"The Savage Messiah" by Amy ´Insom´ Downum

   The hottest day of summer so far was drawing to a much-welcomed close. The sun was little more than a fiery claret disk sinking slowly into the western horizon and a cool northern breeze ruffled the tasseled tips of the corn forest that stood guard around a young boy sprawled in their midst.

   He was a scrawny boy with the look of someone who worked hard and ate little. His ribs were visible even through the thick, dirty cotton shirt he wore. His eyes were closed, his expression peaceful. For Sylvester Theresias Torrentem, this was the best part of the day. His chores, if not everyone’s, were done. The cows had been moved to their new pasture and the fence of the old one repaired. The fields had been plowed under for the fall crops and the last remaining hogs taken to market.

   That was what fourteen-year-old Sylvester was waiting for: his eldest brother Ivan to return from the town nine miles away. As if on cue, the clank of a harness and the churn of wooden wheels on a rough dirt road filtered through the corn stalks to Sylvester’s ears. He sat up, yawning and stretching tightly corded muscles and opening eyes of slate pearl gray.

   Extricating himself from the tangled cornfield, Sylvester trotted over to the cart just as Ivan hopped down, giving the family plow horse a grateful pat on the rump. Ivan could have been Sylvester’s twin were he not six years older. Both had the same faintly wavy copper hair and fair gray eyes, the same dark complexion and the same lean, muscled build. In fact, they even had the same voice and mannerisms, though as Sylvester was constantly reminded, Ivan was a better son.

   “Got enough off those three hogs alone to feed us through the winter,” Ivan said. His voice was soft and slightly hoarse from smoking and breathing in the dust from the day’s labor. He cast smoked pearl eyes over his broad shoulder to his younger brother as he began unhitching Mara from the cart. “Give me a hand, will you?”

   Sylvester stepped forward to unhook the leather breast collar from the mare’s chest, standing on tiptoe for a moment to peer into the bed of the wagon. “What’s in those burlap bags?” he asked curiously. “I don’t remember Mother asking you to do any trading…” Trading was the only way the Torrentem family bought goods such as food, clothes, and other necessities, save for the rare occasion when they were able to sell a cow or pig to earn money.

   “No,” Ivan agreed as he pressed an armful of leather straps into Sylvester’s grasp and led Mara towards the sagging barn, “she didn’t. But there was enough money that I decided to spare some and buy Mother some new bone crochet hooks seeing as her old wooden ones have begun to splinter, and I bought some flour, sugar, and a bag of apples.” He grinned. “I was hoping it would prompt her to bake an apple pie.”

   Sylvester tottered after Ivan and deposited the leather harness in the tack room, grinning as well. “I hope so,” he agreed, pausing only to give Mara an affectionate pat before striding after Ivan back to the shabby wooden structure that was home.

   “Ivan!” The eldest Torrentem hadn’t taken two steps when he was hit hard in the stomach by something small and squealing. “Cecilia!” he gasped, hefting the second youngest of his siblings into his arms and swinging her around before setting her down to a chorus of booming barks as two massive hounds barreled into the room, each intent on licking Ivan’s face off.

   Sylvester sighed, struck suddenly by how much Ivan was favored. He was always proclaimed the best of the Torrentem children. His mother and father were forever going out of their way to please him, pamper him, and otherwise rub the dung in Sylvester’s face that he was a disappointment compared. Even the cantankerous old bull out in the back pasture had warmed to Ivan. He tried to kill Sylvester.

   “I missed you to, Sylv,” Cecilia added hastily, and a slow grin spread over his lips. Though Cecilia was five years younger, she was his closest friend and easily his favorite of his four siblings. Even Ivan didn’t quite compare to the compassionate, kind-hearted little ball of frizzy blonde hair that now latched herself to Sylvester’s midriff and blew a raspberry to his chest.

   “Thanks, Cel,” he muttered, prying her off and crossing further into the dimly lit country house. There was nothing fancy at all about this tiny little shack. Not even kerosene lamps to brighten the dingy atmosphere; the only lighting the Torrentems could afford was candles and what little sunlight could permeate the cloudy glass windows. The floors were rough, bare wood with no carpet padding, and the walls made of chinked wood slats.

   The Torrentems were incredibly poor. If they had any money at all it was spent on bettering their five children’s lives, not the comfort of their home. The only presents Sylvester ever counted on getting, or ever wanted to get, were the love of his family and the closeness that they shared. For a poor Romanian farm boy who had never known the luxury of expensive material gifts, toys, or even the cool weight of a handful of silver coins in his palm, having a family as compassionate as his was a gift beyond even those. And Sylvester had never once wished it differently, until now…

   That same lack of money did not deteriorate their quality of life, however, as was apparent the moment Sylvester’s eyes of dark pearl gray settled on the meager furnishings of the family room just out of the way of the door. His father sat reclined on a patched and worn couch, a roughly hewn wooden pipe settled between yellowing teeth. With the toe of his boot he rocked the baby Anca in her old oak cradle. Sylvester’s eldest sister, Lavinia, sat on the floor in front of Celestina, Ivan’s new wife, who was brushing her hair.

   Sylvester offered them a tired smile, which was returned with cool glances and a sudden increase in the volume of the two women’s conversation. Sylvester’s shoulders tensed and he looked away, and found a pair of enormous jade green eyes staring up at him.

   “Sylv!” Cecilia chirped, tugging at the frayed sleeve of his shirt and bouncing on the balls of her bare feet, her hair flopping with her movement. “Sylv! Guess what! Mummy said I could have a new doll for my birthday!”

   “That’s great, Cel, really,” Sylvester said, and though he tried to sound enthusiastic he failed miserably. This was the first year he could remember his family having enough money to buy proper gifts on birthdays, but though his birthday was in four days, he had not been promised anything. And he had a feeling he knew why…

   “And guess what else, Sylv!” Cecilia squawked, bouncing around him in circles. “Mummy said I could get a new China doll! The ones with the por…por…”

   “Porcelain?” Sylvester supplied as he poked his nose into the kitchen.

   “Yes!” Cecilia nodded vigorously, long strands of bushy corn silk blonde hair falling into her eyes. “The ones with the porcelain faces!”

   “Wonderful,” Sylvester replied, this time abandoning enthusiasm for an exhausted tone. He laid eyes upon a thin, wiry woman in the kitchen, his mother Monica. But before he could speak a word, she spun around and fixed wide, pale eyes over his head.

   “Ivan? Ivan, is that you?” she called into the dimly lit family room. Her face was pale and worn, her skin tough like leather. Her eyes were like Cecilia’s in that they were large, and like Sylvester’s in that they were gray. Her hair was coarse and wildly wavy and the same sunset copper hue as Ivan and Sylvester’s. She wore a stained cotton dress and a plain white apron.

   “Yes,” Ivan answered, scooting into the cramped little kitchen to give Monica a brief embrace.

   “Oh Ivan, thank the Lord,” Monica sighed, squeezing her eldest son tight. “I worried about you; I told Vladimir it was a bad idea to send you alone.” She shot her husband a mild glower, then turned an affectionate gaze to Ivan. All the while, Sylvester went ignored.

   “I’m alright, Mother, honestly,” Ivan assured her. “Everything went just fine.”

   “No trouble?” Monica prompted, narrowing her eyes.

   “None,” Ivan swore. Monica let out a soft sigh and smoothed her apron.

   “I thought maybe because of Sy-” She stopped, laying eyes on Sylvester for the first time, and shifted uncomfortably. “Well…never mind.” Ivan cast a glance over his shoulder to his younger brother as well, then cleared his throat.

   “No, nothing of the sort,” he muttered, eyes lingering on Sylvester for a moment longer before turning back to his mother. Sylvester stiffened and felt his teeth grind together. He suddenly could not be near Ivan or Monica any longer, and slithered out of the kitchen in a foul mood.

   “Sylvester…?” That soft, genuinely concerned voice never failed to play balm to the fire that raged in his mind. Sylvester turned once again to be greeted by twin orbs of vivid green gazing up at him, worried and confused. Sylvester drew a deep breath and unclenched his fingers, taking Cecilia’s hand to reassure her.

   “Help me set the table,” he murmured, squeezing her hand gently and watching her eyes light once more with a child’s enthusiasm for everything. Cecilia turned and grabbed a stack of chipped clay dishes off the crumbling countertop and passed them to Sylvester, who scattered them across the low, battered oak table.

   “Tell me more about this doll,” he said quietly as he placed the wooden utensils beside the plates. Immediately Cecilia launched into a detailed description of her new doll, babbling on end about the clothes and accessories that Sylvester knew they had no money to buy.

   He was spared the rest of her ceaseless chatter as his mother laid upon the table a feast a king would turn his nose up at. But to the Torrentems, it was mouth-watering. Sylvester settled down between Cecilia and Ivan and bowed his head. Vladimir’s voice, strong and steady like the rise of the sun, low and clear like the clarion call of distant cathedral bells, rang across the table in an ancient prayer to which the meaning had been lost in time. As his father’s voice died in a wheezing cough, the family engaged in what Cecilia had dubbed the Evening War.

   “That was my piece of chicken!” said ten-year-old wailed, grappling at Lavinia’s hand as her elder sister stole the last leg left of the herb roasted bird. “Mummy! She stole my piece!”

   “Here,” Ivan grumbled, handing her his chicken leg as if it were costing him his life to do so. “Take mine if you’re going to whine.”

   “Ivan!” Vladimir barked from the end of the table. “Don’t reward her for being greedy!”

   “I’m not greedy!” Cecilia protested through a mouthful of chicken. Sylvester rolled his eyes and tuned his family out. It was the same every evening at dinner: Cecilia would whine and throw tantrums, Lavinia would be the cause of them and sit at her end of the table with Celestina and giggle over whatever they were talking about, Ivan would play hero, Monica would try to restore peace, Vladimir would scold and in the end resort to bellowing, and he, Sylvester, would sit in silence and shovel his food down as fast as his coordination would allow before someone stole it.

   As the last of the meal was cleaned from the plates and the scraps tossed to the two hounds, Sorin and Traian, Sylvester found himself avoiding the languid evening conversation that followed and abandoning the table to sit in the dark warmth of the family room. The sky outside the single window was the deepest shade of royal blue, scattered with tiny pinpricks of early stars. Sylvester counted them as he seated himself on the couch.

   His absence went unnoticed, which suited Sylvester perfectly. He had the world resting on his shoulders, it seemed, and with every passing day that weight grew more and more unbearable. “There’s no one I can talk to,” he said softly to the sleeping Anca. “No one at all…”

   “Sylvester!” Lavinia’s harsh squawk shattered the momentary peace Sylvester had thought he had gained. “Sylvester! Get in here and help!” He sighed and heaved himself off the couch, shuffling into the kitchen to help wash the dishes for breakfast the next morning.

   “There he goes,” he heard Lavinia whisper to his mother over the clank of clay plate upon clay plate. “Shirking his chores, again. Does he think he’s special, just because he’s-“

   “That will be quite enough, Lavinia,” Monica said sternly, and she fell silent, though Sylvester could feel the frigid glance she shot at his back. It made his blood pound in his ears and his teeth clench. His fingers slipped on the cup he was holding and it shattered at his feet.

   “Sylvester!” Monica sighed exasperatedly. “Try to be more careful, please. We can’t afford to buy new glasses…” She bent to scoop up the clay shards and Sylvester felt his temper boil even further. The way she moved around him, avoiding contact and dodging his glances as if he were the Bubonic plague itself. It struck him deep, that his own mother would turn upon him like this.

   “I’m sorry,” he managed to mumble, though he would much rather have bellowed it.

   “It’s quite alright, dear,” Monica assured him in a voice that was a little too high to be natural. “Why don’t you just go to bed? You’ve done enough today, you must he exhausted.”

   Sylvester hovered for a moment, then caught Lavinia’s seething glare and turned on his heel, shoving roughly past Ivan and his wife. His boots thundered down the hall, his heart beating a violent rhythm in his throat. With a vicious strike he slammed aside the door to the room he shared with Lavinia and Cecilia.

   A single window let in a silken ribbon of silver moonlight, but even the calming colors of the tiny little room did little to sooth his raging temper. He struck out, kicking the foot of the oak bed and immediately regretting it for the pain in his big toe.

   For a long moment he stood in fuming silence, ghostly pearl eyes locked unseeingly on the far corner. Let it go, he told himself. You can’t change it, let it go. And he did. Heaving a defeated sigh, Sylvester sank down upon the edge of the bed and rested his face in his hands. He stared through the slots of his fingers for a moment before shifting to remove his boots, tossing them into the corner before wriggling out of his shirt and flopping backwards with another sigh.

   His shoulders ached from rebuilding the fence around the cow pasture. Over time, mud and water had rotted the wooden posts, and every single one of them had to be dug up from three feet under ground, then replaced with new ones he and Ivan had split in the forest. And all the while Vladimir had complimented Ivan’s fine work while blatantly ignoring the effort Sylvester was putting forth. The mere memory of it steamed Sylvester’s already frothing blood.

   He ran his fingers through his hair, closed his eyes. Geometric patters of neon colors snaked their way through the darkness behind his eyelids. Sylvester watched them blossom from one form to another, flowing like a river and changing just as smoothly. He wanted desperately to fall into them, to drown in dreams and forget the reality he was living in. But sleep was the forbidden fruit of his existence. The more he wanted it, the more it was denied him.

   The creak of the bedroom door upon rusted hinges was magnified in the silence of the darkened room. “Sylv…?” Cecilia’s feather-soft whisper floated to his ears, but Sylvester refused to respond and lay still, feigning sleep. “Sylvester?” she whispered again, this time louder. But when still her older brother didn’t move, she padded back down the hall, closing the door behind her with a soft snap.

   The moment she was gone Sylvester found himself longing for her company. It seemed that was the norm as of late – whenever he wanted another’s company he chased it away. There was only so much comfort a child like Cecilia could offer, and even less considering she didn’t know what was going on. Though Sylvester had debated telling her before, he was right, what he had said to Anca. There was no one he could talk to about this…

   It wasn’t long before his two sisters came to bed. Now it was Lavinia’s ear that Cecilia was jabbering to death about her coveted doll. Lavinia was vain and self-absorbed, and it showed in the way she ignored her younger sibling, pretending to listen and reply with the occasional “hm” or “I see”.

   Cecilia clambered into the little bed beside Sylvester, worming her way beneath the threadbare cotton sheets. Lavinia took her time in preparing for sleep, brushing her long blonde hair like a princess getting ready for a ball. When she finally set the brush down, she made another show of getting into bed. First smoothing the bedclothes and peeling back the blanket, slipping between the layers with all the grace and poise she could muster into her long, lean frame. She posed for a moment, throwing back her hair in waves of gold and drawing one leg up, giving the far wall a sultry, beckoning gaze.

   Sylvester saw it all without opening his eyes. He had seen it before, how Lavinia wore her vanity around her neck like a sign. He would have felt sorry for her had she been mistaken in her opinion of her own beauty, but the sad truth was that Lavinia was stunningly gorgeous. Unfortunately, she knew it all too well, and never missed the opportunity to flaunt it in town. Again, Sylvester would have pitied her efforts had they been fruitless, but not three days ago she had been promised to a young man in the little trading town. That young man had a great deal of money, and Lavinia’s marriage to him was a bonus the Torrentem family could never have dreamed of. Now if only they could afford a dowry…

   But lately her new fiancé had begun to rethink his decision to marry Lavinia, and as Sylvester was constantly reminded, it was his fault. That thought brought a crease to Sylvester’s brow and he turned fitfully away from his sisters. Beside him, Cecilia squirmed and wriggled and writhed, annoying him even further. There wasn’t a single thing he wouldn’t give just to have his own room. But there were only three rooms in the tiny little house. One was where his mother and father slept, and the other where Ivan and Celestina slept, leaving Cecilia, Sylvester, and Lavinia to share a room.

   Sylvester contented himself with the fact that Lavinia would soon be moving out, and perhaps he could convince Cecilia to snuggle a pillow and not him all night long. Hours crept by and these musings, along with many others, inundated Sylvester’s mind in a steady flow of thought. Cecilia soon drifted into slumber, as did Lavinia, and still Sylvester lay awake.

   His thoughts turned ill. This was not how he wanted to live; feared, misunderstood, and loathed by his own family. He hadn’t asked for this. Did they think for one second that he wanted to be this way? To have everyone he knew and loved turn upon him like a rabid beast deserving nothing more than to be shot? He didn’t want to be different. He would have given a limb to be just like everyone else. But he was cursed with this difference he wanted no part of.

   His fingers were gripping the pillow so hard he doubted they would ever unclench. Cecilia’s peaceful breathing was drowned out by his own short, clipped, aggravated breaths. In the darkness of his eyelids, Sylvester’s eyes rolled and pitched; flashing with all the barely restrained emotion he felt brewing like a storm in his breast. He felt hot. Even kicking aside the threadbare sheets didn’t cool his skin.

   A cool country breeze danced across his bare chest. Sylvester jumped as if he had been struck by lightning. Swirls of vibrant colour twisted like serpents before his eyes as he opened them to stare out the open bedroom window. Another breath of night air trickled in.

   Sylvester gained his feet with the accompanying groan and creak of bed frame timbers. He stole from the room like a fuming shadow, the air around him sparking with anger. His bare feet moved him soundlessly across the rough wooden floor, through the darkened hallway and past the open door to Celestina and Ivan’s bedroom. Sounds drifted out to meet Sylvester’s ears and he cringed. But he was in no fit state of mind to ponder his brother’s nighttime activities.

   Casting a cold gray glance over his shoulder into the house, Sylvester slipped silently out the front and only door into the grip of a chill breeze. He felt like he was both asleep and wide-awake, standing as still as a misplaced stone sentinel in the surreal darkness of the Romanian countryside. Slivers of moonlight dappled the rolling hills, the occasional flicker of gold in the trees testimony to a firefly’s midnight parade.

   His lungs filled with a deep breath that froze in his throat and was released in a sharp sob. This, truly, was the norm of his existence. His emotions galloped rampant. He lacked a will strong enough to control them, and they now controlled him; a marionette to their rancor.

   Shivering, Sylvester sank down against the battered porch railing. The scent of musty wood stung his nose, but he was oblivious. Fog began to roll in, from the distant shadow of the mountains, from the shore of the Black Sea not so far beyond. Opaque gray clouds blurred and disjointed his vision, until Sylvester was afloat like human flotsam in a realm without distinction. Sensation dissipated from every cell and he was left numb, shivering in the chill.

   A pair of soft hands shocked him from his blank reverie and sent him pitching into the porch railing, clutching desperately at the splintering wooden pole for any anchor in his world. “Sylvester.” The light intonation was a whisper in his mind. Foggy. Nonexistent.

   “Sylvester.” Again the voice came, this time puncturing the fog like a snake’s fang and serving as a catalyst to unleash his awareness. “Sylvester, easy…” Cecilia’s voice was frightened, quaking. He shuddered, and clamped his eyes shut.

   “It’s happening, isn’t it?”

   Sylvester’s eyes snapped open. In a course of seconds the pigment spiraling his pupils blazed obsidian and faded to sparking, festering silver. He felt a sudden well of hot bile in his throat. When at last his voice reemerged, it was hoarse, and just as frightened as Cecilia’s. “What did you say?”

   “It’s happening again…like last night.” Her emerald eyes were large, owl-like, in the darkness.

   The boy’s voice broke, and his answer was little more than a dead whisper: “Yes…”

   “When you woke screaming…plugging your ears and praying…”

   “Yes…” Her hands were on his shoulders now, those shaking shoulders that carried such an unholy burden. Sylvester’s eyes searched hers. He found no child there. The windows to Cecilia's soul were veiled with the ashen fragility of a young spirit forced to mature. His own eyes burned with tears. “How long have you known…?”

   Silence befell her lips, and she watched him for a lifespan of minutes, until at last her words slipped in a slow conundrum to his ears. “Since as long as I can remember…”

   Clear as the tolling of a bell, her words rolled through him and struck a chord of enmity with his heart. “You knew?” he prompted. His voice was edged with frayed fierceness. “How did you know?” But he knew…as he knew all that no adolescent boy should know. He knew. Cecilia’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. The colour seemed to have drained from her face and into her eyes, for they were red with the mental exhaustion that comes from knowing too much and never letting on about it.

   “I see everything…” she whispered, and suddenly she was clutching his hand, her eyes begging for a reprieve from futuristic nightmares. “When you dream, I see. When you see, I know…I know, Sylvester…” Sharp, spastic sobs wracked her tiny frame as he gathered her into his arms, held her as all the word dissolved. Then he felt it.

   A worm. A parasite, deep in her mind, burrowing and gnawing through layers of sanity just as the worm in his own mind did. The chaos that controlled her – how could he not have sensed it? How could he not have known, when all his life she had been beside him, so silently festering? And lo, he cried, just as she did, into the night.