Aria Remains
CHAPTER FOUR

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The wind howled. Sharp, stinging, it carried with it fast-moving slabs of darkly marbled cloud that hung menacingly low in the sky. A thin, narrow rain cut through the air, stabbing at the bare skin of a young woman cast adrift amongst the tumult, lost and abandoned.

She stirred and opened her eyes, wrapping her arms around herself and bringing her knees to her chest before she could even fathom where she was and what was happening. All she knew was that she was lying upon wet, slippery rock stretching away to either side of her, a wild sea rising and falling at her feet, spitting sprays of freezing water. All over her body she felt a dull, stiff ache and the caustic sensation that she was wounded, that there was a multitude of tiny cuts across her arms and legs.

Slowly, carefully, she got to her feet and looked around, pinning her hair against her head as the gale attacked from all directions. It was not a place she recognised, seeing nothing more before her than water, nothing at either side other than the cold, grey rocks reflecting what little light there was from above. It was a savage, desolate landscape.

Turning to look behind her she saw that, to either side, the rocks rose up to form a huge monument dedicated to their resistance to the processes of erosion and weathering, standing proudly and intimidatingly, piercing the clouds and scarring the sky. It was only directly in front of her that the cliff face dropped to a low-enough level for there to have been a kind of stairway dug into it, although she could not discern, as it was so roughly formed, whether it had been purposefully caved by the hands of those who had initially arrived here and who had no real skills or experience of working with rock, or if the water, eager to replace what lay above so that some of it might break away and form an ocean of its own, had been working industriously throughout the centuries to fashion itself a crude manner of elevation. Understanding only that she had no choice, other than diving into the water and allowing it to take her where it would, she moved cautiously to the jagged steps and began to climb, leaning for stability against the cliff face as she went. At the top she met a huge, empty plateau of long grass, twisting and dancing, buffeted by the wind. The land seemed to go on as endlessly as the ocean, with no trees or buildings anywhere on the horizon and no indication that any other person had ever made it this far before. She stretched out her arms, rotating them as much as she could and examining their damage, and then did the same with her legs. There were dozens of attenuated slices in her skin, red lines with darker smudges of blood around them. She assumed she must have received them from the rocks but, as she thought about how she could be here and what could possibly have happened to her, she found that her memory was completely vacant and that, in the void, in the wide chasm of emptiness within her she could assimilate nothing, no prior knowledge or practicalities, that might be of assistance. There was nothing, not even the most tenuous fragment.

She couldn’t even think of her name.

Covering her nakedness with her arms and hands she walked away from the cliff’s edge, constantly looking around, shivering against the bitter wind and the incessant, jabbing rain it brought as accomplice. Each step she took carried with it a pricking pain. Her knees and ankles felt as though they had been wrenched from their sockets, toyed with for a time by some unknown assailant and then crudely rammed back into place; her shoulder blades cocooned a deep soreness; her elbows were stiff and tender; her head pounded with a searing and even cadence. It was all she could do to continue, to place one foot in front of the other.

After some time she saw a dark line of trees ahead of her, bowing and shaking in their burden. Gradually her discomfort lessened and, as she looked down, the tears and gashes in her skin started to disappear. It became easier for her to walk and, although frightened and confused, still her spirit began to rise. She tried again to recall what had happened to her, how she had come to be in such a wild, lonely place, but all that came to her was that she felt she ought to know where she was, that there was something nagging at her, trying to tell her that she had been here before and that something important had occurred during her stay.

As she met the trees she stopped and titled her head. She was certain she had just heard a voice, trapped and smothered somewhere within the tempest. A voice that had called, she thought, a name. She looked around again but there was still no suggestion that anyone else was nearby, that she may as well be floating through the swirling gasses of a far distant planet for its intimation of humanity. She had the impression that the land was very old and that it had forever been like this, unwanted and uninhabited, a place dismissed and forgotten by both people and time.

‘Aria.’

She heard it again. Muffled, almost suffocated in the air.

‘Aria.’

She ducked into the trees and secreted herself behind a considerable yew of an age so great that its trunk was split into several parts, giving it the appearance of being a number of trees all at once. She peered around it and there, striding towards her, she saw the figure of a man. Unable to perceive his face with any clarity, as he approached she could see he was dressed in what appeared to be a dark woollen tunic and some kind of linen trousers, with a brimless red cap pulled low over his head. He had blood on his clothes, although it was smeared across him as if it were not his own, that he had instead been in contact with something that had been slaughtered.

He paused as he came within ten feet of the trees, frowning as he looked up and down their boundary.

She gasped, covering her mouth.

The rain spattered against the leaves above and around her, the wind shaking them as if disgusted by its intrusion, that it had no right, no invitation to be there. Although there was no need for her to be silent, such was the sound of the storm around her, still she dare not move or take her eyes from the man. He took a few steps to his left, peering through the trees, then turned the other way, stooping in his examination before eventually moving away. She leaned forward, watching him as he walked along the edge of the plain until he finally disappeared from sight.

When she was sure he had gone she turned and looked behind her. She had entered a thick woodland, the trees grown so closely to one another and to such an impressive height that its tight canopy made it difficult to see through the gloom. Her arms and legs had developed new cuts and scratches from the herbage around her, which seemed to be as welcoming of her interruption as was the wind of the meddlesome rain and now, as she stood, the collection of detritus, the twigs and dead leaves beneath her reignited the fire of uncomfortable soreness in the soles of her feet. She had no idea what she should do, other than keep herself out of sight. Waiting for a few minutes, listening and looking all around as though there might come, by some unimaginable stroke of fortune, some kind of sign that would deliver her an objective, it was only when she forced herself to acknowledge that no such intervention was either imminent nor likely that she decided to walk further into the woods, moving slowly, her eyes and ears alert to any movement around her.

Carefully picking the easiest route through the trees and bracken, after some time she approached a clearing and could see, just beyond the last few trees, a small wood-framed building with a thatched roof, a blur of smoke rising haphazardly from its centre. She crouched, half-hidden by the trunk of an oak, and studied it. Set in the small space, the hut was battered and weather-beaten, a dark woollen curtain covering the doorway, undulating with some violence against the vagaries of the wind. It seemed to her a most impious and dreadfully forlorn plot that even the most desperate of itinerants would hesitate to inspect.

The rain, she noticed, was at last beginning to subside to a drizzle but the air remained thick and damp, a clinging mist hanging amongst the trees like enormous webbed networks, constructed by etherial spiders as they waited for the squall to pass. After several more minutes, shivering and doing her best to cover as much of her body with her arms as she could, her legs drawn against her chest, the dark woollen curtain across the hut’s doorway was pulled to one side. The frail, hunched figure of an old woman appeared, looking around spitefully as a small terrier, appearing just as ragged and aged as she, with greying hair around its eyes and muzzle, sauntered past, blinking against the day. Trying to maintain her concealment amongst the vegetation, the younger woman held her breath, the odour of dirt and decay seeming to mushroom, causing her to grimace. She could pick the bitter smell of smoke from the air although it didn’t seem to be coming from the hut’s rudimentary flue but seemed, instead, the residue of a fire that had been dampened long ago.

‘Someone there?’ the old woman asked, her voice tarnished with a weary coarseness. She looked around the clearing for a second time, rubbing her neck as her head turned as though it were being manipulated by rusting mechanics. She asked the question again and the small dog halted, its ears pricked, its sniffing nose glistening, looking into the trees.

Still the younger woman tried to shrink further into the wood, lowering herself as quietly as she could, while the dog angled its head, gave a low growl and then began to bark, taking tentative steps towards her.

‘What is it?’ the old woman asked, now looking in the same direction, her frown bringing the ragged lines in her face yet further depth.

Knowing that she had no other choice, since there was nowhere else for her to go and no way for her to hide with any successs from the old woman and her curious dog, the young woman slowly stood and stepped into the clearing. Covering herself as well as she could, the dog stopped barking and looked at her with a quizzical expression. It turned back to the old woman, gauging her reaction, then looked at the strange newcomer again.

‘Who be there?’ the old woman asked, taking a few shuffling steps forward. ‘Who be that?’

‘I’m sorry,’ the young woman replied. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you. It’s just that I’m… Well, I’m lost. I don’t know where I am, or even how I got here. Do you think you can help me?’

The old woman took a step back and rubbed a hand across her face, then stared through an expression of both shock and confusion. The young woman eyed the dog warily and its owner accordingly called it back to her, then gestured for her visitor to come closer.

‘Be thee alone?’ she asked.

She was scrutinising her almost as though she recognised her, that she had seen her somewhere before but then, apparently unable to fix upon any precedence, the intrigue left her eyes and, instead, they narrowed sharply.

The young woman nodded.

‘Where be thy garments?’

‘I… I don’t know,’ she admitted, looking down at herself, one arm across her chest, hand clasped to her shoulder, while the other arm wrapped around her waist. ‘I don’t know anything. Can you help me?’

The dog moved towards her and sniffed her calf. The woman spat onto the sodden grass and nodded.

‘Come hither, inside,’ she said. Her tone remained sharp and imperious, the muscles in her worn face still tight. As she turned the young woman saw the thick, matted filth of her greying black hair and instinctively ran a hand through her own. She followed her inside the hut and, stopping just inside the doorway, holding the portiere to one side, was handed a plain woollen smock.

‘Thank you,’ she said, quickly pulling it over her head. ‘I was freezing.’

The old woman looked uncertain, as though she didn’t understand what she meant, but indicated that she should take a seat on a small wooden bench close to a furnace that burned in the middle of the room. Looking around the hut as she tried to replace comfort in the smock, at the straw scattered across the floor, the walls sealed with mud and clay, she saw lines of dirty jars filled with what looked like bunches of herbs, a wooden basin containing water and a pair of docile frogs who had been innocently wandering across the grass before being snatched up and rehoused and who had now given up all hopes of escape and, next to the bench, a collection of stones, each with different and intricate carvings. The dog came into the hut, sniffed the young woman’s leg again, caught the scent of the smock and then sat by her feet. She reached down and stroked him and he looked up at her gratefully before laying on the straw, stretching out in front of the fire.

She smiled and then looked at the old woman, who was busy shaking out lengths of dirty fabric and folding them without any great discipline into an uneven pile. She was probably in early middle age but seemed much older, debilitated and almost without the energy to even remain standing. Her skin was lined and unclean, her clothes creased and smeared.

‘Can I help?’ the young woman asked, wanting to break the silence. For a few moments the old woman ignored her, then sat on a stool a few feet away.

‘Seems it be thee doth need some helping.’

She wiped her nose noisily along the back of her hand and dropped the last piece of fabric, unfolded, to the floor. The young woman wrinkled her own nose at the sound, then tried to smile again. She considered the many questions she had, wondering if the woman would be able to answer any of them, or even whether she would understand should she try to explain.

‘I think I’m lost,’ she said. ‘I don’t really know where I am or how I got here.’

The old woman studied her, her eyebrows gathered in confusion.

‘Be thee from the village?’ she asked, jerking her head in the direction from where she had arrived.

‘Village?’

‘Across yonder. The village. The Lord’s land.’

‘Lord?’

The old woman’s eyes narrowed again. The young woman wasn’t sure if that meant she thought she was being deliberately obtuse, or was just incredibly stupid.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, shaking her head sadly. ‘I just don’t remember anything. Nothing about who I am or where I’m from.’

‘Not one thing?’

‘All I know is that I woke up on some rocks near the sea, and then I had to hide in the trees when a man came looking for me, or for someone, anyway. I have no idea who he was, but he was covered in blood and he was calling out a name. Aria, I think it was. He seemed to be looking for her, or for me.’

The old woman looked down at the dog and then to the young woman, her dark eyes burning into her face. Looking away, she glanced around the hut again, at the clothes the old woman was wearing and her assortment of belongings, and tried to remember living in a similar place of her own, wearing the same kind of clothes, but found no recognition, nothing that flashed through the haze.

The dog stirred, opened an eye, then fell back to sleep.

Turning back to it, the old woman leaned forward with some effort to stroke its head, cleared her throat, studied the young woman for a moment more, then asked, ‘Thou says thou knowest not who thee be or where it be thy be from?’

‘I don’t even know if I’m the person he was looking for, if I’m the Aria he was calling for.’

‘It be certain there be no one of that name in these parts, I can tell thee that. A most peculiar name, it be.’

She looked at the old woman, at the deep lines in her face, the worry in her eyes. She thought her both sad and afraid, as though she had lost something and was still grappling with the deflated understanding that it was gone forever. Catching her eye, she turned her face to the floor again, repeating the name quietly to herself, hoping it might ignite even the slightest spark of recollection. It was all she had to hold on to, all she could think to do.

‘Then that be what we shall call ye,’ the woman said. ‘Me, I be Alice.’

She smiled thinly, then wiped her nose again.

‘Thank you, Alice,’ the young woman said, repeating the name Aria in her mind again and again, trying it for size as though examining a new pair of shoes. ‘Thank you for helping me.’

‘This man thou speaketh of,’ Alice began after several moments of silence, rolling her tongue around the inside of her mouth. ‘Covered in blood, says thee?’

Aria, for she had decided that she liked the name and that it did, indeed, seem to fit her without too much irritation, that it reminded her of something she could not remember, nodded.

‘Didst thou happen to see the face?’

‘No, not really. He was wearing a hat, and I couldn’t really see anything under it.’

‘Had he anything with him?’ Alice asked, her face now serious.

‘No, I don’t think so. I didn’t notice anything.’

Alice frowned, as though thinking deeply, and looked briefly at the dog, whose eyebrows seemed to twitch as though he were not asleep but was, instead, listening to their conversation.

‘And thou be certain thou knowest him not, not from anywhere? Not seen him before hereabouts? And definitely there, he be? As sure as thee and me be sitting here?’

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ the young woman who was now called Aria replied, feeling slightly affronted at what Alice must mean by such an odd turn of questions. ‘Do you think I’m making it up?’

Alice, her brow still knitted, shook her head.

‘Making up?’

‘I mean, do you think I’m lying?’

‘No, no,’ Alice said, raising her hands and opening her eyes wide. ‘No, not that. It be just that, for longer than time I have seen not one soul, not heard one step of foot, one word of friendship nor threat. Alone, I be, alone but for Dog here. Just want to be sure thou saw and not imagined.’

The dog, who Aria now assumed was called Dog with somewhat more certainty than the assumption of her own name, briefly raised his head to look at Alice, yawned with a quiet groan and closed his eyes once more.

‘He was definitely there, I saw him quite clearly,’ Aria nodded, then continued sadly, ‘though I don’t remember seeing anyone else ever before.’

She shivered and, unable to restrain it, a single tear ran down her face. Apart from the hopeless situation she had found herself in she was also of a mind that the old woman was not being honest with her, that she was hiding something, presenting an image of herself that was not her true disposition. These ideas brought her a new fear, a new suggestion of danger.

‘I don’t know where I am,’ she said, not wanting the old woman to know of her disquiet, ‘or even who I am, if there are people missing me somewhere, if someone is waiting for me. Maybe I’m just completely alone in the world, completely on my own. I don’t recognise anything, don’t remember anything. What am I going to do?’

‘Now then,’ Alice said, standing and motioning to tap Aria’s shoulder clumsily, an act of consolation that did not reach its destination. ‘It cannot be all that bad. Together, thee and I, we shall replace someone thou shall be familiar with. Might be thy head banged somewhere, p’raps thou slipped, fell on the rocks aways, losing both sense and memory. Might well be there is someone out there looking for thee now.’

‘Do you think that man knew me?’ Aria asked, looking up at the woman. ‘Should I have said something to him? He might be the one who can help me, who can make me remember.’

Alice returned to her stool, the expression of terrible concern returned to her face.

‘No,’ she said quickly, resolutely. ‘No, keep thyself far away from that man. If thou sees to nothing more, be sure to stay away from him.’

Beneath the acrid hut and the important things that lay beyond it, things that spoke to eradicated memories and sundered attachments, amongst the darkness and benightedness of a subterranean world where the final several feet of tunnel reached miles from its labyrinthian source and culminated in a hamlet of lingering beetles, brutes and angels began to stir from their dormancy.