Flesh blood bone iron

[Waldemar]

"What are you?"

The air is cool and damp and smelling of moss and dirt. An oil lantern suspended overhead washes rough walls with dim yellow light, aided by a scattering of candles on outcroppings here and there. This isn't the first time the little cave has seen use, evidenced by soot streaks the walls and smudges the ceiling where lights have been set in the past, and a little pile of splintered and rotting wood swept into one corner.

In the middle of the chamber, beneath the lantern, a workbench of stout timbers and rough planks, the beams chalked with marks and sigils; a simple chair nearby, beside a crude table of trestles and boards; to the other side, a spindly figure of hazel rods and birch brushes bound together with rope and twine, its cordwood head giving it an elongated, almost equine aspect; beside it, a blanket hangs down over what must be the way to the surface world.

The miller had returned to the rowan later, after Constables and officials and others had been and gone; after the cavern had been cleared of remains and the survivors reunited with their families. A careful search had eventually revealed the creature, forgotten and curled up in the undergrowth, and he had brought it back here - somewhere secluded, forgotten, a discreet distance from his mill - stripped it of coiling vines and foliage and bound it firmly to the workbench for examination.

It had moved among the children - he'd at first mistaken it for one of them, until noting the way it behaved, babbled, writhed; limbs lost between the Fiddler's jaws, and yet it did not weaken or die as one might expect of a normal child suffering such injuries; having had the chance to examine it closer revealed that it did not breathe, and he could discern no heartbeat within its skeletal chest; it reeked of rot and decay, putrid flesh and pond muck, and yet it moved, it spoke.

It intrigued.

First he'd spoken from a spot above the creature's head, hard to see unless the thing cranes its skull back to see. He moves, though, round to its side to inspect those maimed limbs, to pinch and prod at ragged, discoloured flesh and stained shards of bone. A stern figure in rolled-up shirtsleeves, a makeshift sackcloth apron tied about his waist.

"This is a mess. Not that you're likely to die of it, but still. Untidy." Iron forceps pry at the exposed bone, pulling a spongy brown shard free with little effort. "We might neaten the end of the bone, but it'd likely only split further over time. You've little use for it now, in any case."

Uneven steps back to the trestle table where instruments of dull metal lie neatly arrayed upon a leather roll. Unused for years, blades dimmed with neglect, yet keen enough for this work. It was an unnatural thing, foul to the senses, something that lived in death, a monster. It had been left behind despite its injuries, despite how it could only crawl pitifully through the dirt - shunned, ignored and abandoned. And yet it had not harmed the children it moved among.

More than could be said for other, far comelier creatures.

He lifts his voice to address the thing on the workbench as he picks through his tools.

"Tell me who you are."

[Rance]

What are you?

I am the Wormgirl, his quivering tongue wanted to say, but here -- the whole world was mahoganyy and leather, the acrid stink of oils and wet dirt -- was not the place for those rote words; there were no

screams and forsaken parts of bodies and
elbows digging into cavern-floor
hello, mud, you were once a child,
hello, limb, you once belonged to a pelvis not yet old enough to
(as they say, fuck),
i will crawl through the spilled saliva and murky blood of little girls and little boys--
too roo lee!
The prodding and of discovery and curiosity was disembodied to him; he thought he could feel the tools jabbing into the blackened wells where an arm and a leg had once been. The curdled muscles beneath the boything's milk-white skin -- it was rough hide to the touch, dry and mottled with blue bruises -- twitched, jerked, the reactions of a body that seemed scarcely controlled by any notable surges of thought.

But when the miller spoke, the eyes found him. Though they welled with muddy tears and the vessels bulging within had been dyed like black spider-legs, there was life in them. Brilliant gems, not beautiful or flawless, but lucid the way his words had not been. The neck bent, arched, the jittering spine twisted, and what remained of a severed thigh knocked down against the table to help leverage the bending of his young back--

A tongue like a poisonous mold. Teeth like little gray rocks or the shards of broken plates.

A boy of seven or eight.

We might neaten the end of the bone, but it'd likely only split further over time. You've little use for it now, in any case.

"Y-...you drew a circle," he gargled, one eye blinking off-time with the other. "You b-...broke the bad stew. Inside it there w-...were p-...prayers. Outside it, d-...did you see what he did, what he did, what he did?" A shifting inflection, as if learning the language for the first time. On the table where he was restrained, the arched clawfingers clicked and scraped, seizing, dancing. A wrist trying, trying to lift--

"I am the Wormgirl s-...so she could run away."

Tell me who you are.

Unafraid. Unwilling to know what fear might even be. Cognizant, but disconnected; feral, but aware.

"You m-...make the shapes. I am j-...just Phlynn."

[Waldemar]

You drew a circle.

"I did." He returns to the workbench, hands laden with tarnished iron, set out beside the creature's withered ribs with dull clinks and chimes. "I set a watcher to keep out anyone wicked, anyone who'd hurt the children. It let you pass." The maimed un-child, curdled white skin and rotten black veins.

Did you see what he did, what he did, what he did?

"I saw." A tightness to his features, a flash of anger in dark eyes at the memory of it; he shakes his head, a hand lifting hesitantly to brush strands of filthy hair back from the child-creature's brow; soothing, a light touch to calm the creature's twisting and writhing. "It was wrong. I've told others what he did, and he'll pay for it."

The miller is quiet for a time, head bowed, surveying the mangled, emaciated form strapped down to the workbench; at first his gaze had been aloof, distanced - looking upon a thing, a collection of pallid skin and shriveled flesh, a cadaver that had forgotten to lie still and rot. Now, though, a hint of something else - a sadness, perhaps, regret for something ruined.

"You took a girl's place, Phlynn? In the dance?" Approval in his tone at that, at the creature's setting himself in harm's way, freeing another child from the horror of what followed. Meanwhile the miller takes up an instrument, a blade the length of his hand, thin and curved like a crescent moon. "That was brave of you; brave and kind. You must be brave now, Phlynn, and lie very still. I am going to tidy you up."

An excision first, he has decided; a removal of tissue from around the joint, to allow access to the shoulder socket. The conversation continues as he works, black ichor staining blade and fingertips.

"They say that I'm a hero for drawing that circle; a hero, Phlynn." Some wry amusement in the curl of his mouth, the tone of his voice. "I'd say you are as much of a hero, for letting the girl run away."

[Rance]

I set a watcher to keep out anyone wicked, anyone who'd hurt the children. It let you pass.

"If you go b-...breaking what is new, nothing gets to be old."

When the fingers touched his forehead, the skin was not soft and pliable, and the mossy hair was as coarse was wire. And with some kind of dreamlike distraction, the boy added a lie, not that he knew it so much to be untrue, but that the fantasy of it -- the want for the truth -- was too great to deny.

"They were all of m-...my friends. I have got so many friends, Shapemaker. You c-...could have heard come to dance, Phlynny f-...for miles away. Had they ever said it. Had they. And the Wormgirl; I am the Wormgirl.

"She did not deserve getting hurt."

So wide, the eyes, as they tried to devour the image of the miller's little blade. It was distant family, that knife; it was a brother, and might he have lifted his one remaining arm, he would have reached for it -- to touch, to be curious, to examine. The steely edge scraped against the blackened bone. The boything could feel the echo of that touch in the back of his teeth, knocking, scratching. While the shoulder and what little bit of the arm remained jerked, twisted at the careful prodding of the knife (it cared more for the curiosity and discovery and utility of the task, it seemed; the miller's wielding of the blade was cold, methodical, practiced), his eyes were obedient, scarcely registering the pain--

--not here, not with his brains broken and missing, who needed pain when they did not have brains. But what he knew, from the miller's words, was that they were heroes -- begrudgingly, perhaps, what is a hero, what do heroes do, he might have once wondered; do heroes dance or do heroes get many shillings; do heroes die alone.

But as the leathery skin fell away from the pitted socket where an arm once belonged, the boy shifted his head to inquire -- because the Shapemaker was there, and he was there, and that must mean...

"Is this a h-...heroes room?" he asked. "Just for us?"

[Waldemar]

Such work is familiar; the cutting of unliving flesh, cold and stiff and decaying from the moment the heart stops beating. Maybe before then. Even so, there were methods - means by which a cadaver is preserved, the corruption of the flesh staved off a little longer. Certain preparations that held putrefaction at bay for a span of days. Long enough to study, to learn; nights spent with scholars of similar interest, hunched over workbenches not dissimilar to this one, hidden away in secluded cellars and neglected crypts; meeting rough-palmed men with muddy boots and clothes that stank of grave dirt, trading coin for pine boxes full of reading material.

Years ago, now.

That flesh, though, didn't twitch. Or speak.

"How old are you, Phlynn?" Physically - barring some notable aberrations - he is a child; stunted, perhaps starved. A little skeleton wrapped in a thin layer of bad meat. But hard to say how long he has been... thus. Unliving.

The moon-blade parts muscle from bone; another tool - narrow, straight-bladed like a fishmonger's filleting knife - parts leathery skin from the meat beneath, so that it might be stitched over the wound at a later point. The un-child's attention is noted, though, and he lifts each tool for him to see before he puts it to work, turning it over to catch the flickering lamplight.

"None of them deserved to be hurt. I wish none of them had." Eleven little pine boxes, anointed with tears and consigned to the flames. Eleven little heaps of ash. "It is the worst of crimes. The worst."

No connections remain - a ring of stained bone visible all around the top of the boy's arm, useless muscles and tendons neatly severed, pulled away. The tip of the straight-edged knife pries at the un-child's shoulder, slipping between ball and socket; a matter of pressure, of leverage, before the joint parts with a hollow sucking noise, and the ragged stump of the creature's arm comes away entirely.

"Just for us." A nod of agreement to that point, if not to the matter of heroes. "Until you are well again."

[Rance]

How old. How old.

The lunellarium went to its precious work. Others might have screamed, thrashed against the bindings, but he was a swiveling head upon a mangled body whose nerves were as black and useless as dead worms. Waldemar displayed each and every tool like it was some reasonable barter, and the boything's clear eyes seemed always, always to gaze upon the edges first.

"One-two-three-four-f-...five-six-seven," he rattled, his half-haired skull rolling back and forth, back and forth on the wooden table. "One-two-three-four-five-s-....six-seven," he said again, as if the first time were not clear enough, or perhaps that the words were something memorized, committed to memories, a learned response that required its unbroken sequence. "You," the boy then asked. "How old a-...are you?

"I am older, I b-...bet." Phlynn said, his smile spreading, stretching, his sharp teeth a curtain of ruin across his gums. "I am older than you." Sung like a twisted little song, a tease for another child outside an invisible schoolhouse.

What remained of his arm was instantly gone. It came free at the insistence of Waldemar's leverage and the work of the blade, but what happened next might have been unexpected, unnatural, wrong--

--for the whole limb, once disconnected from the body, withered like a sun-dried flower. The flesh crumbled into a moist ash, and while it did not wholly vanish, it became a greasy, blistered mess. A film that could be peeled away from the bone with a curious thumb. And at second glance, the ribbons of skin that had been earlier cut away had curled and blackened in a similar way -- but they, like sentient servants, had awaited the ruin of the larger part of the limb to do so.

His eyes never left Waldemar, his anchor, his savior, the Shapemaker. "Will I b-...be well," he asked, the bones in his other shoulder shifting under the surface of skin like slithering snakes while the arm yet again wrenched, bucked, trying to rid itself of the leather-and-steel constraints. "I will eat him f-...for the worst of crimes.

"Would you like some? W-...would you, Shapemaker? We could sh-...share."

[Waldemar]

Seven. Seven years old when he became... this. This lifeless, deathless thing of foul meat and brown bones. The man nods, corners of his mouth downturned as if grudgingly impressed. "A good age. And how many winters have you seen, Phlynn, since you became seven?"

How old are you, the un-child asks in return, and the twist of the miller's lips might be a smile, of sorts.

"As old as my tongue. A little older than my teeth."

A non-answer, almost playful for all that his tone quite matter-of-fact. He might elaborate further upon it, except his breath is expended instead on an exclamation of startlement as the amputated stump of limb shrivels, collapses into the barest of remains. The sort of thing one might expect from an ancient corpse, flesh subjected to the ravage of years, decades. Dust.

It takes him a moment to process this, examining what's left with the tip of the flaying knife, stirring aside blackened residue. Eventually he seems satisfied with his inspection, and sets the nub of splintered bone aside. Some of that bedside manner has been shaken from him, and for the moment at least he is more anatomist than physician, intent on unraveling secrets wrapped in skin and muscle and sinew.

"You will be well, but you must lie still for now - until I have finished. There is still much to be done."

He limps further along the bench, level with the un-child's hip and the truncated thigh that still twitches and kicks. More confident in his work now, a single stroke to split the skin, deft motions with the straight blade to peel it back. More muscle here, withered as it is; ligaments to be severed with the crescent knife, granting access to the joint beneath. Phlynn makes his promise, his vow, and it is accepted with a nod; the man of whom they spoke deserved no less. His offer, though, has the miller pausing in his work to consider for a time, turning his head to regard the un-child thoughtfully.

Would you like some?

"His hands. To about here, for preference." The curved blade angles briefly across his own wrist in demonstration, an inch or two above the joint before he turns back to his work. A moment later: "And his fat, as much as he might have. You know where to find it?"

[Rance]

"I have s-...seen lots of winters," he admitted, eschewing a number for the exaggeration of child-words. "I have seen a little baby born, and wh-...when he died, he was very old, and it was winter."

But he lay still, so very motionless, the distraction of discussion a welcome reprieve from the foul melange twisting and swelling in his mind. The reek of his own blood drove his memories toward madness, and his expression of it was left only to the tittering cadence of his bladed fingers on the table's edge.

Tap. Tap. Ta-tap. Tap.

The Shapemaker smiled. He told tales of old teeth and riddles about older tongues; the humor, misappropriated as it was, set the emaciated boything to laughter, so much that his caved chest and his distended belly -- it was a lonely white hill, the navel a withering button of flesh -- vibrated with laughter. Pebbles rattled in his throat and a bubble of oily blood squelched between his teeth.

Even un-children could giggle.

"B-...but maybe not as old as your eyes," he punctuated, as if together, they'd solved some centuries-old mystery.

The miller readjusted his work to the other grievous injury, where a leg had once been. His curved blade peeled and pried and slivered, cleaning the horrendous pit of a wound with destructive precision. What severed muscles still remained in the rest of his thigh flexed and twitched below his dry flesh, an unwilling audience to the miller's experimentation. What drew Phlynn's attention more greatly, however, were the motions: This is where you separate the pivot of the wrist from the ulna and radius, the Shapemaker's demonstration seemed to whisper.

"The hands," the boy said, bending up his neck, his response pausing only a moment--

a scarce, rare, and otherwise gossamer-thin moment of pain registering in an awkward grimace as the moon-blade ventured between torn flesh and black-gray muscle--

--before confirming: "The fat is easy t-...to find, if you cut enough."

His head dropped back to the table. He read the etched marks in the beams hanging above him where they winked and squirmed beyond the glow of the ever-swinging lantern. Maybe they were alive. Maybe, if he could read the stars and sigils, they would say hello, hello. But he would be well, as the Shapemaker promised, and he would plant flowers and return to his cat-tails and drink the caustic waters until his stomach burst. And that doorknob, dreaded doorknob, he would wrench it from its mechanisms and toss it into a grave.

In celebration of the thought, he chirped, "She has got lonely gaps f-...for eyeholes, but I miss my mother. D-...do you miss yours? I say that she has g-...got older teeth. The oldest."

[Waldemar]

Not as old as your eyes. The miller offers a slow nod and a slower smile for the boy's observation, some dried-out semblance of amusement.

"You are a sharp one, Phlynn." His tone praises, congratulates the boy-thing for his insight. "My eyes have seen much more than they should have. They're old, now and very tired."

The work at the boy's hip is more involved, a deeper joint more firmly attached; he selects different tools, a thin blade on a long handle to work around the socket. It requires more leverage to finally pull it free with a twist and wrench as one might employ to detach a drumstick from a roasted fowl. The miller's old eyes tighten at the brief tearing of tissue he'd not been able to neatly cut, but it is a momentary thing. It is done, what's left of the boy's thigh set quickly on the bench beside him, and the man leans closer for a time to observe its rapid decay.

"I missed her, for a time." Absent, distracted as he pries at the damp ash of the un-child's severed flesh. The bones he will keep, he decides; study of the joints will be required. "But not for a long while now. You have a better memory, Phlynn, to remember your mother so fondly."

A passing thought, and one set aside as his attention returns to the now-empty sockets; a momentary inspection, and then there remains only the matter of rendering it neat. Watered wine to cleanse the exposed flesh, then patient work with curved needle and catgut to pull now-empty flaps of skin together. Thicker thread and wider stitches than might be used by a true surgeon; little concern for how they might scar or disfigure, only that they will hold.

Eventually he straightens, sutures tied off, his careful toil complete. At the centre of each ring of puckered skin, a bare cup of brown-rot bone remains exposed. A moment taken to wash his hands in what's left of the watered wine, and he makes a last inspection of the un-child's emaciated frame.

"I will make you new limbs, Phlynn. It will take a little while, but you can rest here." That the leather straps remain in place is a clear enough sign that this is not entirely an invitation.

[Rance]

"You d-...do not look tired," the boy said. "Do you w-...want a song? A lullaby t-...to go to sleep, Shapemaker?"

The child spoke with welcome disconnection from the macabre task being performed on his body. Waldemar dismantled him, severed away the strips of trauma and unclean damage. Occasionally a cold nerve would set what remained of his leg to jerk, twitch, both reactionary and unintentional -- sometimes, his breath would catch, clogged with the recollection of what pain should be like.

"if you m-...miss her, it is very simple. You just close your eyes. And then you th-...think of her--"

Anna. Her name was Anna and it was a very simple name. It was a simple name for a simple woman who sang simple songs and made simple meals. She said Phlynn like a song too, and Your father would think you are so clever! and What a beautiful tulip, Phlynn. How sweet of you! and Your sister is dying, she was my first, she was my first. Do you want to be alone, Phlynn? and If this sickness kills her, I will drown you, Phlynn. Because we must be conservative with our graves here in New Hope and she cannot be alone and I would rather bury both of you at once so I do not need to lose another child ever again--

"You j-...just make up what she looks like if you can't remember, Shapemaker, and it m-...makes you smile. Mothers l-...love you. They love you."

Waldemar made little bows out of his skin and framed the whittled-down twigs of his rot-polished bones into pretty things. The vineboy wished he could see; he knew the rims of his missing limbs looked exquisite -- the Shapemaker made shapes, perfect shapes, the best, finest, most flawless circles, he made shapes and if Phlynn thought shapes had heartbeats and memories then indeed, he would ask to be made into one. Exceptionally round and square.

I will make you new limbs, Phlynn. It will take a little while, but you can rest here.

"I am sharp," he responed. "W-...we are sharp. You are sh-...sharp, and we are modest, and wh-...when I have got a new body I will p-...play with the Wormgirl. We will h-...have a splendid time. This is a s-...splendid time."

Waldemar watched as the hamhock of the boy's dislodged thigh and socket slowly crumbled. In a matter of minutes it became a slab of meat devoured by years of rot, turned to a dusky and aromatic liquid and mush, a spore-devoured specimen that had never been part of a boy, that had never even been anything alive at all--

"As old as my tongue. A little older than my teeth," the un-child said, repeating Waldemar's earlier words with a lifeless smile, his listless stutter entirely absent.

When he slept, he slept with his eyes open. A corpse.

Through the slowly-passing days after and the weeks they became, the boything screamed each and every night like a mad animal.