The fiddle’s older than Granddad. Made of willow wood, graveyard wood. It’s old and scarred. Any shine it had is long gone. Dulled by rosin for the bow and countless fingers wearing it down. And it likes the night. Maybe because it sings like a sad woman’s voice. That’s what Granddad said. A fiddle is most like a voice. Most like a woman who calls out lonely, which is why it quivers so when the song gets all sad. A sound like that always causes a gathering.
Merton did not answer because Soliver s jibe had struck truer than he could know. The Moult attacked more than the body. Flightlessness was followed inevitably by madness and then total emptiness of the mind, if the disease was allowed to run its course. Most Kin afflicted as he was killed themselves long before that point though or were killed by others in pointless battles the madness caused the afflicted to seek out.
The three stare at me Hayrick, Handsy, and Ben whose name I wish I didn’t have to know. I want them to believe me, to see the possibility, to think about the smiling faces they’d seen while pestering the market-goers and stall-keepers, and how little their targets had been frightened. Sometimes young men like these Boys do listen. Sometimes all they need is to be shown a new direction. But this time, my best isn t enough.
Featuring new cover art: “Eroded Stones” by Michal Kváč.
(Note: BCS will skip an issue in Dec. Scott (me) needs a break to catch up. (First time ever, in fifteen years.) BCS #396 is out today as scheduled; there will be no issue Dec. 14, then BCS #397 on Dec. 28. All else unchanged: still open to subs; still replying to subs.) On the Day When She Can Run No More by Aimee Ogden. What Will Bring You Home by Jenny Rae Rappaport. BCS 323: What Will Bring You Home by Jenny Rae Rappaport.