《Uroboros Cycle》Uroboros Turns Part 7 Chapter 1

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"Hopefully, no one will harm her here," Tim looked at the door to Eleanor.

"We got visitors," Marie looked out on Ashless Hollow, "Most came under the cover of night. They wanted to be helped, but their secrets kept."

"I've never set foot in the bog," he shuffled, "besides the one time." Tim swallowed, "It is easy to get lost among the trees."

Out in the swamp, among restless shadows, a large figure slithered in silence. Decayed trees and brush snapped like wet bones. An exhalation of fetid air, spoiled meat crawled within, to roll over the earth. The air thickened against the skin. Marie's lips parted, light headed, and the tang of infection slid down the throat. Constraints of form loosened, sense of mind and body blurred. Threads of power were strung throughout Ashless Hollow.

Drunkenly, Marie turned to witness this dark world. Like rain drops on spider string, motes of white flew across the darkness. They gathered just beyond view, deep in the muck. They sighed, passed in a lazy flow. One lingered near, and considered her for a moment, before it retreated deeper. More came, though faster. The stir of voices congealed in the darkness.

The ground rushed up, as Marie felt the world grow. Ashless Hollow was a thin place, where life and death was a circle. As it flowed into her, she bled into it. Old decay rushed the senses. Tim caught Marie as she swooned. For a moment, he heard a whisper, but dismissed it. Bethany had suffered such attacks. He cursed himself. Lush green eyes, flecked with gold, rolled up to the whites.

Flesh was a constraint on the spirit. It was stripped away to expose the Veil, which was the wall between the land of the living and dead. Marie could no longer see Tim, yet she could feel the man beneath. Inside all, there was a truth unknown, except to the Divine. She wept at his beauty, and the wound that had been carved into his spirit. Golden brilliance shimmered out from him. It warmed her. A sigh whispered from Tim, satisfied lover in the arms of his beloved. Strawberries, she mused delighted, the man inside smells of heaven.

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"Inky," Tim said and shook her, "Come on, Honey!" He cursed himself, and thought of Bethany, who had suffered such episodes. The time slowed, as each moment was filled with a prayer it would end. Something slid in the forest, but he only glanced up.

Marie turned. The rasp of scales on rotted wood was a low, slick scrape, like the hand of a cadaver pawing at a coffin lid. Beyond the yard's edge, the great serpent slithered among the specs of light and mud. It murmured to her, Ashless Hollow, and Flecks of light flickered. Unsettled, the worm prowled the land in search of the unbalanced. The hot, wet air grew sweeter on the tongue, entropic dissolution. There was a cycle, turn of seasons that was in shadow, before the coming of the sun. She felt its disquiet.

The Veil shuddered, under the serpent's irritation. Out of its exhalation, pearlescent-white motes of light rose from the road back to Owl Sticks. They waited.

"What," Marie said in a distant, slow tone. Ashless Hollow withdrew from her.

"Inky," he frowned, "can you hear me!"

She blinked, and Tim's face swarm into focus, "I saw them in the bog."

He helped her up, "What are you talking about?"

"Oh," she shook off Ashless Hollow, "Sorry, I thought that I saw something out in the woods."

Tim scowled, followed her gaze, "I was lost once, out in the mire."

"I think I remember," she held her head away from the tree line; "you came crying out of the woods."

Red crept up his neck, "Yeah, it was scary."

"How did you find your way back?"

"I," Tim chuckled, "Well, I followed these little balls of light out there." His eyes slid away, and he shuffled his feet.

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The words struck her, but he had only seen the memory of that day. "So, they led you to our house?" she asked, swallowed, and tried to relax.

He looked for disbelief or mockery, saw none. "Yeah, I thought I was seeing things." Marie looked at the road, where one of the pearlescent-white balls of flame waited. He glanced at the forest, "I've not seen them since."

"Sometimes, I think I see things," she waved at the trees.

"Bethany said they were corpse candles."

"What are they?" she blushed.

"Your mother told me the dead light them," his voice grew distant, amused. "They help guide people who are lost," he smiled, for Bethany had told him the story to calm him. Kindness in Hemlock Hurst was rare.

"The dead light them," she said. Another story of her mother's device, born of madness, Marie was sure. "The dead are dead," she strove for dismissive contempt, but the thread of nerves danced through her.

"I don't know," he searched the yard, "Bethany…just kind of knew things.

"Yeah," she crossed her arms, "and she cared more about those things, than anything else."

"Inky," Tim gripped Marie's hand, "Bethany hoped you were happy. She missed you."

"I doubt that," Marie closed her eyes against the shift of shadows, and remembered her mother's room. It was ready for use.

"When she gave me that book," Tim squeezed her hand, "your mother cried. She wept." Tim's brow furrowed, "I don't think she wanted to give it to me to hold."

"What do you mean?" she blinked.

"I believe your mother tried to find a way…not to give it to you," he shook his head, bewildered. "That book, Dim Cassilda, is it bad?"

Marie looked away. Her mind flew back to her mother, "It is dangerous. Never open it, Tim, it'll destroy you."

He smiled, but saw no mirth in her, Tim blinked, "Get rid of it, lock it away!"

"It'll do no good," she looked at him, "it's my book now." Marie closed her eyes, as the motes beckoned, "It's just superstition," she said, but he sensed she spoke to herself.

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