What Mother Always Says

It was on the longest day, when the sun was at its brightest, that Jeric remembered what he had to do later that day. His father had just harvested the winter barley, and they had to transport the sacks by horse and cart to Toncton. He wouldn't forget. At least, his father would make sure he never forgot.

A curious pine marten found Jeric sleeping in the woods beyond the town after the sun had begun its descent. He didn’t know how long he had been asleep, but he didn't think he had any chores otherwise he would have heard his father or mother calling for him. Nonetheless, he got up and stumbled through the bush and the thicket back to his house, and by the time he did so, the sun had disappeared and the crickets had begun to chirp in the field. His father’s horse and cart had gone, and the candles had been lit in the cottage windows.

"Your father left without you," Mother said. 

Jeric stood with his arms by his side, and stared at her for a moment. He wasn't quite sure what he should say. He would have said sorry, but then he knew what she would say...what Mother always says. With a shrug of his shoulders he sat on the floor by the hearth, its glowing coals providing a woody warmth that he enjoyed on his face. Later, the two of them ate their stew and bread in silence, and then Jeric went to bed.

When the night was at its darkest, what the elders called Zagkath's hour, he woke up, rubbed his eyes and saw a sliver of orange light under his bedroom door. He swung his legs out of bed and crept to the door and pressed his ear against it. A chair squeaked across the floor, and the front door clicked and opened.

"Elar!" his mother called to the darkness. "Elar!" she called again, with no response as before. Jeric stayed in his room and shivered. He grabbed his blanket and wrapped it around himself, waiting for his father to step in at any moment.

It had felt like a short while when Jeric closed his eyes. When he awoke again, morning sunshine broke through his windows. Behind his bedroom door, he heard his mother sobbing in the kitchen, but still he pretended to be asleep. The front door creaked, followed by loud footsteps, and he recognised the voice of his mother's brother Rayn.

"I'm sorry, Yvett."

The sobbing turned into an anguished wail. Jeric closed his eyes, but not before turning the lock on his bedroom door.

That was the summer equinox, and eventually the nights grew longer. Elar had planted the summer oats, but Jeric and Yvett would need additional help to plant the winter barley. 

"Your father should have taken you out earlier into the fields, and then I wouldn't be in this catastrophe. What did I always say to him," she would often repeat. The next day when he was out running and scraped his knees, she sliced a lemon and dropped the juice onto the wounds to clean them.

"What do I always say, be careful!"

"Yes mother," Jeric said, gritting his teeth from the pain. He promised to be careful, and promised to listen. But after a few months, some fights with the boys of the town, and adventures jumping down the wells, he stopped listening to what she always said. He wasn't thinking of her when he came out of a cave in the woods and saw a black cat dart across his path.

He signed himself and thought of the deity who had the black cat as its familiar, and walked slowly, trying to remember a song his mother taught him to sing:

If the black one you should see

Hop and step, hop and step

When you pass the willow tree

Hop and step, then you’re free

What was the next verse? He couldn't remember. He used to wonder what the song was about, but he was always too afraid to ask. Then one day, his mother told him.

"It wards off Zagkath."

The name chilled Jeric's blood. He preferred to say the black one, the spirit of nature's malevolence. When a wolf seizes a sheep in its jaws and tears it to ribbons, Zagkath is there, watching the bloody scene. Where the winter grows so cold that babies die, Zagkath can be found hiding. In some particularly dark tales, Zakgath can be found near cairns, trying to raise the dead. Nobody had ever seen the dark one, though. People just spoke of it. Nobody even knew what it looked like. He hopped and skipped home fast, desperately trying to remember the song. By the time he remembered the last verse, he had already arrived home but couldn't remember if he'd passed the willow grove or not. His mother said something to him, but he forgot what it was between eating supper and going to bed.

At the hour of Zagkath, a low scratching outside Jeric's window awoke him from a troubled sleep. The hearth fire glowed as it always had for the last few months, for his mother never lost faith but he heard her snoring in her own room. He sat up for a moment, listening. A coyote howled, but the scratching stopped. Irritated, he laid back down and closed his eyes, until the scratching started again. It became long scratches, as if the person or thing doing it was intent on dragging something thin and sharp across the timbers of the house. He signed himself and pulled the blanket over his head, shivering. All that made him feel safe was the orange glow of the hearth, the rays of light shining underneath his bedroom door. In the moment of a blink, Jeric's room plunged into darkness. He waited for his mother’s door to open and then she would start the fire again, but he waited for what felt like an hour. He could feel the cold creep in, freezing his skin and making his breath appear in steamy clouds in front of him. When the scratching stopped, he tiptoed out into the kitchen. The hearthstones still felt warm but were cooling fast. He bent over to pick up some logs to throw on the fire, but then the scratching started again, this time on the front door.

Jeric looked around the kitchen, at the wooden chairs and table, the bellows for the fire, the barrels of salted fish and meat, the bundles of herbs hanging from the rafters, and then his eyes fell upon his father’s sword in the corner. It had been there since his parents had first entered the house on the night of their union, and Jeric’s mother had not taken it down. A few men had come to their house in the last few months, but she was not prepared to part with her husband’s sword and make herself available to courtship.

Jeric crept over to the sword and put his hands around the handle. He strained to lift it, but he felt he would be able to hold it long enough to deliver an overhead blow, as if he were a woodcutter. The scratching started again, this time it sounded as if a person were etching some writing onto the door. His heart raced. His hands felt sticky. Trembling, he took a deep breath and swung open the front door, ready to deliver a killing blow.

Darkness greeted him. The silence of the hour had an otherworldly effect on him. He looked up at the dim stars, the pitch, cloudless sky. A furry body rubbed against his bare legs and he jumped back as he beheld the black cat he had seen earlier.

The cat entered his home, rubbed itself against the cooling hearthstones, the legs of the table and chairs and then went out again, mewing all the while. Its cries echoed across the night, and Jeric worried, closing the door. He heard his mother stirring in the room opposite, but after a moment, she seemed to fall asleep again. As Jeric moved to put his father’s sword back in its place, the cat started mewing again. Its cries sounded painful, as if it were being tortured. He went outside, and this time the cat darted for the old stable.

A surge of anger flooded over him, and he ran after the cat, hoping to grab it by the scruff of its neck and throw it out. He went into the stable. The cat had managed to squeeze under the gap between the ground and the door. The door, however, stood ajar. Jeric panicked. It had been his job to keep the stable locked to keep thieves and bandits from stealing their last cart. Had he forgotten again? A cold sweat crept over him. He lifted the sword behind him, and slowly opened the door.

He was met by a sour, pungent smell like old soil. The cat mewed in the corner. He lit a candle ensconced on the wall with some matches on the ledge, and when he turned to see the cat, he cried out.

His father, or a rotting, desiccated image of his father stood next to the cart. The creature’s skin hung from the bones like tattered rags, and the flesh had become a greenish-white layer of fat and muscle. The jaw hung loose, and the skin had disappeared from above, leaving only a terrifying, toothy grin.

"What did your mother always say?" the creature cackled, before approaching Jeric with a knife in its claw. "Better late than never?"