The Fiddler

The Fiddler

Postby Dulcie » Tue May 07, 2013 11:55 am

How does a town heal from the loss of all of its children? It was a story untold, the vines growing over the caving structures that had once held the homes of happy families, the echoes of laughter long ago faded and choked down by death and despair.

These were the grounds where The Fiddler had once stood in all her glory. Her music had filled the town square and brought delight to the ears of the children who had never before heard such a thing. They had danced and sang around her, giggling as The Fiddler twirled and spun, leading them through the town. Their parents had felt the sting of happiness in the corners of their lips, for so much smiling was painful. In a village where hard work was all that anyone had ever known, seeing the children delight and play was something that brought warmth to their hearts.

The children followed the sound of the fiddle, even as The Fiddler lead them out of town, the children dancing and chasing each other as they went, forgetting their fears of the shadows of the forest, and the warning tales that their Grannies and Papas had told them. And then the sounds of their voices were gone, a forgotten memory in a forgotten place.


No one knew exactly when the Fiddler had arrived at the Carnival, but there she was in the middle of the of the festival, having claimed one of the raised platforms as her own. She was dressed in all sorts of bright colors to fit the theme of the carnival, her skirts appearing to be made of many colorful scarves, and a bright colored laced bodice was paired with them. Blond hair hung to her shoulders, tied back away from her face with an orange scarf. Her hands worked the bow of her fiddle at incredible speeds, playing a song that made everyone want to dance and sing. She had begun to draw quite a crowd, but it seemed that the children in particular were unable to pull themselves away from her performance.
User avatar
Dulcie
Member
 
Posts: 806
Joined: Sun May 18, 2008 4:00 am

Re: The Fiddler

Postby Jirai » Tue May 07, 2013 12:39 pm

It wasn't a proper dagger. Not even a dagger at all, really. Just a knife - a very particular knife. Tiny. Easily hidden. Sharp. A new, prized posession.

It was evening. The child was neatly dressed, a proper farm-boy in Sunday best to attend the carnival. The outfit was complete with a cap, pulled jauntily down over short-cropped hair. Earlier, the slender figure had been darting merrily around, watching this and that. But now, as the evening faded into night, the young one stood still, tears welling in blue eyes.

"'ey now, lad, what's the matter?" A well-meaning (and well dressed) citizen stopped by. "Where're your parents?"

"I..." Sniff. "Cain'... find them," A tear tracked down pink cheek, "Ser!"

Seeking, perhaps, to impress the young lady he was courting with his kindness to a lost child, the man patted the child's shoulder encouragingly. "Ah, now, don't fret. Come, I'll lift you up, boy, and you'll be able to see better and we'll find them."

He lifted the child up, and they wandered around for a minute or two in this fashion, the youth having cheered up immensely. It wasn't long before the delicate child was pointing, wriggling excitedly. "There, there! I see them! Thankee, ser!" And the man scarcely had a chance to respond before the child had wiggled free, dashing into the crowd, with an elated cry, "Papa!" Soon, the lad was gone, vanished into the press of people surrounding a performer.

Once well within the crowd, the hat was slipped off, folded and tucked into a pocket, jacket turned inside out, the new outside more patched and worn. Hands thrust into pockets, a jaunty whistle pursing lips, the child wandered closer to the bright sound of the fiddler, fingering the fat pouch whose strings had so neatly been severed by the thin-bladed knife.
User avatar
Jirai
Op
 
Posts: 1580
Joined: Sat Mar 08, 2003 5:00 am

Re: The Fiddler

Postby channe » Tue May 07, 2013 1:17 pm

They'd been stuffing their faces with pastries, of course, but once Antonin and Elzbieta Kaczmarek hear the fiddler -- well. There's no better fun, no sweeter music; they dance along with the other children, with Elzie wondering -- just wondering, slightly, quietly -- if she should get her father.

Didn't somebody say something about a fiddler?
User avatar
channe
Member
 
Posts: 1654
Joined: Sat Aug 14, 2004 4:00 am
Location: the city of magical thinking.

Re: The Fiddler

Postby Rance » Tue May 07, 2013 2:09 pm

Too-roo-lee, too-too -- too-roo-lee.

In his head the fiddlesong was a flute because he did not know what music was. He did not know that sometimes strings made it, and sometimes pipes made it, and sometimes dying cattle made it. All he knew was it was a song, and Momma once sang him those, too-roo-lee, too-too -- too-roo-lee, little, little boy sleeping on the knee.

The song carried through the world like a crack splitting from the core of the planet to its weakening crust. It paused him in his growing, in his Doing, slicing one-two-three marks in the ground to add the six-thousand-seventy-and-seventh tulip (he knew each one of them like it were his beating heart or an overbent rib beneath his skin) when he heard the screaming string-notes.

Too-roo-lee, too-too -- too-roo-lee.

He did not recall getting from Silver Lake to the many-color-tents, his gnarled hands curled around one another as if they were hiding some precious invisible stone. Vines were tangled around his throat and thighs. Flowers dangled from between his blade-edged fingers. The vacant eyes saw everyone, everything, breath and blood; he knew which pretty ladies were ripe for conception under their gowns just by their smell, but though he knew those things -- how are babies had? why, phlynny, babies are had by love. but how does love make babies. babies are had when love takes shape. takes shape into what. when love takes shape into a little red-haired boy like you. but how are the babies had -- he only knew the stink, not the science, not the act.

And there was a fiddler, playing rattlebones on the woodstring. It whispered to his memories, and so the vineboy angled his way through the crowds until he saw her, a pretty ladies in scarf-skirts and every color of a brilliant garden. His stalactite teeth ground against one another.

Lullabies. He missed his lullabies.

Too-roo-lee, too-too -- too-roo-lee!
User avatar
Rance
Co-Founder
 
Posts: 2520
Joined: Tue Dec 10, 2002 8:00 am
Location: Maryland

Re: The Fiddler

Postby Cherny » Wed May 08, 2013 5:24 am

The mill-boy loiters around the edge of the crowd of children, a quiet figure in his black patch-coat and woollen cap, feet tapping for all that he's not quite bold enough to join in with the dancing; instead he hums hoarsely along with the tune, in between gnawing on some paper-wrapped confection of fried dough and spices and honey. Dark eyes following the movements of the dancers, the swift movements of the fiddler's fingers upon the strings, the whirl of colour and movement and happy faces, and he smiles unconsciously at the mingling strains of merry music and childish laughter.
User avatar
Cherny
Founder
 
Posts: 383
Joined: Sat Nov 17, 2012 8:34 am

Re: The Fiddler

Postby catch » Wed May 08, 2013 5:30 am

If there was a Thing that he knew, it was song. First there was the putting together, and then it was the chopping wood, but the third thing - the very third thing - was Song. Even if his throat, tenor sing-song, could not quite make the conventional notes, had not quite the right pitch, the right sounds, he knew Singing. It drew him, wood-song, gut-song, his belly wound throughout. He made her strings; he made the fiddle-hair that scraped across the strings, and his axe carved the fiddle-shape from the trees. From the back, he watched, and he could because - for most of the crowd - he was head and shoulders above them. His fingers clutched stickily over a candied apple, and he watched the notes, the blood-notes weaving over the air.

He didn't know why, but Catch thought the Fiddler looked terribly old.

His mouth moved among the notes, and he wanted to tear it apart, to rend the Fiddler apart to find that music, to touch it - to Sing it away - but he could not find the words. The music held him, not spell-bound, but in terror, a silent terror that came with inevitability, with acceptance.

This story has been told, and it's chains wrapped him as tightly as any made of silver, of gold, of iron. Tears crept down his cheeks, and he didn't even bother to wipe them away.
User avatar
catch
Member
 
Posts: 699
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2009 4:00 am

Re: The Fiddler

Postby Suede » Wed May 08, 2013 12:53 pm

Children of any station could be lured to a fair by the right motivation. And for most that could be as simple as sweets. One grey skinned boy dressed in fine fabrics with a simple design was slipping through the crowd with abnormal deftness after having found himself a pocketful of sweets that no one had seemed to want at one of the stands set up among the colors and people.

Where others noticed the music intently and drifted off to follow it, he barely even realized he'd heard it before he was changing the direction he was going to trail after it, forgetting his recent bounty in favor of moving more quickly to catch the Fiddler. That just seemed the proper thing to do.
User avatar
Suede
Member
 
Posts: 894
Joined: Tue Jun 24, 2003 4:00 am
Location: Georgia

Re: The Fiddler

Postby Dulcie » Wed May 08, 2013 1:24 pm

A crowd had built around the Fiddler and the woman smiled. Her body moved and swayed with the music, her green eyes filled with delight as she saw the children pressing through the crowd. She hopped down from the stage with a swirl of her skirts, the colors flashing about her as the bow of the fiddle continued it's dance back and forth across the strings.

With a spin of her heel and a sway in her steps the woman would begin leading her way through the carnival, making her way towards the exit slowly, her path weaving and wandering so it wouldn't be apparent that she was taking the children and the followers outside of the festival. They were like their own little parade, the woman fiddling and the children dancing along behind, following the lure of the music that came from the fiddle.
User avatar
Dulcie
Member
 
Posts: 806
Joined: Sun May 18, 2008 4:00 am

Re: The Fiddler

Postby Dulcie » Mon May 13, 2013 1:25 pm

The music filled the carnival as the little parade of dancers followed the Fiddler. She took her time, weaving her way around vendors and threw the open walkways. Evey some of the other performers stopped to gape at the passing stream of people that moved through the carnival. The Fiddler's lips curved into a smile as she peered back over her shoulder to see who had gathered behind her. The time had come.

With a swirl and a twirl of her skirts the Fiddler skipped off in the direction of the exit, her fiddle sawing at a maddening pace, the tune lively and exciting. She'd lead her followers right out of the carnival, heading off down a barely used path leading straight into the heart of the very dark forest. Her stomach practically growled with anticipation, and yet the music never missed a beat.
User avatar
Dulcie
Member
 
Posts: 806
Joined: Sun May 18, 2008 4:00 am

Re: The Fiddler

Postby channe » Mon May 13, 2013 4:33 pm

"No," comes a scream -- a small girl, no more than eight -- stops.

In the middle of the road.

A memory.

-- No!

Elzie Kaczmarek, in her little apron and her blue gingham dress, is stopped by the side of the road, crying her eyes out. "Stop her, stop her, she's from the story, she'll gobble us all up and -- TONY! TONYYY!"

But Antonin Kaczmarek is stepping, singing, dancing behind the lady, and he's certainly not listening to his sister as he twirls to the exit.
User avatar
channe
Member
 
Posts: 1654
Joined: Sat Aug 14, 2004 4:00 am
Location: the city of magical thinking.

Re: The Fiddler

Postby Treadwell » Tue May 14, 2013 4:59 am

Amid all the color and grandeur and music and fun--a shrill, child's "NO!" and soon thereafter, a double cry of "TONYYYY!"

It's enough to make even Councilor Treadwell turn his attention from his hunk of mutton dripping grease in his hand. Thus, mutton in one fatty fist and cane in the other, over toward Elzbieta Kaczmarek he wobbles, giving an "Mmph MMPH!" as he nears. "What is it, dear girl?" Tready bends a little toward her, shading out the sun but providing his own glow in his buttery yellow robe--

And that is when his beady, wet eyes squintily notice the gaggle of children merrily following the fiddler.

"Stop!" The old tub shrilly barks. "Stop there! Where do you think you're leading those children, mmph mmph?"

Make haste, Aloisius! He shuffles huffily-puffily after the mass of children and musician, a considerable distance back given a great many factors, finally wobbling to a stop just outside the fair and, mutton-toting hand to his burning and heaving breast, sputtering out an agonized, "Waaaaaait!"
"Looks like a table to me. Do you think it could hold up someone as bulbous as Treadwell?" -- Dr. Brennan, Myrken Wood Rememdium Edificium
User avatar
Treadwell
Member
 
Posts: 2101
Joined: Sun Mar 16, 2003 5:00 am
Location: NC, USA

Re: The Fiddler

Postby Rance » Tue May 14, 2013 5:40 am

Too-roo-lee, too-too -- too-roo-lee.

He followed; he could do nothing but follow. The music had its butcher's-hooks within his flesh and scraped its claws down through the rotten muscles underneath. It pierced his skull like the brads driven through the wooden handles of a squire's sword. He swayed, dragging his bladed fingers through the grasses, occasionally twirling them in a playful dance above his head as if he were a tulip and the eyeball of his heart was open to the world, gaping wide for the melody, and--

She'll gobble us all up.

The vineboy saw her. Little Elzie. He arched his spindly spine, his sunken ribs like a caged crown above his wood-rail hips. The other children roiled by him, and even as they struck him with their blind shoulders, the twig-thin boy dressed in dead vines and broken spectacles never moved or even flinched. His pointed ears were filled with the wax of the fiddlesong, clogging him, filling him with dripping honey and swarms of old, old things.

"It is j-...just a nice song," he trilled, and though his clawed fingers were horrific, they never unfurled to her. Instead, like a good squire, a faithful servant of pretty ladies, he thrust out the doorknob of a bent elbow to Elzie as if to offer her his arm. "D-...Do not shout, you will hear the music better, and I will n-...not let you be gobbled--"

Treadwell stooped over Elzie, swallowed her in his darkness, his greased odor and blinding sun-clothes.

The little boy with arched elbow meant to be her savior, still drunk with the song. "Do n-...not trust him. M-...My Momma once said that -- that wolves wear grandmother's clothes. A dance-song c-...cannot hurt you; a monstrous belly w-...will eat a little girl though. But not fiddles or the pretty ladies on them. B-...but I won't let you get eaten. Nobody else will dance with me. I like your dress and I w-...want to go listen to the song. If I don't let you get eaten, will -- will you be my lady?"

He gave her the split canyon of a smile.

"My name is Phlynn. Ask anyone, I am a g-...good boy. The Governor says Phlynn, you are a staple. We can dance with Tony and I won't let anybody gobble you."

His stare scoured Treadwell, as if it wanted to turn him inside out. But the song was already in the broken boy's head, poisoning his mind far beyond how irreparably it was already shattered -- that's why I need new brains, proper knight brains -- and it coated his insides like the foamy flotsam at Silver Lake's edge.

"I promise," his good-truth said, dry from harmonies and horsehair strings. "And promises are f-...for real."
User avatar
Rance
Co-Founder
 
Posts: 2520
Joined: Tue Dec 10, 2002 8:00 am
Location: Maryland

Re: The Fiddler

Postby Cherny » Tue May 14, 2013 6:08 am

The tune has a pressure of its own, light and playful as an ankle-deep stream and yet still capable of pulling things along with it, tugging inch by inch, so gently that they barely notice - it is simply easier to set one's feet down here rather than there, to dance rather than to walk, to follow rather than to stay. It has a persistence to it that lingers even after individual notes drift across the carnival ground, and in this way a merry rill might carve a gorge through a mountain.

The mob of children moves, drifts to trail after the fiddler, and the mill-boy moves with them to see what they're doing, to keep sight of those brightly-coloured clothes and laughing faces; not a conscious decision but a thoughtless whim, as good as anything else - he's here to wander the stalls and find entertainment, and the music and dancing is entertaining.

That they leave the carnival is barely noticed; that they are led into the woods is of no concern - he lives in the woods, at the mill, and the gloomy paths hold little fear for him. An absent-minded gaze for the girl at the roadside who's lost her parents, perhaps, but she's already being helped by a friend; a glance over his shoulder for the pursuing Councilor has him hastening his steps, taking larger bites of his pastry in vague fear that the fat man would try to take it from him.
User avatar
Cherny
Founder
 
Posts: 383
Joined: Sat Nov 17, 2012 8:34 am

Re: The Fiddler

Postby Jirai » Tue May 14, 2013 10:18 am

They move, the children, following the bright lure of happy music. The blonde urchin follows without hesitation, bouncing happily. So involved was the child in the music, in the dance steps the waif was embellishing with nimble feet that the transition from carnival to words is scarcely noticed. Cat simply danced, occasionally grabbing another nearby child to whirl about for a moment or two before capering on after the Fiddler.
User avatar
Jirai
Op
 
Posts: 1580
Joined: Sat Mar 08, 2003 5:00 am

Re: The Fiddler

Postby Dulcie » Tue May 14, 2013 12:49 pm

Through the carnival and away from the gate the parade weaved. The Fiddler's skirts swirled into the darkness of the forest path as the music continued to play and play. There was no concern or answer shown to Treadwell and his wobbling effort to try to catch up with the children. The fiddle simply considered to race back and forth across the strings in it's merry tune.

After some time had passed and one song had ended and another started the children would find themselves in a dark part of the forest where the canopy was so tight and the branches so closely woven together that barely any light trickled down between the leaves. The Fiddler turned to face the children, a broad unnatural looking grin forming on her lips. She set down the fiddle and yet the music kept playing, filling the air with an ethereal quality.

Where the woman had been there slowly began to take the form of something else. Flesh melted away into darkness, rippling like an ooze that coalesced into one singular form that could only be described as a rippling black mass with only the eyeballs of the Fiddler and a great gaping maw that opened widely, tall enough to devour a child in one singular bite.

The music continued to play, coming from the horrible creature ,and the very first child would waltz right into it's mouth, spinning and twirling to the sound of the music. The little girl was laughing as the mouth closed down on her, bones crunching and the creature slurping at the viscera before it seemed to swallow with an ugly ripple of it's gelatinous shape.

The creature's mouth opened again, waiting for it's next victim, and still the music played.
User avatar
Dulcie
Member
 
Posts: 806
Joined: Sun May 18, 2008 4:00 am

Next

Return to Myrkentown



Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 12 guests

cron