#wych elm branches

[huariqueje]

Wych Elm and Fiddleheads - Brita Granstrom , 2023.

Swedish, b.1969 -

Oil on canvas , 19.5 x 23.5 in.

[billie-venus-wrote-a-book]

[non-canonical Elmsbury Vampyre]

Chapter One

“Elmsbury-Gallows Welcomes Responsible Drivers!”

***

              Elmsbury-Gallows was a brown town. Each leafless tree as you drove in on Elmsbury Town Way was a particular shade of coffin-mahogany brown; as you turned into Main Street, each of the once colourfully-painted shopfronts that lined either side were now peeling to reveal the eaten-at browning wood beneath, littered with pockmarks in small clusters like lotus seed pods; the pavement, if you could see it through the constant layer of fog, was constructed from large concrete squares- once intended to be reminiscent of limestone but now weathered to the same colour as the shell of an old computer, and littered over with squashed chewing gum and orange cigarette filters. Each house down on Mansfield Estate through to Abbey Way through to Forest Estate through to Church Street could have been tranquil, perhaps even quaint, late Tudor era buildings, but had been eaten alive by the council’s insistence on updating the architecture instead of preserving it: rows of brown brick houses with brown brick rooves and brown brick driveways. On the opposite side of Main Street sat Hopkins Village, a miniature conurbation growing like a benign tumour out of the trees like some vintage painted plasticine toy village, quaint and perfect and smug. Whether it be Eastbound or King James’s, the small local parks all looked the same in the end: the grass pack-hardened by frost in the winter, and burned dry and crisp by the summer heat: there was never really any sun in Elmsbury-Gallows. 

The town sat somewhere between Leicester and Derby, tucked away into one of the secret compartments of conservative brush and shrub present in the urban fells of North-West Leicestershire. No major, or working, train lines ran through or nearby, and all four roads that led up into Elmsbury were winding, thin B-roads, engulfed by a canopy of bended, ancient trees acting as walls to the forest that the town had been apparently built on top of. A road-sign was the only thing announcing its existence, though that had been pulled deep into the bushes around it, halfway down a ditch until the once sweet and quaint design of a ripe, green wych elm was now three-quarters obscured and peeling like sunburn. It was the kind of town you could only find if you looked for it, or if you put the postcode into your SAT-NAV.

At its founding, it had been a safe haven for Catholics during the dissolution of the monasteries, being named after the great wych elm tree that stood a little way out from the original settlement. Then, when Henry VIII’s soldiers found the town, they massacred its peoples: anybody who would not turn to Anglicanism was hanged from the branches of that tree; that was when it was renamed to ‘Elmsbury-Gallows’: a sort of morbid joke that the soldiers would tell one another in taverns and alleys. Matthew Hopkins’s witch hunt would find it next, after the construction of a fortified manor in the forest surrounding for Royalist soldiers, and once again the great elm tree served as the execution spot of twenty-or-so women. That’s what it said on the pamphlets in the local library anyways.

After the passing of centuries, that very same tree with its crooked and wrinkled branches curling upward to the clouds, was ripped from its roots to build a coal mine in 1980, alongside the construction of Elmsbury Common, the little mining community- which Mr Spencer was told was separate from Elmsbury Town, that had stood for damn near four-hundred and fifty years beforehand. However, both Elmsbury Town and Elmsbury Common came together as Elmsbury-Gallows; it all appeared very important to the patrons of the King Henry he had talked to that lunchtime. The wych elm had stood for an eternity before any of the little towns that came together as one big town even acknowledged its existence. And then it was gone- plucked from the ground as easily and painfully as a single hair from beneath the nose of a scowling lady.

Only five years later, the mine had collapsed due to a tragic underground flash flood, killing all forty workers who had been sent down there- and now on this present, humid August evening, they were opening it back up.

“Here to watch the big reveal?”

Mr Spencer looked up from the pamphlet he was reading, his eyes met by a man of medium-height and middle-age, with a short crop of receding brown-turning-grey hair spiralling atop his head; he peered a little downward at Mr Spencer, a shorter than average man himself, through his pair of tiny round spectacles propped up on the bridge of a pig-like nose, the lenses of which magnified his eyes into two great beady pits in the midst of his otherwise very ordinary face. He smiled, placing one hand in the pocket of his black overcoat and using the other to absently scratch his priest’s collar. Altogether, he had the forgettable face of a good man.

“Reverend Fairfax?”

“Please, call me Jim, everyone does.” The man smiled, showing rows of square, eggshell-white teeth.

Jim the Vicar. That’s what he had heard the locals refer to him as anyways: nobody here seemed to be all that caught up in formalities. Mr Spencer laughed nervously, “Ah- yes, yes, very sorry Revere— Jim.” The supervisor felt his mouth dry up a little. It was probably the heat- the town got particularly hot this time of year, according to Mr-Graham-Sparrow-to-you-sir from the King Henry, which Spencer found bemusing since he hadn’t really seen the sun all day- as if the whole town were dough left to prove under a tea towel.

“So you’re here for the big reveal?” Jim the Vicar asked again.

“Oh! Yes, yes I’m, uh, I’m the supervisor of the whole… operation, so—”

“Ahh, of course- we had to get in you sophisticated lot to do it this time.”

Mr Spencer didn’t quite know what he meant. Jim continued, “See back in ’94 we got a bunch of our local lot to try this whole operation,” he chuckled, gesturing with a wiggle of his fingers in the direction of the workmen around the old mine,“which didn’t go over quite as well as we’d have liked, see, it weren’t safe for ‘em and all.”

The other man nodded, his eyes flitting over to the adit bandaged in yellow caution tape, “I see…” 

“Though,” Jim continued, “this’d be the first time actually getting the thing open since the collapse.”

“Oh?”

“Aye, indeed, I was a young man here when it happened,” Jim rocked back and forth on his feet, looking up as he recalled the story, “only about eighteen, maybe nineteen since I’d been sworn into the Church already,” he redirected his gaze back to the supervisor’s pallid face, “was lucky my brother weren’t down there that day, eh?”

He said it far more lightheartedly than Spencer would’ve liked- as if it were a day at work where his brother had missed a fire drill, not having escaped a slow suffocation under a hundred tonnes of dirt and rubble, deep inside the belly of the town. Again, he found himself glancing at the mine, “yes, well,” he looked back to his new companion, “we’re just renovating it so they can put the museum in.”

“That you are- and I know you are,” Jim said kindly, his black eyes wet from the haggard, muggy air, “I am the deputy head of the Parish Council, you know.”

“Of course, sorry, ah, I- I didn’t mean to sound all—” he waved his hands around as if that would conjure up the right words like some form of vocabulary magician, “—well, all that.”

“I think they’re opening it up now,” Jim started off towards the caution tape barricading the workers from the onlookers, taking strides across the uneven ground that somehow didn’t stop him from keeping to his constant height. Spencer followed him- it looked like it was going to rain.

***

              The black umbrellas bloomed open into a mushroom-like cluster around the edge of the tape, the small crowd creating their own tent to which they were the poles. The drizzle had become heavier, pattering down onto the open parasols creating silver nebulas and shooting stars which each rolled off as another raindrop came; the sky had darkened to a navy blue- had there been a sunset? Mr Spencer wondered to himself, he probably had just not noticed it whilst talking to Jim. He was stood beside the Reverend, the only person there who was not wearing a Stabilo-yellow safety vest- apparently they had just neglected to give him one, and he had neglected to ask. A group of four or so workers gathered at the adit- drills in hand- ready to pry out the screws from the rusted, brittle iron bars that had kept it closed since 1994.

Huh, odd, Mr Spencer thought, the bars were rusted far beyond the apparent age of the screws, which appeared to be silver, oddly shiny. It must be the light; each workman had on a head-torch, which illuminated tubes of rain as they panned around: it must be that the rain had wet the screws making them appear to be shiny and new when the light fell on them. Mr Spencer suspected that in reality, they were just as decrepit as the bars. Which they had been that morning when he inspected them- hadn’t they? Honestly for the life of him he couldn’t quite remember. They probably were.

The whirring of the drills wrenched Mr Spencer from the inside of his head as they pulled the little metal rods loose like blackheads from pores out of the rotted, softened wood of the adit. The rain was like a drumroll before the big reveal, and with a groan from the four men surrounding it, the bars were finally off.

Cold hit Mr Spencer from the mine- not hard or fast, rather it crept up him, starting at his knees before ending on the tip of his nose and in the corners of his eyes. It was the cold of something ancient- the kind of cold you only really feel inside a basement you forgot you had: a cold you could smell; a cold you could taste. A dusty antiquity seemed to spice it, and he twitched the feeling away involuntarily, realizing that before now, the inside of that mine appeared to be the only place in Elmsbury-Gallows the fog had not reached. It was eager to now, though, the white mist from around his ankles swirled inwards through the haggard opening- without it, Mr Spencer could have been convinced that they had opened the adit onto a solid wall of rock, even though the collapse had happened some miles down deep into the earth beneath the town; but the fog seeped downwards like worms into a blackbird’s mouth, confirming that this was the undisturbed entrance they had spent the past three days looking for.

Down, down, down, down.

He stared at that darkness- who knows for how long- watching as his eyes adjusted and he slowly became convinced that he saw movement. The blackness oozed and mixed like blood in milk, swirling around, making it difficult to notice, but obvious if you looked: if you really looked.

A familiar yet distant sensation overcame him, and though it took him a moment to pinpoint what it was, he managed to get close enough to an articulate description: it was the feeling he had when walking from his bedroom to his kitchen at night as a child. Not a fear of the dark, and not a fear of being caught by whatever his seven-year-old mind imagined was in the dark, but something else. He always made it back to his bedroom- without fail- and yet every time he stood at the top of the stairs looking down into the hallway, the light from the bathroom behind him that he always turned on so he wasn’t in complete darkness never quite reached past the fourth step down. And yet, he would descend the stairs, hand tight on the bannister, mustering up every last iota of courage that his little boy heart could manage- he knew he always survived: whatever was down there never caught him- heck, it never even chasedhim, he hadn’t even seen it.

But he wasn’t in his bedroom anymore, and he wasn’t in the kitchen yet.

A creeping anxiety made its way from the hollow of his throat to the middle of it, lodging there, wriggling and stuck as he just stared into that familiar blackness that stopped not four steps down from the opening of the mine, before the rocks closed in to an even smaller aperture only a few inches tall and wide. A prickling came at the back of his neck, as if something had its nose just above the hairs on his skin, stirring them like blades of grass with each inhale, exhale: smelling him. Spencer absent-mindedly scratched his clammy nape, his hair sticking to it from where his jacket and umbrella couldn’t shield and as soon as it had started, the feeling had gone. He was just being stupid. Staring into darkness like that, he was bound to see something. It was human to want to see something. Darkness just tends to move.

Outside him, the crowd was clapping, triumphant at the successful opening of this part of their history. The museum would bring in money to the town- at least that was the premise, and of course the goal- and they could use it to bring in tourists interested in the local history and seeing the sights of a proper English town, so long as they stayed out of the estates around Mansfield Estate and Elmsbury-Common; additionally, it would serve as reparations to the families who lost their grandfathers, fathers, brothers, cousins, and friends in the collapse. They never found the bodies- perhaps their stories would become immortalized in the museum instead: no longer forgotten.

“Done a blummin’ good job there then haven’t you!”

A thick hand clapped down on Mr Spencer’s back; he pretended not to buckle slightly. Jim the Vicar was grinning in his face, showing his tiny teeth again, telling the supervisor that he was proud the town had managed to gather up enough money for the museum, and that hopefully the town history would be remembered forever now that it was in place. Maybe they would even be able to fund the Preservational National Park and restore the manor on its grounds.

“They drink where you’re from?” Jim had started to walk, intangibly pulling Mr Spencer along with him.

“I didn’t think you were allowed to drink.” He felt the need to look back through the crowd- just to check the mine one more time. Jim let out a hearty laugh, interrupting him, and threw his head back, “That soft, eh?”

“No! No, it’s just,” Spencer corrected himself, “not me— you! You’re a priest.”

“Reverend.” Jim smiled, “and God forgives.”

***

              Purple lightning cracked across the sky like the forked tongue of a great snake, illuminating the clouds as a roll of old thunder followed. Another summer storm with no rain had befallen Elmsbury-Gallows, and had turned the drizzle from the day into steam now rising up from the pavements and mingling with that impermeable fog. From her window across the street, Bellamy Cokes watched as a thin bolt of lightning broke free of the thick layer of clouds, striking the cast iron crucifix from the spire of the old Church. It was sent careening downward onto the gravel pavement. A crow cackled at this symbolic beheading. Amy revelled in how gothic this whole scenario was.

She was a tall girl, needing to fold herself up like a deck-chair to fit in her sitting spot at her window, and was composed entirely of rectangles and ridges. Her bones poked out from underneath her pale skin, and her eyes sat wide and smudged in the centre of her face like an owl’s. Her hair was dyed a box-dye jet black, and would be backcombed to the high heavens every morning into a matted bats nest. Bellamy felt that she was quite a standoffish kind of person, not really wanting to get in the way of trouble if she could help it, and used to cry when teachers scolded her. Which is what made it so ironic that her and her two friends’ favourite activity was trespassing. They preferred the term ‘ghost hunting’, but really trespassing was what it was. Her anorak hung loosely from her shoulders as she peered down into the street wondering again to herself where Kat and Trent were.

Tap!

Finally.

Bellamy nudged open her window, smiling down at the two of them on the driveway. They were holding up the makeshift window-opener to her, aiming to use it to hook her bag down before she got down. Obliging this routine, she sent down the small satchel that held her polaroid and hand mirror. She swung her feet over the window ledge, being careful not to slip on the wooden awning over the front door before slowly lowering herself as far as she could off the edge of it. Bellamy let go of the guttering and fell onto the driveway, her well-practised landing finishing with a flourish.

“Graveyard?”

Trent nodded, “Yup, got a photo and everything.”

“Who from?”

“Mike Gregory,” Kat interjected as they started to lead the group towards the Church across the road. Bellamy turned up her nose.

“He thinks it’s gonna be funny to freak us all out,” Trent started to lead the group to the other side of the street, “he forged a photo and everything.”

He held out his hand, crumpled in it was a small polaroid square; Bellamy took it, squinting in the orange glow of the streetlamps overhead.

“It’s terrible quality.”

“Really, Amy? But Mike Gregory is so well known for his impeccable artistic prowess!” Kat laughed to themself. Amy made a face at her friend before re-examining the photo, “I can’t see anything, it’s just the… the crypt, I think?”

“You have to really look, Amy.” Trent remarked from in front.

“I am looking— you look— you show me then.” She thrust the photo back toward him, and he stopped still and jabbed a chipped black fingernail to the middle of the photo, “There.”

“The crypt?”

“Yes—“

“Okay, let’s maybe not stop in the middle of the road,” Kat took their arms and guided them to the pavement outside the Church.

“There’s nothing there, Trent.” Amy squinted.

“Bro— look, Amy.”

She looked, and as her eyes readjusted to the horribly taken photo, she made it out. The photo was of the graveyard, specifically the lower level of the graveyard where the crypt for the body of Matilda the Witch sat. A yellow pool of torchlight was smeared over the front of the stone, causing an unintelligible glare to be cast over the scene. It appeared to be raining, or have been raining, and the sky was that dark twilight blue of dusk. Amy angled it up in her hand, catching it in the orange of a streetlamp. Oh, there.

From behind the crypt, wrapped around the stone were three thin, long, pale fingers, all about the same length. It wasn’t apparent at all to Amy if the fingers were disappearing behind the crypt, or emerging from it.

“Eugh,” she put the photo in her pocket reflexively.

“I know, creepy innit?!” Kat chided.

“If it’s an effect he’s actually gone and put some effort into making it.” Amy glanced into the graveyard over the gate where the three were now stood, the crypt not visible at all in the nighttime, and the glow of the streetlamps only reaching about three or four steps down into the lower level of the graveyard, “I’m kind of flattered,” she said jokingly,  “But, I dunno, it just doesn’t seem like something Mike Gregory would do.”

“He’s obsessed enough.” Trent muttered.

“Yeah, it’s just…” Amy trailed off, knowing what she wanted to say but not wanting to be cruel.

“He’s not smart enough to do something like that, at least not to do it well.” Kat said it for her, “not to be rude or anything.” They added.

“So are we going in or not?” Amy asked, “I don’t really fancy running into a weird hand creature any time soon.”

“Me neither, but I do fancy smacking Mike Gregory over the head with my torch,” Trent punctuated his statement with the click of the ‘on’ switch on said torch, and pointed it into the graveyard, illuminating the crypt in a sickly pale spotlight.

***

              Hopping the gate was a piece of cake, Amy always wondered why Jim the Vicar hadn’t thought to make it taller if he didn’t want any trespassers, as indicated by the laminated A4 paper with red comic sans text reading “NO ENTRY BETWEEN 7PM-7AM” gracefully tied to the bars with zip ties. The three of them made their way slowly down the path toward the crypt, the headstones around them seeming taller and more jagged in the dark, jutting upward like the legs of dead hikers from snow; the shadows cast by the torchlight ran up the trunks of trees and down the stone steps to the lower level. Amy was snapping photos, the bright white flash of the polaroid quietly illuminating the graveyard all at once, before just as quickly plunging it back into darkness; she had gotten very good at aiming the flash away from the little backdoor window of Jim the Vicar’s house on the grounds, as to not alert him to their presence. Trent was scanning the torch back and forth simultaneous with the rhythm of his walk, and Kat was darting about the edges of the place picking flowers to put on the graves that were photographed, their bright orange hair bobbing in and out of view behind the headstones. The three descended the steps, and made headway toward the crypt.

The crypt itself was not old at all, built in the 90’s with that very of-the-time gothic flare that was once thought of as ‘classical’ but was really just tacky in hindsight. Amy had always liked the campiness of it though, as it looked like something straight out of Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula. It was, however, extremely tawdry.

The little circular structure was built to house the bones of Matilda the Witch, Matilda Borthwick to call her by her real name, who was one of twenty women killed in the witch hunts that came to the town in the 1600s. Her body had been dug up by accident by the small renovation team for the old mine in 1994, to Amy’s recollection, and thus housed in the old Church’s graveyard a little out of respect, but mostly as a tourist attraction. Amy had never liked that very much, they had already left her body on display hanged from the old wych elm for days before it disappeared, probably stolen. It didn’t need to be made a spectacle again, even if you couldn’t actually see her bones.

Amy came across her favourite grave, it felt a little weird to call it that, but she didn’t see too much of a problem with it to give up the title completely: a small stone angel carrying a crucifix on its shoulder with one hand, holding a wilted rose in the other. This, she had always thought, this was far classier than whatever Matilda Borthwick was holed up inside. The statue was intricate, though weathered, and the thin folds of the angel’s dress that the sculptor had pulled from the rock were just so delicate she couldn’t help but imagine it flowing gently in a breeze. Adding to it was the message on the headstone underneath:

Beloved daughter, taken so violently that heaven will be nothing but the soft embrace of your mother’s arms.

1848-1854

Amy had always liked that. It was so peaceful. The name above the phrase was too obscured by ivy and overgrowth to read properly, all she knew was that it started with “Ch…”. She snapped a quick photo of the grave, before running off towards the crypt to join her friends, her boots leaving imprints in the soft dirt.

“Where’s Kat?”

“Uhhm, over there, I think, putting flowers on that one grave you like.”

Amy looked over to see her friend lightly jogging towards them, their eyes cast in deep black shadows by the torchlight leaving only the white of their teeth glowing in the darkness around them, “any sign of Mike Gregory?”

“He in’t behind the crypt, probably inside or under a bush somewhere,” Trent shrugged, “you wanna have a quick scan for him?”

“Nah,” Kat took off their hoodie and tied it around their waist as their hair started pasting itself to their forehead from the humidity of the summer night, “I think he’s probably run off, got bored of waiting.”

“It is pretty late,” Amy looked up, “I mean we all met up at like midnight…” she glanced between her friends, “…wanna do a hunt whilst we’re here?”

Kat reached into the pocket of their cargos and protruded a small spirit box plastered with numerous brightly-coloured stickers, “good job I left the ol’ screeching radio in my pocket from last time.” And they took the arms of Amy and Trent, pulling them through the archway and into the crypt.

***

              The small square window on Jim the Vicar’s back door was only just visible through the arch into the crypt, and Amy had to duck round behind the wall to stop herself from anxiously glancing over to it. They had only been caught in the graveyard once, on one of their earliest hunts when they didn’t really know where else to go where ghosts might be. Ever since, Amy couldn’t shake the image of the black silhouette of Jim the Vicar through that small square, the light behind his head swinging gently back and forth, methodically illuminating then casting into darkness his expressionless face. The only part of him that had remained at all visible were the reflections of the light in the lenses of his glasses. She hadn’t seen him come out of the house, as she alerted Kat and Trent before he could’ve gotten the door open, and the three had sprinted out of the graveyard as fast as they could. It was just the way he had stood there, unmoving, like he had been watching them since they got in. Every time they came back, she had not been afraid of what he would do if he were to catch them, but of why he wouldn’t do anything at all.

Kat sat down cross-legged in the crypt, their back to the other archway on the opposite side to where the three had entered, making sure not to sit on the engraved part of the floor that marked where Matilda’s body lay. Trent had placed his torch face-up in the corner, the white glow spilling upwards illuminating the space. Outside, the storm began to bubble again.

The barking noise of the spirit box was far too loud for Amy’s liking, making her jump as it cut through the hazy background noise of the night. Kat started to flick through the various frequencies before setting the radio down on the floor and closing their eyes: they took communing with the dead very seriously. Trent rolled his eyes and smiled, turning his attention to the information plaque on the wall as he did whenever they came in and tried to talk to Matilda the Witch. The harsh, gravelly sound of the spirit box scratched at the stone walls, and Kat had to raise their voice a little too loudly over the top of it, “Spirits of Elmsbury-Gallows, those who rest and those who do not: hear us now call out to you from our plane to talk.” The infernal box continued its chattering uninterrupted.

“Go on Nancy Downes really give it some.” Trent teased. Kat opened one eye and shot him a pointed look, mouthing: Don’t interrupt.

“Ask about Matilda.” Amy leaned back against the wall, feeling the tension in her shoulders loosen slightly.

“Oh, yeah, uhm, Matilda!” Kat called out into the night, the fog from outside curled around Amy and Trent’s feet, almost engulfing Kat completely up to their waist, “Matilda Borthwick, we call out to you- we know you have been, uh, reluctant to speak with us, but we mean you no harm.”

The rhythm of the radio static echoed about the stone walls, abrasive and grating like skidding tyres on gravel. Kat glanced around before hesitantly adding, “We, uh, we want to let you know it’s safe to talk- uh- we just want to talk.”

“I think she gets that we want to talk.” Trent muttered.

The little radio chittered and chirped in the darkness, its noise uninterrupted by any real speech, though Kat was stretching to derive some words from the various syllables that it spat out every so often. Thunder from above groaned, followed by small purple fizzes which absently drew Amy’s attention to the illuminated, white, expressionless face floating behind Kat.

“What are you three doing here?”

Kat shot up off the floor, immediately crushing the spirit box in their hand and desperately fumbling for the off-switch. They and Trent scooted over to where Amy was stood, now forming a line to face Jim the Vicar, who was standing very calmly just outside in the centre of the archway, his black overcoat blending him into the night around him, leaving only his pale face illuminated by the small fizzles of lightning and the glow of Trent’s torch reflecting upwards onto his features. Amy swallowed dryly: he looked like a pickled head floating in a jar.

“I’m waiting for an answer…”

“Jim! I— uh… we’re, we’re just—” Trent’s eyes flickered wildly as he tried his best to improvise. Jim raised his eyebrows, nodding at Trent to continue his excuse. Trent let out a short breath, “How long were you stood there?”

“Oh! Oh I’d just gotten here,” Jim said with a kind smile, his voice carried a similar wavelength to the quiet of the night: measured, soft, local, and constant. The Reverend extended a booted foot and lightly stepped over the threshold, his black overcoat sweeping in around his ankles like a magician’s cloak, “I thought I’d seen movement out in the graveyard- which I now know I was right about- but t’was only you three,” he had positioned himself now in the centre of the crypt; Amy glanced downward, noticing that the tip of her boot was a good few inches from the hem of his coat, though it felt as if he were pressed right up against her. A strange ozone scent flowed off of him, like the smell of clothes that have been left damp for hours. Jim idly removed his glasses, wiping the condensation from the lenses as he continued, “I had panicked, and thought it was an intruder, or worse: a grave robber!” He was clearly humouring them. Kat and Trent let out a nervous laugh, which Amy subconsciously joined in with. Jim smiled again, “I do not mind you coming in and exploring, you know?”

The three nodded.

“Just—” he sighed with fake empathy, “I’d just rather you’d do it in the daytime, alright?”

They nodded again, more guiltily. Amy looked up at him, but glanced away as he smiled when he caught her eye.

“Bellamy, does your mother know you’re out here?”

“Wh— oh? M-mine?” he pulled her gaze back to meet his, she hated his unblinking demeanour. Jim softened his eyelids, though his black irises still glimmered through those now half-crescents, “I believe she’s yours, yes.”  

Amy stuttered, which seemingly answered Jim’s question on her behalf.

“You probably want us to leave.” Kat had put the spirit box in their pocket.

Jim nodded, “Yes, yes that would be good, thank you.” His eyes slid across the three of them, “you ought to find a more orthodox way of learning local history- maybe you could pop down the mine when it opens up to the public?”

“Yes sir.” Trent had placed a firm grip on Amy’s arm, squeezing. A thin drizzle finally managed to pitter down in spite of the dry, hot storm above as they turned and fled the crypt.

“Now, keep safe on y’walks home!” Jim called after them, as the three made their way up the steps and out of the graveyard- their pace becoming gradually faster the further they got from where Jim the Vicar was still stood on the threshold of the crypt, the light of Trent’s torch still illuminating it, casting him in black shadow. The only part of him that was visible were the reflective ovals of his glasses over his eyes.

***

              “Ah, piss.” Amy craned her head up to her window, trying to trick herself into thinking that it hadn’t been left open.

“Your door was locked though, right?”

“Yeah, definitely.”

Kat emerged from the small bush on Amy’s drive, tossing the makeshift window-opener back to its hiding place, muttering about how it probably wouldn’t be needed, “He won’t have got out then.”

“I know, it’s the fact that the rain’s probably got in.”

“Ooh, that sucks dude.”

Amy sighed, yep.

She started to scale the wall anyway- a route she had become so accustomed to that it felt no harder than walking up the stairs. She wriggled in through her window, falling onto her bed with a wet thunk, about eighty-percent sure she heard Kat laughing at her from the street. Trent had gone straight home, not only spooked by their run-in with Jim the Vicar, but also because he lived all the way in Elmsbury-Common, which was a considerable distance from Church Street Estate and Forest Estate where Amy and Kat both lived respectively.

“Maybe it’s not so bad?” Kat’s voice curled in through the window. Amy stuck her head out, “It’s bad, Kat,” she said it in a tone far harsher than she intended, “sorry, it’s just—it’s like 1am.”

“Damn, it’s that late? I didn’t think we’d been out too long.” Their gaze drifted behind them, flitting briefly over the church on the other side of the street. The amber glow of the streetlamps glinted in their eyes.

“Kat… no.” Amy knew what her friend was thinking, “do not go back there- we all promised we wouldn’t do hunts on our own.”

“I won’t, I won’t…” Kat smiled up reassuringly, “you just get your shit cleaned up- I’m gonna go back home.”

“Don’t go back to the graveyard.” Amy repeated, she didn’t feel that reassured.

Kat mouthed an irritated “okay Mum.” to their friend, before laughing to themself and waving goodbye, setting off back down the street. As Amy closed the window, the rain turned from drizzle to downpour.

Kat was right, the damage done to Amy’s room really wasn’t that bad. All she needed to do was change her sheets, since her bed seemed to have soaked up most of the fog and rain, though it still took her to half past one in the morning to get everything cleaned and rearranged. She slumped down in her bed, kicking her boots off across the room, wincing at the loud thuds they made on the carpet, now growing suddenly conscious that her mother was also in the house and very much asleep.

“Mrrp?!”

A small chitter came from under her bed. Amy smiled and swung her face over the edge, dangling off to look underneath, greeted by a pair of round green eyes that quickly barreled towards her in a zoom of black and white fur and the jingle of a small golden bell, “Argh! Sir Pounce!” she yelped as her small tuxedo cat collided with her. She scooped him up, kissing his fluffy head, talking over his indignant meows about how he could’ve escaped and how he should be downstairs in his bed, not under hers. She stretched to the satchel hanging off one of the posts, reaching in and taking out the small plastic pocket where she stored her photos before putting them away, “wanna see the photos, Sir Pounce?” The cat rubbed the side of his face against the folder as Amy brought them up to her eyeline, taking the photos out and showing them to Sir Pounce, very curious as to what he had to say about all this, “okay, okay pouncey.” She giggled.

Amy flicked through the photos one by one, some of them just blurred shots of Trent and Kat’s backs as they walked down into the graveyard. Others were illuminated perfectly by the flash of the camera, and looked delightfully spooky, especially in the colour of the developed film. The one of the angel grave came up, and Sir Pounce purred in approval. Amy scratched him behind his ears, “I know you like those ones too,” she placed it neatly in a separate pile to the others next to her on the bed, to put in the specific collection of photos of that grave she had amassed over the years. She got to the second to last photo and Sir Pounce hissed quietly. She made soothing noises as he wriggled in her arms, jumping off the bed and jetting towards the door. Amy followed, a little disheartened, and let him out of the room. She watched his bobtail dash down the stairs into the dark house, and before she could get her bedroom door shut she gave into the temptation to look at the photo more closely.

Illuminated by the dim light in her bedroom, Amy stood in the threshold of her door facing the darkness of her hallway. The photo was a little blurred, one she took on a whim as Kat had called her name to have it taken. They were crouched by a bush, throwing up double middle fingers and their face was stretched into a joking smile as the light of the flash bounced off their white teeth, reflecting red in their eyes. They had a small bunch of begonias clutched in their left hand, and the photo would have looked completely normal if it weren’t for what Amy saw next. By Kat’s left foot, just obscured by the lower branches of the bush was a small tuft of light brown and white fur. Flashes of pink glistened where it seemed to peel back, Amy guessed it was some sort of rabbit or rat. Folded around it, further into the bush, were three long, pale fingers.

***

               The sound of the window rolling down and thunking against its wooden frame cued Kat to looked behind themself as they made their way down the street towards Forest Estate. They only got a little way away before they felt their feet slowing beneath them, the constant background noise of the rain falling harder onto the tarmac crowding their ears. Their eyes guided their head to slowly move their focus to the looming shape of the Church, obscured slightly by the branches of the sycamore tree that had begun to shake with the impact of the raindrops. The fog swirled in the thick, muggy air, creating a clear path from the tips of Kat’s toes to the wrought iron of the little gate. The rain pasted their hair to their face and forehead. Kat blushed at the invitation.

It became almost physically painful to heed their friend’s warning not to go back: they had the spirit box in their pocket, it was everything they needed really, aside from a light source since Trent was the only one with a torch on this hunt. Rain fell in cones where the light from the streetlamps cascaded, creating a surrounding illumination of autumnal, amber glow. The Church looked very close, even though Kat was stood nearly rounding a corner about a hundred metres away from it. The green of the ivy that crept up the stone bricks was deep and sea-like, and a humid breeze picked up like a hot sigh, hitting the water on Kat’s face and hair and subverting their bracing for a shock of cold all over. Almost karmically, they gasped out loud into the muggy silence as a heavy raindrop rolled down their spine, having fallen into the crook of their collar, and they inadvertently pressed their palm to their mouth, as if they were afraid they’d be heard. Taking the hint, Kat hurried down the street and back towards home, leaving the church and graveyard stood up behind them.

The rain fell harder, chipping away at Kat’s already soaking sweater, their leather gloves sticking to their palms- half with sweat and half with rain. They ducked their head down even more, their chin nearly touching their sternum as they waded through the pale brown streets of town, the only thing they could see was their boots kicking out under them, glistening and wet in the orange glow of the streetlights. Kat rubbed the back of their neck, almost subconsciously, the hairs seemingly creeping upward on end, bristling their fingertips as they combed them down again. It was like someone had passed a single hot breath on the back of their neck, and they twitched their head in an attempt to shake the feeling, scrunching their eyes shut and keeping their head down. Trickles of rain oozed and flowed over their hand, half squeezed from their hair and half falling onto them from above, causing Kat to retract in reaction to the nasty sensation.

Just keep walking.

Their house was only five minutes from Amy’s, basically a dead straight line down the road except for the turn they made at the end of Church Street going into North-to-Church; they must be nearly there, mustn’t they?

All the cobbles looked the same in the dark; all the front drives and brickwork of the houses seemingly duplicated a million times: the white of the windowframes smooth and plastic, and the black of the wooden awnings lumpy from decades of layers of paint; every cigarette filter crammed into the pavement sat crumpled at the exact same angle; every rooftop peaked at the same height, and troughed to the same dip; even the gates to the church still remained politely shut, sheltered from the rain by the tree above them with the laminated sign flapping gently in the stormy breeze.

Kat stopped walking and looked down to the gate in front of them, specifically at their hand: it was hovering just above the gate, ready to prop them up to hop back over it like they had done earlier. They pulled back sharply like they had been burned.

What?

Kat craned their head up, soft droplets of rain pattering their skin as they had seemingly found themself seeking shelter under the shaking sycamore that sat just on the other side of the low stone wall.

If you were to look from opposite them, from the other side of the gate, the streetlights made Kat into an auburn-haloed silhouette, staring abjectly into the black. Even more so than before, the light was lost past the threshold, seemingly unwilling to stretch any further, in spite of it illuminating the whole town behind them.

Kat had lived in Elmsbury since they were born, they had memorised nearly every street, every alley, every shortcut by the age of fourteen.

Their house was barely a five minute walk from Amy’s, in a dead, straight line.

They had started to sweat by this point from walking so vigorously in apparently no direction at all, yet Kat saw between their eyes that their heavy breaths were coming out in white plumes. The sounds of the storm became low background noise, the rain lukewarm in the summer heat, and they felt all of a sudden a wave of calm sleepiness. A good sleepiness, like they had been working all day and could finally sink into bed. That was it, surely they were just tired. Yes, just tired and had zoned out not looking where they were walking. That made sense, didn’t it? Kat wanted to move away from the gate and go back home. It was dry at home, and warm; they were just tired. So tired. Complacent.

Dull thudding echoed from their heart to their skull and they squinted into the darkness, the faint smell of ozone and damp filling their nose and hitting the base of their tongue. The black in front of them swam like deep water, or as if a solid wall were there instead of thin air; it obscured their view of the graveyard past even the tip of their nose, now. The rain soaked them head to toe, they no longer felt the need to tuck in their head to their chest as some feeble form of protection. They stood at their full height, their shoulders relaxed, staring out into the black.

Eventually Kat mustered enough energy to move their eyeline down, and they watched the fog closest to them as it gently swirled outward, clearing the path up to the gate.

Like an electric shock had been pumped straight into their muscles, they jolted hurriedly away, the feeling of utter exhaustion exorcising from their body as they were sure they had seen something move in there. The flat sole of their foot came down hard on something soft and squishy. Looking down, Kat saw the lifeless body of a small brown rabbit, its guts spilled out onto the cobblestones, the black beads of its eyes pearlescent like frosted glass. They didn’t notice it then, but in spite of the gore, there wasn’t a single drop of blood anywhere on or around the animal, like a diagram in a biology textbook.

Awake, Kat frantically wiped their foot on the stones and sprinted through the rain in a dead straight line.

***

              Neil Holly didn’t like to stare, he found it unbecoming. Throughout the thirty-seven years of his existence, he had slowly come to accept that he was, in fact, an introvert; he was misconstrued by many as a recluse or a misanthrope, but Neil knew that deep down he would simply rather be alone. Which is why he didn’t like to stare: it brought unnecessary attention to himself; even worse, it made people think he was initiating a conversation with them. He had friends, sure, but none he would be comfortable allowing into his home, especially since, well… he didn’t like to think about Lou very much.

Over the bush, he could see the new mine renovations, the battered yellow steel of the various sets of machinery a bright and ugly blemish on the usually deep greens and browns of the fields on the south end of Elmsbury-Gallows. He squinted at the workers, reminding himself to get his prescription changed, before hearing the rumbling sound of tyres on tarmac approaching and deciding that now would probably be the best time to step out of the middle of the road.

From the renovations, he could hear the bustling conversations of the out-of-town workmen, the acoustics just so that he could make out them saying something about needing to bring over equipment from whatever base of operations they had been summoned from. They were, apparently, finding it hard to widen the hole on the inmost part of the adit- Neil remembered it being only about eight inches tall and wide. This was never going to be a good idea, he had thought since the renovation efforts had been announced in the Elmsbury Weekly, and with every scrape and crumble of the rocks around the adit this feeling became more and more apparent. He absently scratched the back of his neck with his free hand, then swapping his bag of groceries to said hand so that the other could rest in his jacket pocket.

“Couldn’t make it to the grand opening, I take it?”

Neil felt his stomach sink at the familiar voice, turning to see that Jim the Vicar had neatly placed himself next to him on the side of the road, his black cassock making him look like a crow. Neil inwardly groaned, “No, Jim, unfortunately not.”

Jim laughed, showing those pleasantly small teeth that made Neil’s jaw tighten: it wasn’t that he hated the man, hell, he had done a lot for the town since becoming head of it’s Parish Council, but it had made him just so… smug? He had always been a little smug, mind you, and their own personal history really didn’t help Neil’s distaste of the man. That was the closest articulation he could land on before Jim started talking again: “I didn’t think you would.” Neil shot him a glance, met with that same tiny-teethed smile. He had always wondered if the reverend got hot in his seemingly unchanging attire, or if he had a wardrobe chock-full of the same outfit, like a cartoon character, and now he was coming close to confronting the man about it.

“I didn’t see the point, in all honesty,” Neil tried his most courteous smile, “and the weather wasn’t good that night- it’s quite a walk out.”

“Right, of course,” Jim nodded, “you’re at Johnson’s Farm now?”

Neil raised his eyebrows quickly, not saying anything. He didn’t like that Jim knew where he lived: he had moved to the farm in an active attempt to avoid that.  

“It’s very picturesque up there,” the reverend continued, “nice and secluded.”

Neil looked up at the clouds, hoping for some sign that it would rain soon so he could make his departure. The sky was bright and white with no hint of grey or black. Neil thought he could even see sunrays. Damn.  

“It is a lovely day, isn’t it?” Jim looked up as well, smiling.

“Quite.” Neil muttered. Jim the Vicar seemed to sense his unease, “What’s wrong, Neil? You seem so…” he pretended to think, “…unsure about the whole thing.”

Neil sighed, “Well if you must know, I don’t like that it’s being reopened,” he looked the other man in the eyes, “some things should stay buried.”

It was a very pointed thing for him to say, and he hated how confrontational he had come across, despite the comment being very intentionally so. He hated reminding them both of their somewhat strained history. What he hated the most, however, was that it made Jim smile: a curling smile that stretched up to the corners of his eyes: wide and unpleasant and gleeful. The reverend had clocked who the statement was directed at and laughed a little too long and little too hard, “for a history teacher you sure don’t like the preservation of the past.”

“That’s not what I mean, Jim.”

“Then what do you mean, Neil?”

Neil said nothing. The sky above them both had turned a queasy grey, “Oh would you look at that,” Jim gazed up to the clouds again, “seems like rain to me,” he shrugged at Neil, “British weather.”

When he looked back from where his eyes had landed on the renovation site, Jim the Vicar was already rounding the corner and off down the road. Neil waited a few minutes before following in that direction, just so he was sure that Jim was far away from him. For peace of mind, of course.

***

              “Eugh!” Kat obtrusively threw the little polaroid away from themself and at Amy, who was sat on the other side of her bed, “that is creepy, innit?”

“Definitely,” Amy felt herself wanting to glance out of her window; she definitely-not-on-purposefully knocked the polaroid onto the floor, leaning down to pick it up before getting off her bed altogether to sit in the spot where it had landed, “I nearly shit myself when I saw it,” she grinned shyly, “Absolutely not something you want to see when your bedroom door is still open at night.”

“I bet,” Kat leaned forward with their elbows on their knees, “have you told Trent about it yet?”

“I phoned him this morning, he said he’d be over when you were- after lunch.” She glanced at the little red digital alarm clock on her bedside table: 13:01.

Three spritely knocks sounded from the front door, right on cue. Amy said that she’d run and get it, leaving Kat behind her as she rushed downstairs, hearing faintly the sound of them trying to coax Sir Pouncelot out from wherever he had hidden himself.

Amy swung herself around the end of the bannister and stood on her tiptoes to peer into the peephole, just out of habit, expecting to see Trent on the other side. She recoiled when she was met by the acne-speckled pink face of Mike Gregory, who had obviously seen her eye on the other side of the peephole and was now pressing his face up against it, cooing to her, “Oi! Cokes, let us in will you?!”

Amy put the door on the latch, before opening it just a crack, “go away, Mike.”

He leaned up against the doorframe, pressing his nose in through the little gap, “C’mon just let me in, man,” he laughed pig-headedly, “I wanna see the ghoooouls!” he guffawed in her face; Amy was tempted to slam his nose in the door then and there. He looked her in the eyes, wisps of his ashy blonde hair curling in over his forehead, “hey, is Kat in there with you? What about Liz?”

“His name’s Trent.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Mike stepped back a little, though he stilled leaned into the gap. He put his hands in the pockets of his joggers, “still getting used to it.”

How kind of you to get Trent’s name right before you go and bully him, Amy thought to herself, but she didn’t say it out loud. Mike Gregory stuck three fingers through the gap, now trying to tug the chain on the latch loose, “let us in already, Cokes.”

Amy ripped her hand away from the door as it slammed shut, Mike Gregory’s digits making an awful squish-crack sound as the thick wooden door crushed them in an ooze of red. Amy spun around, covering her mouth as a yelp escaped it, looking at Kat stood behind her; all of their usual unserious pretentions had drained from their face, replaced with an uncharacteristic look of abject and pure hatred. Sir Pounce lounged back in their arms, purring as they absent-mindedly scratched him behind his ears. Kat looked at Amy as Mike Gregory’s muffled screams still pounded from behind the now closed door and called him a word not worth the risk of repeating.

***

              “Eugh! That’s freaky!” Trent pulled the little polaroid closer to his face, half burying his nose in it, “oh, I don’t like that at all, ew.”

“Weird innit?” Kat sat cross legged on Amy’s bed, Sir Pounce curled up in their lap.

Trent furrowed his brow, “You sure it in’t just like… the prop chucked in the bush or anything?”

Amy shrugged, “I dunno, it definitely looks like it’s grabbing the, uh, whatever it is under there.”

Kat murmured something quietly, Trent asked them what it was. They sighed deeply, and looked up from the cat in their lap, “It’s a rabbit, I think anyway.”

“Why do you think that?”

They paused, their mouth making the half shapes of syllables as they avoided eye contact with both of their friends, “just— just a feeling, I have— like based on size and stuff.”

Amy raised her eyebrow, hopefully not noticeably.

“We should go back tonight.” Trent’s eyes were wide, “I’m low-key invested,” he laughed nervously.

“That sounds good to me, I could get some more film from Cery’s today, only thing is we do have to go back to school on Monday,” Amy shifted a little, “so like, I might wanna actually sleep this weekend,” she turned to Kat, who had gone quiet on the bed, “you good?”

Kat shifted a little, but mustered up their usual grin, “yeah, yeah of course, I’ll go along, I can’t wait to actually catch Mike Gregory this time.”

“I think you’ve done enough to him today.” It was a half-joke, Amy was scared that it came off too harsh. Kat laughed, “yeah, well, he deserved it.”

“Oh my God what did you do this time?” Trent leaned forward to his friend.

“Slammed his bloody fingers in my door,” Amy answered for Kat, who was too preoccupied with the grin of pure mischief that had bloomed on their face. Trent’s mouth fell open, “You did not.”

Kat pulled a mock-coy face, making their friend’s mouth hang even wider, “Kat.”

“He did deserve it.”

“We are so cooked.”

“Shut up dude,” Kat laughed, “eye for an eye, first of all, second: he was literally trying to like, break into the house.”

Trent looked to Amy for a more honest clarification. She told him that yeah, he kinda was.

“Bro his best mate’s dad is like a cop or something you’re gonna catch a case.” It was another half-joke from Trent.

“Well since I’m already a fugitive, we might as well do a little trespassing tonight,” they redirected the conversation back to the graveyard, “we’ll be fine don’t even worry. What’re they gonna do? Imprison me for being a fucking legend?”

***

              That next morning, Amy found herself stood at the gates to the graveyard, her polaroid slung over her shoulder in its bag. This time, they needn’t have hopped the gate, the Sunday service was being held that morning, and besides it was between opening and closing hours of the graveyard for once. She hadn’t gone with her friends that night, despite their unofficial pact not to leave each other out of hunts, but Trent had reassured her that they were just across the road if anything truly awful happened. She felt a little guilty over how covetous she had been of her camera, but they had resolved to tell her about anything she could photograph that they would go back to see in the morning.

Amy mused out loud that they probably saw the place in darkness more than they did in light, though was wary of her volume since a few metres away from her, she could see Jim the Vicar welcoming in the congregation, his pale hands floating on the backdrop of his black clothing. He was smiling plainly to those walking through the great wooden doors and seemingly sensed a pair of eyes on him as he looked up from the small crowd and waved at Amy from where he was stood. Feeling compelled to, she waved back shyly, consciously moving her satchel from her left side to her right.

“Amy?”

She turned to face Kat, who was already halfway down the steps into the bottom level of the graveyard, “C’mon, we need your expert photography skills for this.”

Amy hurried after her friend, hearing the Church doors close as she did so and a few moments later the organ started to play. She nearly slipped down one of the steps in her rush, it was slick with the rain from the past nights and obscured by a thin trail of fog that progressively got thicker as Amy descended: like deep water lapping at a dock. She skipped on down the path between the headstones, approaching Kat who was stood with their back to her, hands waving her towards them, looking to where Amy assumed Trent was stood behind the crypt. A small, pointless breeze tousled their bright orange hair, making it curl at the bottom of their neck. As Amy got to her friend’s side, she heard that they were muttering to themself, over and over the same phrase: “they were right here.”

The faint tune of The Lord Is My Shepherd drifted on organ-song from the stony shell of the Church up behind them.

“What— what was?” A half-laugh escaped her, “Kat, you’re freaking me out.”

Trent was moving around sporadically, kicking the air as if to scare the fog away from a small, almost invisible, indent in the grass behind the crypt; he was muttering the same thing Kat was, over and over and over. Amy asked Kat again what they were talking about, and was met by their dark green eyes in a confused stare. They smiled a little, involuntarily, almost bemused at the apparent absurdity of a situation which Amy was an outsider to: “the rabbits,” they gently put a hand on Amy’s arm, steadying themself, “the rabbits— there was a pile of them—”

“—there.” Trent pointed to the space he had been wafting, “literally right there, we both saw them, they were there.” He motioned a hand level to his hips, “it was this tall, Amy, they were…” he trailed off, “…I mean, they were torn to pieces.”  

Amy’s throat slowly started to dry, “If you’re trying to freak me out it won’t work ‘cause, like, if they were so torn up and everything there would be blood all over the place.” She felt like she was trying to convince herself more than she was her friends, and a certain look had overcome Kat’s eyes: one that seemed less and less easy to fake, “Trent.”

“I don’t know Amy! I don’t—” he looked around wildly, “—I don’t know, alright?”

“Look, I’m sorry I wasn’t there to take a picture.”

Trent sighed, “No, no it’s fine just— you’ve gotta believe me dude it was there and it was… well it was pretty big.”

“Well, where could it’ve gone?” Kat offered the question , it was a stupid question and all three knew it.

“Wh— bro I dunno! Where do you hide, like, a hundred dead rabbits? How do you even carry them without someone noticing it?”

A horrible inkling pushed its way through the front of Amy’s mind and out of her mouth, “Mike… Mike Gregory he— he wouldn’t kill something to freak us out, would he?”

The question floated between the three, Kat had gone icy pale, almost green, “we’ve gotta tell someone.”

“Who are we gonna tell, Kat?” Trent said, exasperatedly, “he’s probably already gone and told someone about his fingers, I mean he’d have to it’s not exactly an injury you can hide very well- if anything they’d say we were making it all up to get back at him, hell, they’d probably say wekilled those rabbits or something.” He was sweating by this point, the humidity of the summer biting and buzzing around him as his chest rose and fell shallowly and quickly. Kat buckled a little into Amy, who had long since decided this was enough, “okay, I think we should go back to mine and talk about this,” she looped her arm around Kat’s, eyes locked on the spot behind the crypt that Trent was so focused on, “if we relax we can think more clearly.”

They walked back away from the crypt, their flight played out by the methodical, simple sound of Father, I Adore You as they hurried over the road and back to Amy’s house. She closed the front door, watching as the congregation left the Church, bidding goodbye to Jim in his thick black robe: a shadow against the white summer day.

She managed to get the door shut before he could look up at her again and wave.

[shades4dogs]

yesterday we were doing Woodlands surveys. it was about gauging the dominance of canopy species then looking at the understory . then at the end, you would check ground flora species .

I wasn’t prepared for group work, so I didn’t really enjoy doing that, but I had a lot of fun with the plant ID.

I could confidently identify a lot more trees now than I could do before yesterday. For example, I am now confident in telling apart sycamore, ash and beech. I also learned what a wych elm looks like  when it’s younger.

on the left is a Wych Elm, and on the right is a sycamore . You can tell it’s a Wych Elm because of the vertical stripes on the bark there make it look like it’s been washed down.

Then the right one, you can tell us a sycamore because of the scaly parts of the bark. This is what sets it apart from beech tree bark and ash bark , otherwise, it’s hard to tell the difference .

obviously you can tell what species are trees from the leaf litter, but it’s also a good skill to have to be able to identify a tree from its bark and buds.

so, for example, in this picture here, you can see the difference in the buds of ash and beech, which have very similar tree trunks . The beech tree has pointed orange buds that look like thorns from a distance , And the ash tree has small black buds that look like they are burnt. that’s a good way to remember it .

The day before that, we also went on a walk to a woodland that was famous for having a lot of red kites . I think that is the first time I saw a birch woodland, even though it was very small . It’s interesting in winter when all of the leaves are gone. How you can tell what species a tree is from the colour of the tree top branches.

for example, birch, tree tops are very red purple-ish.

Orange tips are willow

And you can always tell if a conifer is a larch in the winter, because larches are the only UK pine species that loses its leaves. It’s a deciduous conifer!

in this photo, you can see a big patch of birch trees identifiable by the red tops and among them, you can see some willow trees, then behind that you can see some coniferous trees and a patch of larch. and this is all from far away !

 

I’m really excited about how much my treeID has improved. In the left are you can see a lot of Birch again, but as we’re closer up, you can also see the yellow catkins of Hazel trees. there are also some mature holly bushes, and there’s a young oak tree on the right there .

The thinner scraggly are trees are the ones that I’m not confident on.  if I took a guess, I will probably assume they were Willow, but I didn’t get a close-up because we were walking . Anyways towards the back which you can see in the second picture, there were more Scots Pines. I also saw a variant of a Hollytree that had rounded leaves which you could cultivate into a really nice hedge .



[exetertrees]

https://ift.tt/Zu1aV02

[ryanberga]

One of the boys split off to look in the stump of an old wych elm tree. When he peered through the tangled branches, a round, white object caught his eye. The young man had not discovered an egg, however, but a human skull.

[theskywaslookingback]

hey ignore that last thing i wrote and then deleted this version is way better and also maybe something i’ll work on who knows, thanks anon sorry i deleted your ask but this one is way better.

The sun shines down, spilling dappled sunlight through the leaves across twigs and rocks splotches with patches of soft, damp moss. There’s birdsong carried on the soft, late summer air, drifting in and out alongside the burble of a nearby brook and chorus of frogs. A twig snaps under a clumsy, uneven gait and Jonathan Sims grumbles as he readjusts his pack where it rests heavily against his sore shoulders, swatting a tree branch out of the way as he crashes through the underbrush. He follows an underused path through the forest, one rarely trekked except for those brave enough, or desperate enough to take it.

Follow the three hills rise along the rush of the rising current, right at the elm which houses the witch’s heart, and make way past the bloody-

A rabbit darts out the way of his thundering path, it’s back paws skittering amongst the dead leaves and dirt. Jon kicks a pebble and swats at another tree branch, narrowing his eyes in search of whatever stupid landmark the locals had deemed spooky enough to mark the path toward the witch’s cottage.

Over the hills near the brook, right at the wych elm, and--

There's a large boulder, moss crawling up the side of it like a coat, a ring of mushrooms near the very base. 

Jon is very careful not to step near the mushrooms.

Now where…

The path, though Jon finds that an ill-fitting term as there was nothing that clearly defined the way he’d walked as any such thing, seemed to split in two different directions. There was a little more well defined trail on the side opposite the faerie ring, but Jon couldn’t remember exactly which way he was supposed to go. The old man who’d been the only one willing to give him directions had been infuriatingly vague and cryptic about the whole thing.

If I were a creepy magic witch that lived in the forest, where would I be?

Jon huffed and struck down the path that seemed the least used, giving the faerie ring a wide berth. It wasn’t that he believed in faeries, but, well...he’d already tested his luck as far as the supernatural went and that had gone very poorly. Jon was in no mood to test his luck again.

He huffed and struggled his way past twisting trees and bramble bushes, catching and nicking the sleeve of the large jumper he was wearing. He cursed, pulling himself free. The sweltering heat does nothing to assuage his boiling temper, clothed as he is in the biggest jumper he could find and a scarf despite it being well into August. He tries not to think about it so much, despite the itch of it against his skin and the choking heat.

Soon, he tries to tell himself, soon.

It’s almost night by the time Jon stumbles upon the cottage, all dark stone and black roofed. A wrought iron gate surrounds the property, flanked on both sides by enormous rose bushes too immense not to be magic themselves. Just inside the gate sits a little garden, full of greenery and flowers that remind Jon of things like foxglove and wormwood. The shutters, dark stained wood, are closed to give the impression of one not being home. The smoke curling gently from the chimney leaves little doubt, however, as to if the abode is occupied. Jon imagines a cauldron bubbling over a fire, full of toads eyes and newts tongues, and shivers despite the heat.

In the distance an owl hoots. Jon can no longer hear the clamour of foxes and rabbits in the brush, or toads singing their low songs in the distance. Now, faced with the end of his journey, Jon hesitates. His hand is just shy of the gate, though he can’t make himself open it. It would be rude, wouldn’t it, to go up and knock at this late hour. The sun is just barely peeking itself above the horizon now, the moon bright and full up in the sky. 

He’ll come back in the morning, he decides. 

He’ll find a place to make his little camp and come back. 

He will.

He just has to move, first.

Jon is mid discussion with his limbs, reminding them how to function again, when the door to the cottage swings open. 

Light spills out from inside the home and a man steps out, giving him a puzzled look. 

“What are you doing out here?” He asks. 

He’s- He is the most beautiful man Jon has ever seen in his life. Long black hair pulled back away from his face, pale grey eyes, and small tattoos across his knuckles and the base of his neck. “I- I-” Jon swallows, floundering, “that is to say, um-”

The man raises an eyebrow, and honestly he’s so beautiful it’s unfair.

Jon takes a deep breath. He’s practiced this. He can do this. 

“My name is Jonathan Sims and I came here looking for help. A witch has put a curse on me and I heard you could help reverse it.”

“Where did you hear that?”

Jon opens his mouth. Closes it. “In...town? Are you-- are you the witch that lives in the woods?”

The man stares at him for a long moment before cracking into a grin. He looks like he’s smothering down a laugh. “Oh, you’ll be wanting Martin then. Easy mistake.”

“Wh-what?” 

The man flaps a hand in the direction Jon  came from. “He’s my neighbor. You’re probably, oh, the third or fourth person this month that’s missed him. It’s getting a bit late, though-”

“I know, I-I’m sorry,” Jon says, “I was going to find a place to make camp, I- thank you. I’ll just-”

“Nonsense,” The man makes a vague gesture toward Jon, “you can stay here tonight. I’ll walk you over to Martin’s in the morning.”

“Oh, I-I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“I don’t mind. I don’t get visitors too often.”

Jon hesitates at the gate a moment longer, before lifting the latch and letting himself through.

The man smiles and offers him a hand, which Jon takes carefully so that the man’s fingers wrap mostly around the fabric of his jumper. The man’s hands are lovely, a bit rough and calloused but slender and strong. “Gerry,” The man says, which Jon assumes is his name.

“Thank you, Gerry.” 

“Of course, Jon.” Gerry says warmly, “Though, a bit of friendly advice? You might be a bit more careful about giving your name away to just anyone in these woods.”

“Ah-”

Gerry steps back, an odd light in his eyes, and lets Jon enter the cottage.

[bluet-s]

We  are  shawled  together  in  the  fields,  branched  together  like  plump  fruiting  figs.  Warmth  is  finally  spreading  throughout   the  valley  and  winter  is  dying  for  spring.  Apricity  joins  us  at  dawn  as  the  first  traces  of  light  lick  the  edges  of  the  earth.  Those  butterscotch  tails  caress  her  collarbones  in  the  most  delicate  fashion,  I  see  the  mesmerizing  lines  of  those  clavicles,  curling  out  from  the  hollow  of  her  throat. 

Only  the  light  touches  them,  only  dawn  and  I  see  them,  resting  below  them  is  her  heart —  her  life.  I  try  not  to  think  of  the  many  hands  that  have  not  held  it  with  care;  you  see,  the  heart  should  not  be  carried  in  one  palm,  but  with  two  like  fragile  tea  cups  you  might  find  in  my  grandmother's  china  cabinet.  So  as  the  sun  becomes  acquainted  with  the  baby  blue  of  the  sky,  I  appreciate  your  company,  the  silence  of  it,  the  contrast  of  it. 

Without  this  I  couldn't  see  my  life  differently,  you  are  the  dearest  fig  on  my  branch,  on  my  fig  tree,  and  the  branches  stem  and  separate  like  bronchioles  in  the  lungs.  All  my  old  dreams  and  future  endeavors  remain  different  figs  on  these  branches,  some  wrinkle  and  blacken,  rotting  and  dropping  to  decompose  at  my  feet. 

We  sit  on  the  same  vein  in  the  heart  of  my  fig  tree,  looking  down  upon  the  figs  that  lost  their  lives.  The  surviving  fig  drops  to  the  hollow  crater  between  my  collarbones.  Soon  we  will   drop  and  roll  down  the  hill  with  all  the  wrinkled  fruit.  The  nearest  wych  elm  houses  the  sparrow  choir,  they  erupt  into  a  morning  hymn  with  their  crested  bellied  chests. 

A  gentle  morning  veil  adorns  her  collarbones  like  a  dainty  necklace,  I  want  to  devour  each  and  every  bone  for  breakfast,  but  to  save  the  clavicles  for  after  the  meal,  pull  them  apart  as  you  would  a wishbone.  Among  the  tussocks  on  this  Scottish  hill  we  are  fallen  fruit,  I  will  hold  your  hand  and  rot  respectively  on  the  same  stem.

[arcticfox007]

The Wych Elm and the Cemetery

Happy Christmas @aibari! I’m you’re secret santa and I hope you enjoy your gift!

Thanks to @destielsecretsanta2020 for putting all of this together :)

Wishlist fulfilled: Angst with a Happy Ending, Case Fic, Weird Small Towns (well city in this case), Weird Angel Lore, Hand holding, and Americana (I tried to work in as much as I could) – if you want specific info on all of the Americana I tied in, check out my endnotes on AO3 😊 Also, @aibari I’m happy to list you as the giftee on AO3 if you have a name over there.

The is roughly set during early Season 12, but I’m not married to canon or anything.

***

               Dean wasn’t easily impressed these days, but even he had to admit that the tree growing out of the grave was unlike anything he’d come across before. The historic cemetery in the middle of Missouri had its fair share of trees, but they had come here for this one. Cas stood next to him looking like he was attempting to interrogate the tree with his mind. For a moment Dean was distracted by the angel, smiling a bit at the memory of the time Cas had insisted on interrogating a cat. Luckily, Cas had gotten better at blending in, so at least he wasn’t actively asking the tree questions. There was the sound of someone clearing their throat to Dean’s other side and Dean directed his attention back to the cemetery’s caretaker, Mrs. Paige.

               “I’m not sure why the FBI would be interested in something like this.” The older woman sniffed and looked at both Cas and Dean suspiciously. Dean turned on the charm and gave her a warm smile.

               “Unfortunately, we aren’t at liberty to discuss the details of the case, but we’d appreciate anything you can tell us about this tree Mrs. Paige, or the woman who was killed, Louisa Abbot.”

                We’d also like any information you might have on the person who was buried here,” Castiel interrupted. “Most of the marker seems to be missing, perhaps destroyed by the sudden growth of this tree.”

               “Well, I can certainly get you the information on who was buried here, this was one of our more famous gravesites. The man buried here died in the early 1800s, he is one of two Revolutionary War veterans laid to rest in the cemetery, his name was William Abbot. I believe he held the rank of Captain. The Boone Historical Society may have more information about him, but he is one of the earliest burials in the cemetery and a lot of those records have been lost over the years.” Mrs. Paige chewed on her lower lip for a moment, staring along with Dean at the tree once again. “The tree will have to be removed to restore Captain Abbot’s grave.”

               “Was Captain Abbot an ancestor of the victim?” Cas’ question caught Dean off guard. There was something strangely mesmerizing about the massive twisting trunk rising out of the ground exactly where the remains of Captain Abbot would have been. Dean registered that Cas and the caretaker were continuing to talk, but Dean stepped away to examine the tree more carefully. It’s roots, on the surface at least, didn’t seem to spread out much. Rather they seemed to go straight down into the Earth. Its trunk was thick enough to have been there for hundreds of years despite having only appeared a few days ago. The tree itself was knotted in appearance, with ugly, twisted branches shooting out in all directions. For some reason it occurred to Dean that the tree looked like it was screaming in pain. Dean jumped when he suddenly felt Cas’ hand on his shoulder.

              “Dean. Are you listening?” Dean pulled his eyes away from the tree and turned towards Cas who continued to keep his hand on Dean’s shoulder.

               “Ah, no, sorry. This,” Dean waved vaguely at the impressive scene before them, “is kind of distracting.” Cas nodded seriously. Dean noticed that the caretaker had left, but was distracted again by Cas pulling his hand back. They always touched a bit longer than was probably normal, but Dean still regretted the loss of the warmth on his shoulder.

               “Mrs. Paige said that the victim may have been a descendant of Captain Abbot, but she wasn’t sure. She suggested the Historical Society again, if we needed further information. She did say that she knew Louisa Abbot when she was a teenager. She was one of several teenagers she used to call the police on for breaking into the cemetery after hours to party. Mrs. Paige said she hadn’t really seen her in more recent years.

               “Is there any way to tell if the good Captain is still here?” Dean waved towards the roots of the tree. Cas shook his head. “Ah well, I’d be surprised if they were still here. I guess we better find out what exactly Louisa Abbot was into.” They started walking back towards the car.

               “I agree. I’d also like more information on the tree. I know it’s a type of elm, but I’m not sure of the significance, if there is any.”

               “Call Sam and get him to work on it.” Cas let out an exasperated huff in response to Dean’s delegation of research to his brother.

               “Dean. The entire reason we are here without Sam is so he can rest. He needs to sleep to get over the flu, especially since he refused to let me heal him. I am more than capable of finding the information, perhaps while you visit the historical society.”

               “Alright. You want me to drop you off at the library?”

               “That would be acceptable.” Cas paused to look out over the cemetery again before opening the passenger side door of the Impala. Dean noticed the angel’s hesitation.

               “Everything okay man?” Castiel turned towards Dean upon hearing his words and Dean notices the sadness that ghosts across the angel’s face. “Seriously, Cas, what’s going on with you? You seem more, I dunno, out of it than usual.”

               “I – this place is a lot like the cemetery where Mary was originally buried. I don’t like the memory of you leaving to die.” Cas looks away abruptly and climbs into the passenger seat. Dean is at a loss for words, so he doesn’t say anything at all. He drops Cas off at the library with all the things left unsaid hanging between them.

***

               It’s off season for the small college town, most of the students having gone home for winter break, so the hunters end up with better than normal accommodations. Dean is more than happy to discover a decent grill-themed restaurant practically in the parking lot of their hotel, and Cas is happy to wait until his companion is content with food before telling him what he’d found during his time in the library. Dean talks ideally about the pie store the server had told him about, wondering if they’ll have time to check it out before they leave. Cas lets Dean talk, he finds himself still grateful that he can have these moments, he truly thought he was going to lose him in the attempt to destroy Amara.

               Ever since Castiel’s brief time as a human he’s found that the emotions he’d been slowly acquiring over the years have amplified at a rate that he has had difficulty adjusting to. He’d hoped at the beginning that regaining his grace would have given him back some of the control that had spiraled away from him, but he can’t help but dwell on almost losing Dean.

               When they reach their room, Dean opts to take a shower before swapping case notes so Cas tries to take that time to compose himself. When given moments away from Dean, where there is a chance for quiet, the angel forces himself to let the feelings he has for the infuriating man wash over him. He lets himself feel the pain at having to let him go up against Amara alone. He lets himself feel the overwhelming joy at seeing him alive once again. He lets himself feel how much he’s fallen in love with the beautiful human being. He recalls talking to Anna at the beginning of what would become his fall, her telling him it only gets worse. He has no doubt now that she wasn’t just referring to his struggle with doubt. An angel that can feel things akin to a human can easily become overwhelmed. They were not built for these sensations, and so, every time Castiel lets go to indulge in the wash of his emotions he pulls on his grace and works to reign them in one at a time. By the time Dean emerges from the shower Castiel has regained some semblance of stoicism.

               “So, this lady at the historical society was great. She apparently teaches genealogy classes for free to the public or something, so she was able to pull up the victim’s ancestry pretty fast. Captain Abbot was her ancestor all right, so at least we have that connection. Couldn’t find much out about the family besides that, so we should talk to Louisa’s next of kin tomorrow. I think the police report said she had a sister locally.” Castiel agrees to the plan and pulls out some information he had printed at the library.

               “The tree is called a ‘Wych Elm’ and is a common wood used to build coffins, which may explain it’s presence. It’s possible, if Captain Abbot’s coffin was made from this wood, that whatever spell was cast had the side effect of growing a new tree from the wood.” Dean raises his eyebrows skeptically when Cas shares this information.

               “It’s called a witch elm Cas; do you really think it’s there because of the coffin wood?” Castiel rolls his eyes at his companion.

               “W-Y-C-H Dean, not witch. It means pliable, it’s named for the characteristic of the wood. But no, to answer your question. I doubt it has anything to do with the coffin wood. It’s not a tree common to this area.” Dean waves his hand to indicate Castiel should continue. “You are not the only one to mistake the name of the tree for something else. More recent lore does associate the tree with actual witches as many of them seem to like these trees as ritualistic sites. The rest of the lore associates them with melancholy and death, especially because the trees are known for unexpectedly dropping branches and injuring the unsuspecting people standing below them.”

               “Yeah, okay. Does that mean that Louisa was some sort of witch, and grew the tree there on purpose?” Cas thinks about Dean’s suggestion for a few moments.

               “Possibly. The other thing these trees are known for is guarding the entrance to Hades, so it may also be a result of an attempt to raise the dead. I cannot be certain as this seems unlike any other necromantic ritual I’ve heard of. I am also uncertain at to the motivation of raising someone who died over two centuries ago, as the more recent dead are usually preferrable to necromancers.”

               “Alright, well there’s not much more we can do tonight.” Castiel nods and watches Dean dig through his bag. Dean hesitates for a moment and Castiel begins to wonder if he forgot something at the bunker. Dean shakes his head and pulls a bundle out of his bag, tossing it to Castiel.

               “Here, I forgot I brought this for you.” Dean looks expectantly at the angel as Cas looks at the material in his hands.  

                “Clothing? Dean, I have no need to change clothes.” Castiel’s confusion is evident on his face. Dean sighs rubs the back of his neck.

                 “I know man. Just try though, you’re more human-like than before with Heaven losing power. I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I noticed that you eat more often, and even sleep sometimes. I think you’ll actually appreciate relaxing in something that isn’t a suit and trench coat.” Cas looks at the clothing in his hands, dismayed that Dean has seen the weakening of his connection to Heaven. He hadn’t wanted Dean to think him less capable but at the same time he’s touched by the thought the man had put into the angel’s situation.

                 “Thank you, Dean. I will try.” Castiel goes into the bathroom to change and when he emerges, he finds Dean sitting on one of the beds flipping through TV channels. Dean slides over, indicating that Cas should sit down as the TV is only visible from the one bed. Dean complains that the only thing on is a Law & Order marathon because the hotel doesn’t have a streaming service on the TV. Cas doesn’t mind though, sharing the bed to watch television gives him an excuse to watch over Dean as he sleeps without Dean complaining about it. Even nicer is how Dean falls asleep gradually in the middle of an episode and doesn’t seem to notice how he curls into Cas’ side as he does it. Cas smiles and allows his feelings to wash over him again as he thinks about how the softer PJs must be more comfortable for Dean to lay on.

***

                  The following evening found the hunter and the angel at a place called Warm Springs Ranch. When they called Louisa’s sister, she told them she could talk during her break. The ranch ran some sort of Christmas event and Janice Abbot was one of the people in charge of it. Dean tried to play it cool, but he couldn’t help getting a bit excited over the chance to see the Budweiser Clydesdales. He did remind Cas that interrogating the horses was unnecessary to which he had received one of the angel’s full body eyerolls. Dean would never admit it out loud, but he really enjoyed Cas’ sarcasm. He thought the eyerolling was kind of adorable.

               Dean hadn’t meant to spend last night half snuggling with his best friend, but Cas didn’t seem to mind so he wasn’t going to worry about it. Dean figured his secret crush on the guy was his problem, not the angel’s – as long as it didn’t mess up their friendship it wasn’t worth agonizing over.

               They had unexpectedly spent the morning at the morgue. There was another strange death last night, something had eaten the victim’s spleen. They’d only received a call about it because the original victim, Louisa, had also been missing her spleen along with several other organs and most of her blood. If it was the same creature it certainly seemed to enjoy the bloodier organs of the body. The only other thing the victims had in common was proximity to the cemetery. The most recent victim had visited the cemetery the previous day according to her wife.

               After that trip, they had gotten access to Louisa’s duplex and were now in agreement that she had been a practicing witch dabbling in necromancy. Cas had been on the phone with Rowena during the drive to the ranch giving her a rundown on the information they had in the hopes that she could help then understand more of what was going on. Eventually Cas had given in and called Sam, admitting that the younger Winchester had a much easier time getting Rowena’s cooperation.

               When they finally arrived at the front of the line of cars entering the ranch, Dean began to understand why there was a crowd. The lights draped everywhere were impressive and Dean was happy to note that Cas seemed taken in by the display. It always cheered Dean up to see Castiel happy, it felt like those instances were all too rare in their line of work. Dean and Cas showed their badges at the entrance and asked where they could find Janice. They were directed to a side road for staff and Dean noticed the small frown of Cas’ face.

               “Hey, want to ask if we can drive through the light display if we have time before we leave? It looks kinda awesome.” Castiel didn’t exactly smile but Dean could tell the suggestion pleased him. Dean wasn’t always sure why, but he was much better at reading Castiel than anyone else. Dean drove around to the back to park his car in what he assumed was the employee parking lot. They made their way through the staff entrance and asked around until they found Louisa’s sister.

                “I honestly don’t know what I can tell you guys that I haven’t already told the other cops. I’m sorry she’s dead but Louisa and I were not close. She and I have barely spoken since we were kids. She was friends with some really weird people and did a lot of drugs when we were younger. I’m really not surprised she ended up dead in a cemetery.” Janice was clearly frustrated at her sister’s death and the notoriety it had brought with it. They did manage to find out the names of some of the ‘weird’ friends Louisa hung out with but beyond that she had been more than happy to offer them free access to the Christmas event just to be rid of them.

                Dean was fairly certain the interview had been a dead end outside of assuring himself the sister wasn’t also a witch, but he didn’t feel their time had been wasted as he watched Cas roam through the stables. Cas attracted the few colts in residence leading to the kids in attendance following him around so they could see the young horses up close. Dean felt a soft warmth spread out from his chest as he watched his best friend talk with both the children and the colts. The children didn’t think anything of Cas having conversations with horses.

              They eventually made their way back to the car and drove through the light display. Maybe they should have talked about the case, but Dean didn’t want to ruin the moment. Cas gazed out at the decorations with a look of quiet contentment on his face and Dean reached for the angel’s hand without thinking about it. Cas threaded his fingers through Dean’s without even turning away from the window.

             Later that night, after grabbing burgers at a drive thru, they poured through the case notes together hoping to find something they had been missing. Dean didn’t even remember falling asleep until he woke up to Cas rolling him onto a pillow and laying a blanket on him. He mumbled a drowsy thank you and sunk into a dreamless slumber.

***

               Cas thought that maybe it was a mistake, but after last night he didn’t want to be away from Dean. Once he had pulled a blanket over his exhausted friend, Cas changed into the pajamas Dean had given him again and laid down beside him. He stayed above the covers and just watched Dean sleep. He didn’t tell Dean anymore that he’d watch over him as he didn’t enjoy being called creepy. Dean didn’t seem to understand that watching was part of who Castiel was as an angel. While he had rebelled and fallen it didn’t change his need to watch over the man he pulled out of hell. It would be like going to long without air for a human. Cas needed to watch Dean, to protect him, to assure himself that he was safe.

                He noticed Dean shivering despite the blanket draped over him and Castiel found himself giving into another impulse that he wasn’t sure Dean would appreciate. He pulled on the smallest amount of his grace to give some substance to his wings and dropped one of them on top of the man he loved. They were broken and battered, but over the years they had healed enough to fill out a bit. Dean quieted as he felt the weight of the wing, and Cas saw a small smile ripple across his face. The angel would just have to pull his wings back from the physical realm before Dean woke up, but it was worth the grace to keep Dean more comfortable as he slept.

***

               Dean opened his eyes in the morning to find a sleeping angel next to him. He froze as soon as he saw Cas there, more worried that the angel had fallen asleep than about the fact that Dean was all to happy to wake up to his best friend lying beside him. He reached over to see if he could wake Cas up and ran into – feathers? Dean quickly rubbed his hands over his face and woke up more definitively. Yup, those were feathers. Large, gorgeous, black feathers that shimmered like obsidian in the sunlight. It was as if every color that had ever existed had come together to create the shimmering black of Castiel’s wings. While concerned about why Cas was sleeping and why his wings were manifested when Dean had only ever seen shadows, Dean couldn’t help but be enthralled with the things. His hand reached out to pet the one blanketing him before he actually thought about it. He had just enough time to appreciate how amazingly soft they felt before Castiel awoke with a gasp. The wing pulled back suddenly and Cas was sitting up staring at Dean in shock.

               “Sorry, sorry! Did I hurt you? I didn’t mean anything by it, they were just so amazing… I’m so sorry Cas!” Dean held up his hands trying to placate the angel as he also sat up. Cas looked at his wings as if he had just realized they were physically present. Surprise travelled over his features and with a roll of Cas’ shoulders the wings disappeared. Dean tried not to look as disappointed as he felt. Cas turned back to Dean and briefly touched his jaw.

               “It’s alright Dean. I was just surprised. They were manifested more than I intended and the sensation of you touching them was unexpected.”

               “Did I hurt you?”

               “No, like I said it was just unexpected, not harmful. I apologize, I didn’t mean for them to be out for so long.” Dean was surprised to note that Cas looked embarrassed.

               “I – I’m glad I got to see them. They’re fucking awesome Cas, the shadows were badass enough, but wow. If I had known you could manifest them like that, I’d have been begging you to show me for years.” Cas laughed and the tension between them evaporated. Dean got ready in the bathroom and found Cas back in his regular clothing hanging up the phone when he’d finished brushing his teeth.

               “Rowena thinks she knows what happened, or at least some of it. She’s not completely sure about the role of the Wych Elm, but she did say that it’s likely we will need to use wood from the tree to kill the creature that was raised.”

               “Did she say what it is?” Cas nodded in response to Dean’s question.

               “She thinks Louisa was trying to make her own vampire. Ties of blood are necessary for control and the age of the corpse increases the power of the risen dead in a ritual like this. Rowena said that no one tries this type of thing though, because the amount of power and control needed are astronomical. She said she wouldn’t try it herself, that there are easier ways to get a loyal servant. Then she said something about how maybe Louisa didn’t have the ‘assets’ Rowena had?” Dean broke into laughter and Cas tilted his head in puzzlement. Dean always enjoyed Cas’ air quotes.

               “Don’t worry about it, Cas. Okay, so Louisa was trying to make her own breed of vampire.”

               “It would seem so. Obviously, she wasn’t successful, and not just in regards to her lack of control. Whatever the creature technically is, it’s not just drinking blood.” Dean chewed over Cas’ words as the angel did something on the laptop. All Dean could think is that this thing seemed to be some sort of zombie vampire. It didn’t really make a difference though, as long as they had a way to kill it. Or re-kill it as it were.

               “So, Rowena said we can use the Wych Elm wood to kill the thing?” Cas didn’t even look up from the screen to answer Dean’s question.

               “Not exactly. She said it had to be the specific tree that grew out of the grave. She also said it wouldn’t be enough by itself. I’m looking at the spell now.” Dean decided to leave Cas to it and work on getting their gear together. It was still a vampire after all, even if it was some sort of mutant version.

               “Dean. I think this will work. Dead man’s blood should still help to incapacitate it. We also need the ashes of it’s creator and the blessing of the divine.” Dean widened his eyes at that list, but he supposed it was doable. They could steal Louisa’s body from the morgue if necessary. “We use the spell to seal the ingredients into the wood of the elm. Then we have to stab the creature with the elm wood through its heart.”

               “So, we have to stake the vampire? Seriously?” Dean was amused at the idea of staking a vampire actually working.

               “Yes, Dean. Afterwards I’d still suggest decapitation and burning whatever is left, just to make sure it stays dead.” Cas closed the laptop and pushed it aside.

               “Sure. You have a plan for blessing of the divine?” Cas smiled at Dean.

               “That’s easy enough.” Cas didn’t even warn Dean, one moment he’s standing there looking at the angel expectantly, the next he has a faceful of feathers.

               “Um, I thought you didn’t want me touching them.” Dean couldn’t see Castiel, but he could hear him snickering. Dean pushed the wing away from his eyes in time to see Cas laughing at him.

               “I said it was unexpected, not that I minded you touching. Anyway, this will work.” Dean watches as Cas runs his finger through the feathers and finds one that comes loose. In between one blink and the next the wings are hidden once again. Cas hold a single feather in his hand, the echo of his earlier laughter still present in his smile.

               “What about the ashes? Do we need to break into the morgue?”

               “We don’t need a specified amount; we can get away with most anything. Maybe just hair or something small, we needn’t steal an entire corpse.” Dean sighs in relief, that’s one less complication.

               “Well let’s head out then, I’d like this taken care of before sunset. Wait, how are we going to find the thing anyway? You think it’s prowling around the cemetery?” Cas nods.

               “Yes, Dean. Rowena seems to think it’s probably tied to the elm and with the other victim also being close to the area I’m inclined to agree with her. Using the tree for the spell may even be enough to draw it to us. If you want to drop me off at the cemetery, I can start preparing everything while you get the ashes.” Dean agrees and grabs his keys.

***

               Cas is somewhat relieved to be dropped off at the cemetery. While Dean hadn’t reacted poorly to being draped in an angel wing this morning, or the fact that Cas was asleep in the same bed, he couldn’t help feeling that he had been pushing things too far. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep while also solidifying his wings. He needed to conserve his grace for more important tasks. While Castiel was truly content to just be a part of Dean’s life it was difficult to remind himself that he could not have more, especially with his poor control over the very human-like emotions he now experienced. What was really tipping him over the edge though, was how Dean kept reacting. Dean did not react with anger or defensiveness when he found himself in situations that hinted of a more intimate relationship with Cas. He acted as if it were normal and even welcome. It surprised Cas, but it also gave him some of the hope that he had never really allowed himself to have. It was distracting, which made it all the better that he would be prepping the spell by himself.

               Cas collected a branch from the Wych Elm growing out of Captain Abbot’s grave, mindful of the tree’s reputation for dropping branches on unsuspecting passersby. Then Cas took a few moments to make sure the caretaker knew that he and his partner may be around afterhours because of the attack yesterday and was happy to find out that she had already decided to stay with a friend until she felt safer. Cas made quick work of the elm branch, pleased with how easy it was to shape into a stake. The sun would set soon so Castiel got to work engraving the sigil they would need directly into the tree trunk. Once Dean brought the last ingredient it should only take them a few minutes to complete everything. With any luck the vampire would come to them.

               He was so absorbed in creating the sigil that he almost didn’t hear the movement behind him in time.

***

               As usual, things had not gone according to plan. Dean had arrived to see Cas holding the mutant-vamp at bay, but clearly struggling to gain an upper hand over the creature they didn’t yet have the means to kill. Dean knew better than to jump into the middle of that fight, it was more important to finish Rowena’s spell. He dumped the ashes in with the rest of the material. Luckily Cas had left a copy of the actual spell out by the bowl with all the ingredients. The incantation was pretty straightforward and Dean quickly scooped up the resulting concoction on two fingers and began filling in the sigil carved into the tree. Dean picked up the branch Cas had sharpened into a stake and touched it to the sigil, running through the incantation one more time. In a brief flash of light, the sigil was absorbed into the stake.

               “Cas!” Dean threw the stake towards the angel who managed to catch it neatly without even looking. Ducking down as the creature threw itself towards him, Cas pushed the stake up and underneath the monster’s rib cage with more force than a normal human could have managed. Dean breathed a sigh of relief too early, the vamp surged back up and made another run at the rapidly tiring angel.

               “Rowena may have overlooked something.” Cas sounded remarkably composed considering how ragged he looked. Dean looked around them desperately for something they had missed. Then he saw how the tree was shivering and pulsing as if trying to reach out to the vampire. Of course!

               “Hey asshole, leave my goddamn angel alone!” Dean knew the shotgun wouldn’t work against the creature but it got his attention, and with the impact to its shoulder and the stake still protruding from its ribcage the monster snarled as it barreled towards Dean. Dean was backed up against the tree as Cas turned on him with a horrified look on his face.

               “DEAN!” Cas sounded both angry and devastated as he chased after the vampire, but Dean just yelled out instructions, all too aware what this probably looked like from Cas’ point of view.

               “Stake it to the tree!” Cas caught on quick and as Dean threw himself out of the way Cas leapt after the thing that had once been Captain Abbot. Cas reached down to where the stake was sticking out and wrenched until the creature’s back was on the trunk of the Wych Elm. Pushing off from the ground Cas slammed the stake further in, until the vampire was stuck to the tree. It screeched as light pulsed from the stake into the tree. The Wych Elm seemed to come to life as it collapsed in on itself, dragging the mutant-vamp back to wherever the tree had come from. Within moments all that was left was a broken gravestone.

               “Huh. Guess we don’t have to worry about burning it,” Dean quipped. Castiel rounded on him, clearly not feeling amused.

               “What were you thinking? What if I hadn’t been fast enough?” Dean let Castiel rant at him for a few moments, standing up and dusting off the dirt from the back of his jeans.

                  “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t want to tip it off.”

                  “So instead, you made it look like you were drawing it away from me? Getting yourself killed for me!?” Castiel’s eyes flashed dangerously blue.

                   “Yeah, and it worked. For the record, I’d have done that even if it wasn’t to trick the thing though. Better me than you.” Dean was maybe angrier than he expected. He realized he’d been worried about how long Cas would last against that thing as he noted cuts that weren’t healing and the way the angel was swaying as he tried to hold himself upright. He also noticed that the blue in Cas’ eyes was in no way diminishing as he glowered at Dean.

                    “You. Are. Absurd. You are worth everything to me.” Then, rather abruptly, Cas fell over. Dean’s heart was pounding in his ears, both from what the angel had said and the sudden alarm he felt at a cosmic being fainting. He pulled Cas up into his arms, and damn, he was heavier than Dean had expected. Not just the muscle that Dean could feel, but he idlily wondered if the wings somehow added weight. Either way, Dean eventually made it back to their hotel room, although his back wouldn’t thank him for it later.

***

               Cas woke up in the pajamas Dean had given him with an arm thrown over his chest. Confused, Cas turned slowly and realized that they were back in the hotel and Dean was asleep beside him, curled around the angel’s torso. As small rays of sunlight peeked through the curtains Cas could see his normal clothing folded nearby on a chair. He noticed that the wounds his grace hadn’t healed yet had been cleaned and bandaged, and that the blanket was pulled up around both him and Dean. As Dean let out a contented sigh in his sleep and burrowed closer, Castiel thought that perhaps he too was worth everything to someone. Smiling the angel allowed himself to drift back to sleep, happily thinking about how Dean had told the vampire to stay away from “his” angel.

***

@destielsecretsanta2020, @aibari

[empyrealix]

14. - hyunjin. - halloween 2020, cult, mentions of dead people, references to blood

hyunjin giggled as he stumbled through the underbush of the forest just on the outside of the village you stopped by on your way to busan for your vacation. he is holding your hand, he forgot his gloves, and your hand is the only thing keeping his much larger hand warm. hyunjin supposed it goes both ways. his usually neat hair is unruly. he tripped over a branch, you being the only reason he does not fall. 

the bright light from your phone illuminated your face. hyunjin heard an owl hooting in the distance, and the reassurance that you are with him makes him not curl into a ball on the forest floor. you looked up at him.

“it’s supposed to be here somewhere,” hyunjin tugged you into his chest. he rested his chin atop your head.

“if you’re gonna suggest splitting up,” he shook his head, “no, we’re not doing that,”. he hugged you closer. it is almost as if he is afraid you are going to leave, disappear into thin air, if he let go. “you heard the story the old ladies in the village told us about these woods,”.

“they’re stories, jinnie. not real. there isn’t a ghost that haunts these woods,” there is a distant sound of a branch breaking. hyunjin jumped, he hugged you tighter.

“no? then what was that?” his voice cracked.

“an animal,” you untangled yourself from his grasp, pushing your way through the trees, “besides the graveyard isn’t far,” you step aside to show the clearing that unveiled itself. there was a moss grown stone fence circling the graveyard. to the side was a dilapidated church. the roof had collapsed, and most of the tree had rotted away. the door was falling off its hinges. you took a step closer, not before reaching out your hand for hyunjin to take. he held it tightly to his chest. most of the graves are overgrown with moss. the metal gate creaked as you opened it. hyunjin stopped. he stared at the church. 

“aren’t they gonna be mad at us?” he tugged you closer as an owl hooted in the distance. you heard shrieks coming from inside the dilapidated stone church, hyunjin tightened his grip on your hand. 

“they aren’t gonna be mad, they’re dead,” you stepped into the graveyard, there was a wych elm in the middle of the graveyard, stones were placed in a circle around it.

“i didn’t mean the dead people, i meant the cult that uses this as their place for sacrifice,” the moon shone on the tree. there was carved a pentagram into it. hyunjin tugged you closer to him, “i don’t like this,”. you let go of his hand.

“i wanna see what that is, you can go back if you want,” you began walking over to the circle of stones. hyunjin followed you, he muttered under his breath.

there was drawn a pentagram into the ground, the wych elm was placed in the middle. each stone formed a point in the star. there was tucked a book into one of the openings in the elm, you pulled it out. it was old and leatherbound, there was a dark red stain running down the front. hyunjin rubbed his hands up his arms, his skin prickled and goosebumps appeared. the hair at the back of his neck rose. he looked around, it felt as though someone was watching them from the distance. you did not put the book back like hyunjin assumed you would, instead you pocketed it. you smiled up at him as you reached him, though your smile was hard to see. the graveyard was cloaked in darkness, and hyunjin could barely see what was a metre in front of him. 

“are you ready to leave?” you mumbled against his cheek. he nodded before grabbing your hand. you stopped outside of the stone fence, looking up at the wych elm you saw a cloaked figure. the figure stared at you. he moved his gaze from you to the procession coming out of the church. they were all wearing black cloaks, and chanting in a foreign language. they stood in a circle around the wych elm, the first man conjured a goblet from his cloak and a dagger. everyone kept chanting as he walked around slitting their palms open. he poured the blood onto the wych elm as the chanting increased in volume. hyunjin’s grip on your hand tightened, and he shivered.

“let’s leave,” he stammered before dragging you through the woods. the chanting grew fainter and fainter until it stopped.

[mygalfriday]

basically: crowley has tattoos and every few centuries, aziraphale discovers a new one. features pining crowley and oblivious aziraphale ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

{ao3}

i can’t say the words, so i wrote you into my verse

i. chest; greece, 615.

Aziraphale has a particular fondness for the Greeks - most especially for their liberal use of ingredients like honey and olive oil. In a little room he’d rented for the night right in the heart of Athens, he sighs happily to himself as he gazes down at the simple, delicious spread on the table before him. Dolmadakia stuffed with ground lamb and rice, vegetable soup seasoned with vinegar and herbs, and feta wrapped in phyllo pastry, drizzled with honey.

Breathing in deeply the rich smells of his meal, he whispers a prayer of thanks and reaches eagerly for his plate. A spoonful of grape skin, lamb, and rice halfway to his mouth, he startles at a succession of rapid knocks at the door. With no one around to see, he allows himself a moment to visibly deflate as he slowly lowers the spoon back to his plate.

“Bugger,” he mutters, casting a mournful glance at the steam still rising from his food. He flinches at the sound of a palm slapping impatiently against his door and musters his patience. “One moment, please!”

A low, familiar voice replies dryly from the corridor. “Take your time, angel.”

Aziraphale stands so quickly his chair scrapes across the floor. “Crowley?”

He hasn’t seen Crowley since they shared oysters in Rome nearly a century ago and Aziraphale can’t deny the idea of seeing him again is more than a little pleasing. He pauses briefly before he opens the door, struggling to rein in the delighted smile on his face. There aren’t exactly guidelines for the sort of relationship he has with Crowley but Aziraphale is fairly certain he shouldn’t be so happy to see his natural enemy.

Honestly, he chides himself. Imagine if Gabriel saw you.

Even with that sobering thought in mind, he can barely keep his facial expression in check as he swings open the door. Crowley stands draped against the doorframe like he’s forgotten he has bones to hold him up. Suppressing an unexpected wave of fondness, Aziraphale forces a scowl.

“What are you doing-” He pauses, taking in the droop of Crowley’s short hair, the sweat beading on his brow, the way he hasn’t bothered to adjust the glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose. Just as he’s about to reprimand him for showing up already drunk, Aziraphale spots the bright red stain darkening the shoulder of his linen tunic. He breathes out, horrified. “Crowley, you’re bleeding.”

Wearily, Crowley arches an eyebrow. “You don’t say.”

Aziraphale huffs. “Get in here.”

Crowley puts up only a token protest as Aziraphale ushers him inside and shuts the door, sinking into the vacated seat at the table and propping his injured arm up beside the abandoned plate. As Aziraphale hovers anxiously behind him, Crowley leans in and sniffs curiously. “What, no apple?”

Watching blood seep into the tablecloth, Aziraphale stifles a noise of concern behind pursed lips. “They’re out of season.” He snaps his fingers and a bundle of medical supplies appears on the table. “Let me see, please.”

Crowley sighs, as though terribly inconvenienced, and shrugs out of his tunic. “S’just a scratch.”

If that were true, he wouldn’t have shown up out of the blue, weakened and in pain, to knock relentlessly on Aziraphale’s door. Rebuttal on the tip of his tongue, Aziraphale pauses as his eyes skitter from the supplies spread out on the table to Crowley’s exposed chest. To his shame, the first thing he notices is not the deep gash cutting a bold line across Crowley’s shoulder and bicep but rather the black ink scrawled down his left pectoral.

Aziraphale blinks as it slowly dawns on him exactly what he’s looking at. Crowley has a tattoo. Well, another one anyway. Unlike the small serpent curled just beneath his temple, this one takes up far more space. It’s a sword, strikingly similar to the one Aziraphale used to carry before he gave it away all those years ago. Instead of flames enveloping the blade, however, a snake curls sinuously around the weapon like a lover. A slender, forked tongue brushes the hilt of the sword.

All of this takes mere seconds of study but Aziraphale flicks his gaze away guiltily anyway. Swallowing, he redirects his attention to the gash on Crowley’s shoulder and hopes the demon hadn’t noticed his stare. Luckily for him, Crowley is far too preoccupied with commandeering the wine Aziraphale had left out.

Leaning close to study the ragged cut seeping blood onto the tablecloth, Aziraphale tuts disapprovingly. “What happened?”

Crowley shrugs. “Wrong place, wrong time. Bloody Thessalonica.” He grimaces, watching Aziraphale reach for the antiseptic. “Can’t you just-” He waggles his fingers, clearly attempting to convey an angelic miracle.

“Not before I clean it.” Aziraphale frowns, prodding at the wound and ignoring Crowley’s answering hiss. “If it’s already infected, closing the cut won’t do you any favors.” Without looking up, he pushes the wine toward Crowley. “Drink up.”

As Crowley drinks deeply from the bottle, Aziraphale takes his arm and makes more noises of disapproval over the wound but it’s mostly for show. A weak attempt to distract himself from the warmth of Crowley’s skin beneath his palm and the mystery of his strange new tattoo. Even as he cleans the gash thoroughly, his gaze wanders curiously back to Crowley’s chest. The snake, wrapped seductively around the sword, seems to be staring back at him.

He clears his throat. “Couldn’t you simply heal yourself?”

“If I could, I’d have done it, wouldn’t I?” Glaring into the middle distance, Crowley mutters something under his breath about stupid kids getting themselves into trouble and would have looked bad on the paperwork. Catching sight of Aziraphale’s soft expression, he scowls. “Oh, just shut up and work your magic, angel.”

Smothering a fond smile - mostly because he has a feeling it would only irritate Crowley to see it - Aziraphale sets aside the bloodied cloth and presses a gentle hand over the wound. Crowley stiffens at his touch and as Aziraphale begins to will muscle and skin to knit itself back together again, he grimaces. In an effort to distract him from the sting, Aziraphale finally address the elephant in the room. “So…that’s new.”

“Hmm?” Looking dazed, Crowley follows his gaze to the tattoo prominently displayed on his chest and grunts. “Oh. S’a tribute.”

Aziraphale hums, watching Crowley’s skin heal over. The gash disappears and with a little nudge, so does the scar left behind. Shiny, unblemished skin is all that remains. Unable to help himself, he strokes a fingertip over his handiwork and feels Crowley shudder beneath his touch. He pulls away as if burned, suitably chastised. “A tribute?” He asks, hoping Crowley doesn’t notice the flush of his cheeks. “To what?”

With an evasive shrug, Crowley leans back in his chair to examine his healed shoulder and says, “My origins, of course.” Before Aziraphale can prod any further, he nods his thanks and reaches for the wine once more. “Are you going to share that bloody pastry or what?”

ii. ribcage; versailles, 1785.

Strolling the gardens of the Trianon Palace, a copy of The Sorrows of Young Werther tucked under his arm, Aziraphale breathes in the warm summer air and allows himself a stolen moment to miss the Garden. Standing in the twilight, surrounded on all sides by trees and sweet-smelling wildflowers, the sound of a trickling waterfall in the distance, he can almost imagine he’s back there again. Standing guard over the Almighty’s beloved humans and doing his best not to laugh at any of the serpent’s jokes.

Speaking of the devil himself…

He freezes, grip tightening briefly around the spine of his book, as he spots Crowley wading out of the stream just ahead of him. He isn’t surprised to see him, of course. They’ve both been guests of the Queen for the past several weeks, dining on roast duck and swilling champagne, skirting the edges of her extravagant revelries and catching each other’s eyes from across the room.

While Aziraphale had come to Versailles in hopes of softening the violence of the revolution he can smell coming, Crowley had insisted he was only there for the parties. Aziraphale isn’t entirely convinced but he doesn’t press the issue. It’s rather nice to have a familiar face around.

So no, it isn’t surprise he feels as he watches Crowley emerge bare and dripping out of the stream and onto dry ground. The setting sun casts him in warm shades of red and orange, setting his copper hair alight and doing something rather spectacular to his eyes; turning them a molten shade of amber that’s almost luminescent. Droplets of water glisten on his chest, catching the sun just enough to appear like glowing drops of light. Unmoving, his traitorous human heart seemingly lodged in his throat, Aziraphale fancies for a moment he might be looking at Crowley before he Fell - ethereal and beautiful, bathed in the light of heaven.

Not surprise at all, he thinks, wrenching his gaze away. Something else entirely; something he has not the courage to examine properly.

Aziraphale unclenches his fingers around the binding of his von Goethe, letting out a slow, uneven breath. Pasting on a smile, he forces his numb legs to move in the direction of Crowley rummaging on the ground for his clothes. His old friend hasn’t noticed him yet, fastening his trousers and running a slender hand through his damp hair. He scans the ground, clearly looking for something, and mutters aha when he finds his tunic drooping from the low-hanging branch of a nearby tree.

As Crowley lifts an arm to snatch his tunic from the clutches of a wych elm, Aziraphale’s gaze catches and holds on the sight of black lettering inked down his ribcage. A few more quiet steps and he’s just close enough to make out what it says:

doubt that the stars are fire

doubt that the sun doth move

doubt truth be a liar

Hamlet had written those very words to Ophelia. Crowley pulls his tunic over his head, effectively hiding the tattoo from Aziraphale’s curious gaze but not before he notices the final verse is missing. But never doubt I love. He might have wondered why Crowley omitted that particular line but on reflection, it’s easy enough to understand. Love is hardly a demon’s territory but doubt? Aziraphale imagines Crowley must be old friends with the concept by now.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley says, not even glancing at him. As if he’d known he was there all along. “If I’d known you were coming, I’d have waited.”

Aziraphale clears his throat, fighting back a blush at having been caught staring. “Oh?”

“Mm.” Crouching to fetch his boots from a patch of wild lavender, Crowley glances over his shoulder with a smirk. “Tempting an angel to skinny dip? Would have gotten a commendation for that one.”

Grateful to the ever-fading light for hiding his pink cheeks, Aziraphale scowls. “Very funny.”

Crowley snorts, sinking gracefully into the grass to pull on his shoes. “There’s a masquerade tonight,” he says, brushing a smudge of dirt from the supple leather of his boot. “You going?”

Eyeing him uncertainly, Aziraphale admits, “I hadn’t decided. Why? Up to no good again?”

“Oi, I can’t help it the whole ‘let them eat cake’ thing was taken out of context like that. The humans did that without any help from me.” Crowley lifts his head, his gaze softened and imploring without his dark glasses to hide his eyes. Aziraphale wonders if he knows he’s very nearly pouting. “Come on, it’ll be boring without you. Just standing about fending off Lamballe and watching Her Majesty make eyes at von Fersen the Younger all night.”

Shifting uneasily, Aziraphale darts his gaze out over the trickling stream and the forest beyond it, unwilling to let on that he had decided to go the moment Crowley had asked it of him. It just wouldn’t do to reveal how eager he is to spend time with the demon. “And you’ll behave yourself?”

“Merely a spectator.” Crowley eyes him soberly, placing a lofty hand over his heart. “On Satan’s honor.”

With a huff, Aziraphale relents, “Oh, fine. But only because they’ll be serving those scrumptious little tarts with the raspberry filling.”

It isn’t technically a lie. He does have quite a soft spot for Marie’s decadent taste in pastries.

Crowley grins at him and busies himself with pulling on his other boot, looking as pleased as though he’d accomplished some sort of temptation. As if Aziraphale had ever been tempted to do anything but what he’d asked in the first place. Aziraphale doesn’t mind. Letting him believe he’s getting away with something is far better than the alternative.

Hovering over his shoulder, Aziraphale lets his gaze linger briefly on the loose-fitting tunic Crowley wears, damp and clinging to his skin in some places - hiding another of those tattoos he seems so fond of. He bites his lip. “I thought you preferred the funny ones.”

In the middle of tucking his trouser leg into his boot, Crowley stills. His jaw clenches so tightly a muscle in his cheek twitches. He looks away, refusing to meet Aziraphale’s bewildered stare. For a long moment, he almost believes Crowley isn’t going to say anything at all but after a tense beat in which Aziraphale wants to shove his foot into his mouth, he finally replies. “Still do.”

He offers no other explanation and Aziraphale hasn’t the nerve to question him further, watching in silence as Crowley climbs to his feet and brushes the grass from his clothes. He runs his fingers through his hair one more time and turns on his heel, striding away. Aziraphale stares after him, wondering if perhaps Crowley had changed his mind about the masquerade after all.

Silently admonishing himself for opening his mouth in the first place, he almost misses the way Crowley pauses and inclines his head. “Come on, angel,” he calls over his shoulder. “Before they run out of those tarts.”

iii. ankle; soho, 1956.

Dante’s Inferno is in the wrong place. Someone - possibly a customer, or possibly (probably) Crowley - had moved it into the non-fiction section. Balancing a stack of wayward poetry in one hand, Aziraphale reaches for the slim little volume, intending to stick it back where it belongs, when the ruckus nearby reaches a level verging on unholy.

Well you said you was high-classed, well that was just a lie…

He sighs, leaving Inferno where it is and dropping the rest of the poetry as well. Concentrating on inventory when one has a demon only one room away, warbling drunkenly along with the music playing on the telly is quite simply impossible. Dusting off his hands, Aziraphale abandons the task altogether and moves toward the source of the noise.

Crowley had shown up this afternoon with a bottle of wine and some of those indecently expensive chocolate biscuits from Waitrose that Aziraphale likes so much, using them as bribery to slink inside and commandeer the sofa. From what Aziraphale can discern by the sheer noise, Crowley had also taken the initiative to move the small television - kept mainly for his use anyway - downstairs from Aziraphale’s tiny flat.

Ducking his head into the back room only confirms his suspicions. Sprawled across the sofa as though he has no control over his own limbs, Crowley lounges with a bottle of wine dangling from his fingertips as he stares at the television and croons along with the man on the screen. His bare feet wiggle on the coffee table, as though he can’t keep them still. He isn’t the only one, apparently. The audience on the telly is going wild. A few of the young ladies seem to be having some sort of fit.

Aziraphale really can’t see what all the fuss is about. Though as he watches the dark-haired young man onscreen gyrate his hips to scandalized applause, he has to wonder if he and Crowley had ever met. “Must you listen to that racket quite so loudly?”

Looking well past tipsy and on his way to belligerent, Crowley glances up with a frown. He shifts to look at Aziraphale properly and one trouser leg shifts just enough to reveal a flash of his ankle. And another tattoo. A feather of all things, glittering white and silver as it curves and curls delicately over the fine bones of Crowley’s ankle.

Aziraphale stares at it, momentarily hypnotized.

“Oi, he’s the next big thing, I’ll have you know.” Crowley grins broadly, sudden and sharp. “I’ve made sure of it.”

Aziraphale scoffs, forcing his eyes away from the tattoo. “This newfangled…bebop you’re so terribly fond of is nothing more than a flash in the pan, my dear.” He steps around the coffee table and takes the bottle from Crowley’s slack fingers, miracling a pair of glasses instead. He pours them both a generous measure, pointedly refusing to ask the question he wants to ask.

Why a white feather? Why not black?

He can only assume it must be another tribute - perhaps to who he was before he Fell - and bringing it up might spoil Crowley’s lazy good humor. As curious as he is, Aziraphale isn’t willing to risk it. As disruptive as Crowley’s visits tend to be, he prefers them infinitely to the ringing silence when he leaves.

The flash of delicate white at Crowley’s slender ankle lingers in the corner of his eye but he does not give in to the temptation to look at it again. Instead, he settles on the armchair across from the sofa and sips primly at his wine. Gaze fixed determinedly on the television screen, he says, “Mark my words, Crowley. In ten years, no one will even remember this Presley fellow’s name.”

Crowley squawks, laughter in his voice as he sits up to argue with him. His trouser leg shifts again, hiding his ankle - and the feather - from view once more. Aziraphale, caught up in the easy familiarity of bickering with Crowley, forgets all about it. Really.

iv. lower back; dowling estate, 2013

Mrs. Dowling’s plants look nothing like the ones in Crowley’s flat, despite Aziraphale’s best efforts. He pokes at a lackluster Russian Sage and tries to remember the tips Crowley had given him, carefully ignoring the more ominous ones such as don’t show the little bastards any weakness. As far as he can tell, he’s doing all the things he’s supposed to do but it isn’t quite enough.

Aziraphale sighs mournfully. He hadn’t been very good at looking after the last garden he was in charge of so he has no idea what made Crowley think the role of gardener would suit him. Luckily for the roses, he isn’t above a miracle or two to keep them from wilting. “Not to worry,” he murmurs to a particularly ill-looking bloom. He presses a fingertip to the drooping petals, watching as the color brightens. “Everything is going to be just fine.”

“You can’t make me!”

Less startled than he should be by the childish outburst, Aziraphale glances wearily across the yard as Warlock hurdles past at speed. He glances over his shoulder, as if to make sure his nanny is still following, before he takes off around the side of the guest house and disappears. Sure enough, Nanny Ashtoreth isn’t far behind. Aziraphale smothers a grimace the moment he spots Crowley stalking across the grounds.

Their little charge has been particularly…hellish today and Aziraphale suspects Crowley of harboring illicit fantasies of luring the boy out to the pool and pushing him in. Normally perfectly composed and impeccably dressed - not a hair out of place or a wrinkle in her jacket - Nanny Ashtoreth looks a bit rattled this afternoon. Hair askew and curls going limp, she looks quite simply murderous. Jacket long since abandoned, her expensive blouse has come untucked and the normally starched collar is rumpled beyond hope.

Hissing irritably about little boys who refuse to take a sodding nap, Nanny Ashtoreth pauses to scoop up a Loki action figure left abandoned in the middle of the yard. The rumpled blouse slips momentarily up her back and that’s when Aziraphale spots it. Just there, at the small of Crowley’s back - a little dove with its wings spread in flight.

Hidden behind the roses, Aziraphale allows himself a moment to stare.

What does a demon possibly need with a dove tattoo? A symbol of peace and hope is hardly Crowley’s forte. It is a lovely depiction, though. The bird is plump and pure white, completely perfect. It reminds Aziraphale of the ones he so often liked to use in his magic tricks when he practiced. Crowley had always rolled his eyes but he’d never said no to a demonstration. Perhaps he had a soft spot for the creatures after all.

And then Nanny straightens, toy clutched in an angry fist, and the tattoo disappears beneath fine silk once more. Aziraphale blinks, feeling his cheeks heat as he glances away a moment too late. She spots him lurking behind the roses and stifles a smirk. “Brother Francis,” she mutters, giving a stiff nod. “How’s the garden?”

“Oh,” Aziraphale says, too rattled to bother with the accent. “Just…pipping.”

Eyeing a drooping azalea Aziraphale had missed in his earlier miracling, Nanny Ashtoreth adjusts her sunglasses and fluffs her hair. With a dainty sniff, she leans in close and purses carefully painted lips against soft pink petals. Aziraphale stares, bewildered. And then her lips curl back in a vicious snarl and she hisses ferociously. The azalea trembles and quakes. Aziraphale imagines if it had a mouth, it would have shrieked.

“Crowl - Nanny Ashtoreth, please!” Aziraphale shoos her away, patting the flower with consoling fingertips and refusing to admit that the petals do seem to have perked up a bit. “I refuse to garden with fear.”

She shrugs. “Suit yourself, Brother Francis.”

With one last warning glower at the azaleas over the rim of her glasses, she turns on her heel and marches away after the missing Antichrist. Aziraphale turns away from her retreating back, forcefully shoving thoughts of doves and nannies far from his mind. “Hush now,” he says, crooning at the quivering flora around him. “The wily old serpent is gone, I promise.”

v. hipbone; mayfair, 2019

Despite the certainty that he would never admit even to the Almighty that he had ever imagined such things in the first place, Aziraphale quietly admits to himself that actually being with Crowley is not quite what he’d thought it would be. It’s far, far better.

Even in his fondest imaginings -  succumbed to only when alone and well into his cups - he had been sure any encounter would leave him feeling at once deliciously fulfilled and vaguely guilty about falling into temptation. And the first part is certainly true. Everything about falling into bed with Crowley had been delicious; more than any delicacy he’s ever dined on. But Aziraphale is quite relieved to discover not a smidgen of guilt. With Crowley’s arms around him and the soft, sweet sound of his even breathing, what on earth and in heaven is there to feel guilty about?

Head on Crowley’s stomach, Aziraphale hums a few bars of Moonlight Serenade and tries to come up with some other way to celebrate their first night of freedom from Above and Below. Happily, nothing else at all comes to mind. Nothing else could possibly compare. He turns his head, nuzzling Crowley’s belly.

Above him, Crowley hisses out a content sigh.

Aziraphale bites back a smile, opening his eyes and blinking at the ink etched neatly into Crowley’s hipbone. A series of numbers and decimal points listed seemingly at random. He lifts a hand and traces a fingertip over it cautiously. Quietly delighting in the knowledge that after years of turning away and clenching his hands, he can reach out and touch whenever he likes.

At this point in the evening, there isn’t truly a bit of Crowley that he hasn’t touched yet but he’d been careful so far not to pay particular attention to any of his tattoos despite his fascination with them. It had always seemed to be a subject Crowley broached with reluctance in the past and he hadn’t wanted to be the cause of Crowley pulling away from him.

Now, he feels Crowley tense beneath him as he finally musters the courage to ask, “What’s this?”

“S’a tattoo.”

Aziraphale holds in a sigh. “Yes, dear. I can see that. But of what?”

“Coordinates.”

“You’re being terribly enigmatic.” Aziraphale prods a fingertip into Crowley’s bony hip and hides a smile when Crowley swats at him weakly. “Coordinates to what? Or where, rather?”

Crowley heaves a put-upon sigh and avoids his gaze, staring resolutely at the ceiling. “Home.”

Realizing he won’t be getting any more hints from Crowley, Aziraphale begins to mentally review every location he can think of. Hell? Definitely not. Eden had never really been a home to either of them. His flat here in Mayfair is hardly lived-in. If he thinks back far enough, he can remember a little villa in Spain that Crowley had been relatively fond of…

“Oh, for someone’s sake - I can hear you thinking.” Crowley groans, shifting beneath him. “Don’t make me say it, angel.”

Keeping his hand curled over the tattoo on Crowley’s hip, Aziraphale lifts his head with a baffled frown. “Say what?”

Crowley clenches his jaw so tightly Aziraphale can almost hear his teeth grinding together. A high spot of color appears on his cheekbones and he breathes out through his nose, nostrils flaring. Just when Aziraphale is about to apologize for prying and attempt a go at kissing him back into good humor, Crowley growls softly and admits, “The bookshop, all right? It’s coordinates to the bloody bookshop.”

Home.

Aziraphale stares at him, utterly poleaxed. “You-” A sudden thought occurs to him, even as warmth floods his veins like heavenly sunlight. “The sword and the snake-”

Crowley sighs. “You. Me. Our beginning.”

“The Hamlet verse-”

“You liked that one.” Crowley sinks his teeth into his bottom lip and admits with a mumble to the ceiling, “Liked me for making it a hit.”

“I liked you anyway.” Aziraphale hesitates, thirsty for answers. “The dove?”

Crowley huffs and mutters, “You and your bloody magic tricks.”

Burying a smile in the warmth of Crowley’s flat belly, Aziraphale murmurs, “Knew you liked them.”

“Don’t.” Crowley snarls vehemently, then confesses softly, “Like you though.”

“Yes, I’m beginning to suspect.” Aziraphale tilts his head up just in time to see Crowley roll his eyes. “And…the feather on your ankle?”

Peering down at him in exasperation, Crowley asks, “You really don’t know?”

Aziraphale gazes back at him, feeling inexplicably bashful. “A tribute?”

A smirk curls Crowley’s tempting mouth. “Something like that.”

Swallowing tightly, Aziraphale ducks his head and stares with stinging eyes at the coordinates etched into Crowley’s lovely skin. All these years - centuries - of silent yearning, sure that a demon couldn’t possibly be capable of love, let alone with an angel - and Crowley has been harboring his own affections in plain sight. He has burned right alongside Aziraphale and instead of being a coward like him and saying nothing or saying words he thought might scare Aziraphale away, he’d made his body a love letter written in permanent ink. A monument to a longing never to be acknowledged, nor erased.

“Crowley,” he breathes, overwhelmed. So in love he wonders how this earthly vessel can bear it. “You soft-hearted serpent.”

Lifting his head from his pillow just enough to glower, Crowley threatens, “I will push you right out of this bed, Aziraphale. Don’t think I won’t.”

Aziraphale beams, lowering his mouth to the bookshop coordinates and sealing them with a kiss. Peering at Crowley through his lashes and pleased to find his annoyed expression utterly soft once more, he admits, “I love you awfully, you know.”

“Yeah.” Crowley sighs, dropping his head back to his pillow. His fingers begin to sift through his white-blonde hair and Aziraphale leans into the gentle touch with all the eagerness of six thousand years. “I know.”

vi. hands; south downs, 2025

The scent of freshly brewed Earl Grey and warm scones fills the breakfast nook as Aziraphale settles into the chair across from Crowley. With the windows open, the fragrance of Crowley’s prize begonias wafts through on the morning breeze, along with the sound of little Liam James down the road romping about with his new puppy.

Across the table, Crowley appears half-asleep as he scrolls through his mobile. Still in his black silk pajamas and his hair sleep-rumpled, he doesn’t appear to notice Aziraphale’s fond study of the pillow crease on his flushed cheek. “Any plans for the day, my dear?”

Crowley reaches for a scone slathered in cream. “Just threatening the wisteria.”

“Go easy on the poor things - it isn’t their fault we’ve had so much rain recently.” Aziraphale sniffs when Crowley only eyes him balefully, unmoved. “At least try being nice first.”

“And reward their bad behavior?” Crowley scoffs, stirring his tea. “I don’t think so.”

In the middle of reaching for another scone, Aziraphale doesn’t reply, distracted by the brand new ink on his ring finger. It still startles him every time he catches a glimpse of black out of the corner of his eye but in the best possible way. Like browsing his bookshelves and finding a splendid first edition he’d forgotten he had. He bites his lip, twisting his hand this way and that to admire it. “Are you certain it suits me?”

Crowley pauses mid-sip of Earl Grey and the smug glint in his eye is entirely indecent. “Like nothing else, angel.”

He smiles, his heart fluttering like a mad thing in his chest as Crowley strokes his bare foot over Aziraphale’s calf beneath the table. “And yours, my dear,” he says, gazing tenderly at the matching eternity symbol winding its way elegantly around Crowley’s ring finger. “I do believe it’s my favorite so far.”

“Yeah?” Crowley leans back in his chair, teacup cradled in his palm and his foot making a scandalous path up Aziraphale’s leg. The morning sun slanting through the open window makes his eyes glow amber. A slow, wide grin curls his mouth and Aziraphale thinks fleetingly, joyfully: husband.  “Mine too.”

[thee-morrigan]

Oh man I want to know more about all of these!! How about my babysitter's a vampire? Or want you in my room ;D

(Babysitter one’s up first, in case that wasn’t obvious!)

They turned onto another street, the slowly setting sun casting dappled, golden shadows between the sprawling, sweeping branches of the wych elms shading the sidewalk.

Amusement still shone on his face. “But in this case, it’s not a positive, I take it?”

“We-ell…” Holland drawled, flashing a quick, rueful smile. “Cara and Lacey adore Tina. And she’s so great with them! It’s not like she’s unwelcome,” she said quickly, in case there were any shred of doubt. “But I think Verda might also appreciate a brief reprieve from some of the things Tina has taught his kids.”

“Such as…?”

“Such as…well, most recently, I think it was the cultural impact of Beyoncé, along with a sampling of her greatest hits.”

“What – who? – is Beyoncé?” Nate asked, looking no less amused but considerably more puzzled.

Holland caught her bottom lip with her teeth, trying to contain the urge to laugh. “Don’t ask Cara that. Or better yet: do. She’s only obsessed with her now. And Lacey’s at that age where everything Cara likes, she likes. Actually, now that I think of it, Cara is basically Lacey’s Beyoncé. Anyway, Tina hasn’t let Verda forget we caught him humming ‘Crazy in Love’ in the lab the other week, so I think you’re much preferred company at the moment.”

--

“Planning on leaving this open all night, sweetheart?”

Leila yelped and whirled in the hallway outside her bedroom, a hand flying to her chest. “Oh my god, Morgan, what the hell?”

Morgan shrugged and stepped forward to linger in the doorway, resting a shoulder against the white frame. “You left your window open.”

“You almost gave me a heart attack.”

“I already knew I had a talent for that, sweetheart. Figured you’d be used to the spiked pulse by now.”

“I was getting ready for bed,” Leila protested, but stepped closer to the other woman, reaching out to hook a finger in Morgan’s belt loops, tugging her closer and tilting her head up expectantly.

“So I can see,” Morgan quirked a brow, her eyes roving over Leila’s body before she leaned down obligingly for a teasingly brief kiss, pulling her lips just far enough from Leila’s to murmur into her mouth. “Nice outfit.”

[loretranscripts]

Lore Episode 31: Lost and Found (Transcript) - 4th April 2016

tw: murder, gore, blood, human remains, cannibalism

Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

Teenagers have a tendency to get up to mischief when they’re bored, that’s as true today as it ever has been. So, when four teenage boys found themselves with a spring afternoon on their hands, they did what any English lad might have done in 1943 – they went poaching. They were only hunting birds’ nests, really. It was April and spring meant nests full of eggs, so they went exploring in their area of Stourbridge, there in the midlands of England. Over the course of that afternoon, their search brought them to a private park known as Hegley Woods, and that’s where they saw the tree. It was a massive elm with an overgrown trunk that looked more like a hedgehog than a plant, with thin, whispy branches that stuck out toward the sky. Locals called it the “Wych Elm”. It was strong, it was climbable, and most importantly it was perfect for nesting, so one of the boys scaled up the side. When he reached the top and began to look for nests, he found something entirely different – a skull was staring up at him from the hollow centre of the tree. The boy assumed it was from an animal and plucked it free from the branches. That’s when he noticed how large it was, and the patches of hair that were still attached to it – human hair. The grisly discovery kicked off one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in modern England. Beneath the skull, lodged in the hollow centre of the tree, was a complete skeleton. It belonged to a young woman of unknown origin and unknown identity. No one stepped forward to claim the body, no killer was ever found, but the public fell in love, and named her, and to this day people still wonder: who put Bella in the wych tree? Humans, you see, are fascinated by dead bodies. They’re the centrepiece of countless mystery stories and a vivid reminder of our own mortality. We can see that fascination in both the innocent wonder of films like Stand by Me and the gruesome realism of CSI. Real life, though, is more complex, it’s more dark than we’d care to admit, and while the odds are good that most people won’t ever stumble upon a dead body, it’s a lot more common than you’d expect. Corpses should be hard to come by, but unfortunately that couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m Aaron Mahnke and this is Lore.

In February of 2013, a number of guests at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles called down to the front desk to complain about the water in their rooms. Some described how their shower would run black before clearing up, others complained of the odd taste and odour, and that age-old compaint that we all know and love, poor water pressure, popped up time and time again. So, the maintenance crew was sent up to the roof where the hotel kept water tanks used to supply the rooms, and it’s one of the tanks that they discovered a body. A human body, no less, and it had been there for weeks. It turned out to be a missing woman named Elisa Lam. Her parents had reported her missing in early February, but she had been seen last there in the hotel on the 31st of January, and it had been her decomposing body that had been altering the hotel’s water supply. Finding bodies in unusual places isn’t a new thing, though, and it’s not uncommon, either. In January of 1984, three students from Columbia University were walking home to their dorm when they passed an old carpet, rolled up and discarded on the side of the street. Now, like a lot of you, I’ve been to college, so I think we can all agree that curbside discoveries are frequently wonderful. A random desk, or that ugly couch that’s way too comfortable to be ignored. So, it’s hard to blame these three students for bringing the rug home. When they unrolled it, though, they found a body inside. The man, roughly 20 years old, had been shot to death, as was evident from the bullet holes in his forehead. Needless to say, they didn’t keep the rug and the police were brought in to do a full investigation. In December of 1982, staff were called to a room in a hotel in New Burgen, New Jersey. Occupants complained of a powerful odour in the room, and they weren’t the first. For a number of days leading up to the call, each guest had complained of the same thing, and it seemed to be getting worse. The motel staff finally discovered why: it was the body of Gary Smith, who had been killed by his autotheft partners and stuffed beneath the bed in the room. They had poisoned his hamburger then strangled him when waiting got too hard, and finally hid the evidence beneath the mattress.

In 2011, Abbeville National Bank in Louisiana began renovations to their second floor, an area they had used for storage for decades. Running between the storage area and the active bank facilities was a chimney, and it was just inside the first floor fireplace where workers discovered a few small bones. Climbing inside the fireplace and looking up, they found the source. A body, now little more than a skeleton, had been lodged in the flue. Dental records connected the skeleton to a man reported missing 27 years earlier, in 1984. The man had a criminal record and had been in trouble with the law shortly before his disappearance. Police can’t prove why he was in the chimney, but given the proximity to the bank I feel its safe to guess that he’d been trying to rob it, Santa Claus style. In November of 2011, Russian police raided the home of a historian named Anatoly Moskvin. Inside, they found 29 life-sized dolls, all women, all dressed in fancy clothing. But they weren’t dolls at all. Moskvin, it turns out, was a graverobber with a fetish. For years, the historian had been visiting cemeteries all over western Russia, as many as 750 by some counts, and occasionally brought home corpses that “interested” him. All were females between the ages of 15 and 30, and all had been dead for a very long time. It seems, if we’re to believe the newspapers and media outlets, that stumbling upon a corpse isn’t as rare a thing as we might expect. Maybe it’s a product of the times – with more and more people on the planet, I suppose the odds keep going up that we’ll eventually open a wall or dig a garden bed and find a body. But some bodies are intentionally harder to find. Some killers go to great lengths to hide the evidence of their dirty deeds, and that’s really the core of these stories, isn’t it? Because hiding a body is about more than just making an object disappear. It’s about concealing a crime and escaping the consequences. The trouble is, when those hidden bodies are found, their stories often reveal the greatest horrors of all.

She wasn’t always known as Kate Webster. Sure, when she gave birth to her son in 1874, that was the surname she passed on to him. She claimed to have married a sailor named Webster, but he had died. A decade earlier, though, she had been someone else entirely. Kate Webster had been born Katherine Lawler to a poor family in a small, Irish village in 1849. While most children might have helped out at home or perhaps played with toys, Katherine grew up fast. She spent her childhood learning to pickpocket, and judging by the way the rest of her life played out, it’s a skill she’d been born with. At the age of 15 she was caught and imprisoned for a short time, but by 17, she managed to steal enough money to secure herself passage on a boat to England. But she didn’t use her journey as a chance to make a fresh start. No, Katherine Lawler just kept upping her game. Within a year of arriving in Liverpool, she was caught stealing and sentenced to four years in prison. Once released, she found work cleaning houses in London, as well as working as a prostitute – and then she became pregnant. The father, according to Kate, was a man she called “Mr. Strong”. He’d been her friend, her lover, and her partner in crime for many months, but when he learnt of the pregnancy he abandoned her. Her son, John Webster, was born in April of 1874, and those who knew her couldn’t help but wonder: would this help Kate change her ways? The answer, it turns out, was a clear and obvious no.

Rather than seek reform, Kate simply evolved. She would rent a room in a boarding house and once there, she would begin to sell off the furnishings in her room. When everything was gone, she’d move on and repeat the crime elsewhere. Another thing she repeated, sadly, was prison time. In 1875, while her son John was only a year old, Kate began serving an 18 month term in Wandsworth Prison there in London. It was one of the many stints in police custody, even though she moved around a lot and used various aliases to disguise herself. And all the while, her friend, Sarah Crease, helped by watching and caring for young John. Some think Sarah was an enabler, that she gave Kate the freedom to live her life of crime without the burden of parenthood, but others view Sarah as a hopeful friend. She saw a young boy who needed looking after and she did her best to help out. She also tried to get Kate a real, honest job, something that had the potential to turn the woman’s life around.

In 1879, Sarah’s employer asked if there was someone who could do some house cleaning for a friend of hers, a woman named Julia Martha Thomas. Mrs. Thomas lived in the Richmond area of London, she was a widow in her mid-50s, and had a reputation for being a little strict and prone to anger. But it was a job, and Sarah immidiately suggested Kate Webster. The relationship between Webster and Mrs. Thomas began cordially enough, but quickly devolved into daily arguments. Webster claimed that Mrs. Thomas would follow her around and criticise her work, while Mrs. Thomas claimed Webster came to work drunk most of the time. Needless to say, it wasn’t a match made in heaven, but the two women tried hard to make it work. After a little over a month, Julia Thomas decided it was time to cut Webster loose. Kate, to her credit, tried to change. She begged for just a few more days of employment and, for some unknown reason, Thomas agreed to the terms, but the relationship was eating at her like an ulser, and she couldn’t stop thinking about it. She thought that Kate was stealing from her, but she didn’t have proof yet, and she feared for her life. On March 2nd of 1879, Mrs. Thomas showed up at church clearly upset. She’d just had another argument with Webster, and it had shaken her deeply. Her friends claimed that Thomas seemed distracted and agitated, and she left early to go attend to matters at home. But Kate was waiting for her there, and this time, they would trade more than angry words.

Julia Thomas thought the house was empty, but went searching for Kate Webster anyway. They had unfinished business, and it was time Kate found some place else to work. It was settled – as far as she was concerned, at least. While Thomas was upstairs in the hallway, Webster stepped out of a dark room and attacked her employer. The two women struggled for a moment, and then Kate gave the older woman a shove. Thomas stumbled down the staircase where she slammed into the floor below. Her skull now fractured and bloody, she began to scream where she lay. Kate was immidiately concerned that the neighbours might hear. There was a busy pub right next door, and if someone happened to hear the shouting, Kate was sure to be discovered and arrested. Launching herself down the stairs, she sat upon the injured woman’s chest and began to squeeze her throat with both hands. She wanted the screaming to stop. She needed it to stop, and after a few tense moments, it did. Julia Thomas lay dead on the floor of her own home, and Kate Webster had graduated from theft to murder in the course of just a few heartbeats. But Kate was stronger than her fears, and she knew she had to act fast. She grabbed a razor, a meat saw and a carving knife and set about cutting Thomas’ body into pieces. Later  Webster would admit that, while she believed she had always had a strong stomach, this work in particular tested her limits. There had just been so much blood, she later told the police. Webster put the pieces into a large copper kettle and then boiled them in an attempt to reduce them to a more managable state. It was essentially rendering, a process where meat is cooked until the fat and protein separate. Witnesses would later come forward and talk of the stench coming from the home, but no one complained at the time. This was London in the late 19th century, perhaps people were just a little more forgiving of odd odours back then.

When the boiling was complete, Webster fished out each part from the remaining lard and placed them all into a box she found in the home – most of it, that is. She couldn’t seem to fit the head and one of the feet, so she had to get creative. She tossed the foot into a local trash heap, but the head was more problematic. In the end, she found a Gladstone bag, something like an old physician’s handbag, and stashed the head inside there. And then she cleaned the house, removing as much of the evidence as she could that something horrible had taken place there. It took her two full days to do it, but when she was finished, she put on a dress from her employer’s wardrobe and went to the pub next door to meet a friend for drinks. This friend, a Mrs. Porter, later told police that Webster arrived at the pub carrying a large, black bag. She kept it with her almost the entire evening, as if it contained something very valuable to her. Oddly, though, Webster excused herself from the table at one point, and when she returned a short while later, the bag was gone. Webster’s next order of business was to get rid of the box that contained what remained of Mrs. Thomas, so she enlisted the help of Mrs. Porter’s son to carry it out of the house and to nearby Barns Bridge. He carried the heavy box all the way to the bridge, and then she sent him home, claiming that a friend was on the way to meet her there. This boy would later tell police that, as he was walking away, he heard a large splash. It was as if something heavy had been tossed into the river. Webster had disposed of the body, and I can’t help but wonder if she perhaps sighed with relief when the box finally dipped beneath the surface of the Thames and vanished from sight. The following day, though, things got more complicated. Unware that the box containing Mrs. Thomas had actually floated to the surface and drifted to shore over night, Kate Webster dug in deeper. She took on the identity of her former employer while beginning to sell off all the items in the house. Old habits die hard, apparently. And it was about this time, according to a later witness, that Webster stepped outside and spoke to a pair of neighbourhood boys. She had two bowls in her hand, and they were steaming hot. She told them it was lard – from a pig, she added – and they were welcome to have it for free, if they wanted it. The boys ate two bowls each.

While the police were investigating the discovery of the box full of body parts, they had no clues that might point them to the killer responsible. It even took them a bit of time to figure out that the parts were actually human rather than butcher cast-offs, but even then, all they could be sure of was that the victim had been a middle-aged woman. Kate Webster, meanwhile, was making money hand over fist. She sold off the smaller items first – the jewellery, the knick-knacks, even her victim’s gold teeth – and then began to spread word that the furniture was for sale as well. And that lead to an agreement with a local man, who arrived on March 9th with a small group of men to help him carry the items out of the house. A neighbour woman saw the activity and approached one of the remaining men. “Who ordered the removal of these items?” she asked him. The man simply turned and pointed to Kate Webster, who stood on the front steps of the house. “She did,” he replied, “Mrs. Thomas.” When the police finally arrived, they entered the house and immidiately found signs of something tragic: a charred finger bone in the fireplace, bloodstains on the floor, splatters of grease – or lard – around the copper kettle. But the one thing they wanted to find, a killer, was nowhere to be seen. Kate Webster had skipped town. In the end, the authorities tracked her down in Ireland. She’d taken her son and made her way back to her hometown as fast as she could. When she arrived, she did so while still wearing clothing and jewellery taken from Mrs. Thomas. But her stay there was short-lived – the local police chief, the man who 15 years earlier had put her in jail for the first time, recognised her in the bulletin from Scotland Yard and quickly took her into custody. Everything after that moved quickly. Webster was transported back to England, and at every train stop between Liverpool and London, crowds gathered to jeer and shout at her. By March 30th, she had been formally charged with murder.

Of course, she tried to lie her way out of it. This was the woman who had changed her name dozens of times to outsmart the police, who had moved into room after room and sold off the possessions inside. She was a thief and a liar, so it was only natural for her to try and talk her away out of this too. First, she blamed the murder on Henry Porter, the husband of her friend from the pub, but when his alibi held up she shifted the blame to the man who had come to buy the furniture from the Thomas house. He too was easily dismissed. When it appeared that she wouldn’t be able to squirm out from under the charge of murder, she took credit for the crime, but claimed that she only did it because others told her to. In the end, none of it worked. The formal trial began on July 2nd of 1879, and just six days later, the jury declared her guilty. The judge, a man named Justice Denman, sentenced her to be executed. Yes, Judge Justice – I can’t make these things up. When asked if there was any reason why she should not be executed, Webster told the judge yes, insisting that she was in fact pregnant. A new jury of women were gathered together along with a physician, and after examining Webster they declared that the pregnancy, like everything else the woman had said, was also a lie. She returned to Wandsworth Prison, where she had served time before working for Mrs. Thomas, and it was there that she wrote her formal confession. She described all of the details of the murder, right down to how she burned the internal organs to get rid of them, how she chose her tools, and even how she removed the head. On July 29th, Kate Webster stepped onto the platform inside the prison’s execution chamber, a building that was ironically nicknamed “The Cold Meatshed”. A governer announced the time, a priest administered last rights, and then she was guided onto the trapdoors with a sack over her head. Afterward, she was buried in an unmarked grave, right there at the prison. The records of Wandsworth Prison contain the names of 134 people who were executed over the span of 110 years. Kate Webster was the only woman on that list.

It’s hard to nail down the real reason behind our fascination with death, but it’s safe to at least make a guess. Death puts our mortality on display. No matter how hard we try to avoid it as a topic, to ignore its slow, steady approach from the distance, we can’t seem to get away from it. Whether we want it or not, death will come for us all one day, and the dead body stands as that singular, visceral reminder of our death. In the horror movies, it’s the clue that’s dropped into our laps early on in the film. It highlights the danger our heroes find themselves in, it represents what’s at stake, what could happen if they fail and the true power of the killer. When the London police pulled the box containing the remains of a women from the cold waters of the Thames, they didn’t know a lot, but they did know one thing. There was a killer in London, and whoever it was needed to be stopped. Thankfully, they managed to do just that, but in a wild twist of irony, the body of Julia Thomas has been lost. It might have been a result of the way evidence was handled in the late 19th century, or the state of decay when the remains were found. Whatever the reason, there’s no grave for Julia Thomas, no tombstone with her name etched into the surface. Her body was lost, and then found, and then finally lost again. Well, most of it. As luck would have it, the neighbourhood where her house once stood has gone through some renevation. In October of 2010, a wealthy London homeowner was having an addition built in his backyard, when the work crew unearthed something small and white. It was a skull. The teeth were missing, but there was a fracture at the back of the head, and after doing a bit more research, investigators determined that the structure that once stood in the homeowner’s backyard was a stable – a stable behind the pub that stood next door to Julia Thomas. Her body might be lost forever into the pages of history, but the head that Kate Webster had tried so hard to get rid of has finally been recovered. Oh, and the wealthy homeowner who stumbled upon the skull? None other than English naturalist, Sir David Attenborough.

[Closing statements]

[rumbelleshowdown]

The Wych Elm

Author: Goose Prompt: alone in the moonlight Group: C

His son hadn’t come home.

It wasn’t unusual. Sometimes he’d stay out with Morraine and her sisters and spend the night in front of their fire. But usually that happened closer to market, around the time Rumpel’s storages got lower and lower. Rumpel missed his son those night, but at least Bae got to eat.

But Morraine’s family had gone to the next town that morning to buy a mule. They were gone.

And so was his son.

It was a safe town, all things considered, and Rumpel wouldn’t have worried had Bae not had the unfortunate luck of being the son of the town coward. No one would think twice of leaving his sweet boy in a ditch if it meant punishing him.

That was how Rumpel found himself out in the dark forest, the moon high in the sky, his old lantern and battered walking stick the only protection he had. When he hadn’t found Baelfire along the road, he had walked into the forest, thinking maybe he had gotten lost or found a tree to sleep under for the night.

The night sounds of frogs and critters moving in the underbrush accompanied his search, but the further he walked, the quieter the sounds became, until all that walked with him was silence. Even the moonlight avoided him. It was eerie, and Rumple shivered.

Then he came to a small clearing. There was an old bush- no, a wych elm, in the middle. It looked old and a little scorched, like it had been struck by lightning, or lit ablaze.

Rumple’s gaze fell to a tree branch that was pointing to the east. No, it wasn’t a tree branch. It wasn’t dark like the tree was. He limped closer, squinting.

It was a hand. Palm to the sky, fingers arched and craggly.

That couldn’t be right. Rumpel raised his lantern, mystified as the small sickly light reflecting off the pale white flesh. He felt a sudden urge to take the hand in his, to share his meager warmth, offer what comfort he could. He didn’t know why.

“My hand of glory.”

He yelped, jumping back. Rumpel stumbled, his grip on his walking stick the only thing that kept him upright.

He heard a raspy laugh. It sounded like a voice that hadn’t been used in a long time.

“It’s been a long time since someone has found me,” the voice said.

Rumpel held out the lantern, trying to find the source. Shaking, wondering if he really wanted to know, he trailed the lantern down the arm, to the naked torso of a woman. She seemed to be stuffed into the trunk, only the upper half of her body visible.  Blushing hard, he raised the light to see her face, her head, resting against the bark.

Her eyes, a brilliant blue, glowed in the light of the lantern. Even with her wild, unkempt hair that was full of twigs and leaves, her shallow face, she was beautiful. Easily the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

What was she doing here? No one was missing from the village. Someone would have remembered her, had she passed through.

“Are you alright?” he asked. “Do you need help?”

She smiled, teeth gleaming like jewels. “I could ask you the same question, I think.”

Rumpel gripped the wood of his staff. “My s-” he coughed. Tried again. “My son. He’s lost.”

Her blue eyes focused on him, the gaze strong enough to hurt. She leaned back in her tree, as best she could. The woman raised her chin, so she gave the appearance of looking down on him.

“What is your name?” she finally asked.

“Rum-Rumpel,” His voice caught in his throat again.

“Rumpel?” The woman frowned. “That’s odd.”

“Rumpelstiltskin,” he finally spit out.

She laughed, her head thrown back, the colom of her pale throat gleaming. “That’s even worse. What a name you have, Rumpelstiltskin.”

“What-what is your name?” The arm holding the lantern up was getting stiff.

The woman turned her head, her shoulder lifting in a shrug as best it could, with her arm trapped like it was.

“I have many names.” Her voice was dry like tinder.

Rumpel twisted his staff in his hand. “Do you need help?”

“That’s the second time you’ve offered. What makes you think you’d be able to?”

“I don’t,” he began. Shook his head. “Maybe I can’t. But it’d be a terrible thing to just leave you here.”

Her chuckle was a long fingernail down his spine. “It’s only terrible when you’re beautiful.”

The clouds moved, shifting in the sky, and the moonlight spilled down into the clearing. It spilled onto the woman, painting what was clear, pale skin into something rotting. Where the moonlight hit her, she looked green, molded.

“Am I a tragedy?”

Rumpel let go of the lantern. It dropped to the ground with a dull thud, the light flickering out. The moonlight stayed, casting it’s eerie glow. Her eyes weren’t blue anymore, but yellow, like a cat’s. In them was the sun, and they glowed just as brightly.

The woman was cursed, clearly. Was she a witch, perhaps? A demon? A specter haunting the clearing? But she hadn’t attacked him. She might look fierce, but she’d done nothing.

“Are you in pain?”

The woman leaned back, closing her eyes. “Go home to your boy, Rumpel,” she said, voice like the wind, like a death rattle. “Leave me be.”

Rumpel went home. He was sure that he wouldn’t be able to find the way, that his leg would give out and he’d be lost and dead by morning. But the path was straight and clear and easy. And as if waking from a dream, he opened the front door of his hovel and there, by the fire on his cot, was his boy.

Rumpel fell to his knees in relief.

But sleep came slowly. He kept thinking about the woman in the wych elm, and who must have put her there.

Perhaps, he could find a way to free her.

[alydiarackham]

(Cover by me)

Curse-Maker: The Tale of Gwiddon Crow by Alydia Rackham

Prologue

               There is great freedom in darkness.

               I wrap it around me like clothing. I move without sound. And even if my boot treads upon a twig, and it snaps through the silence…

Mortal eyes can only strain to find its source, and then, to no avail. I am already gone.

               I walk through Winterly Wood amongst the ghosts of dead trees and the spirits that haunt the hanging branches. Moving as a wraith. My eyes see more keenly than any cat, my ears catch the slightest whisper. My skin tingles with each breath of dank air, my heart beats in time with the deep, ancient mutterings of the wood.

               In darkness, I perch amidst the arms of the tangled oak trees, watching like the mire owl, but invisible, though I loom just above the traveler’s head. I creep along the banks of the river, watching the threads of moonshine ripple against its languid surface, spying the drifting fishes amongst the reeds, yet I am never touched by the fingers of silver light that grope weakly down into the black.

               I spin webs of spells, like twinkling nets, whose edges set fool-fires and will-o-wisps that lead wayfarers to their deaths. I press my palm to the cold surface of the water, and henceforth anyone who touches the river will fall asleep and drown. I lay illusions upon the trees—illusions of dreadful fiends that horrify villagers into abandoning the path. I breathe out a blanket of fog to stifle the remnants of old elvish spells.

I snatch at the ranger’s legs and send him tumbling into the arms of the bramble thorns. I loose false cries of children to lead the woodsman to the mouth of the bog. I crush blue fairies with stones and put out their light. I ensnare the noisy white deer, send pale phantoms wailing up and down the roads to terrorize encroaching gypsies. I lie down amongst a fellowship of wolves.

I am never seen.

I am not bound by borders or the commands of any king; I am not enslaved any longer to chains and hammers and toil; I bear my own name. I wield my own weapons. I rely upon no one.  

I can breathe with all the depth in my lungs, and no one hears anything but the rustle of the leaves. I fly, and they shrink from the shadow of a raven. I run faster than wind, leaves swirling around my feet and the edges of my cape, the night air tearing through my wild hair—and they recoil from a banshee. I scale trees in an instant, then leap down onto horsemen like a nightmare—and throw them from the saddle. I ride frightened beasts down paths unknown by men, with the hands of a herald of Hel. I appear and disappear at will, with the suddenness of death.

               I am the darkness.

 Chapter One

                  On the night of a full moon in late autumn, I sat in the arms of a knotted wych elm, my back to the trunk, one leg bent, the other hanging easily off the thick branch. My black cape tumbled all around me, its edges fluttering like feathers touched by a breeze. I crossed my arms, gazing out to my left at the narrow road that passed beneath me and wound away into vanishment like a dead river. I listened.

               The young night air hung heavy with frost. Silver foxes slipped through the underbrush, disturbing the leaves of the greying ferns. I could hear their careful, clever feet padding across the fallen leaves. An owl passed like a winged reaper overhead, the cloak of his wings eclipsing the cold gaze of the moon.

               As I watched below me, the fog slowly rolled in, hiding the roots of the trees. Dew beaded on my fitted, leather travel clothes and on the long, tangled, mane-like lengths of my white hair. I reached up with both hands and wound a strand around my slender, pale fingers, studying the way the crackled moonlight caught my hair’s coal-black flecks and shining silvers. The way it cast shadows across the scars on my knuckles, the black rune tattoos on my thumbs. How it sparkled in the jet stone in the silver ring on my right hand.  

               I released the tangled end of my hair and tapped the symbols on my thumbs, absently muttering their meanings under my breath like a chant, first one hand, then the other.

               “Cuir, neartu, freimhe,” I hummed. “Nimh, betha, cothaigh. Cuir, neartu, freimhe; Nimh, betha, cothaigh…”

               Plant. Strengthen. Root.

               Poison. Feed. Keep.

               I tilted my face back to the interwoven maze of branches above me, smiling as they swayed in time to the rhythm of the wood—the rhythm I had memorized since childhood, even before I knew the words to the song. I tapped my toe, tilting my head side to side. I drew in a deep breath.

“Man may think that he liveth long, But oft him belies my tricks. Fair weather often turns to rain And wondrously it makes its switch.”

 A lively, wicked wind suddenly cut through the branches, whirling and swirling like a tattered gown, catching up leaves in its skirts. Night birds began to hoot and call in time with me, and deep, guttural, creaking grunts issued from the marrow of the trees.

“Therefore, man, you do bethink, But all shall fail, your fields of green!

 Fair weather often turns to rain,

And wondrously it makes its switch!”

 The cold wind cackled now, throwing the leaves toward the skies and ripping delightfully through my cape and hair. I rapped my fingernails against the bark, raising my voice as the tune slithered rapidly every which way through the forest.

“Alas, there's neither king nor queen, That shall not drink of death's drink!

Man, ere thou fall off thy bench, Thy sins thou shalt quench!

 Man may think that he liveth long, But oft him belies my tricks.

Fair weather often turns to rain,

And wondrously it makes its switch!”

 As I let the last note ring out, warming and vibrating through my whole body, the autumn wood and its creatures roiled and rattled with the full strength of their merry voices. I grinned, appreciatively slapping the trunk of the tree, feeling it chuckle down within its wood.  

               Then—

               A screech.

               Far off, yet not so far that I couldn’t feel the ripple of it strike me in the side of the neck.

               I leaped to my feet, standing freely balanced on the branch, holding onto nothing. My cape went still. I faced the east, not breathing, my gaze wide.

               A deep, single-noted hum traveled through the earth, as if something in the roots of the mountains had cracked. For a moment, I stood, studying the vibrations that passed up through the roots, the trunk, and into my boots.

               Then, I launched myself up the tree. With swift, sure steps and firm handholds, I maneuvered my lean body between the limbs and toward the height of the canopy. At last, my head broke through the leaves, and moonlight spilled over my hair. I grasped the rough branches, and peered toward the east.

               Winterly Wood stretched on in every direction, its impenetrable tangle rolling far, far away from me toward Rye Valley, which now lay shrouded in blackness.

               But there, at the very edge of my sight, I glimpsed birds that had taken flight. All along the entire forest wall, they flapped frantically upward, toward the mountains, away from the valley.

               I frowned hard, my left-hand fingers closing tighter around the branch.

               Then, I let go, perched precariously on a limb that could not hold my weight.

               “Eitil,” I muttered—and clapped my hands together.

               The limb gave way beneath me—but that instant, my cape flung all around me like a python, swallowed my frame, and crushed it.

               A moment of blinding pain snapped all my bones—

And then…

               I flung out my arms—and they were wings. Great, black wings.

My face had changed to shining black with a long, gleaming beak. My body had covered with sleek ebony feathers, my feet to wiry claws. I sprang straight into the air with a hoarse “caw!”, beating my wings as I climbed heavenward. I reeled in midair, switching direction, and hurtled down over the face of the forest, my feathers spread wide.

Leaves flittered just below my breast as I skimmed over the beeches, oaks and elms. I dodged bare, protruding twigs; I fleetingly scanned ahead of me for owls. Though none would challenge me—I was thrice the size of any other crow in Edel.

Ahead of me, rising suddenly like black knives from the heart of the wood, this portion of the Eisenzahn Mountain Strand stood like the walls of a giant fortress. Black pines covered their faces, cloaking the shimmering white stone of their bones. I glanced down, and glimpsed the Sopor River glittering like a seam of silver weaving through the immovable wood—leading straight for the Flumen Split: the narrow gap in the mountains that provided the only passage between Albain and the vast Thornbind Wood beyond.

Canting my head, I spied a narrow track below me, and a familiar fork in it. With a breath, I folded my wings and dove straight down.

The wind whistled through my feathers, the stars flashed around me—

I plunged into the shadow of the wood.

I pulled up, brought my wings out with a loud flap—

Shook myself, and threw off my cape.

               Another howl of pain split my body—and my booted feet struck the dry dirt of the path.

               Pulling in a swift, measured breath and gritting my teeth, I lifted my human head and straightened my human shoulders, never breaking stride as my cape turned back into a garment, and roiled behind my steps.

               I took another deep breath, smelling the smoke of a familiar hearth. In a few paces, I spied flickering torches standing at odd angles, lining the crooked path. My boots left prints in the frost.

               I finally approached the first set of torches: human skulls upon tall pikes, their gaping mouths seething with crackling flames, their eyes enlivened by brilliant sparks. The flame blackened the teeth of their sagging jaws, and glowed through the cracks in their crowns. The light threw stark shadows against the figures of the trees to either side, making them look like they moved. I strode between the leering pairs, tipping my head back and forth as I had since I was a girl, silently reciting the names I’d given them: Arseny and Afanasy, Vadim and Vasily, Bogdam and Boris, Ivan and Ilia, Pavel and Pyotr. I glanced ahead of me at the familiar cottage.

               The cottage of bones.

               Instead of beams and bars and thatch, the mistress of this house had built with the bones of kings who defied her, women who went back on their promises to her, children who had been traded for spells. But the front door and the lintel above had been constructed of very special skeletons indeed: the bones of all the Caldic Curse-Breakers—except one.  

               I finally arrived at the front door of the cottage. For a moment I stopped, glancing toward the window to my left.

               Flickering orange light peered through a ragged cloth that hung over most of the opening. Quiet music wafted out: music from a stringed instrument, plucked by careful fingers. It was a swaying, tilting sort of tune—like treading gleefully toward some sort of mischief. I snickered.

               I reached out and put my hand on the forehead of Aleric Blackthorn’s well-polished skull, and shoved.

               The ancient door creaked crankily as I stepped up into the cottage. I immediately dodged a mobile of fingerbones and a set of dangling glass balls. My footsteps went silent as they met the worn-out bearskins on the floor.

               The scent of burning tallow candles filled my lungs—a mountain of them, all dripping onto each other, stood upon the mantel in the far corner, lighting up all the herbs, spices, bones, and trinkets hanging from that section of the ceiling.

I maneuvered around the towers of dusty books and locked trunks, aiming for the beaten armchair that sat near the fire—its legs so stacked with tattered papers and odds and ends that it looked as if it had grown out of the floor.

Enfolded in the arms of the chair sat a very old woman, wearing rags. Only if I peered closely—which I often had—could I detect the threads of gold and silver woven into her garments, and the faded silk patterns of flowers: patterns sewn by the finest weavers and tailors in Izborsk.

Hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

A scarf that had once been maroon bound around the top of her head, and her feathery white hair stuck out from beneath it. She had a face of leather, riddled with wrinkles; the end of her long, hooked nose nearly touching her protruding chin. In her lap she held the stringed instrument, a triangle-shaped balalaika, and her bony hands plucked the strings of the melancholy, mischievous melody that filled the house. The firelight bathed her gently-swaying form in rich light, and for a moment—as I always did when I first came inside—I felt like I was gazing back into the shadows of a lost world.

I paused, but she’d caught my movement. Her glinting silvery eyes found me, and narrowed as a low, sly smile carved her wrinkles even deeper.

“Crow,” she creaked, still playing at the strings with her skillful fingertips.

“Babushka,” I nodded to her.

“You have something to tell me,” Gwiddon Baba Yaga—called “Babushka” only by me—noted, turning back toward the fire, and I watched as the flames danced across her iridescent eyes. Eyes that had seen so much—so much more than I could ever imagine…

“Yes,” I said. “I saw something.”

“Sit down, eat,” she nodded to a space in front of her.

I frowned, and leaned around a particularly tall pile of books…

To see that a small table set with a bowl of food, in front of my chair, steamed readily, as if it had just been laid out. I eyed her, and lifted an eyebrow.

“You were expecting me to come back early.”

“Da,” she hummed.

I sighed, stepped around the pile of books, peeled off my cape and flung it across the back of my chair, then sat heavily down. I tugged the table closer so it stood between my knees, and I scanned the food. It was a bowl of shchi, filled with cabbage, chicken, mushrooms, carrots, onions, garlic, celery, pepper, apples and smetana. Three pieces of hot, buttered bread sat to the side, along with a wooden goblet of rich, heady red wine. I picked up the goblet and took a long swig of the wine, hoping it would dull the ache in my bones left over from my transforming.

“So,” I said, setting the goblet down and tearing into the bread with both hands. “What was it that I saw?”

The witch across from me diddled on the strings with her long nails, and pursed her lips.

“I suppose you saw a bit of a disturbance on the eastern border of Winterly,” she replied, with a thoughtful lilt to her tone. “And perhaps felt a touch of startlement from deep within the earth?”

I frowned hard at her, stopping my chewing.

Her eyes flicked to mine for a moment, and then she returned to her music. I finished chewing, watching her, then sat back in my chair.

“So what was it?”

“Mm,” she grunted. “I do not know.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“What do you think it was?”

“Eat your shchi,” she said, jerking her chin toward it. “And put some slype on your hands.”

“Why?” I demanded.

“I see a spot.” She pointed with a gnarled finger at my left hand. I lifted it toward the light, and spied a dark blotch on the back of it.

“I haven’t noticed that before,” I murmured.

“Mm,” she grunted again. “What have you been doing?”

“Nothing,” I shook my head. “Just a strengthening spell on the fog.”

“Ah, but you haven’t put slype on yourself for weeks,” she noted, arching an eyebrow.

“It stinks,” I shot back. She snorted.

“Put it on,” she ordered. “Unless you’d like to look like me far earlier than you ought.” And she bared her pointed teeth in what was meant to be a ghastly grin. I rolled my eyes and reached up to snatch a little black bottle off the mantle.

“I don’t mind a little spot on my hand,” I muttered.

“Mm, you may not,” the witch sat back in her chair. “Not now, when you’re only four and twenty, with a body still strong and quick. But you will wish you had listened to your babushka,” she wagged a finger at me. “When you try to shake off that flying crow someday, and two of your bones stay broken. Mark me.”

I smirked, not replying, and popped the cork off the bottle. I dripped just a bit of the black, oily liquid into my right palm, put the cork back, and rubbed the slype onto the back of my left hand.

“Keep rubbing,” Baba Yaga ordered. “Until you cannot see the spot.”

“Yes, I know,” I glared at her, but kept doing it, until the oil rubbed in and the spot on my hand faded. I feigned a gag and shook my head, putting the bottle back on the mantle.

“Smells like dead fish.”

“Hehe,” the witch chuckled. “Not so bad.”

I said nothing, just picked up the wooden spoon and started stirring my steaming soup.

“So what was it?” I pressed, slurping a spoonful, then wincing at its heat. But I kept eating. The witch gazed at me, tapping her fingers on the face of her instrument.

“I said I do not know,” she repeated. “But someone is coming who will tell us.”

I stopped with my spoon halfway to my mouth.

“Who?” I asked in a low voice. But she didn’t respond—just smiled.

The fire in the hearth guttered.

My attention flashed to it.

Then, fingers of smoke began to creep out past the mantlepiece, as if something had blocked the chimney.

Slowly, I lowered my spoon back into the soup.

The smoke thickened, blackened. It trailed upward, past the candles, mingling with the flames and disappearing into the shadow of the ceiling.

Without a sound, I lifted the table in front of me and set it to the side. Then, I slowly settled back in my chair, draping my arms over the rests. With my jaw set, I waited.

The thick smoke pooled on the ceiling, and began slithering down amongst the witchly ornaments, dripping onto the floor beside Baba Yaga. It writhed out of the corners of the cottage, seething over the bearskin rugs, filling the air with the exotic musk of myrrh.

As Baba Yaga and I watched, the serpentine smoke began to twine around itself, crawling from the floor toward the ceiling again. Forming an ever-thickening pillar. All the lights in the cottage changed hue, taking on a pearly emerald—and sparks danced freely around the flames.

A figure formed within the shroud of smoke: tall and willowy, like an iron lance. Surrounded by sinister, cobweb draperies that stirred with their own wind. Ripples of clarity brought forth the shapes of strong, graceful arms bound round with silver bracers; long, white hands—the right one bearing a glittering ring. An elegant, figure-hugging black tunic with upward-sweeping shoulders, evoking the visage of a horned asp. A sundering cape dripping and slithering from the back of his shoulders and round his flowing skirts, hiding his feet. Jewels of jet and poison-red sparkling like scales across his chest. A tall collar guarding a graceful neck.

A raven head, with midnight hair spilling down to the front of his chest, crisp and feral as the feathers of a crow. A sharp, refined face with perfect features, and skin white as moonlight. Eyes like chips of silver, with an ethereal, shining distance. Coal black eyebrows, black lashes; grey, unsmiling lips. And across his face—upon his delicate cheekbones, brow and nose—lay deep red discolorations, like the sear of heat, or the welt of a deep bruise. But it did not mar his beauty—in truth, it accentuated it. And the ice-cold ferocity in his bearing added terrible power to his heavy glance.

A dark light swelled out from him, tightening my chest. I didn’t move. He lifted his chin, and looked directly at me. His bright, pupil-less gaze darted through me to my spine.

“Gwiddon Crow.” His musical voice like the surface of a lake at twilight.

“Crow,” Baba Yaga motioned to me, then to him. “This is Mordred.”

Chapter Two

   Mordred inclined his graceful head to me. I didn’t move—just narrowed my eyes.

“He is a draid,” Baba Yaga told me. “A dark elf.”

“I know what he is,” I answered quietly, not taking my eyes from him. “What is he doing here?”

Mordred almost smiled, and lifted his right eyebrow-slightly.

“He is also the king of Albain,” Baba Yaga added.

I slowly leaned back, stretched out my legs in front of me, and crossed them.

“Well, then,” I raised my eyebrows. “He should know right now what I think of kings.”

Mordred truly smiled now, and chuckled.

“I like her, Vedma,” he glanced at Baba Yaga. I gave him nothing but a cold look.

“Please, sit,” Baba Yaga waved a hand—and her guest chair appeared.

The bear skin near Mordred’s feet writhed and twisted, and rose off the floor, warping itself into the shape of a tall armchair, with the mighty, toothy head crowning the top. When at last it had stopped its transformation, Mordred stepped around it, swept his skirts out of the way, and sat down with the casual elegance of a cat, his right elbow propped on the armrest.

“Would you have something to drink or eat?” Baba Yaga asked him. He absently flicked his fingers.

“No, thank you, I’ve just eaten.”

Baba Yaga shrugged, and sat back in her own chair.

“What brings you here, Mordred?”

He looked at her for a moment.

“I’m certain you noticed the disturbance at the edge of Winterly Wood not long ago,” he said.

“I did,” Baba Yaga nodded. “But Crow was out in the wood at the time, and saw the birds take flight.”

Mordred glanced at me. The firelight glinted off his silvery eyes.

“What did you perceive?” he asked me.

“I am keeping my thoughts to myself, until I hear what you have to say.” I canted my head. “That’s the reason you’ve come, isn’t it?”

He peered at me, his brow furrowing, then leaned slightly toward me.

“Tell me,” he said, pointing vaguely. “Where did you get such an ugly and unusual scar? It covers the entirety of the left side of your face, all the way down to your neck, and looks like the white craters of the moon.”

I lifted my chin, unmoved.

“I was struck by a hot fire shovel when I was fourteen, by my father,” I said. “I killed him with it.” Then, I narrowed my own eyes to slits. “Where did you get yours?”

He grinned again, laughing softly.

“Child, I am older than you can imagine,” he said, looking over at me with something like warmth. “I honestly cannot remember when I first noticed these marks on my face. But I do know they’ve arisen from my struggles, my pain, my suffering…” He considered me again, his mirth fading, a sadness entering him. “Just as yours have.”

I blinked, and glanced down.

“Tell us, Mordred,” Baba Yaga urged. “What is this all about? I don’t like the feel of it.”

Mordred gazed at her long.

“What do you feel?”

She set her jaw crookedly, and leveled a look back at him. Her voice lowered to a deadly, rasping tone.

“That a curse has been broken.”

Mordred’s mouth tightened, and he gazed down at the hearthstones with a cold consideration.

“It may have been,” he murmured. “I fear that someone has pulled the Sword from the stone.”

Baba Yaga gasped.

The sound made me sit up—set my heart bashing into my ribs.

“The true sword Calesvol? How can that be?” Baba Yaga rasped. “It has been lost for centuries! Ever since you killed Merlin the Wild!”

               Mordred suddenly looked at her without moving his lowered head.

               A chill passed through me.

               “I…did not kill…Merlin,” he said, with painful and precise decision.

               “Whaaat?” Baba Yaga stared at him, her eyes wide and terrible. “Why did you lie to me?”

               “I lied to everyone,” Mordred answered icily. “After Merlin appeared to me and declared that he had laid Calesvol in a stone, and none but the true king of Albain could pull it loose—and that he had hidden it from all eyes but those of this true king—I hunted him more relentlessly than I had ever hunted anyone. But Merlin had vanished. I assumed that he had fled Albain, either across the sea or into the Eisenzahn Mountains. I cast hundreds of spells searching for him throughout Edel, but all came back to me empty. He was gone.” Mordred’s gaze grew distant, and he studied the dance of the flames. “So I made my own sword in the stone, my own Calesvol, and in the presence of ten thousand witnesses, I drew the sword from the stone. And I have been king this past age, questioned by none. And none have passed through my borders alive, either in or out.” He sent a flashing glance to Baba Yaga. “I will not have my throne threatened by some peasant who pulled a trinket from a rock.”

               Baba Yaga watched him for a moment.

               “What would you have us do?”

               Mordred took a deep breath, turning back to the fire.

               “The pulling of the sword has weakened the barriers around Albain. Strong Curse-Breakers will soon be able to cross, and the elves and rangers that have been enchanted in the woods will begin waking up.” He turned to me. “I require your help, Gwiddon Crow.”

               “Why?” I demanded quietly.

               “I wish to take your master with me, back to Camelot,” he said. “And I need you to destroy the Seal of Astrum.”

               “What?” I said, stunned. “Destroy the Seal? A great Seal?” I looked over at Baba Yaga, but she said nothing. I turned back to Mordred. “Why?”

               “To take back Thornbind,” he answered. “Once I put down this usurper who has found Calesvol, I will have the true sword in my hand. With it, I can breach the gap in the mountains and enter the Eorna Valley, which will bring us just steps from Maith. We will finally bring the fight to the doorstep of the Curse-Breakers. But we cannot do so if that Seal blocks our way.”

               I shook my head.

“Destroying a great Seal is impossible, and you know it.”

               “No, it isn’t,” he answered. “Anything made can be un-made.”

               “Yes, by a Curse-Breaker,” I shot back. “The nature of a seal itself is set against us. It was built to withstand just such an attack.”

               “Curse-Breakers are not infallible,” Mordred shook his head. “I have killed many.”

               “Well, be my guest, then,” I growled, waving my hand.

               “Crow,” Baba Yaga warned. I sat up, and leaned toward Mordred.

               “A Seal is not a Curse-Breaker,” I bit out. “You may have killed many Curse-Breakers, but the Seals have killed far more of us,” I said, and slapped my chest.

               “Yes, and many were my friends,” Mordred answered deliberately, looking right at me. “Which is why I spent half my lifetime searching for this.” He lifted his left hand and snapped his fingers.

               A bright light flashed in front of him—

               And a small book lay in his palms.

               I recoiled, sucking in a breath.

               I could feel tendrils of pure, sharp, untamed magic twisting and winding around its beaten leather binding, emanating from the dark red stone in the center of the cover.

               “What is that?” I hissed.

               “It is the Leabhar,” Mordred said quietly. “The Book.”

               “Where did you find it?” Baba Yaga whispered.

               “In Camelot, in Merlin’s vaults beneath the castle.” He glanced wryly at her. “Why do you think I was so eager to conquer Albain? It has nothing else to offer.”

               ���I thought the Book was destroyed by dragon fire,” I muttered, still staring at it, feeling like it might leap up and sink teeth into me.

               “So did I,” Mordred nodded. “But, it appears that those on the other side can concoct their own share of clever lies.” He moved his white fingers to lift the cover.

               “Don’t open it!” I yelped, throwing out a hand—stopping just short of grabbing his wrist. He laughed.

               “You mustn’t be afraid, Crow,” he admonished. “You’ll be needing this.” And he held it out to me.

               “I am not touching that,” I said through my teeth, withdrawing from it to sink my fingernails into the armrests of my chair.

               “Why?” he asked simply. “Are you afraid?”

               I glared at him.

               “Only a fool is never afraid.”

               His expression shrugged.

               “True enough,” he acknowledged. “But the power in this book cannot harm you. You can only learn from it.”

               “And what am I supposed to learn?”

               A slow, mysterious smile touched his lips.

               “How the Caldic Curse-Breakers made the Seven Seals of Edel.”

               I narrowed my eyes at him.

               “You have the Book. Why don’t you learn it, and attack the seal yourself? I’m sure you’re powerful enough.”

               “I am,” he nodded. “But I cannot read it.”

               “Ha!” I barked. “You just told me how old you were, how experienced. How can you not read ancient Caldic?”

               “I cannot because it is enspelled, you impatient shrew,” he snapped—and his words knifed straight through my gut. My mouth clapped shut.

For an instant, Mordred’s eyes blazed at me with a fiendish light…

               Which diminished, turning to frost and snow.

               “It will not allow a draid to read its words,” he muttered, flinging open the cover, as he seemed to have done hundreds if not thousands of times. I flinched back…

               But the magic just kept winding round and round the book, penetrating its pages, in a steady, unbroken flow.

               “It rebels against my very blood, the way the light meets my eyes. It’s maddening,” he muttered. “I have tried many, many times to understand, but even if I untangle one phrase, the next moment, it is gone from my mind.” He shook his head. “I saw no pressing need to decipher it at the time I found it. It was enough to have the Book in my possession, and keep it away from the Curse-Breakers, who could do untold damage with it. But now…” he raised his eyebrows at Baba Yaga. “I need a Curse-Maker.”

               “Would you rather leave this task to me?” Baba Yaga asked him. “I am willing, if Crow is not.”

               Mordred was already shaking his head.

               “I need you in Camelot. You must re-lay the curses that are breaking, or replace them with others. The curses of Albain are old, and bone-deep in this realm, and as they snap they may lash back at Camelot itself. And I can already feel Curse-Breakers advancing on my borders. They will need to be waylaid. I cannot keep all of this at bay with only my two hands. This work is as complex as it is dangerous, and I need you at my side.”

               “But is this not equally complex?” I demanded, pointing to the book. Mordred looked at me.

               “No,” he said. “It is quite simple. As simple as untying a knot. You must simply undo what has been done. But first, you must see it clearly.” And he held the book out to me again.

               I didn’t move. Instead, I looked at Baba Yaga.

               “Do you think I ought to do this, Babushka?” I asked her.

               She tilted her head, and shrugged again.

               “I believe you are fully capable of doing it,” she finally said. “You are strong enough, and cunning enough. If you are willing enough.”

               I took the book from Mordred.

               My fingers hit the binding, and the magic hummed—

               But nothing bit me. It didn’t hurt at all.

               I studied it, turning my head to try to make out the runes imprinted on the cover. I set my finger to the opening edge of the cover…

               “Nocht,” I whispered.

               The magic flickered against my thumb. I lifted the cover…

               “Well?” Mordred asked, leaning even closer.

I stared down at the words.

               “I…” I started, then trailed off.

               “What?” he demanded. But I couldn’t speak. I could only read the words, over and over, written in an ancient, inky hand.

                 Greetings, Gwiddon Crow. What is it that you seek?            

  Chapter Three

                “What?” Baba Yaga demanded leaning forward, her chair squeaking.

               “It…” I tried. “It says ‘Greetings, Gwiddon Crow. What is it that you seek?’” I lifted my head, and stared at my teacher.

               Slowly, she grinned at me.

               “Fascinating,” Mordred whispered, watching me with a gleaming eye. “Answer it.”

               “Answer it?” I repeated. “How?”

               He gestured to the book.

               “Answer it. Tell it what you want to know.”

               I stared down at the weathered page and the cryptic writing. I narrowed my eyes at it.

               “I wish to know,” I said slowly. “…how to un-make a great Seal.”

               The writing melted away and disappeared. The next moment, it bled back up through the paper, forming different words.

                 You must first learn how the Seals were made. Do you wish to know?

                         “What is it?” Baba Yaga hissed.

               “It says I must know how they were made, and asks if I wish to know,” I answered.

               “Tell it yes,” Mordred told me—in a tone like he was instructing me to step out onto thin ice.

               “Yes,” I said.

               The words disappeared. Then, they melted back.

                 I will tell you. But I will not tell the other two.

                 My eyes flew to the others. They frowned at me.

               “What now?” Mordred wondered.

               “It says,” I answered carefully “That it won’t tell you or Baba Yaga.”

               Mordred laughed and slapped his thigh.

               “This magic,” he grinned. “Such splendid cleverness.”

               Baba Yaga ground her teeth.

               “Why would it say such a thing?”

               “Perhaps it knows us,” Mordred guessed.

               “Perhaps it can hear us,” Baba Yaga raised her eyebrows at him.

Mordred smiled and shrugged.

               “Perhaps it can. Leastways, this still serves our purpose.” He rose to his feet, his skirts rustling uneasily around his legs. “Vedma, will you come with me back to Camelot?”

               “I will,” she grunted, laboriously rising to her feet. “If food is provided.”

               “I shall have my kitchen prepare the finest meals for you, and you’ll sleep in the quarters designated for the queen, as I have no such partner yet.”

               “Oh, who would marry you?” Baba Yaga jibed.

               “Why, you would, if I asked you,” Mordred grinned at her.

                “You flatter me, draid,” she cackled. “What of Crow?”

               “Crow, you will remain here,” Mordred said, looking down at me. “And you will keep that book with you at all times until I come to retrieve it, or I will kill you where you stand.”

               I glared at him.

               “I’m not a fool,” I shot back. “I would have done that even without your threat.”

               “It isn’t a threat,” Mordred said simply. “It’s a promise.”

               I didn’t answer him. He turned toward the fireplace and straightened his coat.

               “Best get to work,” he advised. “The Seal must be broken by this time next week. Our spells should be in place by then. Keep in touch.”

               I still said nothing. Baba Yaga reached over and patted my head.

               “I have faith in you, vnuchka,” she smiled. “You will make me proud.”

               “Thank you, Babushka,” I said, keeping my eyes strictly away from Mordred.

               “Remember,” Baba Yaga held up a finger. “Do not forget the lineages. We hold them to no esteem—but our foes value them more than life.”

               I frowned, but nodded once.

               “Your hand, my lady,” Mordred said, holding his white palm out toward Baba Yaga.

               “Thank you, sir,” she said, and wrapped her gnarled fingers around his. Mordred glanced down at me, his silvery eyes flashing.

               “Goodbye,” he said.

               And he and Baba Yaga dissolved into black smoke.

               They swirled like a cyclone, writhing and twisting, then wound their way up the chimney, and disappeared.

                   I sat for a long time in the silence, watching the fireplace where they had vanished. Then, I set the book aside, pulled the table back in front of me, and finished my meal before it got cold.

After that, I performed a simple cleaning spell, put my dishes away, made the guest chair sink back onto the floor, came back and prodded the fire. The flames leaped high, and warmth spilled over my boots. I tossed another log in, then snapped my fingers and lit the hanging lamp by my armchair. Sighing, I sat back down, stretched my legs out in front of me, and took up the book again. I opened it to the first page.

               It was blank.

               My brow furrowed.

               “Hello?”

               Hello.

               I cleared my throat.

               “What is your name?”

               My name is Leabhar.I am The Book.

               “Who made you?”

               The Caldic Curse-Breakers.

               “How do you know me?” I wondered.

               I know all beings in this world, alive and dead.

               I bit the inside of my lip.

               “Tell me how the Great Seals were made.”

               Do you wish to know the truth?

               “Yes, of course I do,” I insisted. “Why else would I ask?”

               Very well. The realm of Edel had been swallowed by shadow. This time was called The Curtain. Curse-Breathers had arisen and overwhelmed the servants of light, binding them in curses and spells, ensnaring the borders of the kingdoms, causing wars to erupt amongst brothers. The Source Himself summoned the Curse-Breakers and sent them to stand upon the pulse points of Edel. Then, he journeyed Beneath, and gave his life in sacrifice to the Dragon. But his death fractured the Fountains of the Deep, and his blood mingled with the water. The water surged up through the Mountain of Maith and spilled down across the land. At the same moment, his power, channeled by his Curse-Breakers, pushed up through the earth where each of them stood, and each Curse-Breaker used this force to create a mighty Seal of protection. The breaking of the Fountains broke the Dragon’s curse, and the Source was restored to life. The Curse-Breakers then bound each Seal to the lifeblood of the royal family nearby, and charged each true ruler with the protection of that Seal, a task to be passed down through the bloodline.  

               I heaved a sigh and rolled my eyes.

               “I could have read this in a book of fairy tales,” I muttered. “Be more realistic.”

               What is it that you find doubtful?

               “The Source is dead. Everyone knows that,” I answered, gesturing vaguely. “The water is just latent magic from the days before the Curtain, and it power is fading.”

               The Book went blank.

               I thumped the page with my finger.

               “Be more realistic about the Seals,” I demanded. “And specific.”

               If you do not accept my premise, then what I tell you has no foundation. We have no frame of reference from which to understand each other.

               I released another sigh.

               “All right, I will acknowledge the death and resurrection of the Source as legend,” I said. “Now, tell me.”

               The previous ink bled away. And it returned in one word:

               No.

               “No?” I cried. “Why not?”

               The ink faded.

               And none replaced it.

               I shut the book and threw it on the ground. It bounced away from me across the bearskin rug.

               “That isn’t Leabhar,” I scoffed. “Mordred’s a fool.” I stood up, and kicked the book across the floor as I walked back toward my bedroom. “It’s just a stupid Answer-Back book. I could make another one just like it for him in two hours…”

                    I shut myself in my room and lit the candles and lamps, and glanced around. It wasn’t a large room: it had a single window hung with leather curtains, a narrow bed covered in skins, a woven rag-rug on the wooden floor, and the left and right-hand walls had been built in with bookshelves. Several battered trunks stood in the corner.

               I lit extra lamps beside the bookcases, peering at the spines as I passed the hundreds of packed volumes. I grabbed one book, jerked it out, and tossed it on the floor behind me. I grabbed another, and another, and another. Their covers slapped together as each one landed. Then, I went to the top trunk, flung open the lid, and dug out a piece of parchment, ink, and a pen. Then, I came back to the center of the room, sat down cross-legged, snatched up the first book, opened it and set to work.

                    It took me four days.

               With aching neck and back, I poured over the volumes, checking and checking again. The first volume was The Book of Common Curses; the second: The Foundations of Ancient Magic; the third: The Master’s Curse Book; the fourth: Natural Spells, the fifth: Blood Spells.  

               I carefully made lists on the parchment, drawing out steps one, two, three and so on. I counted ingredients, muttered words. Interchanged some, rejected others. Added more.

               I stopped working when the sun arose, ate, and slept. I performed refresher spells rather than sponging myself off or washing my clothes. I didn’t have time to dally. I gave myself a headache every night, and rejoiced when I could lie down amidst the bearskins and relax the muscles in my neck. But the dusk came all to quickly, and I forced myself to arise, eat again, and hunch over my work once more.

               Soon, I was able to confirm my initial conclusion: that any magic specifically found in the Book of Common Curses  or The Master’s Curse Book would not suffice against a Seal or any guardian, since the seals had been specifically designed to withstand them. In fact, casting one of them could prove deadly to me.

               I also concluded that many blood spells and natural could be executed to act like curses. It was the one weakness, the loophole that the Caldic Curse-Breakers had forgotten. Indeed, Baba Yaga often told me that the Curse-Breakers of this day and age bitterly regretted that their predecessors had not included spells that bore fatal consequences as curses, also.

               These would do nicely for me. And once I had the words aligned, the work would all be in the casting. I wouldn’t even have to set foot in Astrum.

                 I flew with the rolled parchment in my beak, over the jagged roof of the forest, toward the gap in the mountains where the river ran. I carried Mordred’s book in a pouch in my claws. If he wanted it later, fine. He’d find me with it and I would give it to him. I wasn’t about to die over something so silly.

Silvery moonlight poured down over the pines, glistening against the white stones that dotted the foothills. My feathers rustled through the chill air. Fog hung in the wooded paths, shrouding the tiny villages that stood in the narrow clearings. I beat my wings and picked up my speed, arching higher and higher, swooping beneath the low clouds.

               At last, I spotted the low, jagged foothill of Mount Stell, the craggy peak that wreathed Astrum in its arms. This foothill rose up to half the mountain’s height, and overlooked a small valley, on the other side of which, at a great height, stood the castle.

               I plunged down, cutting through the frosty wind, swooped between the trees, flung out my wings…

               Transformed back to a human with a furious rush, and my booted feet struck the frost-covered stone of the Maven Overlook. The pouch with Mordred’s book tumbled to a stop next to me.

               Silence fell all around me. I took the parchment from my mouth and drew in a deep breath, then let it out. It clouded around my head in vapor. I cast a look around. Behind me stood the ruins of the Maven Watchtower, used long ago in the War of the Gemstones. Now it lay dead, its stones asunder and covered over in brown ivy and moss, the bones of its slain watchmen picked clean by the birds.

               Unmoved, I turned my gaze away from it, and down into the valley before me.

               Far, far across, clouded by mist, the face of Mount Solem arose like a great wall. In the depths of the valley, between Solem and Stell, like a great crack in the earth, wove the Sopor River, its edges frozen, trees crowding its banks. I traced the upward slant of the foothills of Stell with my sharp gaze, watching the ripples in the forest and the protrusions of the stones, until I found the Castle Astrum.

               There it stood, as if it had grown from the living stone of the mountain. Dozens of piercing towers, like arrows poised to launch to the heavens, their caps blue as sapphire, their stone white as snow. Balconies and arched corridors adorned its walls like lace, colored windows decorated it like jewelry. But all those windows lay dark, for none inside were awake, save the watchman—and I could glimpse his single torch from one of the tower tops, winking like the faraway eye of an owl.

               I smiled to myself.

               He would be the first to be surprised, then.

               I unrolled the parchment, glancing across my careful writing by the light of the moon. As I did, a snowflake landed upon my glove. I glanced up. The sky was clear, but the low-hanging mist had begun to crystalize, filling the air with a deep and intimate silence.

Read this book: https://www.amazon.com/Curse-Maker-Tale-Gwiddon-Crow-Curse-Breaker-ebook/dp/B07N7V3K4T/ref=pd_sbs_351_5/146-6363556-3395043?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B07N7V3K4T&pd_rd_r=51133e1c-5438-4cae-bec3-a817e25bb633&pd_rd_w=kiB1I&pd_rd_wg=f02WA&pf_rd_p=52b7592c-2dc9-4ac6-84d4-4bda6360045e&pf_rd_r=V09XKRH01FN9CDDVNS72&psc=1&refRID=V09XKRH01FN9CDDVNS72

[exetertrees]

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[monriatitans]

WORD OF THE DAY Monday, March 21, 2022 OED Word of the Day: wych elm, n. Any of several elms; (in later use) spec. the Eurasian species Ulmus glabra, which has broad leaves and spreading branches.

SENTENCE EXAMPLE "They drove down the lane, the dense scrub of witch elm and lime trees on either side of them." - 2011, P. Christopher Sword of Templars (e-book ed.) ix

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