Post by Grimm on Nov 5, 2018 14:40:47 GMT -5
On this, a night of all nights, Ruth and Granny take their usual chairs on the porch. Ruth sits knitting, her needles flashing in the dark. Granny works her mortar and pestle, grinding herbs and bones and pottery shards into a mulch for her myriad concoctions. Both sit bundled against the cold, under layers of quilts and shawls and cowls. Both look over a vista of tallow candles spread around the porch when they break to rest their eyes.
Granny leans into the particularly hardy jawbone of a squirrel. “Penny for your thoughts, Ruth.”
“Just considering chances.”
“Chances?”
“Chances…of Mortimer and Dominic holding the line for the Order. Of Phinehas and Justin both surviving their rematch. Just…chances.”
The jawbone gives way in an explosion of shards. Granny exhales. “There are no chances, Ruth. But even if there were, it doesn’t matter in the end. Whether you’re knitting or weaving or stitching…whether it’s yarn or embroidery or twine. Whatever ends up being spun or cross-stitched, there will be loose threads. And they’ll get unstitched. But keep at it long enough, and what you end up with is a burial shroud. No matter what.”
The knitting needles freeze. Ruth looks sideways at the old woman guttering in the candle light. Nothing more but a chilly breeze rushing over the hills, so Ruth resumes her work.
Now, Phinehas has been sitting there alongside them all the while. He had come up from the cellar, roots and all. He sits there as a shape on the porch. A presence. He watches them in their labor. He watches the candles. He watches the road. Phinehas looks down the hollow to where bonfires flicker within Hangtown proper. Along trenches dug as protection from the spirits free to wander on this night. Inside the doors and windows cracked by those who, instead of fearing the ghosts, welcome them as honored guests.
While Ruth and Granny continue in their tasks, Phinehas reads the tale of the dying of the year in the glimmering. In the grass, the shale, the ginseng. Smoke and dreams mark the moment of crossing, in the blink of an eye in which the fulcrum tips from one age to the next, one world to another. He watches the leaves fall within their own stories. A shifting from blazes of orange, red, and gold, to bare skeleton fingers waving in a wind, casting their own dappled patterns of shadow over them all. Those patterns tell stories in a web of spells, but that is for another time.
The click of knitting, the grinding of stone on stone, and Phinehas ponders Hangtown on this night. What else could the town folk be up to? Silent processions clad in furs and embellished with branches and fodder roam the streets, wielding burning corn cobs as torches, devouring offerings of roasted shin meat as tribute. The dimming, the withering, was upon them, and they could not take chances with the cold and the dark. Something or someone had to be appeased for them to make it through this, the most unforgiving of the seasons.
And what, or who, else? Gerard Angelo frolicking in a display of Hollywood decadence and depravity, perhaps. Mocking, whether intentional or not, the severity of the night’s stakes. Of his own tenuous grasp on success and the resulting respect offered him. Debauchery on a preposterous scale. Justin Michaels? Off with his family on a sanitized version of the night’s proceedings, or home alone, reinventing (rediscovering?) himself. Bracing himself for what he knows hurtles towards him on something of an unavoidable collision course.
Whatever they’re doing, they no doubt are celebrating in their own ways. But come this next Trauma, they will all have to reconcile their differences in a display of aggression and viciousness that will serve as an affront to human dignity and common decency. No doubt a precursor of travesties to come.
And the crowd shall love them for it.
Ruth sets down her needles, and Granny gives her poor knuckles a rest. Phinehas – Grimm – tilts his head and locks in on a line of lights bobbing up the road. The procession has moved through town and now travels the length of All Souls Hollow to the home of the Dillingers, dragging time along behind it. It comes to rest at the foot of the drive once it sees the outline of the house against the bruised sky where the hills open up. The procession sees the flickering candles, the figures on the porch, the third shape, and it waits. The town requires the presence of the Lord of Hill and Thorn to successfully bring the night to a close. He will not deny them. Phinehas rises and climbs down the steps. Those boots of his crunch through dead leaves on the way down the slope.
Phinehas’s trail of dust, and the procession, and the lights diminish into an ever-encroaching night. Ruth and Granny resume their work in silence.
Granny’s right, and Ruth knows it.
Granny leans into the particularly hardy jawbone of a squirrel. “Penny for your thoughts, Ruth.”
“Just considering chances.”
“Chances?”
“Chances…of Mortimer and Dominic holding the line for the Order. Of Phinehas and Justin both surviving their rematch. Just…chances.”
The jawbone gives way in an explosion of shards. Granny exhales. “There are no chances, Ruth. But even if there were, it doesn’t matter in the end. Whether you’re knitting or weaving or stitching…whether it’s yarn or embroidery or twine. Whatever ends up being spun or cross-stitched, there will be loose threads. And they’ll get unstitched. But keep at it long enough, and what you end up with is a burial shroud. No matter what.”
The knitting needles freeze. Ruth looks sideways at the old woman guttering in the candle light. Nothing more but a chilly breeze rushing over the hills, so Ruth resumes her work.
Now, Phinehas has been sitting there alongside them all the while. He had come up from the cellar, roots and all. He sits there as a shape on the porch. A presence. He watches them in their labor. He watches the candles. He watches the road. Phinehas looks down the hollow to where bonfires flicker within Hangtown proper. Along trenches dug as protection from the spirits free to wander on this night. Inside the doors and windows cracked by those who, instead of fearing the ghosts, welcome them as honored guests.
While Ruth and Granny continue in their tasks, Phinehas reads the tale of the dying of the year in the glimmering. In the grass, the shale, the ginseng. Smoke and dreams mark the moment of crossing, in the blink of an eye in which the fulcrum tips from one age to the next, one world to another. He watches the leaves fall within their own stories. A shifting from blazes of orange, red, and gold, to bare skeleton fingers waving in a wind, casting their own dappled patterns of shadow over them all. Those patterns tell stories in a web of spells, but that is for another time.
The click of knitting, the grinding of stone on stone, and Phinehas ponders Hangtown on this night. What else could the town folk be up to? Silent processions clad in furs and embellished with branches and fodder roam the streets, wielding burning corn cobs as torches, devouring offerings of roasted shin meat as tribute. The dimming, the withering, was upon them, and they could not take chances with the cold and the dark. Something or someone had to be appeased for them to make it through this, the most unforgiving of the seasons.
And what, or who, else? Gerard Angelo frolicking in a display of Hollywood decadence and depravity, perhaps. Mocking, whether intentional or not, the severity of the night’s stakes. Of his own tenuous grasp on success and the resulting respect offered him. Debauchery on a preposterous scale. Justin Michaels? Off with his family on a sanitized version of the night’s proceedings, or home alone, reinventing (rediscovering?) himself. Bracing himself for what he knows hurtles towards him on something of an unavoidable collision course.
Whatever they’re doing, they no doubt are celebrating in their own ways. But come this next Trauma, they will all have to reconcile their differences in a display of aggression and viciousness that will serve as an affront to human dignity and common decency. No doubt a precursor of travesties to come.
And the crowd shall love them for it.
Ruth sets down her needles, and Granny gives her poor knuckles a rest. Phinehas – Grimm – tilts his head and locks in on a line of lights bobbing up the road. The procession has moved through town and now travels the length of All Souls Hollow to the home of the Dillingers, dragging time along behind it. It comes to rest at the foot of the drive once it sees the outline of the house against the bruised sky where the hills open up. The procession sees the flickering candles, the figures on the porch, the third shape, and it waits. The town requires the presence of the Lord of Hill and Thorn to successfully bring the night to a close. He will not deny them. Phinehas rises and climbs down the steps. Those boots of his crunch through dead leaves on the way down the slope.
Phinehas’s trail of dust, and the procession, and the lights diminish into an ever-encroaching night. Ruth and Granny resume their work in silence.
Granny’s right, and Ruth knows it.
