Old Sephracott

“It was here where we camped, that last night.”

In the ruins of what had once been a village, supposedly flooded some centuries ago, abandoned thereafter for a site six miles away, a hamlet that absorbed the displaced people and became New Sephracott.

In the meantime, waterlogged, broken, Old Sephracott moldered and waited.

A hundred or more folk had died in an incomprehensible flash-flood. How can it not be haunted? But Kinsom and Dreok had camped here. And now, she and Kinsom would do the same.

The old hall or tavern had been built sturdily, and the two walls that survived seemed strong enough to keep out the weather – though Spring was blossoming all around, and the weather had settled into sun and the occasional drift of petals.

“Do you think the forest crept up and took you while you slept?”

“I don’t know,” Kinsom admitted, “I’m only a little bit less lost than you are. But I figure if we retrace our steps and we retrace our actions, maybe it’ll lead to what we’re looking for.”

To Dreok. Well, she hadn’t any better plan.

“But listen, that forest, it was a place of horrors. The truth is that I can’t remember it very clearly, the return to this world strips away so much of what you remember. But I remember that things tried to kill us. We were in danger. And I think… I think there were men, too, maybe wanders like we were, who took a step too far in the wrong direction. Or worse, locals, things born of the forest.”

“You’ve told me.”

“What I can. Fragments. But I don’t really know. Jadda, I don’t know if I can protect you in there.”

She fought the impulse to laugh at him. “You’ve brought me all this way. You came for me. And now, you tell me now that I won’t be safe?”

“I just… I just don’t want you to go in there unprepared.”

“I won’t. At least no more than you will.”

“If Dreok… if we meet him, and I’ve brought harm to his sister…”

“Ah.”

“And…” the pitch of his voice changed, it wavered a little, “just if I was to let you get hurt, or I got you killed… you see…”

“I’m not altogether helpless.”

“No. No, of course not. But if… it’d be too much.”

She reached and took both of his hands in hers. They were cold, rough with hard living. She supposed her own hands must be not-a-bit softer. “I would not have come this far if I wasn’t ready. Dreok is my brother. I belong here beside you. Maybe I’ll be the one to keep you safe.”

Kinsom struck the fire, fed it grass and sticks. He’d taken down a rabbit with a stone earlier that day. Now, skinned, it roasted over the flames.

“See,” Jadda said, “it has one head, two eyes, four legs and tail. We’re still within the ordinary forest for now.” She’d gathered some roots and herbs, which she stuffed into the rabbit’s belly. They had some ale left, and crunchy sticks of travel-bread. Coins still in their purses. It would all run out eventually, but not just yet.

“Still,” said Kinsom, “we must be close. And we’re out in the open. It’d be wise to sleep shifts. I’ll take the first watch if you like.”

“Suits me.” She told herself there was nothing to fear, just old, overgrown country, no witches or goblins or gangs of raving, hunger-maddened bandits. They’d come this far without being accosted. Jadda pulled the blanket up over her shoulder and turned towards the embers to sleep.

#

She was awakened by Kinsom, his hand fallen gently on her shoulder, his fingers against her mouth before she could speak.

“We have company,” he whispered.

Jadda stared into the night; she could see the figures, too far away to be anything more than darkness, but they were a darkness that moved, a different shade of darkness, a different texture.

Kinsom called out to them, “We are well armed. If you’ve come seeking trouble, you should seek it elsewhere.”

But the figures kept coming. Eerily, impossibly silent. And as they moved into the halo of the remaining firelight, Jadda saw the bone-whiteness of their skin, their hollow eyes, the grey-raggedness of them caught in the red-yellow of embers’light. She was looking at the dead.

Kinsom saw it in the same moment. His hands moved in the symbol of warding she’d heard people from the South made against such manifestations. Up at Lake Elfstan, the old folks used to say that if the dead took the inclination to walk, one should let them, it was dangerous to interfere, and a little rude. “Let them go where they will,” her grandmother had once told her, “They’ll take it badly if you don’t.”

Jadda reached for Kinsom’s arm.

He stared at her.

“Perhaps they mean no harm.”

“They’ll trap our souls and take them with us.”

“Not if we’re kind to them.”

Kinsom shook his head, uncertain, unconvinced. Had she ever hosted an army of the dead before? This is what his eyes asked her. For it did seem like an army. There were twenty or more of them, young and old, men, women, children. Over a hundred died in the flood. Were these the same waterlogged dead? Some were broken and gashed, with gaping, dry wounds. Some walked on twisted legs. Being swept away by the floodwater, battered against rocks and trees: it could do that readily enough.

Jadda wasn’t sure why she did this, but she reached one hand towards a girl a couple of years younger than she was. A thin, white creature with a split bottom lip and a mangled shoulder. Her hair had been ginger, though it was dirty now and time-faded. “You can join us if you want to.”

The dead came. One after the other. There were nearly thirty of them who came and sat around the fire. Jadda stoked it up to give it a bit of a flame while Kinsom watched her incredulously. The differences between West and South. Jadda held out small portions of rabbit for them to eat – though she was fairly sure the dead didn’t eat.

The girl, and a couple more, surprised her by taking hesitant bites.

How could they digest the food?

The girl made a sound. It wasn’t quite words, her throat had decayed too far for that, but it was more sound than Jadda thought she should be able to make.

Kinsom fingers twitched. He wanted to make his warding gestures. Holding them back burned in his chest. His hands played close to the fire, ready to grab up a piece of firewood to use as a burning brand should it be called for. The undead were supposed to be vulnerable to fire – wasn’t that what people said?

Jadda asked the girl, “Why aren’t you at rest?”

She shook her head sadly. A grating, gasping sound came out of her mouth, distorted further by the deep cut opening her bottom lip.

“You can’t tell me. Sorry. You can’t speak.”

The girl tried. Making gestures with her arms. But Jadda couldn’t understand. She doubted the girl had ever learned to write in life, and anyway, she didn’t know how to read.

“I wish I could call you something.”

The girl hesitated, before she reached out across the grass to touch the head of a thistle.

“Thistle? Truly?”

She nodded.

“It’s not your name. But I can call you that?”

Another nod.

A lad, maybe Jadda’s age, equally dead put a hand on the dead girl’s shoulder.

“Kin? Brother?”

He nodded.

“You died, in the flood, all those years ago?”

A hesitation, he nodded. The girl did too.

“Hundreds of years,” she realized they may not have been sure how much time passed. Did it pass the same way for the dead? “You’ve walked the world since then?”

Twin nods.

“Why can’t you rest?”

Sounds. Gestures. This was not a yes-or-no answer.

“Can we help you? Can we do anything?”

Shaken heads. The girl shrugged.

“You want peace? You want to rest?”

The girl shrugged. Her brother wouldn’t answer. He turned his head.

“You don’t?”

He wouldn’t look at her. He gazed up at the stars. Could the dead feel shame?

“But you can’t live.”

He answered by holding out a hand, gesturing towards a small hunk of bread, placing it inside his mouth, chewing. As if to say: could the dead do this? His sister watched him warily, then looked back at Jadda. Her face had no expression, it could no longer make such a thing. But Jadda still sensed fear and confusion, maybe shame, maybe a defiant little bud of determination.

What if the dead could learn to live again? What would that mean?

Finally, Kinsom found his voice. “Maybe you can help us,” there was a faint tremble there, as he addressed the dead – knowingly – for the first time.

Some of their heads turned his way.

“You know about the forest?  The other one? The cursed one?”

Nods. Some shied away a little.

“Can… the likes of you… go there?”

Most shrugged. Some shook their heads.

“Do you know the way?”

Most shrugged. Some turned their heads. A few pointed, but the directions were vague and contradictory.

He described Dreok. “Has anyone seen him?”

Jadda’s dead girl nodded.

“Where? When?”

She could only point.

“Years ago?”

She hesitated. Nodded.

“He went into the forest?”

Nod. Yes.

“Did you see him come out?”

Shrug. Maybe. Unsure.

“It’s important.”

Her shoulders lifted in an exaggerated shrug. There was something she wanted to say, something she tried to say with her arms, but it was something Jadda couldn’t understand.

“He’s my brother,” she explained.

The dead brother and sister held hands. Their skeletal fingers linked and curled. She moved a little closer to him, resting her head against his ribs.

“I need to find him. I know you understand.”

They did. But she could see they had no answer for her. Or if they had one, it was one she couldn’t understand. She turned to Kinsom, “We should get some sleep.”

His eyes became shocked circles. “We’ll never wake up.”

“We will. I promise.” Though how and why she thought she knew more than Kinsom, she couldn’t say. Maybe these dead would be eager to steal her life while she slept. But if they wanted it, she didn’t know how to keep it from them, awake or asleep.

Kinsom doubted her. He said so with his eyes, with every muscle on his face. But he lay down reluctantly, pillowing his head in the crook of one of his arms.

Jadda curled up. She felt warm. Sleep came easily.

In the morning there was no sign of the dead. They’d crept away in the night, leaving nothing of themselves, not even footprints, not a bent blade of grass or a disrupted stone. As if they’d never been there, at least not in the flesh. But she turned her head to a blur of purple that caught her eye. A thistle-head, plucked, and laid next to her forehead.

 

Picture credit/discredit: author's own work