Thin Places

Have you ever had one of those mornings? I seem to have them far too often.

You know the sort. You go to bed after a long day, settle beneath the duvet, and drift into what promises to be a decent night's sleep. Then morning arrives with the warmth of the sun playing across your face. A cool breeze brushes gently through your hair, carrying the scent of damp earth and wildflowers. Still half asleep, you stretch luxuriously, smiling to yourself as your fingers trail lazily through cool, dew-soaked grass.

Grass.

My eyes snapped open.

Blue sky.

White clouds.

A bird sang somewhere overhead.

"For fuck's sake..." I muttered, squeezing my eyes shut for a second as though reopening them might magically reveal my bedroom ceiling instead. It didn't. "...not again."

I stayed exactly where I was for another few moments, breathing slowly and resisting the childish urge to swear at the universe. Experience had taught me it didn't listen.

"Right," I sighed. "Let's see what we've got."

The first rule was simple.

Don't panic.

Panicking had never once improved the situation.

I pushed myself upright and took stock.

Rolling countryside stretched away in every direction, the long grass rippling in the breeze like waves across a green sea. A narrow line of woodland sat perhaps half a mile away, while somewhere beyond a low hill to my left a thin ribbon of smoke curled lazily into the morning sky.

Well, smoke usually meant people.

People were... variable.

I brushed the grass from my clothes and frowned.

Definitely not my clothes.

The cloak hanging from my shoulders was heavy enough to make me notice it every time I moved. It smelt of damp wool and old smoke. The boots had seen better days, but they fitted comfortably enough. I tugged one sleeve back and looked at the arm beneath it.

Not mine. It never was.

Funny thing was, that part no longer bothered me. The first few times I'd spent ages trying to work out what I looked like. I'd searched ponds for reflections, polished bits of metal, even windows if I was lucky enough to find them. These days I only cared about one thing.

Could this body get me through the day?

I stretched my fingers. No pain. My back felt ok as I rolled my shoulders. I bent my knees. A few creaks but nothing I couldn’t handle. I took a few tentative steps. The boots rubbed a little on my right heel, but manageable.

"That'll do," I muttered.

My voice caught me off guard for half a second. It always did. Different. Older, younger, rougher, smoother... it varied. After a while you stopped expecting to hear your own.

Something nudged my hip as I walked. There was a knife hanging from my belt. That could be useful

I pulled it free.

The blade slid out with a soft scrape. It was clean, sharp, and recently cared for by the look of it. I slid it back and kept walking.

I loosened the drawstring of the leather pouch that hung beside it and peered inside as I walked.

Coins and a couple of hard biscuits. Nothing that explained anything, so I cinched it shut again.

Maybe there was an explanation for all this.

Maybe there wasn't.

I'd stopped wasting energy trying to force one.

The smoke beyond the trees hadn't moved. Someone had lit that fire, which meant someone was nearby.

I changed direction towards it.

It was usually better to find people before they found you.

"Right then," I said.

"Let's go and find out where the hell I am."

There was no point standing still.

There never had been.

The smoke drifted lazily above the trees, giving me something to aim for.

The ground dipped gently as I crossed the meadow, the grass giving way to a narrow track worn smooth by years of boots and cartwheels. At least I wasn't in the middle of nowhere. Someone had used this path often enough to leave their mark.

About ten minutes later, I spotted a cartwheel lying on its side in the ditch.

It wasn't old. The wood was worn with use, but the iron rim still held its shape. I stopped beside it, nudging it with the toe of my boot. It rocked slightly before settling back into the grass.

I followed the shallow drag marks until the rest of the cart came into view.

The body had collapsed in on itself, little more than a blackened skeleton of timber. One axle had snapped clean through, leaving the whole thing leaning drunkenly into the ditch. Whatever cargo it had carried had long since gone.

I crouched beside it. Fortunately, there were no bodies. That was something.

The ash had long since grown cold, but not old enough for grass to reclaim it. A few scraps of scorched cloth clung stubbornly to a corner of the frame. I teased one free between my fingers. It crumbled almost immediately.

A leather strap caught my eye beneath the wreckage. I tugged gently until a small satchel came free, its flap scorched but intact. It was empty, much like the rest of the wagon. If someone had survived, they'd have taken anything worth carrying. If they hadn't... I let the thought go. This was going to be just another of those mysteries that my life seemed to collect, and there wasn't much point inventing endings for people I'd never meet.

The satchel joined the cart again.

As I stood, something glinted beneath a charred beam. I reached down and picked up a small coin. Turning it over, it had no head, just a pattern of tiny circles surrounding a tree unlike any I'd ever seen and on the other side, some script I couldn’t understand.

I slipped it into the pouch at my belt. Not because I thought it was valuable.

Just because, over the years, I'd learned that the smallest things sometimes became important later on.

The breeze shifted and once again brought me the familiar smell of woodsmoke, though fresher this time, closer.

I looked up and saw beyond the next rise, partly hidden by a stand of towering trees, a solitary farmhouse. Thin grey smoke drifted from its chimney into the bright morning sky.

Someone was home, or at least close by. Either way, it beat talking to a burnt cart.

I started walking.

The track climbed gently before levelling out in front of the farmhouse. It was smaller than I'd expected, built from rough stone with a slate roof that had seen better days. Chickens wandered freely around the yard, scratching at the dirt as though they owned the place. One looked up as I approached, decided I wasn't worth the effort and carried on pecking.

I paused at the gate. The place felt... ordinary, and that should probably have reassured me more than it did. Too often, ordinary hid something very much not.

A neat stack of chopped logs stood beneath a lean-to. Washing stirred gently on a line behind the house. Somewhere nearby I could hear the steady thump... thump... thump... of someone splitting wood.

I followed the sound around the side of the house. An old man looked up from the chopping block, rested the axe against the stump and studied me for a moment without saying a word.

I gave him what I hoped passed for a friendly smile.

"Morning."

He nodded once.

"Morning to you."

Well, that was encouraging.

"I was wondering if I might trouble you for a drink of water."

"There's a pump by the door."

He pointed with the handle of the axe before returning to the log balanced on the block.

I thanked him, filled a battered tin mug from the hand pump and drank deeply. The water was cold enough to make my teeth ache.

"Long walk?" he asked without looking round.

"Far enough."

He gave a faint grunt that could have meant anything.

As I put the mug back next to the pump, I glanced towards the road.

"I passed a burnt wagon about half a mile back."

This time he stopped swinging.

"Aye." He wiped his forehead with the back of one hand. "Shame, that."

"What happened?"

"Wheel broke coming down the hill." He nodded towards the distant rise. "Caught badly. Lantern smashed. Oil went everywhere."

He shrugged.

"Burned hotter than anyone could get near."

"So nobody..."

"Got out?" He looked at me for the first time since I'd arrived. “No, least, that's what folk are saying."

There it was again. Nobody really knew. Just another story passed from one person to the next until it became the truth.

"I'm sorry to hear it."

"So were we." He bent to pick up another log. “Was supposed to drop us off some supplies.”

For a few moments neither of us spoke. The rhythmic crack of the axe filled the silence while I watched the chickens continue their important business as though burnt wagons and dead merchants were simply part of the world.

Maybe they were.

"You've an odd way of speaking," the old man said eventually.

"I've been told that before."

He smiled at that.

"Travelling?"

"You could say that."

"Well..." He drove the axe neatly through another log, "...wherever you're headed, you'll find a bed and a hot meal at the Widow’s Peak if you reach Blackwater before dark."

Blackwater. At least now I had a name for somewhere.

I tucked it away, not knowing if it would ever mean more to me than just a name

"Thank you."

He nodded once more and returned to his work.

It felt like my cue to move on.

The farmhouse gradually disappeared behind the rise, the steady rhythm of the axe fading until all I could hear was the breeze stirring through the trees.

I found myself smiling. Nothing remarkable had happened. I'd met a man and shared his water, learnt why the wagon had burned and picked up the name of a place I'd probably never hear again.

Some days, that counted as a success.

The track wound lazily between low stone walls before slipping back beneath the trees. Their branches knitted together overhead, breaking the afternoon sun into shifting patches of light that danced across the ground as the leaves stirred.

It was peaceful. Peaceful was good.

Peaceful had an annoying habit of becoming something else, but there was no point borrowing trouble before it arrived.

My stomach reminded me I hadn't eaten since... well, whenever I'd last eaten before all this.

I reached into the pouch and found one of the hard biscuits. It looked as though it had been baked sometime during the previous century and tasted only marginally fresher, but it was food. I chewed steadily as I walked, washing the last of it down with a swallow from the water can I'd filled before leaving the farmhouse.

A little further on, I spotted a tree beside the path, its branches heavy with fruit about the size of apples. They looked inviting. I picked one, turned it over in my hand and gave it a cautious sniff.

It looked for all the world like an apple with a sweet, inviting aroma.

That didn't prove anything.

With a shrug, I took a tentative bite, and it crunched delightfully almost exactly as I'd expected.

The flavour, however, wasn't apple at all.

If I had to compare it to anything, it would be strawberries. Fresh strawberries, warmed by the sun.

I stopped walking and took another bite, just to make sure I wasn't imagining it.

"Nope," I said to nobody in particular. "Definitely strawberries."

I finished the fruit as I walked, tossing the core into the undergrowth. Maybe there was a perfectly sensible explanation. Maybe this world's apples had simply made a different decision somewhere along the line.

Either way, I wasn't complaining.

Birdsong drifted through the canopy above me. I couldn't have named a single one of them, though they sounded reassuringly familiar. Somewhere off to my right, something much larger crashed through the undergrowth before falling silent again.

I stopped, my hand drifting to the hilt of the knife. I listened, turning my head side to side; there was nothing except birdsong and the steady drone of insects.

After a few moments, I carried on. Not everything in the woods wanted to eat me.

Probably.

The trees began to thin, and the road widened as it climbed another gentle rise. Beyond it, I could just make out the first scattered buildings of what I assumed was Blackwater.

For the first time since waking in the meadow, I had somewhere to go. Whether it would answer any questions was another matter entirely.

The scattered cottages gradually became a small town.                      

Not much of one, admittedly. A handful of stone buildings lined either side of the road, their gardens overflowing with herbs and vegetables rather than flowers. Somewhere a hammer rang steadily against hot iron, while a baker carried fresh loaves from an oven that made my stomach remind me the biscuit had only been a temporary solution.

Nobody seemed particularly interested in me and that suited me just fine.

A woman nodded as she swept dust from her doorstep. Two boys argued over a hoop they were rolling down the street. An elderly man sat outside his house patiently repairing a fishing net despite there not being so much as a puddle within sight.

Life. Proper, ordinary life. It would be easy to get used to this sort of place. It carried with it a quiet sense of peace and certainty.

The road narrowed between two stout timber posts where a waist-high gate stood open. Beside it sat a man on a three-legged stool, whittling steadily at a length of wood with the sort of concentration only boredom can produce.

He glanced up.

"Afternoon."

"Afternoon."

"Passing through?"

"You could say that."

He nodded as though that answered everything.

"First visit?"

I smiled. "Am I that obvious?"

"You looked round."

He shrugged. "Locals stop seeing it."

Fair point. "I'm looking for somewhere to stay."

"Widow's Peak." He pointed with the knife. "Third building on your left."

"Any good?"

"If Marta's cooking."

"And if she isn't?"

He snorted. "Hope she is."

I thanked him and wandered on.

Blackwater wasn't large, but it was busy enough. Somewhere behind me a dog barked. A cart rattled over worn cobbles carrying sacks of flour. Somebody laughed loudly enough to draw a chorus of complaints from somewhere upstairs.

Outside the tavern two men stood talking in voices that were just low enough to invite curiosity.

"...they found another one this morning."

"Where?"

"North road."

"The same place?"

"Aye."

Neither sounded especially surprised.

They noticed me passing and the conversation died as naturally as it had begun.

Inside, Widow's Peak smelled of fresh bread, onions and something slowly stewing with herbs I didn't recognise. It wasn't crowded, but there were enough people scattered around the room for conversation to merge into a comfortable background murmur.

I found a table near the wall.

A woman appeared with the easy confidence of someone who'd been feeding hungry travellers for years.

"Artnoon, what'll it be?"

"Whatever five copper buys."

She smiled.

"Stew. Bread. Room."

I emptied the pouch onto the table. Seven copper coins rolled across the wood.

A shout came from across the room.

“Another ale over here, Marta.”

“Clip yer tongue, I’m busy.”

She watched me start to count the coins before gently pushing two back towards me.

"First time in Blackwater?"

I looked up.

"That obvious?"

"No local counts coppers before ordering."

I laughed.

"Fair enough."

The stew arrived a few minutes later, rich with vegetables and thick enough to stand the spoon upright. Whatever Marta had put into it deserved every word the gate watch had spoken.

By the time I climbed the narrow stairs to my room, the village had settled into that comfortable evening murmur every place seems to share.

I opened the small window. Voices drifted up from the street below.

"...three have gone in."

"And?"

A pause.

"Only two came back."

Someone answered, but another burst of laughter from inside the tavern swallowed the words.

I waited.

Nothing more came.

I smiled to myself. Another one; things never change.

I closed the shutters, stretched out on the narrow bed and was asleep almost before my head touched the pillow.

As my mind drifted away, somewhere an irritating buzzing wormed its way into my sleep. Music followed, distant at first, then steadily louder.