The Fourth Wind

There was something in the wind that night; Babette could smell it on the air. 

The higher she climbed the more she was certain of it. The claws on her long limbs left scuffs in the bark as she pulled herself up the tree. Were anyone accompanying her, she'd have left them below. None had the speed to follow her, she practically skipped up the last few branches. Her arms were so deceptively slender as she tugged her weight up hand over hand. 

Babette had always explored. Right from the first, she couldn't stop herself. 

The memories were dim now but she remembered a place where she had explored all day, finding passageways just large enough to squeeze through or holes to crawl into, giggling in the dark for hours while Rachel called for her. 

Rachel, the wizened, dark haired woman who had played mother to Babette for so long. Rachel wouldn't be searching anymore. No more would she come looking for the little red haired girl who used to hide. 

Babette couldn't put her finger on when, the years passed so quickly to her, but it had seemed that all of a sudden Rachel was having to look up to scold her. Her lanky frame was so tall now, so fast, so strong.

Reaching the heights of the tree, Babette stuck her head up as high as she could stretch, bony shoulders raised and pointy little breasts stuck out.

She breathed in. 

Something was there. She wanted it so badly that she was scared of fooling herself, but she knew it, something strange was in the forest. Her long red hair was blowing in all directions, sending the twigs and leaves gathered in it falling to the Earth below. 

Babette let her eyes close, those big almond eyes that saw more than one world, and let herself breathe. Her heart was hammering with excitement and exertion. She tried to calm it, but couldn't. She'd knew she'd never focus enough like this. 

She slid back down to sit on a branch and propped herself up, staring out into the darkness of the forest. The silence descended. Every little chirp and hum of the creatures around her, she heard. It was all so familiar. She had heard it all before. She waited for the smell to come again, the smell of something new approaching. 

She caught herself trying to will it to come again and stopped. Inside, she was alight with energy, screaming with exuberance for something to happen.

Waiting atop the tree, the stillness soaked in. A sadness began to creep over Babette. 

Just another night like the all the others? She didn't know if she could endure another. 

The long return to the sad hovel she called home, the stares of the others huddled in the dark. She couldn't stand it. All this time waiting for the change she anticipated, her heart would burst in her chest if she honestly thought that it would never come.

Lylesburg had told her she was a fool. That she was still a child. 

He told her that everything was in her head and that's where it should stay. Only the Baptizer could know the path ahead, and the great head had not spoken in years. Always his words were to wait, to hold, to hide. 

In the years since the exile, they had done nothing but hide. 

Babette didn't need to hide anymore, she had done enough in her youth, she had grown tired of it. Hiding in the dark was a child's game. 

Babette had grown tired of many things in the last few years, but nothing upset her more than having to hide again. She didn't need to. Babette could run, gods could she run. Those long pale legs of hers carried her quick and as quiet as the wind, and if anything ever caught up with her she had teeth and claws to bare. 

Babette was not afraid. Not like Rachel and Lylesburg always were. 

Babette wondered if she was the only one who knew that it was not their kind's way to fear the night. While the others crept and shivered and whispered, Babette ran, and climbed, and looked, and saw.

Now she was calm. She could almost feel it coming. 

The forest air on her skin was less cool, the sounds of the night's inhabitants around her fading. When she opened her eyes would it be the forest out there? Or would it be the other world? The things she saw there she could drink like water. She saw faces, heard noises and voices. She watched the others and it felt warm and fun and so good. She could curl up in it, sometimes, when the winds went her way and she felt a rush of senses not her own. 

People laughing and fighting and fucking and crying. Babette had a hundred second hand eyes and ears and fingertips to see and hear and feel through. 

Compared to the worlds she saw and knew, Lylesburg knew nothing. 

Babette smiled as she opened her eyes and the forest spread out before her. She knew so much. Babette had clever ears. She heard the others as they huddled in their homes, talking, sobbing, arguing. Over and over she heard Rachel and Lylesburg speak of the next move, the next step towards a new home. Another pointless journey to another temporary home. When he thought he was alone in his little room, Babette heard Lylesburg asking his questions of the wrapped shape always by his side. The same questions he'd asked for years. 

'Where do we go from here?' 'Why haven't we heard from him?'

Then, quietly, more hushed and whispered than the others, 'Have I failed you?'.

The breeze up there whistled in Babette's ears, her senses awakening.

The horizon was muddy with the coming dawn. Babette's eyes watered at the slightest glimmer of it. She had come so far tonight, it would be a tight run back, chased by the dawn. She began to drop through the branches, trailing leaves and pines down around her. Her pale flesh, hidden by nothing but freckles, scratched red with irritation from the bark. She dropped onto the cold dirt ground with barely a sound.

For a heartbeat she listened, watched. Heard nothing, saw nothing.

Babette took one last glance behind her and then she was moving, long legs taking her in loping strides, balls of her feet barely touching the ground. 

The pads of her feet were thick with callouses, but still they ached. She had a half hour at most to return to the place the tribe had settled.

The tribe. The remains of what was once the tribe.

Years ago there were halls, there were chapels and homes and lives being lived. There had been so many. After the exile, of what once thrived there remained only debris. Every time, going back to them, was a reminder of the fear. She hated being there, but there they would remain until Lylesburg, in his wisdom, decided it was time to move on again in his endless self-imposed exile.

Would the next inevitable exodus take them to a real home? Babette didn't think so.

Only one could truly lead them home. Babette knew. It was rare now, but sometimes the face she saw, the voice she heard, was his. She took a deep breath, took the smell on the four winds and inhaled in deep, filling herself with promise.

She ran.

-

In the years of exile, The Tribe had lived in worse.

It was a loose circle of five wooden huts in a clearing. Held a few feet off sun baked ground by rotting stairs, erected decades ago for some long forgotten event. 

A small greeting booth sat facing out into the forest, its glass front smashed in, floor littered with trash. Empty plastic pamphlet holders were screwed to each and every door, whatever gospel they once preached a mystery. 

Peeling yellow paint still stuck to the walls, windows with their glass long smashed out now draped with sacking and black bin bags. A few of the huts had skylights to let light pool on the rotting brown carpet. 

The largest two huts, containing waiting rooms attached to tiny offices, had broken ceiling fans instead. The snapped blades hanging down from the center of the rooms like some giant dead insect.

Only one hut still had a little balcony intact. A shabby construction facing the forest, nails protruding from the hand rest. A ratty tarpaulin formed an awning, flapping in the breeze.

Rachel stood solemnly upon the balcony and stared out, watching the red light of dawn begin to bleed over. 

Every dawn she found herself there. Rachel didn't sleep. 

Big brown eyes were set deep in bloodshot sockets, as if she were perpetually moments away from tears. She went to the stairs, looking where she stepped to avoid piercing her foot on another naked nail. What was a mother without a home for her children? Rachel was mother to so many.

She carried on, stepping slowly down the creaking steps and towards the forest, listening.

Rachel wished the girl was still small enough to pull behind her skirts. This was no life.

Rachel tugged her dresses tighter, not out of the morning chill, but as reassurance against the horrors in her head. The long black dresses she wore concealed her from throat to heel, the ghost white flesh of her skin looking like damp paper in the early light.

It came then, through the forest ahead. On four massive paws it trod, stealth abandoned in favor of speed. The thing crashed towards Rachel, and the woman let the tense air caught in her throat out in a sigh of relief.

The thing seemed part cat, part ape. 

A coat of coarse red fur covered it in places, the rest of its flesh bare and scorched like a sunburn. The face of a gargoyle leered, eyes bulging from its skull and protruding snout filled with angled teeth. It came to a thunderous halt before Rachel and looked up at the dark haired woman. Rachel's expression was fierce, torn between welcoming relief and scolding anger. The beast sulked by her into the shadow of the awning. It slumped to the ground, exhausted. Slowly, the thing began to change.

It always started with the hair, the red coat seeming to recede into flesh, up the beast's shoulders and thighs. Patches of pale skin appearing on legs and spine. Then the muscles began to loosen, become soft, lose definition. The skin of the thing looked liquid, bone and tissue rearranging itself. Arms lost width and strength, becoming slender again. Great paws stretching into thin fingers, nails caked in dirt from the forest floor.

Those big bulging eyes became smaller, but only a little.

Soon enough Babette stared up at Rachel, breathing through her teeth, fighting to find her voice.

“I'm sorry,” She croaked. The voice was harsh and strained, something inside her not quite completely free of the beast yet.

Rachel looked down at the gangly teenager while she could, for as soon as the girl stood she would have to crane her neck. A mother needed height to give the right impression.

“One day, I will stand here watching the sun rise,” Rachel began. Her voice was soft, quiet, “It will fill the world with light, the birds will take wing and all the flowers will come alive, and you will not have returned. Because you will have grown old, and learned nothing.”

Babette came to her feet then, brushing herself off. Her eyes were watering as the sky brightened.

“I'm sorry,” She repeated, her human voice returned. She shaded her eyes and looked to the door.

“Too old for these games,” Rachel chided, and turned her back on the girl. She uncoiled one of the many scarves that hung around her throat, and offered it to the girl.

“Cover yourself.” Rachel ordered.

The door opened with a crack, and Rachel stepped inside. 

Babette trailed a few steps behind, quick fingers tying the scarf into place around her hips. Once more she felt the sting of mother's words to a scolded child.

The door jam had been kicked in at shin level and splinters of wood stood out, Babette had to tug the door closed with a grunt before the loose metal latch caught hold and the door clicked into place. The room within was silent, air still cool from the night. 

Within hours it would be thick and unbearably hot. Babette willed the day to pass soon, for night to come and explorations to continue.

A few of the huts had mattresses, this one was without. Babette's corner was piled with blankets and pillows, sunlight barred from entry by various makeshift defenses over the windows.

Other members of the tribe would be out and roused soon, those among them that could tolerate the sun, enjoying the warmth and the light. The extended family of the breed that had lived and traveled together for so long. 

Babette remembered so many faces, so many that no longer numbered among the dozen or so individuals that were left following Lylesburg. None were truly fraternal to Babette of course, no real blood flowed between the breed. Among the tribe there were souls old enough to be Babette's ancestors. Even Rachel, who looked no older than a woman gracefully traversing her forties was decades older than she appeared.

While the others bathed in the warmth of day, Babette and Rachel had no choice but to sweat in their oven of a dwelling and tolerate the company of one another.

And the company of Mr Lylesburg, of course.

The door to the office stood still and closed. Lylesburg would be within, as always. The old one could tolerate the sunlight, but he barely left the little office anymore.

When Babette realized Rachel was making her way to the door her gut clenched. Not again. His rants, his lectures, his stale wisdom.

“Come,” Rachel said.

If she could have, Babette would have opened the door and left. But she was trapped already. Shunned with burning light from the world outside into the hut she would remain trapped in all day. She wanted to cry or scream or tear at the walls.

Instead she could do nothing. She rubbed at her eyes and went to the door. The old man welcomed her in.

Lylesburg sat cross legged upon a ragged carpet, the office shady and untouched by dawn. His face was hidden in gloom, his long hair held behind his head in a simple ponytail. His shirt was long, sleeves hanging to his knuckles. The hem was ragged and loose, the colour had the appearance of once being something other than the ghostly bleached white it was now. 

The exposed flesh around his neck was red and raw from his constant scratching with uneven fingernails. He did it now, the moment Babette stepped in.

Scratch scratch.

Babette hated the noise so much she wrinkled her nose before she could stop herself. 

Lylesburg ceased his nervous scratching and wiped his hands on his knee. The man's pale fingers twitched helplessly in search of a cigarette. He'd been out for days now. Always the first thing Lylesburg wanted every time they neared civilization.

“It's morning, child,” he said. 

Babette couldn't quite tell if he was meeting her gaze or looking elsewhere. Lylesburg always seemed preoccupied, staring into space, or at the shape kept rolled protectively in a white shroud in the corner behind him. 

The room smelled slightly, a soft scent of burning. Lylesburg always seemed to be burning something. Candles, incense. Trying to keep some faint memory of former tradition alive.

“Sit,” he said. His scabby hand flicked out with an impatient gesture.

She knelt, hands on her thighs. The white shape in the corner of the room lingered in Babette's peripheral vision. The first finger on her left hand automatically touched her breast, over her heart, and the tip of her tongue. The respectful gesture was not repeated by Lylesburg.

He seemed small when he sat like that, cross legged and curled in on himself. Everything about the imposing aura of the man had waned in the time since the exile. Babette saw through the man, saw the shake in his hands that he blamed on addiction. 

Faith had visibly drained out of Lylesburg like his very blood.

Lylesburg sat there now, picking at the hem of his shirt, and spoke. His voice could still carry weight when he wished it, old wisdom and years in his place had made him a man unaccustomed to arguing.

“Every night you leave. You run like a rabbit away from us and you leave. And every dawn at daybreak you come scurrying back, chased by the light, to hide again.”

Babette opened her mouth to speak, to tell Lylesburg she had no choice. She was silenced with a raised finger before speech could come.

“You are young. I know this Babette, don't think I'm so old I forget youth entirely. But you are not stupid.”

He flattened the palm of his hand, indicating the floor before him. Babette went from her kneel to a cross legged position. Supplicant, subservient. She stared at the floor between them, red curls hanging over her eyes. The lessons of the old man had worn thin over the years.

“Babette, child. I know you seek answers, but you will not find them in the forest. As you did not find them in the mountains, you did not find them in the fields, and you certainly did not find them in the city, when I had to put myself, and all of the family who travel with us, at great risk, to come and find you. The questions you have are internal, child. Seek within yourself, as I have told you before. Learn your place here. Talk to Rachel, she is nanny to the tribes gathered with us. Speak with the old ones, with the quiet ones. You may be young, as I have said, but I believe you know much of the world.”

More than you. Babette thought to herself. You hide in your gloom and you know nothing.

Lylesburg continued.

“But regardless of what you think you know, know this. I lead here as a man who seeks a home for his people. I seek the safety for our tribe. I seek for the good of all of us. I am on your side, child.”

“Yes,” Babette replied. She didn't look up

“Then why do you resist me so, child? Where do you go all night? What is it you search for?”

“Nothing, I just got lost. I didn't mean to be so late.”

The lie hung in the air for a moment. Babette listened to Lylesburg breathing. There was a quiet wheeze there that hadn't been there a few months ago. Babette wondered if others could hear it. 

“Come and sit before me irritated. Wrinkle you nose in disgust if you must. Disrespect me if you feel the need to do so. But do not sit there before me and lie to me, girl. I have known you since you were a tiny little helpless thing, mewling in the darkness. Don't think you can lie to me.”

Scratch scratch.

“Now. Where have you been tonight, child? And speak truth. I'm not too old to punish you.”

Babette stared at Lylesburg under her knotted eyebrows, teeth gnawing at the soft insides of her cheeks. Lylesburg coughed. Babette began.

“I smell something on the wind. Something new. Or... something old. I don't know. Something familiar.”

“All you need is here, child. We are all here,” Lylesburg opened his arms in what was clearly intended as a welcoming gesture. Babette saw it as arms closing around her, clutching, holding her still.

“We're not all here, are we?” she asked. Her tone was almost teasing. Lylesburg didn't miss it.

“What?” he snapped.

“We're dying here,” Babette continued, her hands clenched into fists resting knuckle first on the ground before her, “We're hiding here in the shadows between the cracks and we're dying here!”

“When it is time to move again, I will know, child. Why must you persist?”

“Because you'll never lead us home! Only he can! We must seek him, we must seek word from Cabal!”

Lylesburg was on his feet in an instant, his voice thunderous.

“Do not speak his name before me, how dare you?” He advanced upon Babette so fast she braced herself to be struck.

Lylesburg did not raise his hand, only stood there, his gloom seeming to fill the room inch by inch as he spoke.

“He is not here for you, I am. He did not lead us free of the fires, I did. He took what was offered, stole his blessings, and disappeared. He seeks us not!”

Babette looked up at Lylesburg. She wanted to scream back at him, to stand and roar and tell him the winds had changed, damn his arrogance, and see the hurt in his eyes when she reminded him that the baptizer had chosen another. She held her tongue.

Lylesburg seemed to become aware of himself all of a sudden. The gloom waned around him. He dropped to his knees. When he spoke again, it was barely above a whisper.

“He seeks us not, child. We are abandoned. Do not waste your hopes upon Cabal. We will thrive without him.”

Babette remained silent.

As Babette stepped, head hung, from Lylesburg's room, Rachel rose to touch her. Just a simple, reassuring hand upon the girl's shoulder. Babette nodded a silent thank you and went to her corner. 

The sheets were cool for the moment, but soon they would warm up as the sun began to rise. The oppressive heat would then swell, and Babette would be trapped. 

She curled into her blankets and shut her eyes to the world around her.

-

Babette pulled her knees up and curled her arms around them. She had slept poorly. Tears were in her eyes.

She wasn't cold. She wasn't afraid. 

She was surrounded by kin that she had traveled with for her entire life, and was completely alone.

It couldn't go on. Another day of it and she would simply expire. 

This world wasn't hers. It was too quiet, it was too empty. So full of sorrow and loss. 

But what had she lost? She didn't really know. Nothing she couldn't find again, she supposed.

She closed her eyes. The other world flooded over her. 

She existed in it, huddled there, the feelings pulling her in, womb-like. It was a voice this time, a man's voice. Hard and strong, full of anger and energy. She didn't know whose ears she heard through, whose senses she vicariously stole for a few moments. A flutter of emotion and tears came. This wasn't her world either.

She wouldn't open her eyes yet. She wasn't ready to go back. Babette wanted to stay where she was. She hung there, between worlds, with neither offering a place for her. There had to be another world for her. All the dreams couldn't be for nothing.

Babette opened her eyes. There would be a world between, and it would be hers. She knew that Lylesburg could not take her there. She rose. Rachel was too slow to stop her.

Babette stepped into Lylesburg's room, tossing the door open. The old one was scratching at his neck, peering out the window. He turned suddenly and looked at the girl before him.

Babette was naked. Tall, lanky. Her hair hung in dirty curls around her shoulders. Freckles coloured the white skin over nose, breasts, and thighs. Her hands hung limp at her sides. Wide eyes reflected the light from a small row of candles as she stared back at Lylesburg.

“Child, for his sake. I've had enough of you for one night,” He said, irritated.

Babette ignored him. She looked to the shape. The one in the corner, wrapped and silent. The old man stepped into her line of sight.

“Remove yourself, girl.”

Lylesburg opened his mouth to speak again, but must have seen something in her eyes. The beast behind the girl's face peering out. 

He raised a hand to protect himself, but her claws came up too fast. Sharp little razors that parted old flesh. Lylesburg fell, crying out a shapeless word.

Blood streamed from where she had cut deep, one frail arm twitching in pain.

The majesty that surrounded the man fled like so many scuttling bugs. Babette looked down at him. Lylesburg's face was the face of any scared old man. Red rimmed, watery eyes stared out in fear and shock.

“Child,” he croaked, barely a whisper. She towered over him. She was always called the child, but Babette had grown.

“I'm not a child. You are not fit to lead,” Babette said. Lylesburg raised his arms to ward off another strike, but none came. He looked across his shoulder in entreaty, but the shape in the corner remained silent.

When he saw her moving towards the wrapped bundle, Lylesburg immediately became frantic.

“No! Babette, you can't!” he screamed, clawing at the floor beneath him.

She stood. The bundle in her arms was the size of a child, but it seemed to weight nothing.

Wrapped tightly and neatly within the white cloth, Babette could feel a stirring. Not movement, but consciousness. 

Awareness. 

A comforting warmth fed into her lungs, breathed in through her nostrils and her mouth. The taste of ozone on her tongue. Her heart beat faster, lit with energy. In her arms she held the world.

Lylesburg stared at her in horror.

“How dare you?” he asked. His eyes were red with tears as Babette stepped over him, the bundle in her arms like a babe in swaddling clothes.

Lylesburg screamed after her in denial and rage. She left him lying on the floor there, in his blood.

Rachel blocked the door as Babette approached it. The woman's expression an unreadable mask. Her eyes seemed to search Babette's face, looking for something.

Slowly, Rachel stepped aside, leaving the door open and yawning into the fresh night.

“Find him,” she whispered.

Babette wanted to say something to the woman she called mother, but had no words to do so. She smiled, and in a flurry was gone into the night.

Babette felt the gazes of the tribe upon her as she left the building. The bundle in her arms was shapeless, but unmistakable. She began to walk towards the forest.

Shouts were raised, even a cry of horror. A voice begged for someone to stop her.

Babette forced herself not to look back, not to look at any of the faces belonging to the only family she had ever known. 

The strength that flowed through her from the bundle gave her drive, and cause and love and power all in a flood of emotion so great she wanted to fly.

I am not abandoning you. I am saving all of us.

She began to run. Had anyone been chasing, they couldn't catch her.

Gods, Babette could run.

-

Lylesburg was upon the floor, staring down at the droplets of his own blood, as Rachel entered. When she looked down upon him he glared daggers at her.

“This is your fault,” he said. Rachel stared back through the accusation, her expression the same as ever. Lylesburg fought to raise himself to his elbows.

“She's mad. The girl is crazed, Rachel. Curb her. We must reclaim Him. Insane,” the old man's words were flowing together, becoming mutterings. He held out his hands for help.

Rachel came towards him.

“She's right,” Rachel said. Lylesburg gaped, shocked.

“Rachel...” he began.

“You have lost your right to lead,” her expression remained unchanged as she dropped down over him.

Rachel's hands tightened around Lylesburg's throat.

-

Babette followed the winds. 

The stink was back. She followed it without thought. She seemed never to tire, her legs driven by an energy far beyond her own flesh.

Somewhere in the back of her head was a link, a link to someone important. A thread to the one fit to lead. A hope. A life. A world between. She'd heard his name whispered in the darkness, she'd vicariously felt his fingertips on her flesh, tasted his kiss.

Babette pulled the bundle closer to her breast, cradling it tight. 

To it, she whispered.

“Take me to him.”