‘Shed skin of an adder.’

’Got it. I guess...’

‘Toad’s slime.’

‘Hmm.’

‘Juniper berries, three of them.’

Gothic Hare's voice in the dusk as clear as the water of the graveyard well is like a fish. It dives down to the grey grass. It floats up to the tops of weeds and young hawthorn bushes. Still higher, the tips of his black ears are seen. Nearby, wickedly whoops a bittern.

The nasty bird has been stalking them since dusk. She's especially interested in the Black Book. Every time she tries to steal the Ingredients page.

‘Two leaves of belladonna.’

‘Isn't one enough?’

Hare and Root look at the stunted plant with regret.

‘One leaf of belladonna,’ Hare scribbles with a pencil on the charcoal black pages.

‘We'll have to add violet pollen.’

‘The violets are out of bloom.’

Hare gnaws on the pencil's tip.

‘I always thought wax and wick were enough for making candles,’ Root mutters without letting Bittern out of his sight.

‘Candles must burn in the Otherworld, too. Especially black ones. You can't do that without Secret Ingredients,' Hare's ears answer from the twilight.

A sharp bird's beak looms close by, as a vertical arrow, and it looks as if Hare has not just two ears, but three.

‘Why do we need to light up the Otherworld? We'd rather not fall off somewhere in this one.... Aah!!!’

Bittern finally succeeds in pecking Root in the crown....

***

Nope. It's still the rough walls of the tunnel.

Dry sticks, sharp gravel from the graveyard path and curious snouts of moles stick out of it. Deadly Root doesn't see any of this. He rolls endlessly down. Endlessly bumping into everything that sticks up, protrudes and pokes out. All around him is darkness.

The remnants of memories dear to his heart flicker in front of his eyes. When everything was just fine. When there was always his faithful friend in the darkness, ready to light a smouldering black candle.....

What Root is most afraid of is getting stuck. If he gets stuck, he's bound to sprout. Then there's blooming, bees, sunshine. And the Big Green Oblivion. Deadly Root's teeth begin to clatter.

When you're rolling down into the depths of the earth in total darkness, the most important thing is positive thinking.

‘Juniper needles, thirteen of them. Mole’s poo.’ Root lists the Secret Ingredients from memory.

It's good to be back in the graveyard now. At night, among poisonous plants, fat toads, and whispering graves. In the cosy burial tomb, the blue flame of the otherworldly candles sizzles acridly. In its light, Gothic Hare always appears purple. Root's favourite colour...

‘The candles must burn!’ he repeats after Hare's enthusiastic voice in his head.

‘The candles must.... Kok-kok-kok!’

Bittern's godawful voice tangles in the bushes for quite a while longer and spoils the pleasant visions.

‘Bums!’ coughs the black tunnel.

Root flops onto a clod of wet dirt.

It is still dark all around. As dark as only the blackest thickest darkness can be. And there is someone in that darkness....

Creak - creak… Creak - creak… Creak - creak...

‘Welcome...’

Something breathes, and rustles, and moves.

‘Deadly Root, child of the Night and traveller in the Darkness,’ Root hurries to introduce himself to the darkness.

Darkness is thoughtfully silent for a while.

Creak - creak… Creak - creak… Creak - creak...

‘Bony Root. Guardian of all the cemetery dead,' it rustles, wheezes and whispers again. Closer, much closer than before.

‘Aah!!!’ Root rolls into the dry sand.

Is that sand? Something suspiciously crunches beneath him.

‘I mean, I’m honored,’ he tries to sit as still as possible.

‘Me too,’ the Darkness confesses.

Creak – creak…

‘I'm only here for a minute,’ Root squints, in the fruitless hope of seeing something. ‘To tell May to come to the wedding.’

‘A minute won't do.’

‘It won’t?’

‘Yes. And there's no way back.’

‘No way at all????’

‘Only one,’ the Darkness echoes. ‘For deadies.’

‘Tell me!’

Hope flashes blue in Rooty's soul. It seems to him that here and now, deep underground, he is back for a moment. To the night starry sky with the round pancake of the moon. Under her supervision, Gothic Hare usually grinds Secret Ingredients in a mortar. The true night is dark. The true candles are black...

‘You'll have to sprout.’

Root blinks. The starry sky once again turns to an invisible dirt ceiling.

‘Do the deadies sprout too?’

‘In their turn,’ the unseen Creak-Creak replies in a good-natured manner, ‘from each one a bone, from each bone a twig. That is the way of Bony Root. Good?’

Root sneezes. His nose itches. A cloud of strange sand hangs around.

‘But I am, achoo! Not a deady.’

‘Then we'll wait a little longer.’

Creak - creak… Creak - creak… Creak - creak...

‘Waiting is not a good idea for me. Especially underground.’

‘Quite wrong. Life and the Afterlife are both made up of waiting. It alone binds the dead and the living. Bony Root, however, can wait for both.’

There reigns a silence. Long, deep, and black. No draughts blow, no earth rustles, no danger creeps in. Not even slippery earthworms wriggling overhead. And nothing creaks quite close by.....

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Root doesn't know which is worse, fear or boredom?

‘I can't do this.’

He sneezes again and rolls somewhere down. The sand turns into large boulders and Root gets stuck between them.

‘Well then, seek,’ murmurs the Darkness behind him.

‘Seek what?’

‘Who. It's May’s time. You wanted to tell her something?’

Rooty stares hard right in front of him. It seems to him that the Darkness before his eyes is a little lighter. It is a skull, he realises. It's a lot of skulls. It's a whole mountain of skulls!

Being a little bored was better after all. Root tries to make himself at least a little square so he won't by accident roll somewhere else. The skulls grunt and grit their teeth.

‘You're invited to the wedding,’ Rooty tries to sound solemn.

But one problem with skulls is that they all look alike. Especially in the dark.

‘You are invited to a wedding. And you are invited to the wedding. And you are invited to the wedding.’

The skulls smile. Even the toothless and the jawless ones.

‘You're all invited!’ steps Root out of the situation. A deady more, a deady less....

He feels like smiling, too. Being Bony Root's guest, he suddenly feels suspiciously cosy. Strangely at ease. Ominously comforting. That must be what it feels like when you start to sprout. Turns out it's actually kind of nice. And very...

‘Dangerous! Dangerous!! Dangerous!!!‘

A shrill voice breaks the grave silence. Immediately afterwards, the darkness is illuminated by a blue flame that smells distinctly of mole’s poo. Something small, round and crooked falls into the dungeon. Purple sparks fly in all directions from its crudely carved eyes.

‘Calabash... Calabash? Calabash!’

Root shakes off the somnolent Green Oblivion. Soft as a bed of thick grass.

‘CA-LA-BASH!!!’

Two things bother Root the most right now. The first is that he's half-buried in a pile of smiling skulls. The second is that his eyes are still sticking out of it. The darkness is gone. In front of him in a huge rocking chair is Bony Root.

Creak - creak… Creak - creak… Creak - creak...

A bone from each of the deady - that's a lot of bones. Big bones, little bones and bone ashes. The dungeon isn't in fact black, it's pitch white.

‘I knew it wasn't sand,’ mutters Root.

He feels like sneezing again.

‘Light doesn't belong here!!! No light can last by Bony Root!!!' hisses the guard of the dead.

In response, the black candle in the pumpkin head flickers and Calabash seems to wink.

‘These are Secret Ingredients,’ Root explains. ‘For the Otherworld.’

CREAK!!!

The rocking chair freezes in menace.

‘Nothing may disturb the Great Wait!’

‘What if it's boring?’

‘Boring????’ Bony Root looks surprised.

‘When you're bored, you can't wait,’ Root clarifies. ‘Especially for something great.’

‘Who else is bored here????’

‘Me,’ booms out from the pile of skulls.

‘And me. Me too. Me, too. And me. I'm bored!' all the skulls seem to speak at once.

‘I'm getting a little bored too,’ purple Calabash yawns in a defiant manner, ‘how much longer do we have to wait? Everyone up there is already gathered.’

‘A wedding?’

‘Funeral. We're missing the best part.’

‘Well, we'll come,’ Bony Root rises ominously from his seat.

The worn ribs of the rocking chair slam wrathfully in the bone ashes. The dungeon shakes. Skulls clatter against each other. It sounds like bamboo chimes.

‘We will come. We're ALL coming!!!’

***

‘My friend, you didn't like flowers. The flowers withered.

You did not love the sunlight. The moon lights your grave.

You didn't love all the things worth not loving. My friend...’

In the pauses between words, the long- dried branches of the acacia tree sway.

Creak - creak... Creak - creak... Creak - creak...

Its thorns aim at the gathered, and they have to lower their heads. The voice of Gothic Hare trembles. In his paws is a large black candle and a page with the Secret Ingredients.

Silent moving her legs, Bittern gets closer and closer. She is pleased by what's happening very much. Everyone looks at Hare. Night Watcher looks concerned at the dry tree. No one sees Bittern. One more step. One more. The desired page is so close already.....

Blue lights flash in the hands of the mourners. Bittern freezes in place. Beak straight up. Now she resembles the crumbling heads of reeds.....

‘We don't light candles to light your path. Your path doesn't need light. We light candles because...’

Vampire sniffs his nose. Coffin Maker coughs. Dry clods of dirt fall into the grave. Bittern raises one leg and opens her beak in joy. Just one more step...

Alas. There is an evil rumble. The ground shakes. A mountain of white bones grows straight between Bittern and her catch…

‘We light candles because … candles ... candles...’ Gothic Hare cocks his head ever higher as the most fearsome and most macabre grave hill of bones grows in front of him.

‘Candles!’ comes from somewhere from its top. Blue sparks and white ashes rain down. ‘Must! Burn!!! AAAH!!!’

The malicious bird pecks Rooty after all....