fiction – Page 8 – Joan Spilman

This Textured Darkness, #87

It was time for a decision. Half a loaf and a jug later, Jessum reached several. The bread was heavenly, the cider tart, and it was time to leave.

The key to his cell was hanging below the sconce. The rush candle would burn for hours, in which time he was meant to imagine freedom.

Like the sea he dreamt of, pain swallowed his every part.

The bowl isn’t full.
The bowl was Elymas, nearly full to the brim with rot and pride.

Oren began to use his fists. He’d heard the crack of neck against stone, and watched as a Red Robe tumbled down the stone steps.

Mirella’s desperation became clear. She was being forced to flee because of her testimony. Had she been threatened? Struck?

Oren was lying in a dungeon cell. The straw beneath him, what there was of it, smelled of urine and fear.

Red Robes had stomped his left hand. They hadn’t touched his right, the hand with the mark, which they avoided out of fear.

I piled everything in a skillet and heated it until it was palatable, dumped everything in a big bowl, and marched out to his run.

“Elymas has been killing the children for 300 years. I’ve seen them in dreams from which I couldn’t awaken. Sweet faces of angels frozen in death.”