The Power of Clasped Hands, Part One

I:

The boy stopped at the crossroads and looked around him for any sign of civilization. A single fence post stared back, upright and alone.

He kept looking. Behind the signpost, the old inn he’d heard about revealed itself to be four vine-covered walls and a pile of debris. The little closet chapel beside it was burnt ashes. He picked through them with his bare toes, staining them black. Nothing of the altar remained.

Bereft of better options, he returned to the lone fence post. He took a breath, then dropped to his knees in the freezing mud. He clasped his hands over his chest and commenced praying to a fence post.

“Oh, whoever is listening, please give me strength to find my sister and save her from whatever evil is taken here.” He repeated this over and over under his breath. Mud soaked into his trousers and stole the feeling everywhere from his knees to his bare toes. The fence post, alone but still bearing the notches where it had once been part of a fence, watched silently.

“Oh, whoever is listening please point me to my sister. She only went off to get help for me and has committed no crime deserving of death. Please reward this act of good.” The only warmth he had left was his fingers where his breath blew hot on them before condensing into mist before his eyes. A few paces away, gnats spun until they dropped one by one to the cold. The sun fell towards the twisted fingers of dead trees waiting to catch it.

“Oh, whoever is listening keep her safe until I- “

A hand gripped his shoulder. He jumped up in surprise and stared into a pair of deep brown, worrying eyes.

“What art thy doing out here all high-lone? tis not a safe lodging for a child to beest cometh nightfall,” a soft and sleek voice like a new linen sheet said. The boy stared up at her, mute with surprise. The woman before him held herself so tall and confidently he instantly believed her to be nobility. A look at her clothes confirmed it. She had a long brown skirt and faded pink jacket with puffy sleeves, all of which was fraying a bit but had no obvious rends and seams, or stains that had been scratched halfway out. She wore her hair pulled back in a bandanna, and he could see a few grey hairs amidst her deep brown.

This noblewoman knelt into the mud beside him, and sighed as the weight came off her feet. “Child, prithee bid me what art thee doing out here praying?”

It took him a minute to untangle what she was saying from the strange old dialogue. She was talking so smooth he just understood what she meant. “I want to find my sister,” he said, and bowed his head out of respect. She was sure to have guards around. A thought occurred that if he could move her to pity, she’d find it in her heart to aid him. “She went to the old witch in the meadows, Grennel, to bargain with her for food or work because we are starving. It has been two days, and she hasn’t returned.” He wondered how long it took to wash mud from regal finery. His mother had labored for hours on washing day, just to clean his dear old trousers and shirt.

“Thy sister, what doest the lady appear liketh?” she said.

“Her name’s Kyria. She’s taller than me and has bright red trousers and red stockings.”

“Red is an expensive dye for such urchins,” she said.

“She got the trousers and stockings from our manor lord’s youngest son who died. He was sweet for her. She’s always trying to scrub them clean and it’s kind of funny sometimes. She always cuts her hair above her neck, so she can pretend to be a boy when we’re in towns and other boys will leave her alone,” he said.

An apple appeared before his eyes, clutched in a bare hand too smooth to have ever done real work. It was red as the rising sun and damp with mildew. He snatched it up and bit into it with a deep, dry crunch. He couldn’t remember eating something so sweet and whole. They’d always had barley, barley cakes, barley oatmeal, and salted pork. Apples were for First Year’s Day only.

When he’d gnawed it down to the seeds, she pulled it from his hands and tossed it over her shoulder. They’d saved the seeds back home, and planted apple trees in the village fields. Some had grown, and he and every other kid in the village had pretended every sapling was their own. “What’s thy name, lief child?” she said.

He was still hungry. The apple had been a drop in his belly. “Briya after my grandfather,” he said. “What’s yours?”

She drew a fresh bran cake from her back. This one was golden with honey and had bits of pork baked into it. When he got to the pork, he found it wasn’t salted, but cooked in some other way far better than salting and drying.

“Wherest thy parents?” she said.

“They died a winter past during the great blizzard on Nord’s day. The snow just came and never stopped,” he said. The memories ached in his belly, doubling the pains of hunger. The snow hadn’t killed them all, it had just made them starve and forced them to huddle on their straw mattresses as the roof sagged. Then it made everyone else hungry and…

She rewarded him with a second golden brown cake. When he was done with that, the hunger had finally faded. He hoped he didn’t get a bellyache.

Then she produced a white handkerchief and rubbed his hands clean. Only when that was done did she take them in her own. Hers were warm despite not having gloves, and soft despite being a strong grip.

“Anon which way is this hag?” she said.

“Why?” he said. Secretly he hoped she was the witch, and his sister was nearby.

“We needeth to find thy sister, mine own sweet child,” she said. His heart raced for a moment at success, but he tamped it down.

“Are you the witch and you’re just toying with me?” he said. He really hoped she was. She was beautiful and sweet as his own mother had been in her happiest days, and surely she’d have taken care of his sister.

She burst into giggles and her pale cheeks took on a ruddy hue. “Nay I’m not, thy imagination goeth far as any child’s. Anon come on.” She stood and pulled him up with her. Then bent low and pressed a dry, warm kiss to his forehead.

 He blinked, unsure of what to respond to a kiss by such a regal woman. However, his spirits were crushed. His beloved sister was far away, and the real witch was still out there, probably old and terrifying. He realized she was staring at him, eyes wide with concern. So, he squeezed her hands and kissed them both. “That’s a sweet child. We’ll bringeth her back, promise.”

With that, they set off. Three roads intersected at the lone fence post. The two more travelled ones stretched into the dead fields towards the half-empty towns he’d wandered between for months now. The third took them into a forest of shivering trees. Half were dead now and decaying. The rest had a few orange leaves still clinging to their branches. Vast piles of rotting red and brown lay at their trunks and crunched when he stamped on them.

Briya noticed this lady wore fine boots of leather that poked out from under her skirt as she walked. They made the leaf piles squish loudly and wetly beneath. Atop such finery she strode like a noble should; proud and tall, no hunger to bow her over and weaken her. All he could do was scamper to keep up.

Till they came to a thick old trunk that had fallen across the road and begun to rot. Briya scampered up it, then perched atop. “Here,” he said and offered his hand.

She grinned as she took his hand. He pulled, and she swung both legs up and over. Then grabbed him and put him on the ground. Briya had thought himself large and coming out of his childhood years. Being carried like that was as disappointing as it was touching.

“I thanketh thee, child,” she said and squeezed his hand.

“Of course, My Lady,” he said, and they resumed. The sun sank low.

“Will we stop for nightfall?” he said.

“Shouldst we?” she answered.

“No.” They didn’t slow.

“Do thy hail from about these parts?” she said.

“No. My sister and I have been wandering in search of food. Sometimes inn keepers let us sweep the floor for bread and barley,” he said. “Where are you from?”

“Far hence.”

“Where are your guards?” he said.

“Excuse me?” she said and laughed again.

“Your bodyguards!” he insisted. “You are a wealthy noble woman are you not? Do you not need bodyguards when traveling?”

“I never wouldst,” she said. Then the trees fell away.

“What about the highway menacers and the monsters?” he said.

“Do not worry about mineth skin. I made it this far to thee, didst I not?”

To that he could only concur. And he wondered how she’d defend herself until the trees suddenly ended and the orange evening sun shined through.

Blue water wound before them. Between it, fields of impossible brown wild grass. Green pines reached for the sky. The road crossed a footbridge and followed the shore. Rocks poked out of the water and formed little ripples in the meandering current. “The people at the last village told us we could find Grennel in a meadow, we’re almost here!” he said.

Then the smell hit him. He squeezed his eyes shut and they watered, stinging beneath his eyelids. The smell rolled down his throat so hard he could taste it.

Rotten eggs.

“What is that?” he said.

“Thy smell it too?” she said.

He nodded furiously.

“Indeed, it doesn’t smelleth right for such a fine place. It smells like rotting death and the final resting place of too many lost souls.”

Unsure of how to handle the poetry, he just said, “no it doesn’t.” He opened his eyes and looked about. Where was the smell of fine grass seed, and damp earth? He walked to the water’s edge, knelt, and sniffed. The smell sent him right back to his feet. “Swamps smell like that.”

“Tis not a swamp though,” she said. “Unless.”

“Unless what?” he said.

“Bethink about it.  Behold 'round and findeth something that’s missing,” she said, sweeping her arm out and across the horizon. She dipped her head and smiled at him. “You’ll find it.”

He did, scanning the water and the ground. “It’s too still. There should be squirrels and frogs and turtles; we’re not at winter yet. They’d all be out finding their last bits of food before hibernation.”

“Keepeth going.”

He looked down at the water, which smelled so foul. Then realized, despite it being so shallow he couldn’t see the bottom. He knelt, and, pulling his collar up over his nose, studied it closer. Something white sat within it. A ring, an eyesocket and below it, a whole jawbone with teeth.

Death was nothing new to him. His two younger sisters had died in infancy. His village lord had had seven living children and six dead. Then the village had vanished into that winter night, so this skull was nothing new. It was just another lost soul.

A lost soul shouldn’t be in such a beautiful place. Something flickered in the puddle.

“You’re seeing it now, what’s missing?” the noblewoman said gently. She’d knelt over him.

This place was too pure to have someone lying forgotten. He thought about hiking away from the dead village with his sister. They’d smeared themselves in pigs fat to keep out the cold. He remembered taking a last look back and seeing the ruins already fading into the snowfall.

The lovely prairie faded into the sunset. He rubbed his eyes, and panicked that he was going blind, or the witch was casting some spell to rob his eyesight.

“Nay, thee didst it. Thee only needeth to find a loose edge and pull. Open thy eyes,” she said.

He did so, and stared into the dead, black swamp water. The skull remained, and now he saw the thin lines of buried ribs under his feet. He looked up. There was only bare dirt and black water. Dead trees sprouted like black, rotting fence posts from the banks and within the water. The road itself crossed a half-sunken footbridge before winding over this desolate terrain, its cobblestones half buried or removed entirely.

“She went in there,” he said with simple dread. This was clearly the witch’s home. What if the swamp kept out intruders? He didn’t know what magic could do. Had Kyria even made it to Grennel’s house? Would he find her bloating in the water, drifting just below the surface? Fear spiraled as he imagined who would be waiting on that dead ground once the sun set.

“Courage, for we wilt follow her footsteps,” the lady said.

He nodded, teeth beginning to chatter. He stepped right at the edge. Black water licked his bare feet.

“Wait.” She pulled him back and he stared into the murk for some monster she’d doubtless seen. Instead, she unfurled her cape and rummaged around inside. Briya stepped around to get a look at whatever goodies she had, but she turned away to shield it with her body. “I chanced upon these shoes in an abandoned inn. I was going to make a gift to someone at which hour I returned home, but thee will useth these most gallantly here.” She pulled a pair of heavy brown boots from her bag. “Elevate thy foot.”

He did. They fit a bit loose, but she plucked all the laces out into great loops, then tightened them up. “It is good your feet are great for your age,” she said. They did the other. He walked forwards. They were already broken in and did not pinch.

The trail was easier now. It climbed a small hill and stayed there with the water festering on either side. Brown grass reached for them with grasping fingers full of rot. Among them buzzed the last mosquitos of summer.

As the sun reached the horizon, it did not glow orange. The water remained black as the sky darkened. The road faded into the dirt around it and Briya slowed to one long, carefully measured step after another.

He looked back up at her, and she was just as confused, but staring ahead. “You need to look down at the ground to see. Water is smooth, and ground isn’t.”

“Hath thee spent a lot of timeth out at night with the menac'rs?” she said and bent forwards to look over his shoulder.

“I’ve definitely been out more than you. Night is when birds are sleeping in their nest, so you can get the momma bird and the eggs,” he said. “It’s quite easy to,” he said and took a step forwards.

He splashed into the water and yanked his foot back just as fast. His cheeks burned the frost right off as he realized his navigational error. Then he saw flat darkness all around and embarrassment turned to panic. “I’m lost,” he said dumbly. He stepped back and his heel hit cold water. So he stepped forwards again and they remained on their little spot of known solid ground.

“We could hike up our rainments and wade through,” she said.

“We don’t know how deep it is. I had a friend once, whose da and brother vanished into a bog. Went out for clams like any other day and were gone,” he said.

“Well then we art in needeth of a guiding light,” she said.

There was no light to be had, so Briya stuck a foot at the edge of the water and walked a slow circle, feeling with his new shoes until they hit dry land. “This way My Lady,” he said and led her on.

Except it didn’t feel right to his half-blind eyes. They’d walked side by side until now, and now they had to walk single file with him holding one arm behind his back to keep hold of her hand. He squeezed that ever tighter, sure that if he let go, she’d be lost in the dark, and then the two of them would be stuck out here and stranded until either dawn came or they surely fell in and drowned. He squeezed even tighter. She adjusted her grip and pulled her thumb over his, locking them in place.

His boot hit water and plunged straight through.

“No!” He stumbled with a splash, then was yanked back hard by his elbows. He landed on shore with one leg soaked up to his knee. Her arms draped around him and held him close.

“Stop, child” she whispered in his ear.

He nodded.

“Listen.” An arm vanished from his back, and she heard rummaging. “Take these two rocks. Strike them together and think of fire.”

She came back with two smooth, perfectly round stones. He took them and stared, confused.

“We need kindling. Or they’ll just generate a spark and vanish,” he said.

“We needeth no such things. Strike them together,” she said and clasped her hands over his belly.

He twisted and looked straight up into her eyes. In the darkness her whites and irises had gone dark as her pupils, and her eyes were bottomless pits. He stared into them for a long breath, until he pulled himself away. “You’ve never lit a fire before. When you strike two flints together you need something for the spark to land on and burn,” he said.

“Not these,” she said. He wondered if she were insane, or a witch and he’d walked right into her clutches.

“Where’s my sister?” he said.

“I’m not a witch or I’d have taken mine own walking house and did ride to Grennel’s,” she said. Then she hugged him ever closer and kissed his forehead again. “Now, please, strike them together and think of light”

Kyria would be laughing at him now. Did you forget something? He heard her say. Are you just making sparks for a lark my silly little brother?

He struck them with a crack to raise the drowned dead. A spark burst and vanished so quick he saw nothing.

“Thee didn’t think of fire,” she said and tutted.

He imagined sitting around the oven in their old home, warming himself with the last logs. Something about that warmth had felt special, knowing he’d probably freeze after that. No, he needed something happier. He changed it to him and Kyria in the noblewoman’s mysterious arms and wrapped in her fine cloak. He struck them and white fire burst from both. He dropped them with a cry of terror, but she caught both in one hand. They sat there, throwing off ghostly light into the bog, piercing dark air and water alike.

Not believing his luck, he took one in each hand and held them up. The land had shrunk away during the night. The road was a strip of mud to his left. At the water’s edge, he looked down and saw the bottomless black depths.

“How deep is it now?” he said.

“Don’t worry about yond because we won’t fall in. Let’s keepeth going,” she said.

“Okay. Take one and hold it. I’m not letting go of you,” he said.

“Of course,” she said.

So, they doubled back until they found the road, and then continued forwards.

“The tide wilt hath cometh in, that’s where the landeth went,” she said.

“What’s a tide?” he said, keeping his eyes firmly on the narrow route he walked.

“At which hour the moon is high, twice a full day, the ocean rises.  At which hour tis low, twice a full day, it falls,” she said.

“What if a witch fixes the moon overhead and the ocean never stops rising?” he said.

To which she giggled. It was like the end keys of a piano being danced on by slim fingers. “The water wilt floweth from somewhere else on this world. If it be truth it hath kept rising here, it wouldst keep falling where there’s daylight.”

“What if it rises enough to cover the road?” he said.

“It won’t.”

He didn’t know if that was a false reassurance for him, as the child, or if she somehow knew. He only knew the path and the hope that his sister wasn’t lying dead in the water, waiting for his light to find her. And that someone monstrous was waiting at the end, who could make a his sister vanish.

Then something large and square emerged from the shadows far ahead. They stopped, then, gathering their courage, crept forwards. A square porch emerged from the darkness, a swing hanging unused from its ceiling. Behind it emerged a massive house of stone and rotted boards, with towers reaching into the sky. It wasn’t like any manor house he’d ever seen, for instead of a thatched roof it had wood bars. The towers reminded him of a castle.

He found the front door amidst the rotted columns. It hung ajar. The windows all around had lost their glass and become gaping voids that his light vanished into.

“She’s in there, I think,” she said.

“Has to be. I don’t bethink this an illusion,” he said. He squinted inside and saw only darkness. The night was dark, but this darkness seemed to pour out from between the cracks in the dried, shrunken wooden boards. It seemed to swallow his light when he waved it around. Everything screamed death to him.

“Nay. Forsooth not.”

“What kind of witch would live in that?”

“One who cares about more arcane things than her worldly comforts,” she said. “I also know you’re posing questions just to stall for time.”

“Yeah. I’m scared.”

“Courage, sweet boy,” she said. “We still need to go in there and get Kyria.”

Briya swallowed hard and gulped down foul bog air. The house seemed larger every time he looked away and back. So, he stared right at the front door and walked forwards. The porch creaked under his feet.

He slipped around the door without touching the frame. “Hello?” he said.

His light flickered and died, and he was staring into a void.

“Hello?” he said again. “Kyria?”

An orange light glowed in the darkness. From the dim glow he saw the lines of floorboards and wallboards pointed inwards, vanishing into the depths of the manor house. On one side he saw an end table. Then a necklace glinted gold. He squinted, distracted for a moment by the jewels sitting out there, freshly polished. He realized this was no mirage and no trap. There was no security protecting such generous jewels, so this had to be Grennel’s home.

“Who’s stamping in my home? What can I do for ye?” an ancient voice crackled like ice shattering under his feet. The light wavered and climbed. Stairs creaked somewhere in the guts of that ancient and decaying house, and Briya froze.

“I said, who goes there? State yeself for disturbing an old widow.” It was a woman’s, he realized.

“I want my sister,” he said. That sounded pathetic. His voice squeaked too. “I’m here to find my sister. She came looking for,”

“A bargain, is it?” She came into view.  He was looking at a scarecrow of stick and bone. One hand hoisted a lantern aloft while the other reached for him with fingers like claws. Her dress was a linen grey with a white apron, like his mother war. It was so familiar it nearly abated his fear. “Have you come into my depths to find something ye’d give everything for?”