Wight Fright: "Fog on the Barrow-Downs" RPG

[Mithalwen]

On the road

Bryn would reach the straggled out group first there would be no doubt - he could ride quicker along the grass verge than even an anxious Silas would drive his ponies on an increasingly icy road. But even before their brother reached the returning children, Seth and Silas' hope that Jessamy were among them had dwindled – though the figures were too distant to distinguish face or form clearly but there was nothing familiar in gait or stance that gave them hope that one of the hoods raised against the weather concealed their sister’s distinctive hair.
“She isn’t there is she?” Seth’s words were more statement than question. His brother shook his head.
“I don’t think so, no.”
Now they could see Bryn was among the children and a gesture from him confirmed their suspicions.
“What if we can’t find her Si? I’ll finish mum off”
“It would be worse for Dad” Silas responded grimly with a flash of insight combined with memory,” but we can’t think like that. We have to find her. Come on they have to have told Bryn something that will help.” And before Seth could get him to explain they had reached the others.
It the ensuing dialogue the Woodseaves learnt of the barrow, the skunk and the groups dispersal and that only Edwin and their sister were missing of their number.
The younger boys learnt that it was wise not to make jokes about a girl in the presence of her anxious brothers and that there were limits to even Bryn’s good nature. Offers to help look for the two they had assumed already returned home was rejected and they were instructed to leave word at the Prancing Pony on their way home.

[Mithalwen]

On the Downs

Jessamy had shouldered her knapsack and taken the proffered lamp, Lantern holding was something she could do. In fact it was almost an area of expertise. So often if there was a minor emergency on the farm - a difficult lambing or a injured beast, she had been told "If you want to make yourself useful you can hold the lantern". In the byre or barn the lamp would create a comforting pool of light but here its glimmer seemed merely to show how vast and gloomy the Downs were. Even Duke seemed to have lost his exuberance and stayed close by; Jessamy found his presence as comforting as the light.

She really wanted to believe Karl but it was hard. She was accustomed to seeing death - you couldn't be raised a farmer's child and not be - but this was different. She had known old folk who had died at the fullness of their years and of babes that had been born to soon and failed to thrive. However usually the Breelanders were a healthy enough lot and if you survived your first year or two you were considered good for sixty or seventy more, barring accident. She had never known a young person sicken and die and she didn't want to. Edwin's stillness unnerved her and she could not believe all would be well. Nor did she believe that they would be met by a search party on the road. Not for her anyway. Noone knew she was here but there was no point in telling Karl that. He probably hoped that there would be someone to help him with his burden. But she had lied and her family thought her safe at the Boffins' . So it would be a long and dismal walk home and at journeys end what then. Even if by some lucky chance Edwin revived that wouldn't be the end of her troubles. Would her parents be furious or perhaps worse saddened by her deceit? She scarce had the energy to wonder anymore. At least it was easier to match Karl's pace now he was carrying Edwin but she had to concentrate to keep her cold, weary feet from stumbling.

[Envinyatar]

Willem was a wanderer. That’s just how he thought of himself. Wherever the wind blew him, that’s where he fared. There were no kin as he’d lay claim to; no piece of earth in which he’d sunk roots, deep or shallow. ‘Just Willem,’ he’d say, if you asked his name. ‘Got no people waitin’ back nor forward for me.’ ‘Just Willem,’ he’d say with a twitch of his thin shoulders, as if to shrug off any further inquiries.

And now this particular cold wind had urged him up the Greenway toward Bree-land. With a short side trip along the edge of the Barrow-downs where it nudged up against The Old Forest – to the Withywindle. There were stones hidden in those dark old waters, stones in whose depths lay shimmers of dark blues and deep greens waiting to be teased out with careful polishing.

He was one of those jacks-of-all-trades. He could sharpen knives, shears, pitchforks, shovels; mend pots and pans; repair shoes and boots, mend bridles. All of which services he traded for food and other needed supplies. His heart, though, was in the fine metal-working he liked to do. Silver, mostly, engraved with intricate designs and often set with little, pretty stones. Necklaces, bracelets, clasps for the hair, buckles for belts…..

It had been a good two days he spent along the banks of the old river. He’d replenished his store of rough pebbles and larger stones, talking all the while to the lazy waters to keep the ripples and eddies distracted from his ‘borrowings’. When he’d taken all that he gauged river would tolerate, Willem packed up his little caravan and hitched his horse to it, continuing his way northward.

Darkness was falling fast and the snow which had begun earlier as a light dusting, now fell with more heavily. Willem had lit the little lantern that hung from the van’s eaves nearest his seat at the front. More for a bit of cheer for himself in the bleak evening than for any real light to shed on his way. Catkin picked her way slowly along beneath the trees, snorting and huffing every so often as if to comment on the trip in general.

‘There, now, lady,’ Willem murmured softly to Catkin’s chuffed commentary. ‘We’ll stop soon enough when we get to an open place.’

A break in the clouds let some late evening’s light settle almost to the forest floor. Willem pulled his heavy woolen cloak more closely about him as he peered at the passing trees. ‘Hmmmm….. Looks like one of the Old Men has been moving his flock about a bit…..don’t you think, my dove?’ Catkin twitched her ears at this question, but made no answer.

Willem's little ginger haired dog, Jumble, tucked himself more snugly inside the warm blue cloak and leaned heavily against his human's side. As long as he was warm and comfortable, Jumble had no care concerning where the trees and bushes chose to roost. He could lift his leg in one spot as well as another.

The wheels of the little caravan crunched noisily over the fallen needles, branches, old leaves. ‘I’ll trust you to find our way,’ he called out as he flicked the reins lightly against the horse’s flanks. Catkin, for her part, shook her mane and snorted a final comment as she picked up the pace just barely.

[Mithalwen]

At Woodseaves Farm

Erling Woodseaves woke and yawned. The house was quiet, only the sound of the fire in the range and the faint murmuring of the women in the parlour next door. He half grinned to himself as he remembered none of his brood was in - there was seldom silence where his youngest child was. He smiled at the thought of her, the long awaited daughter had been expected to be her mother's pet lamb but she had turned out to be his, determined to help around the farm even when she was scarce bigger than the buckets she was trying to carry. And then she was the one who really resembled him, at least in looks. She was a living reminder of the kin he had lost in the Fell Winter, and enough time had passed for that to be a joyful remembrance. He attributed the child’s stubbornness, however, entirely to her mother.

A cold draught caught him and rising from his chair with a stretch and a sigh, feeling his years catch up with him as stiffened joints protested at fresh use after so long a day. He crossed to the window and pulled the shutter ajar. It was snowing - the hedges and outbuildings already had alight coating and it had even begun to settle in the yard. It was too early in the year for this he thought. He looked for a glimmer of waggon lamps guiding his children safely home and hoped they would not be long. Erling was no less happy than Sukebind to have them under their roof - no matter how noisy they were. He found a bit of rag to stop the draught and closed the shutter; he’d make a proper repair in the morning.

Erling went through to the parlour where he was informed his announcement that it was snowing wasn’t news to those of them who hadn’t been asleep for the past hour. But he continued beginning to fret though he knew it wasn’t really so late yet.

“They should be back… not a night to be out unless you have to … you and Silas better stay here tonight Fern…. Jessie will be frozen – did she even take a cloak this morning? “

“She won’t be frozen at the Boffin’s - that smial of theirs is cozier than any house ..”
Erling noticed Fern flinch - “What ails you lass? The child…?”

“No, I’m fine..” Fern could keep her secret no longer .. “It is Jessamy..she's not at the Boffins'” .
Within five minutes Erling was on his way into Bree-town.

On the Downs

Jessamy was frozen. She had given her cloak to cover Edwin - not that it was doing him much good and though the old sweater she wore had felted when it shrank in the wash, it wasn't enough to keep the out the snow's damp. She could scarcely feel her feet or fingers and there was a dull ache behind her forehead - the only part of her that had any heat in it.

Jessamy stumbled on, still beside Karl. The mounds and menhirs seemed even more sinister under their snowcovering and she was beginning to think they had passed them more than once. The fading light and fast falling snow were so swiftly obscuring their tracks. It was so hard to keep one's head here..even if it weren't swimming. It also seemed to be getting a bit foggy.

Neither she nor Karl had the inclination to talk. It would waste energy and since their predicament, specially Edwin's were the only likely subjects it wasn't going to be cheering. All she could hear was her own footsteps, Karl's heavier tread and the softer, quicker sound of Duke's paws dipping into the snow. But after a while she fancied she heard something else. Distant but definitely there. A rhythmic thud accompanied by random creaks and rattles. She was beyond reminding herself that twice today she had been scared by sounds that had turned out to be nothing more sinister than a skunk and a dog.

All she could remember was Seth's bedtime story, still vivid three years after it was first told with its clanking chains and pale swords and evil spirits, thralls of an undead king, who would come to find her if she weren't good and would trap her in his barrow. And she hadn't been good. Now she could hear what her mind, all reason fled, told her was a barrow wight plodding relentlessly towards her, rattling his sword and dragging chains to bind her. She had turned to face the sounds and now backing away from them, she bumped against a standing stone. Its touch might as well have been a wraith's embrace for the effect it had on her. Terrified out of her wits and with no strength and nowhere to run she screamed as if her soul were being torn from her body, and struggled to get away from the monstrous stone. For the third time that day she fell. But this time there was pain. And darkness.

[Envinyatar]

From the beneath Willem’s cloak, Jumble’s ears snapped to attention. His left ear swiveled forward, the right to the side, the better to pinpoint where the horrid scream was coming from. There! he thought with a small woof. He poked his head out from the thick folds of wool, lifting his long snout to the winter night’s air.

‘You heard it, then, too?’ Willem said, tucking the dog up onto his lap. The awful, high-pitched howl had stopped abruptly, leaving only the blanket of the normal forest sounds to fall around them once again.

‘Wotcher think, m’lady? Over there?’ he said tugging on the right rein. ‘And a bit ahead of us, too, eh?’ Catkin nodded her head and shook her mane, sending a little dusting of snowflakes flying. For his part, Jumble danced from paw to paw, making his own statement of accord.

Catkin picked up her pace, veering right through the trees. The lantern which hung from the forward eave of the caravan swung wildly with the increased speed. Hanging from hooks beneath the eaves, the tools and chains and pots waiting to be mended clanked and rattled even more loudly against the wooden sides.

There in the distance, flickering from opening to opening between the trees as the trio made their way toward the scream’s source, was a small light.

‘Who’s there?’ Willem called out as loudly as he could. But against the distance and the wind and snow and thickets of trees, he doubted he would be heard at all.

[Mithalwen]

In Bree-Town

"Filbert, maybe you can explain to me exactly what is going on?"

Erling Woodseaves walked to the town reasoning that by the time he had saddled the cob he would be half way there and believed that he would arrive to find that Jessamy would have already been rounded up by her brothers and they would all be back before they knew it. Thus he had tried to reassure his wife and daughter-in-law. But real or feigned his confidence had dwindled as he progressed to the Inn. The keeper of the South Gate had been unusually taciturn and it seemed that rumours murmured about Bree, which fell silent as he passed. Now he had finally caught up with his youngest son and demanded explanation of the few fragments that had reached his ears, of the Downs and missing children, some returned some not.

Erling loved all his children and had more than a little sympathy for Filbert. It wasn't his fault he had been born a boy when a girl had been hoped for, that he had neither the privileges of eldest or youngest child, that he had neither Seth’s striking good looks nor Bryn’s easy nature, that he had struggled to find his niche. But he had to concede that the lad didn’t always make things easy for himself and there was something shifty about the lad’s demeanour that suggested that this might be one of those occasions.

“Where is Jessamy? Where are your brothers?”. No reaction that Filbert might have feared to his answer was as horrible as his father’s silence as he absorbed the news .

On the road

Jessamy's brothers had reached the point on the road, as far as they could judge from the boys' garbled and confused reports of their adventures, where Edwin's group had left it to head towards the mounds and stones.

Night was not now far off and the landmarks, so obvious in the day were now little more than shadows in the murk.

"They say the trees of the Forest walk and now I believe it - I did not think it so close" remarked Seth noting the deeper shade on the horizon.

"I think it is in part a trick of the light - or lack of it -and the lie of the land... but it does seem to have spread since that map in the Pony was drawn," answered Silas not wanting to think about walking trees as well as the evil spirits that were meant to haunt the barrows. What could be regarded as fairy stories from the safety of one's own hearth seemed a lot more plausible here.

"How are we going to find her in this? It'd take a blood hound" Seth despaired

"Which is about the one thing we haven't brought with us. But we have to try - because if we wait for light chances are we will be looking for her body". Bryn might not be troubled by imagination but was quite aware of the more mundane but very real dangers of the cold. Before his brothers could reproach him for saying what they were all thinking, they heard in the distance a horrible but not unfamiliar sound. They might have done so with less malice than their brother but all three had teased Jessamy beyond the limit of her endurance.

On the Downs

Jessamy came round to Karl calling her name, offering her his free hand to help her up but her mind was so mazed she scarcely registered him let alone the pain in her ankle. She cowered against the stone, still clasping the lantern, gibbering about a wight coming to get her and completely unable to hold back the sobs that had threatened for so long.

Still there was that terrible noise getting ever louder and closer. Surely Karl must hear it? The dog, Duke, heard something seemingly for he pricked up his ears, inexplicably barked as if for joy and belted off towards the approaching clatter.

[Durelin]

Karl tried to tell himself to consider all the possibilities for the source of these noises. He tried to remind himself that he had been on these Downs numerous times, and even into the edges of the Old Forest. But all his mind choes to recall was that he always did so in the daytime...and the dark was starting to come quite early this time of year.

He was so caught up in straining to hear every sound around him and see every stone and shadow around him, while keeping Edwin's sleeping form balanced as best he could -- he was so caught up in this that he rather lost track of Jessamy for a moment. When he heard the scream his heart and breath stopped in his chest.

He whirled around to find her and rushed to help her up and still keep a hold on Edwin who was feeling heavier and heavier. "What happened? Did you hurt yourself?"

Once she was fairly standing, though looking pale with fear and cold, he turned from her to the direction of the sounds and back again. Then Duke's bark reminded him of his familiar companion's presence and he watched as the dog bolted off -- again -- toward whatever he found interesting.

Karl's breathing relaxed a little. He should have payed more attention to the dog from the start. "Well Duke doesn't seem to think whatever it is is a problem...I think we're alright, Jess." He may not be the best trained hunting dog because Karl failed to ever be stern enough, but his instincts were usually in the right place.