Veils Cascade
Chapter 1: The Shrouded Man
Rainwind gnawed. The girl ran into the barn and shivered. Dirt floor dripped with slick of storm and sorrow. She removed a kerchief and wiped rain and blood from temple. Near scraping usurped weather’s clangor. Metal on wood. A practiced punctuation. She peered into gloom and froze with wide eyes and parted lips. Shrouded in shade, a man sat the back of the storeroom on a broken machine, crowned by her father’s bull skull that had hung since she first crept earth. Stranger was garbed in black and gray save his face, it veiled by silver mask, molded in androgynous countenance. On a rafter above him perched a crow. He carved a piece of wood with a folding knife. Girl glanced to the pitchfork resting by the door and spoke.
“You a burglar?”
The man replied without looking from labor while the crow tilted its head in inquisition.
“I am a giver of gifts.”
“Then why you hiding your face? Halloween’s two weeks away.”
At this he snapped the blade closed and fixed the girl in his gaze. She flinched and drew coat taunt about slender frame. Stranger’s eyes gleamed from dark like ivy under ice.
“I’m not hiding.”
She was long in responding and when she did her voice quivered. “That don’t make no sense.”
“There are colors eyes cannot see.” He beckoned and she walked forth and beheld her reflection on the surface of the mask. Small and twisted. “Who are you are?” He asked softly.
“Clere.”
“Who is Clere?”
“Just a person who lives here. Ma don’t like people hanging around the farm. She’ll be angry if she finds out.”
He remained motionless. When he spoke his voice held only placid curiosity.
“And pa?”
She rubbed her arm and stared at hay flecked floor. “He ain’t round. I don’t want to be rude but you can’t stay here.”
“I came for shelter. Like you. Unlike you, I do not require it.”
Thunder shook the sky. Clere flinched. Crow squawked and flapped its wings. The man continued to stare at the girl. “Do you mind if I wait for the storm to subside?”
She worked her jaw, frowned and shrugged. “Well. Should be fine. Least for a little while. No one coming out in this.”
His eyes drifted to the cut on her head and narrowed. “You are injured.”
“Its nothing.” She pointed to the figurine in dark gloved hand. “What’s that?”
He offered the miniature to the girl. She cautiously took the sculpture and studied it: a mournful woman with hollow womb and broken wings extending from her back. She ran her hands over handcrafted contours. “You’re one swell artist.”
“It pleases me you think so.”
“Kinda looks like Ms. Hopestill.”
“Truly?”
She studied the face of the statue once more and nodded. “Spittin image.”
“You and she are friendly?”
“Well, I think so. I see her around. She has a big ole studio with all kinds of weird props in it. She used to have some kinda fancy job but she quit and moved back here. Dunno why.”
“What do you think of her?”
“She’s nice I guess. Kinda sad somehow.”
“Why?”
“She wears a fake smile. Like a politician.”
“What do you make of that?”
“Its annoying.”
“Why?”
“Well,” she turned the statue over in her hands. “Cause it aint true. Pa used to say, don’t need words to lie.”
“He sounds like a thoughful man. Do you miss him?”
She was slow in answering and when she did her eyes shimmered. “Yeah. He got cancer when I was little. Ma said he’d be fine if we prayed. But he just kept shriveling. Last time I saw him he looked like a mummy. I didn’t know who it was til they told me. But I never really knew him til he died.”
“How so?”
“Well he wasn’t my real pa. One of the ladies at the funeral got angry cause I was there. Said I wasn’t part of the family. So Ma told me my real pa was a bad man and got kilt for it and that I shouldn’t talk about him.”
“Do you?”
“No. But I think about him lots.”
“That is good.” Crinkles formed at the edges of his luminous eyes. “You said Ms. Hopestill has a studio.”
“Yea.”
“She maintains an interest in the arts?”
“Yea.”
“Would you give that statue to her?”
“How come?”
“I want her to have it.”
“Why don’t you give it to her?”
“I wish to surprise her.”
“Well. I’ll do it on one condition.”
“Name it.”
“A kiss.”
He titled his head like an owl.
“Well?” She put her hands behind her back and shimmied with a cheeky smile.
He nodded and rose as liquid shade. All jest and challenge went from her at the stranger’s closness. She stepped away but he drew no nearer and walked wide round her and set his hand upon the barn door. Wrathful voice of surrogate mother rang, choked by the storm. The man removed his mask and shuttered the dancing dark.