The Fairmaid's Cry

Chapter Two: What have we done

When we returned from the Blacka, keeping the fish I had caught was the last thing on my mind. Max didn't want them either, so we gave them to Old Skeets, who was watering his plants when we passed at his home. Old Skeets grinned and said, "These are gonna taste great with bread when the Mistress fry dem dry."
I washed off my skin with soap and Dettol at the pipe in Max's yard before going at my house which was a few yards away.
Mom was listening to the radio again. Dad was out. I didn't feel very hungry, so I went to bed early.
I layed there, tossing in bed, unable to sleep, thinking about what we had seen today. It grew dark, a full moon came out- and suddenly I was at the Blacka, at the same spot where Maxie and I had stared into the eyes of that huge fish. I was terrified, because I sensed that something was about to happen, not the kind of stuff you dream about and forget the next morning but the type of stuff that scares you.
I became aware of an overwhelming, fishy rankness that was yet somehow pleasant filling the atmosphere with its smell. But I was not alone. A naked girl with waist-long, water-drenched black hair sat on a tree that had fallen into the water. She was weeping.
A man sat next to her stroking her hair; comforting her in a strange language that I somehow understood. He was shirtless and wiry, with long greying hair tied in a knot at the back. On his wrists were two silver bracelets that were in the shapes of snakes, both basking in the inky aqueous moonlight.
And then I saw something else that raised the hairs on my arms and neck; Below their waists, where their legs should have been, were fish tails. Hers was pink and white; while his was black as a tilapia's.
I was still gasping when she saw me. She looked at me through her tangled hair, focusing intently on my every move. I thought she was the prettiest girl I had ever seen. I became lost looking into this fish-girl's strange, greenish eyes, before I realized that the man too, was looking at me.
Unlike the girl's however, his eyes were a muddy yellow and they glinted in the dark. He then gently shifted the hair away from the girl's face, and I no longer thought her pretty. A long, deep, ugly, ragged cut ran from her left ear to the bottom of her chin. It was beginning to heal, but the tightening skin had pulled the left side of her mouth upwards into a demented grin that reminded me of 'The Joker' from the Batman comic books. She probably saw my revulsion, because her green eyes narrowed and her hands went up to hide the scar.
She snarled something at the man, throwing up her hands with offensive gestures. I recoiled as they suddenly plunged off the fallen tree and began to slither like eels up the side of the dam towards me. I stood there, unable to run, unable to scream, unable to protect myself from what might have happened next...
I awoke trembling, and kept the light on for the rest of the night; but when the morning came, the dream was still on my mind.
After I got up, I started on some of my chores. I was sweeping the front yard when I saw Maxie at the front gate. At first I thought that maybe he wanted us to go fishing again, but the moment I looked at him I knew that something was wrong. Tears streamed down his face, and immediately I thought of his mother, who I knew was ill.
"What's wrong Maxie?"
He wiped at his tears like a confused child then said. "Come and see what someone did to my chickens."
The first thing that I noticed when we got to Maxie's home was that Lassie, an old dog with a bit of German Shepherd blood; the same dog that had always growled at me, was cowering in a corner.
Maxie, still sobbing, pointed to the pen, in which he was rearing about twenty chicks.
"You see what they did?"
Something or someone had entered the yard last night-walked past big, bad-tempered Lassie-and wrenched off the door of the chicken pen.
Maxie's tiny yellow chickens lay scattered on the ground.
Someone had wrung their heads off.
A chill ran through me. "Who did this, Max?"
"I don't know..."
I helped Max get rid of the dead chicks. He had stopped crying, but he wasn't speaking much. I asked him again who he thought had killed the chicks but the only reply I got was the look of fear flashing across his face. But he said nothing.
That was the day Maxie began to change.
We had tons of plans for the holidays-we'd fish, play road cricket against the guys from Festival City, and let Ralphie sneak us into the cinema to see a Bruce Lee double, when he came back from training at Tacama. But it seemed that Max's heart wasn't in any of those things. I knew that he was troubled about something.
Things weren't too bright with me, either. I had dreamed a few more times about the fish-girl and the man; and in those dreams it was always moonlight and they were chasing me down the dam by the Blacka.
About a week after Max's chickens had died, he came back by my house calling for me. He had always been skinny, but it seemed to me that he had gotten even thinner. I saw something else. He looked terrified. "Could you come by me now?" he said.
We went back to his house and sat silently on his front steps for a few minutes. I could hear his mother coughing inside.
"You remember that fish that I caught?" he blurted out.
I felt goose-bumps break out on my arms. I nodded, dreading for what was coming next.
He sighed. "I think I'm going crazy."
"What do you mean, Max?"
He sighed again, "Since that day at the Blacka...I've been dreaming about a fish-girl with a cut across her face and-and a man with deep yellow eyes..."
I took a deep breath then said, "Max ... you're not crazy. I've been having the same dream."
He stared at me. "At the Blacka? where we catch fish?"
"Yes. I've been having these dreams of where they chase me."
Me too," he said. "But my dreams are real."
Without waiting for me to answer, Maxie stripped off his jersey and threw it to the floor. I stared at the fresh scratches on his back and arms.
"I don't have anyone to tell this to," he said. "Dad is out of town, Ralphie is still at Tacama...mom's sick-" he brushed at a tear as he muttered, "This happened last night."
"How?" I found myself blurting out, though part of me really didn't want to know.
"I dreamed I was walking to the Blacka. I didn't want to go, but it was like something was pulling me. ...The two of them stood in the water. They were telling me to come in, but I knew that if I went near them they would've killed me. ... While I was standing on the dam, they started to come out of the water-but just before they reached me, I woke up..." He looked at me with terrified eyes. "I woke up near the Blacka."
"What?"
He nodded. "The place was very dark, but I knew I was standing at the same spot where we catch that fish-that thing. I was barefoot and in my shorts alone...I could hear something splashing around in the water, but I couldn't see anything. ... But I was sure I heared someone laughing..."
Maxie's voice was trembling now: "I ran. I ran all the way home. I was so frightened that I ran into the wrong direction. Fell down twice. Scratched up my skin." He was crying.
I stared at his scratched-up chest. "Who do you think these people are, Max?"
He stared at me with reddened eyes. "You mean you don't know?-I caught a fairmaid, and now she wants to kill us!"
(To be continued)