Chapter 3: The Surprise

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The overhang faced downhill, and a semi-circle of rocks had been laid on the ground a small distance in front of the opening. Cy cleared a small area in the curve of rocks and used his boot heels to dig a small depression in the center of the cleared area. He assembled a pyramid of dried moss and leaves and small twigs in the bottom of the depression, then set to work with his flint, striking it sharply against the steel rod and showering a cascade of sparks onto the pyramid.

 

When a tendril of smoke rose from the pile, he blew softly on it to coax the tinder to flame. Cy worked determinedly, for the moment unaware of April, who suddenly sat upright as her mouth formed a soundless scream. Small flames crept out of the shell of tinder and cast a flickering light on her. Cy turned, and, seeing her sitting, started to speak but stopped himself before the words had left his lips. He saw in that instant that April was caught once again in the vision that had consumed her the first time he saw her.

 

After easing April back down to lie on the strange blanket, Cy collected some nearby branches and fed the fire. He turned again to April, and moved nearer to her so that he could examine her more closely. Once again the hooded figure materialized in his vision. A gauzy hint of reality clung to the sight. He jerked away and peered around into the surrounding darkness but saw nothing to explain what he had just experienced. He turned once more to face April. Moving closer, he was once again assaulted by the hazy image. He drew back, and it faded once again into the shrouding mist of seeming imagination.

 

"What devilry is this?" Cy cried out loud.

 

He was familiar with many kinds of magic, but this vision, this other sight, unnerved him Cy knew there had to be some explanation but had no inkling of what it could be. It was as beyond him as April’s sudden appearance, an enigma and a challenge to his notion of reality.

 

A cold mist began to sift through the night air. Looking down the hill Cy saw a tiner doe and her fawn, bushy-tailed, furry little creatures that were well-adapted to the tight spaces of the old forest. The doe, with her small curved horns, grazed by moonlight among the low shrubs where the forest thinned and the plowed fields and farms began. An artok hooted from a high branch off to his right. Cy sat there in the fire's ruddy glow, absorbed in his thoughts as he watched April lying there on the enigmatic silver blanket. A small, silver crescent moon, Shalid, was joined by her larger, amber sibling, Wellid, in a dance of shadows that would ensue as the night lengthened. Cy slept little that night. Mostly he lay awake, feeding the flames that drove away the night, pondering the meaning of the day's events.

 

The sun's rays were filtering through the trees when April opened her eyes and spoke. Her voice was barely a whisper, and her eyes were filled with a haunted look. She asked, "Cy, what happened?"

 

She sat up, and Cy tried to explain, as best he could, and faltered at times when words failed him. When he had finished he asked, "Are you alright now?"

 

April looked at him and said, "I'm so tired. I feel like I've been awake all night, but I don't remember it."

 

Cy nodded, remembering the lonely night's vigil beside her, the thoughts that circled in his head. "You don't remembering anything?" Cy asked.

 

"I remember feeling faint, then everything began to blur, and after that, nothing," April replied.

 

"It was like you were suddenly... gone," said Cy, "one minute you were there and the next... you didn't respond, but your eyes were wide open."

 

"I'm so sorry, Cy. Oh, I wish I understood what’s happening, but I don't, and it terrifies me."

 

Cy reached out for April's hand and held it as he spoke. "Listen to me. I will be here to protect for as long as it takes. I'm not leaving you until you're back where you belong."

 

"I don't know why I should feel so safe with you, Cy, but I do. I trust you, and I need your help desperately," admitted April. "I feel like I've known you forever."

 

"I am yours to command, my lady," said Cy, trying, with his attempt at levity, to ease her troubled mind.

 

April laughed softly, and Cy's heart stuttered. Her laugh reminded him, again, of C'elaine, a miraculous similarity made all the more poignant by circumstance. He pictured C'elaine in her flower garden, moving about the home they had shared for what seemed such a fleeting instant before she was gone. Cy turned away, hiding the tears that pooled in the corners of his eyes and silently vowed to himself that he would die before he would see harm come to this lovely, frightened young woman beside him.

 

"Sleep," he said, "is what you need. Rest for a while before we go; I've got things to do."

 

Cy got up and walked out of the overhang, stopping only to collect his knife and its sheath, which he strapped to his leg, and his water pouch. He turned to April and said, "I'll be back in a just a bit. We need water, and there's a stream down the hill a little way."

 

She glanced up at him and nodded.

 

He asked, "Will you be alright?"

 

"Yes, I'll be fine, Cy," she said with a strained smile. "After all, I've got you to protect me. What more could a girl ask for?"

 

With a lop-sided grin, he headed off downhill toward the stream, with thoughts of C'elaine still pulling at him. As he walked he reminisced about his life with C'elaine, their life, the brief life they had shared together. The seven wondrous months of married life they had had together were precious to him, as if each moment of those days were golden, a gift of time in paradise.

 

The stream at the foot of the slope rushed down through the hills of Marntz, fed by the melting snows of mountainous Stell's Reach. Many years ago the stream had been much larger, but it still ran as Cy knelt beside it, dipping his water pouch into the cool, clear flow. Cy sealed the pouch and sat back on his heels beside the stream. Morry bees buzzed around the wildflowers that grew along the stream bank. Far in the distance Cy could see a thin plume of white smoke rising from a farmhouse chimney, miles away.

 

Cy sat there for a few minutes, thinking again of C'elaine and of April's plight. His thoughts raced around, trying to find an outlet, some hint of which way to go, but the unsettling events of the past two days held him in the grip of their mystery.

 

Sighing, Cy got up and headed back up the hill. Along the way he picked ripe, purple fogberries, the season's last. There weren't many, but they would supplement the last bits of bread, cheese and dried fruit that were left in his pack. As Cy neared the ring of rocks he noticed a pervading silence had fallen over the forest. Calling April's name, he ran the last handful of steps to the shelter, stricken at the thought that something had happened and he hadn't been there to defend her.

 

April sat with her back to the circle of rocks, singing the same song he had heard her sing the day before. Cy stopped and listened, marveling once again at how similar to C'elaine she sounded, and he smiled to himself.

 

When April finished the song, Cy rounded the corner and knelt down by the fire across from where April sat.

 

"I got some water and some fogberries on the way back," said Cy. "Are you hungry?"

 

"Yes, a little," she replied.

 

"I still have some bread and cheese left. It's not much, but we won't starve," said Cy as he winked at her.

 

That elicited the familiar laugh, and Cy fairly glowed inside with the pleasure of hearing it again. Reaching over to his pack he pulled out the food box. Getting up, Cy moved to sit beside April, and handed the box to her. "I'll let you do the honors," he joked.

 

April rewarded him again with the little laugh, and he couldn't help but think of what it would have been like for him if C'elaine had lived. Her cheerfulness had always been like wings that lifted his spirits whenever he was upset or angry or worn out with the day's labors. Her constancy had always been his anchor, and her happiness was the wings on which his heart soared.

 

April looked over at Cy and, with a smile, said, "A penny for your thoughts."

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He grinned and began to tell her of C'elaine, a tale full of love and dedication. He told April of their childhood, growing up together on neighboring farms, falling in love slowly over the course of seasons where they often worked together, side by side, in the fields. His telling was like an enchantment to April as she sat mesmerized, listening to Cy recount the story of his young life. When he came to the most heart-rending part, the months leading up to C'elaine's death, he faltered and looked over at April. "I did all I could, but I lost her any way. I couldn't save her," he said and looked down at the ground.

 

After a moment Cy looked up and continued, "She was early with child, no more than two months, but it wasn't my child. She swore she had been with no other, and I knew she told the truth. Her parents and mine consented for us to marry and helped us build a house of our own."

 

He sat quietly for a minute or more, staring into the flames of the campfire, then looked up at April and spoke in a trembling voice. "We moved in together on the last day of winter, and it was the happiest day of my life. Every day from then on was even happier than the one before. I never knew that I could be so happy."

 

He looked away from April and, with his voice breaking, said, "We had seven months together, seven wonderful, glorious months. It was like heaven for me."

 

Cy stood up and walked a short distance away from the fire, off into the shadows cast by the lee of rock. He knelt down and bent his head, the wracking of his body just barely visible to April, and she knew, then, how much emotion was pent up inside this wonderful man who had rescued her in her hour of need.

 

"Cy," she said gently. "It's okay, Cy. It's not your fault."

 

Looking up, Cy searched her eyes like a man at his wit's end. Then he shivered, shook his head ever so slightly and weakly smiled. "It's not that April," he said. "There's more that I haven't told you."

 

Cy stood up and walked back over to where April sat by the fire. He sat down beside her and took her hands in his. With a squeeze of her hand, he said to April, "There's more to the story, and somehow I get the feeling it involves you, too."

 

April looked at him, uncomprehending. Once again, Cy picked up the story of C'elaine and his life with her and the strange fate that had stolen her from him. With a growing sense of unease, April listened as he told his tale. A cold finger scratched an icy line of fear down the back of her neck.

 

"C'elaine swore she, too, had seen a bright, flashing light outside her bedroom window," Cy told her. "I remember her telling me a couple of days before we were married. In all the stress of working the farm and then her death, I had forgotten all about it."

 

Cy looked at April and said, "I hadn't thought about it for many years until just now. I think what happened to you and what happened all those years ago are somehow related."

 

A haunted look crept over April's face. Softly she said, "Cy, what does it mean?"

 

He gripped her hands more tightly and said in a fierce voice, "I don't know, but I damn well intend to find out."

 

They sat in silence for a while before April asked, "What do we do now, Cy."

 

"Right now," said Cy, "we eat. Then we'll think about what to do next."

 

April laughed and gave him a playful push. "Oh, you," she said.

 

Opening the food box, she started to pull out the remaining cheese and bread, then stopped. "Let's sit up there," she said, pointing up to the top of the overhang, "where we'll have a better view down the hillside."

 

Cy agreed, and as April picked up their food and Cy's water pouch, he walked under the overhang to pick up the silver blanket where she had been sleeping. Together they walked around to the back of the mound that formed the top of the outcropping and climbed the gentle slope to its low peak where he spread out the blanket for them to sit on.