The Fate of Glory

[Estimated reading time: 17 minutes]

   The storyteller frowned. "What do you mean?"
   "Then what happened?" The girl asked again with no change at all in her enthusiasm, as though simply repeating the question would clarify the matter.
   The storyteller looked bemused across the gathered children while nearby adults chuckled and shook their heads, and those further out continued their merry dance to the tavern's music, oblivious to the scrutiny happening by the fireplace.
   He ended up shaking his own head and helplessly repeating his own question. "What do you mean?"
   "What happened then?" Another child asked. "Did he go home? Get married? Or was he already married?"
   "Was his wife beautiful?" A girl asked, one of the youngest, climbing up onto a table behind the old man. "Did she make him go to work after he did all the heroic stuff or did he get given lots and lots of gold from the king?"
   "Is being a hero a job?" A boy asked.
   "Heroism," the storyteller cried over the continuing onslaught of questions, more than a little exasperated and twitchingly aware of the young girl behind him, "is its own reward...little one."
   "So that means being a hero makes you rich?"
   "No, no, my dear, it means that good deeds make you rich in spirit."
   "So," the little girl was lying upside down on the table now, "his ghost was rich? What about when he was alive though? Or did he die?!"
   "Eventually, y-yes, he di--"
   "What about Frederick of Morne or the Emerald Skyhawk? Did they die from being heroes and have rich ghosts?"
   A wasting sigh heaved from the storyteller, and the adults that had been enjoying the poor man's suffering began shouting support towards him. But it was a young guardsman that finally saved the night.
   "Come on you lot," he called, rising from his seat and waving for the girl to climb down off the table, tossing a wink to the old man as he went, "it's after hours and you've exhausted this poor fellow. Head on home. We'll have to pay him double now to compensate him for your trouble. And you two," he squeezed the shoulders of the two oldest as they gathered themselves beneath a cloud of complaints but followed obediently to the door, "you're both on thin ice with your masters as it is."
   "We just want to know what happened to the hero after his story," the youngest complained again, even as she skipped off ahead of him.
   "And there's plenty of time to find out, but not tonight. Go on, get!"
   The children were herded out through the door to the cold, fireless night, and as it swung closed behind them, the warmest corner of the tavern breathed a sigh of relief. None so heavy as the storyteller, and he wondered, with that breath, if he had made the right career choice. Perhaps he should have found a new field to tend when the last went up in flames...
   An old woman began chuckling next to him. He glanced her way. "You might want to devise some answers for the next time this happens," she smiled. "Children are insightful and curious. They ask the questions adults would rather avoid."
   "Yes," he sighed again, "you're right of course, ma'am. I'll make it a priority. They won't catch me out again."
   "I'm sure they won't. For the moment though, you look far too exhausted."
   "It's the weather, ma'am. The chill is in my bones."
   "Then to bed with a hot sack of oats, perhaps? That, I'm afraid, is all that will help you, because no matter how long you eye the barmaid," she cocked a grey eyebrow as he looked guiltily back at her, "she has neither the time nor the obligation. A sack of oats is easier."
   He rose to his feet, nodding his agreement, took a deep breath--
   "And," she added sharply, "stop sighing so much. You'll blow the fire out with any more of that."
   --He breathed back out in a laugh instead, bowed slightly, and walked away to the tavern keep to make his request, leaving the older patrons to listen to the calm crackle of the surviving fire in his place. The silence was comfortable for a while - at least, she had felt it was - but something in the air had disturbed a few of the others.
   Cautiously, one man lowered his voice and spoke. "What do you think did happen to them?" He asked, looking across his friends. "The heroes I mean, when their job was done?"
   "Oh," the old woman shook her head, reaching then for her tankard. "I don't suspect anything good, do you? Not in the end. No, heroes are just men after all, and most die like the rest of us." She gestured to the fire, though didn't look up from the table. "Bright flames burn the fastest. They either get snuffed out, or snuff themselves out."
   "Yeah, but...they're heroes..."
   She shrugged, a bewildered frown slowly creeping across her face. "So? Their stories aren't letters of immunity, you know, least of all to Death and Misfortune. If anything, they are invitations. You surely can't believe otherwise..."
   "N-no, ma'am," another spoke up, "with all due respect, I believe you might be misunderstanding us. We don't mean heroes in stories, we mean real her--"
   "Yes," she leaned forwards and lowered her voice, her stare rising from the tabletop to look openly across the numerous eyes that had turned her way, "and I'm speaking of real heroes. These 'heroes in stories' - first, well, I ask you: where did the story come from? From the hero's actions, of course! There is no story without the hero. Heroism, victory, or even defeat with morals left in tact - all of these things require a hero first, and they are told on. And secondly, why are they told on?"
   "To inspire?" Someone offered.
   "For history?" Another spoke up.
   "Lessons." Said a third, a younger guard that had been sitting with the children's escort. His eyes were hard. Purposeful.
   The old woman looked at him a fraction longer than the rest, and smiled. "Yes. Lessons. But," she raised a finger, "even beneath the obvious lessons told within the distraction of heroes are others that go untold, ones of equal or perhaps even greater importance. Those of the Person beyond the People, of the unfortunate soul who tasted that fame - willingly or not.
   "But!" She raised her tankard and sat back, noticing the frown that passed across the guard's brow at her words, "these are not the stories anyone really wishes to hear. And answers the questions that we don't really want to ask. And yet...here we are, asking them..."
   All gathered glanced warily to their neighbours. A weight had settled in the room, though the gleeful music, dancers and drinkers a short distance away from their circle seemed somehow oblivious to it. But to those involved, it was demanding, demanding of many things, but of two above all: to be stared directly into, and avoided at all costs.
   For a long while, no one spoke. No one could choose which demand to answer. But the old woman soon spoke again anyway, and no one tried to silence her.
   "How many heroes," she began offhandedly, addressing the low level of ale in her tankard rather than anyone else, "do you think, live on past their moment and still manage to die a heroic, meaningful death? And how many, do you think, go on to live humbly, content and accepting of the fact that their role has been fulfilled?" She looked up. No one answered. The number of listeners had grown from nine to twelve. "And how many, do you think, are honestly beyond the rigours and weaknesses of the rest of us?" She took a mouthful as she waited, then set the tankard down. "I'm asking."
   "...None." One man answered cautiously, at which the weight in the air grew somehow darker and even more dismal. "It's none, isn't it?"
   The old woman nodded slowly. "The actions of heroes are intense, are they not? And what healthy mind would stare death in the face to save others? A valiant one, yes, and so few of us possess that. But what's beneath that valiance? It's a strain of madness, for sure, and it manifests afterwards in vicious ways. Ways unbefitting of how we deem a hero to behave.
   "Many can't help but chase the high when it's over. Others grow embittered by the loss of the fame they had earned, or more nobly angered by the necessity of what they had to do and what they became in doing it. Some grow deluded. And the unlucky few, well...they turn mad, haunted in life by the spirits of those they were unable to save, and in death by those who died as collateral to the hubris of their actions. Actions that shouldn't have been necessary. And that's to say nothing of the would-be heroes that died before they could address the matters first. They're the lucky ones, really...
   "But," she sipped again, then gestured to the barmaid for another, "I digress. Heroism is a young man's game. Swords and armour are heavy, and the stress of sneaking beneath a sorcerer's notice to unravel his plans is crippling. So what happens to those soft, malleable minds and strong bodies? Hmm? Ageing and infirmity is rarely met gracefully by the best of us, after all.
   "A hero complex is, at its core, a sickness. And what happens when they do what they cannot for others purely - whether they know it or not - to feed it? To stay needed, to stay relevant, their whole sense of identity and worth hingeing so delicately on their heroism? They run themselves to the ground. They make mistakes. Become hysterical, obsessive, until they inevitably drive themselves to a struggling death at their own hands and bring others down with them in their decaying attempts to continue to help. Because, rather than let them turn to others who could help more effectively with various skills, the hero jumps in first. It's like he tries to take that barmaid's tray, the mop over there, light these candles and turn the straw on the floor all by himself in a single moment because he can't admit that others could be better suited for a particular task, and has decided that, if he doesn't do it all himself, it won't get done and people, somehow, will suffer for it.
   "And that's just one example. Say the hero complex doesn't take, and they can accept the loss of their fame. What would most likely move in next? Hmm?" She looked across them all, then settled on the farrier. "Farley. Say all the horses in the world were going to be culled, and the only way to prevent it was to kill five horses in every village, but you had to do it yourself. You could get help, but you want to make sure it's done right, that they don't suffer, and that it's done quickly. So, you don't ask for help, you do it alone, then, matter taken care of, the majority of horses live on, never to be culled. You saved an entire species, single-handedly." She cocked her head. "And then, when that fact has settled and the silver on the imaginary reward has dulled and tarnished...what will stay with you? The memory of the glory? Or the memories of those many, many horses dying at your hands?"
   The farrier's hands were already balled into white fists. "I see your point."
   "Say it out loud, for everyone," she replied, softly. "It's important."
   "The horses. The blood. Those are the memories that would stay with me."
   She nodded, and offered him an apologetic smile. The man's fondness for his horses and trade was well-known. "A hero loves his people just as much. So what does anger at one's self or at the very nature of the world do to someone when they are left with time to think after the fact? It erodes both the mind and the ability to feel joy, if they can even remember what that feels like, until they turn upon themselves or upon the very people they had once fought to save. And gods forbid that the cost they paid to achieve their goal was the life of someone they loved. There is no saving the heart of someone who believes themselves the murderer of it.
   "Now," she smiled and thanked the barmaid as she set down a fresh tankard in front of her, and noted both with sympathy and mild amusement the disquiet in her face as she entered and left their moody bubble, "this is by no means to say that heroes are destined to become villains, or to die miserably - though they are certainly mentally afflicted, to a degree. But it is to say that even heroes are subject to our weaknesses, and that the ones we so idolise have paid for their names in ways unimaginable. And those are lessons that, I think at least, are worth telling. They should be respected beyond solely their heroism." She sipped from her tankard. "This isn't ale."
   The men looked at each other. They numbered thirteen now.
   "Did...did that happen to Frederick of Morne?" One asked carefully, as though his heart didn't truly want to know, but his soul needed the closure. "Did he go mad? Did he hate the world?"
   She swallowed the third mouthful of mead, spread her hands and sat back. "I couldn't tell you, honestly. Another thing about heroes is that, after their glory, many of them have a habit of disappearing from the public eye."
   "Hang on..." the second guard piped up, the chair beside him still empty. Law dictated that he should have left with his partner, but instead he'd stayed to listen to her, the intensity in his eyes now even more piercing and his previously proud bearing now insulted. Personally, it seemed. "That means that everything you just said could so easily be untrue... If most of them vanish, how could anyone truly know how they turned out?"
   And there it was. She watched suspicion enter the eyes of half of her audience, and relief enter the rest. Plausible deniability.
   She kept her sigh to herself. "You can decide that for yourselves," she replied coolly instead, "if that makes it easier for you. This isn't something people generally want to be aware of, so I wouldn't blame you. Though," she added offhandedly, "their spirits might."
   "And how many heroes have you known, to be so certain of so dark a thing?" He demanded.
   "Ohhhh many," she smiled. "Heroes of all shapes and calibres."
   Just as the young guard gathered himself to fire another challenge, the music came to a flourishing stop, and the closing bell rang any words into oblivion.
   Her audience rose, Suddenly eager to be away from her, muttering "it's not true"s and "mad old cow"s beneath their breath, yet not too low as to go unheard. But, as she obediently pulled her cloak back around her body, the soldier stormed towards her. She met his eyes calmly, and for a moment the anger in them wavered. She smiled as it returned. "Your training is going well?" She asked before he could find the sharp tip of his own tongue.
   He cocked a bitter smile instead. "Very."
   "Good."
   Surprise collapsed his face as he realised she had moved at incredible speed for his sword, and he grasped for it in an attempt to keep it, but succeeded only in brushing its shadow. She was already turning it over in her hands.
   "And how confident do you feel now?"
   "Give it back," he barked, snatching for it, but she deftly wove it from his grip.
   "Answer the question."
   His eyes narrowed. "...Less..."
   "As I thought." She gave it back. "Work to balance that confidence. The sword isn't the protector. You are."
   He took it back quickly and returned it to its sheath. The movement wasn't as smooth as he had probably hoped, but she turned her attention to the door to spare him.
   "Who are you?" He asked.
   And she smiled easily. "Gladelyn the Reaper Moth."
   He cocked a slender eyebrow. "Oh?"
   "Don't believe me?" She smirked. "How about Eregelda Titanstone?"
   "Ma'am, please--"
   "Enterilngana of the Netherroads?"
   He sighed and rolled his eyes. His anger was gone. 'Mad old woman' indeed.
   She chuckled, then, and patted him firmly on the shoulder. "I apologise. Forgive an old woman her fun."
   Then another bell chimed, this one further away, somewhere out in the western side of the city. The tavern's bell likely drowned out the first ring.
   The soldier's face hardened at the sound of it, and his wearied eyes sharpened.
   "Well," the old woman sighed, "it looks like you had better head back to the Tower. The monks will be out to hunt soon, and if they catch you--"
   "They won't catch me. They'll be in smouldering pieces before I am."
   "Hmm...it must be nice to be so young. Fare well, young master. May your wits be as sharp as your blade, but always in your hands."
   He bowed, briefly, perhaps automatically, perhaps because of her age, or perhaps because a mad old woman was best respected if just to keep her calm, and as he turned and darted out of the door, she wandered for the staircase, took a lantern, and continued up to her quarters.

   The room was small, leaving the shadows little space to dance, but it was enough. It was a temporary stop on her way to the east, and needed only house herself and two trunks.
   She set the lantern on the single flat surface in the room, a small table near the bed as opposed to next to it, knelt down at the foot, and unlocked one of the trunks.
   The hinges didn't squeak, she took far too good care of it for that, and she pulled her night clothes from the selection of cloth-wrapped bundles. They gave a slight clatter as they moved, a sound that, even though muffled, still managed to hurt her heart. There wasn't another quite like it to a trained ear, and nothing that could draw up so many memories and emotions from the past.
   She reached out and rearranged what had slipped, pulling the cloth back over the glint of steel on the long and narrow bundle, and positioned it diagonally from corner to corner, the only way it would fit. The wide, flat oval too needed to be placed just so. And once they were back where they belonged, she closed the trunk tight and locked it again without a second's hesitation.
   It was more than a little unpleasant to disrobe from her travelling clothes in the cold, but she longed to be rid of the way they clung to her and feel just vaguely more comfortable for the night, even if it were only a few hours. She had earned that much of a luxury, if nothing else.
   And so she removed her cloak, untied her blouse, and peeled away the leggings, exposing her scarred skin only as long as necessary to the chill night air, before diving into the night clothes and the bed in one frantic movement. No sooner was she in it than she pulled the covers straight up to her chin. The bed, somehow, was colder than the air. Maybe she should have requested herself a sack of warm oats...
   She sighed - her turn, now - rolled over and closed her eyes, waiting for the bed to warm up with her. But she knew it wouldn't be quick. In fact, she knew it would get colder first. She knew that, within a few minutes, the temperature would drop further, something in the air would change, and she would open her eyes and find herself staring into the ghostly face of her lover, lying in the bed beside her.
   And like clockwork, within the passage of nine minutes, there he was. And he stayed, smiling softly, as her eyes filled with tears, until she finally wished him a good night and he vanished just as he did every other time.
   She closed tear-brimmed eyes.
   "And when a hero fails," she muttered to herself, "the cost feels so much higher..."

 

This story is not to be copied or reproduced without my written permission. Copyright © 2025 Kim Wedlock

The Ferryman

[Estimated reading time: 6 minutes]

   The small boat drifted calmly across the sea. Moon and stars danced across the rippling water, and there was nothing else to see or hear. It was a tranquil desert out there that night.
   Manannán would have sat at peace as he drifted, but something tugged at his weathered brow.
   Peering over the edge of the boat, he looked down into his water, and saw only his reflection. And he felt more from it than he should have.
   He sat back down and looked out again into the night. "Come up," he said to the air, and with a soft disturbance of the water, the reflection rose. "Get in." And, duly, it climbed into the boat.
   Dripping wet, it sat down on the seat opposite him. It didn't speak, and neither did he say another word
   The boat drifted on, adjusting course without oar or sail, despite the lack of wind, and Manannán stood and turned his back to his guest, looking off to one side. He was fixated on something unseen that apparently drifted by them - or they drifted by it.
   But the reflection continued to watch him, gaze fixed instead to the back of his head. And when he turned to face it, it had changed. A woman, with golden hair, an ethereal, otherworldly face, elegant in a dress gilded with swan feathers, and he felt his heart twitch at the sight of her. But something about it was wrong. His eyes narrowed.
   The woman changed again, to a younger man, dark of hair with a heavy torc around his neck, kingly in bearing, and sea-weathered. This earned less of a reaction. And when it changed again, to a meek, skeletal child, he turned, sat back down to face her, and sighed. With that sigh, he, too, changed. His hardened, muscular appearance took on a younger, feminine form, with grey skin, pure white eyes, hair of either black or silver, it was impossible to tell, and an otherworldly charm.
   The child didn't react.
   He changed again, to an elderly man with some resemblance to the previous, then an elderly woman who could have been her mother. Then he turned back to the first.
   Still the child didn't react, even as those eerie white eyes stared into her soul.
   What is your name?" He asked once the silence failed to intimidate either of them. But he already knew. The child knew that. It was a test.
   She changed then to mirror his grey-skinned form, and smiled with small teeth. "Nothing that can be pronounced in this realm," she replied.
   Her reflection nodded slowly, but continued to stare. Manannán soon returned to his true form. She didn't change again.
   "You have a painful heart," he told matter-of-factly, but she didn't respond. "And a dangerous road." He sat forwards. "While I appreciate the game with such a worthy player, why have you come to me? What is it that you want?"
   "Your boat." She didn't hesitate.
   He nodded slowly again, and sat back on his seat. The vessel barely rocked with the motion. "Most are after the sword," he muttered, then spoke up. "The boat's not for hire, I'm afraid. I have a job to do, just as you do. Souls won't find their way to Tír Tairngire without us." He spread his hands, as though it was out of his power, then dropped them back to his lap. "You need to cross water?"
   "I do. Alone."
   "No ships. No crew." He cocked his head in thought. "Would the horse do? She's not as swift as the boat, and she will need to stop from time to time, but she can cover the seas just as well."
   The realm-walker smiled. "Aonbharr?"
   "Who else?"
   "Yes," she nodded, her smile widening. "Aonbharr would do."
   He raised his hand to his mouth and unleashed a powerful, echoing call unlike anything she had ever heard, and an answering neigh resounded from the distance. Then he turned back to her with authority in his ancient eyes. "And I'm lending her to you, you understand? I expect to have her back."
   "I am not a thief, Manannán. I will return all that I've borrowed."
   "'Borrowed' is an interesting term," he muttered, though without a scoff. "You stole from Hekate."
   The grey woman waved her hand carelessly. "I borrowed without asking. The keys will be returned."
   "And will Jack O'Lantern be given back to himself?"
   At this, she hesitated.
   "As much so as he can be, I suppose."
   The horse appeared - a horse it was, though there was something different about it that she couldn't quite put her finger on, aside from the fact that it was standing quite easily upon the water's surface, as white as the foam itself.
   "Why did you not fight me?"
   She looked back to him. "For her? I didn't need to. The others were beings of...chaos, really. You are one of balance. I treat everyone accordingly."
   "You did try to trick me, though," he pointed out. Then added: "unsuccessfully."
   She smiled coyly. "Did I try to trick you, though? Or did I just need your attention?"
   He couldn't seem to help smiling at that, but it soon saddened. "Have you never considered just speaking?"
   "Too easy."
   Again he stared at her, and his smile wilted. "You have a painful heart."
   "You've said that already."
   He nodded. "It's worth saying it again."
   A frown flickered across her face at the weight of those words. Then he rose to his feet and held out his hand, which she took and rose after him, and allowed him to lead and help her up onto his horse, which he patted and muttered to all the while.
   "What are you saying to her?" She asked sceptically as she found her seating.
   "That you will be looking after her for now, and that you can be trusted." He glanced up at her deliberately at this point. "To a degree."
   A slender eyebrow cocked. "To a degree?"
   "You have a--"
   "Painful heart, yes, you've said." She sighed and adjusted herself upon the creature's bare back. She'd never ridden without a saddle before, and it was distinctly less comfortable. But if the horse preferred it, so be it. She wasn't about to offend it, nor especially its owner. She looked back down at him and smiled. "Thank you."
   He raised wrinkled hands. "Don't thank me yet. If she doesn't return to me healthy and happy, there will be a price."
   "Somehow I don't think you're talking about money."
   A crooked smile moved across his face. "What use would the king of the Otherworld have for that?"
   "King of the Otherworld," she nodded to herself. "Yes, that's fair. A price. Got it."
   "Good." He patted the horse's rear, spoke in clicks, and off it moved, carrying her across the water. "Now go, with my luck. You will need it."
   "And don't I know it," she muttered to herself, steering the horse towards the nearest shore who knew how far away.

Show Them Why It's Yours

[Estimated reading time: 11 minutes]

   It had started from within. Counsellors moving in secret behind the walls of her golden court; faces seen less, yet names heard more often. The queen's ideas were met with more enthusiasm, yet slower action was taken on them. Suspicion soon began creeping up her spine, and she answered it, dispatching her own most trusted to debunk it. But they never returned to her with anything but impassive news.
   Strange shipments began arriving along the diamond roads and opal seas, signed off with her seal, though she had no recollection of doing so. What was in them? The conversation was always changed to something more pressing.
   Then, counsellors began to vanish; her most trusted advisors, loyal men and women, and some who were more quiet and stoic, stopped presenting themselves or attending the meetings. And when she asked why, she was told that they were dealing with things in other states. Which states? They had answers, but again, the situations were unfamiliar.
   Something inside her, an angel or a demon, told her she was being paranoid. She could see that much. Why, after all, would things begin to crumble when her queendom was finally flourishing? When the walls she had built, the people she had welcomed, the skies she had created, were so strong and bright at last? It didn't make sense. She must have been wrong. Looking for problems where none existed, or confusing her reality with dreams once again.
   But with every meeting in the silver council chambers, her glittering court floor, even in her muted private quarters, the ears around her seemed to grow only more deaf, and the voices rose louder over her own. Where before they had listened eagerly, her fair and honest words seemed lost in the wind, as if nothing she said mattered any longer. Or, maybe, she had said them so many times and obtained so little reaction that they had simply stopped listening altogether.
   So she tried a new approach, and she continued to trust, in her own way. She used different words, allowed more emotion to flow through them on some occasions, and none on others. But, in a time far too short for her liking, all words ceased to reach them entirely. Her orders and plans, heartfelt and stern alike, were received as thin as a spider's web.
   A frown creased her bronze brow most days and nights, etching deeper and deeper into her skin. Thoughts began to circle, ideas and stories, truths or lies - she couldn't tell truth from fiction, and her court, bathed in gold, silver, leaves and silk, began to feel unfamiliar. A shadow was moving through it, growing, and it had already crept into her bones.
   Words of counsel seemed less in line with her ideals, less in line with who she was, and in her loneliest moments, it felt as though a fight had begun within her soul. Was she wrong, she wondered? Was she misguided? Was this her doing? Had she become too old, too stagnant, too slow and deluded by her own power to know any longer what was best for her land? Her world? Her people or herself? Had she finally gone completely mad?
   Dissent, dissatisfaction - her walls, her floors, her flower beds, her skies...everything reeked with it. Her subjects beyond the castle continued to smile as she passed in her carriage, but something within their eyes was empty. Desperate. Broken. And she couldn't decide if she was imagining it.
   And so she continued to do as she was expected. She worked harder, faith solid in the certainty of her world as long as she existed and continued to try, and kept a close eye upon herself throughout. She consorted with the correct people, she listened and applied counsel where it fitted, and trusted their good intentions where it did not. She cared for her people, treated her servants with respect, responded to the missives her remaining counsellors brought her from those who had gone abroad. She did all that she could, even while she grew sick and thin and poisoned by her own air.
   And it was then, after too many sleepless nights and vague days to count, that something finally switched.

   The queen had awoken one morning to shouts and clatters in the dusk, and within minutes, civil war had broken out like an unstoppable tide.
   Quickly, she had gotten dressed and attempted to find some way to quell it, but how could she when she couldn't fathom where it had come from? And no one would see her, or hear her? Here, in her own world, it felt as though she suddenly didn't exist. And it was suddenly crashing down around her.
   And so, defeated by her own weariness, she sat upon her diamond throne, her heart weeping, confusion pumping her blood, and cast her bleary gaze out across the barbaric fights inexplicably playing out in her own court. The swords, the blood, the screams, the agony. And she felt every part of it. Every cut, every slip, every stomp, each compressed her soul even smaller inside of her until she was a prisoner in her own bones.
   She had done this. It was her own frailty, unreliability, her constantly getting things wrong. They had seen it, brought on by the musts and needs that she had sworn were correct, and decided that now was the time to enforce their own corrections while her power, worn down by her own servitude, her own madness, her own dedication, was at its weakest.
   But she had trusted them. She knew that her goals and morals were the same as theirs, they must have been; people and life stood at the centre of it. But her ways weren't good enough. They were wrong, in their eyes.
   But...how was this carnage right? Instant solutions, instant change, that was what they wanted, yet time had shown her over and again that that simply wasn't possible, not if that change was to last. Was that really what they expected to happen? Couldn't they see that that was wrong?
   Swords clashed closer. Her guards had been drawn into the scuffle. Fear pierced deeper into her stomach. And yet, amongst it all, she suddenly realised that, somehow, she was untouched.
   A new frown marred her face. No one aimed at her. No one charged her way. It was like a game, somehow; take out as many of the opponent until there were too few left, and claim victory by default of resources. She would have to give up. It was as if she was the prize. She was immune.
   Then the frown fell. The revelation hit and slackened her every muscle.
   Of course she was immune. This queendom, this place, this world and all the people in it...it was all her own creation. She couldn't be destroyed literally here; she wasn't like them. Without her, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. Everything they fought for would vanish, and themselves along with it; all they could actually do was darken it. Darken, taint and poison it. And that...that, was far worse than death. Anything they did to her world, they did also directly to her, but neither would be eradicated and put at peace, only broken in suffering; it was hers to rule, hers to feel, hers to protect and nurture, and right now, right before her pathetically tired eyes, they were poisoning it with no means to truly take it away from her.
   Because, without her, there was nothing.
   And with her, there was everything.
   Her fingers tightened into the arm rests, and her jaw clenched, paining her teeth. But she felt it.
   Glory. Satisfaction. That was the point of all of this. To make real an idea that she could be broken by their hands, in a world she had created. In a world where she was immune, a world where she belonged, utterly, truly, and fundamentally. Just to prove that they could.
   Unbidden, her sharpening gaze dropped to the floor. She saw, beneath the skirmish, the stone chips fallen from the ceiling. She saw the flakes of tarnished gold, the dried leaves and those wilted along the walls. And through the murky windows, the cotton clouds darkening and fraying around the dripping light of the morning sun.
   No. This was not her doing. This could never be her doing.
   'Why now, when the queendom was finally flourishing?'
   'Because,' the thought sent a bitter grin across her glistening lips, 'it is simply ripe for the picking.'
   They had succeeded in making her believe she was insane. But that was as far as they would get. And they would learn why she had the power to build this, where they had merely leeched.
   She would remind them exactly why this world was hers.

   The piercing song of axe and sword rang among the columns. Blood sprayed. Yells and cries of pain and fury ricocheted hollow across the walls. And her glittering eyes had turned black.
   The queen rose from her throne as the walls crumbled behind her, her gossamer dress full and glistening, and barely noted that the dizziness of the last weeks had vanished from her body.
   She raised a slender hand from her side, and flicked it lazily. Lightning froze the hall. All descended to silence beneath the deafening, godly crack of thunder but for the thuds of collapsing bodies, and nothing but the flashes of light moved jagged across the walls. Not a sound came, not a flinch made. Like statues of flesh, every soul within her sight and beyond lay pinned to the ground by wrath.
   With haunting grace, she moved forwards and down the dais, her slow steps ringing maliciously, and cast a vague eye across them all. She knew who to look for. She knew where this had started. She had always known: with those she had given a chance to, and had abused it. Abused it, and her, in her own world. And made her feel like she was going mad.
   On she strode, past the pinned guards and attackers alike, until the odd flick of her hand raised one robed man limply to his hips, and dragged him across the floor behind her.
   Then another followed from an alcove. Then another from near the door. Then another from the balcony above, tumbling silently over the balistrade like a ragdoll to half-drift along with the rest.
   Bones cracked as she walked. Fingers broke. Jaws dislocated. Knees cracked. And not a peep of pain. No hands, voices or manners would ever be raised against her here again.
   Broken, the betrayers flowed out from the court in her furious wake, through the halls, through the doors, and out into the sun-dripped city. She didn't look back at them. They were there. She looked instead at the people and carnage that had spread out across the city. Not a soul had been spared from her mistake. And this, she would remember.
   Fires, frozen, reversed themselves and shrank to smouldering husks as she passed them. Fallen stones rose and returned themselves to their places in walls and gardens. By her will alone, the city rebuilt itself, just as it had in the Beginning, while the ones who had refused her, had overlooked her, had tried to twist and steal away the world and life she had created, were dragged roughly through it, witnessed silently by the civilians, soldiers and misinformed alike as they lay paralyzed and fixed to the ground.
   Hours she marched and endured, punishing herself with the images, holding her heartbroken tears back in her eyes to take in as much of the destruction as she could, voice and self pity restrained in her throat.
   Then, finally, the grand city gates rose into view.
   They swung open at her arrival, and here, decisively, she stopped. But the choice few she had dragged along with her did not. Floating on past her, she watched them go, tracking every micrometre they made clear from the city until, with another final, bitter gesture of her hand, force collected and thrust them mercilessly out into the dark and tangled wilderness.
   Without a word, she turned her back to their colliding bodies. The gate closed firmly, and she marched again, back to her shattered home.

   Slowly, her world returned to life; the flames died, the buildings stood solid, and the people, wide-eyed in awe, rose wearily to their feet. Not a sound was uttered for days, by them nor herself.
   Weakness had come from within. And she had let it happen. She had let her world, her morals, her ideas, and her identity fall to influence that even she believed had known better.
   But that would never happen again. For when her world was invaded, she had not run. She'd reminded them of why it was hers.

 

This story is not to be copied or reproduced without my written permission. Copyright © 2025 Kim Wedlock

Two Chairs

[Estimated reading time: 4 minutes]

   The night had shrunk. The crackling snaps of the fire were all there was to break the smothering void, and the world around had vanished beyond the reach of the flickering light. Even the constant chirp of crickets had died back. For all she knew, the very earth itself had crumbled behind her. In an uncomfortable way, it felt almost safe. Nothing else existed. Nothing else but them.

   "The two of us, again," she said quietly, without peeling her stare from the flames.

   "Is that a problem?" The other asked, easily.

   She shook her head. Poking at the fire, a fresh wave of heat prickled her skin. The smoke, at least, had the decency to rise, but the lack of wind made the camp feel even smaller. Even more displaced.

   She lowered the stick to her side and continued gazing into the chaotic orange dance. "It's always going to be like this, isn't it." It wasn't a question. And she received no answer.

   Finally, she dragged herself from the hypnosis and on instead to the cloaked figure sitting on the other side. "Why did you show yourself to me?"

   "I didn't," he replied from within his hood, any movement hidden beneath his dark, cascading robes. "You looked at me."

   She knew he was right.

   The need to disconnect herself from that fact put the poker back in her hand. Silence wove through the crackles. Still the man didn't move.

   "Loosen it."

   She relaxed her jaw at the gentle command. "So, you were always there?" She already knew the answer.

   "Yes," he replied anyway, just as easily as before.

   A nod. "...And now..."

   "I always will be."

   Her nod turned to a bitter shake, her lip curled caustically, and her voice suddenly thickened in her throat. "You have changed...everything."

   No remark came. She continued.

   "I see your shadow everywhere. The sun is shining, yours is the longest. I read a book, it falls over the pages. I paint, you darken the palette. I walk in the woods, your shadow moves between the trees. I lie in bed, and your shadow persists even in the dark, blacker than night. Even sitting in good company, your shadow still falls over a chair! In a crowd of people, at a crossroads, in a list of options..." her lip curled further, "there you are."

   Again, no remark.

   "And now," she continued acridly, "while I am alone, with the world shut out, even in peace, you sit there in front of me, staring me in the face."

   "I am not staring."

   She shook her head again. His lack of emotion or shame or anything felt like a hot knife peeling her chest open. "You have changed everything."

   And his lack of response to that boiled her blood hotter.

   Her fists clenched on her knees before she pulled her arms about herself. Closing her eyes, she could pretend for a moment that not even he was there, if she tried hard enough.

   Then his hollow voice spoke up, shattering any attempt. "Time," he offered, "also changes everything."

   "What does that mean?" She asked from behind her arms.

   "Those forests you walk in, they weren't always there. The night used to be darker. Books never used to exist."

   "Mhm. And what are you saying?"

   "That you will learn to stop looking for me."

   "Looking for you?!"

   "Looking for me. Then," his voice almost seemed to rise, but she conceded that she probably imagined the tone, "once again, things will change. On a scale far smaller than the rest, but one that matters far, far more."

   She peered over her arms. "...And until then?"

   He didn't move. It seemed it was his hood that was speaking. "Until then, you try. You acknowledge that I exist and make peace with it, rather than fight against yourself. The first step to change is realising the root of the problem. And I," the hood tilted slightly, "am not that root."

   Then he moved. It startled her, but she didn't react, even as his long, bony finger moved smoothly through the flames. "Remember: you invited me to your fire."

   "I did no such thing," she spat, then black, hollow eye-sockets turned up at her from beneath the hood.

   "There are two chairs."

 

This story is not to be copied or reproduced without my written permission. Copyright © 2025 Kim Wedlock

Poison

[Estimated reading time: 6 minutes]

   Grey. There wasn't much else to see; shadows and shapes tangled in amongst themselves without depth or rationality. A fog hung, perhaps – real or insinuated – and the smell of rot clung to the dirt walls. Insects skittered, chittering cold through the sick air, but not even they thrived. Only the thick, knotted roots of an ancient tree seemed to survive the unnatural miasma.
   The sharp, weak whine of an agonised wolf cut white through the darkness in testament. But the cold-skinned crone ignored it.
   Red eyes stared from beneath a carapace hood, and no expression creased her face as she forced the smoking poison into the wolf's mouth. Only the marks on her skin glowed blacker. From one beast to another she moved, unnoticed by the pack even as she gripped their muzzles in her claws, until the whining faded to a suffering whimper.
   Then she rose, turned, and left the tainted den without a backward glance.
   But though the sun blinded her exit, setting a harsh cast through the forest, it wasn't the light that held her steps. It was the stare of the thriving tree, boring into her back. Now, at this, she turned.
   Silver leaves waved in a breeze that didn't touch her skin, and the branches seemed to move, reaching towards her in anger. Imposing. Condemning. It watched her, absorbed and marked her presence and intention as much as she did, it.
   Then, coldly, the crone turned her back and walked away.
   The forest didn't move for her, and no animal crossed her path. No bird sang nearby, and no tree swayed. But her eyes didn't see the woods as they did, and her split ears didn't hear the wind; other sounds and lights guided her, leading her gliding footsteps through the mottled shadows, roots, fungus, until she reached at last her tidy, secreted garden.
   Stepping over the low stone boundaries, she moved through the pockets of displaced plants with spots, spines and dusty coloured leaves, eyeing them critically with belt knife in hand. A select few she harvested while the forest turned a blind eye; orange thistle leaves, oleander stems, datura root and morble, while ignoring the corpse of a greedy rabbit which would go on to nurture her toxic garden.
   Again, the forest shied from her as she ventured on with her cuttings, until a crooked old pigeon tower emerged from the trees.
   The door didn't whine as she stepped inside, and neither did the floorboards creak. But the cauldron she hung immediately over the fireplace began its hiss and bubble before the flames were truly alive, hungrily eating away all the silence. And so it continued for three sleepless days and nights while the crone steamed, smoked, crushed and bled the herbs, distilling and concentrating the brew until it changed from black to red to purple, and coughed its smoky haze that even the soaked cloth over her sharp-toothed mouth could barely filter out.
   And after those three days, when the poison had settled, out into the forest she trekked again.
   She felt the cave before she saw it, and between those two moments, the silver tree's stare. It found her quickly, as though it had been waiting, and its animosity, if not its strength, had intensified.
   The crone didn't spare it or its protective aura a look. She stooped again into the familiar shadows below, and grey, tangled shapes rose around her once more. But, this time, silence. Not a whine or whimper stained the dark.
   Relief seeped into her blood and slowed her heart, and her grip on the newest batch of poison loosened. 'It's done,' her long tongue clicked as a sigh eased through her nose. There was no need to dose the wolves again. It was over. She had won.
   She turned and stalked back to the bright mouth of the forest, heart beating a little slower, to wander again and see where else the colours and lights would guide her hand.
   Then a sudden lash snatched itself around her throat.
   Cold rushed through her veins as her hand thrust down to her belt knife before thought could install itself. The root tightened just as fast while her fingers fumbled for the handle, their tips stabbing at her skin in search of the heat coursing beneath it. Too many clumsy hacks it took while the grey became pierced by flashing pinpricks before she freed herself of its leeching grip.
   Then the ground rushed towards her.
   She hacked again at the tightening grip on her ankle, breath barely returning to her lungs as she kicked and pulled herself backwards, more reaching towards her, snaking around her wrists and waist. The knife was jerked hard from her hand, black blood streaming from her lashed fingers.
   She found the poison instead.
   The roots fought against her, but only helped to unstopper the glass. The purple fluid spilled over both her hand and the tendrils, black smoke darkening the haze around them. Her flesh burned, but the roots blanched. A crackling scream filled the den, woody skin flaking from the rapidly retreating roots as they shook and flailed like warring snakes.
   The crone stole her chance, stumbling and clawing her way out of the cave.
   The screaming waned as the forest blinded her, and the flood of fresh air forced her panic to a stop. With a heaving breath, she leaned wearily against the mouth of the cave and sank down to the moss. The tree, she felt, heard, tasted, as she rubbed her burned hand, was dying. And as she witnessed the last of its force flee, fatigue and relief overcame her.

   She woke only at the tug on her hood and warm, heavy breath on her face. Red eyes winced open until a sudden wet lash across her face forced them shut. Then another. Then the sound of soft, affectionate whining eased the muscles in her face.
   The wolves sniffed around her, nudging her shoulder, licking the blood from her hands, the sweat from her face, and she saw, as she looked again, the changes to their bodies. Some now had bony ridges protruding along their spines; others grew what looked like antlers from the tops and sides of their heads, and another peered at her along a line of thorns and spikes rising evenly down its nose and muzzle. Tumours, their shapes and natures transformed into something benign. A sickness turned to strength.
   Her lips curled into a sharp-toothed smile and she ruffled their fur with her claws, until drifting, silver leaves drew all eyes back up to the tree.
   The evil had fled. But, she knew all too well, it would invade something else soon enough. Darkness like that wasn't destroyed in one strike. It grew. It thought. It planned. With every infection defeated, its power fell weaker, but it was not finished yet. Still it survived. In time, yes, it would be captured and banished...
   A sharp tooth pierced her lip.
   Assuming, of course, she could find its new host again...

 

This story is not to be copied or reproduced without my written permission. Copyright © 2025 Kim Wedlock

Balance

   There is an ache. A loss of something I'd never even noticed was there.

   Only one foot is left on the ground; the other can find no purchase; no rock, no water, no cloud. I look down to find something, anything, to steady myself upon, but though the imbalance is enough to throw me hard into the darkest gravity, my attention instead is pulled away by something else. Something new. Something silent.

   Like the smoke of a candle, the steam of a cup of tea, light is trailing away from me. My chest is torn open.

   And yet, even as I feel the wind growing, whipping, roaring around me, a beast of so many teeth, claws and thunder...I feel calm.

   Light flows freely, softly, slowly, untouched by the storm, and though a piece of me is flowing away with it, there is some kind of stillness. Some kind of knowing, some kind of assurance. And the pain of what is being pulled away seems cooled and soothed by its very passing.

   And then, I find, I am balanced on one leg.

Rest in peace, Mum.

 

This story is not to be copied or reproduced without my written permission. Copyright © 2024 Kim Wedlock

Ghost

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes

Once upon a blue moon,

In the creeping, dawning light,

Listen through the washing ocean,

The breeze and birds in flight.

Hide behind the steady grass,

The growth along the strand,

And peer out through the early mist,

And whipping of the sand.

If your heart is steady,

And intentions pure and free,

You may just yet spot her,

Gliding by the sea.

But should you be so lucky,

Brace both breath and shield,

For never will her haunting eyes

Once grip your soul then yield.

And never will her mysteries

To any be revealed.

    The shore was lost in a cloud of mist. Dunes were vague shapes against the bleak, pink sky, and gannets stirring from their floating rest to preen and squabble were little more than bleak shapes in the murk. Only the light of the fading moon reflected in the endless, grey water gave any measure of their presence. The stillness was unbreakable; the waves themselves, stroking the shore, were insignificant against the vastness of the dawn. No crab, no tern, no glitter in the water could disturb it. Nor even the figure that ghosted through amongst them.

    She paused in the wash. Storm-coloured eyes narrowed, fixated on a single pebble between her feet. Slowly, she crouched and gazed at it, head cocked critically; from above, from the side, shielding away the diffused light with a painted hand. Then, her lips twisted.

    Too blue.

    Her interest passed.

    Pebble forgotten, the phantom rose again, brushing back a mane of sunbleached gold, and resumed her careful stride through the waves, attention fixed to the sand. Stone after shell after pebble she studied - too yellow, too green, too pink - and not once did the world react to her. Birds didn't stir, didn't squawk, didn't dive; hermit crabs didn't scuttle, fish didn't scatter. The fog didn't lift. The sea didn't cease its waves. She was barely there, yet completely present.

    Eerie, people called her, forever wandering the coasts and forests like a ghost. She belonged everywhere some said, others, nowhere, but any brave attempt to understand her, almost always beginning with a comment on her soft steps, never left their tongue once her gaze drifted onto them. Steel, silver, grey, storm; they had become as much folklore as she had herself. There was a sadness in them, some said, a 'kindness laced with hurt', with or by hard-earned wisdom, and tightly vaulted. Her thoughts, always, were deep and veiled. That mystery left many uncomfortable - though far less so than her silent power.

    But she never wasted any thought on those opinions. Peaceful solitude and motion were her greatest companions, and her mind ran far deeper than the trivial questions and rumours of strangers.

    A meagre gust of breeze parted the mist only briefly, and again, she stopped and stooped. And, again, the moment of consideration she granted the pearlescent shell resulted in the same dissatisfied twist of her lips.

    Too purple.

    And on she waded.

     The shore was soon broken and lost among spears of rock, and though she climbed and leapt between them, ignored by the birds surveying from their peaks, they quickly became impassable. Water swirled treacherously in eddies between them, and the colours of sand and shell vanished beneath the foam.

    A hint of defeat touched her heart, but she paid it no heed. She would simply have to turn.

    Her path diverted inland, and her ceaseless attention turned now to the tussocks of tall, pale grass that gripped the sand in the young dunes ahead. But their blades, she could see already, were each too yellow.

    The defeat returned, and a sudden weariness crashed over her like a tidal wave, forcing her to a stop once sand lay beneath her feet again. Heavily, she loosened her pack from her shoulders, jingling with strings of carved pebbles, crystalline stones and wooden rings as it dropped, and retrieved a waterskin from its folds. The water was cool and welcome on her lips, but only now she paused did she feel the ache in her legs. Her tired eyes turned across to the rising sun. How long had she been walking? Three hours? Five? Any normal day she'd have sat and enjoyed the waves, calmed herself and attuned to their sounds. But this time, her pursuit was dire.

    'Dire,' she thought bitterly, 'or frustrating?'

    Her eyes passed back over the vast coast as she drank, its distant end lost though the mist was fading, then back towards the land sprawling ahead of her. Even in the low dawn light, the forest sank her heart. Beautiful, green, lush in spite of the salt spray, and even less likely to gift what she sought. Colours grew more vibrant inland, more varied, more beautiful. A rich palette, endless and wonderful. Too rich.

    A deep sigh passed her lips as she lowered the waterskin with a heavy hand. But on she would go.

    The skin returned to her pack, the pack to her painted shoulders, and her feet trudged on, keeping close to the grasses where the roots trapped the sand. Dunes soon gave way to compact ground, compact ground softened with grass, and grass thinned out as trees rose around her. The light dropped, the sound of the sea faded, and birdsong changed from coastal chirps to treetop warbles until she found herself ghosting through a new world. Her heart steadily lifted again as the muffled forest's beauty seeped into her bones, and the absence of a horizon leant new adventure.

    Mist still hung, trapped by the shadows, and wouldn't burn off until the day grew older and the sun peaked higher through the leaves. It was a different kind of cool, one rich with new scents and texture, and the morning seemed to regain its youth. So too did her enthusiasm. There were colours everywhere: shades of green overhead, some rich with yellow, others blue, some even with tones of red; barks of grey, silver and brown, speckled with spots both lighter and darker; lost feathers of grey or iridescent black, flower buds of pink and light blue. Had the year been later, snowdrops would have littered the wider openings, but instead there were only the last purple signs of helleborine and neottia.

    Not for the first time, she kicked herself. But there was nothing she could do about the season, nor her previous winter's sickness, no matter how avidly she assured herself now that there had been. Instead, her pursuit reimposed itself and her attention fixated now onto patches of lichen covering the trees, both standing and fallen, live and rotting, and she began her battle with the light. Every patch that peaked her hopes revealed itself after far too long a moment of consideration to be too green, or too red, or, in one especially frustrating case, too purple.

    Curses fell from her lips. A trick of the light. Natural contrast. Forest-induced colour-blindness. And, again, she kicked herself.

    An hour had passed before she shrugged her pack from her shoulders again, and she sat heavily against a tree. Exhaustion and hunger settled over her like a mudslide, and it took a long while before she actually found the thought to eat. She devoured the apple so quickly she barely tasted it, nor the raisin bread that followed, and watched time pass by itself before her eyelids slid heavily closed.

    It was perhaps hours more or merely minutes before she roused again, awakened by a sense rather than completion. But, despite the grumble of a bear far to the east, a howl of a wolf ahead to the west, and a larger bird squawking nearby with no distinct direction, it was not alarm that flashed her eyes open, but curiosity.

    A curiosity, she felt, that was returned.

    She leaned forwards slowly, eyes roving the shadows. The air was warmer, but though the mist had evaporated, it was no clearer to see. A haze, she realised, of sleep, for when she finally located a set of eyes peering back at her from behind a knot of roots, she blinked it into focus.

    Golden eyes below pointed, golden ears. Silently, it stepped out of the shadow, watching her cautiously, and a smile tugged at her lips. A cat, sleek and shin-high, small for the forest; wild or feral, she couldn't tell. But it approached, carefully at first, then trotted, and brushed its small face against her knee. She startled only briefly when a light thud sounded close by, and a second golden cat, smaller and bluer in tone, approached and circled around her with tail held high.

    She reached out and cupped the first's head in her hand, which it gladly pushed itself into, and ruffled its ears while the second sniffed at the stones on her pack. A moment later, the first climbed up into her lap, stood with slender paws on her shoulders, and sniffed at the paint on her face. She chuckled, surprised, but didn't push him away. There was no danger from them. She knew that. And they knew no danger from her. They were kindred, in some way, both belonging and not belonging in the wild, and all three carried that comfortable understanding without need to complicate it.

    She reached out again and stroked the first's whiskers, but when the second gave a small chirp from the pack, they both turned sharply back to the trees and fled.

    Disappointment warred with warmth at the encounter, over far too soon, but as she rose to her feet, deciding it was also best to move on, she found them both still watching her over their backs from the shaded tree roots.

    They took a few steps, then stopped and looked back again.

    A shallow frown marred her pale face, but she stepped towards them, sensing a beckon, and watched them repeat the action.

    She soon found herself following the cats through the forest by harder routes: low-hanging branches, knotted bushes, the run of narrow streams, all the while surrounded by the vibrant sounds and smells of the ever-deepening wilds. She searched the colours by habit as she went, but the cats never ventured too far without her, and when she stopped here and there to analyse a particular pale petal or a nub of grey fungus, they returned, brushed against her leg as if to remind her that she was getting sidetracked, and led her deeper into the woods.

    Then, prompted by nothing at all, they stopped.

    She frowned and stopped beside them.

    "What is it?" She asked, peering around through the mosaic of light and shadow, and though only part of her expected an answer, she received one.

    The larger of the two cats moved purposefully towards another knot of beech roots, the second following more lazily, and after a sniff and bat at something in the ground, it meowed at her. She approached, half expecting to find a den of some sort, and hopeful behind that for a glimpse of kittens. But instead, all she found was grass, a rotting log, and more misleading mushrooms.

    And yet, she stopped. Frozen. Her wondering ceased.

    The cats circled as she found the mind to move again, crouching in the damp grass and peering closer at the moss-riddled log.

    Her eyes turned sharply to the sky. It was bright. The canopy was open. There was light. Clear light.

    Her gaze snapped back to the mushrooms.

    But...they weren't mushrooms. Or, barely. They didn't have a bulbous umbrella or a net or a fuzz; they were long, white and slender, but where they should have had a cap, they bowed over instead, and where the stalk should have been ridged, it had short, white leaves.

    Carefully, she nudged the non-mushroom with the back of her fingers, gently lifting its drooping, trumpet-shaped head. It was dense. Sturdy. A plant masquerading as a flower with stalk and leaves, all completely bleached of colour but for a few tiny black spots.

    Her gaze pulled back to the cats. The smaller had wandered off and began cleaning itself carelessly, but the larger remained close, watching her. When she failed to move quickly enough to satisfy him, he lowered its head, plucked at the plant, tore it and its single neighbour free, jumped onto her shoulder and dropped them pointedly onto her pack.

    She could feel how high her eyebrows had risen and forced them back down. Reaching behind her, she looked again at the plant, turning it over in her hand while the cat retrieved the second as it fell and returned it to where he had put it.

    Pure white. Pure white. Purer than snowdrop petals, than chalk, than treated iron...

    Quickly, she glanced around again, not at the cats but at another fallen log a short distance away, and after a quick, graceless crawl, found three more stalks growing from the rot.

    A laugh, delirious with fatigue, tumbled from her lips. The cats watched and yawned as she gathered these, slung down her pack, withdrew her stone and pestle, and began her heart's greatest work as the cats curled up satisfied on the log beside her. White released, combined with fats and water, she created there the purest, smoothest, most brilliant white paint any had ever seen.

     From then onwards, the legend changed, and the phantom of the wilds, with her ghostly footsteps, was accompanied by cats of gold, spirits of fortune or curse woven of her own golden hair, and woe befell any who tried to part them.

 

This story is not to be copied or reproduced without my written permission. Copyright © 2024 Kim Wedlock

Accursed Weststead Manor

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

    There's no time to get help. I can't let her follow me, she has to be kept away from town. So, to whomever finds this, here written is the account of the events leading to the death of my wife, Isabelle, and, almost as certainly, myself.

    It started with strange noises in the night. Isabelle began to gargle in her sleep. I thought nothing more of it than the flu, so I rolled her onto her side and it seemed to fix the problem.

    This was my first mistake.

    Six nights this went on, though she showed no signs of illness through the day. But the gargling soon worsened, and then came the night fits. I soothed her as best I could, I hid it from the children, and I quickly called the doctor. The "Change", he'd said. He'd given me an elixir and she drank it every night. We expected it to subdue the symptoms, give her better rest, but the fits only became more violent. She began waking up bruised. Before long, Doctor Yves recommended strapping her to the bed for her own safety. I did this, despite her growing terror. But I...I couldn't bear it. I slept in the guest chamber.

    That was my second mistake.

    On the thirteenth night, after too much ale, the shaking stopped, then I heard a thump in her room. I hurried in and found what I thought was her sitting upon the bed, spine bent backwards, a smoking black hand reaching out from her gaping mouth.

    Too much ale. A fever dream I hadn't fully withdrawn from; my worries manifested with too much fuel. I went back to bed with a headache.

    The hounds On the nineteenth morning, the hounds didn't howl with the roosters. They didn't howl with the bells. They didn't come when the children called, nor when they cried at a game gone wrong. My dear Isabelle, growing pale and drawn, suggested they were ill, but I was too busy to check on them until their feeding. That evening, I found them in pieces in the kennels, limbs and innards thrown around, their heads bitten through as if their skulls were butter. What creature could have done it? I might have wondered, but how could I have known? How could anyone?

    From that moment on, we didn't feel safe. This manor is far from town, and the forest surrounding it is thick. Anything could have been lurking. Truly anything, if the old stories had any truth to them.

    So I put signs up in town, looking for a hunter or someone who could help identify and kill it. A few came; some said wargs, others basilisks. But none would go into the woods to search. We increased the payment, but still, no one.

    So we locked the doors and barred the windows. The children were terrified. So was Isabelle, whose fits had finally ceased, though she had returned to scratching at her shoulders, opening up old scars. A sign of anxiety, but nothing more. Though still pale, her health was improving and my concern passing, so I was better able to swallow my own fear and put on a brave face. Such is the job of husband and father, after all.

    From that night on, though, I barely slept. I kept watch, moving from window to window with my crossbow, staring into the dark while my family rested uneasily. I saw nothing. I heard nothing. For a week I maintained vigil and, slowly, I began to ease. We all did. There was nothing out there anymore.

    I have made mistakes. I let things slip by, brushed them off as my imagination, a bad dream.

    There was nothing out there, because it was already inside with us. Everything that happened since the massacre of the hounds is my fault.

    I didn't hear anything at night, but I felt – felt often, I now realise - something moving around. A shifting presence through the bedroom. But I was never awake enough to take notice. I let it pass, another figment of my imagination. But I did hear Isabelle's occasional mutter to herself in her sleep about a scratching sound. And, with that, I'd listened more intently, wondering if she had located something that I hadn't...but strain as I might, there was no scratching. Nothing. Yet every night, every night, she would mutter. Then the muttering rose to speaking. Then to screaming.

    But still, there was nothing but her voice.

    I called the doctor back in. It went beyond the women's Change. "Touched," he concluded, although he didn't seem too convinced of it himself. A worst-case scenario, but one that, if handled immediately, may never have come to pass. So I did as he told me, keeping her in the sun all day, and the bedroom as black as possible at night. But her screaming continued.

    I know now. Not everything - not even enough - but I know this is something beyond the reach of medicine. A priest would be better suited, but after the unholy massacre at Rolinghan, there are none to spare. They are all either dead or dying.

    There is something in her. A madness manifested, a creature, a beast - something living inside her. And I have now, to my shame and horror, witnessed it come out.

    I doubt I'm making much sense, and I realise I've spent too long on this already.

    The day of the hounds, she had scratches around her arms. Old scars on her shoulders had opened up and bled. I presume there was blood elsewhere but I hadn't noticed it at the time.

    The night the windows shattered in our bedroom, she had been covered in blood and scratches. I hadn't pieced together how she could have gotten them unless she had been standing beside the window when it broke - and how it had broken, I hadn't worked out either. It made no sense unless she had done it herself, but she barely had the strength to stand.

    The same with the damage to the walls. The damage to the fireplace that she had somehow extinguished with her bare hands. Things of which I had witnessed nothing except the final result.

    The hunters dead in the yard, those few who had come back with a second thought over the reward. The doctor, who never made it to our last appointment, nor further than twelve paces through the gate.

    And the children...the children...

    I buried them this morning, what parts I could find. But I spared no words. There was no time. I would be tormented by that for the rest of my life if I thought I would survive more than two more days. But I am being hunted. Not by Isabelle - this isn't my Isabelle. I don't recognise her anymore, and I don't believe she recognises me either. Whatever little of her remains shows no sign. Only the beast breathes now, sees through her eyes, smells through her nose, hears through her ears. And as long as I am out of sight and tread lightly, it doesn't seem to know where I am.

    So I steal time, and I prepare.

    These deaths are my fault. I didn't trust the signs; I shrugged them off as dreams, but whether they come truly from a demon, a curse, a malignance of one kind or another...that, I will never know.

    I have to make things right. I have to correct my negligence. For her. For the children. For my family.

    Should I fail and the beast walks still, then to whomever finds this account, take heed: she it has an aversion to willow and recoils at the scent of the oil, and its wood and iron both leave ferocious burns on her its skin. There may be other weaknesses, but I haven't had the chance to find out, and if I delay any longer then she it will come for me.

    It cannot be allowed to escape. I mustn't lead it away, nor give it any reason to leave. And, I admit, I cling to very small hope that the demon or curse will be destroyed wit

The rest of the vellum is bare, unspoiled; no spilled ink nor blood, no rips or crumples. It sits, silent and unfinished, beside a dried out inkwell. The quill itself is missing. The rest of the house, too, lies still. Deafeningly still.

 

This story is not to be copied or reproduced without my written permission. Copyright © 2023 Kim Wedlock

Song of Scratches

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

I can feel them closing in. The walls. Big black things. You can see them too, can't you? Shutting out all light, rotting the air... They're inching closer. Have been for months now, scraping along the ground on all sides. I could ignore them at first, they were far enough away...but now...now they're right there. Right behind me. Beside me. Inside my shadow. I-I swear, I can feel them inside me.

*I'm sweating. I'm always sweating. Always slick and short of breath, always scratching at my shoulders, panic ripping small holes into my skin. I know my eyes are wild.*

Every time I hear the sound...words, a melody, a droning wind, a noise in so many forms yet all telling me the exact same thing... Every time I hear it, the walls rush in closer. They abandon their scraping creep while I'm distracted, like a game of Grandmother's Footsteps. A cheating game of Grandmother's Footsteps, because they never truly stop. And what little stale room remains in here with me is being filled by a growing cloud of bitterness, one that swells even as the walls surge, and just as fast. Every single time I hear it...

The breathing space is shrinking. Rapidly. I know I'm going to choke.

*I'm fighting for breath. I'm scratching my shoulders again, flicking wild glances around me*

...I'm afraid of what I might do before then. I'm afraid of what I might say. I'm afraid I could - afraid I will - ruin what little good I have left, what little there is to get up for in the morning, frighten that little light away...but...but if I keep biting my tongue...

I tell myself to wait. Leave it alone, enjoy the light for now. Give it time. I have other things to think about, other things to face, other things to escape from. Leave it alone. Enjoy it. For now. For now. I deserve it. Let Future Me deal with the walls.

...But every time...every, single, time I hear it...e-every...every damned time...

*A bitter chuckle shudders from my closing throat, and I clutch myself tighter in the darkness.*

I catch myself in the middle of this sometimes, disconnected, wondering if this is what it feels like to go insane...

I can go days sometimes, hiding from the thoughts, ignoring the slow scratch scratch scratch of the walls. I even imagine that they've stopped, convince myself of it, that it's become such gentle white noise as to be completely inaudible. Completely absent.

That's when they speed up. Always then, when I start to feel comfortable, even, dare I say it, hopeful, hah...heh...that's--that's when I hear it.

The sound finds me.

Then the scratches.

The walls...how can no one else see them? Feel them?! They're there! I mean, they're right there, and everyone is just...going on with their lives like I'm not about to implode... How is that possible?! How?!

*Blood runs down my arm*

...What's going to happen? When they get here? Will they destroy me? I feel like they're going to destroy me - I mean, you can't see them, apparently, no one can, but they're there and they're going to kill me. I know it. They're going to crush all the light out of me...all of it...all of it...

...And yet I know it's a choice...

Fuck. How could that be a choice?!

*My flickering stare lands on the door*

The door... Yes, there is a door. It's there, it's big, it's unlocked. I can fit through it. And it's getting closer just like the walls. It's within reach...

...But it...it's...

If I go through that door...

*The blood is trickling through my fingers. Still I scratch my shoulder, my head spinning enough to unscrew where I'm huddled*

If I go through that door, now, it will be my end. The end of everything. Absolutely everything. I'm not ready. I will never be ready...

*And now my voice, my thoughts, my soul withers even further*

...This is where the choice is, isn't it? It's go through that door, or be crushed by the walls. But I'll be crushed on the other side of that door too, because it's all the same, on all sides, fucking everywhere...there is only one outcome, so it's really only a question of how many bones I want to get broken in the process.

Except it's not the bones I'm worried about...

Haha...ugh...heh...ohhh I can't talk about this. I'm...I'm trapped. I can't talk about it, but I'm stuck. I want to scream for help, I want to act, I want to get out.

*But now my head is shaking*

No, no I don't, I want to stay, I really want to stay, the light, that's the twisted part of all of this, I just want the light and for these walls to stop I want the walls to stop...

Stop, stop, stop, stop...

...Stop...

...Please, stop...

...But...but that bitterness...that...bitterness...it's evolving into something. I can see it, jumping around across the walls right now, casting shadows wherever I look. It's touching the walls, how can it do that? It knows they're there and it's treating them like they're...like they're nothing...

It has teeth. It has teeth, it never used to have teeth. Or eyes. Or such a toxic fucking aura... It's like it's choking me, it's these moments when I just can't breathe or see or think or survive...

...Please...please just stop!

...p l e a s e...

...Oh, God...

*A flicker catches my eye. For a moment, my heart stops, and the viciously wonderful teeth sink back in*

...W...w-wait...wait, there...look. Look, see it? Do you see it?! There, that glimmer! It just appeared out of the dark! That little light...heh...ohh...yesss...yes, see, it's that light that does it...I know it's that light that does it, that little flicker, that little flash...it's so bright, so beautiful... It does so much. Too much. That's what keeps me here. And that's what made the walls start moving in the first place. And I'm not imagining it. That little glow...the glow...the joy it brings me, the lightness, the feeling of worth, it's real. It's honest to God real. And it's the onl--

Wait...wait, no, d-don't go, don't--n-no...ohh no...no, no, fuck, no it's happened again! It's happened again! It's happened again happened again happ--

 

This story is not to be copied or reproduced without my written permission. Copyright © 2023 Kim Wedlock