Wisps of a Name

Ehren breathed in the fresh scent of the ocean riding along the breeze. It was no longer just the ocean though. Snaking through the trees and the flower-laden field had imprinted the wind with its eclectic blend of life. It was a marginally unsatisfying inspiration. A wondrous, albeit fleeting, treat for the senses.

Like the woman next to him.

“Stay with me?” He asked, staring up at the brilliance of God’s blue sky, sprinkled with marshmallow clouds that tempered the brilliant light of the mid-summer sun.

Her sigh was ever so gentle, like the wisp of the winds that caressed their bare skin. “You know I can’t.”

He closed his eyes in resignation. Every time they came here, the chaos of his life fell away, replaced by an orderliness difficult to let go. But he always had to let go because she always had to leave. Nevertheless, there was no harm in trying.

“I love this place,” she said and her smile was evident in the tone. It stirred his loins despite their love-making the last three days. Hers was a voice a serene melody of the best things the world had to offer. It was beauty and creation, love and possibility. It was everything missing from his world.

“Do you love it, Ehren?”

“ehren…”

This time looked over at her. She was perfection. A flawless bronze complexion that, at times, literally glowed. Her eyes were ever-changing. Today they were a coral blue of the seas. Her soft, full lips were still swollen from earlier and a single dimple adorned the fullness of her cheeks. Her thick mane of raven hair, which he normally loved, covered the slim curves of her elven body.

“I do.”

She shook her head in amusement. “Not me. This.” She sat up and gestured to the field surrounding them. Ehren sat up as well and took in the beauty around them.

“God is good,” he said and meant it.

They sat in a companionable silence, content with nature’s ambiance. Sometime during that quiet reflection, they clasped hands. Her skin radiated a heat that, had it been Ehren, would have been cause for concern. But he was used to her unusual body temperature by now.

“…ehren”

Ehren shook his head, trying to clear himself of the whispers. As if sensing his discomfort, she took his hand in both of his and said, “I cannot stay, Ehren. But you can.”

Something in her tone concerned Ehren. He had never seen this side of her before. There was a sadness and desperation to it. As if she wanted to say more but couldn’t.

“I can’t stay any more than you can.”

She shook her head. “Yes, you can. You do not have to go back. All that awaits you is pain and suffering. Disappointment and loss. Here,” she gestured to the land before them, “you have perfection. Everything you deserve. For lives lived and sacrifices made.”

Something pinched at the back of his mind at that. A word. A name. He reached for it, but it was akin to grasping wisps of smoke. A hand on his shoulder arrested those thoughts.

“You can stay, Ehren,” she repeated and there was no mistaking the desperation in her eyes. “Truly, you can.”

…ehren

That whisper from behind again turned him away from her. Did someone call his name? A kind, loving, destructive voice? He started to rise only to have her hands pull him down, desperate and demanding. But ephemeral now, as the first flickers of light shone through her.

…Ehren

That voice again. More insistent; it jerked him towards it. The woman before him faded even more, as did his vision of her, as if he was being pulled through a lengthening tunnel. She spoke to him, a panic set in her beautiful features but Ehren was too far away to hear her words. He squinted as the distance pulled him further away but, with focus, he concentrated on her lips.

“—my name—” he read her lips. What was she trying to say? He started to say as much but his voice was gone, overpowered by wracking coughs as…

…he shot up in bed, doubling over as his stomach cramped and invisible tendrils of bile spewed from his lips. Something pulled at his arm but it was distant. And what was that in his nose? He pulled at that, only to hack even more.

“Ehren…”

His name again, but nearer this time. A warm hand on his back. Gentle, yet insistent. The coughing trickled away before he could…

“That’s it, my love. Breathe.”

He looked up through watery eyes to see her. Her! The woman from the fields. His everything. Except this wasn’t quite her, was it?

This woman was also beautiful but not like a summer’s day. Rather she was a tundra of snow and ice, frozen landscapes and glaciers. Immaculate but lacking all traces of warmth.

Not like her.

As if reading his thoughts, the woman’s smile dipped and the coldness in her coral blue eyes expanded. “You heard me call you, my love. I am so grateful that you’ve come back to me.” That word again, but on her lips it felt wrong. False.

He dared a glance around the room. It was sterile, colorless. A hospital then; that was confirmed by the IV taped to his arm and the chart at the end of his bed. He caught sight of a half dozen flower bouquets crowding the counter. So many flowers. Roses, tulips, lavender, snow lilies and…marigolds?

Something about the brilliant shine of that flower niggled at his mind. He looked back at the woman sitting next to him. She smiled but it was predatory. Vulpine.

“We didn’t think you’d make it back this time,” she said. Gilttery black fingernails scraped across his arm and it was all he could do not to pull away. Her smile grew wider, colder.

“She told you, didn’t she?” She stood and it was so similar to the woman in the field that Ehren almost called her name.

Her name? Do you even know it?

The woman strolled around his bed and, as she moved, the very shadows followed her. She reached the flowers, passing a hand over each bouquet as she walked by. And as she did, every flower wilted, blackened, then driveled to ash. Fear slashed through Ehren and he sat up, ignoring the pain flowing through him.

“You don’t remember,” she said and stopped in front of the marigolds. They resisted whatever and, for a moment, her serenity twisted into something vile, ugly, and wholly inhuman. Her eyes narrowed and finally the marigolds eventually began to fall. Their march towards death reinvigorated her. “You never do.”

She was next to him in a flash, her face inches from his own. The scent of death and decay clung to her, perfumed over with lavender and jasmine.

“It almost makes this part boring.” She slid a finger across his now sweaty brow. “But knowing that she failed, knowing that you’ll break again, is so very stimulating.” Her body spasmed in an orgasmic shiver.

Ehren didn’t want to speak. He wanted to curl up until she left. Coward. “What do you want?”

This time, when she smiled, her teeth showed. Ehren gasped at the endless row-upon-row of serrated edges. “What do I want? What I always want. And what you always give me.”

Without warning, she shoved her hand into Ehren’s chest. The pain was so immediate and so exquisite that he lost control of his bowels. There was no chance to scream as her other hand covered his mouth with an inhuman strength.

Tears of pain and frustration leaked from Ehren’s eyes and his vision swam. He was dying…and he finally understood what his lover had meant. Don’t go back, she said. But it was too late.

“Let’s call this lucky number seven,” she murmured and planted a gentle kiss on his cheek. “Only six more to go.”

As Ehren took his final breaths, his mind clawed for understanding and it wasn’t until blackness overwhelmed him that he understood.

“Remember my name” she had said. Ehren knew instinctively that if he said it, it would be his talisman against this ancient evil. But God help him, Ehren couldn’t remember.

The woman before him laughed and it was an avalanche of shattering glass. He could not recall the woman in the field’s name but he knew the terror before him.

Pandora.

It was there when they had arrived. The box. The warning. He had been the deciding factor in opening it. He was the reason for the agony and suffering flowing across the world; the destruction yet to come.

“Such wonders I have to show you, my love.”

My God. What I have done.

But his spirit had already moved on, ready to return to that beautiful field. Ushering him through death’s door was the sadistic shriek of Pandora’s laughter.