Holsworthy

𝕴 𝖜𝖆𝖘 𝖇𝖚𝖙 𝖆 𝖇𝖔𝖞 𝖜𝖍𝖊𝖓 𝖎𝖙 𝖆𝖑𝖑 𝖇𝖊𝖌𝖆𝖓, 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖙𝖗𝖚𝖙𝖍 𝖇𝖊 𝖙𝖔𝖑𝖉, 𝕴 𝖌𝖆𝖛𝖊 𝖎𝖙 𝖑𝖎𝖙𝖙𝖑𝖊 𝖙𝖍𝖔𝖚𝖌𝖍𝖙 𝖆𝖙 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖙𝖎𝖒𝖊.

My day had begun like any other, and I awoke within our home in Ardenhall Square. My father, being a man of modest coin and respectable standing, kept a tight purse but a soft hand, especially when it came to me. I was spoiled, one can say, but I prefer to call it a strategic exemption, spared from work such as sweeping the hearth or hauling slop.

Most days I passed in quiet contentment, reading, studying, or leafing through my father’s records from his time as a manorial steward. I took a curious liking to those tallies and accounts, studying the tax rolls as though unearthing the parchments of some long-forgotten keep, cloaked in dust and the hush of seasons past. The other boys thought me queer for it, odd, bookish, and better suited to counting goats than chasing them. I busied myself with old grain yields, bent over them as a monk might over barley, while they bloodied each other over girls barely fairer than a tavern whore on wash day.

Howbeit, when the skies were clear and my spirit high, I often stole beyond the mighty walls of Holsworthy to frolic in the green wilds. My golden days, ones filled with nostalgia, for my cousin still dwelt near, a boy as taken with the woods and fields as I. Together, we would stray down tracks and shadowed roads, chasing dragonflies through the reeds or dueling with sticks as if they were swords of kings. We built little forts from bramble and branch, or hunted in the River Botolph until our boots were sodden and our hands cold as stone. Such was our youth, unburdened and free beneath the sun.

That’s when matters went awry, and it started with the finding of a great oak tree deep within the forest.

Never before had I laid eyes upon a tree so vast, so ancient and monstrous in stature, it seemed the very bones of the earth had risen skyward. Strange it was, for though I marked the path well and returned many times thereafter, the tree was gone, as though it had never stood there at all. Like some myth of the forest, it vanished without trace, leaving me to wonder if it had ever truly been.

Within the heart of that oak yawned a great hollow, a hole set into the bark itself. Around the opening, the wood was gnarled and discolored, blotched with hues of yellow and burnt orange, as though touched by fire or an old sickness. But it was not the bark that held my gaze. Nay, within that hollow stirred a darkness deep and unnatural, and from its depths there shone a faint glimmer, like iron caught in the sun, or gemstones glinting beneath torchlight. It called to me, quiet and strange, as though something within desired to be found. My first mind was to wait upon my cousin, hoping to share the wonder I had stumbled upon. Though, the glimmer within the hollow proved too great a temptation for my young and foolish heart, and so I pressed on alone. As I drew nigh, the opening seemed to widen, stretching near twice my height, as though the very wood had drawn back to fashion a doorway. But I knew, even then, this was no work of nature. Something else had wrought this passage, and it had been waiting.

The very instant I crossed its veil, the world was torn from me. All light fled my eyes, and the forest fell away with it. No birdsong, no rustle of leaves or wilderness beasts. Only a great, awful stillness, as if I’d been cast into the belly of the earth.

Then came the sickness. My stomach churned like water in a bouncing pale, my head spun, my knees weakened. It felt as though my bones were being pulled through a needle’s eye, stretched thin and turned inside out. I could not tell if I were rising, falling, or folding in upon myself. The air seemed to twist, heavy and wrong, and I feared I might retch, though there was nothing left in me.

A sudden crack, like that of a whip, smote me. It struck with such force that my limbs buckled, my breath caught, and my vision burst into hues I scarce could name. A ringing invaded my ears, chasing away the silence that engulfed me. When at last my senses returned and I stood steady upon my feet, I found I was no longer in the lush forest, nor upon the muddied fringe of Holsworthy’s pit-side lands. Before me stretched a boundless field, a great green flatland unmarred by hill or mountain. No cottage smoke rose, no tower broke the line of the horizon. Nothing but grass, soft and swaying, kissed by unseen winds.

There was a peace in this place, a stillness so gentle it made the soul sigh. Even as it soothed me, a whisper stirred in my heart, telling me that this comfort was a lure, a warmth meant to draw me deeper into some unseen trap. It felt not wicked, but unnatural, like the smile of a stranger too kind to trust. And then, without knowing why, I lifted my gaze. Some force within me, curious or compelled, bade me look upward.

And lo, what I beheld above stole my breath.

The sky was cast in splendor. A deep indigo vault stretched wide and endless, awash with stars, thousands upon thousands, each a silver spark set aflame by a patient hand. They glittered like tears, ones strewn across the firmament in sacred design. A pale moon hung low amid thin clouds, while a milky road of stardust stretched across the sky, like the path of old warriors in the time of yore.

Then did my eyes behold a marvel most wondrous, a star of fire, a meteor, tearing across the sable veil of night like a blade through velvet, its tail trailing a silver flame. It moved swift at first, as if thrown by a celestial ogre, but soon it slowed, just as it had before.

And like times past, it transformed into that same vile creature who haunts me.

The meteor began to shudder and writhe, its shape twisted, split, and from the molten shell unfurled a horror clad in ash and ruin. What once was flame became flesh, skin marred by the memory of the Divine, now defiled. Wings, torn and vast, stretched out like the tattered standards of a conquered host. Along its length were eyes, too many to count, blinking without pattern, seeing without kindness. Some hung dead in their sockets, weeping black tears, others burned with cruel light. And in the midst of them all, seated high upon its brow like a crown, was a single great eye, wide and unblinking, fixed upon me as though it pierced my very soul. It did not move, but I felt its power.

And though its appearance represented the Abyss, eerie and otherworldly, then as now, and surely as yet to come, I could not say it meant me harm. I felt no fear, nor any pure dread in its presence. Rather, there came upon me a strange ambition, a fire within my blood. Back then, in the foolishness of my youth, I felt mighty beneath its shadow, empowered, as if some ancient strength had seeped into my bones. I fancied myself invincible, untouchable by blade or curse. In its mere nearness, I believed I could break the will of kings with but a word, and raise thrones from dust with the will of my command. The world seemed smaller then, as though I stood above it, and all its princes should kneel should I but ask. What sorcery it worked upon me, I don’t know. Whether it was some enchantment of the spirit, or but my own pride kindled by its gaze, I knew naught. But I drank deep of that feeling, as a man drinks the last of his wine.

I did not question it.

Not then.

But it spoke to me, as it did Hlothere ages past.

“Speak, and I shall linger. One word, and I am thine. Not learned, but remembered. Not given, but found.”

I didn’t know what to say, only that something waited on my tongue, heavy with meaning, but yielded emptiness, as if one more breath might bring it to life. Words not yet spoken, but trembling on the edge. And perchance, I would’ve said them, yes, I nearly did, had I not remembered this gentle world of mine.

I shut my mouth.

It laughed.

And I understood, too late, it had not come to tempt me at such a youthful age.

It had come to plant a seed.