Aerenden: The Child Returns (Ærenden)

T
HE WALLS
fell in first. A flash of light and smoke came next. Or could it have been the
other way around? It happened so fast, she could not remember. The air smelled
funny, like when Papa put out the fire before bed. It filled her mouth and her
nose. It stuffed her lungs and clogged her breathing. Then it turned thick and
black so she could not see. She coughed. She tried to stand, to run, but her
legs sagged beneath her. Tugging on a curtain, she pulled three times before
she grew tired of toppling over, and crawled toward her bedroom. She called for
her mama, but heard only the sound of distant screams through the smoke. None
of them was Mama.

“Mama?
Mama?” she cried again, feeling her way along the floor. Her fingers brushed a
rug, soft and cool compared to the stone floor. A glowing fire consumed part of
the room, heating the stone. It crept toward her. Fires hurt. Papa had told her
she should not touch them. Sometimes she thought about trying to see if he was
right, but she did not want to try with this one. It seemed angry. Its flames
popped and snarled.

The
couch began to glow, and then disappeared as the fire swept over it. It folded
in half, crashing to the floor with a loud bang. She yelped. Tears stung her
eyes and wet her cheeks. Her arms shook. Her legs trembled. She backed away,
and found the table that usually stood in the middle of the living room. It
must have toppled over too. It lay on its side next to a body that looked like
Mama. She knew Mama by her hair. She loved to bury her face in it. She loved to
admire the pretty flower smell of it, and the shine.

“Mama!”
She still received no answer. Her tears dripped from her chin onto her arms.
They felt hot. She reached the body, the strands of hair splayed across the
floor, and tugged. Her mama did not move. She pulled again, her hands slipping
from her mama’s hair. She held them up, wiggled her fingers. They were sticky
and red. She knew that color. She had learned it recently. Mama’s hair was
supposed to be black, not red.

The
fire came closer, eating the table with gold teeth, crumbling it into gray ash like
the fireplace dissolved the logs on cold days. Heat scorched her face, and
singed her hair. It rolled over her body in waves, biting and clawing her skin.
She shrank from it and somewhere, somebody wailed. The noise grew louder,
closer, filling her with fear. The noise came from her mouth, she realized, and
her lungs ached from it. She inhaled smoke and choked on it.

She
wanted to leave but Mama refused to carry her. She did not understand why. She
reached her arms up, noticing for the first time the soot caking the creases of
her elbows and covering her pudgy skin. Then someone grabbed her and she flew.

Firm
arms swung her fast through the air and out of the room, down a hallway filled
with smoke and outside into the garden courtyard where she had often played
with her toys on sunny days.

She
rubbed her eyes to clear the tears and the stinging, and felt them burn from
the black on her palms. She wailed harder.

“Take
her,” a gruff male voice said, handing her over to another set of arms. She did
not know the man, but she knew the woman who now held her. She knew her orange
hair, anyway, but her voice seemed different.

“Is
she okay?” the woman asked.

“Meaghan
will be fine. She’s just scared.”

“We
all are,” the woman replied. “Are they both gone? Were we not able to save
them?”

“They’re
gone,” the man responded, his voice heavy with anger and grief. “He betrayed
them.”

The
woman looked away from him, toward the light the burning castle cast into the
sky. “So he’s won. The kingdom is his.”

“Perhaps
for now. Has James told you what you need to do?”

“Yes.”

“Then
go. Keep her safe.”

The
child wailed again and the woman pressed her close. “Be well, Miles. Give my
sister my love.”

Miles
nodded. “Good luck,” he said. Then the world turned white and disappeared from
memory.

M
EAGHAN RACED
across the yard, blades of grass sticking to her feet as she moved. Frost
numbed her toes, but she could not feel it. Her skin burned and her lungs
ached. Orange flames chased her, and somewhere in the back of her mind, a
hulking shadow waited for her to grow tired. Her heart pounded in her chest and
she gulped in cold air to calm it. Then, by sheer will alone, she stilled her feet. The need to keep
moving gripped her, but she ignored it to risk a glance over her shoulder, her anxiety
dissolving when she saw only the dark windows of her house behind her.

It
was a dream. Nothing more. She had known when she had opened her eyes, but the
remnants of fire, and the haunting gaze of the dead had soon erased logic from
her mind. The images had catalyzed her away from her room toward safety. Toward
the only light shining brighter than the stars dotting the night sky—the light
coming from the window in the apartment above the garage.

Despite
the late hour, Nick was awake. Reading one of the books her father had loaned
him, she guessed. The last had been a book on World War II aviation. A modern
mystery sat on his coffee table before that. His tastes were as mysterious as
his past.

She
blew out a breath, watching as it scattered white droplets into the air, and
then resumed her trek to his apartment at a slower pace. The dream began to
fade, streaking from her memory like a watered down painting, and she questioned
the logic of visiting Nick so late. But the panic she had felt remained and she
did not want to be alone.

Racing
up the steps for the apartment two at a time, she landed at the top with a
muted thud, and then took a moment to push several strands of dark brown hair
from her eyes before lifting her fist to knock on the door. A few minutes
passed. She shivered and cinched her robe tighter around her body. Her fingers
turned numb and she had nearly decided Nick had fallen asleep reading when the
thin curtain covering the window shifted. It fell back into place and the door
swung open.

For a moment, Nick stared at her, one
eyebrow arched in surprise, then his mouth tugged into a frown that cut rigid
lines into his soft face. His displeasure hung in the air, thickening it until
she felt she would suffocate.

“What
are you doing here?” he asked.

She
tucked her hands into the pockets of her robe. Her eyes sought his apartment
for the familiarity of the threadbare carpet and the worn, green couch, and she
longed for the comfort it promised.

“Meg.”

Nick’s
impatient tone brought her attention back to him.
Waning moonlight deepened his sandy hair to brown, and darkened
his eyes, shadowing ocean blue with sea storms. She longed to find comfort in
them, too.

“I just,” she hesitated.
“I hoped we could talk.”

“You
know that’s not possible. You can’t be here.”

She
knew. It had only been a few days since she had tried to kiss him, since they
had agreed to take time apart to allow her feelings for him to die. Her cheeks
flared, and so did her fear. She had not realized time apart meant she would
lose his friendship. She lifted her chin and set her jaw to prevent tears from
forming in her vision. “Do you really think I’d be here without a good reason?”
she asked. Removing her hands from her pockets, she crossed her arms. “My last
final is in a few hours. Do you really think I’d leave my books unless…”

“Unless
what?”

“Nothing,”
she muttered. Her anger and her fear gave way to embarrassment. Why was she
here? Because of a dream? Only children ran from nightmares, not
seventeen-year-old women taking advanced classes. “Forget it,” she said.
Pivoting on her heel, she stopped from leaving when Nick’s hand gripped her
shoulder. He turned her around to face him again.

“What
aren’t you telling me?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at her. “If you aren’t
here to talk about what happened between us, then what did you want to talk
about?”

She
considered lying and taking a quick escape, but when he squeezed her shoulder
in his usual gesture of friendship, she decided to trust him. Moving past the
kiss would take effort on both their parts. “I fell asleep at my desk,” she
answered. “I didn’t mean to, but I guess I’ve been studying too hard and—”

“And
you had another dream,” he realized. The tension dissolved from his face, and
then his body. Stepping back, he cleared the threshold and escorted her inside.

Hot
air slammed into her like a wall, assaulting her ice-chilled skin before her
body adapted to it. She wriggled her toes to revive them. Her ears tingled from
the rush of renewed blood, then her nose and cheeks, but her fingers were
slower to respond. She rubbed them together, relinquishing them to Nick when he
sandwiched them between his hands.

“You’re
freezing,” he said. His eyes coursed down her body, taking in her robe before
landing on her bare feet. He shook his head and let go of her hands. “Are you
crazy? You’re not wearing a jacket or shoes. It’s supposed to snow.”

“It
didn’t cross my mind while I was running for my life.”

“Dreams
can’t kill you,” he reminded her, and then chuckled, unfazed by the glare she
cast in his direction.  “Have a seat,” he said. “I’ll make you some tea.”