Chapter 23: It’s in the Rock

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I see these granaries at all the overseer’s cottages we’d passed, uphill between the cottages and the peasant longhouses. They store any crops, not just the different grains. They keep the harvest dry, but the stones aren’t fixed with bone mortar to keep the goblins out and there are slatted windows to let the air in, but they let the bad light in.

Aunty gives me no trouble coming up the path to the building. She doesn’t jerk away or wander off.

When I reach for the door handle, I saw my hand turn - purple-ish pink, I suppose. The name of a color can’t tell you the cold feeling it gave me.

I close my eyes and pull the hood over my head, putting it in place by feel, just as the peddler had taught me. Then I reach out for the handle of the granary to open the door.

It sticks, at first, then I pull harder and hear the door scrape on the stone.

Where is Aunty Alete?

“Aunty!” I cry, for no effect, for she is all deaf.

I squat down and -

The sprites are near. I can feel them caress my arms as I pat the ground around my feet. The first sounds are forming in my head, clear as if right next to me, but not voices that made sense.

And the lead is in my hand. Aunty hadn’t run away. I pull on it to guide her into the room.

My body is damp with sweat, but the stink of the sharkskin of the hood reassures me. It is a thing of this world, not of the sprites.

“Come inside, Aunty,” I say, grouping around. I feel the bins where the stack tubers and grain. I get us away from the door, pulling the lead close, pulling Aunty close until I can smell her stench through the sharkskin.

“I have to be useful, you see,” she says. It’s muffled by the hood, so I know it’s a true voice or the world, like the peddler says. This is the first time she speaks as clearly - as clearly as I’ve heard anyone speak. “I’ll just - I’ll turn out the beds in the morning. That’s a good task for me.”

There are other voices in my head, sing-song voices, old hymns sung to indifferent gods.

“I was sad, at first,” she says. “So hard. Can’t hear the warning gong, can’t hear the all clear. Can’t hear Jirry.”

“Who’s Jirry, Aunty?” I ask.

She goes on.

“But then I don’t have to listen to him,” she says. I know it’s not Jirry, because she spits the word “him” like rotten meat. “Can’t cuff me for ignoring him when I can’t hear him.”

For a time, the words of the sprites - if that’s what I hear - drown out Aunty Alete. I can’t be glad of it, for the sounds the sprites drip with malice. They chirp and ooze and echo, mixing over each other, terrible words of hate and scorn peeking out from the din.

Without realizing it, I cover Aunty’s eyes with my hand, as if the bad light of the sprites could still leak in with no eyes.

“You’re the one who’s been leading me,” she says. “The last little bit. Surprised you didn’t punch me for running off. I had it coming.”

“Shh, Aunty,” I say. “There’s nothing to be gained talking here.”

“Are you talking to me, boy?” she asks. “You’re a boy - fourth circle, I guess. I can’t hear you, boy. No, no, the world hasn’t made you cruel, yet, boy.” She patted my hand over her eyes.

I lose some time to the sprites. I clench my fists, feeling like I should want to throw the hood off and see the horrid light, but I don’t. I don’t want to have any more of that poison in me than I must.

Later, I’m sitting on the floor of the granary. Aunty’s sitting with me. She’s patting my hand in reassurance. I’m not sure where the lead is.

“They’re still here, boy, the sprites,” she says. “Oh, I know them. When my hearing left me, something else seeped in. It’s in the rock, boy. The dark places that the goblins crawl out of. I always knew about the spot on the rock in our bedchamber. A funny shape on the surface of the rock. A little discoloration. Never tempted to lick it until after my hearing is all gone. Never tempted.”

“Let the noise stop,” I say. I hate to think of myself whimpering like a child, but there I am. The unclean noises go on and whimpering does no good, so I cling to Aunty’s words, through the hood, muffled as a sound of the world.

“And then the headman gives away my house. Can’t live alone, he says. Unused knives go to rust, he says. I used a knife.”

Grammy and her husband told me that she had to move in with the leather worker and his family in her house. I remember that.

“But I have time, time when I shake out the quilts, time to lick the stone. It doesn’t take long. After the first few times, the rock knows my tongue, knows my coming, is ready with sweet juices. And I can hear. I can hear the voices of the sprites, just like now.”

She sighs.

“It wasn’t my sweet Jirry’s voice, but that’s silent now. I wonder if he’s in his ossuary yet. You must find out for me. Jirry Oxflat. Took up with the Oxflat girl, joined her family. You will ask, won’t you lad?” She squeezes my hand and I pat hers, which seems to calm her. I hurry to try to remember the name Jirry Ox-something. Not Shettle, like hers.

“He was my beautiful boy. Only thing he ever did right. I was telling you something. What am I saying? Oh, I want to tell you. The sprites dance in while it’s dark and the dark stays, stays longer than I want and I want to lick the rock, want to taste the sound, but she’s there. Her and her husband and I couldn’t say I meant to shake out the quilts again, now could I? I wanted to slash her throat, but had to deal with the men first. Stuck him like a pig. Went and killed the son. Same way, I think, shove the knife in the gut. Don’t remember for sure. Slashed his wife’s throat. The other wife, too, slashed her face and then her throat, couldn’t watch the blood squirt out. Had to deal with her still. She has a stick. Not sure what it is, even now, but she’s swinging it at me, standing between me and the bed, but I’m fast and I get my knife on her throat.”

Aunty sighs.

“Lunges at me, once, holding her hand at her throat and then goes down. I slash her face, three times, I think, before she dies. Taking my house.”

I feel Aunty shaking her head and - muffled and faint - I hear her spit.

“And then I can lick the rock as long as I want and there’s always more. Sweet and pungent, like bad meat or smelly feet, different every taste, and the sounds crowded in on me, just like now. Just like now.”

She sighs again.

The sound of the sprites recedes and Aunty is silent, again.

“It’s all right, pesca,” the peddler says, shaking my shoulder. His voice is muffled, so I know it is a voice of the world, not of the sprites. “The sprites are gone,” he says.

Submitted: June 22, 2023

Fantasy sprite goblins bones