Cast In Dark Waters

"Only with you."

His voice is very much the same, most of the time, and it lifts her heart too far when she hears it. This is truly what hell is, she thinks: the living hope for the love of a dead man.

What more can God do to her?

Nothing, she decides, and with that belief comes resolution, even relief. It's exactly what she's been waiting for, here in her tower. She backs up to the bed and lays back against the thick covers once more. She's as ready as she can be, and prays it is enough.

"Then come back to me."

"I cannot," he tells her. "I try but it is so…difficult…even this… touching you in this way…"

"What…?"

There are lives beyond the daylight, plateaus one can only reach in nightmare. Mama taught her that, back when the fever gripped her and she went off to strange and foreign places. He travels the same byways.

It has always been like this, since she lost him. The struggling about in murkiness, the driving fear, and the oppressive ballast of their passion. Desire that no longer exists in the living world.

Perhaps she's only gone utterly insane. That, if nothing else, would be a great comfort.

Her frosted breath rises and again bursts against the jutting stone angles of his hard face. It is an image that draws her back into herself. She can taste the wine she was drinking with Maycomb and his wife. Benbow. They want her to go to the island of Benbow.

It's a refrain of the mind that conjures dread. Haunted waters swell and surge, and the bottoms are heavy with drowned men buried in mud. Those who wait for the storms to come.

"Tyree?" she asks. "Are you there on Benbow? Am I supposed to find you there. Tell me so I'll know what to do."

"Let's not talk of that now, Cassandra."

Sometimes he can almost sound exactly like the man he'd once been, filled with the same charm and an eagerness towards laughter. There's a slight chuckle beneath his words, the kind that always made her smile. An appealing brazenness originally drew her to him, but it was the times of quiet playfulness that kept her. She cannot help wondering how much of him is left and if, somewhere inside himself, he is screaming for her to do what must be done.

She ought to find a virgin boy, place him on a horse of solid white and lead them across the island's graveyards. Moving from east to west, following the sun's course. That's what she should do. When the horse is unable to pass over a grave she'll know what lies within. She'll be ready to use the hoops of iron to break his limbs and, when he arises, she'll stake the body with ash wood and hack his head off with the sickle or her cutlass. Thorns will be placed under the tongue so he'll never drink such a sanguine brew again.

After she's done weeping and can gather her strength once more, she'll pull herself from the mud and finish what she's started. This is how it must be. She'll bury the head face down so that, if it still lives, it can do nothing but burrow into the dirt with all those teeth.

"What's that noise?" he asks.

"Mama."

"Your mother?"

"In the water. Trying to protect me."

Again there's that slight laughter just under the surface, waiting to be expressed. "She's strong."

He's talking about her spirit, she understands, and how hard it is for any of them to battle through the veils of the afterlife.

"Yes, she always was, even on her deathbed before she finally relented. What is it you want, Tyree?"

"You know already."

It's true, she does.

His lips crush against hers but she moves aside, thinking like a fighter now as she shoves against his chilled flesh. There's only a moment of resistance and then it's as though he's not even there anymore, only a puff of freezing air. Instantly he's behind her and blocking her path. She needs to get to the pillows and the ash wood and pike hidden beneath them.

There are things that need killing here. That's the fire that stays with her. Mama's lament continues to carry and that gives her the will to keep going. Her hands flex and then squeeze into fists. The quaint pain of fingernails digging into her palms holds her determination in place.

He says her name again and now they're each moving a little faster because their time is nearly over for the night. The dream is leading them towards dawn and a waking life where the sun burns away such phantoms, for a time. "Cassandra." Tyree repeats it once more, making the word lyrical. A lullaby that shall rock her into complacency. This is what he does, drawing it out with his inhuman tongue as if sucking at it like it was her neck. She frowns, knowing they've passed this way many times before since his death. "Cassssssandraaa."

She is a pirate, and she's not afraid of blood. "Enough of that, you bastard. My name is Crimson."

"Oh yes, yes…"

"Sweet words only count for so much.”

“…love…"

"You've forgotten quite a bit of it since you've bedded down in Davy Jones' locker."