Slaughtaverty 1745

"Is she dead?"

"Not yet."

A foul substance drizzles down Merry's throat, causing her to gag and choke. She fights against strong hands restraining her, pushing her down into the soft folds of a cloth bed. Her body is too heavy to put up much of a fight, her limbs dead weights holding her down. There is hardly any need for the hands to hold her in place.

Wondering where she is and how she got here, she struggles to open her eyes, but her lids are as heavy as her limbs, and she barely glimpses shadows amongst darker shadows before they slide closed again.

"Just swallow it, child; it will help." The voice, though stern, is not unkind, and she knows it is speaking to her because the cup has returned to her lips, and more of the liquid finds its way down her throat. People are talking, snatches of dialogue breaking through the thick darkness in Merry's mind. She can smell tallow candles and peat being burned in a hearth, but she sees no light, and she feels no warmth.

She is floating on clouds as soft as goose down, her body numb aside from a pulsing pain in her neck. She cannot remember what happened to her. She only knows that she cannot be idling around; she needs to find Roger. Her last memory is of struggling through the forest, searching for the wayward ram. She splutters when more of the disgusting liquid trickles down her throat and swallows reflexively, moaning in complaint.

"Were they able to capture the girl?"

"Yes, Your Grace, she is docile for now."

Merry still cannot open her eyes nor move her fingers, and all her thoughts are disjointed and filled with a thick mist. The darkness finds her again, the voices fading and returning over and over as she battles to stay out of its clutches and find her way back to wakefulness.

"Her name is Mairead Doyle. Her older sister, Taillte, is one of our cleaners." This voice is sweet and gentle. A woman and she knows her name. Merry tries to open her eyes, but she cannot, and when the darkness swallows her again, she is too tired to fight it.

The shadows have shifted somewhat when she manages to force her eyes open to ask if they would bring her sister to her. She can see no woman in the room and wonders for how long she'd fallen into the blackness again after hearing them say her name. Perhaps that had been a dream.

She can make out the vague outlines of two men standing near a hearth, the light from flickering lamps painting irregular patterns on their bodies. She still cannot feel the warmth from the fire burning in the grate, but she can at least see a little bit better now.

The one man is old, his grey hair tied neatly at the nape of his neck, and the other is much taller and younger. His hair is dark, framing his face in an untidy mane, and as she blinks to keep her eyes open, she sees him run long fingers through the strands, making it even more dishevelled.

"We might have to terminate him, my lord," the old man says, his voice tight with regret.

"No! He can make it through this!" The younger man growls, turning his back, his shoulders hunched as he braces a hand against the wall.

"He is incredibly strong, my lord-."

"Yes, he is strong," the dark-haired man interrupts, turning to face the old man again, and though his face is mostly cast in shadow, Merry is surprised by how lovely he is, even with his features twisted in grief. A memory stirs in the back of her mind, like worms under the surface of the earth, but she cannot quite grasp it. Trying to think is like trying to see her reflection in the murky water of the pond.

"If he makes it through this, he'll be formidable." For a moment, the man's voice held a touch of pride, but then it just broke with sorrow.

"Yes, my lord, but if he doesn't, he'll rain terror and destruction on all of us. The entire island may be lost."

"He is my son!"

The darkness creeps in on the edges of Merry's vision, and she feels herself slip further and further away again, the pain-choked voice leaking in and out of her consciousness.

"We cannot lose another Slatherty child."

Merry's eyes flutter open, and the room is warm. She can finally feel the fire and see its glow, creating dancing shadows on the walls. She must've disappeared again because the men are not dressed in the same clothes, and they are seated at a table near the corner, almost swallowed by the shadows.

"They found two more girls, Your Grace. The ones he got to before this one. We need to stop him lest he takes more."

"Not yet..."

"Then we should at least terminate the girls. His blood has poisoned them; they cannot be saved. They are dangerous-."

"He bound them to him." The woman is back, her voice filled with fear, no longer sounding sweet, but Merry cannot see her; she is standing outside of her line of vision, and Merry's limbs are still too weak to move at her command. It is possible that it is not the same woman. "He will lose his mind completely if we kill them, and then all will be lost. We cannot lose him... we cannot..."

"What are we going to do with this child, Your Grace?" Another older man steps from the shadows where he'd been hidden from her view. His eyes are as colourless as his hair catching the light of a lamp when he turns his head to look at Merry.

"Her blood is special. It is fighting the poison," the woman mutters, and then she lapses into a language Merry doesn't know.

Cold fingers of dread stir all over her scalp, tugging loose the memories tethered in her mind. She can feel her fingers and her toes, like phantoms, not quite responding to her wishes, and the throbbing pain in her neck has faded away completely now. As if a torch had been lit in her brain, memories of luminous eyes and cold lips, of a dead baby and Maddy with lifeless black eyes, burst into Merry's mind, overwhelming her senses.

Her emotions tumble over one another, tangling and fighting to be felt. She gasps when scalding heat rushes through her veins to every part of her body, igniting life along its scorching path, awakening her completely from slumbering in the merciful darkness. Her eyes fly wide, her vision filled with dazzling light.

She remembers the tearing of her skin. She remembers Maddy lapping at the blood trickling past her shoulder. She remembers the taste of the boy's blood as he injured his wrist and smeared it over her lips just before he let her go, and she sagged to the ground.

She remembers the fear, the pain and the loneliness of life. As memories from as far back as the day she was born crash over her in waves, drowning her in emotions she has no way to express, Merry finally finds her voice and starts to scream.

~~~