The Night Air II

Alice had melted away as if the mist had wrapped her up in cotton wool and popped her in a box for safe keeping. I felt that warmth too, as if packed into a tube and armoured against whatever atypical journey I had now embarked upon. Occasional jolts moved my trunk, yet otherwise the sensation of ongoing movement was scant. I heard the wind whistle as though around a precipice. The water too was nearby for I could smell the brine, jade green and death cold.

As if a wagon had slowed, I sensed we had arrived. The mists began to clear and I found myself standing on an island. Though dark, I recognised the outline of an abbey and recognised my feet upon the shores of Inchcolm, miles from where I had begun and yet my feet had not trod one step. Wind tore across us as if fleeing the scene of some great dark conflagration. Children now were legion, scattered in work parties about the isle. The cohort with whom I had journeyed pulled their barque back out into shadow and I found my feet were planted firm.

A noise as if from a mighty gull rent the mobile air and I jerked my gaze towards the abbey keep where a child stood staring balefully down on me. The other children were indistinct, not quite visible in detail. This one was different, it had violet eyes, visible these seventy yards. It also had a thin, cruel mouth, and dark grey hair in a thick straight mop sweeping sideways from its silver grey brow. It held a staff just slightly taller than its own height, carved from some wood that absorbed the moonlight, seeming somehow blacker than the night itself.

The hellish sound came once more from the sharpchild, its lips rounded as if whistling. My ears hurt, but I did my best to show little fear. A team of six children surrounded it and I saw that it was standing upon a bier, which they lifted by poles, the better to carry it down towards me.

As if a lead jacket had been placed around my shoulders, I found myself forced to kneel as the bier arrived. The children stayed standing, holding the sharpchild up as it gazed down upon me. The sound of bubbling beneath the world came from its cruel mouth as I waited for what was next. 

A clack and the bier was turned. The sharpchild borne once more beyond the brow of the hill to whence it had come. A ring had been placed around my right ankle, a thin band of glossy black material, flexible yet unshakeable. A child stood holding me by a rope, a toy to pull about as pleasure dictated. It began to walk, disspationately turning from me as were I a hobby horse. It occured to me that here, on this island, in whatever spectral plane I now existed, it was I who was an it.