When the first frost crept just barely on the inside of the windowsill, the tiniest encroachment, I hoped that there was a natural cause. A physical cause: perhaps the tiniest sliver of a crack in the grout.
I allowed myself to fantasize for the briefest moment, to draw an unneeded breath, to pretend that I was mortal once again.
I knew better.
I am the Lady of Stories, and I used to manage this private campground, before it turned ancient. My once-brother manages it now. For an ancient land, it's gained a lot of modern amenities. There's running water at every campsite now, and flushing toilets within five minutes walking distance. There are even hot showers on cloudy days! Tyler has the day-to-day operations covered, and I simply offer protection.
But banishing the most malicious of the inhuman spirits does fall under protection, so, sighing, I set out to find the source of the encroaching wilderness. I stopped by each campsite along the way, and each tent had a unique story to tell. In one, dried leaves lay scattered appeared in every bed. In another, a swarm of fruit flies in the food coolers. In a third, a relentless whistle of air that seemed to have no source, no tear in the canvas for entry.
Coincidence? I've seen enough of these lands to recognize warnings when they are given.
And it was, in fact, the tents sharing their tales. The campers were cowering under beds and behind doors. Wise, I suppose, when dealing with the inhuman.
I set out into the woods, my footsteps heavier than they'd been in years. Fog and leaves tugged at my feet, and the light of my crown seemed dwarfed by shadows. I've felt smaller, dimmer as the years wore on. It's been years since I put on my mantle. Tyler must have been in his sixties. Soon he'll be passing the campground to my niece, and another couple decades after. . . had I still be human, I would have mourned.
I thought about having company. It only took a passing thought to summon these days. Beau appeared around the next turn. He'd aged as well over the years—I hadn't known inhuman things could age. As to his own sagging features and tattered hoodie, he remained indifferent. But he'd taken loving care of the skull cup, and he held it now, well-preserved, half full, and always at the ready, though he rarely offered drinks these days. I'd made clear that the campers were under my protection.
"You summoned me," he said, falling into step one small step behind me.
Predictable as ever, the one, unchanging thing in this landscape. Unlike—whatever the forest was doing.
Near the edge of the campground, we found the spirits: shadowy figures that changed shapes the longer I looked, each one a familiar, unsettling shape. Like something almost-remembered, at the edge of my mind's eye. . . .
"Reclaimers," I breathed. "From the gray world."
You see, I hadn't exactly been expecting them, but neither was I surprised to see them. As the years wore on, the campers have grown canny. Wary. Tyler has done well as manager, delivering the rules with clear, memorable precision, and the campers have steered clear of the inhuman. It's been years since a camper was lost to the musicians. But it has also been years since a camper spoke to me.
And now my watchful rule was dwindling, and the Reclaimers had come to collect the forgotten things.
Me.
As one, the shadows converged on me. Even inhuman, I'm still not ready to die—to vanish—to go quietly into the gentle gray world. I still carried my knife, crafted of my great-aunt's bones, and I slashed at the shadows, catching on in the middle and tearing it from navel up through its blurred head. It split cleanly in the middle, and though it was vaguely human-shaped, it had no muscle and bone within. Brilliantly-vivid shapes poured from its insides: a pan of cornbread (doubtless a family recipe being forgotten), a short dictionary of words just on the tip of the tongue (never to be recalled), a winged cat in a garish pink (a child's imaginary playmate). Voices and faces of forgotten friends and family. Each thing an echo of a story, lost and gathered.
There were too many for me to fight. Even as I slashed a second shadow to pieces, they were swarming up my arms and legs, unraveling my skin into strands and drawing them into themselves. Then, darkness and a familiar relief as the shadows clinging to me exploded one after the other. Through their masses, I could make out Beau's figure, tossing blood from his cup to his left, eviscerating shadows with a flick of his wrist to his right. It was a few seconds more before the Reclaimers could overwhelm him through sheer numbers—enough precious time for me to pull the golden strands of myself back into my body, and freeze the throng with a scream.
"Enough!" I roared into the crowd. "He is not forgotten—I am not yet forgotten! You will get yours in due time. Now go!"
I swooped into the throng and got Beau's arm around my shoulders, and when we fled, the Reclaimers didn't try to follow. We didn't stop until we were back at the cabin, collapsed panting against the back wall. At this proximity to humans, with the density of human memory thick it the air, it's harder for the Reclaimers to penetrate. And the cabin itself? That's where Tyler lived, the last human who remembered, truly remembered our family. My legacy.
Beau's hoodie bore new gashes on the sleeves, his skin marked beneath the torn fabric. "I'm not much of a cupbearer anymore, am I," he wheezed, humorlessly. His eyes were dark and serious, and just a touch sad.
I turned to look at him properly. It has been many years—decades—since I changed him. Since I last fought him and feared him. And he looked at me with deference, and he remembered Kate, whom he'd chosen with all her human frailties and passions, and he missed her.
Or perhaps he missed being a partner, being needed, the relief and the delight that would flicker in Kate's eyes before she shoved it away. Perhaps he missed eyes that turned to him with human emotion, and a face that beamed or scowled at him with more than the flat indifference of the inhuman. Perhaps he missed being more than a familiar, comfortable shadow.
"Beau," I said. "I would have been long dead without you, rotten and dissolved in my mother's grave, and the land long cleared of the humans that fascinated you so. And now. . . now I need you to remember me. And to do that, I need the campers to remember you."
His eyes widened, understanding my meaning immediately. "You mean that?" he asked, a smile stealing over his lips.
"I do," I confirmed. "I want you to offer the campers drinks again, and to curse them should they refuse. Not enough to kill, but enough for them to revere you and dwell upon your eldritch existence."
"And they will go to you for answers and protection," Beau continued.
I nodded. "I've been remiss in my rule, haven't I? I haven't made room for my inhuman creatures who share this land. I can't be benevolent without balance, and to that end, I will always need you. And. . . ."
He waited. "And?"
"I've considered, and now I will permit it. You may rip the blood out of people who double-park."
He grinned then, and took my hand, still imperturbable, but as light as I'd ever seen him. "I see," he said evenly. "I will be eldritch, as you say, and make the world remember you. Kate."
All these years later, he always did call me Kate. It's a tether to the human world for the two of us, inhuman things with human names. Perhaps it goes both ways.
Once, he was my window to the realms of monsters and beasts. Now, he is my bridge to the human.
