Someone was talking. The voice wasn’t loud, and none of the words stood out to him. Dunstan was tired, it was still the middle of the night. Even with his eyes closed, he could tell it was still dark. He let himself drift, and the dream began.

He had enemies, and they gathered, away from his sight, where they whispered and plotted against him. He was betrayed by those he’d believed would stand with him against anything. There was a fire burning around him. All was lost. He drew his sword, the sword that had been his father’s, and roared out a challenge. It was for nought.

Dunstan awoke with a start. He was sweating, though it didn’t feel particularly warm in his room. He pushed the blanket aside and sat up, then ran a hand through his hair. The details of the dream were hazy, and they slipped away from his waking mind, like trying to grab a handful of minnows from a pond.

“Wæs hæl.”

Eyes wide, Dunstan leaped from his bed, tripped on the blanket, sprawled on the floor, and scrambled across the room. The King of the Hill sat on a chest at the foot of his bed, the iron face of his helmet inscrutable as ever.

“How did you get in here?!” Dunstan demanded as he lurched to his feet.

"Ne sceal man to ær forht ne to ær fægen,” the phantom told him.* Dunstan frowned in confusion.

“I shouldn’t be afraid too soon, or celebrate too soon?”

The ghost seemed to consider what he’d said, then nodded its head.

“That’s from a poem...”

Dunstan staggered, before catching himself against the wall. He didn’t know anything about poetry! He didn’t know the ancient language, he didn’t even know anyone who did! The King of the Hill hadn’t just gotten into his room, he’d gotten into his head! What if he did it again?What if he didn’t leave...

The terrified young man grabbed the latch of his door and pulled it open. He dashed across the cottage as the door to his parents room opened, and his father stepped into the sitting room.

“Dunstan? What’s happening?” he asked. Dunstan turned to answer, his coat already in his hand, but the King of the Hill appeared in the doorway of his room.

“Anbidiað!” the apparition cried, reaching out toward him.

“Nooooo!” Dunstan ran barefoot out the door, struggling not to trip in his nightshirt. He leaped over the fence and sprinted across the pasture in the pale moonlight, his feet wet with the dew on the grass. On Widburh Mound, the spirits watched him go.

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“Ow!” Something struck Dunstan on the forehead before landing in his lap. He rubbed the spot where it hat hit him and glanced down, where a pebble sat in his lap.

“The freak isn’t dead after all!”

Dunstan looked up in confusion, squinting in the mid-morning sun. He shaded his eyes with his hand, catching sight of a person standing a few feet away.

“Edmund...” Dunstan shook his head as he tried to clear the cobwebs from his mind. “What are you doing here?” Edmund Thatcher was a boy about his own age, with brown hair and dark eyes. He had a stick in his hand, which he used to poke Dunstan in the shin.

“This is our field, or are you so mad now that you don’t know where you are?” Edmund fixed him with a hostile stare. “What are you doing here?”

Dunstan took in his surroundings with sleep-deprived eyes. He was leaning against a stone wall about as tall as his chest. He was dressed in just his nightshirt and coat, and was covered with mud, leaves, and twigs.

“I stopped here to rest, I must have fallen asleep...” he said. Edmund poked him in the arm with the stick again.

“Stopped to rest? Stopped what to rest? You’re dressed like someone chasing a fox out of his chicken coop in the middle of the night, but your house is four miles from here!”

“Stop poking me,” Dunstan told him. “I ran away, there was...”

“There was what?” Edmund demanded, poking him again.

Dunstan shoved the stick away. “There was a ghost, alright?! It was in my room, and I ran away!”

“There was not,” Edmund rolled his eyes.

“There was so! You weren’t there!” Dunstan retorted. The two had never gotten along.

“It doesn’t matter if I wasn’t there, because ghosts aren’t real,” Edmund sneered at him. “You had a nightmare and ran all over the countryside, because you’re crazy.”

“I’m not crazy, it was there! It spoke to me!”

“Oh, well if it spoke to you, then it has to be real,” Edmund said mockingly. “What did it say? No, let me guess!” The boy thought for a moment, while Dunstan glared at him. “It said you’re secretly a prince, and you’ll be king one day, because some old witch looked in her crystal ball and saw that the true king was kicked in the head by an ox!” He laughed.

“He didn’t say anything like that!” Dunstan shouted. He turned and stomped away, following his own muddy tracks toward a stream not far away.

“What did he say then?” Edmund called, jogging after him. “C’mon, tell me!”

Dunstan ignored him, but the other boy followed him, alternately laughing and trying to goad him into talking about the ghost. Dunstan had almost reached the brook before his patience ran out.

“FINE!” he bellowed, loud enough that it echoed off the nearby hillside. “It said ‘ways hale’, alright?! It means ‘be well’. Then it said some line from an old poem.”

“Oh, it came to recite poetry for you?” laughed Edmund. “Well, my mistake! It didn’t come to tell you that you were a prince, it came to recite poetry for a princess!”

Dunstan clenched his jaw to keep from shouting any more and stomped into the brook, where he washed the mud off his feet and shins, ignoring any further comments from Edmund. When he was marginally cleaner than he’d been when he awoke, he began the long walk home.