Absence: Whispers and Shadow

by J. B. Forsyth

  Ormis held his gaze and spoke to him with calm authority. ‘You are?’

  ‘Al Hivlak, the village blacksmith.’

  ‘Tell me Al. What business is it of yours what I do with my charges? I wouldn’t think to question the workings of your forge.’

  ‘She killed my brother! Ain’t that reason enough? Tore his throat out right in front of his lady wife!’ His eyes bulged and spittle flew over his tremulous lip. He was a man shattered by his grief and held together by the prospect of retribution. ‘And now, as we wait for you to bring her in, the lad here tells us he’s seen you saunter out of the woods like you was all fresh from a picnic!’ Behind him a small boy pushed back between two men so that only his face peered out. It was the same boy Kye saw jumping a fence and running towards town. ‘We thought maybe he’d bumped his head or something; but here you are with the truth of it for all to see!’

  ‘I am sorry for your loss. But there is work left to do and it won’t get done while I’m standing idle in the street.’

  Al stood fast. ‘And the miller’s hand: Bill’s lad,’ he said flicking his head at Kye. ‘Did you find him with her?’

  ‘The village will be fully informed of the facts once we are in possession of them.’

  ‘I might have known he was involved. It was his sister’s shade that ran us off her trail last night.’

  ‘Step aside blacksmith. I can see you want this resolved as quickly as I do.’

  ‘What work have you to do?’ Al said, lifting his arms in exasperation. ‘She’s a cold blooded killer. There’s plenty here’ll give testimony to that. She’s a killer and a witch and she should burn for what she’s done!’

  Kye looked sideways at Della. Her glazed eyes were down cast, staring into the dirt. If she was scared, her face knew nothing of it.

  ‘Enough!’ snapped Ormis. The irritation that had been burrowing under his composure finally got a hold of his tongue. ‘Go home before your mouth gets you into real trouble. Allegations of witchcraft are outlawed and witch burnings punishable by death.’ He turned to another man in the crowd who Kye recognised as the warden. ‘Are the cells ready?’ The man nodded. ‘Then open them up.’ The man hesitated, looking to Al and then back to Ormis before finally hurrying off with a jangling of keys. Ormis brought his attention back to the blacksmith. ‘Come on now. Stand aside.’

  Al finally gave way and along with a number of men that stood around him, opened up for them. Ormis led the others through the breach and many of them shrank back further as Della came amongst them. But as Della came within three feet of the blacksmith he spoke to her through a snarl of teeth - low enough to keep the exorcist from hearing. ‘You’ll burn before the day is out.’ Then after draining his nose in one mucousy snort he spat into her eye.

  This Ormis did hear.

  He whirled, striking the blacksmith’s nose with a dull crack and sending him staggering into the crowd. He tripped over his feet and fell onto the street in a puff of dust, blood gushing from his nose. ‘I should gaol you right now!’ Ormis said, stepping over him. ‘But in losing your brother I think you’ve lost a piece of your mind. You’ve reached the limits of reasonable leniency and I’ll allow you no further. Get off this street now or you’ll be spending the night in the cells.’

  Kye’s blood had been slowly boiling with the way the blacksmith was talking about Della. But seeing him spit into her face was more than he could stand and his nature wouldn’t allow him to be a bystander to such injustice. He saw Ormis deliver the blow the man deserved, but he couldn’t understand why he hadn’t spoken a single word in her defence. ‘Why don’t you tell them!?’ he bawled. ‘She didn’t kill anyone. It was a monster that did it. A monster from the wilderness that stole her face.’

  The crowd looked at them with bare faced surprise. Al drew a sleeve across his bloody nose and pushed himself to his feet. His eyes were watering and his nose dripping blood onto his shirt.

  ‘I saw it with my own eyes,’ Kye told him. ‘It changed its face to look like her and it even changed its body to look like a tree.’

  Al looked at Ormis. ‘You believe this horseshit exorcist?’ And when Ormis didn’t answer him, ‘You do don’t you? That’s why you don’t bind her.’

  Ormis braced himself. He knew how the boy’s words would be received the second they were out. And more importantly he knew what path they would take them down. ‘There’s some truth in the boy’s words. We found a creature bearing a remarkable similarity to the girl, but you are rid of it now. Its body lies in the woods where it was slain. If it will help convince you of this girl’s innocence, I’ll have it brought before you once the Caliste has done with it.’

  A stunned quiet fell across the crowd.

  Al wiped some more blood from his nose and flicked it onto the ground. ‘I know what you think of us country folk…You think we’ve naught but chicken feed between our ears. But this!’ He laughed insanely. ‘Did you really think we’d swallow this fairy-tale?’ His eyes suddenly widened in understanding. ‘She got to you,’ he said in a low voice before turning to the rest of them. ‘She’s got a hold on his mind. Listen to the man. The proof is in his words.’ There were gasps from the crowd and some of them backed away.

  Kring took a step towards the blacksmith, but Ormis stuck out a restraining arm. ‘Granted, it’s an extraordinary story, but the boy speaks the truth. When the creature is brought to town, you will see for yourself.’

  ‘Tell me this then exorcist,’ Al said, gesturing wildly at Della. ‘Where’s her crutch? And how come she walks so well without it. She came to us as a cripple; hobbling round town with that crutch and puffing and grimacing as if she were about to collapse.’

  Another man spoke up from behind his left shoulder. He was well dressed and was the owner of a hooked nose that dominated his face. ‘My daughter warned me about her, though I’m ashamed to say I didn’t believe her at the time. She said the girl tried to smash her head in with her crutch. Likely would have if Lady Demia hadn’t stopped her. Could be why she killed her after school. I’ve been asking around and it turns out she was last out yesterday.’

  Ormis’s eyes tightened.

  ‘Ah! You didn’t know these things did you exorcist?’ Al said. ‘She deceived us and now she deceives you… We’re not moving from here until we see justice done.’

  ‘Justice Blacksmith? Justice of the sort that would satisfy you and this pack of blood hounds? I don’t think so. But if you want to persist in your cause we could start with justice for a man who was slain on his own stoop last night. Do you want to tell me about what happened up at that house and what your part was in it?’ Al paled. ‘Or shall we skip such trivialities as inquiry and testimony? I expect you’d prefer a judgement right now – out here in the street with only my gut feeling to guide me. Afterward I could have Kring here string you up to the nearest tree. He could do it you know. I reckon he could even hold you up in the air while he fastened the rope. Five minutes from now it could all be over.’ He turned to Kring. ‘Do we have a length?’

  ‘In the wagon,’ Kring said, looking at Al as though weighing him with his eyes. ‘I could rig something up.’

  Al said nothing. The change in focus had cooled his fire and robbed him of his tongue.

  ‘Just as I thought,’ said Ormis. ‘Not in such a hurry for justice now are you? The girl is entitled to a fair hearing and if found to be in breach of the law, she will be punished within it. Extend to her the same rights you would beg for yourself if Kring were to get that rope… Go now. Get off this street before you regret it.’ Al glowered at Ormis and with a puff of contempt stalked away towards the village square. ‘The rest of you as well,’ he said to the crowd. ‘Go back to work. Your families are safe now.’

  Ormis led Kye and Della into the holdings, leaving Kring to supervise their dispersal. The warden met them at the door, took them down a cool hallway and through a second iron studded door into the rear of the building. Two cells waited for them and the iron door
of each was standing open to receive them. The warden stopped at the first and gestured for Della to enter. As she walked past him, Kye couldn’t help noticing the way he averted his eyes from her and the nervous way he pulled the door shut once she was in. When it clanked into its frame he inserted his key, turning it in the lock with a trembling hand.

  ‘Everything alright warden?’ asked Ormis.

  The warden turned away and stepped to the next cell, jingling through his keys. ‘I’m fine,’ he replied. ‘Just a little tired… It was a long night.’

  ‘The village has suffered a great loss. But they will all see reason soon enough.’

  ‘I’m sure they will,’ the warden replied, but his eyes remained fixed on the floor - as if he didn’t dare look at him.

  ‘In you go boy,’ said Ormis waving Kye into the cell. ‘I’ll be back to talk with you shortly.’

  Kye stepped through into the dim space and the door clanged shut behind him.

  Half Truths

  Della stared at the wall, rubbing the last of the blacksmith’s spittle out of her eye. The people outside wanted to burn her; but she didn’t care. Her uncle was dead and if they got their way, she didn’t think she would even feel the flames.

  Last night was the worst of her life. Her uncle’s murder had torn her heart out and she had spent the whole night wringing it out. Some essential part of her had passed away with him and now she was diminished and numb. And terrible though it was, she got a sense that it was only the beginning. Her grief was lying dormant in the yawning cavity her heart once occupied - a huge black lump she had yet to drain.

  Ormis would return soon and the questions would begin. When she saw Kye being scoured she had panicked, knowing the same would be done to her as soon as she climbed down from the tree house. She had always feared to be scoured. Not just because the experience was rumoured to be unpleasant, but because there was a risk of the exorcists discovering her secret. And if that happened, she would spend the rest of her life in the dungeons of the Caliste, enduring all manner of torture and misery.

  The scour at the tree house had been inescapable, but while she was watching Ormis press his fingers into Kye’s face, the shadow’s consciousness merged with hers and she felt its fear just as keenly as her own. But its stirrings gave her hope. She thought the exorcist would find the shadow with his scour and that this distraction might blind him to any anomalies in her soul that would arouse his suspicion. But to her dismay, he didn’t find it. As the exorcist reached for her face the shadow stitched itself into her soul like black thread, leaving not even a single loose end to flutter in his scour. It had been as if it had known what Ormis was going to do and how to hide from him.

  She had been thinking about telling the exorcist what she carried and provoking the shadow when he scoured her again. But she had decided against it. If he discovered it himself, she could play the innocent victim of a possession. But if she alerted him to the shadow’s presence and invited him to scour her again, he would suspect her of being a spirit lure. He would purge the shadow; but once he was done, she would be thoroughly interrogated and subjected to a much deeper scour. So the best thing to do was to be patient and hope he tried again.

  In the meantime, she had to be careful not to be caught in Absence. It would be easier now, because without the poison to appease, it was no longer a daily necessity. But when she was very tired or emotional, there was always the chance of an involuntary slip.

  The last time this happened she was with some friends, listening to a group of talented musicians in a sunny field. There was a drummer, a fiddler and a young man whose voice was as sweet as a songbird’s. Laid back in the grass and propped up on her elbows she had given herself over to his song - letting her soul be lifted and lowered like a cork bobbing on the ripples of a lake. And then it just happened. His beguiling melody took a sweet upturn in pitch and she simply followed it, rising out of herself like a snake charmed from a basket. Her body collapsed and her head thumped the ground. The spell broke, but not before her friends began rallying around her. She had blamed the sun that day; telling them that she had simply fainted with the heat. They believed her alright, but if an exorcist had seen the way she collapsed, he would have been more than a little curious.

  The sound of jangling keys brought her back into the room. The door swung open and Ormis stepped inside. He went straight to the table and sat, gesturing her over. With great reluctance she shuffled over and slumped down in a chair opposite him.

  ‘I’m sorry about what happened out there. Your friend’s outburst was foolish, but he was right. The conclusions they have drawn about you are false and you do not deserve such coarse treatment.’ He had adopted a new tone: an awkward attempt at softness that was at odds with his rigidity. ‘They will see it differently when we have that creature brought before them.’

  ‘Where’s my uncle?’

  There was a flash of compassion deep in the back of his eyes – a spark glimpsed through a frosted window. ‘Of course… Forgive me. His body was spared the blaze. We had him brought back into town.’

  ‘Can I see him?’

  ‘You can. But not right now. You’ve seen how the people are outside.’

  She nodded her understanding.

  ‘And Kye. What will happen to him? He was only trying to help.’

  ‘I’m not certain yet. But after today, he will no longer be welcome in the village.’

  So she had ruined his life as well. When he offered to hide her last night, she should have kept running.

  ‘There are some things I need to ask you. I know it will be hard for you right now, but this is very important. The quicker we’re through, the sooner you can get some rest. The monster is dead, but there are still a number of things that aren’t clear to me.’ He paused as if to consider his words. ‘Did you kill anybody back at the village?’ It sounded like a way in - a hand shake of a question.

  ‘No. That thing did.’

  ‘Good. I believe you.’ He smiled, removed his hat and placed it on the table. Della thought either smiling didn’t suit him or it was a rare arrangement of his face. ‘I’ve never seen such a creature before. Its ability to replicate your face is extraordinary and I am at a loss to understand it… And if I hadn’t seen it for myself, I would have said it was impossible.’ His eyes roamed over her face as if he were once more marvelling at the monster’s likeness to her. ‘We think it came from the wilderness. And if that’s true it must have found a way over the mountains. There might be others and there could be more killings in the days to come. So you must see why it is important to answer my questions as honestly as you can.’ She nodded solemnly. ‘When did you first encounter it?’

  ‘After school. Two days ago.’

  ‘Go on,’ he said, his eyes focusing with an intensity that was hard to look at.

  ‘It was just standing there in the lane as I rounded a bend,’ she lied. ‘It looked different then; like a scarecrow made of grass. I didn’t think it was alive so I went up and touched it. But it grabbed me.’ She could see his mind working behind his eyes, each scrap of information being laid out in his head for easy cross reference. ‘Its face started to change and I pulled free and ran home.’ It was a half-truth and it ran easily off her tongue.

  ‘You ran?’ he said, raising his eyebrows. ‘The villagers were insistent you had a limp and that you walked with a crutch.’

  ‘I did. I was bitten by a snake when I was young and the poison has been in my leg ever since. I dropped it when it grabbed me and when I broke free my leg didn’t hurt anymore.’

  Ormis straightened. He brought his hands together on the table and interlocked his fingers. There was a long silence between them as he studied her. ‘You struggled free of it? An incredible feat for one as slight as you. Whatever that thing was, it was strong. It even broke Kring into a sweat.’

  As his words dissolved into the room she looked away and shrugged. ‘Changing might have weakened it.’

  ‘What ha
ppened after that?’

  ‘I ran home and told my uncle. He went out to track it, but lost it when it went into the river. We agreed it would seem strange for my limp to disappear overnight and decided the best thing to do was to fake it until we could think of an explanation.’

  ‘What happened yesterday?’

  ‘I went to school and when my uncle picked me up he told me there’d been some killings. We assumed it was the monster and when we saw torches on the lane last, we guessed someone had seen its face and drawn the wrong conclusion.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘We were going to run away,’ she said through a lump in her throat. ‘But he hurt his ankle on the back stoop and had to stay behind… You know the rest.’

  There was a bang on the door and the exorcist’s face twitched with irritation. ‘Come.’

  The door swung open and Kring ducked under its arch. ‘We’ve got a problem outside. I think you should come and see.’

  Ormis twisted his hat back on and stood. ‘We’ll talk again later,’ he said, then he whirled away and strode from the cell, slamming the iron door behind him.

  Mill Sacks

  Ormis followed Kring outside and was pleased to find the street deserted. For the most part he thought the girl was telling the truth. But her tale, he suspected, was blotched with ink and had more than a few pages missing. What concerned him more though, was the girl herself. Her scour ran pure, but the bond holding her soul to her body had felt loose. So loose, he could have pulled it free with the gentlest of draws. There was no precedent for this as far as he knew and his best guess was that it was some residual effect of her contact with the monster. He wanted to scour her again, but with only his curiosity to justify it, he had decided to wait. When he got back to Irongate he would ask the High Exorcist to take a look at her.