The Sword of Sighs (The Age of the Flame: Book One) (2 page)

Trianna and Geneva wore matching smiles on their immaculate faces as they looked to each other and then to their followers, nodding, not making eye contact with Sarah. One girl was behind Sarah, holding her arms tightly at her back. The other two held a leg each.

“Do it,” they said as one.

The girls pinning her legs unfastened and threw away her shoes before stripping off her socks. Sarah writhed and tried to kick out. She watched her bare toes squirm and clench as she tried to force them to the ground and gain some traction in the sun-baked earth. She saw Trianna’s eyes shining a little.

“Let’s tickle the baby. I get the feet, okay?”

Geneva smiled. “Sure. Until she pees her pants. My turn with the sides and underarms.”

The Twins approached, casting long shadows over Sarah, and then they were upon her. Their fingers dug into her, merciless in their scraping and scratching. Sarah's eyes were soon stinging with tears as she kicked, bucked, laughed and screamed out loud. She felt a strange burning sensation rush through her. It felt like she was on fire.

“... bound in soft flesh, O Flame ... but thy Fire, ’tis rising ...”

Sarah felt herself flush red and fight harder.

Geneva leaned in and whispered into her ear, “We’re going to tickle you until you wet yourself. You’re going to have to walk home like that. Then we’re going to take pictures of you. And everyone at school will see them.
Everyone.”

Sarah spat into Geneva’s face. The scene of torture froze as Geneva sat up slowly, her fingers raking away the spit. Her eyes were cold, black, and hating. Sarah felt the hands that held her loosen. She kicked out and her heel caught Trianna in the face, right on her pert nose. Sarah’s stomach clenched at the feeling of cartilage collapsing and the slick spread of blood across the bottom of her foot.

“You vicious little bitch!”

Trianna flung herself at Sarah, fingernails out to slash at her face and eyes. The tickling was over. The livid eyes of the brown-haired twin promised that blood, not urine, would soak the ground now. Sarah could hear Geneva shouting, hands were on Trianna, trying to pull her away. And there was the burning again, flooding through her from her toes up to her head: hot, fierce, searing and sweltering. 

“O Flame Eternal … O Fire rising … come forth ...”

Motes of incendiary gold circled around her momentarily, and then they were gone. Sarah could smell ashes and blood in her nostrils. She opened her eyes and saw the other girls staring at her, wide-eyed. Then the moment was broken, and their faces became fierce again, especially Trianna’s.

Sarah fled through the trees.

They came after her.

What just happened to me?

She didn’t know, but it had saved her—for the moment. She dodged and ran through the shade of the palm trees, gaining ground on the shouting, squabbling girls behind her. She knew Trianna was in the lead; she could hear her voice over the others. She could hear the shrill notes of pain in it. Sarah had fought back and wounded the girl’s face, and through it, her pride. She would show her no mercy, and the other girls knew that. They knew it, and they were afraid. But Sarah knew something else: where she was going, where she was leading them. To a special, sacred place where she would be safe.

She hoped.

~ ~ ~

Sarah stood in the fairground and remembered being there as a child with Dad, clutching at his fingers, being led by the big, broad man with a Santa Claus beard through the milling mass of people. The summer night air was cotton-candy sweet, also tasting of butter and popcorn salt. Faces on heads and faces on balloons were bobbing all around her, all smiling, red-cheeked and glossy-eyed. Candy-coloured lights shone from the fizzing bulbs that studded the stalls, and the carapaces of the rides were decorated with rainbows and lightning bolts. The dodgem cars were gaudy beetles, whirring, burring, thumping and bumping. The waltzer was a hurricane of happy screams and thrilled cries. Through the stalls and rides, they came to one of her favourite places—the rifle range.

“Can I, Dad? Can I shoot some bad guys? Can I?
Puh-leeease!
”

Sarah tugged on her father’s fingers, not hard but insistent. A smudged, dirty hand ruffled her scruffy blonde bowl-cut hair.

“Sure thing. It’s only a quarter. You can shoot lots of bad guys, Moon-pie,” he said as he pushed the money into her hand.

Moon-pie was his pet name for her; one he never said when Mom or Kiley were around. Sarah smiled the toothy smile of innocence and pure childhood and then she ran to the range, dodging through the striding legs of grown-ups and teenagers. She remembered making a face as she caught sight of a couple sinking into their first faltering French kiss.

Ewwww! Guh-ross!

She pushed a quarter into the thin, mottled hand of the rifle-range man. A balding Good Ole Boy wearing a pair of chipped aviator shades and a quilted orange jacket. A chain and tags blinked silver into Sarah’s eyes.

“I wanna shoot bad guys,” she said.

“’Course, you do, hun. Don’t we all? Go right ahead, kid. Hit ’em right between the eyes.”

Grinning and giddy, Sarah picked up the small air rifle. It was tacky with sugared thumbprints and syrup stains. She rested the butt against her shoulder and peered down the barrel. Taking aim, she made her finger into a hook over the trigger. With a creaky twang, the first bad guy popped up and Sarah pulled the trigger.

Bang-
dead!

The sneering face dropped out of sight.

Twang!

Another bad guy.

Bang-
dead!

“Another one down. Nice work,” said the rifle-range man. “One more and you get a prize.”

In the back of her throat, Sarah could taste the popcorn she had eaten earlier.

“Go on, kid,” he said. “Get some more. Up the body count. S’important. S’a numbers game. Shooting bad guys.”

“Yes, sir,” Sarah heard herself say.

Twang!

Bad guy number three.

Bang
-dead!

“Have I won?”

Dad was at her side, firm hand steady on her shoulder.

“You sure have, kid. Here’s a teddy bear for you to take home.”

He gave her the bear. It was plain and brown with one of its eyes coming loose and the stitching starting to show. She loved it all the same, hugging it tight all the way home, as tight as her Dad hugged her when he put her to bed at night.

That was then, though,
thought Sarah.
This is now.

The fairground was all wrong now, all changed by the passing of time. She was surrounded by dead things that had once been stalls and fairground rides. The vivid paint of the past had flaked away, and the bulbs adorning their exteriors had been shattered. There was the helter-skelter, its colours faded away, crawling with mites and woodworm. The structure wailed as wind blew through the holes in it. There was the big wheel, creaking, rusty and old. The waltzer was an empty shell, and the whirring, burring dodgem cars were all silent and still. The horses on the merry-go-round seemed to be staring at her. She didn’t like it sometimes, but this was her special place. Good memories came from it, even if the place itself had gone bad. She came here when she felt sad and wanted to remember.

To remember Dad…

Sarah heard shouts from the trees and ran further into the fairground. There would be time enough for day-dreaming later. She knew Mom would have a fit if she ever knew Sarah was walking around these old rides all by herself. It was creepy. Especially when it got dark. And she hoped that would scare Trianna, Geneva and the others away. Fear of ghosts, or fear of getting their perfect faces and clothes dirty.

Where to hide
, she thought,
if they come in here for me? Where’s the perfect place for me to hide?

After a moment or two, she remembered, smiled, and ran to the perfect place.

The Hall of Mirrors.

The shadowed surfaces within twisted and turned in on themselves, creating silvered portals to distorted worlds that were like and unlike our own. A painted sign reading
Danger!
crunched under her feet as she ran in. Her five pursuers were not far behind.

Five
, she thought,
just like in the dream.

Inside the Hall of Mirrors, Sarah ran on until she could no longer hear their shouts and cries. Tired and short of breath, she stopped, looked around, and found that she wasn’t sure which way she had come in. She had passed so many mirrors. Turning back, all she saw was shadows, some light and swaying versions of herself. She walked around and around, trailing her fingertips along the dust-streaked glass. It did not break at any point. She did not touch on empty air. The way back was shut.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Nothing answered.

It was then that she heard their voices again, coming towards her, closer and closer. She could see the way ahead now, or so she thought. There was a light. She chased it—a slight flame reflecting in the dark glass, dancing away each time she drew close to it. As she passed more and more mirrors, she glimpsed herself seeming to sway, swirl, shrink, and swell along the way. Beyond the reflections, Sarah thought she saw places: strange cities with soaring spires, rolling plains peopled by shaggy, stampeding beasts she could not name, great airborne castles passing through mountainous clouds, and gigantic trees reaching up into scintillating skies of amethyst, turquoise, and emerald. Each time, she stopped to push vainly at the glass walls, trying to see if there was a way to retreat back out into the light of day. But then the voices came through again. Trianna. Geneva. And the others. Haunting her and hunting her through the dark. Sarah went on and on until her feet hurt, until she wanted to cry, until she became too tired to care anymore.

Then she laid down in growing roots of shadow to sleep.

Chapter Two

Sarah dreamed she was at the graveyard where she used to go with Dad. She had been the spotter. Before Flag Day, she would run around the graveyard, checking whether there were markers on the graves for all of the veterans. Dad and his friends would then put bronze shield markers on the graves that were bare. Some read
Grand Army of the Republic
. Others,
Spanish American Expeditionary Force
.
Filipino Expeditionary Force,
too. Every war America had fought in, they commemorated. Sarah was carrying one of the markers through the graveyard. It was a grey day and darker clouds were hurrying in.

“Dad?”

No answer. No one was in sight.  

“Mick? Al? Boots?”

No-one hollered back. The wind was picking up. The flags at each of the graves were snapping viciously. Sarah felt the marker in her hands growing heavier. Shuffling around, describing a grubby circle in the hissing wet grass, she bent her back and pulled hard at it. The base of the marker went along, inch by inch, gouging a deep divot, spraying up soil. Sarah’s spine was aching. She strained as she hefted the marker along in little jumps.

Yank-
thump
-yank-
thump
-yank-
thump.

Then she couldn’t move it, not one inch more. Her fingers were red and sore. Sarah slumped to the ground. Dad and his friends would be along soon. They wouldn’t forget about her. They wouldn’t leave her behind. Then, she heard them. The voices. They were coming from under her feet. She could hear sounds too; scraping, scratching, scrabbling sounds. Fingers scratching away at wood. The wood of coffins.

“You got a light on you, kid?”

“Dying for a smoke down here, we are.”

“Those goddamn choppers’re worth more’n me.”

“Where you goin’? Why?”

“Come back, Moon-pie, don’t leave y’r ole Dad down ’ere.”

Sarah screamed.

She ran. She ran and ran. She ran down through the rows of graves and markers. She ran to her left. And then to her right. Her eyes searched the ever-fleeing horizon for the gate, for her Dad come to rescue her from the voices. But she saw nothing but more graves and more markers. The cemetery was a necropolis, the dead lying in state for as far as the eye could see. All of them were chattering. Some barking, baying, yelling and banging their withered fists on the undersides of their coffin lids.

“Wasn’t my time. Not my time, dammit.”

“C’mere. Come closer. Lemme out. I’ll show you a secret.”

“Gonna hurt you real bad ’f you don’ dig me out, kid. Cut you up into little bits.”

All of the voices, all the same. Sarah put her fingers in her ears. She closed her eyes and opened her lungs, screaming and screaming, louder and louder. Desperate not to hear this. Needing this not to be. All the dead. All the Dads. All of them were
her
Dad. She fell to her knees in the grass, feeling it dig in like wet needles, everything piercing her. She could hear it, see it, feel it—all of it. Never going to go away. Never going to stop. Sarah opened her eyes. She looked down and saw what had not been there before.

A grave, unmarked. The name on it she knew.

Sarah Bean
.

Then, she heard a sound she knew.

She closed her eyes.

Bang-
Dead!

Chapter Three

Sarah sat up, blinking, wiping away the nightmare she’d had too many times now. She looked around and shivered. The ground underneath her was not dry, dusty, and hard as it should have been, but cold and wet. And there were trees—gnarled, twisted things with branches that were thick with skin-like layers of moss, mould, and lichen. It was still night, she could see that much through the few spaces in the canopy overhead. Through these spaces came slim beams of bluish light that allowed her eyesight to adjust. She saw the knotty undergrowth of tangled tree roots and bracken. There was little space for grass to grow, only patches of mulch and shallow bog. Looking down at herself, she saw that she was dirty and stained but the dirt was that of the palm tree grove and the fairground, not this place. Shakily, Sarah got to her feet and peered into the depths of the forest. She could see no break in the trees, only further beams of light seeping through here and there. She sat down hard upon a great tree root and rubbed her hands and bare feet against the growing cold. The air was damp and ripe.