Gravemound by Kim Fielding (snow like ashes TXT) 📕

They didn’t talk as much that second night, but that was fine. When the hours felt too heavy, one might tell a tale from his past, but they were also perfectly comfortable sitting together in silence, so near that Phin could feel Kendo’s body heat. Kendo had likely experienced a great deal of solitude over the past decade, and Phin had gone through a good bit of it since the crash. So feeling time pass without talking was nothing new to either of them. Yet somehow Phin felt as if time passed more smoothly with Kendo there.

The reaper didn’t appear. At dawn, both men stood and stretched. Kendo tried to give the blanket back, but Phineas refused to take it. “If you’re going to sleep outdoors, you can at least be warm.”

Kendo folded the blanket over his arm. “You’re very kind.”

“I’m selfish. I’m hoping you show up again tomorrow.”

The lines in Kendo’s face seemed to deepen. “I can’t promise that. I’ve already stayed longer than my usual.”

“I know. I only said I hoped—you have no obligation.”

Kendo gave him a long look. Phin hoped it meant that Kendo was rethinking his vagabond ways. Or perhaps he was weighing the benefits and risks of obligation. It didn’t feel right to ask him, and then as Phin watched, Kendo climbed the cemetery wall and walked away.

Gurthcir visited Phin’s hut the following afternoon, the first time she’d done so. Phin was in his garden when she arrived carrying something in a large sack. He brushed the debris from his hands and took the sack after she thrust it at him.

“Don’t open it until your hands are clean. It’s two new sweaters and lace coverings for your windows.” She waved at the rough cloth he was currently using as curtains. “Lace is nicer in warm weather.”

“Thank you, auntie. Can I get you some water and something to eat?”

She grinned. “None of your ale yet?”

“Not even close. It takes time to brew, and I’ve been—”

“Staying up all night. No reaper?”

“Not yet.”

She shrugged. “You still have tonight.” After refusing another offer of refreshments, she sat on a low stool he’d carried outside. Phin sat on the ground across from her and toyed with grass stems while she filled him in on the latest gossip. It was interesting to live in a place where everyone knew everyone else’s business so intimately. In his old city, he hadn’t even known the names of the people who shared the same floor of his building.

“You’re not afraid, all alone in the cemetery?” Gurthcir asked him eventually.

He considered mentioning Kendo but decided against it. If Kendo didn’t want the villagers aware of his presence, it wasn’t Phin’s place to tell them. “You said the reaper can’t get me while I’m alive.”

“It can’t. But maybe there are other things to fear. Ghosts.”

“I haven’t noticed any.” He thought about this for a moment. “And even if there were, I can’t see why any of them would have a grudge against me.”

“True. But be careful anyway.”

“Of what?”

She shrugged and stared thoughtfully at her hands. Her skin was wrinkled and age-spotted, her fingers gnarled, but there was still strength there. She still churned out beautiful things that kept her family and neighbors warm. “Sometimes I see.”

Phin recognized the last word and knew what it meant, but there was something unusual in her tone, something that suggested she wasn’t talking about ordinary vision. “What do you mean, auntie?”

“It’s considered a gift, the seeing. My mother had The Sight, and hers before her. It’s not a very big gift, or we’d have been wealthy long ago.” She cackled. “But it can be useful. I knew you were coming, for instance. Weeks before you arrived I saw a ball of flames fall from the heavens with two people inside—one dead, one hurt. Sorry, Sky-Demon. It didn’t give me the power to save your man. But it did make us ready to heal you when you arrived.”

He pondered this for a moment. Back home, he hadn’t believed in precognition. But he also hadn’t believed in soul-reapers or burn ointments that worked instantly, and he knew for sure that at least one of those existed here. “Thank you,” he finally said.

She gestured dismissively. “You’ve said that already. I’m not looking for gratitude. I came to tell you that this morning I saw something. Just a glimpse, mind you. Someone from the past, someone long gone, holding your arm in the cemetery. Maybe not a ghost, but I can’t be sure.”

“Was this someone harming me?”

She cocked her head and scrunched her mouth. “Nooo…. I don’t think so. But you were crying.”

He’d sobbed plenty in the weeks after his arrival, grieving not just Somboon but everyone and everything he’d known. He wasn’t ashamed of his tears; they were part of his healing process. “Thank you for telling me, auntie. I’ll be careful.”

With a small chorus of groans, she stood. “I’m glad you landed in our particular village, Sky-Demon.”

He smiled. “Me too.”

Phineas strolled slowly to the cemetery that evening. It was another clear night, the rising moon still nearly full, the air whispering promises of balmy weather to come. Last summer, one of the villagers had offered to take him deep into the forest and show him a particular tree that was so beautiful that some people believed the gods had planted it. Phin hadn’t been psychologically up to a journey then, but he might be this year. It was time for him to learn more about his new home.

Maybe he should have been troubled by Gurthcir’s vision, but he wasn’t. If it was Kendo she’d seen, Phin couldn’t believe that Kendo would hurt him. After all, he’d had plenty of opportunity already, hours in the cemetery with his sword and knife, and with Phin unarmed. Besides, from the moment when Phin realized Kendo was a man and not a reaper, he hadn’t sensed any threat from him. Just… sadness, maybe, and a yearning for a little food and companionship.

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