Varkana: Dangerous Gifts, #1

Chapter 1

It was an unfortunate situation that much was certain.  If I didn’t know better, which I did, I would call it odd.  But I had seen odd, lived with it even, and this came nowhere close.  After all, what’s so strange about a girl clinging to the top of a light post for dear life, twenty five feet above the ground, in the middle of a Saturday morning?  Not much, in my life, even if it was to the people milling about below.  What was strange was that I had no recollection of how I’d gotten there.  After I’d gained control of the situation, I decided on a logical course of action.

Help? I asked a passing man.  He leaped back with an air of surprise.  So did the woman I asked next, except she had the presence of mind to scream before doing so.  I wondered why I bothered.  After it became clear that people were either going to avert their eyes as if they hadn’t seen, or walk quickly past, I decided to take matters into my own hands.  Gripping the pole tightly, I slowly slid down.  My palms burned from the friction, but I held on.  When I reached the bottom, the odd looks continued as I started trotting off home. My muscles felt sore and my head was pounding.  Passing a laundromat window, I happened to glance in.

Gahh, I coughed in surprise.  What I saw was my reflection of course, but nothing like the ordinary me.  My medium length medium brown hair was in scary tangles, and my face was smudged with dirt and blood.  My clothes were torn, and the holes showed scratches all along my arms and legs.  

I simply stared, until the manager in the laundromat glared at me, as if I’d been spying out some laundry I’d like to steal.  Not that far fetched I guess, considering my clothes were in tatters. I smiled politely, almost a grimace, and walked away.  My blood caked face had seemed to scare him, and he’d turned pale. I must look worse than I'd thought. The city was full of people like him, people that had strict ideas about what was normal and what wasn't.  Almost as if they were wearing very tight underwear that didn’t let them move at all.  I called it narrow-mindedness, but my dad called people like that ethnocentric, bigoted bastards.  My dad also had very firm beliefs about everything, only they seemed to be like underwear with a broken waistband, getting bigger and stretchier at every moment.

The city I was in was called Gasville, and I’d lived there since I turned nine, moving there from my own town right before my birthday, and winter’s Solstice.  My dad, Liam, had had to leave for reasons unknown to me, so we’d moved across the river to Gasville and a life of boredom.  Now that I was thirteen, we’d lived there for approximately three and a half years. 

After I left the main metropolis of downtown with its shiny glass buildings and clean sidewalks, I crossed one of the little offshoots of the big river by a metal bridge. I wandered down a bumpy crumbling lane that had clumps of weeds and grass growing through the holes. The houses on either side of the street were older than the new suburbs further inland, and looked like it too.  The paint was flaking and the doors had cracks in them from being slammed too many times.  The yards were unkempt, littered with dirty children’s toys and dog excrement. From the end of that lane I wandered through many more like it, till I reached a street, Galloway Lane, that looked a little bit more cared for.  

Here there were hand painted rocks and bits of grass littering little wildflower beds.  The doors were all painted different colours, and some also bore signs that declared things like; Heather Peabody: professional palmist, or Mitch’s draughts and potions.  There were even a couple of bed and breakfasts.  My house was about halfway down this street, and boasted a lilac coloured door, which was open at the moment. I took the stairs two at a time and pushed through into the hall uncertainly.  There was the sound of running water from the kitchen, near the back of the ramshackle house, so I headed there.  My dad was peeling potatoes over the kitchen sink, and talking on the telephone.

Oh honey, you’re back, he said, turning and waving from the sink.  I waved back, and looked for something to eat.  After a second he did a double take and dropped the phone in with the potatoes.  I cringed.

What happened to you Rieka? he asked, almost bursting into tears when he whirled and confirmed his fears.  I cast about for an answer, didn't find one and just stared at his shocked face.  He looked like a ghost.  But of course he always did.  His hair was bone white and his skin was pale.  His face was flat, unlike my angular features, and seemed devoid of personality most of the time.  His tall bony frame did not help him to appear less skeletal.

Well, you know, um, I’m not entirely sure, I explained, confused.  He started opening and closing his mouth.  

I must have been beaten or something this morning, maybe by a gang, and I just don’t remember. I tried that explanation on for size, already knowing it didn’t fit.  I had a feeling there was so no easy explanation. But Liam seemed happy - or unhappy - with it for the moment, and clasped me in a hug, as he quavered with shock and distress.  I patted his back comfortingly, and then indicated the unpeeled potatoes.  Liam wiped a tear from the corner of his eye, and continued cooking. Fortunately it seemed he was too upset to continue with the questions, for instance, how had I ended up in the hands of a gang in the middle of the night? 

I went up the stairs, and walked down the hall to my bedroom.  Maybe in there I might find a sign of what happened the previous night that would cause me to go from my bed to downtown, on a light post.  I opened the door cautiously, peeking around the frame after I was sure there would be no attack from within.  

Inside it looked like a twister had hit it.  Messy piles of books littered the floor, competing for carpet space with the disheveled clothes, tossed to the ground.  Odds and ends were knocked over on their shelves, or joining papers on the floor.  An old desk in the corner bore an ancient typewriter, and many ink stains.  The bed sheets were in tangles and wrapped around one bed post like a scarf.

I let out a breath of relief and walked in; all was as I’d left it.  I studied my bed for signs of a struggle,but it was hard considering that my sleeping was a little erratic. I had been known to wake the house with my one-sided sleep conversations, my yelling, and my wriggling. After checking that nothing was missing, I padded to the bathroom to clean up.  My shower was hot and refreshing. The blood and dirt washed off me and I noticed the cuts on my arms seemed to be healed already. I finished my shower and got wrapped up in a cozy housecoat. 

I WENT TO MY OPEN WINDOW and looked out. It was a fairly normal day for spring, in between sunny and overcast.  Every so often a small cloud would break and scatter its drops of rain across the land below. Much better than winter. I’d been hard put not to go insane with all the slush everywhere. Gasville didn’t even have proper snow because of all the oil on the roads and pollution in the air. Everyone just wore gumboots for four months and slogged through dirty mud.

Out over the houses, the roofing tiles and the occasional pigeon nest, I could see the end of Gasville. Where it ended, the river Borne began. Far across that expanse of water I knew there was my old home, the town of Varkana. Unfortunately I never saw it because the mist that covered the water was perpetual.  So I only had my memories of it from before the move. Even my memories were faded and washed out, as if they’d been painted in watercolours that someone had simply decided to wipe out.  Or maybe they'd been exposed to too much damp and the paint had started bleeding. Liam and I had lived in a big house back in Varkana, much larger than our current one. It had seemed as if every day had a purpose and a place in the unending stream that was my life. Unlike this jagged city, the parts crudely wedged together, as many pieces from different puzzles might be.

Deciding that there was nothing more to look at, I turned from the window.  But something had caught my eye and I felt obliged to turn back. I focused on it in a second.  It was in the yard behind ours, the one belonging to a particularly noisy couple. The woman fancied herself a friendly, down-to earth modern witch.  She was exactly the opposite. She was stingy and very high-maintenance; this knowledge I’d gained from listening to her yell at her husband all the time.  I knew she offered tarot readings and spiritual cleansings, for a price.  I doubted if she even had a shred of magical ability. Like most witches in Gasville she seemed to be a phony. In fact, the only good thing about her was her fixation with health and animals. If only she knew that after every bout of nagging, her husband went outside to smoke one of his forbidden cigarettes behind the rabbit pen.

Today it was her outside though.  Like always she didn’t look happy.  Actually she looked close to tears, her face contorted behind her long braided hair.  

Oh Tabitha! she cried, running to the rabbit pen she kept.  I leaned closer to get a better view, and saw her reach into the open door.  I held my breath as she pulled out something tattered, and covered in blood.

Oh Darling, she crooned, and then let out a shrill cry.  The husband stuck his head out of a second story window at this, and I ducked down quickly to avoid detection.  But I could still hear.

What’s happened dear? he asked wearily.  She was shaking her head, and when she saw the small pools of blood on the grass, which I’d noted before, she started wailing again.  

I’m coming dear, the man said and left the window.  I chanced a look again. The hag had dropped the dead rabbit, and was crawling through the tall grass now, her tie dye clothes getting soaked from the wet.  I could hear her whimpering, and her words carried up to me.

Here, here, my darlings, she crooned softly, her voice cracking.  The husband reached the back door, and ran out to help. He sighted what she had not; two more rabbit corpses, which looked more than half devoured.  I swallowed the sudden urge to be sick and the husband turned ghostly white. 

Oh d-dear.  Umm, dear, c-come inside, the husband stuttered.  He tried to pull her to her feet, and away from the bodies she was mourning, but she pushed him away brutally.  I got the distinct impression that she valued the rabbits’ lives above his.  

This was all a little too much for me, and when they had turned away from the cadavers I turned away too.  I decided that a little bit of sleep might do me good, considering I obviously hadn’t slept well the night previous. I lay down and burrowed under the tangled blankets.  Sleep came easily, and soon I was soaring over the city in a dream. I flew over the depressing streets, the roads that were filled with road-raging drivers, and the tall offices with their office workers.  Then on past the lifeless docks I went. I saw the graffiti-stained walls and run-down nightclubs. I went past all of that and on to the river. Swept across the river and through the cold mist. The feeling of wet was more known than felt, as if I only felt it because I knew that’s what I should be feeling.

Coming through the mist at last, I prepared for the vision of the docks of Varkana.  But at that moment I felt a tug. Someone calling me from below. Looking down at the river I saw nothing but the gently dancing water.  And then it came again. Rieka! And then I was waking up.  I fought to cling to my pleasant dream but I always lost this battle.  I opened my eyes, more forlorn than irritated. 

Chapter 2

R ieka, lunch is ready ! came Liam’s voice.  Pulling myself from my warm bed unwillingly, I trudged down to the kitchen.  Liam was already seated, munching on a carrot stick.  When I walked in he leaped to his feet, all concern.  He hugged me briefly and I waved a hand at him to sit down, and went to the counter.  While I heaped organic veggies and some spinach pie onto my plate, Liam chatted nervously about his morning.

So, while I was walking Wigum this morning I ran into Mrs. Belaby, he said.  Wigum was our miniature mutt, the size of a large rat, but purebred nothing.  And Mrs. Belaby, you remember her, don’t you?  Well, she came up to me, and she asked me if perhaps Wigum had got out last night, Liam said.  Mrs. Belaby lived a few doors down, and was a fairly nice old woman, if a little boring.

Why? I asked.

Well that’s what I said, and Mrs. Belaby said that last night she’d heard ‘dog noises’, and in the morning she’d found enormous paw prints in her garden.

Enormous? I asked skeptically and glanced down at the petite dog. He’d chosen that moment to trot in, wagging his spindly tail.  Then I looked back at Liam and we burst out laughing.  His laugh was slow and wheezing, and mine was more like a yelp or two and then cackling.  When the animal show had quieted down, I started sneezing loudly.  Two times, and then I was done, but my nose still ticklish.

Well, seeing as I’ve got work to do, why don’t you go outside or something?  Find your friends maybe? Liam asked.  I could take a hint; he wanted to turn on the TV to the cooking channel, and maybe read a self help book.  I nodded and traipsed outside.  There was no point in calling any of my friends; I doubted they were at