Ander - Part 3: Subchapter 8
8
"No, wait, that's all wrong!" Ander said, his fingers rising to his temples almost automatically. He shook his head from left to right, as if maybe this could make the pieces fit together, because they sure as hell didn't fit right the way Father was telling it. "Mother couldn't have been pregnant back then! Hezzi wouldn't be born for another... seven or eight years! At least!"
Father didn't say anything. He just looked straight ahead at his confused son, trying to figure out how he came into this world on the very same night he might be taken out of it.
"Does this mean that Shekka really is my birthmother? Did Sarah lie to me?"
Father slowly shook his head. "She did not lie to you, Ander."
"But then... who?" It was as the light from the bonfire flared up outside, fuelled by a strong gust of wind, that Ander saw the glimmer in his father's eyes and realized that, for the first time, he was seeing his father crying. Actually crying. The mighty Chieftain of the Wolves, shedding real tears.
"You know the sound the rain makes when it strikes our tents?" he said, his voice hesitant and cracked. "I used to love that sound, because Shekka loved it. Sitting inside, warm and content, surrounded by that noise on all sides... When it's slow, you can make out each drop as it strikes. When it's fast, it's like all the sounds melt together as one."
Ander nodded, too stunned to say anything. He's never seen his father like this, not once.
"It was a night just like that, when you came to me. To us. The moon and the stars blotted out by the darkest of clouds. It was cold, so...
*
cold...
"Kadai? Where are you!?" Shekka screamed, her face contorted with pain, reaching blindly.
Kadai grabbed her hand and pressed it to his lips, saying, "I'm right here, Shekka. I'm right here."
"Oh, Kadai, it hurts! I think there's something -"
"No! Nothing's wrong! Don't you dare say it! All right? Everything will be fine. I promise. You just need to stay strong. For me, for you, for our baby. For all three of us."
Shekka nodded, her pregnant belly rising and falling with each heavy breath.
Kadai took his free hand, the one not holding his mate's, and bit into it, slowly increasing the pressure until he could feel his teeth cut through the skin and the bitter taste of his own blood oozed out over his tongue.
Of course there was something wrong. He knew it, Shekka knew it, probably the whole tribe knew it.
He slowly opened his mouth, careful not to let Shekka hear that he had bitten himself again, and looked out of the small tear in their tent. Normally that tiny hole would be filled with dozens of pure white, sparkling stars, but now there was only a pitch black nothingness.
Shekka was supposed to give birth weeks ago, but nothing happened. Now, almost a whole month later, the pains just came upon her without warning, and they were all alone in this tent with no one to help them, because Shekka was the only midwife the tribe had, and even if she wasn't...
None of the other Wolves would dare come close to the Empty One as she brought a child into this world.
She screamed, even worse than the time with Banno. Kadai could smell her sweat and blood in the air, mixing with the tallow scent of the candles all around them. Their flickering light turned her face into that of a sunken hag.
"It's coming, Kadai! I can feel it! I can... Aaaargh!"
"What can I do, Shekka!?" Kadai had to scream himself just to be heard above her wails. "Tell me what to do! Please!"
"You... You have to..."
Kadai couldn't stand to see her like this. Did he really think Banno's birth was bad? This was so much worse it seemed pointless to even compare the two, but compare them he did. There was blood the first time, too, and screaming, so much screaming, but Shekka never once looked like this, as if she was...
Dying...
Kadai pushed the thought away with disgust, as if thinking about it might somehow make it true.
She's not going to die. She's not going to die. She's not -
She screamed again, a high-pitched shriek that must have been heard throughout the entire village. As if summoned by her cries, the wind outside started to build into a gale. It rippled their tent and howled over the walls in imitation of his mate, and Kadai could imagine the children of the tribe huddled together in fear right now, brothers and sisters holding each other in the dark, praying that the Witch of the Cora wouldn't come for them this night.
"Shekka, please!"
"You just... you need to..." She struggled for every word, her entire body shaking.
Kadai leaned forward. "Yes?"
"You need to take it when it comes... You have to keep it... warm..."
"Keep it warm. All right, I can do that." On some level, Kadai knew Shekka's words were only for his own benefit, but he grasped them nonetheless. He didn't have to feel completely helpless now, because he had a job to do in this, and no matter how small and insignificant it might prove to be, he would do it right.
"Kadai?" She squeezed his hand. "If... if something happens to me..."
"Nothing will happen to you."
"But if it does... I want you to know that I... that I..."
Kadai hated this feeling. This bitter, burning feeling in his throat, rising up to his eyes, making them sting. It wasn't something a real Chieftain should be feeling, but he was powerless to stop it. The tears ran down his muzzle one by one, and even though Shekka's sight had only grown weaker over the past nine months, he was sure she could see them.
"You don't have to tell me that, Shekka," he said. "I already know." He leaned in close and kissed her on the forehead, her breath warm and rapid on his neck. "I love you, too..."
She suddenly squeezed down on his hand hard enough to grind the bones together, arced her back and screamed right in Kadai's face, her cries fusing together with the wind outside into something not of this world.
"Shekka!?"
Her blank eyes stared straight up, right through him, right through the top of the tent, perhaps right through the clouds and past the sky itself, to whatever may lay beyond. The scent of blood grew thicker, coating Kadai's nostrils in a sickly layer of his mate's pain until it felt like he was drowning in it.
"I have to let go for a while, but I'm still here, Shekka. I'm still here."
Her entire face was a wretched mask of pain, every muscle tense. The tendons in her neck stood out like cords, and she was still squeezing down on his hand so tightly that he literally had to pry her fingers apart to get loose.
He quickly scurried down to her legs on his knees, trailing one hand along her body so that she would know he was still with her, but what he saw...
There aren't many feelings that compare to the realization that your life could end within the next few minutes. Warriors feel it the moment before they enter battle. Hunters feel it when confronted by a bear. The old and sickly feel it when they lie upon their deathbeds. It's a heavy dread that falls inside of you like a stone, dragging you down until you can feel nothing but despair.
No, there aren't any feelings quite like it, but there is one feeling very similar, but a thousand times worse.
The realization that the lives of your loved ones could end within the next few minutes.
There was blood everywhere, slowly spreading across the ground in a thick, black pool.
Kadai watched, transfixed, as the outer edges seeped between the grains of sand, colouring them the deepest crimson before covering them completely, and at the source...
... the head of his still unborn child, slick with the blood of its mother.
It was the heat from her blood that snapped Kadai out of his stupor, clinging to his knee, hotter than coals.
"Shekka! I can see the head! Y-You're almost there! The worst is over now, so you just need to push a little m-"
Kadai's baby suddenly slipped out with no warning, no fanfare, no screams from Shekka, no nothing. It just... came out.
Kadai reached out and caught it almost on pure reflex, his forearms digging two bloody furrows in the ground as they slid across the slippery surface, making a sound like a dying fish trapped in a mud puddle. It all happened so suddenly his mind couldn't immediately grasp that it was really over. Completely frozen in that awkward kneeling position, his big hands shaking with the shock of it all, a single thought broke through: the one job Shekka had entrusted to him.
Warm! You have to keep it warm!
Kadai grabbed the first thing within arm's reach - a soft raccoon pelt - and gently wrapped his newborn baby girl in the snug folds of its striped fur, being very careful not to let it soak up too much blood from his arms, which were absolutely drenched with it.
He wiped away some of the blood from her face (so small!) and marvelled at the colour of her fur. It was the darkest grey of storm clouds, but also streaked with highlights of the lightest grey, like ash.
She was beautiful.
This was his daughter. His enka. But...
Why wasn't she moving? Or crying?
Kadai wiped away some more blood with trembling fingers. She was so small, so light, it felt like his clumsy hands would snap her in two if he wasn't careful.
"Shekka, it's a girl! We have a baby girl! But... I don't know what to do! She's not breathing! You have to -"
Shekka didn't answer.
"Shekka?"
She couldn't answer.
"Shekka!?"
She couldn't answer because she was -
"No! No, Shekka!" He scurried back to her side, scraping his knees raw, the silent bundle still in his arms. "You can't do this to me, Shekka! Not now! Not when I need you the most! Shekka? Shekka!!"
Her eyes were closed, her body limp. If she was still breathing, it was so shallow Kadai couldn't even see it.
"Wake up, Shekka! You have to help me!" He gingerly lifted her eyelids, first one, then the other, but they both fell shut the moment he released them. "Shekka!"
No reaction, not even when he lightly slapped the side of her face. Her head simply listed a little, then lay still again.
"Shekka, don't die! Please don't die! I'm sorry! I need you! We both need you! I'm sorry!"
Lightning flashed across the sky, imprinting the shadows of the walls across the surface of their tent like black teeth. And then...
Then came the tapping.
Slow at first, here and there, random strikes, never more than one at a time, but it soon grew into something more. The rain pelted their tent with increasing rapidity until the sound became a single, drawn out shush, as if the heavens themselves were urging the occupants to be quiet.
Rain leaked in through the small hole in the side of their tent and dripped down like a tear. The hole Shekka would use to feel the sunshine was crying...
Shhhhhh...
"No!" Kadai looked down at his baby girl, so quiet, so still...
That's because she's a stillborn...
"Noooo!!" He wouldn't believe that. Even if some dark part of him already knew it was the truth, he would not believe it. Shekka was fine. His enka was fine. Everyone was fine. They would all come out of this and everyone will be happy. Tomorrow, he and Shekka will go around the village and show off their beautiful baby girl to the whole tribe. The she-wolves will smile and call her the most precious little thing. Some will ask to hold her, and Shekka will be happy to oblige, because in this fantasy, she wasn't feared as the Witch of the Cora. She was just another she-wolf who had given birth to the most beautiful, most lively cub this tribe had ever seen. And he will stand off to the side, watching all this with pride in his heart while the other Wolves came to clap him on the back and congratulate him on a job well done, and he will say that it was Shekka that did all the work, he was just there to catch, and everyone will laugh.
That's how it's supposed to happen. It's supposed to be happy. Not this... Not like this!
"Please..." Kadai rubbed his first two fingers across his baby's chest, up and down. He knew this was something to do if a newborn wasn't breathing on its own, but he had no idea how hard he should press, or for how long, or... anything! "Dammit, Shekka! Please wake up!"
It's already too late.
"No!"
Your baby is dead.
"Nooo! She's not dead! She's not dead!!"
Look at her, Kadai. She was dead even before she left Shekka's womb. There's nothing you can do.
"No..." Kadai stopped what he was doing. The full force of what had happened to him and his family, to his little girl, finally started to dawn on him.
He was holding a corpse.
A sound escaped his throat, small and mewling, not befitting a Chieftain at all. Even though the tiny Wolf he held in his hands was covered with blood and devoid of life, she was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
"My little enka..." he said, trailing his finger across her nose, hoping to feel her breath, even if just a little. "It's me, your father. Please wake up."
Nothing.
"Please? Wake up for me?"
Nothing.
"My little enka?"
Nothing.
He gently kissed her on the forehead, just as he had done to her mother.
She was cold against his lips. So cold.
That's what did it. That's what made it final. His daughter was never going to wake up, because she was dead. She would never meet her mother or her father or her big brother, because she was dead. She would never learn to crawl or take her first steps, because she was dead. She would never feel love, nor give it, because she was dead.
She would never wake up.
She was dead.
Kadai cried. He cried like he had never cried before. His tears fell upon his dead child, carving clean lines through her bloodstained fur. From there, they fell onto Shekka, still lying perfectly still, unaware of what had happened.
If she was still alive.
"Shekka? Can you hear me?"
There was no sound. Only the rain and the wind.
"I... I think someone wants to say hello..." Not sure why he was doing it, but knowing that it was right, he carefully lay his enka upon Shekka's chest and folded her arms around their sleeping child.
Yes. That's a better way to think of it. She was just sleeping. They both were.
If only he could believe it.
Maybe this is your punishment. Maybe this is what you get for being unfaithful to your family.
"No..."
Maybe you deserve this. You betrayed them.
"No..."
You don't deserve a family, so your family was taken away. It's only fitting.
"No!"
It's because of you that your enka is dead.
"No! This isn't my fault!"
You might as well have snapped her neck yourself.
"No!!"
You murdered your own child.
"Nooo!!"
Murderer.
"Nooooooooo!!"
Kadai stood up, not knowing what he intended to do, only knowing that staying here would lead to insanity. He looked down at the tableau he had created; dead wife holding dead child. What seemed peaceful only a moment ago now felt perverse, an insult to life itself.
And that noise... that constant noise beating against their tent, dripping down the sides, always there...
He couldn't take it anymore. Kadai threw open the flap of their tent and ran into the storm, his head bent against the rushing wind and the driving rain, not caring where he was going, just as long as he could get away. The pathways were quickly turning into a sea of endless ripples, as if the ground was alive and shivering in the cold. He could see his feet slap against the mud in a disjointed rhythm, throwing up splashes of brown water each time, soaking his clothes and making them stick to his body. Tents flew by on either side in meaningless disarray, each one home to at least one Wolf waiting out the storm, sleeping peacefully, or perhaps staring wide-eyed into the shadows, wondering where all the screaming was coming from.
None of that mattered to Kadai. To him, there was only the wind pushing against his body, blowing icy sheets of rain in his face, making him feel numb. If he could push hard enough against this gale, maybe he could get away from the pain inside. Maybe he could just outrun it forever.
He wasn't looking where he was going, but he was bound to come up against one of the gates sooner or later. It loomed up out of the darkness like a gaping maw, the two watchtowers on either side rising up like fangs in the night. He fully expected the guard to call out to him, but the absolute sound of the storm remained untainted. The fool must have taken refuge somewhere, believing no one would be coming or going in a storm like this. Ordinarily such a slipshod watch would have enraged Kadai, but tonight he was grateful. He didn't want any Wolves to see him like this.
He crashed into the gates and pushed them open with one furious shove of his blood soaked arms, still red and dripping with Shekka's scent.
A bolt of lightning raced across the sky like a serpent, illuminating the woods for a brief moment, turning the gaps between the trees into swaths of black, swaying and bending in the wind.
Kadai raced forward, hoping that he would be able to fall into one of those shadows and just keep falling and falling until he could leave everything behind. He knew it was a cowardly way of thinking, but it was also comforting, in a way.
Trying not to think about what lay at his back, listening only to the thunder rumbling overhead, Kadai pushed on. He ran and ran, blindly ripping away the branches that slapped him in the face, ploughing through ferns and bushes without thought, trying to keep his mind completely empty.
Maybe, if he ran long and hard enough... fast and far enough... he could leave it all behind. Maybe he could outrun his own mind. Maybe he could -
A gnarled root caught him just above the ankle, its rough surface scraping off a clump of fur and skin, the pain intensified by the cold.
Kadai ploughed headfirst into the dirt, his fall barely broken by the thin layer of underbrush. If anything, it only served to poke his body with sharp sticks and prickly thorns, further adding insult to injury. For a while, Kadai wondered what would happen if he didn't get up again. What if he just lay there? He supposed he might freeze to death, eventually. The cold would slowly seep into his body, sapping him of energy until he couldn't even shake anymore. His body would go numb, his mind would drift away. Finally, he would fall asleep and he would never wake up again.
It sounded so easy. Just don't get up. Just lie there. Just wait patiently and he'd be able to see his wife and child again.
What's the matter with you? Have you forgotten about your other child? Have you forgotten about Banno?
Banno?
Pull yourself together! Get up! Get! Up!
Kadai already had enough shame in his heart without abandoning his only son to a life without parents, so he slowly started to get back up. It felt like every drop of rain striking his back was trying to push him back down, every trickle of water flowing down his face and into his mouth was trying to drown him, but he got back up.
He got back up, but he couldn't bring himself to turn around, because he couldn't go back. Not yet. How was he supposed to tell his son that his mother and baby sister were dead?
You don't know if Shekka is dead.
She sure looked dead, but what if she wasn't? Maybe that would be even worse! Banno was tough, frighteningly tough, but Shekka? What would she do if he had to tell her that their child was a stillborn? What would she do if she saw their little enka lying lifeless inside that coon pelt?
You mean the coon pelt you left on her chest, with her dead baby inside of it? That coon pelt?
Well what was he supposed to do, leave it on the cold, hard ground!? What was he supposed to do!? What -
" - was I supposed to do!?" Kadai screamed at the heavens. "What was I supposed to do!?"
He wasn't expecting an answer, but an answer is exactly what he got. Lightning flashed across the sky, dyeing the thunderclouds a glowing purple, illuminating the jagged outline of the Cora in the deepest blacks and the harshest whites, and right in front of him, all alone in the middle of a clearing, as if all the trees of the forest were too afraid to grow within its borders, stood the biggest beech tree Kadai had ever seen. The light lasted less than a second, but in that moment, the hulking shape looked just like...
"The Cora...?"
Not the mountain, but the god, manifested before him in branches and leaves, the shifting gaps at the top looking down on him like thousands of eyes, full of judgement.
Judgement? Who was this creature to judge him? What gave it the right? Was this the thing responsible for everything that had happened this night? Was this the deity Shekka regarded with such reverence?
Kadai made his way straight for the shadow of the towering tree, his hands balled into fists. Water streamed down his face and mingled with tears he wasn't even aware of, rendering them all but invisible.
He wanted some answers, dammit. And he would get them. He didn't care if he was talking to a god, or just a mindless tree.
Or even himself.
He wanted answers.
Nowadays doctors will induce labour after the 40th week of pregnancy, but in the days before modern medicine, it was quite possible for babies to be born a full month overdue. Cases like this are extremely dangerous both for the mother and the child, and the odds of a stillbirth increase drastically as every day goes by.
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