There was a horse skull in the tree, nestled among the branches. He touched it, traced the curve of the jaw, the molars and the canines and the giant incisor teeth.
Spray painted on concrete. Not real.
What was real? Not the warmth of her. Not the sound of her breath. Not the crackle of the match as it burned merrily to itself.
Shadows slid over the branches. Leaves changed state, sublimated from solid to gas and back again.
The horse stared at him, its eye socket tinged orange with flame.
“Shit.”
The horse fell out of the universe.
“Do you think they make long-lasting matches?”
Cardboard scraped against cardboard in the dark.
“Got about half the box left. Should be okay.”
Burnt match smell. Birthdays. A whole cake just for him, decorated like a garden. White flowers, green grass, blue sky, bright orange sun. Like an eye of fire.
The match caught. The horse reappeared. He wondered where it had been, if it had ventured to another universe where skeletal horses galloped across desert wastelands under dark red skies, flames streaming from their eye sockets.
He’d asked for the slice with the sun on it first.
“Wow. I’ve never seen one of these in real life before.”
Caitlyn knelt down, trailed the match along the tree trunk. Black marks scorched the brown spray paint.
“Oh man. Check this out.”
He squatted down next to her, touched the marks, traced one as it stretched up and up and then swooped down in a long arc, full of hidden meaning.
He’d asked for the slice with the sun on it and the top half of the H in Happy Birthday had been on the edge and he’d pretended it was a bed for the sun, that at night the sun got under the covers and slept just like him, and then the phone rang and his mother screamed and he forgot what the shape meant and he’d stared and stared but the bed and the sun and the happy birthday were all gone and all that was left was the fire.
Then there was only the flatness, only the dark and the smell of birthday cake candles just blown out and the sound of her breath.
“Paul’s brother is really into this type of stuff, all the Norse gods and legends and shit.”
Her voice made the words round and real and they passed above him as he lay in the flatness, strange and alien and beautiful.
She tilted, off balance, and reached for him to steady herself. Her fingers gripped his forearm and he was pulled back into existence, back into the round reality of her, warm and alive, breathing.
In, out, in, out.
“Sorry, nearly fell on my ass there.”
“It’s cool. So this is a Norse thing?”
The match in her other hand, the one that had not touched him, went out.
“Fuck.”
She released him and then he was cold and alone and as she stood up the air rushed past him, ancient dirty air that scratched his nostrils and made him want to sneeze.
“I’ve never heard of them being in trees, but yeah. It’s a nidstang.”
“Nidstang?”
He saw again the skeletal horse under the dark red sky, flames flickering deep in its eyesockets.
“Yeah. It’s a curse. They took a horse’s head, put it on a stick, and wrote the curse on the stick. Then they’d set it in the ground, with the head pointing to whoever they were cursing, probably yelling the curse to the sky and doing some crazy warrior dance and working themselves up into a bloodrage.”
She struck another match, and he saw its glint in her eyes.
“Ancient Norse dudes were badass.”
She leaned down and held the match closer to the marks.
“Paul’s brother might be able to read these runes, but I sure as hell can’t. Especially not with this light.”
“You shouldn’t have broken the flashlight then.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have been such a bastard then.”
“But I had a history with that flashlight! I used it under the covers for years!”
“Whoa, way too much information there! Didn’t need to know that.”
“Oh no, no, I used it to read! I mean….”
She giggled.
“It’s okay. Your secret is safe with me.”
Seth reached out and traced one of the runes again, the wall rough and cool under his fingertips.
The match flame dwindled to a blue point with a tiny orange halo.
“We don’t have enough matches to sit here all day staring at this tree.”
There was the flat Seth and there was the round Seth. There was the darkness and the dying match and Caitlyn and the sound of breathing, and then behind that there was the cake and the sun and his mother’s screams, and then, behind that, there was the fire.
The wall suddenly felt warm.
“Which way does the horse point?”
The match gave one last flicker and died.
“Give me a sec.”
She opened the box, pulled out another match. Seth jumped up.
He paced in front of the tree. It’d gotten warm. The air hung hot and heavy. Suffocating.
Three scratches like fingernails on a chalkboard, hard and fast, and then the hiss of the flame.
“Which way?”
“Geez, chill out.”
She held the match to the horse skull. The fire burned in its eye socket. It burned and burned, like the sun and the letter H, and he wished he’d stayed in his garden.
“It’s facing right.”
He faced right and looked into the darkness. Into the direction they were heading.
He heard her indrawn breath, and he knew what she was going to say, and the fire burned.
“It’s facing toward the boiler room.”
The fire was all around him, behind the wall and under the floor and high above the ceiling.
He spoke, and he could feel smoke sliding down his throat.
“Well, let’s go see who got cursed.”
He stepped forward into the dark, and the dead reached for him.
This is so good. I loved the earlier version, but now that you’ve completed it, it is astonishing. You’re able to capture insanity. What seems alarming to him, and unnerving, is such a collection of real and unreal colliding with one another and with no sense of priority. The unreal is as spooky and as important as the real because they are all equally strange. She really has no idea what she’s lighting up.
Yay thank you! *hugs*
Very interesting perspective. I never think of Seth as insane, lol. Troubled and traumatized, yes, and as a result he often dissociates and at the moment he’s flashing back a lot. But I never think of how that must look from the outside.
As for Caitlyn – I would agree that she has no idea how damaged Seth is. But she has some surprises of her own.
Thank you again. For everything.
Oh wow.
I like looking into Seth’s head and seeing how he thinks. He seems to be very disconnected from reality unless something or someone can anchor him in the real world.
Caitlyn is such a great foil for him too. She’s a lot more willing to talk and be social and Seth is preoccupied with his beliefs and things in his own head.
Now I’m wondering where Sarah comes into all this. It’d be interesting to read something from her point of view.
Oh yay, thank you for reading and commenting! And yes, Seth is very prone to disassociation.
It’s something he has in common with Lilith. It does remind me of Lilith and Bella. Which I don’t think that’s me being lazy or repetitive – Seth and Lilith do have a lot in common, and there is a story/characterization point to the similarities between them.
Sarah comes in years after this story.
Which I am still planning on that zombie apocalypse story that’s written from her point of view, so you’ll get to read something from her eventually.
I was waiting for a new chapter, too, so I’m glad there is one!
That comment made me think over Valley again, and I agree. I also noticed that Lilith is sort of prone to being pushed along by fate and doesn’t make a lot of her own decisions until the end, but by then it’s too late.
Cool. I wanted to see if there was a reason she married Seth and stayed with him (?) before her death. Maybe she was dependent, sort of like Lilith and Seth were/are.
Oh, and I don’t mean IF there was a reason if Seth and Sarah married – I meant WHAT the reason would be. Sarah’s past is very open to interpretation as of now.
Oh nope! Sarah is very much her own person and not like Seth or Lilith. I’m looking forward to writing the zombie apoc. Which why it will be even more alternate universe than 10, I think it will still delve into why Sarah stays with Seth. And it’s not because of dependency. She very much chose him.
Also – I had a bad few months emotionally, but I’m all good on that score now. And I would never abandon Seth. No matter how long it takes, I will finish 10. Even if once the emotional problems cleared up, my rib tissue got all inflamed and now sometimes my chest hurts too much to write. So it’ll be slow going until that heals. But I am going to finish this.
I’m glad you got through those problems. I’d truly be sad if anything happened to you. I hope you get better physically too! Get well soon! (I can’t think of anything else to say, so I’m being horribly cliche…)
Also, I saw your comment on SimSecret this week, and agree wholeheartedly.
Ah! You’re back! Amazing! So happy to be reading your beautiful prose again.
Now. This is so poetic. Insanity and poetry seem to flow on one thread for Seth. It’s as if he’s not really mad. It’s more as if he’s so lost inside the universe within his head that he sees everything too clearly. And by clearly, I mean as it relates to everything, past, future and present, myth and science, lies and truth. It’s that incredible level of context that keeps him so far off the loop from everyone else. I can’t really describe it, but that’s the impression I get from him. Or I could be completely wrong. LOL.
And Lilith…I’m guessing her name isn’t a coincidence. Which I’m just realizing now. *shakes head at self*. That adds a whole new level of meaning, I’ve gotta say.
Yay, and you’re back commenting!
*hugs* Thank you.
It’s still going to be slow with updates – I’m having a bout of costochondritis and I can’t focus enough for writing when my rib cartilage is screaming with pain. Which it’s doing more and more lately – my prescription medicine doesn’t seem to be handling it quite as well as it did at first.
And yes! Seth isn’t really insane! Haha – you could say that’s another way he’s like me, sort of – he may come off as not quite all there to other people, but really it’s just that there’s all that stuff going on in his head. Or something. I’m terribly sorry – I’m exhausted and haven’t been able to sleep because of the rib pain.
And with Lilith – I found the names Lilith and Seth by going to behindthename and looking up names with “death” in the meaning. But as Valley went on and took on a life of its own and developed – yeah, I found other meanings for her name as well.
Just found this and…wow. Utterly amazing writing, I am so drawn in by this story. Speechless, in fact.
I’m sorry it took me a few days to reply – my ribs have been horrible the last few days. Starting to feel a bit better now though.
Thank you so much! I know that a lot of Sims fans won’t read full text, so it means a lot that you’d read 10. I do plan to keep updating it – 10.09 is itching to come out once I’m not in terrible pain most of the time.
And of course – I love your legacy.
More later on the Valley comment – am at work and have to go.