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Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.

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Let's get into it. The fog had a hunger of

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its own that evening. It curled around the battered sign

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for the Larkspur In, swallowing the black paint and swallowing

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the last hope foreorrainge of the sunset. My breast looked

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solid in the cold, and each step up the mossy

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flock stones crunched louder than felt possible, the kind of

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sound that if you aunt Kevil, swells up in your

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mind and convinces you not alone, even when you know

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you are. I managed to key from the manilla envelope.

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It's paper, gritty and damp from the journey stuffed in

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my back. The old iron key looked like a prop

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from a play about which is heavy ornate rust tickling

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my palm. The lock didn't want to turn, croaning once

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twice before jerking open with a metallic snap that seemed

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to echo much further than it ought. The door pushed

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and in the thick mineral scent of old stone dust

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and something faintly sweet swept over me. My first view

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inside was clutter and half light from the insecure gray

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outside the wall shadowed an indistinct I stepped forward, swallowing

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any hesitation, and dumped my duffle just to the left

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at the door. The main hole was nearly silent, some

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dick of hidden pipes, the faint static whine of ancient

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wiring above the tiled ceiling. A heap of meal sprawled

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over a narrow table Beside the stairs envelopes their coroner's curl,

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stark windows showing governments, stamps, and messy handers and addresses

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in my aunt sloping style. I barely glanced at them,

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walking further in my eyes caught on a photograph propped

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against a lamp. Margaret, younger than when I'd last seen her,

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arm curl tied around a figure. I didn't recognize. The

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two of them, half caught in laughter at the porch,

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I just stepped through. Beside it, a scoff hum like

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a flag, left behind red wool and mistakably hers displayed

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as though blown there by a rough wind, not folded

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or forgotten at all. I held the scarf up, run

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me them over. Its chewed up tassels still smelled impossibly

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like the lemon sage soap she favored. Placing it on

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minual posts. I forced myself to get a grip. This

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was just a house, I told myself, and I reminded myself.

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I'd promise Margaret one day I would return here. I

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owed her that much. As I started upstairs, my footsteps

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seemed to rouse a soft, uneven rustping somewhere below. I paused,

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straining to listen, but all that surfaced was the house's

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shallow breeding, the layer of hush that sits just up silence.

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By the time I set my bags in Margaret's my room,

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the fog had surrendered to full night. One lamp and

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another flocked weakly to life. I peered out through the

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mottled window glass, seeing nothing but my own face. Staring back.

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For a few moments, I tried to believe the inn

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was only exactly what it appeared. Four warm walls, well

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love furniture, the small triumph of having a roof over

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my head that wasn't a friend's to seuze fruit on,

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or rendered room with too thin walls. But a minute later,

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as I wandered back down stairs to hunt for the kettle,

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anothers grape touched my hearing the faintest moors transient scratching,

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maybe below the foreboards, maybe beside my feet. I pressed

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my pomp to the scuff paneling, but felt nothing except cold.

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The kitchen offered little comfort, only more still in the

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empty cupboards, remnants of tin soup, and the stark flood

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of a silent refrigerator. After poking around, I gave up

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shoot away fatigue and decided food could wait till morning.

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I found myself wandering, passing through old territory without meaning

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to the mussy loungeul the breakfast nook with its winds bench,

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finally circling back to the central entryway. There in the Dame,

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I caught my faint, ghostly reflection hovering over Margaret's scarf

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in the photograph. Again, as I studded the image, my

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mind wandered to the reason I come here, not just

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out of obligation or inheritance, but out of a hope,

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a foolish child like one, perhaps that here I might

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start something resembling the future I'd left behind, a city

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that didn't want me any more, and a relationship with

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too many cracks to fix, no matter how stubbornly I

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try to patch it. Sometimes a place can grow so

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sharp around you that it's safe to fee before it

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cuts you to nothing. I resolved to get supplies and

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meet him of a still cold this little mountain village home,

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if only to tie myself to the well beyond the inn.

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I needed faces and voices, boundaries marked by mundane routines,

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and recognizably humanize. The next morning, the fog had receded

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just far enough to reveal the disheveled trees bordering the

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gravel drive. I picked my way down the path boof

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slippery would do, and found the village by roads barely

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wide enough for two cars. The general store waited near

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the cross roads, a chip flickering sign reading Monday and Daughters,

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its window thick with aging advertisements for bread and kindling. Inside,

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a practical warmth greeted me an iron stove, faint smell

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of ease and paraffin, and shells crowded with jars for

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I goods, buckets and inch of magazines. Two women stood

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behind the counter. The older one, hair iron gray and

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coiled in a tidy knot, sized me up as I entered.

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Her companion, probably around my age, offered a brisk knot

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good morning. I managed, setting my list down. I've just

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arrived at the locksbury in the exchanged to look quick

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but not unfriendly. Margaret's niece argue. The older woman asked,

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not quite smiling. Her accent drew the words out middle

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vowels buried under centres of mountain speech. That's right, Lee Addison.

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The younger woman ride my items through tea bags, bread candles,

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and a battered coil of rope without comment, but glanced

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my way as she searched for change. When will they

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inn reopen? That caught me off balance, though I tried

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not to show it. Not sure, I'm not decided yet.

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It's been closed since Margaret, since my aunt passed, hasn't it.

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The older woman nodded, lips thinning, shame about Margaret, good woman,

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Some houses the best left to rest, though she added,

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almost to herself. She shuffled my groceries into a waxed

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paper bag. Some say the larks wass got its own mood.

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Margaret had trouble the last winter, or toothed, her voice

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trailed off. The girl frowned but said nothing. They hesitated,

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exchanging another glance, this time uncertain, as if they crossed

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some invisible line. The old old woman finally looked up,

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faced cautiously kind. If you need anything, dear, just say names. Annesley,

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don't mind if frook seemed brisk outside, hers never stay long,

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not since she stopped again, the silence suggested an unfinished sentence.

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I wasn't welcome to finish for her. I paid and left,

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with the mixture of gratitude eneknease, trotting back through the

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slick morning to the inn. There was nothing overtly menacing,

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not yet, but the conversations felt rehearsed, the air of

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a village, keeping certain doors closed back inside with provisions

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tucked away, I woke the holes again, my boots scuffing

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over a scuffer on her rugs and cracked tiles. The

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main lounge, even with sunlight, felt too cold, though the

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chimney stood tall and broad above the mantle. I tested

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the damber, rearranged kin ling, and after three frustrating attempts,

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finally coaxed a weak flame from old locks. As I paced,

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I tried to recall where everything had been in my childhood.

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Margaret's lamp ere her collection of al figurines. There, the

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bat at green arm chair, where she'd read my fortune

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from a deck of carts. The air was colder now

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than I ever remembered, like something had shifted indelibly since

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my last visit upstairs. I checked the bedrooms. Most were bearages,

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spase bears, and dust motes, the faint shadow of long

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gone guests in the throat bear quilts. My own old

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room had a shelf lined with children's books, their covers

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modeled by age neglect. And half way up the staircase,

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right where I used to leave it, lay my stuff bare.

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One button eye ere newly severed from the head. I

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had left it here when I was twelve, and Margaret

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had promised to keep it safe from me. I scooped

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it up, surprised at how the fabric scene cool and

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strangely damp. The hallway beyond grew colder as I moved,

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icy plumes trailing my breath. I tested every radiator, finding

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them all cold and inert. In Margaret's room, the fireplace

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offered my only hope. As I arranged the firewood, I

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noticed the singular key, ringed in black tarnish, hung on

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a nail side her dresser. It fit the lock trunk

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at the foot of her bed. Hindus squealing as I

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lifted the lead. Beneath stacks of netting, I discovered what

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looked like old journals, the covers marked with heavy, inky strokes,

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crooked constellations, tall circles, words etched in herds. Gripped the

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veilless thinness at night guard the threshoulder, I brushed dust

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from a cluster of pages. The journals were dense with

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scrawled notes, observations about boundary places, what must have been

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weather records, and sketches of odd symbols had twisted branched

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wise shape mirrored in my antscafful draft. Again and again,

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the day faded, bringing early darkness. I moved about, trying

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to warm the other rooms, but nothing seemed to take.

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At one point I crossed into the kitchen to fetch

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an if, only to find the pantry door wide open.

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When I was certain I had left to chat, I

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closed it, bracing a heavy chair against the latch. Someone's joke,

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I told myself, Except who there was only me here?

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That night, sleep circled but didn't settle. I fought off

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the strange shills with every cold I could ground from

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the cob of linen closet, but the feeling only thickened

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cold radiating from the walls, itching at my skin. I

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lay awake, convincing myself there was no pattern to the sounds,

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just an old house, suggesting some animal beneath the floor boards,

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the wind funnel between rage and roof beam. But the

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scratching did not follow the mindless rhythm of an animal.

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It started and stopped, dancing behind the lath and stone.

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I would close my eyes, and then in a moment,

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in the thin edge of sleep, the soft tap tap

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tap would return, as if testing the walls for wheat points.

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I counted the beats, convinced myself nothing would happen if

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I just stayed very, very still. Morning brought with it

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a low haze, as if the sun, like the villagers,

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was unwilling to cross the threshold entirely. I forced myself

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into pattern's weeping, dusting, mending leaks, anything to ground myself

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in tasks with beginnings and ends. My first mission was

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to tend to the main fireplace. I shuddled cinders into

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a steel bocket. But when I returned to the lounge,

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the fire would i'd fetch had vanished, as though spirited

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away in a brief moment, had stepped out in its place.

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A bundle of damp sprouting twigs sat on the hearth.

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The sense of emptiness intensified, not just a lack of people,

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but a lack of prisons, as if the rooms were

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bleeding away whatever warmth they held for more Margaret. That afternoon,

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the bell at the front door startled me out of

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a days. An older man with the basket of apples

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he left us in the steps, offered a hurried greeting,

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and walked off without accepting a single word of thanks.

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A while later I saw him through the front window,

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trudging down the driver with his collar up in his

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dog press close his glance, never once returning toward the house.

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I made the best at the food he'd left. When

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I took the remains of the corps outside to the

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com hose teep, muddy prince caught my eye in a

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faint light. Not the neet ocks left by deer or raccoon.

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These were heavy, wide, clearly made by boots. I knelt,

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pressing a hand beside them for size. They faced toward

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the back entrance leading to the cellar's latch doors. I swallowed,

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scowning for neighbors or passing hikers, but the woods were

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empty and utterly still, animal tracks, I told myself, but

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the patterned infit. The cellar door was drawn tight with

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a rusty padlock, same as always. Still. I checked every

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window twice before nightfall. As dusk fell, the house drew

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back inside itself, shadows lengthening, corners thickening with gloom. The

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scratching returned, now joined by a faint dan thumping, almost inaudible,

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beneath the mammur of wind and rain knocking at the

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glass banes. I paced to the dining room, comforted for

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a moment by the starter of my own reflection in

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the ancient side board mirror. Then I noticed, beneath the

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faded floral curtain, the wall was marred, a rough gouge

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running up from the floor, about three inches long, dark

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beneath the wallpaper, the edges flaked out, jagged, as though

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claud or scraped. I tore back the curtain for a

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closer look. Nothing about the damage, said settling o mouse.

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Not With the paper hanging in strips and fresh plaster

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dust flecking the baseboard like pelsner, I pressed my finger

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tips into the groove and jerked back at the cold,

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colder than the rest of the room, an icy core

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that throbbed with my racing pulse. The darkness came thick

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and early again. I bolted the doors tightly and try

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as best I could to sleep. My dreams were splintered.

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Fivted a candle that stucky, spiraling down, objects flickering in

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and out of focus at the edges. At the bend

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of the stairs, a tall figure masked, chanting in a

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ton I instinctively mistrusted. The voice sharpened into Margaret's saying

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words I almost understood, but not quite, the syllables, and

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spooling like ropes around my chest. I woke sweat up

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that she twined round me. In that instant. The scratching

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reverse mirrored my heartbeak, softer but unmistakable, coming from behind

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00:11:07,559 --> 00:11:10,679
the baseboard. Had it always been there? Or was it

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00:11:10,799 --> 00:11:12,960
only once I'd quieted every other noise that had found

235
00:11:13,000 --> 00:11:15,879
away in When sunlight finally won against the gray, I

236
00:11:15,960 --> 00:11:19,279
woke the village again, Now searching for information. I nodded

237
00:11:19,320 --> 00:11:21,240
at folks near the market. Most met my eyes, but

238
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only briefly. Some offered the insulated politeness of people who

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00:11:24,519 --> 00:11:26,879
long ago resolved not to know their neighbors too deeply.

240
00:11:27,399 --> 00:11:29,399
I stopped at the little post office, handing over a

241
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few of Margaret's letters to forward. As I waited, two

242
00:11:32,519 --> 00:11:34,639
men by the sorting room bounded in low whispers, their

243
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voices turning flat. As I entered, I half caught a

244
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phrase the ritual, and then the silence as they noticed me,

245
00:11:40,519 --> 00:11:44,000
matching expressions of awkwardness and worry. I paid and left

246
00:11:44,080 --> 00:11:47,840
my errand unfinished. Walking back, I followed a winding path

247
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around the village edge. An accidental deter brought me to

248
00:11:50,960 --> 00:11:54,360
a neglected hillock. Brambles concealed an ultrine, a slab of

249
00:11:54,399 --> 00:11:58,519
mossy rock like a needin, and half submerged. I knelt, curiosity,

250
00:11:58,559 --> 00:12:01,559
overcoming nerves, and push brush aside to uncover a shallow carving,

251
00:12:01,759 --> 00:12:04,480
maybe six inches across the same symbol from Margaret's journal

252
00:12:04,480 --> 00:12:06,919
of the Wye branch joined at the base with two

253
00:12:06,919 --> 00:12:10,279
crescent circling either side, something tight and lead. And clenched

254
00:12:10,279 --> 00:12:13,159
my gut. I hurried home, clutching the finding like a

255
00:12:13,200 --> 00:12:15,200
secret in my fist, and clean furiously. For an hour

256
00:12:15,240 --> 00:12:17,480
of scrubbing out, Floorda never seemed to lose its grit.

257
00:12:18,159 --> 00:12:20,759
The villagers aloftness stuck with me. The warning from missus

258
00:12:20,759 --> 00:12:23,360
Annesley at the store echoed with the new edge. Some

259
00:12:23,519 --> 00:12:25,759
houses are best left to rest. What did she meant

260
00:12:25,799 --> 00:12:29,799
by that? Was it simply grief or something older? That night,

261
00:12:29,879 --> 00:12:32,759
I glanced over my notes and listened. Realized uneasily that

262
00:12:32,799 --> 00:12:35,840
things weren't lining up. Surely I'd written that I locked

263
00:12:35,840 --> 00:12:37,679
the front door before going out, yet the bolt was

264
00:12:37,720 --> 00:12:40,399
open when I stepped in. My mental check is swabbled

265
00:12:40,399 --> 00:12:43,320
in memory. I stood in the parlor, anxious, and scribbled

266
00:12:43,320 --> 00:12:45,919
a quick note for tomorrow. In the morning, the skull

267
00:12:45,960 --> 00:12:49,200
looked faintly different, this slant off center. I shook myself

268
00:12:49,200 --> 00:12:52,600
and turned to Margaret's journals. Againe under the uncertain yellow

269
00:12:52,600 --> 00:12:55,120
of a bedside lamp, her handwriting scene to tremble and flare,

270
00:12:55,120 --> 00:12:58,039
as if written in haste or fear more. Passages darted

271
00:12:58,039 --> 00:13:00,759
between weather records and receipts. The tapping grips rose every night.

272
00:13:01,399 --> 00:13:03,919
I fear the old promise will be broken soon. If

273
00:13:03,960 --> 00:13:07,240
anyone finds this. There in one brittle entry was my

274
00:13:07,279 --> 00:13:10,080
own name Lee. If you ever come back, do not

275
00:13:10,120 --> 00:13:13,200
trust the mirrors off dusk. Do not open the west door.

276
00:13:13,799 --> 00:13:16,320
Above all, do not light the black candle. It is

277
00:13:16,360 --> 00:13:19,399
not what it seems. The words crawled under my skin.

278
00:13:20,080 --> 00:13:22,320
That night, I left every mire covered with bed sheets,

279
00:13:22,360 --> 00:13:24,759
my heart pounding each time I passed a sliver of glass.

280
00:13:25,399 --> 00:13:27,759
The scratching searched from the walls so loud. At one

281
00:13:27,759 --> 00:13:31,000
point I pressed my palm over my ears, desperate for quiet.

282
00:13:31,519 --> 00:13:34,279
Early morning blurred into us a real half dream. I

283
00:13:34,399 --> 00:13:36,559
was half way down the stairs, journals pressed to my

284
00:13:36,639 --> 00:13:39,080
chest when I spotted in a mirrored hall wisconce a

285
00:13:39,120 --> 00:13:41,960
person shaped blur at the far end, block against a

286
00:13:42,000 --> 00:13:46,039
deeper black indistinct and shifting. My throat clamped tight. But

287
00:13:46,120 --> 00:13:49,200
when I turned nothing the air hunt almost sang with

288
00:13:49,279 --> 00:13:52,960
a charged silence. Left behind, I started searching, frantic for

289
00:13:53,039 --> 00:13:56,360
explanations that made sense. In the attic. Amid the piles

290
00:13:56,360 --> 00:13:58,840
of Matheian curtains and trunks of account books, I found

291
00:13:58,879 --> 00:14:01,360
Oddmond's margaret must have hit, and wax candles tucked into

292
00:14:01,399 --> 00:14:04,440
holes behind beams, a chipknife that looks horremonial as point broken,

293
00:14:04,440 --> 00:14:06,159
but its blades stained darker at the tip, and a

294
00:14:06,159 --> 00:14:09,440
handful of strange nubby clay figurines, each painted with loops

295
00:14:09,440 --> 00:14:11,919
and lines. Like the cymbals in the journals, A piece

296
00:14:11,960 --> 00:14:14,799
of fabric Margaret's unmistakable was not of round. One candle

297
00:14:14,799 --> 00:14:16,480
with a tag. Do not let the flame go out

298
00:14:16,480 --> 00:14:18,720
before dawn. As I rotated the objects in my hand,

299
00:14:18,799 --> 00:14:20,879
a memory roars, mbidden and so out of place. I

300
00:14:20,919 --> 00:14:23,919
nearly laughed to bonfire once Margaret's arms around my shoulders,

301
00:14:23,960 --> 00:14:26,279
seeing its dusk sweat the yard, my child's mind full

302
00:14:26,279 --> 00:14:29,360
of shadows, made safe by her presence, That comfort fell

303
00:14:29,399 --> 00:14:32,720
far away now. The last journal entry, dated March nineteen,

304
00:14:32,759 --> 00:14:34,840
the Knight of Margaret's death, thread simply I fear I

305
00:14:34,919 --> 00:14:38,200
failed the boundaries week then later squeezed between frantic Penmarck's

306
00:14:38,240 --> 00:14:40,440
If you find this, do not light the black candle.

307
00:14:41,000 --> 00:14:43,279
The sharp snap of fire was splitting below reminded me

308
00:14:43,320 --> 00:14:46,720
I'd left the lunch hearth burning in a rush, hot pounding,

309
00:14:46,799 --> 00:14:50,080
I hurried down. The flames had shrunked, smaller, orangey light

310
00:14:50,120 --> 00:14:53,399
flickering over the tails. Among the ash logs in the grate,

311
00:14:53,440 --> 00:14:56,279
a candle had melted. Thick air, black edged with wax,

312
00:14:56,320 --> 00:14:58,519
puddled and spread in a way that looked almost intentional.

313
00:14:59,120 --> 00:15:01,759
The arab of the hot wist rank a minutely sulfurous,

314
00:15:01,759 --> 00:15:04,639
a bitter scent that didn't belong. I gathered the pieces,

315
00:15:04,679 --> 00:15:08,240
extinguished the last ember with water. My fingers prickled anxious

316
00:15:08,279 --> 00:15:09,840
as I wrapped the remains in an old towel and

317
00:15:09,840 --> 00:15:12,679
tossed them outside to the compost. Only as I shut

318
00:15:12,720 --> 00:15:14,360
the door did I realize how late it was, only

319
00:15:14,399 --> 00:15:16,919
a few minutes to midnight. My watch as second hand,

320
00:15:16,919 --> 00:15:19,240
staggered and stopped, as if incertain it wanted to move

321
00:15:19,279 --> 00:15:22,000
forward at all. Sleep was elusive, the vision of the

322
00:15:22,000 --> 00:15:25,440
bramble shrine in Margaret's warnings following me into every feverish doors.

323
00:15:26,120 --> 00:15:28,600
The fog grew thick again outside, until it pressed against

324
00:15:28,600 --> 00:15:31,159
the glass with the weight of water, muffling every noise

325
00:15:31,200 --> 00:15:33,720
from the village beyond. It was as if the house

326
00:15:33,799 --> 00:15:36,440
lay at the bottom of a slow rolling sea. A

327
00:15:36,480 --> 00:15:39,000
sharup frantic knocking, and my front door startled minard on.

328
00:15:39,639 --> 00:15:42,159
I jerked upright, pausing for any sound, but the loud.

329
00:15:42,200 --> 00:15:44,720
I hadn't dreamed that echo in my chest Through the

330
00:15:44,720 --> 00:15:47,480
warped glass. Miss s Annes's face snapped into view, pale,

331
00:15:47,600 --> 00:15:50,000
her hair askeue, eyes wide and wild. In a harsh

332
00:15:50,000 --> 00:15:51,960
porch bulb that seemed to be swallowed by the fog

333
00:15:52,039 --> 00:15:54,679
even a few feet away. She pressed her pomp flat

334
00:15:54,679 --> 00:15:57,120
to the door. You have to leave, she hissed, between

335
00:15:57,200 --> 00:16:00,600
ragged breaths. Now, Lee, they were awake. It's awake. You

336
00:16:00,600 --> 00:16:04,240
don't understand, You're not safe. Not hearer. I stared, frown

337
00:16:04,320 --> 00:16:06,919
by the volume and the terror in her voice. What

338
00:16:06,919 --> 00:16:10,159
what's awake? But missus Annesley only shook her head, looking

339
00:16:10,200 --> 00:16:12,679
past me to the depths of the inn. Don't stay,

340
00:16:12,759 --> 00:16:15,000
do you hear me? No one stays now, not even

341
00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:18,360
the debt. Please for your own sake. Then, almost as

342
00:16:18,399 --> 00:16:21,120
suddenly as she arrived, she rushed off, boots, splashing through

343
00:16:21,159 --> 00:16:23,840
puddles that weren't there the day before. The fog sucked

344
00:16:23,840 --> 00:16:25,559
her away until she was little more than a streak

345
00:16:25,600 --> 00:16:28,879
of motion in the gray. Behind me, the walls reverberated,

346
00:16:28,919 --> 00:16:31,759
not just with scratching, but pounding, now deep and insistent,

347
00:16:31,840 --> 00:16:34,759
a rhythm like something massive beating at the boundary between worlds.

348
00:16:35,480 --> 00:16:38,080
In the whole mirror, words was crawled, reversed and streaked

349
00:16:38,080 --> 00:16:42,320
with moisture. Not enough, not yet, I spun, gasping hard,

350
00:16:42,320 --> 00:16:45,360
a trap burden my chest. Each direction I face seemed

351
00:16:45,360 --> 00:16:47,240
to shift and blow. I was stepped forward, only to

352
00:16:47,240 --> 00:16:49,320
find myself one room further than I meant to be do,

353
00:16:49,360 --> 00:16:53,120
always whipping and lengthening, Impossibly drawn toward the noise, I

354
00:16:53,159 --> 00:16:55,960
gathered the richual items almost without thinking, clutching the broken

355
00:16:56,039 --> 00:16:58,559
dagger journal and half burned candle to my chest as

356
00:16:58,600 --> 00:17:01,879
I moved, compelled towards the source. The pounding led me

357
00:17:01,919 --> 00:17:04,880
down the kitchen steps, flashlight trembling in my hand, bass

358
00:17:04,880 --> 00:17:07,240
boxes of canned goods, and the cold, earth floored cellar

359
00:17:07,279 --> 00:17:10,400
with the stone wall's pooled moisture year round, the sun grew,

360
00:17:10,440 --> 00:17:12,720
swelling and with it a spreading chill that sunk into

361
00:17:12,720 --> 00:17:15,480
my bones. At the far end of the cellar, behind

362
00:17:15,480 --> 00:17:18,119
shelves of rusted tools and jars, stood a bricked off alcove.

363
00:17:18,759 --> 00:17:20,599
It had always struck me as ot a wall within

364
00:17:20,640 --> 00:17:23,200
a wall, bricks mismatched and morter, newer thin the building's

365
00:17:23,240 --> 00:17:26,160
other bones. The bounding now shook us from the ceiling

366
00:17:26,640 --> 00:17:29,039
and on the brick surface, crack spider to the net first,

367
00:17:29,039 --> 00:17:33,279
then too, wide bleeding blackness, not just shadow, something pressing out, hunger,

368
00:17:33,319 --> 00:17:36,240
distorting the stone, trying to find the weakness The air

369
00:17:36,319 --> 00:17:39,759
was thick, almost vibrating, filled with voices whispering, not foreign

370
00:17:39,799 --> 00:17:42,519
but familiar, snatches of Margaret's voice in my own, strung

371
00:17:42,519 --> 00:17:46,160
together with words I'd never said. I stumbled backward, flashlight

372
00:17:46,200 --> 00:17:50,319
beam wavering. The boundaries here, I realized had always been fragile.

373
00:17:50,799 --> 00:17:52,920
Margaret had tried to keep what heaver lay within knse

374
00:17:52,960 --> 00:17:55,920
walls contained. Maybe the burning candle had been the last

375
00:17:55,960 --> 00:17:58,319
link in the chain, and I, by failing to understand,

376
00:17:58,480 --> 00:18:02,000
hadn't done what little protection remained around me. In every

377
00:18:02,000 --> 00:18:04,559
crack and shire, the fog pressed deepest swhirling now not

378
00:18:04,640 --> 00:18:08,119
just outside but inside, snaking along the baseboarts and in

379
00:18:08,160 --> 00:18:10,519
its depths, A caught for the first time the gleam

380
00:18:10,519 --> 00:18:14,480
of eyes. I could not move, not forward, not back.

381
00:18:15,079 --> 00:18:19,079
The pounding rose to shifted on ancient beams Above the

382
00:18:19,119 --> 00:18:22,640
black cracks widened, something pushing through with a desperate, hollow strength.

383
00:18:23,319 --> 00:18:25,960
At night, the dupe, the interloper, the girl who wanted

384
00:18:26,039 --> 00:18:28,319
so foolishly to begin again, stood at the threshoulder. As

385
00:18:28,319 --> 00:18:31,960
the chains began to break. I was alone, For at least,

386
00:18:32,079 --> 00:18:34,240
I was the last thing standing between the thing behind

387
00:18:34,240 --> 00:18:36,559
the wall and the rest of the waking world, the

388
00:18:36,640 --> 00:18:39,039
house half mad with cold and grief, bent beneath the

389
00:18:39,039 --> 00:18:41,960
weight of something ancient and hungry, and I sensed, deep

390
00:18:41,960 --> 00:18:44,079
in my marrow that the true Knight had only just begun.

391
00:18:44,720 --> 00:18:46,759
My feet slid backward on the earthen floor, the beam

392
00:18:46,759 --> 00:18:48,960
of my flask fight chasing after its own trembling shadow,

393
00:18:49,000 --> 00:18:51,319
as the pounding from behind the bricks turned almost wet,

394
00:18:51,400 --> 00:18:53,359
as if something was cawing at the stones with more

395
00:18:53,359 --> 00:18:56,920
than nails claws. I didn't want to imagine the voice

396
00:18:57,000 --> 00:18:59,319
ringing in my head now. It splinters of Margaret's cadence,

397
00:18:59,359 --> 00:19:01,640
fragments of how I sung lullabies, but looped through. It

398
00:19:01,680 --> 00:19:03,839
was my own voice, low and strange, ferretting sentences I

399
00:19:03,839 --> 00:19:06,799
had never spoken. Fog trickled along the scenes where floor

400
00:19:06,880 --> 00:19:09,119
met wall, swirling in line with tendrils, as if drawn

401
00:19:09,160 --> 00:19:11,759
by a slow breath from deeper in the earth. I watched,

402
00:19:11,759 --> 00:19:14,920
helpless as cruxwoiden. A thin line of inky moisture seep

403
00:19:14,920 --> 00:19:18,079
from the bricks, slick and viscous. My hand clutching the

404
00:19:18,079 --> 00:19:22,799
broken dagger felt numb. Somewhere above, a door slammed. I flinched,

405
00:19:22,799 --> 00:19:24,599
the sound, shaking me loose enough to take a single

406
00:19:24,640 --> 00:19:27,079
step backward. But the fog behind me cult dense now,

407
00:19:27,160 --> 00:19:29,440
and when I spawned, the stairs seemed impossibly far. The

408
00:19:29,440 --> 00:19:32,200
way you collapsed into a blur of shadowed distance. The

409
00:19:32,240 --> 00:19:35,440
cellar wall shuddered. There was a sharp physostatic in my ears,

410
00:19:35,480 --> 00:19:38,000
then a voice, then a near lee, Lee, don't answer.

411
00:19:38,519 --> 00:19:41,400
The voice definitely margarets, ragged with warning, drifted not from

412
00:19:41,440 --> 00:19:44,559
behind the wall, but bafflingly from inside my own chest.

413
00:19:45,240 --> 00:19:47,160
I pressed my back to the damp stones, sharp de

414
00:19:47,160 --> 00:19:50,720
bribiting through my coat. Every urge creamed for escape. Instead,

415
00:19:50,880 --> 00:19:53,480
my mind clawed for anything I could do, recalling the

416
00:19:53,559 --> 00:19:55,599
journal's InCD warnings of the veil as thinnest at night.

417
00:19:55,640 --> 00:19:57,720
A circle must not be broken. I scrambled to fish

418
00:19:57,759 --> 00:19:59,680
the piece of chalk had taken from the upstairs basket

419
00:19:59,720 --> 00:20:02,799
out of my pocket. My breath heaved, ghosting white. I

420
00:20:02,880 --> 00:20:05,839
circled in place, knees buckling, and with shaking fingers, began

421
00:20:05,880 --> 00:20:07,519
to scroll one of the white shaped figures on to

422
00:20:07,599 --> 00:20:10,559
the ground before the brick duck of my first line wobble,

423
00:20:10,640 --> 00:20:13,599
chalk splintering beneath my grip from the black gap, I

424
00:20:13,640 --> 00:20:16,039
whisper threaded into something almost like a word, a syllable

425
00:20:16,039 --> 00:20:19,480
press against flesh. My teeth ached as my hands worked faster,

426
00:20:19,640 --> 00:20:22,519
looping the crescents, closing the circle again and again. The

427
00:20:22,559 --> 00:20:25,160
pounding faltered as my last chalk line closed, and for

428
00:20:25,200 --> 00:20:27,440
a heartbeat out of silence, drop up like a stone.

429
00:20:27,880 --> 00:20:30,359
The next instant, something struck out from inside the brick

430
00:20:30,400 --> 00:20:33,759
wall of how definite blow knuckles or something that wanted

431
00:20:33,759 --> 00:20:36,799
to mimic knuckles mortar has shivered onto my face. The

432
00:20:36,839 --> 00:20:39,880
gap in the brooks gaped black and slick. The voice warped,

433
00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:42,519
slipping between Margaret and my own voice again, but lowered

434
00:20:42,559 --> 00:20:45,000
now and strained. You can't close it alone. The candle,

435
00:20:45,039 --> 00:20:47,880
the boundary. I jerk my head, scounting the dark for

436
00:20:47,880 --> 00:20:49,799
the piece of blackened candle I tossed in my pocket

437
00:20:49,799 --> 00:20:52,920
in my panic. Reflexively, I placed it just outside my

438
00:20:52,960 --> 00:20:55,680
new chalk circle. Then, despite a rising sense of rowness,

439
00:20:55,720 --> 00:20:58,680
thicked my lighter. The flame caught slow and sullen blue,

440
00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:00,799
and the air at once seemed to flatter, suddenly thick

441
00:21:00,839 --> 00:21:03,799
and solid as stone. In that locked instant, the whispers

442
00:21:03,799 --> 00:21:06,640
pulled away from words to become high keening pressure, vibriting

443
00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:10,160
just behind my eyes. The fog sat backward, coiling into

444
00:21:10,160 --> 00:21:13,000
the cracks as though sucked by a tide. The pounding

445
00:21:13,079 --> 00:21:16,480
pause for a moment, nothing move except the candle's tiny

446
00:21:16,559 --> 00:21:19,480
oily flame. Cold swap my buns shop. We are now

447
00:21:19,599 --> 00:21:22,599
almost surgical in his shell. The memory of Margaret's arms

448
00:21:22,680 --> 00:21:24,720
ran my shoulders. Summer time, the earthic with the scent

449
00:21:24,720 --> 00:21:27,079
of cut grass are singing washed over me, so forcibly,

450
00:21:27,119 --> 00:21:30,640
a stagger falling to my knees. Another memory, not from

451
00:21:30,640 --> 00:21:33,079
my own mind, a young Margaret digging with trembling hands

452
00:21:33,119 --> 00:21:35,079
in wet earth, burying something in a wooden box, just

453
00:21:35,079 --> 00:21:37,720
outside the same bricocco of her lets moving in frantic prayer.

454
00:21:38,240 --> 00:21:40,400
As quickly as it came, the image went, leaving a

455
00:21:40,400 --> 00:21:43,400
hollow ache grief, cut with terror. I forced my stiff

456
00:21:43,480 --> 00:21:45,759
legs to move, My fingers pried the chalk's doub blues,

457
00:21:46,160 --> 00:21:48,559
and I drew another figure, this one awkward and huge,

458
00:21:48,759 --> 00:21:51,759
just as I'd seen in her most frantic sketches. That's

459
00:21:51,759 --> 00:21:54,279
when the temperature plummeted, it breath frosting before my lips

460
00:21:54,279 --> 00:21:57,000
in the thick, dark air from deep within the wall.

461
00:21:57,119 --> 00:21:59,799
I faint rhythmic thud began, as if something vast, impatient

462
00:21:59,799 --> 00:22:02,880
press to spolke into an endless pattern. The voice, now

463
00:22:02,920 --> 00:22:05,799
no voice at all, slithered up my spine, hungry, always hungry,

464
00:22:05,880 --> 00:22:07,920
let us out, let us in in it. My hands

465
00:22:07,920 --> 00:22:11,759
spasmed around the dagger's hilt. Nail scraped the mortar somewhere unscene.

466
00:22:12,240 --> 00:22:15,400
Thus sifted subtly across the circle I'd made. Not yet,

467
00:22:15,440 --> 00:22:18,200
I croaked, echoing the words from the mirror, you are

468
00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:21,519
not getting out. My own voice sounded paper thin and foolish.

469
00:22:21,559 --> 00:22:23,319
I was talking to the very thing. Every piece of

470
00:22:23,319 --> 00:22:26,359
this house's history was designed to contain a blinding, white,

471
00:22:26,400 --> 00:22:29,920
crackling race from my left shoulder to major static memory cold.

472
00:22:30,319 --> 00:22:32,440
The flame gout of sideways, and in that flicker, the

473
00:22:32,480 --> 00:22:34,559
shape in the blackest behind the bricks pressed forward with

474
00:22:34,599 --> 00:22:37,640
renewed force. Two points of reflected fire. Twin Ember's wet

475
00:22:37,680 --> 00:22:40,920
would need a form swelled, filling the widening hole with

476
00:22:40,960 --> 00:22:44,920
bottomless shadow. The champ rows were less straining, writhing. The

477
00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:48,559
circle held, the whispering built further. Now layers voices not

478
00:22:48,759 --> 00:22:50,920
just of myself and Margaret, but voices I felt must

479
00:22:50,920 --> 00:22:53,240
be every woman in our blood line, stretching back, each

480
00:22:53,279 --> 00:22:55,799
bearing a shape of my face, each ringing hollow with

481
00:22:55,839 --> 00:23:00,680
exhaustion and fury. Then the pounding stopped, sudden quiet, so absolute,

482
00:23:00,680 --> 00:23:03,160
my own heartbeat sounded like a drum. For a beat,

483
00:23:03,240 --> 00:23:06,240
the world itself seemed to pause. A soft trickle of

484
00:23:06,240 --> 00:23:08,279
mortar slough to the floor, and in it spass. I

485
00:23:08,319 --> 00:23:10,799
heard a different sound stairs above, creaking under someone's weight.

486
00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:14,559
I froze every hair along my arms, standing prickly and raw.

487
00:23:15,160 --> 00:23:19,279
Another living person, a villager Annesley, come back from me,

488
00:23:20,079 --> 00:23:22,039
or was at the house, shifting in sympathy with the

489
00:23:22,039 --> 00:23:26,119
fog plea. It was a whisper, fragile, and not quite ray.

490
00:23:26,759 --> 00:23:28,839
I wanted to believe it was Annesley, but something in

491
00:23:28,880 --> 00:23:31,559
the tone echoed. The voice from the mirror flat, slightly blurred.

492
00:23:31,599 --> 00:23:34,720
Every vewl guttered at the edge. Who was there? My

493
00:23:34,799 --> 00:23:36,920
voice was barely about a choke. The coal filled my

494
00:23:37,039 --> 00:23:40,240
lungs like water, foots that patched above, moving along the

495
00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:42,839
hole toward the kitchen. A shape flickered at the base

496
00:23:42,880 --> 00:23:45,200
of the stairs, a silhouette just beyond the reach of

497
00:23:45,240 --> 00:23:48,279
my candle. In distinct and listing the circle's heat pressed

498
00:23:48,319 --> 00:23:50,720
against my skin, pushing me to stay within its perimeter.

499
00:23:51,359 --> 00:23:53,920
The silhouette stopped outside the open cellar door. A soft

500
00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:56,880
shuffling sound, then a cold one tumbled in. The fog

501
00:23:56,920 --> 00:24:00,519
swirled again, drifting between the upper steps. The voice with

502
00:24:00,519 --> 00:24:03,079
it almost playful. Now come away, lee, leave that thing.

503
00:24:03,599 --> 00:24:06,720
I gripped the dagger tier until my knuckles ached. Show

504
00:24:06,799 --> 00:24:09,960
yourself a snarl, furious teeth rattling together in my cold,

505
00:24:10,039 --> 00:24:13,079
numb mouth. There was a beat of silence when the

506
00:24:13,119 --> 00:24:15,279
figure moved. At last, I saw, for just an instant,

507
00:24:15,279 --> 00:24:18,920
a face glimmering with the suggestion of Margaret's features, but strange, slick,

508
00:24:18,920 --> 00:24:22,440
with an unnatural sheen. The eyes, though, were wrong, deep pits,

509
00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:25,200
stillness within stillness, reflecting the dull blow of the candle.

510
00:24:25,839 --> 00:24:28,160
Finish what she started, though not quite. Margaret pleaded for

511
00:24:28,319 --> 00:24:31,839
swelling above the cellars. I see hash before it's too late.

512
00:24:32,519 --> 00:24:35,440
A vibration rippled through the concrete below me, a low resinance,

513
00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:38,119
like a groan from deep underground. The thing behind a

514
00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:41,559
wall pressed again, restless, and small flakes of stone tumbled free.

515
00:24:42,039 --> 00:24:44,720
I don't know how what did she do? I asked,

516
00:24:44,799 --> 00:24:48,920
desperate voice, cracking along. It seems sacrifice, the specter answered,

517
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:52,000
too quick. In the next breath, the draft changed, sweet

518
00:24:52,000 --> 00:24:54,720
and rotting, almost as if the house itself exhaled. I

519
00:24:54,759 --> 00:24:57,400
saw out of the corner of my vision more symbols

520
00:24:57,559 --> 00:24:59,960
lying scratched into the stonework by hands or claws or bow.

521
00:25:00,759 --> 00:25:03,720
I've completed circles hastily, clothes, all radiating up from this

522
00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:07,000
very room. Don't trust it. Another voice interceded, this one

523
00:25:07,039 --> 00:25:10,480
definitely Margaret, faint but fier, sir. Somewhere inside my own ears,

524
00:25:11,200 --> 00:25:14,519
it wants a body, a mind. Adrenaline searched through me.

525
00:25:14,640 --> 00:25:17,359
I reached for the journals, flipping frantic pages with clumdy

526
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:20,599
freezing fingers, searching for anything, an incantation, a sequent, a

527
00:25:20,640 --> 00:25:22,759
final passage she might have scribbled in her last hour.

528
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:25,759
On the back page of the oldest journal, nearly torn

529
00:25:25,799 --> 00:25:27,599
by the press of the pen, I found a single

530
00:25:27,599 --> 00:25:30,680
line in Margaret's sharpest scroll. A hunger cannot create torny feed.

531
00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:34,160
The ward must endure, not break the chain. The candle

532
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:37,480
at midnight marks the boundary until dawn. I read it again,

533
00:25:37,759 --> 00:25:40,200
slowly aloud, as if the words themselves could build a

534
00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:43,400
wall from behind the bricks. Something howled, not in anger

535
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:45,880
but an aching animal yearning, as if the very sound

536
00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:48,799
would coax me across my own chalk line. Then not quite,

537
00:25:48,799 --> 00:25:51,200
Margaret pressed at the edge of the candlelight faceless and

538
00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:53,640
then suddenly dissolving, swept up and away in Augustus. The

539
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:56,680
wind raised heavier through the cellar, sending the flame streaming sideways.

540
00:25:57,240 --> 00:25:59,920
My legs carried me, instinctively, joking to renew half faded

541
00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:02,799
lines of shock, voice, mumbling every line of Margaret's notes

542
00:26:02,799 --> 00:26:04,839
I could recall, over and over, a shield built of

543
00:26:04,839 --> 00:26:07,839
the only things I still trusted. The pounding sank to low,

544
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:11,240
steady thuds. In the fog thick silence. I realized my

545
00:26:11,279 --> 00:26:13,480
watch had stopped against Jack, as if this place had

546
00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:16,400
cut itself loose from time. The only light was the sick,

547
00:26:16,759 --> 00:26:19,400
receding glow of the candle, now nearly spent, and the

548
00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:22,480
scrambling gleamed from deeper in the split bricks. I didn't

549
00:26:22,519 --> 00:26:24,480
know how long I sat like that, guarding the circle.

550
00:26:24,599 --> 00:26:27,200
Margaret's journal's griptites were at freezing in my clothes before

551
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:29,839
something inside the wall shifted with a final rending sigh.

552
00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:32,880
The hunger for now faded behind layers of stone and night.

553
00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:36,240
When finally I staggered upright, bones, ash and thoughts splintered.

554
00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:38,160
The fog at my ankle seemed to thin by inches.

555
00:26:38,799 --> 00:26:40,599
The pain in my right ankle flared as I limped

556
00:26:40,640 --> 00:26:43,240
up the stairs, desperate for air, for morning, for a

557
00:26:43,279 --> 00:26:45,640
way to pull myself together with the dawn. At the

558
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:48,759
top step, the silence was brittle, no pounding, no whispering,

559
00:26:49,039 --> 00:26:50,880
just the distant clatter of the windies in the porch.

560
00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:54,359
Sign Once again, I embraced myself against the old refrigerator,

561
00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:57,240
letting my breath slow. Had I repaired the boundary or

562
00:26:57,279 --> 00:27:00,240
merely delayed what was coming? There were things in its

563
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:03,119
older than Margaret's notes, things older perhaps than any warning

564
00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:06,319
the village's cut muster. I scanned the kitchen counter top

565
00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:09,039
to skew doors hanging slightly wider than before. A muddy

566
00:27:09,039 --> 00:27:11,799
prince mudge faintly on the linoleum at the edge of

567
00:27:11,839 --> 00:27:14,240
my vision. The fog thickened, pulling at the back window,

568
00:27:14,319 --> 00:27:16,160
and then I swear it retreated, as if it sensed

569
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:18,640
I was watching. The faint town of burnt wax and

570
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:21,480
bitter herbs filled the air. I caught my own reflection

571
00:27:21,559 --> 00:27:24,000
in the dusty pane, hare wild as far too wide.

572
00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:26,240
I pushed a chair under the handle of the back

573
00:27:26,279 --> 00:27:28,960
door and collapsed into the nearest seat, hugging Margaret's journals

574
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:31,920
to my chest. Alone in the waning dark, I forced

575
00:27:31,920 --> 00:27:33,880
myself to log in my notebook everything i'd seen, the

576
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:36,119
pattern of the cracks, what Margaret's voice had tried to

577
00:27:36,160 --> 00:27:39,119
teach me, the words from the old pack. My handwriting

578
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:42,519
was jagged, half unreadable. Above, somewhere in the eaves, the

579
00:27:42,559 --> 00:27:46,559
now familiar scratching continued, softer, almost subdued. I waited for

580
00:27:46,599 --> 00:27:49,119
the first confidence bark of daylight to break over the mountains.

581
00:27:49,799 --> 00:27:52,400
I did not move. The air felt less frigid for

582
00:27:52,440 --> 00:27:54,519
the first time in days, but I knew better than

583
00:27:54,519 --> 00:27:57,319
to imagine the house was only resting. I gathered what

584
00:27:57,359 --> 00:27:59,640
courage I had left and checked every door, every window,

585
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:02,759
every hidden seen where cold might slip through. The scars

586
00:28:02,759 --> 00:28:05,759
on the warclaw marks symbols child wax would not vanish,

587
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:08,319
no matter how many times I wiped it them. I

588
00:28:08,359 --> 00:28:10,759
wanted so badly to run, to find a neighbor, to

589
00:28:10,759 --> 00:28:13,519
make another plea for help, but I'd seen now the

590
00:28:13,559 --> 00:28:16,400
thing that lived within the brickdlcove. I knew, with the

591
00:28:16,400 --> 00:28:18,880
cold certainty of the marrow, that running would not save me.

592
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:21,279
Margaret had tried to run, and in the end all

593
00:28:21,279 --> 00:28:22,839
she could do was buy a handful of knights for

594
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:25,680
the village for me. Later, as the new day asserted

595
00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:27,799
itself against the mist and hunger behind the wall, an

596
00:28:27,799 --> 00:28:31,079
aimage crystallized Margaret sitting in this very kitchen, quilt, tip

597
00:28:31,119 --> 00:28:33,960
in hand, face drawn with purpose and love. She'd never

598
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:36,240
really wanted me to have this legacy, yet she'd left

599
00:28:36,279 --> 00:28:38,400
me every piece i'd need, if only I understood how

600
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:41,480
to use them. The true question rose and circled, cold

601
00:28:41,519 --> 00:28:45,599
and unanswerable. What exactly sleeps within these walls? And when

602
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:48,559
not a foot it wig again? My legs refused to steady.

603
00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:50,960
Every muscle seemed to buzz with the memory of what

604
00:28:51,039 --> 00:28:53,920
oppressed and clawed from behind the ruined bricks below. There

605
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:55,720
was grit in my mouth, in my hair. It took

606
00:28:55,799 --> 00:28:58,759
me effort to breathe anything but that cellar stenchriff, wet stone,

607
00:28:58,799 --> 00:29:01,759
bitter wax, and the iron tang of fear bight at

608
00:29:01,799 --> 00:29:04,119
the window had begun to bleed. Blue dawn tickling past

609
00:29:04,119 --> 00:29:06,599
the fog, promising a day that my behave like days

610
00:29:06,599 --> 00:29:09,880
were supposed to do. The morning passed in blurred fragments.

611
00:29:10,599 --> 00:29:12,319
I washed the soap from my hands over and over,

612
00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:15,400
though the chill wouldn't leave wiskin. Up Stairs, the air

613
00:29:15,400 --> 00:29:18,640
held that bruise flavor of old storms. Charged restless, I

614
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:20,480
pressed my ear to the walls and heard nothing but

615
00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:23,039
the faintest hash, just the shifting of the old In settling,

616
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:26,200
I told myself I could sleep, that everything was contained,

617
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:28,799
if only for a little while. But sleep was thinner

618
00:29:28,839 --> 00:29:31,160
than a dream. I drifted in an out of shallow,

619
00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:34,279
colorless rass. Sometimes I'd snap awake, convinced. I felt a

620
00:29:34,279 --> 00:29:36,480
hand hovering close to my face, the tickle of breath

621
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:38,960
on my cheek. Sometimes I jerk upright at the softest

622
00:29:38,960 --> 00:29:41,880
twitch of the floorboards, expecting fresh pounding at the basement wall.

623
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:44,160
When the chiming of the old clock told me it

624
00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:46,519
was mid day, loneliness crushed against my bones so fully

625
00:29:46,559 --> 00:29:49,799
it left me hollow. Food felt impossible, but necessy pushed

626
00:29:49,839 --> 00:29:52,759
me ontoun steady feet. The kitchen waited a quiet and

627
00:29:52,880 --> 00:29:56,200
raw ethie with spent smoke. I shewed bread and apples

628
00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:58,480
so slowly, and nearly wept with relief when nothing tried

629
00:29:58,480 --> 00:30:00,240
to drag me under the table, upon me through a

630
00:30:00,279 --> 00:30:03,279
rift in the wall. Still, every window offered up visions

631
00:30:03,279 --> 00:30:06,119
of shifting, mister curling, retreating, but never so far as

632
00:30:06,119 --> 00:30:09,079
I wished. It was only after I found my voice again,

633
00:30:09,119 --> 00:30:11,200
after a full eye was slumped by the half Margaret's

634
00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:13,400
journals found in a semicircle around my knees, that I

635
00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:17,599
realized I needed someone else, human eyes, human warmth, not

636
00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:19,839
just a voice whispering from memory or the wavery hush

637
00:30:19,839 --> 00:30:23,240
of fog filled holes. Dressed in yesterday's jeans and Margaret's

638
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:26,119
old shawl, I stepped into the day. The cold outside

639
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:28,799
was cleaned by comparison, bracing enough to bring color to

640
00:30:28,799 --> 00:30:30,759
my cheeks as I headed for the main road. Like

641
00:30:30,799 --> 00:30:33,240
sore and weak with fear, I hadn't shaken off. The

642
00:30:33,319 --> 00:30:37,359
village seemed abandoned at first, doors, bolted windows, clustered with

643
00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:40,839
all curtains or thick glass, Dead leaves bowled along the gutter.

644
00:30:41,440 --> 00:30:43,319
I knocked at the shop and got no reply. Walked

645
00:30:43,319 --> 00:30:45,960
past the post office, the padlock hanning with finality from

646
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:48,640
the chain. My footsteps were swallowed by the mist, and

647
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:51,960
above the hushest birds hitter left completely. Finally, at the

648
00:30:51,960 --> 00:30:54,720
well behind the market, I spotted missus Annesley, hunched over

649
00:30:54,759 --> 00:30:57,839
three shopping baskets, struggling to coax a handguard over the threshold.

650
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:00,640
She looked up as if she'd been expecting me for days.

651
00:31:01,279 --> 00:31:03,119
He shouldn't be here, she said, in a rasp crashed

652
00:31:03,119 --> 00:31:06,440
by fatigue, yet her eyes softened the words I didn't

653
00:31:06,440 --> 00:31:09,359
know where else. I croaked, wanting to spill everything, wanting

654
00:31:09,359 --> 00:31:10,880
her to reassure me that what I had seen and

655
00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:13,519
felt could fit in the world everyone else inhabited. She

656
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:16,039
gestured with her chin, drawing me into a thin strip

657
00:31:16,079 --> 00:31:18,839
of sunshine behind the shop. The cobbles there were dry.

658
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:21,839
We leaned against some warm stone, just long enough for

659
00:31:21,839 --> 00:31:24,079
her to light a stub of cigarette, the smoke tumbling

660
00:31:24,079 --> 00:31:26,960
away too quickly in the returning breeze. He saw it,

661
00:31:27,079 --> 00:31:30,279
she said, deliberately, not a question. Something in my posture

662
00:31:30,359 --> 00:31:32,319
gave me away. Or maybe it was the smudge chalk

663
00:31:32,359 --> 00:31:34,880
on my cuffs. The soot rinsed only halfway from my nails.

664
00:31:35,519 --> 00:31:38,519
I nodded. She let her breadth out slow, as fixed

665
00:31:38,559 --> 00:31:42,000
in the shop window. You weren't told, she murmured. No

666
00:31:42,079 --> 00:31:44,920
one tells outsiders. We want wanted to believe the package

667
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:47,759
just hold run on its own. She pressed her hand

668
00:31:47,759 --> 00:31:49,680
to her chest, thumb hooked in the edge of her scarf.

669
00:31:50,160 --> 00:31:52,160
Your aunt, poor soul. She tried a different way. It

670
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:55,079
cost her. I bit my lower lepentil pane grounded me.

671
00:31:55,799 --> 00:31:58,920
What is what's down there? My words fumbled, every syllable,

672
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:01,599
lace with disbelief and new terror. What is it that

673
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:05,400
feeds there? Older than the village, she replied, older than

674
00:32:05,400 --> 00:32:08,319
any of us, always hungry, always testing. We built over it,

675
00:32:08,359 --> 00:32:11,160
thinking stones and presquataine, hunger. But it's not stopped, only

676
00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:14,200
quite so long as the bargain holds. Her fingers wore

677
00:32:14,319 --> 00:32:17,359
the fringe of her scarf. A ward stays keeps a

678
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:20,559
circle candle at midnight every night, the one left behind Margaret,

679
00:32:20,599 --> 00:32:23,920
she was the strongest we'd had. My voice cracked. Why

680
00:32:23,920 --> 00:32:27,160
didn't anyone tell me? Why didn't she? A sadness creased

681
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:30,039
her face so profound I almost jerked away. What use

682
00:32:30,079 --> 00:32:32,640
would it have done, she hoped? I think you could

683
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:36,200
be spared. She seen too much, lost, too much. Annie

684
00:32:36,319 --> 00:32:39,839
was gay sharpened. She tried, child, They always do wasn't fair.

685
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:42,119
It had to be one of us from here, always,

686
00:32:42,119 --> 00:32:43,839
someone with a seed in the soil. And when she

687
00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:46,759
when she died, things got thinner, the hunger started pressing worse.

688
00:32:47,279 --> 00:32:50,519
The street had quite it absolutely around us. I lowered

689
00:32:50,519 --> 00:32:53,519
my eyes, struggling for composure. I can't I don't know

690
00:32:53,599 --> 00:32:56,440
what I meant to do, I confessed. Anneselef flicked her

691
00:32:56,440 --> 00:32:59,960
cigarette lips twisting. Say alive first, keep the circle closed,

692
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:02,960
the Flamelet don't break the chain, for all our sakes. Ended.

693
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:06,480
She reached out hand rough and bon lights, squeezing my wrists.

694
00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:08,880
If you get the chance to leave, take it. Don't

695
00:33:08,920 --> 00:33:12,000
look back. Something behind us clattered as shut a baryant

696
00:33:12,039 --> 00:33:15,400
shot or just the window, and she bolted upright. Go home,

697
00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:18,039
she whispered, and don't open your door after sunset. I'll

698
00:33:18,039 --> 00:33:20,480
bring what help I can. With that, she bundled up

699
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:23,759
her baskets and disappeared, head low, voice lost to the hush.

700
00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:26,440
A hollow resignation followed me as I made my way

701
00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:29,359
back up the hill. Every corner tousted too far, every

702
00:33:29,359 --> 00:33:32,039
step a little heavier than the last. I passed the

703
00:33:32,079 --> 00:33:35,000
shrine again. Its cymbals, staring bluntly from beneath draggle vines.

704
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:38,279
I touched the stone fleetingly with two fingers and let

705
00:33:38,359 --> 00:33:40,720
what little hope I had trickle into the rock a

706
00:33:40,839 --> 00:33:42,920
silent bar again, if there could be such a thing.

707
00:33:43,440 --> 00:33:45,000
By the time I reached the end, the light was

708
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:47,079
curt in gold at the edges the air and knife shop.

709
00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:50,400
I shut every window, braced every door, checked and rechecked

710
00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:53,359
the cellar padlock. The house felt twice its size, each

711
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:56,519
room bigger and empty them before the scratching was back

712
00:33:56,559 --> 00:33:58,960
the evening, before the sun had finished abandoning the house,

713
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:02,359
A furst light like mice, restless behind the woodwork, But

714
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:05,319
soon enough it slid into low, guttural whispering, as if someone,

715
00:34:05,400 --> 00:34:08,440
now several someone stood breathing just behind a faded wallpipper.

716
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:11,360
I pressed my hand there no not expecting one, but

717
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:15,400
something much darker. Even the notion of running felt utterly impossible,

718
00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:18,599
trying to ground myself as spread Margaret's journals out in

719
00:34:18,639 --> 00:34:21,239
the dining room table, lining up entries and sketches like

720
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:24,119
a puzzle. The roll seemed simple, but every time I

721
00:34:24,159 --> 00:34:27,400
traced the ink, a new line suggested itself cymbals must connect,

722
00:34:28,119 --> 00:34:31,199
circle must never break. A flame must burn each midnight

723
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:34,440
till dawn. Once darkness stirs, the hunger will test for

724
00:34:34,559 --> 00:34:37,880
dream and waking alike. I tore through the kitchen drawers,

725
00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:41,360
scavenging every candle I could find. Some were fat and shapeless,

726
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:44,639
others twisted in yellow with age. At the stroke of midnight,

727
00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:46,719
as the clock fell from above the stairs, I drew

728
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:48,880
chalk and loops, marking the circle on the cellow tiles,

729
00:34:48,920 --> 00:34:50,679
and backed it up with a ring of Margaret's salt,

730
00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:53,480
her old canister heavy in my palm. The candle never

731
00:34:53,559 --> 00:34:55,719
black quacks again, not if I could help. It stood

732
00:34:55,719 --> 00:34:58,400
at the circle's edge. The match flow blowed in the

733
00:34:58,440 --> 00:35:02,159
swollen silence the first ire, I sat knees, hunched to

734
00:35:02,239 --> 00:35:06,039
my chest, reciting half remembered lullabies and childhood prayers. Nothing

735
00:35:06,079 --> 00:35:08,599
happened except the tick of my heart. But near two

736
00:35:08,639 --> 00:35:10,519
in the morning, the fog pressed and so thick at

737
00:35:10,519 --> 00:35:12,440
the window wells I could barely see the hand before

738
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:16,480
my face. The whispering began, anew, this time skirling, inviting,

739
00:35:16,519 --> 00:35:19,360
said an icy fingers, chasing up my arms behind my ears.

740
00:35:20,039 --> 00:35:22,880
Each word was a coaxing and finished promise shown fragments

741
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:25,320
tumbling and rejoining at the edge of sense, let us

742
00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:28,039
and let us out. Margaretly lead the candle. I slammed

743
00:35:28,079 --> 00:35:31,239
my eyes shut. Behind my eyelids, visions formed figures in

744
00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:33,920
the hallway. Masks look with candle lights spinning slowly in

745
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:37,639
a stately circle, Margaret beckoning me, her hands, trumbling, her mouth,

746
00:35:37,719 --> 00:35:40,719
uttering warnings at once clear and shrouded. When the candle

747
00:35:40,719 --> 00:35:43,480
gutted and stretched, tall shadows swept the walled, all fingers

748
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:45,519
and grasping hands, and then re seated. Just before sun

749
00:35:45,519 --> 00:35:48,559
split the sky open. I stumbled to my feet. More

750
00:35:48,599 --> 00:35:51,000
sleep served monster than girl, and buried my face in

751
00:35:51,039 --> 00:35:53,280
the couch cushions as the first bird dared its absurd

752
00:35:53,280 --> 00:35:57,440
song outside again a day of false comfort, the hungerer.

753
00:35:57,480 --> 00:36:00,840
Whatever it was needed, darkness needed dream. I went about

754
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:03,960
the muhs, brushing my teeth, coiling Margaret's scarf tight, chopping

755
00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:07,800
apples that nearly tasted sweet. Each movement was hollow. The

756
00:36:07,880 --> 00:36:09,880
rooms began to twist it they air just, always covering

757
00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:12,599
further than their limits. Reflections flickering and glass were none

758
00:36:12,639 --> 00:36:15,960
belonged in the mirror of the mantle. That afternoon, I

759
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:18,480
saw not only myself, but the glimmer of another presence,

760
00:36:18,519 --> 00:36:21,840
Margaret's familiar shape, eyes wild with warning lips mouthing something

761
00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:24,280
I could not hear. I covered the glass with a

762
00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:27,199
towel and retreated, wishing desperately for a friendly neighbor or

763
00:36:27,199 --> 00:36:31,159
a world not governed by invisible, fooricious things. Just before sunset,

764
00:36:31,400 --> 00:36:34,639
another knock I jumped, the old, fierce, swamping my gut.

765
00:36:35,159 --> 00:36:37,519
I considered not answering, but couldn't shake the idea it

766
00:36:37,599 --> 00:36:39,840
might be Annesley come back with Enso's war at least

767
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:43,360
company instead. On the other side of the doorstoir two villages,

768
00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:45,599
a man I'd only seen distantly, his eyes locked on

769
00:36:45,639 --> 00:36:48,199
my nose, and a woman with braided hairtock firmly under

770
00:36:48,199 --> 00:36:51,119
her cap. They looked almost sheepish or guilty, the stiffness

771
00:36:51,119 --> 00:36:54,440
of their posture speaking louder than any words, Miss Addison,

772
00:36:54,519 --> 00:36:57,519
the woman said, with a brittle politeness, we understand your

773
00:36:57,559 --> 00:37:01,079
staying on at Larsborough. Her companion show her asidelong glare.

774
00:37:01,639 --> 00:37:03,639
He held a bundle swaddled in brown paper, which she

775
00:37:03,679 --> 00:37:08,559
shifted to place in my arms. Bread cheese, the traditional peace,

776
00:37:08,599 --> 00:37:10,920
offerings of people who hoped to keep disaster at bay.

777
00:37:11,440 --> 00:37:14,199
We know the night along, Margaret, she paused, voice trembling.

778
00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:18,320
She was good to the village a beat. He should

779
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:21,079
keep the light burning after sunset, not just for power outages.

780
00:37:21,079 --> 00:37:24,920
It's safer. I nodded, hoping I'd mass my panic. Thank you.

781
00:37:25,679 --> 00:37:28,480
Neither said more. They left as quickly as they come,

782
00:37:28,599 --> 00:37:31,440
heads duck low, shoes, scuffing the bath. I stood with

783
00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:33,400
my hands full, half longing to beg them to stay,

784
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:35,159
to help, to explain, to simply not leave me. As

785
00:37:35,199 --> 00:37:37,800
the darkness thickened once more. Down in the kitchen, the

786
00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:41,119
shadows were already stretching thin. I bolted every door, checked

787
00:37:41,119 --> 00:37:43,280
the circle in the cellar, refreshed the salt, set out

788
00:37:43,280 --> 00:37:45,639
three candles, one as Margaret had described to his back.

789
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:48,800
The fear by now felt less like panic and more

790
00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:52,199
like an ache, familiar and constant. When midnight told, I

791
00:37:52,239 --> 00:37:54,400
sat inside the circle and watched the flame fight every

792
00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:57,840
twitch of wind. This night, the hunger pressed harder, whispered,

793
00:37:57,880 --> 00:37:59,920
scraping like calls in my mind, a pressure behind me,

794
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:02,639
my eyes threatening to burst into visions and memory. The

795
00:38:02,679 --> 00:38:06,679
candle nearly died twice before writing itself. At last, near dawn,

796
00:38:06,679 --> 00:38:09,320
the pounding began again, softer than before, a rhythm set

797
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:11,840
to the pulse of my heart. I could almost convince

798
00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:15,400
myself it sounded like Margaret knocking from the other side.

799
00:38:15,440 --> 00:38:17,599
I tried at first to last the day upright, with

800
00:38:17,639 --> 00:38:19,719
nothing to show for my sleepless efforts, but a mounting

801
00:38:19,719 --> 00:38:22,639
pile of strange, useless trivia scold over every other surface.

802
00:38:22,719 --> 00:38:25,159
How long the candle burned, where the pounding originated, the

803
00:38:25,159 --> 00:38:27,679
shape of the fog at dawn, The words made sent

804
00:38:27,719 --> 00:38:29,760
as I wrote them, then swam and twisted off the

805
00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:32,480
page whenever I tried to read them back. Then I

806
00:38:32,519 --> 00:38:35,880
found myself drawn to Margaret's journals again. I shuffled through

807
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:39,239
her earliest entries, piecing together the fever of her preparations.

808
00:38:39,960 --> 00:38:42,119
She spoke of a first sacrifice, a seeker the village

809
00:38:42,159 --> 00:38:45,119
still tried to bury. Each year, the pack required someone

810
00:38:45,159 --> 00:38:47,840
to ensure the boundary held, Someone chosen all left behind.

811
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:51,559
Margaret's handwriting, previously neat, turned ragged near the end. I

812
00:38:51,599 --> 00:38:55,320
can't keep it back alone. The hunger mounts, The villagers

813
00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:58,079
look away till it wants to be seen. Every generation

814
00:38:58,159 --> 00:39:01,280
one left, but then to hold or die trying. I shuddered,

815
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:04,079
bone deep, realizing what she risked, what she chose, my

816
00:39:04,119 --> 00:39:06,920
own family, our blood twisted through every brick and prayer.

817
00:39:07,559 --> 00:39:09,800
As dusk crawled in, I found myself pulled to the

818
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:11,519
old chest in the attic, one place I had not

819
00:39:11,559 --> 00:39:14,880
searched since the first hour day. I wrenched open the lid, half,

820
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:18,480
expecting only dust and fan. Instead a small lidded wooden box.

821
00:39:19,119 --> 00:39:21,679
It was carved with those same white branching cymbals, edges

822
00:39:21,679 --> 00:39:24,880
worn by hands desperate o loving inside a wisp of

823
00:39:24,880 --> 00:39:26,800
white hair wrapped in linen and tied round with what

824
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:29,639
looked to be a child's friendship bracelet. Three old coins,

825
00:39:29,719 --> 00:39:32,440
tork with age, a slim bone needle, a lock of long,

826
00:39:32,679 --> 00:39:35,119
reddish hair that could only have come from Margaret herself.

827
00:39:35,760 --> 00:39:39,280
My hand shook a memory crash, Margaret sitting cross like

828
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:41,480
it before a roaring fire, telling me stories of the

829
00:39:41,519 --> 00:39:43,639
logs burn at secret hat, of traditions that had to

830
00:39:43,639 --> 00:39:46,599
be kept, even when no one understood why She'd hid

831
00:39:46,599 --> 00:39:49,239
in the tokens, not as mementos, but as Anka's familial

832
00:39:49,360 --> 00:39:52,119
ceremonial land. I suspected as a desperate backet to the

833
00:39:52,159 --> 00:39:55,159
circle of he weaken. They melted, dreadfolding itself into the

834
00:39:55,199 --> 00:39:58,280
folds of my skin. The house vibrated with tension, as

835
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:01,280
though waiting for the worst to arrive. As darkness thickened,

836
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:03,639
I laid out the tokens around the candle's base, bring

837
00:40:03,719 --> 00:40:05,840
them with a fresh sifting of salt, and for the

838
00:40:05,880 --> 00:40:08,440
first time whispered my own prayer, Nothing from any book,

839
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:10,599
just the ropeli of some one who had lost everything

840
00:40:10,599 --> 00:40:13,199
and could not bear to lose a scrap more. Midnight,

841
00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:16,480
once more, dread, now both familiar and enormous. As the

842
00:40:16,519 --> 00:40:18,880
candle burned, the false Margaret appeared in the corner, her

843
00:40:18,880 --> 00:40:21,920
shape at thoughts, with her shadow features rippling, liquid and defined.

844
00:40:22,599 --> 00:40:26,039
Her words were sharp, urgent circles. Not enough, give it memory,

845
00:40:26,079 --> 00:40:29,039
give it grief. Her head cocked a natural as if

846
00:40:29,039 --> 00:40:31,960
listening to music beneath the floor. It knows you, it

847
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:34,679
wants you. I spat it a nial, gripping the dagger

848
00:40:34,760 --> 00:40:37,280
so tightly my finger nail split at the beds. It

849
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:40,440
can't have me or any one. Her smile bloomed, sickening,

850
00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:44,360
and no sacrifice, no boundary. We all go fog poured

851
00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:48,880
from every hallway. Outside the village lay shouted, still and unresponsive.

852
00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:51,760
Red globehole slow and deep. From behind the cellar door,

853
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:55,400
an animal heartbeat. The hunger began to press. No longer

854
00:40:55,480 --> 00:40:57,760
just drew vorses, but sent and shape as weakness, so

855
00:40:57,880 --> 00:41:00,000
rawy clad at the lining of my throat promises, strong

856
00:41:00,159 --> 00:41:02,760
and ugly, glittering words. Let us out, Let us in.

857
00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:06,800
Remember Remember I fell back, staggering, mind dizy. As the

858
00:41:06,800 --> 00:41:09,639
walls pressed in through my terror, I saw it. The circle,

859
00:41:09,679 --> 00:41:11,719
thinning liner raised in a gap of salt and shruck

860
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:15,119
had once overlapped the candle's flame, jumped spat, then shrunk

861
00:41:15,159 --> 00:41:18,599
into hard blue corkscrew. In that moment, the cellow stares

862
00:41:18,639 --> 00:41:20,800
to solved longer than they should be, sharper with each

863
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:24,199
descending tread. I tried to retreat, but invisible hooks spun

864
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:27,199
me towards the basement below. The pouding rose, not just

865
00:41:27,239 --> 00:41:29,840
a clawing, but shuddering through the entire structure of the inn.

866
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:32,679
The braked alcove bulged spout out more to and dust.

867
00:41:33,400 --> 00:41:35,960
My memory twisted with every step. Margaret leading me by

868
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:38,760
lantern light, my mother younger than I remembered locking a

869
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:41,599
cellar door with her body. Distant relatives, a deep percession,

870
00:41:41,599 --> 00:41:44,119
with hollow eyes urging me forward, all sharing a piece

871
00:41:44,119 --> 00:41:47,079
of my name. Fog lake, the cellars each swell, more

872
00:41:47,119 --> 00:41:50,239
solid than the last, a congregation of hungry shadows. The

873
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:54,679
circle had breached. The burning kendle guttered out, My heart ceased.

874
00:41:55,400 --> 00:41:58,199
Then from behind the fracture wall a voice, not Hunger's

875
00:41:58,360 --> 00:42:01,400
not mine, but Margaret's, steady and define. The chain isn't broken.

876
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:04,280
A few shoes to bear, I screamed, angry and afraid,

877
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:06,800
both child and grown woman. I won't. I can't let

878
00:42:06,840 --> 00:42:09,119
me go, Let us go, all of us. But the

879
00:42:09,119 --> 00:42:13,239
pressure grew, pulsing. The vision of sacrifice sharpened, Margaret kneeling

880
00:42:13,239 --> 00:42:15,800
on this very floor, drawing her own blood into the dust,

881
00:42:15,880 --> 00:42:17,840
chanting not to defeat the hunger, but to keep it

882
00:42:17,880 --> 00:42:21,000
pleased at bay and away from the world above. In

883
00:42:21,039 --> 00:42:23,119
a friends of tumble, a snash who tokens the hair

884
00:42:23,119 --> 00:42:25,559
at the coins, the needle, the bracelets lay them once more,

885
00:42:25,599 --> 00:42:27,480
not in a perfect circle, but in the only patter

886
00:42:27,559 --> 00:42:29,360
my mind could make sense of a spiral in what

887
00:42:29,519 --> 00:42:32,000
meant to draw something home? Blood well from my split

888
00:42:32,039 --> 00:42:34,320
finger nail. I pressed it to the linen. The flame

889
00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:36,639
flickered back to miserable life. As I whispered, let me

890
00:42:36,679 --> 00:42:40,920
be the ward, not the feast. The pounding hesitated Fogg's world,

891
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:44,159
close faces blinking in enough, Margaret's my own a different ages.

892
00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:47,440
Dozens of unfamiliar eyes, lipped mouthing the word holt. I

893
00:42:47,519 --> 00:42:50,360
repeated the plea again and again, until it was hardly words,

894
00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:53,360
but animal need holt, Let me hold it. What followed

895
00:42:53,400 --> 00:42:55,719
was not an answer, but an exhalation of sucking silence,

896
00:42:55,880 --> 00:42:58,400
the pause of the houses if listening for judgment. The

897
00:42:58,400 --> 00:43:02,159
brooks shivered, the back stopped spreading. The voices dropped to

898
00:43:02,159 --> 00:43:05,800
low mutterings, less needy, more tired. The candle spotted, but

899
00:43:05,880 --> 00:43:09,400
kept its glow, small and land The coal persisted, now gentler,

900
00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:12,360
heavy but not deadly. The fog retreated inch by inch,

901
00:43:12,480 --> 00:43:14,760
curling a long windows and under doors, until by the

902
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:17,000
time the first pink streak split the sky, the cellar's

903
00:43:17,039 --> 00:43:19,360
only company was mean ees, silk, sweat, and salt, stinging

904
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:21,559
every open nick head. Sagging under the confession that I

905
00:43:21,559 --> 00:43:24,480
would not now be leaving, I climbed to the kitchen

906
00:43:24,639 --> 00:43:29,360
muscles shuddering, barely registering my own weight. Outside stillness spurred calls,

907
00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:31,440
emerging one by one, as if embarrassed to sing after

908
00:43:31,440 --> 00:43:34,679
such a night. The village had not burned. The inn

909
00:43:34,679 --> 00:43:37,960
creaked and groaned. Beheld later that morning, as I sat

910
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:40,400
with Margaret's journals in the last crust of bread missas

911
00:43:40,400 --> 00:43:43,639
Annesley knocked, slow and soft. She hadn't the words for

912
00:43:43,679 --> 00:43:46,159
what sat between us. Her eyes wet and haunted. It

913
00:43:46,199 --> 00:43:48,840
told enough. She brought me a sturdy candle and a

914
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:52,079
coil of fresh white cord. He the ward now, she said,

915
00:43:52,079 --> 00:43:54,760
a chimley gentle. He won't be able to go, not

916
00:43:54,920 --> 00:43:57,639
for a time, maybe not ever. In my bones, I

917
00:43:57,719 --> 00:44:01,159
believed her. The world beyond the indoor seemed impossibly far.

918
00:44:01,920 --> 00:44:04,880
I'd already tried to wander away past curled back horizons

919
00:44:04,920 --> 00:44:08,039
folded into the fog, my steps always soaking home. No

920
00:44:08,159 --> 00:44:11,840
bus cane, no cur stopped. Even phone calls faded to static,

921
00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:15,280
as though my voice existed elsewhere. Annesley lingered a moment,

922
00:44:15,320 --> 00:44:18,440
I searching my face for cracks, ring. The belle fits bad.

923
00:44:18,559 --> 00:44:21,400
The rest well, we'll remember, We'll bring food when we can.

924
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:24,239
Her hand on my shoulder was warmer than any candle.

925
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:27,639
She left, and I resumed my new routine, cleaning, sorting

926
00:44:27,639 --> 00:44:30,440
through neither hope nor despair, sitting the circle waiting for night.

927
00:44:31,039 --> 00:44:34,519
The weeks blurred. Each evening, as fog slid up the hillside,

928
00:44:34,559 --> 00:44:36,920
I made ready, laying out the candles, ringing, the warts

929
00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:40,320
were sawed, anchoring the tokens. At midnight, the flame flight,

930
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:44,239
The voices swelled, the scratching returned. Sometimes the pounding threatened

931
00:44:44,239 --> 00:44:47,320
another breach. Each night, I pressed back, with every answer

932
00:44:47,360 --> 00:44:49,960
will left me. After a time, the hunger learned the

933
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:53,519
shape of me. The temptations grew sly for his promising escape.

934
00:44:53,519 --> 00:44:56,119
Secrets whispered in my mother's lilt, future visions where the

935
00:44:56,119 --> 00:44:58,559
patch was broken and the village prospered. So long as

936
00:44:58,559 --> 00:45:01,559
I gave up my post, I resisted because to do

937
00:45:01,639 --> 00:45:03,199
less was to deliver a world to a thing that

938
00:45:03,239 --> 00:45:07,039
would never be sated, only emboldened. Sometimes I told myself

939
00:45:07,079 --> 00:45:11,199
I was strong. Sometimes I only wept. The villager was

940
00:45:11,280 --> 00:45:15,079
visited rarely. They always left gifts at the stoop, baskets, jaws,

941
00:45:15,320 --> 00:45:17,559
once even a fat tabby cat that made itself at home,

942
00:45:17,639 --> 00:45:20,360
purring in the warm patch. When my shadow fell. Miss

943
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:23,800
Sessa Ennesley brought books, puzzles, rusting tins of tea. She

944
00:45:23,880 --> 00:45:26,119
stayed only so long as the wind remained mild and

945
00:45:26,159 --> 00:45:30,039
the like gold never After dusk days grew sire and slow. Then,

946
00:45:30,239 --> 00:45:33,480
with the turn of summer, almost bright, I kept my vigil.

947
00:45:34,039 --> 00:45:36,039
The hunger did not sleep, but it grew less, greedy,

948
00:45:36,039 --> 00:45:39,199
a satisfied perhaps by the presence of sommon Wille, while

949
00:45:39,239 --> 00:45:42,840
simply biding its time, patient as old mountains. One day

950
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:45,480
I tried the road again, walking down hill for fresh

951
00:45:45,519 --> 00:45:48,960
clayed air. For hours, I wandered, always hopeful, but every

952
00:45:48,960 --> 00:45:51,599
path bent gently back to the crumbling sign at the ingates.

953
00:45:52,079 --> 00:45:54,480
I laughed, then, short and sharp, and named myself what

954
00:45:54,639 --> 00:45:57,920
I had become. The Addison lockspur'snow stancher, blad and bunshaped

955
00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:01,039
to an old urge in need. At night, I sometimes

956
00:46:01,079 --> 00:46:02,960
dream of the cellar, not as it is, but as

957
00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:05,920
Margaret first found it, clean stone, fat candles, as warm

958
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:08,800
as any holding place could be. She sits by my side,

959
00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:11,280
pale but content, her fingers warm in mind, whispering we

960
00:46:11,400 --> 00:46:13,960
keep it so we hold for them for us. All

961
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:16,960
the women before her flicker and out of sight, nodding solemnly,

962
00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:19,880
hands clasped, And then the dreams rot at the edges,

963
00:46:19,920 --> 00:46:22,880
splitting into shadow, hunger, wetting through cracks, voices sliding up

964
00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:25,760
to a break. We want no more wards, only open doors.

965
00:46:26,440 --> 00:46:28,639
I wake, sweating, hollow eyed. But each time I go

966
00:46:28,679 --> 00:46:31,239
to the cellar and light the candle once more. Each

967
00:46:31,320 --> 00:46:35,519
time the pounding wanes, Months pass, the cat grows fat

968
00:46:35,519 --> 00:46:38,920
and sleepy. I tend Margaret's garden and the old Chrina's sidetown,

969
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:41,480
scrubbing moss from the y shaped carving, placing a coin

970
00:46:41,519 --> 00:46:44,320
and twist of yarn where the roots breakstone. I see

971
00:46:44,320 --> 00:46:47,360
faces in the fog sometimes, but none troll close, none demand.

972
00:46:47,960 --> 00:46:50,159
One night, near the edge of sleep, I hear voices

973
00:46:50,159 --> 00:46:52,400
in the walls, clear and beckoning, sounding not hungry now

974
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:55,880
but mournful. You are us, they murmur, you are now,

975
00:46:55,960 --> 00:46:59,440
the line resigned. I take out Margaret's last batted ledger

976
00:46:59,519 --> 00:47:02,360
and begin my own warnings. I write simply in my

977
00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:05,360
own settling hand. If you come here, be worry mind

978
00:47:05,400 --> 00:47:08,119
the symbols, keep the flame. Do not trust the hunger,

979
00:47:08,159 --> 00:47:10,800
no matter whose face it wears below me. As the

980
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:14,280
night stretch is taught scratching begins, a new, insistent, clever, bolder.

981
00:47:14,920 --> 00:47:17,320
I place my hands over the fresh chalk lines, steady

982
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:20,440
my thought against the coming irons. The window panes tremble

983
00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:23,519
at the weight of gathering fog. I cannot see the village,

984
00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:26,199
nor the path out, nor any promise beyond the bounds

985
00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:28,440
of this coast tethered in. But as I left my

986
00:47:28,519 --> 00:47:30,760
candle to the glass, in what shadows call at the walls,

987
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:33,280
I tell myself, as Margaret must have one morn, I

988
00:47:34,000 --> 00:47:37,840
one more circle closed, one more dawncat safe in that

989
00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:40,159
lonely vigil. I keep my place, unsure if I hold

990
00:47:40,159 --> 00:47:41,960
the hunger at bay, or only give it new ways

991
00:47:42,000 --> 00:47:43,840
to dream, but knowing the work must go on until

992
00:47:43,880 --> 00:47:47,159
someone wiser or stronger relieves me. At last, the scratching

993
00:47:47,159 --> 00:47:51,159
results pauses and resumes, always there, always hungry, waiting for

994
00:47:51,199 --> 00:47:54,360
the day, perhaps when it learns what comes next. The

995
00:47:54,400 --> 00:47:58,199
scratching rose in pitch, the rhythm shifting, not random, not

996
00:47:58,320 --> 00:48:01,159
animal any more. It sounds like fingers spelling out a

997
00:48:01,159 --> 00:48:04,480
message snared in some ancient psychical code. Even the cap

998
00:48:04,519 --> 00:48:08,400
brestled at the baseboard, haunches, quivering, ears flat. I watched

999
00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:10,960
his peoples go wide, reflecting what little light had cooked

1000
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:13,679
from the kerosene lamp. It went still, then darted in

1001
00:48:13,719 --> 00:48:15,960
a low, crowed scuffle toward the parlor ver, brushing the

1002
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:18,039
leg of a chair Margaret used to claim as her own.

1003
00:48:18,639 --> 00:48:20,880
My hand tightened compulsively, and the notewk I had left

1004
00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:22,880
up and on the kitchen table, a list meant to reassure,

1005
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:25,360
now only evidence of how few tasks remained to distract

1006
00:48:25,400 --> 00:48:27,840
me beyond the model of gas. The night was thick

1007
00:48:27,880 --> 00:48:30,800
with fog, the windows reflecting overlapping versions of my face

1008
00:48:30,880 --> 00:48:34,360
layered and uncertain. I could not sleep. I tried to

1009
00:48:34,360 --> 00:48:36,880
read a chapter, made tea I left cooling beside the sink,

1010
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:40,320
watched the candle's flame strain against every stray breath. The

1011
00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:42,960
house performed its leturgy, a very quiet, then a creek,

1012
00:48:43,079 --> 00:48:45,280
then a drawn out exhalation from the pipes deep beneath

1013
00:48:45,320 --> 00:48:48,679
the stairs, and after a while those ever boulder scratches

1014
00:48:48,679 --> 00:48:52,119
stitched upward, sending tides of shivers through the floorboards. When

1015
00:48:52,159 --> 00:48:54,760
at last, exhaustion forced me into a fragile drouse, my

1016
00:48:54,840 --> 00:48:57,760
dreams provided no solace. I walked circles through a home

1017
00:48:57,760 --> 00:49:00,280
that rearranged itself behind ify closed door. Holes there bent

1018
00:49:00,320 --> 00:49:03,239
into vaults, bedrooms that opened into damp forests, cellars, and

1019
00:49:03,239 --> 00:49:06,360
froling in impossible calls. Each step took me back to

1020
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:09,960
the beginning, the braked alcove, now crumbling, now restored, always bleeding,

1021
00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:13,199
a blackness that poles to Yonn like a mouth. I woke, shivering,

1022
00:49:13,280 --> 00:49:16,000
my pillow, gritty with salt from tears of sweat. The

1023
00:49:16,039 --> 00:49:19,079
cat had pressed up against my knees, trembling. The candle

1024
00:49:19,360 --> 00:49:22,559
nearly spent, guttered low. I touched my temples and found

1025
00:49:22,599 --> 00:49:24,599
them raw, as if I'd been pressing my skull against

1026
00:49:24,679 --> 00:49:27,400
rough plaster all night. From somewhere else, the room I

1027
00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:29,280
hadn't entered, or perhaps the stair while, I heard the

1028
00:49:29,320 --> 00:49:32,559
hush of words, not the slurred, luring voices of hunger,

1029
00:49:32,599 --> 00:49:36,440
but a single, deliberate phrase, It's almost timely. I jerked up,

1030
00:49:36,639 --> 00:49:40,320
heart lurching. Margaret. The name burst up before I could

1031
00:49:40,360 --> 00:49:44,960
weigh the risk. Silence. Then in the hallway, another insistent

1032
00:49:45,039 --> 00:49:48,119
round of scratching, this one traveling arking across the wainscoating,

1033
00:49:48,239 --> 00:49:51,039
Drawing nearer to the cellar door. I steeled myself and

1034
00:49:51,159 --> 00:49:53,760
rose slippersoft over the warped ward, hands bold in the

1035
00:49:53,760 --> 00:49:56,719
pockets of my dressing gown. The lamp I clung uncertainly

1036
00:49:56,760 --> 00:49:58,800
to me, my own shadow, the only thing moving in

1037
00:49:58,800 --> 00:50:01,519
the brittle hush. I reached the mouth of the stairs

1038
00:50:02,199 --> 00:50:04,440
below the hear I looomed black, heavy than it should be.

1039
00:50:05,119 --> 00:50:07,400
I drew a breath and stepped down the cat hestating

1040
00:50:07,440 --> 00:50:09,079
at the top before letting out a choked owl and

1041
00:50:09,159 --> 00:50:12,440
vanishing behind a bookcase. Coward, I thought, with a flicker

1042
00:50:12,480 --> 00:50:15,400
of envy. The cellars, cold chewed at my cheeks sharped

1043
00:50:15,400 --> 00:50:18,280
the memory. The sword of cold that feels personal each

1044
00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:20,559
day sounded hollow, though I'd have sworn the last time

1045
00:50:20,559 --> 00:50:23,440
I checked the planks with thick and sturdy. Down I went,

1046
00:50:23,719 --> 00:50:26,360
feet careful, the circle of lamp light shrinking as I descended.

1047
00:50:26,960 --> 00:50:29,840
The bricked alcove was visible even before I reached the bottom.

1048
00:50:30,079 --> 00:50:32,320
Its outline had changed more boilting now, the mortar pail

1049
00:50:32,360 --> 00:50:35,079
with the fluorescence, the air thick, with the scent of stone, earth,

1050
00:50:35,199 --> 00:50:38,159
and something newly rotten. The spiral of chalk had drawn

1051
00:50:38,239 --> 00:50:40,639
only a few nights ago, lay mostly intact. Both foamy

1052
00:50:40,639 --> 00:50:43,559
moles crept in along its edge. As soon as I

1053
00:50:43,559 --> 00:50:46,559
stepped on to the last stair, the scratching stuttered, then stopped.

1054
00:50:47,119 --> 00:50:49,159
The silence was so profound I wondered if the world

1055
00:50:49,199 --> 00:50:52,920
above still existed. I crouched beside the circle, breathing shallowly.

1056
00:50:53,559 --> 00:50:56,800
You aren't getting out, I whispered, a lassifiant moriply, not

1057
00:50:56,960 --> 00:51:00,199
to night. The voice that answered slid just beneath here, ring,

1058
00:51:00,239 --> 00:51:02,400
and yet every word was clear. Let me in, lee,

1059
00:51:02,519 --> 00:51:05,440
let me out, chewt. I closed my eyes, clutching the

1060
00:51:05,440 --> 00:51:09,519
spiral of tokens at my throat. No. The house responded

1061
00:51:09,599 --> 00:51:12,920
not with rage, but with a juttering, exhausted sigh. The

1062
00:51:12,920 --> 00:51:16,039
brick swalled, a thin crack glancing up the center. Mister,

1063
00:51:16,159 --> 00:51:19,039
something like it leaked through coiling and within the fog.

1064
00:51:19,159 --> 00:51:22,039
Faces pressed children, women, men, each holding my gaze for

1065
00:51:22,039 --> 00:51:24,719
a terrible and soon before dissolving into the mass. You

1066
00:51:24,800 --> 00:51:27,360
cannot keep me forever. Sleep with us. The fosses sign

1067
00:51:27,519 --> 00:51:30,320
no longer strictly Margaret's no precisely my own. But a

1068
00:51:30,400 --> 00:51:33,480
chorus and inheritance forced ung generations of wardens and daughters,

1069
00:51:33,480 --> 00:51:36,920
and frightened villages to paralyzed by history, to intervene. I

1070
00:51:36,960 --> 00:51:39,440
swallowed and traced the chalk lines. A new hand shaking

1071
00:51:40,079 --> 00:51:42,760
soul quivered on the stone, though they are remained perfectly still.

1072
00:51:43,360 --> 00:51:46,400
Against my wishes, memory stowed shop as Ie smuggers faced

1073
00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:48,280
the knight she'd sent me away as a child, her

1074
00:51:48,360 --> 00:51:50,480
voice rough, her hand shaking as she nodded the red

1075
00:51:50,519 --> 00:51:53,679
scarf at my throat, goat lee, don't come back, not

1076
00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:56,599
until you must. I bent low and pressed my forehead

1077
00:51:56,639 --> 00:51:58,880
to the stern, letting my tears run into the cracks,

1078
00:51:59,519 --> 00:52:01,960
Take me if you wish, but leave them alone. The

1079
00:52:02,079 --> 00:52:04,559
reply was unclear. A sudden building of Prussia that made

1080
00:52:04,559 --> 00:52:07,480
my nose bleed and metallic trickle across my lip. I

1081
00:52:07,559 --> 00:52:10,480
let the blood fall, coloring the chalk line red. When

1082
00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:12,800
the drops touched the air twisted the chorus to solving

1083
00:52:12,800 --> 00:52:16,639
into a single brittle voice word warden anchor stay. I

1084
00:52:16,719 --> 00:52:19,880
remained croached, half defeated, until the first inkling of sunrise

1085
00:52:19,920 --> 00:52:22,679
reached the high window. Light soft and wlane, filtering through

1086
00:52:22,719 --> 00:52:25,280
dust sold It might have been borne alongside the hunger itself.

1087
00:52:25,760 --> 00:52:27,800
Only then did the oppression lift enough for me to

1088
00:52:27,800 --> 00:52:31,360
breathe easy. I staggered upstairs, half blind teeth chattering and

1089
00:52:31,400 --> 00:52:33,920
shirts soaked in sweat. The rest of the day was

1090
00:52:34,039 --> 00:52:36,760
like passing through invisible water. Every movement weighed down, every

1091
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:39,880
attempt at normaltly shrunk into gestures of habit, not hope.

1092
00:52:40,280 --> 00:52:43,119
I went through the routines, breakfast lost in taste, herpes

1093
00:52:43,159 --> 00:52:45,239
gathered in the garden, the cats stalking at my heels.

1094
00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:48,280
Once more, Missus Annesley did not come that day, nor

1095
00:52:48,320 --> 00:52:51,480
the one after. The villagers, when climpsed, true fog or

1096
00:52:51,480 --> 00:52:53,920
between slats, and the shutters stepped out of sight, their

1097
00:52:53,920 --> 00:52:56,400
offerings thinning. Even the shrine at the edge of the

1098
00:52:56,440 --> 00:52:58,960
wood hunch lower, as if overwhelmed by the responsibility of

1099
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:02,280
standing God. One morning night, late one afternoon, as the

1100
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:04,239
light lost its grip, a new sound threaded the in

1101
00:53:04,280 --> 00:53:08,119
sush a chime, metallic, faint but insistent. At first I

1102
00:53:08,159 --> 00:53:10,480
thought of the bell from the post office clock, but

1103
00:53:10,559 --> 00:53:12,960
as I listened, I realized it told not from outside,

1104
00:53:13,079 --> 00:53:15,880
but from the upper floor. I almost ignored it. One

1105
00:53:15,880 --> 00:53:17,880
more artifact of a mine ground down to the stub,

1106
00:53:18,440 --> 00:53:21,440
but it would not cease. Upstairs, the hallway was longer

1107
00:53:21,480 --> 00:53:24,440
than it should have been, Shadows peeled away from the baseboards,

1108
00:53:25,079 --> 00:53:27,000
a door at the end I didn't quite remember, opened

1109
00:53:27,039 --> 00:53:29,519
onto a narrow room nursery or something like one with

1110
00:53:29,599 --> 00:53:31,800
a single wooden cradle, Its sides pinned it with faded,

1111
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:35,119
vinted flowers. The bell rested atop the cradle's head board

1112
00:53:35,159 --> 00:53:37,039
of Margaret's hole skull bell, the one she'd used to

1113
00:53:37,039 --> 00:53:39,360
wake me on winter mornings for hot chocolate and stores.

1114
00:53:40,000 --> 00:53:42,960
I blinked, staggered closer, and saw the bell was ringing gently,

1115
00:53:43,000 --> 00:53:45,719
though no hand touched it. As my fingers reached, a

1116
00:53:45,800 --> 00:53:48,199
chill deepened, and then a vision took me Margaret kneeling

1117
00:53:48,199 --> 00:53:50,039
at the cradle, drawing chalk cymbals on the floor, as

1118
00:53:50,039 --> 00:53:53,199
a baby, as shadow, remembering slept eyes wide and unblinking,

1119
00:53:53,360 --> 00:53:56,360
silent as a stone, her face pinched and tired, bent

1120
00:53:56,360 --> 00:53:59,599
over scrolls of white branches and double crescents. I jolted

1121
00:53:59,599 --> 00:54:02,880
back behind me. The air horned more presents than n emptiness,

1122
00:54:03,039 --> 00:54:05,960
more threat than comfort. The hungry thing beneath the m

1123
00:54:06,039 --> 00:54:08,320
was not patient, ed had waited, and now pressed against

1124
00:54:08,360 --> 00:54:10,400
every scene, every memory, every answer of while I had

1125
00:54:10,440 --> 00:54:13,800
tored it over the lonely months. The scratching louder now

1126
00:54:13,880 --> 00:54:15,679
traced up the stairs, stick ticked to collighte. The dull

1127
00:54:15,800 --> 00:54:18,559
edge of a knife dragged a long bone. I reeled, clutched,

1128
00:54:18,599 --> 00:54:21,679
the bell nearly fell as I raced downstairs. Below the

1129
00:54:21,760 --> 00:54:24,960
kitchen windows boiled with fog. The cellar door rattled in

1130
00:54:25,000 --> 00:54:28,119
its frame. The candles supply was low. Only two remained,

1131
00:54:28,280 --> 00:54:30,480
stark and stubby. They wak snicked by teeth in the hoop,

1132
00:54:30,519 --> 00:54:32,239
that nothing would come from me before I burned through

1133
00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:34,679
the last night. I went to the table, sat the

1134
00:54:34,679 --> 00:54:37,119
bell beside the candle, and began the circle again, salt

1135
00:54:37,199 --> 00:54:40,519
chalk tokens placed in their careful spiral. I drew in breath,

1136
00:54:40,679 --> 00:54:43,800
held Margaret's journal, and whispered her words, my own voice

1137
00:54:43,840 --> 00:54:48,119
joining hers circle unbroken candle Alie anchor in blood and

1138
00:54:48,159 --> 00:54:51,880
memoryle at this line hole no answer, not a verse.

1139
00:54:52,599 --> 00:54:54,760
Then the wall's moot contracted inward and outward in a

1140
00:54:54,840 --> 00:54:57,840
rhythm that pressed on my lawns. The cat shreaked, bolted

1141
00:54:57,880 --> 00:55:00,559
for the pantrary, eyes wide with terror. Out of the

1142
00:55:00,559 --> 00:55:03,480
corner of my vision, forms flickered to Margaret, my own child,

1143
00:55:03,519 --> 00:55:06,079
a shadow, strangers wherein the look of family, each one

1144
00:55:06,159 --> 00:55:08,400
rooting me. Here a chain I could not break. The

1145
00:55:08,480 --> 00:55:10,360
cellar door burst inward on a gust of wind so

1146
00:55:10,480 --> 00:55:14,360
cold it burned, exposed flash. The brick galco shuddered, mortar bancing,

1147
00:55:14,440 --> 00:55:17,039
loose cracks, yawning as they had in the first worse night.

1148
00:55:17,079 --> 00:55:20,880
The hunger pressed forward, impatient, jubilant. The voices overlapped in

1149
00:55:20,880 --> 00:55:23,280
a babble, all versions of myself and every woman who

1150
00:55:23,280 --> 00:55:26,679
had come before. But now the shape behind the wallgrew deliberate,

1151
00:55:26,719 --> 00:55:30,519
less brute, more cunning. It croon, let me out, be free.

1152
00:55:30,519 --> 00:55:32,480
The world owes you nothing, glee, Ye keep this place

1153
00:55:32,480 --> 00:55:35,199
for what. I shut my eyes, hands clamped over my ears,

1154
00:55:35,280 --> 00:55:38,599
knees pressed into the spiral full of I said, not

1155
00:55:38,639 --> 00:55:41,280
sure if I meant Margaret, the village, myself, or all

1156
00:55:41,320 --> 00:55:44,199
those nenameless voices in the fog, to keep the circle

1157
00:55:44,360 --> 00:55:47,039
so no one else has to break. A reptor through me,

1158
00:55:47,159 --> 00:55:50,079
pained beyond the body, memory, history, desire, jumbling into a

1159
00:55:50,079 --> 00:55:53,639
final brittle command, Stay or open? Stay or open? Stay

1160
00:55:53,719 --> 00:55:57,920
or opening? I sobbed, pain, rippling from scalp defeat, Stay,

1161
00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:01,519
I begged, I'll stay, just let the village be. Something shifted,

1162
00:56:02,480 --> 00:56:05,239
The cracks in the wall wept black, Then ebbed, The

1163
00:56:05,360 --> 00:56:08,559
forces settled to a steady thrum. The fog outside hesitated

1164
00:56:08,599 --> 00:56:11,599
at the window, then slowly, sweetly unfurled, streaming away over

1165
00:56:11,639 --> 00:56:14,639
the hills. I thought I heard Margaret's voice again, gentle,

1166
00:56:14,719 --> 00:56:18,440
exhausted but relieved, thank'ye. The candle brightened slumb blue to

1167
00:56:18,440 --> 00:56:21,480
steady gold. The bells still clutched in my shaking hand,

1168
00:56:21,679 --> 00:56:24,320
ran once the most ordinary, humly sound in all these years.

1169
00:56:25,039 --> 00:56:27,440
I slept that morning, cold beside the table, cat curled

1170
00:56:27,480 --> 00:56:29,440
on my chest, A first sunlight sense, who knew when

1171
00:56:29,440 --> 00:56:32,880
spilling canded yellow over the mottel tiles. After that, things

1172
00:56:32,960 --> 00:56:37,079
changed subtly, but for good. The scratching slowed. Villages began

1173
00:56:37,119 --> 00:56:39,440
to leave gifts at the steep again, bread bundles of

1174
00:56:39,519 --> 00:56:43,719
Chad's jaws of summer preserves. Misseses Annesley returned, this time

1175
00:56:43,719 --> 00:56:45,760
with a basket of duck eggs in a tent to smile,

1176
00:56:45,960 --> 00:56:47,880
and sat with me while Tea steamed the dust from

1177
00:56:47,880 --> 00:56:50,920
our ferts. She said little, but her hand on mine

1178
00:56:50,960 --> 00:56:54,159
told me the rest. You can ask for help, she said, softly,

1179
00:56:54,199 --> 00:56:57,239
will come now you've done enough alone. The hunger and

1180
00:56:57,280 --> 00:57:01,000
the walls receded, not vanished, packaged, pacified by understanding not

1181
00:57:01,079 --> 00:57:04,599
just the ritual, not just the candle, but choice. Each

1182
00:57:04,719 --> 00:57:06,800
night I built the circle, lit the flame, and said

1183
00:57:06,800 --> 00:57:09,239
my prayer, and found the way a child lighter, not absent,

1184
00:57:09,440 --> 00:57:12,239
never that, but possible to bear. The house yielded to

1185
00:57:12,239 --> 00:57:14,960
me and you. Margaret's room swelled with peas, and the

1186
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:18,679
mirrors reflected only my own face, drawn sober but recognizably mine.

1187
00:57:19,239 --> 00:57:21,679
The fog when it came, slid past, as if respecting

1188
00:57:21,719 --> 00:57:25,079
the boundary set by hopeful, tired hands. I did not leave,

1189
00:57:25,679 --> 00:57:28,599
but I was not alone. When I gardened, the laughter

1190
00:57:28,679 --> 00:57:31,280
of children drifted up from the village below. When I

1191
00:57:31,320 --> 00:57:33,679
walked the edge of the trees, I felt watched, yes,

1192
00:57:33,800 --> 00:57:37,840
but not with mouse, only witness memory warning. Every so often,

1193
00:57:37,920 --> 00:57:40,199
near midnight, the scratching would sharpen, just long enough to

1194
00:57:40,239 --> 00:57:43,519
remind me. The hunger learned and waits, But so do we,

1195
00:57:43,639 --> 00:57:46,039
the wards, the keepers, and to night the boundaries hold.

1196
00:57:46,639 --> 00:57:51,239
For now, that is enough, and that is the end.

1197
00:57:51,840 --> 00:57:53,559
Thank you for listening, and I will see you in

1198
00:57:53,559 --> 00:58:06,599
the next one.