I yelped in fright as I was jerked backwards, and within a fevered heartbeat I was buckled mere inches from the woman’s fissured face. I tried my best to pry her rigid digits from about my wrist where they bruised my flesh, but my fervent attempts were as hopeless as a starving man scrabbling at the walls of an exit-less room. I felt her dragging me in, closer, closer, a struggling fly to a spider’s lair, until I could feel the clammy moistness of her rasping breath oozing thickly against my prickling skin like oil, coiling into the twisting canal of my ear in slimy tendrils.
Her strength was insurmountable, impossibly so, for how could a frail old thing like herself support such power? Her appearance resembled the fragility of an autumnal leaf, but right then, her twig-like fingers capturing me in their unyielding grip, it was I who felt like the feeble feather in a feline’s claws. Either that, or I was in even worse physical shape than I had previously imagined if I could be beaten in an arm-wrestle by a decrepit old bat. The bulging wart which swelled beneath her eye like a plump parasite stared at me mere inches away. I wondered if throwing up on her would have the desired effect that my attempt at strength hadn’t.
“Corliss McClintock.”
A shudder convulsed my spine; not at her words and the fact that she knew my name- though that was bloody terrifying in itself- but at her voice. Hollow it was, completely devoid of anything which could be described as living, the sound of a shadow’s echo, resonating coarsely from some eternal pool in a cave sprawling deep below the surface of the living world, somewhere close to death but too wholly inanimate to be associated with it. So disparate was it from her previous voice- the voice of a badgering but altogether human old woman- that the shock of that in itself was enough to set my legs in stone. The profound fear almost shattered them. It’s a wonder I was still standing, though the crone’s almighty strength might have been the main thing which was keeping me upright. Even so, my legs trembled somewhat from the strain of holding me together as she went on, and I crouched helpless in the dark beside her.
“A man with great aspirations, but only half a heart to carry them through. Lost in yourself, but empty of meaning. You brood over injustices toward yourself, but do not know exactly what it is that you want. You know what you need to do, but you are yet too weak to admit it to yourself. You are but a sheep wishing he were a wolf.”
“That’s… that’s nice…” I croaked through parched lips, barely listening to a word she was saying, my airways constricting to such a degree that I sounded similar to a frog severely afflicted with the flu; I swallowed and drew a dry tongue about my mouth, the functioning of my salivary glands abandoning me along with any last shreds of dignity as I continued in a trembling tenor. “So, ah… s-so, what, you’re some kind of… seer? Lovely. Well, ah, thank you for the free session. It’s given me great insight into my inner… sheep. Yes. Well. I think I’ll be going now…”
I attempted to pull away in a hasty retreat, but her grasp was as inelastic as her bent back and she only reeled me in closer. Her breath was sickly sweet, a fermenting fruit laced with something stale and dry.
“I know a man who could help you achieve the greatness you so desire, Corliss McClintock. A man to give motion to your plans. To give you direction. Purpose. Power.”
That got my attention, and she knew it. I hesitated. Shit. She knew my weakness.
“Look,” I mouthed my next sentence slowly, careful, as though each word were a step which could send me spiralling down a trap door. “I don’t know what you’re talking about…”
A ruthless tug and we were so close that any passers-by would think us entangled in some lovers embrace.
“Do not lie. I know lies, and you lie poorly when afraid. You know exactly what it is I speak of.”
I frowned: I did. Although the ‘timely’ deaths of my grandfather, many uncles and even my own father were usually labelled as morbid humour in my fancies, I knew that if I followed them to their roots I would find a dark and twisted truth, a genuine desire sitting dormant at the back of my mind. I could feel it stir as the witch prodded it with her words, and the small thrill I felt from the knowledge of that wickedness corrupting that small corner of my soul unnerved me. I swallowed.
“…I admit, you have me intrigued…” I allowed in a surprisingly level tone, though hesitation hung to every word with painful reluctance. The seer seemed to take this as a signal to carry on.
“Folk say he hails from the harsh isles near the far White-North, but now lives alone by the seafront here in Haarland in a hut fashioned from the wreckages of ships which have come ashore on the rocks, overlooking those on which the mermaids used to sing. Follow the easterly trail along the cliffs for half a day, and you will find him.
“But heed my warning,” She tugged me closer, and I held my breath. “The man I speak of is not to be trifled with. He may promise you things, as he does everyone who seeks him out, but do not take his oaths at face value. A trickster, he is. A worm in the apple’s core. Take a bite, and you may find that the fruit offered to you is filled with naught but rot.”
“Why are you helping me? If the man is so tricky, and I such an arrogant bastard, why tell me this? Why confront me here?” My suspicions got the better of me, and I was unable to voice my scepticism; after all, these were all very good points.
“Because you are destined for great things, boy. Great and terrible things- who am I to stand in the way of destiny?”
I scoffed at that. So, it was to be more gibberish about fate and all that tosh, just as it was with all mystics and tellers. I should have suspected as much. Yet, despite my reservations, something bound me to the idea she was selling me. I could not explain it but, somehow, I already knew that I was going to find myself following the path which she was weaving for me. Be it by magic, the unimaginable cold stupefying my senses, or simply my implacable curiosity I could not say, but I just knew that it was true.
“By the sounds of it you’re not standing in the way, you’re thrusting it in my bloody face.” I noted with a faint huff of relief as she released her hold of my wrist. I staggered back against the wall and massaged the feeling back into my dead arm, but by the time I raised my gaze from the angry red welts glaring lividly upon my wrist, she had already left, hobbling off down the cobbled street, around the corner and out of sight in a final gust of icy air.
In hindsight, if I could travel back in time in an attempt to stop all the dreadful things which followed from happening, there are many things that I might say to my past self: be thankful for what you have, always listen to your elders (even if they have a whopping great wart), and never trust creepy giggling hermits with terrible mascara.
Unfortunately, time-travel is about as real as my ability to be modest. The idea she had set in my mind had already burrowed its way in far too deep, and I planned to find my glorious destiny first thing tomorrow morning.
…As soon as I had slept off a hangover and had a much-needed bath, to be sure.
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