Paranormal Challenges Anthology

Carved from Darkness: @DreamyTheCat

Second place in The Box ParanormalCommunity and Adventure contest

Carved from Darkness by DreamyTheCat

As a peasant, I had been born into a family of such, meaning we were short of wealth and hung our hearts along clotheslines for the rich to tear.

I don't know how the lying began.

Father had a skirmish with a town nobleman, claiming that he owned more than a patchy spot of clay beside the river. Of course, Nobleman Smith had not believed him.

Grennan, the child eldest of us Rolfes, yelled into the town square that I, a miserable peasant girl, would locate the Celestial Metronome.

Through misted valleys and nightmarish tunnels I traversed, carrying nothing but a leather satchel, a day's provisions, and a small goat.

Over one painful ravine of jagged rock, in which my foot was eaten by a tight crevice, I had to abandon the goat. It bleated, crying out as I hurried forward, its cloven hooves scrambling desperately over the spikes. Finally, it stopped and laid down to rest, defeated.

The clean-cut entrance to Bennett's Cave blessed its presence upon my second day. When I entered, a cool layer of damp air sticking to my skin, the stacks of cold granite cubes crowded in the back of the cave startling me greatly. I drew back, clutching my satchel to my side.

For in the center of the dim, early cave stood a clock nearly as old as time itself, points of the hand rounded and pendulum clicking with the seconds.

I stood forth and admired its golden lace, too afraid to touch it. Having come so far, it would destroy me to know what this clock truly held.

But alas, I had to redeem Grennan's young name.

This is for your family.

Hands trembling, I pulled open the clock face's window, ground wood falling in flakes at my feet.

Time seemed to halt.

My hand moved toward the door of the pendulum; it cut through like the air was honey, yet when I touched the miniature knob, the feeling subsided.

An invisible arrow pierced my heart, and I stumbled to the stone cave floor.

With a bright, ripping flash, shattered pieces of dark matter integrated into a human figure, all flowing black silks and sharp blades.

The hooded figure lacked humanity; rather, she emanated flawed premonitions. Her voice was of liquid gold. "You dare awaken the Time Liege?"

"I d-did it for my f-family," I stuttered, smoothing my sweating palms over my trousers.

The Time Liege spoke no more; she was gone in another flash, one that shot my eyes closed and brought me to the river beside our home. It was muddy with silt and stones, and Mother was

washing clothes in its waters.

The silk-laden woman floated down the bank, caressing the tips of dew-heavy grass and trailing whispering winds among the trees. Dark mist swirled from her feet in wondrous coils, but my eyes were drawn to her blades, two fighting kama with black leather handles and gleaming tips like crows' beaks.

Mother was frozen in place with her knees to the ground and her head bent in suffering. When the Time Liege approached, she neither flinched nor screamed; when I approached, her expression remained one of deep sorrow.

The Time Liege swept an arm around Mother's head, creating a halo of smoke that dripped ink onto her peasant's dress. Slowly, smoothly, the darkly-dressed woman lifted Mother's wrists and traced her veins with the tip of the kama, engraving crimson grooves into her skin.

"You disgust me," I whispered in fear. Legends told of this Time Liege, a force destructible only at the hands of a blade to parry her own.

Where could I find myself such a blade?

The wretched woman stood up and snapped her fingers, a quick whip that lashed the air and jolted Mother into the present.

When she saw her own blood, pouring into the dirt below, she screamed.

I rushed forward and leaned her head into my chest, pressing the bottom of my shirt to her skin. "Mother, it'll be all right —"

"You demon," she choked, blood rising from her lips. "I can't believe I raised you."

I let her head fall to the ground, let her clutch at her wrists and writhe in agony.

Without hesitation, I ran towards the town square, lifting a broom from a nobleman's gate and snapping off the end.

Tears filmed my eyes, distorting my vision, but I ran.

In the square laid the bodies of the dead, the cut, the bleeding. The Time Liege had surpassed my expectations; she turned to me with a snap of her cloak-heavy fingers, purple eyes glowing and mist stirring as a man cried out beside the well.

"You have power," said the Time Liege. At her words, the darkness beneath her hood glowed a pinkish red. The same light spread beneath my shirt, mingling with blood, and I was pulled towards the Time Liege, spinning out of control . . .

And suddenly, we became that of the same mind; I was inside of the Time Liege, and I could just barely control her.

I glared at the strange, weak girl, crumpled on the cobblestones, feeling the leather grips of my gems, fighting the urge to murder her.

I stared at myself, at how weak I looked in clothing sewn from burlap.

Looking at the people collapsed around me, from honored knights to merchants to peasants, I raised my head in pride yet drew my collar up to cover my neck.

Innocents, dead because of such a thing as a time thief. A time killer.

A time waster.

I stabbed the Time Liege's kama into my chest, a scream piercing the air and wrenching the hearts of those in mourning. Towns beyond heard the cry and dismissed it as an alarm for rejection, for minds of philosophers and town criers.

That day, a family was ripped apart by the daughter.

That day, two souls were sacrificed.

One for hate . . . and one for love.

About DreamyTheCat

Dreamy is a writer of young adult fiction, an occasional designer, and a professional cat lover. She spends her days wondering if the supernatural will ever make her life interesting.