I woke up with my back against the hearth stones and my neck locked at an angle that would have made a chiropractor weep.
The fire had died. Just embers now, a pulsing orange glow that painted the ceiling in faint, shifting rings. Cold had seeped into the stone floor, through the straw I'd piled under me, into my hip and shoulder. My breath came in small white puffs.
Sat up. The movement sent a cramp through my left thigh, the muscle knotted tight. I pressed my palm into it, felt the unfamiliar shape of this body's leg, thinner than mine should be, the bone too close to the surface.
Morning light was coming through the door. I'd left it open. Stupid. Anyone, anything, could have walked in while I slept. But nothing had. The doorway was just a rectangle of grey, the grass outside bent flat where the dew had settled.
Got to my feet. My knees popped. The sound echoed in the empty room, too loud, like someone else was in here with me.
I went to the door. Stood in the frame. The air outside was sharp, cold in my lungs. The sky was the colour of old milk, the sun a vague brightness behind it. The paddock was empty. The old man's horse was gone. His hut had no smoke now, the door closed.
Walked over. Knocked. The wood was damp, the sound dull. Waited. Nothing. Pushed the door open.
Empty. A cot, a blanket folded, a cold hearth. A wooden bowl on the floor with dried grain in it. No note. No sign he'd ever been here except the faint smell of old man and tobacco.
He'd left. Sometime in the night, while I was asleep with my back to the cold hearth, he'd hitched his horse and gone. Back to the estate. Back to the father who'd exiled me. To report that the dead son had been delivered to his dead house.
Fine.
I went back to the manor. Stood in the doorway again, looking in. The daylight showed me what the firelight had hidden. The room was bigger than I'd thought. High ceiling, black beams, the plaster between them cracked and bulging in places. The hearth was massive, big enough to stand in, the stone blackened with decades of smoke. The table was beyond repair, one leg sheared off, the top split down the middle. The chairs were kindling. The chest was empty, a dark stain spreading from its base across the floor.
The smear on the far wall was brown. Dried. Old. Someone had tried to scrub it, I could see the brush strokes in the plaster, the way the surface was worn down. But the stain had soaked in. Part of the wall now.
I looked away.
***
Found the kitchen through a door off the main room. Small. Narrow. A single window, the glass broken, a bird's nest crammed into the frame. The hearth here was smaller, a cast-iron door hanging open, the inside crusted with old ash. A worktable, the wood grey and splitting. A shelf with pots, but they were rusted through, holes in the bottoms. A bucket in the corner with water in it, the surface filmed over, something floating just beneath.
I dumped it out the window. The water splattered on the ground below, the thing, a mouse, long dead, its body soft, landing in the weeds with a wet slap.
Checked the well. It was out back, a stone circle waist-high, the bucket gone, the rope a frayed stub. I leaned over the edge. Black. The smell of wet stone and something else. Stale. I dropped a pebble. Waited. The sound came back after too long, a flat plink that told me nothing.
No food. No water I could reach. No neighbours. No way to send a message. No one who would care if I sent one.
I stood in the yard, looking at the well, and felt the shape of my situation settle into my chest like a stone I'd have to carry. This wasn't exile. This was storage. Put the unwanted thing in a box, close the lid, forget it exists.
My stomach growled. Loud. The sound of a body reminding me that it needed things I didn't have.
Right.
Inventory. I went back inside, pulled the sack out of the cart. The clothes. The coins. The flint. The knife. I held the knife up to the light. The blade was cheap iron, the edge dull, a nick near the tip. The handle was wrapped in something that might have been leather once, now cracked and flaking.
Better than nothing.
I went through the house. Room by room.
Downstairs: the main hall, the kitchen, a storeroom with empty shelves and mouse droppings, a room that might have been an office once, a desk with a warped top, a drawer with nothing in it but a dried-out ink stick and a feather chewed to a nub.
Upstairs: the stairs groaned with each step, the wood flexing under my weight. A corridor, dark, the walls bare. Four doors. The first room was empty, the floorboards ripped up, exposing the joists below. The second had a bed frame, no mattress, the slats broken. The third was locked.
I stood outside the locked door. The wood was different here, darker, the grain tighter. The lock was newer than the others, the iron less rusted. I put my ear to the door. Listened.
Nothing.
Tried the handle. Solid. Put my shoulder into it. The frame creaked but held. I could break it down if I wanted. But something about the silence on the other side made me stop.
Went to the fourth room.
This one had a bed. A real bed, with a mattress. The mattress was straw, stained, lumpy, but it was something. A window with most of its glass. A chest at the foot of the bed, closed. I opened it. Blankets. Wool, moth-eaten, but thick. A woman's robe, the silk gone brittle, crumbling at the folds. A wooden box. Inside: a comb, a mirror, I picked it up, looked at my face for the first time, and put it down without really seeing it. A bundle of letters tied with a ribbon.
I left the letters. Took the blankets downstairs.
***
I was hanging one of them over the broken kitchen window when I heard it.
A voice. Outside.
I stopped. The blanket half-draped, my hands frozen on the wool. Listened.
Nothing. Just the wind in the grass, the creak of the house.
Then again. Faint. A woman's voice, maybe. Singing? No. Not singing. A call. A pattern of sounds that almost meant something, like words heard underwater.
Went to the front door. Stood in the frame.
The yard was empty. The fields beyond, grey-green, the grass moving in the wind. The tree line at the edge of the property, dark, the branches tangled.
The sound came from the trees.
I stood there for a long time, watching. The call didn't repeat. The wind died. The grass stopped moving. Everything went still, the way it does before a storm, the air pressing down on my skin.
Then a bird called. A sharp, scolding sound, and the moment broke. The wind came back, the grass rippled, and I was just a man standing in a doorway with a wool blanket in his hands.
I went back inside. Hung the blanket. Went to the hearth, rebuilt the fire. Got it going, the flames catching on the dryest of the kindling, spreading to the larger pieces I'd split with the knife and my hands. The wood was wet inside, hissed and spat, but it burned.
Sat in front of it. The heat was good on my face, my chest. My back was still cold.
The coins. I dumped them out, counted them. Ten silver pieces, twenty copper. Not a fortune. Enough for food, maybe, if there was somewhere to buy it. But there was no town. No road that led anywhere but back the way I'd come. The old man had said nothing about a village. The estate was a holding, he'd said. The land was poor, the people were few.
Few. Not none.
I'd look. Tomorrow. Today I needed to make the house livable. Water first. Then food. Then,
Something scratched.
I was on my feet before I knew I'd moved. The knife was in my hand. I didn't remember picking it up.
The sound came again. Not upstairs. Outside. Near the door.
I moved to the side of the window. Looked out.
A boy. Maybe ten, maybe twelve. Dirt-caked, thin, his hair a matted mess. He was standing at the edge of the yard, looking at the house. His hands were behind his back. His eyes were fixed on the doorway.
I opened the door. He didn't flinch.
"Hey."
He looked at me. His eyes were dark, too large for his face. He didn't speak.
I stood there, the knife still in my hand. I was aware of how I must look, the dirty linen, the firelight behind me, the blade. I didn't put it away.
"You live here?"
A pause. Then a nod.
"Nearby?"
Another nod. He shifted his weight. His feet were bare, the soles caked with dried mud.
I waited. He waited. The silence stretched, neither of us willing to break it first.
Then he brought his hands out from behind his back. A basket. Small, woven, the reeds frayed. He held it out. Didn't step forward.
I didn't move toward him.
"What's in it?"
He shrugged. Set the basket on the ground. Took two steps back. Then turned and ran.
Fast. The way a child runs when they've done something they shouldn't. He was at the tree line in seconds, a small grey shape swallowed by the green-black, gone.
I stood in the doorway. The basket sat in the grass. A bird landed on the edge, hopped, flew off.
I walked to it. Picked it up. The reeds were damp, the bottom stained. I lifted the cloth covering.
Bread. A loaf, dark, the crust cracked. A small wheel of cheese, the rind mouldy. Three eggs. A gourd of something that sloshed when I moved it. Water.
I looked at the tree line. Nothing moved. No sign of the boy. Just the wall of branches, the dark between them, the smell of damp earth and leaves.
Took the basket inside. Sat by the fire. The bread was dense, the crumb tight. I broke off a piece, chewed. It was dry, slightly sour, the crust hard enough to scrape the roof of my mouth. The cheese was sharp, the mould on the rind bitter. I ate both. Drank the water. It was cool, clean, tasted of the gourd it had been in.
Saved the eggs.
Sat by the fire. The house creaked. The wind picked up outside, rattling the broken window, sending a draft across the floor that made the flames lean.
The boy. No adult. No one coming to the door. Just a child, barefoot, leaving food on the ground and running.
That was something. That was information.
I looked at the locked door at the top of the stairs. Looked at the smear on the wall. Looked at the basket, empty now, sitting beside me.
Tomorrow I'd go looking for the village. Tomorrow I'd find out what happened to the servants. Tomorrow I'd figure out what the boy was afraid of.
Tonight I sat by the fire. The wind blew. The house breathed around me. And somewhere in the dark, the locked door waited.
I didn't go upstairs. I slept on the floor, the fire between me and the staircase, the knife beside my hand.
At some point in the night, I woke. The fire had burned down to coals. The room was dark. And in the dark, I heard it again. The voice. Faint. Coming from the trees. Calling.
I lay still. The knife was cold against my palm.
The call faded. The wind took it, scattered it into the night. And I lay there, eyes open, watching the dark ceiling, until the first grey light of morning crept through the door.
The eggs were still in the basket. I cooked one in the hearth, the white sizzling on the hot stone, the yolk running. Ate it with my fingers. The taste of it, the richness, settled something in my stomach that had been clenched for two days.
Outside, the mist was rising from the fields. Grey and low, hugging the ground, moving slowly toward the trees.
I put on the cleanest of the clothes, took the knife, took the flint, took three of the coins. Left the rest in the sack by the hearth.
Stood in the doorway.
The mist was thicker now, swallowing the paddock, the well, the hut. The tree line was gone, just a wall of grey. Somewhere in it, the boy had disappeared. Somewhere in it, the voice had come from.
I stepped out. The grass was wet, soaking my trousers to the knee. The cold bit at my ankles.
Behind me, the house sat. Waiting.
I walked toward the trees.