The small boy laughed and darted from the balcony, disappearing at the top step. I pushed away the curtains and stumbled upon the balcony to look down. My white hair slid off my shoulders and hung over the railing as our eyes met, and my breath stopped in a gasp.
The boy was hardly a child, three or four at best guess. My fingers moved across the railing to the stairs, and I descended, keeping my gaze locked on his. He stood there, hands fisting the bottom hem of his shirt at his thighs. He had pale, iridescent skin, and dark shadows painted his round and sad brown eyes.
When I let off the bottom step, another bone-cracking giggle released from his dry lips, and he jumped in place before taking off around the house toward the street. I followed him out of the neighborhood, across Town Square, and toward Norse woods on the opposite side of town, but not to my own accord. I walked willingly, yes, but I had a feeling if I hadn’t, the little boy wouldn’t leave me alone otherwise. He skipped and jumped and walked backward in the empty streets under the night sky. A cracked smile greeted me with every spin, a childish game—playtime—as his arms swung out at his sides. He sang and laughed and pulled me deeper into Norse Woods territory. How did we get here so fast?
The blue rubber boots he wore were muddied and too big for his little feet as they dragged across the asphalt until we reached the start of the woods. Leaves crumbled beneath my bare feet, and he sped up, zig-zagging through white birch trees and leaping over fallen branches.
“Wait up,” I whisper-shouted, trying to catch up to him in only a thin pajama tank and matching cotton shorts. The temperatures had dropped to the mid-fifties, and the forest groaned in the dark as if the trees were growing around me, stretching.
“… Ashes, ashes,” I heard the chanting song from the little boy, and I continued to follow the young and playful voice deeper and deeper and deeper into the trees.
Until the ghost came into view.
My running turned to a standstill at what laid before me.
Julian was sitting over the forest floor, his head hidden between his bent knees as he rocked back and forth. Blood stuck to his flawless bare skin as dead ravens scattered around him. My eyes snapped up to the little boy who began to fade quickly with his hand on Julian’s shoulder.
“We all. Fall. Down,” the ghost’s last words were, then he disappeared like how an old television would turn off, flickering then all at once.
My hand moved over my throat down to my chest, partly to make sure I was still breathing, partly having no control over my own actions. Julian’s gaze snapped up from his knees, and his eyes, the color of two lethal bullets, aimed at me. And at that moment, I knew I was no longer breathing. I’d known once my lungs ached.
Dark circles painted around Julian’s eyes as the knife trembled from the fingertips hanging off one knee, blood dripping off the sharp point of the blade. “Death is here,” he whispered, his mask absent and only the shadows of the woods shielding his face. “It’s here, and I can’t stop it. Why can’t I stop it?!”
“Julian?” The single word left upon a panicked breath.
He slowly rose to his feet, head down, black slacks hanging off his hips, bare-chested, barefooted, and rooted to the forest ground as the pale birch trees. Their branches moved with him, casting a shadow over his face, protecting him, adoring the man who was more woods than flesh.
Black and red invaded my senses. Dark crimson blood stained his hands. Dead ravens blanketed the forest ground at his feet, a pile of twisted necks, broken wings, beaks, and lifeless beady black eyes.
Then Julian’s hollow gaze met mine. Inside his eyes, all the lights were out. There was a deep void, empty rooms, uninhabited planets—the dead zone. At that moment, I knew. Whatever it was he wanted or needed, it had turned him into a monstrous thing.
“Go home,” he seethed as if it pained him to say, his empty hand clutching at his chest where silver chains hung over his scars. Blood smeared over his heart.
The ghost wanted me to be here, to witness this, yet for what reason? To help him or to be his next kill. It could have gone either way. And still, despite all odds, I took a step forward.
“Julian …” I pressed again, trying to get through, and something stirred in the depths of his eyes—life, panic, fear, a delusional thought, confusion, or something else entirely. I wasn’t quite sure. But he was shaking, why was he shaking? Better yet … why wasn’t I running away?
Ca-Caw! another raven warned, flapping its glossy wings in front of the moon, settling over a branch above us. Julian’s eyes twisted with the song of the raven, and his fingers tightened on the blade, his chest heaving without rhythm. The rustling of leaves blew around us, a nursery rhyme of Norse woods. It played along with the thrusting of my heart.
Ca-caw, rustle, pound!
My hair blew around me with every step toward him. I kept my arms at my sides. Bones cracked under my feet, and fresh blood slipped and oozed between my toes, feathers sticking to my heels.
Then we were only inches apart. My fingers trembled as they reached out between us, and I laid them over his forearm. He was so cold, and Julian flinched under my touch, his eyes pinned to where I was sliding my fingers down the length of his arm toward the knife.
“Do you want to hurt me?” I dug my teeth into my lip to deter the response awaiting me.
His wild gaze lifted to mine, and his brows bunched together. “What?” Then his eyes softened. “No!” He’d said it as if he couldn’t believe he had to convince me of the same.
A long exhale escaped from my nose, and my fingers drifted over his until the knife fell on to the pile of death. His trembling relaxed in my hold. The living raven squawked again above us, causing Julian to slam his eyes closed. I pressed my other hand to his bare chest, and his eyes opened. His hand covered mine.
“The ravens won’t leave me alone,” he bit out the words through his teeth. “Why won’t they ever leave me alone?”
The trees moved again with him, casting shadows along his face. I was so close, yet unable to see anything but the dark tower he was, the smoking gun in his eyes. I lifted his bloodied hand and pulled it up to my neck, then pressed his slippery, cold fingers against my pulse, the same way he’d shown me to calm after Gramps had passed out. It was the only way I knew how to calm in such terrifying moments, because of him. And his stiffened posture relaxed, breathing steadied.
Julian wrapped his fingers around my throat, his thumb resting under the base of my chin. I closed my eyes. He pulled me forward. A cool breath fanned across my lips. Then my lips quivered.
Julian’s forehead fell to mine, and he tilted his head. “Don’t look at me,” he whispered into my mouth, clutching the side of my face, his lips coasting over my parted ones. “Whatever you do, don’t look at me.”
As soon as he’d said the words, my eyes blinked open.
All oxygen sucked from my lungs, and darkness devoured me whole. Terror cut me open, slicing through wounds that had been scabbed over, but always there. A scream ripped through my throat as I clawed at the walls that suddenly circled me. “Julian!”
The well. I was no longer in the woods. Julian was gone. My eyes darted around me in a panic.
Trapped, trapped, trapped.
My palms hit brick. All around me was brick. This panic exploded within me, and I clawed frantically at the walls on every side. The full moon beamed through the small opening at the top. Water sloshed around at my knees. I continued to claw and scratch at the walls, trying to climb my way out. My nails broke as tears rushed down my face. My throat was hoarse. My fingertips were raw and bloody. But I had to get out.