The Cappy Chronicle

For what seemed an eternity they all stood frozen to the spot, staring at the dead snake. Then, Corina screamed as she scooped her daughter into her arms and buried her face in a whimpering Teeka’s neck, sobbing quietly.

Asha couldn’t explain to herself what was happening. As she went to lean against the counter for support as the adrenalin started to wane from her system, she felt another surge hit her bloodstream. She felt a warm glow at her navel as again came the voice in her head, ‘behind you, Asha, behind you’.

Asha whirled around, dropping into a crouch as she did. Leaping across the huge expanse of floor toward them, mouth pulled back in a snarl, was a werecat. Asha knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the cat was making for Teeka, tensing itself even as it ran to spring up and snatch the child from her mother’s arms.

The cat streaked past Asha’s outstretched reach toward the child. A scream of fury that she wasn’t aware she was making rushed from Asha’s mouth. Again she turned, her blood roiling with a protective impulse and her head swimming with noise. From nowhere, as the werecat left the ground to attack Teeka, unknown words flowed into Asha’s mind and out through her mouth.

“Chouritay vento remansay dicto amonti. Libricht rensolo arvay nonsito.” As she said each word it seemed to form visually in the air in front of her and fly toward the vicious cat. Each word was a different shape but each flew true and straight at the wild beast. Faster than she could even think , the shapes overtook the leaping cat and penetrated its body. The werecat gave a scream of pure frustration as it saw its prey disappear before its eyes. Only to Asha, it was the cat that disappeared, not Teeka. One minute the werecat was there leaping at Teeka, the next it had vanished into thin air.

The look of horror on Corina’s face caused Asha to rush to her side. Teeka, head buried in her mother’s neck, hadn’t even realised the danger she’d been in. But she knew her mother was terrified and that scared her.

Still on edge, Asha quickly scanned the room in all directions looking for further threats. It had all happened so quickly she hadn’t time to try to process what was happening. But the voices in her head seemed to have receded. Looking around she had the sensation that they were safe for the moment. The unexpected attacks had finished as quickly as they started.

Corina continued staring at Asha in a horrified fascination. “How did you do that?” she whispered. “What was that you said? What were those sounds?”

Leading Corina to the next room to sit down, Asha poured out two glasses of brandy to help calm their nerves. “Here drink this,” she urged Corina. Finding herself shaking now, Asha followed her own advice and downed a large slug of the liquor. Slumping in a chair she put her head in her hands. Then, to Corina’s horror, Asha leapt to her feet again, clutching her navel and whirling around in panic as she called out, “who are you, where are you? Oh, I’m going mad!”

Asha’s face was as pale as new snow. She shook her head from side to side as if to clear it. “Corina,” she beseeched, “I think I’m going mad. I’m hearing things in my mind - a voice, a man’s voice. It tells me things, it warns me, it tells me what to do. This can’t be real can it?”

Corina lay the now sleeping Teeka on the couch and came over to hug Asha. “I don’t know what is going on in your head, girl,” she said, “but you just saved my Teeka’s life - twice. If that voice helped you to do it then I say it IS real and not only real but good too.”

“Corina, this ornament I have attached to my navel - feel it.” Corina tentatively reached out to the silver orb. She gasped as it came in contact with her flesh. “Why its hot,” Corina exclaimed. “How….?”

Asha looked at her cook with weariness. “I don’t know Corina, I don’t know. I can’t remove it and since I had the piercing I keep having these strange dreams and voices in my head. And now these attacks. I don’t understand it at all. But I think they are all linked. But you saw the snake and that wild animal too didn’t you? They weren’t just my imagination?” Asha was beseeching Corina by now.

“They were as real as you or me, Asha. And they were after Teeka. Oh, my baby.” In tears again, Corina gently picked up her sleeping daughter and held her close. “Why would they attack my baby?”

Asha gently stroked the sleeping child’s cheek. “I don’t know, Corina. But she is my weak spot just as she is yours. I couldn’t bear anything to happen to her.” The orb at her navel had cooled again to normal temperature. Asha felt unutterably weary as all the hormones and emotion drained from her body. But she dreaded sleep - worried about what might come to torment her in her dreams.