Empty Arms and Lonely Graves

Levent Kartal · 08-30-2012, 07:30 PM

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:C

Changed my mind, so he didn't know... This was depressing.

Rain pattered heavily on the roof of the small house, but it had ceased to become any sort of distinct sound and was instead a steady thrumming in the back of his exhausted mind. Curled up on the floor in the living room, the man refused to lift his head or move or eat or even sleep. He’d tried to sleep, but the second his eyes shut he was panicked again, sobbing breathlessly as he reached for the little body he knew wouldn’t be there. It would be cold as stone now, a limp sack of flesh, far beneath the earth churned by the torrential downpour. The thought made him sob again, and the sharp taste of bile flooding his mouth told him that he hadn’t eaten lately, either.

It had only been a couple of days—or a day—or who knew how long. One child had slipped from the world at the breath of a curse, and all he could do was curl in a tiny ball and shiver with cold and listen to the rain. The morning the babe died he’d howled until he was hoarse, and he’d had to see the look on Hotaru’s face as he managed to get the words out, the confession, the dear God what had he done wrong. He’d given her the body, his hands shaking so hard he almost dropped it, and he’d curled in on himself again and not even been able to look at her, to touch her, to give her the comfort he needed to. The mother of his children, he loved her so much, and this was what he’d given her—a dead body and a night to deal with the trauma alone.

Levent knew she had her birds, though, and Dalgina if she’d allowed the wolf—just a girl herself—to be present. And he had Wilson, who’d come to him and pushed himself into his arms and whispered words he probably wouldn’t dare whisper if Levent had been fully conscious. He’d had someone, and that was all that kept him from giving himself up to any of the magical things hidden away in his drawers, which was probably for the best, because Lev knew he would have overdosed and would have seen demons the second his soul fled his lungs.

Thunder boomed, louder than it had been, and the merchant was startled into clenching his body tighter and finally sitting up. There was the ghost of a feeling creeping up his spine, and he bolted out the door before Wilson could question him, his feet slipping on the wet cobblestone and his lungs heaving and rain all in his eyes—headed for the woman’s house, where he could see her grey form hunched now in the dirt, in the graves, she had dug another grave.

Hotaru howled, and Levent fell, falling in the mud and whimpering before scrambling onward again, his chest and arms splattered. He scrambled to his feet and fell again, his elbow striking a rock and sending a jolt of pain up his arm, and half-dragged himself until he had reached the stone marker. He stared at it in horror, and looked up at the she-wolf before barking out a sob. “What have I done, what have I done?”

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