The Stranger III

Chapter 3

I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul

Bram Stoker, Dracula

Image Source: Pinterest

Miley turned in front of the tall mirror and looked at herself in the amber glow of the chandelier. The curtains were drawn, and one could only make out that it was early morning by the soft light that ringed the curtains in the window of her quarters generously provided by Count Stephan.

The figure in the mirror posed like a manikin, frozen in a pensive gaze. The eyes in the reflection assessed her with a skeptical look and a face that spoke of no hope that some admirable quality would appear in the warm lighting.

She made love to Stephan throughout the night and still, she found their relationship wanting. What was it? What needed to change? Deep down she knew she was the one that had to change. He already had the perfect girl, and Miley wanted to be her, nothing else.

The bed covers were thrown about the bed, the sheets had wrinkles pressed into sharp creases from too many nights under her restless weight. On the floor among a pile of clothes, shoes, and adorned underthings, paper wads of handwritten notes collected like dust bunnies. The dresser was piled high with lotions, perfumes, make-up left open, and powder spilled on the dark wood and faded linen cover from the night before.

The figure stirred in the ancient mirror, fingered the two curious blood spots on the neck, and turned away. Miley – she called herself Miley because her real name was too hard for others to pronounce or remember – looked at the small desk by her bed at the sheets of paper in a loose pile and more thrown on the floor. It was hopeless. She was too attached. She could not document the Count’s genealogical dictations without inserting herself in this ancient family’s lineage.

She wanted him for herself. Miley wanted to be the forty-seventh Countess Radu cel Mare and become a leaf on this 541-year-old family tree. For a moment, Miley contemplated starting over and then the crushing thought of all that time making love to Stephan, and wrapping her life in a story about him was just too much. She had to let go and let him go back to his Anna and his beloved estate steeped in legacy and mystery so she, the Scribe of Vlad Stephan cel Mare could finish the story. His story, not hers.

The rest of the morning Miley thought about him. While she showered, dressed, and applied her makeup, she thought about him. The more she thought, the more she wanted, and the more Miley wanted, the more hopeless she became. The Scribe thought about how she could change him as she rifled through her catered breakfast spread for some tiny morsel to eat.

The troubled girl settled on Greek yogurt that already had the spoon sunk into it and a cup of coffee growing chill on the ornately engraved silver platter. Miley didn’t know why she fell in love so easily or why she always wanted the man meant for another. It wasn’t going to work out. It never did. She went to the desk and picked up her papers and stuffed them in her waste bin with the others she had read then rejected as woefully inadequate for nobility.

After a few minutes of pulling the papers out and putting them back in the bin, she realized she was late for her morning meeting with the Count’s staff. She set her body of crumpled work back on the table. She could change it. Miley decided she could make Stephan love her. She hurried out the door happy with the decision to make it work. Quick footsteps echoed down the hall of the castle’s residential wing.

A shaft of light cut through the crack left by the open door to Miley’s living quarters. On the floor under the side table, a sheet of paper glowed in the light. It was curled from age and neglect with a fine layer of dust.

“Dearest Miss Miley Nikolavska,

I welcome you to my estate in the historic Carpathians. I look forward to your arrival and employment to capture the historical accomplishments and family tree of my lineage. 

I hope your journey from Bulgaria is enjoyable and that you have rested well. I have made arrangements for you to travel by train to stay in the tiny village of Vadu Oii when you arrive in my country.

I will pick you up at the hotel the next day at eight pm and bring you to my beautiful land in the mountains. I’m sure you will be enchanted by the countryside and enjoy your stay with me.

Your friend,

Stephan.”

The Stranger II

Chapter II

I love the shade and the shadow, and would be alone with my thoughts when I may.

Bram Stoker, Dracula

Image source: peperusso_fotografia via DOLCE & GABBANA

Count Stephan gazed out of the high arched window of his bedroom across the rugged snow peaks of the mountains. Blue-gray clouds obscured the valleys below under a blanket of velvet mystery and ethereal quiet. The violet haze of nearing twilight obscured the details of the distant peaks. The sun was below the mountains, and the shadows comforted the Count’s, anxious heart.

“Will you be dining in tonight, my lord,” came the silky voice of a young maiden. The Count turned and took up the portrait of her delicious yearning brushed with a pinkish hue on her porcelain face. He smiled as thoughts raced through his mind on how the dining-out pleasures met with his desire to take his sustenance here and now.

The seemingly undernourished girl realized her mistake as long fingers lightly stroked her cheek, forcing her to stare nervously at her feet.

“I’ll take dinner here on the Buffett. The fireplace is especially inviting tonight, don’t you think? “

“Yes, my lord.”

“Please have my Coachman ready to depart at precisely 7:00 pm. Oh, and I’ll take my evening coffee up here as well.”

“It is my pleasure, Sir Stephan.”

“And you are my eternal pleasure, Anna.” The Count lifted her chin with commanding fingertips until her eyelashes fluttered and opened to the laser penetration of two orbs of black glass dancing with the reflected light of the fire. She felt a disquieting tingle race down from her stomach into her loins. Stephan released his spell on the maiden, and Anna hurried from the Count’s chamber.

Deep laughter reverberated off the tapestry-covered walls as the Count sat by the fireplace. “That delightful Anna gives me hope for the future of her family. They have served our house for as long as this castle has stood. The modern world has nothing to compare to such devotion.”

“Now, I must turn my attention to Miley. How can I convince her to come to this distant outpost to be my personal scribe? Our meeting was not the most cordial as it seems Miss Miley has many troubles. Perhaps escape and solitude is what she needs, and I can give her that which she desires most.”

The Stranger

we must treasure the dream whatever the terror

N.K. Sandars, The Epic of Gilgamesh

Image Source: Pinterest

Miley sat on the edge of the brick planter outside the ice cream shop and indulged in her caramel macchiato sundae. It was a reward for living in denial. She denied herself enough food, rest, love, companionship, and gentle thoughts of doing nothing. Life was about goals and achievement, being heard and seen. She denied herself solitude, fearing silence was not golden but a terrible curse that she couldn’t escape. Some day she would have what she most wanted in life, and when Miley knew what that was, she could set her goals and devour the time to get there.

A man walked by and stopped in front of Miley, facing her left as if looking down the street. She almost asked him if he was looking for something. She stopped, berating herself for opening up for pointless conversation and the fight to get rid of him. She kept her eyes on her cup of sinful decadence and pretended to study where her spoon should dig next. 

The stranger was dressed all in black. It matched his long raven hair. This mysterious fellow obscured Miley’s view with the side of his hip – well muscled. His legs were strong, his shoulders broad. Just what she didn’t need; another muscle man jackass to rip her insides out and leave her alone with her pain and regret. 

“Miley,” his voice assaulted her awareness like the slow rumble of distant thunder.

Miley shuddered. How could he know her name?

“May I sit down with you,” he asked.

“It’s a public place. Set where you like,” she replied. Her voice seemed foreign and full of rude subtleness. She watched as he blotted out the sun and descended to the brick border of the planter. He sat a respectful distance away and leaned forward, his face in his hands, thinking about something – Miley had no clue. “How did he know my name?” The thought haunted her with unease and made her ice cream seem cloying and sticky in her mouth. A memory of her subversion by another man’s passion slid across her mind’s eye and she felt nauseous. She scooted over, just a few more inches. 

The man didn’t look up or move. He didn’t acknowledge her. The black-clad figure sat with his face in his hands, tortured by something she couldn’t imagine and didn’t want to know. 

“Don’t do it, Miley,” her inner voice scolded.

“Who are you? How did you know who I am?” She asked with a timid voice full of dread. 

“I warned you girl,” The voice in her head fumed at her weakness for curiosity. 

He lifted himself up and looked into her face. He was calm and expressionless. Miley tried to read him. Her heart raced with the fear a woman has when she falls under the gaze of a stone-hearted predator.

His gaze held her frozen, not knowing what would come next. Miley’s mind urged her to run away. The interloper’s posture held her captive, like the squirrel waiting for the hawk to leave. He looked down at Miley’s trembling fingers. She pushed them into her lap and abandoned her ice cream. Those eyes. They looked through her. They were like black obsidian gemstones fixed into twin settings; the eyes of Horus, she thought. It spoke and Miley felt the voice resonate in her chest.

“I am everything you fear and everything you need and nothing you want. I am the thing you look upon with disdain and give thanks you are not me. I am the beggar you taunted and the wealthy gentleman whose confidence you stole, thinking he had plenty of money left to carry him away in more luxury than you could afford. I am the love you never had and the pain you suffer to deny. I am the opposite of you, Miley. I am love in the darkness and I am only seen by you.”

His words came to her like a reading of some ancient manuscript that revealed some astonishing secret about her only she had known. It was the poem of Gilgamesh, the Poetic Asatru Edda. As she fell unwittingly into listening, into captivation, into mute silence, his voice shifted and she felt the words and saw them in her mind. His story showed her in the embrace of Krishna stretched out on a tiger’s pelt in a park where the trees were in the full bloom of spring. The air was sweet and fragrant and they practiced the enlightenment of pleasure according to the Kama Sutra.

“I am the boy you admired along the Danube river as our Tribe pushed west across Europe to Scandinavia to escape the Hordes from the Steppes of Asia as they swept everything aside like the floods of angry storms. I am the boy turned to the man who left you at the shore of Bergen Norway as our longboat sailed from the Fjord to Britain in search of glory and wealth.”

His story unfolded in epic vistas of history. She did not know when he had come closer and lifted her hand buried between her tightly held thighs. The hand that drew her into a spell swallowed her fingers with a touch soft and warm. Miley was afraid to look at what they were doing in this strange park where trees cast flower petals like snow. She felt no fear, only longing; the longing she had worked so hard to flush from her life. Now it was back stronger than ever.

The captivated tribal girl tilted her head down and listened as he neared her ear and whispered things; lovely things she didn’t want to hear, and could not resist, nor look away.

“I am the kiss, the bite, the intensity of striking your skin and spontaneous sounds unbidden.” 

Miley felt his tongue barely touching the peach fuzz on her skin. He drew mandalas on her with fingers that burned. She felt the licks and bite, the rhythm of men in their frenzy of lovemaking. “What the hell is going on?” She thought, but it was too late. 

“And who am I in your fantastic story,” she asked.

“You are the innocent girl across the river, the virgin mistress in the park adorned in the silk and spun cotton of your Lord and Master. You are the betrothed whose man has abandoned you for the glory of war, the dutiful wife, the mistress, the madame, the woman divorced from her divine nature.”

The obsidian eyes paused and waited. Miley read hunger in the reflection of her face in glossy pupils blown out to the edges of equally black irises. Did she pick up the faintest scent of his clothes; patchouli? Sandalwood, evergreen forest, wet stones, forest moss, and something sweet like masala chai wafted across her as a breeze from a passing car stirred the air. 

“Would you like to come with me to my place? I want to hear more about us, about you,” Miley asked.

“Not yet, he said. When your heart is full and you have found that the love inside you is the greatest gift you possess, I will come back to you, and this time, I’ll take you with me.”

Miley’s eyes stung from the rejection. She was ashamed for stepping out of her guarded nature to risk her heart with a stranger. Worst of all, Miley had no idea why she asked this goth-looking asshole to stay with her. She could not look at him. She would not show him how he won her over with his charming story and when she gave in, he rebuked her. 

Miley’s breath came in a shudder and she grew angry she might cry. She looked up to confront this cruel trick, but the man was gone and all she could see or hear was the people busy with each other, the sounds of commerce, and the songs of insects in the air. Her damned ice cream melted too.

Tribal-014

Home is people. Not a place. If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see is what is not there anymore.

Robin Hobb, Fool’s Fate.

Image Source: Jef Cablog, Stream Dweller

Tribal

Chapter 14

Roads Go Ever On 
BY J.R.R. Tolkien
 
Roads go ever ever on,
Under cloud and under star.
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen,
And horror in the halls of stone.
Look at last on meadows green,
And trees and hills they long have known.

Difficulties 𝍔 & On The Verge 𝍓

Wet earth and decaying foliage could not hide the odor of smoldering death. Zara moved up from the gentle slope of the stream to an old trail used for many years. She examined the tracks along the path running in both directions and determined the marks were old. Only one human track was recent. It was a man as large as Sgt Holmes; only the imprint was from a foot clad in leather made from the python’s skin. A tribal man.

Zara followed the scent of death that beckoned her toward the opening of a large cave. A vibration in her tracking watch halted her search. Zara scanned the jungle around her as she felt three long pulses, code for where-are-you. She pressed the upper right button that sent her grid coordinates back to Sgt. Holmes, so he could get a fix on her location and move the squad up to where Zara was. She darted up the embankment to the cleft in the wall of stone and eased in. Steely eyes adjusted to the dark as Zara sniffed the hell welling out of the ground from an opening in the sandy floor.

Lying on her stomach, Zara peered into the hole, then pulled her laser baton, put it on low power with wide dispersal, and illuminated the narrow gap. Far below was water filled with skeletons of people and animals. It was an underground cave cut out from eons of rainwater flowing from the rock of the mountain above. She took off her tracking watch and threw it in the pit. She kicked the sand and made claw marks at the edge of the hole to make it look like a struggle took place. She saw the cave formed where the stone split open, and another stone fell and lodged overhead. She jumped up with the grace of the leopard, caught the ledge formed at the top and hand over hand, she traversed the cave, swung out on the left face of the exit, leaped to the right, and began to climb up the steep grade to the forest above.

I am free, she thought. I am free. Tears streamed down her face as her taut muscles strained in the climb until she could stand. Before her was the falls and the verdant valley she was told of by her mother. Zara paused to catch her breath and hurried into the jungle treeline to hide among the leopards, pythons, and giant lizards that hunted everything that moved. Holmes would not look for her if he fell for her ruse.

❂❂❂

The team stood dumbfounded around the hole where Zara must have fallen in. Somewhere trapped under all those bones and rotted clothing, hide and hair, Sgt Holmes’ dreams of settling down and raising a family evaporated into a vision of Zara’s last breath. He hid his emotions in a hardness that his men could not penetrate. The men bowed their heads with the shock of losing one of their own to this damned jungle doing a shit mission for a scared Colonel. “Let’s go, men. We have a job to do.”

“Do you want me to call it in, sarge?” One of the men asked.

“No, not yet. Let’s just keep going. Zara got us to the gorge; we’ll do the rest for her,” Holmes replied. He reached down to his radio transceiver and turned off the signal from Zara’s tracking watch.

The squad moved in silence along the river up the gorge toward the falls. Their anger and loss smelled bitter from the sweat that soaked their uniforms and gear. Murder filled their eyes that held only dispassionate boredom before.

❂❂❂

Ezra climbed out of the cockpit and looked at his finger. The drop of blood the health scanner had extracted would bring the giant lizards. He wiped his finger on a small stone and threw it on the other side of the river to distract the scaly beasts.

Rae hugged Ezra and thanked him for helping her. He smiled. For Tala Rae, he would do whatever her life demanded of him. Eggman, however, grated his nerves a little. This invisible demon must be a demigod, one of mischief. Ezra could see that Rae trusted and adored this enigma; he decided not to trouble himself with Ralph’s presence. When Rae released him from her embrace, Ezra walked downstream with the softness of Rae’s voice lingering in his mind.  He must do his duty to watch for predators and place his desire for Rae’s love in a safe place for later.

“Rae, you have to hear this. Get back into the seat and put the headphones on,” Ralph called out from the speakers in the cockpit.

“Why, What did you find?” Rae asked.

“Please hurry your bootie up,” Ralph pleaded.

“Ralph!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Captain. This damn spell checker AI for my text to speech converter is on the fritz again.”

“Can’t you turn that damn thing off and just go naked,” Rae scolded.

“By your command, I am naked as a newborn baby,” Ralph replied in his best obedient voice.

“That’s more like it, wait, what? Nevermind, what did the scan say?”

“Rae, Ezra is as healthy as they come. His biological age is about 22, but his chronological age is 34. He is one super-duper-uber dude, Rae.”

“That’s good to know,” Rae said, her voice trailing off into thoughts of Ezra in anticipation of something more disturbing coming next.

“His DNA is 99.8 percent the same as yours. He is Eosian, and genetic markers make him the son of Dr. Ramos, the explorer. His maternal record is indigenous Eosian origins.”

After a long silence, Rae strained under her breath. “Dr. Ramos disappeared 40 years ago on a mission just like ours.”

“And was never found,” Ralph added.

“That means Ezra has family back on Eos, Rae said. If we get rescued, I have to convince him to come back with us.”

“If we get rescued?” Ralph asked. His question hammered Rae. How would she break this to Ezra? Will he understand what this means?

Rae watched Ezra’s stoic face as her mind raced over what to do. She concluded as he walked up to check on her, she would not leave him, no matter what came their way.