Doom's in Bloom
It seems as though doom is in bloom this sweet spring. If one raises their head to the wind they can smell it in the air, and in the nervous sweat of the townsfolk and the wilting of the flower fields. You can see it in the graying hair of the baker’s daughter, Betty, only twenty seeming to go on fifty. But mourning ages the soul, and if the soul starts to go…well everything goes with it. And mourning is what most did in the small town of Pivot these days.
You must keep in mind that it wasn’t always like this. Pivot used to be a town of apple blooms and festivals with cobblestone streets straining to hold under the music and the dancing. People used to laugh here, they used to be so carefree. And then the first body was found. A stranger we would soon learn to be Betty’s secret lover from the town miles down. She wept for days, by his lifeless side for half of them before her mother gently took her shoulders and led her away. The town was quiet, but not changed. Not the way Betty was and certainly not the way we all would be.
The week after that, when things started to feel a little lighter, was when it really started to get bad. Three bodies were found on Saturday, the daughters of Mr.Rossin who was found dead the next week. Four more bodies and the town grew weary and dark, so depressed even the weather turned. Some swore that in the heat of storms they’d see the clouds shift and turn into a mirage of a snake running through a skull. An omen of the worst kind of evil, they called it.
But the death that changed this little town for ever, that changed everything we knew, was when we found the corpse of Little John Walters. His body floating in the air, a few feet off the ground. “Demons,” cried his mother. “Evil,” wept his father. But the real truth was one none of us really wanted to consider. Magic.
You see, our little town stands on the edge of thick woods. Trees stout and armoured or lean and reaching. Vines so dark they turned black at night and covered the entire forest in a void. Yellow-eyed creatures starting from the bushes, drooling fangs and bloodied claws. All stories every child here knows by heart because parents tell them to their children to keep them from getting lost into the forest edge. But the real beast was a creature none had ever seen and no story could capture.
A beast that lived in a dark castle upon a hill deep within the woods. Cracked stone and mossy gates, howling wolves guarding it’s entrance. Parents didn’t need to tell their children stories because this fear was real. We all see when the windows flash green and the night wind stills with the sound of screams. The creature lurking inside was only known as The Beast.
The Beast wasn’t always a part of our fears and our tall tales. He was once just a castle with nothing inside, not even here yet. It was only after the body of Little John Walters did the castle start to come alive with a resident. So when they cried “Evil!” We all knew who that was.
So much time has passed since than, months of this torture. Packs of angry men and women have stormed the castle gate only to run away, muttering of haunting screams and death around every corner, never even reaching the door. So the once happy people of Pivot gave up, trapped and controlled by fear.
It was a hard winter, but spring has finally come. With it blossomed knew hope in the likes of harvest and fresh food. The apple trees were opening once more and the flowers stood a little prouder under the sun. It was a beautiful day to surprise my family.
“Where are you going (Y/N)?” asked my father, his voice tight with anxiety, the tone so many share in this town.
“It’s a surprise,” I mused, picking up the woven basket by the door. His eyebrows furrowed as he grumbled under his breath before raising his voice for me to hear.
“You can surprise your mother and sister, but not me. Where are you going?” he asked once more, voice softened by endearment despite the huff of air that left my lips. He raised a brow to my annoyance and in return I flashed him a sweet smile.
“You’re no fun, you could use the surprise more than anyone,” I said, walking towards him and kissing him on the cheek. He smiled nonetheless and we both pretended like he wasn’t asking because he wanted to know where to look in case I never came home.
“I’m off to pick some flowers for the table, Mothers favorite are in the field by the woods-”
“No,” he cut me off. Immediately, our eyes were locked and we were silently fighting over this.
“It’s her birthday. She loves flowers and apple pies, I can get the flowers and the fresh apples in the field,”
“I said no. It’s too dangerous,” he said. Good to know we aren’t pretending anymore.
“Bodies have been found in the middle of town dad,” I whisper-yelled, trying not to wake my mother and sister. “If we go by your logic of safety then none of us should leave the house.” The silence was unbearable as his look grew more and more somber and the fear more and more noticeable. I take his hands into mine.
“All I’m asking for is one day, Pa. One day to surprise mom with something special. One day of peace and joy and nothing else. No evil or darkness or death. Just some fresh flowers and warm pie, yeah?” I offer him a hopefully convincing smile. He squeezed my hand and I could feel the triumph rise within me already.
“Fine,” he sighed, running a hand over his tired face. “But I want you home within the hour…and I would like some Marigolds as well, your mother, er, she likes it when I have some tucked in my shirt pocket. Says it brings out me eyes,” he muses. I laugh and kiss his cheek again, telling him of course and a thousand thank yous.
But I’d come to regret leaving the house that morning, and he’d come to wish he fought a little harder for me to stay.
I was practically racing all the way there, the field had been rained on and grey since winter and I could not wait to see it in bloom. As a family we used to come up here and picnic, as I grew older I’d come here by myself and read underneath the apple trees. It felt like I was returning to a home I’ve long missed.
I must have been there for less than half an hour, packing my basket with freshly cut wild flowers and roses growing on a bush by the forest edge, dark trees beckoning me forwards before my fathers words brought me back. Too Dangerous. But what was so dangerous about a place like home? I’d soon find out.
“You’ve still a little ways to go,” I coo to a little yellow apple just barely darkening into red. “Ah!” I hum when right next to it is one so bright and red I’m surprised I even missed it in the first place. My fingers were wrapped around it but suddenly the log beneath me I used for height rolled and I slipped. The apple fell with me. But when I hit the ground, my fall was broken by the soft soil, yet the apple kept moving. It rolled through stalks of flowers and fallen branches.
“Come back here,” I said as if it would suddenly grow little red legs and waddle back to me. It was too perfect to let go. So I pushed myself off the ground and hunted for that little thing, thinking of the smile on my mothers face when I got home, it put a smile on my own face.
But my smile quickly fell when I found the apple and the thing that had stopped it’s rolling. The apple was a startling shade of red compared to the paleness of the arm beside it.
“Are you alright?” my voice shook because I knew I would not get an answer. The corpse was fresh, a fleeting blush on the back of the man’s neck but the rest has since run cold. There was no wound, no sign of struggle, there never was.
A sob racked my body as my knees buckled and I fell beside the body. I held the mans hand in my own. I knew him. He was Jono, the old man who lived next door and always gave us some of the peach jam his wife likes to make. Jono with a wrinkly and kind smile every morning.
“Oh,” I wept, “Come back, Jono. Please! Your wife needs you,” I cried even harder at the thought of her finding out. The sure way she would lose herself to grief. They were everything to each other and now her everything was gone.
But Jono did not come back. No matter how hard you cry, how sad you feel or how much you beg they never come back. All you can do is hope they are some place better now, whether that be with nature or with a god they believed in.
The walk back to my house was heavy, my shoulders ached from my fall but the worst pain of all was the numbness within. I left my basket back in the field along with the apple. The exhaustion in every step pushed me well over my hour timeline. When I reached the door my father was already dressed and halfway down the driveway, my mother looking beyond panicked behind him by the door, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders.
“Find them!” she all but cried out the door. My knees felt like buckling beneath me again at her words, I felt so much worse at the sight of how much I clearly worried them.
“Ma,” I tried to call after her, but my voice broke and was lost to the wind. “Ma!” I yelled louder this time and both her and my father whipped around.
My mother reached me first, her arms wrapped tightly around me and buried my head into her shoulder. She shook against me, and suddenly large arms were wrapped around us both. My father was muttering thankful nonsense as he tried to control his breathing.
“Jono…” I whimpered, the look of realization on their faces brought tears back to my eyes. My mom fell back onto her knees, she closed her eyes and threw her head back to the blue sky, tears silently slipping past her eyelids. My father embraced me closer than ever, I could feel his tears gather on my shirt.
My father left shortly after to the town hall, my mother left too, but she went next door to tell Jono’s wife. I could hear her crying from the open window.
It must have been two hours later when my sister came down stairs, red-eyed and panicked.
“They’re coming,” she said, her voice raising and a palm to her chest.
“Who,” my mother asked, her eyes widening in alarm.
“All of them,” she whispered, voice dry as tears began to well in her eyes. “I think they’re here for you.” She turned to me now and my blood ran cold. Then, we heard them.
“Take them!” “Let us end this,” a chorus of voices rang out, loud and angry and clear in the Spring air. “Let him have ‘em!”
Among the voices we could hear father, voice pleading. “Please!” chills rose on my arms, he sounded hysterical. “Please! Don’t do this…my child. My first child!” he was screaming now. My mom got up from the kitchen table and took my hand in hers, I grabbed my sister’s hand and we were led to a window. When Ma pulled the curtain back the sight before us was enough to make her face bleach of color.
The entire town was marching up our driveway, kicking up dirt that sparkled under the flames held by their torches, pitchforks glinting under the sun and waving through the air. Each face was as angry as they were grief stricken and in the middle of it all, in the very front, was my father. He was attempting to push the crowd back, to reason and beg with them.
We screamed as the Mayor gripped his pitchfork and used the hilt to push my father back, he collapsed to the floor and the mob didn’t even bother to walk around him.
“Dad!” I cried, throwing open the door and sprinting towards him. I could hear my mother following close behind, both her and my sister calling after me and praying for dad. When the crowd saw me they roared.
“Take it!” “Grab them!” “Where’s the body!” so many voices they all muddled together. All but one.
“Evil!” yelled the Mayor, his eyes locking into mine with a bloodlust and sadness I will never forget. “Bad luck,” he snarled. His eyes held mine for a few more moments before he turned to the crowd. They stopped walking and my mother and I took that as an opportunity to dig dad out. But wherever I stepped the crowd parted, it wasn’t long before I felt sticky and frothy spit on my cheek.
I ignored the crowd and the confusion and fear overwhelming me entirely when I saw my fathers bloody, hairy arm on the ground. Soon the rest of him was revealed. Beaten yellow and purple and bloody but alive, so alive in fact that he was still cursing the whole lot of them from the floor. Mother and I heaved him up and as we walked back towards our house the rain of spit and vile words only grew stronger.
We were nearly inside when the Mayor’s voice stopped us cold in our tracks.
“Where are you going?” he said, voice calm and sweet. The same voice we hear so often at festivals and birthdays, the voice of a friend now turned into something much more sinister. “We’re not done with yous.”
“Yes. You. Are,” my mother snarled. She handed Pa to my sister and I before descending down the porch steps and back to the crowd. “We’ve had a hell of a day, Mayor. So why don’t you give me my birthday present right now and get the hell off of my property!”
I would have smirked and cheered if not for the way the mob looked at her, like she was an object in their way and when they looked at me I saw it all… I was what they wanted. And they’d shed blood to get me.
“Jono’s body was the fortieth one we’ve found in two months. The Beast is ravaging this town, it won’t be long before there is no one else left to hunt and appease it. Jono wasn’t floating, but he was marked!” the Mayors words pulled a series of shocked gasps from the crowd. “On his wrists was written a single sentance… Do you want to know the message he sent us?” he asked, turning to the crowd. They were too afraid to speak but the answer was written clear across their faces.
“‘Muggles Must Die.’” the words were spoken like a curse and it had the effect of one, people seemed to shrivel into themselves and some openly wept. I felt trapped by the words, paralyzed by my terror. “It’s a warning. It’s a threat. The Beast wants something from us,” he turned and pointed to me, “and we’re going to give it to him!” he roared, and before my mother had the time to tell me to run the mob burst forth from their shock and ascended towards our house like a hungry pack of dogs.
My mother screamed at them as two held her waist and kept her from me, the rest had their eyes glued to me. My father tried to stand on his own but ended up collapsing as I was pulled away. Hands snaked around my waist, through my arms and around my shoulders, gripping and bruising as they lifted me off the floor. I kicked my legs and screamed for mercy, for common sense, for anything at all. But they held my family down as they carried me away.
At sundown I would be taken to The Beast. Stories turned to life as I was taken to die.