The Morning Of

The pestle rebound itself against the rigid bowl, fallen from a gradually loosening hand grown weak from its daydreaming.  The resulting thud had stirred the poor man to a daze, knocking him out of his early morning stupor.  With a startled gaze, he stoops over after the rolling pestle, trailing behind its warbled path as it settled in the far corner of the room aside the doorway.  Stooping to pick it up the man noticed a figure's shadow spread over the entryway.  He jerked his head up in nervous anticipation and as soon as he had seen the face of the man, his eyes drooped down into their normal state of general indifference as he loosely scraped the tools from the floor.

"Good morning, master," he said, keeping his eyes to the pestle and mortar he now clutched in his belly.  "How is the grinding coming?"

"Have sure enough left to do without your help, Osick.  Grain don't make itself into flour, you know."  The master turned to Osick and placed his hand over his shoulder.  "I heard you drop your tools.  Are you daydreaming again, Osick?"

"Y-yes," came an apprehensive voice.  "Just pondering some things."

"There's not time nor reason for such foolery.  You know we have to get these sacks of flour to the town square as soon as we can, or the market won't let us find a spot to set up a stand.  There's an awful lot of people in Locks who could use some flour, you know."

Osick eyed the master with a passionate stare.  "I was just thinking about the whole thing that happened a few months back.  About the body they found in the woods.  I was just wondering if maybe it was—"

"Stop it with such nonsense, Osick!"  The master leered over him, pushing him down with his eyes.  "Forget such silly thoughts.  It's folly to talk about such useless things.  You have some more practice left yet 'til you can take my place, I have a lazy listless apprentice to train, and we have many sacks of grains and flours to get to market before all the good spots have been nabbed.  Here," he arrested the pestle and mortar from his young apprentice and heaved a load grain sacks, seemingly from nowhere, into the staggering arms.  "take these.  I'll grab the rest of the wheat flour.  You head down there now, I'm going to load up the cart.  Hurry down there, quickly, and find us a good lot, would you?"  By this time the master had gone from sight, leaving the disquieted apprentice to his own senses.

Osick had started down the hill leading from the water mill into town, his sight obscured by the heavy burlap sacks and his neck straining around them to see where his feet may be taking him.  His mind was still elsewhere, thinking about the horrid scene his friend, Jake Walts, had told him was found.  A man whose corpse had been apparently mixed with a large tree.  Jake had told him in such honest and earnest detail that Osick would often close his eyes and swear that he could make it out.  Osick's meandering mind halted.  He was surprised of the coincidence in seeing his friend come up the ragged dirt road just as he began to think about him.

"Ahoy, Jake!"

"Hey, Osick.  Need a hand there, friend?"  He practically leapt up to drag the topmost sack from Osick's slanted tower.  "So," he began, grunting under the weight of the flour, "old man Merris got you doing all the heavy lifting while he gets to run down with the cart, eh?"

"No, Jake, it's not like that.  Master Merris is the only one between the two of us that can actually lift up the wheat sacks.  Plus the cart itself must weight a ton.  I'm only heading down before the cart because he's afraid we might not get a good spot in time."

"Ah, old worry-wart Merris the miller.  I guess he's got good reason today, though.  Just came up from the market and it's damn busy for a Sunday."

"No!  Now he'll give me a thorough lashing with his tongue, I suspect.  Another lecture on the importance of getting to market early."

"There were a lot of open spaces between the fountain and the church, though.  I'm sure we'll find something, Osick."

"Thanks, Jake.  You really are a good friend."  They walked for a while, the town slowly expanding from a miniature silhouette into a busy collection of towers and short shapes that glittered from the skin of the crowds, sitting against the early morning sunlight.  Jake asked Osick to wait as he leeched another sack from his stock, and while this happened Osick's face began to grow pinched and displeased.  "Hey, Jake."  A pause.  "Have you ever felt that you were destined for something more than where your life seems to be taking you?"

Jake let out a short but rude laugh.  "Well if that ain't a new brainteaser."  He shifted the weight of the flour around to keep his arms from tiring.  "I guess if you mean I wish I wasn't a candle wax maker, then yeah.  What I wouldn't give to have Donnet's job.  I don't know how a baker gets so many eyes of beautiful women to come his way, but I always figured it was in the craft he chose."

"No," a quiet squeak chirped out.  Osick slowed his pace to a halt.  "I mean have you ever felt that you were destined to do something?  Ever get the feeling that you're supposed to do something, but you have no idea what that something is?"

Jake stood there gaping at his profound friend, mulling over the implications.  "I guess not... really.  I mean I've had the feeling I've been watched before but I don't think I've ever felt quite something like that."  Osick regained his gait and the two of them walked some ways before they started talking again, after they had passed through the town entrance gate.

Osick leaned his head back and stared at the sky as if reading something someone had written there.  "I just had this feeling this morning" his eyes strained against the heavy morning sun and forced him to steady his head against the pile of grains.  His eyes looked straight forward, staring through the burlap bags.  "I was working today, when all of a sudden I got this really strong feeling that I was supposed to do something really important, but I had no idea what it was."

"Maybe it's Glory's birthday?  Or you forgot some important chore?"

"No, no, not at all—it was a very strong feeling.  Overwhelming, even.  The feeling was so new and weird it startled me enough to drop my tools.  Been feeling it all morning."

"It just sort of came from nowhere, eh?"

"Actually," Osick's face narrowed.  "I was thinking about that man you told me about.  That everyone saw in the woods?"

"Ah, the tree corpse."

"Well just as I started to think over what you were talking about,"  Osick leaned into his friend, dumbing his voice.  "That maybe it had been a deliberate act of murder—I got this feeling.  And it all just felt tied together.  Like the feeling has something to do with the man."

"Hmm.  'Tis mighty strange, indeed.  You know everyone is still convinced that it was a freak accidental death?  That he was mauled by some new animal in the woods that we ain't ever known about, but I've been through those woods enough to know there ain't no damned thing in there bigger than a badger, and no damned badger could have ever done that."

"I just wish this feeling would fade."  They had reached the marketplace and were rounding the fountain, looking for an open trade post.  There was a spot open past the church, at the far end of the square, shaded by the shadows cast behind the sun on the mountains.  They tucked themselves through the crowds of people and squeezed themselves into the vacant spot where they finally unburdened their loads.

"Sheesh. Who ever thought something as light as flour could weight so much?  C'mon, Osick, let's go back and get old Merris.  If he found out I helped you, maybe he'll let me ride in the back of the cart again."  They stared into the people and decided that it would have been just as well to wait for the master to clear a track to them.  The throngs were too thick to warrant a second trip to the mill.  They sat on the bags and leaned against the wall of the stand next to them.  Osick sighed, shut his eyes and after a long pause looked back at Jake.

"Do you know," Osick's voice rasped as if he spoke out of breath. "Why rats leave a sinking ship?"

"What?"  Jake's head lifted suddenly as if he had been struck in the chest.  He drew his body back, avoiding the question.  "I didn't even know rats did that."

A warm phlegmy laugh curved its way out Osick's mouth.  The sound made Jake uneasy.  "Why are you so wrong?"

"W-what?  Osick, what are you—"

"Why," he leaned in and pushed his head down, forcing his eyes to peer at Jake from beneath his brow.  "Are you all so imperfect?"  He pushed Jake down, rolling him over the sacks of flour.

"Dammit, Osick, what the hell?!"  Jake popped to his feet and stepped backwards towards the crowd.  "What's the matter with you?!"

"Humans," Osick replied.  He drew his coif over his face and started to laugh.  It was a long and deep laugh that only great conquerers used.  He started to slowly raise his right arm as its sleeve started to burn.  It draped off his arm like dying embers, revealing a very sickly-looking skin of ebony and ash and red drips of a certain origin.  His fingernails were tapering into points as he raised his arm further and further above him, the sleeve all but entirely burnt off.  Finally, his arm reaching its apex, Jake, torrid, tried to whip into the crowd but was stopped by Osick's hand slamming itself on his back and found his attempts to loosen it were all in vain.

"Let off!  Let go!"  Jake tugged vigorously at his clothes in a violent effort to free himself.  "This isn't funny!  Stop your playing and be serious would you?!"  His fear turned to panic as he screamed for help and reached into the crowd.  He looked back at his friend and saw only the darkened figure of a man wearing a coif clasping at his back with the flaky grasp of a rotting arm.  "Please, let me go!  It burns!  My Lord, it burns!"  His cries became noticed as several men rushed into the fray to pull Osick's arm from his poor friend's back.