1. Kit #2
For the last four years, the residents of Forstford had tolerated my presence because I kept my head down, but this made the second time someone showed up looking for me.
The townspeople’s goodwill could only stretch so far.
If Penny raised a fuss, they could decide my skills in the forge weren’t worth the hassle of people chasing rumors and finding their way to my door.
Maybe it was time to move before that happened, before I lost everything again.
But the truth was, I liked this place. I liked this house with all its old charm and broken pieces; I liked the darkness of the evergreen forest beyond my back door; I liked the warmth of the summer sun as it streamed through the western windows and into my den; I liked the solitude and the quiet broken only by birdsong in the summer and the howl of coyotes on cold winter nights.
I didn’t look forward to having to leave and find someplace new.
I was tired of running.
The prospect of delving into my past, of unearthing the horrors I’d witnessed and the gruesome means by which the Bone Men did their work, turned my stomach. I’d spent so much time trying to forget that I couldn’t imagine trying to remember again.
So, I spent the rest of the day drunk. I couldn’t bear to think about all I’d seen as a child of the Bone Men and all that I’d been told I’d one day do, so I sought to numb myself with whiskey.
Unfortunately, the drink had the opposite effect, leaving me with less control of my mind while I drowned in memories I’d fought so long to bury.
I remembered standing in a graveyard on a balmy summer night while my father labored to dig up the soft, damp earth. I was a boy of seven, both hands clasped around the large brass ring atop a lantern, struggling to hold it aloft enough to aim the light where it was needed.
“A bit higher, Kit.” My father stood and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, leaving a streak of dirt in its wake. His smile was so ordinary, so disarming, that I did as I was told and held the light ever higher.
It felt like he toiled for ages before the shovel thumped against wood. He motioned for me to set the lantern down. “Help me lift it out. There’s a good lad.”
The two of us hefted the pine box from the dirt and eased it up the small wooden ramp we’d set into the foot of the grave. The stench wafting from the coffin was something that had taken years to get used to, but I barely noticed it anymore, even when the heat of the humid night intensified it.
This was life, and I was a good boy.
I did what I was told.
Once the coffin was out of the grave, my father let down the tailgate of our horse cart. “One more heave, Kit. Think you’ve got it in you?”
I’d have done anything he asked.
I nodded and moved around to the head of the box, lifting it with straining arms. My father bore most of the weight of the body within and guided our prize into the bed of the cart.
He closed and latched the tailgate, then brushed his hands together.
He grinned down at me, and I smiled back. I didn’t know any better then.
I passed many nights in a similar fashion and, as I grew older, my father expected more from me.
Soon, I was digging up graves myself, bringing in a body a week when there weren’t too many patrols in the graveyards.
When a town or ward got wise to what we were doing and dug up all the bodies to burn them, we moved on.
But not before picking through the ash pile and finding whatever bones survived the inferno.
I still scrubbed myself raw every time I washed, certain that some bit of ash or bone remained, ever a part of my skin from the dozens of bodies I prepared for the Bone Men.
Taking another swig of whiskey, I forced myself out of the house in a fruitless bid to escape my memories.
I stood for a time on the back porch, staring up at the towering pines and wishing the darkness beneath them would swallow me whole.
When it didn’t, I stumbled down the steps and into their shade.
No sun found its way through their dense boughs, and I shivered in the lingering chill.
If it were winter, I could wander off and let the cold take me.
I could die as much of a coward as I’d lived. No one would miss me.
A prickling feeling made me think there were eyes on me, but when I swung around, I couldn’t find the source. Penny was out there somewhere, biding his time to beg for my help again, I was sure of it. He’d said he wouldn’t let this go.
“You’re insane!” I shouted to the treetops. “Completely mad!” I took another swallow of whiskey and leaned heavily against the nearest trunk. “Maybe I am, too,” I added, much quieter.
I considered disappearing into the trees. I knew these woods better than anyone. Who was to say I couldn’t outwit that stupid boy and slip out from under his nose? He couldn’t follow me if he didn’t know where I was going. I could leave, settle someplace else, change my name…
But I liked my name. My mother had given me my name, and it was all I had left from her. Lucky for her, she died before my father took the Oaths and became a Bone Man, before he lost his mind and sold his soul to Eeus, before she could see her son go along with it for twelve years.
Before I could break her heart.
The sun sank toward the horizon, and I shivered in the shade of the evergreens. I went to take another swig of whiskey, but found I’d already drank it all. With a shout, I hurled the empty bottle at a tree trunk and watched in satisfaction as it shattered.
“Fuck you, Penny Oliver,” I spat, then slunk back inside.
Through some strength of will, or perhaps sheer stubbornness, I managed to build a fire in the den before full darkness fell.
Staring into it reminded me of the first of the Oaths that I was expected to take on my seventeenth birthday, of a night much like this one when I made my escape.
The brand on my chest throbbed with a phantom ache, an ever-present reminder of where I came from.
I pressed my right hand against it like it might disappear if I willed it away.
But it was always there, rough and raised beneath the fabric of my shirt.
It had been inked over years ago, but even disguised as something innocuous, there was no hiding what it was.
I’d sworn the moment the first of those hot irons touched my flesh that I would never be like my father.
I’d vowed to fight against the Bone Men in whatever capacity I could for as long as I lived.
But here I was, hiding in my house on a hill like a whipped dog, being asked to actively help someone else descend into the depths of that suffering.
Penny was a stranger, so I shouldn’t care what happened to him. Right?
I threw myself back on the couch and covered my face with my hands. “I’m too drunk for this,” I muttered. My mind reeled, thought after thought racing across the backs of my closed eyelids.
Curling on my side, I forced my mind to quiet as, despite the heat rolling out of the blazing fireplace, I dragged the furs from the back of the couch down on top of me. Sleep was the only thing that could help me now. In the morning, when things were clearer, I would consider my options.
With the comforting weight of the furs pressing me into the upholstery, I closed my eyes and let sleep take me.
I dreamt of fire and ash and bone. I dreamt of damnation.