Disclaimer: I don't own Tolkien's work. Neither do I own the lyrics used, they belong to the Siouxsie and the Banshees' song Spellbound. I'm starting to doubt I even own Niamh's character. She already went of and did things I most certainly didn't plan, and this is only the first chapter. Not much of a good sign, eh?
Many thanks to Freyja Vanadis for betaing!
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1. Spellbound
From the cradle bars comes a beckoning voice..
You're sent spinning, you have no choice
It wasn't her first summer here, though it would most probably be her last, the girl mused. The air was heavy, humid and warm, and seemed to cling to her lungs with every breath she took. This place is suffocating enough to make anyone feel asthmatic. She pulled down the neckline of her t-shirt a little bit, so it would stop feeling like she was being strangled by the heavy, moist fabric. A cloud of dark blue butterflies fluttered by, and the girl resisted the urge to swat them as their frail wings fluttered against the skin of her neck for a second. Her eyes fluttered close for a moment, the dark lashes resting on her damp skin. Soon, this would all be over. She would be safely back home, playing with her little cousins under the great, shady trees in her grandpa's garden. Just a few more months, no, probably days, but she couldn't be sure. Her outwardly delicate-looking grandma turned out to be made of tougher stuff than most. Her mum had surprised her by not exactly being as sturdy last summer, but then again, her mother had still had the power to at least control her own body, though not her mind…She started when she tasted the metallic, salty taste of blood in her mouth, but soon realised she had simply been biting her under lip somewhat harder than she had meant to. This place, its ambiance, the moist, sweltering atmosphere of this fen, this stupid swamp so full of death and full of life – it just didn't do any good for her mental health. Then again, it wasn't good for any sort of health. This was where her mother floated so peacefully, her eyes still open, her mouth slightly opened, a frozen look of wonder still on her face. This was where her grandma's mother had hung herself. And her mother had shot herself. This is the place her grandmother would have crawled to, if she'd had the strength to. Still, though this place certainly left her confused and, thanks to the weather, rather uncomfortable and feverish, it didn't exactly frighten her. Maybe, she pondered, maybe that was the dangerous part. Maybe she, too, would one day come here, not really tired of life but drawn to something in here, some need that couldn't be satisfied by any place other than this one. To her own amusement, it was actually reassuring. They said the only sure things in life were taxes and death, but she got the bonus. A faint smile found its way to her lips, but quickly disappeared at her next thought – her grandmother was dying, her mum was dead, which would mean... She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. She was next. But it wasn't her time yet. It couldn't be! Why, why did mum's mental health prove to be so much more fragile than everyone had hoped? Why couldn't she just…stick around, if only for a short while? Niamh felt the tears pricking in her already irritated eyes. This was just too bad. Only just turned twenty, with a whole wide world to see. Only to be caught up in some strange ...what was it anyway? A family curse, that's what they called it. She'd liked to believe it was a genetic sort of curse, the rationally explainable sort – like lung cancer or Alzheimer's and the like – but one of the psychological kind, able to be overcome with willpower and modern medicine. Her grandmother had gone insane, only restrained from walking into the swamp by her crippled legs; she'd loved riding her horse, until it threw her off one day and left her permanently crippled and unable to go anywhere without help. Her family, of course, did not wish for her to drown herself, so there she sat in her flowered old-people's dress, on her balcony, day after day, mumbling things no one understood and staring at the horizon. But mum…she had still been young. And she did have, from early on, all availability to modern medicine. Still, her eyes had become more and more distant, her skin pale to the point of being translucent, and through her hazy, medicated eyes, she'd only looked in the direction of the swamp. What went wrong? If medicines could not cure this, was this truly some sort of medieval curse on her family?
There's a house in the swamp
Lit up by many lamps
Voices come and call the wicked
Burn witches burn
That's what you earn
For tempting the demons
For sowing their semen
That's what the village children had sung at her when she first arrived in this outdated little place where everything still looked the same as in the late 1950's. Their mother had slapped one of the little boys on the mouth and told Niamh she was terribly sorry for his terrible behaviour, that it was all her fault for not raising the child properly and so on – but Niamh had just laughed and waved it away. It was nothing to her, back then. But it seemed more and more relevant, ever since her mother had so suddenly and so vastly disappeared, mentally, just before ending her physical existence as well. She shuddered. The swamp was growing darker, and though she welcomed the evening cool and the soft touch of the still warm wind on her skin, she most certainly didn't welcome the mosquitoes that had started dancing all around her. Neither did she like the memory of her mum , her very calm mum, boring mum, the French teacher (was there a more dull and normal job in the world? ), suburban mum, chanting that creepy children's verse, years later, in a monotone voice, her clear grey eyes distant and empty, not a look of recognition on her face, not when Niamh whispered, not when she screamed, not even the slightest reaction when she took her by the shoulders and shook and shook and shook until her arms ached and her eyes hurt from crying. And then, she had laughed. Laughed, as if the verse she had just sung was the most ridiculous and hilarious thing she'd ever heard. Niamh had asked her a million questions, but she'd only smiled. "I'm going to see the Fair Ones, Lizzie" Niamh had wanted to scream that she wasn't Lizzie, that grandma was upstairs and that she didn't react to her name anyway, but her voice didn't seem to be quite working. That was the moment her mum took advantage of her temporarily inability to react and bolted out the door – in the direction of the swamp. "I'm coming! I'm coming, don't you worry!" She couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. Her mum's words echoed and echoed in her head until her voice faded even there. Then she bolted out the door, into the twilit morning, over the muddy, perilous twisting path through the swamp. Only to be in time to see her mother floating on the current, her dark hair flowing behind her like a mermaid's, her grey eyes wide open in wonder, a small smile on her half-open lips. She stared. And then, Niamh screamed, not caring about any voices from anywhere except for her own, screaming for the voice her mother would never use again, against this stupid twist of history, against this stupid swamp, the swamp that had swallowed the daughters of every generation of her family, that had swallowed her mum. And would swallow her.
Niamh trembled and pulled her vest a little closer around her in an attempt to drag herself out of those memories. It was time to go home. Grandma needed her now. She needed someone to care for her. Or maybe, she admitted, she herself needed someone to care for. Swatting some mosquitoes off her arms, she slowly got up and stretched her numb legs. Everything would be alright, she chanted to herself. Alright, alright, alright. She would spend next summer with her little cousins. She was fine. She was –
Her breath caught in her throat. It was as if…
Clear, high voices were singing in some place far off…beautiful… but so sorrowful...She couldn't hear exactly what they were saying, but she felt an incredible longing wash over her, like thousands of voices were pulling her, waiting for her, yes, they were waiting – they'd been waiting for thousands of years and –
She ran until her legs stopped working, not even paying attention to how exactly the path winded though the swamp, resulting in her mud and slime covered form crashing into the kitchen of her grandmother's house, completely out of breath. She closed her eyes for a while, but to her relief (and, if she was honest, slight, bizarre disappointment) the voices didn't come back. Right. At least they didn't follow her around yet. That was something at least. She really should go check on granny Lizzie – could her starting to hear them mean Grandma had…The girl hurried upstairs, her red hair flowing behind like her like a flame.
You hear laughter, cracking through the walls
It sends you spinning, you have no choice
Following the footsteps of a rag doll dance
We are entranced
Spellbound
Now dance, dance, dance!
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All kinds of reviews equally welcome. I'm not scared of critics. Rawr. =)