Chapter Text
Philip stares into the horizon in order to look somewhere. A couple minutes ago, the sky was at least beautiful and there was something to watch. By now, it’s just become grey and dead. They’re going to be really late, and Mrs. Gurnall won’t be happy about it.
“He made the ultimate sacrifice so that there would be no more offerings,” Caleb proclaims with a mixture of reverence and absolute certainty, and for him, that is clearly the end of discussion.
Philip’s heard that line so many times that he can’t really question it. It would be silly, like arguing that grass isn’t green or the sun doesn’t set in the evening. Still, the phrasing is odd, and Philip has a nagging feeling that there’s something that makes Caleb’s argument irrelevant in this case. He just needs to pinpoint it. He hums, turning the mask in his hands for a while, feeling its comforting weight and the little cracks and notches that have become so familiar over the years. He doesn’t actually remember reaching for it. He could have sworn it was lying in the grass, safely tucked away from the mud when he last saw it.
It was found in some dirty alley. Turns out the idiot lost it again, of course he did, and he did so right before breaking into Philip’s mind. The scouts picked up the mask because he never returned for it, and that told Philip all he needed to know. He must start working on a new one as soon as he gets the galdorstone back.
Usually, out of all of the grimwalkers, this one reminded Philip of his brother the most. And yet, when Philip made the ground open up underneath its feet and it started falling down, desperately grasping at the sleeve of the human girl’s jacket, it was really difficult to refrain from chuckling. It’s not Philip’s fault that the discolored eyes were this comically wide, it should have worn the mask like it was told to. But perhaps Philip did need to see that thing’s absurd à rebours birth to remember what it was and where it came from.
“Offering and killing are different things,” now he says sagely. That’s it, isn’t it, that’s the thing that’s been bothering him. “You offer something of value, something that is precious. You know.” He tries to make a gesture that would convey what he’s trying to say, but words come quicker. They usually do. “Worthy of becoming an offering."
Caleb nods.
“Fine, so we’re not making offerings of this kind anymore,” Philip continues. "But that’s a completely different thing. Now you’re arguing that Christians are forbidden from killing.”
“Of course they are!" The older boy grimaces in annoyance and raises his voice momentarily. "Killing is bad. That's it. It's bad. It's not really such a complex idea, Pip.”
Philip does a reasonably good job at not showing how hurtful Caleb's tone was. “Even if it’s to eat?" he asks in his most neutrally inquisitive voice. It always works on Father Barrowe. "Survive? Or to save a life?”
“Uh—” Caleb scratches his scalp and examines what he finds under his fingernail carefully before he flicks it away.
“It’s different, you said so yourself.”
“Well, um. We’re still allowed to defend ourselves.”
“Christ didn’t,” Philip points out.
Surprisingly, his brother doesn't hesitate this time. “But he was allowed to," he retorts quickly. "That’s the entire point. He could have defended himself, and yet sacrificed himself willingly. That is what made it so special.”
Now it's Philip's turn to nod reluctantly. It’s something he’ll need to think over before he’s able to agree or disagree. At first glance, it does seem relevant, but so did the sentence about there no longer being a need for offerings. The wording might once again conceal some crucial piece of information.
It's not a problem. Philip is really good with words.
“But we’re allowed to defend ourselves,” Caleb carries on. “I… think?” There’s a note of uncertainty in his voice that makes the sentence sound like a question. “Certainly the others. The point is—” He pauses again, this time scrunching his eyebrows and looking even more confused than usual. “I have no idea what was the point,” he admits. “How did we even get here?”
“The worm,” Philip supplies gravely.
“Yes!” Caleb lowers his gaze to the things wriggling in the dirt and squints before hurriedly looking away. “See, no matter who or what, you can’t kill for no reason, Pip. And saving a life is the only reason there is.”
“Or when God demands a sacrifice.”
Caleb wavers again, but it seems he decided against bringing up the Good Book this time. “Was that why you hurt the worm, Pip?” he asks instead. “What kind of an offering was that?”
“Of course it wasn’t an offering!”
“Then what?” Caleb once again nudges the younger boy with a grin that is a bit too wide to seem natural. “So you were going to eat it, eh?” Another nudge. “Eh?”
“No,” Philip scoffs, this time unable to ignore the ridiculous claim. It’s not amusing at all. “I don’t eat worms.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely sure!” Philip raises his voice defensively before he catches himself doing that. He schools his features back into the seriousness the matter deserves. “Besides, we don’t kill just to eat.”
“Yes, apparently,” Caleb says, staring in the waning light at the squirming halves. For some reason, it sounds like a rebuke.
“It’s life,” Philip snorts, and yet, something in him hesitates for a second before he brings down the spade and cuts the thing in half. It gets buried quickly in the rapidly growing heap. If it keeps moving, he doesn’t see it.
The hole he’s managed to dig doesn’t look very stable. The walls of mud might collapse any moment, but he doesn’t really have the time to proceed carefully. It stopped raining some hour ago, which means the earth is still soft and pliant but no longer boiling. Even though the shovel should be entering the soil smoothly, Philip’s already exhausted. There’s mud everywhere, including his own brow, because for some unfathomable reason he’s decided to wipe off the sweat with his hand. No matter, this is the least of his worries. As for the coat, well. The coat was was ruined either way.
Thankfully, he doesn’t need to actually dig for that long, the grave turns out much shallower than it was supposed to be. How much is it? If he were to hazard a guess, he’d say four feet. Hardly enough to hide the body from wild animals, certainly not enough to keep it away from the things that crawl near the surface. It’s not that surprising, witches can’t do anything properly, and the burial wasn’t Christian anyway. It’s a miracle Caleb didn’t end up in an unmarked grave, though it probably wouldn’t make any difference at this point.
Still, Philip is panting from exertion by the time his spade finally collides with wood. The sound is more of a thump than a proper thud, but soon enough the hollow becomes full of noises when Philip tries to tear the lid off. The nails holding it in place are surprisingly sturdy, perhaps enchanted just to make his life a bit more difficult. He wouldn’t put it past the witch. Eventually, he gives up and just smashes the planks, the obscenities no longer muttered under his breath. He starts with furious blows, and only when the shovel gets stuck in the hole he’s just made and he’s wheezing for air, he comes to his senses. He needs to be more cautious. He could have smashed the ribcage to pieces, and what then? All he’d end up with would be a corpse desecrated even further, and a dispute never resolved.
Philip slowly dislodges the shovel and kneels down in order to make the crevice a bit larger. It’s difficult to avoid the splinters, and he has two of them stuck under his fingernails by the time he recoils at the sight of what’s inside the coffin. For a moment, there’s no angry muttering or yelling. He just retches, though he retains enough common sense to turn away and do it on the remaining planks. A bit of it gets on his shoes, though it’s not like they were clean before.
The grave is shallow and the coffin’s untight. What was he expecting, really? It’s a corpse. Of course it reeks. The earth hasn’t been gnawing on Caleb for long enough to leave just bones, clean, elegant and ready to wake. There are other things, unfortunately, and thus, the body is already alive, but not quite. It’s… moving.
These things might have their purpose, but Philip doesn’t enjoy watching them crawl. Frankly, it’s quite disgusting, and even looking at them squirm makes him gag at times. There’s just something naturally repulsive about them being blind, trying to find their way in the ground by touch, wriggling and making little nauseating movements that cause the soil to collapse and bog. These parasites are equally horrid when they crawl out, finally ripe, or when they cower in the middle of the throne room, trying to repent not because their conscience tells them it’s necessary but solely because they’re frightened of the punishment they justly deserve. Philip has learned to accept that shudder that goes down his spine at the sight of a hand sticking out of the plot. Revulsion is a human reflex, and there’s not much one can do about it. They serve their purpose, and that’s all that’s really important. Philip is careful not to step on them, at least when it’s not necessary. It’s not a matter of respect, as Caleb would probably have it, but rather of repugnance. If he touches them, he makes sure to be wearing gauntlets. Their masks help as well.
Caleb tended to keep his hands busy. Frankly, it should have been a good thing; one’s hands are never supposed to remain idle, and the Lord did not put us upon this Earth to laze around. And yet, Caleb used his hands not to plow or to build but to waste time on frivolities. Philip always felt guilty whenever he caught himself enjoying the sight of a new figure emerging from the piece of wood under his brother’s fingertips. The older boy hummed alien melodies when carving. Philip had never heard any of them at church, and that should had been enough of a warning that those were not songs that pleased the Lord.
Perhaps Caleb was destined to fall prey to magic from the very beginning. All of us carry the weight of original sin, but it certainly seems like some are more oblivious to the fact than others. Whatever Caleb did with the carving knife, it never seemed like toiling away, and the shapes he found in the pieces of wood might have been pretty, but they were never useful. Philip knows better than to repeat his brother’s mistakes. When he takes hold of a knife, he carves with purpose, and whatever he carves, is supposed to serve it. As long as those things do what they’re told, they’re allowed the air they consume and the space they soil. They have their place here, just like any other creature. Philip respects that, he’s a man of principle.
But Philip is also a practical man, and there are only so many attempts you can consider the last ones. By the time he becomes the Emperor, he has an entire system in place, growing them in threes because sooner or later, he’ll need a new one. It’s reasonable, and it is a bit embarrassing that it took Philip that long to come up with the solution. Nobody grows just one ear of wheat. Even if someone were certain that it was going to survive despite the wild birds, drought and weeds, even if it weren’t to wither away from sickness, it would never be enough. What is one ear in face of a hungry town? What is an ear in face of an entire race?
An ear is nothing. He can do it, and he knows that for a fact because he’s already done it. The parings of the first one are floating in the dish, and the amount of blood sloshing in it is surprisingly small. It feels like there should be more. Philip can’t take a good look, though, the dark spots occult almost everything in his sight. In this sorry state, it’s a miracle he’s managed not to set his hair on fire while trying to cauterize the wound.
It’s ridiculous. He’s made it this far. Half of his body is covered in glyphs he meticulously carved onto it, and an ear is nothing. Philip grits his teeth and starts over. I bless thee, Lord, because I grow, he says for what is probably the twelfth time today. Among thy trees, which in a row, to thee both fruit and order ow.
Ow is quite an accurate word. Philip was worried that he would hesitate because the shape of his auricles was the one thing that reminded him that the human realm wasn’t just a figment of his imagination. It used to be Philip’s last connection to a world that hasn’t been forsaken by the Lord. It’s understandable that he doesn’t want to transform his body even further, the curse has already done enough.
What Philip didn’t expect, however, was how pathetically reluctant to face the pain this body is. How long has it been stalling already? Ten minutes? An hour? The first ear is done, has been done for quite some time. Philip’s throat is probably sore from all that childish wailing he recalls. He can’t really tell, not when the sensation, if it even exist, is so unnoticeable.
Despite the ice glyph, half of his head appears to be on fire, even though the actual fire has been gone for at least half an hour. An eternity, to be honest. Philip examines the stub in the mirror. He’ll need that cleaned, though at the moment, he can’t bear to even prod at the ear with his finger for some reason. There’s a very noticeable notch from that time his hand slipped in all that blood, and it’s probably going to remain there. Philip focused on the tip of the auricle when trying to close the wound, and the other parts were left imperfect. The burnt flesh smells like meat prepared for a Sunday dinner. Philip supposes it makes quite a lot of sense.
There’s no point in delaying. He needs to take care of the other one before the body completely runs out of blood. It’s nothing. It’s just an ear, and he already knows he can do it. It’s the unknown and one’s own overactive imagination that make everything truly fearsome, and fear once confronted is fear already conquered. Philip watches his fingers tighten on the handle so hard the knuckles appear white. Strumpets mutilate themselves to wear earrings, don’t they? Yes, their ears are pierced in just one place, but the needle has to slowly and painstakingly go through the lobe, drawing blood and sullying Lord God’s image, and all of that pain they bear solely in the name of vanity. If a maness can suffer through it, so can Philip. Surely he can deal with slight disfigurement when the goal is so much more noble than a harlot’s.
He wills his hand to raise, and it does, but in the process, somehow the fingers let go of the handle. Now, the knife falls on the floor, narrowly missing Philip’s foot and getting wedged between two boards. He crouches and pulls it out, but he yanks at the hilt a bit too hard than it was necessary, and finds himself on his backside.
When thou dost greater judgments spare, and with thy knife but prune and pare, Philip intones as he grips the countertop and slowly pushes himself upwards. What’s next? Ah yes, ev’n fruitfull trees more fruitful are. As he brings the knife to his right ear, his suddenly uncooperative fingers tremble, but it’s not something that would warrant acknowledgement. He makes the first incision. In a perfect world, he would be able to deal with the matter with one smooth cut, but his digits are numb and his body flinches with a sharp and undignified cry. Once again, he’ll have to whittle away at the skin and gristle.
He gets rid of the excess flesh piece by piece, holding the lobe between his fingers and hoping he won’t cut off any of them on accident. He needs his hands intact. Perhaps the edge has become blunt over the years, but the cartilage is surprisingly unyielding. Philip will need to sharpen the knife really soon, otherwise he might as well just throw it away. Right now, he’s using it more like a saw, and every couple breaths his hand halts for no reason. The hilt is slippery with ichor and Philip’s grip is shamefully weak, and so the tool just slips out of his hand more than once. At one point, it falls into the bowl, and the dish’s contents not only splatter on Philip’s face but also land on the floor. He manages to collect most of the scraps, even the ones he found in the puddle of vomit, though he needs to get on his knees and feel for the pieces of flesh that got under the closet. He’ll have to scrub the floor properly later and find the missing bits before they start to smell. He allows himself a short reprieve of laughter at the sorry sight he must currently present, though the sounds rattling in his ribcage don’t really resemble anything human. How fitting.
He imagines his wheezing body standing back up, and after additional five minutes of prayer, it does. Such sharpnes shows the sweetest frend, Philip reminds it through the bile burning in its throat. Oh, so the throat does hurt a bit after all, he notes with mild surprise. Is that from the screaming or the gall? Perhaps it's the combination of these two. Such cuttings rather heal then rend, and he knows that already, but by the time he convinces the body to grab the knife and raise it again, the blood covering the side of his head has already turned into crust. Some of his hair got stuck to it.
He should have used scissors. Even shears would do. They’re not that hard to come by, and getting rid of hair with a knife is a ridiculous endeavor — especially when one wants to give the locks any shape whatsoever. The boy sits there, subject to his ministrations, staring straight ahead and unflinching. Only the way his jaw is set shows how tense he actually is. Good. Philip grabs his chin and applies just the smallest amount of pressure, merely a suggestion of it. Aaron obediently tilts his head to the side, and Philip proceeds to shorten the hairs around his ear.
The cut turns out asymmetrical, and the longer strand of hair falling onto the grimwalker’s forehead is nothing like Caleb's. Philip’s heart sinks at the sight, and not for the first time, he’s hit with the realization that the thing in front of him is just a faulty, soulless facsimile, a poor copyist’s work. He doesn’t show it its reflection in the mirror, but his expression must have been a clear enough indicator of disapproval because when the thing looks up, its ears twitch nervously and droop. Yet another reminder that it’s not human.
“Thank you, Master,” the vicious mockery of a person whispers, and like everything about it, its voice is wrong.
With enough attempts, however, Philip’s movements become smooth and well-practiced. In some cases, it’s those things’ constitution itself that makes his work easier, and the strand of hair just naturally curls in the expected manner. In other cases, it takes an amount of effort that is, frankly, absurd, but Philip’s intent on doing things right. A tool doesn’t need to be pretty, of course, but it should be properly maintained.
“Thank you, Philip,” the one who was told he was Philip’s younger brother says when it’s all done. He’s smart enough not to ask for a mirror.
“Thank you, Father,” says another. Admittedly, Philip got carried away that time.
“Thank you, sir,” says the one for whom Philip didn’t bother to come up with any backstory. It was a difficult period, and Philip had enough on his mind as it was.
Next one doesn’t say anything coherent during its last haircut, but it’s pardonable. It’s quite difficult to form words when one’s jugular looks like that. A shame, really — this time, Philip’s hand just slipped clumsily, and it was a foolish accident.
To its credit, the thing was told to sit still and it did until the very end. Philip taught it well, and that makes the loss even more severe. It was brand new. Philip can feel the annoyance tugging at his lips, watching months of work quite literally go down the drain. It’s really hard to come by a servant as obedient as this one, and the palistrom woods wane. No selkidomus has been seen near the shore for over a year. From that moment on, Philip makes sure to use scissors.
“Thank you, my liege,” says the first one Philip’s made right after becoming an Emperor, and it frowns at the sensation when the cowlick brushes against its eyebrow. Its facial expressions are a feat of incredible mimicry, and they could fool a lesser man into believing he’s looking at a human. Philip’s clearly getting better at what he’s doing.
“Thank you, Uncle,” says the one that looks the most like his ortet. The boy closes his dreadful red eyes while Philip pats his head. He could almost see Caleb in his creation, if not for the disfigured cheek. Had Caleb been wearing his hair in a manner that would cover his ears, perhaps, with a proper cut, this little project of Philip’s could have fooled him.
Perhaps it just requires a different kind of cut. Trimming such absurdly big ears into a round shape is a much easier endeavor than making normal ears pointy.
There’s that one time when Philip contemplates the idea for a minute too long. He forbids the boy from healing the wound. The notch is an important reminder that what Philip is looking at is still an unfinished project, like a tree that the gardener left in the middle of pruning and has yet to come back to. Perhaps he’ll get around to it at some point, though he’s not sure if it’s really worth it.
“We kill plants all the time,” he mutters.
Caleb lets out a bark of laughter, though Philip doesn’t respond in the same manner.
The older boy’s expression drops. “Oh, you’re serious?” he asks.
Philip nods.
“You can’t kill them. They’re plants!” Caleb protests. “They weren’t alive in the first place.”
“But you said Mr. Cawdrey’s crops were dying.”
“I did, didn’t I,” Caleb responds after a second too long.
“And you said the orchard back home was dead,” Philip reminds him.
“I didn’t mean that! I mean, yes, we can’t go back there, we don’t have anything to go back to. But it’s, well, desolate. You see, plants don’t really die. They just… “ Yet another pause. “Stop growing?”
“And they rot,” Philip supplies helpfully.
“Well, yes, after some time they do start to rot. Everything does.”
Hah! Here it is.
“You mean, like animals and people?” Pip points out triumphantly.
Caleb opens his mouth to respond, and then he closes it with a click. “Huh. Sneaky,” he finally admits. “But they don’t, you know.” A vague gesture. “They don’t move on their own.”
“Neither does a paralytic.”
The older boy lets out a groan and rolls his eyes.
“You really do have an answer to everything, eh, Pip?” he says in exasperation, as if it were a bad thing. “But surely you can see that there’s a difference between a person and a— a dumb plant. And whatever we do to plants, even if it’s killing, well.” Caleb shrugs. “We either eat them or use them to build shelter. So that the cold and the beasts don’t kill us.”
“We also use the wood for carving,” Philip protests.
“Yes, to worship the Lord and pay homage to him with our works. Some people do that to make their churches beautiful.”
“We don’t.”
The silence appears tense for some reason.
“Well, yes, we do things differently,” Caleb finally says, hesitant. “But we still have some carvings. You can’t make a proper crucifix without wood.” Now he picks up the pace. “And there wouldn’t be a cross in the first place if it weren’t for the wood! Can you imagine how terrible it would be if we were never redeemed?”
“You made me the mask,” Philip points out. “That wasn’t for the Lord.”
“But you like it!”
“I do,” Philip admits reluctantly. He puts the mask on, looking at his brother through the holes, and the feeling of wood against his face is somehow comforting. “But I’m consistent,” he adds because he’s recently learned the word and he’s been rolling it around his tongue like a piece of fruit, waiting for the right moment to say it. “It’s you who keeps saying we’re forbidden from killing.”
Caleb gives a nervous chuckle. “Do you hear yourself sometimes, Pip?”
“I do.”
“What child talks like that?”
“I do,” Philip repeats dully. Other children don’t like to talk to Philip that much, and he knows it. He just doesn’t know how to change it. If he wanted to, that is. They’re just children, what could Philip talk to them about? Hide and seek? Dolls? Philip would never play with dolls.
“We cut down the trees for the dead,” he says just to change the subject.
Cutting, by the way, is never easy. With the next one, Philip remembers to always use scissors, and he makes sure they’re properly sharpened. The pruning is a delicate, and yet hopeless matter. Philip needs to thread carefully when stepping into the plot and trying to get to the outstretched hand to get rid of the grotesque twigs that stubbornly keep growing back. If he just barged into the pit unceremoniously, he might crush the ribcage growing underneath his boots. Then he would need to start all over. Two mistakes like that is enough for Philip to learn his lesson, especially since one of those times the galdorstone was unsalvageable. The resources are becoming increasingly sparse, and Philip needs to proceed carefully.
Still, he can’t just give up on pruning, otherwise the thing that finally emerges will have leaves and flowers growing out of its fingers — not to mention that the number of fingers itself is going to be quite aberrant. When Philip clips the twigs and scrapes off their remains, the digits tend to twitch, almost as if the thing was able to feel his ministrations. It makes the task quite demanding, and more than once, he ends up with a grimwalker that, through no fault of Philip’s, misses fingers and is unable to carry out half of the tasks it was supposed to fulfill. It would be better for it to just remain buried in the shallow grave.
Caleb gives him a blank look.
“Caskets,” Philip clarifies. “We cut down the trees to make caskets. Who needs them?”
“The dead, Pip, you said so yourself. The dead need them.”
“So they’re more important dead than the trees are alive?”
Caleb shifts in his sit once again. He does that a lot today, his legs must be growing numb from those shoes. He usually doesn’t wear any, unless it’s Sunday. Philip wonders whether today Caleb was once again attempting to walk past Goody and make her notice him. His fascination with her doesn’t seem very pious. Neither does the girl, by the way.
“They need caskets,” the older boy just says.
“But do they really?” Philip insists. “Think about it. Do they need to be in a casket in order to wake? Will people who didn’t get a casket never be resurrected?”
“I don’t—“
“Because if that would be the case, every vile man would ask to be buried without a coffin so that he doesn’t go to hell, just stays dead.” Philip hears excitement at the discovery creep into his voice, but he’s with Caleb, so he doesn’t need to hide it. At least that much. “I’ve never heard of any Pope being buried without one. And Mr. Dent was also put in a casket.”
“You can’t just proclaim someone you don’t like vile, Pip!” Caleb objects, but without much conviction. Philip notices the boy’s hand traveling to the shoulder that had been stiff for months after the beating Mr. Dent gave them. “We’re not the ones to pass judgement. We don’t know what’s inside people.”
“In his case? Booze,” Philip mumbles bitterly.
Caleb doesn’t have the energy to protest. Everyone knew about Mr. Dent. They said that when he finally slipped and cracked his skull open, what leaked out smelled of spirit. The only mystery was where he was getting it from. Nobody could find his distillery — or, if they found it, they didn’t disclose its location.
“We just use caskets,” Caleb snaps, but his expression grows softer upon noticing how Philip’s shoulders stiffen. “There’s not that much to it, and Christ wasn’t put in one before he rose from the dead.”
“So they’re not necessary,” Philip insists.
“That’s just what we do, Pip. You know, to honor the dead just a bit. And so that we don’t have to watch them rot. Can you imagine what they start to look and, and smell like when the ground’s too frozen to bury the body for weeks? You bring it out, and sometimes it takes an entire winter to—“
Caleb pauses and clears his throat awkwardly. They both know. Philip’s brother probably much better, Philip was very little back then. But he does remember some things.
They just stare into the distance. The sun has settled a while ago, but it’s still not pitch dark.
Caleb is the first one to break the silence. “You spend a lot of time just… thinking, don’t you Pip.” It’s more of a statement than a question.
Philip nods. Caleb sighs again, and Philip doesn’t understand why it feels like he’s done something wrong. They stare into the distance some more, though they can’t see much.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s a man, an animal, or a plant. Life is sacred,” Caleb eventually says. “You just can’t kill things for no reason, Pip. It’s as simple as that.”
Philip rolls his eyes at the note of finality that’s entered his brother’s voice, but with the mask on, Caleb probably doesn’t notice.
“Christians kill only when it’s necessary. To eat, to defend themselves or others, to honor their dead. Only in those cases,” the older boy adds.
“Or when God orders them to do that,” Philip reminds him.
“Yes, or when God orders them to,” Caleb concedes. “But he really doesn’t do it that often as of late, you know.”
“Unless we’re talking about witches.”
“Yeeeees,” Caleb says after another long pause, and now he sounds funny. “Yes. When it’s really, really necessary. But that’s just defending ourselves, too, remember?”
“Because they’re a threat to society, our lives, and our eternal souls,” Philip recites dutifully.
Caleb gives him an approving smile, but in that dimming light, it looks strained. The shadows on his face make it look wrong. “Exactly,” he says.
It’s getting really cold now. When he starts speaking again, his words are hushed.
“So, when you think about it, Pip, it’s the people who feel threatened that say it has to be done. It’s not exactly like God himself is demanding witches as an offering nowadays.”
“Duh,” Philip says. “Nobody would want them as an offering.”
The older boy gives a sad little chuckle. “Just like earthworms, eh?”
Philip nods fervently. They need to be stomped on, though the problem with that is that then Philip would have to clean his shoes.
“But you know, Pip. You can’t rush to judgement like that. God has created everything for a reason. A worm might be disgusting, but so what? It serves a purpose. Our lives would be much harder without it.”
Caleb uses a tone that suggests he just said something profound, but Philip doesn’t really see that.
“Why?” he asks, trying hard to sound curious, not doubtful.
“They do all kinds of things!” Caleb responds cheerfully.
“What things?”
Caleb falters, and he does that so often that it’s becoming really hard to look up to him. “They, uh, help plants grow?” he offers, but there’s not that much conviction in what he’s saying. “They soften the soil.”
“How?”
“They, erm. Make tunnels?” he proposes. “Dig. They dig so that we don’t have to?”
It’s painfully obvious Caleb has no idea what he’s talking about.
Philip looks down. At this hour, everything is rapidly becoming just gray and fuzzy, but it’s still possible to see some things.
“So now there will be two of them digging,” he announces. “Look.”
The shapes are moving, albeit one of them more slowly.
“I don’t think that’s how worms work, Pip.”
But they apparently do.
They stare for a moment at the two halves that should be dead but refuse to stop squirming. It doesn’t make much sense. Perhaps this is how they breed? Bonnie once said that worms and mice were born out of dirt and filth, but maybe she was wrong. Women often are. Either way, it seems Philip didn’t take a life, he just made more of it. He briefly wonders what would have happened if he tried to turn the thing into thirds instead of halves.
“One of them will starve, eventually,” Caleb announces. “Now it has no mouth.”
“Do worms actually have mouths?” Philip asks doubtfully, and his brother just shrugs instead of giving him a proper answer.
They stall some more. None of them wants to go back home. It’s not really home, it’s cold and overcrowded at the same time, even though they have no right to complain. Had Mrs. Gurnall not taken them in, they wouldn’t have survived the first winter in Gravesfield. The longer they wait, the more angry she will be at them for being late.
One of the halves hasn’t moved for almost a minute now, but it’s not that important. If they hurry up, they can still make it before there’s no supper left.
It twitched a bit before it stopped. It was probably never really alive in the first place.
The excessive twitching, by the way, is the first sign Philip has to be wary of. If it happens without external stimuli and the digits start to bend on their own, it means that the thing might soon attempt to dig itself out of the ground. It's a good thing when Philip is in need of a new one, but there are times when he has to purposefully change the acidity of the soil to stop the wretched creature from emerging while the previous one is still in perfect working condition. Occasionally, instead of halting its development, the alteration causes the thing to just decay, and then Philip is left with no backup grimwalker and a plot that cannot be used for months, sometimes years before the corpse’s gone. He keeps those things shallow and makes sure the soil is warm enough for the vermin to do its work quickly. Even then, he needs to fish out the bones so that they don’t get tangled up with the new body and end up giving it additional limbs.
He did try a couple times to let the earth chew on the bones for long enough to get to the phosphorus. The ones like Aaron, Fredric, Albert, and Hunter, grown on remains of the failed attempts, tend to be stronger, yes. Even back in the human realm, the trees used to grow taller in the graveyards, and the flowers there were always lush. The grimwalkers from such plots are almost never malformed, and they’re indeed less likely to expire before they stop being useful. However, given the amount of time required for a specimen like that to grow, it’s not really worth it.
Even when Philip is in need of a new one, the moment when the hand starts twitching on its own is not a joyous occasion. First, the fingers bend, resembling claws. Then they form a fist, and at some point, the palm opens up again, as if reaching for something. The soil starts to pitch in numerous places, caving in, and it looks like the plot itself is breathing. The thing underneath starts out slowly, moving one limb after another, but soon it begins thrashing around. There were times when Philip could swear he’s heard muffled cries. After the soil has been made reasonably loose by the thing wriggling inside it and extrication becomes possible, Philip usually takes out a shovel and, with a heavy sigh, starts digging to speed things up a bit.
It never ceases to surprise him how heavy a shovel can be. He’s covered in sweat, and once again he wonders whether there’s something particularly unyielding about the soil in this hellish realm, or if he’s just a weakling despite his posture. They did make fun of him back in Gravesfield, but he was just a boy back then. Surely he’s manned up in the meantime. He’s managed to survive for years in here, after all. Yet, even when he goes against his better judgement and everything he’s been taught, using his left hand as the dominant one, the task is still difficult. The walls of Caleb’s shallow grave may collapse any time, and Philip is panting long before he sees the first worm and hesitates only for a second.