The Taken by Sarah Pinborough

Author:Sarah Pinborough
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

In the clearing there is perfect stillness, and despite the gray of the sky above, no water falls here. He lets out a sigh that shakes the trees and then sits down heavily on the dead trunk, which had fallen some time after his last visit to this place. Not that he’s sure how long that is. Time has little meaning for him. He just knows there have been other people, other ways, and long periods of dark slumber.

He rests his heavy head in his hands, the long leather coat creaking with the movement, and beneath his fingers feels the smooth ridges of his naked skull.

For a moment he shuts his eyes, enjoying the darkness. If only there was more of it. There had been peace in the darkness, he was sure. Beside him, the ground falls sharply away, declining steeply without warning, and below there is only a small ledge before the torrent of the river. He can hear its angry flow, just as he could that last time he was here. When he had given her the choice she expected. When he had saved her.

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Again he sighs, graying the grass beneath him. Within a day it will wither. And then no grass will grow in that patch again. He can feel the grown people in the woods, stumbling backward and forward trying to find their way out, but his storm would keep them in. He would keep them in until she was done with them.

Inside, in the vast empty spaces where universes could exist, he feels an ache.

She disturbs him. She disturbs everything. Slowly over the years she had suckled at his power until now, when he was no longer sure who commanded whom. She had wanted revenge and he had allowed it, not understanding the complicated, exhausting network of human emotions, so far away from his own existence, but hoping the satisfaction would dull her angry fire and let there be some peace again.

He can feel the children tingling on his skin, far away but with him. He can feel their discomfort and their joy and their unhappiness and wonders how that came to be. It used to be that he could barely feel them at all after he saved them. He would just carry them with him, inside. But then her voice, the first voice he could remember for such a very long time, had burst through. And then she’d become stronger. And then she’d wanted to play with the other children and it didn’t seem so much to allow, not for her, not at first.

But now she is bringing children into the in between and he can feel her pulling away from him. If he was capable of fear, he would be feeling it. The in between is his domain. It always has been. It always would be. The Catcher Man and the in between. As one.

Staring down at his heavy boots he listens to the river as it endlessly passes by. Perhaps it was a mistake to

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allow her to return.

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