Sometimes You Have To Dig What You Bury

[AshCandor]

Hurry put your troubles in a suitcase
Come let the new child play
Lonely as a whisper on a star chase
I'm leaving here, I'm long away
For all the stars in heaven
I would not live
I could not live this way

‘Long Away’, Queen

The clock on the nightstand read 3:47 a.m. That and the ambient light from the street lamps outside were the only breaks from the darkness. The peaceful pelt of a light rainfall fell against Toronto, on the rooftop and windows. The silky shifting of bed sheets and covers as one of the inhabitants of the bed rolled over. The other wasn’t as fortunate.

“NO! Come back! Where are you?!?!”

The silhouetted figure had sat bolt upright in the bed, throwing her portion of the covers off her. Her dark hair was partially matted to her forehead, covered in sweat. She drew her knees up and encircled her arms around them tight, gasping as she started to cry. The other female leaned over and turned on the lamp at the bedside. She sat up and rubbed her eyes.

“Salem? Are you.. are you okay?”

Artemis leaned over and put her arm across the shoulders of her sobbing wife, hugging her and trying to console her the best she could. Salem looked over at her with puffy eyes and leaned her head against hers.

“Arty, I’m having the dreams again. The ones about the little girl. The one crying for her mother, running down the road in the rain. Sometimes she’s running away from me, sometimes she’s running towards me. Sometimes she’s chasing a car that is speeding off, a suitcase falling off the trunk. And the girl’s face… her face…”

She couldn’t continue, burying her head in Artemis’ loving arms. In truth, just like the dreams varied, the child’s face varied between the dreams. Sometimes it was the face of Emily, AJ Walst’s daughter. AJ being Salem’s first marriage, which was later annulled. Having to leave that little angel of a girl behind after they had split, after Salem had implicitly promised she’d never be one to leave. Salem had broken her promise, had broken Emily’s heart, had broken her own heart in fact. That little girl was an innocent trapped between the clutches of two people whose love had soured and turned to animosity. Salem knew that AJ would forever hate her, and she had made peace with that fact. Some things you just can’t ever rectify. But the loss of Emily in some ways still clung to her as a heartache, even after Salem had met Artemis and found peace there.

“Salem, do you think it could be all this talk about adopting lately? You know I’ve been looking into it. I want us to have a family. But… but… you’ve had some anxiety, fears even. And now it’s boiling over into your subconscious, popping up in your dreams. Right?”

Artemis rubbed Salem’s face, kissed her forehead. She was always more endearing in these private moments when it was just the two of them, far from the bloodthirsty wolverine she was inside the wrestling ring. Salem tried her best to assure her everything was okay.

“Artemis, you know that with everything going on lately, my plate has been really damn full. The SSWA Young Guns Cup, my battles with Nicole Hamilton over in HKW still raging, and now… what I thought was going to be a genuine contest of sportsmanship with Izzy Anders for that Mid-Atlantic title in FGA. Toss in trying to help train my sister, being that shoulder to lean on for Nina Stokes when she asks me advice, and the adoption issue. The stress level is high right now, my mind is going about ten different directions. You’ll just have to excuse me…”

Artemis just bopped her chin lightly.

“Salem, I don’t see how you do it. You take on so much, any lesser person would’ve cracked up a long time ago. I guess that’s not entirely a positive thing to talk about, is it? I… I just mean, you are the best person I know. You make me a better person, and that is a miracle in itself. Just… take your time. We can slow down on the baby talk, I don’t want to cause more trouble for you, you know?”

Salem just nodded and smiled, kissed her wife and gave her a big hug.

“We make each other better, kid… it works both ways. Just be here for me, okay? Someday, I will be ready to confront all this head on. First things first, I have that title match with Izzy. That is priority number one, so any tips you can give me to help beat your friend would be much appreciated, wifey!”

Artemis threw up her hands in mock exasperation and buried her head under the pillow.

“The best advice? Forget that I even know her, and treat her like any other opponent. Maybe after the smoke clears we can all get back to acquaintance level. Until then I’m residing in Switzerland… neutral. But… I think you can beat her.”

Salem kissed her once more.

“Your vote of confidence was all I wanted, hon.”

As Artemis made a noise of agreement and rolled back over turning off the lamp, Salem still sat up there in bed. The match with Izzy weighed heavily on her, it would have to be war, there was no denying it. But still her thoughts drifted back to the little girl in her dreams. True sometimes it was Emily. Other times the little girl had eyes and mouth that looked like they had been scratched out in animated pencil squiggle, while other times the face was a complete blur… and other times, the face looked just like Salem when she was little. Eventually Salem let these thoughts fade enough to allow her to lie back down and get a few hours of sleep.

*****

And at the bottom of this river
Is where I put you down to lay
So I can live with it
And in my heart there are these waters
Where I put you down to lay
While I learn to live with it
Until I'm free

‘Keepsake’, The Gaslight Anthem

The next day Salem placed a phone call after Artemis had left to go to the grocery. After a few rings, Nina Stokes picked up.

“Hey Salem Boo, how is my girl?”

Salem chuckled.

“Hey Neener, just getting myself hyped for this FGA title match upcoming. Izzy Anders, you know. Any advice?”

“Yeah Sal, she’s super competitive and territorial...especially when it comes to that belt of hers. She’s hurt people to keep that title. You have to respect her abilities, and know that she can employ some extremely vicious methods.”

“Well yeah, Nina I know… she did clock me in our tag match recently. I didn’t help matters but still… Hey is my sister there?”

Salem’s sister Morgan had been living in Nina’s house for the last several months trying to get her life back on track.

“Yeah, hold up…. MORGAN!!!”

Salem cringed and held the phone away from her ear.

“Yo, lil’ sis… what’s up?”

Morgan had found some swagger in herself recently that had been lacking.

“Hey Morgan… you remember that baby blanket I was talking to you about before, the one I found in my trunk from when I lived in Virginia?”

A pause.

“Yeah, Sal. Do you remember anything else about it? Like I said before when you asked, I didn’t know anything about it. I know you are...were quite the expert at sewing and knitting. Maybe you made it for someone at the Virginia retreat? For whatever reason you left, or they left before you could give it to them? Are you… filling in any blanks at all?

Salem just shook her head, had no real words really. Morgan was the only one she really confided in about Virginia… the actual gaps in her memory that she had and never revealed to anyone else. She remembered getting on a bus to go there, and bits and pieces of her time there. Knitting, helping plant gardens, picking apples… town hall meetings talking about various issues within the Virginia commune. And then there was the real gap… a fog she couldn’t shake. Her only real solid thoughts were at the tail end of her year in Virginia, when she was on her way to New York City to visit Morgan who was bartending there.

“Not really, sis… but I’m having bizarre dreams. I think it’s time to go back down to Virginia, would you mind going with me, popping down there for a day? I’ll tell Artemis we went to see mom and dad, so she won’t worry. I don’t want to involve her until I know what the hell it is I’m even getting at, you know?”

“Sure sis, let’s go. Just you and me.”

-

A couple days later, the sisters Cartier had ventured out for a day to Virginia. Salem remembered how to get there, she thought. But following the maps and old landmarks she remembered would serve them no good. When they arrived, the commune was no more. Just empty buildings there set along the edge of the river. A ghost town, in which she could nearly picture the people walking about when the place was prosperous.

“I had no clue, Morgan… I guess I thought they’d still be here, in some capacity.”

Morgan hugged her there at the river’s edge.

“It’s alright sis, we’ll figure something out.”

And as Salem looked into the rippling water of the river, she had a flashback to a similar situation when someone was hugging her near a body of water.

”It’s alright, we’ll figure something out. I know this place in Virginia, let me handle everything. There are people there that can help you get through this.”

And then there was a hand patting her belly.

Salem pulled back from Morgan and looked her dead in the eye, her mouth had dropped open.

“Salem, what is it? You’re scaring me, like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Salem just shook her head, walking off.

“No, not a ghost… not really. I’m… I’m….”

Then Salem fell to the ground clutching her head.

“Salem! God, sis… let’s get the hell out of this place.”

A short time later, Morgan had Salem on a plane back to Toronto. Morgan worried about her little sister, as a big sister should, right?

*****

I'm prepared for this

I never shoot to miss
But I feel like a storm is coming
If I'm gonna make it through the day
Then there's no more use in running
This is something I gotta face
If I risk it all
Could you break my fall?

‘Writing’s On the Wall’, Sam Smith

The cameras catch Salem running along a long rooftop, the afternoon on the verge of fading to evening. Overcast skies give way to full on storm clouds that rumble and begin to bellow forth their thunder, lightning, and sheets of rain. She comes to a stop at the edge, sweating within her dark violet rain slicker that begins to accumulate its own perspiration as the rain pelts it. She looks down over the edge of this tall building, an abandoned factory of some sort. With a deep breath she looks up directly into the camera for a moment, looking up still skyward and throwing back her hood. She faces forward again, rain slicked with mascara and eyeliner running, a look of intensity upon her face.

“Izzy...how does one prepare to fight the friend of a friend; no, beyond that a friend of a loving companion? You can’t hope for the best, you must assume the worst. You can’t allow yourself to be lulled into this false sense of security. Thinking ‘maybe we should take it easy on each other, and spare Artemis being caught in the middle of all of this?’ For some people that might be a consideration. But my wife Arty is no frail waif, who would worry herself sick over whether her wife or her friend would be injured or bear any ill will towards each other. Artemis is at her core a Kaiser, and they are warriors born and warriors bred… each of them in that family not only looking to be simply the best in the industry of professional wrestling, but to outdo each other for bragging rights within their own bloodline. Well, I may not be of blood, but I too am a Kaiser now by marriage. That is the challenge accepted, the honor bestowed and I would not try to disappoint any of them or myself for ANY reason.”

She looks down, pausing… bringing her fists up clenched before her, shaking her head back and forth slowly with a deep breath before continuing.

“Although I must say, at the last Velocity I was shaken. See, the hardest thing for a lot of people to swallow is admitting when they are wrong. To be wrong, to do wrong...these things happen all the time. Some people would push these things aside, sweep it under the rug. Continue on and hope that nobody catches that momentary lapse. It is much harder to do within a square canvassed ring in the middle of a host of people in an arena. There is no chance of concealing it. And I must stand here and admit, I was in the wrong. Everyone saw: I took a mighty leap, and although I was aiming for my opponent, I struck you. Struck you quite hard, in fact. I screwed up and made a huge mistake, and even though I can stand here with a clear conscience and say it was purely accidental, I was in the wrong for a second time that day. Because when you finally composed yourself and you struck me, there was no doubt. It was direct, intentional, with as much malice as you could muster. When you unleashed your maddened fury on me, it was clear that I was wrong in ever being able to trust you in that ring. With emotions running high and you knowing that your very partner that night would be your opponent such a short time later, you let the red of anger in your eyes blind you. You lashed out at me. I was wrong in thinking that any sort of common sense or cooler heads might prevail.”

Now she points a finger into the camera, shaking it as a smirk begins to unfurl across her lips.

“But of course, when battle lines are drawn there are no friendships. When there is much to be gained and lost depending on which side of the equation you stand, no preexisting pleasantries can stay the hand of massacre. Just as brother fought brother in the American Civil War, differences in philosophy will keep us diabolically opposed. At Canadian Stampede in Toronto, one side of the ledger shows the Mid-Atlantic Legacy Champion, possessor of the gold with everything to lose. That’s you, Izzy. And a damn fine champion you have been and still are, for now. But on the other side… the side on which I stand lies the challenger. Hungry, with hands empty longing to grasp the glory. A waist looking a bit naked, that would look so much better with a title belt wrapped around it.”

She looks down, patting around her waist for emphasis, bringing her hands back up flat, palms up.

“Now if you would ever sit there and say that I am undeserving, it would be your turn to be in the wrong, Izzy. This isn’t my first grasp at greatness. I have held multiple titles, as you well know. I made it to the Final 4 of the Young Guns Cup, a feat sixty other wrestlers would’ve enjoyed being able to say. But this isn’t Hard Knox Wrestling, this isn’t SSWA. This is Frontier Grappling Arts, and you have made your mark quite fabulously as being the best Mid-Atlantic Legacy Champ that FGA has ever seen. That isn’t me blowing smoke up your butt, you have busted your ass to make it so. Like the very lion on the emblem of this company, you have stalked and staked your claim, and have defended your territory at every turn, often with very violent and I dare say even sadistic results. You don’t just beat people, you hurt them...put them on the shelf. Now I ask you, do I look like a can of beans? Hardly, and if you think you can put me on the shelf, you need to go back to stock boy school. Now, I have zero doubt you will hurt me. But when I cut loose, when there is no holding back, I can and will hurt you, Izz. I have to, it’s all you know… pure unbridled brutality is the path down which you walk, and I will match you stride for stride, knowing every stone along that path. And when I reach the end of that path, you will know that my aim was true and I did not miss my mark. I will never run from you, only right at you, headlong into battle. And when I’m done you will see it, plain as day. Like it was etched and stone, ten stories high… as great as your reign is, it only took the right opponent and it was all over. The writing was on the wall.”

With that, Salem took a dramatic leap off the building, plummeting down to her seeming doom. Instead, a bird’s eye camera view looked down to show she landed on a large Canadian Maple Leaf air mattress, the very flag of her native land. She stood and smiled, pointing upward as a camera on the ground panned up and out, to see the exterior wall of this factory building. Upon it was painted a message in stories tall lettering in reflective neon green:

YOUR NEXT MID-ATLANTIC LEGACY CHAMP: SALEM CARTIER!!!