Wraithman

She only traveled at night when the oil lamps opened pockets of gold along the village street. Jill felt safer when she walked in the light. She was ten years old but was usually mistaken for eight. The thin girl watched the rain polish dull slate roofs to obsidian. Her father had been sick for months and St. Paul nurses visited round the clock. Jill shopped while the sisters attended Vespers. Her father was fed, but the nuns didn’t notice if Jill had a hot meal, or had gone to school. Jill tried to ignore her damp stockings while she stood in line to pay for her bread and listened to the grown up ladies who pointed to the cloaked man outside. Jill only caught a few words.

“…been old since I was born.”

“…lives alone.”

Morlux walked into the shoppe later than most. The roaring fireplace begged him to remove his hood as the other patrons did, but Morlux only walked to the counter and slid a piece of paper to the merchant. The wraithman traveled down the mountain only when he needed everything on his list. Lucky for Morlux it had been a dry season. His boots and cart wheels lasted an extra month. The shopkeeper turned to pick up a stack of baskets, shouted a name, and walked through a curtained doorway. He returned empty handed, but said the boy would fill Morlux’s order and pack the cart, then the merchant requested payment. He took care of his regular customer without looking up.

Jill watched the cloaked man as his hands sacrificed their anonymity for a coin purse. The old man’s complexion reminded her of the hot milk her father served after dinner with a sprinkle of nutmeg. The happy memory faded and Jill wondered if the hump on the stranger’s back grew overtime, or if he was born with one. Her young imagination conjured up a baby with a hump. The idea made Jill sad.

On his way out, the stranger’s cloak grazed Jill’s arm and she noticed that he paused for a flicker of time. Jill could only see his hands. Their paleness was impressive against the cocoon of black wool. Jill wondered if the shop was quiet because everyone was afraid, or if they wanted to see his face too. The man continued toward the exit. Jill thought he moved like an angel. After the shoppe’s door closed behind the cloaked man, the shop ladies started pecking.

“The ungrateful man should show his face at church on Sundays,” the tallest woman turned to the floor and spoke aloud.

“He makes everyone nervous coming down here once a month,” a chubby lady said.

“I’m glad he lives up the mountain,” a third woman felt.

The tall woman left her corner of the store and the other ladies followed. They grumbled to the shop owner about the strange man, asked her to refuse him service. Jill’s father always warned her about the shop ladies, and their stories. The merchant listened but argued that he always paid up front.

“You care more about your accounts than your reputation?” The tallest woman spoke up again.

Jill stood at the exit and rested her fingers on the brass handle. She strained to see the man’s face and watched as he secured his baskets to the cart. After the boy came out with the last sack of grain, the old man placed a few coins in the boy’s hand, who quivered, dropped the stranger’s list, and ran away. The old man filled his lungs with air and exhaled before he bent over to retrieve the list. Jill wished the boy had dropped his money.

“Charles came very near to touching the monster’s hand!”

“He never uses credit,” said the shop owner before returning to her task.

Jill saw the tall lady cast a sideways glance at her, and whisper to the other ladies.

“Remember Mi…not sick a day in his life… "

“I do…stranger helped him…died the next day”

Finally, Jill saw the cloaked man walk through an oil lamp’s halo. She turned the squeaky handle and the stranger looked up. A shroud of black surrounded the old man’s head and cast a shadow over his face, but Jill caught a glimpse of his frown.

“Ellen,” the tall woman spoke aloud to the merchant. “I’m going to ask the constable to introduce himself to the mountain man. For all we know, he’s wanted.”

The little girl’s expression stayed with Morlux as he walked down the road. Grateful the rain stopped, and only after the village shrank behind him, Morlux removed his hood. It was cloudy and darker than most evenings. A rare opportunity for the wraithman to relax. He lost energy twice as fast in full sunlight. Morlux was only half human and even people are sensitive to the sun’s power.

The wraithman dreaded trips into town. He was usually too drained to make it home with a full cart, and would camp half way up the mountain. Entering the shop was always painful. He couldn’t avoid the older women that pretended to browse but spent hours in a flurry of gossip. Each one had a terminal condition and Morlux bore their pain. There was an extra person this trip. The merchant’s boy was almost twenty, but Morlux felt the impending aneurysm the boy was unaware of. The wraithman’s house was built against the mountain under a curtain of pine trees. He longed for its respite shelter.

Jill followed the lonely man half way up the mountain and was relieved when he stopped to eat and drink. She huddled in a hollowed out tree trunk and listened as the man settled down. Soon a warm fragrant breeze traveled through her stump. It took patience to move around without making a scene, but she finally adjusted her position to look at the camp. The old man sat cutting pumpkin into a pot. Another breeze flew by, but it came down the mountain and carried a chill. Jill’s grey cloak was too small. Her mother made it days before she died. The young girl nibbled on bread and cheese and thought of her sick father.

Morlux shoveled squash and bacon stew in his mouth and sighed as the food warmed his insides. It was a still night, after a day of rain. Morlux wrapped his thin body in his heavy cloak and leaned against a tree trunk. His eyes were heavy and rocked themselves closed. The smokey air and popping wood lulled the wraithman nearly to sleep.

Her cloak didn’t suffice, and neither did her snack. Jill tip toed to the stranger’s camp to warm her legs and fill her belly. She watched the hooded man for any flutter of movement as she approached the pot, but Jill dropped the ladle. It hit the edge of the cast iron pot. The stranger sat up and his hood fell away. Jill’s eyes were offended by the glow of his skin against the surrounding darkness. Where there should have been eyes, there were two sinkholes.

Morlux wondered why the child didn’t run. Then he noticed her cloak wasn’t lined with fur, as it should be in that region, and it was too small to wrap around, or tie at the waist. Her face was red and she wiped her nose without a handkerchief. Morlux pulled his hood back up to hide his appearance.

“Are you lost?”

Jill was surprised at the smooth tone of the old man’s voice and hesitated.

“Are you hurt?”

Jill shook her head. “How did you see your way up the mountain?”

Morlux was inspired by the bold little person and answered honestly, “I see clearly.”

The wraithman asked the girl to sit on the fallen tree across from him. He portioned food and draped a blanket across the girl’s shoulders. Jill’s hands warmed under the bowl and her muscles relaxed under the warm wool.

Down in the village, the tallest shop lady was in the constable’s tiny office. She brought two witnesses with her, but the officer asked them to wait out front.

“Charles, said…” The lady waved her hands in the air. “He said the monster warned him to keep in good health…” She had to stop and catch her breath.

“Doesn’t sound like a threat, June.”

“Charles is in bed hours later. His head is on fire and his eyes can’t stand the light.”

“Did you call the doctor?”

“Remember Micha, Fred?”

The constable paid attention. Micha’s case was unsolved. “Coroner said the symptoms were in line with poisoning.”

“That’s right and that stranger, it helped Micha fix the wheel on his cart hours before he got sick.”

“Heard the mountain man paid for the new rubber.”

“Evil doesn’t make sense.”

“Alright, June,” Constable Fred stood up. “I’ll find the old man.”

Jill and Morlux had finished their supper and gazed at the fire. The wraithman accepted that the girl would have questions, and wanted to keep fear from controlling her imagination.

“I am Morlux. I have lived on the mountain for hundreds of years. I help people cross the bridge from life, to the afterlife.”

“So, there is a Heaven.” Jill smiled for her father.

“This is a physical world. People like you, the living. You see my physical body, but those close to death, they will see my spirit. I live in both realms at once.”

“My father is dying.”

Morlux knew him, but chose to listen.

“He is in more pain today than any other day but God says we cannot take a life.”

“No one,” Morlux interrupted. “Can take a life.”

“Will you help my father?”

“If he is close,” Morlux looked at the sky. “But night is a dangerous time for a young girl to travel.”

“I heard the sisters call for last rites.”

Jill rested her head against the log and closed her eyes. Morlux was relieved the girl couldn’t persist. He hung his cloak on a tree branch for the crisp night air to wash away dust and scent. Morlux didn’t need sleep but required rest after his exposure to the village.

Jill could only think of her father and sleep never came. The stranger’s cloak swung in the breeze. Jill believed if she wore it, she would make it home safely. Jill wanted to sleep near her father. The monster man wanted to rest. Jill felt alone, and while pulling at Morlux’s cloak, thought she better get accustomed to it. The tree branch snapped off and Jill ran away as she juggled the massive cloak.

Having lived alone for centuries, Morlux took several minutes to realize Jill was missing. The wraithman didn’t require sleep but he did submit to comfort. The warmth of the fire, cricket songs, and the rustling of leaves lulled Morlux into a meditative state. The crack of a tree branch was ordinary and the wraithman wasn’t disturbed. Until, he turned over and saw his cloak was gone.

Morlux stood over six feet tall. His skin glowed against the black sky. He looked down the mountain expecting to see Jill’s innocent soul. Morlux called her name but only an owl answered the wraithman. Morlux looked at the moon’s position and calculated the hours before sunrise.

Jill hadn’t considered that she would carry two extra feet of wool in her arms and she was too overheated to wear the hood. Jill tripped and was trying to stand up when she heard Morlux’s smooth voice.

“It isn’t safe for you to travel alone.” Morlux gently took his cloak, draped it over his shoulders, and fastened each clip before he scooped the exhausted girl up.

Morlux felt the girl’s pain, but she wasn’t dying. It was a different pain. Soon, he remembered a little girl who also had pain like Jill’s. Someone he helped years ago. The wraithman felt energized at the thought of helping Jill and flew with her behind village buildings and into her father’s window. Jill wrapped her arms around her father’s neck, and he groaned. His face was grey and wet.

“He is very close,” Morlux felt the man’s pulsing pain. Most death is slow. It will creep and gnaw at its host until exhaustion outweighs life’s meaning. The wraithman stared into the dying man’s eyes and spoke to him with thoughts. Jill’s father begged for relief and Morlux felt enough to guide him over.

“He’s smiling,” said Jill with tears down her face. Her father looked young and healthy again. He thanked Morlux, but the wraithman motioned for Jill. They hugged once more before her father closed his eyes and pulled the blanket up to his chin.

The door opened and a Sister shouted, “Come away from the evil spirit! ”

“He’s an angel,” Jill started to explain but the Sister pulled the skinny girl through the door and slammed it shut.

Just as swiftly, Fred forced himself into the room as Jill’s father passed away. Morlux kept his head bowed but stood tall with his shoulders back. His strength restored was the bittersweet wage as an escort of death. Morlux lifted the officer three feet from the ground with grace. Then the wraithman held the officer straight like a board and without effort pushed him out the window. Not a soul but Morlux’s was in the room, and heard a faint cry through the walls.

Jill was dragged down two flights of stairs, across the yard, and locked in the dirt cellar that smelled of soil and the sweet odor of decay. Two bugs tried to explore her hair but she shook them out. Jill found out about her father’s passing right before she was trapped under the building. Jill believed Morlux would find her. Unless, the angel was hurt. Jill felt a lump in her throat but she didn’t want the wraithman to feel her pain. She sat on the cold dirt, hugged her legs, and tried not to move.

Morlux saw a crowd of people walking up the road. He had no time to search for a key, and tried to force the cellar doors open, but a Sister hit him over the head with a shovel. It didn’t hurt but it was a distraction.

Morlux felt an oily finger touch his ear. He pushed a different sister away. The old woman dropped a lamp. It smashed on the stone path. Flames lapped up the spilled oil that spread toward the house where it jumped into the nurturing arms of wisteria, across the grass, and grew into to a wave of fire up the pine walls.

The ladies of the church ran outside and yelled a warning to the impending mob. At the head of the crowd was the constable, Fred. His face and ego bruised, Fred put up his arms and the villagers stopped moving. The house was intact when the sisters turned their back on Jill, but when they reached the top, it was a burning bush.

Morlux did not abandon Jill. The angel of death pried the basement iron lock with his hands and carried Jill to safety before the first floor crumbled and brought the second along with it. The sky was orange from the sun’s fire and Morlux felt the strain of his exposure. He headed for the mountain.

Morlux looked at the scene below once more and saw a gawking crowd flanked by two crows that abandoned their offspring. The wraithman pulled his hood up to guard against the light, wrapped Jill in a blanket from a clothesline and marched up the mountain.

A few weeks went by, but Morlux couldn’t bring himself to release the young girl to the village. He thought about flying her to a school for children. Where Jill would experience the better side of humanity. He hated to think of her tainted to live with more suffering than she deserved. Jill was forced through the mold of humility much younger than any human should. Morlux had memories of hundreds of friends, but Jill reminded Morlux of one very special orphan girl from the previous town he was assigned to. That girl didn’t have a father or mother. The wraithman feared Jill would be harder to watch suffer. Morlux knew that soon, for her happiness, he had to give Jill up to the world.

Morlux’s home was a simple log cabin with one bookshelf. Jill wasn’t interested in world history. Dust flew from the pages of the novels that she found. Morlux wasn’t good company for a small girl, he only observed humans from afar. His life was meant to help people leave this life. Morlux wasn’t any fun.

Jill smiled when Morlux told her about the warm island with dancing trees and the colorful school uniform dresses. The mistress grew up without parents and lived on the streets but grew up to open a safe place for little girls without parents, to make friends and learn. Morlux said Jill would read and write but also learn to paint or sing. Then in his most gentle tone, Morlux told Jill it was a place where people went to adopt children.

“Can we visit first?” Jill knew Morlux would let her live with him forever.

“My friend has a special talent for selecting the best parents for happy children.” Morlux encouraged Jill, ignoring his jealousy.

And so, they visited. The angel of death left his post to fly Jill across the ocean. The head mistress spoke with a soft voice too and served tea with jam sandwiches. The other girls smiled and waved as Jill walked the grounds. Morlux met Jill in her dorm and when the cover of night came over their heads, Jill walked outside barefoot with her wraithman friend to watch as he flew across the ocean, back to his mountain home.