Connection
Kit Campbell
Ciel slid to a stop, mere inches from the edge. Below him, below the jutting rocks, was water, dark and cold.
Hells. Another dead end.
There was shouting behind him. Close. Too close. Ciel rubbed his left forearm, his fingers tracing the glowing blue design that encircled it. It’d been there as long as he could remember. His mother had always made sure he’d kept it covered, but he’d never understood why.
But now his mother was dead, and now he understood.
“Over there! By the ruins!”
It had all happened so fast. His mother had known she was dying, had begged him to leave, to head to the city, where he would blend in better. But how could he leave her, when she was in such pain? And then she was gone, and in the act of comfort, a well-meaning neighbor had taken off Ciel’s coat.
And comfort had turned so fast.
He could hear their footsteps now. Neighbors, friends, people he had lived among for his entire life. Intent on seeing him gone, or worse. Ciel looked around for an alternate route, but the forest was thick on one side, and full of things one did not want to encounter. Behind him was his past, bent on his destruction.
There was nothing for it. Taking a deep breath, Ciel gathered his fear around him, and jumped.
The water was colder than it looked, driving his breath from him. The glow from his forearm was brighter, here in the dark. Ciel drifted for a moment, sure the splash would have drawn attention, and thought he might just let the dark and cold have him. But his mother’s face swam into view, a mirage among the darkness. When Ciel reached for her, she vanished.
He broke the surface. They were there, on the ledge he had vacated, staring down into the water. Perhaps they could not see him among the other shadows.
“Good enough,” his neighbor, the one who had taken off Ciel’s coat, muttered. “It’s where he belongs, anyway.”
They drifted off, then. Ciel’s teeth began to chatter. There was no way out here—the town had made sure of that, when they’d moved off the lake onto land—and the only place to go was behind him. He swam in that direction, chills not caused by the water rolling down his spine as dark shapes rose into the sky above him.
They solidified, slowly, into wilting, sagging husks of wood and fabric. The remains the town had left after…something. Ciel’s mother had never said, specifically. Just warned him away from here.
But his mother was dead now.
Ciel swam to the edge of one of the wrecks, where a ladder still hung, though haphazardly, and dragged himself onto the rotting platform. It was connected to a house. Ciel ducked inside, trying to rub warmth back into his limbs. The room, despite its abandonment, still looked lived in. Dishes sat on the table. A book sat on a chair. Whatever had caused them to leave, apparently it had happened quickly.
A heater sat in one corner. The ruins were disconnected now, but that had never mattered much to Ciel. He pressed his hand onto the top of it and focused on pushing his magic into the machine. After a minute, it hummed to life, and some of the damp and dark of the room retreated.
Ciel retrieved a blanket from one of the bedrooms—clothes still in drawers, shoes still beside the bed—and curled in front of the heater, letting the warmth drag him into sleep.
#
Ciel sat up, blinking. It had seemed very important to wake, but now that he had, he could not imagine why. It took a moment for it all to rush back, but there was nothing to be done about it now. He would make his way across the ruins, regain land on the other side. Find something to cover his glow. Make his way to the city, like his mother wanted.
Something outside creaked.
Ciel stumbled to his feet, ears straining. Surely the townspeople had not followed him here. They’d left, gone back. But maybe someone had felt the need to be more…thorough.
The noise did not repeat, but Ciel could not shake the feeling that someone was out there. He was dry now, so there was no reason to linger. But his eyes fell on the table. Some of the dishes were actual silver, and he’d been forced to flee with nothing, nothing even to remember his mother by. Before, as he sat by his mother’s bedside, he had thought he could rely on people’s charity, and their goodwill toward a child, to make it to the city once she’d gone, but he’d obviously been wrong.
He returned to the bedroom and found a knapsack tucked in the corner, as well as a coat about his size. He slipped the coat on immediately; though it was no longer winter it was not yet consistently warm, and this would cover his mark. Taking the knapsack into the main room, he selected a few pieces of silver to take along, to help pay his way. Perhaps other families had left as quickly as this one. He’d have to check as he went.
There was still some charge in the heater. Ciel hesitated, then pulled the rest of it back into his arm. If someone was after him, best not to advertise where he’d been.
He crept to the door, peeked out. Nothing, except the mist off the water and the creaking of the ruins around him. Slowly, trying not to draw anything’s attention, Ciel slipped onto the platform outside and headed deeper into the ruins.
He was not sure how he would get back to land. There had to have been some way, boats maybe, but if they had fled, maybe there would be none left. Nothing for it, though, except to look around and see what he could find.
The ruins creaked around him as he went. It was a miracle they were standing at all, but the last thing Ciel needed was to be plunged back into that chilled water. He trod carefully, checking the wood before he put his full weight on it. The other houses were like the first, abandoned in a hurry, and he managed to find not just clothes his size (and another pair of shoes), but stashes of money. His spirits rose. He might have lost his home, but he still had his future.
Then he saw it. He happened to glance behind him as he came out of one of the houses. Through the mist, a shadow. He thought it another rotting building.
But then it moved.
Fear immobilized him. The shadow paced, as if it were searching.
Searching for him?
There had been a reason the people had fled. A reason his mother had warned him away from this place.
A reason the townspeople had not followed him.
Ciel crept along the platform, keeping his back against the wall. Around him, everything creaked. Did it always creak, or was it because of his movement?
The shadow slowed, then seemed to focus on Ciel across the mist and the shadows. He could feel its eyes—or whatever it had—on him.
So much for that future. Ciel abandoned the walls and fled.
The buildings floated and cold water ran between them, bridges connecting the ruins into the remains of a town. He could go back to the water, but something told him that would not stop the shadow, and without knowing where he was going, he would freeze before he reached land again. So he kept to the bridges, pounding this way and that, trying to lose the shadow in narrow passages and across broken boards. But he could still sense it behind him, and it was gaining.
#
Ciel tired. He’d never run as much as he had that day, and he hadn’t eaten in several hours. He used the last of his energy to flee toward where he hoped he’d be closest to land, and found himself in a square, buildings surrounding him on all sides.
He was trapped, again.
Perhaps he could run out, before the shadow arrived, but as Ciel spun to try, it filled the passageway Ciel had come through. Ciel shrank back, clutching at the knapsack. The shadow was dark, even this close, and its features were lost to the mist and the darkening sky. All Ciel could make out was eyes. Dozens of them. And something that was, perhaps, a mouth.
Ciel pulled the knapsack tight against his chest and slid down onto his knees, closing his eyes. He should have done what his mother asked. He should have—no. No. He couldn’t have left her. He did not regret staying with her, not when she still needed him. If he could go back and do it all again, he would still stay.
But maybe he would have had enough sense to make sure his coat stayed on.
None of that mattered now. The past had happened and could not be changed. Ciel said a silent prayer and waited for death to come.
But it did not.
After forever, Ciel tentatively opened one eye. The shadow was closer now, within arm’s reach, if Ciel had wanted to reach out, but it was no more distinct than it had been. Why did it…why did it not attack? If it had driven out the townspeople, made them take to land and cut off access to their past…
Ciel stumbled to his feet. Below him, something had been carved into the wood. He backed up, trying to get a better view of what it was. It was deliberate, well-done, something intentionally placed in a way that must have had the approval of those living here.
It was a glyph, a larger version of the design that glowed around his arm.
Oh. Ciel looked back up at the shadow, the monster, still hovering at the edge of the glyph. Despite his pounding heart, he forced himself forward. The monster did not move as Ciel approached. Ciel reached out a hand and gently laid it against the monster’s side. It was warm to the touch, and soft, and it did not consume him.
“You’re like me, of magic. They tried to drive you out too, didn’t they?” Ciel murmured. “And when they couldn’t, they left themselves.”
Acting in fear against something they did not understand. But Ciel did understand, now.
The shadow shrank down, becoming more in shape and size like Ciel. Ciel offered it his hand; the monster’s fit in his like it was made for it.
Together, they went back into the ruins, and together they searched for the way out.