Crimson Skies

Part 26 - Even weeds have power

Last light vanishes behind This Side of the canyon and the moon strikes up in the purple night sky.

            “We should have caught up to them by now,” Dyle mutters.

            Sarla bites her teeth together to keep from chattering. Her arms cross over her chest for warmth. She is following behind him when she stops in her tracks and turns slowly to face the thing appearing in her peripheral vision.

            Her mouth drops and a small word pops from her lips, “Dyle,” his name coated with fear.

            A transparent spirit appears next to her, she faces it while stepping, stumbling back. It has pale grey eyes that seem to see her... yet not care? Other than the eyes, there are no features to its face. No visible arms or legs either, it seems as if its body is a long clear coat.

            Dyle’s hand rests on her trembling shoulder. “It’s okay. They don’t bite. Just... Just keep your distance, okay?”

            She nods weary, still, but she turns into his arms and allows him to walk her away from the ghost.

            More spirits begin to flower the ground, dotting their path like a minefield. Each is as transparent and limbless as the first, with ever-vigilant grey eyes. As the couple pass, the ghosts’ heads turn so the eyes may watch them pass, but the spirits never walk, never follow, never move more than that.

            Sarla walks with care around them, making sure they cannot grab at her with arms they do not possess. “What are they?”

            “I don’t know what the name for them is,” Dyle replies, less mindful of them than she is.

            She frowns. “What do they do? They don’t move? They simply scatter the ground like weeds? They aren’t dangerous?”

            “If you think weeds are not dangerous, than you have never owned a garden, my one,” he says in a teasing voice.

            She shoots him a stare. “You know I’ve never even stepped inside a garden.”

            “I know. Why do you think I brought you a flower every Sacrifice Day?”

            “To distract me from the screams?”

            “To give you something to love in the world, when the world seemed like it had nothing,” he corrects, stroking her face.

            She closes her eyes then. “Tomorrow, I will miss my flower.”

            “I will not. You’ve being my flower all along.”

            Another spirit rises next to them and she releases Dyle to peer inside the clear body. At first, she sees just red sand through it. Upon closer inspection, there are tiny, tiny figures in the waves of sand. She crouches down, peering deeper inside it.

            “What are those in there?” she asks, glancing up at Dyle.

            Dyle looks over her. As he leans in, a lock of hair tumbles down and brushes through the spirit. It opens wide and swallows him whole. Sarla leaps up, looking around, screaming for him. Then something inside the spirit moves. She holds back her hair and looks in. This time, the figures are bigger than the ant-size she first saw, though they are still small enough to fit inside the belly and feet of the ghost.

            Five people and one lizard move in a circle inside the spirit, across the sand. She narrows her eyes. Dyle is one of them. And they are all dancing.