Dark Tales From Dandelion

1

Everything around Fiona was completely black, but she could still see Putnam somehow—and, to her great amazement, she could see her own body … It’s like the shadow wood, Fiona thought. But why can I see myself? I couldn’t when I came to Quint’s house. Putnam turned to oil and slid to Fiona’s left, then the right, then he rematerialized into the manservant in front of her, but now he was holding a wéy-shin.

“Show me what you can do. I’m through holding my … appetites away from you—you of the Highest and the Lowest. A feast I have long denied myself,” Putnam said, then rushed her. He slashed over his left shoulder toward her right. She blocked backhanded, threw the blade off, and jumped back. The manservant smiled and his flesh had a … transparent look to it. She could almost see … Putnam feinted right then swung his sword at her feet—she jumped back from it just barely in enough time. Putnam rolled out of her sight. She breathed, holding her sword at the ready, shifting her eyes back and forth. Then Putnam was right in front of her … sucking on her just as those phase-shifters in the Shadow Wood had done five and a half years ago. She felt weak like she hadn’t eaten in too long.

She thought of the Drake and the little pink, ugly thing he seemed to fear losing the most. Then … she forgot the Drake. Like a dream upon waking, it had seemed so vivid and now it was gone. She had no idea what she had been thinking about only moments before. But now a different face emerged—Carter. Her sweet Carter. The man she had come to love when she thought this life was meant for lonesome drifters and that was all. She thrummed and pushed the phase-shifter back. She attuned the Inner Vibrations of resolve, bitterness, and joy; It was a powerful combination. Was Putnam’s face a little more … boney? Putnam turned into oil and disappeared into the blackness. He appeared as a black blur beside her and cut her thigh open with his wéy-shin. She kept her vibrations attuned, but had nowhere to throw them; she couldn’t see him. Her shoulder blades tensed ever so slightly and she felt a pressure underneath each of them, a dull ache, then it was gone. He sliced her across the belly and she cried out in pain. She watched the white of her shirt slowly get eaten away by a crimson grin of blood.

She looked for Carter again. But … no. He left me. Twice he left me, and like a fool I’ve waited. Held on for both of us when I wanted to run. Carter was gone. All he does is leave me.

Putnam’s face had turned into something like a goat’s skull with twisted horns that started at the top of his head and ended by his chin. Carter appeared about fifteen feet in front of her, babbling more frantically than usual. He looked … frightened. He looked around and spotted Fiona. He reached for her—that was the closest thing to being acknowledged by him she had been since the mantra scramble six months ago, and before that, gestures of intimacy had still been far and few between. She felt as if his reaching fingers were pulling on the strings of her heart.

Leere pounced on him, Carter’s babbling becoming a psychotic howl. Fiona screamed and tried to thrumm, jump, throw her sword at the creature, but there was no use—her stomach was bleeding out and she was now shaking violently from shock and loss of blood. She was so weak. Leere opened his goat-skull mouth wider than it should have been able to go and bit Carter’s head completely off of his body. The blood squirted out of Carter’s neck in a fountain of red. Carter babbled no more. Fiona surrendered. She allowed it. Leere came toward her and she accepted whatever it was this thing wanted. An ending to this constant battle with both mine and Carter’s broken brains, she thought. Go ahead, you ugly fuck. Do me the favor. She remembered a poem she had read that welcomed horrible things into the poet’s house.

“Come in. Welcome,” she said weakly, her guts spilling out of her stomach; and somehow—wondrously, she smiled.

She awoke in water. The Drake and his pink ugly flesh ball were unconscious and slipping beneath the water’s surface. They did not have the gills that Fiona’s phase mask suit gave her. She swam under and grabbed each of them, bringing them back to the surface. Though they were close to the shadow tree island, she was not going to risk another trip into the nightmares of that Veil. She swam to the other side of the lake, the huge Drake and his Pru in her arms.

Fiona supposed she had felt the need to charge in and try to keep this Drake from going mad because of her guilt at maiming the beggar who had been this way and had gone mad, but then she had seen the fleshy mass struggling on the ground, and had figured out that the Drake’s greatest fear was losing this thing—this Pru. Whatever he had seen, Fiona didn’t know, but she did know what she had seen—and felt. It was so real. Her stomach had been sliced open and she could remember the pain … her husband’s head … had been eaten off by a horn-headed-goat-fuck from legends and stories. Children’s stories. Leere will have you if you lie and if you steal, Leere will come to claim you, and on and on to motivate children to listen and be good and shut their mouths and never make things hard for their parents—parents had it hard enough.

No wonder the Drake was firing his gun at nothing, Fiona thought. Those shadow trees were the second Veil. She’d seen two men this day already that had been driven mad by this Veil and she didn’t want to see another. This Woman in White had to be a real bitch. Or, she thought, there’s something very important in that tower. Fiona hoped it was just the latter that was true since they were heading to the Tower of Tones to seek the Woman’s council and seeking council was usually a more pleasant experience when you weren’t dealing with a ‘real bitch.’

When they got to the far shore, she first placed Pru up on the rocks, then lifted Drake as much as she could and laid him next to Pru; then she got out and dragged the rest of his body out onto the dry black rocks.

She checked both of them to make sure they were breathing and got her first real look at the pink thing that Drake called Pru. Was it some sort of deformed baby? Is this what Drake had come here for—his baby had been born with some strange sickness and he was here to ask the Woman in White for help? Fiona had never heard of or seen anything like it—The creature looked like it was in pain. It was beginning to move its mouth again in that rooting motion. Pru was completely naked but had no genitals that Fiona could account for. The face stuck out slightly like a rat or a weasel but other than that it looked like an elderly human the size of a baby.

Drake began to stir and Fiona braced herself, putting her hand on her sword. She hadn’t thought about the guns, but as far as she knew, Drake had fired all of his rounds at her before she had tackled him into the shadow trees and then went into the nightmare of the second Veil herself. Drake moved his head a little from side to side, then his eyes opened and he sat up. He looked at her, blinking several times, then looked to Pru who lay next to him. His eyes flicked to Fiona’s hand—which rested on her sword—then to her face.

“Um—I’m not sure we’ve met. Would you mind if I picked up my daughter here? I’m not going to hurt you, I just don’t like that she’s lying there naked on the rock like that. I took her blanket off after we swam to the island,” the Drake said. His accent was completely gone. This was like a different person. Maybe she’d heard it wrong. Fiona gave him a nod and watched him very closely as he picked up Pru and tucked her into his giant arms. Drake’s clothes were completely soaked, like Fiona’s own.

“I can help you dry off if you’d like,” Fiona said

“What do you mean?”

“Do you not remember anything that happened on the island?”

“I don’t—or … I guess I do but it was some sort of terrible dream. I took off my daughter’s blanket and laid it down to dry, then I walked a bit to look at the trees and next thing I know there are Rakshasas all around me, trying to take Pru—one of them looked a little like you, come to think of it—then I’m looking up at the sky and here you are.”

“Alright. Well let’s just say I can help if you want, and she looks cold,” Fiona pointed at Pru. “I don’t want to scare you.”

“We will gladly take your help, thank you,” said the Drake. The accent was definitely gone. This was a completely different voice. The Drake she had seen on the island of the Second Veil had talked in a much more intense way. Odd.

Fiona attuned the Inner Vibrations. Carter had showed her this thrumming on a sun-blasted day years ago when he’d pushed her into the pool in the waterfall room.

Fa Sin Mani Ra, Fa Sin Mani Ra.

She repeated the mantrum in her mind and the water droplets on Drake’s clothes, as well as her own, began to pull away from the cloth and rise into the air as. This continued until there were tiny balls of water all around them. Fiona changed her mantrum to one of attraction so the water would seek itself—easy with something like water, especially when its source was so close; hard with something like flesh or humans themselves. Water also wanted to be with itself and it would run to get there as fast as it could when it got the chance, whether there was a thrummer manipulating it or not. The little droplets all combined into one big ball of water, then this mass floated toward the lake very slowly where it was reunited with its large body.

“You’re one of those, then,” Drake said bemusedly.

“You’re one of those,” Fiona said, pointing at his big body. Drake laughed.

“I suppose I am. Thank you for drying us off. I’m sure Pru here would thank you if she could,” Drake said as he tucked Pru into his huge brown jacket. “You didn’t happen to see my hat, did you?”

“No, I never saw a hat. I saw you down there,” she pointed over her shoulder at the island, “firing your guns at trees and I thought maybe that wouldn’t end well for anyone. I’d seen a man running in the opposite direction of this Veil and he was screaming. I thought madness brought on by nightmare hallucinations wouldn’t mix well with a gun. I swam across to you, cut off your strange ammunition loops, and then got you to empty your chambers at me. I picked up your … daughter, thrummed into you to make you lighter, then went into the shadow trees with the both of you. I went through my own head trip—thanks be given ever so much to the Woman in White, may Emptiness forever give its sweet release to her—then we were in the water, I pulled you two with me to this side of the lake, and here we are.” She said all of this quickly and with a slight air of frustration, but only so it wouldn’t show that she had been very worried about this Drake and his sweet protection of this thing he called daughter. Their relationship had touched her; the thing he feared most was losing this shriveled up, ugly mass of flesh. The Drake also seemed familiar somehow. Another tickling in the back of her head.

Drake nodded. “Thank you,” he said in a small voice, lowering his eyes to his lap. “When it comes to Prudance, I … lose it sometimes. They tried to take her from me once and I … well I’m just trying to make her whole again. I thank you, thrummer. Thank you very much.”

Fiona wasn’t sure how to respond to that and she didn’t want to call attention to the Drake’s melancholy any more than he was willing to touch on it himself. She waited a moment, took her hand off of her sword hilt, then said: “I’m Fiona, Drake. I came here to fix my husband who was also … touched by the hands of Hate.” She felt old emotions welling up at the sweet caress of speaking the bottomless pain of your heart and knowing that the one receiving those words is also falling and knows what it means to never reach the bottom.

2

“My name is Vermilion, Fiona; Vermilion Cinnabar, and this is Prudance, my daughter. We come from Karad-Dürn, second home to the Drakes where Drake himself brought us out of oppression from the pilgrims two-thousand years ago,” the Drake said. Pru began rooting again and making an ooo-ah ooo-ah ooo-ah noise. “She’s hungry. She hasn’t eaten since before crossing over here. Her bottle must be in the shadow trees still. It’s all she can eat after the change.” Fiona tried to send Pip a message about the bottle. Who knew where her friends were at this point. Fiona honestly didn’t know how much time had passed while she went through the second Veil but it was darker out now than it had been.

“Is she a … you said she’d been changed … was she a baby before? Or—I mean … ” Fiona didn’t know how to finish the question.

“No, she wasn’t. Wasn’t a baby, I mean. She also didn’t have this face that sticks out as it does or these wrinkles that make her look shriveled up. This body she is in now looks nothing like her. Prudance is six years old and is a beauty with completely normal features. She was … until they came and did this.”

“I have a … strange question,” Fiona said.

“I get asked those from time to time,” he said. “Go ahead.”

“On the island. You were talking in a … different way. I just didn’t know—“ she was cut off by his laughter. A belly laugh. It made her feel good. It made her feel included in the joke, whatever it was. “What’s funny?”

“You were hearing Drake Ravencroft. That’s my Rocco name. A lot of us get the name Drake, but there are others of course. When I fight, sometimes I talk differently. It’s the heat of battle, I suppose. It doesn’t happen every time, but there you have it.” He paused and studied her. She was confused and guessed it was showing on her face. “It’s like grunting when you lift something heavy. Completely unnecessary, yet seemingly the right thing to do in the moment. Almost like it helps you, y’know?”

“I suppose. Though I’ve fought without slipping into strange accents plenty of times. Grunted, sure. Never felt the urge to use dialect for gusto. Maybe I’ll try,” Fiona said. Vermilion laughed again. It made her feel warm. She liked his laugh. Oh, just go away, Fiona said to the tickling in her mind.

Vermilion looked off toward the island. “Do you know them?” He asked, nodding in that direction. Fiona turned around and saw Quint and Carter both riding on Pip’s back through the water. Fiona hadn’t even thought about how well sesnickie could swim. She wondered how they had done crossing the second Veil and chewed a nail. It was a relief to see them.

“I do. Those are my friends.” As they got closer, Fiona noticed Quint was holding a bottle full of white liquid.

3

Pip let Carter off first, sending a message to him to climb up onto the rock ledge—to which he listened—then Quint got up, Pip climbing up last. Quint immediately used a mantrum to get the water off of himself and Carter, but left Pip alone, knowing the sesnickie would rather shake off the water. Fa Sin Mani Ra. What a handy tool, Pip thought, though they couldn’t understand why anyone would want to dry off any other way but shaking it off. It seemed … unnatural.

As they approached, Pip noticed Quint looking down at the crimson badge that the Drake wore on the right side of his jacket. Quint then went to his knees and bowed his head.

“Big Brother of the land, would you forgive me the blood of your fathers and let me still walk upon this land that belongs to them?” Quint said.

“The land is no one’s, I share what is given with you and yours. Rise, little brother, and tell me the name you were given,” the Drake said in response.

Pip had seen this exchange many times over the years, whether it was between Quint and a Drake or someone else and a Drake. Pip had also seen a man intentionally fuck up this greeting—which is worse than just giving a normal greeting, or no greeting at all—and the Drake had punched the man, so fast, inhumanly fast, with his giant fist, that you couldn’t even say “pilgrim shit” before the man was unconscious on the ground.

“My name is Quint Costello. The sesnickie is named Pip, the man is Carter and it looks like you've made Fiona’s acquaintance. May I have your name, good Drake?” said Quint.

“My birth name is Vermilion Cinnabar. My Rocco Name is Drake Ravencroft. I'm a Rocco of the 50th gene.”

“Third class, too, according to that red circle over the right side of your chest—is that right?” Quint asked. Vermilion nodded.

“I'm currently on my second class trial. I chose to seek aid for my daughter's condition and introduce the barrel of my revolver to the beast who did this to her,” Vermilion said. ”I don't mean any impoliteness, Quint, but Prudance here—this is my daughter, Prudance—is very hungry. Would you mind handing me that bottle?” Vermilion nodded his head toward the bottle and Quint quickly obliged.

“We had no problem adding your bag to the things we were already fucking carrying, Fiona, no worries,” Quint said matter-of-factly.

Pip sent an image of himself barely treading water and almost dropping Quint and Carter into the depths.

“Well that's not even a bit excessive,” Fiona said, then looked at Carter. He was muttering to himself, and Vermilion looked at him with a compassionate expression on his face.

“So how did it go?” Fiona asked.

“It went well! Peaches and cream and all lovely things. I had a little hiccup with my age, but it was a cliché enough hallucination that I was able to smile pretty quickly,” Quint said, winking and giving a knowing smile to Fiona.

“Wait … it was the smile?”

“Why, yes my dear. A smile for good cheer.”

“And you didn’t tell me. You didn’t tell me that I just had to smile,” Fiona said, furrowing her brow.

Quint looked confused.“No, I didn’t tell you. I thought it was common knowledge.” He looked around for some sort of acknowledgment but received not one nod—not one word of affirmation. I’m not bailing him out, Pip thought. No sir, not me. He already rode my back across that Voiddamned lake. They could remember the feeling of things watching them from underneath while they carried the two humans on their back.

“Quint … ” Fiona said, the red marks started to appear around her eyes. How much is she holding back from day to day? Pip thought. When will she explode this time? “Please do not leave things like that out. Please. I don’t like tricks and I don’t like you assuming things I will understand, at least not here.” Her voice was a bit shaky and Pip wondered what she had seen. Pip’s own experience had not been pleasant, drifting for what seemed an eternity in the no-space which … changed slowly into the other-space of the Eraser. That vile, sickening place. It was wrong. It had lasted too long. Then Pip had Fished three cards for someone without a face, and it had driven them completely insane. The funny thing about the Fishing was that it had led them back into the Eraser. Eventually, however, the sesnickie had also smiled—whether from madness, joy, or both, it mattered not; the dream had ended.

Quint seemed to sober up and put on that serious face, changing everything about him—his energy, humor, and seemingly even his bones, his posture now that of a wooden fence post sticking straight up out of the ground. There was a commanding air to him when he was like this. The air grew dark and heavy. Seru, Pip thought.

“Before you ran off to assist the Drake, Fiona, I was going to tell you. I was going to tell you to smile—smile at the fear; laugh if you can. That’s what I wanted to say, but—”

“I don’t know if I would have made it out without her intervention, Quint, please—” Vermilion said before Quint cut back in.

“Please, Vermilion Cinnabar. Allow me to finish,” Quint said, then looked straight into Vermilion’s eyes. Pip had been on the receiving end of that look before and they did not envy the Drake in that moment. Vermilion lowered his eyes and gave a quick nod. Quint’s expression softened and the air became light again, signaling the end of Quint’s Seru. “Thank you. I am aware that what Fiona did was necessary, though I’m not so sure it was necessary for you, friend Drake—no I’m not convinced at all. I’d be more inclined to believe that if you had not been there with your daughter, Fiona would not have been able to smile at her fear. I do not reprimand Fiona for running off as she did; I applaud it, but will not be blamed for her successes or failures. The second Veil is a very personal challenge and a very involved one. If I had been able to tell you to smile, Fiona, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference because when the story is spinning through our heads and fear is singing its siren song, we willfully forget that it’s all a dream and become very involved; we think it is real, and have to come to the smile that cuts through the illusion on our own.”

Fiona did what she usually did when Quint stopped being a cryptic smartass and started to make too much sense: she was still, and listened very intently, afraid to anger him, Pip knew.

Pip thought maybe in these situations, Fiona would do good to use that smile that cuts through illusion on Quint. Pip also knew that this was what Quint wanted, he just had to take people the roundabout way so they could get there themselves, much like the second Veil. Quint had learned a thing or two from his previous teacher.

“And Carter?” Fiona asked.

“It did absolutely nothing to him, just like the first Veil. I had him go in first so I could watch him. He just walked back and forth and muttered to himself. I watched him while Pip went in, then sent him to the other side of the island to wait for me with Pip,” Quint replied.

Pip sent images from his memory, confirming everything Quint had said, which won the sesnickie a smile from Fiona, and then a kiss when Fiona walked over to them. The two always liked being around each other. It was almost like when they were close to each other, there was a hypnotic humming in the background that sang their contentment.

Quint slackened his posture, slouching as he became his usual light-hearted self again, then turned to the Drake and his daughter called Prudance.

“We need to be on our way, friend Drake. There is someone we have to meet at Lack-A-Daisy’s Inn down the way. Would you join us?” Quint said

“Thank you for the offer, I'm heading to the same Inn, but I’ll need to stay here a little while longer. Pru needs to eat and she has a hard time doing it on the move. She can hardly latch onto the nipple when I’m standing still. It’s like her mouth doesn’t know how to do it, and it moves the entire time I’m feeding her, spilling a lot of what we have. I try to make it easier on her … She didn’t ask for this,” Vermilion said. Pip looked at the creature's mouth, and sure enough, it was struggling with the ‘O’ shape that was required for drinking from a bottle. Fiona visibly tensed up next to Pip. Fiona got up, went to her bag—which Quint had put down on the black rocks—and pulled out her green traveling cloak that she had taken off before jumping into the lake. She brought it to the Drake.

“Have you ever had a baby sling, Vermilion, or seen one used? Maybe Pru’s mom used one?” Fiona asked

“I have seen them used, but never have used one myself … was intimidated by them. Still am. As for Pru’s mom, she’s out of the picture now, but she did wear one a few times when Prudance was younger.”

“Out of the pic—“ Fiona started, but Quint caught her eyes and shook his head. Probably shouldn’t ask that just now, she thought. “Right, well then—it’s really easy. I’ll show you how to wrap the baby and then you do it and show me you know how to do it before we leave.” She gave Vermilion a frank stare, eyebrows raised, then gave the same look to Quint. Both men shrank back a bit. Fiona may not have been as skilled as Quint at speaking Seru, but she could compete with him in withering looks.

“Yes, lady. It is as you say it is. Thank you,” Vermilion said.

“I’ll have to hold Prudance for just a moment to show you. I will put down some clothes on the ground for padding underneath—”

“No need, I’ll fold my jacket up for a cushion. It should be plenty big enough,” Vermilion said, folding his enormous leather jacket with the red badge signifying how dangerous he was.

Rocco. Class three, Pip thought. With a fucking baby strapped to his chest.

Fiona crisscrossed the cloak over the baby’s chest. Prudance ooo-ah’d and fussed a bit, but not too much

Pip thought, with this child, the stillness is what weighs on the Drake’s heart more than the crying, I presume. Silent, sick children stir a parent’s stomach more than those that are loud and healthy.

Fiona picked the baby up, facing her out, and crisscrossed the slack of the cloak across her back, looping the rest of the cloak around the baby at her waist, finally tying a pilgrim’s knot with the two ends at her back.

“I think I’m gonna need to watch that again, Fiona. I’m sorry … slow learner,” said the Drake, obviously embarrassed.

“Don’t you apologize to me, Vermilion. Don’t you ever. Not me, not anyone. You’re taking care of your little girl, and it sounds like you’re doing that job—that very difficult job, mind you—on your own,” Fiona said. Where is this coming from? Pip thought.

“No … you don’t apologize. You just keep fumbling along down this path and we, the mothers of the world that were or are or would be—we’ll take care of you, the true ones at least, the ones that love like it hurts—‘cause it does—and willingly clean shit off of walls. You come see us, Drake, Vermilion, Father … you come see us and you ask us some questions. We … well let’s just say we may have some answers for the likes of you, friend Drake,” Fiona said. It was an oddly emotional outburst. Fiona only rarely let her emotions out, and when she did … but no, there were no hives around her eyes now. Pip wondered if this gushing was due to Fiona’s own struggles with her husband. Helping another that is suffering in a similar way is one of the most therapeutic ways of getting through trauma. Pip knew from his time after escaping the Hate with Valucias all those years ago. They had connected on a very deep level, and the more they shared about the awful things that the Hate had put them through, the better and more open they both felt. Pip missed Valucias. Perhaps I could share a little with these two who are currently suffering at the hands of the Hate just as I did, Pip thought.

Vermilion fumbled the knot and it fell apart. Fiona showed him again, and again until he learned.