Tortured Compositions

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Wind tickled Kayse's bare skin as she slowly opened her eyes. Spots danced along her vision, and it felt like someone had clobbered her with a wooden board. Kayse picked herself up off the dirt and shivered. Moonlight shone down on her. She felt vulnerable.

Kayse brushed her hair back as she tried to figure out her location. The summoning incantation, once modified by Roxanne, had the ability to drop her into a specific moment in the past. A moment tailored strictly to her soul, which meant when Teagan did it, he would not get the same knowledge she did. Which meant she could be anywhere. Looking for anything.

A warm glow spilled through the trees just up ahead. Not knowing what else to do, Kayse sprinted off toward it. Maybe the light would lead her to some answers. As she ran, she found herself following a dirt path that wound toward a cluster of buildings off to the far distance.

Kayse stopped running abruptly. Her boots kicked dirt up around her, and she coughed as a cloud of it drifted up toward her face. The lack of rain and the buildings made her heart panic.

The light she followed was far from the buildings, but they were still closer than comfortable. Even though she knew the past could not be altered, the sight of the town that had her exiled now terrified her. Irrational fear clutched at her lungs. She knew she could not go further unless she took precautions to soothe herself.

She glanced around, checking the road for any straggling drunks or townsmen, then shuddered and dodged into a thicket of nearby blackberry bushes. There she sat down, hands planted firmly on her legs until a cast spell made her fears ebb.

Five minutes later, Kayse once again tracked the light in the distance. It beckoned to her somehow, and after a while she realized the soft glow came from a house surrounded by trees and shrubs. It was a nice house of large structure on the very outskirts of town. Secluded and tucked away from unwanted attention. The town was a place of safety not many dared to venture from, so only children and drunks dared to come out this far.

But why did so many people distrust this place? Kayse could hardly recall the stories her nanny had told her as a child during long, winter nights. Something about a hermit who was rumored to never leave his house. Some expected he died – even his shadow never graced the windows or doors – but at night, her nanny said, people swore they saw candles burning behind glass panes. There was something else about this house, too, that Kayse vaguely remembered. Had not there been whispers of an orphan boy who disappeared inside and was never seen again?

Wary of thinking too long about stories and rumors, Kayse eased into a tree near the edge of the yard and watched silently. The grass in the front lawn had long been baked by the unforgiving summer sun, and there was a startling lack of flowers or plant growth outside of the trees that lined the property. Somewhere behind the house a nightingale sang, but otherwise there was no sound.

The whole place was devoid of life: an empty carcass that looked as if it had not been cared for in years. What exactly was she waiting for? Kayse shifted uneasily and wanted to leave, but a sudden pressure weighing down her bones made her stay. She glanced around again . . . and almost fell out of the tree.

Her body tightened in alarm. Two cloaked figures glided along the path toward the house. At first, she thought they must have come from town, but on second glance she realized they had followed the path straight from the fields just north of town. Kayse stared at them, unable to catch sight of the faces behind their hoods. Wolves and other creatures were active in the fields at night, and so after several deaths, the governor of Ordwell Commons declared nighttime travel forbidden. How, then, had they come from the fields? It did not seem right.