Chapter 5:

“Y-you have t-to what?” Edith forced a dry swallow if only to keep from vomiting all over the floor.

Astor blinked and clasped his spindly fingers together over the dark velvet robe. “Astor must take your soul,” he repeated patiently. His kind old eyes even seemed regretful. “Astor regrets…but it must be done.”

He took a small step forward, and Edith almost crashed out of the tent as she cringed away—but the fabric walls seemed to harden beneath her. The cloth didn't even bend as she pushed against it.

“P-please…”

The air in the tent seemed much colder than before. So cold, that Edith could feel goose bumps rising on her skin. “L-let, me g-go...” Her teeth began to chatter, and she could barely form the words. “G-go...p-please...”

“Give Astor thy hand,” the old man commanded, and those spindly fingers flexed once..like claws.

“Please let me go…” Real, prickling fear began building in Edith's chest, but nothing could be done about it. She felt like a broken doll—one who's strings had been cut. Her legs wouldn’t move, and slowly her hand reached out on its own for Astor’s.

“That’s it,” Astor crooned. “That’s it my child.” His grip closed over hers like the vice she’d seen stable masters use to make horseshoes, but she was too weak to move. Her body felt heavy and slow, as if she’d been smothered under piles and piles of heavy blankets.

“Sleep now...” She heard Astor soothe. “It will all be over soon.”

She didn't know when her eyes had closed and the darkness began. Somehow, she was surrounded by it, and the icy chill felt as though the world had frozen around her.

It was a calm, quite place. Sink, it seemed to say, and Edith tried. The silence surrounded her like an old friend, and nothing else mattered. Forget everything, forget, forget, forget.

Her name, her age, she could feel everything slipping from her mind even as she tried to hold onto it. “No…stop…” But the words couldn’t even pass her lips.

Her body felt so heavy and weak. It would be nice to rest for just a little, she realized. Her arm came up to form a pillow for her head as she curled up on the cool dirt floor. Only for a minute, she warned herself as her eyes began to drift close.

“Yes…yes,” Astor chanted from somewhere far away. “Sleep, sleep, sleep.”

And she slept.

___

No. The voice began as little more than a whisper, but it grew like some annoying, buzzing fly that wouldn’t go away. Through curtain of blackness, Edith could see faint, hazy rays of light and smell the sharp smell of cooking meat. Her stomach stirred at the sound and gave a demanding growl,

but she was much too tired to care.

“Sleep my child…sleep your worries away.” Astor’s voice caressed her like the warmest cloak. Over and over in played in her mind and she let her eyes close and her body relax as each second drew her to some warm quiet place.

Sleep…

It would be nice to lie here forever and never move, she realized. Very nice indeed…

Awake. Those words didn’t come from her—she could never feel so violent, so intent in one sentence—but they were a part of her all the same. Rise.

Something seemed to enclose around her neck—choking her slowly. She gagged on the air while the hazy light grew stronger and stronger.

She was choking, she realized, and the light must have been heaven…

“How long do ya think the old man had her out for?” The voice was rough and foreign. Edith couldn’t place it.

“Must o’ been days it looks like,” a harsher voice answered. “Wake up wrench!”

Twack!

The violent sound echoed brutally and Edith realized that the man must have kicked something. A second later, the pain blossoming on her back revealed just what.

“I said move!”

Thud.

Her arm this time, she thought groggily. And the bone twanged so badly he might have broken it, but she didn’t care. All she wanted to do was sleep for all eternity...

“Whoa Archie,” the first man cried. “Ya don’t wan ta kill ‘er!’”

The second man laughed. “Please Grimm. If she’s survived what the old loony put er up to, she can survive a little beating. Besides, if she ain’t up when Evaun comes fer er…we’ll you know who el’ get the beatin then….”

Both men cursed black oaths.

“Righty then,” said the one called Grimm. “Up an at ‘em Miss.”

Hands curled under her armpits and hauled her to her knees. “Yer’ new Master’s awaiten.”

Master? Her head was too cloudy to think. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to sink back into the darkness, but the voice stopped her; Move. Get up.

You can still run if you move.

She didn’t know what it meant. If only her eyes weren’t fighting to stay closed she might be able to think.

“Grab ‘er legs Archie,” the one called Grimm said. “We’ll have ta carry ‘er out…this place gives me tha creeps.”

“Keep yer pan’ts on Grimm,” the man grumbled, but Edith could feel his brutal hands grabbing for her ankles.

She tried to kick him off, but her legs barely twitched. Her body felt so heavy.

You’re not trying hard enough. This time voice was even angrier. It was like a swollen, rough thing in her mind squeezing out everything but the need to escape. Flee.

But Astor has done his work well.

Those words were a death sentence. Even bleary-eyed and groggy, Edith knew defeat when she heard it. Even in the tones of an imaginary voice.

She tried to struggle, tried to move, but the only thing she succeeded in was making herself dizzy as the two men hauled her out to only God knew where.

‘I’m fighting,’ she wanted to shout. ‘Don’t give up on me!’

But when the voice reached her again, it was only a whisper; Too late; and the sound of clacking hooves ate up the rest of Edith’s thoughts.

“Set ‘er right Archie,” Grimm commanded. Edith could feel herself swaying as the men shifted sides and her feet hit the earth. One of her slippers must have fallen off, for one foot sank in the mud.

“Archie,” Grimm hissed. “Grab ‘er arms.”

Edith heard the snip of a rope being cut and a second later she could feel the stuff binding her wrists tight.

The two men grunted as they lifted her off her feet again. Edith could feel the brush of cold wind on her skin and specks of light rain, but there was nothing else to tell her where she was. No sound, no sight—she would have thought she’d gone blind and deaf if it weren’t for the incessant chatter of Archie and Grimm in her ear.

“Them Dayshans is quite characters them is.”

Someone let her weight go slack and she felt her arm hit the ground. “Ya mean loony. Give me the creeps they did.”

The man had the same tone in his voice that Lydia did when she told scary stories on boring nights when all the sewing had been done hours before bed. “I just want ta dump er’ off and get our pay…then we can be far gone from this place.”

Edith felt her stomach flutter and for a moment it was enough to erase the exhausting desire to sleep. She wrenched her eyes open and stared into a yellowish sky peeking between gray tree branches.

It looked to be about mid-day, but she couldn’t be sure. For the past few days after this horrid nightmare began she couldn’t even remember what mid-day looked like. Her only glimpses of a sky that hadn’t been dark or on the verge of dawn were few and far in between.

“I think she’s wakin up,” she heard Grimm (or maybe it was Archie) say. The hands holding her wrists changed and something rough covered her mouth. She bit down without thinking and felt her teeth catch on fabric.

“Whatcha go an gag ‘er for?” Grimm must have been the one holding her legs because he let them go and her body hit the earth with an oomf.

“Can’t have ‘er screamin’ now can we?” Archie offered as an explanation. “Them cretins got the hearin o’ the devil…and a wrath to match…”

Edith heard one of the men mutter a prayer.

“Set er’ down over there Grimm. He should be here soon and the sooner he is, the sooner we can get the ‘ell outta here.”