Chapter 4: Pt. 1, Ch. 4: Unburnt and Unbothered

Part 1

Chapter 4: Unburnt and Unbothered

When the fire died and the smoke cleared, the blackbirds hopped about the charred remains. Some of the corpses lay on the shore of the river. They had tried to flee the only way they could, through the wall of flames. But the burns were already too severe, the smoke suffocating. They had passed out before they could even make it to the river. 

Most of the stone houses suffered little damage. The thatched roofs burned away quickly once taken by the growing flames, but the gray walls remained, stained black by smoke. 

Only the tree was untouched. At the heart of the camp, it stood tall, its low-hanging, gently swaying branches shielding the deep, dark pool around its trunk from the massacre, the white flowers in full bloom. 

Terrell stepped over broken glass and lifeless bodies, some burnt beyond recognition, searching desperately for survivors. One of them must have survived. Rosa had only suffered some minor effects of smoke inhalation, and Davcina was unburnt, though soaking wet. She had entered the camp through the river, wetting her clothing and hair to avoid catching fire. The men had all crossed the river when they made to put out the flames, not one of them staying behind. They had been trapped. Still, one of them had to be alive. 

“Nineteen,” said Davcina, appearing at his side. “All here and accounted for. The houses are empty. Not one of them escaped.”

“Unless not all of them were here when we found Rosa,” said Terrell. What would they do when they came back and found nineteen of their brothers had been slaughtered?

“True enough,” she replied. “You should get Rocco and Rosa home as soon as possible. I trust you remember the way out?”

“And where will you be?” Terrell rounded on her. “Hiding in the trees to see if anyone comes back to bury their dead? Are you gonna burn them alive too, or wait until they’re sleeping before you slit their throats?”

Davcina looked up at him with dull eyes, but made no reply. 

“I suppose you thought we’d pin it all on the fire getting out of control,” Terrell went on. “You never planned on anyone getting out, did you? You made sure there was no way out.” 

Her face betrayed nothing, but that told him all he needed to know. She had enclosed the houses with flaming straw and wood to block the men from the river before she made any attempt to rescue Rosa. It was a wonder she was unburnt. “You don’t approve.”

“I came here to get the girl out safely,” said Terrell, struggling to keep his voice level. “And we could’ve done that without murdering nineteen men.”

“Would it help if I told you they were German?” 

Terrell closed his eyes a moment, his rage bubbling close to the surface. At length he opened them again, and found her still awaiting a reply. 

“You got me,” he started, keeping his calm. “I’ve killed men before. Men who were shooting at me. Men who would’ve happily watched me go down under machine gunfire. Men who wouldn’t’ve hesitated to poison the air I breathed while I slept.”

“And what kind of men were on your side?” she asked, her demeanor unchanged except for a slight tilt of her head. 

“Men who returned it in kind,” he shot back. “We were at war. We fought men who were fighting us. We didn’t burn civilians alive while they were dancing around a campfire.” 

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“These,” she grasped for words, “men, as you call them, were ‘dancing around a campfire’ with a girl they held prisoner. They were hardly innocent.”

“Some of them ain’t even grown.” Terrell looked around at the carnage. In his mind’s eye he saw other blackened corpses in other forests, not in the fields of France, but in his home of Wilmington. Bodies of innocent men burned alive and torn limb from limb. His neighbors. His parents. His grandparents had kept him and his sister home safe while the fires raged. Tonight he stood and watched, unable to process what was happening quickly enough to run through the wall of flames to help any of the men who were burning right before his eyes. He was a soldier, for God’s sake. He had seen far worse than this. He could have saved a handful of these men. He could have saved one. Just one.  

“They were already learning the ways of their fathers,” Davcina went on. “Any one of them would’ve held power over us if we’d left them alive to speak. We stood no chance of teaching them humanity.” 

“So you say.”

“All of you witnessed the magic of their voices.” She nudged one of the corpses with her foot. Its clothes were singed, its skin red from burns, but its features were intact. “Only Honora and I witnessed their shapeshifting. All of these men, as you call them, looked like they could have been one of Rosa and Rocco’s own family.”

The dead man was pale, freckled, with gray eyes that stared up at nothing. His hair was singed from the fire, but even with dark hair he would have bore no resemblance to Rocco.  

“Living, they are exactly as they want to be,” she continued, walking slowly around the bodies, observing each in turn. “If one of these creatures wishes to join a group of travelers or settlers unnoticed, it will look unremarkably familiar. By the time anyone has a chance to question who it is, they’re already under the spell of its voice, its eyes. They’d give it food, drink, and anything else it asked of them, even one of their children.” She stopped and looked back at Terrell. “If it wished to charm a young girl, like Rosa, it would appear handsome. If it wished to intimidate an enemy, its appearance would change accordingly. They never have to do such a thing to survive. It simply amuses them.”

“If they’re that dangerous, why haven’t I heard of them till now?” 

Her gaze softened ever so slightly. Sympathy was an odd look on her. “Your people had pieces of their stories, just as Honora’s had, before they were replaced by those of their conquerors.”

He could neither confirm nor refute her claim, ignorant as he was of who his people were. 

“They’re powerful creatures,” she continued. “They may not possess true shapeshifting, but still, they could rule the world if they had any ambition beyond their base desires.” She surveyed the bodies again, her brow furrowed. “And by all rights, there shouldn’t be any of them this close to New York. If their kind have stopped shying away from cities, then—”

“Davcina.” Honora splashed across the river towards them, Rocco at her heels. “There’s another girl,” she said breathlessly. “Rosa just told us.”

Rosa did not cross the river behind her, but sprinted straight towards the great willow, undaunted by the pool that surrounded it. Terrell prepared to leap in after her, but paused when she did not sink into its depths, instead splashing across the surface. Davcina threw out an arm to stop Rocco just as he made to follow. Terrell knelt down by the water and ran his hand through. While at first he reached down until nearly his whole arm was soaked and still did not reach the ground, he hit a solid rock wall when he came closer to where Rosa had run across. Following it up to the top, he found it formed a bridge that spanned about five feet in width, just below the surface.

“A causeway,” said Davcina. “Follow me, carefully.” 

She held Rocco’s hand as she stepped carefully across the stones. Terrell followed after Honora. The rocks were slippery, and he wondered that Rosa had run across so quickly. She appeared well taken care of, her long, tightly curled hair accented with wildflowers, her skirt not at all dirtied nor damaged from her adventures. If she was at all traumatized, she hid it well. Was her fellow captive as well taken care of? 

Across the water, at the base of the tree trunk , Rosa knelt beside a girl no older than herself, speaking to her gently in Italian. The girl lay on her side, shaking, her light brown curls spread in the grass as she stared up at Rosa with tearful, sea green eyes. At the sound of their approach, Rosa moved aside to reveal the girl’s swollen belly.

 

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