The Demon Boy

Day Eight - Afternoon

     Captain Casper traverses the dense forest wilderness, wary of wild beasts and savages hiding in the undergrowth. He'll need all his wits about him if he wishes to survive the voyage, but now is not the time for a return voyage. The day is young, his belly full, and his hopes high. He has greater ambitions in mind, ambitions like conquering tribes and claiming their treasures as their own. He'll need to find said tribes first before he does any conquering though... Perhaps he'd have better luck looking for buried treasure. Who's to say he can't do both?

     The trees thin out ahead. He's reached the forest's edge. Beyond it is a bare wasteland, all brown, tilled earth with coarse, green stubble. Dwellings built from earth bricks and wood intersperse the fields few and far in between without a scrap of cover to be seen. The natives will see him coming from the first step he takes out of the tree line. He can't see anyone out there, but they're there. They're waiting. They're watching. Better keep to the trees until he has a reason to leave.

     Casper idles along the treeline, disinterestedly swatting at bushes with his stick come 'mighty cutlass'. Playing pirates is more fun when he has a crew or someone to steal from or something. Anything really. All he's been doing so far is scaring the wits out of a number of birds and some kind of fuzz-tailed tree rat that scared the pants off of him. Damn rats. They were literally coming out of the woodwork in the city and even here, miles away, he isn't rid of them. Thank goodness they aren't so proliferous in these parts, but he's sick to death of the things.

     Several tedious hours later, he's found the path that runs from the manor to town, meaning he's almost ringed the entire forest. Judging by how long he's been walking, the woods must be at least as large as the quarter that served as his haunting grounds way back when. Pity there's not as many places to snatch goodies.

     At any rate, it's time to either head back or go elsewhere. The local boys have caught him on the road before and Casper has no idea if they make a habit of loitering around here on the edge of no man's land. Doesn't seem like it at the moment, but he's not about to get close enough to check. He's been attracting too much attention as is and it's clear relations between the manor and town have been on the rocks for many a year. How Myr is faring with his overnight pub run is anyone's guess. Fingers crossed he gets mobbed and dies in a ditch somewhere. Pity Casper's not that lucky.

     He retreats a way into the forest before he steps onto the road, crosses it, and sneaks back to the treeline on the other side. The woods come surprisingly close to the town's edge on this side, just a few city blocks away from the church graveyard. He could creep over in a few minutes and sneak into town that way. Maybe he could meet Alicia's mother and the others who died? They could tell him what really happened in the manor, they could show Balor didn't do anything wrong and that all this fear was just one big misunderstanding. Casper has no doubt that they would do so, if only the dead could talk.

     It's a poorly thought out idea, being scant more than impulse, which makes it akin to every other notion that's popped into his head. In spite of whatever good sense says, Casper darts across and soon finds himself wandering amid the tombstones. It's a tidy place. The graves are well marked in tidy rows, well kept, and clean. Wood markers mingle with carved stones and two or three iron crosses. Small bouquets of wildflowers are heaped in offering at several footstones. The dead here are remembered, are cared for, are deeply, dearly loved. Even the stones so old that the names and years have faded into nothingness by the steady tread of time are brushed free of moss and lichen. Casper stands at one such stone, wondering who could be here, who could be so loved that after all this time, there's still someone who remembers to come and pay their respects once in awhile. Could it be Alicia's mum? No, the stone's too old for that; must be a hundred years, if that. It must belong to someone else important. Whoever it was, Casper's willing to bet they weren't any John Doe. John Does don't get neat footstones tended by the people who remember them. They don't get footstones at all.

     Once upon a time, before Casper was Casper, a little boy followed an undertaker's cart to see where all the Does go. Where they went was to the Potter's Field for their pauper's funeral. There were no footstones, only mass graves. A simple wooden cross marked the burial place for as many as ten men at a time and the earth overflowed with the dead.

     The grave digger took one look at the undertaker's cart and swore to high heaven. "Aww, bloody hell. Another one? That's gotta be the fifth this week. There won't be no more coffins to put 'em in at this rate."

     "It is what it is, mate. We'll put 'em in two at a time if that's what it takes. How's the hole coming?"

     "Think I run into an older one as I was digging. Not sure how we're gonna fit the new guy in without digging up someone else."

     "Then dig deeper genius!"

     "You think I hadn't tried that? It's all rock from here on out, nothing left to dig up."

     "Bah!" Having run out of things of substance to say, the undertaker started his search for an empty box for the most recent late Mr. Doe while an opportunistic crow alighted upon his funerary shroud.

     The little boy watched the black bird with gross fascination as it pecked at the canvas cloth, lifting it upwards and revealing the dead man's face. If there ever be such a thing as a handsome corpse, this was not it. Purple-blue complexion with bulging eyes, gaping mouth, and a thick band of deep red around the neck. The eyes didn't stay long. The crow ate them, then flew away laughing when the undertaker chased it off. He saw the boy then and chased him off in much the same way.

     "Get outta here! There's nothing for you to dig up here. Go on. Get!"

     Casper considers the footstone before him now. This is a cleaner death than those he's seen before. He chalks it up as another one of Glenholm's oddities. Nothing about this place is vaguely familiar most times and is all too reminiscent of the wrong things at others. He misses home, his real  home, the city he grew up in. He misses the quarter he knows every nook and cranny of. He misses the Chinaman and his shop tucked into the corner of Dial Way. He misses waking up at the crack of dawn to steal the milk delivery and he misses stealing laundry right off the line. He misses being part of the faceless multitude that occupied every street corner, every doorway. He wants to go home.

     The priest finally takes note of and offense at his lurking. He pokes his head out the back door of the abbey to hiss complaints at him. "Do you have any appreciation of what has been going on? Today is a poor time to shirk out on your poor parents. Do they have any idea of where you've been?" The priest pauses his tirade and squints at him. He leans a little further out of the doorway. "Do... Do I know you? I don't recall seeing you in sermon... Who are you? Where did you come from?"

     And that's Casper's cue to cut and run. He goes back the way he came, jumping the fence and vanishing into the treeline. He hears the priest behind him give chase and give up at the fence's edge.

     "And don't you come back!" The priest yells at his back. He doesn't need to tell him twice. If Casper has his way, he'll never set eyes on Glenholm ever again.