Chapter Text
The dreams had started a little over two weeks ago.
Alastor had been checking his snares on the outskirts of town, something he did with such regularity that he could almost do it in his sleep. He would start with those traps nearest the village, gradually working his way outwards – but that day, he'd decided to take a different approach. He didn't feel like carrying the lines of rabbits for the entirety of his journey, and efficiency stated that it would be easier to start on the traps furthest away.
The woods had been quiet, that early in the morning. By the time he usually made it to the small copse of trees bordering the northern edge of the fields, the sun was well and truly up. Hanging in the sky, slowly burning off the dew clinging to the undersides of leaves and dripping down blades of grass. That morning, he'd seen the woods as few others ever experienced, glowing with the faint pink light of the cresting dawn. Even the birds hadn't yet stirred from their nests, the barest peep of their young breaking through the soft rustling of trees and shuffling of animal feet through the undergrowth.
Perhaps it was the break in routine. Perhaps it was nothing more than misfortune, the goddess of luck choosing Alastor to torment that day. Whatever the case might have been, he'd discovered his snares tampered with; trails of blood and fur leading deeper into the trees.
He certainly hadn't been willing to let whatever thief this was get away with it, be they man or beast. If a particularly wily fox had learned how to disable his snares to the point that they were cut clean through, then that posed a far bigger problem for the town as a whole. No animal's teeth should slice such a clean line in his leather.
He'd followed the trail, brows pinched into a dark scowl and one hand on the knife at his belt. Blood had been brushed over leaves, and just when he'd thought he'd lost all hope of finding his thief, he would spot a tuft of brown fur stuck to a broken twig on a blackberry bush, his blood heating and his heart picking up its pace. It might have been wiser to return to the village and seek assistance, but Alastor was already something of an outcast. A trapper, and an unsociable one at that; this oddity might be the excuse they needed to roust him.
His breath had laboured in his throat, cold sweat trickling down the back of his shirt as the sun's rays wove their way through the foliage. Heat brushed over his skin, sunlight caressing him as if trying to tell him there was no point to this hunt. But he hadn't been deterred.
Perhaps he should have been.
He'd broken into a clearing, a perfectly bare patch of earth surrounded by trees on all sides. It must have been the remnants of an old settlement, lost to the sands of time – because in its centre was an ancient, crumbling well, its bricks weather-worn and stained with moss. It had no roof, no way to keep out debris, save for the thick slab of wood fastened to its lip with a rusty iron chain and a padlock on the verge of collapse.
Intrigued, Alastor had set his pack down on the edge of the clearing, venturing closer. A smear of blood on one of the bricks had him frowning, a tight furrow creasing his forehead, for a quick glance around showed that there was no further evidence of the trail. How was such a thing possible? No thief could fit through the minuscule gap between stone and wood, and the wood itself was sound, with no sign of rot to be seen. He'd brushed his knuckles over the padlock, yanking his hand back with a hiss when mottled metal scratched his flesh and drew blood.
He'd shoved his knuckle in his mouth and wondered if that might explain the blood on the stone. That perhaps he'd followed the trail incorrectly, and his missing rabbits were not even linked to this clearing. He'd looked again at the padlock, blinking when he realised he'd been quite mistaken.
It wasn't fastened at all. The body dangled off the shackle, and with how rusted the catch was there was no chance it could ever have been locked in the first place. Still nursing his hand, his mouth tasting of copper, Alastor had carefully drawn his knife and lifted the padlock away, though he never would have been able to give a satisfactory answer as to why.
The clearing was silent. The lock dropped to the ground without a whisper, the only sound that of the wind sighing through the trees. It seemed as though the world was holding its breath, and Alastor had held his own right alongside it, though he didn't know the reason. His pulse had been loud in his own ears, a shiver coursing up his spine as a sense of something heavy settled over him – like the air before the onset of a storm.
He'd glanced up, blinking a little as his eyes blurred and watered. The sky above was dotted with wisps of cloud, still tinged pink from the rising sun, and in the circle of trees he'd found himself in his head was spinning at the sight of it. He felt like he could fall into that emptiness, the abyss stretching beyond his imagination, bound on all sides by the solid walls of the trees but free to disappear – if he could only find it in himself to let go of the concept of gravity.
A crow had cawed, somewhere deeper in the woods, and Alastor had stepped back so abruptly that he'd stumbled. He'd shot a hand out for balance, heavy wood scraping against stone as he inadvertently pushed at the ancient cap over that even more ancient well, and he'd swallowed against a sudden rush of stale air.
It was clear that whoever had been messing with his snares wasn't here, and he was wasting precious time. He had much to do, not least of which was the task of completing his rounds and resetting his traps.
He'd turned his back on the well, still a little lightheaded, and retraced his steps back to town. The fine hairs on the back of his neck had prickled the entire time he'd been checking his snares, and he had the odd suspicion he was being watched – though whenever he'd turned to look, there wasn't a soul to be seen.
* * * * * *
Alastor shot up in bed, sweating and shivering. The same image had haunted his sleep again, an endless void spinning as he tumbled through the air, arms and feathers and scales plucking at him whilst the wind whispered in his ear. No words, just sound, though something in him felt as if there might be words – if only he could manage to make them out.
That wind was still hissing in his memory, and he shook his head, trying to dislodge the cobwebs of his dream. He glanced at the window to see if the rush of wind he could still hear was heralding a storm, but the night was still.
The sky was lightening, a dusky lavender winking out the stars one by one, and the village was dark. Even the blacksmith's forge hadn't yet been lit – Alastor would know if it had. He had a very clear view of it across town, situated as he was on a slight rise, his home on its hill built closely enough that he was still considered a member of the populace; but far enough away that nobody felt particularly guilty about rarely seeing him.
He pressed a hand over his mouth to cover a yawn. He didn't mind the blacksmith, not really. His enthusiasm for his job was quaint, and Alastor would often find himself pausing for a chat on his way back into town after clearing his traps. The man had only recently come to town, taking over from the ancient, humpbacked old man who'd been working the bellows for as long as anyone could remember, and it seemed he hadn't yet learned the way of things. Somebody would tell him eventually – would warn him away from talking to the bizarre trapper, with his rooms full of bones and skins drying on racks outside his house.
It didn't stop them from purchasing his products, though, and Alastor's lips stretched into a rueful sort of smile as he rubbed at one of his ears. Even now, he could hear that wind hissing, whispering. Muttering. It had been the same every night.
Unbidden, the image of that clearing in the woods leapt into the forefront of his mind, as clear as if he were looking at a painting of the place. He sucked in a breath, ears ringing as a silence so deep it drowned out the sound of his own breathing fell over the room.
Come back.
As quickly as it had fallen, that silence eased, and Alastor blew out a breath. One of his temples twinged, a dull ache blooming in his skull as he gritted his teeth and rolled out his shoulders. His imagination, surely. His mind playing tricks on him, taking advantage of his lack of restful sleep. He glanced again at the sky, at the town painted in its shades of dull grey, for there was not enough light outside to coax the colour out of the world.
He supposed there was no harm in getting started early. He could make his rounds by memory alone, he knew the location of every burrow. He was hardly likely to step into one and snap his ankle, now was he?
The whisper of that wind echoed in his mind, that imagined command. Come back.
Alastor shivered again, slipping into his day-clothes and pulling on his socks, turning over the image of that well in his mind. Perhaps it was worth investigating again – perhaps he'd been too hasty in dismissing its potential as a possible hiding place for his thief.
His mind made up, Alastor strapped on his knife and stepped into the pre-dawn world, the chill of it curling over his ears like the gentle touch of a lover. He tugged on a pair of gloves and set off towards the woods.
* * * * * *
He didn't understand. He was certain that there had been a heavy wooden cap on that well, but there was no sign of such a thing as he peered around the clearing. It would make sense if, perhaps, it had been blown away by a particularly strong gust of wind – even knocked aside by a stag trying to use it to scrape the velvet from his antlers. But there wasn't even a scrap of wood, not a splinter.
This well wasn't capped; it looked like it never had been.
Alastor rubbed at his temples, wondering if he might be losing his mind. If his dreams had tangled with reality. Perhaps the tannins he'd been using had been cut through with something else, some toxin or fungus, and he'd been inhaling the spores every time he worked on his hides. The morning was not quite so peaceful and idyllic as it had been the last time he was here – the sky was a dull, metallic silver, the trees around him whispering as wind ruffled their branches. A pine cone dropped to the dirt with a heavy thud, and Alastor jolted.
Ridiculous. If anyone saw him behaving in such a way, he would have earned his reputation as the village psychopath. His cheeks heated, a flush creeping over the bridge of his nose as he thought about the other townsfolk. He didn't need their approval, but he could certainly do without their open hatred.
He was about to leave – to turn around and forget this entire clearing, this well in the middle that had been abandoned for longer than he'd been alive. Far longer, judging by the age of the stones. This well that had no cap, that had never had a cap – a safety issue, but not one that was his responsibility to manage – when a glint in the grass by its base caught his eye.
Rusted and damaged, yes, but there was no denying the fact that the item he uncovered when he crouched down to get a closer look was the padlock he remembered being hooked loosely onto the cap that wasn't there. He couldn't be mad, then – if there was a lock, there had to have been something worth locking. People didn't just abandon good padlocks for no good reason in a clearing nobody seemed to want to talk about.
Because he'd asked. Of course he'd asked. He might be unpopular, but he wasn't treated as a complete leper. Scrubbed with lye soap to rid his body of the odour his profession granted him, he was at least begrudgingly welcome in the village's only tavern – though it barely deserved the name. The man who ran it brewed the ale himself, and its quality was middling at best on a good day. Still, people liked to congregate and drink and talk after a long day, and what better place than the only place where alcohol and food was readily available – if one had the coin to trade for it?
Alastor had asked Rosie whether she knew of any abandoned settlements or clearings in the woods. As the head of the post office, she was the most well-versed with their surroundings, the person best situated to get in contact with neighbouring villages. She'd scoffed at him, flapping a hand to shoo him from her table – urging him to leave, to make room for one of the travellers who'd been staying in town for the last few weeks.
He could take a hint. He'd wondered if maybe somebody older might know more – if the place had been abandoned so long ago that it had faded from memory, which was certainly not impossible. Rarely did those of the village have reason to venture into the woods, for Alastor secured their furs and their jerky, and even made a few extra coppers by preserving a lucky rabbit's foot for those who might be so inclined.
Personally, he'd never seen the point. Luck had not served the rabbit, after all.
Getting Susan talking was not difficult. Getting her to talk about anything close to relevant was the challenge, the ancient old woman squinting at him as he tried to steer her back onto the conversation at hand. She had a mug clutched in one fist, half-filled with ale that had ended up as much on Alastor as it had in her stomach when she gestured emphatically to punctuate whatever she was talking about.
Finally, something he said sparked some kind of recognition in her eyes, a glow behind the rheumy film of her cataracts.
“A well, Susan. An old one, covered with a heavy wooden cap, locked–”
She'd slammed her mug onto the table, splashing yet more ale over the sides. At that point it was a wonder there was any liquid left within the pewter. She'd narrowed her eyes at him, her wandering attention focused to needle-sharpness.
“Locked. Ain't no wells need locking, not unless... was the cap marked?” She'd asked, barking her question over the table. Alastor blinked, his mind feeling rather like a lute that'd had a string snap mid-performance. At his nonplussed look, Susan gestured at him impatiently, twisting her hand and fingers in the air as if she were sketching out a sign. “Marked, boy! Signs, sigils. Runes.”
“Not that I noticed,” Alastor had answered, wracking his mind for any memory of such a thing. He was sure he would have remembered seeing something like that written on the wooden cap – but he had been rather distracted, quite focused on tracking down whoever had been interfering with his snares. It was possible that in the early morning light of dawn, with the sun and clouds glinting pink against the horizon – he could have missed something that had been marked in the wood.
Susan had sat back in her seat, screwing up her nose and glaring at him as best she could. Her gaze was more closely locked onto his left earlobe than his face, but Alastor understood the sentiment.
“Better not have been. You'll have a world of trouble if you interfered there, boy. Mark my words. You make sure you don't go back there, alright?”
“Alright,” Alastor had answered. “You've my word.”
His word wasn't worth much, as anyone in the village would have told her if she'd bothered to ask. He skirted the perimeter of the clearing, searching for any sign of the cap that he swore had been here when he'd first stumbled upon this little mystery. It would be nice to confirm whether the markings Susan had warned him about were fanciful imaginings or actual fact, but he had no success.
Finally, he returned to stand in front of the well, hesitant to step too close. There was no winch or pulley, no bucket that might be lowered to rescue him if he managed to fall in. The bricks of its walls were stacked high – Alastor was not a short man, and they came all the way up to his sternum, so accidentally tripping into its depths was unlikely. He couldn't help but remember the nightmares that had plagued him though, and he carefully refrained from looking up at the clear circle of sky visible above the ring of trees.
The wind whispered through the trees, and he closed his eyes, trying to listen for any hint of a word in the wind; just as he did in his dreams. He couldn't have imagined it that morning, surely? The command echoed in his mind as clear as a bell, those two words imprinted into his consciousness as hot as a brand.
Come back.
“I'm back,” he murmured, feeling utterly ridiculous for speaking aloud when there was nobody to hear him. There was only a clearing in the woods and an abandoned well, probably left to crumble because the water in its depths had gotten infected. Some kind of plague, perhaps, or a toxin bubbling up from deep underground. It wouldn't be the first well to have suffered such a fate. His fingers bumped against stone, a cold tingle shooting up his arm, and Alastor opened his eyes to find that he'd somehow moved closer to the edge of the well without even realising it.
A poor choice to make, given his earlier observations about how unlikely rescue was, should the worst happen.
Despite the chill of the morning, mist still clinging to the grass as weak shafts of sunlight tried to fight their way through the clouds, he somehow felt as if the stone beneath his fingers was warm. It was difficult to tell with his gloves on, and he yanked one off, his knuckles itching where narrow scabs still lined his skin. Again, he pressed his fingers to the stone, sucking in a breath when a gentle heat met his touch.
He'd heard of natural springs in the earth, pools of water warmed by sulphurous undercurrents from the world below. Some believed them to be heated by the underworld itself, fuelled by the anger of those gods and spirits whose job it was to shepherd souls onto their next destination. Alastor had never believed in such fairy tales – though as he stood in that clearing, the world around him quieting as even the rustling of the wind died down, he could see why those kinds of beliefs had started.
His nails scraped loud against the stone, dislodging moss and dirt when he flexed his fingers. He let his weight sink into his feet, steadying himself as he leant forward to peer over the wall.
Nothing looked back at him. There was no flash of fire in the depths below, no evil cackle of unhappy spirits – not even the gentle song of a wood nymph trying to lure him to his death, if one wanted to stretch their belief that far. There was only darkness, the sun's weak rays not strong enough to reach down to this well's bottom and glint off whatever water might remain within it. It called to him, in the same way the edge of a cliff called to one walking along its edges; in the same way the fire in the blacksmith's forge dared him to test it.
Alastor sighed, mentally berating himself for his flights of fancy. He let his lids sag shut for a moment, that strange cessation of all sound still hanging over the clearing. The only thing he could hear was his own breath in his nostrils, far too loud to his ears. Something tickled the back of his neck, a brief impression of feathers wrapping around his throat as his breath hitched, and goose-flesh rose along his arms and torso, the skin under his shirt tingling.
There was no sound to be mistaken for a demand, not even the faintest shift of a leaf on the branches. Nothing that he could confuse in his mind for words spoken by an unseen voice.
His eyes shot open as he heard it.
A pleased, sinister chuckle echoing inside his skull.
~to be continued~