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Thwack.
…
Thwack.
…
Thwack.
Following the sound of chopping wood, someone rattled their way through the makeshift door, pausing in their entrance when it scraped against the floor. The man’s boots – for the occupant of the house could now tell it to be a man – fell heavy on splintered boards. A boy, previously asleep inside, sat up in his bed, letting the rough woolen sheets fall to the side.
“Oh, Hawkin! Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t, the wood chopping outside did.”
“Ah, oh, well, we should deal with the firewood later in the day, then.”
“You don’t have to do that, Father. I’ve said you can wake me in the morning to help out,” he said as he rose from bed to drape the sheets back over.
“I know, I just suppose I should let you have your rest, what with how much we have you travel to the village.”
“Really, it’s not a bother to me.”
“Well, if you insist. Speaking of which, I was trying to see who can take the cart over there today. We need a few things…”
“I can.”
“Yes, yes! I know, but you see… Err, that is, Mathila has offered as well.”
There was always some debate about who to send into the village. The boys were less likely to find favorable deals, but the girls were less likely to return.
“Send her, then, if it suits us better.”
“Not better, but-”
“I’ll go, yes?”
“That will do fine.”
“What have we to trade, then?”
“The cart is already loaded; you can set out when you’re ready.”
“I’ll leave soon.”
In a leisurely amount of time, Hawkin dressed in thicker clothes, more fit for the trek through the woods than the thin set he slept in, and found his way outside to the clearing his meager community was nestled into. A fire sat at the center, encircled by the no-more-than-a-dozen buildings that composed the majority of their relatively-isolated life. Most were houses for one, with room for a bed and some personal possessions. There was a storehouse for food, larger than it needed to be for the amount it contained, and a coop with a small flock of chickens ambling around it. Towards the edge of the glade, by the pond from which they drew their water, a small field of wheat grew.
A man whose body seemed mismatched, with his greying hair and strong build, waved. “Morn, ‘awkin!”
“Good morning, Wymond.”
“Haw!”
Hawkin turned to the girl who’d called him. “Hey, Mattie!”
“Your father said you’re going into town today?”
“Yep.”
“You’re sure? I mean, I can if-”
“You know I don’t mind.”
“I know, yeah, but…”
“But?”
“I don’t know,” she sighed. “Doesn’t it ever… worry you?”
“Not particularly? The village folk don’t trouble us.”
“But Chekov-”
“That old loon? He’s odd, sure, but harmless.”
She pursed her lips. “You don’t have as much to fear as I do…”
“I suppose I don’t.” He ruffled her hair, pushing her darker-than-typical black locks into her face. “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.”
“You know I hate it when you do that.”
“That’s a lie and you know it.”
“But- really though! You’ll-?”
“-be fine, yes.”
She swept the hair from her face and breathed deeply. “Okay, I believe you.” She paused for a moment and looked away, as if to find what she wanted to say. But, finding nothing, “Ah, well, I’ve got to help Sairey with the knitting. Safe travels!” was all she said before running off.
The central fire was beginning to wane from inattention, as everyone else had already finished their morning cooking. Hawkin added a new log to the crackling pile and looked around for - “Marion!” - who attended to the chickens.
“Oy, Hawkin! G’morrow.”
“Would you mind bringing me a few eggs?”
“Ha’en’t you looked at the cart? There’s a pile of ‘em right near ya.”
Indeed, resting beside the house Hawkin shared with his father was the cart they take into town, and a pail of eggs nestled in straw at its top.
“Thanks!”
He picked four, scrambling two of them into a pan and leaving the others boiling in the pot above the fire. As he ate, a chicken pecked at the dirt near his feet, occasionally looking ahead and clucking. It dashed off at the chicken equivalent of a jog when he stood to ladle the eggs from the pot. Haw carefully wrapped them up in a small cloth sack and tucked them in his pocket for later in the day. He found his father to inquire on what exactly he was to get.
“Fabric, mostly – wool, nothing fancy,” his father said. “Meat and milk if they’ve any to spare.”
And with that, Hawkin was off. The trek into town followed a path, if you could even call it that – every so often, the woodsfolk had to beat back the foliage with a sickle as they walked it. There was no gravel or any cobble to mark it, and it was dirt only because the trees forbid grass to grow. The hour-or-so trip wasn’t particularly easy, but it was peaceful. For the woodsfolk, the little sunlight that trickled through the trees felt perfectly safe, and it was what lay beyond the woods that was foreign.
The trees began to thin as Hawkin walked uphill, signaling his imminent return to the world proper. Here, before one could see the sun as more than droplets of light, the manor came into view. It sat looking down at the valley from the tallest hill, silently maintaining its vantage and elegant in a way none dared dream of.
Farther along, as the sun was regaining its shape, came the next landmark: the strikingly inelegant smell of pickled kipper marking Chekov’s home – called a house by the generous and a shack by the pragmatic. It was ramshackle and dilapidated; Haw remembered living like that once, a long time ago, and even then, there was hope for something better. Chekov had nothing of the sort. At present, the man himself was nowhere to be found. Likely off in the woods, hunting some poor animal, its meat destined to be a meal and its bones destined to become another carving lining the splintered windowsill. He was treated as a pariah by the townsfolk, because he was one.
The path became a street a ways past Chekov’s hut, and the steeple of the village church came into view over the hill. It was impressive in its depressiveness, the whole structure built from grey cracked stone. Scaffolding of rotting wood rested against one side, having never been taken down after it outlived its usefulness. The whole town felt like that in a way – as if its time had long passed, but no one cared to take the final act. Hawkin’s cart rattled against the paving stones, sending uncomfortable shocks through his arm with every significant bump. Fortunately, his destination wasn’t far now, as the rest of the town appeared when he crested the hill.
Rather quickly as Haw dragged the cart through the town, its wooden wheels ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunking against the ground, he noticed that the villagers were not in high spirits. They were already despondent by nature, living under the constant knowledge that they were debt-bound to the crumbling, cobbled streets. (The debt was a farce, of course – little more than a sick joke from the lord in the hilltop manor, but the price for calling his bluff was gruesome.) Today, though, they seemed fully entranced with their misery. Some women averted their eyes, some men glared, and the rest floated by as though mere spirits.
Hawkin ka-thunked his way to the village center, just outside the dreary church, where he found the merchant stalls more empty than usual. Only one was occupied, the man behind it leaning against a bag of wool, intently tracking Haw’s approach.
“Aftern’,” the lone vendor said.
“Um, hello. You’ve just the one bag?”
“S’all.” He looked at the cart. “And you’ve eggs?”
“And a trifle of wheat.” Haw moved the pail of eggs and lifted the small bag of wheat to the stand.
“I see. The wheat and, say, a dozen eggs?”
They shook on the deal. Haw placed the wool and remaining eggs into his cart, and the man the dozen into a small box from behind the stand.
Just before turning to go, Hawkin’s curiosity took hold – though he would later justify it as legitimate concern – and he asked, “Is, uh- has something happened?”
The man sighed and laid his hands flat against the stall as he leaned over it. “Look, boy, we all know you’re not from around here, but could you at least act like it?”
“I’m sorry, I just-”
“The lord is dead.”
“Oh.” His eyes wandered anxiously for a moment, taking in the seemingly-forgotten, significantly-dilapidated buildings. “What does that mean for…?”
“For us? He’s without child, so I s’pose the lady will inherit it all,” the man said, gesturing around, “but as for us, we’ve no idea.”
“… I see.”
“Do you?”
Haw had no answer to this, so he bid the man farewell and returned home with the news.
For several days after, all seemed well. Sairey was pleased with the quality of the wool, and Mathila helped her spin it into wonderful yarn – no small feat given the age of their spinning wheel. A few days after, Marion had even gone into town to trade away one of the chickens – it had fallen ill and was nearly too weak to walk, and certainly too weak to lay eggs, so it was now only good for meat. She didn’t have the heart to slaughter it herself, but still came back teary-eyed from knowing the bird’s fate. In return, she brought nothing of particular interest – some milk and the inconsequential bit of news that the lady of the manor was already engaged to a lord of much greater wealth than her recently deceased husband.
About a week after his last visit, Hawkin ventured to the town again. He had asked his father if there was any need to go, and his father had found one – trading more eggs and a surplus of berries Wymond had found while out chopping wood – but not without questioning Haw’s enthusiasm.
“You seem eager.”
“Just trying to be helpful.” In reality, he was anxious to find out more about the late lord.
“Right, then. Be safe.”
The trek through the woods passed uneventfully, and the rest of the journey to the town nearly as much so, save for the detail that a ragged cloth hung inside Chekov’s hut, blocking the window. The small bone carvings were still visible on the windowsill, and the smell was as present as ever.
Entering town, Haw had barely dragged his cart past two buildings before he was stopped.
“I’d advise you go no further, boy.” It was the wool merchant from a couple weeks prior.
Hawkin froze, fearfully staring wide-eyed at the man. “Wh- why?”
“Nothing you’ve done – least I assume not. One of our girls has gone missing. An outsider walking through now, well… don’t seem wise.”
He was speechless for a moment, still frozen, before stammering, “Th- that’s awful. I’m so sorry. Thank you for the warning, sir.”
“The name’s Hammond.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hammond. I’m Hawkin.” Haw stuck out his hand and they shook. “I’ll- I’ll be praying for you all.” It seemed fit enough as consolation.
Hammond looked to the dilapidated steeple of the church and took a deep breath. “Reckon it’ll work?”
“I… don’t know.”
Turning back to Haw, he said, “Don’t you worry ‘bout that, it’s between us and Him. ‘Preciate your concern.”
“Of course,” Haw replied, and that was that. Cart unchanged, he set out for home, wading through the scent of kipper and dropping back into the twilight of the woods.
The air seemed stiff around the fire when this new development came to light. Sympathizing with the tragedy was easy enough – it had happened to them as well, after all. Comprehending it, however, proved more difficult. Sure, they knew of their girls going missing, but those of the village? Nothing of the sort had happened before. Mattie gripped Hawkin’s hand tightly after he finished telling them of this, and he hardly spoke for the rest of the night.
Understandably, they were wary to send anyone else into town. Not just because Haw was stopped – it was clear that in Hammond they had something of an ally in the town – but because the ever-present thought that one of them may be lost was more present than ever. If the town could not even protect the townsfolk, what hope did it have of protecting outsiders?
At a certain point, no more than a few days, it occurred to them that, hidden away in the woods as they were, they would never know if or when it would be safe to venture out again without first doing so. And that’s why Hawkin was sent out once again, with no cart – completely empty-handed, save for a sickle hung from his belt, which had no use at the time beyond as a charm to cast out his fear. As he exited the forest, the manor glowed brightly in the sun, and Chekov’s hut sat in desperate opposition to it – elegance to squalor, sunlight to darkness, perhaps the two most different places in the world, he thought, and so close as well.
Hawkin heard the town before he saw it, the unusual commotion of shouting rattling over the hilltop. He felt it would be best to freeze, to stop, not to intrude and to write the town off as a lost cause – he and the rest of the woodsfolk would get by on their own just fine, after all – the town provided some nice-to-haves, but in the forest they could do without, after all. These thoughts occurred to him, made sense to him, but were not compelling enough to stop him; morbid curiosity won out against any concept of safety. He was sprinting now, desperate to close the last bit of space, desperate to witness what could have woken this somber community. His feet hurt with the impact against the cobbles, but he could not be slowed.
And then, he saw. Reaching the town center, a lifeless corridor just a couple weeks prior, he found what had to be most of the townsfolk gathered, chanting, screaming at the spectacle, with the church’s crumbling steeple standing guard.
“Bastard!”
“Freak!”
“Kill him!”
“Demon!”
“Kill him!”
“Kill him!”
“Kill him!”
There, against the street lay Chekov, his grey hair stained red with blood, half his limbs bent at disconcerting angles, bruises anywhere there wasn’t a wound. Worst of all, the crowd’s demand had not been answered: he was alive, desperately dragging at the ground but without moving anywhere.
On the other side of this brutal arena, Hawkin saw Hammond, and their eyes met. One word was mouthed – perhaps “stay” or “wait.” It was unclear, but from it, Haw knew he would understand before long.
A man ran from the crowd, his steps on the cobbles seeming to echo out louder than the shouting, and there was one final, sickening crack as he brought a metal pole down to meet Chekov’s head.
The pariah was dead.
The grisly spectacle over and the mob satisfied with their work, the center began to clear. Blood pooled on the pavement, filling the cracks of the cobble, until the corpse, too, was empty. Someone would retrieve it and the rain would take away the blood, but a death by the church doors was the closest to a funeral it would ever get.
Hammond made a distinct effort to walk a path as far from the body as possible. “Well, boy, it seems you’re welcome here again.” His tone betrayed his disturbance with the whole event in a way his words did not.
Haw had no words, only questions. “What the hell happened?”
“Seems He was watching out for us after all, the sick bastard. Come, sit.”
Together, they walked the perimeter of the town center and sat on the church steps, taking in its view.
“It was Chekov who took our girl away. Took another, too, last night. He must’ve gotten confident after the first, or maybe Tilly’s too much for him… anyways, she, Tilly, that is, came runnin’ back in the morn, and that mob was at his door ‘fore long. Reckon people’d be leaving town if Tilly hadn’t come back.” Hammond paused for a moment. “Reckon he’d’ve been drawn and quartered, if we still had horses…”
His questions taken and his words still absent, Haw said nothing. The two of them sat silently until enough time had passed that the sight of a dead man grew old. Haw excused himself and Hammond bid him farewell. As he was stepping off the final stair of the church, Hammond imparted one last thought.
“Be glad you’re not one of us.”
Hawkin nodded, and had vanished into the woods beyond the empty, rancid hut before long.
He dropped his blade from his belt as soon as he returned to the clearing and half-hugged half-fell into Mathila with his first site of her. None dared venture out into the town after Haw’s tale – the danger had perished, but the fear lived on. The removal of the town from their life came with some inconveniences, with Sairey complaining, “We’ll have to get sheep, where are we to get sheep?” and with Haw’s father waking him for chores; but life continued on, and the sense of dread passed them by.
And then, just as the anxiety lifted and they felt as though they were breathing fully once again, the smoke rolled in. Puffs in the sky, at first – odd, but of no particular concern. It was only when it crept into their glade as thick sheets that the worry set in. Were the woods on fire, their home would be under siege by the flames before anything could be done.
Rather shaken, but outwardly stoic, Hawkin determined to set out and find the source for himself. He refused to believe their life was under threat, and he intended to return with a report that they were in no danger. Foolish as it may be, no one could talk him out of this, and after great effort trying, Mathila resolved that, if he were going, she was going with him. Walking against the direction of the wind, they left, heading in the direction of the manor town.
“You don’t think it’s the forest?” Mattie questioned, after a while.
“What would have started it?” Haw said, trying to convince himself as well as her.
“What else would it be?”
“I don’t know.” In truth, they both had the same answer, but thought it to be ridiculous.
The smoke thickened the farther they walked, making talking more and more painful, so they fell into silence as they pulled their shirts up to their noses in a bid for fresher air. Eventually, they found the woods to be thinning, but the smoke was not and its source was still out of sight.
And so, they continued past the late Chekov’s shack until the path turned to cobble. The spot on the horizon where the steeple should be was clouded with smoke, but the town came into view – in a way – as they crested the hill. Rather than looking down upon a tired town, it was vibrant with twisted excitement, the only thing visible being flames lapping at ruined buildings. As they stood in shocked horror, a figure emerged from the cloud of smoke at the foot of the hill.
Mathila spotted it first. “Look!”
Clearly a person, it was running up towards them, away from the inferno. As it got closer, it became apparent that it was a man, carrying something, and closer still, that that something was a child. The smoke-obscured shadow, if it had noticed them, was unable to make any indication of the sort, but kept with its approach until he, coughing and panting, put down his burden – a girl no older than 12 – at their feet and collapsed on the ground beside her.
Hawkin recognized the man, something he could not say about the rest of the village, and he spoke, his voice raspy, “Hammond?”
The man turned his head just enough to look at Haw. “Hawkin… what are-” A coughing fit interrupted him.
“Come on, can you walk?”
Hammond nodded.
“Can she?”
Another nod. “Just can’t run.”
Haw and Mattie helped them to their feet, and the group left the blaze behind them, neither pair completely understanding the circumstances of their meeting. They walked in silence until it was bearable to speak, and even then, the horror was too much to speak of. Only when they crossed from the woods to the glade did they know their struggle was over.
The commotion of Haw and Mattie’s return was only amplified by the arrival of the two outsiders. Haw told his people all he knew, that being, truthfully, not very much – just that the town was burning, and that a man he knew and a girl he didn’t came back with them. Hammond, given water and enough rest that he could speak more than a sentence without coughing, filled in the details.
Firstly, that he was Hammond, though Haw had already introduced him, and the girl was Matilda, or Tilly for short – a fact at which Mathila lit up and gave her own name. Tilly wasn’t very eager to interact, still in a stupor, and so Hammond carried on his recollection. He knew only what he lived. The manor, ever silent, finally spoke – guards bearing an unfamiliar crest descended on the town and took sick satisfaction in their work of terror. The only warning or explanation was the head guard’s shouted manifesto. The exact words were lost in the imperfection of traumatized memory, but he, standing on the stones stained with Chekov’s blood, declared they had given the villagers reason to leave of their own accord, and just look how that turned out, the old man couldn’t get it done after all. Between that and meeting Hawkin, it was a blur, Hammond said. He had hidden, perhaps? He found Tilly at some point, terrified, and escaped with her. Mostly he remembered the desperate screams, which eventually gave way to endless, silent smoke.
Hammond and Matilda, of course, were welcomed in with open arms. For a time, Tilly did not speak, until one day she whispered, “Thank you,” to Haw. For a long time, neither she nor Hammond were asked to help out, the lingering effects of smoke choking their strength, until one day Hammond picked up an axe to chop firewood. And, for a longer time still, none left the forest, until one day Hawkin did.
Walking the familiar path, overgrown but still visible in Haw’s memory, he eventually came to see the manor through the leaves, silently watching. The rancid smell of Chekov’s shack was gone, as was the structure itself. The path no longer turned to stone, but instead faded into vibrant grass. Against the clear blue sky, there was no steeple.
Cresting the hill, looking down on the valley, there was a seemingly-endless grove of orange trees, dripping with sweet nectar and fertilized by blood.
Hawkin looked upon this for a moment, and then walked the path back for the last time.