I’m Never Gonna Drink Again
No further surprises troubled our work, though I did feel an odd sense of being watched whenever I was outside. I resolved to learn more about the strange ecosystem there, and maybe help protect the house as my contribution for living in it. For the moment, shadows got longer, and dinnertime drew near, so we brought back water from the nearby fountain and I set to making a stew.
The walnut branch served its final purpose in the fire, although it gave out far more smoke than I’d anticipated. I used up all my chunks of dried meat, the remainder of the bread, chopped apples, and a handful of rosemary from bushes that were just growing wild in the garden. We even sacrificed our one jar of ale in the stew to improve the flavor, knowing there would be more coming soon. In the end, for a poor stew, it came out as rich and delicious as any I’d ever had before, and it was ready just in time when we heard laughter coming down the lane.
“Come on, easy does it.” Mara’s strong, brash voice was hard to mistake. I knew beyond any doubt she’d come, and I knew she’d organize the others in spite of the terrible timing. “Steady on. One foot in front of the other.”
Her voice and the clinking of jars preceded them by a good way, and we rushed to light a few candles out in front of the house to help them along. We only had one oil lamp inside, which we’d found with still a good amount of oil, but many candles.
By the noise and the laughter, I figured Florin was stone drunk again. Perdy had told me that he often resorted to drinking whenever the desire to leave town became so strong, he couldn’t bear it, and I felt for the young man so full of passion and with nowhere to take it. To my surprise, he led the group with a lamp of his own raised high, polished and martial, silver sword at his side. It was Paul who was beyond all hope of salvation. Mara and Eugen half carried, half dragged him along between the two of them.
Florin reached us, all unruly dirty chestnut hair and boyish grin. “Hi, Perdy. You look well. Miss Anna, I guess I should introduce myself? I’m not sure I remember the last time we met.”
Mara elbowed him as she passed. “Unfortunately, we do.”
“Saints, Mara, I said I was sorry. Let me be.”
They dumped Paul into a chair unceremoniously and Mara hugged me, which was sweet and unexpected.
“I’m very sorry about what happened. We’re here if there’s anything you need. We brought a lot of ale and some fresh loaves. And I’m very sorry about him too.” She thrust her head toward Paul, who was slumped across table and chair like a dirty dishrag. “We had to hold him down and force it into him, at first. But it had to be done, what with his father’s funeral being tonight.”
“His father’s….”
They all stopped and stared at me, then at one another.
Eugen spoke first. “We’re so unused to strangers, sometimes we don’t know what you don’t know.”
Mara pitched in. “Paul is Reverend Andrei’s son. We’re all going to the funeral after this. You too.”
I froze for a moment, thinking about how Paul had called him ‘Father’ and how I’d assumed it meant the same to him as it did to the rest of us. How many assumptions would I get wrong before I learned to stop making them?
“So you got him drunk because he’s grieving?”
“Yeah. When someone dies, we drink. The closer you are to the deceased, the more you have to drink. It helps ease the soul into the afterlife if people who loved the departed aren’t busy holding on to them here.”
“That…” I thought for a moment and couldn’t find anything comforting to say. “Makes sense.”
“Is that not how you do it where you’re from? Do people not drink for funerals?” Mara was already fussing with satchels, pulling out candles and tools and supplies for the house.
“Not professionally, no.”
“Well. Whatever the case, you’re in this too. So, bottoms up.”
She had unpacked a seemingly never-ending series of leather-sealed jars while she spoke, and placed one in each of our hands. With all of us together and the light from their lamps, the house felt almost warm and friendly. I couldn’t be more grateful to be among them that evening.
We ate and told lewd jokes and enjoyed the company. There was no talk of death or Whispers at the table, and even Paul got a little food and water down, to better ‘prepare him for the next dunk’, as Eugen put it. When we were finished, we cleaned up and made another pot of spicy tea.
Florin sat next to Perdy on the step right by the fire. He hovered over her and tried very hard not to sound like he was prying, but at the same time find out all he could about her day. He even got a little annoyed at the shutter situation, admonished her for not telling him what she was up to, and shot me a cutting look. Knowing very well what the feelings behind that look were, I couldn’t help but forgive him. I wasn’t far off from falling for her, myself.
Mara and Eugen sat with me at the table, nursing the half-sleeping Paul. Eugen lit a cigarette that smelled like winter cakes and tangy berries; the smoke rising from it was a steely shade of blue against the reds and oranges of our lamps and fire.
“Have the Whispers always been here?”
They didn’t seem startled by my question.
“You’ve asked more questions today than we do in a year.” Mara had her boots up on the table and sipped her tea out of a chipped china cup covered in elderberry patterns. “I think so. We don’t know, for sure. Not really. But Eugen is the expert here.”
“Expert, no less. Well, fancy that. Considering I can’t even observe that which I’m studying, I suppose that’s as true as it can be.”
“You don’t…” I tried to remember the expression Paul had used, “…walk the Tides, then?”
“No. But I’m a fan of history and decent at mathematics, so I’m training to join the Praedictors’ Guild in a few years. Among other things, they study all the recounts of Tides, all the way back as far as anyone can remember, looking for patterns.”
Lazy coils of blue wrapped around his fingers and hair. It was fascinating to watch his boyish demeanor fade and grow into that of a bard at the mere mention of the word ‘history’. We waited, rapt, to hear more.
“It’s said that when the first people settled here, many months, maybe years, would pass between Tides. At first, nobody even knew what they were, so we only know when they happened by journal entries mentioning spirits and hauntings. People guessed the phases of the moon brought them, which is obviously wrong. Then they started connecting them to the stars. It was all very unscientific. The few who saw them were tortured and burned as heretics.”
My stomach clenched painfully and all the food in it turned to writhing snakes. Nobody noticed the sweat on my lip, and I stood, pretending to take more tea from the kettle to make sure they didn’t. Eugen went on, content to be talking about his favorite topic, unaware of the echo his words found in my own past.
“And the Tides then were said to be much more delicate. They didn’t reach as far or last as long. The town was well settled before they ever figured it out. Then, for a while, it seemed like they could be peaceful neighbors…until the whole town vanished. That was the first Whisperwood, about eight generations ago.”
“They were all gone, truly?”
“Without a trace. People, horses, buildings. Everything. People came looking, and eventually settled again, discounting the whole thing as superstition and witchery. The whole cycle started again, only the Tides came faster and harder. Friendship only lasted maybe a generation. Then the Guild was set up to track them, the Wardens to contain them. We have evidence that Praedictors used to go into the woods to take measurements and try to discover how it works. Then, for some reason, they stopped.”
“You don’t know why?”
“It’s a contentious topic that neither the mayor nor the Guild elders want to discuss. They seem convinced talking about it would bring harm. Whatever it is, they all seem to agree that we’re to study from an ‘agreeable distance’, whatever that means.”
Mara nodded. “It means ‘not at all’. They want everyone to act like it’s not there, but still sacrifice their lives, trapped in this town, never knowing the truth.”
Florin rose, his voice burning with the fire he’d just warmed himself by. “And if you try to leave, they stop you. If you want to have a life outside, they curse you. If you want to be a warrior, they set you to smithing horseshoes instead.”
The argument was clearly personal to him. It was obvious he held himself like a soldier, and his hand never strayed far from the light but sharp sword at his hip.
Paul raised his head from the table, pointing at the ceiling. “Foolsh, and—”
Suddenly, we felt a lurch.
Florin drew his weapon in an instant. He looked at me, then at Perdy, then mouthed, “No.”
Another lurch. It was like being in deep water and feeling a current move. Not unpleasant, simply odd. Mara clutched Paul’s shoulder so hard her knuckles went white.
Eugen stood too, and shouted as though he could argue with the unseen waves. “No! Not now!”
He started moving toward Paul, drawing a knife from his boot, but only made it a few steps. A third lurch, and they were all gone. Only Perdy and I remained, stock-still where we stood, and Paul, dreary-eyed and confused.