Nanowrimo Day 3
Jumping around a bit here. More of these guys need names.
The youngest warrior decided to try again. This time he used the woman’s new name. She-Who-Awoke. She had never heard it, but if the ritual had worked it was her true name now. She still didn’t answer him, but she stood up to look at her feet. He crept close to see what had her attention and there was a large, flat stone beneath her. She had to stop digging because of it. Her blood and the dirt had filled in cracks and crevices on it and he could see that there were carvings on it.
There were symbols of eyes, opened and closed, and connecting circles. It was one of the ancient shrines, like the one in the cave. She had found another one. Maybe that was why she was so much calmer now. This was what she was meant to find. Maybe this was another part of the Great Sleeper. His blood ran cold at the thought of how big it must be, if it stretched from here to their home village, days away. He backed away in fear, jumping like a deer when he backed into another warrior watching him.
“It’s a blood table,” he whispered. He hadn’t been this afraid when his old babysitter had torn a man to pieces in front of him. The other warrior pulled him farther back.
“There’s the answer you wanted,” he said, also keeping his voice low. “It needs blood and worship. It called a wife to serve it.”
“Must we kill her?” the young one asked, mournful now. “Will her blood wake it up or keep it asleep?”
“More questions,” the elder scoffed when he clearly didn’t know either. He looked from the woman to the other warriors. They were all uncertain. “We can try to make some offerings. See if it’s enough.”
They spent the day gathering what they could. They caught a fawn and gathered flowers and river rocks. Two of them donated amulets made for them by shamans. They dragged the fawn close enough to cut its throat over the woman and the stone. The blood ran over her feet to fill the other cracks. They threw the flowers over her and carefully cast the stones around her feet. They tossed their amulets over her head as best they could while staying out of her reach.
With that done, they lit a fire and took turns eating the fawn’s heart and singing prayers to anyone who listen for the offering to be accepted and disaster averted. She-Who-Awoke stood there and received it as silently as any stone idol ever had. When the fires died down again, she sank down to lie on the stone among the blood and flowers and rocks. This time she was dead. They made sure by driving a spear into her chest once the youngest one had been sent on an errand.
They covered her up as they had discussed the day before, leaving the spear pinning her to the altar and breaking it off so it wouldn’t be able to mark the spot above ground. They could go home now. They packed up as quickly as they could, making sure no sign of their camp was left and hurried to catch up with with their young friend.
The old coal town was bigger now. The coal mine was officially closed but there were always rumors of tunnels and ways in. The original mining families were still there, their names passed down. The Kahls and Shaws and Whitakers, the Lloyds and Langes and Kellers, plus all the newcomers that were carefully watched until almost everyone forgot that they were new.
It was a real city now, two lane roads and everything. Anyone who wanted to find their way to where the old coal town had been had to know their way on the backroads and be allowed passage by the sentries. It might look like a collection of single wides and old farmhouses scattered through the foothills, but the people in them protected the old site and the old secrets.
All of the old clans had their territories and their quirks. Getting lost in the outskirts meant running a gauntlet of hillbilly cliches and some Lovecraftian primal fears. It was joked about in town, but no one really believed it. That was as the families wanted it, anyway. They kept to themselves and their neighbors were so used to it that they hardly noticed anymore.
Everyone knew that the Whitakers were crazy. Their bloodline was a tangled web of all the founding families of the area, but none of those really claimed them. They were the black sheep of everyone’s family. Every single one of them had something weird, some more harmless than others. Little Tanya in second grade had sucked a plastic cup of water to her face and then leaned back to see if she would drown. Some one had told her that you could drown in a teacup of water and she wanted to try it.
The counselor was called in and so were her parents, and they told the tale of a grandmother so afraid of water that she was bent on terrifying all her grandchildren away from the creek near the house. Obviously, it hadn’t worked on Tanya. She was the type to go looking for the boogeyman with a flashlight.
Her uncle Matthew had taken to sleeping in the middle of the road. It was assumed drugs were involved and no one believed it when his tests came back clean. He was sent to rehab anyway. He went because it was easier than fighting it. His excuse was that he just wanted to be warm. That and his rusty-blond hair earned him the nickname Copperhead.
Their cousin Hazel was a fighter. She fought everyone from preschool to graduation, younger kids, older kids, the rude PE teacher, and a substitute who thought being firm would work on her. She had been the biggest kid in class every year until the boys finally got that growth spurt in the seventh grade. She feared nothing and no one.Throwing down was as second nature as breathing to her, and by the time she was six years old, the regular students knew not to cross her. Mr. Tulley, her ninth grade math substitute, hadn’t been as cautious and had needed the janitor to pull her off him.
The janitor was another Whitaker. Most thought he was simple because he hardly ever talked, but he was smart enough to wade in and stop Hazel before she broke Mr. Tulley’s nose. Tulley hadn’t know that they were related and tried to bluster his way out of it, only to be shocked again when the janitor had pinned him to the wall with a broom handle like he was no heavier than a kitten. Tulley had been warned never to speak to Hazel again and been just as suddenly released. Tulley was careful to only sub for grades that didn’t have Hazel in them after that.
None of the Whitakers showed any interest in their peers. They married outsiders and brought them into the fold. Then, it was just a matter of time before the next generation showed up with varying levels of off-putting. Hazel married a landscaper a head shorter than her right out of high school and alternated having boys and girls a year apart for the next six years. Her youngest was a bookworm named Shay. The only thing Shay got in trouble for was losing track of a lesson because she was reading too far ahead.
She didn’t care about math until she struggled through to geometry. Physical application made all the difference in the world. Her five older siblings and her small army of cousins watched out for her from the sidelines, careful to keep the spotlight on her instead of them. She volunteered at the public library, and the animal shelter, worked at the local church, the whole deal. They were clearly proud of their baby, but there was still something that felt peculiar about it. It took three margaritas at the staff Cinco de Mayo dinner for her algebra teacher to put his finger on it.
“It’s like she’s a decoy,” he said. “They put her out to show how fine and normal everything is while they scuttle around in the shadows. There’s no shame in being poor and no one can help being weird. But Jesus. What’s in the water up there?”
None of the teaching staff was nosy enough to look into records about the Whitakers. The founding father of the clan had been Thomas Whitaker who had been declared dead by the coal company eighty some years ago, but had still managed to father three more children after the fact. That had brought his count to seven. That could cast suspicions on his widow, or imply that the company kept bad records, or have just been a mistake somewhere. There wasn’t any mention of him clawing his way out of a sinkhole to return to his wife.
The youngest warrior decided to try again. This time he used the woman’s new name. She-Who-Awoke. She had never heard it, but if the ritual had worked it was her true name now. She still didn’t answer him, but she stood up to look at her feet. He crept close to see what had her attention and there was a large, flat stone beneath her. She had to stop digging because of it. Her blood and the dirt had filled in cracks and crevices on it and he could see that there were carvings on it.
There were symbols of eyes, opened and closed, and connecting circles. It was one of the ancient shrines, like the one in the cave. She had found another one. Maybe that was why she was so much calmer now. This was what she was meant to find. Maybe this was another part of the Great Sleeper. His blood ran cold at the thought of how big it must be, if it stretched from here to their home village, days away. He backed away in fear, jumping like a deer when he backed into another warrior watching him.
“It’s a blood table,” he whispered. He hadn’t been this afraid when his old babysitter had torn a man to pieces in front of him. The other warrior pulled him farther back.
“There’s the answer you wanted,” he said, also keeping his voice low. “It needs blood and worship. It called a wife to serve it.”
“Must we kill her?” the young one asked, mournful now. “Will her blood wake it up or keep it asleep?”
“More questions,” the elder scoffed when he clearly didn’t know either. He looked from the woman to the other warriors. They were all uncertain. “We can try to make some offerings. See if it’s enough.”
They spent the day gathering what they could. They caught a fawn and gathered flowers and river rocks. Two of them donated amulets made for them by shamans. They dragged the fawn close enough to cut its throat over the woman and the stone. The blood ran over her feet to fill the other cracks. They threw the flowers over her and carefully cast the stones around her feet. They tossed their amulets over her head as best they could while staying out of her reach.
With that done, they lit a fire and took turns eating the fawn’s heart and singing prayers to anyone who listen for the offering to be accepted and disaster averted. She-Who-Awoke stood there and received it as silently as any stone idol ever had. When the fires died down again, she sank down to lie on the stone among the blood and flowers and rocks. This time she was dead. They made sure by driving a spear into her chest once the youngest one had been sent on an errand.
They covered her up as they had discussed the day before, leaving the spear pinning her to the altar and breaking it off so it wouldn’t be able to mark the spot above ground. They could go home now. They packed up as quickly as they could, making sure no sign of their camp was left and hurried to catch up with with their young friend.
The old coal town was bigger now. The coal mine was officially closed but there were always rumors of tunnels and ways in. The original mining families were still there, their names passed down. The Kahls and Shaws and Whitakers, the Lloyds and Langes and Kellers, plus all the newcomers that were carefully watched until almost everyone forgot that they were new.
It was a real city now, two lane roads and everything. Anyone who wanted to find their way to where the old coal town had been had to know their way on the backroads and be allowed passage by the sentries. It might look like a collection of single wides and old farmhouses scattered through the foothills, but the people in them protected the old site and the old secrets.
All of the old clans had their territories and their quirks. Getting lost in the outskirts meant running a gauntlet of hillbilly cliches and some Lovecraftian primal fears. It was joked about in town, but no one really believed it. That was as the families wanted it, anyway. They kept to themselves and their neighbors were so used to it that they hardly noticed anymore.
Everyone knew that the Whitakers were crazy. Their bloodline was a tangled web of all the founding families of the area, but none of those really claimed them. They were the black sheep of everyone’s family. Every single one of them had something weird, some more harmless than others. Little Tanya in second grade had sucked a plastic cup of water to her face and then leaned back to see if she would drown. Some one had told her that you could drown in a teacup of water and she wanted to try it.
The counselor was called in and so were her parents, and they told the tale of a grandmother so afraid of water that she was bent on terrifying all her grandchildren away from the creek near the house. Obviously, it hadn’t worked on Tanya. She was the type to go looking for the boogeyman with a flashlight.
Her uncle Matthew had taken to sleeping in the middle of the road. It was assumed drugs were involved and no one believed it when his tests came back clean. He was sent to rehab anyway. He went because it was easier than fighting it. His excuse was that he just wanted to be warm. That and his rusty-blond hair earned him the nickname Copperhead.
Their cousin Hazel was a fighter. She fought everyone from preschool to graduation, younger kids, older kids, the rude PE teacher, and a substitute who thought being firm would work on her. She had been the biggest kid in class every year until the boys finally got that growth spurt in the seventh grade. She feared nothing and no one.Throwing down was as second nature as breathing to her, and by the time she was six years old, the regular students knew not to cross her. Mr. Tulley, her ninth grade math substitute, hadn’t been as cautious and had needed the janitor to pull her off him.
The janitor was another Whitaker. Most thought he was simple because he hardly ever talked, but he was smart enough to wade in and stop Hazel before she broke Mr. Tulley’s nose. Tulley hadn’t know that they were related and tried to bluster his way out of it, only to be shocked again when the janitor had pinned him to the wall with a broom handle like he was no heavier than a kitten. Tulley had been warned never to speak to Hazel again and been just as suddenly released. Tulley was careful to only sub for grades that didn’t have Hazel in them after that.
None of the Whitakers showed any interest in their peers. They married outsiders and brought them into the fold. Then, it was just a matter of time before the next generation showed up with varying levels of off-putting. Hazel married a landscaper a head shorter than her right out of high school and alternated having boys and girls a year apart for the next six years. Her youngest was a bookworm named Shay. The only thing Shay got in trouble for was losing track of a lesson because she was reading too far ahead.
She didn’t care about math until she struggled through to geometry. Physical application made all the difference in the world. Her five older siblings and her small army of cousins watched out for her from the sidelines, careful to keep the spotlight on her instead of them. She volunteered at the public library, and the animal shelter, worked at the local church, the whole deal. They were clearly proud of their baby, but there was still something that felt peculiar about it. It took three margaritas at the staff Cinco de Mayo dinner for her algebra teacher to put his finger on it.
“It’s like she’s a decoy,” he said. “They put her out to show how fine and normal everything is while they scuttle around in the shadows. There’s no shame in being poor and no one can help being weird. But Jesus. What’s in the water up there?”
None of the teaching staff was nosy enough to look into records about the Whitakers. The founding father of the clan had been Thomas Whitaker who had been declared dead by the coal company eighty some years ago, but had still managed to father three more children after the fact. That had brought his count to seven. That could cast suspicions on his widow, or imply that the company kept bad records, or have just been a mistake somewhere. There wasn’t any mention of him clawing his way out of a sinkhole to return to his wife.