Fighting for Absolution

A building sob of relief threatened to choke Tilly when the barn came into view. She had finally found the place shown in her vision, and the promise of refuge sent renewed energy into her aching muscles, helping her legs to move a little faster as she ran. She could only hope the flames that had engulfed the dilapidated structure in her vision hadn’t been a bad omen.

Several minutes had passed since the sounds of hoofbeats and shouts faded away, but she still faintly heard the distant baying of the hounds leading the men tracking her. She knew they wouldn’t let her escape, not after what they believed she had done. The townsfolk would let nothing stop them in hunting her down to throw her at the feet of the merciless Arbiter; though, she doubted she would live long enough to see the man. In all likelihood, she would die at the hands of the mob in their overzealous pursuit of misguided justice.

Once inside the barn, Tilly closed the heavy wooden doors and then leaned against them to catch her breath as she took in the sight of the barn’s interior. The only light inside was provided by the missing chunks of roof, the large metal panels likely blown away during the springtime storms and never replaced, but enough were missing that she could easily see. What she saw only filled her with despair. Time was not on her side and she now knew she had to search through at least twenty rundown horse stalls to find the one she’d seen in her vision. If she didn’t find the exact spot she’d been standing, the chance of her successfully hiding her most prized possession was slim.

The rows on either side were nearly a mirror image except for a single storage area with long-forgotten horse supplies for the barn’s former residents. She walked quickly down the center aisle as she searched, feeling the weight of defeat as the impossibility of her task grew with each stall passed.

When she reached the opposite end of the barn, she let out a small scream through clenched teeth, frustrated with the failure. She tightly gripped the pouch hanging from a cord tied around her neck. She couldn’t let the crystal inside fall into the hands of anyone else. She had to hide it and she had to do it now or the last remnants of her brother’s sacrifice would be for nothing.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, doing her best to block out the blinding panic attempting to smother the hope she’d felt after locating the barn. In her mind’s eye, she focused on the images her vision had shown as the steps necessary for her future. She saw a rundown stall full of old hay spotted with mildew. Which wasn’t at all helpful, considering all the stalls looked that way. She ignored the doubts and refocused until she noticed one identifying factor – a broken board along the back wall. She assumed there would be other broken boards in such a rundown building, but this board hung at a distinctly precarious angle as if waiting for a stout wind to snap it free. It should be easy to find.

Tilly opened her eyes to look into the stall closest to her, confirming its back wall was whole and this was not the stall she’d seen. She squeezed the pouch tighter, feeling the edges of the crystal dig into her fingers as she clung onto hope. She couldn’t fail. She had to hide the contents of the pouch before she was taken away or she would never be able to use it, never be able to fulfill her purpose. The crystal’s safety was the only guarantee she had that she would survive to see another day because the vision could only be fulfilled if she lived long enough to return to this barn.

An excited howl cut through the silence, making her flinch forcibly at the reminder of her limited time. She broke into a jog as she searched the rows of stalls, a growing sense of defeat in her chest as she failed to locate the one she needed. Several stalls had broken boards, likely because whoever had owned the barn during its useful years had let it fall into disrepair before abandoning it completely. She cursed the carelessness of the owner as her frustration grew, feeling again the impossibility of her search.

When she reached the other end of the barn, Tilly turned back and began walking along the center aisle one more time, head swinging back and forth to look between the two rows. She ignored the way the dogs’ baying seemed to be mocking her as it increased in volume with their nearness. She guessed she still had a few minutes, but it wouldn’t be long until the sound of men’s voices would be added to the noise. Three, four, five – she counted as she walked, using the rhythm of the numbers to help her thoughts remain steady. As she passed the seventh stall on the left, she doubled back. There was the board.

She fell to her knees in the center of the stall, shoving away the rotting hay until she found the floor beneath it. Just as she’d seen in her vision, under the hay was tightly packed soil with remnants of the sand that had covered the ground. Without a shovel, she didn’t know how she would dig into the hardened earth, which was exactly what she needed to do to hide the pouch. And then she realized why she had been led to that specific stall.

Wrenching the board free from where it barely held on, she used it to break apart the soil, digging into it with all the force she could muster – which wasn’t much. Her entire body was exhausted from her frightened flight across the fields on the southern side of town. Hours of running and hiding had led her to a place she’d never been, hadn't even known existed. The premonition that led her to this barn had likely saved her from an untimely death. Without the warning to flee with only the clothes on her back and the makeshift necklace, she wouldn’t have gotten a head start on escaping from the neighbors who wanted to kill her for something she hadn’t done. And she couldn’t die. Not yet. There was still so much to do, and she needed the townspeople to understand that she wasn’t a life-snatching monster. The energy held within the crystal had been a gift. She was working to save lives, not end them.

Tilly closed her eyes and shook her head roughly as she did her best to free her mind. Now was not the time to be consumed by thoughts of betrayal and grief and a desperate need to be proven innocent. She had a task to complete before the inevitable outcome of her vision was upon her, the moment she was captured.

Once the top layer of dirt was loosened, she began digging with her hands. It was more effective than clumsily stabbing at the soil with the wood, which had been great for breaking apart the tough top layer but terrible for creating a deep hole. Her fingertips protested the abuse as she clawed at the rough ground but she ignored the pain as she scooped free the dirt and dug deeper, repeating the process until she created a hole as deep as her forearm was long.

She lifted the necklace over her head and untied the knot to loosen the pouch protecting the sum of her life’s work. The crystal glowed faintly, casting a pale red light over her palms that spilled onto the dirt floor below. Tears pooled in her eyes as she stared at the swirling light held within the crystal, the life essence of her beloved younger brother. It shone so brightly, yet was a dim imitation of his vibrancy.

Her jaw clenched tightly as she wiped angrily at her eyes, refusing to allow tears to fall. Crying now would do nothing but delay her from hiding the evidence of her supposed crime and guarantee the failure of her work.

After dropping the crystal back into its pouch, she tied the cord to secure the precious stone inside before dropping the bundle in the hole. As she pushed the dirt back into the hole, Tilly whispered to the crystal, to the spirit of her brother, promising she would return for it, for him, and then they could complete their work together.

Standing to her feet, Tilly kicked the hay around the stall in an attempt to make it look as it had when she found it, but it was hopeless. The mildew-covered layer had been mixed in with the somewhat less disgusting hay beneath it, making it obvious the pile had been disturbed.

She was at a loss for what to do. Anyone who entered the barn in search of her would become suspicious of what she might’ve been doing that required moving the hay, leading them directly to what was clearly a recently dug hole. But then she remembered the most inexplicable part of her vision – the fire. She had assumed the blazing fire was an omen for her capture, but maybe it had been a literal thing.

A grin split her face as she envisioned the crystal being protected by an inferno, an undoubtedly large inferno with so much old wood and hay to use as kindling. It was highly possible the field would catch fire as well. Her brother would approve.

With that plan of action in mind, Tilly looked around for anything she could use to create a spark. She didn’t possess the power to create the element of fire, that had been her brother's gift, but she could enhance it. If she created the spark manually, she could manipulate its energy into a devastating force.

There were no tools within easy sight, and a glance up to the loft overhead didn’t provide anything useful. She bit her lip anxiously while bouncing on her heels, feeling the weight of her dwindling freedom pressing against her nerves. If she couldn’t find a way to create a spark soon, she would have to flee the barn without the extra protection a fire would provide for the crystal. She couldn’t leave it here for someone to easily stumble across.

An idea struck her like a whip, leading her back to the storage area with unwanted equipment abandoned to the elements like the rest of the barn. There she found two horseshoes hanging from a nail, almost as if fate had known what she would need. The iron had long since rusted but she didn’t think that would matter.

Just as hoped, she only had to knock the horseshoes together forcefully a few times to make sparks fly. She focused on a spark, catching it in midair before it could drop to the ground. The spark flickered to life, becoming a tiny flame that burned with the magic Tilly had spent her life cultivating. She fed it until a flame as wide as her palm danced inches above her hand, and then began pinching off tiny droplets of flame to throw into each stall she passed.

By the time she was opening the barn door to escape, the fire had become an unstoppable force consuming the aged barn. With her back to the blaze, she ran from the destruction.

She didn’t get far.

Growling shapes of pure darkness poured over the small hill she had just crested, their red eyes glowing in the fading sunlight as they howled their victory. The bloodhounds had found her.