Saanvi Maharaj ☁️ D7

[𝓂𝒶𝒽𝑜𝓊𝒽𝑜🕊]

SAANVI MAHARAJ
SIXTEEN ; DISTRICT SEVEN ; THE TWILIGHT KNIGHT
 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing
would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And
contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. 
And what it wouldn't be, it would. 
You see?" 
- Lewis Carroll

[𝓂𝒶𝒽𝑜𝓊𝒽𝑜🕊]

S A A N V I .

It happened when I was young, too young to remember clearly, yet it lurked in my shadow ever since. I’ll turn around to see if he is there, since I can feel his stare boring into my shoulder blades. But grandpa says to never try to face them, since once you see them you can’t unsee. You’ll see their sunken faces, absent of any resemblance from before and concave, as if looking for someone to fill the life they lost, the one they’ve forgotten. If you press your ear against the wood paneling of the walls, you can hear faint wailing. A wailing familiar yet receded, hesitant but pleading to not be forgotten. But the douens¹ are ignorant forces, too prideful to leave but too aimless to find the exit. Although mom and dad were alive, they practically have become the douen that grandpa warns me about.

I had once been the shadow to another. He was three years older than me, with the same inky hair and chestnut skin. His name was Ardilles, meant to be the prestigious knight of the family. Dad had worked at the old sawmill, weathered and leathered from having grown acquainted to carrying goliath sized timber logs on top of his scarred shoulders. Spare time was spent whittling figures, a habit he learned from our grandpa, who often stayed on the back porch rocking chair. Mom theorized he was going mad, since he had strange traditions none of the neighbors practiced. He said they came from our ancestors, and we can’t let the Capitol strip us of everything just yet. Although the dark days are long gone, she says he never moved on from them. Maybe it is because of what he saw then, but I never had the courage to ask; especially after what happened to Ardilles.

I was eight when it happened, when Ardilles never made it home. We usually walked from the local, modest school together, since he was always scared to be alone. The ever stalking forest scared him, and so did the dark. When he heard about Jacinta’s games, he had nightmares for weeks straight. Mom kept getting annoyed that she had to hang his sheets to dry on the clothesline behind the house constantly since Ardilles kept wetting the bed. She banned us from watching the games, despite dad having a withdrawn curiosity in watching, but grandpa was happy at this rule change. Yet a war had brewed like the hog bone stew mom made between her and grandpa, since she warned Ardilles of spending too much time in the afternoon’s listening to grandpa’s tales instead of doing homework. Mom said the jackalantans² weren’t real, that the douens and jumbies³ were just tales to scare naughty kids. But Ardilles didn’t listen, despite her telling him that grandpa has lived in fiction more than reality these days.

The last days I remember with Ardilles his head whipped around like a paranoid wicker man, searching for what didn’t exist past the seams of reality. Yet Ardilles insisted on digging his fingernails through the cautious threading to expose what raw flesh laid underneath. He said the forest had hands and teeth, that we can’t play there anymore, especially at night.

And at eight, I didn’t think he knew more than me at eleven. I thought maybe mom was right, since grandpa spoke in riddles more than logic, which she always stressed over from her days of working at the news press. I just assumed that Ardilles had been too paranoid since a year away; he could be swallowed like Jacinta in a land of darkness. But he didn’t have to wait, since the forest had taken him.

The day the forest swallowed Ardilles, it was a tempered evening. Jack Frost had blown frostbitten gales, our lungs exhaling dragon’s breath into the clouded sky. The sun had retreated by the time school had let out, and everything was coated in a muted chilled glaze. But Titus had invited me to have hot chocolate, and I always wanted to taste what the spoils of wealth had to offer. In Seven, you either sat in the comforted wealth of your family’s arms or you were the douens of the forest. The ones people forget exist, who roam in a somber stupor of lugging wood for the rest of their lives. I was stupid to let his green eyes pull me, but I thought Ardilles could handle just one afternoon apart. He was the older one after all. When would it be my time to be just eight?

Hot chocolate was far too bitter to be as sweet as Titus claimed, but maybe the memory had soured at the sound of mom screaming when I came home. I’ll never forget her running barefoot, her knit camel shirt beating against her collarbone. “Where is he?! Where is Ardilles?!” Her eyes were the size of those of the barn owls that I have seen lurking in the saw mill before when dad took me on the shy times of autumn. My shoulders stung of angry hornets, tears welling in the corner of my eyes in confusion. Mom was never one to scream. She had a ferocity that was unlike any I’ve seen. Dad next came behind her, wrapping his arms and heaving my she who kicked in the arm, beating her arms at his ribs. “Let me go, Alain! Let me go, my baby needs me!” Her screaming had garnered some to leave their homes, a chorus of lanterns lighting the outside with housewives covering their eyesight against the waning sun that dipped shy of the branched walls that overlook us all ominously. Eventually mom’s shrill had simmered into incoherent sobbing. My throat seized into constricted hiccups, braids bouncing against my back as I ran to the back of our house to search for the old man in the rocking chair.

Chair creaked in an uneven groan against the lifted plank underneath, the backdoor slid open unanswered to any call. “Grandpa, what’s going on?” My voice wavered while my purple knitted bag dropped on the lifted side of the exposed plank. I winced as the knitting caught on the nail dad always swears he’ll pull out. Some pencils slid out from the exposed meat, reclaimed by the pit beneath. Loud huffing sounded from the opposite side, and for a second my mind raced for the nearest weapon. Although I had years to fear for the potential inevitable, I had to always be on guard for the beasts that escaped the beyond and strayed into our homes. Stumbling down and unevenly landing on my left foot, the ankle rolled from under me causing me to land on my knees. Crunched grass blades drank up the shy cranberry that seeped into the soil underneath. Swiveling my hips, my olive dress surely drug streaks into the fabric that extended past my thinned jacket. Jack-o'-lantern eyes pierced past the dim door frame, a hulking black mass stalking outward with pulled back fangs. Boots digging into the dirt beneath me, premature sobs hung in my lungs as I prepped an exit plan away from the rejected cornucopia.

“Baba, don’t scare the little one. We need to find the tall one” grandpa’s voice called as he shoved aside the half bred wolf. After the eager sniffing of a faded navy shirt I recognized as the one Ardilles refused to always wash until it stank, Baba then bolted into the forbidden boundaries. “What’s happening? I’m scared.” Creeping past the rickety steps, his firm wrinkled hands pulled my arm up into a hug. His breath smelled of cigarettes as he whispered to the stroke of my head, “the jackalantan’s got him. Our only hope is Dee Baba⁴ now.” Finally the first salted droplets erupted, trailing down my chalked cheeks as my chapped lips wheezed. “How do you know it wasn’t the jumbies?”

“Because I looked into the beyond. And I called for him, but by the time I made my way over he was too far. And Dee Baba took some time to summon, but by the time he had, I think the boy had vanished already.”

Closing my eyes, pressure strained the crease between my eyebrows and the crown of my hairline as I dared to peer at my elder in a way that mom would have scolded me for. “Then let’s go, let’s go to the beyond.”

“Haven’t I ever told you, girl, don’t look back in the shadows. You won’t like what you find, and by the time you set your eyes on it, you’ll be forgotten.”

But I don’t want to forget Ardilles. I don’t want to forget the mole on his neck that exposed itself when he would double over laughing too much that he complained the butterflies were rattling his cage again. I couldn’t forget how much I tried, since now she had finally believed. They were set that he couldn’t become a douen. I don’t know what lies in the beyond, whether the jumbies are real or the jackalantans weren’t. But they kept me in the wooden crate cage for another eight, not allowing hot chocolate visits after dark. Since if you look into the shadows, you won’t like what you find.

It will be the bitter mold whose mildew will lurk in the corner of the cabin walls. Until the stench becomes loud wails that you want to forget but can’t ignore. His face won’t melt away, the picture frame in the bookcase refutes that fate. But I don’t have to turn around to know what lurks behind. Fleeting lights of beauty or not, I know the rot lurks beyond. But with Baba, I’ll travel into it some day. I’ll grasp those threads and expose the flesh just as you did. And with an axe, I’ll spill the intestines like the hogs onto my feet. I’ll reach into the belly of the beast and retrieve you. And no matter the state, I’ll bring you home. Maybe then mom’s crying will quell the douen’s thirst, maybe then she’ll touch me for the first time in eight years and stop blaming herself.

Your name is now a bastard curse, your frame haunting us no matter the strobe lights that flicker like fireflies and call to me from beyond. I once wandered to the porch, wanting to see what you saw. But grandpa would grab my arm, pulling me back inside off the diving board porch. There are much worse things to be afraid of in the dark, but if you peer into the black mirror, it may just be the last thing you’ll see.

---

footnotes
douens¹ - The souls of children who died before baptism and prematurely. These children are doomed to forever roam the eartth, and can be found near forests or rivers. Douens lack faces and feet, and are often found with their back towards you. They are known to attempt to lead children astray and wail outside homes at night. Legend has it, if you call your child's name at dusk, it is a bad omen and the douens will take them away.
jackalantans² - A mysterious light that appears to attracts people, misleading them into desolate areas far away from their intended destinations. Afterward, it disappears into thin air.
jumbies³ - Mischievous or malevolent creatures or spirits.
Dee Baba⁴ - A protector of land from dangerous forces. Property owners give offerings to the Dee Baba to protect their land from envious neighbors and competing relatives. Additionally, sacrifices to Dee Baba to obtain health and happiness. Dee Babas can take the form of a black rooster or a black dog.

[𝓂𝒶𝒽𝑜𝓊𝒽𝑜🕊]

 My Trinidadian gal be done tho

ripred_bot

[𝓂𝒶𝒽𝑜𝓊𝒽𝑜🕊]

tada~ ryan 

[ryan]

ooohhhhhhh, lovely lovely.

Such intrigue, such mystery.

xx accepted <3