost her mind.
“A mouse, of course,” is the answer, but Merricat does not think so. This thing lying dead before her has too many eyes and too many limbs and too many teeth. It is a not a mouse.
But she tries not to think too hard about what it might be.
-
Julian preaches of hellfire and damnation. He scares and soothes the crowd in equal measure, whipping them into a wild frenzy with fire in his voice before calming any rattled nerves with words smooth and silky. Merricat does not like it, does not like the way he seems to thrive on this grasp of control he seems to have.
“Tell me, friends and family, do we wish to return to the old ways?” He cries, tail lashing. “Do we wish to return to such savagery, as if we are not better than mindless rodents?”
Merricat asks Nelly, later, what he means by the old ways. She shies away, her answer a short and brisk don’t know, but Merricat thinks she does. She can tell in the way that she shrinks into Fairfax at her side, at the way that Fairfax glares at Merricat afterwards.
So Merricat asks Caroline.
It’s in that strange place between day and night, not quite yet twilight, but the sun’s rays turn red and drip like blood, washing the hard packed dirt of the road with crimson. Merricat swears she can smell iron in the air, taste it on the tip of her tongue.
“The old ways,” Caroline muses, blinking long and slow. She stands bathed in the shadows of the corn, her own paws covered in the soft, rich dirt at their base. It seems cooler, under the corn, away from the suffocating heat of the road, but Nelly’s warning rings in her head and she thinks of the eyes that glow like fire in the night, and she stays on her side of the barrier.
“Who brought them up?” She asks, and Merricat wrinkles her nose.
“Julian,” she admits, and Caroline’s own face twists, as if she has just smelled something particularly foul. Apparently Merricat’s opinion of the greasy, unpleasant tom is shared.
“I would not listen to his warnings too carefully,” Caroline says, scorn dripping from her voice. “He is drunk on his own power, having convinced these cats to somehow listen and believe the garbage he is saying. He thinks himself the creator of his own religion, and he thinks he knows the way the world works.”
“And he doesn’t?”
“Of course not,” Caroline scoffs. “The world is far more vast than Julian can even consider in his tiny, insignificant brain.”
It’s a strangely comforting thought. The two she-cats are silent for a moment, watching as the sun sinks closer to the horizon, before Merricat repeats her original question.
“The old ways,” Caroline says, “Are simple enough. Eye for an eye. Blood for blood. Life for life.”
Merricat still does not fully understand, but she doesn’t think she wants to. And for now, she’s happy to spend her time with this she-cat and her beautiful, hypnotizing eyes. She does not want to think of matters of blood and life and those things given and taken.
-
Merricat walks back to the den she shares with Nelly, and along the road, eyes like fire watch her from the corn. She throws her shoulders back and keeps her head high, and pretends she cannot see them, although their gaze burns a pathway down her spine.
She walks back to the den she shares with Nelly, and the eyes watch, unblinking.
-
They find his body in the morning.
At first glance, it’s almost as if he’s sleeping. A still, strange sort of sleep, but still...sleep. And then you get closer, and you notice that his eyes are half open, that his fur is matted with blood. And you get closer still, and you notice that his limbs are bent at unnatural angles, muscles splitting and bones breaking. And even closer, you’ll notice that his claws are missing, his teeth are broken, and the wounds that gouge his body are far too violent, far too deep to be made by any cat.
They find his body in the morning, and Nelly screams.
Merricat has never heard such an awful sound, as if something is physically wrenching the sound from Nelly’s chest. She collapses as if her legs can no longer hold the weight of her body up, crying out as if someone is slowly removing all her organs one by one.
Fairfax lies in the middle of the road, his blood staining the dirt beneath him, and Julian stands over his corpse and looks triumphant.
-
They bury him in a graveyard old as memories, and Nelly weeps. Merricat stands towards the back of the crowd, letting the breeze ruffle her fur, and shivers despite the warm air. She feels as if she is being watched. She keeps seeing movement in the corner of her version, but when she turns, there is never anything there, just the small piles of stones that mark the graves.
Merricat doesn’t believe in ghosts, not really. Once a cat dies, they are gone, no matter how much you wish that some piece of them, something vital, flickering bit of soul may remain behind. Or so she thought. Thinks. Standing in this graveyard, she’s not really sure.
It feels haunted, as some piece of everyone buried here remains walking among their final resting place. It’s unsettling, and she does not want to be here.
Julian stands over Fairfax’s still fresh grave. He uses it like a stage, this place of mourning, uses the death of the tom that Nelly loved to further his own voice.
“We need to remember that the road protects us,” he says, a strange, dark satisfaction crackling in his every word. “But we also need to remember that there are things that lurk in the dark that the road is unable to protect us from.” He scans the crowd, his eyes settling on Merricat, and it takes every bit of self control she has not to let her fur bristle. They hold eye contact, and she’s the one that finally breaks it.
“Take this as a warning, my friends!” He crows, seemingly indifferent to the visible outpouring of grief from the tiny she-cat at his side. “There are things that lurk in the dark. Do not follow them. Do not let them seduce you with their unholy abilities.”
He rises up, a mad light shining in his eyes. “Never let them get in your mind, my friends! Do not follow them, do not trust them, and do not give them your name.”
Merricat cannot hold back her shudder.
-
“It’s strange,” Merricat says, “but when my father died, it didn’t feel real.”
She and Caroline are on the edge of the river again, lying on their backs to let the sun warm their bellies, and listen to the soft sounds of the river burbling against the banks.
“I still doesn’t feel real, honestly. It feels like he’s still there, at home, waiting for me to come back. I look at Nelly mourning, and she clearly feels so much, and it’s like I just felt nothing. Like I feel nothing.”
The tip of Caroline’s tail is flicking, bumping gently against Merricat’s. “I never knew my mother and father,” she says, “so I cannot claim I know what you feel.”
“Never?” Merricat twists so she can look at the she-cat beside her. “Neither one? Who raised you?”
“The road and the corn and the ghosts that haunt them both.”
It’s a strange answer, a nonsensical one, but it intrigues Merricat, fascinates her. Everything about this beautiful she-cat fascinates her, and she wants to know every single thing about her. The thought raises a strange, warm feeling in her chest, unfamiliar and yet familiar at the same time.
It’s a trickling warmth, making her feel as if she’ll never be cold again, as long as she is with this strange, delightful, fascinating she-cat beside her.
Caroline is staring at the sky, and the light of the setting sun sets a fire in her beautiful eyes, and Merricat is mesmerized. In the background, the dragonflies buzz, whispering their secrets that Merricat can’t quite understand, and Caroline turns so she is facing her.
“You never…” Caroline starts, then stops, pausing for one long, long moment. “I still don’t know your name.”
The realization hits Merricat in a rush, as well as the shame.
“Merricat. My name is Merricat.”
“Merricat,” Caroline says slowly, turning the name over in her mouth as if she is tasting it. It’s the same thing that Julian did, but different, because while Julian says her name as if he wants to own it, Caroline says it as if she wants to savor it.
And in her chest, that warmth grows and grows.
-
She walks back to the den she shares with Nelly, and in the corn the eyes watch, unblinking.
-
Nelly disappears that night. When Merricat wakes in the morning, her denmate’s nest is cold, and her scent is stale, as if she has not been there in hours.
They find her that night.
It takes three cats to pull her from the river, bloated and blue, and Merricat nearly throws up at the sight.
“The river took her,” the elders whisper, tucking kittens close to their side.
“The river took her,” Julian says, standing above her grave. “This is why you keep your emotions close, my friends. The river sensed her grief, and took her.”
-
Merricat goes back to the empty den, and the space stretches wide and too big for just her, and she wishes she is not alone.
-
“I heard about your friend,” Caroline says, as the river innocently flows behind her. “I heard that the river took her.”
The river took her. As if it has a sort of sentience, a brain not unlike her and Caroline’s. As if it targeted Nelly, could feel the wideness and the vastness of her grief, and lured her into its depths because it was so desperate to taste it.
“Everyone is saying that,” Merricat says, staring out across the blue-gray water. “As if reminding us not to forget it.”
“You shouldn’t,” Caroline says. “There are dangerous things here, Merricat, and the river holds them close. So does the corn. And, as much as they try to pretend otherwise, the road can only protect so many for so long.”
Merricat’s tail flicks, and she shivers.
“Are you cold?” Caroline asks, and Merricat nods, once. The sun is setting, bathing them in its crimson, bloody light. The air holds a suggestion of autumn chill, a welcome change from the suffocating heat of the afternoon.
And slowly, carefully, as if she is afraid that Merricat will jump away, Caroline presses against her. Merricat stiffens in surprise, and then melts into the touch. Caroline is a warm presence against her side, and she smells of damp, rich dirt and sweetgrass and the sun-warmed river, and it’s intoxicating, fills Merricat’s head, and warmth rises in her chest.
-
Merricat walks back to the empty den she used to share with Nelly, and the eyes in the corn watch, unblinking.
Until they don’t.
-
First, there’s a chill. The breeze holds a hint of ice in its corners, swirling around her paws with every step.
Then, it goes silent. Merricat didn’t realize how loud the crickets were chirping until their song is suddenly gone, snuffed out like a flame in the rain, and she freezes, one paw in the air, every instinct screaming at her to run, to get out of there as soon and as quickly as possible.
She doesn’t have time. The feeling comes too little, too late.
They are large and terrible, creatures with eyes that flash like fire in the darkness, moonlight glinting off of too many teeth and huge, hooked claws, and Merricat can barely see them in the darkness which makes them all the more terrible.
She is going to die. She knows that with a sudden, bone-deep certainty. In the morning, they are going to find her curled on the road, broken and bloody, and Julian will stand above her grave and use her death to further his own power.
She closes her eyes. It’s no use fighting it. Perhaps if she doesn’t, they will make it quick, these huge, awful creatures of the corn.
And then she hears Caroline.
And she opens her eyes.
“Not her!”
Caroline stands between Merricat and the moving, dark creatures in the shadows, fur puffed and eyes blazing. And as Merricat watches, Caroline shifts and grows and changes, her voice turning into a roar.
“Not her!”
And the creatures watch, the creatures assess, and slowly, one at a time, the creatures turn, melting back into the corn from where they came.
-
Caroline is huge and terrible, with too many teeth and huge, hooked claws, vaguely feline but in all the wrong ways, her striking eyes darkening and changing, fire swirling behind them.
She is huge and terrible, and she is the most beautiful thing Merricat has ever seen.
“Caroline,” Merricat says, and Caroline curls into herself, shrinking and changing, shaking out her fur, until she sits before Merricat, looking like any other cat along the road.
“Dear Merricat,” Caroline says, and her voice is tinged with sadness. “I could not let them get to you.”
Merricat steps forward, and Caroline flinches away, as if she is expecting Merricat to attack, to raise her claws against her. But instead Merricat purrs, pressing into the side of the she-cat that is as familiar to her as her own paws.
Caroline lets out one dry sob, even as a purr rumbles in her own chest.
“I have to say goodbye, now,” She says, sorrow tingeing her voice. “They will not let me stay, now that they know about you.”
“And you cannot take me with you?”
The question clearly startles Caroline, and she considers for one long, slow moment.
“There is a way,” Caroline says finally. “But there is no going back once it happens. You will be like me, and you will walk the corn forever.”
“But I will be with you?”
“I will walk side by side with you,” Caroline swears, and the promise in her voice is iron-wrought and unbreakable. “Until we at last meet our ends.”
And Merricat thinks of the road, of the cats that wait there, that watch her as if she will always be an outsider. She thinks of Julian, who looks at her as if he wants to own her. She thinks of her mother and father, forever gone from her, and she looks at Caroline in front of her.
The decision is easy, and as soon as she makes it, she knows it is the right one.
-
In a way, she did die that night. Her old life died, as she peeled herself away from it like a snake sheds its skin, and she does not look back, not once.
-
She is huge and she is terrible, and the corn holds secrets she could have never imagined. Terrible ones, but beautiful and breathtaking ones, too.
And beside her, walks Caroline, step for step.
She is Merricat, a wanderer, the daughter of the dead and the dying, and she is beautiful and terrible and she is a creature of the corn, and she is not afraid, and she is not lost, and she knows that this is always where she was meant to be.
-
Do not walk the cornfields at night, the elders warn even the tiniest of kits. For you never know what might be waiting in the shadows.
And from between the stalks, Merricat and Caroline crouch, fire in their gaze as they watch, unblinking.
---
So! I am tentatively, hesitantly back! I didn't talk about it a lot on here, but I got a job, and that job is on paper a fantastic job, but as it turns out, maybe not the right job for me. Which lead to a mental health crash, which in turn lead to a stunning, flaming crash of creativity, and I haven't written a thing since NaNo. Except for this. Because, miracle of miracles, I finished this. A weird little southern gothic one-shot mostly born of my love of gothic horror and Haunting of Hill House (both the show and the book), with characters all named after characters from classic gothic novels.
Merricat and Julian are named for two characters in We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Nelly from Wuthering Heights, Caroline from Frankenstein, and Fairfax is after, of course, Edward Rochester, the original Bad Boy of literature.
Anyways, I'll be making the rounds to say hi to people at some point (I don't have the time atm, I'm just kind of throwing this at you and then running out the door), but for now I'll just same I'm glad to be back.
4,573 words
--
Do not walk the cornfields at night.
It’s the first rule, the one that elders tell kittens woven into bedtime stories, and plead to those young and restless, full of that wild, youthful energy and far too much confidence.
No matter how much the things within the corn call to you, no matter how safe and inviting the tall golden stalks may seem, as soon as the sun touches the horizon you do not step foot past that barrier, from the relative safety of the hard-packed dirt road into the almost invisible pathways that will lead you deeper, deeper, deeper.
Do not walk the cornfields at night, the elders warn, because you never know what may be waiting.
-
She is a wanderer.
She has always felt the call of the road, felt the tug behind her ribcage, some strange sense leading her onward, onward. Leading her here, to these dirt roads and deep, slow rivers and seemingly endless fields of corn. She comes here, and that tug in her chest relaxes for the first time in her memory.
She is an orphan.
Born of the blood of her mother, thrust into this world among the waters of life and the blood of death, and she takes her first breath as her mother takes her last.
She is raised by a shadow of a father, haunted by the ghosts of love lost, withering away slowly until he is a creature made of hollow eyes and ribs visible through thinning pelt, and his death is slow and wheezing and painful.
She is…
She is Merricat, daughter of the dead and the dying, and she feels as if she standing on the edge of something.
-
They watch her with suspicious eyes, tails flicking and ears pinned. It feels like a thousand tiny pinpricks down her spine, but she walks with her shoulders set and her head tall, and eventually, the locals return to their own business.
Only one speaks to her, a tiny, slip of a thing, a she-cat resembling more cloud than cat. Her name is Nelly, and she offers Merricat a bed, a meal, and a warning.
“Do not wander the cornfields at night,” Nelly says, in a voice as delicate and crystalline as shattering glass. “For things lurk in the shadows.”
“What sorts of things?” Merricat peers out the entrance of Nelly’s tiny den, searching for hints of movement in the tall, golden stalks. A cool night wind rustles them gently, and she sees no danger in the plants.
“Unnatural things, unholy things,” Nelly says with a shudder. “Things that are best kept in the shadows where they belong.”
It is not the answer that Merricat desires, and curiosity stirs in her chest. But Nelly seems to sense this, and she scolds Merricat, as if she were still a tiny kit thinking of causing trouble.
“It is not good to wonder, or to wander. The road keeps us safe, and the fields of sweet grass keep us fed, and we have no need to discover what lies beyond the barrier between road and corn.”
And for now, Merricat listens.
For now.
-
Merricat sees her for the first time at sunset. She waits just off the road, the corn dappling her pelt with sunlight. She is beautiful in a way that is almost painful, and Merricat feels drawn in by her eyes, an amber as rich and warm as honey.
“You are new to the road,” the stranger says, and Merricat stops at the edge of the road, Nelly’s warning to not cross the barrier echoing in her head.
“I am,” Merricat admits, and feels a little ashamed that this stranger saw her newness so easily. “I arrived two nights ago.”
“And tell me, what is your name?” The she-cat sits up, sweeps an elegant tail over dainty paws, her eyes still fixed firmly upon Merricat. Merricat’s fur itches and warms, and she repeats the question back. The she-cat considers for one long, slow moment, before offering up a name.
“I suppose you may call me Caroline.”
Merricat nods slowly, turning the name over in her mouth, tasting the flavor of the name. It’s like the smell of the dirt road, steady and familiar and solid. The opposite of her own name, which tastes of fog and thick forests and wind, a name fitting for a wanderer but not for someone who stays.
Caroline is the name of someone who stays.
And she does not want to give her name for this reason, because she suddenly and surprisingly wants to be someone who stays.
So instead she says, “I am glad to meet you, Caroline, and perhaps we will see each other again.”
“Perhaps we will,” Caroline says, just as a flock of ravens let out distress calls and take to the air, calling Merricat’s attention to them. And when she looks back, Caroline is gone, having left as suddenly and silently as she came.
-
Nelly has a mate, and his name is Fairfax, and he is tall and broad of shoulders and thick with muscles, and he makes Nelly look even tinier in comparison. He looks over Merricat with a sort of barely hidden distantain, wrinkling his nose in distaste. It takes everything Merricat has not to let the fur along her spine prickle, because she does not want to make Nelly angry, and Nelly is her warm bed and food in her belly.
Merricat knows what it’s like to be cold, to be hungry. She has no desire to return to that if she does not have to.
Fairfax is a rather unpleasant creature, loud and arrogant and annoyingly sure of himself, but Nelly seems absolutely enamoured by him. She hangs on his every word, a star-struck expression in her eyes as if she cannot believe her absolute good fortune to exist at the same time as him.
“We’ve known each other since we were kits, grew up with nests side by side,” Nelly tells Merricat one day, as they lie in the small patch of shade cast by a single, struggling tree. The oppressive heat beats down, and Merricat regrets her dark gray fur, which seems to soak up the sunlight, a heavy coat she has no need for in this weather.
“I had a crush on him starting very young,” Nelly admits, rolling onto her back and tucking her paws close to her chest. “And I thought it was unrequited for so long, but I suppose it wasn’t, and I can’t imagine life without him.”
Merricat hums noncommittally. She doesn’t understand why Nelly is so taken with him, doesn’t understand that feeling of infatuation. When she considers it, it’s an alien feeling, something that belongs in the fairy tales told to kits rather than in real life. But then she looks across the road, and there sits Caroline under the corn, with her mesmerizing eyes, and maybe, that feeling isn’t quite as alien as she thought.
-
The night air hangs heavy and hot over the den, only the slightest wisps of breeze hinting at cooler weather. Merricat stirs, overheated and restless because of it, tossing and turning until she finally gives up sleep. She carefully steps over Nelly, into the night.
It’s cooler outside, not by much, but the air is fresh and feels clean in her lungs, rather than heavy. For a minute she just breathes, eyes closed, and lets the air wash her thoughts clean. But when she opens her eyes again, she notices them.
Creatures watch her from the corn, with eyes that burn like fire. And she watches them back, searches for the dark shapes that the eyes belong to, her paws urging her closer, a hum in her chest telling her to search, to find.
“Merricat!” Nelly’s voice is sharp, cutting through the strange, rolling fog in her brain. Merricat turns, and Nelly stands before her. It surprises Merricat, faintly. This tiny a cat should not be able to carry so much fierceness in her voice.
“What are they?” Merricat asks, because even as she looks away, she can feel the burn of their gaze prickling along her spine.
“There is nothing there,” Nelly says, angling herself so she stands between Merricat and the corn.
“But…”
“There is nothing there!” Nelly snaps, her voice shrill, carrying a hint of panic. “There is nothing there, Merricat, and there never has been, there never will be. There is nothing in the corn.”
And perhaps it’s the fear in Nelly’s voice, perhaps it’s the unease that has settled in Merricat’s gut, but she allows herself to be led back into Nelly’s den, and does not look back.
And the eyes watch, unblinking.
-
His name is Julian, and he offers up salvation.
“Are your souls clean, my friends, my family?” he cries into the air, tail lashing. “Will you be welcomed into the afterlife alongside your kin?”
Merricat does not like him. He looks up and down, slowly, in a way that makes her skin crawl. He corners her, a manic light in his eyes, wearing a leer that’s pretending to be honorable.
“You are new to the road,” he says, stepping closer to her even as she steps away from him. “You are Merricat.”
She doesn’t like the way he says her name, as if he is tasting it, as if he wants to eat it.
“Tell me, Merricat,” Julian says, leaning in, washing her face with his sour breath. “Do you want salvation?”
Merricat says no. She does not want to know what kind of salvation he is offering.
-
Merricat is not used to the heat, not used to the way it clings to her very bones. She’s not used to the way that moisture hangs heavy in the air, even as walking down the road coats her tongue in dust.
It’s cooler by the river, and by the river, Caroline waits.
“Where did you come from?”
“A place of green trees and tall grass and water crashing against cliffs,” Merricat says. “A place of seagulls and salt in the air and sand beneath your paws.”
Caroline’s eyes fill with wistfulness, a strange sort of wonder. “It sounds wonderful.”
“Where do you come from?” Merricat asks, and Caroline smiles, wry and a little sad.
“Here. I have always been here, and I will always be here. Surrounded by corn and the road and the endless sky.”
The river burbles softly, water flowing dark and lazy, and dragonflies buzz through the air.
“Why don’t you leave?”
Caroline stares off into the distance, her tail flicking. “I have considered it,” she admits, “but I am tethered here, as much as these trees are tethered to the riverbank. I could not leave, even if I wished.”
Merricat watches her, watches Caroline and her strange, beautiful eyes. She does not pretend to understand. Around her, dragonflies buzz, and it seems as if they are trying to whisper to her. But no matter how much she listens, she can never understand.
-
Nelly calls it heat sickness, but Merricat does not particularly care what it is called. She simply knows that she feels awful, her head throbbing and her stomach churning. She lies in the shade of the den, and thinks of the river.
She thinks of Caroline.
-
Even though she is not hungry, Nelly brings her a meal, drops the bundle of fur at Merricat’s paws. Merricat stares at it, confusion churning in her belly alongside the nausea.
“What is that?” She asks, staring at the creature that Nelly has presented her with. Nelly looks as her as if she has lost her mind.
“A mouse, of course,” is the answer, but Merricat does not think so. This thing lying dead before her has too many eyes and too many limbs and too many teeth. It is a not a mouse.
But she tries not to think too hard about what it might be.
-
Julian preaches of hellfire and damnation. He scares and soothes the crowd in equal measure, whipping them into a wild frenzy with fire in his voice before calming any rattled nerves with words smooth and silky. Merricat does not like it, does not like the way he seems to thrive on this grasp of control he seems to have.
“Tell me, friends and family, do we wish to return to the old ways?” He cries, tail lashing. “Do we wish to return to such savagery, as if we are not better than mindless rodents?”
Merricat asks Nelly, later, what he means by the old ways. She shies away, her answer a short and brisk don’t know, but Merricat thinks she does. She can tell in the way that she shrinks into Fairfax at her side, at the way that Fairfax glares at Merricat afterwards.
So Merricat asks Caroline.
It’s in that strange place between day and night, not quite yet twilight, but the sun’s rays turn red and drip like blood, washing the hard packed dirt of the road with crimson. Merricat swears she can smell iron in the air, taste it on the tip of her tongue.
“The old ways,” Caroline muses, blinking long and slow. She stands bathed in the shadows of the corn, her own paws covered in the soft, rich dirt at their base. It seems cooler, under the corn, away from the suffocating heat of the road, but Nelly’s warning rings in her head and she thinks of the eyes that glow like fire in the night, and she stays on her side of the barrier.
“Who brought them up?” She asks, and Merricat wrinkles her nose.
“Julian,” she admits, and Caroline’s own face twists, as if she has just smelled something particularly foul. Apparently Merricat’s opinion of the greasy, unpleasant tom is shared.
“I would not listen to his warnings too carefully,” Caroline says, scorn dripping from her voice. “He is drunk on his own power, having convinced these cats to somehow listen and believe the garbage he is saying. He thinks himself the creator of his own religion, and he thinks he knows the way the world works.”
“And he doesn’t?”
“Of course not,” Caroline scoffs. “The world is far more vast than Julian can even consider in his tiny, insignificant brain.”
It’s a strangely comforting thought. The two she-cats are silent for a moment, watching as the sun sinks closer to the horizon, before Merricat repeats her original question.
“The old ways,” Caroline says, “Are simple enough. Eye for an eye. Blood for blood. Life for life.”
Merricat still does not fully understand, but she doesn’t think she wants to. And for now, she’s happy to spend her time with this she-cat and her beautiful, hypnotizing eyes. She does not want to think of matters of blood and life and those things given and taken.
-
Merricat walks back to the den she shares with Nelly, and along the road, eyes like fire watch her from the corn. She throws her shoulders back and keeps her head high, and pretends she cannot see them, although their gaze burns a pathway down her spine.
She walks back to the den she shares with Nelly, and the eyes watch, unblinking.
-
They find his body in the morning.
At first glance, it’s almost as if he’s sleeping. A still, strange sort of sleep, but still...sleep. And then you get closer, and you notice that his eyes are half open, that his fur is matted with blood. And you get closer still, and you notice that his limbs are bent at unnatural angles, muscles splitting and bones breaking. And even closer, you’ll notice that his claws are missing, his teeth are broken, and the wounds that gouge his body are far too violent, far too deep to be made by any cat.
They find his body in the morning, and Nelly screams.
Merricat has never heard such an awful sound, as if something is physically wrenching the sound from Nelly’s chest. She collapses as if her legs can no longer hold the weight of her body up, crying out as if someone is slowly removing all her organs one by one.
Fairfax lies in the middle of the road, his blood staining the dirt beneath him, and Julian stands over his corpse and looks triumphant.
-
They bury him in a graveyard old as memories, and Nelly weeps. Merricat stands towards the back of the crowd, letting the breeze ruffle her fur, and shivers despite the warm air. She feels as if she is being watched. She keeps seeing movement in the corner of her version, but when she turns, there is never anything there, just the small piles of stones that mark the graves.
Merricat doesn’t believe in ghosts, not really. Once a cat dies, they are gone, no matter how much you wish that some piece of them, something vital, flickering bit of soul may remain behind. Or so she thought. Thinks. Standing in this graveyard, she’s not really sure.
It feels haunted, as some piece of everyone buried here remains walking among their final resting place. It’s unsettling, and she does not want to be here.
Julian stands over Fairfax’s still fresh grave. He uses it like a stage, this place of mourning, uses the death of the tom that Nelly loved to further his own voice.
“We need to remember that the road protects us,” he says, a strange, dark satisfaction crackling in his every word. “But we also need to remember that there are things that lurk in the dark that the road is unable to protect us from.” He scans the crowd, his eyes settling on Merricat, and it takes every bit of self control she has not to let her fur bristle. They hold eye contact, and she’s the one that finally breaks it.
“Take this as a warning, my friends!” He crows, seemingly indifferent to the visible outpouring of grief from the tiny she-cat at his side. “There are things that lurk in the dark. Do not follow them. Do not let them seduce you with their unholy abilities.”
He rises up, a mad light shining in his eyes. “Never let them get in your mind, my friends! Do not follow them, do not trust them, and do not give them your name.”
Merricat cannot hold back her shudder.
-
“It’s strange,” Merricat says, “but when my father died, it didn’t feel real.”
She and Caroline are on the edge of the river again, lying on their backs to let the sun warm their bellies, and listen to the soft sounds of the river burbling against the banks.
“I still doesn’t feel real, honestly. It feels like he’s still there, at home, waiting for me to come back. I look at Nelly mourning, and she clearly feels so much, and it’s like I just felt nothing. Like I feel nothing.”
The tip of Caroline’s tail is flicking, bumping gently against Merricat’s. “I never knew my mother and father,” she says, “so I cannot claim I know what you feel.”
“Never?” Merricat twists so she can look at the she-cat beside her. “Neither one? Who raised you?”
“The road and the corn and the ghosts that haunt them both.”
It’s a strange answer, a nonsensical one, but it intrigues Merricat, fascinates her. Everything about this beautiful she-cat fascinates her, and she wants to know every single thing about her. The thought raises a strange, warm feeling in her chest, unfamiliar and yet familiar at the same time.
It’s a trickling warmth, making her feel as if she’ll never be cold again, as long as she is with this strange, delightful, fascinating she-cat beside her.
Caroline is staring at the sky, and the light of the setting sun sets a fire in her beautiful eyes, and Merricat is mesmerized. In the background, the dragonflies buzz, whispering their secrets that Merricat can’t quite understand, and Caroline turns so she is facing her.
“You never…” Caroline starts, then stops, pausing for one long, long moment. “I still don’t know your name.”
The realization hits Merricat in a rush, as well as the shame.
“Merricat. My name is Merricat.”
“Merricat,” Caroline says slowly, turning the name over in her mouth as if she is tasting it. It’s the same thing that Julian did, but different, because while Julian says her name as if he wants to own it, Caroline says it as if she wants to savor it.
And in her chest, that warmth grows and grows.
-
She walks back to the den she shares with Nelly, and in the corn the eyes watch, unblinking.
-
Nelly disappears that night. When Merricat wakes in the morning, her denmate’s nest is cold, and her scent is stale, as if she has not been there in hours.
They find her that night.
It takes three cats to pull her from the river, bloated and blue, and Merricat nearly throws up at the sight.
“The river took her,” the elders whisper, tucking kittens close to their side.
“The river took her,” Julian says, standing above her grave. “This is why you keep your emotions close, my friends. The river sensed her grief, and took her.”
-
Merricat goes back to the empty den, and the space stretches wide and too big for just her, and she wishes she is not alone.
-
“I heard about your friend,” Caroline says, as the river innocently flows behind her. “I heard that the river took her.”
The river took her. As if it has a sort of sentience, a brain not unlike her and Caroline’s. As if it targeted Nelly, could feel the wideness and the vastness of her grief, and lured her into its depths because it was so desperate to taste it.
“Everyone is saying that,” Merricat says, staring out across the blue-gray water. “As if reminding us not to forget it.”
“You shouldn’t,” Caroline says. “There are dangerous things here, Merricat, and the river holds them close. So does the corn. And, as much as they try to pretend otherwise, the road can only protect so many for so long.”
Merricat’s tail flicks, and she shivers.
“Are you cold?” Caroline asks, and Merricat nods, once. The sun is setting, bathing them in its crimson, bloody light. The air holds a suggestion of autumn chill, a welcome change from the suffocating heat of the afternoon.
And slowly, carefully, as if she is afraid that Merricat will jump away, Caroline presses against her. Merricat stiffens in surprise, and then melts into the touch. Caroline is a warm presence against her side, and she smells of damp, rich dirt and sweetgrass and the sun-warmed river, and it’s intoxicating, fills Merricat’s head, and warmth rises in her chest.
-
Merricat walks back to the empty den she used to share with Nelly, and the eyes in the corn watch, unblinking.
Until they don’t.
-
First, there’s a chill. The breeze holds a hint of ice in its corners, swirling around her paws with every step.
Then, it goes silent. Merricat didn’t realize how loud the crickets were chirping until their song is suddenly gone, snuffed out like a flame in the rain, and she freezes, one paw in the air, every instinct screaming at her to run, to get out of there as soon and as quickly as possible.
She doesn’t have time. The feeling comes too little, too late.
They are large and terrible, creatures with eyes that flash like fire in the darkness, moonlight glinting off of too many teeth and huge, hooked claws, and Merricat can barely see them in the darkness which makes them all the more terrible.
She is going to die. She knows that with a sudden, bone-deep certainty. In the morning, they are going to find her curled on the road, broken and bloody, and Julian will stand above her grave and use her death to further his own power.
She closes her eyes. It’s no use fighting it. Perhaps if she doesn’t, they will make it quick, these huge, awful creatures of the corn.
And then she hears Caroline.
And she opens her eyes.
“Not her!”
Caroline stands between Merricat and the moving, dark creatures in the shadows, fur puffed and eyes blazing. And as Merricat watches, Caroline shifts and grows and changes, her voice turning into a roar.
“Not her!”
And the creatures watch, the creatures assess, and slowly, one at a time, the creatures turn, melting back into the corn from where they came.
-
Caroline is huge and terrible, with too many teeth and huge, hooked claws, vaguely feline but in all the wrong ways, her striking eyes darkening and changing, fire swirling behind them.
She is huge and terrible, and she is the most beautiful thing Merricat has ever seen.
“Caroline,” Merricat says, and Caroline curls into herself, shrinking and changing, shaking out her fur, until she sits before Merricat, looking like any other cat along the road.
“Dear Merricat,” Caroline says, and her voice is tinged with sadness. “I could not let them get to you.”
Merricat steps forward, and Caroline flinches away, as if she is expecting Merricat to attack, to raise her claws against her. But instead Merricat purrs, pressing into the side of the she-cat that is as familiar to her as her own paws.
Caroline lets out one dry sob, even as a purr rumbles in her own chest.
“I have to say goodbye, now,” She says, sorrow tingeing her voice. “They will not let me stay, now that they know about you.”
“And you cannot take me with you?”
The question clearly startles Caroline, and she considers for one long, slow moment.
“There is a way,” Caroline says finally. “But there is no going back once it happens. You will be like me, and you will walk the corn forever.”
“But I will be with you?”
“I will walk side by side with you,” Caroline swears, and the promise in her voice is iron-wrought and unbreakable. “Until we at last meet our ends.”
And Merricat thinks of the road, of the cats that wait there, that watch her as if she will always be an outsider. She thinks of Julian, who looks at her as if he wants to own her. She thinks of her mother and father, forever gone from her, and she looks at Caroline in front of her.
The decision is easy, and as soon as she makes it, she knows it is the right one.
-
In a way, she did die that night. Her old life died, as she peeled herself away from it like a snake sheds its skin, and she does not look back, not once.
-
She is huge and she is terrible, and the corn holds secrets she could have never imagined. Terrible ones, but beautiful and breathtaking ones, too.
And beside her, walks Caroline, step for step.
She is Merricat, a wanderer, the daughter of the dead and the dying, and she is beautiful and terrible and she is a creature of the corn, and she is not afraid, and she is not lost, and she knows that this is always where she was meant to be.
-
Do not walk the cornfields at night, the elders warn even the tiniest of kits. For you never know what might be waiting in the shadows.
And from between the stalks, Merricat and Caroline crouch, fire in their gaze as they watch, unblinking.
---
So! I am tentatively, hesitantly back! I didn't talk about it a lot on here, but I got a job, and that job is on paper a fantastic job, but as it turns out, maybe not the right job for me. Which lead to a mental health crash, which in turn lead to a stunning, flaming crash of creativity, and I haven't written a thing since NaNo. Except for this. Because, miracle of miracles, I finished this. A weird little southern gothic one-shot mostly born of my love of gothic horror and Haunting of Hill House (both the show and the book), with characters all named after characters from classic gothic novels.
Merricat and Julian are named for two characters in We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Nelly from Wuthering Heights, Caroline from Frankenstein, and Fairfax is after, of course, Edward Rochester, the original Bad Boy of literature.
Anyways, I'll be making the rounds to say hi to people at some point (I don't have the time atm, I'm just kind of throwing this at you and then running out the door), but for now I'll just same I'm glad to be back.