Daisy felt strange knocking on Torv’s door when she knew he'd been gone for nearly two seasons. The oak door was solid; she remembered Torv fitting it onto the hinges himself. It was one of countless small moments of his life she had witnessed from her upstairs window across the field in those days before she had the courage to cross and speak to him. Her knocks seemed to echo in the quiet night, the rain falling in near-silent, thin mists. At first there was no answer, but she knocked once more with a loud persistence.

The door cracked open and a single eye with a coal-black pupil stared her down in a rage.

-Do ye plan on waking the whole village is that it? Do ye think it’s a right laugh to knock on the missing boy’s door?

-I only hoped. I had thought, Daisy sputtered. Torv.

As his name died on her lips, the man opened the door wider and pulled her inside as quickly as he could. It was dark as pitch, but Daisy could hear the man bolting the door from the inside. He struck a match, lit a candle, and bade her follow.

-Mistake. Window. Stupid, the man muttered to himself as she followed him down the stairs into the cellar.

Down in the cellar with Torv’s wine and cheese, there was no need for the single candle as it was bright and comfortable. All the casks and food were pushed into a corner. In their place was...well most of Torv’s living room. There was his comfortable reading chair with the worn armrests and footstool, and his coffee table, and even his hearth rug. Four or five candelabras were lit and placed about the room, giving it a healthy, warm glow. Brushing past her and sitting down in Torv’s reading chair was the man of the coal black eye. And it was indeed only a single eye, as the other socket was empty as a sand shell. He sat with his arms crossed, clearly in a foul temper, staring at the young girl who stood in awe and confusion.

-Suppose you saw me in the window?

-Yes, she said, glad not to have to be the first to speak.

-Stupid mistake on my part. Thought your house was abandoned.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

-Just mother and I. I’m Daisy. Daisy Heartfand.

It was at this point that the gentleman was supposed to introduce himself, or so Daisy’s upbringing had told her. The man with the coal black eye did no such thing. He looked her up and down as if she were a pony up for auction and pulled a dirty, clay pipe from a vest pocket. It was possibly the strangest article of clothing Daisy had ever seen, this vest. It must have had two dozen pockets of various sizes and stitchings. It was clearly a product of many years and many revisions.

From one of these pockets came the clay pipe, and from another a match with which he lit the former. Not until he had filled the cellar with the aroma of his pipe tobacco, which Daisy was trying very hard not to admit to herself reminded her terribly of Torv, did he deign to give his own name. And what a strange name it was.

-I’m sorry, Daisy said. But I don’t think I heard it correctly.

The man sighed.

-Few do, he said. Come, sit closer.

He motioned for her to take one of the kitchen chairs propped against a nearby wall and she did. Up close, he was not nearly as frightening as she had first supposed. He was tall, certainly, but bald and had a liver-spotted head, though his hands had none, and in fact looked younger than most. His one eye was black, and appeared to be all pupil. He wore patched, woolen pants and the aforementioned many-pocketed vest. His clay pipe stem was too short to hold in his mouth as Torv had often done, and he held it in the palm of his left hand in between puffs.

-Can call me Fen, he said. Most folks who aren’t Wran do. Nobody but a Wran can understand a Wren name.

-You’re a Wran? Daisy asked, incredulously. But I thought

-We’re all dead. All live underground. Have hooked tails?

-The first one.

-You’re not alone. Popular one, that. In this part of the world. Suppose it’s easier that way.

-Easier than what?

-Let’s…

He put his pipe to his mouth and inhaled deeply, exhaling a plume of aromatic smoke.

-I suppose you’re his sweetheart then.

Daisy went very red.

-We never.

-All the same, Fen said, clearly as eager to avoid the topic as Daisy. That’s why you were watching the window. Hoping to see if he’d come back?

-That’s about the size of it, she said, looking at her hands.

-He’s not coming back, Daisy Heartfand. I can tell you that much.

-Do you know where he is, then? Who took him?

She had stood up from the kitchen chair and was looming over Fen now, fear and hope and desperation all showing at once in her eyes. The Wran gave no sign anything had changed, but went on calmly smoking.

-No one’s took him if we’ve had any luck at all. But as to who’s after him. Aye. I know that for certain.