Indescribable: Book Two of the Primordial Read online

  “I loved you!” the woman shouted. Her voice held a deeply southern twang. She was sitting on the edge of the tousled bed that stood against the far wall of the cramped studio apartment. She had just put back on her lacy black bra and clasped it at the back. “I loved you so much!” She screamed with tears running down her cheeks.

  The deep purple mascara that she had applied earlier that evening was now snaking down her face in what looked like dark, blood filled veins that were visible just underneath the surface of her milky white skin.

  Thorn Rimbault stood across from her, buttoning up his charcoal gray dress shirt, watching the emotional out poor of the woman before him. Like her, from the waist down, he was only wearing his underwear.

  To Thorn it was almost like she was a supporting actress in a dramatic film, giving it her all. And this scene, the one that they were in the midst of, was the one that would surely land her name on the short list of nominations come January.

  She stood from the mattress and pulled on her loose fitting white blouse. A second later she stepped into her red skirt and hoisted it up to her waist, zipping the back in one fluid motion. One at a time she pulled on her black leather cowboy boots, not bothering to put back on the stockings that were lying in a soft pile on the hardwood just where they had been dropped over an hour earlier. She grabbed her purse from the nightstand and flung the pantyhose in.

  The sight of the steel gray hosiery flapping limply through the air as it barely made its way into the bag was a sad sight. Wren, Thorn’s fat calico cat who was sitting on the edge of the bed, pawed at the stockings as they passed by her on their way to the haven of the bag where they would rest among countless makeup pieces, a cell phone, wallet, and several half empty chewing gum packs.

  With her index finger and thumb, Mandy forcefully pulled the zipper of the bag shut, catching the toe of the stockings, surely ruining them in the process. She flung the purse over her shoulder and glared at Thorn.

  “I really did,” she nodded her head as she said it. “I did and -,” she stepped closer to him, “just in the past ten minutes, the hate that I have toward you has spread all through me like the way the food coloring does in the batter of a red velvet cake.” She paused, catching her breath.

  Ever since Thorn had known her, she had always been a little over the top. Well, a lot over the top, he reminded himself. She was a country music singer, so far only playing gigs in the small bars and clubs around the area, but she was determined to make it big one day. She wrote her own songs and seemed to always throw a lyric or two in during her daily conversation.

  “I can’t believe that you are so cold hearted that you are able to use people the way that you do and not feel a thing!” She said with each word growing so much in its volume and intensity that by the time that she got to the end of the proclamation it was earsplitting.

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Mandy. I do feel, I have emotions, but it’s only the hurt and pain that I am able to experience,” he told her again for what seemed like the hundredth time. “I can’t fall in love. It just isn’t possible.”

  Thorn and Mandy had been dating for several months. To an outsider, it surely must’ve seemed that things were beginning to get very serious between them. They had been spending more and more time together. Living together had even been hinted at.

  But Thorn was tired of lying. He had known for the past several days that it was time to tell her the truth, that he didn’t love her and that he never would. He would never be capable of that. He had done the same thing to numerous girls before her. How many he wasn’t even sure. Over the years he had lost count. And earlier that very night he had tried his hardest at explaining it all to her.

  “I hear you, but I don’t know what the hell you’ve been smoking,” she shook her head. Her teased blonde hair swayed side to side. “But you honestly want me to believe that a long time ago your family had some kind of curse put on them and ever since then there hasn’t been any one of your bloodline that has been able to fall in love?”

  “Yes,” Thorn answered her matter-of-factly, without hesitation.

  “And that your family in return, as an act of revenge, created this fantastical place called Fractus that is inhabited by supernatural beings that wreck havoc on the love lives of others.”

  “Yes,” he said again.

  “You are crazy!” Mandy yelled, rolled her eyes, and spun away from him, obviously beyond frustrated with what he was telling her. She went to the door and opened it. Outside, the sky was dark with storm clouds. It was raining. Again. She turned back to the interior of the apartment to look at him one more time. “You are as crazy as the -,” she was at a loss for words, but trying desperately to come up with something, anything that would work. She held up her hand, raised her index finger and spun it around in a frantic twirl. The loose, metal bracelets on her arm jangled, “- as the whirly jig at the state fair!” She spun on her heels, stepped into the rainy night, and slammed the door behind her.

  The forceful impact of the door closing caused a framed picture to fall off the wood paneled wall and crash to the floor. The glass shattered on impact. From the other side of the apartment wall, Thorn could hear Mandy’s boots as she clomped down the steps that led to the wet sidewalk.

  It was true. A long time ago, the Rimbaults had been cursed by another family, the Halfords, so that none of their bloodline would ever be able to fall in love. In all of his nearly thirty six years Thorn had never heard exactly which of the Halfords did it or what event had led to the curse being performed in the first place. All of that had remained unspoken. All he knew was that those particular details were a deeply buried family secret that had successfully remained hidden over time.

  Fighting back against the Halfords, by using ancient text, one of Thorn’s ancestors had created the place known as Fractus. It was a place made out of magic, another universe, and inside of that creation there were beings that the Rimbaults had created in order to punish their enemy for what they had been bestowed upon them. These beings were made to tear apart happiness and love, bring heartache to others, namely the Halfords. And for generations it had worked blissfully.

  But in the past century, things had begun to change. Word had it that the citizens of Fractus had created their own agendas and allegiances, laws and order. They had begun branching out. Their business now went well beyond the Halford family line. The first, the ones called The Primordial, had become curious about this yet to be experienced emotion that they had come to know of as being called love. They knew that it must be special; they were, after all, created to end it. So they cast their own magic, making it so that every being of Fractus would, from that day forward, be able to fall in love.

  Thorn had been hearing about this turn of events his entire life. He hated it. He felt like what The Primordial had done was ridiculing his own family and its intentions in the first place.

  But lately things had been getting worse. Thorn was tired of lying, telling girls that he loved them when he knew that it could never be true. And truthfully, it really did hurt him. It broke his heart to see the pain that he had been causing. Even though he didn’t directly have anything to do with the creation of Fractus, recently he had started feeling something else. It was the slightest bit of guilt over what Fractus was doing, and had been doing for the past two centuries, to the Halfords and others. It was his ancestors that had created the place as an act of revenge, and yet the remorse had somehow reverberated all the way down through the generations, eventually landing on him. It shamed him to think that his family was responsible, but at the same time, the recent emotion that he had started feeling toward the whole ordeal was confusing to him. It was anger, guilt, and shame all rolled into one.

  And to think that his family’s own creations had turned their backs on the ones that had given them life in the first place, that they were enjoying the wonders of what they were made to destroy when their creators were still and indefinitely going to be with
out. It made him furious, and it was time to do something about it. The way he understood it was that the Halfords would not lift the curse that they had put on the Rimbaults until Fractus was destroyed, and that was exactly what he was setting out to do. Mandy seemed like a nice girl. She seemed like somebody that he imagined that he could fall in love with if it were possible. He could see the endless amount of good in her. If any girl that he had ever known in his entire life was worth trying for, it was her.

  He picked up the picture that had fallen from the wall when Mandy had slammed the door just moments earlier. Jagged shards of glass were scattered across the old, wooden slats of the floor. He studied the picture as it lay lopsided in its ruined frame. It was an oil portrait of his great ancestors, Stanwood Rimbault and his family.

  Stanwood was a distinguished looking man. In the painting he was wearing a blood red waistcoat over a ruffled, white shirt. A darker jacket was over the waistcoat. His hair was as white as summer clouds. Legend had it that it was Stanwood himself that created Fractus and the first of its inhabitants. His wife, Ella, sat in a fancy chair in front of him. She was wearing an elaborate white dress, long gloves that came up to her elbows, and a large hat. Their children, Caroline and Jonathan, stood behind her, and they too were dressed in their nicest clothes. Caroline had a purple birthmark that covered nearly half of her face. The birthmark was a close shape and resemblance to the state of South Carolina, hence her nickname, Carolina. Thorn had always found it touching that the artist had taken the time and patience to place the imperfection so delicately on her skin just like he had done with every other detail of the artwork. It made it seem real to him, more like a photo than a painting.

  Thorn carefully picked up the shards of glass, careful not to slice the tips of his fingers or the tender soles of his bare feet. He was placing the glass pieces onto the square top of the small, waist high, antique hall table that stood by the door when he noticed something odd. There was the triangular corner of a piece of paper that was jutting out from behind the painting. The paper was discolored with age.

  Thorn gently lifted the canvas and briefly stared at what he saw had been sandwiched in between the oil painting and the frame backing for so long. It was a hand drawn map. It wasn’t very detailed, but he knew without a doubt what it was. The crisscrossed lines and arrows would lead him to the talisman, the one that Rimbault family lore insisted could destroy Fractus. From his understanding, it was the only thing that could destroy Fractus.

  The talisman had been hidden for over two centuries. Even though there had been the common interest among his bloodline in locating the item, no one in his family had known where to even begin looking. And just to think, the answer had been in his family all along, getting passed down through the generations, tucked safely behind the painting of Stanwood and his family, somewhere that no one had ever looked.

  And all it took for him to make the discovery was the dramatic exit of a brokenhearted girl who dreamed of one day going to Nashville and hitting the big time. Thorn actually chuckled out loud at the thought.

  His mind was racing with possibility. All the things that he had been thinking could finally come into fruition. With the talisman, he would be able to destroy all of Fractus, and hopefully by doing so, some of the burden that he carried with him would begin to lift from his shoulders. He thought that if he succeeded in his mission that Stanwood would’ve been proud of him. Surely the elder Rimbault, like him, wouldn’t like the fact that his own creations had turned their back on him. Thorn thought that if Stanwood were still alive he would most likely do the same thing that he was setting out to do.

  After making himself a pot of coffee, he sat down cross legged on the floor. The small map was lying flat on the floor in front of him. The fresh, steaming cup of black coffee sat to his right.

  With a black marker he carefully copied the lines and parameters of the map onto a larger piece of notebook paper. Out of fear of losing it or damaging it beyond repair, he didn’t want to take the original map with him. It was an artifact, a family heirloom; it was something to be cherished and held onto, passed down to his kids and theirs.

  It was a simple map, something that people would imagine leading them to a long buried, secret treasure. There was a starting point and then a dashed line that ran to the bottom right corner, ending with an X. The destination, he thought. On the top of the page, there was a compass, indicating direction. The arrows were overlaid with a heart. N, S, E, and W were inside the heart.

  OK, so it was obvious that the direction that he needed to be headed was south east, but there was no instruction to give him any kind of measurement of distance. And where was the starting point? He knew that it couldn’t just be from anywhere.

  Thorn leaned back against the edge of his old, formal style couch and raised his coffee cup to his lips and took a nice, slow sip of the dark roasted coffee. Behind him, Wren walked across the crimson seat of the sofa and rubbed her head against Thorn’s shoulder, purring loudly.

  Thorn thought hard. If Stanwood drew the map, where would he have been at the time?

  But he wasn’t even certain that Stanwood was the one that drew the map. It could’ve been someone else. Stanwood, however, would be the place to start. Thorn knew the location of his ancestor’s home. It was a massive plantation house that stood near the coast. He had only seen it once before, when he had been a kid.

  That day had been blisteringly hot. His mother had taken him with her to the beach. It was less than an hour’s drive from where they lived in Savannah, but it was an excursion that they rarely made. His mother was a single parent and had to work several jobs just for the two of them to get by, and so day trips with her son had not been something that was able to fit into the hectic schedule of everyday life and trying to make ends meet.

  Thorn remembered that day as being a lot of fun. Even though he had only been eight years old at the time, he could still remember the heat of the sun and the sting of the sand on his bare legs and chest. He and his mother had built a sand castle together. He remembered that there was a stray dog that had been running up and down the length of the beach. The dog had crazy tufts of brown and black hair jutting up across its back, more like a hyena than a normal mutt, he remembered. When the dog inched close to the towels that Thorn and his mother were resting on, Thorn reached out his hand and touched the canine’s snout. He could feel the exhales of air against his open palm. It made him laugh. The dog trotted away. Thorn looked over to his mother and saw that she was dozing in the sunlight. The young boy saw it as an opportunity and stood from the towel and ran after the canine. His feet charged across the hot sand and stopped when he saw what was before him. A wave receded to reveal wooden carousel animals that had been washed onto the shore. There was a horse, a zebra, and an ostrich among them. Green seaweed and white foam coated the wooden animals. Thorn simply stood in awe. He watched as the dog ran to another couple that was lying on a blanket further down the beach.

  “Thorn!” It was his mother’s voice coming from behind him.

  He turned and saw her standing from the towel.

  “Thorn, get back here!” She yelled across the expanse of the beach.

  He turned and ran to her.

  Later, on the way home, they took a detour. She had said that it was out of the way, but there was something that she wanted to show him. He remembered his mother turning off of the main road and onto a dirt drive. The twisted branches of the ancient oak trees reached far over their car. Spanish moss hung thick on the limbs, much thicker than what was on the trees in downtown. Yellow flowers were scattered about the roadside.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “I want to show you where your great, great, great, great, great grandparents lived.”

  “That’s a lot of greats,” Thorn told her.

  His mother laughed.

  After driving down the twisting dirt drive, the car finally emerged onto an open expanse of overgrown land. She followed the
driveway that looped around in a circle in front of the huge house.

  Thorn peered out the window. “They lived here?” He asked with wonder.

  The house was massive. It was the kind of structure that had to have tall white columns to support the front. It was as if turning off the road they had traveled back in time. Thorn could easily imagine Confederate soldiers or cotton farmers milling about the property. Later he learned that it was indigo that his ancestors had grown, not cotton, in the surrounding fields. In his minds eye, he saw horse drawn buggies and women pushing large prams that held newborn babies.

  The car came to a screeching and grinding halt. His mother opened her door first and then Thorn followed her lead. He was hesitant at first, but a second later, jumped out of the car onto the ground. He watched as his mother stepped through the tall weeds and ascended the front steps. He eventually and cautiously followed behind. Underneath their feet, the porch was sagging and felt like it could give way at any moment. His mother reached out her hand and tried the doorknob. To Thorn’s surprise, and his mother’s, the door creaked open. It was a long, drawn out, horror movie kind of sound.

  “Looks like somebody left it unlocked,” she told her young son. Her voice sounded like the discovery was magical. “Do you want to take a peak inside?”

  Thorn shook his head. “I’m scared.” He had heard stories about how Stanwood’s wife, Ella, had hung herself inside the house and that it is believed by some that her ghost still haunted the property.

  She laughed. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Look,” she said and pushed the door inward. It swung all the way open and thudded against the wall.

  The sunlight flooded the front parlor of the house. It was empty. Dust and cobwebs lingered about the walls and staircase. His mother took Thorn’s small hand in hers and they stepped across the threshold together. “See, this is where they lived. Their names were Stanwood, Ella, Caroline, and Jonathan. That’s them,” she pointed to a large, oil painting that hung on the wall. In addition to the thought of Ella hanging herself, the picture had given the young boy the creeps. It looked like the type of thing that would be found on the wall of an amusement park’s spook house. It was the same portrait that would hang in Thorn’s apartment many years later.