I woke to the damp, cloying smell of dirt and decay, my arms trapped in cloth and wood. The lid above me only inches from my face. I banged on the walls, hoping to get someone’s attention, but my arms responded jerkily, striking the wood with soft, ineffectual slaps. My heart was pounding but strangely enough, I didn’t feel the need to draw breath. Terror clawed at my mind, wiping away any thought but the desperate need to get free. My attempt to speak, to call for help, to say my own name, anything, only resulted in an unintelligible croak. For hours, I tried unsuccessfully: opening the lid, flipping the coffin, prying open the boards, and screaming for help until, worn out from my efforts, I fell into a restless sleep.

The lid of the coffin opened, and the sound of scraping wood rang through its interior. I woke with a start, dazzled by the dim light of the mausoleum. A man in a richly embroidered, though filthy robe stared at me with small, beady eyes. His greasy, combed back hair and sharp, aquiline nose gave him a noble, aristocratic appearance despite the dirt streaked across his face and under his fingernails.

“Ahh, I thought I’d find ya here” he said with a sharp, cruel smile. “Do you know where you are, little one?”

His words, though soft, were like hammers to my silence-tuned ears. The headache behind my eyes magnified until I could barely think. He tapped the coffin with a black cane, the head of which was obscured by his gloved hands, “Hurry up boy”. The sound made my eyes feel like they would pop out of my head.

I barely managed to climb out of the coffin, falling to the floor in an inelegant sprawl as a result of my efforts. The man was strangely well-dressed for such grim surroundings. And his voice had the articulate pronunciation and accent of the posh upper class of the cities, a fine distance from these backwaters. Why was such a man here? And more, in this mausoleum, a place dank and dreary enough, that even I, as adventurous as I am, or was, only ventured forth when forced.

“Oh dear, it seems you’ve been dead for quite a bit longer than I thought” the stranger quipped, “your muscles have atrophied quite a bit, despite that wonderful work your loving sister did preserving you”.

“She tried to raise you from the dead, you know?” he continued, “even though she must have known the consequences, the risks, and all for nothing”

“Well not all for nothing, you’re here, breathing, well not quite breathing, but you get what I mean.”

I tried to stand and managed it. barely, by leaning heavily against the cool stone walls.

“Where is she?”, I rasped. “My sister I mean, is she alright?” Macha, I almost forgot about her. For my whole life, it had only been the two of us. The pain of my death, it would be unbearable. At least for me, death meant silence and freedom. But Macha, in that old cottage, full of strange, odorous plants, where the neighbors hardly ever dared to visit. It would mean near, absolute solitude. On top of that, witches were well known for their nigh-on endless life spans.

“Oh, she’s fine” the man said with a flippant wave of his hand, “still chugging on in that old hovel, staring at the walls or whatever mad people do”. With a small grimace, he muttered, “waste of talent”.

I had little information on Macha’s past and even when I wheedled for a story of her days as a witch, she had clammed up with a tight-lipped frown and a pained look in her eyes. Even now, with the head-splitting pain of resurrection, pounding behind my eyes and that gaping silence of my own heart and the fear of what is to come, I still could not help asking, “You knew Macha?”.

The man stared at me, his dark beady eyes, eyeing me with a forceful intent as he had not before. A small, evil looking grin split his face, “Oh, has she not told you about me? Beware the black-clothed man and his hooked smile. Beware his dark arts, for he will tie up your will into knots and bid you do his work until you are no more than a dog.” With each of those words, he had crept closer and closer, until I could see every pore on his face, every streak of dirt.

Then abruptly, he laughed and spun around. “Now come”, he commanded and left the crypt, winding his way around the various statues and pillars. Everything was made of a deep gray rock, rough-hewn and pockmarked. I recognized a few of the statues as pagan gods the locals believed would protect the dead from the demons and monsters that stalked the afterlife. They stood in rows within the mausoleum as if they were a small army, guarding our precious dead. Before a few of the major deities were alters with small offerings, wildflowers tied together with twine, a small dab of cheese.

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After a few heaving breaths that I did not need, but habit demanded, I started after him if only because I had no other idea of how to leave this disturbingly silent place. If my heart still beat, it would be a roar in my ears after that encounter. I limped slowly after the man, still hugging the walls and trying to remember how to command my body. Before long, I was able to walk with smooth, if slow movements. I passed rows and rows of coffins, stacked in arched alcoves along the wall. The air was cool and damp, but the lack of a breeze or any sort of airflow combined with the flickering light of lamps set at intervals created a deathly atmosphere to the place.

Stumbling on, I eventually reached the stairwell. The man was there, tapping a foot with impatience, and staring at his flip phone. In the brighter light, I could make out more details of the man: how his clothing was threadbare with patches at the knees and elbows, hints of crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, streaks of gray in his carefully slicked backed hair.

Though I knew he was hardly likely to respond, still curiosity pressed me to ask, “What’s your name?”.

The man looked up, annoyance seemed to be carved permanently into his face. “Herne” he replied blandly, typed out a reply on his phone, then turned and marched up the stairs. The steps, like everything else, were also stone, void of decoration and irregularly shaped.

Outside, the night air was chill, and a thin mist swirled about the feet, when I last remembered it as warm and muggy. Autumn had come. This was my favorite season. I loved the fiery colors of the trees and the ever-present sounds of squirrels in the trees, busy preparing for the harsh winter. Often, Macha would ask me to gather the soon to be gone flowers and herbs in the forests and I would be free of school for another day.

But when I had died, it was still summer and months from the autumn harvest. Past the edge of the graveyard, I could see only uprooted fields and bales of hay, with none of the fresh, summer greenery and the hum of insects. “How long have I been … dead?” I asked, still uncomfortable with the thought of dying, buried beneath the earth. The silence, the rats, and whatever gray ghosts the old stories said haunted the underground.

“Hmm … a few months I’d say, it’s October now” Herne replied, now staring at the stars. The sky was alight with them as few places now were, though it was often shrouded by clouds. He peered rather intently at certain constellations visible through the thinning cloud layer before turning away, murmuring to himself.

“Do you know why I woke now” I asked, “you said Macha tried to raise me from the dead”

“If I was in the crypt, it must mean she thought she failed.”

“Why indeed?” Herne replied with a cold smile, “What dead, old Macha didn’t realize, was that it takes dying blood to revive the dead. Pity.” He pulled out a vial from one of his many, concealed pockets, holding it up for me to see.

“This” he said, shaking it so the thick, wine-red liquid slicked up the sides of the vial, “is the blood of Mrs. Mahorney.”

“Wait, you said dying? So that must mean …”, I could feel my brows furrow in realization, anger swelled up, hot and dark. “Did you kill her? She was fine last I saw.”

“Kids, always jumping to conclusions. No, I didn’t kill her.” Under his breath, he muttered, “not that she would need much persuasion to kick the bucket.”

I had had enough, all I wanted was to go home, to see Macha, to sleep in my own bed. I was almost to the edge of the graveyard and could just see the old road leading to the town, when Herne shouted, “Best not go that way, boy. Few believe in magic these days and those that do would only scream and curse if they saw a dead boy roaming the streets”

I gave him a scornful glare. “Why do I care what the townsmen say, they’ve never done a thing for me in my life” Even in the small school, where classes were only divided into juniors and seniors, I had no friends, had been mocked for my witch sister, and cursed to be small and dark-haired.

So I continued walking, as quickly as my withered body could limp.

“Think about Macha boy” he continued, “what would they do to a poor, grieving woman whose half brother it is known she loved, woke from the dead?”. It was that that stopped me. I had no doubt that they would torch our house, stuff her in a barrel weighted with stones, and drown her in the river if they really had such incontrovertible proof of her being a witch.

“We’ll leave” I said in a small, fearful voice.

“Will you now?” Herne asked, “Do you know why she came here boy, to a place without her own kind, to forever live in fear of her hateful neighbors? There’s more to this place than you know and Macha would sooner die than leave. Even for you”

In that, he was wrong, but at the time I did not know, not what Macha was, not what Herne was, and even less about the world that both lived in.