The chill of autumn's end frosted the evening, but Sam sweat through his jacket, as he tore down the lengths and around the corners of the Spirits' Eve hedge maze. He denied his sight, yet the alternating flares of icy hot knots in his stomach told him, he had nothing to deny.
Take it easy, an inner voice quivered. Take it slow. What do you know?
He knew, firstly, he couldn't tear through the hedges. It was one of those ongoing Pelican Town mysteries dating from even before his family had moved into the valley. The Spirits' Eve hedges were impenetrable.
He knew, secondly, the decorations—the hands in the ground, the flickering TV screen, even those spiders Abigail screamed over every year—were all fake. Surely that included the whispers he heard through the hedges' leaves… Yeah, he was just hearing things. The skulls and bones on the ground were definitely not talking to him, definitely not laughing about "that twin-tailed little woman wandering into the void."
Nope. Definitely not Kutone, who Sam swore melted into the hedge maze's dead end. Right?
Not right, else he wouldn't be half-drowning in his own cold sweat.
Stumbling into fake spider cocoons and showering the ground with a rain of plastic spiders, Sam shot around another corner and barreled straight into Abigail, squeaking and shivering at the trail of spiders behind him.
Sam held his friend's shoulders in a vice grip. "Abby, tell me you've seen Kutone come back through here?"
Features wan, Abigail cast him a baleful look. "Wh-what's Kutone got anything to do with this?" She flicked off spiders caught on the fraying threads of Sam's jacket, and shuddered.
"I lost her. I lost her, Abigail!" He shook her with sweating palms. "I saw her at that dead end, and then she was gone! Poof! Buh-bye! Not there! And I swear to Yoba, the hedges are talking tonight…!"
Brand-new beads of sweat broke over Abigail's forehead. "Oh, so, it's not just me hearing a lot more cackling today than usual?"
"No, it's not, but what do I tell Sebastian?! 'Sorry bro, I lost your girlfriend in the maze!' If he doesn't kill me first, I'm about to lose my best friend!"
Abigail slapped both palms against Sam's cheeks, cold under her touch. "You won't!" she snapped. "At least, as long as he doesn't know…?"
"Lie by omission? Oh, no, no, no—you want me to die, don't you?" Sam wrenched himself from Abigail's grasp and ran circles around the fountain. "Kutone! Kutone, I swear to heavenly Yoba, say something, else Seb… Seb's gonna… Kutone!"
First, the hedge had sucked her in, then spit her out into a cave. Sam's cries echoed through the dank tunnel, as Kutone ran her palms along the dewy walls and crept along. She called back—Sam? Sam! I'm alright! Don't worry about me!—but within seconds, his shouts evaporated into the muffled distance, leaving Kutone with no guiding sound but her breath, her palpitations, and the low drone of wind through the dark tunnel. Just get to the end, she told herself. The wind's coming from somewhere, so just get to the end.
But since when did wind sound like voices?
she's here
just like rasmo promised!
she'll fall she'll fall she'll fall
Logic said "no," but Kutone's Stardew Valley had thin laces of illogic hidden in its corners. The whispers caressed her skin and raised cold bumps and hairs down her neck and back. Ignore them. Just get to the end, get the prize, and get out. I'm not hearing anything, just wind through a tunnel, and the wind's coming from outside, and outside is Spirits' Eve. Her touch guided her around a corner, then another, down a small incline, and then, finally, a splash of moonlight on autumn foliage. Slipping on loose scree, Kutone scrambled out, brushing past the low branches obscuring the tunnel's exit.
Cool night air, open and sweet, filled her lungs, as the cheers of ongoing festivities brought her back from the wind's myriad whispers. Hedges surrounded her on three sides, and a thick black panel cushioned her sneakered steps. She sauntered past the gleaming chest in the middle of the panel, and stopped at the southernmost wall. Beyond it, Alex muttered and cursed and rustled around the leaves. "How thick is this damn thing? Can't even feel the other side!"
He'd sworn he could find a trick door or hidden shortcut, when she and Sam had last passed him. "You were almost right," Kutone snickered. "Try the west side, Alex, past the fountain."
Silence. Alex sifted around the hedge for a few moments longer. After a sigh, his steps faded away.
Strange. Alex wasn't a sore loser.
Then came a hurried patter of steps. They stopped at the wall.
"She's nowhere in here, Sam!" Abigail panted. "We've been through this entire thing three times already, and no one's seen her!"
"They're just—they're just trying to psych us out!" Desperation made Sam's voice almost an octave higher. "They're all in on the same joke, and Kutone's somewhere in here—gotta be! Kutone!"
"Dumbo, shut up! If someone hears and the whole town finds out, that's exactly the same as telling Seb she's missing!"
Missing? Hardly. Kutone grabbed fistfuls of hedge, boring a hole for her voice to filter through. "Hey, I'm still in the maze! At the end!"
"Oh, Yoba above!" swore Sam, "How am I supposed to get people's help, if people are just gonna blab about it?!"
"We have to find her ourselves!"
Their panicked voices were loud and clear through the hedge—Kutone could reach through the bramble and touch them, if she wanted to scare them that badly, but for some reason… "Hey! Sam?" For some reason… "Abigail?"
"You know that sounds exactly like your usual let's go on an adventure speech, right?"
"That's not what I mean! I'm just as worried about Kutone, you know, and if Seb finds out, well… They only just got together."
"Then do we tear down the hedges to look for her?! Community service can only get me so far!"
"You know that's always been impossible to do; these bushes are thicker than Alex's arms!"
They were just ignoring her, right? They heard her, but they chose to pretend they didn't, because Spirits' Eve also celebrated the pranksters of the world. Pelican Town could always count on Sam to pull off some elaborate joke, but this went too far for Kutone's taste. "Sam! Abigail! I'm on the other side!" Kutone plunged her hand and arm into the hedge, but just as Alex had observed, she only felt more branches and leaves. She tried standing on her toes, reaching in deeper, but still the bramble poked at her skin. "I'm right here!"
"Come on," Abigail resigned, "we'll comb through where you saw her disappear. Cover my eyes at the spiders!"
Their hurried steps went away. Yanking her hand out, Kutone followed as far as she could. "Hey, guys! I'm at the end of the maze! There's a chest here and the floor's pitch-black! Hey!"
She ran into the corner as Sam and Abigail dashed back the way they came.
they can't hear you
Her own voice? A child's voice? Not the wind this time. Kutone whirled around, eyes stopping at every empty corner of the maze's end. Nothing. Nothing. No one. She took one step forward—and then the eyes.
The eyes glimmered open beneath her.
Wide eyes, blinking eyes, squinting eyes, in red, purple, green, all alight, followed her as she scrabbled back against the corner. "Guys?" she squeaked, her voice faint. "Sam! Abigail! I'm at the end of the maze, and I'm freaking—help!"
Bulbous eyes bulged out of the tile and rolled in place toward her. Slits carved into the black and curved into jack-o-lantern grins, then widened, opened, and screeching titters spilled out. Kutone pressed her hands to her ears, squeezed her eyes shut, and curled into the corner, shivering, but the voices went on.
look she can hear us feel us smell us see us
and we were always always here
here within silly adept empty adept
unspecial human she hears us louder
we should take her
yes take her
take her!
Like a blanket over a microphone, the voices blotted out. She eased her eyes open. The tile remained still. The wind, absent. She crawled to her feet and wrapped her arms around herself. The chill—the kind of frost that pierced straight into the spine, and crept up like vines before seizing the voice and skull and sight—had that always been in the air?
She stepped once. Something moved.
She stepped again. Something split.
She looked down. Cracks splintered from below her heels. The eyes, globules of writhing ooze, opened again.
Her voice seized. The tile shattered. Her body crumpled onto solid ground above her, but Kutone fell deeper.
She stretched her hand up toward her crumpled body, before slimy shadows clamped their hands around her mouth, her ears, her eyes, wrists, ankles, and dragged her below. Squirming, twitching, pulsating in the darkness of the long pit, they shrouded her body in shadows, and then—only then—did they finally let her go. She plummeted past hisses, slithers, and more gleeful laughs, as eyes opened in faces and shapes she only dreamed of—ran away from—in her nightmares. Splitting grins opened and lunged at her, but with her own hands clamped against her nose and mouth, Kutone failed to scream. Tears beaded at the corners of her eyes, her skin cold, and her heart thundered against her ribcage. Yet they heard her desperate, shallow breaths.
she's here
she's falling
is she delicious is she ready
give me her hair i want her hair her hair like grape licorice
Above her, something tore through the pulsing walls of shadows. Screams pierced through the black, followed by incinerating flares roasting the hands and faces groping at her. Fire lit the shadows for one moment, and a long pair golden tendrils sprouting from a scaly green maw opening wide over her—
the serpent
the serpent!
Fire burst in brilliant radiance. The jaws snapped shut over her.
She woke to grit and cold stone digging into her cheek. A low wind stirred more dust, as Kutone dragged herself first to her knees. Pain seared down her arm and leg, and as her bleary vision refocused, she noted the tattered remains of her sweater's right sleeve, alongside bright red marks that screamed against the night air. Avoiding further irritation of the burns, she staggered to her feet and inspected her surroundings.
Deep black clouded the sky above her, but faint light from the square's posts gave, at least, a dead pallor to Pelican Town. Nothing stirred, except for the wind, and no other lights glowed through the windows—not at Harvey's, not at Pierre's, not even the Saloon. None of the Spirits' Eve decorations, the table, the pumpkins, the cornucopia, and all the hay bales, remained either.
Had she slept through a few days?
She took a loud, echoing step forward, jumping at her own sound. Licking her dried lips, she called out into the darkened town. "Hello?"
Her voice echoed into the gray. She took another step, then another. "Anybody here?"
Dead silence and her own voice returned the greetings. Her heart raced again. "Lewis? Sam? If this is some sick joke—you win. You got me. Really well."
Her voice faltered under her own echo. Steps ringing loudly again, Kutone dragged herself toward the Stardrop Saloon. If anyone knew anything, it would be someone—Gus, or Emily, maybe—at the saloon.
The door's latch clicked and jammed, no matter how many times she jiggled it back and forth. Closing time already? Kutone brought up her wrist to find, dismayed, her watch shattered, hands jerking in place. Not even shaking her wrist revived it.
Defeated, she stepped away from the Saloon, her jarring steps shooting painful trembles from her entire right side. Maybe, she thought, she could start with some of Harvey's professional treatment. That serpent, with its fiery breath and writhing feelers, sulfuric breath and jaws over her—
She stopped dead in her tracks, and lifted her eyes from the ground. "It ate me," she murmured, spinning in place. "So this is—am I—this isn't the town. This isn't the town!"
Squeaky laughter answered her realization, as tarry growths oozed from between the cracks of the cobblestone. The sickly sweet smell of smoke and cocktails greeted her like a haze in a lounge, but laced also with an undertone of that sulfuric burn—the Serpent. Covering her nose and mouth, Kutone gazed up at the sky, too focused on finding the gleam of green scales to notice the shadows wrapping around the hems of her pants. Only when she stepped forward, stumbled, twisted, and landed on her rear, did she finally see them: the masses from the pit, eyes aglow and inspecting her, every strand of hair, every pallid shade of her features, and possibly even her shallow breath as they leered over her.
what color is she inside?
is she grape like her hair or caramel like her skin?
we can see we can see soon rasmo told us so
The largest of the creatures, a bulbous, multi-legged, snake-like abomination, slithered over her, pressed her into the ground. Its gelatinous eyes stared into her wide, panicked gape, then shaking with mirth, the eyes withdrew into its body. It shivered, condensed, writhed, and then—
Then Kutone stared at herself—it had to be herself, she remembered the contours of her suit, the way she wore her hair, and though the creature had no colored features except for the glow of its eyes and ear-to-ear grin, it spoke in her voice. "Welcome home, Kutone," its myriad voices gurgled like sound in water, "we have been waiting for you."
With a heave of her good leg and nails splitting over the stone, Kutone scrabbled away to her feet, and without casting another look back, ran for her life. Her feet pelting into the ground, she veered around corners, and leaped over shrubs, stumbling on her own feet and scuffing her toes against the cobble. Indeterminate screeches, wayward gusts of wind, cackles, and the weight of something reaching out and almost touching her neck with the curved hook of a claw—all the components to a nightmare parade, and Kutone led it blundering through the deserted town.
They crashed through brush, and trees snapped in their thunderous rampage after her, as she blindly ran past the shadowed community center, and up the mountain slope, skidding and kiting around the shadows snapping at her ankles. She ducked under the claws razing over her head, just as a stitch knotted in her side, throbbing with her burns and bruises. A safe spot, her mind fizzled. Find a safe place…
Breath ragged, pace slowing, she pressed her free arm to her side as she staggered further up the mountain.
she's stopping
we can open the void we can be free
like grape like caramel like coffee like wine
Darkness needled around her like a thick wreath. She stopped, her heaving breaths too shallow for any air to filter through her body. Her legs shook, protesting the abuse they'd suffered since falling so far.
She was almost down to her knees, but then, a single light shined ahead. Even the shadows slowed behind her, as Kutone lifted her head again. Robin's house, she determined. A friend. A safe place.
no
And there, in that same safe place…
she can't
don't let her
"Sebastian?"
don't let her don't let her DON'T LET HER
With the keening swelling behind her, Kutone burst forward again, racing through the clearing and slamming the door open. Gelatinous voices screamed behind her, crashing into the door frame and the far wall by Robin's front desk, as Kutone grabbed the corner and sling-shot herself down the basement stairs. She cleared the steps with one great leap, a triumphant yelp squeaking out of her throat as she reached for the doorknob.
"Oh no, Kutone, not yet…"
The door, with light shining from the crack underneath, suddenly drew miles away. The steps disappeared, shattering into a rain of glass.
She fell again, tumbling in mid-air, her own synthetic gurgles following her down.
She slammed onto sand, rolled, and finally stopped with her legs halfway under a tideline, and her body pulsing back and forth between icy hot flares of aches. Sand ground into the burns down her arm and the scrapes along her face, but all Kutone could manage was a laborious roll onto her back. She pursed her lips and groaned—fuck, everything hurt—but at least only the stars above, in nebulous, twinkling clouds of violet and blue, stared down at her, instead of the mayhem back in town.
Her watch still broken, she had no way to tell how long she laid there, but the tideline crept higher and higher up the shore. At her calves just before, the sea, inky black yet glittering, pushed and pulled over her thighs and crept up her back. If only it would carry her away.
"I'd hoped to find you in better condition, young adept."
Of course the wizard had something to do with this chaotic mess. Kutone groaned, but even as Rasmodius leaned over her, she refused to move. The icy water numbed the pain. Washed it away.
With a snort, the wizard nodded. "Very well then. I will caution you when the water level threatens to drown you."
"Tell me this is all an elaborate prank," Kutone croaked, "and I'll forgive you for letting me drown here."
The tide rippled around them, and somewhere down the shore, it crashed in a spray of brine and foam. The wizard held his hat against the ocean wind. "Shan't," he replied. "For it is no prank, and I can't let you drown here of all places."
"Consider me excited to find out what hellhole you dropped me into."
"I will admit," began the wizard, drawling as he pondered his words, "I construct the maze annually, for the sake of the spirits curious about the mundane folk. This year in particular, you were the centerpiece of many inquisitive spirits. Your interactions with the Junimos have not gone unnoticed, after all."
Were Rasmodius expecting an answer, Kutone decided against regaling him with her conversation. She could sleep here—the sand cradled her with homely warmth, she realized, and cool waters of the sea, undulating over her, made a strangely comforting blanket. She closed her eyes. Sleep sounded so good.
At least, until Rasmodius huffed his indignance. "Adept, do you not understand your own surroundings?"
Kutone, opening her eyes, cast a baleful glare toward the wizard. Then heaving an aggravated groan, she looked up, then across the water. "The beach," she stated. "It's night. My entire body hurts, Wizard, so forgive me for not being in the mood for your lectures at the moment."
"Forgiven." The wizard stroked his beard, then thoughtfully continued. "A night sky and a seascape. And if you follow this dune back up, you'll find yourself at the edges of a great forest. Perhaps that sounds familiar to you?"
"Like a goddamn painting I don't remember seeing."
"Wrong. And you are about to drown."
She eased herself up from the tideline edging dangerously up her chest. After a struggling splash, Kutone stood on her feet, leaning into the sandy hill. "Straight to the point, Rasmodius," Kutone demanded. "Where am I?"
The tide suddenly rushed in, but instead of buffeting both wizard and Kutone off their feet, starlight cast its gleam, propping them on top of two discs of unearthly light. Without a word, the wizard stepped forward, unflinching at the concept of walking on water. Kutone followed, as the sky and sea merged behind them, leaving them on a neverending expanse of mirrored sky.
Rasmodius spread his arms from under his cloak. "Welcome," he said, "to your heart." He lowered his arms, and disregarding Kutone's boggled stare, continued his leisurely walk along starlit ocean. "Forest, which we imbued within you, lies behind us. Sea, beneath us." Stopping mid-step, he turned to Kutone. "Supporting us, with starlight, and giving permanence to this entire dimension, despite its natural state of lacking permanence—Void." He narrowed his eyes. "Kutone, behind you."
She turned around as well, ready to snap back with her barbed tongue, but the swirling cloud of pitch black in the sky, pulling in the nearby stars and allowing no light to escape, choked her snark. She watched with wide eyes and open mouth.
"I warned you once before, beware the Void that consumes you from within. No one—at least, no human—can survive long while on the support of Void, and you, young adept, are within its pull."
Kutone spun back around. "Those shadows—the slimy things with eyes—they said something about—about me opening the void."
"Ah." Rasmodius watched the swirling black, and stroked his beard again. "I see. Intriguing. Concerning." He squinted hard, and then, with an understanding, yet exhausted groan, squared his shoulders. "Yes, this would explain their violent behavior."
She stared at him, hoping her undivided attention would eke out a straightforward explanation.
"Consider this happenstance a trial, my friend," said the wizard. "Unfortunately, you haven't much time to overcome it. That," He nodded toward the sky, "is the beginning of a physical Void Essence. As it eats you from inside, it has begun crystallizing."
That's why the shape looked so familiar. "So. What happens, if it 'crystallizes?'"
"Believe me when I say you don't want to know. You, however, seem to have had some help in keeping this process under control."
As Kutone threw the wizard a questioning glance, Rasmodius stepped back, and with a wave of his hand, followed by a luminous cloud of light, a body floated in front of him. A young man's body, asleep, yet still clad in his usual dark clothes.
"Sebastian?"
"I promise you, this is not the same boy you know. But!" Rasmodius held up his free palm to stop Kutone from crashing into the sleeping Sebastian. "Remain cautious! Remember that this is the realm of the dreaming heart, and the boy has—for lack of a better explanation—barely survived his own trials."
Upon closer inspection, a ghostly glow radiated from Sebastian's pallid skin, like porcelain under a bright light. His expression fluctuated between different levels of troubled sleep, and as he turned his head, thin lines glimmered across his face and down his neck. Cracks, Kutone realized with a start, and in comparison to the rest of his body, his limbs lacked permanence. She pressed a hand to her mouth, afraid her breath would inadvertently shatter him.
"Humans are strange creatures indeed," the wizard went on. "Here we have a young man nearly broken himself, and he's risked his own permanence for the sake of yours." He eyed Kutone from under the brim of his hat. "I applaud his valiance, yet without proper tutelage, his efforts are, sadly, temporary."
Kutone kept her voice low, and her hand over her mouth, as she eyed the wizard again. "What happens, if this—this image, breaks?"
"I imagine you'll have a complete Void Essence congeal within you, opening the gateway to even more wrathful spirits flooding the valley. Not that the villagers will notice, but you—you may not recover."
"Forget what happens to me! What happens to him?"
"He'll disappear. Interpret that as you will."
Disappear? Physically, from the valley? Or something even graver? Kutone pulled her hand away from her lips, as understanding settled over her racing doubt. "It'll be my fault," she whispered. "I'm going to break him?"
"Perhaps so."
Again, huh? Fucking, again. She staggered back, and sunk to her knees. Tears strained against the corners of her eyes, but she ground her knuckles against her eyeballs. She gritted her teeth against not sadness, but a boiling, restrained scream at herself. How many people would she keep hurting? How dare she call this sweet, innocent boy her significant other, when her own corruption threatened to now break him in this mad-as-high-balls space of her heart? And why—why did he invest so much of himself in her, without even knowing the full details of her story? Why risk this mess—and screw the fact it was a subconscious mess!—when, truthfully, he knew next to nothing about her?
She could have wondered and cried longer, but an answer lurched forward into her consciousness. A proper answer, she agreed. A solid No. We're not going to sit here and cry about this. An answer that deserved a proper voice. "I'm not… I won't let this happen to him," she growled. She peeled her hands away from her wet eyes. "Not without him knowing me."
Rasmodius raised a bemused brow, and with a smirk, waved his hand again. Sebastian disappeared in the same cloud of light, as Kutone stood up. "The question then, is a matter of your will." With a flourish of his cloak, the wizard stalked away from the whirling void in the sky, Kutone behind him. "The heart is a labyrinth, my friend," he mused. "And the spirits, in their budding hostility, have dragged you very far from the center of this labyrinth."
Dragged away—that door, Kutone conceded. That door to the basement, with the light pouring from underneath. "I have to find it again," she said, "to get out of here."
"Precisely. There should be a door, or a bridge—something to help you cross over from here and back to yourself. Find it, and remember you don't have long."
Rasmodius pointed up toward the sky, where, muffled voices filtered through.
Holy shit, Kutone—Kutone! Sam, Abigail, she's here! I can see her!
Fucking—thank Yoba—but how're we gonna get to her? We gotta get her out!
Alex, you can throw us over this hedge, can't you?
I'm always up for a challenge, but how would you get back?
Abby—holy shit, Abby—she's not moving. I can see her through this hole, and I repeat, she's not moving.
Alright. Alright, don't panic—what do we do?
Harvey's in the labyrinth somewhere. Someone go get him—I'll try to rip through this hedge.
I'll—I got that. I'll go get the Doc—Abby, stay here with Alex! I'll be back!
Kutone! Kutone, we're getting help for you! Hang in there!
"Spirits' Eve has ended," said the wizard, "and my ward on the hedges have thus expired. Your body is safe where it belongs, but should your spirit remain trapped here…"
"The Void eats me up," Kutone replied. "I think I understand now."
"And eventually, your Sebastian will find you in your deep sleep. It cannot be avoided. Should his hope diminish before you find the center of this labyrinth—well, you've observed his current state."
"Yeah. Pretty simple." She started on a brisk walk, passing Rasmodius as she pressed her free hand against her side again. "Thanks for the lectures. I'll see you on the other side?"
The wizard tipped his brim over his eyes. "If your will guides you correctly."