The child was suddenly pulled away by his mother, his laughter dying down.
"Dick, what are you doing?" she whispered, chastising the boy.
The child, who now I knew was named Dick, seemed to come out of his stupor. His gaze fell upon the corpse of Victor, and the shift in his expression was immediate.
The twisted smile that had been plastered across his face moments before melted away, replaced by wide-eyed terror. He began to cry, great heaving sobs that seemed to come from somewhere deep in his chest, and he hugged his mother's legs.
My gaze tore from the unsettling scene and looked back at the corpse. I found myself wondering how long he'd been scratching at his face before whatever had driven him to this madness finally claimed him.
A commotion from behind made me turn. A man was making his way through the crowd, his hand resting on the pommel of a sword at his side.
"Let me through, let me through!" he repeated, his voice as anxious as any other villager's though you could tell he was trying to hide it. The crowd moved away reluctantly, some craning their necks to get a better look at the scene, others seeming eager to put distance between themselves and the corpse.
It wasn't long before he stood at my side, and I recognized him immediately from Leon's memories. He was the sole constable of the town, a position that had always been more ceremonial than necessary. This had been a utopia after all, so there wasn't a need for any more law enforcement than one man with a badge and a sword he'd probably never drawn.
He was also Lily's uncle and the mayor's brother, which made him one of the most important men in the village despite the relatively peaceful nature of his job. At least, it had been peaceful until today.
He approached the corpse warily, his boots making soft sounds against the packed earth of the road. His shoulders shook slightly at the sight of the corpse but he pushed through it. He knelt before the body, his hands hovering over Victor's face as if he wasn't quite sure what to do.
The constable was silent for a long moment. The crowd behind us had grown quieter, the initial shock giving way to a morbid curiosity. Again my ears caught fragments of what the crowd said.
"- never seen anything like -"
"- what could have driven him to -"
"- always seemed so normal -"
Finally, the constable broke his silence. "Does anyone remember where Victor was last night?" His voice carried across the gathered crowd, and I saw heads turning as people looked at each other, searching their memories.
The constable reached out and gently closed Victor's eyes, his fingers trembling slightly as they pressed against the cold flesh. But as soon as he removed his hands, the eyes slowly opened again, as if some invisible force was pulling the lids upward. The sight made several people in the crowd gasp, and I heard someone behind me mutter what sounded like a prayer.
The constable tried again, pressing more firmly this time, but the same thing happened. The eyes flipped back open, faster this time.
He sighed deeply and rose from the ground, brushing dirt from his knees. That's when a voice finally came from the crowd.
"I saw him leave the village yesterday evening," called out an elderly woman I didn't recognize.
At her words I found myself looking toward the entrance gate and what lay beyond it, the forest. The trees loomed high above the wooden wall that surrounded the village which was more likely than not made from the very same trees.
It seemed to be calling me in, that same gnawing sensation of stillness I'd felt earlier. Yet my instincts told me to keep away from there.
We all remained silent for another moment.
Finally, the constable spoke again. "It doesn't look to be a murder since all the wounds seem to be self-inflicted. Everyone should go back to your homes. Today is the honoring of Lammas, and everything will be fine. We'll handle this situation appropriately."
The crowd began to disperse after that, people breaking off in small groups, their conversations hushed and worried. I noticed how they gave the corpse a wide berth as they passed, as if afraid that whatever had claimed Victor might be contagious. But I stayed put, as did the constable.
William looked at me with confusion, probably wondering why I wasn't following the crowd. After a moment of hesitation, he too walked away, glancing back over his shoulder once before disappearing around a corner.
The constable began to walk toward me, his heavy footsteps echoing in the sudden quiet. He placed a firm hand on my shoulder.
"Leon," he began, and memories swarmed through my borrowed consciousness, times when I had met Lily's family. "I need you to stay with the body while I go inform the family. Can you do that for me?"
I nodded, though the thought of being alone with Victor's corpse made my skin crawl. The constable seemed to sense my discomfort because he squeezed my shoulder once before releasing it.
"I won't be long," he promised, then began to walk away, his footsteps growing fainter until they disappeared entirely.
And then I was left alone with a dead man on the street.
My mind swirled with thoughts and questions I couldn't quite organize. Victor had gone outside to the forest. According to everything I knew about this place, there wasn't supposed to be anything out there except trees and wildlife.
But as I felt that gnawing sensation of stillness again, I felt a calling from the forest once again. Something that had either driven Victor to madness or had physically done this to him and made it look like suicide.
I looked down at Victor's unhinged smile, frozen in an expression of manic joy that seemed completely at odds with the violence he'd apparently inflicted on himself. His fingernails were broken and bloody from clawing at his own face, but that smile suggested he'd enjoyed every moment of it.
It wasn't long before the constable returned, but he wasn't alone. Victor's family trailed behind him, their faces etched with grief and disbelief. Victor hadn't married, so it was only his parents, an elderly couple Leon had seen around the village but never really spoke to.
They approached their son's body with the careful steps. When they saw him up close, when they took in the full horror of his condition, they broke.
The mother fell to her knees beside the corpse, her hands hovering over his face as if she wanted to touch him but was afraid of what she might feel. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she whispered his name over and over, a mantra of loss and confusion.
"My boy, my poor boy," she keened, her voice breaking. "What happened to you? What did this to you?"
The father stood behind her, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, his face contorting to rage and unspoken grief.
They both fully broke down not a moment later.
They cried at their dead son's feet, touching his face through the dried blood, trying to find some trace of the person they'd known beneath the horror of what he'd become. The constable looked away, as did I.
Yet before I left, I felt compelled to offer some small comfort, inadequate though it was. "I'm sorry for your loss," I said quietly, as I began to reaffirm myself with one single thought.
This is just a story. None of this is real.
I repeated it in my head.
This is just a damn story. None of this is real.
I hadn't gone far when I felt a familiar touch on my shoulder. I turned to see blue eyes staring into my green ones, filled with concern and something that might have been fear.
"Lily," I said, the familiar sensation of gagging rising at the back of my throat.
"I heard about Victor," she said softly, her voice barely above a whisper. "Is it true? Is he really dead?"
"Yeah, it's horrible," I replied.
"What do you think drove him to suicide?" she asked, and I noticed how readily she accepted that explanation.
Suicide, not murder. Of course that was what everyone would think. There were no stab wounds, no marks of strangulation, no obvious signs of violence from another person. But then again, how would he have killed himself? It wasn't like the widened smile would have been fatal, or the scratching of his face, the wounds weren't deep enough to cause death by blood loss.
And then there was the child who had started laughing, that disturbing mirror of Victor's final expression. And the timing, I had been dropped into.
The Lammas festival.
My thoughts were interrupted as we crossed the plaza, and my attention was drawn to the fountain at its center. The imp statue sat in the middle, just as it always had, but now its expression seemed different to me, though I wasn't quite sure why.
If this was indeed a horror story, and after this morning, I was becoming more convinced that it was, then the supernatural element was likely connected to the village's traditions. And the most prominent tradition was the worship of whatever entity that imp represented.
The candies sold at the festival were shaped like imps, always smiling and cheerful. But this imp, the one that sat at the heart of the village, looked like it was weeping. The contrast was stark, and I couldn't understand why I'd never noticed it before.
I looked at Lily, who was also staring at the fountain, her expression thoughtful.
"Lily," I began, trying to keep my voice casual. "Do you know if anything like this has ever happened before? Anyone else dying under strange circumstances?"
She shook her head without hesitation. "Never. At least not any that I know of."
I sighed, feeling the weight of questions I couldn't ask without sounding insane, at least to the people in this village. In a normal world, I might have pushed harder, but I was beginning to understand that this wasn't a normal world, and these weren't normal people.
They'd lived their entire lives in this bubble of safety, and their minds simply couldn't process the possibility that something truly malevolent might be lurking beneath the surface.
Lily seemed to sense my troubled thoughts because she moved closer, her hand finding mine, which almost made me reel back, but even in moments such as this I acted the part.
"We should try to stop thinking about it," she said gently. "Whatever happened to Victor won't happen again, I'm sure of it. We need to concentrate on the now. The Lammas offering is coming up soon, and that's always been a source of joy for the village."
The Lammas offering. I'd forgotten about that part of the celebration. It was scheduled for this evening, the ceremony held on the second day of the festival where the villagers would throw prized possessions they had gained that year into the fountain as offerings to whatever entity governed their prosperity.
But as the memory of the tradition surfaced from Leon's borrowed experiences, a question occurred to me that seemed so obvious I was amazed no one had ever asked it before.
"Wait," I said, stopping in my tracks. "The offerings happen every year, right? We throw valuable things into the fountain every year?"
"Of course," Lily replied, looking at me strangely. "It's been that way for as long as anyone can remember."
"Then why isn't the fountain overflowing?" I asked. "Where do all those offerings go?"
I began to walk closer to the fountain, that eerie feeling I'd experienced earlier settling over me like a cold blanket. The closer I got, the more detailed the imp's expression became, and the more convinced I became that it wasn't just sad, but I couldn't quite place what else it was.
I looked inside the fountain, leaning over the stone rim to peer into the water below. There was nothing there except clear water and a white stone base, smooth and undamaged. No accumulation of offerings, no sign that anything had ever been deposited there.
"Hey Lily," I called back to her, not taking my eyes off the empty basin. "Where do the offerings go?"
"Where do they go?" she repeated, as if the question didn't make sense.
"Yeah, where do they go? We throw them in, but they're not here. So where are they?"
"Why does that matter?" she asked, and I could hear confusion in her voice. "We just throw them in and the next morning they're gone. That's how it's always been."
"So someone takes them?" I pressed, turning to face her.
"Why would anyone take them?" she replied, as if I'd suggested something absurd. "They're offerings to Lammas. They're sacred. It would be sacrilege."
My gaze looked up at the saddened stone imp, and I felt pieces of a puzzle beginning to form in my mind. Of course, why would anyone question things that had been happening all their lives? It was normal, routine, as much a part of their existence as sunrise and sunset.
Leon hadn't thought much about it either.
But I wasn't Leon, so I felt something new.
I felt a chill crawl up my spine.