"Redwater" by K. Anne Snell

The sun never shines on the village of Redwater. Yet not for any fault of its own; the surrounding hills and forests are always bathed in the warmest sunshine. Over Redwater, however, there hangs an eternal shadow that chills the air and stunts the growth of trees and children alike. The darkness has no end, and it has no source. For there is no tower, no mountain large enough to cast such a shadow. It merely stands over Redwater, a screen of darkness that reduces the sun to a pale orb and casts the surrounding countryside in bleak shades of gray. When a man leaves the village, it is like walking through an invisible curtain from a darkened room into the light of day. Yet no light can ever be brought back in; every candle and torch dies upon touching the blackness of Redwater, as suddenly as if doused with water. The villagers call it the Curse of Heaven.

None know where the darkness came from or why. No one is alive who remembers its coming. For generations the people have prayed for the forgiveness of whatever deity saw it fit to smite them. The Elders cast spells and offer sacrifices, but no answer has yet come.

The old man stopped speaking and looked down at his grandchildren, who looked back with solemn respect. The tale of Redwater was a well-known bit of legend that most were familiar with from infancy, but no one told it like Grandfather.

Their mother appeared at the windowsill, calling the children to their chores. The old man shuffled them outside, all except one boy who lagged behind as his brothers and sisters bounded away. Once alone, Conlan retrieved the broom from next to the fireplace and swept out the cottage, then carefully made up the beds and straightened up the kitchen. Once these tasks were completed to his satisfaction, he pulled on the worn leather boots that had once been his father’s, opened the door and sat down on the front step. Wooded hills rolled on before him, blanketed by a glorious blue sky. The garden and the fields his family worked for a living stretched off to the right, out of his line of vision. Conlan kept his eyes trained on the narrow road cut out of the thick underbrush, leading straight to the small house. It was the only road from the nearest city, and was used only by his family and residents of the neighboring farms to cart goods back and forth from town. Conlan had never seen an unfamiliar face coming down that path, but that didn’t stop his dreaming. His future was out there, and one day it would come for him. Until it did, he would keep watching.

The view hadn’t changed much after thirty years. Conlan’s family moved on; his grandfather soon passed on in his old age, and his mother eventually followed. His sisters married and his brothers left to find more promising work in the city. But Conlan stayed.

He said it was to take care of the farm that had been in the family for generations, but it was more than that. Here on the farm, he still had the hope of a dream.

He lived simply and took good care of the crops, but found no joy in working the earth. His real purpose was still out there, and he would be ready when his time came. The small, simple world he lived in had nothing to offer him, and he didn’t want to grow too attached to what he had for fear it would hold him back. He kept no personal belongings save what he needed to survive. He slept and cooked in a house, not a home, and every night after sweeping the floor Conlan would sit in his doorway and wonder when his life would start.

But it wasn’t life that came knocking on his door that clear winter evening. Conlan could hardly see the figure through the darkness of the trees as it approached the cottage. The stranger was a moving shadow darker than those cast by the full moon. He was robed in black from head to toe, and no face was visible behind its deep hood.

Conlan stood as the figure approached, legs shaking. It was the first stranger he had ever seen coming up that path, and if this was indeed his future, things didn’t look too promising.

The figure stopped an arm’s length away from where Conlan stood petrified. He was no taller than Conlan himself, but possessed a terrifying presence that spoke of inhuman power and left Conlan trembling.

They stood like that, face to invisible face, for what felt to Conlan like an eternity. He had no idea what to do.

“C-can I help you?” he finally managed to croak.

“Yes,” the stranger replied in a voice that was somewhere between the hiss of a snake and the roar of a lion. Unable to turn away, Conlan watched in terror as the stranger raised one gloved hand to remove his hood. At the sight of what was revealed in the pale moonlight, a horrified scream flew from his lips and echoed through the trees. He took a step back and fell into oblivion.

Conlan opened his eyes to blackness darker than death. He could feel nothing but a cold, hard floor and four stone walls, just far enough apart for him to lie flat with his arms stretched out and not touch them. Other than this the only sensation was a dull ache behind his eyes. He wondered if the room was really so dark or if he had been blinded.

He tried to recall how he had come to this place, but everything was blank. The last thing he could remember was a dark figure removing his hood. After that was nothing but an intense feeling of horror, but he could put no image to the sensation.

Suddenly there came the harsh sound of rock scraping against rock, as if a doorway had been opened. Frantically Conlan felt all along the walls of his prison, but found no opening. All of a sudden he was filled again with an overpowering sense of horror. He cowered in a corner of the cell, but couldn’t escape the feeling that he was being watched by some terrifying presence – the same that had met him on the road outside his home. It was as if Death were hovering over him, waiting to strike, moving ever closer until he thought its mere presence would suffocate him. Desperately Conlan fought against the walls of his prison, beating them with his fists and ramming them with his shoulder. He thrashed about wildly, wanting to grab onto a limb or a hem, anything tangible that he could fight against.

“Let me go!” he cried, trembling with rage and exhaustion. “What do you want of me?”

His jailor did not respond. Conlan ran his body furiously against the wall one more time for good measure before he collapsed again, physically and mentally spent.

He awoke some time later to a clear voice that trickled through his darkness like a stream through the desert. The voice of a young girl – a child.

Hello,” she called out from somewhere above him. “Are you alright? Can you hear me?”

Conlan pulled himself to his feet. He rubbed his aching eyes and peered up into the black void above him, trying to make out a face or a point of light, but there was nothing.

“I’m here,” he replied, his voice hoarse from exhaustion and lack of water. How long had he been here?

“Thank goodness you’re okay,” the voice responded. “It took me so long to find you.”

“Find me? Where am I? Who are you?”

“My name is Nadia. I’m from the village of Redwater.”

Conlan caught his breath, eyes widening in surprise as he remembered his grandfather’s stories. “The Redwater?”

He could almost feel her smile. “Yes. I came to thank you. You saved our village.”

“I don’t understand,” Conlan said. “I’ve never even been to Redwater. How could I have saved it?”

There was a short silence, and for a moment Conlan feared that she had left. Finally she spoke again in a more solemn voice. “It was the Dark One,” she said. “The one who brought the shadow over our village. He brought you into the town. It was the first time anyone had seen him, though we’d heard his voice on the wind many times. His face was covered. He held you up and said, ‘here is the man who will save you. Here is the one who will take away the darkness.’ Then he raised his hand and all the darkness was sucked into you, like a vapor…”

Nadia paused, waiting for him to respond. When he said nothing, she continued. “Everyone saw it. The others all turned away when the darkness fell onto you, but I kept watching. I wanted to know where he would take you, so that I could find you.”

“I don’t remember any of this,” Conlan replied. He sank to the floor against the cold wall.

“What is your name?” she asked.

“Conlan.”

“Conlan. You were unconscious through the whole thing. I don’t think you would have survived it if you were awake. You look nearly dead as it is.”

“You can see me?” he said, suddenly alert.

“Yes.”

“Can you reach me?”

“No. You’re still too far away.”

“But where am I?”

She didn’t answer. “Nadia?” he called out, hoping she hadn’t disappeared.

“He’s coming back,” she whispered tensely. “He mustn’t know anyone’s been here. I’ll return as soon as I can, I promise.”

Conlan listened blindly to the soft rustling and scamper of footsteps as she hurried away from whatever strange hole he was trapped in. Again he heard the hard scraping of a door being opened somewhere, and knew that his captor was present. Conlan spun around wildly, trying in vain to find the creature through the dense blackness.

“Who are you?” he called. “What do you want of me?”

“Your name,” the creature said, in that apocalyptic voice which was neither male nor female.

“First tell me where I am,” Conlan demanded, trying in vain to sound brave over the fierce trembling that had come over his heart at the sound of the stranger’s voice.

“You are nowhere of significance,” came the reply. “It is not a physical dungeon you have been cast into, so I suggest you stop beating yourself against the walls before you do to yourself the damage I have no intention of inflicting upon you.”

Conlan almost believed he could detect a hint of humor in the voice. Stunned at this unexpected response, he promptly sat down and stared straight ahead, unsure of what else to do.

“Thank you,” the voice continued. “No, it is not a dungeon you have been cast into. It is rather the prison that has been built within you. The darkness you took into yourself ensnared your soul and condemned it to this cell.”

“The darkness I took into myself!” Conlan raged, his fear momentarily forgotten. “But I had nothing to do with this. I didn’t choose to do this.”

“No one ever does,” the stranger replied patiently. “But you did nothing to prevent it.”

“How could I?” Conlan shot back. “You hardly gave me the chance.”

“That is not for me to answer. However, you are here now, and you are in my keeping. And since it looks like you shall be here awhile, I would like to know your name.”

Again there was that hint of amusement in the stranger’s hiss that so annoyed Conlan. The being’s presence had ceased to frighten him, though there was still a sense of terrible power that rattled him to the bones.

“My name is Conlan.” The dauntlessness in his own voice surprised him.

“Welcome to your fate, Conlan. Redwater thanks you.” The invisible door began to slide shut again.

“Wait!” Conlan called out. “I don’t understand. If only my soul is trapped, how am I imprisoned between walls of stone? Why am I blinded?”

“When the soul is not free, neither is the body,” was the blunt response. “When the first cannot see, neither can the latter. Until your soul learns to see, this will be your prison.”

It  was gone before Conlan had a chance to reply. The silence left in the creature’s wake was even more oppressing than its presence, and Conlan was abruptly aware of just how alone he truly was.

He sank to the ground and blinked into the blackness for what felt like an age, if it was an hour. For a long time his mind remained blank. Eventually his thoughts wandered to Nadia. Had she spoken the truth? His captor’s words seemed to validate what the girl had said. If what they said was true, if Redwater’s curse had been cast onto him…would he be doomed to this dark prison for all eternity?

He remembered the stranger’s words; you did nothing to prevent it. But what could he have done? He had no idea what was coming when the hooded stranger first appeared before him. True, he had done nothing to defend himself, but somehow Conlan doubted physical barriers or weapons would do much good against such a powerful force.

“But it wasn’t my body,” Conlan muttered to himself. “It is my soul that was vulnerable.” He thought of his disconnection from the world, his fixation on a dream of something greater. I brought this on myself, he realized. Perhaps if he had spent more time living instead of sitting on his doorstep waiting for life to start, his soul wouldn’t have been so vulnerable to attack.

“What a fool I’ve been,” he despaired. “All my life I’ve had something, even if it wasn’t what I wanted. Now look where I am. I’m lost.”

His prison seemed to grow smaller as he said it. The heavy air swallowed his words and closed down over him. He paced around the cell for what felt like days. The dull pain behind his eyes grew to a splitting headache. When walking became too tiresome, he sat and scraped at the stone floor with his belt buckle, which he had broken off. Time had no meaning to him. He had no hunger, no thirst, no emotion. He merely existed in nothingness. 

“Conlan.”

At first he thought he was dreaming. The voice was too light, too pure to belong to the darkness of reality. But when in his eternal imprisonment had he had a dream so sweet?

“Conlan, can you hear me? It’s Nadia.”

“Nadia…” The name held such hope.

“Why won’t you come out, Conlan?”

Come out? How? Couldn’t she see he was trapped? Couldn’t the girl see from whatever window she stood at that he had no way of escape?

“If you want me out so badly, why don’t you do something to help me?” he snapped.

“I’m trying,” she responded. Conlan could hear the tears in her voice. “But it is your soul that is imprisoned, and only you can free yourself.”

“How?”

“Remember the light.”

“What light?”

“You’ll never see it if you don’t believe it,” she replied. Conlan almost laughed out loud. Could believing in something make it real?

“Isn’t it just a product of my imagination then?” he asked.

“It’s a product of faith,” Nadia shot back. She was beginning to sound impatient. “How do you know what reality is or is not?”

“I know these walls are reality.”

“Only to you.” The intense sadness in her voice caught Conlan off guard. He wondered vaguely what her face looked like, what color her hair was. She must be pretty with a voice like that. He wondered what season it was, if the leaves were turning or if the first flowers of spring were beginning to bloom. Was it a warm day? Was the sun shining?

The sun. He closed his eyes and tried to remember its warmth, how it made him sweat in early afternoon and how its light stung his eyes when he tried to look at it directly. How it warmed him on cold winter days and gave him such a sense of hope when it rose each morning.

“I miss the sun,” he whispered. All of a sudden a sharp pain pierced his eyes, making him squint and turn his head down. As he did he felt an unexpected warmth on the back of his neck. He pried his eyes open and looked up to see the yellow orb of the sun hanging over him.

“I can see it,” he cried in wonder. “I can see the sun!”

Nadia laughed. “I knew you could,” she said. “Now climb out. Come out of your prison.”

Conlan stretched out his arm and walked forward, but the wall didn’t meet him like he expected it to. He spun around, moving in a wide circle, but the walls had vanished. “How do I climb?”

“I’m right above you,” Nadia said. “Take my hand.”

He turned around at the sound of her voice and saw her face, pale as virgin snow from a life without sunlight, and beautiful. She was the most beautiful thing Conlan had ever laid eyes on.

Smiling, the young girl reached out a slender arm and extended her open palm, less than a foot above Conlan’s head. Conlan held his breath and reached up to grasp her tiny hand in his own.

“Hold on tight,” she said, and pulled him towards the sun.

Conlan opened his eyes to a warm green light and the scent of earth. As his vision cleared he could make out a canopy of tree boughs above him, with golden sunlight shining through. He felt the cool moss against his back and heard a bird singing in the distance. Surely he had died; it was so peaceful.

“Welcome back, Conlan.” He turned his head to see Nadia sitting on the moss-covered ground next to him. She wore a plain white dress that bunched up around her knees, exposing her pale feet, stained green from the damp grass. Her gray eyes sparkled like the sun against the clouds after a rainstorm.

“I’m alive,” he breathed. He had never felt so glorious. Nadia smiled warmly.

Conlan moved into a sitting position, then slowly rose to his feet. He looked around, taking in the green woods. “Where are we?” he asked.

“We’re in the forest near Redwater.” The girl took his hand. “Would you like to see it?”

“Yes.”

His large palm engulfed her tiny fingers, and the top of her golden head barely reached his waist. Her footsteps hardly left a mark in the soft ground, and Conlan felt somehow inadequate stumbling along next to the girl.

She led him through the forest until the trees ended abruptly at the crest of a hill. Below them stretched a wide green valley with a dazzling blue river winding down the middle. On the banks of the river sat a cluster of houses and buildings bathed in sunlight. Conlan and Nadia stood in silence, taking in the view.

“It’s funny,” Conlan said after a moment. “I’ve never seen Redwater before, and yet I feel I’ve come home.”

“It is because you gave your soul for this place,” Nadia replied. “It’s yours now.”

Conlan remained quiet for another minute, wondering that such a dark ordeal could lead to something so beautiful. Would he ever have appreciated it otherwise?

“I’m ready to live,” he declared, and started down the hill.