Edwina's Second Chance Ch. 01

Humans were right off the list. She'd tried that twice and killed the men both times, once by riding the unfortunate hard enough to break a few bones and the other time, she'd just taken a fool's head off the first time that he'd hit her.

So somewhere inside her she always knew and accepted that the one for her would one day just be the one who always had been for her. But she was in a mood one day and said a few things which had stung Jorret rather badly.

Hammah had so much time to want to smash her head against something in her bitter regret over what she'd said, but at the time, it wasn't a thought to her.

But it had been to Jorret.

He wandered away for a time – a couple of weeks, it had been. While Hammah had gone merrily along, still seeking someone where there was no one for her, she'd meant to seek out her brother and apologize. She'd just been distracted.

But in his heart, Jorret had been wounded by words that he'd never expected to hear from Hammah and the hurt festered slowly and grew into despair. Not being the sort to dwell on things, he'd made his adjustment. He assumed that one day his sister would find someone, while he was a ...

Well he was a, ...

He was a freak, was what he was. Demon females, most of them, weren't interested and the final stroke for him came when he was told by a demon cousin that Hammah had chosen a full-demon and had declared it. It was a lie, but Jorret had no reason to doubt then.

Jorret didn't bother to ask Hammah, not wanting to hear it from her lips.

He left home and went to the underworld to seek out his relatives there. Talking to them, he learned of a way that he wouldn't have to smile and nod when Hammah announced one day soon that she'd found the one for her.

He thought it over for a day and then he went back to ask for help. There was a way to forget and he reached for it, telling the others that it was what he wanted.

"Know then that this cannot give you mortality," one of his powerful uncles said, "You are what you are and that is long-lived, Nephew."

"I know that," Jorret sighed, "I just want to be gone and forget. I want the bliss of forgetfulness now. How do I do that?"

"You may choose to forget in the mortal life of the humans, "the demon rumbled, "To be born, to live and to die, never remembering what you seek to leave behind you.

But you will die, Nephew; again and again.

Each time, you will perish from any of the things which can cause a mortal man to fall. Each time, you will be born again, elsewhere and to another set of parents and one thing, Nephew:

What you seek is not the way of things. You will become an aberration – a bit of grit in the smooth workings of fate. As such, each time, your life will be a hard one. Think on it.

If you remember at all, you may return through any portal at intervals of every fifth life. You may go back to the human world the same way. Each time that you do, you will go back to a human man and forget again as you pass outward."

"I do not care," Jorret replied, "I do not want to remember anything. I just want to forget."

He pulled out the purse full of gold that he'd managed to save and he set it down before his uncle.

Three minutes later, Jorret was no more, and somewhere on a tortured world, somewhere in the over 250,000 human births which occur each and every single day, one child was born who knew nothing of his heritage.

There were two beings in all of the universe who had ties in their hearts to Jorret. At the instant of his departure, they both felt it as one of the lights in their lives winked out. As was told to him, Jorret had little thoughts to remind him, but each time, he pushed them away and stayed on earth.

It took a few centuries to find out what had happened, but Astarte and Hammah learned of it one day as they stood in a pit speaking to the one who had helped Jorret.

"I cannot say where he went then or where he is now, "the demon smiled, "I counseled him against it, explaining what would happen as best I could. I did not make it sound better than what he had and I told him that each life would hold suffering for him."

He chuckled then, enjoying this, "You have done well – whatever you did to him. I have waited a thousand years, but at last, I have my revenge for what you did to my brother, his father."

The old one drew himself up and grinned, "I know what you will do to me now and I don-"

He lay in a spreading puddle of his own blood and filth then as the mother and sister of Jorret wiped their blades and walked off.

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2013

She awoke in a tangle of confusion; of flailing limbs and heaving ribs, thrashing in a thicket.

Edwina looked around frantically. She must have fallen somehow and she didn't know how long that she'd lain here like this. That cruel drunkard Bruster had been chasing her with an axe handle, bellowing that he'd kill her for certain this time, now that he no longer needed her for anything, since she wouldn't 'come across' in her lawful duty as his wife.

He'd been right, she thought.

She never would.

Once had been enough.

He'd come home drunk again, demanding and shouting that he wanted to avail himself of her affections. He'd bellowed that it was a wife's duty to her husband. She'd had no intentions of submitting to what amounted to rape at the hands of a cruel man ever again - and an angrily drunk one at that.

Fate could be such a cruel lady, Edwina thought as she'd watched those words sink in through Bruster's thick skull.

She'd been born on her family's farm, two sections of fifty acres each started by her grandfather. A pretty, but shy little thing, Edwina grew up a farmgirl in a part of Upper Canada to the north of the town of York, a place now better known as Toronto.

Her grandparents lived the second half of their lives there, being helped by their son, Edwina's father and the woman he'd taken to wife. She'd had one brother, but neither of them had ever married. After the deaths of their parents, the two siblings had just gone on for a long time running the place since it was all that they really knew to do.

But Edwina's brother Reginald had taken ill and died one winter. It left Edwina all alone in the world on a farm which by then was no longer working and at thirty years of age, Edwina was a spinster whom no one had wanted enough to ask anything of her.

She'd needed at least some money and with no other or better plan, she sold off half of the acreage to Armbruster Gibbons, a single male neighbor who'd just moved up from the Ohio Valley. At that time, he'd seemed so polite and well-spoken and all, and well, Edwina had been prepared to listen as he slowly set about courting her.

That had taken two years and then it was done.

So was Bruster's playacting all of a sudden and the man that Edwina found herself with became just as abrasive and abusive toward her as he was to his dogs. She wondered how she'd been blinded by his charade.

It would have been a joke to anyone who knew him as she did then. Armbruster had never had so much as a hound who had survived past puppyhood. He'd beaten most of them to death for the slightest error. Those few with a bigger brain than a sense of devotion to their master had all run away the first chance they'd had of it.

Edwina's head throbbed and then she remembered. Bruster had gotten only one swing at her because she'd seen the axe handle there behind his back beforehand. She'd turned and he'd only just managed to clip the back of her head with it once and then she was gone out the door, stumbling briefly at the bright flash of pain in her head before she recovered her stride and was running for the woods.

Thank Providence that it had been night and was raining so hard that one could barely hear one's own thoughts in the cold downpour. But who knew how long she'd been lying here witless?

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1858

What Edwina didn't know was that Armbruster Gibbons, after years of heavy drinking most nights had gone to fetch his horse with the intent of riding Edwina down before spinning his tale into a plausible alibi for the benefit of the constable.

His head throbbed with the blind anger that he felt and if he'd stopped for only a moment to look at things a little, he'd have seen the way that his vision pulsed at the periphery. His blood pressure was sky high, not that he cared or even knew very much about things such as that.

But as he yanked open the barn door and ran in, his large mare had also had enough of him and her kick sent him reeling against a post in the barn.

Something had happened then inside of him and he'd staggered out into the rain. He wanted to get control of his feet and stumble to his home then, all thoughts of killing his good for nothing wife gone from his head. But he went in the wrong direction and the stroke only almost caused the end of Armbruster.

He'd awoken at dawn or not long after, cold and wet to the bone, barely able to move his limbs more than feebly. He'd struggled for a time, but then it became clear that he had other troubles.

The wolves had seen it and had waited through the night in sight of him from the trees. He also saw a man there who was working at packing a little tobacco into a pipe as he leaned against a nearby tree.

What struck Armbruster as more than a little odd was that the man knew that the wolves were there and even more odd – the wolves seemed to be well aware of the man's presence as well, and they certainly didn't appear to be bothered by him in the slightest as they began to circle the stricken man slowly.

The angle was bad and Armbruster had difficulty just looking over – and up at him. What he saw was a man of perhaps thirty, but he looked very strong and fit in a pair of well-made walking shoes – since they were the only parts of him that Armbruster could see without effort to crane his neck a little and look at him. The rest of him was clad in a pair of workmanlike breeches, suspenders which the man quite obviously didn't need to hold the breeches up, and a red plaid shirt open enough to allow one to see his muscular chest and for that matter; the sleeves were rolled up a good distance to display his strong-looking arms.

"Morning, Gibbons," the dark-haired man said evenly and a little pleasantly at the same time, "You in some bit of difficulty are you?"

"Yes," the bellicose man said, not knowing the man from anyone and struggling more than a little to force his mouth to make the correct sounds for speech, "Something's the matter with me and I can't seem to get up off the ground."

The man finished packing the little pipe and nodded as he bent down to pick up a twig from the ground. Armbruster blinked and then stared as the twig lit on fire and flared briefly before the stranger used it to light the pipe.

"It does seem that way," he said, beginning to puff a little contentedly.

"Well, if it's not too much trouble, "Armruster said a little testily and with difficulty, "do you think that you could help me up?"

The man smiled thinly for a moment, but he shook his head, "I'm afraid not, Gibbons. You see, ..."

He pointed with his thumb, "It wouldn't really be fair to them, would it? I mean, they've been waiting for you over half the night. If I helped you up now, they'd be a little disappointed, after all. It would be a little mean of me and awfully cheap, since I called them here to take you in the first place.

Your brain is damaged. I mean, even more than usual," the man chuckled as though pleased with himself, "They're here to separate you from your life, since they're a little hungry these days and at the right time, I'm here to take your worthless soul.

We're going on a little trip, you and me, Gibbons. Where I take you will be a memorable place and you won't ever forget it – since you'll never be leaving there."

He looked up into the trees for a moment to listen to the song of an oriole. Then he looked down at the man lying there half on his face and his features turned very cold to look at. "I believe that some of your kind refer to it as 'Eternal Torment and Damnation'.

Armbruster didn't know what the fool was talking about, but then he began to strain and struggle to get to his feet. He just couldn't do it.

The man waited for him to give it up after several minutes and then he took another puff on the pipe before he spoke again – and this time, Armbruster heard the sound of his own doom in the words.

"You're a really weak and worthless turd, Gibbons. Just a loud, walking arsehole who finds joy in spreading misery among his fellow men. Well I'm not one of them and you ought to be a little glad of it. If I were, I'd beat your self-important life out of you and be very pleased to do it, but instead, I saw a chance for your valueless body to provide a little nourishment to these creatures for a time."

He looked over at the pack, who had been using the time of the discussion to draw a little closer to the meal of a kind which they very seldom had; the flesh of a human man – and there was enough here to feed their empty bellies for a few days at least.

As Armbruster tried to strain and keep his eyes on the stranger, one of the animals slipped past in his field of view. He felt the hot and damp snuffle against his neck as the animal performed his nearly final test of this creature's helplessness.

Armbruster Gibbons tried once more to get up, and failing it, he began to try to strike the wolf, who only danced away just far enough to watch for another moment. The air around the large man was suddenly filled with the low and steady growls of seven ravenously hungry wolves.

"I'll be right here, Gibbons," the stranger said, "You be sure to tell me when you've had enough and would like me to take you along with me."

He laughed then, and the sound fell deeper in tone.

"I won't do anything to take you early at all. I just want to hear it."

As the first of the wolves began at his throat, two of the others grabbed Abrmbruster's flailing arm and began to try to rip into it.

Three more started the process of exposing the fat belly and the softer organs which must lie under that bloat. Armbruster Gibbons began to scream, but it only spurred the animals on as the stranger puffed on his pipe and chuckled, "Louder, Gibbons. Oh please, cry out louder for me."

When the one whom he'd come for passed from this life, the man took his soul and walked off, leaving the wolves to their meal. He looked around and then he let himself into the barn. With a thought from him, the livestock all sank to their knees and fell over, since there was no one around to care for them and wouldn't be for many days.

As who he was, and if he had the time at all, animals were taken painlessly if there was no other way.

The horses were the hardest for him, but, ...

He walked outside and looked off to the ramshackle shack a few hundred yards away which Armbruster Gibbons had built on the land bought from Edwina. Like the man who had built it, all that he saw was an eyesore. The livestock there fell dead the next instant and the house burst into flames.

He watched for a moment and as he did, his appearance changed markedly.

What stood there a moment later carried a really demonic appearance; which was alright, he thought, since that was pretty much what he was, after all. He spread his large wings and flew off, still chuckling to himself.

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2013

Edwina knew nothing of what had happened so long ago. Right now, she was terrified that her husband might find her and finish what he'd started. She had to get away. She had to run for her life before she fell unconscious once more. She had to, ...

Edwina looked around then, hearing songbirds singing in the early afternoon.

She looked around again, this time in a bit of wonder. It was daytime and the ground all around her was dry. She slowly stood up. She was dry, her dress as well and – and it wasn't muddy at all.

The thicket where she was looked much the same as her last view as she'd fallen with her head pounding from the blow. She stood there blinking for a moment before she reached up carefully to feel for the bit of torn scalp and the dent at the back of her skull, the one which she remembered. She was a little amazed that there was no dent now. Her head felt the same as it always had all of her life. There wasn't even any of the bloody wetness. She lowered her hand after looking at her fingertips.

Dry. No blood.

She tried again, feeling perhaps brave enough for it now to press a little gingerly. There was no pain now, no dent, no dried blood, and as far as she could tell, she didn't have a broken skull.

She was astounded. When she'd run for her life, careening dizzily, she'd had a broken skull. She'd felt it.

But this was all different; she realized as she looked around a little. She'd been running through the dense woods that she'd known all of her life on her family's farm, what was left of it anyway. But there was no forest around her here. She stepped carefully out of the thicket and saw that she was in a long grove of trees, standing in deep shade. But the grove only went about a hundred yards in its length. It was only about sixty feet at its widest, and outside of that distance, the world was ablaze in the brilliant light of a sunny day, a hot and close (humid) summer's day.

She didn't know this grove. Looking out from under the boughs as she walked to the edge of it, she saw fields and more woods. She came to the eaves of the last few trees on one side and peeked out uncertainly, looking for people and hoping not to see her tormenter as she did.

She saw no one, unless one counted cows.

After a few minutes spent in trying to remember ever seeing any of this landscape before and failing utterly at it, she stepped out into the sunshine and walked toward the animals.

They paid her no mind as she approached.

"Whose are you?" she asked the nearest one, seeing them all as large animals, all of them clad in hides of black and white and nothing else. She saw a glint of sunlight reflecting off something small and silver-colored. She reached out and touched that ear, feeling that it was warm.

The sensation helped Edwina. It made sense to her where nothing else had thus far. She looked at the metal disk and saw only that it was imprinted with letters and numbers, as though it was a marker of some sort. Who marked their cattle by giving them earrings? That must be what the disk was. She saw no other markings. No collars, nothing – not even a brand on any of these animals.

From where she stood, she saw that she was on a bit of a plateau and that the land sloped away from her gently. Her gaze followed until she saw a gray ribbon stretching over some of the landscape in her view.

What was that?

She wondered about it as she began to walk in that direction.

As she did, she began to hear a droning sort of sound, which grew slowly louder and it reminded her of the noise such as a cicada might make when it emerged from the earth on its last day as a pupa and crawled slowly up the bark of a tree to find a safe place for the final transformation to its adult form. This sound was a little like what those creatures made as they beat their new wings to dry them, though what she heard now was much lower. She looked up and what she saw then almost made her fall onto her backside there in the pasture.

There was something there in the sky which made that sound as it flew on wings which did not beat or flap. She'd never seen the like of it before and she stood watching its progress across the sky.

After it was gone from her sight she carried on, though in the full light of the sun, she was feeling it now.

When she got near to the fence she looked at it and puzzled over another thing that she'd never seen before. It was made of wire, fashioned in a way which gave it the appearance of a lot of square openings, about 9 to 10 inches across and about four and a half to five inches high. All along every horizontal strand there was a bump rising upwards and then back down to its former level every few inches. It was held up at intervals by posts, so at least that was a little familiar. It still made her wonder though. She looked across the gray ribbon and she saw then that it was a roadway of a sort. On the other side of the road, Edwina saw fence of a much more familiar nature – a split-rail cedar fence.