E NEVER THOUGHT about death until the illness.
Before then, all he knew of the non-living was they were buried in rectangular wooden boxes and put into the ground as their close ones read from a thick book. Everyone wore black, their heads hung downwards, and cried as if on cue.
The dead person was happy not to be sick anymore, Norberto thought. He certainly would take death, if he could, over the present malady.
The worst of it came at night. The brighter the moon shone, the more his heart wanted to rip through his chest and explode. His breathing quickened, he began to sweat profusely, and as he became lightheaded, he passed out. The ensuing morning, he woke up in his bed, naked and soiled. His mother cleaned the red and brown stains off his arms and legs with a wet cloth. She never told him of the howling and the blood left in his conversion’s wake.
‘You had a bad episode,’ Mrs Pereyra said. ‘But you’re better now.’
Norberto remembered nothing. The possibility that his actions and memory have become non-existent filled him with unimaginable fright.
What if it happens again? What if tomorrow, I won’t remember today?
The disillusion of reality zapped his hippocampus like an electric shock, and he never spoke again.
Senora Zulema’s wrinkly hands massaged Norberto’s chest on the folding table. Her hair was grey and thin, and her old flesh hung below her neck. The boy was afraid not of her ghastliness, but of what he might do, despite his efforts to fight the urge.
‘The emanation is potent with him,’ the old woman said to Mrs Pereyra. The mother was given a silver amulet on a string by Zulema.
‘Be sure he wears this around his neck. It’ll suppress the malady. Temporarily.’
Mrs Pereyra counted every bill in her purse, her hands nearly shaking. She handed the fistful of cash to the grey woman as her lip trembled.
‘Please, this is all I have. Take it, but cure my son!’
‘Your son’s affliction is beyond my powers. I might have been able to do something at one time, but now…’
‘Is there anyone who can help?’ the mother asked.
Zulema told Norberto to put his shirt back on. ‘Eccles Trujillo might. He lives outside of Puerto San Julian. His methods are…dire, and rather permanent. Only the hopeless should seek his counsel.’
‘I’ll do whatever it takes,’ the mother said in her desperation.
‘Be sure to pay him in silver.’
The white car was covered in rust as it ascended a mountain dirt road. Vicente occasionally glanced in the rearview mirror at the woman and the boy. The mother comforted her son by whispering soothing words into his ear as he held the amulet in his left hand.
At length, the car pulled up in front of a gothic house—black, enveloped in shadow, and acute in angles—perched up on a craggy hill. From a distance, perpetual dark clouds hung above it.
Vicente got out and knocked on the door. The teen who answered was of medium height, and despite his youthful features, his hair was as silver as a fistful of dimes.
‘I’m Eccles Trujillo,’ he said. ‘Welcome to my home.’
A thick aroma of salt was perceptible in the living room. Eccles sat next to Norberto on the antiquated couch and held the boy’s hand.
‘How did he become sick?’
‘We don’t know,’ the mother said. ‘One night, he just…’. She closed her eyes and covered her face in shame.
‘Any victims?’ Trujillo asked.
The mother nodded, reluctantly. ‘A little girl.’ She fought back tears, then gathered herself.
‘When was the last lycanthropy?’
‘More than a week ago. The amulet Zulema gave us has helped.’
‘Does he have siblings?’
She shook her head. ‘Two brothers are deceased,’ the mother said. ‘He’s the youngest.’
‘And his father?’ Trujillo asked.
‘Also deceased.’ Her voice began to shake, and her lip trembled. But she soon overpowered her mourning and cleared her throat.
Eccles sighed, his eyes sombre and bleak. He walked over to the window and stared mournfully at the distant mountains.
Mrs Pereyra took several silver coins from her purse. Trujillo took five of them; when she offered more, he politely refused. He asked the boy for the silver amulet, which the latter gave him with his mother’s approval.
‘I will treat him tomorrow, at sundown, after I get the necessary materials,’ Trujillo said. ‘Vicente will take you to the nearest hotel.’
Mrs Pereyra tossed, turned, rolled in bed, and went to the toilet several times throughout the night, while Norberto slept as if under a spell. The following day left the mother with heavy eyelids, and a perpetual yawn. When they arrived at Trujillo’s home, he asked her to wait in the hallway as he took Norberto to his office.
‘For the treatment to work, there must be no one else in the room.’
When Trujillo closed the door, Mrs Pereyra sat on the sofa. Within seconds, she dozed off, and soon was in deep, comfortable sleep. The length of her stupor was ambiguous: it lasted either hours, or a few seconds.
When she suddenly woke, it was to a loud BANG that shook her half-dazed equilibrium, and trembled the wooden floor. She jumped and stood up, her limbs flailing involuntarily, until she gathered her wits. Her intuition led her towards the only closed door.
Inside, Norberto’s body lay on a cushioned chair. The moonlight highlighted a bleeding hole in his left chest. In front of him, holding a smoking pistol, stood a dejected Trujillo. Several silver bullets were scattered on the red rug. The gruesomeness caused the mother’s jaw to nearly drop.
‘Norberto!!’ Mrs Pereyra screamed, unsure if she was conscious, or dreaming still. She turned to the silver-haired teenager, with clenched fists and flaring nostrils.
‘WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?’
Trujillo could not bear to look in her direction. Instead, he stared at Norberto’s corpse, with an expression of muted anguish.
‘I cured your boy,’ he said.
Amaia Pereyra’s desire for eternal sleep was never so intense as in the weeks following her son’s death. Insomnia haunted her like a scorned spirit, and she spent waking hours with eyes half closed, unable to see any task to completion. At midday, flashes of what wasn’t there manifested itself to her weary mind, forcing her into short naps during afternoon hours. Tossing and turning endlessly, she made coffee as dusk settled, figuring the caffeine irrelevant. Clumsily, she spilled the cup’s contents all over the table. The shakiness possessed her arm, like a temporary cramp. Amaia thought little of it at first. But when Valeria Chavez visited her on Thursday night, the mishap was nearly overlooked again.
‘It’s nothing,’ Amaia said, wiping the fresh spill. ‘I’m just exhausted from the sleeplessness.’
Valeria watched her with narrowed eyes. ‘How are you really, dear?’
Amaia shrugged. ‘I haven’t gone into his room yet. Most days, I try not to think about him.’
‘What happened to his murderer… what was his name?’ Valeria asked.
‘Trujillo,’ Amaia said. ‘Nothing. He walked.’
‘Dios mio! How come?’
‘The local Inspector is a friend of his family. Said what Trujillo did was for the good of society.’
Valeria crossed herself. ‘Either I’ve gone insane, or the world has!’
‘Valeria… Norberto, he was sick.’ Amaia’s eyes faced downwards. ‘When the disease surfaced, he hurt people.’
Valeria said a silent prayer and placed her hand on Amaia’s. The two women embraced.
That night, the sight of the full moon made Amaia shiver. She locked the door multiple times, employing even the hefty bolt that she’d used to shield her chickens from the fox.
At the farmer’s market, whispers and glances followed Amaia, like familiar voyeurs. Nova Helvetia’s busybodies gathered among the crates of tomatoes, lettuce, and carrots in hordes, resembling a social circle of the undead. Their purchased produce was only a decoy, for their purpose was to assign blame, use slander, and point fingers at the irresponsible mother of the monster.
Senor Espinoza glanced at them sideways from his station. He gifted Amaia several potatoes, out of goodness as much as out of spite for the hags.
‘If you think of them as vultures, then it’s not so bad,’ Espinoza said. ‘That’s how I get through the day.’
Amaia smiled. ‘How do I fend them off if they attack?’
‘Vultures only attack the dead. Staying alive, despite everything—that’s the key.’
‘I wish it were that easy,’ she said. He clasped his hands in hers and poured his condolences. She thanked him and asked him to hug his family for her. Yet for the nearby rumourmongers, the speculation was already as long as day and solid as gold. After sundown, the grapevine resonated with echoes of an affair between the unmarried farmer and the widow mother. The hearsay was soon more commonplace than the daily church bells.
Thirty-nine days after burying Norberto, Amaia walked home from Valeria’s place, her jaw chattering. It was in the dark alley, three doors from her own, when she heard the whisper. It was barely a word. A cry from below or above, but hardly from her own reality. The voice was soft and muffled, nearly melodious, as if produced by the wind and spoken through a wide tube. Amaia turned in every direction, but saw little of significance. Only a messenger biker whose bent wheels clinked and clanked synchronously, and two stray dogs humping next to a heap of trash that smelled of rancid death. Behind the shifting clouds, the golden moon illuminated her silhouette against the shadows.
If only someone would shoot that thing out of the sky. I’d pay to see it crash and burn, and never have it agitate me again.
The voice reappeared two nights later, when Amaia’s dreams left her hands shaking. She ventured into the chilly night and lit a cigarette on the balcony. Out of practice, she coughed up half a lung, and woke several neighbours. Yet the wind whispered her name still. After the last syllable faded, Amaia deciphered the concluding echo, and worked her way backwards.
Amaia… Amaia… otherworldly Anaya…
Amaia’s heart beat furiously, and she checked her pulse, just to be sure.
Is Norberto’s fate to be my own? I’d rather venture into the Arctic than approach Trujillo again.
Whenever solitude was her closest companion, Amaia heard the melodious voice. It, and the chirping of nighttime crickets, was all that covered up her expanding madness. The longer she listened, the more she pieced the phrases together, like a cumbersome riddle.
Amaia… Amaia… come on Sunday, this May-a
Tell no one, and unleash your heart of Pariah.
Because nighttime always accompanied the whispers, Amaia began to venture outside when the hour was late and the populace scarce. She walked down the trash scattered alleys, strolled on the lonely streets, and passed cafes bristling with liquor and slurred conversations. Amaia’s sandals caused acute blisters on her aching feet after the thousandth cobblestone was stepped on. In the town square, the Virgin fountain flowed like paradise wine under a nude’s statue. The setting was conducive to silence or noise, yet it settled on a familiar cacophony. Turning towards the Old Steps that led to the Tarquin Tower, Amaia saw him.
He leaned against the railing, barely sitting, his shirt as smooth as an ocean. On his face a trimmed goatee, and a silver hoop in each ear. When he smirked, he sent chills through her soul. She moved towards him, like a hovering magnet to a shining deity.
‘Mrs Pereyra,’ the young man said. ‘At long last. You’re more ravishing than the moon.’
‘What do you want? Who are you?’ She placed her hand over her sweaty chest, but her perspiration was too apparent to hide anymore.
‘I’m Brannon Kerstal,’ he said. ‘Your son’s affliction was my fault.’
She ran as if chased by the devil, stumbling several times in the loosening sandals. Citizens still out when the bats fluttered over discarded food caught a blur as she passed, and a gradually rising—then falling—intermittent huffing and puffing. Amaia stopped and picked up her footwear, then sprinted down the curvy road barefoot. Before she reached the crossroads, her soles bled in various places. When her reflection in the river displayed no one behind it, her sigh resonated with relief.
Questions regarding who, what, how, and why were superfluous, and answers even more so. What Amaia needed, more than inquisition, was rest. She’d hardly slept a day’s worth in two weeks and was aware of insomnia’s consequences. She speed-walked, jogged, ran, and slowed again. This variety of pacing was repeated multiple times until she reached her home’s gate. For her hastiness, her ears were rewarded with a high-pitched scream that made her stop and turn. Closer inspection confirmed it came from next door. Guadalupe Ramirez ran out from the back porch, waving the broom at the surrounding air. The two women crossed paths at the yard’s halfway point, a leaning fence separating them.
‘Rats have infested my home,’ Guadalupe said, trembling. ‘I can’t go back in there!’
‘Where is Ignacio?’ Amaia asked.
‘They’re celebrating Miguel’s birthday at Emiliano’s. I don’t expect him before sunrise.’ Guadalupe’s arms twitched involuntarily, and she stared at the ground in anticipation of incoming rodents.
Amaia watched her neighbour with sombre eyes. Despite the fright still fresh on her mind, she at least didn’t have to worry about vermin nibbling on her dangling limbs at night.
‘Would you like to sleep in my home?’ Amaia said. ‘There’s plenty of space.’
Her neighbour’s smile was as wide as her broom was long. With clasped hands, and Guadalupe’s head resting on Amaia’s shoulder, the two women entered the Perayra residence like resigned lovers. During the late hours, one slept with a muted smirk, while the other stared at the ceiling, wondering why she ran from the one person who knew what she wanted to know.
It was past six when Amaia dozed off, her dreams short but accentuated. She woke right after sunrise, alone. Other side of the bed was dishevelled, cold and empty. The smooth floor felt icy as she searched for her slippers, and by the time she prepared the coffee, her bare soles were dusty and black, the dirt covering up her recent cuts.
She thought about Brannon Kerstal. His commanding face, the aroma of suppressed sexuality behind his glossy eyes, the shapely abs beneath his unbuttoned shirt. Amaia replayed his words in her head, focusing on how his tongue rolled the Rs. He was unlikely a countryman, for his skin tone was too light, and his dialect imperfect. But it was his eyes that were most haunting. They were fierce but honest, confident yet knowing, and sparkling with lust that made her shy whenever she thought of them.
A cumbersome clinking and clanking from next door disrupted Amaia’s late evening peace. She’d dozed off right after dinner, only to frown upon waking and finding it was still the closing remnants of today. Guadalupe Ramirez’s broom assured her of that. It had turned into a formidable weapon against her property’s pests as she dragged their carcasses, like yesterday’s trash.
‘Lupita, what are you doing?’ Amaia asked from her window. ‘I thought you’re terrified of rats.’
‘Ignacio will never do anything about this.’ Guadalupe shrugged, her indifference as discernible as the sun. ‘Some things one simply must do, even if they’d rather not.’
‘At least you sleep. For me, slumber is a fantasy.’ She tried to say more, but as her voice shook and her lips trembled, she ran inside, and sat on the hallway floor. Thirty minutes later, her eyes were two summer cherries, and her mouth a handful of cotton. It was impossible to form a solitary thought, without first gulping a glass of lukewarm water at the sink.
I must face him, or perish. But I’ll not shed another tear. I’ve got none left to give.
Amaia found the roundness of the golden moon irksome and patiently waited for its shape to shift in the following nights. When days passed, and the waning gibbous phase avoided her like daily bliss, Amaia swallowed, recited a quick prayer, and opened her front door to a sight that made her jaw drop.
He stood at the front of her gate, covered in shadow, but discernible in shape, height and attitude. Among the two pillars and a telephone pole projection, the only absent shadow was Kerstal’s own.
Amaia approached him casually, her fists resembling two balls of hard knuckles. Her eyes were absent of blinks, and steam from her nose was visible in the cool air.
‘Why did you run the other night?’ he said. ‘I wasn’t gonna hurt you.’
‘How did you find me?’
‘I followed your scent.’
‘What did you do to Norberto?’ Amaia said. If looks could harm, Kerstal would, at the very least, have been knocked on his ass, several metres.
‘I loved him,’ Kerstal said. Silence lingered for several seconds before a distant siren broke the monotony.
‘He was too young, you monster!’ Spit particles accompanied Amaia’s speech, and her voice morphed into a near growl.
‘No, it’s not what you think,’ he insisted.
‘How dare you come here, after what you’ve done?’ Amaia continued. ‘How dare you taunt me?’ She raised and waved her fist, but accomplished little else than elevate her blood pressure.
‘Amaia,’ Kerstal said. ‘Norberto’s infection was an accident. I thought he could handle the changes. I was able to, at his age.’
‘I would report you to the police, if I believed it would do any good. But it never does. The world we live in.’
She turned to leave, but his arm was too quick. It caught her just below the elbow.
‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘Let me show you.’ His hand was covered in thick, curly hair, and his fingernails were long and sharp. Amaia shook her head, nearly laughing at the absurdity.
‘You’re mad, if you think I’ll go anywhere with you.’
‘Please,’ he said.
‘All I want is to kill you. With every ounce of my being, I want to claw your eyes out, and eat your beating heart. But that won’t bring Norberto back. So I’ll just pray you burn in the next life.’
‘If your prayers are fulfilled, let me know. I’ve a few of my own.’ He walked over to the parked motorcycle and mounted it. Placing one helmet on his head, he held the other out, baiting her.
Amaia looked at the unchanging moon, then sighed. With eyes closed, she no longer saw absolute darkness, but a golden sphere that glowed beyond space and time. With shrugged shoulders, she mounted the seat behind Kerstal. In the back of her pants, out of his sight, a hidden blade was barely visible. Her fingers brushed the handle, but released it when he turned suspiciously. Then, they zoomed down the uneven road, swaying above the glistening puddles, and, from a distance, appeared to glide under the curious stars.
Brennan’s motorcycle left the pavement and bright lights in the distance and soon endured a dirt road that embraced darkness and rustling leaves in equal amounts. Amaia tried to inhale the scent of the passing trees, but found Kerstal’s sweaty aroma overpowering it. When he asked ‘if she was alright,’ the strong wind hushed his voice, and nearly made her reach for the knife again.
All will be right only when you are dead. Amaia would listen and see, as she’d agreed; but the instant his revelation was complete, her blade would pierce his heart, and if her demise should be the required sacrifice, so be it.
The throaty growl of the bike dissipated, the wind diminished, and when her hair was no longer fluttering, Kerstal pulled into a secluded commune. The wooden white fence was poorly patched, and crooked in various places, but solid enough to keep an illusion of constraining whatever wasn’t supposed to venture outside. Dust kicked up by the hind wheel hadn’t yet settled when Amaia noticed numerous eyeballs staring at her from the darkness. They were lower to the ground than usual, composed of various shades. Their collective meandering gave an impression of floating. Brennan dismounted and walked towards the gaping hidden figures. When he turned to entice her with his seductive glance, she knew he wanted her to follow. Under her squishy rhythmic footsteps, she hoped to cover up the subtle withdrawal of her blade. Her fingers had only grazed the handle, when Kerstal spoke.
‘Amaia Perayra, these are my children.’ The minuscule shadows emerged from the gloom and revealed themselves to be a group of boys. At first glance, Amaia calculated their ages to be from five to eleven, and their number nine in all. Their soft faces, stained and sweaty, complemented their wondrous eyes. They stared at Amaia as if she was the Holy Mother their fates were entwined with.
‘They’re all yours?’ Amaia said. The more she scanned the countenance of each child, the more her lips curved to produce a poorly hidden smile.
‘Not biologically,’ Kerstal said. ‘Some I found, some came to me voluntarily. But I take care of them as if they were my own.’
‘Why would others’ children come to you?’
‘They’re unhappy, and come from broken homes. Their parents neglect them, beat them, and in most cases, no longer want them.’
In an effort to appear inconspicuous, Amaia held her hands behind her back, grabbing the knife’s handle. ‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘Norberto came here, Amaia. Four months ago. He made friends with my boys and began to show improvement.’
‘Improvement?’ Amaia cried. ‘My son would never seek your help, when he had a loving mother at home!’ She pulled the knife upwards behind her back, revealing a part of its blade. Moonlight grazed it as if from admiration. Kerstal and the children remained unaware of it.
‘Amaia, Norberto was unhappy,’ Kerstal said. ‘Depressed and wretched, he spoke of taking his own life. Only through a miracle was I able to dissuade him.’ Kerstal watched Amaia’s shifting expression, and squared his shoulders, just in case she should succumb to a vengeful fit of rage.
‘You son of a bitch! It’s one thing to mention his name post mortem, but to suggest his fragile mental state…’ The knife was out of the holster, naked to the dark world. Her fingers wrapped around the handle, like tiny serpents. Only a few feet from Kerstal’s chest, her desire’s greatest goal had never been closer.
‘He told me about his father and brothers, and how their passing devastated you.’
Amaia’s arm sprung as if from a wound-up coil, the point facing her target. But Brennan never flinched, winced, or moved. ‘ “My mother no longer sees me”, he told me,’ Kerstal said.
The woman’s stabbing motion came to a full stop, the blade inches from Brennan’s chest. She held her breath from the completion of his last syllable, and wouldn’t resume it until he continued.
‘He wasn’t sure if he was alive or dead, but on most days he’d lean on the latter. It took me weeks to resuscitate his spirit.’
She could deny it all she wanted, but the truth was always there. Embedded, stuffed and submerged, but not entirely. A tiny sliver peered out of her subconscious, like a newly sprung follicle, ignored while barely invisible. After Emmanuel’s and the children’s burial, Amaia drank through the night and didn’t wake until the sun was past the meridian the following day. Norberto was left to fend for himself—food and chores and schoolwork were solely his own responsibility, as if he was a deserted orphan. While despair sucked out what was left of Amaia’s motherhood, Norberto’s childhood succumbed to a mental maelstrom that left him malnourished and perpetually shivering. At home, on the street, in the bus, but especially in the classroom, where his every blemish, physical and spiritual, was ridiculed by the low-esteemed bullies for all to see.
His swollen eyes and salt-streaked cheeks may not have gone unnoticed at home, if not for his mother’s extended sorrow. Amaia’s carelessness was challenged only after she found him washing off blood and dirt in the tub early one morning, when her bladder’s immediate needs made her rise before dawn. She knew instantly that something was wrong. But his sickness was irreparable at that point. Had she only remembered to have buried two children—and not all three—he may still be here under her arm, his head pressed lovingly against her stomach.
‘And then…’ Kerstal continued. ‘The incident happened.’
‘Incident?’ Amaia’s words were shaky. Her arm came down, and the knife felt heavy and burdensome.
‘Some of the boys are afflicted. A hereditary lycanthrope gene. When the moon is full, I keep a closer eye on them than usual, and mostly succeed in avoiding a spread of infection. But in early autumn, one of the youngsters lost his shape to the howls, and in an uncontrolled fit of rage, bit Norberto.’
Amaia winced, but composed her wilting eyes. ‘How long was he infected?’ she asked. ‘A week?’
‘Several weeks. I tried curing him, but failed. Then, I tried teaching him to control the urges riled by the full moon. I achieved only a partial success. When he was with you, and out of my care, I could do little to control him. I heard his transformations led to multiple deaths. For that, I am sorry.’
‘You knew what he was capable of and did nothing to stop it?’ Amaia cried.
‘What could I do, short of killing Norberto? I could never, would never do that. Once infected, he was to keep killing unsupervised, or be killed to stop the mayhem. I realise his death was not your fault, but please know, what Trujillo did, was for the greater good. Should any of these boys here threaten the world, I will act as Trujillo did.’ Kerstal lowered his eyes, and kneeled to embrace the boys. Their tiny arms wrapped around him like animated branches. Giggling and glee emanated from their joyful voices.
‘Why do you do all this?’ Amaia asked.
‘I was an abandoned child. When my father found I was the neighbour’s illegitimate bastard, he threw me to the wolves. My mother cried and pleaded with him, but to no avail. Given the choice to starve in my company or to thrive in his arms, she wisely chose the latter. Gradually, I accumulated wealth through means honest and wicked. The details are irrelevant. I invested everything into opening a children’s shelter. Any orphan or disowned child under sixteen is welcome to stay here, free of charge, until they reach said age. I provide food and housing, and even some education, when I can find enough volunteers.’
Amaia ran her hand through the hair of the nearest child. Her fingers felt chunks of dust and grease, and were visibly dirty.
‘Like all children, they detest baths,’ Brennan said. ‘I do my best, but you know how it is.’ Several of the boys attacked him playfully and managed to push him backwards. He landed in the dirt, surrounded by their mischievous soiled feet. Amaia joined him on the ground and spoke sweet and soothing words to the youngsters. Some were shy at her unfamiliar features, while few hugged her as they would a loving mother. With closed eyes, Amaia’s arms enveloped each of her children, their memory manifesting itself like a waking dream. In the brief euphoric moment, she dropped the knife from her hand. It landed on the dirt with the dullness of a rock. Unnoticed by all, it was soon buried by inadvertent dirt kicked up by small, hectic feet.
Amaia rose, her posture straight, more proper than in many months. Smiling and embracing the skies, she listened to the night, deciphering its silence with her eyes and its darkness with her ears. She sniffed and sighed, and her skin prickled with chill and suppressed jubilation. Meandering about, she ran her fingers on each boy, until one in particular felt like an open circuit. Her hand experienced his shoulder as a potent jolt. But despite the child’s intrinsic energy, his expression remained as pure and innocent as a memory of one of hers at a similar age. Amaia reciprocated the boy’s smile. With locked hands, they walked towards the front door. She asked him his name, and he asked her age. The number she gave him made him giggle.
‘My grandmother isn’t that old,’ he remarked. His words soothed her, and all prior uncertainty was soon but a memory.
‘Would you want to work here with me?’ Kerstal asked. ‘I could use your help.’ His attention to the children prevented him from seeing that Amaia had drifted away with the boy. When he, at length, looked upwards, they were but two shadows against the white building. The woman’s hand was held to the boy’s face, and at the conclusion of her nod, his jaw closed on her wrist. Amaia emitted a moan whose resonance was only delayed by the erratic breeze.
Kerstal leapt, his eyes bulging, and mouth half-way open.
‘No! Amaia… DON’T…!’ He ran frantically towards the woman, and carelessly knocked a few boys down. But for all the haste, all he saw was blood running from her arm, and dripping from the boy’s mouth. The soil drank the droplets heartily and manifested its satisfaction by sending an exhilarating chill through Amaia’s bones.
Her arms were overwhelmed with shivering goosebumps, and her pupils expanded to twice their previous size. They reflected the luminous heavenly body in intensity, rotundity, and colour. The crescent was further from Amaia’s desire than ever, and she embraced the golden moon as if it was her own offspring. |
