NFTF: Rancher III

"Do we have any ammunition that may work better?" the wife asks, bow drawn taut again, the point of her razor-sharp arrow never wavering.

They are silent. There is nothing. Then it hits him, bubbling up from within the memory of that Halloween night, in 1946. The thing that had come in to their party, the thing that had come through.

"It's one of the reasons we're being looked for," she'd whispered. "Now tell me, Tal: what did he say?"

"Not ... not much. He -- I promised, Bet -- Leah," he had stammered.

"I will show you a more secret secret, Tal," she'd whispered and he'd known, in that moment, the first crackling arc of desire in his soul, utterly different from his craving for berry cobbler or root beer or near-burnt chocolate chip cookies. Who was this girl, and how could she do these things with her voice and with paper and symbols?

Before he could speak, she had moved another paper on top of the first, this one dominated by a large symbol, unfamiliar in the whole but comprised of a variety of geometric shapes he'd seen before. Their specific arrangement, and the shapes that twined around them, made his eyes swim, forcing him to shut them tight and shake his head.

"Shhh," Leah had whispered, putting her fingers on his forehead. "When I tell you to, unfocus your eyes. The way to do this is make a triangle with your thumbs and pointers put together in front of you, and focus on the point in the middle of that triangle. Do this and breathe deeply, Tal. Do it over the paper, and when you're ready, take your hands away. Let the symbol sink into your mind. Don't look at anything. Just let it sink in. Breathe and do nothing."

He had opened his eyes and done as she asked. It had been a struggle at first, he'd had to blink and re-start a few times. Then something had clicked in and, when he felt himself sink deep into this unfocused, relaxed state, he had put his hands at his side and allowed the symbol to sink in. 

After a time, it began to change color. Lighting up a deep blue, at first, the color moving clockwise through the symbol from a point near the bottom. He had taken a breath to speak, but Leah's whispered, "Shhhh, focus now ..." had kept him in the moment.

The symbol in blue had floated, then, raising up off the paper and hovering in the air before him. The physical pain of his goosebumps had felt electric. The symbol had begun to light up a brighter, blue-white lightning color, in the same pattern that it had first changed color. Trying to follow it with his eyes, he had lost focus for a moment. Leah had leaned in close, her breath warm on his neck and ear, whispering, "Keep going, Tal. You've almost got it. Focus inward, let your eyes be soft."

Against all odds, this had galvanized him. The symbol had lightningn-ed and she had taught him to trace one specific part of it in the air, the wispy, trailing through-line, whispering specific words to him as the candle burned low and clouds gathered over their small town on that late Halloween afternoon.

Nine times they had traced it, until Talmadge had learned the words and the gesture and could trace it easily.

"This is a sigil," she had said, pleased with him. "It's bright today, tonight, because this is Halloween and the veil between worlds is so thin. Mama says this sigil is for revealing hidden things. It opens doors that have been shut with spirits' help, it --"

"Leah?" her mother's voice, from downstairs. "Are you two in the attic?"

"Tell me quick, Tal," she'd said, smiling. "What did your friend tell you before he ... disappeared?"

And he had told her, of course. He told her everything. The treasure, the journey -- the quest -- to get it where it was destined to go. How so many stories remained unfinished as a result of its loss, how a rightness could be restored to the world once it reached its destination. Little things, like individual lives -- either through inheritance or correspondence long-lost, and big things like bridges and skyscrapers and whole cities that hadn't thrived or had moved in the wrong direction, or were destined to destroy that which was best in their hearts and infrastructure, all in the name of greed. So many things could be re-shaped by its safe arrival, and Ben was the Steward, now. "One of the last," was how Tal had finished his telling, and then Leah's mother was at the bottom of the attic stairs, "Come down, my little Halloween spellweavers," she'd sung to them. "Your guests are beginning to arrive, dear."

Descending the ladder, Tal had begun to see things clearly for the first time: other symbols -- sigils -- etched in the glass of every window in Leah's home. Similar shapes over doorways, on newel posts. A very intricate sigil in the glass of the front door. Leah's mother smiled at him and he knew Leah would grow even more beautiful -- and powerful -- than her already mesmerizing mother. So many things had become clear that night.

Then, as they'd danced the Halloween dances Leah taught them, all of the other kids innocent and Tal himself only beginning to suspect the meaning, something had come through. Something large. Something dark. Something uninvited. He remembered the screams, the other children running, the parents so still, in shock, all of them.

All except for Leah's mother who had run to the kitchen and screamed one word as she threw a blue cardboard box from within the pantry directly at Tal's head. He'd caught it at a strange angle, and the box had broken open, much of its contents spilling over him. The word she'd shouted, one word so colored in his mind by that Halloween, that he had allowed himself to live a life devoid of it for the last fifty years.

"Salt," he says now. "Salt will kill 'em dead."