The End
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The Helper: Part 2 - Compassion
Things were simpler nine centuries ago. The first category of humanity was far more commonplace than it is in England today. God fearing people, the Angles used to be. The Celts, too. And the Scots. The Bretons also. They needed no convincing that there was a big man (and/or men) in the sky and on the ground watching over their every move. These were times when I could go about my business most freely, without fear of recrimination. We had no enemies.
A job had taken me to the area. I’d completed it with my usual level of flair and needed a place to spend some time until the next task became apparent. The village seemed like a great place to lie low. Only a few people lived there, and everyone went about their lives with little interference from on high. Perfect.
A few days into my stay, I met Theode. She was…well, she was beautiful. I think that word is bandied around far too often in modern society. It should be reserved for women who possess a certain kind of good looks that will be considered attractive throughout the centuries. Even to a man like me who, let’s not forget, isn’t really human.
She had long blonde hair, which had never been cut. Her neck was almost extraordinarily long, but it enhanced her soft rosy cheeks and sumptuous lips. Her eyes were the colour of a tropical ocean, and slightly pointed like an Egyptian hieroglyphic.
Now, I would like to clear one thing up before I continue and you build up the wrong impression of me. I may not be a man, but I am not a monster. Theode was just a girl. Not yet really a woman. When I met her, she had just turned fifteen. Back in those days, it was a perfectly mature age, and many girls like her would have been married off and starting families. I would never have dreamed of doing…anything with her. That’s just not me. But I liked her. A lot. Call it love, if you want, but almost of a family kind, not lust.
The good thing is, Theode liked me too. Loved me, maybe. She was an unusual girl for her time - not at all interested in womanly pursuits like needlecraft and cooking and cleaning. She wanted to be like Beowulf. A noble fighter. Her grandfather had told her that epic story several times as a little girl, and it affected her deeply. She was a great storyteller and had more brains than the rest of the village put together. If she were alive today, it may well have inspired her to write great works of fiction, or use her imagination to make the world a better place.
But she was not of this time. As such, she was regularly beaten and raped by her father for such outlandish fantasies. She was a woman, and should damn well have acted like one.
It didn’t take me long to discover these attacks. She was a quiet, shy, girl. I could tell that she had been damaged. And who wouldn’t be after that? I had no idea how long she had been assaulted for. Neither did she. It could have been years, perhaps even a decade. I’m sure her young mind probably blacked out a lot of it.
But, all the same, there was nothing I could really do to save her. What I could do was help her. As best I could, anyway. I tried to heal her, to be a shoulder to cry on, to care for her. After all, no-one else would.
Her mother was just as bad. She did not take part in the attacks, of course, but she ignored them. She claimed that it was Theode’s fault for not being more womanly. To me, that’s just as bad as the attacks. And her two brothers, who should by rights have protected their kin, were too afraid of their father to stand up for her. And they didn’t much care anyway. If their father said she deserved this punishment, well, that was the end of it as far as they were concerned.
We often met under a tall oak tree on the east bank of the river. It was young, then, having been planted only a couple of decades before, but it was tall, and very beautiful. It and Theode may as well have been twins. One summer’s day, I was eating a contraption that would, in centuries to come, be called a ‘sandwich’, in the shade. Theode joined me a little later on. She had been crying.
“What’s the matter?” I said. I hugged her. As I touched her skin, I could sense something different about her. There was something wrong with her soul. Like it had fragmented.
“I...am,” she spoke between sobs, “with child.”
That would certainly have accounted for having a split soul. Fifteen years old and pregnant. It was more common then than it is now, but not out of wedlock. And most certainly not with a relation.
I comforted her until the sun went down that day. I managed to convince her that everything would be alright. That I would protect her, and make sure that nobody found out.
If I had the opportunity to make one change in my life, I would go back to that moment and suggested we elope. That we run away and start a life together, away from the agony. But at that time I was far too set in my ancient ways - despite everything she had gone through in her short life, I did not feel I could provide her anything better. It’s all academic, anyway. It’s unlikely I could have saved her from what came next.
I did as I promised, and made sure that she would not show for as long as possible, at least in the eyes of the village at large. Nobody suspected a thing, but I could do nothing for her own family. They would discover her secret sooner or later.
Autumn arrived. Theode was about three months gone, and starting to show, ever so gently. One afternoon, we had arranged to meet under our oak tree. But she did not arrive. Something was wrong.
I went up to the farmhouse for the first time. I always liked to keep my distance from the family - lest I did something I would later regret - but they knew who I was from afar. It started to rain a little as I looked through the windows. Theode’s father was in there, sleeping off his lunch. His wife was washing. I did not see the brothers.
Then I went to the barn/shack. One of Theode’s brothers was in there, chopping wood. Rainwater was dripping through the ceiling. He did not spot me either. I moved on.
The stable was the final destination. I rounded the corner and saw Theode there, standing over her own dead body.
The child she bore, both son and half brother, had miscarried. Theode bled out on the stable floor. I don’t think I could have saved her if I had tried but…perhaps I could have helped her. I could have said everything was alright again, when it really wasn’t. Convinced her everything would be OK again, when it wouldn’t.
She was not one of my first, by any means, but Theode has always stuck in my memory. She seemed to understand almost immediately after her death who I was. Perhaps she had even known in life. Certainly, some villagers thought there was something off with me. All the same, Theode told me that she didn’t want to be part of the world any more. Death was an escape.
I knew what her requirements were right away. They are the same for all pregnant women. Theode needed to see her child buried, so that the two parts of her soul could reunite.
Theode’s spirit and I left the stable. I banged the frame of the building as hard as I could and ran to a safe distance. Theode’s brother came out of the barn to investigate the racket and discovered the corpse. To say he raised the alarm is an overstatement. He casually walked back to the house and informed his father and mother that his sister had passed.
The child’s burial happened perhaps three hours after its ‘birth’, under a sycamore tree in the field. It was raining much more heavily now, and the people gathered were getting soaked. Theode’s father, the child’s father, was in bits. As was his wife. The brothers, who showed up much later, did not seem to give much of a damn. They were bastards. Not in the original sense. They were horrible people, but young people who could redeem themselves in the future.
I kept my distance at all times, with Theode’s spirit. They would not see her, of course, but they may have found it suspicious if I were the only non-family at the child’s resting place. I was not liked. The feeling was, as you can probably tell, mutual.
The father wept on his knees for some time after the burial, but eventually left to deal with Theode’ corpse - or so I assumed. Myself and Theode walked over to her son’s grave. “I??
?m glad,” she said. “Glad that he never had to see this terrible world.”
Then Theode’s spirit vanished.
I stood for a moment. I knew I would never see Theode again. I had, and still have, no reason to believe that there was any kind of afterlife, despite my career. We help spirits depart this mortal coil so that there aren’t thousands of ghosts running all over the place. Passing over is just…it. Final. At least she went peacefully. A small amount of water built up in the corner of my right eye. It was the first time in a long while that I’d experienced that sensation. I haven’t had another since.
I went back into the stable. Theode’s corpse was still lying there like a hunk of raw meat. It was a warm day, despite the rain, and the air was starting to foul. I wondered how long it would take for the family to move Theode’s body. I very much doubted that she would receive a proper burial. After all, she was just a strange girl who wanted to be a warrior and cried when her family tried to be ‘nice’ to her.
I had to do something. So I took Theode’s body. I probably shouldn’t have, but I didn’t much care and I still don’t. I stuck to the shadows, wanting to avoid the gaze of any villagers, and made my way to the oak tree on the bank. It seemed fitting.
It took me half the night, but I gave her a decent sending off. Just the tree and myself were in attendance, but it shed some leaves for her. They might have been tears. I used them to cover the tossed turf. It was not perfect, but it was a better send-off than she would ever have gotten otherwise.
She was just fifteen. Fifteen. That’s all. Not beyond a girl herself. I’d do the same in a heartbeat.
So you see, my kind are not all as bad as some would fear us to be. But when we anger, oh, you do not want to be on the wrong side. We are more furious than the Hulk and those computer birds put together.
Years passed. I received word that I was to head back to the village. There was a job there for me. Theode’s father was stricken with an illness we would now call cancer, and had not got long to live. I arrived in the guise of a medicine man, a canny disguise that I often used in those days, and the family did not recognise me. The wife had died some years before, and Theode’s brothers now took ownership of the farm. They were hard taskmasters on their own sons and other workers. But I could sense that families of their own had mellowed them. They were not like their father. For some men, there could be no redemption.
“Please, won’t you save him?” said one of the brothers. I did not at any point catch their names.
“I am not here to save him,” I said. “I am here to help him. There can be no saving now, I am afraid.” The brother nearly cried. It was the first time I’d ever seen him exude any emotion.
I stayed with Theode’s father until soul left body. I closed the body’s eyes and allowed the family to get on with their burial preparations. Then I beckoned the spirit outside, silently. It would not do for a medicine man to be seen talking with the invisible ghost of a man who had just died.
“Who are ye?” said the man. “And what has happened?”
“You’re dead,” I said. “I think you know who I am.”
“A daemon?”
I smiled. “Not quite. But close enough.”
“You’re…here to help me pass on, then. Surely.”
I was about to say ‘yes’. But then something strange happened. A vision crossed through my mind. Of Theode and I sat by the east bank river under the oak tree. Of her telling me what her father had done to her the night before. Of her child. “No,” I said aloud.
“Then…what do you want with me?”
“To stay here. You will never pass on. You will remain behind. See your children die. And their children. And beyond. See your farm crumble to dust, the world that you know turn to ash and your life vanish into insignificance. You will watch, but never touch. You will see, but never be seen. You will hear, but never be heard. And then, one day, hundreds, thousands of years from now, I will return. And I will laugh.”
The man seemed slightly shocked by my - if I do say so myself - magnificent monologue, but did not crumble. “But…why?”
I looked away in disgust. Surely he knew. It was impossible to imagine that he didn’t comprehend. But then I saw that he was being serious. He did not understand what he had done to deserve such unending torture.
“Theode,” I said with force. I felt like rambling into another speech, but decided to see what defence he could produce.
He looked confused for a moment. As though he could not remember her. And then a lightbulb apparently went on in his mind, for he smiled. “That bitch? Yes. Now I know you. You were her little friend, weren’t you? It’s making sense now. You’re bitter that she chose family over…you. I could give her something far better than you can ever dream of.”
“Quite the opposite,” I said, perfectly calm on the outside, I’m sure, but boiling within. “All she ever wanted was a family to look after her, to cherish her like a true daughter. All you provided her was a life of torture and a death of shame. You, sir, are one of the most despicable excuses for a human being I have ever come across. I did not come here to help. I came to gloat.”
He came towards me at some speed, his fist held high. He wanted to punch me. I did not move. As his incorporeal being touched my organic flesh he merged briefly into me, and came out the other side. His momentum brought him to the ground. I could see that he was in a great deal of agony. I had heard that if a spirit touched one of my kind, they felt a sensation of skin and muscle being ripped from bone. I had never seen it before that day. He screamed, begged for help. He still did not understand. I certainly was not going to help him, and no-one else would ever be able to hear him again.
I left, but paid a visit to Theode’s grave on the way. The patch had returned to normality, now, with grass growing wildly over the top. I laid a flower. I don’t remember what kind.
End of Part 2
The Helper concludes in the full edition of Not Quite Normal, available now
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Appendices
Acknowledgments
Although every story in Not Quite Normal is an original creation, can anything be truly original these days? We live in a media-soaked culture where ideas can bleed together, clichés can form and textual conventions are clear in almost every media product we consume. With that in mind, it would not feel right if Not Quite Normal did not pay credit to some of the writers, artists, filmmakers and producers that have influenced me and my writing in some way (in terms of story ideas, narrative structure, style, etc.). So here is a list of some. Please go and check them out and shower the geniuses behind them with money and gratitude.
Books:
The Dark Tower series - Stephen King
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Dracula - Bram Stoker
I Am Legend - Richard Matheson
Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
The Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling
World War Z - Max Brooks
Graphic novels:
Watchmen - Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
V For Vendetta - Alan Moore and David Lloyd
Y: The Last Man - Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra
The Sandman - Neil Gaiman et al
Films:
Memento - directed by Christopher Nolan
TV series:
Supernatural - created by Eric Kripke
Lost - created by Jeffrey Lieber, J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof
Firefly - created by Joss Whedon
Heroes - created by Tim Kring
Video games:
Mass Effect - developed by Bioware, published by EA
Red Dead Redemption - Developed and published by Rockstar Games
The Halo series - developed by Bungie, published by Microsoft
I feel that I should also give credit to some of the amazing teachers I’ve had over the past 23 years. Fr
om my time at Winton School, I would particularly like to thank the teachers and librarians (including, but not limited to, Yve Hyndman, Angie Naylor and Debra Whale) who invited me to join the Carnegie Medal shadowing group and, in the process, opened my eyes to so many great stories. And, of course, supported the not-school-related writing I did at Winton - whether that was in the form of plays, stories or non-fiction on the Carnegie website. I’ll be eternally grateful.
From my time at Brockenhurst College, I want to mention my personal tutor, Simon Laycock, who was an amazing support over those two years in more ways than one, whether he knows it or not. Thanks also to my English Language teachers there, Leona Weston and Jayne Williams, who gave me a better understanding of the words that one can lay on a page. Even if I did get a D on one of my exams, but let’s try not to linger too long there…
I cannot forget all of the amazing creative writing lecturers at the University of Winchester, who are in a class of their own. If you live in the UK and are considering taking a degree in creative writing, go to Winchester. The guys there are the best. I can’t possibly name all of the teachers there who gave me support, but they include Mark Rutter, Nick Joseph, Charly Norton, Amanda Boulter, Judy Waite and so so many more. Also, special thanks to my fellow creative writing students who ever read an early draft of one of the stories in Not Quite Normal or otherwise. There are too many to mention. Your critiques undoubtedly helped me and all of these tales.
Special thanks to Nalden, Rurik, Tho’lan and Jack. You’ve been with me for so long, now, and have let my creativity grow. Even if I sometimes make you notice the colour of the carpet before the beholder. And Nals - sorry for the crab. I really do mean it. On the Seventh Seal I’ll never feel pain.
And of course, I also want to thank all of my incredible friends and family (aww) for always being there for me. Even though I do this work mostly in secret, since I am far too shy for my own good, I know that you are there for me whenever. I do this for you and with you all, whether you know that or not. I guess you do now.