Swishy and company were twenty paces from The Curseworks entrance when a curious thing occurred.

The boy noticed that the path towards The Curseworks were of a particular darkness, familiar shades from the altar through which he came. The peeves usually spoke from the shadows, from the literal blackness that clung to surfaces in the physical realm. But the darkness he saw now was smoky, an overlay, a second world set upon the world he currently walked upon. Something was happening. The altar was close. Home, one version of it anyhow.

And then an additional curiosity: Bristles noticed.

The bronzed man stared into the darkness, first with steady observation, synthesis, and at last understanding. Though he was in a human body, Bristles cared not for the traditional comforts of a city. He worked the fields because he obsessed over the straw, its magic and simplicity. The gold cured you. And the black weaponized you. Simple, easy, natural. And the altars were the same way. The same darkness that stripped his bird body could also return it. He saw the chance to make things right.

"My liege. That is portal darkness, is it not?"

"You're not supposed to know that—or feel it."

"But that is untrue, my Straw Savior. I am bird as thou art also a bird."

"I see, okay."

"We should use the altar."

"I don't know what we can give," A lie—but Swishy chose stinginess with his core. "I've never done a deal before."

"But you've been involved. This is why you are magic straw, a blessing truly, but not your original form. When I think of it...it makes me angry, so angry" The man trembled, his blackwheat nature quaking through his clenched muscles. Wrath, wrath, so much wrath. Swishy couldn't summon anything above the level of annoyance. He was so impressed with the sheer intensity of the man.

Who knew bird-soul could be so...so much?

"Do you think the dark can give you a body?" Swishy asked.

"If it does not, we simply ask it to maketh one."

Bristles signaled for his associate to bring the captured birds—now tied in a single, rock-beaten bundle. After the snitchtalons changed hands, the henchbird cawed once, and Bristles cawed twice—louder, purposefully louder—Bristles tossed the whole bundle into the air. The birds went high, almost disappearing into the clouds. Everyone waited for the shadowclaws to land. But Bristles then made his request: "My body. Bring me my body!"

And the smoke flowed around the birds in a cycle, which became a small tornado—poof!—which wholly vanished the bodies. A sedation ensued: stillness, silence, a pulsing of the imperious dark. The birdmen and scarecrow awaited the verdict.

Then darkness flared with a mighty commandment: More.

Bristles' eyes went alight, amber marbles gleaming at this rare opportunity. And then he was off.

Swishy and the henchbirds followed Bristles towards a ravaged storefront. Busy rioters shoved contraband plumage into potato sacks. A couple, obviously field workers, had packaged the collected plumage into tight squares resembling hay bales. The black cubes were impressive—not a feather out of place. There were even small cubes which they tossed to Swishy as he passed, and which he quickly scarfed down.

As they proceeded Swishy thought about how the curses hadn't demanded immediate payment. The darkness was smart. The darkness always accurately judged the person making their request. Bristles didn't have the full payment but they saw the wrathraven in him, the tenacity and dedication, the ruthless drive to return to his body. The payment would be done. The wise darkness simply awaited its due.

Bristles suddenly stopped. He eyed a crown of birds, perched in a store-side sapling. They contemptuously eyed him, recognizing him as a body they'd kidnapped. They even said it. Ha! You want to get flown off again? It was so fun playing catch with you! I guess you want to go back to the skies? Seeing as you're not a bird anymore! Lost your wings now you want us to drive you? How kind of you to ask? That is what you want, isn't it?

"Dearest Swishy, Lord of Lords. Armeth me." He reached an opened hand to Swishy without looking at him. The man glowered at the snitchtalons, his focused amber gaze signaling battle.

The scarecrow bent to the ground and touched it with both hands this time. Upon contact he imagined the most fitting weapon for Bristles. He considered the shape through which his ally would regain his body. With right hand he drew up a glowing gold-straw bow. In his left hand, he'd conjured a bundle of coiled wheat rods, blunt-tipped bludgeons. He offered his wares to Bristles.

Without looking, Bristles grabbed the weapons and brandished them. The energy he supplied was naturally angry, imbuing the bow and blunt-tips—the gold-straw arms was now spiderwebbed with blackwheat.

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Swishy dismissed the passing notion that he'd made a mistake. He watched on, ready for the consequences.

Bristles nocked the arrows and flexed the bowstring, aiming at the shadowclaws, tensing and releasing, testing it out. The birds flinched and angrily glared. But the man wasn't taking part in the posturing games. He busied himself with one final preliminary action: he reached into his pocket and produced a knot of blackwheat. He swallowed it. "Yes, yes, I can feel the BLESSING."

"You're welcome?"

Bristles shot an arrow, slamming the dark bludgeon into a bird's face. The arrow went so fast—nobody could respond. The snitchtalons postured themselves for flight but Bristles rapid-fired three more busters, all hitting their target. As soon as the unconscious birds hit the ground, the shrine's smokiness curled around the bodies and claimed them. Once the smoke dispersed, the creatures were gone, subsumed into the unbound, traveling altar.

"Is it enough?" Bristles called to the dark.

A deep guffaw boomed through their souls. Swishy couldn't identify the sentiment beneath the humor. All he knew was that he wasn't used to the feeling of inappropriate laughter. But then came the response of the conjoined curses: More.

And Bristles rushed off, retrieving his arrows, chasing after the snitchtalons.

Swishy ran after him but he wasn't sure he himself wanted to do an altar trade. He felt that if he used the altar it'd be tempted to consume him right back. The darkness was his home but the world of light had taught him that everything changes, that what you once considered home could instantly shift into a foreign, hostile territory.

Others did not possess Swishy's reservations. The altar appeared to be for Ruby and Ruby alone. But now that the amorphous darkness revealed itself, the soul-sensitive locals were ready for their gifts. The greed urged them on as they made senseless requests, ones they could never pay for. Make me rich! Make me a dragon! Make me the new Ruby!

The darkness quite enjoyed shooting down their requests, respectively. No. Nope. And foolish human, you don't have it in you.

But there were other requests that made complete sense to the altar—though were horrifying to Swishy. Straw is the truest form. The only form. I pray for you to make me into the savior—make me into Swishy. Not just me...but my spouse, my kids. Straw is the cure! Straw is the way! SCARECROW US, DEAR ALTAR! MAKE US SWISH!

And those souls began to disappear, their bodies falling to the ground—before dispersing within the dark.

Swishy, keen on the incorporeal network, saw souls leaving the body's location but reappearing elsewhere. And the altar-offerors began to move, shuffling from the darkness into streetlights and lit windowpanes and intermittent moonbeams. The cadence of their clumsy rhythm battered the air, swish-swish, swish-swish. But they weren't as talented as Swishy. They didn't have a Trey to prompt them in the language arts. And the heart arts(?)—they were victim of it. There were no hearts inside, only husk. As the cost of the transfer, Swishy suspected that the curses had taken everything else.

The true nature of curses was obvious despite their various enigmas. Curses curse. Harm was the nature, the sole promise, the guaranteed outcome of a contract with the dark.

"Go back!" Swishy swished. "We were BIRDS! Flap-flaps—not swish-swishes!" He scarecrowed despairingly, a last-ditch T to show them the way. He flapped his arms. He twinged his growing but non-working winglet. His fly gestures were desperate, hoping that if he flew hard enough the newborn scarecrows would take flight. A stupid hope—but a magic one. And magic was real, wasn't it?

But the swishing masses pressed onwards, struggling to walk, falling over themselves, tipping to the side. A lot of the scarecrows—unlike Swishy—were on sticks. The scarecrows were prayerful, thanking the darkness like wretched phantoms. They T-posed in fearsome intensity, leaning forward, a familiar gesture yet the exact opposite of Swishy's arm stretch of tranquility. They'd made the decision to become straw, immortal in their own way, but useless. Their lives didn't improve. Their lives were simply captive to the frenzy of their unbound love.

But the scarecrows lovingly gazed at Swishy, their heads lolled to the side, their bodies collapsing under the uneven weight of their straw. They were poorly made bags of wheat with sack-wrapped faces and grotesquely stitched smiles. They didn't have soul enough to swish. Or heart enough to feel. They were effigies at best, bristled soul containers in the smoky, doom-tinged night.

The scarecrows, naturally, were different sizes: happy families of mommas and daddies and the little ones, too.

Swishy saddened at their lack of glow. They were just straw. Brown and unspectacular and tragically unseen. The night erased them, their silhouettes diminishing into a fog, a shade, dead space. Only Swishy could see their souls. Only Swishy could believe that they too could rise. But he knew better. His innate sensitivity told him the complete story. The altar left the bodies—and took the hearts.

"Fools!" Bristles cried as he shot arrows towards flying snitchtalons. "There are a million scarecrows but only one Swishy. Do they think the altars simply give out hearts just because thou asketh? It took Ruby to ask, and for Swish-Lord to carry the heart. Fools, fools, fools, every single one of them." He spat at a nearby scarecrow, a limp pile of impudent dead-straw.

"That's horrible!" Swishy yelled.

"They're indeed horrid scoundrels!" Bristles beamed, misunderstanding. "The only way to become a Swishy is to take thy heart. The altar would've had to giveth thou’s away. They tried to killeth thee. The fools! Their just desserts have manifested in straw. Fitting. Glorious, really."

"I don't think I can lose my heart like that. That doesn't make sense. It's right here." Swishy reached inside. His heart drummed, heavily pounding in his small hand, but he was doubtful about it anyway. It was real. It had to be real. And it had to be his. He stared at the darkness, though, sinuous and mocking. The doom set upon him then, the idea that Bristles could've been right. That he was right. He hoped not. He prayed not.

"Dearest Swishy, what do we know? Everything has a cost. To become a Swishy, thou must payeth a Swishy. The logic tracks—does it not? I am grateful, my Lord, that thou art special, that thou art still here. And that they...(he contemptuously glared at them as others lay as hard-headed lumps, and others rolled off from a breeze of darkness, tumbleweeds tumbleweeding into obscurity) are nothings."

Swishy dug inside for Trey's cross—anything to distract from the ambient swish-swishes of the accursed shrine-users. But the tiny friend inside was like any quill, any needle, lost in his labyrinth of straw binding.