Barn’s Haunted
Written by Imagi-Nethat.
A windwyrm serf discovers an unexpected guest in his barn.
Kekik put his head down against the freezing wind blowing down from the peaks. There was little forest around here, and he’d only be free of the cold picking through his feathers once he was in the barn. He hurried toward that destination, breathing a sigh of relief once he was inside. The peryton housed inside looked up as the door slid open, ears pricking as one when they noticed their keeper. Kekik moved among them, distributing hay and oats and some precious dried apples as treats. They were his liege’s perytons, a prized herd of grassland types, very rare to see in this land. Kekik was expected to keep them well-fed and happy, their coats glossy for whenever his liege wanted to show them off to visitors.
Kekik was lost in his thoughts, contemplating whether the peryton’s hooves would need trimming soon, when he heard a scrape at the back of the barn, followed by the sound of feathers against stone. Was there another windwyrm in here? Eider didn’t care for visiting the barn. The peryton looked up, tails twitching, but resumed eating after only a moment’s pause. Whatever was back there, they weren’t scared of it. Perhaps one had gotten stuck and needed help. Windwyrms weren’t the only things with feathers around here.
The back of the barn was mostly used for storage, holding the bulk of the winter’s hay and some tack for dressing the perytons up for festivals. The animals couldn’t access it, unless something had spooked them and one had crawled back there in a blind panic. The area was kept dark because Kekik didn’t want to open more windows than necessary in the winter, and as he walked he found himself squinting, looking in the corners for the shape of a creature. Pinpricks of light came through the shutters, but they barely lit the edges of things.
Then two of the pinpricks moved, and Kekik realized something was looking at him. He recoiled with a shriek, and there was a great amount of rustling as whatever it was lunged over the hay, straight toward him. Kekik would be ashamed to admit his reaction was very un-windwyrm-like. He cowered, flaring out his wings and howling at the thing to leave him alone. He felt it brush past under his secondaries, and whirled to keep it in front of him. The peryton scattered and bleated in their stalls at the sudden movement, and for just a moment, Kekik saw the creature’s silhouette as it threw the barn door open and escaped. Winged like a bird, with a long trailing tail, but where its head should be…he couldn’t make sense of it. Horns? More limbs? It moved unnaturally. Had a spirit, a Lorcán perhaps, gotten trapped in his barn? No wonder the wind blew so cold. It must be angry. Hopefully now that it was free, it was gone forever. Though his heart still beat quickly, Kekik set to calming the perytons.
The spirit would not forgive Kekik so easily. He saw it again hardly a week later, on another bitterly cold day. They met each other as it slunk around the side of the barn, and he stumbled to a stop. The spirit hissed and rumbled, the feathered wings it walked on fluffing out and mist spilling from rents in its neck and face. More mist fell from its jaws. It looked half-made, some parts of it feathered and other parts covered in bare skin. Torn cloth hung from its shoulders. In daylight, Kekik could see its top half better, but he didn’t understand it better. Limbs, yes, sticklike and oddly proportioned. A single horn. A face split in half, and like no creature he’d ever seen. This wasn’t a Lorcán. It must be a Cathair, a windwyrm violently killed and never lain to rest. Again he cowered from this monster, this spirit, but again it didn’t harm him, merely vanished into his barn. Aside from nervous bleating, there were no sounds of destruction within, and the perytons still needed feeding. After a few moments, Kekik forced himself to follow the spirit in.
He saw its glowing eyes at the back of the storage area. Good, he didn’t want it near him. Carefully, he completed his chores, but when he got to the bag of dried apples, he found it empty. The spirit had stolen them. Anger overtook Kekik’s fear. Those apples had been so difficult to get, they’d come all the way from Roseglade, and there was no way he’d be able to buy more, not in December. The spirit had not only stolen from him, it had stolen from his liege, whose peryton would now have to go without their favorite treat. Restless or not, it would have to go. The haunting would end. And there was only one way to do it.
Kekik marched back to the house. It would take a few hours to get ready, but clearly the spirit wasn’t going anywhere. Eider followed him at first, asking what he planned to do, then helped him prepare after he explained that he was ridding them of their spirit. Soon, his transformation was complete: pans and other metalware hung from Kekik’s wings, clattering with every movement. Shed primaries stuck up from the feathers around his neck, and he’d dipped his talons in white paint and streaked lines across his face. He was the picture of Maura, goddess of storms. No lesser spirit would dare remain in her presence.
Kekik marched back to the barn. He stood tall. He must be intimidating and fierce, or the Cathair would see through his disguise. Throwing open the door to the barn (privately he winced at how he startled the peryton), he glared at the pinprick eyes still sitting among his hay. “I am Maura, matriarch of spirits!” he boomed. “And I command you to leave this place!” He rattled the metal hanging from his wings threateningly.
The eyes blinked. “Aren’t you the guy from before?” it asked. Kekik jumped, both at it speaking and at the fact it had seen through him so quickly. Was he not being intimidating enough? He puffed out his feathers even more and tried again. “No, of course not! I’m Maura!” he roared. The Cathair tilted its head and stepped forward, the light from the windows breaking across its body. Kekik had to fight the urge to cringe away from its mismatched face.
“I don’t know who that is,” it informed him.
Kekik’s jaw dropped. “Maura? Mother of the sky spirits? Protector of windwyrms?” he tried. The spirit shook its head. His wings drooped. How could a windwyrm, especially the spirit of a windwyrm, not know of Maura? What had happened to it? Carefully he folded his wings, muffling their clanging. This wasn’t working, he couldn’t just scare it off. Instead he sat down, holding out a taloned hand like he would to a shy peryton. “Why are you here?” he asked.
The spirit glanced around, now nervous. “I’m lost. This place was sheltered.” It wrinkled its oddly flat nose in a foreign expression. “I can’t stay outside all the time.”
Kekik nodded. Obviously it was lost, or it wouldn’t be haunting his barn. He thought carefully on what to ask next. Their peace was tenuous, and even though the spirit was smaller than he was, he still didn’t want to anger it. He just wanted to get to the bottom of this. He was just a serf, but maybe he could do something. He could ask where it died, and then give it a proper sky burial, but maybe it’d be upsetting to ask about its death? “Who hurt you?” he asked instead. “Who made you this way?”
The Cathair reeled back, into the darkness. Maura’s claws, was that the wrong question? “Sorry,” Kekik rushed to say. “I just want to help.”
Glowing eyes regarded him, and he sensed it was suspicious. Spirits were sensitive. Eventually it glanced away. “I can’t say. But it was in Ironbrook.”
Ah. It was one of those windwyrms that tried to flee the Baronies, only to be hunted down in a foreign nation. The Tempest had warned them all how dangerous it was beyond their borders, but some simply would not listen. Still, Kekik pitied the spirit. To die alone, far from home….no wonder it was roaming the land. There was nothing he could do to put its body to rest, but maybe, just maybe, he had something that could calm its soul. Kekik pulled himself to his feet, and the spirit drew back a little. “It’s okay,” he comforted it. “I can’t help you move on, but I think I have something for you.” The Cathair looked confused, but didn’t say anything else as he returned to his house. Eider met him at the door, asking how scaring off the spirit had gone, and quietly he told her about the lost soul and his idea to help. She eyed him for a long moment, unwilling to agree. He understood. It felt like giving up on a dream of theirs. But he thought it was the only way. The spirit needed it more.
Finally Eider nodded, and Kekik made his way to their bedroom. From a small chest he pulled a curved piece of antler. It was yellowed with age, but the carvings were still clear: Maura, in the form of a thunderous bird, surrounded by clouds and lightning. Each end was pierced for a necklace string to be tied through. It was an heirloom from Kekik’s side of the family, passed from parent to child for unknown generations. It kept them safe. But Kekik and Eider had no children, and might never have them. The antler was a powerful charm, and might just be able to help a lost and shattered spirit move on. Eider watched as he carried it back outside.
Kekik placed the antler in the center of the barn floor, peryton milling in their stables on either side. He retreated back toward the door, and the spirit came forward to pick it up. He marveled again at its twisted appearance; he dreaded what must have happened to it to take that form. The spirit turned the charm over in its small hands. “What is this?” it asked.
“A gift,” Kekik said. “It’ll protect you.” The spirit looked up sharply. He continued, “You have a long journey ahead of you, a hard journey, but you’ll make it. I think you can find peace.”
The spirit looked at him, tears welling in its eyes, the antler held close to its chest. “You’re right,” it agreed. “I….need to go home. I need to find home.” It closed its eyes. “Thank you.”
Days passed. The weather grew warmer, the mountain winds calmed. Kekik managed to find some dried berries to give his peryton in place of apples. He didn’t see the spirit again. It left shortly after he gave it his gift, stepping out into daylight and soaring away through the clouds. He hoped its absence meant it had found its peace.