THROUGHOUT HIS CHEST CONTRACTIONS, SWISHY’S DOUBTS GREW IN POWER.
His body searched for a heart, but his faith wavered. Is there a seed in me? Can I grow it back? Is this the end, after all?
Each movement of his chest constituted hope and despair, joy and grief. His emotions yo-yo’d. He didn’t know what was happening inside him. As the scarecrows carried him through their budding settlement, Swishy trembled. His pores opened, gasping for soul. Nervous jitters sifted through his straw.
Jitters? I have jitters?
The invisible activity was enough to convince him that he could move.
Swishy aimed his pittance of soul into his arm but paused. Would he reach inside his chest as he always had? Did he have the bravery to check for a heart? Now that he knew what he was looking for, the knowledge of what having a heart meant terrified him. He wanted to shove a finger into his chest and search around for a seed, the start of a new core. But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He wasn’t yet ready.
He relaxed his arms and played dead, dead inside.
But everyone helped him through his heartlessness. This fact was clear like water. The scarecrows carried him, cleaned his shoes, and used [Weave] spells to clean and rebuild the woods he’d just leveled. They conjured items from nowhere. They reminded Swishy of himself. They couldn’t grow straw, but their control of the available wheat was impressive. Straw, grass, small twigs—these raw materials flew across the area, fortifying one structure or another. With each act of construction, the townsfolk bolstered Swishy’s possible heart. The swelling chasm in Swishy was minimized. The straw-bound professed their care for him and backed it up with action after action after action after action.
Yet his inner abyss poisoned these acts. Swishy told himself that the hammocks, the huts, and the atmospheric beautification weren’t for him at all. He knew that wasn’t his normal thought process. His chasm spoke rudely. His chasm was loud. His chasm inverted everything good, everything neutral, into an emotional spike.
The boy gritted his teeth against the jealousy. This hatred is a figment—it’s fake! That’s not how I feel!
Swishy trusted his eyes. He couldn’t let the community’s contributions pass before his gourd unappreciated. There was giving all around him, and he only needed to grasp it, to live in the moment. Embracing the bounty of positivity, he refilled...
Ba-bump! Ba-bump!
Something was inside. A special something. The good acts burrowed into him like nutrients. Relaxing his body, Swishy sank into breath and growth.
Swishy searched inside for the arcane reassurance of HOPE and TRUST and RESILIENCE. He inwardly checked for RESOLVE. The words were in him, this he knew, but were inaccessible. With no heart and little soul, he could only rely on his mind. He instead reached for Trey’s advice, a common saying during times of worry.
Thug it out, my guy!
He calmed as the scarecrows carried him to an unknown destination.
As Swishy was carried around the tidy grounds, his relief continued with each sight of a kid-crow resting in a hammock. Their periods of sleep were far more restful than earlier, Swishy’s [Grain Mill] spell having run its course. Their parents stood over them and smoothed their heads and ran the backs of their gnarled fingers over their faces. They whispered soft words. They told their kids they loved them. They said that nightmares were not to be feared, only endured. You’re okay. The adults crooned. I’m here. Just rest. Sleep, my dear, just sleep.
Swishy’s mind zoomed to Sling caressing the wrathraven babies. Then he imagined Trey’s many kindnesses, many games and affirmations and flashcard enforced wisdom.
Trey, where are you?
Trey-less Trey was still in the [Straw Guardian]. Hadn’t the scarecrows excavated him? The soul in his eyes flitted around the grounds, searching for a [Zlide] portal. But there was none.
The boy’s inner emptiness laughed at him.
Meanwhile, Swishy could tell they were getting close to their destination. The straw-bound entered the woods, made a couple of swift and decisive turns, and came upon a circular plot. Within the area, a dozen scarecrows were waiting with their hands clasped together. They gasped as they saw Swishy up close. Their prayers were answered. Worship was their breath.
They’d arrived and Swishy’s eyeholes stretched to the size of plates.
There were two stumps, one small, one larger.
Swishy was carried toward the small one and placed upon it. He now stood upon the pedestal, sturdy and firm. The carved grips in the wood captured the blocky grips of Swishy’s Timbs. Within the custom grooves, the scarecrows firmly set Swishy upright.
Swishy’s perch was beautiful. It was constructed of clean white wood. The stump glowed in a strange translucence, stripped of color and shadow from the battle. Both Swishy and the wrathravens had absorbed the shadows and molded them to their liking, which resulted in a ghostly, colorless surface. The ethereal grayness, while collateral damage, was aesthetically pleasing.
In the before times, the straw-bound harangued Swishy in the town square, crowding him to Trey’s great ire. They now decided to worship with proper boundaries. The carriers set Swishy down and backed away, holding out their hands in praise.
Swishy noticed the carvings on the surrounding trees: pumpkins, scarecrows, feathers, and Clayhearth crosses. There was a realistic carving of Swishy. And beside that one, a notched human boy with rounded hair tufts—Trey.
Noise came from behind Swishy, the brush being pushed aside. The blur of bodies rushed into the area and surrounded the larger stump. The rustle of their straw bodies and contact against the wood filled Swishy’s mind. The bodies ceased their activities. The bustle had relaxed and dissipated. Everyone moved aside to join the prayerful perimeter.
Swishy was a bundle of curiosity, a tumbleweed of nerves. The boy drooped his head to the side in an act of languid, lifeless scarecrow-ing.
His hanging head confirmed the good news: Trey. The Clayborne remained in his golden scarecrow cast, T’d and resting. Trey’s soul had yet to return. The [Heart Strings] gently flowed within Trey’s vessel as it snored—then laughed.
Don’t worry, Swishy told himself. I trust in your return…
He then saw that his slightly elevated platform gave him an audience. The scarecrow upon the oaken stage was an attractive sight to his straw-bound devotees. They eased closer to him. They wanted to touch him. They wanted to proclaim his greatness, their lips trembling. Restraint was being practiced here, likely the first restraint that the Straw City folks had ever practiced.
Their worship had become thoughtful.
They went down to their knees and bowed their heads. The souls linked as one. They had something to communicate to the boy, a profound message that they needed him to understand. The large and shared gesturing meant an equally massive intent. Their vapor trails of soul converged above the rows and rows of prostrating scarecrows in an aura.
GRATITUDE…it bubbled, it morphed, it grew and grew and grew and grew. There was no need for apology, only their thanks, and their continued acts of servitude.
Their intent was unified, and their mouths supported that sentiment with individual addresses. We’re sorry! We ruined everything! Everybody eats—and that should’ve included you! Thank you for sharing everything that you are! We’ll treat you beautifully. We are yours, all yours. Use us, please, use us. And we will prove our love. We will act with love! We will be the people we should’ve always been…Hearts are for giving! That’s what we’ve always known. But will you, our Lord, FORGIVE us?
The tears came then, their souls trickling from their dried heads. As they covered their faces and clung to each other and rubbed the backs of their neighbors, Swishy noticed that their movements had gained coordination. Their expanding souls gathered in nodes around the hinge points of their would-be limbs. The soul-filled nodes became their joints. They’d answered a prayer of their own, becoming mobile, more useful.
Everyone was at the mercy of something. Togetherness was their only answer, the best they could think of at that moment.
Swishy rested; Swishy observed; Swishy soaked in the atmosphere. The particles of atomized soul were lovely to him. As the remorseful adults gathered themselves and gazed upon the boy, Swishy wondered if Trey had given him the FORGIVENESS card. Was there a card for such a thing? Was that a magic word at all? Swishy combed through his thoughts, mystified by this…forgiveness. Or at least the idea of receiving such a thing from the citizens, the snitchtalons, or Ruby.
What a good village, Swishy thought. They’re all…they’re all a little like Trey.
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He felt the conjured souls like a heat. Nearby, the shadows stirred favorably. The air molecules recognizably arranged to indicate a [Zlide] portal. Trey was coming. Slowly coming—but coming, nonetheless.
He raised his head, waiting and waiting. He fixated on a single spot between a grouping of trees.
Come on, friend. Come back to me! I’m waiting.
Nearby, the shadows stirred. The beginnings of a portal. The beginnings of a spectacular return.
He stared at Trey’s face, awaiting his awakening at any moment. It’ll happen now…no. Now! Come on, Trey, I wish you’d wake up in one, two, three…go!
(…)
A dark ovoid opened above them. The smokiness softly swirled around its opaque center. The familiar [Zlide] portal had appeared.
The boy waited for the contents to flood out.
“My best friend!” he’d vehemently swished, his first words since giving his heart to Myst. “Welcome back!”
The straw-bound raised their heads, gleeful at their savior’s passion. They, too, cheered at the portal, raucously screaming for Trey. “Welcome back!” they all said, followed by an assorted mix of beautiful soul, proud soul, strong soul, warrior soul.
Swishy was a little shocked that his credibility could get Trey such respect. Inside, the laughs built up, but he kept them all in. He didn’t want to break character. The gravity of the moment was important to the scarecrows.
The boy waited with bated breath for his friend to return. “It’s time,” he breathed out. “Let’s go already, let’s get cracking.”
“Yes, Swish-God…”
The boy heard his title and assumed it was Trey, the ghost version anyhow. The adoring tone had to be him. The love, respect, and loyalty could only belong to his friend. And then the portal delivered a harsh truth.
Bristles collapsed out of the gateway. The psychopathy dripped from the deranged man. The aura around him was black and thick as tar. He’d drowned in the dark. He gasped and coughed and wheezed for breath, the shadowy ink exploding from his body.
Swishy could almost squeeze the silence like a putty. Everyone was shocked. Nobody wanted Bristles back. The magic intents that prominently boosted them inside, their GRATITUDE and GRACE, their GOODNESS, their SAFETY, dissolved into dying glitter. Their collective glow was gone. They were prey again. And Bristles’ mouth was always, always open.
The [Zlide] realm buzzed softly but no people or souls emerged. There wasn’t an insect, a dark dweller, or a snitchtalon. There was no Trey. Swishy worried; Swishy sorrowed. There was no heart without a Trey to inhabit it. The worst-case scenarios packed within his chasm.
Bristles crawled toward Swishy, unconscious but animate. His soul was savaged but his instincts dragged him toward survival. His weakening reminded Swishy of his own [Scarecrow of the Damned] spell. Bristles was scarred and naked. His skin was covered in cuts. The man was piloted by ethereal rags, punctured and jagged and unbalanced. Bristles was far from whole. The shadows would have nothing to do with him now.
He wormed along with a gazing forward, his dreadful eyes rolled to the back of his head. The whites of his eyes confronted the world, seeing no future. There was nothing for him now. No vision, no shadows, no physical strength in his body. The animal followed his programming, nothing more.
Bristles…Swishy thought, almost mournfully.
Bristles self-soothed, rubbing his arms. He hugged himself, checking for wings that weren’t there. Brief panic came, then sudden composure.
He made hand gestures, attempting to summon birds. But the shadows remained closed to him. Bristles stared into his empty hand and closed the hand, squeezing and squeezing. The shadows didn’t stir or materialize but Swishy read the intent, the arcane attempt. Bristles focused on his empty hand, mourning his unrealized vision. His hand flexed as if he were holding a chain. But there were no birds to serve him. There wasn’t even a feather to grasp.
Bristles was in a wretched, isolated state. He screeched, he choked, he cried and cried and cried and cried…
Swishy gazed upon his wayward ally. The boy was tired of pain, no matter who owned it. It simply exhausted him to see every human and animal die inside—and whine about it.
“Shut up…” Swishy spoke from his roaring chasm.
“My liege…” Bristles’ dried voice was full of blood and gristle. “Will you save me?”
“Dramatic…”
“I—”
“No, stop, sink into the chasm. Lay there a while, okay? Stay featherless.”
“Lord Swishy, please!” Bristles suddenly stood, strengthened by rejection. The man began to bound toward him with large steps. Bristles’ tremendous footfalls made the ground ripple in darkness. He arrived at the tree trunk pedestal, gazing upward into Swishy’s gourd. Raw and exposed, Bristles was finally alone with his savior.
Swishy stiffened, a powerful scarecrow—though dead in most respects. If he backed down now, he’d never find out what became of Trey. Endure, Swishy told himself. Endure.
“My liege, oh how I’ve missed thee.” Bristles hopefully peered at Swishy, expecting a similar compliment.
“You know what you’ve done. The pain you have is the pain you earned—and you know it.” A paternal intent conjured with ferocity. DISCIPLINE. The dark god had rendered his judgment.
The letters slammed into Bristles’ forehead with thud after thud after thud.
Bristles weakened, collapsing to his knees.
The silence changed. The scarecrows were mute for a different reason altogether. The dark spell had reawakened their traumas and fears. Everyone shrank into themselves, crumpling and hiding. They backpedaled and clung to each other. Swishy realized then what they were doing at the edge of the woods, concealed as he fought the wrathravens.
The boy stretched his whole body, filling his extremities with soul. He was ready to move. And the first move had to be the right one. He removed his Timb from the pedestal notch and took the first step.
Swishy jumped off the stump and loomed above Bristles—who trembled on all fours.
“Here…” Swishy unzipped the top part of his parka, revealing his self-healing torso. Swishy pulled a clump of straw from his chest. He ground the wheat between his fingers into manageable crumbs.
Within the crumbs, there were flecks of gold…
Bristles opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue. He piously waited.
“Huh?” The Swishy head-tilt. And not casual confusion, deep confusion.
Bristles closed his eyes, his tongue still hanging out. Swishy had seen this before from the few times he’d followed Trey to church. There were some small ones in Straw City—many that worshiped the straw, but at least two that prayed to Trey’s Clayhearth God. When Swishy peered inside the church, he saw the folks lining up in the center aisle, waiting their turn for the white-collared man to lay wafers on the followers’ tongues.
Trey went as well, marching in line. When his turn came, he opened his mouth. A scarecrow shape had been etched into the soft little cookie that the priest put on Trey’s tongue. The body of their savior is what they’d called it.
Swishy took the cue and molded the straw into a disc shape, as close to a wafer as he could get. With a separate straw chew, Swishy etched the scarecrow shape onto the disc. He drew his head as well, just a circle. The golden crumbs revealed themselves in the drawn gourd.
Bristles, ever faithful, remained in place, a statue of piety.
Swishy pressed the wafer onto Bristles’ tongue. The gold aura dissolved into Bristles’ body, a small wafer of wheat dispersing rivers of gold throughout his every vein and muscle. Swishy then did something he hadn’t intended on at all.
He grazed Bristles’ tongue with his exposed straw finger, the flesh-to-straw contact drawing out the truth of the man’s soul. The unlocked memories flooded into Swishy. The same as when he’d witnessed Ruby’s Stormcellar exploits, he briefly saw inside Bristles.
(…)
A wrathraven. Flapping. Flying. Prey between his talons. The Last Straw right below, an admirable nest of shadows.
Wind. Strong wind. Gale force wind. A freedom-carrying wind, shapeless and fast.
He followed its path several times, then several more times, in faster and faster orbits. His talons unclenched, releasing his prey.
Bristles circled and circled, realizing that he hadn’t been circling of his own volition. He was twirling, swirling, orbiting. The unseen pull couldn’t be defied. The wind carried him, possessed him, owned him. He flexed his wings every which way. He barrel-rolled. He flapped hard. He collected shadows to enlarge his body, but his giant wingbeats couldn’t draw him away from the invisible influence.
A laughing wind. A wind of jeering faces and sadistic smiles. Souls, wraiths, phantoms. They asked Bristles why he would ever want to leave. The winds were relaxing and so should he.
Down below…Ruby. She controlled the wind somehow with one hand raised high. In the second hand, she was reading a thick book which she floated in her hand, using small winds to turn the page. Bristles couldn’t read the cover, but black intents rose in foul smoke. JUDGMENT. DOMINION. POSSESSION.
Everything was her will, her whim.
“Release me!” Bristles said. “ULTIMATUM!”
But his spell did nothing. No shadows gathered. No curses dared cohere to attack Ruby. Instead, the darkness laughed back at him.
Bristles fell to the ground, the darkness abandoning him.
He was only a soul now, drifting downward. Up above, his body continued to ride the wind. His wrathraven vessel emptily soared, its wings outstretched without intelligent guidance. Only Ruby, her wind.
Ruby stared at Bristles then. She stepped up to his soul. “What a marvelous animal you are. What a strong soul. Allow me to offer you a new home.”
Bristles stared at the body of a human who the snitchtalons had brought to her. It was a lowly, crying human. Strong-looking…for a human—but unbecoming and undeserving of a wrathraven soul. But Bristles dared not cry or beg. His body and soul were not his anymore. He lost, plain and simple. The rule of nature made him easily accept this.
“Fine…” Bristles said. “Pray I don’t return to my body.”
The black captured soul vowed one day to kill her—before Ruby’s wind flew him into the agonized face of the bird-bound human.
Swishy pulled his hand away, galled, disturbed. He backpedaled slightly, ever so slightly. His mind struggled to comprehend the horror he’d witnessed.
“Yes, yes!” The euphoric Bristles was taken by the spirit of gold. The whites of his eyes revealed themselves once more as the straw wafer dissolved upon his tongue. His inner aura flared from Swishy’s care, a cherished moment of non-darkness. For him, it’d been so long. Bristles, overwhelmed by ecstasy, passed out on his knees.
Meanwhile, Bristles had no idea that Swishy had delved into his memories and witnessed the contemptuous crimes against him.
The straw-bound were also oblivious to Swishy’s vision. They’d straightened their postures and shuffled forward again. Theirs was a merciful god, a blessedly approachable one. The aura of fear and misery dwindled into a steady simmer.
“Lord Swishy…” the scarecrows praised, breathing the name of their straw god.
But Swishy’s chasm roared on, spinning spools of blackwheat into existence. The cardiac activity was back, beating blackness throughout his body, signaling a restoration of his powers.
The stunned Swishy made a realization: Ruby stole Bristles’ soul. No altar, just Ruby…
At that moment, the [Zlide] ovoid swirled up above. A gurgling sound released from the portal. A powerful shadow stream came next, pushing out a tiny blue soul. The gnat-sized spirit performed a couple of disorientated loops before finding its target—it shot into Trey’s forehead, and the cerulean aura spread around his body. A moment passed before Trey’s eyes opened and a familiar smirk appeared. Trey wiggled his body, surprised by his confinement in the scarecrow cast.
“If I could,” Trey said in a clear, non-possessed voice, not a hint of a linting puppeteer’d cadence at all. “I’d scratch my head in confusion…and I wouldn’t stop scratching. What the hell is going on here?”
“Ruby…” Swishy’s voice was laced with panic. Blackwheat threads meshed through his throat.
“Bro, isn’t it always?” Trey shook his head, understanding in spirit—but in spirit alone.