Thoughts of an Eaten Sun

by Kyle Tolle

Hantle leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “I doubt it’ll keep up this ferocity for long.”

  Dolcium inhaled excitedly and set his cards down. “If it stops lightning, can we go look for frogs?” He bounced in his seat.

  “I happen to remember your mother saying, also just last night, that was something only for when you’re older.”

  Dolcium’s face turned into a pitiful plea and Hultier chimed in with him. “This is the perfect weather though.” “Rounfil said so.” “It’s not even got dark yet.” “Please, can we, please?” “We’re both very grown up now.”

  He found it difficult to keep from giving in but knew Lorenca would have none of it. “What about,” he proposed, “if we go in the early morning? That will still be good conditions.”

  “Ugh.” Dolcium lolled his head and his arms went limp. “No.”

  Hultier slapped a leg with frustration. “Frogs are nocturnal, Dad. Do you even know what that means?”

  “Excuse me”—Lorenca wagged a finger—“that is not how you speak to your father.”

  The boy was smart but so often did his knowledge warp into condescension. It’s hard being six, Hantle reminded himself. “If we go before dawn, that will still be nighttime.”

  Hultier only responded with “Hmpfh.” Compromises were not his strong suit.

  Dolcium sat up straight, looking as big and as tall as he could, and picked up in his brother’s stead. “We wanted to go just the two of us, to prove we can do it.”

  “Unfortunately for you, you’ll either go with your father or not at all. You can think about it until after dinner.”

  Hantle embraced the change of topic. “Speaking of, did you have anything in mind? If not, I’ll make a stew.”

  “No, but that sounds good to me. We have plenty of vegetables.”

  Hantle moved to the kitchen. While Lorenca and the boys finished their game, he put together the stew and set it over the fire. Through the rest of the afternoon, rain thrummed on the roof and thunder occasionally roared. Inside, the boys’ moods soured and they became increasingly surly. It was not often they were cooped up inside for so many hours. Repeated episodes of roughhousing and back talk resulted in them being sent to their room without dinner. Hantle and Lorenca, however, not having had dinner to themselves in some number of years, enjoyed the peaceful meal. Once the lightning had ceased, they moved to the porch, chatting and joking, with the rainfall a pleasant backdrop. Some time after nightfall, the couple retired to the intimacy of the bedroom.

  CHAPTER THREE

  HANTLE’S MIND whiplashed to wakefulness and his eyes crept open but he did not register the sound that had woken him. Lorenca shouted again from the hallway. “Hantle?”

  “Hmm?” he muttered through a dry throat. The sheets fell to his lap as he pushed himself to a seated position.

  Lorenca stopped at the bedroom door, gripping the frame with such pressure that her fingers turned white. “Hantle, where are the boys?” The tension in her voice surprised him, but his brain was too slow to process anything more.

  He cleared his throat and said, “Sleeping?” What was she getting at?

  “No, they aren’t.” Her eyebrows bunched with annoyance. “Their bedroom window is open, though. I think they snuck out last night.”

  Hantle shook his head. “Why would they?” He tossed the covers back, stood, and moved to the chamber pot in the corner. The minute of quiet allowed his mind to stir and recall their discussion at dinner last night. He shook off at the pot, chuckled, and said, “Looking for frogs, I bet, after they scrambled down the trellis.” He looked to Lorenca.

  “It’s not funny, Hantle.” Her frown deepened. “They haven’t come back and I’m worried mad.”

  He beckoned her with his arms. Lorenca plodded over, speechless, and walked straight into his chest. He wrapped his arms around her. She fretted easily, as mothers will, but he had a way of calming her. “Remember, Lorenca, the boys are older now.” One of his hands made its way through her long, rust-colored hair. “They’re likely playing with whatever little creatures they caught, congratulating one another for how grown up they’ve become.”

  Her arms hung at her side, trembling now with anger. “They won’t think it smart once they’re grounded.”

  “Boys have no foresight. I can’t tell you how many times I did something like this in my childhood.” He tightened his hug and ended the embrace with a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll go. Try not to worry.” His gaze lingered as he took a step toward the door. Her green eyes were most gorgeous in the morning. When he could delay no more, his eyebrows raised in a look that said, “Here we go,” and he was out of the room. He tramped down the stairs, put on his boots (leather creaking as he pulled the laces tight), and left the house. The morning sun just above the eastern trees gave their home a shadow that stretched to the street. Turning south, he shielded his eyes against the daylight. Hantle continued on to Rounfil’s house and landed three heavy knocks on the door.

  It creaked open to reveal the man wearing a ragged robe. “What is it, Hantle?”

  “Our boys snuck out in the night. Probably to catch frogs. Will you help look for them?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Lemme get my boots.” Rounfil laced up on the porch in the cool air. His robe matched the dirty yellow of his hair. With boots on, he stood up. “Ready.”

  Hantle led Rounfil to the meadow. “Figure we can start here,” he said. “They play here every day. Plus the lamppost would have given them some light to see by.” Rounfil nodded. Their work routine also led them past this meadow on a daily basis. The area looked no different from any other day but for the puddles scattered about, formed during last night’s storm. “Shall we comb the area? I know your eyes are likely to catch something.”

  Rounfil swayed as he stood. “Too much beer last night, and this sun ain’t helping.” Hantle knew well his queasy look. “But we’ll get to looking.”

  Dew fell from the grass as they made a pass through the field. Except for wildflowers standing brightly in the sun, the meadow contained nothing. “River would be my next guess,” Rounfil suggested. The two then ventured into the woods, spreading out to cover more ground. Branches cracked under their boots and birdcalls came from far off.

  Near the stream that flowed through the trees down to the cove, Rounfil found a boot. His shout drew over Hantle, who picked it up, softly. The knot had come undone and the laces loosed. A footprint in the mud next to it was the only other sign. Hantle recognized the boot as belonging to Dolcium and felt both relief and anxiety. Here was a trace of them, but it felt wrong. Boys their age should have left prints all over the place. He followed the watercourse to the cove, head jerking from side to side, looking for additional tracks, but he found none aside from a few belonging to raccoon and deer. The men spread their search farther afield.

  Several miles and hours later, the pair crossed the meadow once more as they returned to the village. Here they split up, to weave through the houses and check the yards.

  Hantle had just stepped over a low hedge when a call cut through the air, followed by a loud whistle. He jogged toward the sound and caught sight of Rounfil waving his hand from a house nearby. Hantle’s own home stood beside it. He broke into a run. When he neared, he saw that Rounfil stood several paces away from a coop. The front mesh was ripped out and chicken carcasses lay scattered within it and around the lawn. A lone escaped chicken was near the house, pecking along the fence.

  Blood lay thick on the grass, and the warm air suddenly stifled Hantle’s breath. Stained feathers drifted in a breeze while others stuck in the ripped wire mesh. A drop of liquid, dark in color, caught Hantle’s eye as it fell through the air. Maroon and thick, it joined a puddle on the ground. Was a chicken carcass dripping blood? His gaze drew upward. There they were, finally, hiding atop the roof. Except . . . Hantle’s jaw set and he stared, disbelieving. On one side of the roof ridge lay his sons’ faces, recognizable though ashen. Down the other side trailed their spines, l
ong and grotesque. He followed rivulets of gore down from the shingles and noticed intestines spilled on the ground. His body tightened and his ears filled with the sound of his pulse. This was not real, he told himself. Not fucking real. Another drop glistened with sunlight before he screamed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  HANTLE’S CHEST heaved with thick sobs. He clambered up the broken boards of the coop and froze, crouching on the small roof. Tears welled in his grey eyes as his hands trembled, just inches away from Hultier’s face. Rounfil backed up into the fence and turned to vomit over it. Another cry escaped Hantle, and this second wail drew neighbors to their porches.

  Lorenca stepped outside, anxiously wringing a dishcloth. She looked at her neighbors and around for the source of the sound. As she turned, she saw Rounfil’s figure next door. When she noticed her husband on the chicken coop, a puzzled look crossed her face. Then a possibility hit her.

  The dishcloth dropped to the porch floorboards as she ran the short distance between houses. Without stopping, she swept her legs and dress over the fence, leaving fibers behind as she sprinted to the broken coop. One of her husband’s feet had slipped off the roof and hung in mid-air but his grip held him in place. Hantle took up the entirety of the roof, so Lorenca was only able to climb part way up. She came to a rest with her hand gripping Hantle’s belt, along his back.

  “What, Hantle? What?” She peeked around her husband and saw Hultier and Dolcium, both with eyes closed. Their faces lay at an odd angle. Realization of their doom struck and she staggered back, but Hantle’s arm reached out and steadied her. She went limp for a moment before a burst of energy brought her up to the roof. Forcing her husband to the side, she gathered up her boys—their heads lolling and spines viscid—and clutched them to her chest.

  Both mother and father rocked with shock and grief until Rounfil had the sense to pull them down. He took the remains from Lorenca and laid them on the grass. She collapsed to the ground a few yards away. Hantle, though, stepped forward, gripped Rounfil’s shoulders, and shouted, “Who did this to them? Who murdered my boys?” The horror on his face morphed into a plea. “You’ve got to find something, please. A clue as to who killed my children. Something.”

  Rounfil nodded and extricated himself from Hantle’s grasp. He turned his eyes to the wreckage. Hantle huddled next to Lorenca and watched Rounfil scour the scene, speaking as he moved around. “I don’t see any boot marks. I can’t imagine someone not leaving a single one in the damp earth last—Here’s something.” He crouched down. “A print. Dog maybe? Too large, I think.” He moved toward the coop. “Hmm.” From a splintered end of a board, he pulled a tuft of damp fur and sniffed it. He turned over portions of the structure that had broken off. “And claw marks here.” Scratches crisscrossed a section of the wall. “Ah.” He straightened a section of crumpled wire. “We’ve a tooth.” It was caught in a tight pinch of the mesh. “Definitely a canine, and freshly extracted.” Standing, he searched the yard, meandering a bit until he spotted something of note near the fence, where he stooped again. “More prints. Yes, I believe these are wolf, not dog or coyote.”

  Hantle recoiled. “How did a wolf do this?” he shouted.

  Rounfil didn’t answer. When he had climbed over the fence, he followed the blood trail and prints into the woods. Upon his return several minutes later, he inspected the wounds around the boys’ necks and, gravely certain, looked to Hantle. “Many signs point to this having been carried out by a wolf: prints, marks, fur, and tooth. More than I believe could be due to coincidence.”

  Hantle hung his head, dumbstruck, and leaned against Lorenca. His body suddenly felt weak and useless. The idea the boys had not been murdered by a villager—someone close to them who had exploited their trust—was small compensation. It was still gruesome, brutal, unbelievable. How, how, how could this have happened? His mind withdrew to spin on these thoughts, while Lorenca curled beside him, shuddering and keening.

  Rounfil led the parents away, toward their home, and picked up the dishcloth on the porch. Once inside, he sat them both on the couch. Hantle’s head rested in his hands and Lorenca stared blankly at the wooden panels of their floor, unaware of the tears and blood staining her top. Hantle’s closest friend swallowed the knot in his throat and spoke. “I’ll call Yilrouth to prepare the . . . boys. In a few hours, we’ll gather the village for a service.” Hantle and Lorenca broke down, each clutching the other. Rounfil set the dishcloth on the table, looked at them, decided no further words would suffice, and walked out.

  Hantle watched through blurry eyes as his friend left the house. He squeezed Lorenca’s hand in his before moving to the window. Rounfil walked to the doctor’s house, where Yilrouth motioned for his family to head inside. The two men had a brief conversation before Yilrouth nodded, collected his bag of instruments, and followed Rounfil to the coop. Hantle saw little eyes peeking around curtained windows. It was fortunate they did not understand what they saw.

  As the two passed his house, Hantle stepped onto the porch and addressed them. “I want to help, please.” With the back of his wrist, he wiped his nose. “We need to be careful with them.”

  Yilrouth lifted a gentle hand to halt Hantle. “I think it best you stay with Lorenca. I promise I will be as delicate with them as possible.”

  Hantle furrowed his brow as he considered it, eventually nodding his consent. He did not agree, exactly, because he wanted to be there for his boys, but he was not sure he could see them again in that state without collapsing. Rounfil and Yilrouth moved past as Hantle pinched his eyes shut, swallowed his pain, and turned to rejoin Lorenca.

  On the couch, Hantle’s gaze oscillated between his wife and the window. He both consoled Lorenca—the act of which kept his own emotions at bay—and watched through the glass pane for the doctor to reappear on his way home. How much time elapsed before it happened, Hantle could not be certain, but Yilrouth and Rounfil did go by, carrying white cloth bundles, which he knew contained his boys from the deferential way the men handled them. Afterward, he witnessed villagers volunteer assistance with various tasks. A group with spades thrown over shoulders walked to the cemetery on the edge of the village to dig graves. Some, instead, prepared the central square for the funeral. Sounds of sawing spread on the air and cut to Hantle’s core. He knew that would be the carpenter, Pirram, making coffins. Rounfil and others still moved through the area, but Hantle could not tell what chores they undertook. A wail wracked Lorenca and Hantle rushed to her side. Tears overwhelmed him once again.

  Through her weeping and the hair that fell over her face, she said, “I should have heard them leaving last night.”

  Hantle shook his head in a wide arc. “No,” he managed. “Don’t you say that. No, you couldn’t have known.” He lifted his hand and pushed the stray hair behind her ear. “I’m the one who should have gone out with them, to watch over them.” A vision gripped him and his stomach clenched him into silence. From a vantage point twenty feet above the grass, Hantle saw himself standing in the meadow. His aerial view allowed him to glimpse Hultier, just inside the forest’s edge, stretch out a quaking hand toward him. The boy disappeared into the underbrush as the wolf dragged him off by the throat, which prevented him crying out. The vision of the night dissolved into daylight, and Hantle leaned over to embrace Lorenca.

  The afternoon drew on, and, as people completed their chores, they idled along the street and spoke in muted voices. Hantle—unable to sit still anymore—wandered out of the house and approached one of the groups. The individuals were immersed in a discussion and Hantle surprised them, but they opened the circle and he slotted in, quietly accepting the condolences offered to him.

  A woman, Shec, brought him into their conversation. “We were just saying that none of us remember sighting a wolf this year. It’s as if it came from nowhere.”

  Hantle read the fear on each face. He shook his head. “I’ve not seen one either. Rounfil saw its trail, though. We ought to follow it and see where it
leads.”

  Crahul folded his arms and toed a cobblestone. “There’ll be a time for that, Hantle, but I’m thinking it’s not now.”

  The sound of hammer strokes rose out of Pirram’s shop and reverberated along the street. Hantle cleared his throat. “I can’t see a better way to help Lorenca than to make the beast pay for who it stole from her . . . from us.”

  Another woman, Eayol, added, “Aye, he has a point. We have a village to think of.”

  Hantle’s face tensed. He had not heard what she said, but instead thought of his boys. “I owe them that much.”

  Shec clasped his shoulder. “We owe it to you and to Lorenca. After the mourning meal, we’ll gather a party to follow the canine’s trail.”

  A rumbling attracted Hantle’s attention and he turned to see Pirram driving his wagon. It drew close and continued off, heading toward Yilrouth’s. Hantle stared—his eyes glued to the uncovered bed and the two coffins lying there.

  Rounfil walked past the wagon and approached Hantle and his small circle of people. He addressed the group. “We’ll begin soon.” Hantle noticed he already wore his black. Rounfil said, “Shall we get you changed?” Hantle yielded to Rounfil’s guidance and was led home as those standing in the street dispersed.

  Clad in the color of their grief, Hantle and Lorenca held hands and walked to the village square. Rounfil trailed several steps behind. The villagers sat upon an eclectic mix of chairs borrowed from various households. Rounfil directed the couple to the front of the seating area, where they sat in plush armchairs that belonged to Crahul, proprietor of Trasach Mercantile.

  Hantle sat in silence, waiting for the proceedings to begin. Initially, he felt far removed from his physical body, but the sound of footsteps coming down the aisle grounded him. He noticed, for the first time, the arrangements. The coffins sat side-by-side atop bales of hay. Flowers and ribbons of several colors lay around and across them, yet no amount of decoration could lessen their dreadfulness. Both were full-sized, even though the remains would only fill a small portion. That normality helped Hantle focus on memories of his boys as he knew them: laughing and energetic.