Chapter 4: Struggles in the Shadows

Vix awoke to a gentle, swaying motion beneath her. She opened her eyes. For a moment, she could make out nothing. Her vision was blurred, turning everything into one great watercolor of confused shapes and lines, squirming in all directions, like snakes.

Vix felt her head spin and was very nearly sick.

Blinking, she managed to make the wobbling outlines focus themselves. She was laying on her back on a flat, wooden surface. A knothole under her right shoulder was poking her mercilessly, rotating deeper with each motion that shook her.

But she hardly noticed it under the throbbing pain radiating from her hand. She looked down and felt her stomach turn as she saw her dislocated finger. Almost mechanically, she reached out with her uninjured hand, wrapped her fingers around her finger, took a deep breath, and gave it a swift tug.

There was a sharp pop, and Vix bit her lip hard to keep down a scream of pain. Tentatively, she removed her hand, and felt a surge of relief to see her finger in its proper place, again. She twiddled it, wincing a little, though the pain was much better now.

Vix suddenly realized she was moving. A dirt road unwound itself from between her splayed feet, running down a large hill like a dusty river. Wildflowers dotted the grass, their petals bathed a fiery red from the last light of the setting sun. The sound of horses’ hooves filled the quiet air, endlessly clopping behind Vix’s head.

It dawned on Vix at last that she was in a wagon. Even making that small realization took a tremendous amount of effort. Her mind seemed to have dissolved into sludge while she slept; she could not focus on anything long before it slipped back into foggy morass.

She let her head rest back on the uncomfortable wood. She was very tired. But there was something that was keeping her from drifting back off. Something bad had happened. Something she should be able to remember.

Vix cocked her head. For a moment, she just lay there, her mind a confused blank. But then, like a wave rushing in from the ocean, it all came back.

Vix lurched upward. “Caine,” she whispered, looking around.

A sudden movement made her turn around. Sitting in the driver’s box of the wagon, a hood pulled over her face, sat a young woman with a frail, pointed face and brown, curly hair. Her eyes were huge with astonishment as she stared at Vix. There was a moment of shocked silence.

“How are you awake?” the girl asked in a strangled voice.

The two just looked at each other, frozen, like a pair of frightened animals.

It was Vix who recovered first. Launching herself forward, she flung herself upon the young woman, hooked an arm around her throat, and began to squeeze. She half expected it to have no effect, like when she had fought against Eva Cassidy.

But this woman did not seem to have any such protection. Her eyes bulged in her head as she thrashed in Vix’s grip. Wheezing gasps escaped her while she tried desperately to suck in air. Her fingernails dug deeply into Vix’s arm to try and pry it free.

Vix barely felt the pain. She hung on, face warped in a grimace, bracing her feet against the back of the wagon and leaning back as far as she was able to.

Suddenly, the wagon hit a large bump. Vix’s opponent was bucked into the air, slipped backward, and fell hard on top of Vix, knocking the air from her lungs. Vix gasped, loosening her hold without meaning to.

The young woman did not waste her chance. She writhed like a fish and managed to break free of Vix and scramble to the opposite end of the wagon. Vix scrambled on hands and knees after her, wrapping her arms around the woman’s legs and bringing them both down in a heap once again.

Fists flew wildly in all directions. Vix’s world deteriorated into a wild, tumbling darkness; the young woman’s shoulder pressed against her eyes and nose, the smell of her overpowering as she struggled in Vix’s arms. The only sounds that penetrated the savage black were the nervous whickering of the horses and the strained grunts of the two women as they rolled over and over, each trying to pin the other down.

Then, the young woman’s elbow clipped Vix above the eye just as her fist sank into Vix’s stomach. Vix fell backward with a pained grunt. The young woman kicked out viciously with both feet, driving Vix further away and giving herself more room.

Vix was given a clear view of her opponent at last. Her face was beet red with exertion. Sweat ran down her thin face and her curly hair hung down in front of her eyes, wild canvases of white that peered out from behind the strips of brown.

The woman flung her arms out in front of her and gabbled a few strange-sounding words. The air seemed to somehow shiver as they passed from her lips. Then, with a rushing, hissing kind of noise, a flurry of long, red streamers blossomed from just behind her wrists and launched themselves at Vix, entangling her.

Vix had no time to be shocked. Even as her mind struggled to grasp what was happening, she was fighting to extricate herself from the bizarre things. Already, they had wrapped themselves around both her arms and one leg.

The streamers were soft to the touch, but as thick as knotted rope and tougher than iron. Vix suddenly realized what they were. They were clothing, specifically, a part of the young woman’s sleeves, writhing like vipers and swelled to enormous size.

The impossible thought passed through her mind like a cloud on the breeze, disappearing almost as soon as it had formed. Vix could only focus on trying to escape the bizarre constraints. But no matter how she twisted, they refused to break.

Instead, they seemed to tighten with each of her attempts to fight them off. The red fabric cut deeply into Vix’s arms, leaving angry red welts around the indents they made. Vix let out a gasp of pain.

The young woman smiled triumphantly across from her. She began speaking the strange language again, causing the air around her to shake with the force of it. The streamers began to retract, slithering across the ground like velveteen snakes. Vix was dragged backward with them by her arms and leg, toward the young woman.

The edges of her fingers began to turn blue as her bonds tightened further. Vix could barely even feel her constricted limbs. Desperately, she hooked a hand around one of the stretched streamers and began to claw at it as best she could.

She had not really expected it to work. But to her amazement, the streamer ripped under her fingernails, and the crushing pressure on her arm loosened slightly. Vix lashed out with her other arm and managed to slice through two streamers on her other side as well, her hand passing through the once rock-solid things as though they were made of paper.

The smile disappeared from the young woman’s face like melting snow, replaced by a look of sheer terror and bewilderment.

“Stop!” she cried. Then she spat out several more shivering words. More streamers began to bloom from her sleeves, these much more bedraggled, with frayed heads and holes across their lengths.

But, suddenly, as she was speaking her strange, shivering language, the young woman stammered, stumbling over one of the chilling words. Her eyes widened and she let out a soft, “Oh, no!”

The streaming snakes of clothing, including those still holding Vix, suddenly went limp all at once. Vix and the young woman stared at one another for a moment, frozen. Then, Vix crossed the distance between them in one flying leap and slammed her fist into the young woman’s cheek.

Her captor flew back against the bed of the wagon with a bang, sending the whole thing teetering sideways on two wheels for a moment, before crashing back to the earth. The young woman pushed herself up, blinking blearily, eyes unfocused. Then, without the slightest change in her confused expression, her eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped to the floor, unconscious.