However, it wasn’t because he was touched by Fran’s devotion; everyone could tell that he was surprised by her skin color. And yet, no one called him out on his reaction. Even people living in a large and prosperous town would react that way. And he recognized his own impoliteness, surely realizing that it would harm his reputation. So he smiled.
“Let’s eat.”
Cole grabbed his plate, but ate slowly.. perhaps savoring a taste not unlike what he would eat in his own hometown.
“It’s delicious.”
It was quite an ordinary statement, but Vino and his wife were still delighted to hear the praise.
“We just caught it this morning.. you guys were quite lucky.”
“Definitely.. meat this delicious is hard to come by in a village.”
Villagers really only needed to see people eating and appreciating their food to be happy, so when Holo had quickly wolfed down her bowl and handed it back to Vino for seconds, he was amazed. After piling it back up, he laughed spectacularly.
“So, you’re here because of the angel myth?”
He poked at the fire on the hearth, and sparks rained up toward the ceiling. Villagers didn’t usually play with fire that casually, but it seemed they were a bit more carefree here. Houses were far apart, and rebuilding a home wouldn’t be a problem.
“Yeah, although we heard some of it back in town..”
Lawrence set his plate down and cleared his throat, then introduced Fran to Vino.
“This is sister Fran. She’s basically our de-facto leader, and is after the truth at all costs.”
“Oh? Why would a nun care about this..”
“Sister Fran isn’t just any nun from a convent; she’s also a silversmith. The Bishop commissioned her to create a piece in the image of the angel.”
“I see..”
Fran continued to stare at the ground, despite Vino’s glance in her direction. She looked, for all intents and purposes, like a proper nun. Compared to her, Holo kept wolfing down her food, only stopping when it was her turn to be introduced. She then swallowed the meat in her maw and finally put on a nun’s appearance.
“And this is Holo. The Bishop asked her to accompany Sister Fran. This lad’s Cole.. he’s our guide from the north. I’m nothing special, I was just asked to be their representative.”
Lawrence coughed and continued.
“So I hope you can tell us about it, and..”
He leaned forward as if to ask for a favor.
“..please take us to where the legend took place, if that’s okay.”
Vino popped a bit of raw meat into his mouth. In frigid areas it wasn’t that rare, so Cole clearly wasn’t surprised, but Holo was.
“Well, it should be okay, but..”
Legendary spots were usually revered by villagers, so Lawrence suspected his request might cause a stir. But things were going surprisingly smoothly.. Vino seemed more concerned about them then the legend.
“Is that wise? I noticed your luggage out there, were you planning on spending a night in the witches’ forest?”
“The.. witch’s forest?”
“It’s where the rumor originated. You’ve heard about the witch, haven’t you?”
Vino was drinking with Lawrence, and had stopped while pouring himself another cup. He frowned, probably remembering Miura’s request that he lay off the wine. Lawrence finally had a chance to learn a bit more about the witch.
“Well.. all we were told is that there was a witch..”
“Ah, then the rumor’s finally dying down.. well, it’s not like it’s a big deal. If you want to go to the forest, I’ll take you. It’s pretty close by anyway.”
Fran nodded at Lawrence.
“If that’s the case, then please do.”
“Haha.. my pleasure. After all, because of you guys I’ve been able to sit here and drink, while the others keep working. It’s quite tiring to butcher deer, you know.”
One had to clean the meat, skin, bones and entrails.. and that was just the start. The meat had to be cut, the skin had to be tanned before it rotted away, and the entrails had to be cooked before they could be processed into sausage. Tendons and ligaments had to picked out carefully to be able to use them for belts and strings.. and it all had to be done promptly. It was indeed an arduous process.
Vino downed the last of his wine at once and continued.
“Well, then before we head out, let’s chat about the legend. Otherwise we’ll have to talk when we’re in the forest.”
From his attitude it felt like he didn’t harbor any particular dislike of the forest, besides considering it an unlucky place.
“So how much do you know?”
“That there’s a lake nearby, where beasts howled, and then a door opened in the heavens and the angel flew up into it..”
Vino raised a spoon and eyed Holo and Cole as Lawrence spoke, silently asking them if they wanted more. Fran was still holding her bowl and drinking her soup (which she was slowly savoring), but Holo and Cole merrily passed him their plates. Vino happily obliged.
“That’s it in a nutshell. The forest has a river that comes from the lake. It happened during a cold winter, back when the village elder was just a child.”
He smiled after refilling their plates, though it seemed to be a smile of embarrassment over discussing such a story.
“It’s said to have taken place on a windy day, so cold that people’s ears nearly froze off. The hunters were trapped in the forest for several days when a blizzard suddenly struck, but thankfully managed to get a fire going in a charcoal-burning hut near the lake. When it finally stopped snowing, the moon shined out as bright as the sun. Not one cloud was in the sky, yet the wind blew fiercely and the forest was so loud that they didn’t want to spend a horrible night huddled together in the hut. So they started walking for a breath of fresh air.”
Everyone listened to Vino intently as the log in the hearth crumbled.
“Just then, they heard a howl. A fierce one. They were scared, they thought they screwed up and were about to be caught by some monster of the mountains. But as they turned to run back into the hut, the howling stopped.. and when they turned to look at the lake..”
Vino’s eyes shone sharply, like the eyes of a hunter. He turned those eyes up to the ceiling and continued.
“..they saw an angel, pure white, spreading his silver wings above the lake.. and then he flew up into a golden door in the heavens.”
Despite being finished, Vino kept staring at the ceiling, as if lost in his own story. He stayed that way for a little while, then poured a bit more wine in embarrassment once he’d snapped back to reality. He clearly had a soft spot for this tale.
“That’s basically the whole story. It’s been talked about for each generation since.”
“I see..”
They could still see the angel in their imaginations. Myth and superstitions always defied reason, but had some amazing aspect to them that made people believe in them. That’s why they were passed down from generation to generation.
“But no one’s seen any angels since then. I remember hearing that when the town started talking about it, our village celebrated for a while.. but these days only kids like to hear this story.”
He squinted as if laughing at himself.
“And what do you think, Mr. Vino?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you think it’s just a myth?”
Lawrence knew better than to ask such a dumb question, but felt compelled to ask anyway.
“Well.. who knows..”
Lawrence got the response he expected; Vino smiled and stared at his hands. He wanted to believe it, but couldn’t bring himself to do so.. it was written on his face.
“We want to believe it’s true.”
“I see.”
Vino smiled, as though wondering who would believe in such a thing even when the village itself didn’t?
“I often go to town with Miura, so I know better than to think that a my
th in a remote village like ours is true; all villages have myths like this, and it’s just us wanting to deeply believe in a fairy tale. Some places even have myths of monstrous eyes in the mountains that just turn out to be gold mines.. so I assume it’s something like that here. And yet..”
Vino paused, as if tired of being suspicious. Lawrence had seen this look in other people’s faces. They once believed, but as the childlike magic of legends was explained riddle by riddle, those beliefs were lost. Lawrence left his own village at a young age, so he too had the same experience. Even Cole stared sadly at Vino with understanding eyes.
Only Holo’s face remained expressionless.. but that didn’t mean she was calm underneath that facade.
“If the legend of the angel is just an illusion, well, then that’s just too bad. It’s not like we can help it.”
Vino shrugged and sipped his wine.
“The cleverer people here said the angel and its wings were probably just snow blowing fiercely in the wind, and maybe that’s all it was.”
Holo and Huskins both knew what it was like to be forgotten, and how difficult it was to integrate into human society. It was tough for humans to leave behind their old beliefs, but riddles were slowly solved, miracles explained away, and secrets uncovered. Lawrence couldn’t bring himself to speak; he felt sad for Vino. Everyone had moments when they wished they could relive their childhood.
“Oho.. so now I’ve shared our story with people from the Church, who seem to believe it more than we do. But don’t get the wrong idea; it’s not like the people of Tarsig have no beliefs. I may not look like it, but I do want to believe in it.”
Lawrence nodded and smiled. It was probable that they treated the myth of the angel this way to avoid thinking about the witch. If Vino was the stubbornest kind of believer, he might have fainted at the mere mention of the witch.
“But I don’t really know if I should give you the impression that it’s more than a myth.”
“Oh?”
Vino turned to Lawrence. He stood up suddenly, then spoke in a deliberate tone.
“The story of the witch is related to the legend.”
He didn’t so much as look at Lawrence as he sheathed the knife he had eaten with. He rubbed his nose and stared off into space, with the same hunter’s eyes reappearing on his face.
“Disasters come in from the outside.. that’s Miura’s favourite line.”
Being an outsider, Lawrence had no idea how to respond. He just asked Holo and Cole to finish eating as quickly as they could, while he and Fran prepared to leave, Fran having long since finished her soup.
* * *
Miura and the other villagers were setting the deer’s hide and entrails out in the sun in the village square. Lawrence followed Vino as he briefly went out of his way to greet them, then they left town. There was a road through the village into the forest but wagons couldn’t take it, so they took a detour on the village outskirts.
Vino was leading them to a road that followed the river to the lake, but it meant walking upstream. Lawrence had heard that no one was using this route anymore, and indeed it was so close to the forest that it was a bit disconcerting to take it; it felt like the trees were reaching out to swallow them.
Their wagon slid along this route nonetheless, until they finally arrived at the bed of the river that carved a path through the forest.
“Just head north from here. It’s quite a wide riverbed, huh? I hear the river used to fill up pretty much all of the bed in the old days.”
It was wide enough that Lawrence could lead their wagon through it, and in fact they weren’t just seeing rocks covered in snow; apparently the river had been dry for quite a long time now.
“Hey, why do you guys still hunt in such cold weather? I’m kind of surprised you even managed to catch a deer.”
Vino had grown quite serious since they left the village, but that seriousness melted into proud laughter upon hearing Lawrence ask this question.
“We can see footprints more easily in snow! But they’re quite clever, and know to avoid the spots where we normally hunt in after it snows. But we’re the kinds of hunters who can give a wolf a run for its money; we can turn into trees, or vanish in the snow. We’re patient enough to wait until it’s certain we’ll catch our mark.”
Vino wore his pride on his sleeves, certainly looking nothing like the master hunter he was describing. But that made Lawrence smile, because it quite reminded him of himself. He’d never met people quite like the villagers of Tarsig, who were willing to open up to him like this despite his first encounter with them provoking their anger.
“But there’s a lake, isn’t there? Wouldn’t it be easier to hunt the animals there?”
“Well, yeah, but that’s just it: hunting hasn’t been normal around here for years.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s the curse. That’s why we call the forest around the lake the cursed forest, and why no one goes there.”
Vino saw how stunned Lawrence was to see him admit it, and put on a troubled expression.
“Um.. don’t get the wrong idea, now.. we do say that, but it’s not really the curse.”
Lawrence stole a glance at Holo, who seemed to think he was telling the truth. Apparently the villagers did keep the secret a bit closer to their hearts after all.
“To be honest, the curse is really..”
“It has to do with a nun, I hear..”
Vino turned to look at Fran, who was talking from the horse’s back. She slowly turned to face him, smiling warmly and tilting her head slightly.
“Yes?”
“Ah, yes, sorry.. I don’t remember her name, but anyway, it was someone like that. She was from a town called Anos on the Woam river, or some such.”
“You mean Lenos on the Roam river?”
“Ah, that’s probably it. Sounds about right. I hear she’s clever and a beauty, so much so that even God wants to hear her speak.”
Holo nodded and looked over at Lawrence suggestively. Vino had a way with words, and a silver tongue when it came to pretty girls. Lawrence simply shrugged, and Holo turned away.
“Her eagerness converted a lot of people. She was just so devoted; she preached every day, and eventually she touched all the hearts in town.. and then she had nothing more to do. And so she moved on to other things.”
They were hanging on Vino’s every word, just like they had when he talked about the angel. He was quite the storyteller; which was probably why he’d been chosen to host them.
“First she started talking to birds and cats, but everyone only remembered her mercy as a saintly woman. But when she began to talk to swine and mice, opinions started to change. At some point wild dogs began to hound her, while she preached on like one possessed. People begged her to stop, but she paid them no mind. Until one day..”
A grinding noise was heard between their footfalls; Cole had clenched his fists tightly.
“..She just disappeared. Probably with those hounds.”
Vino blew into his hands as if blowing away feathers. Cole seemed to watch those imaginary feathers drift up into the sky before nervously turning back to Vino.
“Then what happened? After she’d gone?”
“Whoa, easy there. That was just how Mr. Miura saw it. Now I’ll tell you my version.”
Ah, so that was what was going on, Lawrence thought. Miura had been the village representative during that time and bore witness to this strange nun.
“It was a hot summer’s day, where we were roasting in the wheat fields. Bugs were everywhere in this hated time about.. ten years ago. That’s when the nun arrived, wearing thick clothes in spite of the heat. Even thicker than what we would wear in winter, a train of wild dogs trailing behind her.”
On a sunny day, no sight would be stranger than a heavily-clothed nun entering the village with a pack of wild dogs. Cole nervously tugged at Holo’s cloak.
“When the elder saw her, he was shocked.. he thought the ange
l had returned to announce the end of days. Ever since, he’s been standing where you met him, busily confronting travelers.”
“That’s too pitiful..”
“But nevermind.. at least he’s grown quieter over time. I’ve still to tell you about the nun. Back then, Mr. Miura was brave enough to question her a bit.. who was she? From where? What for? And how do you think she replied?”
It was like she was standing before them right now. Vino’s hoarse voice had pulled everyone into the story masterfully.
“At any rate, we soon figured out that she came about the legend of the angel at the lake, and because we wanted nothing to do with her, we immediately took her there.”
Cole swallowed deeply.
“The moment we arrived, she ordered her dogs to attack us. See? Here’s the wound I received.”
Vino held his hand out to Cole, who was utterly spellbound. Even Lawrence and Holo couldn’t help but take a peek, before turning to look at each other. Lawrence wore a blank expression, thinking deep down that it was just a wound from a sharpened stick.. it even looked like it had been there since he was a child. But this was quite a strange turn in the story, so neither he nor Holo could calm their interest.
“Afterward, she occupied the forest with her dogs. She took our best hunting grounds from us. Pretty terrible, huh? That’s why we called her a witch, out of spite and anger. And that’s basically all there is to it.”
“Then, where is this witch now?”
Vino sighed.
“No one knows.. haven’t seen her in years. We’re guessing she left. But it’s not like anyone wants to check, so we just don’t know. After all, why make God angry when we don’t want to face His wrath?”
Lawrence nodded. It made sense, since a traveling merchant could just run, but it wasn’t like villagers would want to risk having to abandon their homes.
“So it’s been out of sight, out of mind. We don’t go there anymore. So.. are you sure you want to spend a night there?”
They’d been scared off by a witch, despite having no trouble facing the terror of a dark forest. Even though ”witch” was just a label, anyone would be scared by that label. Lawrence kept his cool.