Chapter 013 - Revels and Remnants

# Chapter 13: Revels and Remnants The air outside Greyhollow’s tavern was a shade fresher, yet did little to clear the strange heaviness lingering atop Sordia Vignti’s collective spirit. The lamplight behind faded; the street ahead was emptied by dusk and expectation alike—a village poised between inertia and some uncanny waiting. At once, Graxen halted, his brow furrowing in perplexity. “Which way was it?” he murmured, scanning first left, then right, as if the directions to town hall, just delivered by Elara, had evaporated like mist at dawn. He searched the faces of his companions, apologetic. “I asked her not ten minutes ago.” The emptiness of his memory, so sudden, drew silent looks between the party, but no one offered reproach. Instead, together they picked a likely path, boots scuffing along wheel-rutted lanes. To their right, sagging posts lined the square, their sides braced with half-hung banners. Some listed, their corners sagging toward the ground, as if weighed by more than mere neglect. Paint bled pale blue and green through sodden fabric—colours surely meant to spell celebration, but stopped short. Beneath the unfinished bunting, barrels stood stacked, garlands tangled and forgotten atop crates giving way to rot. Every sign pointed to festivity, yet the town’s spirit was missing, stretched too thin to complete the labor. Still led by obligation and unease, the company pressed onward, until a stark structure rose at lane’s end—a broad house at the crest of the green, its stone old but softened by time. No secretaries here fussed at their arrival, nor was there any crowd. Instead, the front door creaked open, revealing the mayor of Greyhollow. He was a short, barrel-chested human, cheeks ruddy and eyes bright, alert in a way the tavern keeper never managed. A waistcoat strained nobly over his belly and a neat tuft of hair curled above earnest brows. “Welcome, friends,” he called, the low notes of his voice warm but tinged by formality. He studied them each in turn, pausing at Fergal. A smile quirked his lip—half bemused, half uncertain. “And you bring with you an odd fellow indeed,” he declared, wagging his head at Fergal, who offered a dignified bow in return. It was Ellette who first pressed the issue. “Mayor, we have seen missing person posters about your town,” she said, posture tall and voice edged with practiced severity. No warmth crossed the mayor’s face; his expression was instead one of polite surprise. “Missing persons? Oh, not at all, not at all,” the mayor insisted, chuckling as though the entire notion were the stuff of bedtime tales. “Those, my dear, are nothing more than festival notices—every year we have a celebration here, and those are just to mark the occasion. Pure tradition.” He spread his hands, as if to weigh them down with reassurance. Ellette’s eyes narrowed. “You’re saying no one has disappeared from your town?” A pause—just long enough to harden the query into accusation. Yet the mayor’s composure did not falter. “No one. All these years, not so much as a runaway hound.” His smile did not waver, nor did his gaze flinch from Ellette’s intensity. While this exchange stole most attention, Lyra had circled quietly toward the central square and now returned, brushing faded dust from her sleeve. In her hand she carried a warped board, little larger than her palm—a missing person’s poster, its curled corners softened by the wind. “I found this at the well,” she said, holding it up for all to see. Sunlight glanced across the surface, catching deep scratches gouged into the wood—the marks old, scattered and purposeful. The mayor’s eyes flicked toward the sign and away in the same moment. “Littering,” he admonished, a disapproving frown knitting his brow. “We try to keep the square tidy for the festival.” Lyra’s jaw tightened, but she said nothing; the evidence, such as it was, met with studied indifference. Graxen watched the mayor closely, measuring the cadence of his words and the subtlety of his deflections. “He's not lying,” he whispered, half to himself—but conviction rang in his voice. To him, the mayor’s denial bore the simple tone of honesty, or at least the outer skin of belief. Ellette was less placated, her stance sharpening with each evasion. She leaned in. “Are you quite certain, Mayor? No incidents, no strange departures, nothing you’ve tried to forget?” Her voice dropped to a near-snarl. For a moment, the mayor’s face slackened, eyes focusing on a shape no one else saw. He spoke then, voice lower, curiously distant: “There’s a hole.” The words fought their way out—quiet and certain. He repeated them, louder this time. “There’s a hole.” The echoes had not faded before he stiffened, mouth closing with a click of teeth. “No, there—no, I said no such thing,” he amended sternly, brushing invisible dust from his sleeve. His gaze darted away as though the phrase itself meant nothing to him. Uncertainty flickered through the party, but no one pressed him; the mayor seemed, for a heartbeat, as lost to his own declarations as Elara had been in her kitchen trances. Fergal did not argue, but instead touched the mayor’s shoulder gently, lips moving with the cadence of ancient speech. Energy shimmered at his fingertips—a working of great magical restoration. The mayor barely blinked; when the spell faded, he stood the same as before. “Is something the matter?” he asked, blinking with the faintest of confusion, as if the momentary lapse had cost him more than memory. The mayor’s composure returned as he tilted his chin upward, forcing a smile. “You’ve seen our well, of course?” he prompted with renewed, brittle pride. “The very pride of Greyhollow. A marvel, truly.” No one replied. Beyond the mayor’s shoulder, the broad doorframe bore its own set of gouges—scratches where no ring or shoe buckle could reach. The sight made Lyra’s hand tighten on the edge of her poster. Inside the mayor’s home, an entire life was distilled into order and quiet. The shell of domesticity remained—parlor swept, the scent of old soap thick in the air—but solitude pressed at every threshold. When Ellette’s gaze fell upon the mayor’s left hand, she noted a plain gold ring circling his finger, catching motes of faint light. “You say you live alone, Mayor?” she challenged gently. He looked down, twirling the band thoughtfully. “Yes. Yes, quite alone.” When Ellette’s eyes lingered, the mayor managed a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Truth told, I simply like how it looks. That’s all.” The explanation offered nothing, deflection contained in a practiced gesture. A silence stretched—a peculiar hush filled with the hollow click of the mayor’s tongue, the slow drag of Lyra’s boot across polished boards. All at once Ellette drew in a sharp breath and then held it. Something about these questions, this empty house, the mayor’s changed expressions—something scraped at the inside of her skull, as if she had spoken these words before, heard these denials echo in rooms she could not name. Déjà vu prickled up her arms, sharp and sudden as lightning, and no answer she summoned could explain it away. The evening lengthened, the half-hung ribbons out in the square fluttering fitfully. With festival promises unfulfilled and each answer clouded by forgetfulness, the mysteries of Greyhollow pressed close as dust, leaving the companions suspended on the threshold between memory, invention, and the cold weight of what must still be found.