A Belief in Ghosts

Death In Harmony: Part Two of Twenty-Nine

Death In Harmony is the fifth in the Tales of The Lesser Evil and this is the second chapter.

Skip to the story by clicking here.

This is a fantasy series—not quite grimdark, but dark nevertheless—with complicated and believable characters doing their best to survive in a world simply indifferent to their existence.

To read an introduction to this novella, and the backcover blurb, click here.

If you love the story too much to wait each week, you can also buy the ebook of the novel, as you can the preceding four Tales (available in an omnibus edition).

If you enjoy this story and aren’t already subscribed, please consider doing so:

share this with those you know,

or like, comment, or restack on Substack Notes.

A Belief in Ghosts

Somewhere in the past/The present: somewhere, north of The Pit

For the first dozen years of her life, Flinders Jeigur had played in the woods, climbed the hills, run through the meadows, and swam in the clear lakes and deep stream pools of the uplands surrounding the tiny village she had been born into. That, and tended the village’s flock of sheep.

Her hair had been longer then, more glossy and sleek, less streaked with grey and wild with curl and crimp. In those days, she had never pulled strands, had never even felt the urge.

Her village had been very much like the one she had fled; neither on a major road nor a trade route, it was a hinterland, a backwater, beyond lay nothing but wild places. Boncliff was an outlier for a larger village, Shepford, itself connected to a small town, whose name Flin could no longer recall, try as she might. Perhaps she had always simply known it as ‘the Big Town’, child’s eyes viewing the place as a gigantic city, full of mystery and adventure. Now, she knew better, but wished she could remember the name.

Once a year, every year since she had been six, her father would take Flin to sell all that their family had crafted, the wool from their sheep, and the stone bones and relics they sometimes found in the hills, exchanging coin for goods: seed, cloth, lace and ribbon, pins, tools, or glassware. The list varied from year to year, as did the amount of coin they would receive.

Her family had a longstanding agreement with a distant cousin, the owner of The Dancing Shepherd, a small inn with a good reputation, hot food, and comfortable beds. In the evenings, for two turns of the glass, Flin’s father would play his fiddle or kora and, in return, they would receive full board.

They would stay for three nights, catching up with friends and relatives, eating foods different to their normal diet, her father drinking and smoking more, both entranced by the strange people who travelled from the opposite direction to buy up the rarer products—particularly the bones and relics. For Flin, each visit was to be treasured, something other children in her village would regard with jealousy and admiration. Then, just after reaching her second Sixthday, that all changed.

It had been one of those random accidents that changed the course of her life, spinning her out in a direction different to that which she had always thought she would follow.

Her father had been shearing the sheep when the very last ewe of the flock twisted in his grasp and kicked, catching his wrist and snapping it. Although it healed well, and the village herbalist said he would have no lasting damage, he could not play either of his instruments when they journeyed to the town that year, scant weeks later.

Instead, for the first time, Flin was allowed to play. One stupid incident, one nervous sheep, and her life altered forever.

The first night Flin played, she immediately noticed the man in the corner, dressed in well-made clothing and occasionally taking notes in an expensive paper notebook, watching, attentive. In her village, only three people could write.

The second night, he requested two songs, a jig, and a slow, mournful tune he said he had heard in another inn.

The third night, he had introduced himself.

Rharsle Tren had been travelling for thirty years. He had explained that he could play any instrument in the world, sing a thousand thousand songs, tell tales in more languages than Flin had thought existed, and knew of roads and routes through places so distant that the very seasons were upside down. He had not intended to take on an apprentice, but he had not heard a voice like Flin’s in all his travels, nor seen such skill with a simple country fiddle and kora.

‘Such raw talent. Think what you could become!’ Flin remembered his exact words, able to recall her carefully composed, yet unspoken reply,

‘I want to become a shepherd, I don’t want to leave my family, I love music and song, but I love my home more.’

He handed over a pouch of coins to her father, containing the equivalent of five year’s trading. The very next morning Flin had departed with a man she did not know, without ever having had the chance to say goodbye to her mother, her sisters, and her baby brother.

Rharsle had been a good and fair teacher, and Flin a model student. He had respected her, whilst simultaneously pushing her beyond where she thought her limits lay. She studied and memorised song after song, story after story, learning tricks of memory to make paths to follow in her mind, as their feet carried them further and further from her home.

At first it had been the two of them, walking slowly to ease her into such a lifestyle, then they had joined a trader’s caravan, then a boat across a sea full of fear and sickness for Flin. In between spectacular bouts of vomiting, she had asked Rharsle if she would ever see her home again. In reply, he explained how he had promised her father that, when she had been his student for six years and six days, he would not only set her free from any obligation to him, but would take her all the way back home, if she still wished it. And Flin had believed him, known it to be true.

When time passed to that point, Flin had known she would never be able to settle for life as a shepherd—the road had her in its grasp, wanderlust and a love of new vistas gripping her tightly. Yet she had explained to her teacher that she longed to see her family, to say a proper goodbye, see her home once more. Secretly, she harboured a desire to show off, talk of the places and things she had witnessed, demonstrate the high level of skill she had achieved in music, song and story. It was a prideful desire she still regretted.

Rharsle had died, less than a moon before those six years and six days were up. Another stupid accident, another twist in her fate.

They had already bought their supplies and booked passage across one of the seas that would take Flin home, when he had slipped in the mud, falling beneath the wheels of a passing wagon, his head crushed, his neck snapped.

Looking back, she was sure it was that precise moment that the fear began to take a hold in her heart.

It never left her.

Flin had no idea where she was from. She could not remember the way home.

The valley bottoms were darker than the ridges. Soon, the low sun would set and the thick, creeper-enclosed trees were already filtering what little light remained.

Flin had found a swiftly flowing stream and splashed across, leaving a false trail for the dogs before returning to wade against the flow of water. She knew her pursuers would not be fooled by the truncated scent for long, but she hoped they would assume she had fled downstream, the easier direction of travel.

The water was cool, even after a day in the hot sun, and she was not surprised when the channel ended in a deep pool. The ground here was not solid, the limestone porous, offering gateways to the underworld.

It was said that these hills, west of the Great South Road and north of the jagged Spire Mountains, were haunted, the malevolent souls of ancient defeated warriors tearing unwary travellers apart, or luring them to their deaths in swamps, over the edges of sudden cliffs, or into deep sinkholes. It was said their spirits would then join the angry dead, remaining trapped near where they had died.

Flin believed in ghosts. She had seen more than her fair share. From the tiny sprites of the deep and twisting canyons near Annezi Gap, each rumoured to be the soul of a child, sacrificed long ago to appease dark Gods, to the giant flickering spirits walking above the clouds in the high mountain passes of Ornock, she did not want to see any further representatives of the unquiet dead.

Flin gasped, something pale and fast moved above her on the ridge and, for one heart-pounding moment, she wondered if her thoughts had summoned spirits. Another movement and she recognised the truth; the wolves would not hurt her, she knew that. Stories of supposedly vicious animals taking travellers were common, but she had yet to actually meet someone who had been attacked. They were just stories. She was more concerned about other people.

As a shepherd’s daughter, Flin knew wolves avoided humankind as much as possible and, also as a shepherd’s daughter, she knew that the pursuing villagers would be scared by their appearance. The dogs would be terrified—they always were—and the wolves would in turn be contemptuous of their cosseted existence, often going out of their way to kill them. She hoped this could be to her advantage, the unease of the bloodhounds potentially giving her a chance to increase the distance between her and those chasing.

There was very little she could do about ghosts.

When people ran, Flin knew, they usually had a destination in mind. In a situation where they were chased this played against them, with pursuers able to predict where their prey may head and outwit them, set ambushes or take shortcuts. Flin had no destination in mind, none at all. She was just running, fleeing for her life and that of the infant she carried strapped to her breast.

‘Wolf,’ she gasped the word aloud, talking to herself, to the child, to the wolves around her, ‘Wolf! Confuse the tracks, hide our trail!’

Like the child, the wolf did not answer.

She moved up the hill, quickly locating where the wolves had faintly scuffed the ground, following them. It was brighter up here, less thickly-wooded; she knew she would be dangerously silhouetted, but hiding her scent was more important now.

Flin had barely travelled more than fifty paces before she noticed a clear, but old, boot print. That the trail was used by two-legged hunters was worrying. It meant that her pursuers were likely to know the terrain and could use it to their advantage, taking shortcuts, taking her baby away.

‘No, not again.’ She picked up the pace, trotting like the wolf she followed, as silently as possible, selecting a careful path in the disappearing light. To twist an ankle or break a leg at this point would be the end of her freedom and likely her life.

Behind her a bloodhound bayed, in front a wolf howled in response. Flin was tempted to reply with a scream of her own, but kept silent.

‘Keep moving. Soon we can stop, soon we can sleep. Keep moving.’

She willed her legs forward, as they screamed their own song, muscles protesting, feet aching, hips tight and knees weak.

She kept moving.

Many thanks for reading.

Go to the next episode here.

Go back to the previous episode here.

Head to the introduction and contents page here.

Or read more about my fiction here.