for the sake of organization, I wanted to make a central place to find my writing on this blog that I can update with new posts as they come! even with self reblogs posts can get lost, so I’m hoping this is helpful (for myself and you!) <3
support me on ko-fi! // meet the author! // IN THE NECK OF THE WOODS KICKSTARTER // which of my ocs are you? QUIZ!
original writing
Another Life
Lighthouse
To Aeneas
Untitled (Inspired by OFMD)
Creation [Book Excerpt] THE OLD GOD
Pirate Queen [Book Excerpt] ARDAN
Dream [Book Excerpt] CELESTE
I Saw My Favorite Author Today.
John Dearheart has been dead for 23 years
Calliope
Rot
Diary of Juliette Ashburn
A Love Letter to Gothic Horror
You Again!
Odysseus.
The Other Moss
Body
Gender
Grief Interlude/Parade [Book Excerpt] BRANWEN
Mara Has Been Replaced [part 1]
Mara Has Been Replaced [part 2]
Lux! [Book Excerpt]
Please Like Me, Please Like Me, Oh Dear God, Please Like Me
Eris [EXCERPT]
Deja Vu
Eris- myth [EXCERPT]
babygirl has religious trauma [Book excerpt] BRANWEN
On Humanity
Eris [SECOND EXCERPT]
Moss, Again
Forget About Me [AO3 LINK]
Thoughts (of the Death variety)
Bedtime Story [silly.]
Is That What You Called Me? [Book Excerpt] BRANWEN
Rat Story
Rat Epilogue
Siren.
Freezer Burn
You Were A Good Girl.
Bite
Eris and the Beast
I Hate This Job
Thanks for Visiting!
Branwen and the Old God [Book Excerpt]
Nature Existentialism
Ulysses [Book Excerpt]
Eris and Zeno [TAKEN FROM AN ASK ON MY MAIN ACCOUNT]
The woodsman swallowed painfully. “Go upstairs,” he said, almost a whisper. “Don’t come out until I say it’s okay to.”
Nora nodded and crouched down as she tiptoed her way to the staircase. The banging was incessant now, and drowned out any noise from her ascension. The woodsman waited for a moment longer, watching Nora from the corner of his eye. She turned into the little bedroom on the left and he felt the muscles in his chest loosen, just a little.
She could hear his heavy footfalls through the floor. A click as the door opened. Nora strained to hear the conversation. The woodsman’s voice was low, obedient. There was a rustling of fabric after several hushed moments, followed by a second set of footsteps in the living room. Whoever had been at the door had entered, seemingly uninvited.
With the door closed, the voices were louder.
“And how are you?” A strange man’s voice said. “We hardly have time to chat anymore.”
“We hardly chatted before,” the woodsman said curtly.
The other man’s voice was icy, like wind over packed snow. Nora found herself shivering.
He seemed to be waiting for something.
“I’ve been fine,” the woodsman relented. “Cold.”
The man laughed loudly. “Cold!” he agreed.
More fabric rustling. The man was taking off his scarf and coat. He folded both neatly and rested them on the table, and eyed the cards innocently.
“You’ve had guests.”
Nora stopped breathing.
“Yes,” the woodsman agreed.
Nora felt tears begin to well in her eyes, although she did not understand why. She understood so little about the situation she found herself in, but knew enough to recognize a betrayal when she saw it. Whoever this man was, it was evident from the feeling in her gut that this was not someone she wanted on her tail.
Nora frantically looked about the bedroom, eager for a window or a crawlspace that led to something. The small window on the opposite wall had a short gingham curtain, and she scrambled silently toward it. Wooziness overtook her as she looked out: she had to be hundreds of feet above the ground. She cursed the cabin and the woods around it.
“Anyone I know?” She heard the man say.
“How would I know who you know?” the woodsman responded. The carelessness in his voice was measured.
Nora paused.
The man grunted, audibly displeased.
“One at a time,” the man said after several seconds of tense silence. “You know the rules.”
“Yes, of course I do,” the woodsman replied. His tone had taken on that of a child hearing the same lecture for the hundredth time. “One at a time.”
“So who was it?” the man pressed.
“A girl,” the woodsman said. “Bundled up to high heaven, poor thing. I gave her something to eat and sent her on her way.”
Silence again. Nora exhaled slowly but shakily. The woodsman meant to protect her, but the adrenaline was already coursing through her veins. The man appeared to be considering what the woodsman had said.
“Not exactly like that,” the man said slowly. “You played a game first.”
The woodsman raised an eyebrow. “Yes,” he agreed. “After we ate. What’s the difference?”
“And now you ate together,” the man continued. “It’s nothing, I just want to make sure I have a…full picture.”
“Of what? My daily goings-on? I didn’t realize I’d need to provide you with a full itinerary.”
The man patted the woodsman’s arm. He could feel the muscles beneath it. “Oh, nothing like that. She just didn’t arrive at the cabin when she was supposed to. I just worry, is all.”
The woodsman nodded. The other man said something else, but Nora could not hear it. The man picked up his coat and scarf and slowly put them both back on, savoring the motion. The woodsman watched quietly. The man’s boots plodded along the floor, the melting snow stuck in their tracks leaving tiny dirty puddles in their wake.
“You have a good day now,” the woodsman said. He had not moved from beside the table.
The man stood in the doorway as he nodded amicably to the woodsman, holding up one hand in farewell. Nora could hear his crunching footfalls slowly drifting off into the distance.
Still, the woodsman did not move. Nora waited. She did not dare to reveal herself before he gave her the explicit permission. Something was wrong.
Finally, the woodsman walked toward the door and closed it. Nora heard him sit on the couch. She heard the crackle of the fire, warm and inviting, and the dry scraping of pages. The woodsman sat on the couch, no more than 20 feet away, reading. His back was to the stairs.
Nora waited. She glanced out the window from her hiding place, and could see that the white sky was changing. It faded to a light and lovely blue as fluffy clouds lazily drifted across it. The sun was bright and cheerful. Still, Nora waited. Nora waited as she watched the sun move across the sky and gradually lower itself, and Nora waited as the moon rose higher and higher, until it too glowed with the same intensity as the sun had burned. The pages continued to turn downstairs.
Nora closed her eyes and hugged her knees to her chest tightly. Despite her fear, she found comfort in the knowledge that the woodsman was her friend. She did not doubt his kindness, and found certainty in it. If he had yet to come for her, it was for good reason.
Night lasted a long time in that place. The rustling of pages had stopped some time ago, and it became evident to Nora that the woodsman had started and finished a book in a single sitting.
The moon continued to rise and rise and rise. It was so high that Nora could not see it above her even when she craned her neck. She realized, for perhaps the first time, that she was unsettled. When the moon was so far away its light had faded completely, she heard the woodsman stand from his seat on the couch and begin to ascend the stairs.
Nora still did not move. She resolved that she would not so much as breathe until the woodsman told her it was okay to.
He stopped at the top of the stairs and waited. Nora felt as though she was being tested. She intended to pass.
“Once upon a time,” he began. “There was a woodsman. He was kind, but stupid. He attempted to master the trees by cutting them up and turning them into other things. Things he felt were important.”
Nora waited.
“In his stupidity, he made an understandable error. He had mangled the forest around him for his own benefit. His own survival. The trees were as obliging as a hostage could be, powerless to stop him. They watched as he murdered the animals that used to live in their bellies, for their pelts and their meat. They watched as he butchered them, careful to not make their sacrifices for nothing. The woodsman was not wasteful.”
Nora eyed the door carefully, although her positioning made her unable to see him on the other side of it.
“Survival is not stupid,” he continued. “It is what all living things have in common. One of the things, at least. Nor is resourcefulness stupid. Nor is kindness. The woodsman excelled at all three of these things, and he thanked the trees and animals graciously for their sacrifices. The trees and animals understood that the woodsman worked with honor and love in his hands. And I hear you ask: If none of the woodsman’s survival needs are what makes him stupid, then what could his fatal error concern?”
The woodsman waited, giving Nora the space to echo his question back. She did not.
“The woodsman gave back to the forest in the ways he could think of. He would leave bones and unusable meat and rotting fruits and vegetables out to compost, for the worms and other unwanted animals to feed on. He planted crops, and watered flowers. He loved the earth, and it loved him back. The trees forgave him for the ways he had mutilated their brethren, because he had proven himself in their eyes. The animals understood that he was simply one of them, and his hunger was no different from their own. The woodsman loved the woods, and wanted to share what he had learned with others.”
The woodsman’s voice sounded tired, and Nora could hear the slightest cracking in it as he continued.
“So many were so grateful as they made their way past his home. He offered them food and seeds, and taught them how to skin an animal and dry the meat so it could last. Sometimes they’d return after days or weeks or months or years and bring crops of their own, or furs, or flowers. They’d thank him for his help and assure him he was always welcome in their homes, and urged him to stop by whenever he had the first chance to. That was most.”
The woodsman swiped at a fresh tear that streaked down his face. He knew Nora was behind the door, waiting with bated breath. Despite the heaviness in his chest, it pleased him to have such a guest in his home.
“Only some did not share his kindness. They did not share his love for the forest. Now, it was not the woodsman’s fault he could not sense evil within these guests. Had he begun to doubt the intentions of a rare few, he would have been unable to help the vast majority. But still, he gave the secrets of the forest to those who did not deserve it, and did not honor it. They killed more than they could eat, they cut more than their homes needed. They did not share their surplus. Before long, they assigned themselves power, claiming only they could decide who the forest belonged to.”
The woodsman stopped speaking. He sighed. Nora watched the door patiently.
“You can come out now,” he said finally.
Nora released her grip on her own knees and stretched her legs out before her. The woodsman stepped into the bedroom and looked down at her.
“What happened to the woodsman?” she asked in a small voice.
The woodsman smiled. “Lived some type of happily ever after. Up you go.” He offered both hands down to her, although he could have easily scooped her up with only one.
Nora accepted and pulled herself to her feet. “Is it safe for me here?” she asked. The woodsman smiled at her sadly.
“I can leave if it’s safer for you,” she said quickly. “I understand. I’ve been out here long enough, I can find my own way.”
He shook his head. “No. Stay as long as you like. I like having the company.”
“Will that man be back?”
“Oh, most certainly. But let him. He’s a coward, just like the rest of his lot.”
“If he’s a coward, then why are you afraid of him?”
The question fell out of Nora’s mouth before she could stop it, although she doubted she would have anyway. The woodsman did not seem to mind either way. “Because I don’t understand him,” he sighed. “I don’t understand his selfishness or his cruelty. I don’t understand how he can look at all of this and think it's his and his alone.” The woodsman gestured broadly around them as he spoke.
“That type of meanness makes someone dangerous,” the woodsman said seriously. “And if I thought killing him off would do a lick of good, I’d have done it by now.”
“Would it not?” Nora asked. “Do any good, that is?”
“Not broadly, no.”
“But he’d be gone.”
The woodsman looked taken aback for a moment before belly laughing and wiping away a tear from the corner of his eye. “Suppose you’re right.”
Nora waved her hand in playful dismissiveness. “Of course I’m right.”
The air hung suddenly heavy between them. The woodsman appeared to be waiting for something. Unlike him, Nora had no interest in stoicism.
“He’s waiting for me?”
“Yes,” the woodsman replied before looking pained. “And no?”
The answer was more comforting than Nora would have liked to lead on. The woodsman looked as though he were fighting a battle with himself, the unspoken words seeming to sit with a certain amount of physical agony.
“Does he intend to kill me?”
The woodsman’s eyes became suddenly unclouded and he stared into Nora. “Yes.”
She nodded slowly. “Well.” The word hung in the air. “Then I suppose I can think of some licks that might be good.”
The woodsman shook his head. “You misunderstand. He doesn’t care about you. He could attend your funeral with wet eyes and all the pretty words in the world. He’ll kill you, and when they accuse him, he’ll only say it wasn’t his intention, and they’ll absolve him of it.”
Nora stared at the woodsman, incredulous. Anger rose in her chest. “So I have to just take it?”
The woodsman looked sympathetic. He opened his mouth to speak, but her tongue was already racing alongside her mind.
“Surely I’m not the first. How many of those funerals have you been to, knowing it was his hand that did it? How many pretty words have you given, how many wet eyes have you shown?”
Nora’s heart hurt as the woodsman flinched against her words, but she could not stop herself. The longer she looked on him, the deeper her resentment became. “You rightfully condemn him, but you do nothing to stop him! Clearly you have some power here, otherwise you’d be hunted the way I am now! You’re kind, but you’re weak! You’re speaking about these things like they’re some hypothetical, when I’m right here! When I’m dead, will it be a metaphorical death, or a literal one?”
The woodsman began to weep. He collapsed onto his knees and buried his face in his palms. A massive, hulking man, he appeared to be attempting to make himself as small as possible. His shoulders shook violently.
Nora’s chest heaved as if she had just finished running. The exertion of anger had exhausted her. She stepped past the woodsman and descended the stairs.
The living room was as she had left it, with the mysterious adjoining dining room still intact. She sank into the couch and allowed her eyes to unfocus as she stared into the fire.
guy who's having gauzy idealized wife flashbacks for the whole adventure but it turns out she isn't dead or anything he just really misses her and wants to get home
In the tenth year of Justinian’s reign, the sun lost its brightness and shone like the moon, as though perpetually eclipsed. From that moment, humanity knew no relief from war, famine, or pestilence. The plague followed soon after, spreading across the whole world without regard for age, rank, or place, bringing mankind to the edge of annihilation.
-Procopius on the Years following 536AD
From the summit of the Palatium Magnum, Justinian the Great looked out upon the city as the greatest temple to the one true God was completed. The Hagia Sophia stood as the summit of Roman achievement, a monument so grand that Justinian himself proclaimed to have surpassed Solomon. The agents of hell had tried and failed to destroy Justinian. He had endured the Nika Riots. Attila, the Scourge of God, had arrived and been driven back to distant lands. And now on the evening of victory over the Goths and Vandals, Justinian raised monuments across the empire to reclaim the ancient heartlands of Rome. To Justinian, it appeared as though Heaven itself had broken into the material world.
Then came the year 536. The sun lost its brightness and for an entire year it gave forth no warmth or heat, and neither spring nor summer ever arrived. Crops failed in the fields, harvests died on the vine, and famine spread across Rome. Even when the sun returned in the following years, its light remained dimmed, and the earth lingered forever in cold.
In his reflections, the historian Procopius remarked that from this moment onward mankind was never to be free of war, pestilence, or death. As hunger stalked the empire, the conditions for a far deadlier hell to break loose.
In 541, a mysterious disease appeared, starting in Egypt and quickly spreading through the Roman world. It wasn’t long before it reached Constantinople. This new death spared neither island nor mountain, rich or poor. Neither young nor old. This disease was described simply as an apparition that visited those marked for death. And then, the sickness came. First, a fever, then painful swellings rose in the armpits, ears and neck. Some fell into deep comas others seized by violent delirium, fleeing their homes in terror, crying out that the unseen apparition had come.
Blackened flesh spread across limbs. Carbuncles formed within the swellings. Some vomited blood other suffered as the black pustules would explode. As the population became overwhelmed with death, corpses lay unburied in the streets. Tombs were forced open to make room for more. Physicians were helpless. Treatments that saved some killed others. Many who were expected to die recovered, while those thought safe were smit without warning. And in the terror, mankind came to accept that there was no human reasoning in this pandemonium—only the terrible hand of God.
Wave after wave of death buckled the empire until nearly forty percent of the Roman population was lost. This Black Death broke Rome, the same Rome whose walls of Constantinople rebuffed Attila; whose armies crushed Persians, Goths and Vandals; whose lordship regaled as the heir of Caesar and Augustus. And Justinian the Great, whose monuments of glory now stood as an irony to fate, like Job before him, was brought low. Justinian’s dream of a restored Rome did not die in battle…it froze in the darkened years following 536AD. The long winter and the plague bled Constantinople, emptying her cities and hollowing out the economies. The Imperial state collapsed along with the Legions. What Justinian had nearly reclaimed through blood and steel was forever lost. While the old wolf of Rome endured it was permanently diminished. The Mediterranean world irreparably fractured. Between the darkened winter skies and diseased mass graves, the last true vision of a reunited Roman world quietly came to an end.
Sources:
Lost to the West; Lars Brownworth
The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease and the End of an Empire; Kyle Harper
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“I don’t know how much longer I can do this for, Nora.”
Nora trudged through the snow, sweat dripping down her back despite the subzero temperatures. She muttered under her breath as she walked, the stream of fog that accompanied it cut in half by the scarf pulled up to her bottom lip. The snowshoes had been a god-send, and the scraping sounds of the metal had become monotonous. The snow was easily over a foot high at this point, but rain had come in the night to create a thick film of ice for her to balance her way across.
She’d always enjoyed the sounds of winter: everything became muffled and quiet in a very loud way. She’d loved standing by the open door of the porch and listening to the crunch of the snow under the tires of the solitary car carefully making its way somewhere in the middle of the night.
The trees around her now were taller than possible, and appeared to bend over her head without ever fully closing the gap. The white sky remained open above her, just enough.
The woods had flirted with her for days. An opening here, a clearing there. Paths appeared and disappeared just as quickly. The break in the dead canopy above her taunted her all the while.
“I’m getting really fucking tired, Nora.”
It had been days. Maybe more. Nora had no way of knowing. The forest around her was endless- as nature should be. She never passed the same landmark twice. The sun did not set, because there was no sun. Just whiteness. Nora suspected that night came when the trees provided her with shelter: A cabin. The inside was warm and pleasant, white furnishings lovingly illuminated by a cheerful fireplace. She’d lost track of how many cabins she’d come across, for the simple fact that every single one had been identical. Only one stood out to her foggy memory, and it was not the cabin itself, but the man who stood outside it.
He had framed himself in the center of one of the front windows, the wall being his only barrier to the flames. He smiled at her with a mouth that did not meet his eyes. Nora did not speak to him. Nora did not open the door to him. Nora did not acknowledge him, except to sit on the couch and meet his stare all night. When it was time for her to leave, so did he.
Nora had not seen the man since.
She did not wonder about him. In truth, her lack of reaction frightened her more than he ever could have.
A cabin stood in the distance. Nora breathed a sigh of relief, steaming her vision momentarily. She hadn’t noticed the pain in her stomach until now.
The cabin remained in the distance.
Nora began to run.
The cabin did not move.
“No!” she screamed, collapsing to the ground. Her weight came down with full force, her knees shattering the ice and causing her to sink down several inches. “You fucking bastard!”
Her throat tore, and she felt the iron begin to dance on her tongue while she screamed. Nora did not dare to cry: the feeling of frozen tears on her cheeks once was enough to teach her a lesson. Instead she unleashed every bit of pain and frustration and sorrow and coldness in her bones through her mouth.
Nora exhausted herself and curled forward. “I can’t let myself die out here,” she whispered hoarsely. “Why can’t I just let myself die out here?”
She dared to glance up at the path before her. The cabin still sat on the far end of it- unattainable. She redirected her gaze to the trees beside her. She never thought to stray from the open lane she followed, for it was the only consistency she could rely on. Nora climbed to her feet, clumsily maneuvering with the snowshoes. She brushed the snow and ice from her knees and shook her shoulders, preparing herself for the unknown. Nora stepped into the trees.
The snowshoes proved far less useful off the main path, and Nora carefully untied them and slung them behind her shoulder. Twigs crunched nicely beneath her boots, and Nora found herself able to become something adjacent to calm. Nora began to hum, something she hadn’t been able to do up until now. The music flowed from her, the buzzing pleasant in her aching throat. Before long, words spilled out.
Her song was nonsensical- to her, at least. She did not recognize the lyrics, nor did she recognize the melody they followed. Her tongue moved in a way that was not native to her, but not unwelcome. She imagined she sang of birds flying over lovers, of stars and heartbreak, of joy and laughter. Sparkling colors swirled in her head: pinks and reds of all shades flecked with gold. The silvers and whites that accompanied them were not suffocating, unlike the whites and silvers her eyes were able to see before her.
A deep harmony sounded out, joining in softly. Nora stopped in her tracks, her song abruptly cut short. When she had been out in the open, she had felt numbly fearless. And now, under the true protection of the trees, the thought of meeting another person terrified her.
“You stopped!” A man’s voice called out.
Nora opened and closed her mouth dumbly for a moment before responding. “Yes.” she agreed.
The man did not answer immediately.
After several minutes he called out again. “Do you plan to restart?”
“I don’t know,” Nora answered honestly.
“Mm.”
She stepped forward cautiously, mindful of any undergrowth that could give away her position any more than she already had herself.
“Why do you not sing yourself?” she asked suddenly.
“Don’t know the words.”
“But you did when I sang them.”
“Yes.” he agreed.
Nora did not know how to proceed. She chose forward.
“Are you planning on hurting me?”
“I don’t think so,” the man said. “Are you planning on hurting me?”
“I don’t think so,” she echoed.
“Well! Glad that’s settled.” The man sounded genuinely pleased.
Nora continued to walk forward, calling out to the man intermittently. Before long, she found herself in another clearing with another cabin.
“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” she said in a hush under her breath. “Are you real?” she called out.
“Yes!” the man answered. No one appeared.
“Are you the man who came to my cabin all those nights ago?”
Heavy footfalls on wood. The front door of the cabin exploded outward, and a massive man stood in its frame. “What?” he asked. It was the owner of the other voice.
“The man in the window,” Nora explained, slowly stepping forward. “He watched me all night.”
The man ushered her in, waving one arm frantically while he held the door open with the other. Nora obliged awkwardly, having trouble finding traction in the clearing. She exhaled heavily once inside the cabin and sank onto the floor. Everything hurt.
“When did you see him?” the man questioned.
“I have no way of knowing,” she sighed.
He nodded slowly, making a meal of his bottom lip. Had she been standing, the man would have been over a head taller than her and about twice as wide. His beard was black and thick as it was coarse. The woodsman offered her a hand up, and plucked her from the ground.
“Did you let him in?” he asked.
“No, no. I stared back.”
The woodsman seemed surprised. “Why?”
Nora had never considered the answer to such a simple question. The truthful answer was that it had seemed like the right thing to do at the time, and she told him this. The woodsman did not press.
“How many nights ago was this?”
Nora shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I just keep going forward.”
“But you don’t have to,” the woodsman stated bluntly. “You could have rested.”
“And I’d still be there. And then what would you have had me do?”
The woodsman eyed her curiously. His hands were massive and rough, with the visual texture of sandpaper. Nora became mildly aware that his lone flannel was surely not enough to keep the cold out of his bones.
“Do you have food?”
“Oh!” he startled. “How rude of me.”
The woodsman rushed past Nora and beckoned her as he disappeared around a corner. Nora followed carefully, her boots stomping across the hardwood floor. The cabin was the same as any other she had visited, although the woodsman’s was far more lived in, as was to be expected. No photos or paintings decorated the walls, but small trinkets here and there made it feel closer to a home than any of its siblings had. She glanced up the staircase into the darkness above, noting the worn rug that lined the steps. It had once been a bright patterned red. Another trait its brethren did not share.
The hallway ended with a bright kitchen, the floor and cabinets made of the same maple wood. The woodsman busied himself at the icebox before plopping several frozen chunks of meat down onto the clean counters.
“A stew,” he said. “I was about to start one anyway. Would you like that?”
Nora’s stomach grumbled in the affirmative. The woodsman smiled. She watched quietly as he began to cut up potatoes and carrots and celery and toss them into a large pot on the cookstove. The temperature of the room had risen drastically in a matter of seconds. The thunk! of knife on cutting board grew monotonous, broken occasionally by the crispiness of the ice being cut along with the meat. It was like watching an artist at work. He worked with a sort of violent precision, one that confused Nora for a moment. She found it hard to focus on anything else.
The woodsman spoke to her as he cut and seasoned and measured, but Nora did not hear the words. In her daze, she grew increasingly anxious. The woodsman turned suddenly, and the spell was broken.
“Really, you don’t have to be rude.”
“What?” Nora shook her head and swallowed hard. She was dizzy, stumbling over her own feet where she stood. The woodsman rushed to her side, firm hands on her shoulders.
His frustration melted away instantly. “Are you alright?”
Nora vomited politely in response.
She fell to her hands and knees on the floor, thick tendrils of spit dangling from her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she coughed out weakly.
He ushered her out of the kitchen and back into the living room, where she was placed gently onto the couch facing the fireplace. The woodsman draped a scratchy blanket around her shoulders and nodded as she pulled it tightly around herself.
Nora drank in several deep breaths as she steadied the thumping in her chest and head. The crackling and popping of the fire did its best to ease her mind. When the woodsman reappeared with two steaming bowls filled with stew, barely five minutes had passed.
“It’s done?” Nora asked, her voice hoarse.
The woodsman nodded and did not intend to offer any explanation.
He sat on the floor across from her and the pair ate quietly. It was good, and warmed her stomach pleasantly. The nausea had fled her the moment she left the kitchen, but she had not felt the need to think deeply about anything for the time being, nor did she have the energy to do so.
No matter how much she ate, the stew never seemed to be dented. Nora ate until she could not handle even a bite more, and suddenly the bowl became empty. The woodsman watched her in silence, having finished his share moments before.
“Thank you,” Nora said gratefully, handing him the clean bowl. “And I’m sorry for the mess.”
The woodsman waved a hand dismissively. “Happens all the time.”
“Really?”
“No.”
Nora nodded slowly. The woodsman climbed to his knees, his large body slow and creaking under its own weight. The floor rumbled beneath him. He disappeared once more down the hall and into the kitchen, once again leaving Nora alone with the fire. She stared into it, willing it to tell her if the man would turn into a problem or not. It would not answer.
When the woodsman returned, he held a deck of worn cards in his hand. “Don’t get visitors much,” he said awkwardly. “Will you play?”
Nora smiled, and found herself surprised to find that it was a genuine one. “Sure.”
The woodsman grunted in response and turned toward a large dining table that Nora had not seen before. It sat in an adjacent room, whose mouth did not have any doors separating the living room from itself. It glowed with the same warmth and coziness as the rest of the cabin. Nora stood with the blanket still wrapped around her shoulders and joined him. The wooden chair she found herself in was smooth and polished, and clearly carved by the woodsman himself. It did not creak under his weight as he sat down.
“We can play any game you like,” the woodsman said as he began to shuffle. “I’ve learned them all.”
“I thought you said you don’t get many visitors,” Nora said. “How do you practice playing?”
“I’ve learned them all,” the woodsman repeated. Then he blushed lightly, a change nearly imperceptible amid his already-ruddy face. “Doesn’t mean I’m good at them.”
Nora laughed delightedly. She extended her hand for the deck and smiled, enjoying the feeling of the woodsman’s eyes glued to her hands as he studied the way she shuffled. She bent the cards with one hand and released, shooting them directly into the palm of her other hand. Although she hadn’t looked up, she felt the woodsman’s eyes widen. It was a cheap trick, something her father had done to impress her as a child, but the movement was natural and the woodsman felt like the right audience. She began to place 8 cards face down between the two of them, then seven, then six, and so on. She divided the remaining cards into two piles and offered one to the woodsman.
“I don’t know this game,” he said quietly, as if embarrassed.
“Because it’s not a real game,” she explained. “Not that I know of, at least. But if you know every game, I imagine you’re bored of all of them, too.”
The woodsman’s smile spread across his face slowly. “How are we going to play it, then?”
“It’s like War,” Nora continued. “We’ll each randomly put down a card, starting here-” She pointed to the right-most card of the 8th row. “And when we’ve both put one down, we’ll flip this to see who got the closest. Closest wins the card.”
“Hm,” the woodsman said, amused.
It was a simple game, not unlike something a child would come up with on a playground, but it was not long before Nora and the woodsman found themselves slamming cards down faster each time, as if racing. They laughed and chatted and collected their respective cards.
The final mystery card sat between them, and they both slammed their cards down in the same exact instant. When they removed their hands, they had placed the same card. Nora’s blood ran cold. Two Jokers looked up at them, each sporting the same dead smile as the man she had seen in the cabin window. The woodsman inhaled sharply and clenched his jaw.
He flipped the mystery card, revealing a third Joker.
Nora did not jump when the banging on the door began.
for days now a drunk guy with a fucking LUTE has been haunting my street. i just caught him playing to the cashier at the grocery store earlier ...... why ?????? he wasnt even buying anything?
i mentioned him to my sister and not only she thought she saw him 5 times and thought he wasnt real but she also BEEFED WITH HIM because he kept staring at her weird
