Read by the Author: The Hermit
Hi. I am Katie Groom. I am author in residence right now for Cinnabar Moth Publishing and their literary collections that they do monthly. And I am going to read my short story that is featured, and it’s called The Hermit. It is actually a short story that is part of the Cardinal Moon Saga universe thing. And it takes place – it gives more insight to things that happen in Gibbous Moon, but this takes place many years before Fixed Moon. And again, Hugh and Zoe aren’t really involved with this, so they don’t know what’s going on or anything like that. so that’s why it’s kind of a separate thing that’s dealt with outside the story – you know, the full length novels.
So this is probably a .5 maybe? well, I would say that Cardinal Moon is a .5, so maybe this is a .75? So, anyways, I don’t know how to number these things, but anyways I’m going to read this. And bear with me, I’m going to do one take. Also my dog is sitting next to me, sometimes she feels the need to be the star while I’m filming these things. Anyway, enjoy.
The Hermit.
Solitude. Some may call it voluntary loneliness, but Silas called it “peace”. He had always liked being alone. Perhaps it was because he was an only child, or maybe it was that, after his parents were gone, his grandmother, who raised him, was always so much in his business that he couldn’t even find the time or space to go to the bathroom on his own. Or, and this was the most likely, it could simply be that Silas didn’t like other people in general.
He had claimed some land in northern Canada, and built a house on it. A small cabin — one bedroom. Dug himself a little garden. Raised a few chickens. Things like that — things that kept him self sustained.
Silas was proud of it. Not just because it was his, or because it was something he created himself. No. It was because he actually built it himself without the use of his magic. He didn’t draw from the shadows to move the logs when creating the walls for his home, and he didn’t use the darkness to till the small bit of land that would become his garden. He did it all by hand. And it was his.
No one knew where he was, and Silas enjoyed that. Other people were messy — they had their own opinions, and they asked for favors. Sometimes they wanted to do things out of the “goodness of their hearts”, but it was more likely that they wanted the other party to owe them.
He had lived in solitude for many years — decades even. So, when there was a knock at his door one evening, Silas started gathering energy before he even approached the door. Looking cautiously through the peephole, Silas recognized one of the two people on the other side of the door from two different places — his past and a wanted poster.
The man he knew had been known by many names in his life — Alfred, Frank, Phillip, Callum, and so many more . Silas wasn’t sure of what he went by at this time. Cautiously opening the door, Silas didn’t even bother saying hello. He opened up with, “What do you want?”
The man didn’t bother responding; he just locked eyes with Silas. He was dressed in a suit, as if he had just come from the office, but his face appeared as if he hadn’t slept in a week. Forget bags under the eyes — he had an entire set of luggage.
Behind the man was a woman with long, wild red hair. She, on the contrary, looked like she slept a full eight hours each night and lived with the same amount of emotional stress of sunshine or wildflowers.
When she pushed past the man, the large pendants on her many necklaces clanged together. “I’m Lettie,” she stated. When she took Silas’ hand for a handshake, his skin got pinched between two oversized rings. “This is Victor.” She motioned to the man.
“We’ve met.” Silas stood his ground in the doorway.
Lettie smiled gently. “May we come in?”
Silas shrugged. While he didn’t verbally give a real answer, he did move aside so that Victor and Lettie could come in. He figured that it would be easier to arrest them from inside his home. Him for debts owed to the council; the reward was quite handsome. Her — she would be punished for harboring a fugitive.
He poured some tea and then asked, “Okay, so how can I help you?”
Victor quickly shot a glare towards Silas. “You’re still in the bounty hunting business?”
“Yep.”
“The Council is gunning for me, and they are going to take me.” Victor sighed heavily. “I can’t stop them.”
Silas chuckled. “You came here. You came to me. Do you want me to capture you and take you to the Council right now? Are you eager to be imprisoned?”
“No,” Victor replied. “I need your help.”
Folding his arms across his chest, Silas replied, “That’s rich. You parted ways with me because of the profession I chose, and now you want my assistance? Who do you want me to find? And don’t say someone on the Council. As much as everyone hates those ass holes, I’m not going to cross them and land myself in prison for eternity.”
Lettie shook her head. “No, it’s not that, Silas. You’re the best tracker in both our world and the mortal world, right?” Silas smirked and agreed silently. Lettie continued, “So you agree that you could track anyone, no matter what the purpose?”
Shrugging, he replied. “Yeah. There’s no one or nothing I couldn’t track.”
Victor interrupted Lettie before she could even open her mouth. “Look, Silas, I need you to protect my daughter. Not right now, but in the future. I don’t know exactly when, but…”
Silas started laughing. “So you’re here with not only a hypothetical job but you want me to protect, what, a three year old?”
Victor scoffed. “She’s seven, first of all.” He pulled a picture out of his wallet and a pointed her out to him. “The Council will stop at nothing to get me, and, after that, I worry that they will punish my daughter to get what they couldn’t get from me. You wouldn’t have to watch her at first — Lettie is going to step in and protect her for as long as she can, but there will come a time when she no longer can.”
Letting out a deep sigh, Silas folded his arms across his chest again. “What’s in it for me?”
“Money.” There was no hesitation in his voice. “I have lots of it. Too much. More than any one person should have. More than any family should have. I’ll give you some of it. A down payment for agreeing and enough to cover twice the average expenses of a couple in NYC for each year that you actually watch over my daughter. I’ll set it up that it covers inflation.”
“So, yeah, money is cool and all but I don’t know that it’s going to be enough.” He started pacing. “I’m going to have to take time out of my usual work to do this — and I don’t know when it will be. I might be in the middle of a big payday…”
Victor looked at Lettie, then back at Silas. “I had a feeling that you might say that, so I worked on something that I thought may be helpful for catching — and holding onto — your marks?” Lettie pulled a long vine out of her small purse — obviously an enchantment akin to Mary Poppins’ carpet bag — and handed it to Silas.
Silas looked at it and then at Victor. “A fucking vine?”
Victor scoffed. “You always judge so quickly.”
Silas glared at him. “I judge quickly? Me? You’re the one that sent me away when you found out that I was going to work as a bounty hunter.” He shook his head in disgust. “I’m honestly shocked that you would even entertain the thought of seeing me again, let alone actually putting your daughter’s life in my hands.”
Victor nodded. “You’re right, Silas. I did abandon you. I, truly, regret that.” He sighed. “You are the very, very best at staying hidden but being right beside someone. You’re an extremely powerful warlock. The only one that I know of that draws his power from the darkness.” He pointed at the vine. “I have enchanted the vine to answer only to you. Once you tie someone in it, they will not be to get out without your releasing them.”
This piqued Silas’ interest. “Show me.”
“To show you that I’m confident in my enchantment abilities, you can tie me up in it.” Victor stood up. “I want you to tie it with a bow tie or something that’s ridiculously easy to get out.”
Silas wrapped the vine around Victor and then simply twisted it. “Okay?”
Victor reached down and tried to undo the twists and was unsuccessful. “Lettie, come try.” She did as requested, but they were fused together. “Silas, all you have to do is think that you want to release them and gently touch the vine. Anywhere. Not just the knot.”
Silas bent over and picked up a piece of the vine on the floor and thought, Release. The vine fell to the floor. “Wow, that’s…very interesting. This could be beneficial.”
Victor and Lettie just stared at him while he was deciding. Silas wasn’t going to fall into their tactics so he excused himself to his bedroom and shut the door for a few moments. When he came back out of the room, he looked at Victor and said, “Victor, when I first became a part of this world, you helped me when no one else would, and I am still grateful for that. Yes, I will help you.”
“Let’s make this deal official.” Glancing over at the dust falling slowly through the moonlight, Lettie motioned for the moonbeam to come to her. As it broke free from the rest, she spun her hands around the moonlight, molding it into a scroll. The contract that the two men had made was written upon the page.
“Silas, in exchange for vine and the financial payout, do you promise to protect Victor’s daughter with your life?” Lettie floated a quill pen to him.
Silas glanced over at the picture of the little girl. He couldn’t figure out why Victor would think that anyone would want to bring harm to this little girl with the bouncing red curls. But the money would set him up for a while — much more than a reward for Victor’s capture would. Beyond that, the vines in his hand could hold anyone in place, unable to be released without Silas’ conscious decision. This could greatly improve his already successful business.
Reaching up and grabbing the pen from the air, Silas moved towards the scroll. As he signed his name, the words from the scroll lit up, their glowing likenesses floating towards him. As they got closer, they shifted, and at first, Silas was confused, but then he recognized a few words. Ad infinitum. The contract had translated itself into Latin.
Silas watched as the letters followed each other one-by-one, sliding their way under his sleeve. His free hand quickly unbuttoned his sleeve and Silas rolled it up. He felt the letters still push through between his arm and the fabric of his shirt, continuing to wrap around his arm — it almost tickled — and they laid down, one-by-one, until the last ones placed themselves into his skin. The contract had tattooed itself on him, with the last words placed on his index finger. The rest of the contract created a path up and around his arm. He made two mental notes: one, Check himself in the mirror later to see how this new addition would mess with his plans for a sleeve of tattoos, and, two, that was the least painful tattoo he had ever gotten — physically. He was unsure what the mental and emotional implications would be.
Lettie turned to Victor, and the pen floated towards him. “And, you, Victor, promise to set up an annual payout to Silas for each year he protects your daughter, and one lump sum today? And do you promise to relinquish the power in the vines you created to Silas, for as long as your daughter is alive?”
Victor nodded and quickly signed the contract, sending the words to leave their mark on him.
Barely waiting for the process to complete, Lettie clapped her hands together once, and the scroll rolled closed and directed itself to Lettie’s hand. The pen dissolved into dust.
She looked at Victor. “Should we be going? While this place is safe, it’s probably best to get you home to your fortress.”
With a nod, he replied, “Yes, but I have one more thing to ask of you, Silas, and you can say no if you wish.”
Hadn’t Victor already asked enough? Silas folded his arms across his chest. “Go on.”
“I would appreciate it if you were the one to take me in.” He quickly added, “Not today.” Victor smiled, “I have a father-daughter fun day planned with my girl this weekend.”
Silas softened, relaxing his arms. “I’ll think about it. I won’t tell you my decision, though. Keep you on your toes.” Plus, it would keep Victor from blowing Silas’ cover by being comfortable around him.
Lettie wasted no time in teleporting her and Victor away, leaving Silas alone.
That Saturday, Silas made his way to Pittsburgh, as he had a lead that placed Victor and his daughter at a Pittsburgh Pirates game that evening. Silas found them walking across the Clemente Bridge, and he watched as Victor held his daughter’s hand tightly as he handed her some money to put in a saxophone player’s case.
Silas was shocked that a seven-year-old could hang for the entire game, honestly. It was obvious that she just wanted to spend as much time with her father as possible.
Keeping to the shadows, Silas followed them to their car, and he even followed them as they drove, teleporting at times to keep up. It was when they were nearing Latrobe that Silas sensed another supernatural being nearby.
He was too late to interfere. The warlock had already conjured something into the road, causing Victor to swerve and hit a puddle.
The car went sliding out of control — headed towards a collision with a large tree. Thinking as quickly as he could, Silas pulled from the shadows nearby, crashing through the glass of the rear door driver’s side window and shooting across to hold Victor’s daughter in place.
Silas – and probably anyone within a twenty mile radius — heard the shriek that came from the car. That little girl’s lungs were so powerful that her scream overpowered the sound of the horn. The shriek shook the ground around them. Then Silas watched as the car reversed in time. The impact undid itself and the car unfolded as the car went slightly back where it had come. Then it collided again. And reversed. And collided again. Reversed.
At first Silas stood frozen, but then he realized what was happening: someone was trying to reverse the accident. He transported closer to the car.
“Nooooo!!” The little girl cried and pleaded. “I can fix this!” Silas could feel the desperation in her screams.
The car started to reverse again, but with each cycle it was losing power. It moved less and less, until it stopped.
Silas peeked into the car. Curls of red hair provided a curtain between him and the girl’s line of sight. Her hands were covering her eyes, and she was sobbing. But suddenly, everything fell silent, save for the horn.
Panicking, Silas ripped the car door off of the hinges and reached for Victor’s daughter. He was relieved to see her chest still rising and falling, even though it was shaky with residual sobs at some points. Her eyes were closed, and she was slumped over in her seat. She had either exhausted herself trying to undo what just happened or passed out from shock — or perhaps a combination of the both.
Silas picked her up and removed her from the car, just as emergency vehicles were arriving to the scene. He ran towards them with her in his arms, knowing that he had no other choice. “There’s a man — the driver — in the car. I pulled the girl from—”
Before he could finish the sentence, the car burst into flames. Silas lost the ability to speak in that moment.
“…sir? Sir! Did you see what happened? Were you in the vehicle?” A police officer was trying to get Silas’ attention while a medic was trying to take the child out of his arms.
As firemen made their way towards the car, Silas turned towers the officer in slow motion. “I just heard…the car…” He stumbled over his words. “It hit the tree…I ran over to check…the girl…” He felt a weight leave his arms. He knew that he wasn’t going to be able to stay at her side. They would never believe that he was related to her; there wasn’t even the slightest chance that he could pretend that she resembled him.
“Sir, you saved this little girl’s life.”
For a moment, Silas went to ask about Victor, but he stopped himself. No mortal could survive flames like that; they would have made fun of him for even asking. Silas wasn’t even sure that there was any magic that could protect Victor in that moment — or even if it was needed. He could have died on impact with the tree.
A police officer asked some more questions and recorded Silas’ personal information — which was made up — for their records. She handed Silas a card. “I know you said you only heard the collision, but if you think of something else, give us a call.” He nodded slowly, so she smiled softly at him. “Your free to go home, Mr…” he looked suspiciously at Silas. “Mr. McMichaels.”
He nodded and turned away. As soon as it was safe, he teleported back to his house. Sitting on the couch, he rubbed his temples. Victor was right — they would have stopped at nothing to get him, and they didn’t care if his daughter was collateral damage.
In that moment, Silas’ contract became more of a vow in his heart than a business deal. He wasn’t going to let anything happen to that little girl. He wasn’t going to leave her unprotected, even if it meant kidnapping her and bringing her to live with him. He began planning how he would train her to harness her powers.
He got up from the couch and started to prepare to head back to the Pittsburgh area, when there was a knock on the door. Cautiously, Silas started towards the door, charging the power within himself.
The knocking started again. “Silas, it’s Lettie. Open up!”
Silas looked through the peephole to make sure that she was alone, and then let her in. “What are you doing here?”
Lettie ran into his arms. “They got to him. That awful Council got him.”
“I know.” He held her as she cried. “I know. I was there, but I couldn’t stop them.”
She stepped back. “The mortals — their doctors are trying to put that sweet little girl in a behavioral institution — saying she’s experiencing a mental breakdown from trauma. Her mother and I are not having it.”
“What can I do?”
Lettie shook her head. “Nothing. I’m going to take an active role in her life until I no longer am able. Then I will come to you and you’ll take over. Understood?”
“But I think I can be of some help…”
She put her hand up like a stop sign. “You will wait until I send you a signal. Understood?” When he nodded, albeit reluctantly, she got up to leave.
“Lettie — wait. The girl — the girl can mess with time.”
She turned to him. “Sun magic? What leads you to believe this?”
“She kept reversing the car and the damage after it hit the tree.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Her attempt — it was too late, and I don’t think she knows how to harness her power. It exhausted her.”
To reassure him, she took his hand gently. “Then I will have to teach her.” In the instant that she dropped his hand, she was gone.
The cabin was silent, and, for the first time, Silas didn’t welcome the solitude. That solitude made him worry for that little girl’s life.