Pins (8)

 

He awoke on the banks of the stream. Early morning sun dappled the water, and his hands clutched at fresh snow. The backpack was near his feet. Abigail was beside him. Her face was gaunt and her eyes were red-lined and sunken. As he rolled over she clutched the lapel of his duster.

'Where in God's name you been, Emmett? Where've you been?'

Emmett winced. She was screaming. Snot ran down her philtrum.

'You just cool your heels, there... ' he breathed, looking about. Colour. Wind. Snow. He opened his fist, dropped the little pin, and shivered. Abigail slapped him on the back of the head.

'Cool my... Emmett, you've been gone three days! You left me set in that goddamn tent scared out my mind! You - '

Emmett twisted and caught her wrist as she aimed another slap. Her arm wobbled and she slumped down beside him. Her little face was red and scrunched-up, and her breath came in short hisses.

'You mind your cussin', there, Abigail,' Emmett breathed, rolling onto his back. 'You're the brains of this outfit, cain't have you talkin' like... '

He paused. The blue sweep above, shot through with warm light, was a sharp contrast from the bleak netherworld of moments before. It felt like a bad dream. 

'What d'you mean, three days?' he said, and an awful feeling passed through him. He realised, too, that he was famished.

Abigail pulled her hand from his grip. Wisps of scraggy, dirty hair blew free from her ponytail. She wiped her eyes and spoke slowly and directly.

'You leaved me for three days, Emmett Roach. Not a word of where you was goin'. I thought you went and died someplace, or those horrible folk got you, and maybe they all would be after me next, and everyone left me, and I cain't look after Buck by myself, and I don't even know where I am, and I... '

Her voice shook and she covered her face with her hands. Emmett felt himself choking up too. Her reached out for her, but she slapped his hand away. His head was spinning. He wanted to contest the length of time. He wanted to say it had been a matter of minutes. But he knew in his heart that she was right. It did not make a lick of sense, but weighed against the nature of the event he knew he had brought about, it seemed plausible, because anything seemed plausible. 

Devilwork. He clenched his hands. There ain't no such thing. 

The leather notebook. Shapes. Symbols. An angular hourglass-shape. A closed loop.

Three days.

Time.

He saw the grey world again, and the sparkling latticework arcing from the threads. The white roots. The distant obelisks. He pulled himself back from the vision, and looked past the whitebark to the tent. The present rushed back in. He remembered the cloth-faced men. Those horrible folk.

'We've been here too long,' he mumbled, and pulled himself up. 'We shouldn't of stayed here so long.'

Abigail glared at him. He reached down and lifted her onto her feet. She smoothed her dress out and breathed deeply, as if composing herself. Emmett placed a hand on her cheek, and her lip curled.

'Abi, I'm so darn sorry,' he said. 'I did not realise I had been gone that long. It will never happen again. I promise I did not mean to do that to you, and I will explain.'

Abigail's forehead creased, and her head dipped down. She sighed. Her voice was quieter when she spoke again.

'But how did you not know? Did you go off someplace and get lost?'

Emmett tried to guide her head up, but she would not look at him.

'Somethin' like that,' he said. 'I will explain everythin' I did, but I think we need to make tracks now.'

Fresh flecks of snow drifted down. 

'And you wasn't fixin' to leave me?' Abigail whispered.

Emmett wrapped both hands around her face and dropped down, so that he was level with her.

'No, I wasn't. I love you and I ain't never going to leave you alone again.'

'That sounds terrible,' she muttered, managing a half-smile. 'But you cain't leave me on this stupid mountain.'

She swallowed and looked at him. Her eyes widened.

'Emmett, what's happened to your eyes?'

Emmett tensed and let go of her face. He passed his hands over his eyes.

'How'd you mean? How'd you mean my eyes?'

Abigail leaned forward and squinted.

'They're all... cloudy. Cloudy and white, like... Emmett, your bandages, we ain't been changing your bandages. It might be an infection thing, or something.'

Emmett looked away, feeling disturbed. He paused, deep in thought. Then he clutched at his shoulder.

'My shoulder don't hurt,' he said. 'Nor does my head, or my elbow.'

The trees creaked. Wreathes of mist coiled around the distant peaks, and sparse snowfall settled in the valley. Abigail cocked her head whilst Emmett pulled off his duster and shirt and unwound the bandage. His stomach tightened as he examined his shoulder. Abigail stifled a gasp.

'There ain't no cut! There ain't no... Emmett, you ain't hurt no more?'

Emmett tutted as she rushed forward and peeled the bandage from his head. She threw it down and clasped her hands over her head. Emmett patted around his forehead frantically.

'Your head ain't cut neither! You ain't got no wounds, you... '

Her face darkened and her arms dropped to her sides. She looked at the backpack on the ground.

'You've been messin' round with that box, ain't you,' she said, quietly.

Emmett looked away and ran a hand over his smooth, unblemished shoulder. The knife wounds were not only healed; there was no evidence of them whatsoever. It was astonishing and terrifying. He eased his shirt back on, buttoned it slowly, and tried to process things. There was too much potential to take in. 

'I'll tell you everythin',' he said, and his beclouded eyes were distant. 'I'll tell your everythin' on the way.'

Abigail stared after him as he stood, shouldered the backpack, and stumbled up the slope towards the tent, puncturing deep holes in the snow as he went.

*

They followed the slip of path out of the valley, over the headwall, and between two sheer-sided horns into a mesa carpeted with thick snow. As they rose the fluff became crustier, and the horse found it harder going. Emmett wore his father's hat, with the brim set at an angle. Abigail bobbed before him. Snow crystals laced her hair and eyebrows. 

The horse was taking shorter steps as they progressed over the flat top, and snorting. Emmett tried to ease him back into a rhythm. Dusk was already spreading and he was aware of the openness of the mesa. Beyond the shelf there was an outcrop of spurs, and he hoped to find somewhere less conspicuous to camp beneath their shadows. 

Abigail had been quiet for the past hour, as she processed a watered-down version of the pins event. He did not want to cause her further anxiety, but even the redacted version was just goddamn nuts. The time discrepancy was utterly bamboozling, but within it he could see the seeds of some terrible capacity. He wanted to fathom it all as best he could, before he was made to justify anything further. 

His memories of the event still came to him as dreamlike and spurious, but he felt a burning excitement at the thought of the healing properties, the time outside of time, and the mysterious, imperceptible wall that had blocked his path within the pins.

If he had been unable to get out, who could get in?

Abigail stirred before him and rubbed her sleeve under her nose.

'So you gonna tell me 'fore you go off learnin' more witchcraft?' she said.

Emmett sighed and leg-cued the horse into a dip preceding the group of crags. 

'It ain't witchcraft, Abi, and it ain't devilwork. I don't rightly know what it is, but it's a gift, that's for sure.'

Abigail wheezed derisively. 

'A gift? A gift from who?'

'Just a gift,' Emmett nodded, guiding the horse as it wavered in patches of harder snow. 'Somethin' that's come to us, to help us in all our hardships.'

'You got a ten-dollar hat on a five-cent head, Emmett,' Abigail muttered. 

Within the dip they found a hollow surrounded by juniper shrubs, and sheltered by a cornice hung with icy stalactites. Emmett fed the horse. He'd eaten some biscuits himself whilst they rode, but he felt starving now. Abigail strung a line between two of the taller junipers and slung a canvas over it.

'Don't suppose you're gonna tell me now you spent those three days learnin' to cook?' she said.

Emmett stroked the horse and searched for a response.

'No,' he said.

'Beans it is,' Abigail nodded.

They ate by the light of a small fire, hobbled the horse, set up another rough roped cover over it, and crawled into their own tent afterwards. Emmett caught Abigail watching his face as he tried to get cosy.

'I'm real worried about your eyes, Emmett,' she whispered.  

'It's probably just the cold, or them wounds I had, or eatin' beans every darn day or somethin',' he said.

Abigail's left eyebrow lifted. Emmett clasped her hand and lay on his back. He felt exhausted. They lay in silence awhile. 

'I'm real glad you're back, Emmett,' Abigail said.

Emmett grunted and pressed her hand. Snowfall padded the canvas.

'Emmett,' Abigail whispered.

'What?' he said, drifting into sleep.

'I'm sorry I cussed,' she said.

He wrinkled his forehead. He'd lost the thread. Darkness swam around them.

'Back at the stream,' she breathed, 'I'm sorry I cussed.'

''S okay.'

'Promise?'

Emmett looked round. His cloudy eyes were scored red.

'It's okay, Abi, don't worry... '

He felt her little fingers wriggle inside his clasped hand. He began to drift off. 

'Emmett?'

He ignored it. Tried to let sleep take him.

'Am I really the brains of this outfit?' Abigail whispered.

'Yes,' he groaned.

Her frizzy hair nestled into his neck.

'I love you too, bub,' she said.
 

 

https://www.abctales.com/story/stephen-thom/pins-9