The Village
by Nancy Schumann
The fog was always worse than the rain. It crept up silently, a thick blanket on every surface. It could hide anything. Although, it never seemed to hide Cassilla. She remained visible which was no comfort. Fear was a constant state of being. Cassilla never felt safe, not even in her own village hut. But going into the forest or mountains was an almost insurmountable challenge. She had no choice. Lives depended on it. Her people had long left the mountains. The village was far away from most of the fog. As far as they dared.
Even then, the fog would reach them, sometimes.
Cassilla was a healer and her trade needed herbs. She had tried growing what herbs she needed in the village. It never worked. Some herbs have to grow wild in the forest or higher up in the mountains. So, she had to go back time and again, or leave her people to suffer, even die, of ailments she could easily cure.
She didn’t know if they were actually grateful to her. They seemed to appreciate her skills when these helped them. But that had never caused any of them to try to protect Cassilla. Mostly, she thought, they were just grateful they didn’t have to go into the mountains themselves. Occasionally, they had to go into the forest for wood or hunting. The forest wasn’t as bad as the mountains. They could wait for a day without fog. There was always fog in the mountains.
Cassilla couldn’t remember a time when fog had been a harmless weather condition. Neither could she recall a time when the village had been in the mountains. For as long as anybody could remember they had lived at the foot of the mountain in fear of fog days, knowing they couldn’t leave. People had tried. The fog had followed. For as long as they stayed away, the fog stayed with them, tormenting. Worse still, by leaving, they took the curse to other villages, and let the fog torment others. In another generation or two, when none of them were alive to warn the new youngsters, somebody would probably try to leave, again, and the same thing would happen. They wouldn’t care about bringing the curse to strangers, but they would return to their village just to make it stop tormenting them. They would swap freedom for the knowledge that if they stayed, they could avoid the fog most days for the rest of their lives.
Despite the fog, this was a good place to live, and they all knew. The fields, the forests, and the mountains provided. They had never known hunger, or cold from lack of a fire, and their healer took care of them. The healer might be the reason the fog didn’t come more often. The one person who would go into the mountains. Maybe, if she stopped, the fog would follow into the village.
Cassilla would never test her theory.
They had stopped taking children. Maybe they realised that, without children, the village would die. More importantly, no child had gotten lost in the forest for an eternity. Their children knew better than to wander off. Whatever dares they set themselves, they knew where to draw the line. No child was stupid enough to toy with the mountain curse. They had seen what happened to people who got caught in the fog.
Thinking about it never helped but Cassilla couldn’t stop. She wasn’t much of a talker and fear took hold of her thoughts easily. Her thoughts should have made her body run. Instead, she ran on autopilot. Step by step, she assessed the need to collect certain herbs in the forest and the mountains, prepared her expedition, and took herself out of the house.
She walked into the forest, bidding goodbye to the daylight, but it wasn’t the darkness that bothered her. With every step, the sounds of human habitation grew weaker until they ceased. Briefly, the forest was quiet and beautiful. Cassilla found the herbs she needed and placed them securely in her bag. There could be no accidental loss on the way. If she made it back, the bag did and thus her herbs.
As she walked on, the sounds of the forest ceased as well. Trees thinned, the forest merging into the mountains.
Cassilla felt the fog rising with heartbreaking slowness. At first, it teased her with light fingers that brushed her skin. She knew those brushes punctured her skin, drawing blood. She ignored the wounds and walked on. The fog’s touch became gradually more insistent. It demanded attention. The brushing became painful. She could feel her skin being cut but the fog’s touch remained bearable and Cassilla persisted in her task.
Cassilla crept forward, eyes to the ground, concentrating on finding the herbs. She refused to look up, but she couldn’t ignore them forever. Her left hand grabbed a plant, her right held the knife, ready to cut. There was just enough space between the plant and the rock. The boy with an evil grin popped out of nowhere and stared into her face:
“Hello, Cassilla, how nice of you to visit.”
She bit her tongue to keep from screaming. After a heartbeat’s hesitation, she continued to cut and bag the plant. She moved closer to the rock, touching the cold stone, kept her eyes low and moved on. She didn’t need to look to know the fog was thick around her now. All around her, children laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. There was no joy in that laughter. No, that was wrong because, to them, this was enjoyable. They reveled in tormenting people. Cassilla couldn’t stop them.Faces came out of the fog wherever there was space, laughing and calling her name. Cassilla kept the rock to her left but the faces crept up behind her, to her right, and in front, every second she wasn’t watching the ground. She never knew how many they actually were. They were everywhere once the fog got thick enough.
Her eyes filled with tears. Invisible fingers tore at her clothes. She was bleeding from a multitude of wounds. Rough tongues licked her skin. Hands like claws pulled her hair. All of her was pain. Just one more. She repeated that mantra and her feet kept moving. She dropped down to her hands and knees a little too late. The red-haired girl’s face was inches from hers. The girl knew that Cassilla had seen her. Her triumphant smile burned itself into Cassilla’s mind. Hollow eyes staring at her, Cassilla couldn’t look away. She had to look right into that ashen face, as the claws dug into her arms and tore deep craters into her flesh.
“Precious little leaves, aren’t they? Almost worth your life.” the child-sized creature chanted. Cassilla screamed. She knew she shouldn’t. It was what they wanted. She couldn’t help it. They always won. The red head laughed. Cassilla tried to throw her off, knowing the attempt was futile. The girl let go when she felt like it. Through the pain and tears, Cassilla cut the last of the herbs.
“Come and play. Come and stay.” The chanting continued.
Cassilla struggled upright, putting the knife and herbs in her bag, her gaze fixed to the ground, and then she ran. As fast as her feet would take her. She kept running, kept looking down, while the chanting, scratching, stabbing, and hitting continued. She didn’t slow down when she started to hear birdsong, when the taunts became fewer, when what brushed her were real plants, not ethereal fingers. Only when the sounds of the village penetrated the panic, did she stop running. Cassilla broke down at the edge of the forest and gave in to her tears. The fog was gone. She’d survived today.
She went to the stream to wash off the blood and straightened her clothes and hair as best she could. It was a pretense of normality that never fooled anybody. She walked home as calmly as she could to bathe, and then brew her treasures into tinctures and ointments. First and foremost an ointment to ensure the cuts on her body would heal without much scarring. Cassilla would be her own first patient. There would be hardly any visible proof of the encounter when she was done. It was what she was good at.
***
The following day was quiet. Cassilla saw patients, applying her freshly prepared remedies. Nobody mentioned the previous day’s exhibition. They all pretended that life was normal whenever they could. Sometimes Cassilla wondered what it would be like if the simple task of collecting herbs didn’t hold horrors she couldn’t forget? What would it be like not being afraid to close one’s eyes? She was even afraid of becoming the next healer’s mother. With decades of torment ahead of her, she couldn’t bear the thought of passing that fate to another person.
Cassilla had never done anybody wrong. The people in her village were good people. They didn’t know what had caused the mountain curse, didn’t know why they were being tormented by the fog-children. There must have been a time before the curse when the village was in the mountains. Cassilla often wondered when it had all started. She suspected other people wondered, too. Nobody ever spoke of the curse. Parents warned their children. Other words on the subject were unnecessary.
Apart from the curse, the village was perfectly normal. People talked about children, about livestock, about the harvest. Sally was spending more and more time with young Mallox. There might be a wedding in the future; the next generation of villagers in the making. Cassilla got invited to people’s houses, a little more friendliness on their side being the cost for her healing.
Within a few weeks of her most recent expedition, fog spread over the forest. It didn’t descend into the village, but the hunters didn’t venture out, nobody went to pick berries or collect water from the stream. They kept about their work around the village, with a watchful eye locked on the forest, ready to run home at the lightest movement. The fog kept its distance. As if stretching its legs down the mountains, it just lingered for a few days then lifted and nothing happened.
***
Almost two months passed without anybody getting caught in the fog. Cassilla had joined Mandrick, one of the hunters, on his way into the forest. She wouldn’t hunt, of course. She was there to collect a few herbs and gather fresh water, but they could walk together. Hunting was quiet work right up to the killing part. Cassilla had most in common with the hunters. None of them were antisocial but neither did they need much human interaction. They talked; sometimes. Sometimes they didn’t say a word. It was how they liked it. Today, Mandrick and Cassilla didn’t feel like talking. They enjoyed the silent walk up to the spring. With a nod, Mandrick wished her a good day and she answered with a nod of her own. Then he moved on, while she set about her own tasks.
Filling bags with herbs and leather skins with water, she kept circling the same area, always returning to leave more things under a tree. Here, her work was more relaxed than in the mountains. She didn’t have to keep her load close all the time. There was little light in this part of the forest. Cassilla hardly knew how much time had passed when she heard Mandrick scream. Startled, she looked up. The sound didn’t seem too far away. Wondering if his hunt had gone wrong, she started running towards the sound. Mandrick was a skilled hunter but accidents happen, and she was prepared to dress wounds or mend broken bones. She quickly reached a small clearing and could see Mandrick a little distance away semi-hidden by trees. She ran to get to him.
Mandrick screamed again: “No!”
Cassilla stopped just a few steps in front of him. He was uninjured. Petrified, they stared at each other. Realisation crept into her consciousness. The fog had returned. It had crept up on the hunter while he was gutting the deer he had killed. Now that they were close to each other, it was rising around them. Unstoppable.
Mandrick’s eyes all but mumbled an apology, as he whispered: “I can’t leave the deer.” It was all he needed to say. Cassilla grabbed the tree branch Mandrick had managed to prepare. The animal had to be tied to it. They worked quickly. With clenched teeth they endured cuts on their backs. They ignored their hair being pulled. They tried to look only at each other. It took moments that felt like an eternity before Cassilla grabbed one end of the animal, he the other. They’d be quicker carrying the deer between them, but they’d still be too slow and they both knew. Worse, they would have to look ahead.
Walking as fast as the deer’s weight allowed, the cuts became sharper.
Grimaces appeared out of the fog and that eerie sing-song: “Come and play. Come and stay.”
Mandrick led the way. Eventually, he had to face the clawed red head.
“What a rare treat!” The girl laughed. “Hunters’ blood!”
Mandrick hadn’t flinched when the girl appeared but her sharp claws made him scream, again. A pain too real to be ignored. Yet, he kept moving.
Helpless, Cassilla shouted: “Leave him alone!”
She had never tried to talk to these child-sized terrors before. They knew her. They seemed to know everybody. That didn’t surprise her. On all her solitary expeditions she had always endured and tried to escape. As far as she knew, others who got caught in the fog did the same. Mandrick’s pain was greater than hers today. Seeing that was worse than the pain.
The girl laughed. The faceless children in the fog joined her: “Why would we want to do that, Cassilla? We’re just playing!”
“This isn’t playing!” Cassilla screamed at the red head, “You’re hurting us!”
“It’s just a game, you silly woman. Grown-ups are no fun.” the fog-children complained.
They seemed to have forgotten about their game while they spoke. They had passed the clearing and were moving steadily towards the spring and the edge of the forest.
“How can we be fun? You’re always lurking in the fog to torment us?” Cassilla’s voice was almost reasonable.
“We’re just playing,” the children repeated but the fog was lifting. The terrors stopped. When Mandrick and Cassilla reached the spring, the air was clear, as if nothing had happened. They paused for long enough to get Mandrick’s wounds dressed and gather up Cassilla’s things before returning to the village.
Cassilla couldn’t get the voices out of her head: “We’re just playing”.
They had never said anything but taunts. She had always tried to ignore them. Now she couldn’t stop thinking about how the voices had sounded saying those words. For the first time, it occurred to Cassilla that maybe these were not mindless creatures sent to them as a curse.
The next time Cassilla had to go up into the mountains for her herbs, she had a plan. Her normal approach was to gather up as many herbs as she could and when the terrors became unbearable, she’d run. Anything missing would just necessitate an earlier return to the mountains. Since the encounter with Mandrick, she thought that, maybe, it was worth trying to talk to these creatures.
She set out earlier than necessary. If she came back empty handed only Cassilla would suffer and return to the mountains soon. Her plan was to get as high as possible. She wouldn’t stop to gather herbs but keep going to where the village had once been, if she could. The rest of her plan was less clear and mainly depended on not running when the terrors appeared.
She picked the clearest day she could hope for and left soon after sunrise. Trying not to think about her self-imposed task, she hurried through the forest and ascended the mountain pass. Much to her surprise, Cassilla remained unmolested. As if the terrors wanted her to succeed. Not much was left of the old village. Nature had claimed it almost entirely. The buildings were flattened to the ground; overgrown stones barely recognisable. Hidden by dark-green leaves even Cassilla couldn’t name, the remains of the old village church were the only real marker of where her forefathers had once lived. Silence surrounded Cassilla as she walked around the church ruins, touching dark, cold stones. She took a deep breath. A heavy sadness filled her lungs. Cassilla felt the fog rise.
On all her other expeditions she had known the fog would come eventually. The sudden panic when it happened had made her run. Today was different. She was expecting the fog with all its terrors. She was determined to face it. She was prepared for the voices.
“Cassilla has come out to play.”
The first voice sounded in the wind and something pulled her hair. She stood still, drawing strength from the stone her hand touched.
“Where are your precious little leaves?”
Still, Cassilla remained quiet.
“We don’t like playing here!” an angry voice declared.
Cassilla asked the question that had been spinning in her: “Why?”
The ethereal fingers withdrew with the speed of spiders running from torch light.
“There are no adults here to spoil your fun. It must be paradise for you to play.” Cassilla continued.
“We don’t like playing here!”
The angry voice belonged to the red head.
“You don’t come here for herbs. Herbs don’t grow here.”
The girl was right in front of Cassilla. Still the other voices were quiet. Nothing pulled her hair. Nothing scratched her skin. The girl’s claws came closer but something in her anger gave Cassilla hope.
“Run. Like the others.”
The girl’s words were a command. Her voice cold.
She approached, her claws stretched out, and the other creatures started to pull and scratch. Tears shot into Cassilla’s eyes. She tried to shake the terrors off but sensed her own defeat.
“Who ran? What happened here?”
She shouted her final attempt into the air then the game was lost. The red head vanished and a heartbeat later she felt claws in her back. Cassilla started to run like she’d been told. The truth wasn’t worth her life and she didn’t know how far the fog-children would go. Once she’d started running it didn’t take long for the fog to clear. Cassilla slowed down but the fog-children didn’t return. It hadn’t been the success she’d hoped. Yet, she had stirred something in the fog-creatures. They weren’t a curse. There was a reason behind all this. They had tormented her, had finally scared her off, but, somehow, she was just a tiny bit less scared than before.
***
On impulse, Cassilla decided to share her experience with Mandrick. Re-telling the event might help her make sense of it.
“You think something happened in the old village to cause this?” Mandrick asked.
“I’ve never been able to get that far up the mountain without attack before. They didn’t want to be there. Maybe they were frightened.”
“Do you reckon the church has something to do with them?”
“It’s the place where I felt least scared of them.”
It wasn’t much of an answer but now that she said it out loud it made sense. Somehow, for a brief moment, she had felt in control of the situation, while standing in the ruins of that church.
“Do you think there might be a way to end this?”
Mandrick’s question hit the point. Cassilla wasn’t simply curious. She had the faintest hope that knowing why the fog-children were there meant they could be stopped. They sat in silence.
“If you want to go back, I’ll come with you.” Mandrick declared. Cassilla stared at him. She wanted to accept his offer but knew that it was too much to ask. She didn’t have any idea what might happen. She remained silent.
“It’s too late in the day today. We can try tomorrow. I’ll meet you after sunrise and we’ll head to the old village.”
“I can’t ask that of you.” She whispered.
“You didn’t. I made my own decision. You’ll have to do the talking, though.”
Cassilla had never had support from any of the villagers before. The hope of ending the curse changed things. If the fog-children were something that could be fought, rather than a curse to be endured, Mandrick, at least, was willing to fight. Maybe she’d been hoping for that when she decided to tell him what she’d learned.
They set out early the next morning. The plan hadn’t changed since the previous day. They knew where to go. They expected the terrors. Beyond that they hoped to last long enough to get more answers. Armed with a new sense of purpose Mandrick and Cassilla walked up to the old village at a speed only confidence can grant and reached the church ruins without encountering any fog. The inert sadness of the place took hold of them. Slowly, fog played around their feet, creeping up all around them. Mandrick seemed determined to have a thorough look around the old village.
“Look at these stones,” he said after a while, “the church must have burned down.”
“I didn’t know that.” Cassilla replied, pointlessly.
Nobody knew what, if anything, had happened other than the fog-children. The fog grew thicker and the taunts started.
“We told you, we don’t like to play here!” the red head remained invisible but her angry voice was unmistakable.
“Why did the church burn?” Cassilla asked, grabbing the only clue they had.
“Go gather your herbs. Come play with us in the mountains.”
There were many voices, but they all said the same thing. They didn’t want to be here, but they couldn’t just leave Cassilla and Mandrick there either. The fog around them wasn’t pleasant but it remained bearable.
“Why did the church burn?” Cassilla repeated.
“We were just playing!” They sounded defensive.
“Be quiet!” The red head’s voice shouted.
Then, her ashen face appeared in the fog close to Cassilla. A mask of anger and determination. She didn’t come closer. She didn’t bring out her claws. Cassilla recognised the gamble. The red head was in control of the fog-children. It was only a question of time before their fear of her would outweigh whatever made them not want to be there.
“What did you do?” Cassilla tried to sound calm.
She was daring them to talk as much as she was daring them to attack. She heard a muffled sound from Mandrick. He’d remained silent so far. The fog-children must have taunted him. She looked around. His face looked strained, but he nodded encouragement, silently asking her to go on. Asking her previous two questions at once, Cassilla ventured: “Did you set the church on fire?”
“No!” A chorus of fog-children screamed from all directions.
“We were just playing,” a miserable little voice insisted.
“It wasn’t our fault.”
“What wasn’t your fault?” Cassilla asked.
Mandrick, who had made his way to her side, took her hand and added: “What happened here?”
The fog engulfed them, but it didn’t bring the usual pains. It showed them pictures. Out of the ruins appeared the old church in all its glory. All around them, the village came back to life. People were busy loading wares onto carts. It must be a market day somewhere. They must be on their way to trade. Children were left in the care of older relatives, while mothers carried their youngest children, taking them along to the market.
The people in the village went about their daily labour after the carts had left. There were people working in fields or around their houses and feeding the livestock. Children were running around. Some playing. Some helping. All but a group of older children. Hiding in the bushes, they threw stones at the people working the fields. They tore washing off the lines into the dirt. They stung animals with nettles and sticks.
Cassilla heard them giggling at their victims’ curses . She recognised the red-haired girl in the group. She didn’t recognise any of the other children. She had never paid attention to what the fog-children looked like, but she was sure that these were the fog-children. The red head was in control of the group. She always knew another evil prank for the villagers.
The traders must have been gone for days. It must have been a Sunday when all the villagers went to church. The red head led the group of older children around the outside, hushing them to silence. Grinning, they crept up to the church door and quietly locked it. Somehow, they had managed to get hold of the key.
Their goal accomplished, they giggled and danced happily away to a safe distance. They were pleased with themselves when the shouting started as the people in the church realised they’d been locked in. The church’s windows were high and small. They couldn’t get out that way and were at the mercy of the evil children unless their fellow-villagers returned from the market.
The evil children didn’t grow tired of this entertainment. It seemed like hours of shouting, cursing, complaining and finally pleading from the people inside the church and yet the children laughed at their own cleverness. There was no sign of returning villagers when evening fell.
The sky darkened but it wasn’t the approaching night. Thunder shook the air. The evil children screamed and ran off to hide in their homes. They never saw the flash of lightning that struck down a large tree right next to the church. The falling tree landed on the church roof and caught fire. Flames licked up the tree. Small, hesitantly, at first. Then growing larger with the confidence of no resistance. Soon the large tree wasn’t the only one on fire. Flames sizzled into the church windows and gnawed at the roof. Screams of panic replaced the pleading.
The screams brought the evil children back. The thunderstorm ended but the fire remained. The group huddled together, watching the church burn. They didn’t dare go near. There was no rescue. The children looked at the red head for an answer, but she had no words for them. Silence fell around them. The flames became the only thing to be heard. They still stood staring at the church when the first cart became visible. They looked in terror at the approaching villagers.
The red head found her voice at the sight of their parents: “Run.”
And they ran further into the mountains. It was dark. Fog engulfed them. They didn’t see a path. They never saw the cliff that pulled them into darkness.
The approaching villagers saw their church on fire and left the carts to run and help but there wasn’t anybody putting the fire out. There wasn’t anybody.
People started to carry water to the church to fight a fire that had long since won. There was nothing to be saved. They finally realised where their fellow villagers were. Cries of desperation filled the night. They searched every house, every inch, but nobody could be found.
The sun rose, unimpressed by these events, as the villagers realised that everybody was gone. Graves were dug but it was impossible to count the dead.
The returning carts were never unloaded. The grieving adults and their infants left the village that very day. They led their carts and livestock through the forest, down the mountains. With every step fog rose around them. They felt their clothes pulled from every direction.
Sobbing voices filled the air: “We were only playing.”
The further down the mountain the villagers got, the fainter the sobbing became, the pulls became lighter and the fog lifted. They finally stopped in the place where the new village was built. With that, the fog faded, and images disappeared. The chanting resumed.
“We were just playing.”
“We don’t like it here.”
Cassilla had tears in her eyes when she looked around. Mandrick squeezed her hand. The ashen face of the red-haired girl was still there. Near them. She looked angry and helpless. In defiance, her claws became visible.
Cassilla looked at her: “I feel sorry for you.”
She raised her voice to be heard. “I pity all of you.”
As her words echoed from the mountains, the fog disappeared.
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