SciFi and Fantasy Stories: Scéal Breatnach (Welsh Story)

09-21-2001

Welsh Story

Clarsah paused before stepping onto the jetway, the drumbeat of thousands of feet and the countless voices from the terminal ahead mingling and distorting as they echoed from the corrugated plastic walls. Ahead of her, the corridor’s deep grey carpet sloped upwards for ten yards until it turned away towards the main gate. The jetway consisted of a series of jointed segments stretching out from the main terminal, each wall vaguely reminiscent of a thin column of tree-trunks on either side. With her feet planted together, she stood at the threshold of the tunnel, pushing down the sudden and unsettling feeling of standing on the bow of a rowboat.

She had waited until the other passengers exited the plane before she rose, both to avoid the cram that was always present as people gathered up their bags, and to try and wake up. She took a deep breath and sighed, blinking to clear away the last of her sleep. Her head hurt. As she stretched, she tried to forget the warmth of the chair she had just abandoned. Gazing into the distance through the plexi-glass window before the portal, she watched as another plane was refuelled and loaded by a half dozen small figures. She shook her stiff legs, reminding them that the baggage counter was probably on the opposite side of the airport, before she reached down for the duffel at her feet. She could still feel the warm cushions of the seat against her back. She sighed again. The dull roll of the engines helped to soothe her nerves slightly, and she took one final look out the window before stepping forward.

The duffel slipped down her shoulder and she grabbed the strap before it could fall. She stood with one foot in the corridor and the other still in the plane, feeling like she was leaning out over open air, despite knowing that the jetway was secured to the plane, and being held from beneath. The wind gusted outside just then, whistling through the thin metal joints of the walls and butting against the corridor.

She righted herself and took a step back into the plane. Peering out the wall divide where the tunnel connected to the plane, she saw a baggage cart pulling away. "Okay, this must be a sign." She dropped to one knee, swinging the duffel forward the way she could reach it. Balancing it on her raised knee, she ran her hand across the bag, counting the bulges the tightly folded clothing made through the green canvas. She glanced back over her shoulder at the seat she had just risen from, but it was as empty of luggage as the other seats around it. Clarsah stared back at her duffel, knowing that something of hers wasn’t there, but not quite sure of what she should be looking for. She blew back a strand of black hair that had escaped from behind her ear, intent on staring through the Jansport logo.

She had sat in the same position for most of the flight from New York, wedged between a window and an armrest. She’d forgotten to pack a book bought a week before the trip, which, besides sleeping, was supposed to be her entertainment on the long flight. She had found it while scavenging through shelves in a small Catholic bookstore just outside of Central Park. Clarsah had been mildly surprised, but then given it to Divine Providence that a psalter should appear as she scrolled through the used books of a religious store. Fingering through it, she had pausing when she noticed a prayer to St. Bueno inscribed on the inside of the chapped leather cover. She’d left the store with two other books as well, but they had just been bargains too good to pass up. Then, the morning of her flight, all of them were completely forgotten as she’d fumbled with her luggage at the door of her motel room.

Well, she thought, already giving up on her attempt to catalogue, you did remember your clothing, your blanket and your pillow, so you didn’t forget everything important. She stood up with her bags, pulling a strap over her shoulder and stepping swiftly back to the exit. Leaning over, she readjusted the pack on her back and picked up the duffel. Looping it over her head, she stepped into the tunnel.

She took a few steps up the shallow ramp, the echo of her feet eerily bounding up the corridor, as if running on before her of their own volition. As the echoes faded, she unconsciously listened for the voices that she had heard outside the gate. She stopped, frowning as she strained for the noise to reverberate down to her from the terminal ahead. She stepped forward slowly, confused, the echoes of her footfalls not seeming to fade away, but to grow louder with each step. As she passed by the next joint, the metal was slowly warping in towards her, seeming to buckle under the weight of some immense force from outside. She jumped back by some primitive instinct, her mind knowing full well that she was still in just as much danger as long as she was in the quaking tunnel. The joint let out a low groan, the entire tube shivering in the sudden cold that seeped in through the walls.

She bolted then, and the momentum of her bags carried her over the ramp, spilling her over as she rounded the corner. All of a sudden, she felt much lighter. She stumbled into a kneel, her arms abruptly freed of luggage, and pivoted, looking back for the plane and the attendant. Prickles bloomed across her skin as a chill enfolded her. (Stunned, she gaped at what had moments ago been the corridor that led from the plane to the flight gate.) Instead, all she could see was an etiolated landscape of ice and snow, accented at random by the frost-blackened trunks of a dying forest. The plexi-glass windows that had surrounded her moments before seemed only spaces between the trees.

She turned slightly, her boots sinking into the muddy slush of snow and decaying leaves, and saw a clearing far in the distance through a narrow gap between the trees. Gasping, Clarsah stumbled towards the path – for that is what she thought it must be – her left arm raised to deflect falling ice as she forced her way through the thick tangle of branches.

Stumbling over a rotting trunk, her breath fogged up before her, and Clarsah realised how cold it had become. Her denim jeans were already soggy with snow and ice. The flight had been cold enough for her to slip a sweater on over her T-shirt. She was thankful, at least, for the warmth that provided.

Each branch that she pushed through slapped the cold deeper into her body. Every breath she took stung her lungs. She could feel the brittleness of the ground through her soles. Besides the low moan and creak of the wind, the only sound she could hear was her own – the crunching of her footfalls and the uneven rasp of her breath.

Sometimes she thought she heard another, fainter noise in the distance. She would feel it echo through the trees, almost like laughter, lingering just long enough in her mind to make her shiver before it faded back into the rising wind. Clarsah kept her eyes focused on the ground immediately before her and tried not to think.

Occasionally, she had to pause and find another way around wide cavities that had opened up in the earth between trees. Dead roots protruded from the icy mud; the remains of an ancient forest that had sunk down into the land and refused to fade away. Between these spanned great fissures, brought up with the rising decay. She was wary as she stepped around them, feeling that something was hiding deep within the stench, watching her.

As the exhaustion of trudging her way through the trees finally began pressing down on her, she found herself in the clearing. Clarsah stepped forward cautiously, uncertain of what to do next. Behind her, the wall of trees seemed to fold in on itself, silently concealing her trail. She stared up at the sky, having fought the instinct to climb up one of the great dying trees and tear through the branches for air. The last time she had seen the sun was as her plane had taxied into Caernarfon that morning. Now, the day was already fading into night, and looking up, Clarsah noticed something was terribly wrong with the sky. The roiling clouds seemed to pulsate a grey-green light, and it permeated the entire forest. A wide shelf of limestone rose up from the frozen ground before her. At its center lay a great standing stone, jutting out from the rock at a shallow angle.

Her hopes of finding a path through the forest faded as she scanned the clearing. It was the same everywhere. She walked around the stone, hoping to find some vestige of a trail on the other side. All she saw, however, were more trees.

She collapsed on the rock shelf, all of the strength that had kept her going suddenly abandoning her. Tears began to well up inside her, but she forced them back as she remembered something she had read. Don’t cry! It’s worthless – save your water. Even so, it was a minute before she was able to think.

Finally, she looked up. Her eyes stung as a wind gusted sharply out of nowhere against her, rocking her back. She squinted away, her nose and lips numbed from the cold. After a moment, the wind died down, and she pushed herself back to her feet. The numbness had spread up her legs and arms, bleeding up from the icy rock. Sudden movement seemed to have spread it down her legs and her fingers were uncomfortably stiff. She desperately wished for a pair of gloves, or some food, or even just a hot cup of coffee. Clarsah rubbed her hands together, stepping very carefully through the clearing as she had noticed the fine layer of frost draped across the limestone. There had to be a path out of the clearing.

But as she finished her circle, she couldn’t even remember what direction she had entered from. Her thoughts were incoherent, slipping into the rising fog in her mind. She forced herself to remember the last few minutes. Okay, you don’t know where you are, or if you can even get out, she clenched her teeth against the second chill that ran through her body, but you know that you got here somehow.

She squeezed her eyes shut and drew her knees to her chest, pulling her arms into her sleeves to keep them warm. She sat that way, huddled beneath the great stone, until she faded into an uneasy sleep listening to the wind keen overhead.

(when she turns into an owl, make her become – at least in part – Blodeuwedd. You could even have an eagle chase after her, with the injuries of Lleu Llaw Gyffes.)