The Nighthawk's Candle: III.

A Chapter by Jhaniel

Wherein we meet Elaine, and Elaine meets someone rather interesting . . .

III.

“Listen.”

“Ssh!”

“Oh Anni, listen. Do you hear a voice?”

“What?”

“A voice.”

“No.” Anni was the elder of the two children, and the flowers she had picked glowed upon her lap. But then everything seemed to glow with its own light, here. She looked doubtfully at her younger sister. “What kind of a voice?”

“I . . . don’t know.” The little girl said, gazing around at the tall trees. They were lit with white-gold.

“It is not a voice, I suppose. It is like how eyes would speak, if they had voices. It isn’t a voice, it’s a thought, or a glance. I can hear it with my eyes and my mind. Not my ears.”

“You are crazy, Elaine.” But the older girl looked around uneasily, and her lips twisted uncertainly. “This place is not haunted. That’s only baby stories. We came here, didn’t we? We’ve plucked some of the Candle flowers, haven’t we?” She pointed at her collection of blossoms. “All these years we’ve been warned from coming here, and yet we have, and there’s no Nighthawk. So don’t go talking about—about voices in your head. Stop it.”

“These aren’t Candle flowers.” Elaine said slowly, looking at the flowers she held. “They are normal. We got it all wrong. And I tell you someone is watching me! Don’t you feel it, like light upon your face?”

“Crazy,” Anni retorted, clutching her own flowers in sweaty hands. “Not another word, Elaine. Not another word!”

And she scurried farther away, towards the cloudy sunlight where the other children played and searched for Candle flowers, away from the silent glade and the littler girl.

But Elaine stayed.

She looked thoughtfully at the flowers she held in her hands, then with a sigh laid them softly upon the grass. They shone like jewels in the Candlelight, but she stood by and frowned, looking at them. These flowers were beautiful, but they were not Candle flowers. She had thought they were, before, but suddenly she was certain they were not. Somehow, she knew.

“Elaine.”

The voice returned again, very softly. The other children had moved away, and for a moment all was still and soft. She thought it was the wind’s breath in the treetops, or the fall of a leaf to the ground, a green whisper, and so was not afraid. This was the same voice, she knew—yet this time, she heard it with her ears.

“My name is Elaine. But where are you?”

For a long moment all was silence again, as she gazed into the Candlelight and listened. She was dreaming, she was dreaming . . . .

“Here,” the voice said softly. She turned around quickly, and for the first time a quiet something ran down her spine, like the shiver she always got when looking up for the first time after finishing a very good daydream. It was the tremor of reality and fantasy clashing.

She at first did not see anything, only blackness. Blackness and glittering blackness, leaves that never saw the sun, chittering eyes of forest creatures. But she did not fear. Instead, she softly stepped forward, towards where she heard the voice. The strange smooth yellow light danced in her eyes.

“I cannot see you,” she said. “If you are there, please, come where I can see you.”

There was a slow rustling, and then a shadowy figure detached itself from the black and took a step towards her. She stared.

The stranger was very pale, white as though light had never before touched his skin, as though he had lived all his life in an cave underground, a cavern filled with clear water, or as though he was the spirit of one of these trees, tangled and dreary and hidden. His face, upon closer inspection, was very fine, slender-boned but not weak, firm but not cruel. His hair was long, but not as long as hers, and it was very straight. It was black.

It was blacker than any black she had ever seen before, until she glanced into his eyes. And his eyes were so black she could not breathe until he blinked.

He rarely blinked.

“Why don’t you take them?”

His voice was very peculiar. She could not tell if it was fierce or gentle. To avoid her confusion—and the black, black eyes fixed upon her face—she looked down.

“Oh!”

In his outstretched hand he held two of the Candle flowers. She knew instantly what they were, though she could not have said why. Those other flowers were beautiful, but these were alive. She took them and held them in her hand, and they were heavy. “Thank you.”

She made a little courtesy.

Elaine did not know she was pretty. Young children never do—which is perhaps why they are all beautiful.

But the stranger, he who had given her the flower, watched her with fixed black eyes. Her face, which had blushed faintly as she curtsied, was a gentle, delicate oval, with a pert, confident chin; her brown eyes glowed brightly, and her whole pretty, girlish face was turned towards him. Her hair was such a deep brown it was almost black, and very fine, as though painted by a soft brush. She was too young to style her hair, so it was free to roll in light waves to slightly below her shoulder-blades. She was dressed all in white, her father’s finest white linen, and white slippers

Her small, slender hand, graciously flourishing her simple skirt and then extending courteously to him, was watched in silence.

“Thank you,” she said again, more warmly. “

He stared at her slim little fingers and said nothing, and then looked back into her face and said nothing.

Elaine dropped her hand back to her side, and wiped it on her skirt. Her gratitude faded as swiftly as it had come, and now she merely felt affronted. She looked up to see the black, black eyes still watching her, and discovered she was irritated by them.

“What are you staring at, anyway?” She demanded.

“You.” He did not sound embarrassed.

“Well—stop it.” She flushed. “Go away.”

A faint call from the world beyond the trees. A child’s voice? The black eyes did not flicker.

“Go away,” she repeated.

“Only if you come with me.”

She stepped back, then took two steps forward.

“Why would I come with you?”

He lifted his head in a strange blend of haughty pride and shyness.

“Because I am the Nighthawk, and I command it.”

They stood in the Candlelight, staring at each other, and for a moment there was a hush. But then--

“You? But you can’t be the Nighthawk. You’re just a boy!” And she burst out laughing, merry and surprised.

But the boy with the wide black eyes and the white face blinked, and looked down in frightened confusion, put his hands to his face. Perhaps her laughter had scared him. The little girl at first felt a vindictive sort of satisfaction in frightening the boy who had sought to frighten her. He was a child, no taller than herself; how could he even dream of pretending to be the dreaded Nighthawk?

He was a child, but he had given her flowers. Elaine stopped laughing, fearing that she had been unkind.

A faint call, and another, like echoes in the mist and ringing rain. Elaine listened, and the boy slowly lifted his eyes to stare at her again. His eyes were just level with her own, and they were horrified and entranced. In the yellow light gold seemed to be dripping from his face, his hair, his hands, pale gold.

“Never mind what I said,” she said kindly. “I did not mean to hurt your feelings. It was very nice of you to get the flowers for me. Do you live nearby?”

The child stumbled backward away from her, and as easily as that, he was gone. She heard a sliding rustle and then he had vanished as strangely as he had appeared, leaving her alone.

Her sister found her there less than a minute later, staring bewilderedly into the black foliage and clutching two strange flowers in her slender hands.

“Elaine!”

She turned around, gasped, and the world was loud and alive again. Anni was stumping towards her, looking cross.

“Elaine, I have called you so many times. It’s raining. We must be getting back quick, before we are missed. It’s getting dark. And—Elaine, where on earth did you find those?”

She stared at the flowers in Elaine’s hands. The smaller girl blinked and stirred as though waking from a dream.

“I found them.”

“What?”

“I—no, Anni,” the girl said in sudden distress, “Wait, there is a boy, a boy who ran into the forest, and he will get wet in the rain too, won’t he, Anni? He was not the Nighthawk, because he was just my size—only think of that!—and he gave me the flowers. Anni,” she said worriedly as she drew the flowers close to her body and cradled them like butterflies, “I laughed at him. Was I unkind to laugh? But he was so strange!”

Anni only laughed.

“You silly goose, you must have dozed off. You were dreaming. There was no boy. There is only Gerin, and he was with me the whole time.”

“But how then did I get the flowers? Unless I dreamed that too . . . but there they are, in my hands.”

She shivered and rubbed her eyes. Anni shivered too, and tugged at the little girl’s frock.

“Do come, Elaine. Otherwise we will be missed, and there will be dreadful trouble.”

Obediently the little girl took her big sister’s hand, and allowed herself to be led out into the sparkling rain, away from the light. The rain seemed to wake her fully, and they ran through the darkness, laughing, ran home . . . .

Before she crawled into bed that night, Elaine carefully set a vase of clean water upon her bedside table. Beside it upon the tabletop rested the two flowers, fresh as though they had only just been picked. In the soft light cast from the lamp burning at the head of her bed, she examined them more closely.

The flowers were as red as wet blood, and their blooming petals spread in smooth ruffles until each flower was as large as her hand. Gently she picked them up to set them in the jar of water, and their petals slid against her skin as finely as the best satins did in her father’s workshop, when she would rub the beautiful fabrics against her face and hands when her father wasn’t looking. She gazed in wonder. Where could the child have found these? She eagerly pressed the beautiful things to her face and breathed in deeply, then turned away, coughing, as she set them in the water.

“Why,” she said in surprise, staring at them. “They smell like dust!”

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