Sun Kissed Innsmouth
Part 128
“You thinking of putting him out of his misery? Don’t waste an arrow.”
Felecia nearly jumped as Jacqueline’s hoarse voice whispered from behind her whiskered, wooden mask. The old witch was spread flat out on the ground, the corn knife resting in her right hand.
“I feared the worst when I heard that shot.” Felecia nearly stood up as she spoke, forgetting their present circumstances.
Jacqueline didn’t move, she didn’t wave a hand to warn Felecia or whisper the word girl at her. Jacqueline only laid there atop the thorny ground cover with the corn knife in her right hand. Felecia considered how very lucky they had been so far and even though she knew there would be no swaying the old witch she tried anyway. “They’ve found the rest of their friends, they’ll run for sure now. We should go while we still have the chance.”
The men behind them were shouting in excited terror and then shouting angrily at one another. One of the survivors was already walking as briskly as the underbrush allowed, southbound to the safety of the trees. The rest were likely soon to follow with Ganly closer than ever, waving his arms angrily and gesticulating wildly in the direction of where Tom was still wheezing out his last breaths.
Jacqueline didn’t respond or scold Felecia for yet another attempt at convincing her that cowardice was the way to go. Jacqueline wasn’t doing much at all except breathing heavily and without rhythm. Felecia looked again at the big corn knife, longer than she had before and realized it wasn’t resting in Jacqueline’s hand, but next to it.
Jacqueline’s hand was limp, curled in a casual letter C near the handle of the blade. The eyes that caught dim moonlight from above as they stared out through the wooden, whiskered mask were wild, searching desperately for threats but also, wild, searching to see anything at all. The old cataract blues that Felecia had come to recognize with their sense of shrewd knowledge seemed strange now, and just as unnerving to look at as Tom’s all-knowing yet blind stare that matched his ever slowing and ragged breathing.
Ganly was busy shouting, nearly howling really and Felecia didn’t care or worry about what the fiend might find to say to the sad remainder of his posse.
“I’ll come back out here with you tomorrow and the next day and the next after that. I’ll wear the mask you made for me. I’ll smear anything you want on my poncho and come out here with you. I’ll hunt mushrooms, herbs, villagers, so be it. Please, let’s just go home now.”
Jacqueline tried to speak and choked instead, she cleared her throat with a loud bark and something wet came loose. The old woman spit something dark that ran runny through the narrow opening in the mouth of the wooden mask, she tried again and still had to force hollow, reedy words past something wet and rattling in her chest. “Naw, I’m done. I…I’ll wait for Yoseph here. He and his’ll get done right this time. I can still swing a knife. Give him a wide smile before I go.”
Felecia crawled the few feet until she reached the old witch and began fanning her hands over the stray cloth and the frail frame of her grandmother’s doppelganger before her hands came away wet. There was a hole in Jacqueline’s back, big enough and easy to notice by touch and wet enough through all her layers of clothing to tell a sad story.
“I was making ready to kill him, had my knife up. Damn shot caught us both. You need to go. Head back to the cave, mind what I taught you. The worm beds, the gardens, the books…read them all. You’ll need that knowledge for what’s coming.”
Felecia started to fuss, trying to form the argument that would somehow make Jacqueline not be shot and dying slowly, bleeding out on a field of poisonous and thorny plants. “I’m dead either way, girl. Turns out you were right. I should’ve left. I just…wanted him to finally pay.”
“You know enough to treat your injuries, let me carry you, we can make it back together. We can..”
Jacqueline cut Felecia off, cruelly, because it was what she knew and also because it fit the moment best. “I’m already dead, dummy. You should know enough to listen to what you’re told. You already said it, they’ll kill me, then you too, only worse before, go now, save yourself. Live to fight my sister. Live to fight whoever takes the big house after that. Just go.”