Spoke

WE USED TO PLAY A GAME in the halls of Thebes, whenever we found ourselves banded together to run some guild errand on an unfamiliar strata. Spoke, we called it. Two mobs of us would stand face-to-face, our backs to the walls. With mere words—a spoke—we had to frighten our opponents into running. One side would start by calling out Death! pitching the word as iosal as anyone could do at eight years or nine. But the ridiculously high kelp’s voice would only set everyone laughing. And then we were off. I eat kelps! Or I come out only in the night! Bloody knives! Darkness! Teeth! Infinity! Back and forth we hurled frights of minor proportions. The opposing team would shake and clutch at one another in the interest of drama, but hold its ground. I could frighten some of our opponents with the word foundling, and I knew all its translations from the other guilds—zwerver, paria, utlendinger, bezdomen, inimirceach, flygtning, ionnsaigh, satan. Stray, outcast, stranger, homeless, immigrant, fugitive, intruder, enemy. One side might find itself accidentally in the clutch of real fear by the opponent’s humming the tune for “Good Luck to the Ballymow.” Of course we always dragged up the tales we read in the library and flung those words about—demons, doubles, wyrms, felons, witches, Cerberus. Still we did not run, for in truth we expected the inhabitants of the library to remain there—more so, on the other side of the wall. The obvious exception was the library word that frightened us soundly for, despite our parents’ disclaimers, we were aware that a bogle had somehow gotten out of its page. One night we were in some forgotten hallway, more or less in murk. A stranger must have heard us playing the game and thought he would give us a scare.

Rare! we heard him whisper. We went fright quiet, huddled at our two walls. And then: I see you.