Tales In Scarlett

Previous Chapters can be found here:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Beneath the hesitant first strands of dawn, Scarlett sped swiftly from the blood-drained body in front of her. Her mind was hazy with memory and loss, and an instinct that had lain dormant, invigorated. She threw herself through her apartment door. Sinking into the ground as it slammed behind her. Confusion interweaved with the adrenaline of power and the heady taste of blood.

She clambered to her feet, pulling the blinds down over the windows of the open plan space. She needed to think. The air in the room was thick and heavy, suffocating, as the events of the night before overwhelmed her, she crumbled to the floor.

On waking, her head was in the hands of another. The voice was soft and familiar- comforting like a song. As her eyes adjusted to the slanting shadows a young woman came into focus; she felt the tender touch of her hand run through her hair. Forcing herself to focus, Scarlett looked up to the voice. Their eyes met – hematitian, match for match, “Great-Grandmother?” she whispered. “There’s wolves in them woods, dear” She replied softly in confirmation.

The two women sat side by side as Melangell recounted their shared lineage. She spoke with a lyrical lilt that Scarlett had never noticed before, “Born of the sacred valleys of Nant Gwynant and the majestic mountain, Bendigeidfran endowed our ancestors with protective power. We were the adversaries of wolves. The silent protectors who were tasked with dispelling the land of predators” Scarlett listened intently, her heart pulsating as the realisation of her true path pumped through her veins. Melangell continued elegiacally, ‘We had a task. A purpose until, tired of the hunt, Manawydan - after restoring the land. sought a more peaceful existence, the family settling to protect the wolves of the forest.

Over the thousands of years that passed, each generation skipped an inheritance, making the next a stronger version of the last.”

Scarlett gasped. “And me? You?...Mum?”

Melangell paused, inhaling sharply as she prepared to deliver the aligning pieces in Scarlett’s understanding of her own identity, “Your mother’s mother. My daughter died in childbirth, two years before her 18th birthday. So, the legacy skipped not just her, but your mother too”

“So mum isn’t…?”

“No” Melangell responded. Scarlett had still not grasped the point; she stared at her great-grandmother, for the first time really noticing her undeniable beauty. They shared the same features but her face possessed a wisdom and an understanding that she knew the hardened contours of her cheekbones had yet to earn. She felt vulnerable all of a sudden. Young. And she knew, with absolute clarity, that she had not been in this life before. Her great-grandmother had. Many times.

Melangell, rested an elegant hand on Scarlett’s knee, “My dear, I don’t think you quite understand” She paused to give weight and validity to her words, “You are the most powerful of The Syched Coch”

Scarlett shrank away from the comfort of the hand, bound by fear and insecurity, “But wh-what does that mean. For me?”

She replaced her hand on her Great-Granddaughter’s knee, “I don’t know exactly Scarlett, the wolves of your time are very different to mine.” She paused, deep in thought, “And I don’t know the extent of your power. By the laws that govern, I was prevented from speaking of this until the day of your 18th year.”

Scarlett was silent as the events of the night before filtered through her mind in dream sequence. His voice. The blood. The taste of it on her lips. Bitter and acerbic like unripe persimmon. Sweet like late summer strawberries.

Her great-grandmother's voice drifted through—muffled as if underwater; distorted.

“Remember dear, Syched Coch hunt for justice; never for revenge” She kissed her softly on the forehead.

Scarlett watched as the figure of her great-grandmother quivered and warped like a holograph before she shattered. Glacial shards of her filtered backwards in a stream of variegated light.

Scarlett was alone.

As the insipid neon of night dispersed into the bustling desperation of day, Scarlett grappled with what she had learned. She sat in silence amongst the lingering reverberation of her great-grandmother’s words, tumbling headlong into an overwhelming sense of isolation. It consumed her at first. The revelations she had encountered along with her newfound taste for blood, manifestly changed everything she had thought she had known. And everything she thought she would become.

She was overwrought with confusion. She paced the room. Symbiotically lusting for blood and detesting herself for it. A deep rooted fury embedded within her. Anger at her great-grandmother for hiding the truth. Resentment towards her mother for having the luxury of freedom from the curse she had been indebted with. And above all else absolute rage towards Chase and all that he represented.

As the day disintegrated into evening, she tried to fight it –the bestial instinct. She could if she so chose. She could walk away as Manawydan had before her. She could deny her destiny.

In agitated desperation, she tried to write. Taking out her tattered notebook, she attempted to release her feelings, to relinquish control to the pen. To no avail.

In the diminishing slant of daylight, she surrendered. Her need to feed her own devastation outweighed her repugnance of herself.

She listened intently.

The shattering cry of desperation wracked through her body.

This time she did not think about seduction. She thought only of the sweet, fragaria taste of blood and the vengeance she would wreak on the spineless wolf.

She sped across the city, bounding over walls and navigating fences with the agility of a Margay. She threw herself with abandon over and at every obstacle. Her heart barely beating. She tumbled into the alleyway like a lithe samurai before a battle. But this was no battle. She was already the victor.

As he turned away from the crumpled girl, reaching down towards his jean zipper, she pounced, her hind legs propelling her forward, she knocked him clear to the ground. “That’s a turn up for the books” She thought as her whiskers spiked and her fangs sunk into his startled face.

There was nothing left but the white encasing of a body that once walked. Drained of blood. The dismantled bones, the rats would devour into the night.

The girl shrunk deeper into the confines of the wall.

As she sauntered away, her long elegant tail sashaying in gratification, she turned slowly, delivering a wry smile and an hematitian feline wink to the girl she had once been.

The newspaper headlines of the next morning would tell of a wild cat, let loose among the city streets.

Chapter Four