Chapter Three The Braggart

William was a man that no one cared to see. He was the man who always claimed that he did better than anyone else at everything. His feats were always so amazing that it was easy for those listening to hear the exaggeration. William was unaware of how the people of his town felt about him, he was too busy impressing himself that he never noticed people avoiding him or ducking out of conversations after he joined them.

One winter’s night, as a blizzard layered the world with so much snow that even the houses of the town were lost in swirling darkness everyone in the town was gathered in the pub. Everyone knows a cold night isn’t as bitter when it is shared with good company. No one was pleased when the door opened again, and in came William, the cold pushing in past him and discomforting those sitting near the door. Several villagers thought of leaving. William made it to the bar and before he could open his mouth to proclaim his latest greatest deed, the door opened again.

A stranger, wrapped in snow caked clothing came in. The stranger took a seat in the shadows, in the back corner of the room. Strangers rarely came to town and never came to town in a blizzard. This was enough to keep the villagers there.

The barmaid made her way to the stranger, avoiding William’s too friendly hands as she passed him. Ignoring his pleas for attention. In a hoarse voice the stranger said that he had been robbed on his way to the village by highwaymen in the woods. He asked to warm up at the fire before continuing on, but apologized that he would be unable to buy food or drink due to losing his coin to the thieves. Several people offered to buy his meal. The stranger politely declined. He said the debt would be too much. He said the fire as well as the company and kindness were enough.

It was then that William’s cunning mind had contrived his latest achievement. “You know, just the other day I saw two highwaymen near my land emptying stolen pouches on the ground where they thought they would not be seen. I knew them for what they were and called a challenge. I didn’t even think to arm myself. I tell you, the thieves circled me like vultures circle a rotting corpse. I killed them both with my bare hands when they attacked me with daggers. I was amazed I did not get cut in the fight. When I went to get the Sheriff, their bodies vanished, dragged off by friends I’ll wager. These must be friends of those men!” William loudly exclaimed, looking for recognition and praise. He got a room of dark looks, and head shakes. Only the stranger looked interested in the story.

“Good sir, you killed two armed villains with nothing more than your strength and bravery. Please sir, go out there and retrieve my pouch! Please kill these two! I will give you all the coin in my pouch if you do! Please!” The stranger called out from the shadows, the snow never seemed to melt from his clothing and despite his exclamations, his voice never seemed to express emotion; it was flat and dead like that of a corpse. William was the only one who had not noticed.

“I couldn’t go out into this storm. It wouldn’t be wise to go out there.” As he said this, the villagers made their decision. The stranger offered them the chance to show up their tiresome braggart.

“William, you just said you could kill two without a weapon. You have to help this man! How can you refuse to aid a man in need?”

The villagers pushed him out the door, giving him an oil lantern and a dagger. “See you’ve got light and a weapon; we know you are the strongest and finest of us all!” They closed the door and barred it behind him shouting as they did “follow the man’s footprints and you’ll find where they attacked him; don’t come back until you have his pouch!” Then they started snickering and laughing. They ordered drinks to celebrate.

William stood outside in the dark, fuming and caught by his own lies. It was freezing, the cold ripping through every opening in his clothing and pushing into his skin. The wind tried to stop his heart and steal his warmth like a pickpocket in a dark alleyway. He felt like the storm was alive, aware, and malicious. He wasn’t wrong. This blizzard going through the town was part of my skirts as I strode across the lands celebrating my season. I was searching for prey in the dark.

William was about to go home when he saw a coin glinting in a footprint leading to the pub. The footprint looked like it came from the road from the north; the road leading into the woods. It was a gold coin. Greed gripped him more tightly than honesty ever had.

William followed those footprints for a mile up the road, and didn’t hesitate when they turned into the woods. The darker it got the more coins he found. It never bothered him to consider where these coins had come from. He was too busy deciding what to buy with them. Too busy thinking how many of the people he loathed that he could look down on and lord his wealth over. No one would make fun of him again.

The moon was full, a great blind eye staring into the stark woods watching him as he wandered. Several miles out and away from any path or road, he started to question what he was doing and where he was going. Something grabbed his shoulder and the grip felt like it would rip his arm from his body.

He screamed and dropped his lantern. The glass shattered and oil soaked the ground. The fire was no use to finding where he was. He had nothing to make a hasty torch from, aside from his coat and he wasn’t going to ruin his coat for some light. He whirled to face his assailant, but it was a gnarled tree branch. The woods mocked him even more than the villagers had. The shadows grew, the snow became grey and muted sound. Clouds shaded the sky and hid the light from that pallid eye above him.

He ran towards where he thought the town was. He kept running until his face and body were ripped by the reaching claws of a hundred trees. Specks of blood made a path behind him in the snow. His fear was without reason, in his mind the trees were goblins, ogres, and trolls. His fear was so loud and bright that it shone to me like a gem on a dress catching the sun and sparkling like a star.

I watched and drank of his raw fear and hatred. He paused long enough to turn back and shout a curse at the town. “I will kill you all for shaming me, I hate you all! I will show you, I will kill you with my bare hands.” He laughed a mad laugh and ran on. Fear and rage winding together into true madness. I focused my essence into the form of a lovely, ghostly woman with skin of ice, eyes of shadow and hair of woven snow. I watched as he repeated his curse three times. If a sane mortal had looked at him in that moment or if even an angel from on high had glanced down that night both would have shuddered and withdrawn quietly from the malicious light in his eyes.

William had not seen me, I had not parted the veil hiding me from mortal sight until his words echoed in the night full of vengeance and the desire to torture and torment. Timing is important, if you eat a fruit unripe it will always be bitter. His hatred and madness ripened. He whirled like a starving animal scenting prey. I let him see me, I stayed beyond his reach and led him. I read his thoughts.

He thought I was an angel he would catch and tear apart. He saw nothing of the world around him. He did not notice that his cloak was torn to shreds. He barely felt a branch gouge his face. He wondered at the heat of his blood almost burning his skin before it froze like a mask. He thought I was his to take. He pursued, howling with frustration. Every time his hands closed on my dress and tangled in my hair; I swirled away in the snow and wind leaving his hands empty and clutching.

My laughter grated like metal being torn, louder than thunder. His vision cleared. There was a second where he could have regained control and shaken off the effects of my glamour and his rage. He chose madness instead. He chose violence. He ran at me, arms outstretched to ensnare me. My dress was luminescent in the moonlight. I looked as he’d always pictured angels would look, and on this night he wanted nothing more than to destroy one.

He ran right off the cliff. I vanished in a flurry of snow watching him fall, watching his body shatter into a gristly, black wet mess down in the shadowed ravine. I laughed. In the town, the town folk heard distant, horrible laughter. They thought it the sound of something terrible happening, they were right. There was a quiet moment at the pub, where everyone moved in closer to the fire to warm up before going home. They were glad to take their families home, stoking the fires and hoping the storm would pass. Locking their doors and barring the windows.

One would think this tale ends here, but this is where it starts. The next night, above the ravine a spectral man appeared. His face was red with rage beneath the pale gibbous moon. He was bewildered, but the angel appeared again; although no angel it was. I called my newest servant from the ground. “Three times you vowed bloodlust with intent. I accept your service. Go and draw others to the end you had. Cheat them of their lives, tease their egos, and play to their greed. Give me enough blood and despair to feast on for a thousand years and I will let your spirit rest if that is what you choose.” I kissed him once on the forehead and his eyes grew brighter. His mind was full of the thirst for destruction. He did not desire his soul to rest. He would be mine forever.

His mouth opened in the parody of a smile, he bowed low and vanished into the woods. His colors shifting, red to green; ghostly white to the promising glint of gold flashing between the dark grey trees. I laughed and wrapped my blizzard around me, as I took to the sky.

A traveler came to the place where the town once stood after many years had passed. There was no town left. Just a small broken down church and a sad old man waiting to pass on his words.

“Be careful in the woods, do not go out at night.” The old man said, sitting in front of the small church; holding a leather bound book in his hand. “These woods are haunted! There is a ghostly creature there that will turn you around with thoughts of treasure, with fear, and with magic. Before you know it, you’ll find yourself falling to your death off a cliff. When I was young; I lived in the town here.

Greed led many villagers off into the woods, although few would admit they were going before they slipped away. Every one thought they’d be the one to trick the fiend out of his gold. I doubt there was gold. I doubt there is gold. I was the only one who walked away. I am the only one from this town that I know of that didn’t go into the woods after William went out into the storm. Some people went in looking for missing family members, searching with tears and fears for those they loved. They were just as easily ensnared. Will O’ the Wisp; Will of Death; I beseech you to turn around and go away from the path you are on. Stay of this road and avoid those woods, especially at night. Only mad and senseless death await.”

“What happened to the town?” The traveler asked looking around at the field and young trees growing there. There was no sign of any buildings or roads that he could see. “It is gone, a ghost of a memory and nothing more. “For a moment his composure cracked, tears leaked from his eyes. “I had a family once, Will and his cursed Woods took them. Today I choose to join them. I could not stop them from going even though we all knew it would result in their deaths.

There were far better folks than myself that should have lived. My fate will be as theirs. My guilt and shame hasten my steps onto the trail of Will in his Woods. I will find the graves of my kin. My bones will rest stark and bare beneath the sky intermingled with those of my family. I will not be with the people I love. Please give my warning to those that follow.”

He handed the traveler his book and walked off into the reaching arms of the trees. The traveler was surprised to see that it was not a Bible in his hand but a journal cataloging the names and lives of those already lost. The only tombstone the townsfolk would ever know.