Pol was out too late. And that was why he died.

He was found the next morning by Alsom, who was bringing the milk down into Galesvryg by way of the wooded path. Alsom’s young daughter Calyn saw him first, as she often ran ahead of the wagon to look at whatever might catch her eye.

She saw Pol some distance from the road up a hill, sitting under a tree with his hat in his hands and his head bowed over his lap, as though he was praying.

"'Scuse me, sir, but what are ye prayin’ to?” she called from the road. “There’s nothin’ in these woods but the strange and the weird!”

When Pol said nothing, which wasn’t unusual seeing as how he was dead, she ran back to her father.

“Pa! Pa! There’s a strange man prayin’ to somethin’ in the woods!” Calyn yelled.

Alsom halted the mule. “Say that again, darlin’?”

Calyn came panting up to the wagon. “I say he’s prayin’ in the woods!”

Alsom pushed his hat back on his head and sunk a hand into his beard in thought. “Well goodness me, that surely is strange.”

“Do ye think he’s weird?” Calyn asked, excited.

“Like as not. Well an’ if he is, we ought to be very polite, ye hear?”

“Yessir, I hear.”

“Good girl, Calyn. Now let’s jes go pay our respects, alright? But ye stay with the wagon now. Can never tell what might rile a weirdin’ one up.”

“Yes, Pa.”

He helped her up onto the box seat with him and clicked his tongue. The mule walked on, placid as a lake.

When they came to Pol, Alsom stopped the mule and got off the wagon.

He called out to Pol, “Beggin’ yer pardon, sir. I don’t mean to interrupt, but I’d like to pay my respects if that’s alright.”

Pol, unsurprisingly, said nothing.

Alsom scratched at his chin. “Must be mighty deep in the weird.”

“What do we do, Pa?” Calyn asked.

“Well, I guess we can leave him some milk for when he comes back,” Alsom said. “Hand me that bottle, will ye? Reeve won’t mind none, an’ if he does, Flip’ll set him straight.”

Milk in hand, Alsom respectfully, but warily, approached Pol.

As he got closer, he recognized the hat.

He broke into a startled laugh. “Well I’ll be! Pol, ye onion, what did ye do? Get so drunk ye forgot ye sleep layin’ down?”

Pol continued his silence.

Alsom came up and shook his shoulder. “Alright, Pol, come on. Pitter patter, let’s get-“

Pol fell over and Alsom finally got a look at his face. Alsom dropped the milk. It shattered. He paid it no mind.

“Calyn, darlin’,” he called back to the wagon.

“Yes, Pa?”

“Why don’t ye do the milk run this mornin’ for yer ole pa?”

“Really, Pa? May I, really?”

“Ye may, but first ye have to stop by Reeve Brody’s house. Ye tell him the past is risin’ and that yer Pa is askin’ him to meet me jes past Rustler’s Crick.”

Calyn frowned. “Everythin' alright, Pa? Is the weirdin’ man alright?”

“Just do as ye’re tole for now. I’ll esplain later,” Alsom said.

“Alright, Pa, I’m goin’.”

The wagon moved off and away. Alsom had a fleeting moment of terror as he watched it go. What was he doing, sending his young daughter off on her own through the woods when good old Pol lay dead at his feet?

He tugged at his beard. “Be sensible, ye ole fool. What’s got Pol only comes at night, ye know this better’n all else.”

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Reeve Brody was looking forward to some warm milk with a bit of honey. He’d had a bad night of sleep and he’d found that warm milk with a bit of honey was just the thing to ease his jangled nerves. Flip, the darling man, knew how to make it just right, too. It was the only time Brody allowed his husband the luxury of pampering him just a bit. And while he made a show of grumbling when Flip brought him breakfast in bed after a bad night, Brody did secretly very much enjoy it.

“Dearest,” his husband called from down the hall. “The milk girl wants a word.”

Brody, being grumpy and tired and very much looking forward to some nice pampering while curled up in bed, called back, “What about?”

Flip called, with an edge in his voice, “You know how I feel about yelling in the house. You’ll have to come to the door. She’s quite insistent.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Brody allowed himself one moment to curse milk girls who didn’t just drop the milk off like they were supposed to. Then he got up and put on his second best bathrobe (his first being reserved for Flip even though Flip had his own first best bathrobe) and stomped down the hall and downstairs to the front door.

“Be nice, grumpy bear,” Flip murmured in his ear before letting him into the front door.

Brody, who perversely scowled the moment Flip asked him to be nice, found himself in the somewhat awkward position of glaring down at a young girl with big wide eyes. He realized with a jolt that Flip hadn’t been kidding when he said milk girl.

She blinked up at him. “Reeve Brody?”

Brody immediately tried to soften his affect and crouched so they were closer to eye level. “Yes, honey? What’s your name again?”

She said indignantly, in a tone that said he should know this, “I’m Calyn.”

He remembered now. “Yes, Alsom’s girl. And where’s your pa today?”

“He said to tell ye that the past is… is risin’? An’ he wants ye to meet him.”

Brody felt like he’d frozen in place. Alsom had first said that all those years ago, calling out to ghosts yet to move on, a toll for the living who stayed to bear witness… he still had nightmares about it. Oh sweet lady of the meadows, not again.

“Alright. Where’s your daddy now, sugarstick?” he asked past the lump in his throat.

“Past Rustler’s Crick. I think he stayed with the weirdin’ man? The weirdin’ man didn’t look so good.”

Brody said, “No, I can’t imagine he would. Good job, Calyn. I’ll let your daddy know you did well.”

Calyn beamed up at him then scampered off to the wagon.

Brody shut the door. He leaned his forehead against it and reached blindly behind him with his right hand, his left braced against the door. “Flip… I think it’s happening again.”

Flip caught his hand and held him from behind, hugging him tight. “I heard. I’m so sorry, Brody.”

Brody let out a shuddering breath. They stood there for a minute or two.

“You know what?” Flip said, his head a reassuring weight against Brody’s back.

“What?”

“She forgot to give us our milk.”

Brody laughed. It sounded a bit like sobbing.

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Dedicated Elaine was thoroughly unamused by the time she was tromping through the undergrowth up to where Reeve Brody and Alsom stood. She was entirely too old to be dragged out here in the middle of nowhere, in this heat, when she could have been sunning herself in the meadow and calling it prayer. She also despised being the last one called, and like as not, she usually was the last one called to anything. Last one to parties, last one to dinners, last one to funerals (funny because she was conducting the rites). Today she was the last one called to a dead body, which was novel but no less irritating.

“It is nearly noon, goodsirs,” she said tartly through gasps of winded breath when she reached them.

“Dedicated, I am nobody’s goodsir,” Alsom said. “But thank ye anyways. An’ I don’t believe it’s quite noon in any case. By my estimate, we have 'bout an hour or so…”

She glared at him. “Close ‘nough to noon!” She glared at Brody. “He oughten to know better, but ye definitely should. Issues like these must be undertaken with the utmost urgency. An’ why was it so important I walk!”

Brody looked affronted. “Dedicated, I assure you, utmost urgency was enacted once I was alerted to the situation. But we are walking because we are trying to minimize curiosity, which saddling up would engender. And as you’ve seen for yourself, the walk here takes some time.”

Elaine snorted. “Bah. Fine. I maintain that Alsom’s girl proudly ridin' around all by her lonesome would distract from a cavalcade, but if it’ll ease yer little head I can soldier on. Where is he?”

Alsom pointed. “Jes over there, Dedicated. He’s startin’ to smell a bit.”

“Nothin’ I’ve not smelled before,” she muttered. She sniffed. “Well I take it back, never smelled a corpse that smelled like spoiled milk. If that’s not a mark of the weird, then I don’t know what is.”

She looked down at Pol for a long moment. Then turned and stomped away, muttering, “I was mere kiddin’ but maybe it is a mark of the weird after all.”

“Dedicated, where are you going!” Brody exclaimed.

“Home! I have an appointment, thankee kindly.”

Brody followed her. “But you haven’t even done anything. Please, Dedicated, we need your seal of approval so we can do something about this before it’s too late. You remember what happened last time! We need to call for help.”

“Is that all? Fine, yes, ye have my approval. What do I even need to do? Ye saw that corpse sure as I did. Clear as what’s happened here. But I’ll tell ye, all the seals in the world won’t get us what we need.”

“What we need is someone who can kill the damn thing.”

She glared at him. “For a smart young man, ye surely act yer age sometimes.”

Brody recoiled with a scowl. “I’m forty-two, you bag of bones! Alright, what do you think we need?”

“Young’ins these days,” Elaine clicked her tongue. “Reeve, we need a weirdwarden.”

Brody swore a blue streak. “Weirden! They’ll not come here. Ye- you know this! Last time-”

“Well but this time ye got me. An’ I aim to get us one. So ye best let me be on my way afore I miss my phone call.”

“Why, who’re you calling?” Brody asked sharply.

Elaine gave him a steely look. “S’not about who I’m callin’, Reeve. S’bout who’s got a habit a-callin’ me.”

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The next day, Truth Reverberates In Silent Holiness, who usually went by Trish or a portmanteau of truth and silent in Selton Sign Language, followed Chatter off the train at Hammerset.

Chatter glanced around at the platform before looking back at Trish.

Trish smiled and nodded. She was fine. The platform was nowhere near as crowded as Trident’s Crossing in Selton, although it was quite hot and underlying the hot iron and coal smell of the engine was a distinct scent of manure. She couldn’t figure out where it was coming from.

Chatter rolled their five eyes. They put down their bags and signed, ‘Do you know where they’re picking us up?’

Trish, her own hands full, shook her head.

Chatter paused, then signed, ‘Do you know if anyone is picking us up?’

Trish smiled sheepishly.

Chatter gave a body language sigh that made her laugh.

‘Don’t laugh at me,’ they signed furiously. ‘When my contract comes up, I’m amending it to say that you have to ask for someone to pick us up every time, or we’re done. Do you know how difficult it is to get anywhere in the countryside?’

Trish shook her head. She put her bag down to sign. ‘Chat, you worry too much. We’ll just ask for a cabbie.’

Chatter stared at her. ‘There are no cabbies here.’

Trish looked flummoxed. ‘You’re kidding!’

‘You don’t know anything about surviving outside a city, do you?’

‘This is my first assignment, you know,’ Trish signed reproachfully.

‘Good lesson for you, then: I want you to take a look around at how many people are looking at us.’

Trish glanced around. She looked perturbed at the number of people blatantly staring. ‘Is staring not rude out here…?’

Chatter caught her attention then signed firmly, ‘No, actually. But the lesson is this: cities are weird. The countryside is not. No matter what you do, you will stand out. Everything you do will be discussed. Keep this in mind.’

‘How many of them are talking about us?’ Trish signed.

Chatter’s ears flicked and swiveled, listening. ‘Four. No, five, I missed one. Oh wait, that’s our transport.’

‘Ha! Cabbies. Told you so,’ Trish signed.

‘Don’t act like you did this. Cabbie, my foot. Come on.’

Chatter led the way off the train platform towards a small mule-drawn cart, where a gray bearded man stood hand in hand with a small girl.

Trish eyed the mule with a grimace. Chatter was right. This was not a cabbie. But at least she'd figured out why it smelled like manure.