New Grave

The village high street was littered with horseshit. The dirty shops were full of mundanity. A drunk blundered into me, then staggered away. The stench of vomit and urine followed right behind him. Down by the docks, ragged old whores called out to the sailors, hitching up their skirts to show their wares. Little boats crawled up and down the river laden with the bloody skins of animals, buzzing with flies.

There was a new grave in the churchyard, planted with ghost flowers that floated like a haze on long, slender stalks above the freshly turned earth. I didn’t stop. Hettie wouldn’t have wanted me to.

The people turned to stare at me. I felt their eyes inching over me like little rubbery worms. Even here, I was a monster. I rubbed at my face self-consciously. A woman ushered her children away, gathering them under her arms like a mother hen. Two old ladies whispered behind their hands. "Cursed," I heard one of them say. I felt their accusing stares following me down the street.

I heard a chorus of Rose of Embers from the alehouse, drunken voices butchering the harmony. My feet turned towards the sound. An ale, maybe three more.

A gang of older boys hung out at the crossroads. They nudged each other, whispering and watching me go by. I cut across the green, praying they wouldn’t follow. The grass was freshly shorn, and ribbons fluttered from the maypole.

"Oi," I heard a voice behind me. "Oi, Monster."

I turned, my heart suddenly pounding in my ears. A dozen boys strolled across the green towards me. I thought about running, but that would be worse — running through the town, up through the woods with the pack at my heels. Never run, Hettie had said. Take what they give, but never run.

I recognised the leader, a tall boy with blonde hair and farmer’s muscles. "Hoy Finn," I called back.

Fin nodded, thick arms crossed across his chest. "Where you been, Monster boy? We ain’t seen you this past month. We buried Hettie without you."

"I been up on them hills," I replied, hoping they would leave me alone.

"Maybe you should go back up on them hills, eh?"

"I live here, Finn."

"Not any more, you don’t," said Finn. "Old Hettie’s dead, and the way we see it, you’re to blame."

"I never touched her," I said. I felt my hands starting to shake. "She were old. I never touched her."

"She weren’t that old, Tam, my Ma is older. Things have been brighter round here since you left. Do you think we’re going to let you stick around and bring your curse down on the rest of us, eh? Hettie didn’t leave you nothing. There’s no place left for you here now. We don’t need no more ill-luck round here."

"I’m going back to Hettie’s house. It’s my place."

"Don’t you listen? It ain’t your place no more." Finn shrugged his broad shoulders. "Look here, I know it ain’t really your fault you’re cursed, but we can’t afford no trouble. You can get your stuff but you better not stick around after, or me and the lads’ll see to it that you don’t."

He backed up his words with a shove that sent me sprawling into the mud. The lads stood over me, nudging one another, but not too close. I recognised the fear in their eyes. I was a wounded animal to them, unpredictable, but if one of them started kicking, they would all join in. I stood up carefully and slowly moved away, not looking at them. A chunk of mud smacked into the back of my head, but I didn’t turn around until I was off the green, around the corner and onto the lane where Hettie’s house was. Only then did I stop walking and start shaking.

I closed my eyes, taking deep breaths to steady myself, and gradually became aware of the sound of many voices talking all at once. The sound grew louder as I walked down the lane towards the cottage.

Hettie’s front door was surrounded by strangers, jostling into her hallway, touching her things. They pressed in in a tight mass. Her flower beds were trampled flat.

"Oi, I said. What are you all doing?" But no one heard me over the din.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Oi," I yelled again, desperation rising in my throat, leaning against the backs of them, trying to press myself between them, but no one paid me any attention at all.

Then someone caught my arms. "Hey, son, look at me. Look at me now. It’s alright."

I struggled, but the hands that held me were strong, the voice gentle but firm.

"What are they doing?" I said. I was almost crying now, still trying to see around the man who held me. "They shouldn’t aughta be in there. Get them out."

"They took the house, son. There’s nothing you can do. Come away with me, you don’t want to see this."

"But it was Hettie's!"

"She's dead, son, and there was no one to claim it, so the Dean took it for the council. They're selling it, son; there's nothing you can do."

I let myself be guided away from the press of people, away from the house, out along the lane. I half recognised the man now, His name was Mack, a wanderer who visited the village sometimes to take a pint of ale in the tavern and talk quietly with the barkeep. He was a big man with strong legs under rabbit-skin breaches and fur-wrapped boots. His hair and beard were red. He wore lenses over his eyes, two pieces of glass wrapped in wire. His plain brown tunic left his arms bare. The forearms were corded with muscle.

"They’re tramping over her things," I cried, struggling. "She’s not yet cold."

"I know it, son. The Dean has ordered a sale. I’m afraid there’ll be nothing left for you after they’re done."

"T'ain’t right," I wailed. "Hettie would have hated it. She was never keen on folks."

"Was she your Grandmae, son?"

"No," I sniffed. "She were my Hettie. I used to sleep in her hayloft and do jobs for her. I’d bring her rabbits and she’d cook em, then we’d eat em on the porch and she’d tell me stories."

"We did business from time to time," said Mack kindly. "She was a tough old girl. She certainly knew how to haggle. Come away with me now."

I walked together with him in silence for a minute, I was lost in thought.

"Where are your people son?" Asked Mack at last.

"I ain’t got no people."

"Have you got somewhere to go, boy? They need strong lads in the Firepot. It’s good, steady work. Maybe you could make something of yourself. Perhaps you could take a barge down to Teleth Kier. There’s good work in the docks or on the ships. Man's work."

His voice was just a little loud. There was something slightly off in the way he kept looking at me without looking. Little sideways glances behind the lenses.

I thought of the Grendlewald and the gate, of Fen, screaming down the tunnel after me. Maybe I could go back there, wait for her, apologise. What else was there? "I’ve got somewhere I can go," I said quietly.

"Got somewhere on the hills perhaps?" Mack was not smiling now, and his tone was no longer friendly. The lane was deserted. The clamour of voices around the cottage had faded into a distant murmur.

Mack’s fingers twitched, and I noticed for the first time that he wore a long white sword. I made a grab for my own good iron, but Mack was cat-fast. His feet swept out and round in a flurry of pattern too quick for me to follow, cutting in behind, pulling me downward, and suddenly his scrawny arm was locked around my neck, and I was face down in the dirt, fighting to breathe. I felt the prick of a blade in my side, in the soft part beneath the ribs, and I went limp.

"Beware the eyes that come apeeping, eh?" Mack hissed in my ear. "You know that rhyme boy? Well I’m those eyes and I’ve been apeeping at you, camping up where you don’t belong."

I tried to reply, but Mack squeezed me more tightly, and I found I couldn’t breathe at all. I scratched at his leathery sleeve, but he pressed a little harder with his blade, and I hung limp again.

"Don’t speak, boy. I don’t want to hear it. I am sorry for your loss, really I am. I know what it’s like to lose dear people. I know you had an adventure, but it's over now. The things that hunt her will hunt her through you, do you understand? If you go to her, they will find her, and if they kill her quickly, that would be the best that could be hoped."

"Take your pack and go south on the river. Get on a ship. Explore the world. Never ever come back here. I want to hear you say it."

He loosed his grip a little, and I took a ragged breath. "Who are you?" I choked out.

The big man squeezed me tight again. I felt the blood rushing to my head. "Good for you boy. You just lost one of your chances. Now say it: South on the river."

"Who..." I choked out again, then he clamped me tight again.

"I'm her father, boy," said Mack. "And though I may not be a good one, you can trust me when I say I love her more than you. One more chance. Say it, or I prick you deep and let you bleed."

"South," I said, hating myself. "South on the river."

"See that you do."

He swept his body around again in that fluid, complex way, and I found myself once more face down on the road with mud crunching between my teeth, gasping for air. When I got to my feet a few moments later, Mack had already gone.

I'm not proud of it, but I began walking right then, south, towards the sea, not because I was afraid he would kill me, though I was afraid. I told myself that she had burned me, insulted me, rejected me, but it was not because of that either. The simple truth, though I could not admit it to myself at the time, was that I was afraid she would die and that it would be my fault and it would hurt me to lose her.

And so, rather than running to her side, sword drawn, ready to protect her from a myriad of shadows, I walked away and left her to her fate. Had I known then what was coming, I would have come near, so I could at least hold her when it happened.

But I didn't know, and so I walked, away from the village, away from the Grendlewald, down along the river into the Barrowlands where the dead kings clutch their treasure, and there, in the fists of another monster, I found treasure of my own.

End of Part One