Roots

Asker watched the early spring rains drizzle down the orphanage’s cracked window, figures trudging through dampened mud, bearing lanterns in the fog like scattered fireflies—searching under the full moon. Blurred voices and the howl of hunting dogs echoed through the village streets. Asker pulled his stitched blanket over his ears, trembling.

It was a bad idea to play near the forest, the dark outline of the human-like stranger, watching him and Francis from behind gnarled branches, its ghostly whispers calling to them, asking them to come play.

Was any of it real?

He tried desperately to remember what it said, early that morning just before sunrise. But the words were lost, as though they were plucked from his memory like a summer fruit. All he could remember was that his friend was now missing.

He looked past the village into the wood-line on the end of town. There he swore he saw it again—watching him, waiting for him.

He woke, curled up beneath the window, to the sound of the headmistress clacking her bell for breakfast.

“Children, eggs!” She shouted from the first floor. The other children jumped out of bed and rushed down the steps except for one, a little girl who had only seen six or seven summers before joining the orphanage, named Riv. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and joined Asker by the window.

“Don’t worry Athker,” she said with a heavy lisp, “the grown-ups will find Francith.” He sat still. Staring out over the mist-laden village, his fists clenched. The forest village was exactly as it was the night before, people going about their normal business as though nothing had happened.

“Did they find anything yet?” Asker asked, tugging at the headmistress’ dress.

“The village guards are searching diligently for our lost little foxraven. Don’t you worry, Asker. They’ll find him,” she said with a forced smile—the kind adults used when they were lying to you. She nodded, then pulled the eggs from the heating board and set them on the table. She waved her hand over the glowing runes etched into the board. They sputtered a few times before losing their color and light.

“Runic integrity is going out. They need to be re-scripted, Margeret. I’m telling you, go to town hall and haul back the mayor’s scribe. It needs to be done soon or the whole place will burn up.” One of the disgruntled nannies said.

“Lyra!” the headmistress elbowed the older woman in the rib. “Not in front of the children.”

“Nonsense. Better they learn bad things happen. They’re in an orphanage, for gods’ sakes.” Lyra grunted as she went out the back door to fold laundry. Asker liked Lyra. She may be wrinkly, grumpy, and smell of spoiled fish, but she always told the truth.

Asker cut his eggs with his cracked wood spoon. It was overcooked and dry; Lyra was right about the warming board. he desperately wished for something other than eggs every morning, but this was how it was at the orphanage. Parents who could provide other kinds of food for breakfast, like bread and cheese, didn’t want him. “Cursed,” they called him.

That’s why his last name was Faroxi now. The headmistress told him it meant “forest child,” in the language of the forest spirits, but Asker knew it just meant that people were allowed to be mean to him after his parents had left. A person’s honor came from their parentage after all—having none meant you were an outcast, having parents that abandoned you meant even worse.

A knock at the front door made Asker jump in his seat.

“Margaret, it’s Constable Richard.”

The headmistress quickly glanced at Asker before dropping her spoon to the floor and rushing down the hall to the flimsy front door. She flung it open and a large man with a belly as round as the village well appeared from the morning fog.

“Have you found anything? Please tell me. Oh, but quietly, the children mustn’t-”

Asker’s ears perked up, and he leaned his chair backward, hooking his feet around the table legs, so that he could see down the hall.

“Did the young boy—Frank was it-”

“Francis.”

“Right, Francis. Did he wear something like this around his wrist?” The constable held out a small charm bracelet, one that Asker and Francis had made together. The bracelet’s matching pair wrapped around Asker’s wrist.

“Yes, him and one of the children here are close. They made those one evening after prayer.”

“I see. Well, we found it on the forest’s edge, in a clearing where our patrol routes end. Beyond which, I’m afraid, is highly dangerous and beset with Groaken out and about. Hunting season and all that.”

“Is that- is that it?” She asked, now holding the bracelet tightly.

The constable nodded, and she slumped down to the floor. Asker leaned his seat back down, the world crumbling around him quickly. He felt as though the orphanage was shaking, breath falling out of his lungs, head splitting, his only friend—swallowed whole by the forest.

Every night for five years, he stayed up after curfew, wrapped in his stitch blanket by the window, hoping that his friend would emerge from the trees unharmed, gleefully skipping, like how they used to together alongside the river running through town. The spring rains had started and the pattering of raindrops on the wood roof tiles, were the only thing putting him at ease. His eyes always trained on the wood-line.

He grew into a strong young man with a fascination for cutting wood with the carpenters. Often he’d watch as they turned the lathe to cut down the revered oaks of the Amberwood into furniture that they would sell to merchants from the cities of Rosemark to the North or Laithfall to the West. One evening, a gruff Carpenter by the name of Roderick took Asker on as an apprentice and showed him how to use a chisel to clean out joints in the wood.

“Could you teach me how to make a bow, like yours?” Asker asked, pointing to the oaken short bow Roderick kept hanging on the wall of the workshop.

“It is a tool for a hunter, not a carpenter. That one was used to hunt men. Howler is its name,” for a moment Roderick looked lost in his memories. “Why? Does it call to your senses, boy?”

Asker nodded, imagining Howler hanging about his shoulder with arrows fletched and wrapped in a quiver on his waist. Rushing through the woods, he’d knock his arrows pointed at the bushes, releasing the howling shots into the night.

“Howler’s taken enough life, I reckon. Someday we’ll find an oak to make one for yourself. But, promise me this, boy. You’re making the bow start to finish, and when you use it, you only fire true—on those deserving of Agåpan’s judgement.”

Asker nodded, a smile cut across his face.

Moons later, he took Asker to the edge of the forest to teach him which trees were best for cutting, based on the curve of the trunk and the weight of the branches.

“This will do nicely. See the oak with the bit of cloth hanging off one of its branches? That is our mark.”

Asker nodded and brought the saw to the large oak. He imagined how many barrels for wine they could make from just one tree. A large order came in from an overzealous merchant, raving about how his spiced wine will change the world. Asker couldn’t care less about propelling this merchant to world renown, or anything that happened beyond the village. But, if he contributed to something so ‘profound’ as spiced wine, maybe he could be someone more than just a Faroxi.

He knelt down, thanking the tree and its sacrifice to fate in this transmutation of earthen bounty to bent barrel-wood. He thanked Hjälfir, god of the crafts and creation, for guiding his hand and providing such a rich bounty of quality wood. This was tradition in the Guild of Carpenters, a tradition he happily accepted as they accepted him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the cloth that Roderick pointed out. It was tattered, thin, like torn clothing. Yet, it was familiar. The peculiar way Lyra stitched clothing together, woven in its paltry form.

“Return to me,” came a whisper from the trees. Its voice was wispy and distant. A voice he’d not heard in many years, come back to haunt him. Asker flipped around, his saw held out like a weapon ready to strike. But there was nothing. Birds chirped in the canopy overhead and the smooth morning breeze swept through the branches, creating the ambient song of nature.

“Show yourself,” Asker said, his voice cracking at the end of his tongue. “I’m armed, mind you. You show yourself to me—now.”

From a distant brush, he could hear giggling like a young child. He slowly stepped across root and cracked leaves and heard the sound again but closer. Following the laughter brought him to a clearing in the forest. The whistle of the winds died and the brush stopped dancing.

“If you’re from the village, it’s best you went back now. I’ve half a mind to slice up the first thing I see.” Asker’s hands slightly trembled as a chill fell over him, and a putrid stench of sulfur crept up his nose. The light of the sun became stifled, as though the canopy was growing thicker, making it harder to see.

Asker came upon the shaking brush with the saw held out like a sword.

“I said, show yourself!”

“You don’t recognize me, Asker?” the voice distorted into that of a child’s as the words came out. It was the voice of a young boy. Francis’ voice.

Fingers unfurled from inside the brush, elongated and bony, gripping a low-hanging branch. Deep pockets instead of eyes stared back from a pale-pointed face. A nightmare returned.

Asker swung his saw into the brush screaming, but he made contact with nothing but the thin mass of branch and leaf. Back and forth, he swung the saw until something grabbed onto it tightly and yanked forward. Nearly flying into the brush, Asker released the saw, letting it fly into the void. He fled backward a few steps, repeating a prayer he’d heard Lyra say when he was little.

When void falls from starry night,

And in my soul stirs a crippling fright.

I ask upon ye goddess of love,

Agåpan, send your protective dove,

Shield me from whatever strikes,

From below and above.

The creature had descended back into the woods as a strike of lightning thundered above and rain wept from the skies.

“Asker, you there? Asker?” It was Roderick’s voice coming from the nearby path. “Asker, you’ve been out all day. Have you got the haul ready?”

Roderick emerged from the other side of the clearing. Asker’s eyes adjusted and found that dark had fallen over the forest as the moon perched atop its clouds. Hours had passed like seconds.

“What’s wrong, boy? You look like you’ve seen Azeazat himself.”

Asker collapsed to his knees, staring into the empty brush. It was the strange creature returning to take him, too. Roderick rushed over to gather him and find the saw, but it had been lost to the shadows.

Asker carved the tip of his arrow with a deft hand, cutting notches for feathers like Roderick taught him. The sun was setting on another day, in which Asker seemed more and more distracted. Roderick had finished their order of dining chairs and sat next to him on the dock. The river running through town reflected the purple-orange hue of a tired sun.

“You’re going to ask her then, are you, boy?”

Asker nodded, a nervous knot turning in his stomach.

“Aye, I suppose it’s not my place to tell ya given I’m not your father, but-“ He went quiet a moment as a pair of birds chased one another over the water, “In fact, I suppose it is my place. Listen, you treat miss Riv like one of them royals from Rosemark, you hear? Like a proper lady. A handsome lad like you knows his salt, and you’re not exactly shy one at that. You keep to her and her alone-“

“Roderick.” Asker interrupted, he set his arrows down and gave Roderick a hug, “thank you, Roderick. For everything.”

Roderick nodded, his lower lip quivering, yet he’d always sworn he’d never gone soft.

“Get on with you, boy, go ask her. I’ll close up the shop.”

Asker picked up his things, his face a bright pink, and started down the cobbled street.

Asker held his son up to the sky as the sun wrapped its morning glow around the child like a blanket. Upon a smiling face glimmered two bright crimson-colored eyes and a pointed nose like a foxraven.

“Someday you’ll be a carpenter like me, Francis. Strong and wise as the oaks of the wood. And I-“ a memory like a tear hit the back of his vision as he remembered the morning his parents left, “I’ll never abandon you.”

Riv tied her arms around Asker’s waist like a bow. “Gods be good, he’ll be wiser than you.”

“Funny.” Asker snorted, handing his son off to his wife. “I’ve got a few errands to run before the mask burning festival this evening. You and Francis enjoy the day. I heard Drina is making her famous glubberry pies again this year. Maybe treat yourself to one.”

She nodded and hummed as she cradled their son, walking in a dance down the cobbled street.

Asker waited until she had disappeared around the corner when he retreated into his workshop and grabbed a saw, a carving knife, and a large steel dagger from a hidden cupboard. A purchase he had made a few weeks prior.

Roderick had died a couple of years ago, a small wood-carving of his image hanging from the workshop wall above the lathe. Asker looked his old guild master eye-to-eye.

“I’m taking care of it—old man. ‘Another day, another needle, another thorn in my side.’ I’m burning the deadwood,” A saying that Roderick repeated in his old age, whether it was an adage of the guild or just the ramblings of the old man’s faulty mind was beyond him, but it felt right in the moment to say.

Asker walked alone through the quiet woods, his bow hanging from his shoulder. He returned to the spot—just beyond the village guard patrol routes. It was an uncomfortable clearing. The wind felt as though it stopped, the sounds of stirring animals had halted, and the smell of sulfur flooded his senses.

“I’m back.” Asker said, stepping into the clearing and unfurling his bow. “Show yourself.”

He stood as the minutes passed and the world seemed to have stopped. His heart beat through his chest when the brush started rustling once again, and from the cloudy bushes emerged those unnaturally long appendages that haunted Asker every night, the pointed face and pitless eyes that he prayed never fell upon his son, and the chilling voice that he sought to silence.

He pulled an arrow from his quiver and knocked it, readying his aim.

“Have you come back to play with me, Asker?” The voice of Francis rung through his head. “I’ve missed you. The forest is dark when you’re all alone.”

“Quiet wretch. Reveal yourself to me, in the name of Hjälfir the Creator, I bid thee, show yourself to His father’s gaze in the sun’s light.”

The creature cackled, its voice becoming both child and deep—guttural like a toad’s.

“Stop your god talk, whelp. You undeserving swine. I have been here since the gods once walked this realm. Speak not of what you do not know.” The creature hissed. Its hands unfolded from the cloudy bushes, its arms bending at a backward angle, at least twice the height of a person. Its body was long, like a serpent unfurling into the clearing. Hundreds of arms like that of men sprouting from its long body, moving like a centipede, closer and closer.

Asker pointed his bow, pointing his arrow hopelessly at the beast which now surrounded him.

“I am-your end.” Asker said, firing his best shot. The creature did not flinch as the arrow pierced pale flesh.

“I will consume you, like the last. Prepare thine soul for an eternity within my stomach.” The beast retracted its upper half and came hurtling down upon him. Asker dodged, being nearly consumed whole. He rushed backward into the trees, but the creature’s hundred legs hurtled it forward, blocking Asker’s path and knocking him into some brush.

Blinded by green thorns and bloodied leaves, he desperately throws his arms left and right to regain his footing. Then someone grabbed his arm, a small hand, pulling him sideways and placing something in his grip. Flipping around, Asker found himself beneath the creature who was cutting through the brush a few feet away—searching for him.

In his hand was an arrow, one that Asker had not cut himself, and fed through the fletching on its tail were the beads of a prayer bracelet. Asker quickly knocked the arrow and whispered underfed his breath, “fire true.”

The arrow flew with such speed and force that it split the creature’s flank and its innards spilled onto the forest floor. Lumps of viscous bodily refuse and chunks of bone forming together in a blackened mass.

The beast hurtled and from its gnarled mouth spouted a black ichor as it fell to the ground. A pop like thunder struck, knocking Asker onto his back. The body had dispersed into a thousand tiny glimmering spots like stars, and before him stood a group of unabsolved spirits.

Among them was a small boy, a bracelet hanging from his wrist. The boy smiled, waving at Asker as he got to his feet.

“It’s- it’s you.” Asker said, tears cresting down his cheek, “goodbye Francis.”

The boy nodded, holding up his wrist to show him the matching beaded bracelet they had made as children. He disappeared with the others as quickly as they had appeared. Asker wiped the tears away. It was time to finish what he started. He found the oak that held the tattered clothing of his lost friend all those years ago and started sawing one of its thickest branches.

Returning to Riv and his son Francis, Asker sat next to them as the festival began. The village priest shared his prayers for those who had passed the previous year and suggested all who wished to take part, put on the masks they had made to resemble those who had passed. Asker donned a mask he had whittled on the way home. It was a small mask resembling a young boy of a few summers. Riv held Asker’s hand tightly as the two wept, watching as the bonfire was lit and everyone lined up to toss their mask to the flame—allowing the spirits of the dead to escape the prison of the Land Betwixt and move on into the eternal light of the Everdream.