by Shane Lee
Terra made a small noise in her throat at the sight, and she drew closer to Monty, but only slightly. Monty rested a hand on her upper back, his touch light and comforting. If she wanted to be strong in front of the people here, she could, but no one would judge her if she let some tears out. He wanted to say that to her, but he wasn’t sure he could speak.
They went to the front of the gathering. It was like when they had come to Audrey’s sending, only so very, very different. Monty recognized some of the faces there, but in a blurry and distant sense. It felt like he was floating above his body, looking down on the scene from a foot over his head. It was only his hand on his sister that kept him tethered to reality.
He was being touched; some older man putting a hand on his shoulder, someone he didn’t recognize. Words were murmured, fuzzy and quiet. They dripped away.
Terra tugged on his arm, and he crouched down to hear her better.
“Can we get away from the people? I wanna see mom.”
“We can’t see her,” Monty said, but he knew what she meant.
He led them to the pyre, where the torches were not yet lit. Together, they stared at the small wooden box that held what remained of Delila’s body. Was there any left at all, or had it all crumbled into dust? Was Nal’Gee still feasting on her?
That last intrusive thought made his stomach clench, and he stared hard at the coffin. The dragging hours of the last couple days had taken him back and forth between his beliefs and his skepticism; his outlook and the unexplained.
Those leaves.
Would Nal’Gee still be in his mother’s body, waiting to strike the next victim?
“Monty—you’re hurting me.”
“Mm?” He looked down—he was holding Terra’s hand tightly, and growing tighter by the second. His teeth were clenched. Breathing out, he loosened his grip and his jaw and apologized. “Don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he muttered.
To his surprise, Terra grabbed his own hand tighter now, though she wasn’t quite strong enough to hurt him.
“Nothing’s wrong with you,” she said, in a way that made it sound like he was stupid to think otherwise.
Was she right? Maybe about him. But something was just...wrong.
The box sat there, plain; unmarked and unremarkable, atop a pile of wood that would burn easy and hot, the sending fire and reading of the rites carrying his mother’s soul to the beyond forever.
Unless Nal’Gee eats that, too.
“Stop it,” he whispered, and hoped it was too quiet for Terra to hear. You’re going to drive yourself crazy, and Terra needs you.
He kept telling himself that, but who needed whom right now? Who was the one holding onto him, bringing him back to the here and now when all he wanted to do was float away, scream, maybe go to the beyond himself so he could somehow see if a witch’s vengeful spirit was destroying his town and his family one person at a time?
Monty held Terra’s hand and he breathed in deep, smelling the dry wood and the cool night air.
“Monty. Terra.”
The two of them turned inward and around, their hands coming apart. Judge Mullen was there, hands behind his back, face dripping with solemnity.
“Hello, Judge,” Monty said, more out of reflex than anything, his words hollow.
“I am so very sorry,” Judge Mullen said. “I know the words don’t help much, but I will make sure that Delila—your mother—is sent peacefully and swiftly into the beyond.”
Can you do that, Judge? Can you guarantee that to us? I’d give you our whole house and everything inside if you could make sure it was true. I’d—
Terra was pulling on him again, tearing him out of his thoughts—again. Time and the world around him was disappearing in great gouges.
“Come on, Monty.” She was pulling him to the side, where they could step off the platform. “We have to get down.” A note of pleading came through. She was starting to break.
He followed his sister, barely noticing the Judge as he walked past him. It was darker now. Someone had lit the torches further back, and Monty saw that the crowd had grown significantly in size. More people had flocked to the sending while he had his back to them, eyes boring into the unlit pyre. Were all these people really here for his mother? It seemed there were over two hundred, with more emerging from the darkness and into the torchlight as he watched.
Fwump. A nearby torch flared into existence, one of the two that braced the stage. The lighter doused his own torch and slipped into the crowd.
“Monty.” A hand on his shoulder.
He turned, holding Terra’s hand, and it was the Judge, looking at him with some kind of pity and patience, stopping him from leaving the platform.
“You two can stay,” Mullen said. “The pyre is for the family and the Judge.”
“Oh...right.” Terra blushed, embarrassed. “I saw other people leaving...”
“That’s quite all right. Here, come to my other side. I will read your mother the words of the sending now.” Mullen slipped his hand off Monty’s shoulder and hefted his thick book up to chest level, nodding slightly to his right to direct the two Bellamy children.
“I’m sorry,” Terra whispered, and Monty told her it was okay, and then the Judge was reading those damned familiar words, and all he could do was stare out at the crowd, holding his sister’s hand.
“We have gathered for the final sending of Delila Bellamy, a life lost too soon...”
Did Judge Mullen say that about Ma Kettle? It was a crass and unfunny thought, and it brought no smile.
He found himself looking for the Kettles, though he wasn’t sure why. Last time, and the time before that, this platform had been crowded with Kettles. It was just the two of them now, Monty and Terra, their combined size perhaps matching that of Henry Kettle’s stature. Though the man had lost some meat off his bones lately.
Judge Mullen continued to read. “The beyond awaits, the soul ready to be burned free of the worldly remains. Delila Bellamy will watch her family from the other side.”
Terra was crying now, and Monty pulled her closer, her head resting above his hip. He felt her narrow frame shuddering, but her sobs were silent. She was always a quiet crier. Mom had worried that if she ever got hurt in the field or the barn and no one was looking, they wouldn’t be able to find her.
He had no tears to give. Mullen’s reading crowded around his ears like a swarm of bugs, a muffled and unintelligible buzzing that he couldn’t swat away.
Someone was approaching the stage, and Monty recognized him as the torch lighter, holding a freshly-wrapped-and-soaked torch in one hand. Carrying it to the stage for him, because surely he would be the one asked to light their mother’s pyre.
The lighter walked slowly. Everything moved slowly; even Terra’s sobs against him felt rigid and measured. When he took a breath, he heard it rattle around his mouth and brush across his teeth on the way to his lungs. And a moment of piercing, crystal clarity followed.
This is how she gets to another body.
This is how she gets to another body.
Out came the breath, slow and harsh. Nal’Gee, latching onto people, draining their life force into her own—it was one at a time. Ma Kettle was burnt, and then it got her daughter. Audrey was burnt, and then mom got sick. And who was right there, closest to the pyre, dropping the torch? Delila, when Henry couldn’t.
Breathe. Blink.
Once his mother was sent, once her pyre was lit and her body was burnt away, Nal’Gee would be free. Released, once again, to swirl into someone else. Inhaled, perhaps, or something more otherworldly.
The lighter stopped before the stage, right before Monty. He raised the torch to him. The Judge was done reading, looking at Monty easily, but expectantly. Terra was still at his side, but her crying was done. She stared at the torch.
“Go on, Monty,” Judge Mullen said, and Terra tightened her grip on him, letting out a small, pained sound.
What if he lit this pyre and Nal’Gee f
lew into Terra? Or into him? The Judge; the torch handler; one of the townspeople who were kind enough to be here when his mother was sent into the beyond? He couldn’t let that happen.
His breath came faster now, and his heart started to hammer in his chest. The world grew sharp in his vision. He could see each tongue of the torch flames in the crowd, and he realized that a panic was upon him, one far too powerful and fast to stop.
When the lighter pushed the torch closer to him, he shrieked. He batted it away like it was a snake and it went tumbling to the ground.
“Monty!” The Judge closed his book with a heavy thud. “It’s time to—”
“No! Don’t light it!” Monty had found his voice, and he was using it to scream. It all made sense, so suddenly, and it filled him with terror. “Don’t light it, she’ll get free!”
The lighter bent down to pick up the torch, and Monty pulled free of Terra’s hand and jumped down into the grass. He shoved the handler away, grabbing the torch from the ground and heaving it over the pyre. He was strong, and it was a good throw. It disappeared completely in the darkness before it even hit the ground.
The crowd was murmuring, but no one approached him, not even the torch handler. Monty panted, unable to catch his breath.
“Monty, what’s going on?” Terra said, making him turn around. She was on her hands and knees on the stage, looking down at him.
“She’s in mom!” he said to her. “Nal’Gee’s in mom, and if we burn her body, she’s going to get into someone else!”
He didn’t know if anyone else heard him, but he didn’t care. Terra’s eyes were wide with shock, but Monty saw the understanding there. The agreement, with only a little hesitance. Terra knew. He knew. No one else knew, and he couldn’t let this sending happen.
Judge Mullen was frozen on the platform at first, but only briefly. In fluid strides, he descended the platform stairs and came down to Monty, while the villagers backed away. The crowd curved around the two of them.
“It’s all right, son,” Mullen said, putting a hand on Monty’s forearm. “I know this is hard. But it’s what needs to be done for her soul.”
“No, you don’t—” Understand, was what Monty planned to say, but of course Mullen didn’t understand, and of course he wouldn’t. There was no explanation of this that would make the Judge change his mind.
Monty said, “Her soul needs more time here,” and he brushed off the Judge’s arm and hauled himself up onto the platform, swinging his leg up onto the wood.
He had to get her off the pyre.
“Monty!” The Judge cried, and he heard several other shouts from the crowd. It didn’t matter. Mullen’s short frame wouldn’t allow him to climb the platform—he’d have to go all the way around to the stairs. And Monty would have his mother in his arms by then. He’d pull her body out of the casket and run it to the next town if that was what it took.
Up and onto the stage and past Terra, he ran. The pyre stretched over him, vast and wide. The casket rested just above eye level. He grabbed onto the thick branches and started climbing.
28
The shouts were louder now, and Monty could hear the crowd start to move around. Were they all coming to get him?
It didn’t matter. He wrapped his fingers around a heavy branch and pulled himself up, his feet lifting off the ground. He was going to get there.
The branch slid out of the pile, jostled free, and he dropped back down. Loosing a frustrated grunt, he grabbed another one and pulled, but the same thing happened. They were thick and dry, ready to burn, but it was just a pile of wood.
“No!” Monty said, and he bunched up the big muscles of his legs and leapt up, thrusting his chest over the top of the pyre. Sharp sticks and bark dug into him, drawing blood from a half-dozen places, but he barely felt the pain. He scrabbled for purchase, his feet finding gaps to slide in, his fingers finding stiff knobs to grab hold of. He pulled, and he knew he’d get there. The casket was inches from him now.
Someone had his feet. They pulled, and a broken stick scraped along his belly and drew pain like thin fire. He cried out and he reached for a more stable grip, but then there was another pair of hands on him, and he couldn’t fight it.
“Don’t hurt him! Monty!” Terra’s voice cut through the din, and as he was yanked off the pyre, he looked down to see her reaching for him, held back by the group of people who had come up onto the stage. One of them, he noticed, was the elder Rodney Talhauer, and it was he who pushed the rest of the men away and threw Monty over his shoulder like he was a sack of potatoes.
“Don’t wiggle, kid,” Rodney said, his gruff voice deadly serious. “You’re bein’ all kinds of nuts, and I get it, but don’t you fight me. Let yer mom get sent.”
He walked Monty away from the pyre, back toward the stairs. Terra turned after them, but someone else had her, too, holding her around the waist while she screamed.
Monty tried to yell something at the man holding his sister, but his breath was gone. His chest and stomach flared with pain, and he was sure he was bleeding all over Rodney’s shoulder. By the time he could talk, they were down the steps.
“It’s not good,” he gasped. “Rodney—Mr. Talhauer—I’m not nuts. Nal’Gee is in her, and if she burns, she’ll be free again to kill someone else!”
Rodney bent and set him down, but stood in front of him. His wide frame completely blocked any view of the stage.
“Don’t,” he told Monty, and he didn’t need to finish the thought. The behemoth of a man was like a brick wall with arms; Monty knew he’d never get past him.
He peered around Rodney to see the stage mostly empty, with just the lighter and the Judge preset. The lighter held a new torch.
“You have to believe me,” he said, and that was when someone approached and set Terra down right next to him. She looked frightened to death, staring up at Rodney’s bulk.
“I got ‘em,” Rodney told the man. “Go on.”
“The sickness that killed the Kettles and my mom isn’t a sickness,” Monty continued. “It’s a spirit from the Dromm forest sucking the life out of people!”
Rodney didn’t offer a response to that. He stood stoic, arms at his sides. When Monty tried to speak again, he cut him off.
“It’s almost over,” he said. “Then ya move on, however you do it. Don’t make a bunch of enemies here, now, kid. Wilhelm is already sick of ya.”
Monty didn’t know who that was, but he imagined it was the torch carrier who was now handing the lit torch to Judge Mullen, and the Judge was delivering the final set of rites now, naming the burner as himself.
It was Terra who broke free from her spot, but even her small, quick frame wasn’t fast enough to escape Rodney. While he stopped her dead with just one hand, Judge Mullen lowered the torch to the pyre, and the pile of dried wood, the casket, and Delila’s body all went up in the blaze.
The heat washed over them, and Monty sunk to the ground.
“Come here, Terra,” he said, sitting in the cold grass. Rodney let her go, and Monty pulled her to him, closing his eyes and holding his head against hers. The crowd disappeared; the torchlight; Rodney Talhauer. All that remained was the pulsing heat and his shivering sister at his side. Monty prayed, and Terra joined him.
“Take her, gods, and bless her journey.” The words, murmured softly at all sendings, overwhelmed him now, reminding him of his father’s death. Terra spoke with him.
“Grant her passage and hold her in esteem, so that she may do the same for us when we arrive.”
The fire roared. By now, her body would be consumed, cast bit by bit into the night sky, and releasing two souls instead of one.
Monty prayed that he was wrong, but he knew he was not.
29
Two weeks after the burning of Delila Bellamy, Elrich Mullen was once more planted in his office, looking over the plans and documents of her farm. He had been holed up there, almost completely without contact, for the last eighteen hours, because words on offic
ial documents were all that made sense to him right now. Words were all that kept him from losing his mind.
His villagers were dying.
Whatever strange illness had swept away the matriarchs of those two families was now laying waste to more and more people throughout the town. How many had gone over the past fortnight? A dozen? Was it more? Elrich couldn’t remember, and he gave great effort not to, but he thought that it was.
“Allotted an acreage of two-hundred and twenty, to be expanded...” He started reading aloud, fighting the whirling questions in his mind.
It had gotten so bad that, upon conference with the priests and with Dr. Tobias, he had begun reading the rites and performing the final sending at the site of the bodies, burning them in small fires on the grass behind their homes with only the family in attendance, if there was any.
It was easy to burn the bodies. There was almost nothing left. Wrap it in a blanket, soak it in kerosene, and light it. It burned hot, and most importantly, it burned fast. It almost took longer to read the sending words than it did to burn the damned corpse.
Of course, hardly a day would go by before he’d be called again.
“...granted to Montille Bellamy and Delila Bellamy, the latter with child to be named for the father or the deceased aunt, Terramia Bellamy, for the total sum...”
And when he was called, he was forced to leave his office, to go out into the streets. Among the villagers, who had questions. Questions that grew increasingly anxious, loud, and incessant as the days wore on and the deaths piled up.
Judge Elrich Mullen had no answers for them. Neither did Dr. Tobias, no matter how many of the blackened bodies he examined. He called it an autopsy, but how does one autopsy an empty bag full of viscous swill that used to be organs? The bones were like jelly, barely holding shape, and they collapsed into mush when they were touched. Elrich knew this because Tobias had shared, and not because he had asked.