Epilogue
first light
stars
stone moving under stone
He lifts the latch and slips the bolts. The door sticks at first, swollen from the damp.
Run-off slips down the eaves, past the moss and last summer’s nests, dripping into the water butt, slow, steady.
He takes a pitcher, dips it, tips his head back and pours, scrubbing at the tangles of his hair, running a critical palm over his stubbled jaw.
Ekk pads out to join him, long-legged and stiff in the dawn chill.
He scratches behind the dog’s ears, chucks a brindled jaw.
The charms in the garden tinkle brightly in a skittish breeze.
He reties a few, leaves Ekk to piss on the graves of slow rabbits, then returns inside and sets a fire in the stove.
He adjusts the flowers by the windows, brushes their pollen on a trouser leg, and rubs a little under his gums, humming merrily.
Leaves thrown in the pot, followed by the slow hiss of water forced upwards, lively and dark.
A gift from the Grey Towers by the sea. He looks at the tin, then sets it down; busies himself by chopping meat, blunts the cleaver on bone, strops it, renders a gamey leg down into manageable chunks.
It’s half-gone, but Ekk doesn’t mind. The clap of his bowl on the flagstones brings him lolling in, damp from morning dew.
With a thump on his generous ribs the old dog sets to.
He watches Ekk eat as he pours the brew, sips it left-handed, absently working arms into shirt sleeves, lacing up, and rubbing aching calves.
A quiet morning. The soft clack of the chimes outside.
A strong smell of herbs as the sun hits the pots on the sill.
He finishes, washes his plate and Ekk’s, then sets them by the sink. Brushes, spits; a little blood.
Heading out back, he checks the pens and the garden, straightens a few stakes, soothes the broodies on their boxes, turns the new plot with a fork. Spits more blood into the earth, straightens.
The highlands are turning bone and blue with flowers, Elsta’s Folly and Slipwort starting to show.
All worth gathering, if he has time. He rubs fingers over his jaw again, sets his eyes to the horizon.
Turning slowly in a circle, he takes in the bowl of the sky, kissed by the mountains to the south, stretching out north and west until it meets the first distant spires.
He watches the light play on them for a while, shifting their marble bodies, their sundered edges.
Heading inside, he sets himself carefully opposite a large, lacquered cabinet, and reads.
Histories, fantasies, some that are neither and both.
He thumbs familiar pages, bent corners, recites the lines in his head before he reads them, savouring the rhythm of it, resting a hand on Ekk’s long skull.
The chimes tap against each other, against the bent and bowered staves in the garden and the sun stretches across the boards.
He watches it make its way, until it toes the cabinet’s corners, then raises his eyebrows expectantly – as if on command, the thing inside wakes almost immediately, throwing itself against the doors.
He makes a note in a ledger, under many other notes, then closes it.
Ekk watches him wide-eyed, flat-eared, a low rumble in his long ribs.
He murmurs reassuringly as he crosses to the lacquered doors, setting his fingers against the shifting panels, close enough that he can feel the vibration of the thing’s rage through the wood.
His fingers stray towards the lock, to the deep scratches around the keyhole.
A soft warning growl from Ekk.
He smiles, moves his hand consolingly.
The dog grumbles, whines, quiets.
The thing inside the cabinet throbs, its stench escaping between the joins, spice and sugar, lemon and copper.
He thumbs his gums anxiously, and replaces his fingers on the panels, pressing in swift, precise rhythms, his fingers a blur.
Tortoiseshell, amethyst, cat bone, flint.
The polished squares retreat under his touch.
Eventually, the thing inside quiets. He backs away, falls into his chair, takes Ekk’s head in his lap, strokes his soft ears and shivers.
A gust picks the chimes outside, drags them against the walls and each other. His head scurries with sound. When it fades, the usual peace doesn’t return.
Ekk’s ears perk, his spine stiffens.
Footsteps on the path, and voices behind them.
He shares a quick look with the dog, who returns it stolidly.
It’s easy enough to set himself by the door jamb, the rough knots of the wood a comfort against his spine.
He runs his fingers over his unshaven jaw again, drums the frame and squints down the path.
There are more of them coming than he thought, and they’re in a bad way.
A ragged mob of men and women, children, thin babies.
A pair of old women at their head, etched like ghosts against the sky.
Hand in hand they come, singing so quietly and hoarsely that he only hears it as they draw close.
Next to them a young man, his hair a dandelion-shock, his face spattered and muddy, bandages and bloody scarves wrapped around his throat.
Leaning on another fellow with his arm in a sling, a wood-cutter’s axe at his hip.
His face torn and lined with pain. Behind them the rest, maybe forty, fifty more, he can’t be sure.
Young and old, tired and injured. And tattooed, with red and black geometrics spiralling over arms, shoulders, legs.
He feels faintly queasy looking at them.
It takes a little while for them to draw near, stumbling over every rock and tussock. Meanwhile, he thumbs his gums, keeping a wary hand on Ekk’s neck. The charms chuck and rattle against the low fussing of the hens in the backyard.
When they gain the first steps up to the cottage, he calls out. ‘That’s far enough.’
The group draws closer.
He feels Ekk’s hackles rise and scratches him soothingly. ‘Far enough, I said.’
The old women ignore him, but the young men glance up the path. The bearded one calls out. ‘We need water. And a place to stop.’ A wave of an arm. ‘We have injured.’
He sucks his teeth, shouts back. ‘No one stops here. Move on.’
The air hangs still for a moment. He watches the young man look to his axe and weigh his chances, wondering what he sees.
He shakes his head ever so slightly and it’s then that he feels it in the back of his brain.
That bastard itch. Years without, and here, staring at this ragged pair, he feels it. That bastard itch. Curiosity.
He calls out. ‘Where you from?’
The young man winces. ‘Thell.’
A pause. The chimes, the chickens, the flowers in the high fields.
‘It’s gone.’
When the young man says it, a wail goes up. A collective shudder of sorrow that he feels in his teeth.
The Lockwatcher runs pinched fingers over his temples.
‘Fuck me. You better come up then.’