Note: Lament of the Asphodels was written as part of Captain Swan Big Bang 2016. Check back every Tuesday for two (2) new chapters.
Lament of the Asphodels
Chapter 10: The Mask of Lethe
The Keeper fell to his knees and looked up at the stars, the glimmering embers flickering in the endless blackness. It did nothing to stop the whispering - the words - from cutting into him, but it prevented the ghastly specters from clouding his vision and shaking his resolve.
There were always three spirits that haunted him, and only on rare occasion did others appear to him. The three regulars had a familiarity to him that he could not account for, though he attributed that to the gaping holes that once had been their eyes. Each one spoke to him in a voice from beyond the grave, making them unrecognizable to the ear as much as the eye. At times, he thought them inhuman beings, but they only certainty he possessed was that they were tied to the moon like the tides. When it was at its fullest, they were at their strongest, and when it waned, they, too, became lesser versions of themselves.
When they spoke, they always told him the truth - or what he believed to be the truth - about the worst parts of himself. They reminded him that he was a coward who hid from the world.
He had spent countless hours wondering why they tormented him, and the only sensible answer was these were once living people who knew him well, though he did not recognize nor remember any of his ghosts. Perhaps forgetting was part of his punishment: never recollecting enough to ask forgiveness or absolution so he could never move on.
Long ago, he decided that he must've been responsible for their deaths, however far removed he was from the actual events. Tradition in Northedge held that anyone haunted by spirits was dangerous, for those who spoke with anything or anyone from the great beyond knew more than any living soul ever should. His only reprieve in all this was that none but he could see or hear his tormentors, so when they first came to him during his time as the Recluse, the trio had gone unnoticed by all others, even under the full moon.
He had no reason to suspect that anything had changed in the years between then and now, so when the Survivor appeared - announced by a ghastly chorus of questions - his only fear was that she would think him rude should she try and fail to engage him in conversation. How could he explain himself?
She stood to the east with her long golden locks shining in the moonlight. No doubt she saw the panic on his face when he turned to look at her, for there was no way for him to avoid that particular emotion when he simultaneously encountered the living and the dead.
The whispers became roars, and the Survivor's eyes fell upon each spirit, slowly moving from one to another.
Bloody hell, he thought. She can see them.
After an eternity, she spoke the ghosts and asked, "Who are you?"
His heart jumped into his throat. For as long as he had memories, engaging these ghastly creatures brought nothing but misery. They grew stronger with every word spoken to them from a living soul. The Survivor might earn her curiosity... and for helping him.
A gasping wind went up followed by the sound of rising whispers, and the spirits shined impossibly white against the moon and stars. In the next instant, they vanished, leaving the Survivor and the Keeper alone atop Stagrock Light.
The Survivor helped the Keeper down to his chamber, despite his constant insistence that he did not require any aid. She went so far as to sit him down on his own bed before she desisted. He was relieved until she stopped on the threshold of the door and turned back to him.
"Did you kill them?" she asked.
"What?" he said automatically. The world left his mouth before he truly understood the question.
"I was wondering if... if you killed them."
"I can't... I... I don't know who they are," he replied.
"The dead only trouble those they knew in life," she said. "So you must have known them."
"Perhaps," he said. "But that is not your burden to bare. Thank you. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to rest before dawn."
"One of them," she began hesitantly. "The sailor. He seemed... familiar. Maybe it was just the naval uniform."
"Aye, no doubt someone I served with many years ago."
"More than that," she continued. "He had... something of you in him. He could've been your brother."
"I never had a brother," he replied, his voice harsh from the lie he didn't mean to speak. "Goodnight, Survivor."
She turned away quickly, so he wouldn't see her reaction, a combination of disappointment and confusion.
The Survivor knew when someone lied to her for as far back as she could remember. She spoke of it as if it were a superpower, a magical way of detecting deception, a natural gift for the one job she was born to do. She tried to see it that way, but truth be told, it was a tiresome ability that she chronically wished she could turn off, even if only for a little while. It was maddening, knowing every lie as soon as it tumbled from someone's lips. She became a cop because it was the only job where her chronic suspicion and never-ending mistrust of people was an advantage.
The trouble with lies was the many forms in which they came, the myriad ways they fashioned themselves: white lies, half-truths, secrets, platitudes, delusions, wishful thinking, deception, self-preservation, hopes, dreams, uncertainties. The true variation came from intent - why the lie was spoken - and she had no means to divine reasons behind a falsehood. Her "gift" didn't afford her that knowledge, which created all kinds of repercussions.
Once, back when she was fresh from the academy, she took a statement from a man on All Soul's Day. He was so scared that she spent over an hour talking him down, and then another hour convincing him to give a statement, explaining why he came to the station.
He proceeded to tell her that his son had gone missing. One second, he was holding his boy's hand; the next, he was gone. He desperately searched for his boy, but nobody would help him. Before she could press him for details, he became senselessly inconsolable to the point of incomprehensibility, and nothing she said or did calmed him. So she called in emergency medical responders and left him in their care while she set out to open her first missing person's case.
Luckily, the First Deputy was her training officer and kept a weathered eye on her, so he stopped her from going straight to the Sheriff with her request. As it transpired, the man who she had just interviewed - born Marco Workman - never had a son, only a puppet he fashioned himself from wood. It was common knowledge that he acted as if August - that was the name he gave it - were a real child, right up to the day flash flooding pulled the marionette from his arms on the morning of All Soul's a very, very long time ago. Every year since, he turned up at the police station on the anniversary of August's disappearance, searching for his "lost boy."
She was shocked, for the man hadn't spoken a lie. Indeed, he had relayed the facts with no attempt to mislead her; in his mind, he had lost his son and wanted to find him. He believed the delusion so deeply that, to him, it was the truth.
That was her "gift," her superpower. She knew every time her friends told her she looked nice so as to not hurt her feelings, but she couldn't see past an old man's delusion. She had ruined dozens of relationships over the years when her friends lied about surprised or something they didn't want to talk about because she couldn't forget that they had lied to her.
No one should have that kind of ability.
The Keeper had never lied to her before, and she thought it was odd that he chose to lie to her about his kin. He had a brother.
She swallowed hard and dismissed all thought on the matter. Obsessing over other people's reasons for lying had caused her naught but misery.
"Right, sleep well," she replied to the Keeper. "Good night."
There was no way for her to know that he didn't know why he lied about his brother. Perhaps it was because it had been so long since he had any reason to speak, let alone speak of him, that it was easier to dismiss it all with a falsehood than invite a painful conversation with the truth.
The Keeper collapsed on the floor, his body curled against the door as his breath became ragged. He had lost his brother. He knew this as much as he knew he lost his left hand, yet he failed to do right by him. He hadn't even been able to lay his remains to rest. He never returned to the Midlands after the decree, and every day since, he had done nothing but forget about his past life, living alone in the dark, too far gone to even hope for something better.
Liam would be ashamed of him.
"I am sorry, brother," he whispered to the darkness. "I am so, so sorry."
End-of-chapter-notes: Lethe translates to 'oblivion' or 'concealment.' Lethe was either a spirit or goddess who embodied the personification of forgetfulness and unmindfulness. In the Underworld, the spirits of the dead had to drink from her river to forget their mortal lives that they might be among those reborn into the world.