Song in the Dark, Day 3

I know it's been a little while, but after getting some other writing projects off my plate, I was finally able to return to this to finish the third chapter of my Night in the Woods fanfic.

In case you missed them, the first chapter can be found here and the second can be found here. Alternate sites for this chapter can be found here (with a downloadable PDF version) and here. (Note that while adult content is hidden unless you're signed in, those two sites may trip NSFW content filters.)

Disclaimer: Events of this story overlap with events of the video game, as Eric Hostetler and Mae Borowski are having largely separate-but-parallel adventures. I'm not rewriting game events to fit it, but there will be a "canonical" series of story choices that may become evident. This and future chapters will spoil certain events of the main game as well as the 'Lost Constellation' side-game. (this chapter in particular spoils a big event for the game, in fact)

And with that out of the way, you'll find the chapter beneath the cut. Enjoy!

Song in the Dark

A Night in the Woods fanfic by Chris Shaffer

Night in the Woods is copyright Infinite Fall, story and original characters copyright Chris Shaffer 2019, all rights reserved

Day 3: Harfest

Pain shot up Eric's arm from where he landed on it falling out of bed. He winced and rolled onto his back, his heart pounding, and he gasped for breath.

"What... what the fuck, was..."

He shook his head. His feet were sore from running across the train station platform. He could smell the smoke from the train engine.

This was not how dreaming was supposed to work.

He sat up and stretched his arm out a bit, trying to get an idea if he sprained anything or hurt it at all, but it seemed to be fine other than a little sore. A part of him wanted to sniff the shirt he'd slept on to see if it smelled like the smoke and dust coming off the train. Instead he pulled it off and tossed it in the hamper, afraid of what he'd find.

Eric checked his phone, currently rendered a way-too-fancy music player and alarm clock unless he was home or in one of the two places in town with free wi-fi. It was mid-afternoon -- he'd slept through the alarm he'd set, somehow. That bothered him.

He felt the need to get cleaned up and get out of the house, but first he needed to check something.

"Mom? Dad? You guys home?" he called out.

Nothing.

Still shirtless, Eric returned to the hall closet. The boxes and books were still how he'd left them, as was the pull-string lightbulb he'd left on by accident. He left the door open so it wouldn't get as hot, and he went back looking through the book of Adina Astra stories. To keep from getting too settled-in and lost in the fairy tales, he forced himself to remain standing.

After a few minutes of careful page-turning, he found the story he was looking for, "Adina Astra and the Lost Constellation." The story told of the astronomer Adina Astra seeking a frozen lake where, on Longest Night, one could see a constellation normally visible only to the dead. On the way, she ventured through the realms of the Forest God and the Huncher -- a terrible witch. He'd heard the story before, but he'd never actually read it, with his grandfather's notes or otherwise.

He stopped as he turned the page and saw a sketch in the margins. A wolf girl, in a sawmill worker's uniform. The sketch was in pencil, but somehow he could see she was supposed to have blue-ish fur, because she was clearly the girl from his dream the night before.

"Have I read this before?" Eric asked nobody in particular as he skimmed the text. He had no memory of the exact words, just how his grandfather had told it. This all was certainly new to him, so where had he seen the sketch? He couldn't have just imagined the outfit from the description, because there were details he saw in the dream that were present in the sketch that weren't in the text (where she was called the Sawmill Kid, he discovered).

Okay, Eric, what you're doing is seeing things now and editing your memory of the dream so it all fits. People do it all the time, he thought to himself.

His ear perked at a noise, and he glanced up to see a moth battering itself against the bare bulb lighting the closet. He considered shooing it away. Just as he decided it wasn't worth the trouble, it hit just the wrong spot on the side of the hanging socket and then the light flickered with a sizzle. He groaned and glanced down at the book to close it, then dropped it with a half-scream, half-yelp.

In the flickering light, the sketch of the girl was different. She'd been replaced with the rotted creature with the patchwork cloak he'd seen in his dreams. He heard her shriek "Take me back!" as if she'd been in the closet yelling at him.

Eric staggered back, ears flattening against his head, and he stepped on something he couldn't identify as he all but fell against the wall opposite the closet door in the hallway. He caught his breath and looked back into the closet. The bulb lit the closet once more in its warm, uneven light as if nothing had happened. The book lay on the floor, open. And even from the hallway he could see the picture of the wolf girl was back to normal.

Because it'd always been normal. It had to be. He was sleeping badly and hallucinating. Not ideal, but it had to be the truth.

Eric took a step back towards the closet and winced as he felt something stuck to his foot. It was the flash-fried moth, having landed on the floor after electrocuting itself.

"Ugh." He scraped the moth off on the door frame and went to put the book away. But first, he looked it over and made sure it hadn't been damaged in the fall. Then he held it open flat in his hand, more or less balanced on his palm. With his free hand he turned the light on and off a few times, tugging the string and hearing the telltale click. The sketch of the girl remained the same. He nodded, satisfied he'd been hallucinating, and put the book away.

He glanced at the dead moth, and at his bare foot and his generally-mussed fur, and decided it was time to get cleaned up and get the hell out of the house. He remembered to put everything away and turn off the light this time.

* * *

The air had that distinct autumn chill to it when Eric stepped outside wearing his t-shirt, jeans, and a hoodie. It was the sort of pleasant brisk day that was perfectly nice when the sun shone down on you and quickly became cold and miserable past sunset. Especially if it was raining.

No rain today, thankfully. Just a bit of wind blowing around leaves.

Eric walked toward Towne Centre. As he approached the bottom of the hill he spotted one of his neighbors, a bear named Selma, out on her front stoop talking to Mae Borowski. She was reading out of a notebook to the cat girl.

"...Tho pizza cold is breakfast gold," he overheard her say.

"That's so true," Mae said, nodding as if she found whatever she'd heard quite profound.

"It really happened," Selma said as she put away the notebook.

Eric decided to hang back and not get involved in the conversation, turning away so he wasn't listening in as they spoke for a couple of minutes. Mae ran up the hill, jumping up and bouncing off a couple of trash cans on the way. Eric made his way over.

"Hey there, Selma, been a while," he said with a smile.

The bear turned, a little surprised to see him. She wore a purple hoodie with a yellow face on it, a black skirt, and blue shoes. A pumpkin adorned the stoop and various Halloween decorations were taped up in the windows and on the door behind her. It wasn't the most elaborate display he'd seen, but it stood out more than other homes on the street.

"Hey, Eric Hostetler, right? I thought you moved away."

"College. Got back a couple of days ago."

"Isn't graduation usually in the spring?"

"It's complicated," he grumbled. "I haven't seen a lot of folks I went to school with since I got back. I mean, you were a couple years ahead of me, but it's good to see you're still around, at least."

She shrugged. "Not too many places to go."

"You still with Dennis?"

She snorted. "Left me for a girl that he met at a gas station, while he working at the prison in Briddle."

"Oh hell, I'm sorry," Eric said with a wince.

"I deal. I do poetry now."

"Yeah, I heard a bit of you sharing with Mae. Does she do poetry too?"

"Nah, she just comes by and listens." Selma smiled at that. "You went to school with her, too, right?"

"Sort of. She was a couple of years behind me. We weren't really friends at all." He thought a moment. "Didn't she kill a guy once? I've seen her around since I got back, and it just kind of... like, the story sticks in my head in a weird way."

Lots of stories sticking in your head in a weird way lately, a little voice in Eric's head whispered.

"Nah. She just beat up Andy Cullen at a softball game. Just... lost it and came at him with a bat. Nobody knows why. Her folks sent her to Dr. Hank."

Huh.

"Well, where else are they gonna send her?" Eric asked with a snort.

"I know, right?"

"Got anything fun planned for tonight?" Eric asked, gesturing to the decorations.

"Staying in for trick-or-treaters."

"Not doing Harfest?"

"Nah. Harfest is dumb."

"Yeah, I'd pass, but there is literally nothing better to do in town."

"You make your own fun in Possum Springs," she said with a shrug.

"Like poetry."

"Exactly."

"Cool. Well, hopefully I'll see you around, I'm gonna wander into town, see if the holiday brought out anyone else I know."

"I'm basically always here."

Eric waved to Selma and trudged up the hill towards Towne Centre. The Halloween decorations became more plentiful as he approached the center of town, where they had a big not-quite-Halloween festival called Harfest. Wooden traffic barriers were stacked up on the sidewalks to be deployed later, probably because of the parade and other festivities that would inhabit the town center.

As he walked by the entrance to the underground train station, he spotted the same four people from outside the church, talking about Harfest-related things. Maybe they were the city council? Not that he was paying attention, but he manage to clearly pick "I don't trust giant load-bearing machines you can assemble and disassemble in one day," out of the conversation as it heated up.

Past them, Mae talked to a cop who was setting up the aforementioned traffic barriers while the city council bickered.

Eric decided going a different direction would be a better use of his time, so he walked up the stairs towards the church. His ear flicked back to pick up a little more of the argument. The bird guy kept getting more agitated, really attached to having this old and probably dangerous ferris wheel at Harfest.

"Fine, then I'll send all the lawsuits your way," snarked the fox woman who'd initially expressed concern about the attraction.

"Bring it, Colleen."

He aimed his ears forward and hustled up the stairs before that got even uglier.

* * *

Eric wasn't sure what it was that brought him up to the church. Maybe he just wanted to give the city council time to disperse, or for the school weirdo to move on, or both. He slipped his hands into his hoodie's pockets as a breeze sent a handful of leaves dancing across the blacktop of the parking lot.

Casting about, looking for some clue as to what might be worth doing up here, he spotted someone sitting on the edge of the base of the pope-saint-whatever statue. He came closer to see a blue-feathered bird woman with glasses, a yellow cardigan over a white shirt, and a navy-blue skirt. She seemed to be expecting somebody.

"I take it you're waiting for the pastor, or you are the pastor?" he asked as he strolled closer.

"The latter," she said as he approached. She held her hand out. "Kate."

"Eric Hostetler, pleased to meet you," he said as he shook it. "You don't mind if I come up here for a stroll, do you? Things have just... gotten weird further down the hill and I needed to clear my head."

"God's healing light isn't limited to the church," she said with a casual shrug and a slightly-amused smile.

"Fair enough," he said, not sure how else to react to that. "I think I'll just continue with my stroll before this gets awkward, and let you get back to... whatever you're doing."

"A lot of what I do involves me waiting for someone to show up, knowing they probably won't," she said cryptically.

Welp, too late to avoid awkwardness, Eric thought.

"Well, good luck, I'm gonna..." Eric trailed off as he pointed further out towards the wooded area and the cliff.

Kate waved to him as he wandered away from the parking lot, where Bruce and his tent came into view.

"Afternoon, Bruce," Eric said with a wave. "Weather agreeing with you today?"

"We're getting along," the older cat said as he took a drag off his cigarette. "You?"

"It's a little brisk but not unpleasant. We're still in the 'I could live with this year-round if I had to' range. Y'know, there's this festival thing in town tonight, you've probably heard of it."

"Mm-hmm."

"Think you might head down, enjoy the festivities?"

Bruce glanced past Eric down the hill towards the town, like he was waiting for a sign of some sort. He took another drag off his cigarette, letting the October breeze carry the smoke away like a little tiny ghost of its own.

"Doubt I'd be welcome."

Eric glanced back down the hill, like he could see whatever Bruce had been looking at. He remembered the city council yesterday, and sighed.

"Well... all I can say there is that if there's a day when anyone could blend in if they had to, Halloween would be it."

"That's true," Bruce said thoughtfully.

"Anyhow, unless you've got any objections, I'm going to move on," Eric asked. "I was just thinking of getting some 'clearing my head' space out at the cliff."

"Good luck with that, but it's a free country," the homeless cat muttered.

Eric raised an eyebrow at him as he strolled on past, wondering what he meant until he got out there.

Three girls -- a raccoon, an orange cat, and a gray rabbit -- sat in a semi-circle around a pentagram they'd drawn on the rock surface. They were maybe high school age, wore glasses (horn rims for the raccoon and the cat, rimless for the rabbit), and were decked out in the gothiest of goth wear that one could find at URevolution out at the Fort Lucenne Mall. As one, they all looked up at Eric as he walked up, while he took a moment to fish for something to say that wasn't some insulting horror movie reference.

"Traveller, from distant lands," began the orange cat.

"You have journeyed far," continued the raccoon without missing a beat.

"And it has brought you here," said the rabbit.

"To us," the orange cat finished.

Eric involuntarily took a step back. "The fuck?"

"We will tell you of your future," said the raccoon on the left as if he hadn't spoken.

"But first," continued the rabbit on the right.

"Be truthful," said the orange cat in the middle.

"Tell us," the raccoon continued.

"Which of these have you seen?" the rabbit asked.

"An elixir of flame?" the orange cat asked.

"Those that sing to the hollow?" continued the raccoon.

"The den of a dead god?" finished the rabbit.

"This is officially stupid," Eric muttered as they watched him, their glasses giving them an owl-like countenance. He sighed. "Fireball Whiskey in my dad's shop. Does that count as an 'elixir of flame?'"

"Well done," the cat said.

It was only in that moment that Eric realized that implied they knew who he and his family were.

"We will peer into your future," the raccoon continued before the fox could ask about that.

"And give you what help we can," the rabbit said.

"In the coming dark," the cat in the middle finished.

Eric opened his mouth to ask who the hell they were and what they knew about him.

"Tell us first," the raccoon interrupted.

"What is God," continued the rabbit.

"In this place?" the cat finished.

"Caring, but absent?" The raccoon again.

"Uncaring, but distant?" The rabbit.

"Vicious and roaming?" The cat.

That 'autumn breeze' tingle ran up his spine again.

"Okay, y'know what, screw this." Eric turned to leave.

"We know!" shouted the raccoon.

"We know!" shouted the rabbit.

"We know!" shouted the cat.

Eric didn't stop.

"The darkness leads you!" the raccoon called out.

Eric stopped.

"It does not follow," the rabbit continued, at a normal speaking tone now that the trio had his attention again.

He slowly turned around. Much to his pleasant surprise, the girls appeared as they had been, not at all degraded into skeletons or patchwork horrors from his nightmares. They still watched him, their faces impassive.

"She wants free of the pit," the cat said.

"Before the singer gets her scent," the raccoon continued.

"No. No. Fuck this," Eric said before they could continue.

He turned and stalked off, hands shoved in his pockets. He refused to give them the satisfaction of seeing him run, freaked out by whatever ridiculous fortune-telling con they were using to mess with people. He kept his breathing steady and his head down. This was probably something they just did with grownups. They knew just enough about everybody to mess with them and made up spooky stuff to play with everyone's heads. By stupid luck, they just happened to come up with something that hit him hard.

That's all it could be. He couldn't bring himself to imagine other possibilities, even with the spookiness of the safe-for-children version of Halloween laid out as he returned to Towne Centre.

* * *

Eric made it through the middle of town unmolested and ducked into the liquor store. A display of liquors, mostly of varying shades of orange, greeted him with labels portraying pumpkins and pies and candy. The young fox wasn't much of a drinker but even he winced at the thought of pumpkin pie-flavored booze.

"Hey there, buddy!" his father called out from behind the register as he put someone's purchases into a paper bag. "What brings you in today?"

"I just needed to get..."

...away from a bunch of psycho goths at the church, his brain finished.

"...out of the way of them setting up Harfest for a few minutes," he said instead as the customer made a beeline for the door.

"Hey, don't knock Harfest," Randall said as he seemed to appear from thin air. "We do a lotta business from people partying."

The bear didn't seem to notice, but Eric could clearly see the look on his father's face sour at Randall's appearance.

"Speaking of which, you got anything planned?" his father asked.

"Not really, I was thinking of just checking out the festivities and then playing it by ear."

"Bet you had some nice parties up at school," Randall said with a wry smile.

"Not as much as you'd think,"

"Huh." The concept seemed confusing to him. "Well, I'm headed back to the office," Randall said before shuffling off.

Richard opened his mouth to say something and cut himself off with a shake of the head.

"You think you'd be ready to start tomorrow?" the older fox asked after a second's silence.

"Yeah, I should be good."

"Because I want you here bright and early at nine. I'm going to have a lot to show you."

"I should be able to handle it, I literally just came home with a business degree."

"Business degree's important, but there's things experience will teach you that you won't learn in the classroom," Richard said, a little defensive. "Stuff you only learn by putting in the time."

"Dad, I worked summers here in high school, I've got the basics," he said, though he quickly realized from the look in his father's eye that that was the wrong response.

Before Richard could answer, an otter with chocolate-brown fur and blue eyes wearing a jean jacket came up with a few bottles of liquor and a small bottle of bitters and set them on the counter. Eric took a step back, out of the way. The older fox immediately let his annoyance drop and started ringing her up.

"Oh, hey, Eric!" the otter said. "When did you get home?"

Eric blinked as the otter went in for a hug. He hugged her back as he realized who she was.

"Hey, Diana, I just got back a few days ago."

"A few days ago? Didn't you graduate in the spring?"

"I'll explain that later," he sighed. "Party time?" he asked, nodding to the selection of alcohols his father was double-bagging, divided across two packages.

"I'm getting together with a few folks later, nothing too fancy. Stocking up. How about you, are you doing anything?"

"Just... playing it by ear," Eric said with a shrug.

Diana handed Richard her card without looking at him while she talked to Eric. He didn't bother checking her ID. Eric tried not to meet his father's questioning gaze.

"You wanna come over later? Maybe watch a movie, and we can play it by ear together?"

"Sure, sounds good, sounds good. Maybe I could swing by after the parade?"

Diana opened her mouth to respond before a crocodile in flannel with a gray beard, smelling like a cigarette factory, stepped up with a couple of bottles. The movement revealed a couple more customers lining up behind him. She quickly grabbed the double-bagged bundles and carefully lifted them off the counter so she could get out of the way. Eric reached out to help steady them.

"Hey, let's talk outside so we're out of the way," Eric quickly said, then glanced at his dad. "I'll come back later or see you tonight?"

Richard waved him on as he started ringing up the crocodile. Diana headed for the door, though she kept glancing over her shoulder. From the back, Randall called out "Ask him to get the screws if he's going out!" and Richard rolled his eyes.

"Eric, could you go get us a box of screws for some shelves we need to fix? One and a quarter-inch, flathead," Richard said as he counted change out to the crocodile.

"No problem," Eric said as he followed Diana outside.

"Is it usually that crazy in there?" the otter asked Eric as he came out.

"Apparently we shouldn't 'knock' Harfest for liquor sales. So you were saying about your get-together?"

He went ahead and walked towards the Ol' Pickaxe, Possum Springs' hardware store. Diana followed, her arms laden.

"You can stop by whenever. There's no hard plans. Couple of people we went to school with bringing snacks. I'm handling drinks. There might be board games." She shrugged, and the bottles clinked in the bags. "No hard plans," she repeated.

"Great, then maybe unless Harfest is completely enrapturing, I'll swing by after the parade. Or if it's deathly boring, I'll stop by earlier."

"We'd be glad to have you," Diana said as they reached the hardware store. "Just come over whenever." She set down the bags, pulled out her receipt, and scribbled an address on the back of it to hand to Eric.

"Great, thanks," he said as he tucked it into his pocket. "You coming in?" he asked, nodding to the Ol' Pickaxe.

"I think I'm good on screws for the moment," she said as she picked up her bags. Then she paused and got a horrified look on her face. "Oh God."

"I wasn't going to say anything," Eric chuckled, shaking under the effort of keeping the chuckle from becoming a laugh.

"I'm going to go die now, I think. I'll see you tonight." Without another word she took off, looking utterly haunted by the slip of the tongue.

Eric just smiled as she left, the earlier encounter with the three weird teens all but forgotten as he ducked into the hardware store.

* * *

Eric didn't waste a lot of time when he got into the hardware store. He went straight for the shelf with all of the screws. He tried not to think too hard about Diana's address, folded up in his pocket. He tried so hard not to think about it he had to look over the shelf three times before he saw the clearly-labeled screws. One and a quarter-inch, flathead.

He got the biggest box they had and took it up to the counter. A dark gray cat with a white triangular patch on his face stood behind the register, his eyes glazed over, presumably from boredom. Eric recognized him from school as he set down the box of screws hard enough to startle him.

"Danny, as I live and breathe," Eric said with a smile. "How are you holding up, slacker?"

"Hey there, Eric," he said as he reached up to nervously rub an ear before he started ringing up the screws. "Been a few years."

"Yeah, I've been away at school. When'd you start working here?"

"Just a few days ago. Worked construction before that."

"Huh. Y'know, they say construction's always hiring."

"Yeah, they say that. It's not. Sometimes it's firing," he said as he put the box of screws and a piece of paper in a bag and Eric paid for them.

"What's this?" Eric asked as he pulled out what appeared to be a flyer.

"Store's hosting the annual Harfest play tonight. Supposed to give those out."

"The spooky, Halloween-y tale of how the most boring town in existence was founded?" Eric asked mockingly as he tucked the flyer back into the bag.

"This town gets pretty spooky sometimes. You know about the arm, right?" Danny asked.

The fox shook his head.

Danny glanced down the counter towards the other register. "Hey Bea, tell him about the arm!"

Eric followed Danny's gaze to a crocodile girl a couple of years younger than him sitting behind said register. She had a fake cigarette between her teeth and wore a black dress with a bright white ankh on it. It had been a few years, but he recognized her as well: Beatrice Santello. He was confident she'd gone to school with him, but he was sure he actually knew her from someplace else. She looked up from the paperback book she was reading, her face a mask of disinterest.

"I'm not getting into the arm thing again," she said.

"Wait, what 'arm' thing?" Eric asked.

Bea groaned, tucked a slip of paper into her book, and set it on the counter.

"Not much to tell," she said. "I was eating with some people at the Clik Clak Diner, and we found an arm outside."

"An arm."

"Yeah, like off a body. Sleeve and everything. Cops came by and took it away, and I haven't heard anything about it since. It was a big deal at first but I'm tired of telling what's basically the first half of a story I don't have the second half for." She shot a glare at Danny.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to make it a whole 'thing,'" Eric said.

"Eh, it's okay," she said, dismissively waving the fake cigarette at him. "By the way, your family runs the liquor store, right?"

"Sort of." Eric realized where he knew her from. Her father ran the hardware store they were currently in. So he'd probably met her at some town business event.

"Great." She handed him a stack of the flyers. "I'd appreciate if you could get them to hand those out; we wound up with too many and I don't want the Chamber of Commerce thinking I'm slacking off."

"I can't promise my dad will do it, but I'll at least ask."

"As long as they're not here. You should come by later. The play's stupid, but it's gotta be more interesting than what's going on out there."

"I might have plans, but we'll see," Eric said. "Later!"

Bea waved at him while Danny forced a cheery but awkward "Enjoy the screws!" as Eric waved back at them with the flyers on his way out.

* * *

Eric wandered through the center of town as people milled around. Folks around his age mostly wore costumes, and the older an individual member of the crowd got, the more likely they were just wearing a jacket against the autumn chill. The fox was fine in his hoodie.

He'd been killing time around Towne Centre after finishing his errand. He'd spent at least a half-hour discreetly wandering around the diner next to the Snack Falcon, trying to conjure up a mental image of a disembodied arm just laying on the sidewalk. Who could he ask about that?

Before he could come up with a good answer, his stomach rumbled and he decided he'd had enough of curiosity for one day and got a light dinner at the festival instead. (Though not at the diner, for fear that somehow the arm had come out of their kitchen or something.)

And now it was after dark, and tents had been set up with assorted games and amusements near the very questionable ferris wheel. The parade was just starting and then after that he'd probably swing by Diana's. Games and amusements aside, there really was only so much to do. He could eat another funnel cake, maybe, but he was pretty sure actually eating two of those in one day was a good way to die of a heart attack before hitting thirty.

The parade wasn't anything fancy. High school marching band, local minor celebrities waving from the backs of pickup trucks, a tractor hauling a huge-ass pumpkin, a fire truck. Usual small-town parade stuff. While everyone was watching the parade, he seized an opportunity to eat a corn dog. He took his time eating it while everyone else was distracted away from the food vendors, and ducked into the hardware store.

He wasn't planning on staying through the whole play, nor even particularly getting invested enough to enjoy it. He'd seen it when he was a kid, after all, and remembered that every year it seemed a little goofier than the last. But there was something to be said for 'roped into the family business' solidarity.

The play had already started. Danny and someone else, presumably another employee, wore coonskin caps and stood up on the counter, using it as an impromptu stage. Eric recognized them as the fur traders who first discovered the spring, in the old story. Mae was also on the counter, dressed like a witch with a dagger through her pointed hat, just like the mascot of the metal band 'Witchdagger.'

"Ho! Travelers!" she cackled in an 'old lady' voice. "Spare a crust of bread for a needy woman?"

"Haggard witch!" the employee Eric didn't know said.

"Horrible to look upon!" Danny said awkwardly.

"Cruel young men, ye did not even offer one of thy three-hundred fine beaver pelts, to warm my ancient bones!" the 'witch' cartoonishly snarled. "I shall curse ye, and thee, and this very night ye shall perish!"

The 'fur traders' bantered with the 'witch,' like they did pretty much every year. Eric didn't come out to see the play regularly, and clearly there had been changes, but he'd seen it enough times. Witch menaces the traders, they die, it turns out she cursed the spring itself, and all who die in the town are cursed to never leave. He knew the gist.

"Find your way home after your journeys?" a familiar voice asked from just out of his field of vision. Eric jumped with a yelp and saw the janitor from the bus station.

"Where do you come from?" Eric asked as he caught his breath.

"I'm always around, somewhere," the bird said. "But you've gone farther than you thought you ever would, and it looks like you made it back okay," he added.

"Yeah, you could say that, I guess," Eric said, a little confused. "I mean, is there any reason to assume I wouldn't make it back okay from school?"

"Maybe not."

Eric frowned. There was something off about the older man's tone.

"Is there something else you're talking about that I should be recognizing?" he asked the man after a moment's silence.

"Maybe not yet, Eric," the janitor said after a moment. The man wandered off without another word.

"Wait, how do you know my name? And what are you talking about?"

The crowd was too thick for Eric to follow without making a scene, but he watched as the janitor wandered over to the counter, while Mae was clearly stumbling over one of her lines as the witch.

"For what is a ghost, but that which haunts the empty space that was once full?" she said, uneasily, trying to project her voice to the room.

Eric glanced back around and realized in his moment of distraction he'd lost the nameless janitor.

"And once haunted, can a place be unhaunted?" came the janitor's voice from just behind the 'stage' as he climbed up onto it. Mae said something unclear to him, startled, and he continued. "Young witch! It is I, the God of the Forest!"

Eric realized he had forgotten this part. Mae and the janitor muttered to each other for a moment.

"Witch," he continued, his voice strong and confident in contrast to Mae's unease. "Thou has tarried too long in this world. I banish thee to wander in the night through the stranger places!"

She took a half-step back, and this time Eric could hear her clearly. "Oh God... how did you know?"

"Young witch," he said as if she hadn't reacted. "Let me speak wisdom to you. We begin and we end. At night, in the woods. But that is not the whole of the story."

Eric got lost in his own thoughts as the 'witch' and the 'forest god' squared off. He'd forgotten the Forest God appeared in this story. That brought the Adina Astra story to mind as well. Adina had encountered the Forest God, and thwarted the Huncher... was the Huncher the same witch from the Possum Springs story? Was that fairy tale a local myth and he never knew?

"My infernal powers!" Mae called out, snapping him out of his reverie.

"Sssh, young witch," the janitor said. "Even now, the world you know endeth, and who can say what lieth in the world to come?"

"Wow," Mae said, and Eric was pretty sure that wasn't in-character.

"Beware as you go, for there are ghosts," the janitor said, while the 'fur traders' made spooky ghost sounds from off-stage.

Eric frowned, and made a beeline for the door while everyone climbed back up onto the stage for an epilogue about how the festival celebrates both Halloween and the founding of Possum Springs, so on and so forth. He quietly ducked outside into the cool night air while others filed out behind him. He took a stroll through the empty square -- looked like most of the crowd had gone home after the parade. The only person he saw who wasn't also leaving the hardware store (and presumably returning to their homes) was just someone sitting on a bench across the square, fiddling on a phone or something similar, probably taking advantage of the tiny snippet of free wi-fi in the square. The screen lit up their face, the only spot of light in on the dark plaza.

He thought again about the dreams he'd been having, and the fairy tale. Did it all connect to Possum Springs in some way?

"No, no it doesn't," he muttered to himself. "Because that's stupid, and you're just bored and making stuff up after leaving a bigger town for this hole."

Do you really believe that, or are you just trying to convince yourself of that because it's easier that way?, a little voice in his head whispered.

Look, you need to get up in the morning, said another voice, one that felt very much like an incoming headache. Just go home and leave the fairy tales to the storybooks.

He was ready to do just that when someone yelped and the light clattered to the ground.

Eric looked over. The phone was on the ground, and the person who had been playing with it... was going limp in the arms of a figure wearing a long coat and a miner's helmet with a lantern on it. The lantern was off, but he could make out the distinct shape in the shadows.

The helmeted figure was covering the other person's mouth with something, maybe a rag, and then slung the limp victim over their shoulder.

"Wait, what?" Eric asked aloud as the figure in the coat ran off, carrying the other person. "Is... is that...?"

Eric took off running after them.

"Hey!" he yelled. "Hey! Help!"

He jumped over one of the stone benches as he ran after them, chasing after the figure as they ran in the direction of the Clik Clak Diner and the Food Donkey beyond and the train tracks beyond that. He suddenly thought about Casey Hartley. He thought about the arm found lying in the street and heard Bruce's voice.

People sometimes vanish.

Out of the corner of his eye, Eric saw someone else running the same direction he was. He didn't dare divert his attention, so he couldn't see who. But on some level, he felt better knowing someone else out here was seeing this, that someone else out here was doing something.

"Whoa there, son!" said the black-furred mouse who stepped out in front of him. "You better watch yourself before you trip on something," he added in that local accent that sometimes made 'watch' sound like 'warch.'

Eric realized the mouse was wearing a police uniform, and he pointed in the direction he saw the mysterious figure running.

"Look... I..." he panted. "Someone grabbed a kid! Or something! They, like, chloroformed someone and they ran off! You need to do something! Get out there!"

"Whoa, slow down--"

"Don't tell me to slow down! He's right there! He's getting away!"

Eric pointed over the cop's shoulder as he saw the silhouette vanish behind a building. The mouse didn't even look. Eric suddenly got a very bad feeling in his stomach.

Folk on the rails don't like to stop here.

Eric tried to run around the cop, who reached out and grabbed his arm with a surprisingly-firm grip. The fox struggled to pull his arm free, and only after a few moments managed to yank it loose.

"You're Rich Hostetler's boy, aren't you?" the cop asked, eyes narrowed.

"Fuck me, I--"

"Language!" the officer chided.

Eric just ran past him and in the direction of the fleeing kidnapper, trying desperately to convince himself that the cop was just being obtuse. That's all this was. Nothing more.

An even harder grip took hold of his arm.

Eric turned, opening his mouth to yell at the cop, when he found himself face-to-ominous-shadowy-silhouette with someone else in the same long coat as the kidnapper. Whomever it was wore a different helmet, one without a lantern. He couldn't get a good look at the face.

"There's two of you," Eric gasped as he tried to pull away.

Whomever it was squeezed his arm, hard, and tried to drag him away. Eric struggled and managed to yank his arm free, hard enough that he lost his balance and fell. His head hit a concrete walkway snaking through the plaza, and things got blurry. He struggled to sit up.

"Okay, that's enough of that," the mouse cop said as he came over. "Looks like you took a nasty fall, and we need to get you home."

* * *

The red sky outlined the trees of the forest as he walked down the hill towards the cave. Something about the trees and cave looked familiar, but he wasn't sure if that was from actually having seen them before or if it was that thing where you just 'know things' in dreams.

Oh hell, was this another dream?

He stopped. He tried to force himself to wake up, but couldn't. He tried to pinch himself in the dream, but couldn't. He tried to walk away from the cave, but couldn't.

Any movement he attempted either did nothing, or somehow became a slow, uneasy, almost zombie-like step towards the opening in the earth ahead of him. He couldn't even try to talk.

The cave yawned wide as if to accept him, the darkness within having its own gravity as he slowly moved forward with the effort he put into struggling. The remnants of a track for mining carts slid out like a rotted, rusted tongue, and he felt like he was being pulled along that track. He tried to open his mouth to scream, beg for help, anything, but his jaws were clamped tightly shut.

The whole world seemed a menacing swirl of black and red as he shook with the effort of trying to step away from the cave. Try as he might, though, eventually he felt one foot drawn in front of the other. Something in the darkness was leading him, the way a horse leads a carriage.

He could barely feel the moment when a part of him just gave in, and awkwardly staggered into the gaping maw of the void.