The Witch and The Dead

A Visitor

She awoke, late that night, gently, to the soothing crackle of the fire that spattered as calmly as rain. The light flickered feebly in the darkness. Her knees shifted atop a bed of warm gravel. A gust whistled through the hut's cracks.

"You fell asleep."

Anna rubbed her eyes. They hurt from the light. "I know."

To that he said nothing. Twigs crinkled as he shifted.

"These leaves are brittle," he said.

She closed her eyes. "All are."

"And whose fault is that?"

She paused. "The stars."

The old man snorted, and rolled in his battered, old bed.

His life's work lay strewn out in front of her: old parchment, covered in points, curves, and cyphers. She lifted one to the hearth and strained her eyes, exhausted from hours of hopeless study. She tried to bring the shapes into some kind of otherworldly focus, as if what was really there was just behind the glowing pages, she need only see it. But there was nothing, save the brown, cracking texture of the decaying paper. Before the flame, the inked dots were black pits in a warm, cream sky. She lifted it to the opening in their roof above the fire. No matter how she turned it, the dots did not match the stars. And even if they did, what would it mean?

Five days and five nights. That is what her father had always said. Five days and five nights, and you can read the stars. Today was her twelfth. Her eyes were heavy; her muscles, weak. She lay down the page and closed her eyes. Crying would be just another waste of water, water that could save another person's life.

"An oracle learns to cry dryly," her father reminded her.

Sleep crept up upon her again as she clung weakly to her sides. So few nights were left.

Then her ears perked. Something far off rustled.

"Someone's coming," her father hissed.

Anna turned to the door. From afar, footsteps rapped hurriedly against path. Voices chattered in hushed, frantic tones.

Quickly, she tucked the pages back in their proper place and flattened them beneath a hefty, stone slab. She stood wearily, her body and heart both tired and heavy. Her youth had been battered by stress. She swept the dust and dirt from her calves and trudged toward the opening. Through it, she saw the distant crowd drawing closer, their figures barely visible in the night.

The villagers had never called on them after sunset. They would always await her arrival in the morning.

"And yet, they come." Her father's words were punctuated with dry coughs. "What will you tell them this time?"

Anna bit her lip. They never called at night.

"You'll have to give them something, Anita," he warned her. She winced at the invocation of her childhood name. "Even when you're empty, you will have to give them more."

The congregation settled just beyond their hut. They debated in hissing whispers.

"Don't be weak, Anita." By his tone, it sounded like assurance. "You know what you have to do."

He wheezed and fell silent. With nothing but the sound of the fire, it was as if she were alone.

Even when you're empty, you will have to give more.

Slowly, she wiped the sweat from her brow, and with barely the energy to stand, she took a deep breath, and stepped outside.

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