A Forest On Fire

Broken Glass Within A Sea of Black

 Ballast returned before they came to their destination, so they had to stop the carriage mid-way to let the fowl in. The one who had received the message was not the one to respond. It was Ruth, Elliot's sister. She hastily pronounced Merlin's and her and her children's own wellbeing before moving on to her point. Ruth informed the Governor that she was going to ask if Maribelle would keep her and her children for the time being, as, she added, "the butler" seemed to be unwelcoming toward the young ones, and she felt that they would be better off with Maribelle's own, anyway. She did not explain why she did not just return home, which Elliot still yearned to know, but, instead, gave her goodbyes, and there the message ended.

"Maribelle? Well, why on earth is she going to Maribelle?" Abraham wondered aloud; for, you see, Maribelle is Abraham's wife of a grand twenty-six years, and they love each other dearly. 

"God knows," Elliot was the one to respond. "She's been avoiding going back home, but God only knows why." 

"You don't think it has anything to do with her husband, do you, Governor?" Lydia was the speaker this time. 

Elliot knew Lydia was right, as she remembered Ruth needing to speak to her about Harry, but she simply added in an undertone, "Can't believe she's leaving our mother alone with him."        

The conversation ended in the type of silence that everyone wants to break but no-one knows how to, so they all stewed in that silence and left each other to their isolated thoughts, unique to one another. Lydia's thoughts were a special case. However, they shall never be known to anyone else but the conjurer, such is the nature of our thoughts, but we can say that they were not of anyone in the carriage, nor were they good. The only person's thoughts we can be sure of, as the one telling the tale, were Elliot's, and they were buzzing rapidly within the confines of the dark dome which is the skull, producing nothing and helping no-one.

The carriage quite literally lurched to a stop and quite literally shook everyone out of their thoughts, and the loud thump and scream were more than enough to extract the group from the wobbling carriage to see what had happened. But, when they got out, there was nothing. It was just them, the crawling fog, and the horses, stamping and pawing at the ground with their copper-stained steel hooves. Elliot stepped closer to the beasts and recoiled in disgust.

"Blackwater, is that-?"

"By God-" Abraham started.

"It is," Lydia answered. 

Loretta yelped and jumped back. 

On the frosted, hard dirt path, lying by one of the machine's long, silver legs, which was stained with the excretion, was an elk. Its body was intact, except for the lower portion, which had been severed and was nowhere nearby. It only retained its chest, one leg, its glorious head that was prideful even in death, and the entrails which were visible but had stayed dutifully attached. But who had screamed? There was no-one nearby; the path was deserted of all but them and this unfortunate, mutilated creature. And then, what had done the elk this terrible deed? Although the sun was rising, the sky was dark, and the snow began to fall again. 

The hooting of an owl echoed through their ears, and the cold air seemed to be reinforced so that it constricted around their bodies like an anaconda around a tapir and tightened around their throats like a noose around a thief's. A smell hit their nostrils, but, whether it was from the elk's corpse or from something else, none of them could agree anytime afterwards. 

Lydia offered to take the chore of moving the beast. No-one questioned whether she could do it by herself, and the remaining three clambered back inside the carriage, which, previously warmer, seemed barely more welcoming than the frost outside, and a moment or so later, Lydia joined them. She tapped on the wall of the structure, and it shuddered into movement.