What follows is submitted as is without explanation beyond the circumstances of its discovery, as no further explanation is available. These notes were found in the bottom of an unexpectedly empty grave that was excavated last year as part of a project to transfer all remains from a 17th century cemetery to a new location to make way for a new interstate project. There was no grave marker, but original plot maps showed a burial at the location, and digging did unearth a well-made coffin that would have been expensive at the time of its creation. The identity of the interred, where the remnants of the corpse or cremains went, and who actually authored the pages left behind in the surprisingly intact and clean coffin are all a mystery.
Fire burns. It peels away the flesh as it licks, licks, licks with a rough tongue that always takes takes takes. I feel myself crying, but I know my tears are rising, steaming into the air, dancing with the wind as they are carried away from me. Tears and ashes, fluttering in my vision as my eyes go black with the smoke.
I hear someone singing to me.
“Who are you talking to, honey?”
I look up at my mother’s weathered face, her kind eyes concerned, her austere mouth turned downward. Swallowing, I bleat a lie, holding my breath as she regards me quietly, almost tenderly. She knows I have a secret, but says nothing for now, trusting that time and love will bring out the truth eventually.
That trust is reasonable, and as I stare into her quiet gaze, I almost speak the truth. Then [DELETED] speaks to me in that sly, whispery way it has, knowing only I can hear it, reminding me of how special I am. It is a worm in my heart, but it is my worm, it is my heart. It is my secret.
I lower my eyes.
People are getting sick. I hear more and more stories of businesses closing due to illness, and the streets grow grey and empty as summer fades away. [DELETED] tells me not to worry. I won’t get sick. I won’t die.
It has so much to teach me, it says. It can teach me to never get sick or age or hurt. It can help me live…not forever, because [DELETED] says there’s no such thing, but for a long, long time. Centuries.
More.
I think I saw a dead man in an alleyway today. He seemed familiar.
I shudder from the cold when I awake. The coldness of the dew-laden ground beneath me, and the coldness of the stars that fill the sky above. The chill of the hour has settled into my bones, and I wince at every movement as I sit up and look around.
Thirty head of cattle roamed this two-acre pasture, grazing absently during the day and sleeping close together at night. Now they lay around me, their eyes black with blood and their oddly delicate mouths still cradling the foam and bile that frothed from the animals moments ago. Even in death they look terrified.
[DELETED] tells me that this is a start. A good start. There is power in blood, and even more in fear.
I see a calf still thrashing in the dirt, and I move to help it. But [DELETED] reminds me of the strides I have made. It would be a shame to lose such progress, particularly when killing this animal would be a mercy.
I step on the calf until it finally lay still and silent.
Tying knots, tying knots, back and forth the weaves go, wrapping the strands of the lock of hair around the bone until it is hard to say where one ends and the other begins. I could have used a snake’s skull to poison her or a bird’s ribcage to make her drown. But I don’t care about killing her.
She made fun of me in front of the other girls. She thinks she is better than me—better than everyone. I don’t care about death.
I care about pain.
My mother slapped me when she found the bone. She told me how dangerous such things are, as though I was still a child. Then she noticed the color of the hair. She began screaming at me, asking if I knew anything about what had happened to my classmate. If I knew why she had been screaming and thrashing about like a lunatic for the last two days. She asked if I did anything to the girl.
I just smiled and said nothing. [DELETED] laughed and laughed and laughed.
The air burns in my lungs, and I struggle to keep steady. It is so hard, so desperate, to think even the simplest of thoughts with so much pain. I see my mother in the crowd and I have time to hate her before the song takes me away again. [DELETED] has a strong and clear voice, and while the words are strange and unknowable, I find myself comforted for a moment.
Then the singing is done, replaced by the deep and ringing laughter I have come to love so much. It lends the moment clarity. As I slump against the burning ropes that hold me, I question why things have turned out as they have. This is not the glorious future I had been promised.
Why would [DELETED] let this happen? What was the point, if it was all going to end in fire? In death?
The laughter has stopped, and I know I am truly alone for the first time in years. The flames eat me in greedy gulps now, done with the licking and on to the biting. I would scream if I could breathe. It hurts.
It hurts.
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