A Bloody Mess of Broken Legs and Regret
Let Sleeping Gods Lie, Act 2: The Other Side #12
Continued from The Wind in His Veins. Catch up on all the stories from Act1: An Unusual Brain here.
Aidan sat with his new-old dad back at the huge tree and tried to get all his questions out without asking them all at the same time.
“Where’s blue?”
“He’s here. Red too.”
“Cool! are they super forest dogs now?”
“Well…”
“I bet they are one hundred meters tall and breathe fire like dragons! Are they dragons? Please, please tell me they’re dragons!”
“How to put this. They’re spirits now. Like ghosts, I guess. Don’t have to feed them and I can talk to them sometimes, which is a bonus. Wasn’t much conversation in these parts when I arrived.”
“Ghost dogs. Cool. Where are they? Can I see them?” Aidan jumped up and began to look around the base of the tree.
“I don’t see them as much these days. Got their own thing going on now, but they visit, sometimes.”
“So you work for the big tree now?”
“Ah, yeah I guess. I do my best to make sure all this scrub is safe, you know. There are plenty of folks who live here and they like to keep it pretty low-key. Don’t like trouble. So I take care of the trouble.”
“That’s cool. When I grow up I want to work for a tree too.”
Heather strolled down to the river to sit with her son.
“That’s weird — where has that boy got to?” Heather shook her head as she bent down to take a closer look at the flowers on the water and fill her water bottle. There was a familiar scent in the air.
Rum? And a whisper of lime.
Edie climbed down from her lookout in the trees and went to find Heather and Aidan. She found the backpack and a freshly filled water bottle at the water’s edge.
She smelled rain. And lightning.
“Come out you coward. Come out and bring my children with you.” Edie bunched her fists and scanned the nearby forest for her oldest enemy.
Something laughed. Something old. And Edie was across the sea in the quiet dark of a small dim room. Anansi stood in the middle of the far wall, his face split in a hungry grin.
“I knew you would come back, child. You belong here, with Anansi.” He opened his mouth wide, showing rows of tiny fangs spiraling deep into his throat.
“Shut your mouth. I’m not here for your juvenile games. My children. You will give them to me now, or god or not, I will leave you a bloody mess of broken legs and regret.”
“Children? It has been a long time, such a long time since I have tasted that fresh, sweet meat. Where are they? Give them to me and perhaps I will let you live out the rest of your pointless life as my ward.”
Anansi’s smile vanished as Edie lunged at him: a mother’s rage unleashed. She took him by the throat and with her other hand drove her thumb deep into his black eye.
“Ahhhhh. My eye. My beautiful eye!”
Anansi threw Edie off with implacable strength.
“How? How did you even touch me, human?” He held his eye as he thrashed.
Anansi froze at the sound of the mud wall shattering. A cloaked, hulking shadow with the head of a lion stood amidst the falling palm fronds and dust.
“Begone, spider.” The lion-man waved a casual hand — shooing a pest away. Anansi scrabbled and slipped on his many legs and was gone.
The Scarlet Lord shook his great head and shrunk in on himself to reveal a smiling teenage boy.
“Hello, Abena.”
© 2022, Isaac Asamoah. All rights reserved.
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