39

Marith woke up numbly in the big, soft bed that always seemed to have adapted perfectly to the shape and temperature of her body, right before it was time to leave it behind again.

She was laying between strategically placed pillows, that hugged her all night, and stared at the off-white curtains around the canopy sleigh bed. Recently she had started to close them before going to sleep, creating her own safe hut within the bedroom. She didn’t want to see what was going on outside of it and, most importantly, she didn’t want to know what happened to the rest of the world, while she was recharging at night.

Baby blue peonies, leafs and birds were embroidered as a motif in the heavy fabric. Marith pushed herself up and opened the curtain on her left. She wasn’t ready to face the daylight yet. When she stared at herself in the mirror she realized she wasn’t ready for that either.

She sat on the bed, her legs and feet still neatly wrapped under the blankets, not wanting to move, think or take part in this day. While she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes with freezing cold fingertips, shivering because the blankets had slipped off her shoulders, words from the previous day surfaced over and over, numbing her mind.

Painful words, that reminded her of the dreadful episodes of her childhood. New words, that placed the memories from her past into the right perspective. Old words, that put a handle on reality. A handle she firmly grasped and was determined to never lose a hold off ever again.

Marith had just wanted something to look forward to. Something to keep her going. Not something as simple or mundane as the Christmas holidays or relaxing with Nate. Something big. Something beyond the point of fighting the Kid. To her own shock and despair she hadn’t been able to come up with anything.

Why not? Why couldn’t she fathom something great for herself on the horizon? Did she not deserve great things?

“I suggest that you push the chair back and leave. Fucking leave, before I blow up in your face. Right fucking now!”

Her skin had seemed to crawl away from her face in horror, revealing her skull, as she was being yelled at.

Marith had moved the chair backwards as slowly and as haughty as possible. The legs of the simple piece of furniture scratched uncomfortably over the linoleum floor. Retaining direct eye contact as long as she could muster, after which she had turned around and left. She had marched straight out of that clinic and hadn’t talked to the bastard ever since.

She hadn’t told Lieke or Nick. She didn’t want to affect their relationship with Gene. That was something her mother would do. She wasn’t that pathetic.

It was up to them whether or not they deemed his behaviour acceptable and whether or not they thought it was appropriate to stay in touch with a person that could explode at any time, facing even the slightest lack of humility from others.

All she knew was that she didn’t accept this. She never had and she never would. It all came flooding back. Yes, her mother was a god-awful narcissistic cretin that didn’t deserve contact with her offspring, but was her father really that much better? Had he been the warm, caring and stable person every child longed for while growing up?

She recalled what his ‘blow ups’ had been like. How Lieke and she had had to run and hide, reeling behind and under furniture, hoping he couldn’t reach. Bawling their eyes out, hoping their mother would support them – which she never did, being completely financially dependent on the men she slept with – hoping the crying would alleviate the pain – which was never the case – hoping a neighbour or teacher would notice and inform CPS – which none of them had done for the two little girls. She remembered it all and she was done with him, like she was done with their mother.

And what had Marith really done this time? Despite the distress that occupied the wiring of her brain she attempted to recall the conversation.

She had come to pick him up. He was going to be released from the hospital, but Vanessa would be working, so Marith had offered to drive him and his belongings back to the Bellevue building and to keep him company for a little while, before his girlfriend would come home from her last day of work on that calendar year.

Vanessa and Marith had cleaned out and even decorated his whole apartment beforehand, making it as ready as it was ever going to get for the holidays. They had hung a Christmas wreath, made out of holly and branches of pine, on his front door with a big red and gold ribbon. They had bought a modest tree in a pot and had decorated it with glittering pine cones, angel hair and little lights. The Mages had even had a good time doing so, which, for Marith at least, had been special, since she hadn’t been in any mood suitable for Christmas in years.

When Marith had arrived at the clinic she and Gene had talked about the usual for a while. About how his arm was much better, about the situation in town, about the unexpectedness of life in general. Nothing too deep or triggering, of course. Marith usually avoided such topics, especially with people as fragile as Gene seemed to be.

Her father had already been waiting for her, fully dressed, his stuff neatly packed. All that was left to do was to sign the discharge papers, which had just been handed to him. He was sitting at the little table opposite his bed. Marith had joined him patiently, excited to show him the work she and Vanessa had done on his apartment.

He had stared at his nails, before asking. “Have you heard anything?”

She had intuitively known what and who he was referring to. “No, but she isn’t due to the end of January.”

“You’re not in touch with her?”

“Nope,” Marith had answered with a sigh.

“At all?”

“No, why should I?” She had frowned, probably quite annoyed, now that she came to think of it again.

“Because she is your mother,” he had told her sternly.

At this point actually just my egg-donor, Marith thought bitterly, but she didn’t dare to say that out loud.

Instead she had come up with something along these lines. “That doesn’t change the fact that she behaves deplorably and treated us badly.”

“It’s your choice to only remember the bad stuff. I cannot imagine how it could possibly hurt you to stay in touch with her, every once in a while.” Gene had sounded preachy, which had vexed his daughter further.

Was he picking her side now? Why? Weren’t they all hating on this woman together? Was he suddenly going to get all high and mighty about family ties over the holidays?

“And I cannot imagine how it could have possibly hurt you to stand up for your daughters, when Lieke and I were young.” She hadn’t really known where it had come from, so fast, so astute, so eloquently put, but she remembered she had meant it with every fibre of her being.

This was also more or less the point where the yelling had started. The repressed childhood memories hit her like blue ice, dropping from an airplane, hits the ocean. She had left him as unbothered as she could pull off under the circumstances. She couldn’t allow him the pleasure of seeing her cry like the weak, little girl that once was. She wouldn’t grant him that power anymore.

She had looked down on him and she had seen a wrinkly, skinny old man that hadn’t been able to guarantee the safety of his own children. He had, at times, even been at the cradle of their unsafety, now that she came to think of it.

She hadn’t been in touch with him since and she didn’t know how he had returned to his apartment. Most importantly, she truly didn’t care.

Who the hell did he think he was? Talking to his adult daughter like that? Did he really think his behaviour wouldn’t have consequences this time around? She wasn’t confined to her bedroom anymore. She had options. She could just leave and never come back now.

Walking away from this mess felt like a disenfranchised loss, Marith thought slightly amused, despite the circumstances. During her Psychology studies she had been taught about disenfranchised grief, a type of grief about a loss that isn’t socially accepted. She wasn’t grieving the fact that she felt forced to distance herself from her parents, so it was just a loss. A loss not accepted by society, because society forces children to love their parents, no matter what.

Were these people supposed to get infinite chances and do-overs just because they were her biological parents? Marith didn’t think so.

Adrenaline coloured blots and shapes danced in her purview, while the reality of her situation, of her past, came crashing into her, like a ghost rider on the highway.

What had they really done for her? What had they really taught her? She had mostly raised herself and any life skills she possessed now she had either figured out on her own or learned in school or from various boyfriends.

Cooking, cleaning, time management, doing taxes, preparing to enter university courses and job interviews, physical health and hygiene and especially mental health and social interactions had not once been shown, encouraged or discussed during her upbringing.

Stomping out of the clinic on her high heeled boots her hair danced around her face. Since she had been gifted the thick, luscious waves Vanessa and Lieke had always possessed she hadn’t been tying it back in a ponytail anymore.

Her mind had been filled with images from the past, bloody, violent and stressful images. She hadn’t even noticed the sleek, but mortified, dr. Sybling standing behind the reception desk, holding a cup of tea, first untangling and then tying the strings of information she had gathered about the Merryfields over time together.

Nightmarish phrases haunted Marith’s consciousness, after all the years they had lingered in the dimness of her subconsciousness.

I will break your legs if you won’t put on those skis right fucking now!

I will send you to school naked if you won’t brush your teeth!

I will bash your skull if you won’t stop crying, ungrateful bitch!

The issue was that these had never been nightmares. They had been prime examples of actual ‘blow ups’.

If the children ever showed any sign of ungratefulness, whatever that was, Gene would lose any ability to control himself.

Marith had never been too sure what she was supposed to feel grateful for and how to show it, since feeding and clothing one’s offspring is the bare minimum a parent could do and often they had neglected to even do those things, despite the fact they were definitely legal requirements.

If she would ever scrape together the courage to show limits or introduce personal boundaries she was yelled at until the point of anxiety attacks. If such a fit of panicked crying would bother them too much the yelling and the beating would just increase.

The problem with parents abusing their children, apart from the obvious long lasting mental trauma’s, would be that the children that had the nerve to stand up for themselves would be met with more force, more violence and more anger.

If Marith or Lieke would defend themselves in the schoolyard or on the playground that would be the end of it. If they would do the same at home the consequences would be dire.

Her parents had come to feel like strangers and socializing with them felt forced and unnatural. There was no meaningful connection between any of the Merryfields, or any of the former ones. Her parents had just been playing roles and now it was Marith’s turn to play hers.

Why did she have to grow up with such retarded parents? Why did she and Lieke have had to deal with those backwards, demeaning, selfish idiots? Why was it so shockingly easy to hide broken homes to the outside world?

Nate was right. Lieke and herself would have been better off with them being dead, with the monsters from their pasts buried in the cold ground, rotting away in slimy wetness.

The screen of her phone lit up on the bedside table and she reached for it. The device had mostly been in a dormant state, connected to the socket, since she’d been given her nifty clockwork.

It was from her mother. Her stomach turned, but it turned out to be a ‘Happy Holidays’-message. Great, the other batshit crazy parent decided to let herself be heard. As if this day wasn’t going to be a struggle in and of itself as it was.

With some petulance she decided to return the favour and then to leave her phone upstairs for the rest of the day.

Another text instantly came in, despite the time difference.

‘I miss you!’

Sure, you miss me, Marith internally grumbled. You miss having a personal house slave that can cook and clean for you, despite you being voluntarily unemployed, lying in bed or on the couch all day with a made up illness. You miss having a sounding board to spew hateful and harmful gossip against. You miss being able to threaten to slam our heads into a door, drawing blood, if we’ve inconvenienced you even in the slightest. You miss standing by while your daughters get abused by your provider, tripping on power. You miss telling your daughters that if you could be young again you would never have children, which was strange, since you recently got pregnant once again, on purpose.

Marith tossed the phone in the drawer of the bedside table, so she wouldn’t have to look at it any more. She closed it with a slam.

Both her parents were authoritative assholes, filled with contempt for anyone who wasn’t them, which included their own children.

Right now they were driving Marith’s ill mind further into madness, her blood pressure to towering heights and her emotions threatened to spiral into anxiety attacks once more.

She felt she was losing herself and she felt it was going to be a bad trip down memory lane. A trip she wouldn’t be able to hide from Nick or Lieke.

Never in her life had she ever expected her existence to get this dark, this dangerous, this lonely. Never in her life had she ever fathomed it would end up like this. And now she had to celebrate Christmas with this man, acting like everything was alright, but it wasn’t alright and it had never been alright. She remembered.

She decided that she had to get out of the house. Her parents were attempting to dominate her thoughts and overpower her life again, which was not how she wanted to spend her adulthood, her long-awaited freedom.

She yanked herself from the bed, goose bumps racing over her skin, got ready in the bathroom by splashing freezing cold water into her face and stumbling into a warm outfit.

When she descended the stairs Marith was slapped in the face by a nostalgia of a Christmas she had never got to have and would never be allowed to experience. The hallway and the kitchen smelled amazing. Lieke getting starved by their mother had apparently taught her how to cook at an accelerated speed.

Every fireplace in the house seemed to be ablaze. Nick already had kindled the blocks of wood that had been drying in his shed in the woods for at least two years. Now the orange flames were licking the chunks of dead tree and the blackened walls of the stone hearths.

Christmas music, modern carols alternating classical choirs, was echoing in every room and hallway through some state of the art surround-sound system.

The little, yellow lights on every piece of Christmas decoration, wreaths, garlands and trees, both in- and outside of the house, were turned on.

Marith didn’t want to ruin anyone’s Christmas mood or spend any of her leaking energy on talking, pretending to be giddy with anticipation as well, so as soon as the common courtesies, that accompanied most mornings, were exchanged, she fled the house.

After wrapping herself in several isolating layers of clothing with military precision she was almost ready to battle the morning cold. Marith had always loved to wander outside alone not knowing where she was going. For the sake of her mental state she had made a habit out of this in the past and she had come to enjoy it in Sweet Lake, especially after the Birdman had been killed.

Olive was excitedly jumping up and down and running around Marith as she was putting on the boots that she had placed strategically on top of the floor heating the previous day. Marith had made the mistake of getting the leash of the hook first, which had tipped the dog off.

There had been some heavy snowfall the previous night. Judging by the fresh layer of snow it hadn’t stopped until dawn and judging by the grey skies it would probably start again soon.

When she stepped outside the white precipitation crunched softly under her feet. The small dog ploughed through the cold blanket with unrivalled enthusiasm. Marith kept her on the retractable leash, afraid of losing her.

Everything looked different compared to the other seasons. She could fall off a rock, or dive into one. Olive knew the terrain well, but Marith didn’t want to be responsible for losing her on the odd chance that the dog made a mistake. Although, that would be a legitimate reason to cancel Christmas and spend the holidays combing out the forests, Marith thought maliciously, and then her stomach turned again at the thought of having to see Gene upon her return to the mansion and having to act normal. What even was normal behaviour with her parents?

None of the things Lieke and she had to face growing up had been normal. Them insisting on her leaving the door open while she was showering as a teenager, so they could walk in, wasn’t normal. Them screaming she should ‘stop it with the crying cats and watch some television’ when practicing the cello her grandfather had given her wasn’t normal. Them forcing to participate their children into stuff they didn’t want and prohibiting them from doing the things they loved as a means of control hadn’t been normal.

Because their parents had made themselves seem like the perfect parents and the perfect couple with the perfect lives and the perfect children, neither Marith nor Lieke ever got any outside validation for their suffering.

Her mind involuntarily wandered off to the Christmases she had suffered in the past, while she allowed her legs to carry her further up into the mountains, guided by Olive.

Their father would ignore any gifts his daughters would make or give him, their mother would just reject any act of kindness. She would return them to the store, because of something minor she didn’t like about it, or she would simply give it back to her daughters, because she didn’t enjoy the taste of the chocolates they had bought or the structure of the pie they had baked.

There had been no other reason to reject their children’s efforts and gifts than to wield power and influence over their young, impressionable minds. The parents were the dominant members of the family, they knew best and rejection was a painful, but effective way to assert their dominance.

Marith was fuming, her mind spiralling, her guard down. The walk outside wasn’t doing its usual trick of comforting her. She only sensed the necessary aspects of her surroundings, like the elevation of the path Olive was forcing her onto.

Samuel, sneaking up on her, wasn’t that obvious yet.

Marith’s mind thundered on, while she stomped up the mountain. It was completely impossible with the egg-donor to avoid getting in trouble or suffer bereavement, sprouting from her jealousy of her daughter’s youth, health, talents, options and possible future successes.

She had even gaslit Marith about the sexual abuse of a teacher in primary school. She had told Marith it simply hadn’t happened. She had misunderstood the ways he had been touching her. Marith was the only one who thought the touching had been sick and inappropriate. The teacher could lose his job, and his marriage, so it would be damaging to give it any more attention.

Their mother was a pathetic, old woman who had only made easy decisions in her life, often the wrong ones. Her children had to pay for her bitterness with their innocence.

Marith’s upbringing had made her too young and too old at the same time, missing out on fun stuff and important life events, but also having lived through more stress and uncertainties than her peers. Her parents had forced her to grow up at an advanced speed ever since she had been a small child. Now that she was a fully grown woman she was treated like a naive, poorly functioning toddler that apparently needed disciplining.

Her past had rewired her brain, to always be fearful, always on, always analysing, always sceptic and distrustful. Minor, inconsequential things could trigger that trauma, like someone sneaking up on a young woman walking a dog on Christmas day.

After certain periods of abuse their parents had always claimed they loved their daughters so much, to the point of treating them poorly. Right, it was all the love causing them to act that way.

In what universe is so-called love an excuse for mental and physical abuse with long lasting effects?

Them saying ‘I love you’ after all of that wasn’t normal. It made her feel empty. There was no honesty behind it. Their words stood in stark contrast to their behaviour.

She kept climbing, over the winding path behind the mansion, further into the snow-covered greenery, further up into the mountains, gently led there by Olive and mindlessly carried by her aggressive, almost compulsory, memories. It was as if her mind kept being invaded.

The bloody, violent images returned and she couldn’t push them away or force them out. The uninvited guest showed Marith plastic soup floating around in otherwise perfect waters, unvaccinated children in their caskets, abused pets, neglected livestock, orca’s, beluga’s, bears and other magnificent creatures living in captivity, young women sold into sex-slavery, men shooting, countries fighting, baby’s crying.

The world in ruins. She could all see it so clearly now.

Marith frowned. These thoughts were a different kind of horrible compared to the thoughts she had leaving the house.

Why did she always have to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders? There were 7 billion of them. They should all be carrying the responsibility of a better future.

When she realised what was happening the sensation that overtook her was not unlike running frightened and screaming up the stairs of the lake house to be beaten with a belt on her bare back in her bedroom.

She was stopped by a cold, empty draught. She felt as if she would fall into a hellish, black pit if she would lean back, while keeping her balance on the uneven forest path. Unheimisch, happened to be a word that came to mind.

She closed her eyes and opened her mind, ignoring Olive, who was tugging the leash, far away, in another state of being. There was definitely another heartbeat heading in their general direction, climbing up to the higher terrains.

If there was anything she had learned in the past few months it was that the creatures that moved quietly were much more dangerous than the ones that announced their presence by producing sound.

Marith forced any mists and mental pains out of her consciousness and unleashed the strings that laid restive in her mind, wrapped up in a neat, vibrating bundle, waiting to be exercised.

They shot out, almost involuntarily, and scoured their surroundings, touching on the pine trees, the conifers, the firs and their frozen branches, swiftly gliding over the virgin snow that covered both the path and the rocks, like a pair of skis.

It didn’t take long. She felt him, she saw him, she sensed his heartbeat. Not in the least because she had given it to him. She would never be able to stop herself from recognizing the strong rhythmic pulse that had once flowed from her fingertips. In a strange way it was still a part of her.

Olive had either escaped or had otherwise stopped yanking at the leash, because it now hung limply in the snow. Marith send out a small bundle of threads and noticed the dog was by her side, now focusing her attention in the same direction.

His icy breath of agony was behind her sooner than anticipated. The intervals of his strides didn’t match the distance he covered, which Marith should have known, since he was a Runner, above all else.

“Samuel,” Marith started dryly, before opening her eyes and turning around. “It’s been a while.”

He climbed up the steep terrains with ease, elegantly and effortlessly jumping from one protruding rock to another, breathing little clouds of condensation. His hands were shoved deeply in the pockets of a light shell jacket, that could have never protected a normal human being from this cold. He was dressed in all white clothing and looked so pale he almost disappeared against the white and grey background that nature provided for him. Even his eyes seemed to have lost most of their blue hues.

“How have you been?” Marith tried to ignore the eeriness of the situation she found herself in with all her might.

“Never better,” he spat curtly. He was definitely irked by something, but wasn’t he always?

“What can I do for you this blessed Christmas day?” Marith asked as cool and patient as possible, determined not to show how unnerved she was by this unfortunate turn of events.

He smiled his unpleasant smile, showing his teeth, the only parts of him that weren’t white, and took several more steps towards Marith and the Corgi.

“Maybe you can help me take away some confusion.”

“Sure.” Why bloody not?

He had stopped walking now and stood several metres from Marith on a reasonably level chunk of mountain, between the thinning trees. “You promised to help me...” He sighed and shook his head. His face briefly disappeared from Marith’s sight, while he exhaled another cloud of water vapour.

“Which I then proceeded to do.” Marith wasn’t sure if he was behaving purposefully theatrical or if this was his normal way of being perpetually exasperated and tired of the world.

“My soul is still immortal.”

“Is that not what you wanted?” Marith asked incredulous.

“Watchmaker has secured the Mailbox to Oracle’s dimension. Apparently, being immortal is an issue now.”

Marith knew that the issue wasn’t the fact that his soul was immortal, but that he was a Runner. No Rebirthed Pupil could enter the fortress of Oracle and Watchmaker. However, she wasn’t going to give him any more knowledge than was absolutely necessary, so she bit her tongue.

“There is only one way you can know that… You broke the deal.” Marith wasn’t surprised, but did wonder tensely where this would lead them.

“I took a leap of faith…”

“Interesting. Did it hurt?” Marith asked with a sly smile on her otherwise well-composed face.

If his eyes could burn holes in her skin she would have been leaking like a sieve.

She was surprised at her own sarcasm-steeped undertone. In hindsight it might have been a defence mechanism, since she was well-aware she would lose if she took on the Kid right then, alone in those deep, forsaken woods of the Cascades.

“I…” He exhaled again and, in the blink of an eye, had advanced his position relative to Marith and the dog. “I landed in the lake.” He let his eyes wander around for a little bit, assessing their immediate surroundings, before focusing on Marith’s frozen face again.

“The only reason that happened, is because you never intended to keep your part of the bargain.” Her eyes flashed with fury and contempt. “I am surprised, though, that you ended up in the lake, and not on another continent.”

This was absolutely, without the slightest sliver of a doubt, the most massive imbecile she had ever met, and she had met a lot.

Wasn’t this guy, supposedly, the worst thing to ever happen to humanity? Wasn’t he the root of all evil?

Marith looked the Kid in the eye and realised evil was stupid. A mere simpleton. Unfortunately, this was an extremely powerful, un-killable simpleton, but a simpleton nonetheless.

“I don’t have a clockwork…” he mumbled, as his voice drifted away.

“What was that?” Marith asked mockingly, almost coquettish, tilting her head and slightly opening her mouth in fake surprise.

All this kid, this boy had ever wanted was to be like others and not having had a proper childhood, freedom or any basic social skills set him painfully apart. Not having a clockwork removed him even further from his peers.

Could it be that Samuel was simply possessed by something evil? That there was a puppet master pulling his strings, without informing the Kid of the grander scheme of things?

Marith felt guilt creeping up on her, because she started to feel exited by her temporal prevalence over him.

“My body is also… still dying.” He sounded sad, weak and insecure, but that didn’t hold Marith back. He glanced up at her and she could see the emptiness in his eyes reaching out to her. She believed him.

“Did you really think I would genuinely help you after what you put us through? After what you did to this town? That all of a sudden I was down with your plan of world domination?”

“Web domination,” Samuel corrected.

He seemed small and vulnerable, with his shoulders slumped forward, his grey, lifeless eyes searching hers insecurely for answers. He looked and sounded defeated, like he had practised some soul-searching, since the last time they had seen each other and had come to some unsettling conclusions about himself. That was the time when Vanessa had caught him under one of her domes.

Marith reminisced about that evening on the cliff, about how he had held Etienne over the ledge, how he had been scheming, lying and blackmailing them, and she couldn’t, for the life of her, imagine him being humble enough to admit mistakes or change his behaviour for a respectable period of time.

“There is no difference,” Marith spat. “I gave you a heartbeat and a human experience, as you wanted, and I served my own. I am certainly not ashamed of that.”

She felt breathless. Was this what power did? It didn’t feel right. She refused to turn into the bullies she had always avoided and looked down on. The worst thing was, she did it voluntarily.

“I can tell. How very noble and short-sighted of you.” He seemed to have regrouped somewhat, his eyes glimmering, undoubtedly with less than pure intentions.

“I can take away what I gave you!” Marith burst out, less well-composed than she had hoped.

“Threatening now, are we? I stopped by some of your practice rounds. Looked cute.” He had this disgusting way of making the ‘t’ in ‘cute’ sound wet. Marith suppressed a shiver.

“I know.” She felt the need to report that he hadn’t escaped her attention.

Meanwhile, her mind was racing and Olive was getting restive. She had sniffed and inspected the entire circle the leash allowed. Furthermore, that smelly, undead creature Marith was talking to made her fur jump in every direction.

“Being a child of darkness doesn’t make me a bad person, Marith. You’re one too. You have seen the dark. You’ve met it, we both know it.”

Mariths skin crawled as the last words seemed to be whispered into her ear. His cold, lifeless breath brushed her face.

“I have seen the dark, because you’ve haunted me since I was little. You’ve haunted the others, you’ve haunted the Elders, the youth of this area and their parents.”

“That seems to be my trade mark. It’s what I do.” He stated it matter-of-factly. He didn’t make it sound evil or powerful or malicious when he said it.

“That doesn’t make it right,” she hissed, still breathless.

“I take away the willpower and the ability to create, so that humans have nothing to live for, except for their addictions and fighting each other, to feed me. I bend the Web and break their will, until nobody rejects me any longer. Mankind will be new, different, and within one generations they won’t even realize things used to be better for them, because then they’ll be serving me and you already know that I can take their sense of time and history away.”

“I know,” Marith whispered, “but Samuel if you think I won’t fight myself into an untimely death to protect the autonomy of the men and women that inhabit this Web you are sorely mistaken. We have too much worth to not be free.”

“I am counting on it.”

Olive pulled herself free and Marith let her go. The little, fluffy dog darted off in the direction they had come from, ploughing through the snow, the elongated leash dragging behind her. Marith prayed it wouldn’t get stuck behind a rock or a tree.

“You know what I think?” Samuel asked, ignoring the dog.

“What?” Marith inquired, filled with contempt.

“I don’t think you can take my heartbeat back.” His eyes flashed with their old blue fire for the briefest of moments. He took another, almost unnoticeable, step forwards again.

Marith pursed her lips. She had backed up against the trunk of a giant, damaged conifer tree and she felt the rough bark brushing against her winter coat.

“You have no clue how to take a life. You’re so naïve, so precious, you wouldn’t be able to do it.” He touched her face with his vulgar fingertips, protruding from white gloves with open ends. The sensation of his death skin against hers made her feel dirty and disgusted.

“And I might just beat you to it,” he continued.

“I am not scared.”

“Oh, I can see that.” He stared at her with preying eyes and the most off-putting grin.

Over the years Marith had become the kind of person that always expected the worst at any given situation and deep down she had already known this Christmas would not make an exception for her.

“Such a kind and broken soul,” the Kid lisped, “but you seem to be the one that I need to take to stop this Chain from obstructing my plans.”

The back of Marith’s mind realized he didn’t say ‘take on’, just ‘take’, but the front of her mind was minding itself with more urgent business. Like how to alert the others and devising an escape from this unfortunate situation, for instance.

“I’ve spent the vast majority of my existence under your skin. Plotting, crawling, eating away at you, obstructing any chance at a happy future.”

All Marith could do, hearing those words, was despise him in silence. He was right and she knew it. She started to wonder how powerful he was right now. His Birdman was gone, he had a failing heart, but had he found a new flow of energy? Would he be able to follow through on his threats?

“I know the insides of the Empty better than the inside of my own mind... We still talk sometimes.” There was that lisp again. His mouth sounded wet and disgusting as he spoke.

Marith stood cringed up against the tree. She wished she could just disappear, to merge with nature, so she would never have to deal with anything as unnerving as this ever again.

He smelled like dumpsters would, if they weren’t emptied in time, like dairy products and meat past their due date. The air she breathed in tasted like death on her tongue. Could he be decomposing on the inside? He seemed sick on the outside, but he didn’t look so bad as if he could fall apart at any moment.

“It’s been lonely,” the Kid went on, unbothered by Marith’s revolted face. “Of course, during the Viking Age I’ve had some mysterious guests stop by, but they could never stay long. The Empty wouldn’t be truly empty with them in it, would it?” He told his hostage, as if he was making sense. “Those folks travelled and fought a lot more than people seem to realize nowadays.” He shook his head wisely, mostly entertaining himself. “Do you know how the Norsemen conquered Europe?”

“No, but I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.”

“By invading and pillaging and raping and killing if they had to.”

“Sounds Christmassy,” Marith brought in, still pushed up against the tree. Her limbs had started to get stiff and she was reeling all over her body, which, she figured, although very uncomfortable, was at this point probably more due to the circumstances than to the weather.

“You know about all these neat little side effects Armsmaker’s weapons seem to have?”

Marith nodded as he paused to await her response. She stared briefly down to her right, where she had a clear visual on the lake. The ice looked almost silvery from that angle, mostly caused by the grey skies, bulging with fresh snowflakes.

It still failed to glisten.

Sweet Lake, a town so full of people, not one of them aware of what was going on up there, not one of them clambering up to safe her.

“Yeah, the Vikings thought those were neat too. When they invaded and raided Eastern-Europe they fought the Slavs. After every battle they would collect, scavenge if you want, the useable weapons of their enemy and distribute them amongst their peers. By the time they reached Armsmaker’s tribe they were already employing her weaponry. She was as surprised as I was that she had created a weapon that could send its victims to the Empty.”

“What are you talking about?” Marith brought out, trying not to throw up. “The Empty is for you… not others… you!” She clenched her teeth.

“That may be so, but apparently there is this one weapon that accidentally sends people there… Of course, I could not be affected by such a simple tool, but a mere mortal, such as a Pupil, could.”

“There is no such weapon,” Marith interrupted, wide eyed, what was no doubt going to be another condescending lecture, mostly convincing herself that he was lying.

“I happen to have it in my possession,” he shared dryly.

“How did you even know where it was?” Marith asked incredulous, still not convinced he wasn’t deceiving her. “You’ve been out of your cage for two months, that weapon must have been lost for hundreds of years.”

“Boy, did that take me a long time… not. I found it online,” he shared in that condescending tone of voice and mocking smile she wanted to wipe off his face so badly. “I simply… Googled it. That’s what you call it, right? I searched for Slavic weapons online and it popped up in the brochure of some history museum on the Bygdøy Peninsula of Oslo. I went there,” he shared, almost proudly.

“I figured,” Marith grumbled.

“I was willing to go much further to find it, as you might understand by now, but luckily I didn’t have to. Sometimes I get a break too.”

Marith just stared at him, blank and defeated. What could she possibly do at this point? The guy was unkillable and he had her where he had wanted to have her, ever since he had found out what she was capable off. This was working out great for him. Wasn’t accepting her fate at this point the most graceful and elegant thing to do?

Beholding this madness, Marith absolutely believed his unapologetic self-centredness could destroy worlds.

At least she had been able to save Etienne. Hadn’t that been one of the primary tasks of her Chain as well? She could only wish the leftovers the best. They were a Chain with overkill. They could make it without her. She felt that was the truth in the core of her being.

“Would you like to see it?” He asked in the creepiest, most predatorily tone of voice she had ever heard coming out of him.

“Not particularly,” she informed.

He pulled it out of one of his pockets anyway. Marith couldn’t help, but to behold the blade in horror.

The handle seemed to consist of the same wood the blades of the Runners had been crafted with. It was discerning itself from those knifes, because a ring of white, carved bone separated the wood from the iron that carried the elements found in the impact craters, left by the asteroids. The markings she had seen on the other blades from Armsmaker’s hand were carved into the bone and still clearly visible, despite the dirt.

However, the part of the knife that should have been bright and shiny looked old and rusty. Seeing the handle and the shape of the blade, under the brown tarnish, Marith didn’t doubt its origins.

“You probably carry Viking blood as well, being a Northern European woman. You can join your ancestors on their way to the Empty. It’s truly empty now, so you’ll surely be stuck there,” Samuel rambled on.

“Whatever you have planned for me, I will fight my way out. I will fight you if I have to.” It was almost a whisper, because she knew now that she had lost any advantage she had ever had over him.

“That’s kind of a mute threat, isn’t it?” He chuckled maliciously. He seemed to be pretending to have a good time with himself and then continued. “I can’t die. I will always be here. I am this world’s only constant. I am infinity and beyond.”

Marith wasn’t sure if she caught a hint of regret in his voice. That couldn’t be healthy. No human being should exist forever. Even the sanest, most intelligent creature would turn mad facing infinity. The human mind was simply not equipped to grasp such a concept.

“The way you see the world is not a universal truth. The reality you perceive, or even pretend to understand, is just a concept,” Marith began, trying to be cryptic, hoping she could buy time and opportunity by sowing doubt.

“No, bitch!”

Marith realized her time was up and he was about to lose patience with her attitude and then she would have nothing, nothing to lord over him, nothing to defend herself with.

“This reality is created. Created by the creatures that inhabit it, like you... like me.” His face was so threateningly close to hers they could have kissed if it wasn’t for the fact that Marith was swallowing back bits and pieces of vomit. “You’ve explained it all to me before. Remember? I listen,” he added as manipulative as a man could ever be.

“Exactly, everybody in the Web can influence the Web to some degree, but not like me and you seem to be well aware of that,” she managed to bring out.

“This dimension has… no, is a concept you can’t change.” He stared expectedly and calculatingly at her with his pale eyes.

“You know I can warp reality, even create it. That is why you want me.”

“You can bend certain aspects of this reality. So what?” He shrugged. “Most Mages can. I don’t want you as badly as you think I do… not anymore.” He feigned disinterest and then hesitated.

“No? Have you concocted an alternate plan, a new source of energy to drain? You know by now that the heartbeat I gave you won’t suffice.”

“I sure have. I only returned to collect them. You must know I don’t plan on staying here.”

Marith blinked and frowned, while he once again assessed their surroundings, making sure they were truly alone. Collect them?

“Of course, I am being reasonable enough to bargain with you. I might even consider giving you another shot at life. Together we can make it perfect.” He gazed at her intently, in a pathetic attempt to sway her. “We wouldn’t need a Watchmaker or an Oracle with your qualities. You know that. I’m an immortal Runner, you’re a powerful Mage. We can make this work. We wouldn’t even need a Prophet in the world we would create. What do you say?”

Marith had met enough deplorable people in her life to know that people rarely changed or were worthy of her trust. The naive, vulnerable young girl she once was, had died a long time ago and her Rebirth had strengthened her instincts and beliefs.

Undoubtedly, they both led a difficult existence, Marith thought, filled with adversity. The main difference was that Marith didn’t saddle the rest of the world with her agony. She felt for the Kid, but didn’t have any understanding for the way he handled himself.

“Your Oracle is nothing but a religion of course,” he went on, while Marith was pondering in silence.

She snorted in response. “She seemed pretty real to me.”

“It’s a talentless hack! What can she do?” He hissed. “Nothing! All she does is collect other people’s visions. I can do that! And I would be better at it!”

‘If I decide the future nobody needs to predict it,’ was what he actually meant. He wanted to make the Prophets obsolete, kill the Runners and enslave the Mages. That was what his plan of domination boiled down to.

Marith ignored this. She believed certain parts of his ramblings, but she couldn’t possible envision a world in which the Kid could ever do a better job on his own than the Chains, the Elders, Keymaker, Watchmaker and Oracle did as a team.

“Everyone is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody,” Marith said, tossing another vague formulation into their disturbing heart-to-heart.

“Mark Twain, I am half-way impressed.”

“I have a light side, is all I am saying.”

“And?”

“You don’t.”

“Assumptions. It takes a lot to know a man. It takes even more to understand one.”

Marith did know that was a fact of life, but she also knew the devil mixes in a little bit of truth every now and then, to interchange all the lies.

“I just need another chance. I’m not evil. You know that. Together we can make this world great,” he suggested hopeful and innocent. His manipulative, begging side showed itself again.

This time Marith didn’t even pretend to think about his ridiculous proposal. They were both well aware of her potential. The Kid just tried to talk her down, so she would doubt her own abilities, like her parents had done to her all her life.

“This world is created by every living thing in it. It is perfect already, apart from your existence. Your life is a waste and you use your wasted life to destroy others.”

Samuel snorted disdainful. “Is that your final answer?”

“Oh, boy is it final.” Marith was hoping, praying to all sorts of deities, that Olive would have arrived back at the mansion already and that the others would be alerted by her lonesome return. And by ‘the others’ Marith mostly had Vanessa in mind.

“Well, you’re not going to like this then. I sure hope your suuuper special talents can save you out of this one,” he said infuriatingly demeaning, a toying tone of voice she knew all too well.

She clenched her gloved hand around the circular timepiece in her pocket and braced herself.

“Try me,” she spat with all the scorn and derision she could muster.

He then proceeded to try her.

He handled the blade with ease, like she had seen the other Runners do. His left hand pinned her right shoulder further into the tree behind her.

The weapon cut through her clothing like a hot knife through butter. When it reached her skin her pain receptors fired to her brain like fireworks, jumpstarting the mechanics of her clockwork. Her journey into the void had begun.

Retching blood she collapsed into the snow with protruding eyes. The pain in itself could have knocked her out, if it wasn’t for the fact that her being wasn’t attached to her body any longer.