Weeping Willow

Content Warning: Mentions of violence and child death.

The Soul Walkers were for the desperate and the angry, and Ret wasn’t desperate. She had been, once, but time had twisted that out of her like the snake suffocated the mouse. It was strange how grief curdled into rage.

It was stranger, perhaps, how close she had come to what she wanted. What she needed. Months she had spent tracking a Soul Walker, trekking through forests so dense she couldn’t see the sun and sleeping on stones that jabbed deep into her spine, and she had finally done it.

The Soul Walker stood before her, merely smoke in the shape of promise. It smiled with its non-existent mouth and Ret drew her dagger as if that might do something against it.

“Mortals don’t normally bother coming thisss deep into the forest,” the Soul Walker rasped. Its words weren’t English; they were hardly more than a gurgle but somehow Ret knew exactly what it meant. “Fewer ssstill come to find me.”

“I… I need your help,” she whispered, fingers clenched so hard around the dagger her hand trembled. “I need-”

“I know what you need, child.” Its wisps circled her, dark and shifting and searing. It knew what was in her head - she could feel it scratching at her skull - but it didn’t scare her. She felt like maybe it had always been inside her head, making space for itself. “I can help, Ret. I can make everything happen for you.”

Ret nodded, eyes suddenly watery with an emotion that felt dangerously close to relief. “Please,” she whispered. “I’ll do anything.”

“Do you know what you’re asssking?”

Ret nodded. She knew. Soul Walkers held enough power to crack open the world and drink it dry but they were spirits of decay and decimation, and they did not work for free.

The Soul Walker brushed against the skin of her wrist and she jumped. It was cold. Something seemed to seep under her skin, into her muscles, and she gasped as the chill settled in her bones.

“Let usss begin.”

*

It was six months later when Ret found herself at the Evergreen Tavern. Little more than a scrappy hut on the side of a mountain, its clientele was almost exclusively those running. The only reason to risk crossing the range instead of taking the safe, scenic route was speed. Ret wasn’t running away, though; she was running towards, and the finish line was in sight.

The tavern was warm as she stepped inside, sweat pricking under her leather armour. The smell of fresh bread and sweat mingled in the air like an unharmonious assault. Before, she might have gagged at the stink, might have forced air through her mouth to avoid her nose. Her eyes might have watered. Not anymore.

The Soul Walker had taken care of that.

A man sat at the drink-stained bar, one hand curled around a mug of mead and the other clenched into a fist on the counter. She could smell him from here, his damp odour overpowering any other scent in the tavern. Repulsive. But the glint of his snake-head dagger drew her closer, teeth gritted. She had found him. The last one.

Sliding onto the stool beside him, she made herself smile. The barman pushed a mead towards her, uninterested as he returned to other customers. The man made no attempt to look up, a fact that made her lips flicker in distaste before she schooled them.

“How about a toast?” she said, offering up her glass. She could feel the familiar dark satisfaction curl under her skin as his eyes finally found her.

“Toast to what?” he grumbled.

“To adventure, perhaps? Isn’t that what we’re all here?” She had expected him to agree, knock his glass against hers, perhaps even brag about his great escape from wherever he was running from. He did none. Instead, he almost withdrew into himself, head dropping down to stare at the wooden bar.

“Nah, not me,” he mumbled. “I’m done with adventure. I’ve had… I’ve had enough.”

Curious, Ret thought, but it didn’t dissuade her. “Perhaps,” she started, voice carefully light, “we should toast to something else, then. My sister, let’s toast to her.” When the man didn’t look up from his drink, Ret nudged him and put on a smile. “She’s eight, you know, and the sweetest thing I’ve ever met. They’re the closest we’ve got to angels – children, I mean. They’ll inherit the earth one day.”

He glanced up, eyes wary, but tapped his mug against hers and took a swig. If Ret hadn’t been a better actress, she might have snarled at him. The desire to sink her teeth into his cheek and watch him scream was so powerful it almost ripped through her. Her fingers spasmed around her mug.

“What’s her name?”

The question startled her. In all the months she’d been doing this, not once had she been asked that. Not once had she said her name out loud. “Willow,” she said, eyes looking somewhere far away.

Something twisted under her skin, not quite her and yet not entirely other, a harsh reminder that she had a job. One step closer to peace.

“What are you doing up here?” she asked, quick to get back on track. After so many times, she should’ve had it down to a script by now, but somewhere in the back of her head she knew this was the last one.

This was the end.

The man eyed her like he wasn’t sure what she wanted from him. He seemed to realise quite quickly that it didn’t matter. This place was for runaways and rotting. He probably thought she couldn’t hurt him, and once, he would’ve been right.

“Getting away, I guess. Needed a change of scenery. A fresh start.”

Ret felt an acidic laugh rise in her throat, bitten back by teeth not under her control. A fresh start. How quaint. She wondered if he woke up with images of blood scraping at his eyelids, too.

“What are you running from?” Her voice came out too harsh, too biting. He rose with a frown, sensing the challenge before she forced a grin and shook her head playfully. “Not an old flame, I hope.”

His eyes studied her, uncertain, but his body settled and she knew she’d clawed it back. Just.

The shadows under her skin stung. A reminder she wasn’t the only one invested here.

“No,” he muttered. “No, not that.”

She didn’t think he was going to answer, but he swallowed thickly and said, “Guess I’m running from the things I did, y’know? The things I don’t want to be anymore.”

They lapsed into silence. Ret usually enjoyed the trap, the manoeuvring to get them where she wanted them, but tonight it felt bitter on her tongue. The word ‘final’ kept turning in her head like the spinning top Willow used to play with: round and round and round.

“What about you?”

The man’s question cut through her fog, making her eyes rise. He looked younger now she was seeing him properly. She felt her fingers clench and release around her mug.

“I’m not running. I’m keeping my side of a deal,” she replied, voice catching despite her attempt to spin it into a lighthearted laugh. “It’s been a long road. Very long. But it’s almost over, I think. Yes, tonight it will be over.”

His eyes watched her. She suddenly worried he could see it, the thing inside her, but that was impossible. He was just a man. And soon he would be dead.

“What are you going to do when you’re done?” he asked and she felt like hissing at him to shut up, to stop surprising her. Every man she’d tracked had done the same thing. They’d flirted, smirked, wrapped their fat fingers around her arm and squeezed like they owned her. They’d all been what she expected and their deaths had felt like victory.

His question was irritating. She wouldn’t answer it truthfully, she decided, and then the truth came out anyway.

“Nothing. It’s not that kind of deal. The ‘after’ is simply the end.”

When he looked at her like she was crazy, she found herself smiling ruefully and realised it was the one smile she hadn’t forced that night. “You ever heard of a Soul Walker?”

The man raised an eyebrow, nodding hesitantly. He was still leaning away from her like she might sprout fangs, but he hadn’t left. He hadn’t put the pieces together yet, and that almost made her pity him.

“Good. So, you know when someone makes a deal with a Soul Walker, it’s like a contract. An exchange, of sorts. I asked the Soul Walker to help me, and it gave me power. Real power so I can do what I need to do. When that’s done, it… it gets my soul.” She swallowed a gulp of mead to wet the dryness in her throat.

“What happens? When it… when it takes your soul?” the man asked, voice dropped to a whisper as if the Soul Walker might be lurking to pounce on him. Ret had to hold back the ironic smile threatening to curl her lips. If only he knew. If only he had any idea.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I’ve heard stories about people collapsing into ash or just disappearing entirely. But also tales about people walking around without any of them left inside. Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. I accepted it a long time ago.”

The man stared, eyes full of pity. She raised her chin, eyes meeting his, and felt her stomach turn. Finishing things was supposed to be easy, as easy as gravity pulling the guillotine down. Smooth, painless. It wasn’t supposed to make her insides writhe.

The Soul Walker squeezed her chest tightly and forced her to go on.

“You see, a little while ago, there was this group that came to my town. We were peaceful. Our biggest product was butter. Butter! God, Willow loved butter. Could barely pry the stuff off her, cheeky thing. Always had grease around her mouth. But we weren’t a fighting community, so when this group came with torches and swords, what were we meant to do?” Her eyes gleamed, jaw set so tight it felt like it might pop.

The man’s eyes widened, fingers pressing into the edge of the bar so hard his knuckles were white. She could sense it, the way his heart raced under his ribs. It could sense it.

“We tried to fight, really. Saints, I tried, but these men? They were ruthless. I took shelter in the cow barn, hiding under the straw in the shit. They killed the cows. Didn’t need the meat, just laughed as each one died.”

The man stumbled backwards, stool clattering to the ground as he made for the door, but Ret moved like mist, blocking his exit. The Soul Walker rippled under her skin, ready for blood. Ready to fulfil the vow.

The few other patrons let out screams, terrified watching her dissipate into smoke and reappear looking like a shadow-swamped demon. She knew what they saw. They could be scared if they wanted. She wasn’t going to hurt them.

“Do you know what I found when I went looking for my sister?” Ret hissed as she took a step closer to the man. He fell to the floor, scrambling back. His cheeks were wet.

“No, no, nonono,” he moaned but Ret wasn’t done. She wasn’t finished. One more, and she’d be free.

“Your people stabbed her.” The words felt like lead on her tongue. “And left her.”

The man shook his head violently, chest wracked with sobs. “I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I thought we were just going to mess around. Scare you lot, steal a cow. I didn’t know!”

The Soul Walker was leaking from her fingertips now, thick swaths of darkness itching to reach out and finish the deed. She could feel its impatience, its glee.

She crouched in front of the man, watching with dead eyes. Her fingers dipped to his dagger sheath, pulling the blade free to twirl contemplatively between her fingers.

“One of these was beside her when I found her,” she murmured, fingertips tracing the sharp edge of the blade. The beads of red bubbling on her fingers reminded her of the poppies Willow used to pick. It reminded her of the crimson stained floorboards she had scrubbed raw. “It’s what let me find you all. How I found you.”

“Your sister wouldn’t want this,” the man babbled, and Ret went very still. The Soul Walker sensed it and started a frenzy under her skin. It was so close to being whole again. All it needed Ret to do was finish it, take this life, but it could feel the hesitation in her, couldn’t it? It pooled in her skull like tar, demanding her forwards. But it didn’t control her, not yet.

“You don’t know what she would want,” Ret snapped back.

“You said, oh Saints, you said she was s-sweet. She loved you, didn’t she? She loved you, she loved you, so she wouldn’t want this!”

Ret leant closer, examining his tear-stained face. He was young. Saints, he was young. Had she been that young once?

“Maybe she wouldn’t,” Ret murmured. But she already knew that. She’d known that from the first moment she’d heard of Soul Walkers. She’d known that when she sealed the deal with her blood. She had known that every time another man fell screaming at her hands and not once had it stopped her.

Not once had it made her hesitate.

This time was different. She’d always had a map before, an idea of where she’d end up next, and the destination had always been the next sinner. The next shallow grave. But this one was the last. This was where the road ran out. The only thing waiting for her was the unknown.

The Soul Walker was trying to rally her, scratching and screaming for her to obey, but it stilled when she finally decided. It knew it had won.

“No, she definitely wouldn’t,” she said and found herself laughing, the sound brittle and feverish. Her veins were black under her skin. The Soul Walker had given her what she dreamt of: power. There would be no release now. “But that doesn’t matter. If I don’t kill you, I have to live with this, this thing inside me. Forever.”

She smiled at the man and suddenly felt at peace. “Don’t worry. It will all be over soon.”

“What would she say if she could see you now?” the man rasped in horror.

Ret closed her eyes and pictured her sister’s face.

“Thanks to you, I’ll never have to know.”