“So, how does this work?” I asked Yorick. “What do I do?”
He shrugged.
“I have absolutely no idea. How do YOU think it works?”
The long pause was broken by Jeff.
“You may want to add a little more detail there, buddy. Not a lot to go on.”
Yorick nodded slowly, crouched, and picked up a handful of dirt.
“In my time,” He began, sketching the same map of the boneyard he’d used earlier into the loose soil by the grave. “Magic was all about sympathy and similarities and contagion. Things that look alike are connected, things that were connected maintain a connection, that kind of thing.”
He sprinkled the dirt and we watched it slowly drift into a few clumps, just as it had outside James’ crypt.
“And I’m a skeleton, with a clear graveyard theme, so it seems to me that some kind of affinity with graves should exist, and that there should be a certain slow and measured quality to what I do. It fits the mythology of the thing.”
He looked up from his crouch.
“So what’s the mythological or legendary basis of Zombies, or Carribbean Pirates, or this Music Video you’re thinking of?”
This time it was Archie who broke the long silence.
“Yorick, that was without a doubt the most long-winded and unhelpful explanation of this place I’ve ever heard.” He gestured at the blank look on my face, then pointed at Jeff. “You want to maybe give your version?”
Jeff buried his face in his hands and groaned, then started digging into his pockets.
“For. Fucks. Sake.” He grated out through clenched teeth, digging up to the shoulder in a pocket clearly too shallow and narrow to fit his entire arm. “I know this is a disruption, and we’re all on edge, but … not cool, OK?”
In rapid succession he hauled out a series of small packages and tossed them to Archie.
“I’m going to assume that you’re just hangry or something, so go make us a batch of s’mores or something?” He raised a hand as Archie started to object. “You’re not entirely wrong, but you’re not helping right now.”
As Archie stalked away, Jeff turned back to me.
“He’s not normally this much of a dick.” He glanced down at Yorick. “And I thought that was a pretty good explanation; Bit too technical for a new arrival though?”
Yorick patted his little dirt map flat and stood up, somehow blowing the dust from his hands.
“I simplified it as much as I could, but …” Yorick shrugged and raised his hands helplessly. “Sympathetic magic doesn’t seem like it’s studied anymore? Not that it was widely studied in my time, to be fair.”
Anj, Jeff, and I all shook our heads.
“Noooo.” Anj replied. “Not beyond Harry Potter, I think.”
Yorick seemed like he wanted to ask, but shook his head and gestured to Jeff.
“Do you want to try?”
“It’s simple.” Jeff said. “This is a Saturday Morning Cartoon Halloween Special.”
Yorick stared at him, slumped, shook his head, and headed off to where Archie was setting up a fire in a small pot on a stand.
“The skeleton can eat a sandwich, even though he has no organs, because he wants to.” Jeff continued. “The zombie with his mouth sewn closed can still talk, or eat a snack, because he wants to, and maybe because he didn’t know his mouth was sewn shut because nobody showed him a mirror.”
He gestured at the smoothed-over patch of dirt where Yorick’s map had been.
“Yorick’s thing with the dust works because that’s how he, and we, think it works. Or at least we don’t think it shouldn’t work that way. This is the Halloween episode of that TV show where the guy claiming to be a vampire doesn’t have a reflection in the background of the last scene; It’s all about the story. It doesn’t have to make total sense, it just needs to make enough sense.”
Jeff stepped onto the Spicy King gravestone and gestured around at the boneyard.
“Figure out something that makes some kind of sense to you, and fits the Halloween theme, and it’ll probably work.” He dropped to a crouch and looked between Anj and I. “So, what seems like it might work?”
I looked at the pile of dirt, and the casket, and the gravestone, trying to think about TV shows and movies and music videos.
“No pressure quite like ‘all up to you’, is there?” Archie leaned in with a handful of snacks. “Here, have something sugary and sticky; Maybe it’ll help.”
Shoving the s’more in my mouth, I picked up a handful of grave dirt.
“OK, let’s try something.” I mumbled through a mouthful of chocolate. “Got some grave dirt because we’re looking for graves.”
I pulled at the stitches on my mouth, then gestured around at the group.
“Can someone untie or cut one of these? I figure that if I’m linked to the others somehow, then something from me should be in there? Maybe?”
Yorick pulled a full-sized scythe from under his robe, spun it once, and tucked it away again. He reached out and delicately pulled a strand of cord, with the knot still attached, out of my face while I tried not to squirm at how odd it felt.
Anj stared at me in horrified fascination.
“That was bizarre.” She said, then pointed at my face. ” But the fact that it’s regrowing kind of trumps it?”
I took the cord and stirred it into my handful of dirt, trying to ignore the crawling sensation on my lips as I watched the cut-off piece of stitching dissolve into the soil. The pile of dirt sat there, not doing anything particularly magical.
“I’ll be honest.” Said Jeff. “I was expecting something more impressive than a handful of dirt. And maybe more colourful?”
“Yeah, me too.” I agreed, looking around. “But I can’t think of anything related that’s colourful.”
Archie did a thoughtful chin-stroking gesture with three legs simultaneously as he looked around.
“There’s not a lot in the way of colourful plants in this part of the boneyard,” He complained. “It’s all greys and browns.”
“The crypt where we found James the Morlock was all white marble,” Offered Jeff. “But that monument had ivy all over it?”
Anj cleared her throat and held up a skeletal index finger.
“Ivy like this?” She enquired, showing off the painted plants and flowers decorating her bones, then extended her hand to just above the dirt pile and looked at Jeff. “You’ve got claws; Could you have a crack at scraping some of this paint off?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We all watched as a few tiny flakes of red paint drifted slowly down, sparkling slightly as they tumbled, and settled onto the handful of dirt. I gave it an experimental stir, then jerked my finger away as the whole pile turned a deep red colour.
“This seems … encouraging?” I asked, looking between Yorick and Jeff.
“What happens now?” Yorick asked. “Any ideas?”
I shrugged, then leaned in towards the handful of red dirt, trying to somehow make eye contact with a thing without eyes.
“I’m looking for things like you.” I told it. “Graves, with people in them, somehow connected to me; Can you find those for me?”
Maybe the mouth-stiches didn’t quite close properly, but a tiny puff of breath stirred the pile, and a handful of streams of fine dust drifted lazily away. One headed towards the Mansion, another drifted towards the hall of vaults, and another splattered straight into Anj. Looking around, we could see faint red marks in all directions.
“Perhaps it got confused?” Suggested Yorick. “Seems like it went everywhere.”
Archie had been perched on top of a tall grave marker, watching from above, and stretched as tall as he could, looking around.
“Maybe not.” He suggested. “From up here, it looks a bit different.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We all balanced precariously on the tallest gravestone, steadied by Archie, looking down at the grave of the Spicy King. I’d wrapped the red dirt in my sandwich wrapper and stuffed in the one pocket of my zombie pirate castaway trousers, to keep it safe and free up a hand.
Below us, faintly sparkling red lines radiated out from the gravesite, terminating where they hit obstacles.
“So it worked,” Anj suggested. “But it can’t go around obstacles?”
“Seems like it.” Said Archie. “I’d kind of expected it to shoot off & mark all the sites, not lay a trail, but we could work with this if it can clear the terrain somehow.”
“Seems like we just need to get higher.” Yorick suggested, pointing towards the Mansion. “Top of the Mansion, perhaps?”
Jeff gave a deep chuckle, and indicated that he was climbing down, so we spent a few minutes getting back to ground level.
“You’re thinking too small.” He grinned and pointed up. “And it’s the perfect night for it; Crescent moon and everything. This’ll be awesome!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“So, how does this work?” I asked Yorick. “What do I do?” He shrugged. “I have absolutely no idea. How do YOU think it works?” The long pause was broken by Jeff. “You may want to add a little more detail there, buddy. Not a lot to go on.” Yorick nodded slowly, crouched, and picked up a handful of dirt. “In my time,” He\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[7],"tags":[],"fcn_genre":[],"fcn_fandom":[],"fcn_character":[],"fcn_content_warning":[],"class_list":["post-91","fcn_chapter","type-fcn_chapter","status-publish","hentry","category-halloween-isekai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoarde.net\/scribblings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fcn_chapter\/91","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoarde.net\/scribblings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fcn_chapter"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoarde.net\/scribblings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/fcn_chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoarde.net\/scribblings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoarde.net\/scribblings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoarde.net\/scribblings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fcn_chapter\/91\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoarde.net\/scribblings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fcn_chapter\/91\/revisions\/92"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoarde.net\/scribblings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoarde.net\/scribblings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoarde.net\/scribblings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91"},{"taxonomy":"fcn_genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoarde.net\/scribblings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fcn_genre?post=91"},{"taxonomy":"fcn_fandom","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoarde.net\/scribblings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fcn_fandom?post=91"},{"taxonomy":"fcn_character","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoarde.net\/scribblings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fcn_character?post=91"},{"taxonomy":"fcn_content_warning","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoarde.net\/scribblings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fcn_content_warning?post=91"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}