Scott Nicholson - The Manor

Not that the little people mattered, aside from providing the stimulus of mass adoration. Spence didn't write for them. He didn't write for the critics, either. They were as blind as Homer had been, puffing themselves up as if they had a hand in the creative process, hogs who couldn't recognize they were feeding at the same trough they spat in. Even editors were nothing more than intruders, more in love with the product than the act.

Ultimately, Spence's whole life and career had revolved around the search. There had to be a way to strip away the layers of symbolism, to get right to the heart of the meaning. To reach the truth of things without the distraction of the typewriter's clacking, without the clumsy fingers that served as the brain's agents. Surely a more simple clarity existed than the black and white of ink on pulp.

Soon, he would arrive. At that spiritual pinnacle, the moment when all human history, all universal laws, all theologies, every speck of dust and grain of matter and mote of thought could be condensed to its purest form. When all of everything could become the one.

One true Word.

Spence sighed. Until he achieved that godliness, that command of the essence, he had to work through these idiot tools of language. Poe always ranted about "unity of effect," how every word must contribute to the whole. That paranoid, absinthe-swilling madman was on the right path, but wouldn't it be much better to find the single word that was the effect?

At least he could love what he wrote, despite its mortal shortcomings. He read the last completed paragraph.

And he, becoming Night, found his limbs, his blood and joy, stretching across the hills. Seeping out beyond the cold dark stone that was his prison, the mountain that was his sepulcher, the house that was his heart. His fingers were now more than mere trees, his eyes more than mirrors, his teeth more than broken wood. He, becoming Night, could spread his inky waters, could lap his tides at far shores, could engulf and drown the surrounding nondarkness that no longer threatened.

The Night walked both sides of dawn, once again bold and dreaming.

Spence laid the page on the desk. He rubbed his eyes. Two days. Had he been writing for two days?

His stomach gurgled. He could use something to eat. Bridget would be waiting at breakfast. Maybe he would even deign to forgive her.

He rolled a blank page into the Royal before leaving the room so it would be waiting when he returned. He looked back at it from the doorway. The white paper glared accusingly at him.

"Don't worry, the Word will come," he said to it, to the room, to the house and whatever was waiting in its walls. Then he closed the door.

Sylva crossed the cabin floor and tossed a pinch of salt in the fire to keep the fetches away. Then she put the poultice on Anna's knee where the cuts were deepest. A little of the gummy mixture dribbled out of the cloth and ran down Anna's leg.

"That ought to mend you up right nice," Sylva said.

"What's in it?"

"The usual. Chimney soot and molasses mixed with a little pine rosin. It's best to wrap a cut with a cobweb, but ain't many spiders this high up."

"Won't that cause an infection?"

"Nothing's much cleaner than chimney soot. Made pure by the fire, you see."

The wound would heal fine. Sylva didn't think she could mend the other things that were wrong with Anna, the bad cells that burned inside her. And she didn't think she should, even if she knew what herbs to use. Part of having the power to heal was knowing when to let nature run its course. When to let the dead be dead, and when to let the living move on to other business of the soul.

Anna was marked as clearly as if her fate had been written by a judge. The shame of it was, she was just getting started in her life, just beginning to grasp her mighty and frightsome gifts. But Sylva knew that the young woman's illness also made her powers stronger. That's why it had been so easy for Korban to summon her.

Anna pressed the poultice to her knee and drank from the hand-fashioned clay cup. "Thank you, Miss-"

"Sylva. Sylva Hartley."

"And thanks for the water. I've never tasted water as good as you have here on the mountain."

Sylva nodded and threw a stick of locust on the fire. Anna was putting off talking about it. Nobody liked to remember close calls. And Sylva had learned over the many years of waiting that patience was the only thing a body needed to be good at. She had waited a long time for the October blue moon.

"You about got fetched over."

"Is that what you call it when a ghost murders you?"

"Yeah. Call it bad luck, too." Sylva stood and fished her hanging kettle from its hook over the fireplace. She poured some of the steaming water into Anna's cup. Then she crossed to the cupboard and took some leaves out of a ceramic jar. She crumbled a few of the leaves into Anna's hot water.

"Smells good. Sort of like mint." Anna breathed in the aroma.

"Yep. Mint with a little wild cherry root mixed in. Might ease up your headache."

"How did you know?"

"They always give me a headache, when I'm spelling them off. Them fresh dead, they're easier to see but they're harder to beat back down into the grave."

Anna sipped at the tea and gave Sylva a sideways look. "How come they haven't 'fetched' you yet?"

Sylva gave a laugh that was more of a liquid hiccup.

"Got my cat bones and my snakeroot and my lizard powder and a whole cupboard full of other roots and herbs and reptile skins. And here's my special piece of protection."

Sylva rummaged under her shawl to the place near her heart. She held out her palm to show Anna the small, shriveled white thing that Sylva wouldn't have traded for a cape of spun gold.

"Rabbit's foot?" Anna's dark eyebrows made arrow-tips on her forehead.

"Not just any rabbit's foot. This is the left hind foot of a graveyard rabbit, snared on a winter midnight."

"Another one of the old signs, like Ransom told me."

"They mean as much as you want 'em to. It's all about how strong you believe."

Anna set her cup on the rough-hewn table. She shivered despite the nearness of the fire. "What a night. I feel a thousand years old."

"Old? I expect you wouldn't believe that I'm a hundred and five myself, give or take a few. Then again, you might, but I hardly believe it myself. I keep up with my health and all, but I suspect it's got a little to do with Korban. Like he's stretching my years on out so I don't up and die a natural death before he's done with me."

Anna rested her chin in her hands. The fire reflected in her blue-green eyes.

Them eyes. Lord, she's Rachel's spittin' image.

"What does Korban want?" Anna asked. "I've studied ghosts for a long time, but most of them just seem to be trying to escape from here. This world, I mean."

Sylva stared into the fire along with Anna. The sun was trickling through the east window now, but still the room was dark, as if night was reluctant to leave.

"Korban wants it all back. Everything that was ever his, and then some."

"Why?"

"Why?" Sylva had thought about it many times over the years, but still didn't know the right answer. "Calling him evil would be too apple-pie easy. Maybe he was evil back when he was alive, but it's way beyond that now. He liked to own things, shape them up to fit his world. I reckon he still does. Is it evil to want to hold on to everything you ever loved?"

"I'm not sure I've ever been loved."

The words gripped Sylva's heart. Korban fetched Anna back for a reason. No matter what Rachel tried to do. Maybe nobody ever escaped from here, dead or alive.

"Ephram…" Sylva's voice fell, uncertain. She was sixteen again, awkward but with a flaming heart, as if both she and the world were young and still full of promise. "I loved Ephram. We all did, the women, I mean. He was mighty handsome in his way, but it wasn't just looks. There was something about him, some magnetism. Nobody could resist him for long.