The Husks of Night

Chapter 1

After the last cow in the village was slaughtered, the kerchiefed women began to speak about the old tales. While Fellawine boiled down brazilwood and maple in an iron pot over the fire, she would tell the story about a brave soldier who stumbled into the lair of a wicked faerie, who drank three goblets of poison and lived to tell the tale. As Simza peeled the rinds off of barberries, she recounted the tale of the child king who ruled over the stork-people who lived in the far east. Noyemi crushed green nutshells in her mortar and spoke of how a man lost his voice to a clever fish spirit.

As they boiled and grinded and peeled to make their dyes, the three women told Sofian many tales of old, the likes of which had not been spoken since before the beginning of the Tin Revolution. The longer they worked, the more his hands were stained with the green dye made from elderflower and the more his head buzzed warmly with the enchanting rumors about distant kings and queens and unbelievable creatures.

The kerchiefed women never seemed to run out of tales to tell. Each time one of them finished a story, it was like another one of them dug into their honeypot of fairytale knowledge and brought out a new rumor they had overheard about something else magical. Fellawine, Simza, and Noyemi regaled each other with their charmed tidbits and they tried to get Sofian to join in on the fun.

"Come, Sofi, hasn't your mumu told you any bedtime stories about the magic ways?" Simza coaxed.

"It's been a while since I've been put to bed by anyone," Sofian reminded, "and even when my mae did tuck me in, she never spoke of the stork-people or wicked faeries."

"That's it, Simz," Noyemi scolded, clicking her tongue, "Sof's not a lad of ten and four anymore. He's a man now, he's twenty."

"Of course we know that, Noya," Fellawine rolled her eyes, her hands deep in a basket of undyed cloth, "always, ye think ye'self just that correct all the time an' that nobody else could be as proper as you. There's no knockin' it. But we just don't want to think about our little Sofi growin' as a man an' leavin' us." She winked across the room at Sofian. He smiled at the gesture and bent his head to his work.

"I couldn't think of leaving," Sofian assured them, "wherever else would I get this quality exfoliation?"

Though Sofian's real tether voiced itself shortly. His stomach started to growl and the room grew deaf to everything except the gurgling of the boiling pots and his gut. It was no secret that underneath his clothes, Sofian's skin met his ribs. It was the same for each of the women working with him, and everyone in the village. Working as a dyer practically paid in flecks of dust, but at least every two days, Sofian could buy a whole loaf of bread for his family. A loaf didn't go around the table at his house twice – what with his mother, his uncle, his two sisters, a cousin, and his baby brother all under the same roof – but at least everyone got a mouthful.

"Where could I go that starvation would not follow me?" Sofian muttered, "where could I go that I wouldn't be leaving my family behind?"

The kerchiefed women each looked much the same. They all stood about five-and-a-quarter feet tall, and their skin hung over their old bones like a silk scarf on a coatrack. Sofian's family was one of many in the village who seasoned their broth with wishes and salt tears. These old women knew about hunger. Though it was the greed of the soldiers of the Tin Revolution that brought the starvation this time, the women had known of this hunger for many years. The women who wrap their sheer skin in patterned kerchiefs always recognize when tragedy comes twice.

In an effort to forget the hunger once more, Fellawine picked up the silence and blew it away like smoke, "have ye ever heard of the poised Queen of the Hollow Realm?"

"What's this?" Noyemi protested, "I've never heard of such a thing. I think you lie, Fellawine."

"No lie," Fellawine promised, crossing her ankles in a display of fervor, "the Queen is real and loads powerful. Her kingdom of husks lies to the south."