Children of the May (Children of the May Book 1)

Chapter Twenty-Eight: A Baptism

I reached the air, and saw the thin crescent moon overhead. With Avalon’s help, I remembered that it had been a thin crescent moon every single night since the shipwreck. Every night the skin of the day had been pulled back over itself, so that each day appeared exactly as the last. It had not been an extraordinarily long summer – we had been seeing and feeling the same summer day over and over again, while time progressed without us noticing. The glimpse of winter I had seen in the castle garden was how things really were. It wasn’t Avalon who was doing this; it was Lady Bertilak, together with something or someone else that Avalon could not remember, because it had made itself known after the first day: the thing that had appeared as the second Melwas and Margaret and then Merlin.

I stumbled out of the water and found my clothes. I dried myself with my cloak. The smell of stinkweed drifted across the pool, mingling with the spray of the waterfall. There was a pack of dogs barking in the distance. I knew it was not a pack of dogs. My hands began to drip.

I threw on my clothes, picked up my boots, and crept towards the steep bank by the side of the falls.

Something crunched in the trees. It sounded like toppling timber. My wet hands formed fists – I had no other weapons with which to defend myself. The crunching steps went slowly, prowling around me, the dogs in the beast’s belly following along. The Questing Beast was watching me, waiting for its moment to pounce.

It was almost too dark to see the narrow path. I felt my way along with my bare feet. The darkness around me was impenetrable; I couldn’t see where the beast was, but I could hear it tracking me. I walked more quickly, stones digging painfully into the bare souls of my feet. The beast matched my pace. 

The riverbank curved up the rise towards Hilda’s stairs, and I began to think that I might make it there before the beast made its move.

Then the beast stopped.

The river rushed by to my right. I could hear my own breathing. There was no sound from the beast. I stopped, sure it was about to attack, but not knowing whether it would come from in front or behind me.

It felt as if the water at the bottom of the pool was seeping from my fingers.

The beast hissed with its cat’s voice. It started quietly and grew louder. The dogs in its belly joined the moan, one after the other, adding squealing whines to the hungry hiss. The many voices of the Questing Beast grew louder and louder, until what started as a hiss became a stark howl of bloodlust.

Then I saw it. Its eyes glowed yellow. It was staring at me from the trees. The moonlight glanced off the edges of its bared teeth.

The cry stopped. The Questing Beast inhaled. And then it leapt at me.

I had no time to run. Before I could react I was on my back, one huge paw crushing my chest. I smelled the rot on the beast’s breath as its jaws snapped at me. I held out my hands to protect myself, knowing it was a futile gesture.

I didn’t feel the Questing Beast’s teeth enter my body. There was a shivering wave of cold, and I assumed I was done for. I was grateful there wasn’t more pain. It was a sweeter release from an aching life than I could have hoped for. I waited for the next world to take me, or a final sleep.

The beast whined breathlessly. It was looking down at me with confused yellow eyes. Its jaws were wide open, the muscles in its cheeks straining against some blockage in its jaw. The beast lifted its foot from my chest. I rolled out of the way just before it brought its weight back down hard, trying to crush what it couldn’t tear.

I pushed myself to my feet and ran barefoot down the path, leaving my boots where I had dropped them. The beast did not give chase. I heard it further and further behind me, stamping and shaking, trying to break its jaw free from whatever was holding it open. I had no desire to wait and find out what that thing was.