Bone and Cartilage

Guinevere was a sullen girl most would describe as a brooding bohemian, maintaining a strong resolve in her outlandish beliefs, yet possessing none of the same passion for herself, instead holding herself to the same standards as the cobwebs covering the rusted lock on her front door: filthy and forgotten. Of course, those are the ideas bestowed upon her by the many intruders trampling in and out of her life, fleeting and only using her for her traditional skills and taking special care to make sure they only left behind absolute destruction. It was an unbidden secret in the town of Nodum Lí, that the silent siren housed in the cottage hidden amongst the forest trees on the outskirts of the town and its people, so as to not disturb the skyline, had probably mothered over half of the children amongst them. She herself knew it to be true, but had no desire to entertain the idea of socialising with the townspeople any more than she was required to.

The only soul she deigned to utter a pleasant word to was Branwen, one of the few she did not birth and the groundskeeper for the Mayor. Like her, he resented the town and hoped to earn enough money to someday escape, perhaps taking Guinevere with him. Also like her, Branwen was the subject of another unspoken truth amongst the citizens: engaging in an affair with the Mayor’s wife, Calliope, who many agreed was a far superior character than the mayor himself, undeserving of a husband as cruel as the ‘nauseating knave’, a title the townsfolk use to refer to him when they were lucky enough to evade his company. However, a recent arrival in the town seems to have slightly lessened the contempt felt towards the knave, as there is now another direction to send such animosity.

This newcomer is the figure on Guinevere’s mind as she reclines against her splintering chair, the only thing protecting her from a wooden lashing being the woollen cover of her old knitted blanket, gifted to her by intruder number eleven, when they still though they had to buy her womb and pretend to care, pretended to give her a choice. Fabian Belial is a mistrusted mystery amongst the town, the people having mutually agreed to dislike him on the basis that he was foreign. Nobody knew how he got there, nobody knew where he came from and that scared everyone. It should be impossible to just arrive as he did and he wouldn’t say a word about his journey, so people’s automatic response was fear, thinking ‘how can he get in but we can’t leave?’

Though, that is not why Guinevere has chosen to disregard him as a person, thinking of him instead as a vile invasion, no, unlike the townspeople she has a very good reason.

She doesn’t like his face.

Not so much in the sense that his features are upsetting to look at, but that she knows his face, knows what people with his face are capable of.

She knows it when he has looked at her on the off chance that Branwen has managed to drag her out of her haven for a couple of hours.

She knows it because she has seen it before, on the faces of every man in town (except Branwen) and a lot of the women too.

She knows what they are capable of if they want something badly enough, so she has done the only thing that she has deemed sensible to do in such a situation, shun him; scorn him before he can get the chance to take what he wants.

It was a Sunday when Guinevere began to reminisce in memories she never had and a life she could only wish to hope for. They came in waves, flashes of moments so pure she cried after viewing them, scared they would be chased away by her impurity and never visit again, but they always did. Usually they started at a time when she was a child and continue onto her current age which she knew to be between twenty-five and thirty-five: her and Branwen playing in the poppy fields that were miles away from the town and known only to them, a woman that played the role of her mother bringing them treats in their treehouse; Branwen squealing as he told her about his new crush on a sweet bookworm called Calliope, freely walking through town with everyone waving as she walks past because Branwen wasn’t her only friend and falling for a gentleman who was as nervous as she was about a relationship because he cared for her, so they decide to venture it together. It was beautiful, a gem of a lifetime compared to what she had been given: cared for by the town when she was an infant because of what she thought was love, that dream snatched away from her when she was told it was because she has been the only one born since The Devastation that could bear a child; finding a cottage in the woods to live in because she was scared to sleep amongst the townspeople, entering the cottage and having to drag a corpse off of the bed to be able to sleep there, taking a heart-shaped locket off of the corpse and wearing it so they would be remembered and crying as she buried them because she wishes that someone would cry if she died too.

She didn’t know too much about The Devastation, just that it was as the name suggests and that was why nobody talked about it. Sometimes she felt jealous of the grief people felt at the destruction of the event because it meant there was something better before that. Sometimes she felt she understood their grief as they say they lost a certain freedom to it, a freedom she feels she also lost out on as she imagines a life where she was not the only Bearer around, wondering how different her relationship would be with the other townspeople, wondering if she would even be here if that was the case because she doesn’t know who her parents are, where they came from, if she was born here and if not, how she got here. It wasn’t something she liked to dwell on though, it only made her more bitter knowing that nothing about that can be changed. Multiple attempts at escaping the forest surrounding the town had been made, not just by her but by the others too, but nobody had been able to get through the maze-like forest and if they did they couldn’t breach the gaseous wall that came after that. She hadn’t believed it at first, but Branwen had said he saw a man try to run through it only to be spat back out seconds later with boils covering his body that now lacked a heartbeat, just a hollow shell.

She shouldn’t have been surprised when she saw the muted silver that caged the trees, nobody had ever been on her side so why should nature?

Everyone agreed it must be because of The Devastation because it hadn’t been like that before. That was how they’d get her too, saying that ‘we don’t want this either but this is for our survival!’ She’d see the looks on their faces and know that to only be half true.

People had been disappearing lately, many having been seen going towards the forest after saying they were leaving. Nobody ever returned, meaning they remained lost amongst the trees or got to the fog.

So she made a choice.

Around a quarter of her life died with this town but she won’t have that be her forever. Every inch of her is layered, a shield to cover everything except the lenses of her goggles that she also layered. She would leave today. Her legs shook as she turned her rusted lock for the last time, only sparing a last look towards Nodum Lí where she knew Branw-

No, she wouldn’t think about him.

He had made his decision and it was Calliope.

She sighed as she stumbled through the forest, buckling slightly under the weight of her clothes yet still wishing she had more layers. The path she mapped out to the fog was a weary one, however she was prepared, having set a trail beforehand and packing plenty of water to carry her through, but she hadn’t considered the added weight of the bottles on top of her clothing, something she was regretting as she panted and dragged herself through the bushes. Nevertheless, this was important and Guinevere had never wanted anything more than this so without a second thought she sank to her knees and crawled, letting her bag drag behind her. Wincing at every stick and stone that cut her hands, she let out a whimper, watching tears puddle at the bottom of her goggles, thankful that her cries were muffled by numerous scarves. That was her journey, filled with blood, sweat and tears but they were nothing to the elation that filled her at the sight of the deadly gas. The tree next to her groaned slightly as she hauled herself upwards and stiffened at the sound of a crack to her left. Turning, her eyes widened at the sight of Fabian who looked back at her calmly. Her resolve was solid though, so she relaxed her stance and tilted her head slightly towards the poison in front of them, allowing herself a small smile behind the scarves as he nodded and pointed back towards the town with his thumb turned down. Nodding, she stepped towards him and they took a moment to just look at each other and embrace the silence around them before turning back towards their salvation. Guinevere felt more confident now. She hadn’t been sure that the layers would be enough but Fabian was here too, layered and looking very calm which would make sense if this was how he reached the town in the first place, which he managed to do unscathed.

Turning her focus back to Fabian she saw him nod at her and stretch his hand out towards the mist with smiling eyes, so she did the same. Her hand stopped just before it, looking back at Fabian whose eyes were smiling encouragingly before turning back towards her hand. She saw him move in her peripheral and once again followed his lead, thrusting her hand into the dense, muted silver.

The pain wasn’t immediate. In fact, it took her more than five seconds to register her layers melting into her skin as she started to turn with a panicked shriek. It took another three seconds to realise that her body wasn’t following her commands, her arm still in the process of cremation. Whipping her head around, the split second she needed to recognise Fabian’s arm restricting her movements was enough for him to shove and unbalance her, her body twisting to face him as she fell, the moment lasting an age.

A sudden warmth made her do a long blink. The heat was all consuming and a strange comfort as her eyes fluttered open to meet his face, feeling the skin on her ears start to dissolve away, leaving only bone and cartilage. She couldn’t see his face properly as he was still covered, but in that moment, Fabian was the most beautiful person she’d ever seen and her lips were upturned as they split and liquified, reflecting Guinevere’s final thought: ‘So this is love.’