Caravellum

She was not alone.

He was always with her as the weight of his locket rested upon her chest. On the cold winter’s morning, its golden chains raised goosebumps upon her skin. However, the memory it contained brought warmth within. She held her gloved hand to her chest and whispered;

“We’re almost done.” 

She was a pilot fish in the wake of a shark in manflesh. The remnants found each season edged her closer to its mystery. In Spring, the noble’s blood paved the cobblestones of the market. The Summer brought the stench of a hanged tailor in the tannery, and the rest of Autumn’s blacksmith was yet to be found. Now, Winter had brought her closer. The gory mass upon the lake surface lay quiet. A cruel irony for the town crier’s daughter. An atrocity without reckon, upon the brow of which was a gift.

The smear of grease had brought her to the abandoned factory, and the footprints to its attic where she stood now in silence. The dim outlines of the room before her shifted in the darkness, half-forms twisting as they ebbed and flowed towards shape. Long splinters of wood spotted the corridor’s floorboards, jutting out to participate in the carousel of hazards upon its surface. The door at the end of the narrow corridor lay broken from its hinges. Beyond its empty frame was a small square room, barely wider than the corridor preceding.. 

The investigator cautiously made her way into the room. She ran her hand across the warped wooden walls to find a switch within its sagging recess. Her fingers pulled through thick webs to push the rusted metal down, and snapped her hand back as their creators crawled upon her knuckles. A high-pitched hum emerged as the light suspended from the low ceiling flickered to life. Its orange glow barely penetrated the dust-laden bulb, but it lent partial form to the shadows below.

A short bed was positioned to face the only window, which displayed a silhouette of the smokestacks outside through its grime-stained glass. The cold wind whistled through small cracks upon its surface. A large metal chain was nailed to the bedhead, its metal several centimetres thick. It trailed down to the bare floor, where several shattered links lay scattered. The sheets reeked of dried sweat. 

Adjacent to the bed was a writing desk, similarly battered and broken. Three of its legs stood upon stacked planks of wood. Its surface was scarred and blotched with spilt ink. 

Atop it was a journal. It was a pristine fragment in the broken room. Its leather cover was immaculate, with a yet uncracked closely-bound spine. She opened it gingerly to the first page. There, a short note was penned in a cursive script: ‘Safe travels Yasha’. The thick paper sheets turned smoothly as she skimmed through the following pages. Within were small journal entries detailing excerpts of the life of a factory worker. Overworked and overburdened, yet satisfied. The entries were written with a simpler penmanship, neat and uniform. 

She flicked forward to the more recent months within the filled pages, and began to read.

---

September 18

I met a storyteller today. I had never met one like us before. I was drinking in the tavern after work when he came in. It was crowded, and his soft voice barely travelled through the room. But I was captured. He spoke of fantastical ancient wars in such detail, it was as if he himself had waded through those blood-quenched fields. Looking into his weary eyes, it is possible that he had.

He stopped me as I offered my coin and invited me to talk in private. In the back room of that tavern, he taught me the truth of his tales. He said that they were real and told the story of our ancestors. He taught me of their pain, suffering, and destruction. I learnt of the injustice that their brutalizers continue to fatten themselves upon their remains. 

My blood boiled furiously as if to confirm what he said to be true. He said it had been his quest to ensure their story was not forgotten. He had been searching for somebody to continue this thankless task in his stead. I could not refuse to champion the cause. It was as if I was born for this.

October 4

Tonight, I felt something new. We were sitting in the tavern, taking turns to ‘weave our history’, as the storyteller calls it, to the small group of patrons. I’m still not as good as he is, but apparently that will take time. 

Then, a man stood from the crowd. He was slightly older than me, red-faced and tall. With a few steps, he closed the distance between us and emptied his tankard of ale into the face of the storyteller. He damned us both, telling us that our kind are not welcome in these lands and that we should be grateful for our place in the footnotes of history.

The storyteller did not react, and instructed me to do the same. I tried. But something changed within me as I walked home. The fury within me at the tales of my ancestors had been formless. Now, it had a target, and had evolved into something new. I will not forget the face of that man. 

October 9

I simply watched the storyteller today. I could not speak. I watched as the patrons smiled at his stories, as if they were the conjurings of a madman. 

I know within me that these stories will not change their hearts. They are sleeping sheep, unaware of the lies being fed to them by their masters. We must wake them from their slumber.

I told the storyteller how I felt. He did not speak to me again. He knows I am right. 

I feel my blood boiling within me even now. It is hot. I am going for a walk.

October 10

I tried to eat. It does not stay down. I burnt the clothes. The red will not wash. 

October 11

The sound still echoes within my mind. But I have found solace. If he did not deserve his fate, the ancestors would not have put that red-faced man in my path again.

November 8

It is beginning to make sense to me. The reason why our ancestors chose me for this quest. 

I feel the rage that they felt when they were robbed of their lands. I know the fury they felt when their children were taken from them. I am the wrath they send from beyond their graves. 

These rich bastards, fattened on stolen lands, are not human. They are demons within wolves’ clothing, and must be rended them from this earth.

November 14

You came to me last night. You told me that I could control it. I fear that you are mistaken, for it controls me. I awoke with a hunger unlike any I have had before. As if I had not eaten for days, I fear that I may have not.

November 17

I was forced to put an end to a woman who tried to stand between me and a demon. I thought it was a mistake. Then, I realised the true scale of my quest. These people are implicit in the crimes of the scum that they endure. They see our plight, and know our past. Yet, they do not aid in the crucifixion of these criminals. They abet them through their subservience. 

They are not sheep. They are kin. They shall be treated as such.

December 14

I had dreamed that it had all been a dream. That, in falling asleep, I might awake in your arms once more and find that I had never wandered from them. Perhaps then I may not have been cursed with the knowledge of our ancestors.

But this is my quest. A gardener may tire of tearing weeds, but it is a job that must be done.

December 19

The storyteller once told me this task was thankless. He was wrong. Our ancestors will thank me. They will welcome their daughter into their arms when the time comes, for I am making their story be heard.

I feel my blood boiling once more. It is hotter than it has been before. This time, I fear that I shall not return.

---

The journal entries end there. She closed the book, uncomfortable with the insight she had found into her quarry. She gazed out the window once more. The sun had set, and it was beginning to rain.

A sound came from within the corridor. She turned. There was nothing there. 

The shadows in the room lengthened for a brief moment. 

The light above flickered, faltered and then died. 

There remained a warmth in the room.

She was not alone.