The Gloaming

The coach entered the forest road just as the sun began to slink under the horizon and day gave way to night, pulled by four black horses with wild wide eyes, and white foam at their mouths.  Their top halves sweaty and their bottom halves flecked with mud, they looked like they had seen better days, yet they pressed on as if the Devil himself were chasing them.  Those with full possession of the facts who would have said that this was indeed the case.  Urged on by the cries of the driver, and the crack of his whip, the horses pulled the coach into the gloaming made all the more dark by the trees reaching up on either side of the road.

Solomon listened to the sounds of the coach approaching - the panting of the horses, the squeaking of the wheels, the thud and crash as it hit the varied potholes in the old road.  He knew each and every hole, many of them having been of his own making.  They enabled him to judge where along the road the carriage was, how big the vehicle itself was, and more importantly, they allowed him to guess its weight.  From these sounds, Solomon estimated it would be a heavy haul tonight.  It might even take him multiple trips to plunder the carriage and safely transfer the booty to his hideaway.

He shivered in anticipation - a tremor that rippled down through his body and transferred to his horse, Bridget, who stamped her feet and snorted.

'Easy girl,' he soothed her and stroked her mane.  If he had been paying attention, he might have noticed that his horse was more skittish tonight than usual.  He might have considered that she, too, had picked up the sounds of the carriage, but had interpreted them differently.  Where Solomon heard a heavy-laden carriage of wealth for the taking, Bridget sensed a danger that was hurtling toward them at speed.

Solomon gave a gentle swish of the reins and Bridget trotted out of the treeline and stopped in the middle of the road, as she had done countless times before.  With one hand holding the reins steady, he reached inside his coat with the other and pulled out his pistol.  As the coach approached, Solomon cocked the pistol.  Bridget snorted, and in the last light of the day he could see her breath rising in the cold night air.

The coach followed the curve of the road and as he saw the lanterns swinging from the front of the vehicle, Solomon raised his pistol above his head and fired a warning shot.  The coach appeared to slow a little but didn't stop, and was still travelling too fast for Solomon's liking.  He fired a second warning shot that, again, seemed to be ignored by the driver.  He could see the driver's face illuminated by the lanterns now, as the coach bore down on his position.  He took aim at the driver's head, and shouted a last warning.

'Your money, or your life!'

The coach kept on coming, and if anything, seemed to speed up.  Solomon fired, and hit the driver square in the face.  The poor man spun on his seat and fell off the coach, taking the reins with him.  The horses reared as the reins became stuck in a front wheel, causing the coach to veer to one side.  Solomon thought it would fall over and spill whatever treasures it was carrying, but something odd happened - the coach righted itself and the horses became calm.

Solomon dug his heels into Bridget's rib-cage and she trotted towards the other horses.  The horses greeted her by bobbing their heads, and as Bridget passed them, a man stuck his head out of the carriage window.  Solomon took aim, and as the man lifted his own pistol out of the window, the highwayman shot him.  The man slumped against the window frame, his pistol arm hanging out, and dropped his weapon to the floor.  Solomon drew level with the window.  All seemed quiet, so he dismounted and tied Bridget to the coach, picked the dead man's pistol up and opened the door.

He dragged the body out of the way, looked into the gloomy interior of the coach and saw the dead man's companion.  Sitting there quietly, with some kind of sack or hood over the head was, he guessed by the clothing, a woman.  The hood and dress were black like widow's weeds, and two hands showed beneath slender black lace gloves, clutching a small bag in her lap.  The woman moved her head to face the window, as if she could see Solomon through the hood.  He backed away and, reaching up, took one of the lanterns from the driver's seat and waved it in the window.

As he suspected, the woman was chained, both by her hands and feet, to a metal ring that had been screwed into the floor of the coach.

'Who are you?'  He asked.

The woman shifted her head in a way that reminded him of a bird, tilting its head to one side to get a better look at a worm. Her hands tightened their grip around the bag, and Solomon thought that the night might not be a total waste of effort after all.  He opened the coach door and climbed up inside.  The woman remained still, but he had the eerie feeling she was following him with her eyes under the hood.  He sat opposite her and lifted up the lantern, taking in the chains, one of which reached up under the hood.

'Are you alright?'

The woman moaned slightly, an internal sound that seemed to have difficulty leaving her throat.  Solomon frowned, and placing the lantern on the seat next to him, reached forward to grab at the hood.  The woman didn't flinch as he pulled it from her head...

Solomon had never seen a scold's bridle in use. It was a torture device that he had heard of but hadn't come across. It had a thick metal frame that encased the woman's head with a metal plate that went into her mouth and pressed down on her tongue to stop her from talking. The woman moaned at him again, and he caught her eye. She stared at him with what he assumed was fear, and then looked down to her right shoulder. Solomon followed her gaze - there, hanging in the air just off her jawline was the lock that held the scold's bridle in place.

'Shall I take it off?'

She nodded, and her chains clanked with the movement.

'Where is the key?'

She looked out of the door, at the darkening night beyond the lantern. Solomon took her hint, and ducked out of the coach, holding the lantern aloft. He rifled through the dead man's pockets until he found a thick metal ring with three keys. He looked at them one at a time and then glanced back at the coach. The woman hadn't moved.

Solomon climbed back into the coach, set the lantern down next to the woman, and tried a key in the lock. It didn't fit. The woman groaned, and her eyes rolled back into her head.

'It's bound to be one of these,' he said, causing her to nod in agreement.

He tried the second key, which fit through the keyhole, but wouldn't turn. With a look of triumph, he used the last of the keys, and opened the padlock. The woman stayed still as he pulled the steel cage from around her face and threw it out of the doorway. She closed her eyes as she moved her neck first to one side, then the other, and Solomon could hear the bones cracking in her neck. He shuddered, which she noticed, and put a gloved hand over his.

'Be not afraid, good sir,' she said with a honeyed voice that seemed to arrive directly in his head rather than come through his ears, 'you have done a good deed this night.'

'I've killed two men.'

'My guess is, they weren't your first.'

Solomon shook his head, and the woman stared at him intently. He looked down at her hands, which now gripped her bag tighter than before.

'Hand over the bag.'

'Take it from me, if you dare.'

At the sound of defiance in her voice, Solomon raised his pistol.

'Give it to me.'

She loosened the bag's draw-string, all the time maintaining eye contact with him. She slowly pulled something out of the bag, and then threw the bag at him.

'Take the bag.'

He looked down at the bag, crumpled in his lap, and then looked across at her hands. She was taking her gloves off, finger by finger, her fingernails gleaming in the lantern-light. Her hands were smooth, and as white as the full moon. They were the hands of the gentry, that had never felt a day's labour.

'What's that?' Solomon pointed at a sleek black cloth that the woman was rolling over in her hands. She slowly unpeeled it, like a bad fruit, to reveal a little figure made of twigs. A brown ball sat atop the frame to serve as a head, and it was clothed in a dark blue cloth. Solomon looked at the blue cloth, and a cold feeling crept over him. He pulled on the sleeve of his tunic beneath his overcoat, a little splash of blue cuff. The woman smiled as she held the figure in front of her.

'It's a poppet.' She said, and dug her fingernails into the figure. Solomon felt the air rush out of his chest as it constricted. He felt light-headed and gripped by terrible pain. The woman reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of string, which she looped around the poppet's neck. Solomon felt his windpipe closing as she draw the noose tighter around the poppet.

'Now, what was the exchange you offered the driver?' She said, in her sweet voice, 'Money or life? Which one will you keep?'

She swung the poppet lazily in front of him. Solomon clawed at his neck, as if by some brute force he might create a hole to breathe through.

'Life!' He managed to wheeze.

'Good choice, highwayman,' she said, and dropped the poppet into her lap. Solomon fell t the floor of the coach, gasping. The woman took the ring of keys from him, and freed herself from the chains binding her hands and feet. She laughed - a sound like water burbling in a mountain stream - cool and inviting, with hints of dangers untold.

'You are mine, now,' she whispered in his ear, 'and you will drive this carriage for me. Get up, there is a long road ahead of us. We shall travel at night, and rest at day.'

'Where are we going?'

The woman smirked. 'Far away from where I have been. Take the driver's clothes outside, and be quick about it, lest the poppet swing from the door-frame!'

Solomon did as he was bid, clothing himself in the driver's garments. The woman made him drag the two bodies out of the road and roll them into the ditch. With a sad, last look, he said goodbye to Bridget. His neck and chest still felt tight, and his breathing was laboured as he climbed into the driver's seat, took the reins and whipped the horses into action. The coach lurched forward, and rumbled off down the old forest road, leaving Bridget behind to whinny in the dark.

The next morning a travelling peddler discovered the bodies in the ditch, along with the scold's bridle and the chains that had bound the woman. Noting the guardsman's uniform on one of the bodies, the peddler moved on to the nearest town and brought back an officer, who declared that the old forest road was not safe at night. Word was sent to every town, village and homestead that bordered the forest - a witch in chains had been released, and as the gloaming descended upon the forest each night, there were worse things than highwaymen to fear.