Before I start, I want you to know there were heroes. True heroes. And I am not one of them. I don’t expect you to like me. I would accept your hate, even. I made choices that turned good people to bone at the bottom of the Lake. Still, I can say with truth there are only good intentions behind writing this account. There are no lies here. Too many lies have been told already and I know how long a story lasts. History shouldn’t be polluted with my own vanity. Do you understand? I hope you do.
Fine. Chosham [1] . I can’t put this off any longer.
I remember the cold first. The air always had an ice-touch on top of that mountain, but in autumn the chill was turning into something much sharper. It made the links of one necklace sit as a numb line across the back of my neck. My earrings were two points of mismatched frost against my ear. I stood facing my own door, one of my arms dragged down by a travel bag and the other hand resting on the doorhandle. My gloves protected my palms, but where my fingers touched the copper handle, the cold sent shocks through my skin.
As I dragged the door open, I was met by a wave of frosty air alongside the smell of damp wood and wool. Enough light came through the marble windows for me to see a fine layer of dust spread across every surface. Empty shelves now looked pale grey. Banners hung from wall to wall, lines of dust forming stripes in their creases. When I set my bag down, a small puff of it rose up from the flagstones.
It didn’t seem worth unpacking, so I left my bag sitting there. Instead, I paced around the main room, opening and closing each abandoned cupboard and hoping I had left something edible for myself.
It was as I knelt, my head in a cupboard and my back to the stone oven, that she began to knock. Naturally, I jumped. My head met the solid wood above me, the thump causing a stack of pages to topple from the counter. Scraps of paper fluttered down around me as I pulled myself to my feet, rubbing my head and quietly cursing. The knocking continued, echoing horribly in that bare room. It built upon itself, forming layer upon layer of unending drumming. I stalked to the door with my hands over my ears, “Alright! Farsh aro [2] ! Okay!”
There was a window set into the door and through it I could see her silhouette. She was tall, with broad shoulders and kept her hair gathered loosely on top of her head. The door trembled in its frame as she knocked. I unlatched it and pushed, forcing her to scramble backwards.
She saw me and stilled, her posture changing. Her hands clutched one another, and her coat swayed as her weight shifted from foot to foot. Her hooded eyes watched me cautiously. Each of those eyes had an orange dot painted at its corner. Another dot, green this time, sat between her mouth and slightly hooked nose.
I crossed my arms, fighting to keep the scowl from my face. My foot tapped against the floor, “hello again, Eeam [3] .”
That made her wince, “Vee, I-”
I reached for the door and began to pull it closed. Her eyes went wide and she lunged forward, grabbing the door,
“Wait! Please wait!”
“Now you talk?” the scowl won and she stepped away from me, “we had the entire ride back, Eeam. Now you want to talk to me?”
“Please,” she caught hold of my jacket sleeve, the leather creasing in her grip, “please, I need your help!” Her voice rose, almost a shout, panicked, “please!”
I immediately let go of the door, “what’s wrong?”
She breathed out, her shoulders dropping, “there’s something in my chimney.”
“That’s it?”
A few whisps of hair spiralled down either side of her face. She twisted them between her fingers, avoiding my eyes,
“I can hear it. It’s trapped in there. It’s alone and scared and I can’t get it out.”
“So, it’s an animal?”
She looked up, her eyes narrowing, “what else would it be, a ghost?”
I looked back into the empty house. The still fireplace gaped back, surrounded by dusty shelves. I stepped fully outside, and closed the door, “fine, I’ll help.”
Eeam pressed her hands together, “thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a good thing I like you. The anger isn’t really sticking.”
It was quiet outside. Birdsong sounded distantly, ringing across miles of fields. Grassland sloped upwards, divided by ribbons of stone walls, until it formed a knife-blade ridge. A river ran down the ridge, writhing and growing as it fell. Where it passed the village, the houses matched its curve. The sound of its water accompanied us as I followed Eeam down the row of houses. Our voices did not break the silence. Eeam seemed to prefer our conversation lie still, instead staring blankly ahead. I watched her closely. She twisted her hair in her hand and walked with her back held stiff. She had inherited the same hair as me, black and loosely curled, but otherwise there was little similarity between us. Her face was thin, while my own was uncomfortably round. Her skin was light brown and a couple of shades paler than my own. Still, we both had the same way of lifting our chins and setting our faces when confronting something we feared.
Each house was identical, each a low stone building constructed with the same wooden shutters. Many of them had vines growing up their walls and flowers sprouting at their base. Eeam’s did not. She had left the door hanging open and I followed her inside. Her home had the same shelves in the same places, the same heavy furniture in roughly the same locations. It even had its own layer of dust, though it was much thinner here. But her house was full. Objects and trinkets stood in ranks on shelves and a flute sat across a chair seat. Through an open door, I could see clothes strewn over a bed. A familiar banner marked one corner. I found myself grinning at it. It read joy [4] , written in my own calligraphy. It matched the lumpy rug and tablecloth, which she had clearly made herself. She had an odd style of looped weaving I had never seen anyone else use.
The fireplace sat prominent in the centre of the room. I knelt before it and Eeam copied me, fingers tapping against her knees. This close, I could smell the scent of dust and earth which always followed her. She looked at me, “can you hear it?”
There was nothing but Eeam’s soft tapping for a long moment. The chill of the stone below began to leach through my trousers, numbing my legs. Then there was a sound, like bristles sweeping over the brickwork, faint despite the silence. I sat back on my feet. “Well, there’s something in there.”
“It was louder earlier,” she whispered, “I could hear it scratching.”
I shuffled forward until my head was in the fireplace. Leaning on the grate, I looked up. Nothing. Just bricks stained in mottled black and grey.
“You’re braver than me,” Eeam said, “all I could imagine was whatever it is falling out the dark and onto my face.”
I backed out quickly, “thanks.”
“Welcome.”
Brushing off my hands, I stared at the chimney, “did you open the flap thing?”
“The damper? Yes. Didn’t work.”
I nodded, then breathed in slowly, “it could be further up.”
“You mean stuck near the top?”
“Yes.”
“So…check from the roof?”
“Yep.”
The ladder up was nailed to the side of the house, locked against the stones by long rods. The space between the houses was surprisingly wide, four people could easily walk through shoulder to shoulder. Down that alley, I could see people hurrying along the road. All going in the same direction. The ladder rung as I began to climb it. Below me, Eeam absently hummed the notes. I pulled myself onto the roof and the ladder rang again as Eeam began to climb. My shoes settled into soft grass. Each roof was a garden, layers of earth separating plants from the stone below. Each was enclosed by a low wall. From up there, I could see from the peaks to the Lake. Boats rocked gently in the docks. Most were rowboats, their hulls a variety of bright colours. All but one, which was a bleached white. All the surrounding roofs were growing something. Stick trellises held high bean poles and rows of neatly planted vegetables could be seen in most directions. Eeam had grass.
“You could plant something here, you know.”
She pulled herself onto the roof, “no I can’t.”
“What about onions,” I held out a hand, “you basically can’t kill those.”
“Well, you can enjoy your onions. I think the grass is nice.” She steadied herself, and her eyes wandered past me, “oh, look at that.”
The chimney stood above the grass, the top of it level with the surrounding wall. A mesh covered it, lines of copper wire interweaving over one another. However, something had ripped it. It had come away from the bricks and stuck out into the air like strands of frayed rope. I crossed over. Sooty bricks descended downwards into a square of utter black. A soft sound echoed up towards me, scratchy and somehow organic, like running a hand over a sheet of paper.
“Can you see it?”
I pulled my head back, “no. But something is blocking the light.”
Eeam gazed down beside me, “we are not going to reach that.”
“No,” I tugged on the copper mesh, “and the rest of this isn’t moving. I guess we wait for whatever it is to move on its own.” I paused, “maybe whilst we wait, you could tell me what’s going on with you?”
She glared at me, then her eyes flicked to something behind me. The blood dropped from her face. She pushed past, leaning over the side of the roof. I stood there, startled for a moment, then slowly followed. Down below, six figures were walking between rows of houses. They drifted through the village in silence. Patchwork clothing hung around them like whisps of filthy smoke. For some, hands were visible, hanging from the ends of sleeves. Hoods hid faces, but breath misted before them, leaving trails of quickly fading steam. Banded Servants. I watched them pass.
“Why are they here?” Eeam’s voice trembled.
“I don’t know,” I leaned further forward, watching the Servants’ backs, “they shouldn’t be.”
Eeam’s hands tightened on the wall. I pushed her shoulder, “hey, Rocky. Why do they bother you so much?”
She let go of the wall and stalked back to the ladder. I scrambled over as she dropped down, “what are you doing?”
She looked up once, then walked away, leaving me alone on the roof. I stood there for a moment, foot tapping against the grass, my gloves pulled tight over my knuckles. Then I let out a long breath and climbed down myself. I didn’t follow her. She would return when she wanted to. I simply headed back inside the house, pulling the door closed behind me. I turned to the fireplace and stared. Soot stained the stone below it.
Hurrying over, I stuck my head into the fireplace. A yellow foot with curved black talons was hanging out into empty space. I pushed further into the chimney, reaching one arm up. My fingers brushed the talons and the foot twitched. I grabbed the leg and pulled down. A flurry of feathers and dust started falling towards my face.
I scrambled back, covering my mouth and coughing into my gloves. A cloud of black ash hung in the air before me. Whatever it was shuffled around in the dust. An odd sound came from it. A chattering cry like someone repeatedly forcing a rusty hinge to bend.
Then the door slammed open,
“Vee!”
I jumped, then raised a hand to my chest. My heart beat hard against the layers of stiff cloth. Eeam ran into the room, grabbed my arm, and started to pull me out the door. Her face was still and grim. With her hand locked around my arm like that, there was little I could do but lock my legs and set my feet flat against the floor, “Eeam! What are you doing!”
She let go and instead gripped the edges of her own coat, “just go outside. Just go outside.”
For a moment, I hesitated. Then slowly stepped outside. I paused in the open doorway, looking around. Nothing seemed different or particularly alarming. Then I heard screaming. It was distant and muffled, but the words were clear enough,
“No, no, no! Get away!”
I started running. My footsteps echoed as I passed between the buildings, bursting out into the curving street. There was a crowd in the distance. As I drew closer, I began to realise the crowd was bigger than it seemed. For every person standing fully in the open, there was another standing, half-hidden between buildings or staring out from doors just barely open. I stopped at the back of the crowd, my hands pressed to my aching ribs. Their attention was all focused on one house. There, the Banded Servants had encircled a door. One Servant stood face to face with a man blocking the doorway. His hands gripped either side of the doorframe, his pale face staring into the Servant’s hood. Just behind him was a woman, a crying baby squirming in her arms.
The man snarled through gritted teeth,
“Back off! Leave us alone!”
“We are sorry,” the Servant’s voice was soft but low enough to carry, “we have been sent here to collect that baby. We understand your anger, but we cannot return without it.”
“You damn will be!”
“We are sorry,” the Servant stepped forwards, forcing the man to look up to meet his gaze, “but we are only following the law and we are willing to call its enforcers. We can wrestle that baby from you, or you can hand it to us. We do not wish to use force.”
“It’s alright.”
The man turned. His wife let go of the baby with one hand, resting it on his shoulder. Her mouth curled into a smile even as tears streaked down her face,
“It’s alright.”
The man shook her hand off,
“Don’t you dare! You hear me? Don’t-”
She pushed past him and held the baby out to the Servant. The man screamed and she put a hand on his chest. The Servant took the baby, his hands extending claw-like from his sleeves. He cradled the baby against his chest.
“Take care of him. I-” the woman’s voice broke off, “just look after him.”
The Servant nodded and turned. He paused,
“I…we are sorry.”
The woman held her husband back as the Servants walked away. The sounds coming from him made me flinch. Oddly, the baby was quiet. It seemed content, nestled into the arms of the Servant.
“No, not allowing this.”
I started, realising that Eeam was standing beside me. Her eyes were wide enough to display a ring of white and locked on the retreating Servants. I placed a hand on her shoulder. She was shaking, just faintly. I lowered my voice, “you don’t need to be upset, you know. It’s not as bad as it looks.”
Eeam gripped my arm without looking at me, “shut up.”
“Really. The-”
She started moving, slipping out from my grip and heading straight towards the Servants. I panicked and shouted before I could think, “Eeam!” I grabbed the back of her coat, halting her mid-step.
The Servants stopped. Then they looked directly at us. Each of their faces had been tattooed, a black bar stretching from the edge of one eye socket to the other. It was the one carrying the baby whose gaze snagged on my own. Pale brown eyes stared out from among the uneven ink. It was impossible to hold that gaze. I looked down.
“Am Veesuri [5] ?” the Servant sounded surprised.
By now, most of the crowd was staring in our direction. I swallowed, and my necklaces seemed to tighten around my throat. Eeam notice the crowd too. She straightened her posture into something more dignified and her face went blank. I let go of her coat and instead gently placed a hand on her arm, “come on, let’s move.”
Fortunately, she let me pull her between two houses and out of sight. I forced a smile onto my face as she stood there, staring down at the ground. “Eeam? I think what I was saying before was important.” I waited, but she did not respond. So, I continued, “Really, you don’t need to be so upset. The Banded Servants don’t hurt the baby. It will be cared for. I know it’s a little shocking, but I’ve seen the other side of this. It’s not a bad life, a little more…austere than either of us are used to but not awful.”
Eeam pushed me away,
“Would you say that to them?” She pointed to the closed door on the other side of the street.
I looked back at her, “most of it. I would hope it might comfort them.”
Eeam laughed dryly, “you spend too much time with your nose in books rather than out in sunlight.”
I raised my chin, “I think I know far more-”
“Do you?”
“Yes!” I stepped towards her, “I understand now! That must have been their third child.” I raised my hands, “and, if that was their third child, they really should have expected this.”
“That’s really what you think?”
“Yes.”
“Who was the first person to give you that excuse?”
My mouth opened, but I couldn’t make any sound.
The anger was gone from Eeam. She just looked tired. With a slight smile, she reached a hand out and patted my head. A plume of soot started to fall around me,
“You look like a chimney brush.”
I batted her hand away, “well, that’s your fault. You could’ve used an actual chimney brush a couple of times.”
She started walking and I followed her.
“Did you get it out?” she asked.
I nodded, “it’s definitely some kind of bird.”
We reached Eeam’s door and she pushed it open. Inside the house, the dust had settled. Trails had been dragged through it, but the bird was hidden. I looked around, “I wonder what type of bird it is.”
“Does it matter?” Eeam ducked down to check under the table, “the thing’s been trapped for maybe days. Let’s just open the windows and let it go.”
“Fine.” I reached for the shutters, then spotted a plume of stained feathers protruding between a cabinet and the wall. I dropped my hands to my sides and slowly began to edge towards it. I reached the wall and looked down. The bird stared back up at me with one yellow-ringed eye, its hooked beak held open. Through the soot, the soft blue-green of its feathers was just visible.
“It’s a falcon,” I whispered.
The falcon screeched, the grinding, metallic sound filling the room. It tried to flap away. In a mess of black-streaked feathers, it moved just an arm-span across the floor. When it at last went still, it held one wing out from its body. “It’s injured,” I called.
“Of course it is,” Eeam wandered over, her arms crossed.
I took off my jacket, crouching down, “hi there, chayash [6] . Not going to hurt you.”
The falcon stared back at me. I lunged forward, grabbing the bird in my jacket. Stinging feathers snapped across my face. The falcon’s repetitive cry rung painfully loud so close to my ears. I fought against it and eventually managed to pin both wings to its sides. The falcon went still, one eye watching me. I puffed out a breath.
“It smudged your markings.”
I looked sideways at Eeam, “it did?”
“Yeah, you’ve got streaks of red paint from your eye to your mouth,” Eeam ran a finger over the bird’s head and down its neck, “she’s beautiful.”
“Do you want to look after her?”
“No, I’m sick of caring for things.”
“Alright.”
“Vee…” Eeam breathed in, “you have a good soul in there, but sometimes you seem good at ignoring it.”
I stiffened, “Now? Really? I just-”
She held up a hand, “just listen, okay? I need your help. Or at least your silence, okay?”
I paused, then let my shoulders slump down. I smiled, “sure.”
Eeam looked directly at me, holding my eyes with hers, “I’m serious. I want you to swear on Amra’s spirit you won’t say a word.”
Something terribly hot began to bubble in my chest. “How dare you,” my voice was soft.
“I mean it.”
I looked down at the bird, then back up at Eeam. There was a necklace hanging down to my chest and I could feel its pendent resting heavy over my heart. “Okay,” I said quietly.
Eeam broke her eye contact, “how many siblings do I have?”
“Are you alright?” I stepped up to her, “you have a brother. That’s it.”
“Wrong.”
“What?”
“I found out this morning, I have a brother… and a little sister.”
“Oh,” I edged away until I felt the cabinet pressing into my back, “oh.”
She looked at me, face grey, “you can’t tell the Servants. You promised you wouldn’t say anything.”
“Eeam,” I stared at her, “this is serious. I can’t just-”
She stalked closer, making the poor bird squirm in my hands. She gripped my shoulders painfully tight,
“I need you to stay silent. Vee, I don’t want to lose my little sister, okay?”
I swallowed and closed my eyes, “alright.”
[1]Chosham. cho-SHAM. Translation = Enough.
[2]Farsh aro. fah-SH AH-o. Translation = Spare me.
[3]Eeam. EE-am. (Name) Translation = To make sure/guarantee
[4]Moivow. MOY-vow. Translation = Joy
[5]Am. AM. (Name/Number) Translation = Seventeen
Veesuri. Vee-SUR-eye. (Name) Translation = Constant/It is the same
[6]Chayash. Chay-ASH. Translation = Little friend