Chapter Seventeen

Janice hadn’t dreamt. She didn’t want to. She was scared to. For so long, her dreams had been an escape. A place where she had power. But the past several days had proven her wrong. They had only portended misery. And she determined that perhaps ignorance was indeed bliss. And maybe she never wanted to dream again.

For three days, she traveled with Lawrence and Alistair, heading northward toward Sando Drift. Alistair had insisted they go straight to the capital, and he had insisted they make the journey together.

Lawrence could not argue with his logic. Someone would need to be warned about the incoming threat and organize a response, assuming anyone would ever believe them. Janice did not argue at all. She did not care. Or rather she did not have the energy to care.

Sometimes she thought she might want to go to her sister’s, far to the west. Far away from everything that had happened. But if she did that, then she’d have to talk about it. She’d have to relive everything that had happened and confront everything she had lost.

She’d have to look her sister in the eye and tell her, dad is dead, mom is dead, our brother, at least one aunt and one cousin and who knows how many more. And even worse, what if her sister was dead as well? Janice couldn’t confront either possibility. She wanted to imagine her sister blissful in her ignorance, enjoying the fruits of her newfound wedded existence, safe from these horrors in her secluded mountain town. Distanced from everything that could sadden her or cause her harm.

Lawrence tended to the fire as usual, while Alistair gnawed on a tiny under-cooked rabbit leg. Janice sat and thought. This was the worst part of the day when she couldn’t distract herself with the distant horizon.

They camped inside a particularly deep trench of the Marius Line. Much of the hundred-mile stretch of battle encampments from the 10 Years War had been caved-in by wind and rain, overgrown by fresh plant-life that arose from the scorched earth. It was proof that even in hell, life persisted and continued on.

But here they had found a particularly intact stretch, its 10-foot high dirt walls providing an effective hiding spot from their enemies, just as it had during the war. They had not seen nor heard a peep of the undead forces that stalked the lands of Ardennes, but Janice felt them at all times.

When she had some alone time, without the prying eyes of Lawrence and Alistair, who both seemed intent on coddling her in their own distinct way, she focused her energies on meditation. She’d spent many years as a child dreaming of the spirits lost here during the war.

Now, those energies seemed to consume all around her. She felt emotions heightened, a tightness in the chest, a tingling that ran down her arm like a cold snap shivering her bones. She no longer needed dreams to commune with these spirits.

Some feared such haunted thoughts. Violent men-of-arms chopped down in the prime of life through brutal, merciless combat. But Janice always saw these spirits for what they were. She felt their sadness. Their loneliness. And now, for the first time, she felt she could truly commiserate with their loss.

And they all felt the same loss. A feeling that the whole world were only seconds away from ending. As though everything could just cease to exist in the blink of an eye.

All because a knee buckled at the wrong time, leaving your neck exposed to a downward stroke. The wind carried a cannonball two feet further to the right, missing you but exploding the body of your best friend. The person you loved most in the world sent a letter telling you to not bother returning home.

The stories were innumerable, and when Janice’s mind was calm, and she listened, they were overwhelming. And for the first time since the tragedy struck, she felt like she finally found people who understood her. People to cry with.

“So are we finally going to talk about this thing that hunts us?” Alistair asked as he tossed the meatless bone aside into the dirt.

“No.”

“No.”

Alistair scowled.

“Well, I for one am tired of running. I want to face my enemy in the eyes. Not cower in these holes like a rabbit.”

“Alistair, would you just...” Lawrence began.

“I am not prey,” Alistair shouted. “I…… am a HUNTER!”

“Just shut up,” Lawrence said with an exasperated sigh.

“I will not. And I will tell you this. Twice now I have run from this thing. And there will not be a third. Now her father knew something. He was up to something. He was conspiring. Now I am not accusing the young lady. I believe her to be honorable and pure. And out of respect for her and her loss, I have remained silent until now. But, by God,” he looked to the sky with a raised hand. “God, there is an evil in these lands. My only fear is we have brought this upon ourselves with our lascivious nature and impure acts. Now Janice, I know people. I know how to read them. Your father was hiding some fore-knowledge of this demon. A demon. I don’t know what else to call it. Yes, it is a demon, if not the devil, itself. Now, what did your father know?”

“He did…. know something.” Janice thought back to the final moments of her father’s life. The joy on his face. The pride as he ran to confront this... demon. She knew that look. She saw it the first time he witnessed her win a duel. He had that smile the day her sister was married. That look, he had it every time he conspired some new money scheme.

Her step mother was possessed, no question. But her father. As she had time to think. She knew that he was there. With all his faults, his weaknesses, the man she knew to be her father was completely there, body and soul. And he was proud of what he had done. What he had wrought.

“Tell us what you know, Janice.”

“Nothing,” she said, eyes welling. “We didn’t really talk. Not for awhile.”

Alistair threw a stick into the fire and spat into its flickering flames.

“Then you know as much as me.”

“You mentioned that twice you’ve run from it,” Lawrence said.

“Indeed. My retinue and I were returning from an ambassador mission from Leuthen. Nothing serious. Just a simple meet and greet. Let them know we’re still serious about maintaining STRICT borders. You know me as a kind, gentle soul, but in negotiations such as these, I, I can be quite the….”

“Just get on with it.”

“Yes, get on with it.”

“Yes, get on with it.”

“Did you two hear something?”

“Get on with it,” Lawrence and Janice said in unison.

“Well, we…. were attacked,” Alistair stammered. “I never saw it. I think if I had, I would not be here to tell the tale. I only saw Sir Forsyth staring into the sky. This great shining light. As though the heavens opened…. But he wasn’t smiling. He was screaming in terror. And that sound as he burned. As though a great many lightning bolts crackled inside his armor. He was my best man. My bravest.”

“You did what you had to do,” Lawrence said.

“I’ll have you know, I feel shame,” Alistair said with a pointed finger. “I…. I am ashamed.”

“Why? Like you said, you would be dead yourself if you hadn’t have run. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“The words of a coward. You sir, are a coward. But I am not. And I will live with this shame. Why, if miss Janice were not at the manor and in peril, I would have stayed behind to face my enemy. And I would have gladly died if it meant slaying that... thing.”

Lawrence grinned. “Have you ever even killed a man?”

“What does that matter?” he stammered.

“Well, have you?”

“Ya, have you?” Janice chimed in.

“Haaaaave you?”

“I have seen battle. I have. I can’t say that I’ve ever killed a man. It is likely. Probable even. I once discharged my pistol into a……. a large crowd.”

“Ohhhhhh,” Lawrence mused sarcastically with a rub of his chin. “Truly, we’re in safe hands. Nothing to worry about.”

Alistair burst to his feet. “I will not have my honor challenged! I am a knight. And a man to be feared. You will apologize, or we will settle our dispute with blades.”

“Kill him.”

“I don’t even have a sword.” Lawrence reached into his pack eliciting a flinch from Alistair who nervously pawed at the grip of his sword. But Lawrence only pulled a bottle free, uncorking its top with his teeth.

“I do,” Janice piped in.

“Kill him.”

“I will not kill him, but I will teach this drunkard a lesson.”

“Kill him.”

“Perhaps you are correct, miss Janice. This drunkard has only slowed us down thus far.”

“What are you talking about,” Janice said as she arose, sword in hand.

“I must admit, I did not expect such bloodlust from you, but it is... quite fetching.”

“Eww.”

“Ya, eww.”

“Ewwwwwwwwww.”

Alistair pulled his sword and looked about in a confused state.

“Was it not you telling me to kill him?”

“Why would I tell you to kill him. I like him a hell of a lot more than you.”

“Don’t say that,” he whimpered.

Lawrence rose to his feet, slowly, his knees swaying in a less-than-stable manner.

“I have killed men,” he muttered, holding his arms wide. “And I apologize. I did not mean to offend.”

“Oh…. well, it is good to know you recognize your betters. Even as a drunkard and a coward.” Alistair sat down, folded his arms and glowered sternly at Lawrence who bowed with a flourish of the arms. “Let’s not have this mistake again.”

“Boring,” Janice huffed, stowing her sword away and plopping back into the dirt.

“Listen, my dear, an honorable man must show some magnam……. magnanma…..”

“Magnanimity,” Janice muttered.

“Yes,” he said with a nervous laugh. “What a…. what a delight you are.”

“Kill them.”

“I,” Alistair shook his head and looked about. “I don’t like it here. These trenches reek of failure. Cowards died here. I don’t….”

“Brave men fought here.” Lawrence growled. Janice flinched at the sternness of his words. She watched the shadows of the flames flicker and dance upon his face, obscured by his straggly long and dirty hair. But she could see his eyes. The normally dark pupils shone blue in the flame light. He looked alive. It wasn’t something she’d thought about before. How empty he normally looked. Broken.

“He’s right,” Janice said. “I’ve listened to the spirits here. They were scared. Sorrowful. But they were not cowards. No one here was.”

“I was just saying…...”

“Kill them all.” Janice heard that.

The fire popped and sputtered. It sizzled as a cold breeze blew through the trench, an impossible breeze in such a deep, confined space. Janice shivered, her breathing convulsed as she felt prickles upon her shoulder.

The fire erupted, and all three fell back as sparks and ash fell upon them. The prickles grew in intensity. It felt like blades dug into her tunic, piercing the flesh beneath. And then she was pulled.

She kicked and screamed as her entire body slid through the dirt, rocks digging and slashing into her back. No one came to save her. And as her vision of both Alistair and Lawrence faded, she watched the fire flicker and die, drowning everything in darkness.

“Die. Die. Die.”

She continued to be dragged despite her struggles when a thump and a crack burst into her ears. And then darkness. Everything was dark.

Nothing but darkness.

“Wake up, girl. You ain’t dead yet.”

Janice heard the words, but they seemed to come from a mile away. The back of her head throbbed, and her limbs ached. Everything ached. She could feel the cuts in her shoulders and knew they would only feel worse in a couple hours.

“Holy hell, please tell me she’s ok,” Alistair said as he ran to her feet. Janice slowly crawled to her hands and knees, taking deep breaths, each movement causing more and more pain.

“Try not to move.”

“I’m fine.” Janice knocked away his helping hand.

“She’ll be fine,” Lawrence said taking a seat on his butt beside her. “Probably has brain damage though. It might not ever work the same.”

Janice laughed before giving up on ever rising again as she returned to laying down upon her back.

“Don’t get back down,” Alistair said. “We need to go.”

“Die. Die. Die.”

Alistair unsheathed his sword. “How do we face this enemy. Face me, fiends!” He stabbed and slashed at the night air, before inadvertently stabbing into the hard dirt rock face of the trench, the blow wrenching the sword free from his hand. “Dammit, I can’t see a thing!”

“What do we do, kid?”

“You’re asking me?”

“You’re the only one that knows about this stuff. You said you spoke with them?”

“It’s not exactly a conversation. It’s just feelings. Emotions. Sometimes memories. It used to be I had to sleep and dream these things. But now…...”

“Ya, that seems to be the way the world’s turnin. Isn’t there some way to, I don’t know, put the spirits to rest? At least calm them?”

“What?” Alistair said. “These things want to kill us. We need to destroy them. Destroy the enemy, and….”

“No, we don’t,” Janice said, rising to her elbows. “They just….. want things like everyone else.”

“What do they want?”

“Justice. But not for themselves. These are the spirits of those ashamed of how they lived their life. They seek a karmic re-balance for the harm they caused.”

“Hunger ghosts,” Lawrence whispered.

“What? You’ve both gone crazy.”

“I hate to be the one who doubts the expert here,” Lawrence said. “But these ghosts don’t seem like they’ve got a whole lot of repenting on their mind.”

“Die.”

“No, they don’t,” Alistair said as he continued to swipe and punch at the air around him.

Janice finally rose to her feet, refusing both Alistair and Lawrence’s hand to help her.

“They want forgiveness,” she said. “And they know they won’t get it.”

“Only God forgives,” Alistair said bluntly. “If you can walk, I say we get as far from these trenches as possible.”

“I mean, it’s the only…..”

“No,” Janice said flatly. “We can help.”

“How?”

“No. They had their chance. What are we even talking about here?”

“Lawrence?” Janice looked in his direction but could only see a darkened shape from where she could hear his voice. His hand reached through the darkness and gripped her bicep, one of the few places on her body that did not give her cause to wince.

“What do we need?”

“I don’t believe this.”

Alistair abruptly staggered back. Arms flailing, he tumbled to the ground with a thud and a cloud of dirt.

“Something pushed me!”

“First, we need light. Lawrence, get another fire going. I’ll check my pack. I have to at least have some sage.”

“What do I do?”

“Do you know how to pray?”

Janice couldn’t see him in the dark but heard him rustling to his feet, and she did not need to see to know he was glaring impetuously.

“I do. And I will ignore the intended slight, madame, as it was done out of haste, and…...”

She could hear him continuing to talk in the distance as she marched back toward their original campsite. The wind still blew cold through the trench, and she could feel the crunch of dirt and the snapping of twigs from the grounds above, seemingly from all directions. As though an entire battalion encircled them.

Voices carried on the wind, but she could not make out their words or intent. She did not need to though. The sparks of a burgeoning fire broke through the darkness, giving Janice much-needed vision as she rummaged through her pack.

She looked upon Lawrence, who clanked the rocks with more urgency than she’d ever seen. He battled against the wind, which seemed to blow through his efforts with intelligent intent.

“C’mon, you rat bastard. Piece of fucking shit. I fucking hate you,” he muttered.

As the fire came to life, Janice dove fully into her pack, desperate for anything that could help. Sage, salt, lavender, maybe some black tourmaline or hematite. She’d been in such a hurry fleeing her home, not much thought had been put into her packing.

Mom. That was all she could think about at the time.

And she’d left her. When would she go back?

“Nothing,” she said.

“Ummmmmmm,” Lawrence mumbled and pointed past the burgeoning flames. Janice looked up, and there was her cousin. Just standing. Silent. The blood had dried and caked on his luminescent face. His body had grown gaunt, skin wrapped tight around bones that now seemed absent of muscle. He was no longer recognizable as Kasper.

He held something wrapped in a yellow napkin.

“Foul demon!” Alistair leapt in front of her, sword drawn but pointed limply to the ground.

“No,” Janice cried, scrambling to her feet. She pushed away Alistair, who stumbled aside with ease. “He’s with me.”

She walked forward and bent down toward his outstretched hands, gently unfolding the napkin. She looked at the contents underneath and smiled.

“Thank you,” she said. “Alistair, come here.”

“Ummmm, no?”

“Be brave.”

“It’s not a matter of bravery,” he huffed, shuffling to her side. She placed a lemon in his unsteady hand.

“Cut this and spritz the juice on the ground all around us. Get this place smelling like lemons. Lawrence? Take the sage and start to burn it on the edges. Walk around the fire in a clockwise direction as you do so.”

She took the rest that remained, three small candles. As she did so, Kasper vanished as though taken by the wind.

“Friend of yours?” Lawrence asked.

“Guardian angel,” she said with a faint smile.

“How long do I have to do this?” Alistair asked. “I think the lemon’s dry.”

Janice lit each candle at the campfire and motioned for the others to follow her.

“Let’s sit in a circle. Lawrence, place the sage in the middle. Everybody take a candle.”

The smoke of the burning sage swirled all about them as the wind blew through and seemed to dance from person to person. She felt the cold air billow into her tunic, and the flame on her candle flickered and waned but refused to die amidst the wintery onslaught.

“Die. Die. Die.”

“Leeeeeave.”

“We need to speak directly to the spirits. They’re listening. They need us to help. To unburden their souls.”

“I have nothing to say,” Alistair said. “Do you even know what you’re doing?”

“Kind of. I think so.”

“I have something to say,” Lawrence said, solemnly. “I don’t really know how to start though.”

Janice nodded and with a deep sigh took thought. She didn’t know how to start either. She stared at the sage, as the fire crept along its stem and leaves like the body of a snake slowing suffocating its prey.

“Spirits of this land. Fallen soldiers. You died in unforgivable ways. You killed in unforgivable ways. But it is not all your fault.”

“You weren’t heroes,” Lawrence sputtered. “None of us were. Though we thought we were. Most of us, we were just kids, fighting for reasons we didn’t fully understand. Though we thought we did.”

Janice watched as the spirits formed in the shadows beyond their circle. Wisps of skeletal hands, talon-like nails, strings of hair blowing through the wind. White. Ethereal. Beautiful. They were a visible whisper hovering on the outskirts of their gathering.

“Be brave,” she said again to Alistair, who squirmed, a hand reaching toward his sword hilt. “They won’t hurt us.”

“None of us were innocent,” Lawrence continued. “But then none of you had a chance to be anything else. You died in place of so many who got to go on living. Some did so better than others at that. But not a single one of us still living can judge you and what you did. None of us have the right to forgive you. Only you can. You just have to.”

Janice could see the tears in Lawrence’s eyes as he spoke. The spirits swirled all about them, gaining in speed and color as orbs of blue and green light joined the tormented, cadaverous bodies of the former soldiers.

“Don’t do it for the sake of those in this world who still love you. Too many of you don’t have anyone left. Too many never did. But do it for yourselves. Find peace in the afterlife. You never had it here. This world tormented you in life. It still torments some of us. Please, stop tormenting yourself in death. Forgive yourself. FORGIVE yourself.”

“Forgive yourself,” Janice whispered.

“Forgive yourself,” Lawrence repeated.

The wind whipped through the circle at a torrential speed, as the spirits spun and spun, passing through each of their bodies. Janice breathed deep, feeling the intensely cold chill and the flood of emotions with each spectral passage in and out of her chest. She felt hate. She felt love. She felt longing. She felt regret. So much goddamn regret.

Alistair had closed his eyes, his hands knuckle white as he desperately gripped the candle. Melted wax now seeped down the hands of all three. Only Lawrence appeared calm.

He continued to repeat the phrase, and soon even Alistair joined in on their chant. “Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself.”

Screams erupted into the night air. The wind. The phantom cries. Janice thought her ears might burst. But before she reached a breaking point. Before she thought her ears, her body, her soul could take no more, it all stopped. It just stopped.

The air grew still, and the light from all three candles had blown out. Only the smoke from the still burning sage wafted through the center of their circle. Alistair opened a single eye. Only Lawrence spoke with a single tear streaming down his eye.

“I don’t know about you two, but I’m ready for bed.”

“Amen,” Alistair croaked, dropping the candle as he scrambled toward his pack and bedroll.

Janice closed her eyes. She listened to her breath as it passed through her nose and filled her lungs. She opened her eyes as she expelled the breath. Peace did not fill her heart. The pain remained. Lessened. But it remained. But for a moment, she was at least satisfied.

As she laid her head to rest, she knew sleep would quickly find her. And perhaps, she would dream again. For one night at least.

“Hey, Lawrence?”

“Ya?”

“You never told me you fought in the war.”

“I don’t really talk about it. I did tell you I was a knight. Does that mean you’ll reconsider me giving you some fencing lessons?”

“Hell no.”

“Can I teach you how to fence?”

“Shut up, Alistair.”

“Ya, shut up, Alistair.”