8+HR Bedtime Story: Why It Stunk To Be A Medieval Assassin

Hey guys.

Tonight we're stepping into a world where being an assassin didn't mean elegance or glory.

It meant moldy cloaks,

Blunt knives,

And failing your way through survival.

Forget the myths of shadowy killers and secret orders.

This is what it really looked like.

Slipping in goose dung,

Getting betrayed by monks,

And crawling out of latrines with nothing but a limp and a grudge.

Now get comfortable,

Let the day melt away,

And we'll drift back together into the quiet corners of the past.

You don't have a weapons chest.

You have a pouch.

A damp,

Sagging,

Threadbare pouch that smells like fermented mushrooms and the last person who used it to carry onions.

It holds your entire arsenal.

One rusted blade,

A chipped flint,

A sprig of something that might be hemlock,

And a handful of bad decisions.

Your dagger,

If you can still call it that,

Was salvaged from a corpse in a ditch.

The blade is pitted with rust,

Bent slightly to the left,

And has a handle wrapped in old leather so cracked it flakes off like dead skin when you touch it.

You tried sharpening it with a river rock once.

Now it's just blunt in a more uniform way.

The only thing it reliably pierces is your own thigh when you forget how you sheathed it.

Poison?

You've heard stories.

Assassins carrying glass vials filled with elegant death.

Nightshade from the east.

Venom milked from rare snakes.

Powders that dissolve in wine without a trace.

Those assassins are fictional.

Your poison is a suspicious mixture of crushed berries and mold scraped off a cheese wheel you found behind the monastery.

You don't know what it does.

You tested it on a rat.

It ran in circles,

Sneezed violently,

And then seemed fine.

It's currently living under your bed and occasionally steals bread.

You named it Gerald.

You also have a rope.

Sort of.

It's six feet of frayed hemp twine that smells like goat urine and was originally used to tie up firewood.

You tell yourself it could be used to scale a wall,

Garrote a target,

Or restrain a guard.

In reality,

It couldn't hold a basket of apples without snapping.

But it makes you feel resourceful,

Like someone who plans ahead.

You do not plan ahead.

You once had throwing knives.

They were stolen.

Not by a thief,

But by the wind after you dramatically flung them during practice and lost all three in a haystack that immediately caught fire.

You stood there watching the blaze,

Holding your dignity and nothing else.

Now you carry two rusty nails and a rock in your pocket,

Just in case you need to improvise,

Panic,

Or distract a dog.

Your clothes are not stealth gear.

They are just.

.

.

Clothes.

A cloak you found draped over a scarecrow.

Boots borrowed from someone too dead to complain.

And a tunic that used to be beige,

But now reads more as mold-colored.

The hood doesn't conceal your face.

It just makes you look like a mildly suspicious mushroom.

Every time you try to sneak,

Your left boot squeaks like a distressed duck.

You tell yourself it's part of your signature style.

You dream of a crossbow.

Silent.

Deadly.

Elegant.

You've seen one up close exactly once.

It was in the hands of a city guard who was pointing it at your chest because you looked like a loiterer.

Crossbows are expensive.

They are also technically illegal for people like you,

Meaning poor,

Unsupervised,

And disturbingly eager.

The punishment for possession is either a fine you can't pay or your left hand.

You like your left hand.

It scratches your back and helps you climb when your right hand is busy holding bad decisions.

You've heard of a blade hidden in the boot.

Clever.

Subtle.

The kind of thing nobles imagine when they fantasize about the dark arts.

Your reality?

The one time you tried to hide your knife in your boot?

It fell out,

Bounced once,

And landed tip-down in your foot.

You limped for a week and lost half your payment from Gregor because you couldn't run fast enough from a very angry pig farmer.

You carry a vial of oil.

Not for assassinations.

For door hinges.

You learned after your first job that trying to sneak through an ancient wooden door without it is like announcing yourself with a musical saw.

The oil is old,

Rancid,

And sometimes doubles as hair product when you want to look menacing.

It doesn't help.

It just smells.

You also have chalk.

Not because it's useful,

But because you once read a story where an assassin left cryptic symbols on the wall before vanishing into the night.

You tried it once.

The chalk melted in the rain,

Leaving behind a suspicious white smear that someone mistook for pigeon waste.

Still,

It makes you feel mysterious.

You like feeling mysterious.

It distracts from the hunger.

Your most valuable asset isn't in your pouch.

It's in your chest.

A vague but persistent sense of vengeance,

Aimed in no particular direction but fueled by years of mistreatment,

Unpaid debts,

And the general unfairness of living in a time where warm soup is considered luxury.

You have rage.

You have resentment.

You have resolve.

What you don't have is any of the actual tools that might help you survive.

But hey,

You're an assassin,

At least technically.

You've got a knife,

Some poison that hasn't killed you yet,

And an idea that maybe,

Just maybe,

This next job will be the one that doesn't end with you bleeding in a ditch.

Probably.

You think you're ready.

You've got your bent dagger,

Your questionable poison,

And a face that screams,

Don't worry,

I definitely belong here.

The plan is simple.

Sneak through the medieval city under cover of night,

Slip past guards,

Dogs,

And whatever else is wandering around at this hour,

And end up precisely where your victim sleeps.

Unseen.

Unheard.

Undone.

It's the unheard part that starts failing almost immediately.

Because here's what no one tells you about medieval cities.

They're loud.

Not daytime marketplace loud.

Not festival drunk lute player loud.

Everything echoes.

The streets are made of uneven cobblestones that amplify every step like you're leading a parade for sad criminals.

Each time your boot hits the ground,

It sounds like a blacksmith just dropped a cauldron.

You try to tread lightly.

The stones mock you.

They creak.

They rattle.

They squeal.

Somehow,

The street itself is betraying you.

You attempt to tiptoe along the edges.

That's where the mud is.

Great idea.

Except now your boots make a new sound.

A damp sucking noise,

Like you're being slowly devoured by the earth one foot at a time.

It's somehow worse.

You pause near a doorway,

Trying to regroup,

And step on what can only be described as an old turnip.

It explodes like a damp firecracker.

A nearby dog starts barking.

Of course it does.

You freeze.

And then,

Just to make sure the gods are fully aware of your failure,

A goose rounds the corner.

It sees you.

It honks.

Loudly.

Geese,

As it turns out,

Are not just animals.

They're alarms with feathers and violent intent.

This one screams like you insulted its mother,

Which,

In your defense,

You might have done in a previous life.

You try to shush it.

It honks louder.

You back away slowly,

Hands raised,

As if negotiating with a drunk noble.

The goose charges.

You trip over your own feet,

Crash into a barrel,

And spill what appears to be cabbage water into the street.

Somewhere,

Someone opens a window just to yell,

Shut up,

Before slamming it again.

Stealth is going great.

You duck into a narrow alley,

Which is somehow darker and smellier than the main road.

The air is thick with mildew,

Dead things,

And something that makes your eyes water.

You think it might be sadness.

You press yourself against the wall and try to melt into the shadows,

But the wall is wet and probably alive.

You swear it just breathed.

You hear footsteps.

Actual ones.

Not yours.

Clanking armor.

A guard.

Great.

You flatten yourself behind a crate that smells like fermented onions and pray to every god you've ever heard of.

The footsteps pass.

You hold your breath.

Then you sneeze.

Because the crate is filled with straw and mold and betrayal,

The guard pauses.

You hold still,

Willing yourself to become a brick or a particularly ugly statue.

He mutters something about rats and keeps walking.

You're safe.

For now.

You crawl out,

Covered in dust and regret,

And continue down the alley.

The streets twist in ways that defy logic.

You swear you turned left twice and somehow ended up in front of the same fishmonger's stall that should be closed,

But is inexplicably still occupied by a cat with the eyes of someone who's seen things.

You nod to the cat.

The cat judges you and walks away.

Even it knows you're bad at this.

You finally spot your destination.

A manor wall just beyond the square.

It's not far.

Just 30 more paces,

A prayer,

And a whole lot of wishful thinking.

You crouch low and dart across the open space.

Your boot immediately catches on a loose stone.

You stumble.

You recover.

You keep going.

Progress.

Until you hear it.

A drunk.

Because of course there's a drunk.

Every medieval square,

After midnight,

Must legally include at least one guy urinating into a barrel while singing about soup.

He sees you.

Sort of.

He squints,

Belches,

And says,

Hey,

Are you my cousin?

You ignore him and pick up the pace.

He follows.

He's faster than he should be.

Wait.

I know that face.

You're the guy who.

.

.

Wait,

No.

You're not.

He falls into a crate of turnips.

Again with the turnips.

You reach the wall.

It's mossy.

Slippery.

Not meant for climbing.

You grab hold and begin your ascent.

Your cloak catches on a nail.

You dangle for a moment like a confused bat,

Then fall backwards into a puddle.

A puddle that smells like fish and despair.

The drunk applauds.

You lie there,

Wet,

Bruised,

And wondering if maybe your true talent was never assassination,

But instead publicly failing in creative ways.

This is stealth,

You remind yourself.

This is the art of shadows.

This is why real assassins wear soft shoes,

Use signals,

And don't yell at birds in the street.

You get up,

Soaked,

Muddy,

And covered in bits of lettuce.

You still have a job to do.

You still have a target.

And despite the noise,

The chaos,

And the goose,

Somehow no one's actually caught you.

Yet.

You thought the cloak would make you look dangerous,

Mysterious.

A figure gliding through the night with the silent grace of a shadowy predator.

What you didn't count on was how heavy wet wool becomes when it's been dragging through medieval sludge for three hours.

It doesn't flow behind you like a whisper.

It clings to your legs like a wet dog that refuses to let go.

Your first mistake was putting it on at all.

It looked dramatic,

Hanging on the peg in the thatch-roofed corner of your room,

Back when it was still mostly dry and smelled vaguely of garlic instead of fermented gutter.

You wrapped it around yourself,

Tied it at the neck,

Like you'd seen in the illustrations.

Those brave,

Faceless figures marching into castles.

And instantly felt like someone with a secret.

Now,

You are someone with trench foot.

The bottom half of the cloak is less fabric,

More sponge.

Every time it sways,

It flings droplets of street water in a lazy arc across your shins.

You try to gather it up,

But there's too much of it.

It keeps unfolding like a cursed tapestry.

You tuck a handful under your belt.

It slips loose two steps later and catches on a loose nail jutting from a barn door,

Snapping your head back like a leash.

Somewhere in the darkness,

A donkey brays in mockery.

You crouch behind a fence post to re-knot the hem and realize the wool has absorbed everything the street has to offer.

Mud,

Blood,

Old fish scales,

And what might be last week's gravy.

You smell like a soup that lost hope.

The weight of it is absurd.

You could bench press less.

It pulls at your shoulders with every step.

Stealth becomes a form of resistance training.

Your knees have filed complaints with your ankles,

Who are already in negotiations to abandon ship.

Then there's the movement problem.

Cloaks don't slip silently around corners.

They snag.

On door handles.

On hinges.

On that one jagged splinter sticking out of a wooden wall that somehow finds its way through six layers of fabric and straight into your ribs.

You can't count how many times you've paused to disentangle yourself from something stupid,

Like a laundry line or a goat's horn.

You once got caught on a beggar's crutch.

He demanded a tip.

You gave him your last copper just to stop the yelling.

Wind is also your enemy.

You imagine the cloak billowing dramatically as you stand atop a rooftop,

Gazing down at your target like some avenging ghost.

What happens instead is that the wind whips the cloak straight into your face,

Blinding you mid-stride and causing you to stumble directly into a pile of what you sincerely hope is hay.

It's not.

The geese remember.

And don't even think about rain.

Rain turns your cloak into a wearable swamp.

Every raindrop becomes a tiny betrayal,

Seeping deeper,

Turning the fabric into a curtain of cold mush.

The wool begins to stretch.

You are now wearing a damp,

Woolen tent,

Dragging behind you like a banner of poor life choices.

You try to wring it out once.

It drips for seven minutes straight and smells like roasted failure.

You've seen real assassins.

Once,

Anyway.

A flash of movement on a rooftop.

Clean.

Efficient.

Cloak flaring just long enough to vanish into the shadows.

They probably had tailoring.

You?

You're wearing what used to be someone's winter blanket.

There's still a patch sewn into the corner that says Property of St.

Ulrich's Monastery.

It's not even black.

It's a weird greenish-brown that looks like envy mixed with pond scum.

You think maybe you'll ditch it.

Just leave it draped over a barrel,

Walk away lighter,

Freer,

Faster.

But then you remember your tunic has a hole under the arm,

Your boots are falling apart,

And your face is already wanted in three nearby villages for crimes you mostly didn't commit.

The cloak may be a curse,

But it's the only thing separating you from total exposure,

Both criminal and physical.

So you keep it.

You hike it up again,

Tie it tighter,

And press on,

Dragging the dripping mass behind you like the world's saddest bridal train.

You round a corner,

Try to move swiftly,

And the hem catches on a butcher's hook hanging low from an awning.

It doesn't just snag,

It lifts.

You're jerked backward with such force you nearly bite your tongue.

The hook rips a new hole in the already patchwork wool,

And for one glorious second you think it might finally tear free.

It doesn't.

You stand there,

Dripping,

Grunting,

Yanking like a man trying to divorce himself from a blanket mid-argument.

A dog watches from a doorway,

Tail wagging.

It knows you're not winning this round.

Eventually you get free.

You limp forward,

A little colder,

A little wetter,

And a lot more disillusioned.

You don't look like a shadow.

You look like laundry that crawled out of a well and learned how to swear.

But it's too late to turn back.

You pull the hood up mostly to shield your face from the wind,

Partially to hide from the universe and continue your mission.

Because mysterious or not,

You still have a job to do,

And the cloak,

Like your dignity,

Is coming with you.

You don't know who invented medieval surveillance,

But you're confident it wasn't a spy or a guard or some royal informant in a velvet robe.

It was Agnes.

Agnes,

The baker's wife.

Five feet tall,

Three feet wide,

And powered entirely by gossip and boiled dough.

She's not paid by anyone.

She doesn't wear a uniform,

But she sees everything and tells everyone,

In triplicate,

With embellishments.

You're not dodging guards with polished armor and synchronized patrols.

You're dodging Agnes on her morning bread rounds,

Wielding a basket like it's a warrant.

Her eyes are small,

Beady,

And sharper than your dagger.

She knows when you come and go.

She knows what you ate.

She knows that you borrowed your cloak from a dead monk and that your real name probably isn't Lars.

It's not.

But now it definitely never will be.

She has ears in every window,

Every corner,

Every washbasin.

Her inner circle includes the blacksmith's wife,

Three shepherd children,

And a goat with a limp that somehow knows where you sleep.

You once whispered to yourself,

In an alley,

That you hated turnips.

The next morning,

Three people asked why you were so anti-farmer.

One even offered to pray for you.

Agnes had spread it.

Of course she had.

There are no security cameras in the medieval world.

There's just community.

Horrible,

Inescapable,

Aggressively nosy community.

You can't sneak.

You can't slip past unnoticed.

Because Agnes and all the other self-appointed neighborhood archivists have memorized the way you walk.

They've named your limp.

They've commented on your smell,

Cataloged your stains,

And debated whether the scar on your chin came from a dog,

A duel,

Or divine punishment.

All three are wrong.

It was a chicken.

You try to blend in.

You carry a sack of turnips,

Pretend you're just another peasant with root vegetables and anxiety.

It doesn't work.

Agnes appears from nowhere.

She squints at your bag.

She squints harder at your boots.

Didn't you used to wear different ones?

She asks,

Knowing full well you did.

You mumble something about repairs.

She nods slowly,

Like she's writing it down in a mental ledger you will never escape.

She walks off,

But it's too late.

The surveillance system has logged you.

You are now topic number two in the bakery queue.

Number one is the Cooper's apprentice,

Who allegedly smiled at a married woman.

And number three is a pig with suspiciously clean hooves.

You turn down a side street to avoid further scrutiny and run directly into a wall of children.

Barefoot,

Mudstreaked,

Eyes wide with the holy fire of mischief.

They know everything Agnes doesn't.

Because they don't just watch.

They follow.

You once tried to cut through a stable yard unnoticed.

A six-year-old materialized from a hay pile and asked,

Who you gonna stab today,

Mister?

You gave him a copper to go away.

He followed you for two hours and told three people you were on a secret quest.

One of them was his uncle,

Who works the town gates.

Now every time you pass the butcher's stall,

The apprentice winks.

The tavern girl calls you Cloak Boy.

The priest avoids eye contact.

You haven't even done anything yet.

You're just thinking about crime,

And already everyone's sure you're up to something.

Because in medieval towns,

Silence is suspicious.

Privacy is an insult.

Every choice you make,

Where you walk,

Who you nod to,

What direction you spit,

Is interpreted,

Dissected,

And shared over boiled cabbage like scripture.

You once tripped and fell into a ditch.

Agnes had the story retold by sunset.

By morning,

You were mysteriously drunk on the run from tax collectors and possibly cursed.

All because you slipped on a wet potato.

You tried using an alias once.

A new name,

A limp you didn't actually have,

And a different hat.

Didn't matter.

Agnes stared at you,

Blinked once,

And said,

Nice try.

The next day,

Someone handed you a note addressed to your real name.

Spelled wrong,

But still.

You consider moving to a new village.

Starting over.

But the system is the same everywhere.

There's always an Agnes.

Always a man who sits outside sharpening tools and pretending not to listen.

Always an old woman with a broom and secrets.

Always someone leaning out a window like a gargoyle with commentary.

You step into the tavern to shake the eyes off your back.

Order something cheap and brown in a chipped mug.

Sit with your hood up.

Behind you,

Someone says,

That's the one who never prays before drinking.

You don't even turn around.

You just sip and pretend not to exist.

The surveillance is working.

You haven't done a single thing wrong.

But you're already guilty.

Because in this town,

Innocence isn't about what you've done.

It's about what Agnes hasn't decided yet.

You've decided to try poison.

Again.

Not because you're good at it.

You're not.

But because sneaking into a heavily guarded manor and stabbing a noble in his sleep is starting to sound like a career-limiting move.

Poison,

At least in theory,

Is quiet,

Elegant,

Clean.

In practice it's sticky,

Unpredictable,

And almost always ends with someone vomiting on your shoes.

You open your satchel,

Which is less of a bag and more of a crumbling leather pouch that smells like old carrots and failure.

Inside,

A handful of herbs you can't identify.

A vial of something amber that might be oil or urine.

Unclear.

And a parchment with scribbled notes you copied from a half-drunk apothecary who insisted,

These'll do the trick.

Then passed out into a mortar.

Step one.

Crush the leaves.

Easy enough.

Except your mortar is a rock and your pestle is another rock.

You smash them together with the intensity of someone who's never done this before.

And is just hoping that force equals results.

Green pulp squirts out.

It smells like bad breath and soup.

You nod with false confidence and move to step two.

Add the powder.

What powder?

You stare at your ingredients.

One of the packets is labeled soot.

Another says rat root.

And one just has a skull and the word maybe.

You pick the skull.

Because of course you do.

Now the liquid.

You unstopper the amber vial.

The smell hits you like a boot to the face.

It's sharp.

Sweet.

And vaguely like fermented onions soaked in vinegar.

You dip your finger in.

Touch it to your tongue.

Your mouth goes numb.

Then burns.

Then itches.

You immediately regret everything.

But that's also the most promising reaction you've had to anything this week.

So you pour it in.

It fizzes.

A little.

You're not sure if that's supposed to happen.

You swirl it around and try to imagine what a murderous elixir should look like.

This looks like pond water.

You stare at it,

Trying to remember the dosage.

Was it one drop?

Two?

Half a vial?

The apothecary's notes include the phrase careful now,

But don't elaborate.

You opt for three drops,

Because subtlety is for people with training.

You sneak into the noble's kitchen under cover of darkness,

Which means you bribe a cook with two copper coins and a moderately charming lie about being a taster sent from the Guild of Safety.

There is no such guild.

The cook doesn't care.

He's been drinking since dawn.

You find the wine goblet,

Gilded,

Stupidly heavy,

And definitely designed for someone who drinks more than they reads.

You tip your potion in,

Swirl and bolt.

The job is done.

Probably.

The next day,

The town erupts with news.

The noble is alive.

He is also very,

Very not okay.

Apparently,

Five minutes into the feast,

He stood up to give a toast,

Clutched his stomach,

Turned purple,

And expelled the contents of his soul from both ends.

He's now bedridden,

Pale as ash,

And making noises that sound like the end of civilization.

A priest was called,

Then another priest,

Then a third,

Just for good measure.

No one will enter the manor without stuffing herbs up their nose.

Your client is not pleased.

He paid for a quiet death.

What he got was medieval explosive theater.

He sends you a message.

You had one job.

It's delivered by a boy on a donkey who throws the note at your head,

Then rides away while laughing.

You return to your hovel and look at the remaining ingredients.

Somewhere in the mess is a perfectly lethal combination.

You just haven't found it yet.

Last time,

You mixed something that made a man fall asleep for two days.

He woke up refreshed,

Asked who his chiropractor was,

And gave you a silver for the best nap of his life.

Once,

You tried using nightshade.

That was effective,

Except you didn't dry it properly,

Gave it to the wrong target,

And spent three days hiding in a pigpen while the sheriff screamed about intent to assassinate a monk.

In your defense,

The monk was extremely rude.

You know there are professionals,

Real poisoners,

People with books,

Equipment,

Proper glass vials and little labels that say things like paralysis or death,

Medium slow.

You are not one of them.

You are working with wild plants,

Folk rumors,

And the occasional hallucination.

Still,

You keep going.

You keep brewing.

Because every failed attempt is a lesson.

A messy,

Stinking,

Violently evacuating lesson.

But a lesson all the same.

You sit by the window,

Watching smoke rise from the manor where the noble still wails into a chamber pot.

You sip from your own mug,

Filled with something you found in a barrel labeled,

Do Not Drink.

You wonder if maybe you poisoned yourself again.

You wonder if that would technically count as success.

You wonder why every job smells like cabbage and regret.

You don't have answers.

But you do have a new recipe forming in your head.

One that probably won't involve bowel explosions.

There was no ceremony.

No black-hooded figure whisking you away in the night to join a secret order.

No whispered oaths beneath candlelight.

No ancient scroll handed to you with a blood-stamped seal.

Your training began the day someone twice your size punched you in the face for touching an apple that wasn't yours.

And it's only gotten worse since.

You didn't train.

You survived.

That's it.

That's the whole curriculum.

Your earliest memory is not of lullabies or bedtime stories.

It's of ducking behind a barrel while two grown men screamed about stolen chickens and someone threw a hammer.

You were five.

You didn't understand the argument.

But you understood the hammer.

Rule One.

Don't be in the way when things start flying.

You didn't learn stealth from a master.

You learned it from hiding under tavern tables while bar brawls erupted overhead.

You'd crawl out once the mugs stopped flying and pick through the fallen for coins,

Bread crusts,

And occasionally unattended boots.

You learned to move fast.

Not because it was graceful,

But because slowness got you caught.

And caught meant pain.

Or worse,

Questions.

You learned footwork from outrunning angry vendors,

Guards,

And the occasional goose that took your presence as a personal insult.

You never danced,

But your sidestep is excellent,

Especially when dodging slaps,

Kicks,

Or thrown ladles.

You learned balance walking narrow beams across rooftops because the streets below were full of people who didn't care if you starved,

But very much cared if you touched their turnips.

Your first weapon was not a sword.

It was a dinner knife.

You still remember the way it shook in your hand the first time someone cornered you in an alley and said,

Give me what you've got.

You had one copper.

You said no.

They lunged.

You swung.

You missed.

Then you panicked and stabbed them in the thigh.

It worked.

Mostly because they didn't expect a child with bad aim and a fork.

You learned where it hurts.

Eyes.

Groin.

Knee.

Ear.

Not because someone taught you,

But because you tried everything until something worked.

You once bit someone's ankle and escaped while they screamed about infection.

You still count it as a win.

Every skill you have was carved out of necessity.

Pickpocketing?

You were hungry.

Climbing?

You were chased.

Lockpicking?

You got stuck in a pantry once and needed to escape before someone accused you of stealing salted fish.

You didn't steal it.

That time.

You once met a man who claimed to have been trained by the legendary assassins of the Jade Isles.

He wore black gloves and said things like,

I move with silence.

You watched him try to leap a fence and catch his foot on a beam.

He moaned for an hour.

You took his gloves.

There are no dojos.

No training grounds.

Just gutters and alleys and rooftops that cave in if you step on the wrong tile.

Your gym was the marketplace.

Your classroom a barn full of rats.

Your teachers old drunks with scars and stories that might have been true but mostly ended with,

And that's why you never turned your back on a fishmonger.

You did have a mentor once.

Briefly.

His name was Thistle.

No one knew why.

He said he used to be a cutthroat in the eastern wastes.

Taught you how to disarm a drunk and where to hide a blade in your boot.

Also taught you how to cheat at dice and vanish when things got hot.

One day he vanished himself.

Left behind a note.

Don't die stupid.

You carry that advice like a second blade.

Every move you make is improvised.

Your swordplay is not elegant.

It's opportunistic.

You throw elbows,

Knees,

Rocks,

Insults.

You once blinded a man with a handful of flour.

Another time you disarmed someone by sneezing on them.

None of it was planned.

All of it worked.

People think assassins are graceful.

That they wear tailored leather and speak ten languages and quote poetry while flipping through moonlight like gymnasts.

You have a limp from falling off a roof and a scar on your arm from tripping over a goat while running from a butcher.

You quote exactly nothing and your idea of elegance is not bleeding on your own shoes.

But what you lack in style you make up for in one very useful thing.

You are hard to kill.

Not because you're strong but because you've been almost killed so many times your body now flinches before your brain registers danger.

You don't dodge out of strategy.

You dodge out of trauma.

Your reflexes are a love letter to every past mistake.

You are not a warrior.

You are not a shadow.

You are not trained.

You are simply alive.

And somehow in this world that makes you dangerous.

Your target lives in a castle,

A real one,

With turrets,

Battlements,

Murder holes and an actual drawbridge.

You've seen it from a distance,

Perched on a hill like it's judging the rest of the landscape,

Built out of stone so thick even the air around it feels fortified.

It has towers,

Banners,

Guards in matching armor and gates that creak like thunder when they close.

Inside those walls is a noble who's committed enough sins to earn a death sentence.

And you're the lucky soul hired to deliver it.

You approach on foot.

Because of course you do.

You have no horse,

No cart,

Not even a donkey with poor posture.

Just your own two legs and one of them is currently hosting a blister the size of a small coin.

It popped yesterday.

Now it squishes when you walk.

You pretend it's the sound of quiet confidence.

The guards outside the castle wear matching cloaks.

Real ones.

Not moldy blankets stitched together from old monk robes.

Their boots are polished.

Their armor actually fits.

They hold crossbows like they know how to use them.

You hold a bent knife tucked in your boot and try not to limp too obviously.

One of the guards spits into the grass and doesn't even look at you.

That's how beneath suspicion you are.

Or maybe they just assume you're a beggar.

Which technically you are.

Your plan,

If you can call it that,

Is based on two very medieval principles.

One,

Rich people are predictable and two,

Servants are invisible.

You've spent the last week loitering at a nearby tavern,

Memorizing the comings and goings of the staff.

The cook's apprentice always leaves early to chase the poultry.

The stable hand sneaks off after sunset to visit someone in the village who may or may not be married.

And every morning,

At precisely the hour when the sun climbs halfway up the tower,

The kitchen boys haul sacks of turnips through the back gate.

You decide you are now a kitchen boy.

The disguise is simple.

Dirty hands,

A sack of root vegetables and an expression of profound suffering.

You nail the look.

Mostly because it's not a disguise.

It's your actual face.

You walk straight toward the back entrance carrying an empty sack and a fake limp which blends nicely with your real one.

A guard eyes you,

Grunts something about being late and waves you through.

That's the terrifying thing about castles.

Everyone inside assumes you're supposed to be there.

The nobles don't notice.

The servants don't care.

And the guards are more concerned with anyone trying to leave with something valuable than someone arriving with a bag full of sadness.

Inside,

It's everything you imagined.

Stone halls that echo even when you're trying not to be heard.

Tapestries that haven't been washed in years but still think they're impressive.

Candle sconces with melted wax older than you.

The place smells like wine,

Smoke,

Wet stone and old cheese pretending to be decorative.

You pass a hallway with three paintings of the same man at slightly different ages.

You assume it's your target.

He looks pompous in all of them.

You find the servant stares and begin your ascent.

You've been told the noble sleeps in the West Tower which sounds romantic until you realize that tower means 400 winding steps made of uneven stone designed to kill you through cardio.

You climb,

Counting each breath like it's currency.

By the time you reach the top,

You're sweating through your stolen tunic and the knife in your boot has carved a new blister into your ankle.

You pause outside the chamber door,

Heart pounding,

Legs shaking and try to remember which pocket you put the poison in.

That's when the door opens.

You don't have time to panic.

A servant walks out holding a tray.

He's half asleep and muttering about fig jam.

He barely looks at you.

You step aside,

Nod like you belong and slide into the room before the door creaks shut.

It's huge.

Of course it is.

The bed is the size of a fishing boat.

The sheets are made of some kind of soft,

Smug fabric that probably required five peasants and a goat to produce.

A fire crackles in the hearth.

The noble is snoring,

Loudly.

He's sprawled across the mattress like a man who's never known fear.

Or manual labor.

Or indigestion.

You inch closer.

Your hand drifts toward your knife.

This is it.

This is the moment.

And then he rolls over.

Now you're standing there,

In someone else's clothes,

In a room you have no right to be in,

Holding a blade so dull it couldn't slice bread.

The man you're supposed to kill is six feet of silk and snoring aristocracy.

His guards are outside.

His dogs are probably downstairs.

And your escape plan involves the phrase,

Improvise with rope.

You suddenly remember that you have no rope.

And just like that,

The job feels less like an opportunity and more like a very well-lit trap.

Welcome to Castle Life.

Where everything is sharp,

Except your blade.

You've decided to climb the wall.

Not because it's smart.

Not because you're good at climbing.

But because the front gate has crossbows and a guard who looks like he snacks on raw knuckles.

The back gate's locked and the kitchen staff has started recognizing your face.

So now,

It's the wall.

The tall,

Ancient,

Slightly tilted fortress wall,

Built by people who thought comfort was a sin and moss was a structural feature.

You stand at the base of it,

Staring up.

It looks climbable in the same way cliffs look climbable.

Theoretically,

If you were better,

Or had longer arms,

Or less dignity to lose,

You start with a foothold the size of a goat's tooth.

Your fingers slip into a crevice that may once have been chiseled by a mason but now serves as a home for beetles and regret.

You pull.

Your foot scrapes.

Something shifts under your boot.

You ignore the warning from your ankle and focus on the prize,

Namely,

Not dying.

After two feet,

You're sweating.

After four,

Your calf is cramping.

At six,

A bird flies out from a ledge and screams in your face.

You scream back,

Louder,

Because this is war now.

The bird circles once,

Presumably tells the other wildlife about the idiot on the wall,

And disappears into the dusk.

You keep climbing.

The moss is not your friend.

It's slick,

Thick,

And clings to your fingers like guilt.

It squelches when you grip it.

It offers no traction,

No support,

Just moist betrayal.

The stones themselves are uneven,

Some jutting too far,

Some crumbling when touched.

You find yourself negotiating with the wall,

Whispering prayers to each rock.

Just hold.

Please hold.

I'll sacrifice a beetle,

I swear.

Halfway up,

Your hand slips.

You don't fall.

Not yet,

But you lurch,

Lose your footing and slam your shin against the stone.

Stars burst behind your eyes.

You taste blood.

You dangle for a moment,

Clinging with every part of you that isn't currently throbbing.

You consider going back down.

Then you remember you can't.

You've burned too many faces in the village.

The baker's wife glares at you like she knows where you sleep.

The taverns stop serving you out of bad luck.

And someone drew a crude sketch of your face on the town notice board under the heading Suspicious Individual.

You can't go back,

So you go up.

You inch your way toward the top.

Your arms shake.

Your cloak,

Soaked from earlier failures,

Clings to your back like a judgmental leech.

Your boots squelch with every movement,

Full of water,

Mud,

And the eternal shame of poor life choices.

Then it happens.

The stone beneath your hand shifts.

Just a little.

Enough to let you know it's thinking about betrayal.

You freeze.

You whisper to it.

It doesn't care.

It breaks loose.

You fall.

You don't scream.

You're too tired.

You just make a sound that can only be described as resigned,

Descending.

You hit the moat.

It isn't water.

Not really.

It's a stew.

A thick,

Rancid blend of sewage,

Rotting plants,

Castle runoff,

And something that might be soup from three years ago.

It accepts you with a wet slap and drags you under for a moment,

Just long enough for your sins to flash before your eyes.

Then it spits you out,

Gasping,

Covered in things you don't want to identify.

You scramble for the bank.

The mud fights back.

Every movement makes a sound like a dying accordion.

You drag yourself free and collapse on the grass,

Dripping.

Your mouth tastes like sadness and mildew.

Your eyes sting.

Your pride is gone.

Drowned.

Possibly floating downstream.

You lie there for a moment,

Listening to the sounds of the night.

The distant clank of armor,

The faint screech of a rat,

The very personal squish of your left boot filling with moat.

You smell like something that should not live.

You feel like something that never really did.

You sit up,

Remove one boot,

Tip out a slug,

And put it back on because you have no better options.

Your knife is still sheathed.

Think whatever gods watch over fools.

Your cloak hangs off your shoulders like a wet flag of defeat.

You tried to scale a castle wall.

It did not go well.

But you're alive.

Barely.

And you're still on a job.

You rise slowly,

Covered in muck,

Misery,

And just enough motivation to try again.

Because the only thing worse than smelling like failure is quitting while you still do.

You knew it was going to happen eventually.

You just hoped eventually wouldn't be today,

Or this week,

Or ever.

But here you are,

Face down on a stone floor that smells like mold and screams,

Being dragged by two men with forearms the size of your entire torso.

You were caught sneaking around the west wing,

Muttering about fig jam,

And sweating like someone with secrets.

Because you have secrets.

Mostly involving poorly mixed poison and a forged kitchen pass.

They didn't even chase you.

That's the insulting part.

One of them just said,

You there.

And you froze.

Like a goat.

Then they grabbed you.

You didn't run.

You didn't fight.

You just said,

Oh no.

And accepted your fate like a man who has spent too much of his life making bad decisions in narrow hallways.

They throw you into a cell.

Not gently.

Your face kisses stone.

It does not kiss back.

The door slams shut with the kind of finality that says,

Hope you weren't planning anything for the next few decades.

The room is dark,

Damp,

And filled with echoes.

You're not alone.

There's a man in the corner,

Humming to himself and chewing on something that might be a sock.

He nods.

You don't nod back.

Time passes.

Could be minutes.

Could be hours.

A rat investigates your boot,

Judges it,

And leaves.

You try to sleep.

But every time you close your eyes,

The smell reminds you that someone probably died in here and then did it again out of spite.

Eventually the door creaks open,

And a voice says,

Bring him.

You are now him.

They lead you through a hallway that gets colder with each step.

The walls are wet.

The torches flicker.

Somewhere water drips with deliberate menace.

You pass a room where a man is screaming.

You hope it's not because they took away his turnips,

But deep down,

You know it's worse.

Then you see it.

The chair.

The table.

The tools.

There are names for these things.

Gentle names.

The rack.

The boot.

The pear.

They sound like items from a rustic breakfast menu.

They are not.

The rack stretches you until your bones beg for release.

The boot crushes your feet until they resemble mashed root vegetables.

And the pear.

.

.

Well,

The pear goes in.

You don't want to know more than that.

But you will.

They strap you to a bench.

Leather bindings.

Rusted buckles.

And that one guard who keeps smiling like he's won a game only he was playing.

A man in robes appears.

He has a clipboard.

Or a parchment.

It doesn't matter.

He asks your name.

You lie.

Out of instinct.

He nods.

Then he gestures toward the pear.

You change your answer.

They ask what you were doing in the castle.

You say you were looking for work.

They ask if your work involves knives.

You say you were cutting bread.

They ask why the bread was in the noble's bedroom.

You say,

Room service?

They don't laugh.

The pear moves closer.

You begin confessing.

Not the truth.

Just a stream of admissions designed to sound reasonable but vague.

Yes,

You snuck in.

No,

You didn't know it was a noble's room.

Yes,

You were looking for figs.

No,

You don't even own a dagger.

Yes,

You might have once stolen pants.

No,

They didn't fit.

It doesn't help.

They want more.

They always want more.

They don't care about justice.

They care about performance.

About breaking you until you give them a story they can use to justify what they're doing.

You understand this now.

The truth is irrelevant.

They want you to fit a shape.

You do your best.

Eventually,

The pain starts.

It's not immediate.

First,

It's the anticipation.

The sound of metal being set on wood.

The tightening of straps.

The way the room holds its breath like a predator about to pounce.

Then it's heat.

Pressure.

Twisting.

Pulling.

A sensation that feels like your limbs are being negotiated with and then betrayed.

You scream.

Of course you do.

Even the rat from earlier would scream.

They keep asking questions.

About your employer.

About the plot.

About who sent you.

You try to make up names.

Some sound real.

Others,

Less so.

You say Thistle,

And they pause.

You say Margot the Quiet,

And they write it down.

You say the Order of the Unseen Fig,

And someone slaps you.

Eventually,

They tire.

Not because you've convinced them,

But because they have dinner.

They leave you there.

Limbs sore.

Mind spinning.

Mouth dry.

You don't know what you confessed to.

You might have claimed to be the Duke of Parsnip.

You might have invented a cousin.

You might have admitted to sorcery.

It's all a blur now.

All you know is the pain.

And the quiet that follows it.

You lie on the bench.

Eyes staring at the ceiling.

Listening to your own breath echo off the stones.

You are broken.

But not done.

Because you didn't die.

And tomorrow,

They'll ask again.

You weren't supposed to get out.

The cell door didn't unlock because someone realized you were innocent.

No priest had a vision.

No noble grew a conscience.

You got out because you had a chunk of cheese in your sock and a guard with questionable hygiene standards.

It wasn't even good cheese.

It was more of a suggestion of cheese.

Gray-green.

Soft in places it shouldn't be.

And humming gently with life.

You'd been saving it.

Not as food.

But as a sort of hope talisman.

Something to hold on to while you lay on the cold stone floor whispering to your ankles.

Trying to convince them not to swell into permanent sadness.

The guard's name is Odo.

Or Otto.

Or maybe he just grunted once and you made assumptions.

He doesn't ask questions.

He just squats outside your cell every night scratching things that should not be scratched in public and muttering about his ex-wife.

One night,

Between grumbles and gas,

You offer him the cheese.

He sniffs it.

He licks it.

Then,

In a moment of spiritual darkness,

He eats it.

And for that fleeting second,

You see something holy in his eyes.

Or maybe it's just nausea.

Either way,

He unlocks the door.

Doesn't even say why.

Just mutters,

Go.

And gestures toward a hole in the wall you definitely didn't notice before.

It's rat-sized.

You are not rat-sized.

But you are desperate.

You crawl.

The tunnel is not a tunnel.

It's a slow descent into filth.

The walls are damp.

The floor is wetter.

And the air smells like ten generations of decisions gone wrong.

Something brushes your hand.

It squeaks.

You whisper an apology and keep moving.

Behind you,

The hole closes.

Odo grunts.

You assume that means you're on your own now.

There is no light.

Just the sound of your breath.

The squelch of your knees dragging through muck.

And the occasional insult from a rat who clearly doesn't believe you belong here.

You pass what might have once been shoes,

Or bones,

Or possibly both.

You try not to think about it.

Eventually,

The tunnel widens.

Just enough for you to stand in a crouch and reassess your life.

You smell like despair.

You feel like soup.

Your fingernails are coated in something that might be history.

You find a ladder,

Wooden,

Rotted,

And only mostly intact.

You climb.

You emerge behind the latrine shed.

Of course you do.

Because when you escape medieval prison,

The universe makes sure the first breath of freedom is filtered through a wall of other people's regrets.

Still,

It's air.

Real air.

Wind on your face.

The distant sound of someone arguing about turnips.

You are,

By the loosest definition,

Free.

You stagger out from behind the shed.

A pig stares at you.

It knows.

It sees what you are now.

Not a threat.

Not a man.

Just a creature who lost a fight with rock and sewage and possibly dignity.

You move carefully,

Sticking to shadows.

You no longer have a cloak or shoes that fully function.

But you do have a sharp piece of metal you found in the tunnel and a will to live that burns slightly brighter than your shame.

You make it to the woods by nightfall.

You collapse beneath a tree,

Soaked in your own narrative.

You try to sleep.

But every time you close your eyes,

You feel a phantom rat nibbling your memories.

You dream of Odo's teeth,

The cheese,

The echo of your own groaning echoing back at you like judgment.

In the morning,

You rise,

Covered in mud,

Wrapped in regret,

And accompanied by the faint buzzing of lice now considering a new settlement behind your ear.

You scrape yourself off the tree and begin walking.

You don't know where.

You just know it's away.

You tell yourself it was worth it.

Because even if you smell like cabbage and trauma,

You're not in that cell anymore.

And somehow,

That counts as victory.

You've heard the stories.

In hushed tones and mug-stained whispers,

People talk of a brotherhood,

A secret order,

The real assassins.

Not the grubby,

Rat-kissed freelancers like you who hide in turnip carts and poison stew with a shaking hand.

No.

These are the professionals,

The ones who kill with style,

Who vanish into mist,

Who wear black not because it's the only cloak without fleas,

But because they've earned it.

So you go looking.

It takes weeks,

Bribes,

Lies,

Following rumors into darker rumors,

Which lead to forests where even the trees look like they have secrets.

You cross a bridge guarded by a man with no nose,

Sleep in a barn haunted by a goat named Mercy.

Finally,

You reach a stone door carved into a hillside with no handle,

Just a mark,

A dagger,

Point down.

You knock.

Nothing.

You knock again,

With less dignity.

There's a hiss.

The stone slides.

A man appears,

Hooded,

Armored,

Covered in more blades than you've ever seen in one place.

He stares at you like a moldy loaf someone left on the doorstep.

I want in,

You say.

He doesn't respond.

I'm serious,

You add.

I'm.

.

.

I'm one of you.

He snorts.

It's the sound of a man who's heard bad ideas before,

But never one quite this bold.

He opens the door wider,

Letting you see a room lit by torches that don't flicker.

The floor gleams.

There's a smell of oil and steel and calm,

Contained menace.

Other figures are moving silently in the background.

One of them is polishing a crossbow while standing on one leg.

Another flips a dagger through his fingers without looking.

It lands in a knot in the wall the size of a plum.

You take a step in.

The first man puts a hand on your chest.

You,

He says,

Look like you once lost a fight to a potato.

This is not unfair.

But I've done jobs,

You insist.

I've taken out nobles,

Escaped prison,

Crawled through.

.

.

Stuff.

You pause,

Remembering the stuff.

You suppress a shiver.

I'm ready.

There's a moment of silence.

Then he waves someone over.

A second assassin walks up,

Female,

Calm,

Dagger tucked behind her back like a whisper.

She looks you over,

Squints once,

Then punches you directly in the face.

Your ears ring.

You taste blood and hay.

The first assassin smiles,

A little.

That was your interview,

He says.

You failed.

They don't kill you.

That would be a waste.

Instead they dump you outside the door,

Face first in moss.

The stone slides shut behind you with a sound like disappointment.

You sit there for a long time,

Bleeding gently into the ground.

Later,

When your vision steadies,

You realize they left you a gift.

A small pouch.

Inside,

One coin,

A sprig of something minty,

And a note that reads,

Try carpentry.

You stagger to your feet.

You wanted belonging.

A team.

A group of people who understood the ache in your joints and the twitch in your sleep.

Instead,

You got a black eye and career advice.

You walk back toward the road,

Past trees that now feel vaguely amused by your return.

You try to tell yourself this doesn't matter,

That you don't need them,

That you're fine on your own.

But it stings.

Because for one second,

Standing in that torch-lit room,

You saw what it could have been.

Clean walls.

Precise weapons.

People who move like shadow and talk like thunder.

People who know what they're doing.

You don't.

You never have.

You just guessed.

Well,

Sometimes,

You find a ditch,

Wash the blood off your face,

And stare at your reflection in a puddle.

Your left eye is already swelling.

Your nose is purple.

Your teeth look like they're reconsidering their career in your mouth.

You mutter,

Try carpentry.

Then you laugh.

Because you might be poor.

You might be clumsy.

You might be the worst assassin to ever poison a noble into diarrhea.

But you're still here.

And carpentry doesn't let you carry knives.

So you head back to town.

Alone.

Still desperate.

Still loud.

But maybe,

Just maybe,

A little more dangerous.

Because now,

You've got something to prove.

It was advertised by a man with three teeth and a fondness for lying as a discreet forgotten barn on the edge of the woods.

No questions.

No neighbors.

No interruptions.

What you got was a half-collapsed husk of wood that smells like fermented turnips and dead ambition.

The roof is more suggestion than structure.

The walls lean in as if they're tired of standing.

And the floor,

Generously,

Hosts a family of rats who've lived here longer than the shingles.

You step inside and the air shifts.

Not a breeze.

Not weather.

Just that subtle pressure that tells you someone,

Or something,

Doesn't want you here.

You ignore it.

Mostly because you've been chased out of better places.

You set down your pack,

Which contains one knife,

Half a crust,

And a spoon you took from a monastery under dubious circumstances.

You call it home.

In the corner,

Something coughs.

You freeze.

It coughs again.

Wet.

Flemmy.

With the rhythm of a man who has either lived too long or swallowed a small toad.

A figure shifts beneath a blanket of what might have once been wool.

Now more whole than fabric.

He's old.

Ancient.

His beard is braided with twigs.

His eyes are roomy.

He stares at you like you're the ghost.

Not him.

This is mine.

He rasps.

Not anymore.

You say.

He shrugs,

Which turns into a wheeze.

You sit across from him,

Close enough to see that his left boot is held together with string and an oath.

He mutters something about the war.

You ask which one.

He says all of them.

At night you try to sleep.

You fail.

The barn groans.

The walls breathe.

Something in the rafters scratches and then falls silent.

You hear the wind except there is no wind.

Just a breath that isn't yours.

The old man hums.

A lullaby.

Or a warning.

The rats fight near your head.

One wins.

You think you saw it bow.

You roll over.

The mold makes your nose itch.

The straw makes your back regret being part of your body.

You dream of castles.

Not the kind with turrets.

The kind with dry sheets and doors that close.

You wake up covered in sweat and guilt.

Unsure if you're sick or simply reacting to the spores you've been inhaling for hours.

The old man is awake.

Or possibly dead.

It's hard to tell.

You poke him.

He grunts.

She comes,

He says.

You say nothing.

Later the temperature drops.

Not because of weather.

Because of her.

You don't know who she is.

Only that sometimes the barn feels full.

As if grief itself took up residence in the rafters and weeps when it thinks you're asleep.

Your candle won't stay lit.

You stop lighting it.

By the third night you name the rats.

One is king.

One is bitey.

One is definitely pregnant.

You share crumbs with them.

It's not charity.

It's diplomacy.

You try journaling.

You run out of ink.

You switch to charcoal.

Then to blood.

You stop journaling.

The old man coughs again.

Louder.

Now with flair.

You offer him water.

He sips it.

Glares at you and says,

Won't help.

Cursed lungs.

You don't ask what that means.

You already know too much.

You check your pack.

Still one knife.

Still half a crust.

The spoon is missing.

Bitey denies involvement.

You spend one full evening listening to the walls.

They whisper.

Not words.

Just pressure.

Memory.

Remorse.

You whisper back.

It's the only conversation you've had in days that doesn't end with coughing.

You try to leave.

You step outside.

The fog is so thick you lose your own hand.

You turn back.

The barn is still there.

Waiting.

Smiling somehow.

With its rotten door and its roof that moans in the night like it remembers a better life.

The old man sleeps.

Or doesn't.

You dream that he floats.

When you wake his feet don't quite touch the ground.

You blink.

They do.

You blink again.

You stop blinking.

You lie there listening to the rats plan a coup.

You wonder what went wrong.

Was it the noble?

The prison?

The rejection letter from an organization that once drop kicked you into a bush?

Was it the cheese?

You laugh.

It echoes too long.

In the morning you boil something that isn't tea and drink it anyway.

The old man thanks you.

Then steals your blanket.

You let him.

You're not sure what's keeping you here.

The cold?

The ghosts?

The sense that maybe this is what you've earned?

You.

Don't leave.

Not yet.

Because despite the mold the phantoms and the cough that now haunts your dreams this barn doesn't judge you.

It just accepts you.

Rot and all.

You start with the clothes.

Because they smell like guilt and fungal decay and that time you spent two weeks hiding in a slaughterhouse.

You strip them off behind a hill no one visits.

Possibly because it's haunted.

Possibly because someone buried a pig there and you burn them.

The flames don't roar.

They sputter,

Choke,

Wheeze.

Like even fire finds the fabric questionable.

You stand in your undergarments watching the smoke rise and say goodbye to the last shreds of whoever you were.

A nobody.

A failure.

An almost assassin with a haunted barn and a half-eaten crust.

You are now someone else.

You just haven't decided who.

Your new name is Brother Thomas.

You choose it because it sounds bland.

Harmless.

The kind of name people forget mid-sentence.

You find a monastery with loose windows and looser security.

You walk through the gate like you belong clutching a book you stole from a cart and haven't read.

It's upside down.

Nobody notices.

You wear a robe you bartered from a toothless trader for two dead pigeons and a lie.

The robe is three sizes too big and smells of regret,

But it's a start.

The first monk you meet nods.

He's blind.

You consider that a win.

You bow a lot.

Monks seem to like bowing.

You frown with reverence.

You hum in minor keys.

You say things like,

Ah,

Yes,

The Lord works in mysterious parchment and then cough like that's the end of the sentence.

You spend most of your day pretending to read by candlelight.

The book is in Latin.

You do not know Latin.

You recognize the word et.

You assume it means stop talking.

You try to blend in,

Which is hard because monks are quiet,

Devout,

Still.

You are not.

You curse when you trip on your robe.

You say,

Bloody hell when the porridge burns your tongue.

You forget that wine is for God and accidentally drink four cups during evening prayers.

When asked about your spiritual journey,

You say,

Complicated,

And stare into the distance until they leave you alone.

They start calling you Brother Thomas the Reflective.

It's going,

Okay,

Except for the lice.

They've followed you from the barn,

From before the barn,

From the era in which your scalp forgot what peace felt like.

You scratch constantly at meals,

In silence,

During sermons.

The lice are thriving.

You are not.

Someone offers you oil in a prayer.

You use both.

Neither works.

The monastery itself is peaceful.

Too peaceful.

You find yourself jumping at shadows,

Listening for guards,

Expecting betrayal in every bowl of stew.

You forget that monks don't poison people.

Mostly.

You keep a spoon hidden in your sleeve anyway,

Just in case diplomacy fails.

You try chanting.

You're off key.

You try gardening.

You bury a rake.

You try copying manuscripts.

You accidentally doodle a man stabbing another man in the margin.

A brother sees it and says,

Ah,

A metaphor for spiritual struggle.

You nod.

You are now artistically inclined.

Nights are the worst,

Not because of ghosts,

Not because of the cold,

But because silence gives your thoughts too much room.

They stretch out.

They poke your ribs.

They remind you of every job you botched,

Every time you missed the mark,

Every moment you should have run but didn't.

You wonder what the noble is doing now.

You wonder if he ever knew how close he came.

You wonder what you'd say if you met him again.

Probably.

Please don't call the guards.

One morning,

You catch a reflection in a basin.

You barely recognize yourself.

The robe,

The shorn head,

Lice prevention.

The circles under your eyes that now qualify as architectural features.

You look like someone with wisdom.

Or indigestion.

Maybe both.

A novice asks you for advice.

You panic and say,

Walk softly and avoid pairs.

He bows,

Says thank you.

You are now considered wise.

Your disguise is holding.

Barely,

But it's fragile.

One real question,

One test,

One Latin phrase you can't fumble through and it all collapses.

So you stay quiet.

You stay useful.

You wash floors.

You mend robes.

You clean candle holders with the precision of a man who once filed down a blade with river stones.

You're not Brother Thomas.

But you're not who you were either.

You are something in between.

A ghost with lice.

Holy,

But itchy.

And for now,

That's enough.

Winter doesn't arrive.

It ambushes.

One morning you wake up in your hay padded monastery cot and the world outside has turned to iron.

The air bites.

The wind hisses through the cracks in the stone walls.

Your breath fogs in front of your face like a ghost rehearsing for its big entrance.

You sit up,

Stretch,

And realize your knees have frozen into angles never approved by any deity.

You no longer live in a monastery.

You exist inside a glorified stone refrigerator with religious overtones.

And you are not prepared.

Monks,

You discover,

Have systems.

Layers of robes.

Woolen cloaks.

A network of secret hand-warming techniques involving pockets,

Prayer,

And pebbles warmed by divine intention.

You?

You have a damp robe,

A lice problem,

And a body that runs cold on a good day.

The lice,

On the other hand,

Are thriving.

They treat your scalp like a ski lodge.

You wrap yourself in your robe in a burlap sack you found behind the compost heap.

It smells like root vegetables and betrayal,

Still better than freezing.

You try to help with morning chores,

But drop the pail.

Your fingers won't grip.

They've turned into decorative icicles hanging from your sleeves.

A monk pats your shoulder and offers a knowing nod.

You think it means suffering is holy.

Or maybe you look like death in a blanket.

You try to light a fire.

There's no dry wood,

Only a pile of sticks that appear to be made of ice,

Despair,

And mold.

You scrape flint.

Sparks hiss and vanish.

The sticks mock you by staying exactly as cold and wet as they were before.

You blow.

You curse.

You pray.

Nothing.

The smoke curls up your nose like winter laughing.

You finally get a flame the size of a thumb.

It dies.

You eat cold stew.

Your teeth clack.

You bite your lip and can't feel it.

The blood dribbles out like it belongs to someone else.

You can't decide if you're numb or just emotionally distant from your own pain.

Either way,

Your feet have stopped complaining.

That's not good.

Pain means something's working.

Silence means the gangrene has started negotiations.

You check your toes.

Three are purple.

Two are gray.

One is suspiciously soft.

You wiggle them.

Nothing happens.

You say,

Just don't take the knife hand.

You mean it.

That night,

You sleep under everything you own.

Robe,

Sack,

Someone else's discarded habit,

And a burlap curtain you stole from the chapel with a whispered apology.

The wind still gets in.

It sings through the cracks a lullaby of frost and judgment.

You dream of fire.

Not metaphorical,

Just fire.

Logs,

Sparks,

The smell of something cooking that isn't your will to live.

You wake to snow,

Thick,

Heavy.

It presses the world down with white silence.

You step outside and sink up to your knees.

You try to walk.

You become a sad statue.

You try to speak.

Your lips crack.

A novice offers you a scarf.

You don't ask what it's made from.

You just wrap it around your face and keep moving.

There is no room for assassins in winter.

No slippery rooftops.

No sneaky missions.

Just trudging.

Just cold.

You can't stalk someone if your joints sound like a sack of frozen carrots.

You can't stab someone if your fingers won't curl.

You're a threat to no one but yourself,

And possibly soup.

You consider quitting.

Not the life.

The season.

You fantasize about hibernation.

You watch squirrels and envy their fur.

You see a dog digging a hole and think,

That looks warm.

By the third week,

You stop feeling your nose.

You poke it in secret.

No reaction.

A monk suggests rubbing it with snow.

You glare at him like you've just been betrayed by the concept of advice.

You adapt.

You line your boots with straw.

You fill your sleeves with scraps.

You talk to your toes.

Out loud.

In public.

One monk asks if you're practicing a chant.

You nod.

You are now Brother Thomas the Pious.

Your hallucinations are now prayers.

Your trembling is called devotional quivering.

It helps.

Sort of.

You still smell like frostbite.

You still dream of heat.

But the days pass.

Your fingers keep moving.

Your knife hand,

Numb,

Stiff,

Shaking,

Still works.

Badly.

But it works.

And that's enough.

Because you've learned something.

Winter doesn't kill you quickly.

It takes pieces.

One at a time.

And the trick is to keep more of yourself than you lose.

It starts with a letter.

Not the kind written in blood or sealed with wax shaped like a screaming skull.

No.

This one arrives folded in crisp parchment.

With handwriting so elegant it makes you suspicious before you even read the words.

You smell perfume.

Or poison.

Possibly both.

The message is short.

A discreet opportunity.

Well paid.

One target.

No questions.

Signed with a name you don't recognize.

But that tries very hard to sound powerful.

Something like Lord Everthorn or Baron Witherhelm.

You've met pigs with more subtlety.

You take the job anyway.

Because you're cold,

Broke,

And eating stew that tastes like shoe and regret.

Because you haven't stabbed anyone in months.

Because your fingers are just thawed enough to hold a blade again.

And because deep down you still want to believe someone sees you as a professional instead of just a lice distribution center with a bad attitude.

You meet the client in a manner.

A real manner.

Tapestries,

Candles,

Walls that don't leak.

The floor is warm.

Not metaphorically.

Actually heated.

You stare at it longer than you should.

Then at the man who enters the room wearing a velvet robe and boots lined with what could only be arctic fox.

He moves like someone who's never had to run and speaks like someone who expects you to care.

He explains the job with too much detail.

No one mentions the name of their target that many times unless they're stalling or trying to see how gullible you are.

You ask questions.

He deflects.

You ask where the target sleeps.

He isn't sure.

Despite knowing their favorite meal,

Mistress,

And birth hour.

You ask for half payment up front.

He laughs.

You take the job anyway because you're hungry and because,

Despite every instinct screaming trap,

You want to believe someone with clean fingernails and a smug smile might actually need you.

Your target is a merchant or so you're told.

You follow him for three days.

He never leaves the inn,

Drinks watered wine,

Gambles badly,

Has a nervous twitch every time someone coughs.

You get suspicious on day four.

By day five,

You're not following him.

You're following the man who's following you.

A mercenary,

Judging by the way he carries his sword like he's already bored of killing you.

His armor is polished.

His face isn't.

You duck down an alley.

He follows.

You drop a bucket behind you.

It clatters.

He flinches.

That's all you need.

You run through market stalls,

Over icy cobblestones,

Around a dog you think might recognize you from your cheese theft phase.

You reach the stables and duck inside.

The smell of hay and manure feels like home.

You wait.

You listen.

He's outside.

Then he's inside.

Then it's chaos.

You don't fight fair.

You never have.

You aim low.

You throw dirt.

You bite.

He stabs.

You bleed.

But not fatally.

Not this time.

You win.

Barely.

You drag yourself back to the manor,

Bleeding from a shoulder that may never quite trust you again.

You burst through the door and yell something heroic.

It comes out as,

You set me up,

You velvet goblin.

The noble blinks,

Sips wine,

Says,

I don't know what you mean.

You laugh.

It's high-pitched and possibly not in your own voice.

You pull out the mercenary's coin pouch,

Marked with the same insignia as the noble's ring.

You drop it on the table.

The noble frowns.

Then sighs.

Then claps.

Guards appear.

You run.

You leap out a window.

Not a good one.

Second floor.

Into a fountain.

There's a statue of a mermaid that gives you a concussion.

You crawl out,

Soaked and furious,

And vow never to trust a man who wears more rings than fingers again.

Later,

Wrapped in bandages and drinking tea that tastes like betrayal,

You recount it all to a goat.

The goat listens.

The goat understands.

You were hired to kill.

But you were the target.

Because,

Apparently,

You knew too much.

Which is funny,

Because you definitely didn't.

All you knew was that the stew was bad,

The job was suspicious,

And that noble wore too much perfume to be sincere.

Next time,

You tell yourself,

You'll trust your gut.

Unless it's hungry.

In which case,

All bets are off.

It starts with a sound that isn't a sound.

Just the shift of air.

The sense that something ancient and precise has entered your radius.

Like death.

But wearing nicer shoes.

You're in a barn again.

Different barn.

Same haunting draft.

And you know before you turn around that someone is watching you.

Not watching,

Exactly.

Measuring.

The way a butcher sizes up a pig.

Or a tailor eyes a fabric he's about to cut.

You reach for your knife.

It's dull.

Your hands are shaking.

Your robe's caught on a nail.

This is not the posture of a man prepared to die with dignity.

Then he speaks.

Not loudly.

Just enough to confirm your worst suspicion.

He's educated.

Are you Brother Thomas?

He says.

Or is that just your latest fiction?

You spin,

Trip over your own foot,

And knock over a bucket.

The clatter is loud,

Inelegant,

And echoes like shame through the rafters.

A goat bleats in the corner.

Even it knows this isn't going well.

The man is tall,

Slim,

Covered in black.

Not the muddy,

Patchwork black you wore when you started this idiotic journey.

But the kind of black that doesn't stain,

Doesn't wrinkle,

Doesn't even reflect light.

His boots are silent.

His eyes are sharp.

His belt holds tools you've only seen in nightmares.

And the expensive part of the market you were never allowed near.

You say.

Uh.

He moves.

Not fast.

Effortlessly.

He closes the distance between you like he's gliding.

Like air is optional for him.

You raise your arms.

One to defend,

One to apologize.

He dodges them both.

You duck.

He doesn't strike.

He just waits.

Watching.

Like he's giving you the chance to realize how badly outclassed you are before he finishes it.

You panic.

You throw the bucket.

It hits his shoulder.

Not hard.

Not heroically.

Just enough to surprise him.

Enough to make him blink.

And that blink?

That fraction of a moment?

It's everything.

Because in that blink,

He steps back.

Right into the goat dung.

Time slows.

His boot slips.

His leg jerks.

He flails.

Graceful.

Deadly.

Terrifying.

And now,

Midair,

He lands hard on his back with a sound that makes your spine tighten from empathy or fear or something between the two.

His head clips a beam.

His dagger skids across the floor and lands at your feet.

You stare.

He groans.

You pick up the dagger.

You are now,

Officially,

Holding a weapon.

The world tilts.

You have the upper hand.

You have goat luck.

You have twenty seconds before reality resets and this man murders you with a look.

So you do the only thing that makes sense.

You run.

Not into battle.

Not toward justice.

Just out.

Into the cold.

Into the woods.

Into the freedom of not dying in a barn smeared with digestive failure.

Behind you,

The assassin groans again.

You keep running.

Later,

Panting in the thicket,

Covered in brambles and questioning every choice you've ever made.

You hold up the dagger.

It's beautiful.

Perfect weight.

Balanced edge.

Worth more than your life.

You stare at it and say,

I threw a bucket.

Because that's the truth.

You didn't outfight him.

You didn't outwit him.

You slipped through death's fingers because a goat needed to relieve itself near a structural hazard.

And that?

That's the kind of win you don't question.

You return to town three days later,

Wearing leaves and paranoia.

No one recognizes you.

You're thinner.

Dirtier.

Alive.

You hear whispers.

A man in black,

Seen limping,

Asking questions,

Still out there,

Still looking.

You keep moving because now you know there are real assassins.

Men with training,

Elegance,

Control.

You are not one of them.

You're the other kind.

The kind who throws buckets and survives.

You weren't trying to save the kid.

You were trying to steal bread.

It was a good loaf.

Round,

Crusty,

Still steaming in the bakery window.

You'd been watching it for twenty-three minutes,

Circling the cart like a moth with poor self-esteem.

Then a child appeared,

Maybe eight,

Maybe just short for ten,

With a tunic two sizes too big and eyes shaped like abandonment.

She reached for the same loaf you were about to take.

Then the shouting started.

Not yours,

The baker's,

And his dog's.

You're not proud of what happened next.

You didn't mean to throw the child behind a barrel.

You were aiming for a graceful scoop and vanish maneuver,

But your coordination was aspirational at best.

She landed in a pile of rotting leeks.

You grabbed the bread.

Then the dog bit you.

You lost the bread.

But you dragged the child out of the street before the baker could introduce his rolling pin to either of your skulls.

You told her to run.

She hesitated,

Long enough to look at your face,

Your tattered robe,

Your bleeding ankle.

And then she nodded and vanished into the smoke of boiled cabbage and guilt.

Later,

Under a bridge,

You cough so hard you see stars.

Not in a metaphorical way.

You're either dying or becoming a prophet.

You taste metal.

Your ribs ache.

Your blood feels thin,

Like your body's been recycling the same cup for weeks.

You think of the girl.

You think of the widow from last week,

The one you were sent to rob but didn't,

Because she offered you soup and a story and a smile that reminded you of someone you never talk about.

You're changing.

You hate it.

Because redemption doesn't come with fanfare.

There's no audience.

No music.

Just small,

Infuriating decisions that leave you hungry and cold and marginally less despised.

You say no to a job because the target has children.

You say yes to a favor because someone offered to wash your shirt.

You sit still when you could stab.

It's disgusting.

You start mumbling apologies to people who didn't ask.

You hold doors open.

You help a blind man cross the street and he calls you a saint,

Which makes you consider throwing yourself into a canal out of sheer shame.

You still smell,

Not like death.

Worse,

Like someone trying too hard.

You haven't had a proper bath in.

.

.

What season is it now?

Soap is a myth.

Water is a punishment.

You scrub at your arms with stolen linen and hope the stains are just external.

They're not.

You walk like you've been sleeping on rocks because you have.

You breathe like every inhale is a negotiation.

Your knife is dull.

Your future is foggy.

Your morals are in their awkward teenage years,

Half-formed,

Moody,

Prone to bursts of noble impulse followed by crushing regret.

You help another child.

This one falls in a river.

You dive in.

You don't know how to swim.

You both live.

Barely.

People start noticing.

Not in a good way.

They don't say thank you.

They say,

Didn't you try to rob me?

Last year?

Or,

Weren't you the one who fell through my roof that time?

Or,

Why are you bleeding from your nose?

You shrug.

You keep walking.

Redemption,

It turns out,

Doesn't care about your comfort.

It doesn't arrive wrapped in silk or carried by doves.

It looks like frostbite,

Smells like goat,

Sounds like a cough that doesn't go away.

But somewhere in the fog of your decline,

You notice something.

You're not hiding as much.

You're not lying as often.

You haven't killed anyone in.

.

.

Weeks?

You still might.

You're not cured.

You're just.

.

.

Tired.

Of the running.

Of the rotting.

Of the ache behind your eyes that comes from being someone no one wants to remember.

You want to be remembered.

For something better.

Even if your breath still smells like onion regrets and you've been using the same sock as a bandage for the past four days.

You pull your hood tighter.

You spit blood into the gutter.

You help an old woman carry firewood.

And she doesn't flinch when your hand brushes hers.

It's not a bath.

It's not forgiveness.

But it's something.

You said you were done.

Said it to yourself.

To the stars.

To the rat that lives in your sock pile and has started answering to the name Gregory.

You were done with blood.

Done with shadows.

Done with the kind of work that leaves you more ghost than man.

And then the name came.

Scrawled on cheap parchment.

No seal.

No signature.

Just a name.

His name.

The noble.

The one who set you up.

The one who hired you.

Hunted you.

And walked away with all his limbs still attached.

The one with fur-lined boots and a face that smelled like soap and treachery.

Your fingers twitch when you read it.

Not from rage.

From memory.

The scar on your side pulses like it remembers too.

You crumple the paper.

Then you uncrumple it.

Then you sit in the dirt for four hours arguing with a leaf about morality.

You take the job.

Because you've learned absolutely nothing.

You don't even ask for payment.

You just whisper,

I owe myself this and start preparing.

Like a professional.

Or a lunatic.

Same difference now.

You go back to the barn.

Not the barn.

A new one.

This one has fewer ghosts and slightly more walls.

You lay out your tools like old friends at a grim reunion.

The dull blade.

The better blade.

The blade that technically qualifies as a fork.

You sharpen each until they remember their purpose.

You find your old cloak.

It still smells like ambition and mildew.

You wear it anyway.

You mix a potion.

Sort of.

It's mostly crushed berries,

Strong vinegar,

And the bitter herb that makes your tongue go numb.

It's supposed to be poison.

It's more of a suggestion.

You rehearse your steps.

You whisper the plan.

You practice the stab.

Then you stop.

Because you remember the last time you planned.

It ended in goat dung.

So you pack everything,

Say goodbye to Gregory and set off at dusk.

His manner hasn't changed.

Still smug.

Still well lit.

Still perched like a crown on the head of a town too afraid to question power.

You crouch in the same alley.

You feel the same fear.

But something's different.

You.

You don't feel righteous.

You feel tired.

You don't burn with vengeance.

You simmer with it.

Like old soup.

Dangerous only if left too long.

You scale the wall.

No falling this time.

No moat.

Just mud and groaning knees.

You creep through the garden.

Past roses that cost more than your liver.

Past statues that look like they judge you.

You whisper.

Shut up.

To one with particularly smug cheekbones.

You reach the window.

It's open.

That's suspicious.

You climb inside anyway.

The hall is quiet.

Too quiet.

The floor creaks under your weight like it's warning someone.

You pull your blade.

The good one.

The one with a hilt made from the leg of a chair you broke in a tavern brawl and kept out of spite.

You open the door.

He's there.

Alone.

Dressed in silk.

Drinking something amber.

He doesn't even flinch.

I wondered when you'd come,

He says.

You say nothing.

You step forward.

He smiles.

They always do.

The ones who survive.

The ones who crawl out of the grave with a vendetta and a limp.

You want revenge?

You raise the knife.

He doesn't move.

I could scream,

He says.

I could stab.

You reply.

He sets down the glass.

Walks to the window.

Stares out at his gardens like a man reflecting on crops he didn't plant.

Do it then.

You hesitate.

Not because of mercy.

Because this is too easy.

No guards.

No dogs.

No traps.

Just him.

Waiting.

Wanting.

And suddenly you understand.

This isn't his punishment.

It's yours.

He wanted this.

Not the stabbing,

Maybe.

But the moment.

The drama.

The ending.

The poetry of it all.

You were the final act in his story.

The shadow that proves he's important enough to be haunted.

You lower the knife.

He turns.

You toss it at his feet.

You're not worth a grave.

Then you walk out.

Number.

Sprinting.

No chaos.

Just steps.

Measured.

Sharp.

Louder than you expected.

The world outside feels heavier.

But freer.

And behind you,

A man in silk watches his story fall apart.

It ends the way it always does.

Not with glory.

Not with gold.

With mud.

With blood.

With your name whispered by no one because no one knows it anymore.

The noble is dead.

You made sure of it.

Not with a dramatic duel.

Not with a monologue.

Just a blade under the ribs when he was laughing.

At dinner.

In public.

He was telling a story about the time he framed a man for treason.

You didn't hear the ending.

You were the ending.

There was screaming.

There was chaos.

There was you,

Already bleeding from the crossbow bolt that wasn't aimed for you,

But found you anyway.

You pulled it out.

Shouldn't have.

But you did.

Left a hole.

You plugged it with a scarf you stole off his corpse.

Poetic,

If messy.

You ran.

Through alleys.

Over fences.

Under carts.

Every heartbeat louder than the shouts behind you.

You made it to the woods before your knees gave out.

Now you lie against a tree that doesn't care who you are.

The sky above is too wide.

Too blue.

Too full of birds that don't sing your name.

You press a hand to your side.

The bleeding's stopped.

You're not sure if that's good.

Your cloak is gone.

Torn off somewhere between the cobblestones and the manure cart.

You're wearing a guard's cloak now.

Stolen.

Too clean.

Too red.

It smells like authority and better meals.

You laugh.

It sounds like a wheeze.

You were never meant to be remembered.

Assassins aren't built for memory.

Just function.

Just necessity.

Just the brief,

Sharp silence between tyrants.

You think briefly of the people who might whisper about this night.

How they'll say someone ended the noble.

That a shadow brought justice.

That an unseen hand struck when no one else could.

You are not the shadow.

You're a man.

Dying next to a mossy log with a knife in your boot and dirt in your mouth.

You feel your heartbeat slowing.

That's fine.

You did it.

Whatever it was.

You wonder for a moment if anyone will bury you.

Or if you'll rot into the forest floor.

One more secret in a world full of secrets.

Maybe someone will find your body.

Maybe they'll take the knife.

Maybe they'll wear the cloak.

Maybe they'll call themselves an assassin too.

You close your eyes.

The air is cold.

But not cruel.

Something moves nearby.

A fox maybe.

Or just the wind.

You can't tell.

You don't care.

You feel yourself letting go.

Not just of breath.

But of weight.

Of failure.

Of that stupid stubborn thing inside you that thought this would fix something.

That thought vengeance would taste like closure instead of metal.

You smile.

Faintly.

A tooth falls out.

History won't remember your name.

It might remember the noble.

It might remember the panic.

The knife.

The disruption.

But not you.

You were never the point.

You were the consequence.

And consequences fade.

The light shifts.

Shadows stretch.

Your fingers go numb.

Somewhere in the distance,

Someone is singing.

You want to believe it's for you.

It's not.

Still,

It's a nice sound.

You breathe out.

And this time you don't breathe back in.

Hey guys.

Tonight's story starts with a rock falling on your head.

A torch that smells suspiciously like goat.

And the distinct sound of a drawbridge locking behind you.

Forever.

You've been sent to the castle.

Not for honor or glory.

But because your cousin said you were expendable.

And the lord needed someone to chase rats out of the pantry.

The halls are cold.

The walls are damp.

And everyone keeps whispering about ghosts,

Fire,

And something called murder holes.

You thought castles were majestic.

Turns out they're a labyrinth of poor decisions and stone-based anxiety.

Now get comfortable.

Let the day melt away.

And we'll drift back together into the quiet corners of the past.

It starts with a cartwheel snapping.

And a turnip rolling directly under your foot.

You fall,

Of course.

Not dramatically.

Just enough to twist something important in your ankle.

And land in something that smells like it once aspired to be soup.

But got distracted halfway through.

A man with three teeth and a mustache like a misplaced squirrel.

Grunts as he pulls you upright.

And announces to no one in particular.

Fresh meats arrived.

No one looks.

No one cares.

You dust yourself off with what dignity remains.

And stare up at Castle Greyweather.

It looms.

Not in the poetic way of songs or legends.

But in the hunched,

Mildew-streaked way of a place that knows too many secrets.

And has never aired them out.

The walls are stone.

But not majestic.

They look tired.

Moss clings to the cracks like it's worried the whole thing might collapse if left unsupported.

A flag hangs limply from the highest tower.

More whole than cloth.

And whatever animal it used to depict now just looks confused.

You're told.

Loudly.

And by someone who clearly has a sinus problem.

That it is an honor to be assigned here.

That Castle Greyweather is a post of importance.

A gateway of strategy.

A jewel of tactical brilliance.

Then a knight stumbles past.

Throws up into a bucket.

And wipes his mouth on your sleeve.

You consider the implications.

The bucket wasn't his.

The sleeve was yours.

No one reacts.

You're handed a broom.

A cloak with one sleeve longer than the other.

And a map.

The map is hand drawn.

Slightly damp.

And has two suspicious stains labeled.

Do not lick.

You're told your room is in the south tower.

Third floor.

Above the latrines.

Someone laughs.

You hope they're joking.

They are not.

The path to your new quarters takes you through a corridor that smells of mildew and onions.

Down a hall where someone is screaming at a tapestry for lying again.

And up a staircase that narrows halfway through.

Like it's trying to decide whether to be a tunnel or a trap.

You duck instinctively as a chunk of ceiling crumbles beside you.

It lands with a plop in what might be stew.

Might be soap.

You decide not to ask.

The door to your room is crooked.

So is the key.

When it finally creaks open.

You are greeted by a draft.

A single straw mattress.

And a view of a wall.

Not a scenic wall.

Just wall.

Gray.

Close.

Moist.

A small window lets in exactly enough light to remind you that you are still indoors.

And possibly underground.

Even though you're three floors up.

The latrines below waft their presence upward in gentle waves of betrayal.

Someone had cabbage last night.

You know this intimately now.

You sit.

The bed crunches.

You don't ask why.

The ceiling is low and has a crack shaped suspiciously like a snake mid-scream.

You wonder if it's symbolic.

It probably isn't.

The broom you've been given leans against the wall like it has already given up on you.

You name it,

Thomas.

Thomas is the only one who hasn't insulted you yet.

Outside,

A horn blares.

It cuts off halfway through.

Followed by a shout.

And something that sounds like a goose being arrested.

You hear armored feet clank down the hall.

Then up again.

Then stop outside your door.

You hold your breath.

They move on.

You exhale.

The silence that then follows is somehow worse.

A scroll has been nailed to the inside of your door.

It lists your duties.

It is very long.

Tasks include.

Torch maintenance.

Rat discouragement.

Moat observation.

Liquid containment.

Don't ask.

And chamber pot diplomacy.

You are not sure which of these is worse.

But,

Don't ask doesn't inspire confidence.

You try to settle in.

The cloak smells like cheese.

The floor tilts slightly toward the door.

Which you assume is either a structural issue or a design meant to encourage evacuation.

The single candle in the wall sconce flickers in a way that suggests it's trying to blink in Morse code.

It may be spelling.

Run.

The broom falls over.

You thank Thomas for trying.

There is a knock on the door.

You open it to find a boy no older than ten.

Holding a helmet filled with something that sloshes.

Dinner.

He says.

Handing it over.

You peer inside.

The contents shift uneasily.

You nod.

Close the door.

And decide you're not that hungry.

Later,

As you lie in bed,

Wrapped in a cloak that might once have been a curtain,

You listen to the sounds of the castle.

Wind in the stones.

Distant footsteps.

A thud.

A scream.

Something whispering in Latin from the floorboards.

You close your eyes.

Welcome to Castle Greyweather.

You are handed the bucket with the same reverence usually reserved for holy relics or chamber pots with suspicious steam.

It's wooden,

Slightly cracked,

And still damp from whatever it last carried,

Which you hope was water and not pickled eel brine again.

The guard who gives it to you is missing two fingers and a tooth,

And says only,

Top tower.

No spills.

Or he'll know.

He doesn't say who he is.

You don't ask.

Some mysteries are safer that way.

The staircase starts innocent.

The first two steps are normal,

Which is to say they exist and don't immediately attempt murder.

But then the third step tilts slightly to the left.

The fourth has a nail sticking out of it that might be sentient.

And the fifth is actually just missing.

You leap it like someone who's only mostly sure they won't die.

The bucket sloshes in protest.

A wet drip lands on your boot.

You ignore it.

By the eighth step,

You're sweating.

Not from exertion,

But from the realization that the staircase isn't just steep.

It spirals so tightly it feels like it's trying to fold back into itself.

The stone walls press close,

Cold and uneven,

And the torch you were given earlier flickers like it's reconsidering its contract.

You bump your elbow,

Then your head,

Then your dignity,

Which you'd been trying to keep upright.

The bucket knocks against the wall.

You whisper an apology.

To the wall or the bucket,

You're not sure.

Step twelve is too short.

Step thirteen is too tall.

Step fourteen appears to be made of different stone entirely and smells vaguely of old cabbage and fear.

Someone has scratched something into it.

You squint.

Turn back,

It says.

Underneath,

In smaller letters,

Seriously.

You press on.

Because you're brave.

Or you're very bad at quitting.

Or maybe you just haven't figured out how to say no to anyone with a sword.

The ceiling begins to lower the higher you climb.

It hunches over you like an old woman ready to offer unsolicited advice.

You bend slightly,

Then more,

Until you're nearly folded in half,

Bucket tucked awkwardly to your chest like a terrified badger.

Your legs burn.

Your arms ache.

The stairs narrow again.

The air is thick with dust and mildew and the unmistakable scent of someone else's regret.

Something brushes your ankle.

You freeze.

There is no breeze.

No explanation.

Just a soft,

Deliberate touch that feels like fingertips made of cobweb and malice.

You jerk your foot upward.

The bucket shifts.

You reach out.

Grab the wall.

Miss.

Your hand finds only air.

Your foot finds betrayal.

And you tumble.

The fall is not dramatic.

There is no slow-motion scream or cinematic music.

It is clumsy,

Fast,

And full of knees.

You bounce off the curve of the stairwell like a particularly unlucky potato in a funnel.

The bucket sailing ahead of you,

Gleefully emptying its contents in a chaotic arc of splash and shame.

When you finally land,

It is in a pile of straw that was definitely not there earlier and smells strongly of goat.

A head pokes out from a nearby doorway.

It is small,

Old,

And covered in flour.

Told you not to look up,

It says,

Then disappears again.

Your elbow throbs.

Your pride is leaking slightly from your left boot.

The bucket has landed upside down,

Wedged between two steps like it's sulking.

You retrieve it slowly,

Eyes flicking upward toward the staircase,

Which now looks even steeper and somehow smug.

You try again,

Slower this time.

You keep your head down.

You count the steps as if that will help.

27,

28,

29.

That is actually just a hole.

You skirt around it.

You don't ask what's in the hole.

Something gurgles from within.

You speed up slightly.

Eventually,

You reach the top.

You emerge into a narrow corridor that's colder than logic and darker than your childhood fear of soup night.

You're wet,

Sore,

And trembling slightly from the knees.

But the bucket,

Somehow,

Is still mostly full.

A guard nods as you hand it off.

He doesn't say thank you.

He doesn't even look at you.

He just takes it,

Disappears,

And leaves you alone with the stairs.

You look down them.

They look back.

You take a breath,

And you descend.

The first night is survivable,

In the way a very minor shipwreck might be.

You lie on the straw mattress,

Which makes sounds no natural bedding should make,

And stare at the ceiling,

Where a crack has formed the vague shape of a duck in mid-judgment.

It watches you,

Silently,

As though it's not impressed with your posture.

You shift.

The straw rustles.

Something in it rustles back.

You hold your breath.

It stops.

You tell yourself it was nothing.

The duck disagrees.

The walls creak,

Not like a building settling,

Or wood stretching,

Or anything people whisper about in kindly tones.

No.

These are long,

Slow,

Open-throated groans,

Like the stones are having second thoughts about being architecture.

The sound starts near the baseboard,

And rises in a warbling crescendo,

Until it fades into a high-pitched whine,

Just below the range of dignity.

You sit up.

The walls do it again,

Louder.

You throw your blanket at them.

They are not moved.

You consider sleeping in the hallway,

But the hallway has its own problems,

Mostly rats,

Possibly cults.

Once,

During your first hour in the castle,

You saw a man walk into that hallway,

Carrying a chicken and a candle,

And he hasn't come back out yet.

So you stay.

At some point,

You fall asleep,

Briefly.

You wake up to the feeling of breath on your face,

But when you open your eyes,

There's nothing there.

Just darkness,

And the quiet sound of something shifting in the corner that wasn't shifting before.

You light the stub of your candle.

The corner is empty,

Except for your bucket.

The bucket is facing the other direction now.

You lie back down.

The mattress crunches again.

There's a very real possibility it is housing an entire ecological system beneath the surface,

And you are the invasive species.

You roll to the side.

The wall moans.

This time,

It almost says your name,

Or something that rhymes with it.

You can't decide which is worse.

By the second night,

You try to talk to it.

Not in a dramatic,

Mystical,

Summoning sort of way,

More like bargaining with a bad roommate.

You apologize for kicking the door.

You compliment the moss.

You offer it a piece of hard cheese that's only slightly cursed.

Nothing responds.

You feel stupid.

Then,

As you blow out your candle,

A voice whispers,

Hmm.

Not a scream.

Not a threat.

Just,

Hmm.

Like it's thinking about it.

Like it's evaluating your performance.

You sit,

Bolt upright.

The voice doesn't return.

The duck in the ceiling has now turned into a lopsided goose,

Which feels like an omen.

You ask a passing,

Servant the next day if anyone else hears it.

She says,

Oh,

That room.

Then she makes a gesture that might be warding off evil,

Or just fanning a fart.

Hard to say.

She advises sleeping with salt under your tongue and a clove of garlic between your toes.

You try both.

You wake up smelling like soup and covered in sweat,

With your blanket halfway across the room and a new crack in the wall shaped like a sneer.

By the third night,

You've stopped trying to sleep.

You just sit in the corner with your back to the most stable-looking wall and hum very softly to yourself.

The air is cold and tastes slightly of mildew and old bread.

Something paces in the wall.

You name it,

Beatrice.

It seems to appreciate the formality.

Sometimes you hear words,

Not whole ones.

Just fragments.

Down.

No.

Mine.

One night it says,

Look,

And you do,

Even though you know you shouldn't.

There's nothing.

But your candle's gone out and your water bucket is upside down and humming.

You begin to leave notes,

Little ones,

Just to see what happens.

Good evening.

Do you want anything?

Sorry for the cheese.

In the morning,

The notes are still there,

But the handwriting has changed.

The loops are sharper,

More annoyed.

One just reads.

No more singing.

You obey.

At some point,

You stop wondering if the room is haunted.

Haunted implies a singular entity,

A spirit,

A ghost,

Maybe a very passive-aggressive poltergeist.

This is different.

The room doesn't have a ghost.

The room is the ghost,

And you're just renting space in it,

With poor ventilation and judgmental ceilings.

The first thing they tell you is,

Don't touch anything.

The second thing they tell you is,

Watch the oil.

There is no third thing,

Because the guard trailing you trips over a chicken and dislocates his knee,

Leaving you alone at the top of the battlements with a stick,

A torch,

And a smoldering sense of responsibility that you absolutely did not ask for.

The battlements are impressive.

In the same way,

An angry cow is impressive,

Large,

Vaguely dangerous,

And liable to cause injury if startled.

The wind is sharp,

The stones slick,

And the view panoramic in the way that makes you feel small and very droppable.

You keep to the middle,

Close to the warmth of a brazier that may or may not be actively on fire.

Someone has hung a pair of damp socks above it.

They steam ominously.

You're supposed to be watching for bandits,

Or raiders,

Or invaders.

Honestly,

The details were vague and interrupted by a man trying to extract a pigeon from his hood,

But you nod dutifully at every noise and try to look brave,

Even though your boots are two sizes too large and your cloak smells like smoked eel.

That's when you find it.

The vat.

It sits in a corner behind a curtain that seems to be repurposed from an old tent in a poor life choice.

The vat is massive,

Round,

And slightly crusted at the edges.

The label on the side has worn away,

But someone scratched the word hot into the rim.

There are ashes around it,

Possibly bones,

Possibly lunch.

A ladle rests across the top.

You peer inside.

It's dark.

It's thick.

It bubbles gently,

Like it knows things and wants to keep them to itself.

You dip the ladle in,

Raise it slowly,

And immediately gag.

The smell hits you like a philosophical crisis.

It's halfway between rendered fat and weak old onions,

With a whisper of something that might have once been a mushroom but is now legally a crime.

Then you notice the second vat.

It's smaller,

Squatter,

And positioned beside the first with a kind of casual menace.

A spoon sits in it.

Someone has taken a bite.

You look between the two.

One for defense.

One for lunch.

No one labeled either.

You realize,

With dawning horror,

That these two things are kept exactly 12 inches apart,

And no one seems remotely concerned about this.

You hear the bell tower ring twice.

That's the signal for incoming visitors or dinner is late,

Depending on who you wind.

Ask.

You panic.

You grab the larger ladle.

You hustle to the edge of the battlements,

Lean over,

And prepare to pour as a caravan creaks into view below.

Horses,

Wagons,

People.

You don't wait for confirmation.

You shout,

Halt!

But it's carried away by the wind and possibly mistaken for salt.

You lift the ladle.

A hand grabs your shoulder.

It's Sir Bartholomew,

Defender of the East Wall and wearer of suspiciously shiny greaves.

He stares at the ladle,

At the vat,

At your face,

And then back to the ladle like he's trying to solve a riddle no one asked him.

That's the soup,

He says,

With the slow,

Deliberate patience of a man who's had this conversation before.

You nearly just broth-blasted a spice merchant.

You blink.

You lower the ladle.

The caravan arrives unharmed.

A child waves at you.

You wave back,

Holding the ladle like a torch of shame.

Bartholomew sighs,

Picks up the other ladle,

And gestures toward the larger vat.

That's the oil.

Boiling.

Don't mix them up.

He says it like someone who has cleaned stew off a corpse.

You nod.

You want to disappear.

You settle for staring into the middle distance and questioning every decision that led you here,

Starting with being born and ending with volunteering for lookout duty because you thought it meant naps.

Word spreads fast.

By nightfall,

Three guards have asked if you're the ladle lad.

The cook glares at you every time he stirs the pot,

And the merchant you almost accidentally flambéed leaves you a basket of turnips with a note that just says,

Please don't.

You are banned from upper tower duties.

You are reassigned to rat patrol.

The soup is served lukewarm and lumpy that night.

You don't touch it.

Neither does anyone else.

The vat gurgles in the corner,

Proud and undefeated.

It's not on any map,

Which is your first clue that this door shouldn't exist.

You find it by accident,

Halfway through sweeping the west corridor after someone knocked over the barrel of what may have been oats or may have been a failed potion.

No one's sure,

And the cook refuses to comment.

The door just appears,

Nestled between two uneven sconces and a portrait of someone who clearly died trying to look important.

It looks like every other door in the castle.

Old,

Wooden,

Faintly warped by time and moisture,

With a handle that gives off a vibe of mild contempt.

There's no label.

No sign.

Not even a curse scrawled nearby,

Which,

By castle standards,

Practically screams,

Open me.

So you do.

There's no scream.

No rush of air.

No magic.

Just wall.

Solid,

Blank,

And extremely unmoved by your presence.

You blink.

You step back.

You open it again.

Still wall.

You lean in and knock on it,

Because that's what you do when you're unsure if something's real or just really dedicated performance art.

It answers with a dull thunk,

The kind of sound a bored potato might make if it could speak.

You press your hand against the stone.

It's cold,

A little damp,

And extremely,

Impossibly there.

You close the door and reopen it three more times,

Just to be sure you're not hallucinating.

You aren't.

The wall does not blink.

The wall does not budge.

The wall continues to exist,

Smug and pointless.

You tell Sir Bartram.

He squints,

Which is his default expression,

And shuffles over in his armor like a crab wearing a shed.

Ah,

He says,

Nodding with the solemn gravity of a man who once got stuck in a barrel for three hours and declared it a vision quest.

That's the wall door.

You stare at him.

He gestures vaguely.

Tradition.

You ask if tradition usually involves building a door to nowhere in the middle of a passage used almost exclusively for bucket storage.

He says yes,

But his voice wavers.

You press further.

He coughs and mutters something about ancestral wisdom and legacy construction choices.

When pressed harder,

He says nothing at all,

Because by that point he's slipped on a patch of suspicious moss and fallen backward into the oubliette.

You consider rescuing him.

Then you remember the time he put you on latrine cleaning duty for character development and decide he could probably use the alone time.

You return to the door.

It bothers you,

In a low-key existential way,

Not dramatically,

Not with dread,

Just the constant hum of wise scratching at the edge of your thoughts.

You ask three other servants about it.

One laughs and walks away.

One pretends not to hear you.

The third just shakes his head and whispers,

The door dreams too,

Which is not helpful and slightly concerning.

You try peeking under it.

Just more stone.

You knock again.

Nothing.

You press your ear against it.

The wall hums softly,

But that might just be your own thoughts vibrating from suppressed confusion.

Later,

You bring chalk and draw a face on it,

A little nose,

Two uneven eyes,

A wonky smile.

You name it,

Harold.

Harold offers no answers,

But he does seem to scowl more during the colder hours.

At night,

You lie awake thinking about it,

Not in a grand,

Tortured way,

But in the slow,

Chewing silence of someone who has already counted all the cracks in their ceiling and is trying very hard not to give meaning to a pile of shaped timber,

Pretending to have a purpose.

What if the wall used to be a door?

What if the castle just gave up on that part of itself?

What if someone built it like that on purpose?

You try not to fall down that particular mental oubliette.

The next day,

The door is still there,

Still leads to nowhere,

Still a perfect rectangle of invitation and defiance.

You hang a coat on it.

It feels like a small victory.

Harold disapproves.

You wink at him anyway.

The castle says nothing,

But you think the floorboards creak a little louder as you walk away.

It begins with a squelch,

Not the kind you can ignore,

Like stepping on an overripe pear or sitting on bread.

This is the kind of squelch that comes with consequences.

You stop mid-step,

Boots stuck in something viscous,

And a glance down.

Whatever it is,

It's orange,

Steaming slightly,

And appears to be chewing the sole of your shoe.

You backpedal.

It follows.

Slowly,

With the confidence of a substance that knows it has already won,

You ask a passing guard if this is normal.

He shrugs and says,

Could be soup,

Could be warning,

Then keeps walking like you're the odd one for not knowing which category your foot is in.

You wipe the bottom of your boot on a rag you hope wasn't important and continue your new assignment,

Inspecting the northern battlements for structural weaknesses.

No one tells you what to look for.

You're handed a rusty pole and a notebook that's already half-burnt.

Instructions include,

Poke gently,

And scream if necessary.

The hallway narrows near the top,

Ceiling low,

Shadows sharp.

A draft whispers past your ear like it's trying to sell you secrets.

You duck under a beam,

Trip over a bucket,

And land face-first beneath a suspiciously stained opening in the ceiling.

That's when it drips.

First a plop,

Then a cold trail sliding slowly down the back of your neck like it's trying to find your soul.

You freeze.

You do not breathe.

You just tilt your face upward and stare into the stone mouth of what appears to be a very intentional hole in the ceiling.

A drop dangles,

Wobbles,

Falls.

This one hits your lip.

It tastes like old vinegar and vengeance.

You gag.

That's when a voice behind you,

Casual and almost apologetic,

Says,

Ah,

That's the murder hole.

You spin.

Sir Elric,

Chewing something that might be a turnip and might be part of his helmet,

Nods at the ceiling.

For dropping things,

He says,

Gesturing vaguely like it's obvious.

Rocks.

Boiling oil.

Very small goats,

Once.

You ask why it's dripping.

He shrugs.

Sometimes it does that.

You ask what it is.

He chews,

Swallows,

Best not to know.

You stare at the hole.

It stares back.

It's not a large hole,

Maybe the size of a clenched fist,

But the way.

It's carved smooth,

Deliberate,

And slightly tilted,

Suggests it was designed by someone with strong opinions about gravity.

The stone around it is stained,

Layered in the soft palette of bad decisions.

Brown,

Black,

And a shade of red you don't want to name.

You step away.

Elric pats your shoulder.

His hand is damp.

You don't ask why.

Later,

You read about murder holes in one of the castle's many questionably accurate scrolls.

They're for defense,

Apparently.

Strategic architecture.

Pour hot substances or sharp objects upon enemies.

It says this with all the enthusiasm of someone describing tea service.

It doesn't say anything about the dripping.

You ask the cook if it might be a leak from the kitchen.

He scoffs and says none of his broth has teeth.

You try not to unpack that.

You stop eating stew for a week.

One night,

You pass under it again,

Just for a moment,

Just to check.

It's dark,

And the air smells faintly of old metal and wet parchment.

You hear a drip.

You move.

It misses.

You think that should make you feel better.

It doesn't.

You start dreaming about the hole.

Not in a nightmare way,

Just inconveniently.

It appears in odd places.

The ceiling of the great hall.

Inside your boot.

Once,

On the face of a merchant.

You wake up itchy and slightly damp.

Eventually,

You learn to avoid that section of hallway.

Everyone does.

Even the rats detour around it.

No one seals it.

No one talks about it.

It just exists,

Waiting,

Watching,

Dripping.

The day begins with a knock.

Not a polite knock,

Or a knock you want to hear first thing in the morning.

It's the kind of knock that says someone has very bad news and would like to hand it to you personally.

You open the door.

A bucket is placed into your hands.

No explanation.

Just the bucket,

A very long stick,

And a grim nod from the steward who mutters something about blockage duty before disappearing with the speed of a man escaping his past.

You stare at the items in your hands.

The stick is alarmingly thin.

The bucket is not empty.

You are already unhappy.

You are led to the tower's rear wall,

Where a small wooden hatch sits crooked in the stone like an afterthought.

A cold draft slips through the edges.

A rat watches you with interest and judgment.

The steward points to the hatch and says,

It's the waste chute.

Then he gestures to the stick.

Unblock it.

You ask how,

He says,

Gently,

Which feels like the wrong word for anything related to medieval plumbing.

The hatch opens with the sound of wood giving up on life.

Inside is a vertical shaft that stretches far below into darkness and far above into mystery.

The smell is immediate.

It does not creep up on you.

It punches you in the nose and takes your name.

You reel back,

Eyes watering,

Soul questioning every choice you've made since birth.

Still,

You lean in,

Because you're supposed to be useful now.

You poke the stick down into the abyss.

It taps something.

You prod harder.

The stick bends.

You prod even harder,

With the enthusiasm of someone who has decided this will be over quickly,

Or not at all.

The stick snaps.

The top half vanishes into the shaft with a wet thud that echoes back like laughter.

You stare at your remaining half.

You want to throw it.

You want to throw yourself.

You settle for whimpering softly while the smell continues to unpack its emotional baggage.

Then you hear the voice,

Not from the steward,

Not from above,

From inside the shaft.

Try turning it clockwise,

It says.

You freeze.

You lean forward.

The voice continues.

No wait.

Counterclockwise.

Unless you want a backsplash.

You stare into the dark.

Who's there?

Used to be Edgar.

The voice replies.

Now I just help out when I can.

You ask if he's a ghost.

He hums thoughtfully.

Sort of.

Let's say I'm what's left after a series of very poor ventilation decisions.

You ask if he has any helpful advice.

He does.

None of it is good.

Try.

Singing,

He says.

Sometimes the chute responds to music.

Gregorian chants are nice.

Have you tried apologizing to it?

You could offer a sacrifice.

A rat,

Maybe.

Not that one,

Though.

He owes me money.

At some point,

You stop listening and start gagging.

Your nose has declared independence.

Your eyes are doing their best impression of fountains.

You jab the remains of the stick back into the chute with a vengeance born of desperation.

Something shifts.

There's a slurp.

Then a sucking pop.

It clears.

The air changes slightly.

Not better.

Just less angry.

You close the hatch.

You collapse to the floor,

Still holding the bottom half of the stick like a relic of a battle no one will believe.

The rat gives you a slow nod of respect.

You nod back.

The steward returns.

Sees you.

Sees the stick.

Says,

Oh,

You're still conscious.

Nice.

You don't reply.

You just hand him the bucket and walk away.

Slowly.

Like someone who's seen things.

Behind you,

The hatch creaks.

A soft voice drifts out.

Come back any time.

Tuesdays are quiet.

You do not respond.

You do not look back.

You just find the nearest well and dunk your entire head in it.

Twice.

The pantry is colder than you expect.

Cold and dry and lined with shelves that look like they've seen at least three collapses,

Two fires,

And one very determined goat.

You're given a list of tasks.

Take inventory.

Reorganize the sacks of barley.

And watch for movement,

Which is vague until it isn't.

The moment you open the second crate of turnips and something squeaks at you with the confidence of royalty,

It becomes clear.

The rats live here.

Not just one or two.

Not the occasional,

Sad,

Lonely rat you could guilt trip into leaving.

No.

This is a full colony.

A network.

Possibly a government.

You find a tunnel near the back wall,

Artfully carved behind a crate of moldy onions,

Complete with little scratch marks and what might be a warning sign in rodent.

At first,

Things are manageable.

You leave the bottom shelf alone,

And they don't touch the cheese.

Mutual respect.

A fragile piece.

Until the bread goes missing.

You set it down one small,

Round loaf,

Still warm from the oven,

Gifted to you by the cook after you accidentally helped him fix the soup faucet.

You turn your back for less than a minute.

When you look again,

It's gone.

In its place.

A single walnut and a piece of string.

You do not see this as a fair trade.

The cook blames natural pantry shrinkage.

You blame Gerald.

You don't know for sure that's his name,

But it fits.

Gerald is the one you catch later that day,

Standing on the edge of the flour sack like he owns it,

Grooming himself with slow,

Theatrical strokes.

He stares at you.

You stare back.

He doesn't flinch,

Doesn't run.

He yawns.

The audacity.

You declare war.

Your first counterattack is crude.

A line of vinegar-soaked rags across their most trafficked path.

They chew through it like it's an appetizer.

You escalate.

A barricade of tin plates and old ladles.

They tunnel beneath it and leave you a cherry pit on top as a message.

You install bells.

They go silent.

One morning you wake to find a pile of dried beans arranged in the shape of a middle finger.

You start naming them.

Gerald is the leader.

Obviously.

He's fat,

Gray,

And has a nicked ear that makes him look like he's survived at least three tavern brawls.

Marla is the fast one.

She zips through gaps you didn't know existed and has a taste for salted cod.

Bernard appears only at night and only when your back is turned.

You think he might be a ghost,

But the claw marks on your apples say otherwise.

You lose sleep.

You start keeping a notebook.

A tiny war journal.

Day six.

They breach the oat sacks.

Day seven.

Tripped over a trap that I didn't set.

Day eight.

Found a rat-sized helmet made of walnut shell.

Your sanity frays.

You begin muttering in corners.

You develop a sixth sense for rodent movement.

The steward asks if you've considered a new posting.

You hiss in response.

The turning point comes when you construct the maze,

A cardboard labyrinth made from old wine crates and desperation.

At the center,

A piece of honey cake.

You wait.

You watch.

Hours pass.

Just as you're about to give up,

Gerald enters.

Cautious.

Clever.

He pauses at each turn like he's reading your thoughts.

He reaches the center.

He takes the cake.

Then he looks up,

Winks,

And leaves through an exit you didn't build.

You collapse.

The next morning,

You find the honey cake on your pillow.

A peace offering.

Or a warning.

You're not sure which.

You accept it anyway.

The truce is reinstated.

For now.

You stick to the top shelves.

They stick to the bottom.

But sometimes you hear the soft pitter-patter of pause in the night and know Gerald is watching,

Planning,

Waiting for his moment.

The door to the cold room sticks.

It always sticks.

You've been told to use your shoulder,

Not your hands,

And never to ask why it was sealed with rope last winter.

You press against it like you're trying to win a wrestling match with the wall.

It groans.

You groan.

There's a pop,

A thud,

And suddenly the door gives way and you're inside.

It is not cold.

It is,

In fact,

Aggressively warm.

The kind of warmth that clings to your clothes and seeps into your pores like a damp wool blanket that's been hugged by a stranger too many times.

The smell is immediate,

Overwhelming,

And oddly philosophical.

It forces you to question whether meat can suffer emotionally.

You gag softly into your sleeve.

Shelves line the room,

Some lean,

Some buckle.

A few have fully surrendered and now resemble sleeping drunks.

Cured meats hang from hooks,

Though the word cured feels generous.

One of the hams is growing something that appears to have developed a sense of humor.

A cheese wheel winks at you.

You blink.

It winks again.

There is moisture,

Not condensation moisture,

Suspended in the air.

It's like breathing through stew.

You take a step forward and your foot squelches on something that crunches and gives,

Which seems impossible but is now your reality.

This is where food goes to die.

You're here to fetch a joint of mutton.

That's all.

In.

Grab.

Out.

You repeat this like a prayer.

In.

Grab.

Out.

The steward says it's on the far wall,

Behind the barrels labeled Definitely Not Pickles.

You pass a basket of eggs that have clearly evolved past chicken.

One of them moves.

You pretend it didn't.

Then you see it.

The sausage.

It sits on a shelf by itself,

Wrapped in twine that has long since given up,

Glistening with a sheen of something that isn't quite mold but definitely isn't seasoning.

It's long,

Slightly curved,

And has the posture of someone about to throw a punch.

You reach for the mutton,

Keeping your eyes on it.

It twitches.

You freeze.

Your hand hovers over the mutton like a thief caught mid-heist.

The sausage does not move again.

Maybe it didn't move at all.

Maybe your brain is just trying to escape through hallucinations.

Then it shifts again,

Subtle,

Calculated,

A lean to the left,

As if lining up a target.

You take a step back.

It follows.

You do not scream,

Because you are brave and heroic,

And also because your throat has sealed itself shut in self-preservation.

You back toward the door,

Slow,

Careful,

Eyes locked on the ancient meat like it owes you money.

A drip lands on your forehead.

You do not check where it came from.

You know better now.

The sausage drops to the floor with a wet slap and begins to roll.

Not fast.

Not wildly.

Just enough to let you know this is no longer a matter of storage.

This is a duel.

You grab a broom.

It's not much of a weapon,

But it's all you have.

The sausage stops rolling,

As if offended.

You swing.

It bounces off the wall,

Lands in a puddle of its own age,

And spins once before coming to rest with a hiss that might be steam or rage.

You don't wait to find out.

You drop the broom,

Grab the mutton,

And sprint for the door like you're escaping a demon with seasoning.

Behind you,

The sausage makes one final lurch,

Smacks into a barrel,

And disappears behind a curtain of drying herbs.

You slam the door.

You wedge it shut with the nearest chair.

You mark it with chalk.

You say nothing to anyone.

The steward takes the mutton without comment.

Later,

You see the cook inspecting a sausage on the grill,

Poking it with the edge of his blade like it might retaliate.

You turn and walk away.

From now on,

If anyone wants something from the cold room,

They can go themselves.

You've seen what lives there,

And it saw you back.

It starts,

As most disasters do,

With a lie.

Just a little drip,

The steward says,

Pointing to a faint trail of water crawling down the north tower wall like it's late to a party.

You nod,

Because that's what you do now,

Nod.

Carry things,

And pretend your cloak doesn't smell like mildew and roasted turnip.

You press your fingers to the wall.

It's damp,

Which wouldn't be so alarming if the sky weren't currently clear and the nearest source of water wasn't a stream three days away.

You mention this.

The steward shrugs,

And says the wall does that sometimes.

You ask if that's a structural problem.

He replies by handing you a cloth and walking away with suspicious speed.

You mop.

The drizzle continues,

Slow,

Sneaky,

Unbothered by your efforts.

You swap the cloth for a bucket.

It fills too fast.

You get another,

Then a third.

You start naming them.

One of them is Gerald,

In honor of your still unresolved rodent feud.

Gerald is the first to overflow.

By noon,

It's a stream.

Not violent,

Just constant.

A polite but relentless invasion.

You attempt to trace the source,

Climbing the stone arch with the grace of a cat made entirely of elbows.

You find the crack a thin,

Jagged line slicing through mortar like a lazy curse.

You poke it.

It leaks more.

Desperate,

You reach for the nearest thing,

A wheel of soft cheese abandoned on a windowsill and already developing a personality.

You cram it into the crack.

It squelches into place like it was always meant for this.

The leak stops.

You do not celebrate.

You stare at it for a long moment,

Unsure if you've solved a problem or created a different one with dairy.

Then you hear the footsteps.

Brother Aldrich,

The castle's most anxious priest,

Rounds the corner,

Humming something that might be a hymn or a warning.

He doesn't see the puddle or the cheese.

His foot finds both in the same second.

There's a slip,

A shriek,

And then silence,

Broken only by the soft splatter of wet robes and holy disappointment.

You rush to help him.

He waves you off and begins muttering Latin that probably isn't real.

You try to explain the cheese.

He blinks at you like you've suggested marriage.

You are told,

In no uncertain terms,

That this is not blessed plumbing protocol.

You are escorted away.

Later,

In the great hall,

The steward announces your new assignment.

Bucket duty,

He says,

With the grim finality of a man assigning someone to shovel snow in the desert.

You try to protest.

He raises a brow and simply says,

Cheese.

And the room nods,

Like that explains everything.

You spend the next six hours ferrying sloshing buckets back and forth,

Up and down,

Like some sort of water-themed punishment deity.

Every time you think it's slowing,

The crack spits out a fresh torrent,

As though personally offended that you tried to outwit it with dairy.

Someone suggests a patch of tar.

Someone else recommends prayer.

You consider both,

And instead try stuffing the crack with leftover oat cakes.

It works for thirteen seconds.

The resulting splash knocks over a lit candle,

A tapestry,

And two arguments about masonry.

By evening,

The wall has stopped leaking.

No one knows why.

The priest says it was divine intervention.

The steward credits structural shifts.

You quietly suspect the cheese reached some kind of agreement with the stone.

You aren't thanked.

You are handed another bucket.

As you slump in the corner,

Your cloak dripping,

Your boots squishing,

You think back to simpler times.

Times when walls didn't ooze and cheese stayed where it belonged.

Times when you weren't a walking mop with trust issues.

You look up.

The crack glistens faintly in the torchlight.

It winks.

The armory smells like sweat and unfulfilled ambition.

You're sent there with a broom,

A rag,

And the vague instruction to make it less haunted.

No one explains what that means,

But you suspect it involves polishing things until they stop glaring at you.

The suits of armor line the walls like judgmental statues.

Some are missing limbs.

One's missing a head.

Another has two.

You don't ask questions.

You just start dusting.

The closet door is wedged halfway open when you find it.

Narrow,

Dark,

And filled to the brim with stacked shields,

Rusty gauntlets,

And a single,

Impressively tall suit of armor standing in the corner like it's in timeout.

You step inside,

Thinking maybe this is the fastest way to get promoted to somewhere without a leaky ceiling.

You're wrong.

The door slams behind you.

At first,

You think it's the wind.

Then you hear the bolt slide.

Then silence.

You push.

The door pushes back.

You are locked in.

With it,

The armor watches you,

Not literally,

No glowing eyes or mystical energy,

But with a kind of stillness that feels deeply personal.

You don't trust it.

You whisper that out loud,

Just in case.

You reach over to move a shield out of the way,

And the whole thing shifts.

The suit of armor leans and falls.

You try to dodge.

You fail spectacularly.

The breastplate lands across your chest,

Like a bear hug made of rage and poor metalwork.

The helmet bounces off your head and settles next to your ear.

There's a thunk,

Then a ringing noise,

Then somehow words.

You're very bad at this,

The helmet whispers.

You freeze.

The room is still.

No footsteps,

No one hiding in the corner,

Just you and a 50-pound exoskeleton that apparently has opinions.

Can't even sweep properly,

It mutters.

You try to lift it off.

It shifts slightly,

Then rolls to pin your left leg for good measure.

You are now trapped under armor that has taken a vow of passive-aggressive commentary.

Minutes pass,

Then more.

You lose track.

You consider yelling for help,

But quickly remember the last time you yelled in this castle.

The rats arrived before the humans.

The helmet continues.

It critiques your posture,

Your diet,

Your conversational skills.

At one point,

It references your failed attempt at making turnip stew three weeks ago,

Which is unsettling on several levels.

You talk back.

Of course you do.

You argue with the helmet about honor,

Personal space,

And why anyone would ever wear something this heavy on purpose.

The helmet insists it once belonged to a great knight named Sir Halric the Relentless,

Who won battles using only his left eyebrow and a mace named Veronica.

You suggest that explains the dent in the chestplate.

The insult is not received well.

Eventually,

Someone hears the clatter and the yelling,

Probably the part where you threaten to smelt the armor into a chamber pot.

The steward opens the door,

Takes one look at the situation,

And sighs like this happens more than it should.

He drags the suit off you,

Pausing only when the helmet hisses.

Watch the joints you oaf.

You limp out.

No one thanks you.

No one acknowledges that the armor spoke.

You are given a new task,

Reorganizing the scroll room,

A demotion wrapped in dusty parchment and passive silence.

Later,

As you pass the armory,

You swear the helmet is turned slightly in your direction.

Watching,

Waiting,

Plotting your next inconvenient reunion.

Dinner is announced with the usual enthusiasm of someone warning a village about a coming flood.

You're summoned to the great hall,

Which smells like old wax,

Desperation,

And something that might once have been celery,

Long wooden tables grown under the weight of too many dishes and not enough caution.

The centerpiece is a cauldron blackened,

Dented,

Ominous,

Steaming with a viscous brew the cook proudly calls victory stew.

No one asks what victory it's celebrating.

You're handed a bowl before you can fake a limp or sudden religious calling.

The stew sloshes into it with the consistency of wet cement and the sound of regret leaving the body.

It's brown,

Not a rich,

Hearty brown,

Not an earthy,

Appetizing brown,

More like a mystery brown,

The kind you don't question unless you enjoy pain and lawsuits.

Steam curls upward in slow,

Sentient tendrils.

You smell garlic,

Meat,

And something faintly metallic.

Across the table,

A noble picks up his spoon and sniffs it cautiously like it might lunge.

He dips in,

Raises a trembling spoonful to his lips and chews once.

Then he slumps to the floor.

No one moves.

It's unclear if this is a dramatic protest or actual poisoning.

The priest walks over,

Pokes him with a candle,

And declares him temporarily unresponsive.

The cook beams.

That's the marrow working.

You take a breath and dip your spoon in.

It does not come out easily.

Something inside resists.

Eventually,

You wrestle a bite.

Free,

You chew.

It crunches.

You pause.

There are not supposed to be crunchy parts in stew.

You chew again,

Slower this time.

Something small and round grinds between your molars.

You spit it into your palm.

It's.

.

.

A button?

A tooth?

Yours?

Someone else's?

You can't tell.

You run your tongue across your teeth and count.

It doesn't help.

You were never good at math under duress.

Someone asks what type of meat is in the stew.

The cook gestures vaguely at the window.

Local.

The dog is next.

He's a three-legged mutt named Rufus who once ate a pigeonhole and kept the feathers.

He sniffs the bowl,

Licks once,

Then whines and backs away like it's cursed.

The room falls silent.

If Rufus won't eat it,

Something is deeply wrong.

You push your bowl.

Aside.

The squire next to you is less wise.

He goes in for seconds.

By the third spoonful,

He's developed a facial twitch and started speaking in rhyming couplets.

A knight starts weeping quietly into a tankard of ale.

Someone throws bread at the cook who dodges it with the speed of a man who's seen worse.

You try to leave.

The steward blocks your path.

Not until everyone's had their fill,

He says,

Eyes wide and haunted.

You nod like you understand.

You do not.

You consider climbing out the window.

But the last person who tried that still walks with a limp and speaks in riddles.

Another noble collapses.

A bowl crashes to the floor.

From inside,

Something scuttles away on too many legs.

You fake a faint.

It's not your best work,

But it buys you five minutes of floor time and a rag soaked in vinegar.

You whisper to the dog who seems to approve.

Together,

You crawl toward the door under the cover of chaos and aggressive digestion.

Once outside,

You don't stop until you're behind the stables.

You breathe the sweet manure-scented air like its fine perfume.

Rufus sits beside you,

Tail thumping.

Inside,

Someone screams,

Is this a spoon or a hinge?

Followed by the sound of vomiting and applause.

The stars blink overhead.

You've survived dinner.

Barely.

The hallway is called Ember Lane,

Which sounds poetic until you realize it's mostly because people tend to burst into tears halfway down it.

Your task tonight is simple.

Relight the wall torches.

That's it.

Light.

Walk.

Don't listen to the noises.

Pretend the shadows aren't moving.

Definitely ignore the fact that the hallway is also referred to by some of the staff as the whisper spine and where hope goes to gasp.

You're handed a torch stub,

A flint,

And a nod of pity.

No one offers to come with you.

The steward merely gestures toward the dark stretch of stone and says,

Stay to the middle.

That's not comforting.

You step in.

The floor is uneven in that special medieval way where every flagstone is a slightly different shape and half of them seem to resent your ankles.

The air is cold,

Not crisp,

But damp,

Like the breath of someone who eats nothing but raw onions and moral decay.

The first torch bracket is easy enough.

You strike the flint,

Catch a spark,

And the flame blooms to life.

The hallway doesn't like it.

You move to the next.

Light.

Step.

Light.

Step.

So far,

So not cursed.

Then the door breathes.

You don't even realize it's a door at first,

Just a seam in the wall.

Then you hear it low,

Rhythmic,

Wet.

Something behind that slab of wood is inhaling,

Slowly,

Intentionally,

As if smelling your thoughts.

You pause mid-strike.

The torch sputters in your hand,

Catching the light in the carved lion face just above the handle.

Its eyes seem deeper than they were a moment ago.

You light the torch anyway and take a step back.

The breathing continues.

You walk faster.

The next torch flickers as you pass.

You turn to light it,

But the previous one,

Your safety torch,

Your progress marker,

Goes out behind you.

Not a puff,

Not a slow death,

Just gone.

You freeze.

Then you tell yourself it's fine.

Drafty hallway.

Old castle.

Definitely not a hallway with preferences and a grudge.

You relight the torch,

Pretending your hand isn't shaking.

You don't look back.

You should not have looked back.

The door has opened a crack.

Just enough to show blackness,

Not darkness.

Blackness.

You can't see through it.

You can't see into it.

You can only see that it exists,

And it is not pleased by your presence.

You hum.

Not a song,

Just noise.

A shaky,

Tuneless melody of desperation and misplaced optimism.

The hallway doesn't respond.

The torches do.

One by one,

They snuff out behind you,

Timing themselves with your heartbeat.

You pick up the pace.

You pass another door.

This one doesn't breathe.

It whispers.

Nonsense syllables,

Too fast to catch,

Too soft to fully ignore.

It sounds like your name,

And also like a threat,

And also like your grandmother's recipe for root soup if she'd had a stroke mid-sentence.

You hum louder.

The flame in your hand is dancing now,

Wild and erratic,

Casting warped shadows that jerk and lunge with each step.

You swear you see one detach from the wall.

You do not investigate.

You walk faster,

Then faster still,

Until it's less walking and more a dignified scurry.

There is a final door at the end of the hall.

It's never opened.

You were told that much.

It's sealed with wax and marked with a sigil that looks like someone trying to draw a chicken while falling downstairs.

As you pass it,

The wax bubbles.

The sigil twitches.

You break into a jog.

The last torch bracket greets you like salvation.

You strike the flint.

Nothing.

You strike again.

Still nothing.

The breathing is closer now.

You strike once more,

And this time it catches bright,

Fierce,

Glorious fire.

You jam it into the bracket and watch the flame roar to life.

Everything goes silent.

You don't look back.

You walk slowly now,

Back down the hallway,

Lighting torches anew.

They stay lit this time.

The doors are closed.

The breathing has stopped.

The whispers retreat.

But as you step out into the open air,

You feel it,

That last little gust of wind.

Not from ahead,

But from behind.

Cold.

Damp.

Almost like a sigh.

And you realize one door never closed.

The tapestry was always there,

Hanging in the south stairwell like a faded piece of noble guilt woven with dusty reds and suspicious browns frayed at the bottom like it had once been gnawed by something with a grudge and teeth.

You passed it every day without much thought,

Your eyes usually too focused on the steps or the odd ceiling leak or Sir Wulfric's insistence on doing lunges in full armor.

Today,

It speaks.

It starts subtle,

Like a breeze pretending to be words.

You pause mid-step.

The hallway is empty,

Just the tapestry on your left and a chipped statue of Street Elric the alarmingly moist to your right.

You lean in,

Because of course you do.

The whisper comes again.

Your left eyebrow is betraying your face.

You jerk back so hard you nearly tumble down the stairs.

The hallway remains still.

The tapestry sways slightly,

But there's no wind.

You squint at the image,

A noble lady,

Head cocked at an unnatural angle,

Eyes slightly too wide for comfort.

One hand clutches a rose.

The other seems to be reaching just past the border of the fabric,

Like she's been mid-escape for the last hundred years.

You take a cautious step forward.

You smell like fear and old cheese,

She purrs.

You whirl around.

Nothing.

No one.

The statue stares ahead,

Leaking moss from its ears.

You face the tapestry again.

Did you just insult me?

I described you,

She replies,

Voice warm and syrupy,

Like honey stirred with malice.

You consider leaving.

You strongly consider it.

But the stairwell is narrow and your dignity already fragile from last week's incident with the goose.

So you square your shoulders,

Lift your chin,

And say,

You're a rug.

The silence that follows is frigid.

I'm a lady,

She hisses,

Woven into this prison by a jealous witch with poor taste in suitors and worse taste in wine.

You blink,

And now you heckle people?

I give warnings,

She says,

Her tone suddenly grave,

And fashion advice.

You need both.

You scowl.

What kind of warning?

You'll die before Thursday.

Your scowl deepens.

It's Tuesday.

Exactly.

You look closer.

The lady's face seems slightly different than it did this morning,

Sharper,

More amused.

Her eyes follow your movement with unsettling precision.

You glance away,

Then back.

She winks.

You leap backward,

Colliding with the statue.

Street Elric offers no comfort.

His mossy brow only seems to wrinkle with disappointment.

The tapestry laughs.

It's a dry,

Fluttering sound,

Like silk unraveling.

Oh,

Don't be dramatic,

She coos.

Everyone dies.

Eventually.

I'm just better at guessing when.

You stare at her.

Is this what you do all day?

She sighs.

Once,

I recited poetry.

Once,

I sang to knights and whispered encouragement to heroes.

Now I pass the time by commenting on bad posture and predicting doom.

You people give me very little else to work with.

You take a step down the stairs,

Then pause.

You said my hair was uneven.

It is,

She replies without hesitation.

Your left side looks like you trimmed it during a coughing fit.

You storm off before she can mention your boots.

She calls after you.

Tell the cook his soup is trying to ferment itself again,

And Sir Wulfric needs to stop skipping leg day.

You reach the landing and turn back.

The hallway is empty.

The tapestry hangs still,

But you know you'll hear her again,

Probably Thursday.

You're woken by the sound of rain hitting stone like an impatient drummer with boundary issues.

The wind howls,

The shutters rattle,

And you know before your feet even hit the freezing floor that today is going to be one of those days,

The kind where nothing good happens and something terrible definitely tries to touch your ankle.

The steward finds you before breakfast and hands you a bucket.

No words,

Just the bucket and a look that says,

You've wronged me in a past life and now I get to enjoy this.

You don't ask.

You already know.

The latrines are backing up again.

Last time,

It was a clog,

A chicken,

If rumors are to be believed.

This time,

The situation is being described by the cook as actively unholy.

You make your way down the narrow steps to the outer wall,

Where the privies dangle off the castle's edge like a terrible architectural afterthought.

Rain lashes sideways.

Wind howls through the cracks.

Your boots squelch with every step and you're pretty sure something inside them just gave up on hope entirely.

The latrine door swings open with a creak that sounds suspiciously like laughter.

You peer in.

It is worse than you imagined.

The hole,

Formerly a simple gravity-assisted solution to human unpleasantness,

Is now a bubbling,

Seething cauldron of consequences.

Rainwater has mixed with waste in a way that defies science,

Nature,

And all forms of emotional stability.

The surface churns ominously.

A splash erupts with such force you instinctively duck only to feel a warm mist graze your ear.

You nearly scream.

Instead,

You whisper,

No.

The bucket waits in your hand like a taunt.

You step forward.

The floorboards creak under your weight,

Slick with moisture,

And something you will not investigate.

You lean in with the caution of someone defusing an explosive.

You try to see the blockage.

You wish you hadn't.

There is movement.

Something is down there,

Living or recently deceased.

Unclear.

You poke at it with the official Castle Greyweather latrine stick,

Which is just a regular stick someone cursed once in frustration.

The moment it touches the surface,

The splash is immediate and vengeful.

You are hit.

Not directly.

Not fully.

But enough.

Enough to make you consider monastic life.

Enough to make you understand why some monks take vows of silence,

Isolation,

And,

Presumably,

Long-distance plumbing.

You scramble back,

Slipping on the wet stone and crashing into the opposite wall.

The bucket spills.

You sit there,

Dripping,

Defeated,

While rain pours in sideways and the latrine burbles like it's trying to speak.

Then,

As if summoned by your suffering,

The ghost arrives.

Bit of a mess,

It says.

Floating just above the doorway.

You glare at it.

It shrugs.

In my day,

We just lit the whole thing on fire.

You stare into the bubbling hole.

Fire sounds good.

Fire sounds cleansing.

Fire sounds like someone else's problem.

You stand.

You gather your dignity,

What's left of it,

And the bucket,

And you begin the process.

It's not glamorous.

It involves a lot of splashing,

Scooping,

Gagging,

And a moment where you're pretty sure you reach a place,

Level of spiritual awareness no training ever prepared you for.

You hear the ghost humming something that might be a dirge or just an old tavern song about soup.

After an eternity and one additional splash that makes you question every choice that led to this moment,

The blockage shifts.

There's a sucking sound,

A burp,

And then silence.

It's over.

The rain slows.

The wind dies.

Somewhere,

Far off in the castle,

A lute plays softly.

You look up at the sky and wonder if the sun will ever feel warm again.

As you leave,

The ghost pats your shoulder.

You're not the worst apprentice we've had,

He says.

There was once a lad who fell in completely,

Never recovered,

Lives in the well now.

You say nothing.

You just walk,

And the bucket sloshes with every step.

The stone you step on doesn't feel right.

It gives slightly under your boot a trait that stones should never have.

You pause,

Glance down,

And before your brain can translate that's odd into move now,

The floor disappears beneath you with a groan and a puff of ancient dust that smells like mildew and long-forgotten decisions.

You drop,

Not far.

Not enough to break bones or dramatically expire,

But enough to lose every ounce of composure you might have still had after yesterday's incident with the vengeful stew.

You land with a squelch and a splash inside a barrel that was,

Until a moment ago,

Home to a rather expensive vintage of castle wine.

Now it's a cocktail of embarrassment and oak-scented disaster.

You sputter to the surface like a soggy crouton,

Hair plastered to your face,

Robe clinging in ways that should be illegal in polite society.

The room you've dropped into is dimly lit,

Musty,

And filled with rows of barrels,

Each more judgmental than the last.

The trapdoor above creaks ominously,

Then slams shut on its own,

Sealing you into your new fermented prison.

Voices echo from above.

Did something fall?

Probably the apprentice again.

Check the wine.

A moment later,

Someone pokes their head through a side hatch and stares at you,

Wide-eyed.

It's Barnaby,

The cellar boy with the world's most unfortunate mustache and a talent for making every situation worse simply by existing.

You ruin the Duke's red,

He says,

Voice cracking with glee.

That was his favorite.

You blink wine out of your eyes,

And yet,

Here I am,

Alive,

Barely.

He disappears,

Presumably to tell everyone.

You attempt to extract yourself,

Which is easier said than done.

The barrel is narrow,

Slippery,

And filled with a now questionable mixture of vintage despair and whatever you had for breakfast.

You manage to flop one leg over the rim,

Then tumble out with the grace of a stunned eel,

Landing hard on the stone floor.

Your dignity,

Already fragile,

Packs its things and leaves the castle.

A priest arrives next,

Because,

Of course,

He does.

Father Elric,

A man who always smells faintly of incense and aggressively boiled turnips,

Steps into the cellar with the solemnity of a man about to perform a rite.

He surveys the puddle,

The barrel,

And then you,

Sprawled on the stones like a cautionary tale.

It is said,

He begins,

That falling into sacred wine is a sign of rebirth.

You groan and prop yourself on one elbow.

It was a merlot,

Not a miracle.

He smiles in that vague,

Unhelpful way monks specialize in.

Perhaps this is a baptism of sorts,

A cleansing.

You stare at him,

Dripping.

If this is divine intervention,

Your god has a very dark sense of humor.

Elric doesn't deny it.

A crowd gathers,

Because humiliation is a group sport in castle gray weather.

Sir Bartram pokes his head in,

Sees your wine-soaked form,

And mutters something about new traditions.

The cook yells from above that dinner's going to taste like disappointment and raisins if you've ruined all the stock.

No one helps you up.

Eventually,

You drag yourself to your feet,

Clothes clinging,

And boots squelching with every step.

The wine has reached places you didn't know were reachable.

You smell like a noble's hangover.

You try to slink toward the exit,

But the trapdoor decides to open again without warning,

Creaking wide like it's laughing at you.

A rat peeks over the edge,

Considers your state,

And retreats with visible revulsion.

Someone hands you a towel.

It is damp.

Later,

As you sit in the courtyard attempting to dry out next to a fire that refuses to stay lit,

A passing squire raises a cup and grins.

To the blessed one,

He says,

May their next plunge be vintage.

You consider throwing your boot at him.

Instead,

You raise your cup back.

It's water.

Of course it is.

The ghost materializes while you're brushing soot off the main hearth and muttering about the ongoing mildew war in your ceiling corner.

One moment,

It's just you,

A broom,

And the smell of something that probably used to be a roast.

The next,

The air goes cold,

The fire hiccups,

And a translucent man with bad posture floats two feet above the flagstones like that's just something people do now.

He's wearing doublet and hose,

Both of which seem deeply unsure about their own color schemes.

His hair is a wispy suggestion and his mustache appears to have taken creative liberties with gravity.

He clears his throat,

Though it's more of a spectral wheeze,

And says,

You wouldn't happen to have a spare coin,

Would you?

You blink at him.

He nods solemnly,

As if he's just asked for a reasonable thing,

And not say,

Trespassed into your life from the after realm to shake you down for pocket change.

You're the ghost,

You say,

Not because it's smart,

But because it's the only sentence your brain can scrape together under pressure.

He sniffs.

Henry,

Actually.

Henry the ghost.

Henry the unjustly executed,

Thank you.

You lean on your broom.

Let me guess.

Died in battle?

Tax evasion?

You stare.

It was one goat,

He mutters,

Glancing off to,

The side,

And she was elderly.

He begins to drift around the room like a bored librarian haunting an underfunded archive.

I'm bound here,

He explains,

Until my debts are paid or the castle collapses in on itself,

Whichever comes first.

Honestly,

It's a toss-up.

You think back to the murder holes,

The wine cellar disaster,

And the tapestry that whispers fashion critiques.

Castle collapse seems faster.

He stops in front of you and holds out an incorporeal hand.

So,

Coin?

You fish around in your belt pouch,

Which contains exactly one copper piece,

Two crumbs,

And something you hope isn't part of a deceased beetle.

You hold up the coin.

You're not even solid.

How does this?

He takes it.

The coin vanishes into thin air like it got mugged by reality itself.

You blink again.

Okay.

Where did it go?

Henry grins.

A lopsided thing that makes you question his last five decisions and your own.

That's the mystery,

Isn't it?

Then he winks and evaporates.

Just gone.

No goodbye.

No thanks.

Not even a catch-you-in-the-next-dimension.

You stand there staring at the space he used to occupy,

Feeling profoundly scammed by someone who doesn't have working lungs.

Later,

You ask around.

Sir Bartram says ghosts can't lie but often omit things,

Like morals.

The cook mutters something about Henry owing him three eggs and half a duck.

The priest just sighs and opens his book of sanctified inconveniences,

Flipping to a page titled Ethereal Freeloaders.

You sit by the hearth that evening,

Staring into the fire and wondering if you've just accidentally funded a ghost's supernatural pub crawl.

You consider writing I owe you on your next coin to see if that changes anything.

A small breeze brushes past your ear and you hear a whisper.

Thanks,

Mate.

Needed that for a toll.

You whip around.

Nothing.

Just you,

The fire,

And the nagging sense that Henry now owes you a favor you'll probably never live to.

Collect.

Unless,

Of course,

You die here,

Which,

Given your track record,

Feels alarmingly plausible.

You wake to shouting,

Which is never ideal unless you're being knighted or chased by bears.

Judging by the shrill pitch and amount of mud already on your boots,

It's neither of those.

You stumble into the courtyard,

Hair a disaster and tunic misbuttoned,

Just in time to see the drawbridge rising.

On the wrong side of it.

Wait!

You yell,

Flailing like a very underqualified windmill.

Sir Bartram squints down from the tower and raises a horn to his lips.

It's not a majestic horn.

It sounds like a goose being sat on.

But the message is clear.

Siege drill.

Siege.

Drill.

You are not briefed.

You are not prepared.

You are,

In fact,

Outside.

The drawbridge slams shut with a theatrical groan and a finality that feels personal.

You hear the heavy thunk of the portcullis locking into place,

Followed by the distant sound of cheering.

For a moment,

You wonder if the cheering is for the drill or because they've locked you out specifically.

You press your ear against the gate.

Somewhere inside,

Someone's yelling about boiling oil.

Someone else is singing a battle chant off-key.

You hear what you hope is a pig squealing in terror and not someone impersonating one.

And then come the arrows.

Not real ones,

Thank the questionable training budget,

But blunted practice shafts that whistle through the air and thud against wooden targets and occasionally trees.

And once,

Horrifyingly close your shoulder.

You duck behind a barrel that smells like old turnips and regret.

Another arrow skids off a rock and lands a foot away.

You shout,

Friendly out here,

But all that earns you is a cabbage to the chest.

A cabbage.

It explodes on impact,

Like it's been waiting its whole life for vengeance.

You peek out from the barrel,

Spit out a leaf,

And catch sight of young squire Edwin on the parapets,

Giggling maniacally and loading vegetables into a catapult,

Clearly not rated for produce.

You make a mental note to haunt him if you die.

You try to reason with the guards at the postern gate,

But one of them throws a burlap sack over your head.

Prisoner scenario,

He shouts gleefully.

You inform him this was not part of your morning plan.

He informs you that realism is important.

Then he ties your hands with what feels suspiciously like leftover sausage casing.

By the time the drill ends,

You are mud-soaked,

Slightly concussed from a parsnip,

And your right boot is missing.

No one can tell you where it went.

No one seems particularly concerned.

Sir Bartram pats you on the back with alarming force and declares the siege a rousing success.

You cough out a feather.

That was in the cabbage,

You say.

He doesn't answer.

He's too busy congratulating the cook on the accuracy of his bread toss.

The cook salutes like a man who's found his true calling,

And it involves weaponized sourdough.

You drag yourself back inside as they lower the drawbridge.

The gates groan open like they,

Too,

Are disappointed in your performance.

Someone tries to hand you a certificate of participation.

You consider setting it on fire.

Later,

As you clean turnip stains from your tunic and pick gravel from your ear,

You seriously entertain the idea of leaving it all behind.

The woods can't be worse than this.

You could build a hut,

Befriend a squirrel,

Start over.

Then a second horn blares.

Sir Bartram shouts,

Ambush round.

You dive behind the barrel again.

This time,

The cabbage has backup.

You're halfway to the storage room when it happens.

Left at the broom closet,

Two doors pass the tapestry of St.

Alaric aggressively baptizing a goose,

And then wall.

Solid,

Cold,

Uninvited stone.

Right where there used to be a perfectly functional hallway.

A hallway you've walked down every day for the last three weeks.

A hallway that led to clean rags,

Old apples,

And an alarming number of thumbtacks.

For some reason,

No one's explained.

Now,

There's just wall.

You stop and stare,

As if your gaze alone might coax it to move aside and admit this is all a mistake.

It doesn't.

It stands there with the smug silence of someone who knows it's winning.

You press a hand to it,

Definitely stone,

Damp,

Like it's been there for centuries,

Which is objectively false,

Because you're positive it wasn't here yesterday.

The last time you came down this hallway,

There was a draft,

A whiff of mildew,

And a rat named Cedric who you've been semi-cordial with since the breadcrumb incident.

Now it's all just limestone and betrayal.

You fetch Edwin,

The only person nearby who can read and also spell corridor.

He shows up chewing something that looks like it used to be a plum and squints at the wall like it insulted his mother.

This was open,

You say,

Pointing.

Edwin nods slowly.

Are you sure it wasn't just another wall that looked like not a wall?

You stare at him.

He stares back.

You go find someone less edible.

Sir Bartram insists the wall has always been there and accuses you of daydreaming again.

You mention the thumbtack drawer.

He blinks,

Clearly conflicted.

We had a thumbtack drawer?

You leave before the conversation spirals into theories about furniture sentience again.

Later,

You return alone,

Armed with a candle,

A stick,

And the kind of determination usually reserved for people chasing down last pieces of cake.

The wall remains.

You knock on it in case it's just pretending.

It responds with the dull,

Impenetrable thud of architectural apathy.

You check for seams,

For hinges,

For hidden switches behind the sconces.

Nothing.

Just slightly warped rock,

A faint smell of onions,

And a mild existential crisis.

You press your ear to the stone.

It's warm,

Uncomfortably warm,

Like it's been holding in secrets.

Or cheese.

Then it shifts.

Not much,

Barely a tremble,

But enough that your spine decides to file a formal complaint.

The candle flickers.

A pebble rolls past your.

.

.

Foot,

Like it's seen things and is making a quiet exit.

You back away slowly.

The next morning,

The wall is gone.

So is the thumbtack drawer.

So is Cedric.

You bring it up at breakfast.

No one believes you.

The cook accuses you of sleepwalking again,

Which you'd protest if you weren't busy mentally drafting Cedric's eulogy.

The priest pats your head and mutters a vague prayer about those touched by the mystery of stone.

You're starting to think it's not a wall.

Not in the traditional,

Law-abiding,

Non-sentient sense.

Maybe it's the castle.

Maybe it rearranges itself when no one's looking.

Maybe it's playing a very long,

Very slow game of hide-and-seek with its own architecture.

Or maybe,

Just maybe,

It's been trying to digest you this whole time and is currently stuck on the stairs.

You start leaving chalk marks behind you.

Not that it helps.

The chalk vanishes overnight,

Replaced with faint sketches of vegetables wearing shoes.

You find that more upsetting than you'd like to admit.

You avoid that hallway now,

Even when the wall disappears.

Especially when the wall disappears.

The new cook shows up on a Monday,

Which already feels cursed.

He's cheerful in a way that makes everyone uncomfortable,

The kind of cheerful that involves unsolicited whistling and references to positivity jars.

He gives you a toothy smile,

Calls you friend,

And immediately starts reorganizing the spice rack alphabetically.

You've never seen anyone volunteer to clean the flour bin,

But he does,

Humming as he goes.

His name is Dobbins.

You do not trust him.

By midday,

He's made three different stews,

All of them suspiciously edible.

Sir Bartram eats two bowls without insulting anyone.

The priest blesses his ladle.

The ghost lingers in the pantry longer than usual,

Looking genuinely intrigued.

It's unsettling.

Dobbins talks to the kitchen like it's a pet.

He compliments the stone walls,

Polishes the iron stove,

And thanks the floor for supporting him emotionally.

You wonder if he's been hit on the head one too many times,

Or if the soup fumes have gone straight to his brain.

Then he vanishes.

No fanfare.

No note.

No dramatic scream echoing through the halls,

Just gone.

One moment,

He's chatting with a bag of onions.

The next,

He's nowhere.

Not in the pantry.

Not in the garden.

Not even in the suspiciously cursed corridor near the tapestry that whispers about your posture.

What you do find is his hat,

A soft green thing,

Still warm,

Lying under the soup table like it gently slid off his head and decided to give up.

You hold it up.

No one says anything.

The other kitchen workers avoid eye contact.

The old scullery maid crosses herself.

The assistant cook mutters something about kitchen moods and stirs the stew with increased urgency.

You ask questions.

You receive shrugs,

Mumbles,

And one polite suggestion to stop noticing things.

You try not to panic,

But the longer you look at the soup,

The more suspicious it becomes.

The color's off,

The texture's odd,

And every time you stir it,

It resists.

Not like thick broth or congealed gravy.

No,

This pushes back.

You switch to a longer stick,

Then a longer one.

Eventually,

You're using a broom handle wrapped in cloth,

And even that disappears two inches deeper than it should,

Like the pot is just a suggestion and beneath it lies a simmering void.

You do not mention this.

You simply step back and nod like all is well.

You tell Sir Bartram the cook is missing.

He says Dobbins probably realized this life wasn't for him.

When you bring up the hat,

He tells you to stop being sentimental about accessories.

The priest suggests Dobbins has been taken to a higher kitchen.

You ask if he means heaven.

He says no.

You do not press the issue.

That night,

The soup bubbles without fire.

The spoon dips itself.

You hear soft,

Chewing noises,

Even though no one is eating.

You place the lid on the pot,

Whisper a quick apology,

And leave the room sideways.

The next morning,

The hat is gone.

In its place is a new ladle,

Polished,

Gleaming,

And too heavy.

You pick it up and it hums faintly,

Like it knows things.

You put it down.

You are no longer on kitchen duty.

You do not ask why.

Instead,

You carry your new mop to the courtyard with reverence and mop like your soul depends on it.

You nod politely at the walls.

You thank the floor.

You whistle cautiously,

Just in case.

And when you pass the kitchen door,

You do not look inside,

Not even once.

The boar is named Balthazar,

But you call it That Bastard,

Usually with reverence,

Sometimes with fear.

It is,

Technically,

The property of the Lord,

Though you suspect the balance of power has shifted.

Balthazar goes where he pleases,

Eats what he pleases,

And snorts with the kind of authority that suggests a minor deity.

You once saw him chase a squire into a tree and eat half a tapestry.

No one stopped him.

No one even tried.

The first time you meet Balthazar,

You are holding a basket of apples.

He is holding nothing,

Because he is a boar and still you are the one who loses.

He sizes you up from across the courtyard like a knight considering a duel,

Then charges.

You drop the apples.

He does not care.

He wants your soul.

You dive into the haystack.

Balthazar rams it anyway.

The haystack moves three feet and you emerge coated in straw,

Shame,

And something that might be boar spit.

You are told this means he likes you.

You are not convinced.

From that day on your interactions with Balthazar follow a pattern.

You try to avoid him.

He appears anyway.

He lurks in corridors.

He naps in the kitchens.

He once turned up in the chapel and stared down the priest until the sermon ended early.

The priest took it as divine intervention.

You took it as a warning.

You report the boar problem to Sir Bartram.

He sighs and tells you Balthazar has free reign as per the Lord's decree.

You ask if the Lord has seen what Balthazar does to doors.

Bartram tells you the Lord hasn't opened his own doors in three years and would likely find it quaint.

You consider becoming a door.

The incident happens on a Thursday which is already the worst day.

You are tasked with inventorying the grain stores.

This is code for sit in a dark room and count sacks while contemplating the futility of existence.

You are halfway through counting when you hear the snort.

You freeze.

Another snort.

You drop your chalk.

You turn and find Balthazar framed in the doorway,

His tusks glinting like prophecy.

You do not scream but only because fear has closed your throat.

You attempt diplomacy.

You offer him grain.

You bow.

You curtsy.

Balthazar charges.

You dive into the flower sack.

It is not large enough for dignity.

It is barely large enough for you.

You wedge yourself in and listen as Balthazar snuffles around the room like a pig-shaped curse.

He grunts,

Paws the ground and,

After a long pause,

Leaves.

You stay in the sack for an hour.

Someone eventually finds you,

Covered in flower and trauma.

They ask what happened.

You say,

Bore.

They nod like that explains everything because it does.

You go to brush off the flower.

They tell you not to.

Balthazar doesn't attack sacks of flower.

You sleep in the sack that night.

It is uncomfortable,

Undignified and oddly comforting.

You begin to understand why hermits live in caves and why some monks stop speaking altogether.

Silence is a shield.

A sack is a fortress.

You add a pillow.

Balthazar doesn't bother you again.

But sometimes you hear him snort outside your new sack home just to remind you who's really in charge.

You never forget.

You assume,

At first,

That someone left a bad log in the hearth.

A damp one,

Maybe,

Or cursed by a vengeful tree spirit.

The smoke curls strangely like it has somewhere better to be.

You fan it with a pan and tell it to behave.

The smoke responds by hissing something that sounds like,

How dare you!

You don't mention it.

You've seen.

What happens to people who report talking objects?

They get put on rat duty or sent to polish Sir Gothar's collection of ceremonial undergarments.

You decide to ignore the chimney and its muttering plumes until it asks for licorice.

It's not even subtle about it.

One moment you're stoking the coals and the next,

The smoke coils into a snake-like spiral and whispers,

Licorice!

Give me licorice!

You drop the poker and shriek in a way that would disappoint your ancestors.

The stable boy sees this and tells everyone you're afraid of fire.

Now you're flinch for the foreseeable future.

Later that day the cook hears it too.

She's peeling turnips when the chimney exhales a voice like a wheezy nobleman and demands sweets.

She throws a ladle at it.

It does not help.

The ladle melts.

By evening the entire kitchen staff is aware that the chimney has developed opinions.

It comments on seasoning.

It critiques stew.

It says someone's soul smells overcooked.

Several apprentices consider transferring to monastery life where the worst thing that talks to you is a goat.

No one has licorice.

No one knows why the sprite wants it.

One of the scribes claims licorice roots were used in some ancient soot-banishing ritual.

But the scribe also drinks ink when he's anxious so his reliability is questionable.

The chimney sprite undeterred begins its vengeance campaign.

It starts small puffs of ash in the eye a persistent singeing of eyebrows.

Then it escalates.

Soot explodes out of the flue in celebratory bursts like a birthday gone terribly wrong.

The black powder covers everything.

Someone sneezes and it echoes like a funeral bell.

You start coughing on day two.

By day four your lungs feel like they've been charcoal filtered from the inside.

Every breath tastes like burnt toast and melancholy.

You wake up to find soot has been spelled across your wall in a crude message.

Where's my licorice?

The handwriting is aggressively whimsical.

In a rare moment of collaboration the entire kitchen holds a seance around the hearth.

Offerings are made sugar cubes honey dried apples even a questionable sweet bun from last week's feast.

The sprite laughs.

It laughs in smoke.

It sounds like a wheeze through a harmonica left in a swamp.

You consider writing a formal complaint but then remember that the last person to do that now lives in the eastern tower and thinks they're a pigeon.

Eventually someone finds a licorice root.

It's ancient probably medicinal and may have once been part of the physician's emergency potion kit.

No one cares.

It is offered to the flames with reverence desperation and a tiny plate doily for aesthetic.

The sprite consumes it in silence.

The fire turns green.

The hearth belches a cloud shaped vaguely like a thumbs up.

You think it's over.

It's not.

That night you dream of licorice vines strangling chimney sweeps.

The next morning the smoke is quieter but it's watching.

You feel it.

It doesn't speak but when you burn breakfast it writes Amature in soot on your apron.

The coughing continues for a week.

You try scrubbing it out of your throat with vinegar.

The vinegar fights back.

You taste ash and resentment every time you yawn.

Eventually the sprite seems appeased.

It stops demanding sweets and settles for passive aggressive warmth.

The kitchen adjusts.

New rules are posted.

Rule 1 Do not insult the smoke.

Rule 2 Always have something sweet on hand just in case.

Rule 3 If it starts laughing evacuate.

You keep your distance from the hearth now.

You stir stews from the side and speak kindly to the flames.

You nod respectfully to the chimney before lighting anything and you never ever say the word peppermint.

Somewhere in the ash you're fairly certain it's smiling.

The first bell starts like a hiccup.

You're halfway through pretending to sweep when it chirps once then twice like a nervous pigeon warming up.

You glance toward the chapel tower.

Consider ignoring it and then the second bell joins in.

Deep thunderous offended.

A third answers from the inner ward.

The small bell reserved for bread is ready or barn is on fire.

Both feel plausible You take three steps toward the courtyard broom tucked beneath your arm like a spear you do not know how to use and the fourth bell begins.

Then the fifth then all of them every bell with a rope attached to a very hopeful human or a draft or a ghost with a sense of humor erupt into a choir of metal panic.

The sound hits the stone and ricochets through the castle like a flock of startled geese trapped in a cauldron.

Windows rattle.

Dust falls in delicate indignant clouds.

You flinch as the broom vibrates against your palm.

Somewhere behind you a door opens and closes twice without anyone passing through.

The hallway breathes.

You step into the courtyard and the air is already shaking.

High bells low bells a cracked bell that sings like it's chewing gravel.

The priest pale as cheese in winter lifts his hands to calm the crowd and immediately faints in the pose of an embarrassed starfish.

Two novices attempt to catch him and successfully catch only one of his shoes.

A guard on the south wall begins to cry openly into his helmet and doesn't stop even when it fills like a very small sad bucket.

The cook appears with a ladle held high like a scepter.

Is it feast or fire?

She shouts.

No one answers.

Atop the tower Sir Bartram squints into the distance heroic and utterly unhelpful.

He certainly looks like a man who would know what to do but the way his mouth forms the word hmm for a full 30 seconds betrays him.

A wind gusts through the gatehouse and the bells change key.

It's not harmonious.

It is,

However,

Committed.

Children cover their ears and scream at a competing pitch.

Dogs flee in all directions their tails casting rude shadows.

The Lord's Boar Balthazar trots into the square glares at the chapel and then sits like a judgment.

You try to help.

You do.

You untangle a rope near the buttery and immediately whip yourself in the face.

You shout stop ringing at a set of bells that have never cared about your opinion.

You make eye contact with a stable boy who shrugs in a way that suggests he has seen many things and none of them made sense either.

The ground hums.

The bells climb higher.

Someone starts praying.

Someone starts dancing.

Someone else stands perfectly still and announces that they're waiting for instructions from a higher authority then stares intently at a pigeon.

You retreat to the stairwell beside the east wall your favorite stairwell the one with a chip shaped like a potato and a draft that smells faintly of wet rope.

It's a narrow stone spine with just enough room for you and your poor choices.

You sit broom across your knees and accept that the day has declared itself.

You cannot argue with bells.

You can only endure them.

A shadow flickers at your feet.

You look down.

Gerald steps from the crack under the stair where you've long suspected dreams go to die.

He is fat gray nicked ear regal.

His whiskers carrying the confidence of a creature who has outwitted traps cats and you in equal measure.

He pauses listens to the chaos and gives you the briefest nod.

Not friendly not hostile a professional acknowledgement between two beings who have both seen the inside of the pantry at its worst.

You nod back.

Respect.

The bells keep unraveling the air.

You press your head against the cool stone and count them as a kind of meditation.

The chapel's tenor the courtyard's clang the tiny bell above the kitchen door that insists on chiming a delirious half-beat late like it's drunk and trying to keep up.

Somewhere above the rope slips from a novice's hands and the bell goes rogue tolling itself with manic glee.

Bartram shouts Steady to no one steady.

The lady in the tapestry chooses this the moment to murmur from her stairwell niche.

Her voice carried by the ringing like a leaf on rapids.

Terrible posture she says to no one.

Then louder.

This is either omen or opera.

You decide you don't have the energy to heckle fabric.

A monk crawls by on all fours clutching a missile whispering apocalypse while trying not to swallow his own sleeve.

The cook wedges her ladle into the kitchen door and announces that if the bells do not stop by the count of fifty everyone is getting dinner cold.

The count reaches seventeen before she loses it and starts thrashing a sack of onions like it owes her money.

Under your stair Gerald produces a crumb the size of a coin and chews with ceremonial gravity.

The sound is almost calming.

The bells shift lower.

A few falter tired or embarrassed.

The cracked one hammers stubbornly as if determined to ring long enough to be relevant in a story told to grandchildren who will not believe it.

Then as sudden as the first hiccup silence.

It collapses over the yard in a soft stunned blanket.

The only sounds are the echo of your heartbeat and a solitary spoon clattering to the flagstones in the far kitchen.

You wait brace for the encore and when it doesn't come you exhale slowly through clenched teeth and realize your jaw has been working like a rusty hinge for the last ten minutes.

People stand people blink a novice returns the priest's shoe.

The guard wipes his helmet with the sleeve of someone else's tunic and pretends he had dust in his eye.

Balthazar snorts declares the performance inferior and wanders off to menace a barrel.

You sit a moment longer in the stairwell because it feels earned.

Above you daylight resumes pretending to be ordinary.

Gerald gives one last solemn chew then vanishes back into the crack with the self-possession of a magistrate concluding court.

You rise at last broom creaking as if it,

Too,

Just survived something important.

You smooth your tunic straighten your not quite straight hair and touch the stone the potato chip the cool place where the ringing vibrated its way into your bones.

This is fine you tell yourself because the alternative requires paperwork and courage.

You step back into the courtyard prepared to nod sagely if anyone asks what happened.

No one does.

And somewhere deep in the castle a bell gives one final sleepy clink as if clearing its throat for next time.

You rise before dawn which is unfortunate because you hate mornings and you hate rising.

And dawn in castle gray weather is more of a suggestion than an event.

Still you're determined today is the day.

Today you escape.

You've spent weeks preparing weeks meaning three days of thinking two days of half-hearted scouting and one unfortunate day spent mapping the castle using charcoal and a turnip.

The turnip didn't survive.

But your plan is solid.

You'll sneak out through the kitchens slip through the herb garden scale the pig shed and drop down behind the compost heap near the outer gate.

Easy elegant glorious.

You whisper goodbye to your straw mattress which pokes you spitefully one last time and pocket your remaining crust of bread.

The ghost in the wall tells you this is a bad idea.

You tell him to mind his own spectral business.

He mutters something about ducks.

You ignore him.

The kitchen is dark save for one lonely ember glowing in the hearth like it resents being awake.

You tiptoe past it avoiding the suspiciously sticky spot near the stew cauldron and make your way into the garden.

The rosemary brushes your leg like it's trying to grab you.

The basil looks judgmental.

You press on.

You reach the pig shed.

The pigs do not assist you.

They grunt snort and watch with theatrical disinterest as you step into a bucket fall into the mud and curse creatively.

You scale the roof anyway oinking softly so they know you're one of them now for solidarity.

From there it's a short jump to the compost heap.

You misjudge the shortness and land in what might once have been cabbage possibly a cabbage with a vendetta.

It squelches in a way that makes your soul recoil.

You wipe yourself off with a leaf and tell yourself you've endured worse.

Then you see the gate.

It stands proud and intimidating flanked by guards who are famously inattentive.

One of them is asleep.

The other is playing a game with pebbles and muttering curses at gravity.

You could do this.

You are so close.

The road stretches beyond it.

A winding path of freedom and questionable life decisions.

You take a breath.

Step forward.

And that's when the duck appears.

It waddles into your path like it owns the dirt.

It's small round and inexplicably angry.

You try to step around it.

It moves with you.

You sidestep again.

So does the duck.

It quacks once,

Low and deliberate,

Like a warning.

You attempt diplomacy.

Nice duck,

You whisper.

The duck does not appreciate diplomacy.

It lunges.

You trip.

Not dramatically.

Not heroically.

But like a sack of wet laundry thrown from a cart.

You land flat with the wind knocked from your lungs and a duck standing on your back like it's claimed you as property.

The guards look up.

One of them snorts.

The other claps slowly,

Like you've just performed a mediocre juggling act.

They haul you to your feet,

Ducks still quacking indignantly at your heels.

You're marched back through the courtyard,

Covered in compost,

Duck feathers,

And the remains of your dreams.

Everyone sees you.

Everyone laughs.

Even the tapestry lady whispers something that sounds suspiciously like,

Well,

That was dumb.

You're taken to the head steward,

Who is in the middle of a very serious cheese inventory.

He glances up,

Eyes the mud,

The bruises,

The duck nibbling your boot,

And sighs the sigh of someone who has given up hope entirely.

Another escape attempt?

He asks.

You nod.

He shakes his head and scribbles something on his parchment.

Very well.

You are hereby dubbed Sir Trips-a-Lot.

Wear the title with pride,

Or shame.

Either is acceptable.

You are dismissed with a wave.

The duck waddles after you a few paces before deciding it has more important things to ruin and veers off toward the chapel.

You don't ask why.

You don't want to know.

You make it back to your chamber.

The straw mattress welcomes you with its usual array of sharp,

Pokey optimism.

You lie down,

Staring at the ceiling,

Listening to the ghost hum something smug.

You've failed.

You've been humiliated.

Your dignity is bruised and so is your knee.

But,

Next time,

You bring bread for the duck.

Hey,

Guys.

Tonight's story starts in that cursed slice of night when the world isn't asleep,

But it isn't awake either.

The walls groan.

The mice are whispering about your bad decisions and every single relative you share a bed with has somehow migrated onto your half.

The hearth is nothing but a graveyard of ashes and your only light is a candle stub that looks like it's about to retire.

Welcome to the forgotten hour between sleeps where nothing happens and somehow everything does.

Now get comfortable.

Let the day melt away and we'll drift back together into the quiet corners of the past.

You open your eyes,

Not because you're rested,

But because someone outside is yelling about a goose.

A goose?

Singular.

As if one bird could justify this much drama before dawn.

You stare at the rafters,

Which creak like they're considering retirement.

The air is cold in that way that seeps into your bones and starts weighing down your thoughts before you've even formed them.

It's still dark.

Not the thick velvet dark of midnight,

But the smudged,

Reluctant sort that hints something might be coming,

Though it won't be good.

You wonder if it's morning or just last night.

No one knows.

Not even the sun,

Who you're certain has hit snooze again.

You shift under the blanket.

Scratchy wool,

Possibly made of regret,

And instantly regret it.

Someone's elbow jabs your rib,

Possibly your brother's,

Possibly your grandmother's.

Space is limited,

And boundaries are conceptual.

You hold your breath and try to decipher whether the body against your leg is human,

Goat,

Or the heap of winter laundry.

Either way,

It smells like feet.

The fire is out,

Naturally.

No one fed it after supper,

And it's sulking in the hearth like a teenager asked to sweep.

You consider getting up to poke it back into life,

But that would mean leaving the warmth of the collective body pile and crossing the frozen stretch of floor known locally as the Valley of Bad Decisions.

Your toes are already numb and might be permanently lost.

You give one a wiggle to confirm its existence.

Nothing.

You mourn it briefly.

The rooster hasn't crowed,

And you're not sure he ever will again.

He's been moody since Candlemas,

And you're starting to suspect he's unionizing.

Last week,

He only crowed after being bribed with barley.

Yesterday,

He just screamed once and went back to bed.

This morning,

So far,

Silence.

Somewhere,

A dog barks at absolutely nothing,

Then barks again to confirm it.

Another voice joins the goose yeller,

Higher pitched and definitely insulted.

The goose honks in reply,

Defiant and unrepentant.

You hear a splash,

Then cursing.

You roll over slowly,

Trying not to wake the entire ecosystem on the family bed,

And succeed only in shifting someone's knee deeper into your hip.

You let out a noise that might have been a whimper or a prayer.

This is not a new day.

This is the in-between,

The sacred stretch of time when the world is neither asleep nor awake,

The time where no one should be conscious,

But everyone islands,

Sort of.

The hour where thoughts wander sideways,

Where dreams half finish,

And guilt starts seeping in from things you haven't done yet.

This is first waking.

It tastes like ash and old porridge,

And the breath of the person next to you who apparently feasted on onions in their sleep.

You sit up just enough to peek over the edge of the blanket.

Shapes shift in the gloom.

Your mother is still snoring like a blessed ox.

Your youngest sibling,

The one who collects beetles and questionable ideas,

Is curled up with a rag doll missing half its face.

You once asked what happened to the other half.

He told you,

Fire and betrayal,

Then refused to elaborate.

The baby is drooling quietly on a lump of wool that may or may not be a sock.

You choose not to investigate further.

The roof creaks again,

Louder this time,

As if trying to get your attention.

You stare upward and make a deal with it.

Hold out until spring,

And you won't tell anyone about the hole in the back corner that drips directly into your uncle's ear when it rains.

The roof doesn't respond,

But a mouse scurries across the beam,

Tail twitching like it disapproves of your negotiation tactics.

You blink slowly.

The candle stub on the stool beside the bed is just that.

A stub,

And a pathetic one,

At that.

You light it anyway,

With the flint your father leaves tied to the leg of the bed in case of midnight bandits or aggressive pies.

The flame sputters,

Wheezes,

And then flickers to life like an old man settling in to gossip.

You hold the light up and glance around the room.

It looks the same as it always does in this hour,

Haunted and slightly confused.

The walls lean slightly in one direction,

Like they've given up resisting the wind.

The hearth is just ashes and ghost heat.

A pot hangs over it,

Blackened and mysterious,

Containing either yesterday's soup or something that crawled in during the night to die dramatically.

You decide not to check.

Outside,

The noise continues.

The goose chase has escalated into what sounds like a turf war.

You hear someone shout,

Unhand me,

You feathered demon,

Followed by a squawk and what might be a splash.

You imagine mud.

You imagine damp shoes and poor choices and the long,

Slow sigh of someone realizing they're going to have to explain a bruise and a missing boot.

You smile for the first time today,

Back in the house.

Someone turns over and mutters a name you don't recognize.

You hope it's a dream.

You stand finally,

Slowly,

Like someone rising from the grave more out of duty than desire.

Your knees crack.

Your shoulders whine.

The floor is exactly as cold as you feared.

You shuffle to the window,

Really more of a hole with ambitions,

And peek through the cloth nailed over it.

The sky is thick and bruised.

The trees are still.

The world holds its breath.

You don't know why you're awake.

Not really.

No one does.

Not the priest,

Who says it's a divine pause meant for prayer and quiet contemplation.

Not the midwife,

Who uses the time to mend clothes and mutter about men.

Not even the old crone by the well,

Who insists this is when the dead visit and demand soup.

All you know is that you've always woken like this,

As did your father and his father,

And probably some long-lost ancestor who once stared into the fire and wondered if he was the only one who felt like the night was broken into two pieces and he was stuck in the crack.

You shiver,

Then pull your cloak around your shoulders.

It smells like herbs and animal.

You grab a crust of something hard enough to question and chew it thoughtfully while your breath fogs in the flickering candlelight.

The goose outside lets out one final triumphant honk and you nod to yourself.

Whatever this hour is,

Whatever name it goes by in the hearts of old women and cold floors,

It belongs to you now and to the goose,

Apparently,

But mostly to you.

The hearth is cold.

The cottage is colder.

Not the kind of chill that nips politely at your toes and leaves again,

But the kind that wraps around your spine like a wet eel and settles in.

You can see your breath hovering above your mouth like it's trying to escape.

The fire gave up sometime in the night,

Burned down to a sulk,

And now the only heat in the room is radiating from the tangled human disaster lumped under the blanket.

You shuffle past them,

Careful not to disturb the delicate balance of elbows,

Knees,

And general snoring hostility.

Your father's arm is thrown across your sister's face.

Your cousin is somehow upside down.

Someone's foot is in the buttercrock again.

You consider peeing,

Briefly,

Sincerely,

But the thought of stepping outside into the frost-crusted dark,

Of unlatching the door with fingers that barely remember circulation,

Is enough to send you retreating back into the shadows like a guilty raccoon.

Besides,

The outhouse is behind the shed.

The shed is behind the goat pen,

And the goat is probably awake.

He's been waiting.

You've seen it in his eyes.

Instead,

You stare at the wall and pretend not to hear the mice.

They're up,

Of course,

Always up,

Always busy,

Scritching and scratching in the thatch,

In the corners,

Behind the sacks of grain,

Probably discussing you.

You imagine one of them sitting upright,

Arms crossed,

Judging your entire bloodline.

They're louder than they have any right to be.

You try to ignore them,

But it's hard not to take it personally when a mouse sounds disappointed in your life choices.

The blanket you've wrapped around your shoulders is stiff from smoke and use and smells vaguely like stew,

Sweat,

And a life not spent making good decisions.

You clutch it tighter and step over the dog,

Who is not your dog,

But just the village dog who decided this was his home last autumn,

And refuses to acknowledge anything to the contrary.

He's sprawled by the door like a furry sack of defiance.

You try not to trip over his tail.

The floorboards creak under your feet with a specific volume of betrayal.

One of your siblings groans in their sleep.

Another lets out a sigh so dramatic it probably echoed in the next village.

You pause,

Holding your breath.

Silence returns,

Except for the mouse orchestra and the wind knocking politely at the shutters,

As if to remind you that yes,

It's still horrible outside.

You tiptoe toward the hearth,

Not with any hope of rekindling warmth,

But because standing still makes the cold sink deeper into your marrow.

The ashes glow faintly.

One ember,

Maybe two,

Cling to life like stubborn old men refusing to leave the tavern.

You prod at them with a stick.

They hiss in protest,

Unimpressed by your effort.

You mutter something unholy under your breath,

And retreat again,

Defeated by fire and circumstance.

This is the hour no one talks about.

The hour between sleep and sleep,

Between dark and not quite dawn,

When nothing is required of you except existing,

Which is already too much.

It's the hour of regret,

Of vague hunger,

Of bladder negotiation.

You don't have to go outside.

But you could.

But you don't want to.

But it might be worse later.

But it's terrible now.

It's a debate you lose either way.

You sit on the edge of the bed,

Which isn't really a bed so much as a platform of shared suffering and communal body heat.

Your little brother murmurs something about fish and kicks your ankle.

You consider kicking him back,

But remember he bit you last week during a pillow disagreement,

And you're not sure your tetanus is current.

You sigh instead,

Deeply,

The kind of sigh that could power a small windmill.

No one notices.

That's fair.

You glance toward the window.

There's no light yet,

Only the pale suggestion that maybe,

Somewhere far away,

The sun is tying its sandals.

The sky is a smear of gray and indifference.

You hate it a little bit,

But also you understand.

You wouldn't rise either if you didn't have to.

Your mother snorts awake briefly,

Rolls over,

And resumes snoring with renewed commitment.

The baby whimpers and settles again,

Drooling audibly onto a shared pillow that smells like hair and secrets.

You've memorized every sound in this cottage.

The crack of the drying beam,

The wheeze of the old stool,

The way the wind sometimes moans through the thatch,

Like a ghost who regrets marrying into this family.

Nothing is new,

And everything is slightly worse than yesterday.

You think about the rooster.

Where is he?

Why hasn't he screamed yet?

Maybe he froze solid.

Maybe he finally got tired of being ignored and moved to a monastery.

Maybe he's on strike.

It wouldn't be the first animal in this village with strong labor opinions.

The oxen once staged a sit-in for better hay.

It lasted four hours and ended with someone bribing them with apples and a fiddle tune.

Outside,

Something thumps.

Probably the goat.

Possibly the goose.

You hope it's not the pig again.

She's clever and mean and still hasn't forgiven you for last spring when you accidentally fed her a mitten.

You only had one,

And your hand never quite recovered.

You stand again.

Walk to the door.

Touch the latch.

Consider your life.

Step back.

Not yet.

You'll wait until someone else breaks first.

It's the silent agreement every morning.

Whoever gives in and goes outside becomes the designated hero and defrosts the water bucket.

You are not a hero.

You are a reasonable person with a healthy fear of moonlit frost and your own bladder's betrayal.

You return to the corner near the hearth.

Curl into the blanket and pretend you're a log.

A warm,

Unmoving,

Inanimate log.

You breathe in through your nose,

Out through your mouth,

And try not to think about the icy grip around your ankles.

You try not to think about the goats.

You try not to think about anything,

Really.

The mice are still whispering.

You hear one sneeze,

And in that moment,

As you close your eyes and drift into the in-between,

Somewhere between prayer and insult,

Between the cold floor and your brother's snoring,

You accept the truth.

You will not pee.

Not yet.

But you will complain about it.

Loudly.

Later.

You light a candle stub.

Not because you need to see.

There's nothing worth looking at anyway.

But because you feel weird sitting alone in the dark,

Even if half your family is snoring behind you and the other half is likely awake pretending not to be.

The flame sputters,

Like it resents being summoned at this hour,

And casts just enough light to remind you how dusty everything island.

You watch it wobble,

Nervous and small,

Like it's scared of what it might reveal.

You are,

Too.

The shadows stretch around the room like they've been waiting for you.

They're not threatening,

Exactly,

Just nosy.

One of them looks like a hunched man with a big nose until it shifts and becomes a ladle.

Another one,

By the ceiling,

Twitches every few seconds.

You tell yourself it's just the draft.

You tell yourself a lot of things during the not quite night.

Like how the goose probably didn't bite through the neighbor's boot.

Like how the mouse you saw earlier definitely isn't plotting your downfall.

Like how you're fine.

A cough echoes through the wall,

Raspy and insistent,

The kind of cough that wants attention.

It belongs to Widow Merrill,

Who sleeps alone with three cats and one enormous sack of dried leeks that she claims are for winter but secretly uses as conversational leverage.

The cough continues,

Pauses,

And then resumes,

As if narrating a story only she understands.

You hear one of the cats yowl in protest,

Followed by a soft thud that could either be a broom or a very determined opinion.

Somewhere nearby,

A pot crashes to the ground.

You freeze.

The candle jumps.

Silence follows,

The kind that spreads out like a blanket and presses against your ears.

No one moves.

No one investigates.

That's the rule.

During this part of the night,

You let things fall.

You let things clatter.

You let them live or die on their own terms.

If you intervene,

You risk waking someone who might make you do something about it.

And worse.

Talk to you.

You pull your blanket tighter,

Feeling suddenly like a child again,

Half afraid of the dark,

Half convinced it's more honest than the light.

Your mother always said the night has layers.

Evening is for meals and songs and bickering over firewood.

Midnight is for dreams,

For stillness,

For husbands muttering about taxes in their sleep.

But this time,

This in-between slice of dark is different.

It's quieter than it should be,

More crowded somehow,

Like time doesn't know what to do with itself and is just loitering until morning.

You remember once,

Years ago,

Waking up at this hour to find your grandmother sitting at the table with a piece of bread and a hunk of cheese staring into the candle like she was expecting it to confess something.

She didn't look surprised to see you.

She just cut you a slice and said,

Sometimes the soul gets fidgety.

You nodded like you understood,

Even though you were mostly focused on the cheese.

Now,

Years later,

You do understand.

Maybe not the soul part,

But definitely the fidgety.

A creak above your head suggests someone in the loft has shifted.

Could be your uncle.

Could be the rat.

You've given up trying to tell them apart by sound.

Someone lets out a slow,

Drawn-out sigh,

The kind that says,

I'm awake,

But also,

Don't talk to me.

It's answered by the sound of teeth grinding and a soft fart,

Which you choose to interpret as unrelated.

You step carefully across the room and sit on the stool next to the window,

Though calling it a window is generous.

It's a hole in the wall with a bit of waxed cloth nailed over it,

But it lets in air and sound and the occasional beetle with no respect for boundaries.

You lift the corner and peek out.

The sky is still dark,

But in a different way than before,

Less like ink,

More like watered-down wine.

The stars are fading,

Slow and shy.

A thin slice of moon lingers like it forgot something.

Down the lane,

You can just make out the shape of Griever's chimney,

Smoke curls from it.

Of course it does.

Griever the baker never sleeps,

Or at least not when people are supposed to.

He always wakes early to curse at yeast and scream at the dough like it insulted his mother.

You've seen him slap a lump of rye so hard it could have sued.

Right now,

He's probably elbow-deep in flour,

Humming the same off-key hymn he sings every morning.

It's comforting,

In a way,

Knowing someone else is up,

Even if it's Griever.

You tear off a corner of your crust from earlier and chew it absently.

It's dry,

But not unkind.

The chewing helps.

There's something about bread at this hour.

It doesn't ask questions.

It doesn't mind the silence.

You think about slicing some cheese,

But the floor creaks in that warning tone that says,

Don't push your luck,

And you decide to sit still instead.

Behind you,

Your cousin mumbles something about frogs.

You don't look.

It's better not to.

Everyone dreams strange during this time.

You once dreamt you married a fish.

Not a mermaid.

A fish.

It gave a speech at the wedding about duty and algae.

You woke up hungry and slightly insulted.

The candle burns low.

You tilt it slightly to make the wax drip evenly.

This is the part of the night no one talks about,

But everyone knows.

You've heard women whisper about it at the well.

Voices low,

Eyes squinting like they're remembering something they wish they didn't.

You've heard old men mutter about it by the ale barrel,

Claiming they used to use this time to sharpen knives or their wits,

Depending on the week.

Even the priest once mentioned,

During a sermon,

That sometimes the Lord whispers in the dark.

He said it like a warning.

You don't hear whispers,

Just the usual.

The thump of restless feet,

The sigh of settling walls.

A rooster somewhere,

Prematurely ambitious,

Lets out a confused croak and then gives up.

You wonder what time it is,

Not because it matters,

But because it doesn't.

The clock is a church bell.

The bell is silent.

Time is,

For now,

Suspended.

You sit,

Candle flickering low,

Bread gone,

And feel it all.

The hush,

The hum,

The peculiar warmth of solitude in a room full of people.

The shadows are quieter now.

The cough has stopped.

Even the mice seem thoughtful.

You don't know how long you sit like this.

Eventually,

The dark begins to change again,

But for now,

This moment is yours,

Yours,

And everyone's,

But mostly yours.

You're not alone.

You never are.

The walls may be thin,

The roof may leak,

And the bed may host more limbs than a battlefield surgeon's tent,

But solitude is a luxury you've never known.

Even now,

In the middle of the second night,

The wakeful watch settles over the village like a woolen blanket,

Scratchy,

Awkward,

And heavier than you'd like.

You can feel them,

The others,

Awake,

Like you,

In that quietly stubborn way that refuses to be called insomnia because no one has invented that word yet.

They call it restlessness,

Or the Lord's hour,

Or the I'll just sit here and stare into the fire until I forget what I was thinking about time.

You don't know what it is,

Exactly,

But it's not sleep,

And it's not day.

It's something else,

A pause,

A breath,

A shared stillness that everyone denies having noticed.

Across the village,

In the low stone house with smoke that always smells faintly of burned raisins,

Griever the baker is poking his coals.

You can hear the distant clang of his peel against the side of the oven,

Followed by a low curse and something that sounds like dough hitting the floor.

He's been up since before you lit your candle.

Maybe he never went to bed.

Maybe he sleeps standing up like a disgruntled horse.

Whatever the case,

He's already angry at the rye,

And the rye is already winning.

Two huts down,

The midwife is awake too.

Her window glows dimly,

Flickering orange,

The kind of light that says someone is sewing something they don't want anyone else to see.

Undergarments,

Probably,

Or a doll,

Or a pair of socks shaped like a curse.

You've met her.

She has that look in her eyes like she's seen the inside of too many people and none of them were impressive.

You're sure she sees ghosts.

You're also sure she's friends with them.

You lean back against the rough timber wall,

Head tilted just enough to hear the wind snake through the gaps in the thatch.

The cold is less harsh now,

Less aggressive,

More like a dog that's too tired to bark,

But still wants you to know it disapproves of your choices.

Your feet are tucked beneath you,

Blanket wrapped twice,

Once for warmth,

Once for emotional support.

The candle's flame trembles as if it,

Too,

Is trying to stay awake.

Your father shifts in the bed,

Lets out a snore that sounds like a philosophical disagreement with gravity,

And then settles again.

He won't wake unless there's thunder or someone drops the soup pot.

Even then,

He'll claim he was dreaming of a war where everyone shouted the names of vegetables.

Your mother is quieter,

Though her breathing has the rhythm of someone who's definitely listening even while unconscious.

You suspect she has a sixth sense for knowing when someone is about to steal jam or ask a stupid question.

And then,

Of course,

There's the blacksmith.

Somewhere near the edge of the village,

Probably curled up under his anvil like a dragon guarding hoarded scrap metal,

He's snoring,

Loudly,

Steadily,

Like the world depends on him keeping time with his sinuses.

You've heard it before,

Echoing through the trees on windless nights.

Some claim it's the forest spirit.

Others say it's just his nose.

Either way,

It's dependable.

You close your eyes,

Not to sleep,

But to listen better.

The village is alive in its stillness.

Footsteps creak on distant floorboards.

Someone else has surrendered to the call of their bladder or their conscience.

A shutter clicks open,

Then closed.

A child coughs.

A kettle hisses.

Someone somewhere mutters,

Just one more row,

And you imagine the village weaver sitting in the dark,

Stitching cloth and quiet judgment into every loop.

It's strange how comforting it is,

Knowing everyone else is up too.

Not talking,

Not gathering,

Just awake,

Separate,

But together.

It makes the dark feel less like an absence and more like a companion,

A shared understanding that sleep isn't the only way to rest,

That sometimes,

Just sitting with your thoughts,

Unruly,

Half-baked,

And probably about soup,

Is enough.

A dog barks once,

Then again,

In that particular tone that means fox or absolutely nothing.

You hear the rustle of hay in the barn,

Followed by a chicken making a sound like it just remembered it exists.

The village breathes,

Not in harmony,

But in chorus,

Everyone pretending to sleep,

Everyone failing.

You think about what people do in this hour.

Griever bakes,

The midwife sows,

The priest,

You assume,

Prays,

Though you once caught him pacing in the cemetery whispering to a headstone like it owed him money.

Children dream and twitch and wake up convinced their foot was a monster.

The old woman in the corner house drinks something pungent and talks to her dead husband,

Who,

According to her,

Never stopped interrupting.

You?

You sit.

You think.

You wonder if it's always been this way.

If people in castles and caves and distant cities also find themselves sitting at tables with crusts of bread and candle nubs,

Wondering why their minds won't shut up,

You bet they do.

You bet someone in a palace right now is wrapped in 15 layers of imported linen,

Thinking about goats for no reason.

Your thoughts drift.

They always do.

To chores.

To people.

To that one time you said something stupid and everyone definitely still remembers.

To bread.

Mostly bread,

If you're honest.

You wonder if it's too early to sneak a piece from the larder.

You calculate the distance.

The floor creaks are a problem.

The dog might snitch.

Your mother definitely will,

Even in her sleep.

You stay put.

The candle leans low,

Wax pooling like it's trying to escape.

You blink slowly,

Not tired,

But also not awake in any meaningful sense.

The wall presses cold against your shoulder.

The room breathes around you,

Full of sleeping bodies and wakeful minds.

And somewhere,

Not far,

Another candle flickers in another window.

You're not alone.

You never are.

You chew a root.

It tastes like the floor of the pigpen that had opinions and got boiled.

The herbalist gave it to you with a smile that felt more like a dare.

She said it would calm your humors,

Soothe your nerves,

And usher you gently into the warm embrace of restful slumber.

What it's done is coat your tongue in regret and make your teeth feel like they've been scolded.

You keep chewing because she also said you have to work through the bitterness.

And you believed her.

Mostly because she has a lot of jars and once threatened a tax collector with nettle tea.

You glance at the pouch she gave you.

It's labeled Peaceful Night in handwriting that looks like it was done mid-seizure.

You're fairly sure that the main ingredient is dried disappointment.

You tried the tea last week.

It made your ears itch and your dreams involve shouting sheep.

You tried the lavender sachet too.

Stuffed it under your pillow like she said.

But the goat got into the bed while you were outside relieving your humors and now the goat smells wonderful and you don't.

So now it's the incense.

A thin curl of smoke winds toward the ceiling beam searching for meaning.

It smells like damp hay and someone trying to cover up an argument with potpourri.

You breathe it in like it might help.

Like the herbalist promised.

Like the fourth time might be the charm.

But it's hard to feel mystical when your nose hairs are staging a protest.

The smoke creeps into your shirt and settles there like it's trying to start a conversation with your armpits.

You try to relax.

You do.

You lie back.

Arms crossed over your chest like you've just been respectfully embalmed and stare at the dark shape of the rafters.

A mouse scurries along one beam,

Pauses dramatically,

Then vanishes.

You wonder if it's the same one from last week.

The one that made eye contact and then stole your crumb like it was making a point.

You're not convinced the herbalist didn't send it.

Your grandmother insists this is a sacred hour.

She says it with her eyes closed and her hands wrapped around a mug of something that smells like mushrooms and defiance.

She calls it the space between breath and waking,

When the soul can stretch.

You call it the time when my foot falls asleep and my thoughts are just squirrels.

She says to meditate.

You say you did.

And what actually happened was you fell sideways into a bucket and no one helped for three minutes because they thought it was part of the process.

You roll onto your side and pull the blanket tighter around your shoulders.

It's scratchy and smells faintly of cabbage,

But it's yours.

You try to think calming thoughts,

A meadow,

A warm breeze,

A chicken that respects boundaries,

But your brain is already off,

Running down side paths and asking questions like,

Did I forget to secure the latch on the pen?

And what if soup had legs?

You close your eyes and try counting sheep,

But the sheep in your head are too clever.

They keep unionizing and asking for better hay.

One of them is smoking a pipe and judging your posture.

The incense sputters and goes out with a hiss,

As if even it has lost patience with you.

You watch the last tendril of smoke rise,

Twist,

And vanish into the thatch.

You consider lighting another,

But the last one made your sister sneeze herself awake,

And she threw her boot across the room in retaliation.

It hit your cousin.

He hasn't spoken to anyone since,

Which some call peaceful and others call ominous.

You chew another root,

Just to prove a point.

It still tastes like betrayal and wood shavings,

But now your jaw is numb and your stomach is beginning to suspect you've made a mistake.

The herbalist says to give it time.

She also once said nettles could cure heartbreak,

But all it did was give you a rash in places best left unspoken.

You remember when she came to the village.

She wore a cloak made of patchwork moss and had a bag full of dried things that crinkled when she moved.

Everyone said she was a gift.

You suspect she's more of a long-term experiment.

She talks to bees,

Not in a metaphorical way.

You've seen her whisper to them like they're old friends,

And once,

One whispered back.

You don't know what it said,

But she nodded like it had made an excellent point about the moon.

A floorboard creaks as someone rolls over.

You freeze,

Waiting to see if anyone wakes.

No one does.

The room settles again into the hush of shared discomfort.

The candle flickers,

Then steadies.

You consider trying one of the other remedies the herbalist left.

Some kind of ointment you're supposed to rub on your temples,

Made from fermented elderberry and crushed beetle wings.

You opened it once.

It smelled like boiled socks and regret.

You'll pass.

Your stomach growls.

Loudly.

You're not even hungry,

But apparently your internal organs have decided this is the right time to remind you that you once denied them a third helping of stew.

You wonder if the herbalist has a tea for guilt,

Or indigestion,

Or both.

You sigh,

Long and slow,

And it steams into the air like the beginning of a folk song about disappointment.

You are not asleep.

You are not restful.

You are awake and full of root and confusion.

Outside,

The wind picks up,

Rustling through the eaves like it's looking for something it dropped.

The goat bleats once,

Probably still wearing the lavender sachet like a fashion statement,

Probably sleeping better than you.

You shift again,

Trying to find a position that doesn't involve one of your joints crying.

Your neck pops.

Your shoulder makes a sound that can only be described as medieval.

The incense smell is still clinging to your hair like a bad decision.

You close your eyes one more time,

Telling yourself you'll drift off soon.

And maybe you will,

Right after you finish this route.

Your uncle kneels in the corner like he's proposing to the wall.

The floor creaks beneath his knees,

A sound both tragic and suspiciously crunchy.

But he doesn't flinch.

His hands are clasped,

His eyes are shut tight,

And he is praying with the intensity of someone who believes heaven is a bit hard of hearing.

He starts with forgiveness,

Always,

Then detours into health,

Then gets specific.

Last night,

It was his knees.

Tonight,

It's probably his neighbor's goat.

Or the mole on his back that he's decided might be prophetic.

You've learned not to ask.

You've also learned that he doesn't care if you do.

Across the room,

Your sister whispers to herself while drawing on the floor with a charcoal stub.

It's from the fire,

Still warm.

She traces looping symbols and writes half-remembered dreams in the soot like she's negotiating with something under the bed.

She does this a lot during the second waking.

No one stops her.

No one wants to find out what happens if you interrupt mid-sigil.

One time,

She drew a circle around your cousin,

And he couldn't speak for two hours.

He says it was a coincidence.

You're not convinced.

Someone outside is reciting a psalm.

You can't tell who it island.

Just a low,

Rhythmic chanting that seeps through the wall like steam.

It's the kind of voice that has given up on sleep and decided to bargain with eternity instead.

The cadence is slow,

Familiar.

Line,

Pause,

Line,

Pause,

Exhale.

It could be the priest or the miller's wife who once claimed she saw an angel in the flower.

It turned out to be the cat covered in ash.

But still,

Your mother sits on her stool by the hearth,

Not speaking,

Not moving,

Just watching the dying embers.

She's wrapped in three shawls and holding her mug like it's got all the answers.

She doesn't pray out loud.

She says God hears better when you don't shout.

She also says God prefers honesty over poetry.

So she just stares at the fire like it owes her rent and occasionally mutters something that might be a request or might be a complaint.

Same thing,

Really.

The bread dough on the table has not risen.

It slumps in the bowl like it's been personally insulted.

Your older brother leans over it,

Muttering what might be encouragement or threats.

Come on,

He says,

Voice low,

Just a little lift.

Don't make me get the vinegar again.

You've seen him argue with dough before.

He always loses,

But never admits it.

The bread ends up heavy enough to be used in self-defense,

But at least it's warm.

Everyone has their ritual.

You sit by the window,

Forehead pressed to the cold wood,

Watching frost collect like thoughts.

You don't pray,

Not the way they do.

You don't speak psalms or chant or beg the heavens to reroute your destiny.

You just breathe,

Slow,

Steady.

You think if God listens to anything,

It's probably silence or heavy sighs.

You've tried talking out loud before,

Once,

When your best hen died.

You sat behind the barn and told the clouds you'd trade your shoes to get her back.

Nothing happened.

You went inside barefoot.

Your mother asked if you were daft.

Your uncle said your hen probably committed some unholy crime.

The clouds said nothing.

Sometimes,

In this hour,

You try again.

Not the asking part,

Not anymore,

Just the talking.

You tell the dark what you're worried about,

What you remember,

What you wish you didn't.

The dark doesn't answer,

But it doesn't interrupt either,

Which is more than you can say for your family.

Tonight,

Your thoughts are crowded.

You try to let them line up like obedient sheep,

But they insist on behaving like geese in a thunderstorm.

You think about the harvest,

About the aching in your hip that wasn't there last winter,

About the strange light in the woods no one talks about but everyone avoids.

You think about how the walls of your home are made of mud and prayer and how both crack when it gets cold.

You think about death.

You think about life.

You think about bread,

And still,

The house breathes around you.

Your uncle's voice rises,

Cracking on a particularly desperate syllable.

He doesn't stop.

He never does.

He says this is when God listens best,

During the between time,

When the world is quiet and the mind is too tired to lie.

You wonder if that's true.

You wonder if God actually prefers the moments no one else does,

The awkward ones,

The lonely ones,

The ones where nothing is happening except a floorboard shifting and a mouse chewing something it shouldn't.

Your sister finishes her soot spell and blows on it softly,

Like dandelion fluff.

The cymbals smear.

She nods,

Satisfied.

She's probably hexed the entire street or summoned a toad.

Either way,

She curls back under the blanket like she just finished a night shift at the monastery.

You decide not to step in that spot tomorrow.

Your father wakes just enough to clear his throat and roll over.

He opens one eye,

Sees your uncle still kneeling,

And lets out a sound that might be a groan or a prayer,

Depending on your interpretation.

Then he's asleep again,

Mouth open,

Dreams leaking out.

You run your fingers along the windowsill.

The wood is splintered but familiar.

You trace the same groove you always do,

The one someone carved a hundred years ago.

A name,

Maybe,

Or a curse,

Or just boredom.

You wonder if they were awake,

Like you,

Staring into the dark,

Talking to God or the floor,

Or nothing at all.

You wonder if they got answers.

The candle sputters once,

Flares,

Then settles.

You don't need it anymore.

The room has adjusted to the dark,

Or maybe the dark has adjusted to you.

Either way,

You sit,

Listening to the quiet rhythms of a house half asleep and half praying,

Half remembering,

And half hoping,

And you whisper to no one in particular,

Because someone might be listening,

Or no one island,

But you say it anyway,

Just in case.

You build a new fire because the old one died like a martyr,

Dramatic,

Smoky,

And way too early.

The ashes glare up at you with the quiet resentment of a task half finished.

You prod them with the iron poker,

Hoping they'll spark themselves out of guilt,

But no,

They are stubborn,

Ashy corpses,

So you start over.

You pile kindling like a humble offering and strike flint like you're trying to insult it into cooperation.

The spark lands.

The spark dies.

You mumble something profane and pretend it was a prayer.

When the flame finally catches,

It does so with a hiss,

Like it resents you personally.

Smoke curls straight into your face as though it has opinions about your life choices.

You lean back,

Eyes watering,

And blink into the haze like someone trying to read tea leaves in a sandstorm.

The fire sputters,

Threatens collapse.

Then,

Miracle.

It flickers upright,

Just enough to look smug.

You add a log like a bribe,

Coaxing it to stay,

Whispering the same nonsense people use on babies and bread dough.

It accepts,

Barely.

This is the second fire,

The one that doesn't burn for light or for cooking,

But for the quiet theater of not being alone in the dark.

It gives off just enough heat to keep your toes attached and just enough glow to prove that time is still passing.

You watch it like it's a play.

Nothing happens.

That's the point.

Behind you,

The blanket pile shifts.

A sigh.

A snort.

The rustle of someone re-entering consciousness unwillingly.

Your sibling rises,

Eyes half open,

Hair standing in directions unapproved by any god.

They look at you like they've caught you committing a crime.

Is it tomorrow?

Im.

They ask,

Voice thick with sleep and judgment.

You shrug.

They nod,

Satisfied with the ambiguity,

Then punch you in the leg and go back to sleep without further explanation.

You rub your shin.

Peaceful,

You think,

With the deadpan sarcasm of someone who hasn't had a full night's rest since they were five,

The fire crackles louder now,

Emboldened by its survival.

It spits a spark that lands near your foot,

And you stare at it until it dies,

Because that's how problems are handled in this house.

You poke the log again,

Not because it needs it,

But because it makes you feel like you're participating in the ancient tradition of fire-tending instead of just waiting for sleep to ambush you again.

You think about second sleep,

How no one talks about it like it's real,

But everyone does it,

The in-between sleep,

The one that comes after the fire's been fed,

The dreams have been processed,

And the thoughts have had their tantrums.

It's not a luxury.

It's a ritual.

First sleep is what you collapse into.

Second sleep is what you choose.

Your uncle once said,

Second sleep is when the world is closest to truth.

You're pretty sure he was drunk,

But still,

He has a point.

There's something honest about this hour.

No one's pretending to be busy.

No one's performing competence.

It's just you,

The fire,

And the echoes of a day that isn't quite done being resented.

The room settles again,

People breathing in various keys,

Snoring in different rhythms.

You try not to count them,

But you do.

Six humans,

Two cats,

One dog that technically belongs to the neighbor but prefers your hearth.

Everyone accounted for.

No one fully awake,

No one fully asleep,

Just floating.

You sit closer to the flames,

Letting the heat bite at your fingers until it hurts in a good way.

You think about whether it's worth crawling back into the bed.

It will be warm,

Yes,

But also full of elbows and knees,

And one person who sleep talks in riddles.

The blanket's been pulled entirely off your corner anyway.

You consider reclaiming it,

But that would require negotiations,

And there's always the risk of waking the snorer,

Who snores louder in retaliation if disturbed.

Instead,

You stare at the fire,

Letting your thoughts unspool like a dropped ball of yarn.

They tangle,

They loop.

You find yourself thinking about soup again,

About the way the chicken looked at you before it became soup,

About whether chickens have opinions on reincarnation,

About whether second sleep is a kind of reincarnation,

Just shorter and with less paperwork.

You think about the word tomorrow and how slippery it feels right now.

This doesn't feel like tomorrow.

This feels like the intermission between scenes of a play that's both too long and too familiar.

You know your lines.

You don't like them,

But you'll still say them when the rooster decides you've been horizontal long enough.

The dog twitches in its sleep,

Chasing something invisible and very important.

A cat sneezes.

Your grandmother mumbles from her blanket cocoon.

It sounds like turnip,

But that could mean anything.

You decide not to investigate.

The fire is safer.

A gust of wind howls through the chinks in the door.

The flame leans sideways,

Recovers.

You wrap the blanket tighter around your shoulders,

Even though it doesn't help.

It's the illusion of control that matters.

You could be cold with dignity or cold without it,

And you're choosing the former.

Your eyes grow heavy,

Not from exhaustion,

But from agreement.

Your body has decided it's time.

The second fire has done its job.

It's told your bones to soften,

Your mind to quiet,

Your heart to stop narrating everything like it's a bard with performance anxiety.

You stretch,

Crack a few joints that weren't supposed to make that noise,

And rise.

You don't extinguish the fire.

You feed it one last scrap of wood and trust it to behave.

You crawl back into the shared bed like a spy sneaking into enemy territory.

There's a toe where your pillow should be.

There's a snore in your ear.

There's warmth,

Though.

Real,

Shared warmth.

You pull the blanket over your head and breathe in the scent of sleep and too many people in one room.

Tomorrow will come.

It always does.

But for now,

There's second sleep,

And you're ready.

The walls are thin,

Not metaphorically,

Literally.

You can hear the chickens breathing on the other side,

And they are not quiet breathers.

Somewhere in the next cottage over,

There is giggling,

Soft and repetitive,

Like someone trying not to be caught enjoying themselves.

A high-pitched squeal follows,

Muffled quickly,

Then silence,

Then more giggling,

Then what sounds like a bucket being kicked over.

It's not your business,

But unfortunately,

It is your soundtrack.

Inside your own cottage,

The mood is different,

The opposite of giggling.

If anything,

It's closer to digestive negotiation.

Someone shifts under the blankets.

Someone else sighs,

Long and burdened.

A loud,

Unapologetic fart echoes from the blanket depths,

Followed by a small whimper and an audible not again.

No one claims responsibility.

You all know who it was.

Still,

This is the hour.

The one whispered about,

Then denied.

It doesn't get a name,

But it gets results.

Babies are born nine months later.

Whole family trees sprout from this precise window of darkness.

It's romantic in the way damp cellars and shared bedrolls are romantic,

Which is to say,

Not very,

But consistently,

And consistently is really all anyone's asking for these days.

You lie very still,

Hyper-aware of your limbs,

Because any movement could be misinterpreted as an invitation,

Or worse,

Encouragement.

Your elbow is pressed into someone's ribcage.

A knee juts uncomfortably near your spine.

You think it might belong to your cousin,

Who has been snoring for the past hour and occasionally murmuring what sounds like tax calculations.

There is no privacy.

There are no walls.

There is only wool,

Breath,

And heat.

The emotional kind,

Not the helpful kind.

Somewhere to your left,

Your uncle coughs,

And then says,

It's the hour of temptation,

As if announcing a sermon.

No one responds.

This is his way of gauging interest.

It has not worked yet.

You hear the rustle of fabric,

Followed by the unmistakable sound of someone giving up and going to sleep angry.

Romance,

In this house,

Is a team sport no one signed up for.

You close your eyes and try not to think of anything suggestive,

Which immediately results in thinking of everything suggestive.

You recall a brief glimpse of ankle earlier that day,

When the baker's daughter bent to pick up a dropped onion.

It had been shocking,

Almost violent in its allure.

You try to remember her face,

But all that returns is the onion.

It was a good onion.

There's a different kind of silence now.

Not the absence of sound,

But the careful,

Waiting hush that descends when people are pretending not to listen.

The air is thick with unspoken possibilities,

And a faint scent of boiled turnip.

You hear a rustle from the far side of the room,

A whisper,

Then a second voice,

Saying,

Shh.

With the urgency of a person not ready to explain themselves in front of relatives,

The straw shifts,

Then it stops.

You hear nothing more,

But everyone knows better than to be fooled by that.

You wonder if you'll ever be bold enough to risk it.

Risk the sighs,

The whispers,

The awkward logistics of navigating shared bedding with six other people pretending to be asleep.

Risk the goat,

Who once inserted herself in the middle of such proceedings and ruined a courtship.

She still stares at you sometimes,

Judging.

Still,

The villagers insist this hour is sacred,

Or cursed.

It depends on who you ask and how long it's been since their last successful romantic endeavor.

The herbalist sells potions specifically for this window of time.

One promises to ignite passion.

Another promises to prevent consequences.

Most just taste like regret and licorice.

But she sells out every week.

Your grandmother claims this hour was created by God to test restraint.

Your uncle claims it was created for entirely the opposite reason.

Your aunt pretends not to hear either of them and just adds another log to the fire whenever things get tense.

You once asked your father about it.

He said nothing.

Just looked at your mother with the expression of a man who knows exactly what happened last spring and regrets the timing.

Then he walked outside and stared at the moon for a suspiciously long time.

You did not ask again.

Someone sighs deeply.

It might be you.

It might be your sister,

Who often sighs in her sleep like she's disappointed by dreams.

The air shifts.

The fire crackles.

You try to roll over without brushing against anyone,

Which is physically impossible.

Your leg makes contact with something warm and unidentifiable.

You freeze.

A soft grunt tells you it was the dog.

You both agree to forget this ever happened.

In the next cottage,

There's another giggle,

Higher this time.

Then,

Quiet.

You imagine their firelight,

Their shared blanket,

Their ability to speak without whispering.

You imagine a room where two people can look at each other without twelve witnesses and a goat.

It seems like a luxury or a lie.

Your sibling moves again,

Then mumbles,

Don't be weird,

Into the darkness.

It's unclear who they're talking to,

Possibly themselves,

Possibly you,

Possibly the fire.

You take the advice to heart.

You wrap the blanket tighter and try to return to the safe haven of second sleep.

Your body is tired.

Your thoughts are less so.

They want to linger in dangerous places.

The warmth of a hand,

The smell of bread and soap,

The way someone looked at you that one time in the market,

It could have meant something.

It might have meant everything.

It probably meant they were looking at the goat behind you.

Still,

You let yourself feel it,

The softness of the hour,

The small,

Unspoken hope that maybe,

Eventually,

You'll get your own blanket,

Your own fire,

A room with a door that closes,

A night where the only witnesses are the stars,

And maybe,

If you're lucky,

Someone who snores on purpose just to make you laugh.

But for now,

There's this,

A crowded bed,

A sputtering fire,

And the knowledge that while nothing is happening in your corner of the world,

Somewhere close,

Something island,

And statistically speaking,

It's probably romantic.

You've never been a writer.

But the night insists you become one.

The fire is low and muttering to itself in crackles,

And everyone else is either breathing dramatically in their sleep or pretending to be dead to avoid chores.

You sit cross-legged near the embers,

Balancing a lump of charcoal between two fingers like it's a quill,

Though it stains your hands and smells faintly of last week's stew.

There's no parchment.

There's never parchment.

There is,

However,

The back of a tax receipt from three harvests ago.

The ink has already faded into a polite suggestion of letters.

You flatten it on your knee,

Careful not to disturb the sock lying beside it.

Wool,

Damp,

Mysterious in origin.

You suspect it has always been here,

Watching.

You write slowly,

Mostly because the charcoal keeps snapping and your handwriting resembles the panicked scratches of a bird attempting calligraphy during an earthquake.

The first line is ambitious.

To my future self.

It feels important.

Grave.

Like you're reaching through time to say something wiser than you are now.

Then you immediately undercut yourself by following it with,

Don't forget to feed the pig.

You pause.

Consider.

Add.

She looks at you with judgment.

You nod.

This feels accurate.

Pig eyes are portals to your worst decisions.

Someone behind you rolls over with the grace of a collapsing barn.

A foot thuds against the floor.

You freeze,

Pretending that you're not committing an act of quiet rebellion with your soot-covered note.

The foot retreats.

A snore resumes.

You exhale.

The sock watches.

You aren't sure who left it here.

It's grayish,

Possibly brown in origin,

With a hole at the toe that yawns like it has secrets.

You nudge it with your finger.

It doesn't move.

You're not convinced it's not alive.

Maybe it belongs to your sister.

Maybe it's yours.

Maybe it appeared during the last thunderstorm as a warning.

The ink from the tax receipt starts to bleed through the new writing,

Creating an accidental poem that reads,

Four chickens owed per unit goat.

You decide this is profound.

You consider submitting it to the village poet,

But he still hasn't forgiven you for rhyming ale with snail last solstice.

You stare at your message again.

It's not enough.

You add,

Also,

Don't trust the baker.

His bread is soft,

But his soul is crusty.

The charcoal smudges.

You lick your finger and try to fix it,

Only to smear the entire corner into oblivion.

You sigh.

The pig will eat this anyway.

Probably with enthusiasm.

She has no respect for literature.

You wonder briefly what your future self would write back.

Probably something like,

Too late.

The pig has learned to open doors.

Or,

The sock is still watching.

You imagine an older version of you,

Wiser but still exhausted,

Flipping this crumpled receipt over and groaning into a pillow made of straw and unmet expectations.

You start a second note.

This one begins,

Stop eating turnips raw.

You are not a goat.

Then you scratch it out and write,

Actually,

Become a goat.

They seem happy.

You leave that one ambiguous.

You hear your grandmother shift in her sleep.

She mutters something that sounds like,

The geese know.

And then nothing more.

You do not question this.

You do not want to know what the geese know.

You reach for the sock.

You don't know why.

Maybe it's the hour.

Maybe it's boredom.

Maybe it's the way it just lies there,

Smug and lumpy,

Defying the laws of organized belongings.

You pick it up.

It's damp.

That was a mistake.

You drop it again.

It lands silently,

Accusingly,

Like you've disappointed it.

You turn your attention back to the paper.

There's not much space left.

You write,

If you marry the tanner's daughter,

Insist on separate blankets.

Then below that,

If you don't marry anyone,

Invest in more socks.

The current ones are planning a coup.

The ink from the front side,

Some forgotten complaint about grain storage,

Has now seeped entirely through.

The words layer over each other until they resemble a spell or a warning.

You like that.

Maybe it will scare off the pig.

A thought strikes you.

You add one last note at the bottom.

Hide this from everyone,

Especially the dog.

He remembers things.

You fold the receipt in half and tuck it under a loose stone near the hearth.

This is your filing system.

You have exactly three things stored there.

A message for future you,

Half a button,

And a very small drawing of a goat that your cousin insists is a map.

You lean back,

Satisfied in the way only someone who has done nothing productive can be.

You've left a mark.

You've communicated.

You've documented your existence in soot and sarcasm.

The historians will thank you.

Or they won't.

It's hard to know what the future values.

Maybe they'll find your note and interpret it as a religious text.

Maybe pigs will be in charge by then.

You yawn.

The kind that takes your whole face with it,

Your legs are numb.

Your spine clicks ominously as you stretch.

The fire gives a last valiant pop,

Then sulks into quiet coals.

You brush your hands off on your tunic,

Then wipe your tunic on the sock,

Because why not?

It deserves it.

You crawl back toward the blanket pile,

Careful not to disturb the strategic ecosystem of limbs and snores.

You slide into your corner,

Curl up,

And whisper to yourself,

Don't forget the pig.

The sock remains by the fire,

Damp and ominous.

Tomorrow's problem.

The dream begins,

As many do,

With turnips.

They are very large,

Suspiciously symmetrical,

And growing in perfect rows beneath a violet sky that smells like beeswax and regret.

You do not question this.

You simply walk the rows,

Bare feet crunching on dirt that whispers your name in a tone you find both flirty and accusatory.

The turnips begin to hum.

Gregorian chant,

You think,

In Latin,

Naturally.

One of them turns to face you.

It does not have a face,

But it somehow still manages to look disappointed in your life choices.

You wake up sweating,

Mouth dry,

Heart galloping like it stole something.

The room is dark and full of the sounds of unconscious discontent.

Someone mutters.

Someone else kicks a wall.

The fire has sulked into embers.

You stare at the ceiling and try to remember if you've done anything recently to offend the turnip god.

Nothing obvious comes to mind,

But then again,

It's been a long week.

Your neighbor,

The one with the one good eye and suspiciously accurate weather predictions,

Insists that this hour,

This peculiar slice of night,

Is when the veil between worlds is thinnest.

She says this as though she's seen the veil herself,

Touched it,

Folded it neatly,

And put it in her drawer next to the dried frog legs and emergency onions.

She once told you her dead aunt visits her to complain about the roof tiles and suggest soup recipes.

You nodded because,

Disagreeing with her results in very pointed stares and unsolicited herbal remedies,

Your cousin claims he saw a dog entirely made of flame walk across the field last month.

It didn't bark.

It just stared at him,

Sneezed fire,

And vanished into the woods.

He swears he hasn't touched mead since.

He is lying.

You've seen him share a jug with the blacksmith while debating the proper spelling of churn.

You,

On the other hand,

Get vegetable opera,

And you're starting to suspect it's because you're not haunted by ghosts.

You're haunted by responsibilities.

Still,

The stories stick.

Everyone has one.

Your grandmother says the house creaks differently now,

Like it's remembering things.

Your youngest sibling swears she saw a glowing woman in the corner who told her to be kinder to the chickens.

The chickens remain unimpressed.

Even the pig,

Who fears nothing and respects less,

Sometimes stares into the dark with a look that says,

I hear things.

I just choose violence instead.

You lie still and listen,

The kind of listening that goes beyond ears.

You listen with skin,

With ribs,

With the spaces between thoughts.

The wind taps the shutters like it wants to be let in,

But won't say why.

The rafters groan.

A single spoon falls somewhere in the kitchen with the tragic dignity of a soldier collapsing in battle.

You wait.

Nothing follows.

Just silence.

Then a yawn from someone too tired to be haunted.

You get up,

Quiet,

Careful,

Betraying no intent.

You tiptoe past the cousin,

The uncle,

The sibling tangle of limbs and bad dreams.

Past the corner where your uncle sometimes prays loud enough to scare the fleas.

The floorboards offer no loyalty.

They creak anyway.

You offer them a mental curse and keep moving.

Outside,

The night is indifferent,

Cold and star-smeared and pulsing with the kind of quiet that makes you feel watched,

Even when you know the only thing truly watching is a squirrel with boundary issues.

You look up at the moon.

It looks down like it knows what you did or didn't do.

It probably saw the turnips.

You walk toward the shed.

You don't know why.

People always walk toward the shed in stories right before the thing happens.

You do it anyway.

The pig snorts in her sleep.

You pause to make sure she doesn't wake and file a complaint.

The shed is locked,

Which is new.

You don't remember locking it.

You also don't remember owning a lock.

You stare at it for a moment,

Then decide the lock is metaphorical.

That feels like a safe thought.

You head back.

In the path between you and your door stands a figure.

You stop.

Blink.

It remains.

Hooded.

Possibly glowing.

Possibly just reflecting moonlight off a very clean face.

You squint.

It raises one hand and points to the sky.

Then it points to the ground.

Then it lowers the hand and walks through the wall of your house like someone late to dinner.

You wait a full minute before following.

You do not wish to interrupt.

Inside,

Everyone is asleep.

No glowing figure in sight.

The pig snores a little louder.

You sit by the fire and poke the coals.

A small voice in your head says,

That was probably just the baker in a blanket.

Another voice,

Deeper,

Says,

You should have asked the turnips for clarification.

You write a quick note to yourself.

Do not follow glowing people into sheds,

Even if they seem polite.

You add,

Maybe be kinder to the chickens.

You glance at the corner.

Nothing but shadows.

Still,

They seem fuller.

Like they've had a snack and are ready for conversation.

You decide not to engage.

Back in the bedding pile,

Someone mumbles,

The goose told me we're cursed.

You don't ask for clarification.

You've learned your lesson.

The goose is always right and always angry.

You try to sleep.

You try not to think about flaming dogs,

Latin vegetables,

Or the way the air felt heavier outside.

You try not to imagine the glowing person waiting patiently behind your closed eyes.

You almost succeed.

Almost.

The second sleep doesn't announce itself.

It doesn't knock politely,

Or bring a gift,

Or ask how your evening has been.

It just sort of drapes itself over you without warning,

Like a drunk uncle who mistakes your lap for a chair and then proceeds to tell you about the war he never fought in.

You're not even sure if you're tired.

You were fine a minute ago,

Poking coals and communing with your own poor decisions.

But now,

Your eyelids weigh as much as the millstone,

And the floor is beginning to look emotionally supportive.

You don't give in right away.

You try to reason with it,

Negotiate.

You think,

Maybe I'll just sit here by the fire a little longer and contemplate my dreams of agricultural betrayal.

Maybe I'll listen to the house breathe and the wind offer unsolicited advice through the cracks.

But your body has already made its choice.

Your spine surrenders first.

Then your shoulders slide down like they're trying to disappear into your hips.

Your neck forgets what it's for.

You slump,

Drool a little,

Then catch yourself with a dramatic jerk that wakes the cat.

You don't own a cat.

You crawl back to the bed pile like a creature who was once a person,

But has since become a blanket-seeking missile.

You try to be quiet,

But your knees crack like dry sticks,

And your toes find every creaky board and one surprisingly vocal potato.

You pause,

Reconsider the potato,

Then whisper an apology and continue.

The sleeping arrangement is less a bed and more a democratic experiment in shared suffering.

It is a mass of limbs,

Quilts,

And one person who always insists on sleeping diagonally no matter what anyone says.

You wedge yourself into the gap between your cousin's knees and your sister's hair,

Which is everywhere,

Like a creeping vine with dreams of expansion.

Someone's elbow occupies your pillow.

You do not ask who.

You simply retaliate with a hip.

The blanket is,

As usual,

Missing.

Not entirely,

Just mostly.

You find one corner of it and pull.

It resists.

You tug again.

There is a grunt.

A leg kicks,

Reflexively.

A hand slaps your face.

You endure this with the quiet dignity of someone who's lost this battle before.

You try the ancient art of the slow roll,

One inch at a time,

Absorbing fabric into your domain without waking the enemy.

It works until it doesn't.

Someone growls and yanks the blanket back so hard your shoulder pops.

You let go,

Strategically.

Now cold and morally wounded,

You begin to debate whether second sleep is worth this.

Maybe you'll go back to the fire.

Maybe you'll invent a new way to sit.

Maybe you'll start a rebellion and build your own bed fortress out of turnip sacks and straw pride.

But then,

Somewhere between plodding and pouting,

Sleep returns.

It oozes into you.

Not like first sleep,

Which arrives with ceremony and anticipation and a list of intentions.

No.

This sleep is sluggish and sticky and carries the faint scent of wood smoke and resignation.

It wraps around you with the stubborn insistence of a wet cloak.

It settles on your chest,

Like something mildly judgmental.

You twitch once,

Trying to protest.

But your limbs have filed for independence.

Your body is no longer in committee.

Your thoughts go weird,

Fast.

You dream you're back in the turnip field,

But now the turnips are hosting a town council meeting and you're late.

They glare at you,

All leafy disdain,

As you try to explain that you couldn't find your shoes because the moon borrowed them.

One turnip stands up and shouts in Latin.

You agree,

Although you don't know what it said.

Then you're falling,

Then flying,

Then you're very sure you've turned into the pig and the pig is trying to write a poem about you,

But she keeps getting distracted by apples.

Your foot twitches in real life.

Someone groans.

Someone else flips over and mumbles.

Tell the bishop it was the goat's idea.

You make a mental note and immediately forget it.

The second sleep is heavier than the first,

Denser,

Dream-soaked.

You sink into it like mud,

Like debt,

Like a story told too many times by the same uncle.

It doesn't refresh you.

It simply holds you down and says,

Shh,

Shh,

It's not time to think.

It smells faintly of smoke,

Feet,

And the kind of secrets that live in floorboards.

You drool a little.

No shame.

Everyone does.

The blanket shifts again.

Someone rolls onto your ankle.

You accept this.

You have no more ankles,

Only a vague ache where your lower body used to be.

Your arm falls asleep before the rest of you.

You feel it go,

Like a friend slipping out the door at a bad party.

In the far corner,

The mouse resumes its judgmental pacing.

You hear it nibbling something you hope isn't important.

The fire lets out a last petulant hiss.

The wind sighs.

Your breathing sinks with the rhythm of the room,

The slow tide of many lungs doing their best impression of peace.

You dream again.

This time,

You're in a boat,

Made of bread,

Floating down a gravy river toward a city of geese.

They chant your name,

But you know they mean something else.

You wake briefly to someone's knee in your ribs,

Smile like an idiot,

And drift back under.

Sleep wins.

It always does.

You wake up in pieces,

Not like a shattered mirror,

More like a medieval stew,

Various parts floating in confusion,

None of them where they're supposed to be.

Your neck has declared war.

Your right arm is pinned beneath someone's knee,

Which might be your cousin's or might belong to a stranger who wandered in and was too polite to leave.

Your left foot is wet,

Mysteriously.

You wiggle your toes and sniff the air.

You immediately regret both actions.

The rooster is already mid-rant.

He doesn't crow.

He bellows.

Every morning,

He screams like he's announcing the end of days,

Like someone just told him about taxes.

He does this directly outside the window with the broken shutter,

And you swear he makes eye contact.

The rooster knows what he's doing.

You peel your face off the mattress,

Which is not actually a mattress,

But more of a philosophical concept.

It is straw,

Some fabric,

And the accumulated weight of generations' disappointment.

It smells like dust,

Soup,

And someone's unresolved issues.

Your face has a new pattern now.

You try to sit up,

But a younger sibling has sprawled sideways across your back in the night and now snores with the confidence of royalty.

You shove them gently.

They grunt and latch onto your arm like a barnacle made of blanket.

You shift,

Roll,

Kick,

And eventually extricate yourself from the bed tangle.

It is less like waking and more like rebirth.

Sticky,

Loud,

And full of judgment.

You stand,

Wobble,

And immediately stub your toe on something that shouldn't be there.

You whisper a curse that hasn't been invented yet.

The pain radiates into your soul.

The morning air is not so much cold as it is a personal insult.

It wraps around your ankles and breathes down your neck like a tax collector with icy fingers.

You shiver and look toward the hearth.

The ashes are smug.

The fire gave up hours ago and took all its warmth with it.

You poke at the coals with a stick and they sigh dramatically,

Like you've inconvenienced them.

You mumble something rude and toss on a log.

It doesn't catch.

Of course not.

Fire has standards.

Someone opens the door and lets in a gust of wind and a smell that can only be described as barn adjacent.

You shout,

Or at least you mean to,

But your throat is full of regret and your voice comes out as a raspy croak.

The person ignores you,

Probably because they're seven and already carrying a bucket bigger than their head.

You decide to pretend you were just clearing your throat for authority.

You step outside,

Still barefoot,

Because shoes are an afternoon activity.

The sky is gray and the mud is ambitious.

You sink slightly with every step and try not to think about what mud really island.

The sun hasn't shown up yet.

Just light.

Diffused,

Passive-aggressive light that makes everything look a little worse than at island.

Across the yard,

The pig watches you.

She knows.

She always knows.

You nod at her in a way that says Yes,

I woke up wrong.

No,

I'm not okay.

Yes,

I will feed you anyway.

She blinks slowly and returns to chewing something that might have been a mitten in a past life.

You hear the church bell,

Dull and echoing like a headache.

It rings not with joy or urgency,

But with the exhausted tone of someone who's been doing this every day and doesn't see the point anymore.

The sound wraps around the village,

Pulling people from beds and blankets and dreams of better lives with fewer chores.

Somewhere a pot clangs.

Somewhere else,

Someone swears creatively at a goat.

You head back inside and trip over a boot that wasn't there before.

You glare at it.

The boot offers no apology.

You pick it up and throw it gently into the corner where it lands on a pile of things labeled later.

The room smells like morning now,

Which is to say it smells like sweat,

Onions,

Wet wool,

And unbrushed teeth.

Someone is frying something in a pan that screams with every sizzle.

You try to identify the ingredients,

But give up when you realize you don't want to know.

Your uncle is already awake,

Of course.

He's been awake since before the concept of sleep existed.

He's sitting at the table,

Sharpening a spoon and humming a hymn that sounds suspiciously like a threat.

You nod to him.

He nods back.

You've never had a conversation,

But you respect each other deeply in the way only too tired people can.

Your sister appears,

Hair in full rebellion,

Eyes half closed,

And holding a mug of something hot and vaguely brown.

She hands it to you without speaking.

You sip.

It burns your tongue and tastes like boiled bark,

But it is warm in yours.

You are now three percent more human.

Someone asks if it's Monday.

No one knows.

Someone else says it doesn't matter because the chores are the same anyway.

You all agree.

Days are just arbitrary labels attached to suffering.

A child throws a spoon.

A dog steals a sock.

The rooster crows again,

Louder this time,

As if to remind everyone he's still the most important creature in the village.

You consider eating him just for a moment.

You look around.

Your family moves through the morning like pieces on a worn-out game board,

Bumping into each other,

Muttering,

Cursing,

Laughing when they shouldn't.

It's chaos,

But it's your chaos.

Familiar,

Itchy,

Too loud,

Often damp,

But yours.

You finish your drink,

Slap your face a few times to remind it who's boss,

And grab a cloak that smells like sheep and ambition.

You're ready.

Not enthusiastic,

Not rested,

But upright and vaguely functional.

The sun finally peeks over the trees like it's been watching the whole time,

Quietly amused.

You look up at it.

It looks back.

You don't blink.

You're not ready to forgive.

Breakfast is not an event.

It's a negotiation between what's edible,

What's warm,

And what hasn't been claimed by the goat.

The pot bubbles with something technically food.

You recognize the porridge from yesterday,

And possibly the day before that.

There's a new note to it now,

Something smoky,

Something daring.

You scoop some out,

Hoping not to stir the bottom too much.

That's where regrets settle.

The table is already crowded.

People sit where they always do,

In positions inherited like bad furniture.

No one speaks right away.

There's a rhythm to this,

A few coughs,

A loud swallow,

The scraping of spoons against wooden bowls.

Your brother inhales his portion like it owes him money.

Your mother sips carefully,

As if pretending it's tea and not sadness.

The smell of burnt oats,

Wet wool,

And faint manure wafts through the room.

It's the smell of mourning.

Not good morning,

Just mourning.

You chew with determination,

Not hunger.

Hunger left hours ago,

During the second waking,

Fleeing with your dignity and your last coherent dream.

What's left is duty,

And the faint hope that chewing faster will make it taste like something.

It doesn't.

It tastes like time,

Specifically a Tuesday that forgot to shower.

Someone says,

Sleep well,

And immediately regrets it.

The question hangs there,

Thick and obvious.

No one answers.

You all exchange glances like players in a secret society bound by shared trauma,

The kind of trauma shaped like candlelight and whispered prayers and rats with a sense of entitlement.

It's not that you're ashamed of the between time.

It's just not for breakfast talk.

It's personal,

Sacred,

Like nose-picking or tax evasion.

The toddler in the corner,

Still sticky from unknown causes,

Giggles and shouts something about dreams.

Everyone freezes.

Your uncle coughs into his bowl.

Your sister elbows the toddler gently.

You all go back to chewing,

Crisis averted.

Someone passes a heel of bread.

It's the kind of bread that could injure someone if thrown with intent.

You accept it with a nod of thanks,

Dunking it into the porridge until it agrees to soften.

It doesn't.

You eat it anyway.

Chewing loudly feels like rebellion.

Outside,

The village stirs.

Hooves clop by the window.

A distant cart squeaks like it's telling a long,

Sad story.

Somewhere,

A dog howls at nothing,

And another dog agrees.

The world is waking up,

Or at least pretending to,

Just like you.

Your father stands and stretches with a noise that could scare birds.

He mutters something about chores and the weather,

Then walks out like a man marching to battle.

Your cousin follows,

Still tying his tunic,

And trips over the cat.

The cat,

Of course,

Is fine.

Cats always are.

You make a mental note to respect that cat,

And also possibly fear it.

The rest of you linger.

Not because there's more to eat,

But because the moment between breakfast and labor is the last soft thing the day offers.

Your sister fiddles with a spoon,

Tapping it against the edge of her bowl in a rhythm that sounds suspiciously like a lullaby.

Your mother stares at the wall like it's just challenged her to a duel.

You pretend to check your boots,

Which are still damp from yesterday,

And also the day before,

As if they've given up drying as a concept.

There's comfort in the pretense.

In the way everyone acts like the night was just sleep.

Plain and simple.

No dreams of dead relatives offering tax advice.

No sudden moments of wakefulness where you questioned everything,

Including your own name.

No middle hour conversations with the floor,

Or flirtations with the fire,

Or unsuccessful herbal negotiations.

You look at your brother,

Who's now trying to balance a spoon on his nose.

He almost pulls it off.

Almost.

You smile,

Which feels foreign at this hour,

Like wearing your festival boots to the outhouse.

Still,

It sticks for a second before being buried under the usual fog of dirt and duty.

Someone finally speaks again,

This time about the chickens.

Apparently,

They've become philosophical,

And are refusing to lay until the moon apologizes.

Or maybe they're just cold.

Either way,

Eggs are now a theoretical concept.

Everyone nods solemnly.

This is serious.

You miss eggs the way some people miss spring.

You rise from the table with the grace of a broken rake.

Your joints creak.

Your back reminds you that sleeping in a human pile has long-term consequences.

You gather bowls,

Stack them precariously,

And head toward the wash basin with the enthusiasm of someone sentenced to mild,

Wet penance.

Your mother hums as she tidies.

It's not a happy tune.

It's the kind of melody that says,

I've seen things,

And I'm still here.

You hum with her,

Quietly,

Not in harmony,

But in shared rhythm.

It's enough.

The pot is nearly empty.

The fire crackles as if mocking your attempt at normalcy.

You toss a splinter of wood on it,

And it accepts the offering without gratitude.

Outside,

Someone yells about a missing sheep.

Someone else yells back that the sheep is probably just trying to find a better village.

You wonder if that's possible.

The sun finally peers in,

Late and smug,

Filtering through the warped windowpane.

It lights the dust in the air,

Making it look almost magical.

You squint and pretend it's intentional,

That this day,

Like all the others,

Is manageable.

No one mentions the between time,

Not the wakefulness,

Not the candlelight,

Not the whispered poems or the remembered ghosts,

Or the slight moan the wind made that may have been a voice or just bad insulation.

No one dares.

You wrap your cloak around you,

Step outside,

And face the morning as if it hasn't already been several lifetimes long,

As if you didn't already live a whole secret life between sleeps,

As if normal were ever anything but a costume everyone agrees to wear,

Frayed at the edges,

Patched with silence.

The rooster sees you,

And crows again,

Louder this time.

You stare back.

You say nothing,

But you think it loud.

You ask around because the question itches,

Not like a rash,

But like a thought with splinters.

Why does no one sleep all the way through?

Why do your nights split themselves in two like a loaf shared too early?

You don't get an answer,

Not one you can use.

You get a handful of half-truths,

One shrug,

And a proverb that might also be a recipe.

The priest says the midnight hour is sacred,

That God listens best when the world is still.

You nod politely,

Trying not to ask why God can't keep regular office hours.

The steward insists it's about efficiency.

Split sleep allows time to check the fires,

Wind the clocks,

Mend a hem,

Stir the stew,

Write in the ledger.

You don't even have a ledger,

But he's so pleased with himself that you let him finish his lecture while imagining his face on a turnip.

The old women by the well are less interested in justifying it.

They wave their hands like the whole concept of linear time is beneath them.

People wake when they wake,

One says while shelling peas with surgical precision.

And then they go back to sleep.

Always have,

Always will.

Stop asking silly questions before the butter turns sour.

You don't understand what butter has to do with it,

But you leave it there.

Your uncle,

When cornered,

Simply shrugs and says,

Because we're not cows,

Lad.

He says it like it ends the conversation.

You stare at him.

He stares back,

Entirely unbothered.

Then he sneezes into his sleeve and mutters something about mushrooms being cleverer than most people.

You've learned that,

With your uncle,

The sneezing is the punctuation mark.

You consider his answer.

You are,

In fact,

Not a cow.

This seems both true and entirely useless.

You wonder if the answer is simpler.

Maybe people wake up in the middle of the night because they're cold.

Because the fire dies down.

Because someone kicks them.

Because a dream ends and real life sneaks back in like a leaky roof.

Maybe it's just that darkness stretches too long and our brains,

Like goats,

Refuse to behave for that long uninterrupted.

Or maybe it's older than that.

Older than fire.

Older than beds.

Older than the idea that sleep should come in a tidy package.

You think about it while staring at your bowl of barley mush,

Which is trying to impersonate soup.

You think about it while mending your sock,

Which is more whole than wool.

You think about it while pretending to listen to your cousin argue with the neighbor about whether pigs dream in color.

The answer,

Apparently,

Depends on the pig.

You think about it when you're awake at that strange hour.

The one too late to still be night and too early to call it morning.

When the world hums in a quieter key and the mice seem philosophical.

It doesn't feel like a mistake,

This waking.

It feels like an intermission.

Everyone treats it like it's normal.

Not worth commenting on.

No one says,

I woke up at the in-between again.

They say,

I stirred the pot at midnight.

Or,

I fixed the hem.

Or,

The bread rose well.

Or,

Sometimes,

I couldn't sleep.

But they say it like it's the weather.

Predictable.

Cyclical.

A thing that happens to everyone.

No one panics.

No one calls it broken.

You begin to realize that sleep,

Here,

Is not a single door you close.

It's a hallway.

You walk through it.

Sometimes twice.

There are words for it.

First sleep.

Second sleep.

They pass between lips like breadcrumbs.

You hear a man at the market say he had dreams during the first and nightmares during the second.

You hear a woman at the river say she always does her weaving between sleeps.

That's when her hands are clearest.

That's when the pattern comes.

The children don't question it.

They nap like cats,

In piles and patches,

Whenever they can,

Wherever they fall.

No one demands they consolidate their slumber.

They are allowed to be wild with it.

You wonder when that stops.

When someone says,

Sleep must happen this way,

And hands you a schedule and a list of chores.

When the in-between becomes inconvenient,

It's not written down,

Not carved in stone or declared by kings,

But everyone does it.

Everyone knows.

Even the dogs.

Especially the dogs.

There's something about it that feels old.

Older than the buildings.

Older than the language.

Like a tradition handed down by silence.

Like a song you don't remember learning but somehow know all the words to.

You stop expecting it to make sense.

You just feel it.

The middle hour has a texture.

A scent.

Candle wax and damp wool.

Ink and onion.

Sometimes bread if you're lucky.

Sometimes regret if you're not.

It's when your thoughts stretch their legs.

When the room feels bigger or smaller than it should.

When you think about people you miss and people you wish you missed less.

Maybe that's why we do this.

Not because the priest says it's holy,

Though maybe it island.

Not because the steward likes to measure things,

Though he will.

Not because the old women told you to stop asking.

Not even because we're not cows,

Though your uncle has a point.

Maybe it's because being human is too complicated to fit into one's sleep.

Maybe some thoughts need their own time.

Maybe the soul wakes when the body rests and they need a moment to catch up.

You don't ask again.

Not because you have the answer.

Because you don't need it anymore.

You just light your candle.

You sip something warm and vaguely herbal.

You watch the shadows stretch across the walls and listen for the house breathing.

You hear someone cough.

Someone else turns over.

A floorboard sighs.

The fire mutters to itself.

You scratch an itch you didn't know you had.

And when second sleep finally comes,

You let it.

Not because it's time,

But because you're ready.

The fire is mostly ash again.

You prod it half-heartedly with the stick you've declared the good poker.

Though it's really just a twig that hasn't disappointed you yet.

A faint glow sulks at the base of the hearth like a child sent to bed without supper.

You breathe on it like that'll help.

It doesn't.

But you do it anyway because doing something feels better than staring at the ceiling,

Waiting for sleep to forget it already visited you once tonight.

You're not alone.

You know that.

Not in the larger,

Spiritual sense.

Though someone's great-grandmother probably is watching from the rafters.

But in the physical,

Practical,

Inescapable sense.

The house is full.

Stuffed with relatives like a pie you didn't order but now have to eat.

Everyone tangled in linen and snoring and muttering and producing sounds that don't quite belong to mammals.

The dog is asleep on someone's foot.

Hopefully yours.

Hopefully not your cousin's because he kicks.

You're awake in the space that doesn't have a name.

Not really.

Some call it the watch.

Some call it God's hour,

Which feels ambitious.

You just call it the between,

Though only in your head.

Because saying it out loud would make it sound like a forest spirit might show up to offer you a quest.

You don't want a quest.

You want your blanket back and for your bladder to make up its mind.

This waking is not an accident.

You know that now.

You used to think you were just bad at sleeping.

Like maybe your body missed a meeting where the rest of humanity agreed to stay unconscious for eight hours straight.

Turns out the meeting didn't happen.

Or if it did,

It was recent and sponsored by people who sell coffee.

This.

This rhythm.

This break.

This pause.

It's old.

Older than the roof over your head.

Older than the Latin phrases carved into the church door.

Older even than the stories your grandmother won't finish because they aren't proper for daylight.

You wake,

Not because something's wrong,

But because something is meant.

The night is meant to break.

There's something comforting in it.

You sit by the hearth and let the heat lick your knees while the shadows behave themselves for once.

You can hear the wind pulling at the thatch and the occasional sigh of someone remembering a better dream.

Somewhere outside,

An owl hoots with the conviction of someone who knows the gossip and isn't afraid to hoot about it.

You think maybe this time was carved out on purpose.

A space tucked between the folds of darkness to be used however you like.

To pray.

To mend.

To write or to think or to whisper secrets to someone who may or may not still be awake.

To exist without being needed.

To be still without being idle.

The house doesn't feel asleep so much as paused.

You can feel the weight of everyone else's dreams in the air.

Heavy.

Steaming slightly.

Some people believe this is when the soul stretches.

When it uncoils from the body like a cat from under a chair,

Yawns,

And takes a walk through memory.

Maybe that's true.

Maybe it's just what happens when porridge is your main food group and your pillow is filled with hay and judgment.

You remember being told once by someone who read a book or at least stood near one that ancient people used this time to talk to God.

Not the loud ask for things kind of talk,

But the quiet hey it's just me kind.

The kind you have when you're not sure anyone's listening,

But you speak anyway because maybe,

Just maybe,

They are.

Or maybe it's just you.

And that's fine too.

You try it once.

A whisper into the dark.