...

Old man Agrippa lay on cold stone, breathless. Over his body a cabal of whispers. Kulkatli – the longtrodden Agent, Juho Munin – the greyhair Houndmaster, Nurek Ikki – the Scholar, Ursa Mulonyn – the humpbacked High Nun. Their faces under arches of the ceiling.

“See, the toadstone never helped,” said the Scholar, pointing to Agrippa’s amulet. “It was but a trinket.”

“Trinket or not,” replied the Agent, “this was our mistake as well. The stone wasn’t the only one in the wrong.”

The grey marble in the pendant never changed color, even when Agrippa lowered it into the deathcap stew. For two days and two nights he vomited and shat bile, his yellowed eyes not holding any image but the fog and the reaper fast approaching. Called out to the ether, lost understanding of one-two-three. Even now, some say that the windmill theory was born in this kind of mare.

“Oh Agrippa, to whom have you left us? To whom have you left your daughter? How could I know you’d be dead before winter?” aunt Jutta cried in the corner of the room next door. It’s not everyday you watch your brother puke his guts out until yielding to the other side. Who was behind it is yet unknown, but we will tell everybody in due time.

No doubt, he had so many manwrought ideas and images he deemed real, that he is forever bound to hover as a restless ghost behind the backs of his friends and family for all eternity. His scrawny body lay empty, belly tightened like a raisin, a chest of ribs, bones inside skin. If you knock on that chest you’d hear a drum, and sometimes words would come out.

Out in the leaves, the birds and spirits were going all ”Kerrek! Kerrek!” Jona watched the courtyard through the lens of the window. A silent warcall woke her up. A wall of dance moves, terrible to behold, formed further in the rye thicket, it’s the field ghosts’ gathering. The head of a black goat watched from the weeds, its body crouched and crooked, hidden in rags. The reeds moved under a scarecrow named long Maximilian.

See the tapestry on the wall of Jona’s room. A fox crawls into a burrow, on the other side of which is the rocky road to the Kainevaara – the meeting hill. There live the dead and the field ghosts. There was an old tale about a poacher who followed the fox, and had a hard time finding his way back. He found a wife there, but could not take her to the land of the living. The poacher and his wife are shown on the tapestry, parting with eachother.

Watch Jona’s body. The ghost of hands, the ghost of feet, the belly ghost. The head ghost and the chest ghost. The liver ghost, the ghost of the lung. The ghost of the blood vessels, ghosts of fingers and fingernails. The ghosts of the stomach and the urinary tract, the ghost of the reproductive system. The ghost of the heart and the bones. The ghost of the eyes, the ghosts of vocal chords and eardrums. These form the image of the body. Jona thought, let them wither away and you no longer live in your own skin.

“Gablegirl,” said a voice behind the door, “old man no longer will make sounds.”

“Suffered long enough”, said Jona, “Don’t stand there like a peripheral figment and be a bore.”

The agent walked inside, slouched as if with a dagger in the gut. Moved a chair under himself with a shaky grip.

“I was in the room when physicians perfumed him with henbane and mandrake incense. It filled the whole place. I still feel somewhat light-headed.”

“Have you seen something?” She turned.

“You mean...”

“The incense,” Jona took her beads from the bedside table and started to count, “did you see anything?”

“No, just a dying man.” The agent tried to remember. The shades of gray and a mouse in the wallcrack. Jona looked at him, as if trying to read his mind-images. Weren’t there things in the eyecorner when people die? Bad dreams and body dissatisfaction? The palms seem dirty and the clothes stink? Kulkatli showed none of that, apart from a small film over the face that makes it seem seethrough, and that jerk in movement that just screams “I will go to a very dark place soon.”

“I’ve seen a ragtag around long Maximilian.” said she, turning towards the window, “Time he got himself a ladyfriend. A windvane, perhaps?”

Kulkatli just stared straight. He could comfort the girl, but the words didn’t come. He thought for a moment the girl seeked to change the subject, lessen the blow. But would she? He seldom spoke to her without Agrippa around. She was much closer with the porky scholar, Nurek. Some say he’s a magician. If that was true, what good was his magic?

“You have some dogteeth, Kulkatli. You have to sink them in some poor sob’s neck.” exhausted Jona, “A girlfriend for Max, dogteeth for the conspirator.”

“I have ears around town. We will do our best so that he or she doesn’t flee Kerweg. However, if there is a Conspiracy, that’s not our only worry. You should learn, orphan. From now on, all your boundaries are but half-there.”

“I know some things others don’t. You will not call me an orphan ever again.”

Jona could talk big, but she did know some things indeed. Is, that boundaries are to be respected, but not worshipped. And as her boundaries faded, like the mandrake incense downstairs, something heavy and full of letters did fill her heart. She could not go out in a state like that, no. That would make two of her and old Agrippa.

“Should we have a see-see with the others?” Kulkatli twisted his head around. He wanted to move his bad leg and leave the room. It seemed wet. The walls, the window, the stone floor, felt more like a cave. “Right now it’s a burn for us to address the housepeople. Time for you to take power comes and comes speedy.”

“Take it until a new head is appointed here by the keisr? The power I wield today can’t be taken to wherever we will be transferred. The whispers are to be disbanded.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure. Albeit a woman, you are Agrippa’s blood. That holds some weight. You shouldn’t seem as much of a problem for the keisr. More to the story, even highborns have their fears about the woods. Lauvaximetsi is notorious even outside Ulkevaara.”

“You of all people have seen your fair share of things worthy to be mistaken for superstitions. And what, you’re telling me they will just live and let live? Because the scary woods on the outskirts?”

Kulkatli was a man with god-teeth, right from the mouth of the Ironhound. They say, he was found unconscious in the field, next to a body of a wild dog. He bit through its neck and drank its blood when the dog attacked. He always said, hunger makes you show your face to the field, that the warmth of blood was the first warmth he felt in weeks. That people with their bellies full of food and drink will never understand a starved one.

“My suspicions are, heads will roll in other places. Lords will stay off mushroom stew for now, but there is no saying what happens tomorrow.” He stood up, all shaky-like. “As for now, rest. Tomorrow you will see the others. They have words for you as well.”

Was it the voice of the fox in the tapestry, or was it long Maximilian that said “Agrippa’s death should not have been such a breathstopper. After all, it’s this time of the year again. Every moon has a phase, and now they just finished their months-long walk right into the phase of baaaad surprises.” And as tangible as a voice from the ether, or creatures hiding in the corners of eyesight, were Jona’s expectations of things to come.

The outlander Nun prayed near the body throughout the night. Jona understood little of the reasons Agrippa let somebody from that far away so close to himself. There were times, when Jona would say “As shalo gjalpa” instead of “Good Morning”, or “How do you do,” and the nun would seem nonthewiser. “As shalo gjalpa nog gleggo ima, Ursa. As svevna ima to imetu gelgu ponnu”¹. But of course, Ursa would just play a rube and stare back blankly, which angered Jona even more.

It was layered and laced cloths, rending halls of the monastery-house, days shortening. Ursa couldn’t move fast. The nature of her hump was hereditary. Some demon moving inside, a desperation. All Jona’s secrets were Ursa’s secrets as well, though unknown to the brat. Would it be a keyhole, or peeping through a two-way bookcase? Some nights, Jona would give into hothead temptations, youngman would crawl into a window. Then, Jona would let him kiss her where her thighs meet, blow him as well. Then, Jona would let him fuck her in different positions. They barely talked. Ursa would peep and then go back to her room and masturbate falling asleep. Today was no different. A hole in-between the books, an eye behind it, a pebble hitting the window.

Youngman climbed inside, Kalpo, the houndmaster’s son. Shoes with holes, head full of fleas, Jona picked up a stray. She looked at him, not saying a word. Youngman stood on his knees and held her belly.

“You are today like that pebble I threw.”

...

   The Warlock was in flee-mindset for a longest time. At that year's fouryouth, he didn't observe a thing – no space, nor land or water. All was the overtugging milk-mist. A great animal gut string, ringing in his head, tugged his inmind towards forgetfulness, as a fur-beast in winter sleep, too idle to look. All-place-drawn forms before his eyes hid at every cranny and every nook. Sometimes, they were emerald green, in other cases – aquamarine.

   The tower spired over the woods, hiding in the sixcorner of its walls the Warlock's dwelling. Three floors marked the worlds: the cellar for the dead, the first floor for the living, the second for the skies. The soothsayer's ancestor was buried under the doorstep. A bird lived in the loft, for birds are known to speak with the deceased. A bird could be his eyes too, fleetly cross the moorland east of the woods and into the not-so-faraway kingdom. She could also watch the barrow valley westwards, flying just over the pine treetops. That way, the mound ghosts couldn't spot her. She could fare to the south, for the quick stream, running through murk like a silver scar, to grab fresh fishies and watch the hexed waters.

   His spells were scribed on boards, the many-staves; his cloths cluttered the clothhanger, his spellboard stood crammed to the wall, the windbells chirped dry hung near the doors. All of it, sometimes seemed useless. More so, when he, the wizard himself, laid cold-still, locked in his lamphouse of fleeing, in some faraway woodsheart.

   As the second light sneaks nigh, the Warlock usually falls in so-called ”sorrowfulness”, as it comes naturally with so seldom a chit-chat with another man or woman. 'Ye munt cry not!' – the Warlock tells himself. Indeed, it has been a long time since anybody came for his soothsayings. Everybody just thought me a witless. Folk find me a hermit in the neck o the woods. Maybe I'd have to wake up from this willowy thickety sleep some day.