The Owl Killers

pisspuddle

bLACK, BLACK WATER IS CREEPING towards me. My legs are heavy. They won’t move. I can’t get my arms free. I’m trapped in the stocks and the water’s rising up. It’s running round my feet in a little trickle, like spiders’ feet. It’s crawling up over my belly.

“Mam, Mam, get me out!”

Why doesn’t she come? It’s cold. It’s so cold. My teeth are chattering and I can’t get warm. There are monsters swimming in the water, things with big eyes and beaks, sharp beaks stabbing at me, tearing me. I can’t fight them off. I can’t get my hands free.

“Don’t leave me here, Mam. Where are you?”

Water’s getting deeper. I’m so thirsty I want to drink the water, but the beaks are jumping out of the water at my face. Sharp beaks, hot beaks, hotter than pincers from the furnace. Black Anu’s in the water, she’s biting my belly with her big teeth. She’s eating me.

“It hurts. It hurts so much. Mam, make her stop!”

“Hush, lass, hush. She’s getting worse, Osmanna. I’ve seen bairns taken like it afore. There’s nothing can save them when they get this bad.”

“Keep wiping her with the cold water, Pega. We have to cool her; she’s burning up.”

“Mam?”

“Your mother’s not here, child. It was your brother who brought you here. Try to drink some more of this, please. It’ll make you better.”

“No, Osmanna, leave the bairn be, she only pukes it back up again and it just makes the poor mite more miserable every time. There’s nowt you can do for her now. She’ll not make it through the night. Let her rest.”

“No, Pega, she won’t die. I can’t let her die.”

“Bairns die, that’s the way of it. When they get this bad, there’s nothing can save them.”

“There’s another way… I remember… I saw Healing Martha do it once on a babe that wouldn’t suckle. Turn her onto her belly, Pega. If the medicine won’t go down, perhaps we can get it up.”