Mist Rising by Eve Langlais

Chapter Seven

Hiix stared at Venna.“What do you mean, the baby saved your life?”

Venna handed the babe to Agathe and headed to the sink rather than reply.

Hiix stuck close to her heels. “Talk to us, Venna. What happened in the catacombs?”

Only once Venna had rinsed her face clean of goop—guts and ichor and gross things that came out of bugs—did she sigh and say, “There was a nest of monsters.”

“Impossible,” Agathe blurted out. The catacombs didn’t have any exits or threats. Just dust and cobwebs from the spiders that hid in the cracks of stone.

“Tell that to the ten-legged freaks that came after the baby and me. Hundreds the size of my fist. So, I stomped and stomped.” Venna sobbed as she mimed her foot slamming, drawing notice to the muck covering her feet and calves and also the ripped holes in her robe as if she’d been slashed. Despite the blood and filth, she appeared uninjured.

It reminded Agathe of the night she’d found the baby when she could have sworn that she’d cracked a rib or two and had definite bruises. The next day, she’d examined herself head to toe and hadn’t found a single scratch. She’d emerged with less sagging skin and aches in her joints. A blessing by their Goddess was what she’d told herself. She’d wanted to find a better explanation than the fact that a baby had sucked a monster dry and used whatever force that engendered to heal Agathe.

Hard to deny when it seemed as if it had happened again. Like Agathe, Venna had emerged with a face younger than when she went in, the lines around her eyes mostly gone.

“You obviously survived. Look at you. Not a scratch, and you look twenty years younger!” Hiix exclaimed.

“Who cares! I almost died. Don’t you understand?” Venna cried, disturbing the sleeping child in Agathe’s arms, who uttered a sound before settling.

Venna stared at the baby’s silken-haired head. “She saved me.”

Hiix snorted. “How could the brat, who can barely walk, save you from mutant spiders?”

Her Soraer sounded almost mocking, and yet Agathe couldn’t help but recall her circumstances. She’d never told them what she thought might have occurred. Let them assume divine intervention instead. But if it had happened to Venna, too…

“What makes you think she saved you?” Agathe asked.

Expression fond and, at the same time, a little terrified, Venna eyed the child before softly whispering, “When I fell to the ground, the spider-things swarmed me. Covered me in their wretched legs and began biting me.” Venna shuddered, and her gaze stared sightlessly as if replaying a different scene.

“What of the baby? What happened to her?” Agathe prodded.

Venna hugged herself. “They swarmed her, too. And died. They all died, so many I couldn’t see her. She was under a blanket of them, as was I. And then, the next thing I knew, she was slobbering in my face, patting my cheeks, and the spiders were all dead.”

“That doesn’t mean she saved you,” Hiix declared. “Sounds more like a miracle from our Goddess.”

“No,” Venna shouted, slashing a hand. “The Goddess didn’t save me. The Goddess would have let me die. You don’t understand what it was like to be buried under a wave of bodies. Bitten. Poisoned,” Venna spat. “I was dead. And horribly, too. The Goddess didn’t come to save me. Belle did. She just had to touch the monsters, and she sucked the life right out of them. And I think she used it to heal me!”

So many times, Agathe had wondered if she’d imagined what had happened in the mist. Surely, she’d hallucinated the baby killing the monster and saving her? Hearing Venna detail almost exactly the same scenario had Agathe blurting out, “She has power.”

“Hardly. More likely the Goddess rewarded her,” Hiix clarified.

“Call it what you like. She can do some miraculous things.” Agathe turned to Venna. “Tell me, when the spider-monsters touched the baby, did her eyes glow?”

“Yes! Purple to white. It was so bright,” Venna enthused. “How do you know?”

“The same thing happened to me.” Agathe had not actually spoken of what she remembered from that night. She didn’t want to be accused of making it up. But now, with Venna confirming that she wasn’t crazy, Agathe finally told her Soraers what had happened—the truth she’d had a hard time accepting.

As she recounted her experience aloud, Venna threw in some details. Their two stories were so similar that skeptical Hiix believed them even as she questioned.

“I don’t understand. How can a baby do that?” Hiix eyed the child slumbering in Agathe’s arms.

“Because she’s special,” Agathe uttered with deep certainty.

“She has magic,” Venna added.

“People don’t do magic, especially not a child,” Hiix scoffed.

“Says you. If you’d seen it… When the arachnids swarmed her, she didn’t cry once in pain. She gurgled and giggled as if they couldn’t hurt her. But she could harm them.” Venna’s eyes opened wide in amazement and fear. “She sucked them dry. Or so it seemed. Their bodies were like husks when it was all over.”

“What color were her eyes when she was done?” Agathe asked. “Did they go from glowing to brown?”

Venna eyed the child. “She fell asleep almost right away, so I’m not sure of the color, but they definitely stopped glowing white.” Venna put fingers to her cheek. “She saved me from dying.”

“And turned back time,” Hiix stated. Then she scowled. “When is it my turn? Don’t suppose you left any spider freaks behind in the catacombs?”

“Hiix!” Venna exclaimed. “You can’t go looking for danger.”

“Why not? You said she killed the monsters by touching them.” Hiix glanced at Agathe. “And you just claimed the same thing happened with you, too.”

Agathe nodded. “I thought I might have imagined it.”

“I didn’t imagine it, and neither did you. Our baby can do magic,” Venna breathed.

“Magic isn’t real,” Hiix repeated as if by rote.

“Then explain what happened,” Venna argued.

“What do you think, Agathe?” Hiix turned to her.

For once, Agathe didn’t have an answer because given what the child did…magic was the only thing that fit. And yet, how could it be real? How could a baby, who couldn’t speak or even walk for too long without falling, wield something so deadly?

Agathe chewed her lower lip. “I do wonder at the kind of magic that appears as if it requires monsters to power.”

“A magic that kills them and helps us? Sounds like a fine tradeoff to me. It would be nice to get out of bed in the morning and not curse each bend of my knee.” Hiix’s voice held longing, and now that it had happened twice, who was to say it couldn’t happen a third time?

“Why this child, though?” Agathe asked.

“It must have something to do with the eyes,” Venna said with a sage nod. As if it weren’t obvious.

“Which I’ll wager are either a deep purple or brown again,” Agathe mused aloud.

“Maybe after using it all up, she has to recharge like the solarus stones,” Venna postulated.

The idea had merit but for one fact. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard of the purple-gifted wielding power of any kind.” Agathe glanced at Hiix, someone who would know better than them. “Your children…”

“Never did anything strange. Then again, they never had a reason to. The biggest monster they ever saw was a weevil in the pantry.” Hiix shrugged.

“If the purple-eyed do have some kind of power, it would explain why they are rounded up each year during the festival.” Agathe further thought aloud.

“You think the King wants them for their magic?” Venna couldn’t contain her shock.

“It’s as good an explanation as any.” Agathe had always had a vague curiosity as to why the purple-eyed were special.

It was Hiix, though, who said, “Does anyone remember the rhyme we sang when we skipped rope as children?”

The change in topic brought a frown but also curiosity. “Which one? I know a few.”

Venna began reciting.

“Monsters, monsters sneak out to slay,

When night does fall and shadows day.

Close your doors and shutter your eaves,

For death in the mist does roam the streets.

The Goddess calls, and three will answer,

Soraers to mothers, for a purple-eyed disaster.

Monsters, monsters will come out and play,

When the fog does hide the bright rays.

The enemy comes for the orphan of night.

The hope of the Kingdom has a terrible plight.

One wrong choice and death will prevail,

And then what will happen to the humans so frail?

Monsters, monsters, have one thing to say—

Crunch.”

Venna clapped her hands at the last syllable.

“It’s a silly nursery rhyme. What about it?” Hiix asked.

“Actually,” Venna corrected, “it’s derived from a passage in the Goddess scriptures. Which you’d know if you ever read a book.”

“Some of us have real work to do,” Hiix ranted right back.

Agathe jumped in. “I’ve read our Bible. I don’t recall that poem being in there.”

“I’ve only seen it in the older copies,” Venna explained. “Which we still have a few of. The newer ones don’t have the section on prophecies.”

“Wait, there are prophecies?” Agathe repeated.

“A few, most of which sound impossible. The one about monsters is one of them.”

“What are the others?” Agathe asked.

“One talks about original sin flooding the world to perform a great reset. There’s the version promising that a rock from the sky will destroy us if the waters are polluted. And a really weird one that just consists of three words repeated over and over. Mist and mirrors. Mist and mirrors.” Venna wrinkled her nose.

Hiix latched onto that example. “It’s all rat poop if you ask me. It’s a silly poem the kids sing when skipping rope, only they count the number of bites the monster will take.”

The reminder brought Agathe back to a time when she had no care in the world except making it over the swinging rope. One. Two. Three. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch, and the squeals of laughter that followed as the rope tangled.

“So what if children sing it? The fact remains it originated from a prophecy for our Goddess.”

“If you believe in that kind of drivel.”

“After what happened to me?” Venna said with an arched brow. “I am a lot more open-minded now.”

Agathe began to see what Venna was getting at. “The three in the poem, you think that’s us?”

Hiix burst out laughing. “Ludicrous.”

Indignant red spots colored Venna’s cheeks. “Is it? It fits. The Goddess calls, and three will answer. Soraers to mothers—

“Enough. All I see is you stretching to fit some nursery rhyme to the situation.” Hiix remained skeptical.

“Am I? She can do magic. She’s an orphan of night. She’s purple-eyed.”

“But not a disaster,” Agathe interjected.

“If I were to believe in this, then you’re saying that child”—Hiix pointed—“will save the Kingdom.”

All three of them stared at the baby, who slept with a fist shoved into her mouth, snoring. She didn’t look like a savior. But then again, Agathe had only to touch her newly smooth skin to believe in miracles, so why not a prophecy?

“The Goddess told us she was important.” Venna clasped her hands.

“She’s obviously special.” Agathe cradled the child close.

Trust Hiix to grumble, “If I’m going to save the world, then I’d like a dose of what the two of you got.”

It took a while before Hiix got her wish.