Chapter Four

“Keep it up.” Mumbled the skeleton through a mouthful of S’more. “You’re doing well. What’s around you?”
“The campfire is under a tree and surrounded by,” I looked around. “A graveyard? Kind of overgrown, and the gravestones are all at different angles. And there’s an open grave behind me.”
“What about over there?” Asked the werewolf, pointing past the tree.
“Much more manicured graveyard, with the stones in neat rows, and a bunch of little buildings scattered around. They’re all white, and there’s a bunch of … People, I guess? … Looking around in the wrong places and banging on the doors.”
“What about behind you?” Asked the scarecrow, gently turning me to look over the open grave while the werewolf made a strangled coughing noise. “What can you see there?”
“More graveyard, an iron fence that’s leaning and overgrown, then … Some kind a hedge maze that people are going through with burning torches, and a big creepy-ass house with some ghosts having a picnic on the lawn.”
“Where should the folks in the graveyard behind you be looking?” Asked the werewolf. “You’re doing great here.”
“They want one of those places where there’s lots of vaults off a hall; Like a capsule hotel for dead people.”
There was a sudden scrabbling noise, and I turned to see the werewolf running off towards the better-kept part of the graveyard, hurdling rows and waving his arms.
“Wrong vaults! Follow me!!”
My brain slowly caught up.
“How did I know that?”
“No idea.” The skeleton shrugged. “But in these multiple arrival situations there’s usually a primary, and they point us at the rest, like you just did.”
“Though in this particular case,” Continued the scarecrow, moving to the log recently vacated by the werewolf. “It’s probably complicated by there being two primaries, one with the knowledge and one with … Something else.”
I tried raising an eyebrow.
“Headcrow isn’t being intentionally vague.” Said the skeleton over the top of an outraged squeak from the scarecrow. “We don’t really know what to expect in these situations, but its sometimes a thing they can do, sometimes a thing they know, and sometimes a thing they carry. But there’s always something.”
“Can we review this ‘Headcrow’ thing?” Asked the scarecrow.
“No, it’s official; You’re Headcrow now. Jeff decided.”
“Jeff only called me that because he’s terrible with names; It doesn’t count, and I feel like giving a name suggesting leadership of crows to someone who is a Literal. Fucking. Scarecrow sends the wrong message. Or is offensive. Or something.”
The skeleton pointed at their own head, then made a surprisingly realistic crow shadow puppet in the firelight, then grinned somehow.
“I just don’t think that Jeff should get to name things.” Grumbled Headcrow.