NightKind

NightKind

Holly Tuesday Baxter

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 Holly Tuesday Baxter

For Molly Ann

Table of Contents

Chapter One - Ella

Chapter Two - Pretending

Chapter Three - Mother

Chapter Four - The Rose Garden

Chapter Five - Betrayal

Chapter Six - Escape

Chapter Seven - Fionnuala’s Story

Chapter Eight - Truth

Chapter Nine - Morning

Chapter Ten - Father

Chapter Eleven - Oisin

Chapter Twelve - Court

Chapter Thirteen - Oisin’s Story

Chapter Fourteen - Clan Council

Chapter Fifteen - Others

Chapter Sixteen - Trial

Chapter Seventeen - The Circle

Chapter Eighteen - Dimmer

Chapter Nineteen - The Key

Chapter Twenty - Sacrifice

Chapter Twenty One - Stony Point

Book Club Reader’s Guide

About Holly Tuesday Baxter

Connect to the Author

CHAPTER ONE - ELLA

Night had fallen and the noises had begun – the scrabbling, scraping, dragging noises, moving from the floorboards up the walls and onto the roof. The occasional bump or jarring wail would send a shock from the base of Ella’s skull to her pelvis, where it would sit for the next hour while she listened – willing all of her power to concentrate her auditory synapses, so even the minutest detail of the night outside the window wouldn’t escape her.

She was safe; she knew this as well as she knew that her feet would stay firmly planted on the earth. The house was bolted and secure. The shutters were tight over the windows, the metal ribs of each mechanical shield heavy and impenetrable. It was as it had been every night for her entire life. She was locked in, securely, out of the darkness and completely out of harm’s way. Whatever chaos ensued outside, whatever mayhem the NightKind reveled in, none of it would affect her.

In the face of this numbing imprisonment, all she had to cling onto was a thin shard of longing that she had buried deep inside. It was in the middle of the night, while the rest of the world cowered behind concrete walls and armored windows, that she would find that shard and run her fingers over it, testing its sharpness and half hoping that it would cut her.

She refused to turn on the noise machine her parents had presented her with. All the bells and whistles. You can’t help but get a good night’s sleep with this beauty, Father boasted as she peeled back the colored wrapping. The machine was designed to increase its volume in response to the world outside, masking any noises that might wake the sleeper. A long black wire hung from it ending in a leather bracelet studded with metal rivets. See Ella, you attach it to your wrist and it reacts to your heart rate, Mother said as she manacled the machine to Ella. Despite hurting Mother’s feelings she couldn’t bring herself to wind it up at night, to lay in ignorance as the white noise it produced lulled her into sleep. Instead she lay stone still, hardly even daring to breathe, as the howls and screeches outside reverberated through the walls and into her body with alternating chills and warmth. It allowed her to participate, however vicariously, in whatever mysterious events were transpiring just inches away on the other side of the concrete wall, out there in the moonlight.

She remembered a time when the night sounds and the beasts that made them terrified her – as they do all young children. She was still in the lower school, so she was eight, perhaps nine years old, the age when children made sport of horrifying each other with stories of the monsters prowling through the darkness. Her head had been filled with images of hideous creatures, fangs bared and talons sharp, lurching on all fours or spider-walking down her street. She crept into her parents’ bed at night, wriggling between them until the warmth of their bodies made her sleepy and forgetful. Her brothers teased her, with subtle encouragement from Mother and Father. Hayden, three years older than her, would tell stories of children carried off at dusk and Marcus, younger than Ella by four years, followed his older brother’s lead, drooling and dragging his foot, his hand wrenched up into claws, his eyes wild and rolling. Considering that he still hadn’t outgrown his baby fat, the effect was doubly disturbing. Ella cried for them to stop, but Father merely raised an eyebrow over his newspaper and Mother would become very busy with her own reading, leaving Ella in wonderment. They were strict on their children in everything but this. But now she realized it was something all the adults did, parents and teachers alike. They ignored the games of horror and death that prevailed on the schoolyards and playgrounds, but were quick to respond to issues of proper decorum in all other realms. It was inbred through the society and propagated a fear of the night so deep that it became a part of you, like a birthmark or a crooked nose.

But despite this conditioning, Ella knew there was something more than just monsters and fiends in the shadows. It wasn’t possible that there was only horror out there under something as majestic as the moon – there must be beauty as well. And now, as she lay in her bed listening to the chorus of voices outside, she felt that a part of herself was out there with them, howling from the rooftops and leaping down the hillsides. She could almost feel the cool brilliance of the stars on her skin, her vision in shades of grey as she imagined the hills surrounding their home, the quiet streets of the valley, the orchards and far mountains.

She knew her mother worried about her and spent endless evenings discussing it with Father. She could hear their voices drifting up the stairs while she did her homework. While Ella was memorizing the names of the pre-Quake states, Mother fretted, You should’ve seen the look in her eyes. As Ella reviewed the mandates of Neo-Agrarianism, I tell you it’s as if she didn’t even hear me, but I was right in front of her. Interrupting her as she computed crop yield rates per acreage came mother’s voice, Sometimes I think she’s just not right. And in each case, Father’s voice shadowed behind with soothing reassurances, She’ll grow out of it, Ania, just give her time.

So Ella learned to be guarded around her parents. She kept her thoughts to herself and remembered to participate in the banality of conversation around the dinner table, in the cocoon of their home where only the most raucous sounds of life from outside could penetrate the Mozart concertos that Father was listening to or the old standards that Mother liked. Her family was all she had, at least for now, and she feared losing them. She could be patient. If they felt her behavior was just a young girl’s rebellious nature, the test of time would bear them out.

Then, on her thirteenth birthday, she received a gift greater than anything Father could’ve put in a box. It was almost midsummer and time stood still in the way it only can when the sun bears down and the air is thick with heat. Father had a day off, rare for him as he managed their many land holdings. Mother had packed a lunch and charged the solar car for two days to make the distance to the old dam for a birthday picnic. While Mother fussed over the food, she and her brothers scrambled up the steep incline of the dam and, once at the top, they could see the whole valley. Laid out before them were the flat orchards that filled the spaces between what was left of the old suburban neighborhoods. Resting above it all were the hillsides on the south end where her family and the other landholders lived. To the north were the craggy rocks of old Chatsworth, the only bit of unfarmed land in the whole of Angel City. The world, as she knew it, was nestled in this small pocket of yellow mountains.

Under their feet the old dam was in pieces and the river, released to its natural path, poured through the chinks with intense power. The strength of the water fascinated her, thoughtful and meandering on one side then spewing forth and cutting sharp chasms in the clay on the other. The dam was wide enough at the top so that she had to run back and forth from side to side, peering down at the water. She spotted sticks and leaves floating downstream and rushed over to watch them spit out of the old cement, leaping and jumping in the foam. She ran back and forth, mesmerized by the transformation happening below her, until Mother called them for lunch.

The sun was suspended in the sky as she and her brothers explored that day. It was one of the few times that they seemed of like minds, sharing in the feeling of freedom and expansiveness that came with losing themselves in the tall grass. They called out to each other in full voice, without fear that they would disturb the neighbors or their parents’ sensibilities. The day was long and luxurious and felt as if it would never end.

Ella had been hiding from the boys behind an ancient oak tree and watching the movement of shadows creeping along the packed earth. She was beginning to wonder if they had forgotten to look for her when she heard Father calling, a note of urgency disturbing his usually calm tones. She hurried out of hiding and ran to where she had last seen her parents, both asleep on a blanket under the blue sky. Now the sun was just an inch or two above the horizon and Mother was throwing their picnic into the basket with uncharacteristic recklessness. She was frantic, commanding them to get in the car. Her parents must have fallen asleep and lost track of time and now nightfall was near, very near. They tumbled into the car and Father sped off for home, she and her brothers bracing themselves in the back seat as they flew over ruts in the old road, Mother murmuring nervously and glancing ahead of them at the quickly reddening sky.

They didn’t make it home that night. The western mountains had reached up and pulled the sun down at an unrelenting pace. Father succumbed to defeat and pulled into what appeared to be a large cornfield. Ella stared out the window at a sea of green as the car trundled down a pitted road between the rows. Sooner than she liked they emerged from the cool darkness and arrived at the foot of a modest, but tidy, clapboard house. Mother gathered their things and hurried them through the gate and onto the porch where Father was already pounding on the front door. His booming voice called out, Open up! Now! A voice matched him from the other side and Ella imagined a large farmer standing in defiance to Father, with only the thin whitewashed door between them, Who says it, was the answering challenge. Father laid his fist on the door again, rattling the frame, Landholder Fine. Open the door, Man! The door immediately swung open and the farmer stood obediently to the side as they piled in.

True to Ella’s imaginings, he was a large man, but stood with his head bowed, awkwardly subservient in his own home. Within moments of shutting the door behind them, he disappeared. His wife took over hosting duties and exhibited none of her husband’s submissiveness, but rather a quiet elegance and pride that was lovely to watch. She had glossy dark hair that she wore loose down her back. Her face was brown from the sun and anchored by a strong, straight nose centered between high cheekbones. A wide-eyed, slightly-built girl clung to her full skirts, peering out at the strangers in her home. Ella and her brothers were shown into the girl’s room, Ella to sleep on the narrow bed, the boys with blankets for the floor.

Ella stood in the middle of the room and watched through the window as the last sliver of the crimson sun sank behind the mountain. From the room next door Father shouted, Good God, Man, get the shutters down! Boys, give him a hand! The boys banged out the door and Ella’s breath caught in her chest as the metal ribs of the window shutters lurched down, each one stealing another piece of the sunset from her. The farmer’s wife startled her, appearing soundlessly at the night table with a small lamp. Beautiful isn’t, it? the woman asked, her vowels strange and resonant. Ella nodded briskly, annoyed by the interruption, and then realized her impertinence and corrected herself, Yes, ma’am. The woman chuckled softly before saying, Dinner is being set. There’s water in the basin to freshen yourself, her words rolled out like the sound of thunder in the distance, thick and soft, with an accent to them that sparked yearning in Ella’s heart. It took her a moment to remember herself and answer, Yes, ma’am as the woman left the room.

The shutters of the little house clunked solidly into place as the farmer, somewhere outside, continued to crank the mechanism that rolled them down. Mother’s voice came through the thin wall from the bedroom next door, reliving the wild ride and laughing at herself now that the panic had faded. At first Ella thought Mother’s ringing laugh had muffled the soft thud of the shutter for the bedroom window, had somehow changed it into what was an entirely different sound, a subtle rattle. Not alarming, just different. She glanced at the door, checking that it was shut, before stepping towards the window. At the bottom of the frame, where the shutter should have been, there remained a small triangle of ochre light. The shutter had been damaged and was not entirely closed. Ella leaned in for a closer look and her heart fell for a beat as the light was extinguished by the farmer walking past on his way to the front door. But after he moved past she knew she was right, she hadn’t imagined it. There it was – a small portal into the night. Ella could already see the sky changing color, from deep red to a fiery orange, through her tiny window. She sat down in the desk chair at the window, staring into her discovery, so close that she was almost touching the glass. Was there something moving out there? Ella held her breath, trying to focus past the glare reflected back from the lamp behind her. Her mind was racing with images of what might be just a few feet from her when a knock at the door shattered her focus. Ella stood quickly and spun towards the door, her jaw clenching in frustration.

Come in, she called, her voice more biting than she wanted it to be.

It was the girl, her powder blue eyes wide and innocent, first looking at Ella and then at the bent shutter. Her finger rose quickly to her lips, her brow furrowed and her face pleaded with Ella. Ella could see the desperation in the girl and her heart went out to her. She nodded, using every means other than her voice to reassure the girl that the secret was safe. Understanding was acknowledged with a brief smile between them. Dinner is ready, the girl announced, loud enough to benefit any listening ears, and stepped away from the door.

Ella and her family dominated the farmer’s table, Father sitting at the head as the woman dished out a rich vegetable stew and brown bread. Mother, sitting head at the women’s end, had put out delicacies salvaged from the picnic basket, petit fours and candied ginger, but their hosts only seemed baffled by them. Despite its rich, earthy flavor, the food stuck in Ella’s throat, she couldn’t get the image of that small triangle of sunset out of her eyes and what might be out there in the falling sunlight. She snuck a glance at the girl, wondering if she’d ever seen anything. But the girl was either painfully shy or ridiculously polite, staring down at her hands or at the food throughout the meal. Father’s voice grated on Ella as he spoke brusquely to the man about the farm, crop yields and weather patterns and Mother’s attempts to engage the woman in conversation quickly uncovered that they had absolutely nothing in common. The meal stretched out dreadfully, as Father continued his monologue, punctuated only rarely by the farmer’s short affirmations. Eventually, the dinner was finished and the woman and her daughter collected the plates and retreated into the kitchen.

In bed, Ella could hear Mother and Father through the thin wall. I don’t know if I’ll ever relax, knowing we’re in a wooden house, Mother complained. Ella cringed, hoping that in the living room, where the farmer and his family slept, they couldn’t hear her parents’ criticisms. Mother continued, And no noise machines, how do you think they sleep at all?

Come to bed, Ania, Father replied, It’s quiet out there anyway.

I’ll just check on the children first, and Ella turned in the bed, facing the wall and pretending to be asleep as she heard mother’s soft step come down the hall and into the room, clucking her tongue at the mess the boys had made of their covers. She hummed as she straightened their blankets, a song Ella recognized, Blackbird. The words murmured softly in her head as Mother supplied the melody, Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly. Mother was at Ella’s bedside now, pulling up the covers and smoothing them gently, All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arrive. The lyrics spoke to Ella, bringing up a lump in her throat. If Mother only knew how perfect those words were. Ella fought hard not to swallow, praying that Mother would pass her by, sure that she would be able to tell that her daughter was not only awake, but buzzing with energy. But she leaned down and kissed Ella’s forehead, whispering, Happy Birthday darling, and noticed nothing before leaving the room.

Laying there in the dark, Ella waited. Her brothers beside her breathed slow and deep. Marcus mumbled something unintelligible while Hayden lay still as death. She’d never slept in the same room as them and she was struck by how they retained their personalities, even in sleep; Marcus restless, wheels forever turning but in a sad, slightly fearful way; Hayden shepherding his younger brother through life, setting a strong example of stiff masculinity, unwavering and steadfast. Ella felt so out of place with them. Not just because she was the only girl, but because they seemed to share a vision of the world. They walked hand in hand without questioning where they were going, Hayden with eyes fierce and jaw jutted out, Marcus mimicking his older brother’s stance but with momentary glances at himself, at Hayden, at others – to measure the success in his impersonation. Ella, on the other hand, felt adrift in the world. She blithely followed the rules and standards set down by her parents, but more out of love for them than any commitment to their righteousness. She found it hard to reel her thoughts back in and without the bell of an alarm clock or the whistle of the tea kettle, she might float for hours in an in-between place of faraway visions and half-remembered dreams.

Her father said she favored her mother but Ella didn’t see it. Ella felt like she floated through the world, her hair wispy and straight, a dusky color that set off the amber cast of her eyes. Although Ella was tall for her age, she never drew attention and people were often surprised to see her step out of the shadows. On the other hand, Mother was pale, blonde, and stout, always bustling through a room, taking up all the space that was there. Mother’s hands were always moving, sliding a vase over just a bit on the coffee table as she walked by, straightening the drapes even when they visited other people’s houses. Ella could sit for hours without moving, feel every bit of skin on her body as her senses became ultra alert, attuned to every breath of air, every whisper of sound. This ability was even more adept after the sun had set and even now, Ella was easily moving into this alertness. Her family would be asleep soon and there was a rent in the shutter. She might never get another chance.

It was an eternity before she heard the steady rhythm of Father’s soft snoring and Mother’s light breath chasing behind through the thin wall. She began moving meticulously, lifting the rough blanket off her body and carefully replacing it to her side, drawing her knees close and sitting up, all the while listening for any movements from her brothers. Father was right, it was strangely quiet. Ella had always assumed that the further away from the center of the valley, the wilder the countryside and the more raucous the night. It seemed that it was not so. Ella tested each floorboard before putting her full weight on it. She stepped cautiously around her brothers and made her way to the window. Bending over, she searched the glass for what she hoped was still there, a faint change in the darkness, an oblong triangle of deep indigo, surrounded by the black of the metal shutters.

She could see the opening, but not well enough to make out anything, the angle was all wrong. She had to risk sitting at the desk in front of it. She slowly, painstakingly, lowered herself into the chair, freezing at every creak from its warped legs. Finally it held all her weight.

Peering forward, she focused her attention on the small slice of nighttime in the window. There was no perspective to what she was seeing; the small aperture was featureless. She willed the moon to show its face or the stars to illuminate the corn fields, anything that she could focus her eyes on to get her bearings. Her head began to ache with the strain of staring into the blackness. Still she sat, petrified with longing, unable to believe that this opportunity would be presented to her if nothing was to happen. She could hear the thump of her own heartbeat and feel her legs begin to tingle as they fell asleep.

Then, something changed. The triangle, previously dark blue, was now black. She couldn’t make out the corners of it any longer. Something was eclipsing the minute amount of light that had been coming through. And almost as soon as she noticed it, it was gone. She resisted the urge to shout, Did you see that? She willed herself to stay very, very still. She must not wake her brothers, or this single chance at knowledge would be gone.

She sat transfixed, knowing something or someone was out there, and at once delighted and terrified at the prospect of seeing what it was.

Again, the light changed and, as she watched, a small edge of the triangle began to reappear. Whatever it was moved very slowly. As she watched this small rift widen, a glow came through it. A pale bluish light, simultaneously luminous and grainy, in a pattern of parallel lines. She mouthed two words, The moon. And with this backlighting, her vision became clear.

She was looking through what appeared to be very thin, perfectly shaped, feathers. Each spanned the entire length of the opening, but they were widely spaced so she could see the rising moon behind and between them. Ah, the moon. She had dreamed of seeing it in its full nighttime splendor, without the harsh glare of the sun which diminished it to nothing but a pale disc in the sky. She had spent many nights wondering if there really was a man’s face to be seen in its shadowy visage. She was caught briefly in this moment of glory, peering past the foreground of oddity into the majesty and coolness of that glowing orb. A small twitch of the feathers drew her focus back in, to the perfection within an inch of her nose. This was the more important view to witness, for the moon rose every night and her picture books had at least shown her what it consisted of. But this, this being who was attached to these delicate plumes, was nothing she might ever see again.

Against the window were three feathers and she reached out her hand to stroke the glass against which they lay. Their shafts were luminescent, a silver grey which bled out towards the individual barbs and became a brilliant violet. From there, the violet moved into fiery red, and the tip of each delicate fiber culminated in glowing yellow. She was mesmerized by the intensity of color, even under the moonlight. As she watched, the feathers began to move again, and, as they did, the colors shimmered and caught the light as if each was encrusted with miniscule diamonds. What a beast this must be, she thought, to have such brilliance, such aplomb, in the middle of the night.

She was holding her breath, she realized, her chest burning under the strain. As she released her lungs in a gush, the feathers twitched again, this time more of a shudder, as if shaking off water, and then they were gone. She blinked and tilted her head. They had simply vanished. There was no movement involved in them leaving. They were there one moment and then, instantaneously, not.

A floorboard creaked behind her and Ella spun her head around, her wonder quickly replaced by dread. Her mind began to formulate words to explain what she was doing and a plan to protect the lifeline into the darkness that she had found. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust in the darkness and she held her breath, waiting for the accusation to come. But in the gloom, it was the girl that materialized, her face ghostly and pale. Within a moment she was gone, slipping silently out the door. Ella closed her eyes, praying that the girl made it back to her blankets without waking any of the adults. Her body tightened, waiting for the alarm to be raised, but all the while focusing her mind and committing to memory every miniscule fiber of what she had seen - from the haunting grey of the shaft to the warmth of the feather’s yellow tips. How tiny they were, yet long and somehow ancient seeming. She put her thoughts completely on this memory, imprinting it as deeply as she could before she might let even the smallest bit of it drift away. Then she, ever so slowly, placed her hands flat on the table in front of her and placed her chin in the cup between her thumbs. She