Beneath the Weeping Stones

Beneath the Weeping Stones

In a crooked valley where the mists seemed to cling a bit tighter to the bones, there lay a village called Briarthorne. If you asked the locals, they’d say it was an unremarkable place — a handful of sagging cottages, a crumbling church, and the old stone circle at the hill’s crown, known by everyone as The Weeping Stones.

Tourists never lasted long. The air felt heavy there, like the sky was leaning on your shoulders, and the wind that threaded through the stones whispered things that no one ought to hear.

Locals had their rules:

Don’t linger after sundown.

Don’t follow the sounds in the mist.

And never, ever disturb the stones.

It was said the stones wept during the night. Some swore they’d seen tears glinting on the weathered surfaces, trickling down like sorrow itself was bound into the rock.

Most folk kept their heads down and kept the stories buried where they belonged. But not everyone can leave well enough alone, can they? There’s always some poor bastard too curious for their own good.

In this story, that bastard was me.

I arrived in Briarthorne in the dead of autumn. The leaves were burning themselves out in colors of rust and blood, and the chill in the air smelled like rain and endings. I’d inherited a cottage from an uncle I’d never met — a black sheep, by all accounts. A recluse. A man whose name drew pity looks down at the pub.

The house was a squat, miserable thing, huddled beneath an old oak that looked half-dead. But it was mine, and I was too broke and too stubborn to say no.

The first few days were quiet. Too quiet. Nights stretched long and hollow, broken only by the cry of some unseen thing far off in the fields. It wasn’t until the third night I heard the stones.

A soft, wet sound.

A weeping.

It was faint, barely louder than the whisper of leaves. But once I heard it, I couldn’t unhear it. It crawled into my head and nested there, a sound like the world itself grieving.

I asked about it in the village.

Old man Fergus, the barkeep, shook his head and muttered, “Best you stay away, boyo. Let the past lie in its grave.”

A woman mending nets by the fire crossed herself and refused to meet my eyes.

The schoolmaster just chuckled under his breath and said, “Curiosity fed the worms.”

Bloody charming lot, they were.

But being a fool with more pride than sense, I decided I’d go up the hill that night.

The stones loomed under the moon like crooked teeth, their surfaces slick and gleaming as if the mist itself was crying. Standing there among them, I felt small, the way you do at the foot of a mountain or the lip of a deep sea. The weeping was louder here, a low, shuddering sorrow.

I saw something then.

A flash between the stones.

A figure crouched and whispering against the earth.

I called out — and the figure snapped its head toward me. Not a face. No eyes, no mouth. Just a blank, sagging mask of skin.

I bolted.

Because I’m not a complete idiot, mind you — just a partial one.

The next morning, back at the cottage, I found a gift left for me. Right on the front stoop, wrapped in coarse cloth.

Inside was a stone, small enough to fit in my palm, and slick with moisture. Carved on it, so deep the grooves still held rainwater, was a single word:

LISTEN.

I should have packed my bags right then, but you know how stubbornness is. It’s like carrying a stone in your gut; you can’t just put it down.

Instead, I spent the day digging through my uncle’s things.

Old books.

Handwritten notes.

Maps of the village — but not as it is now. No, these were maps of Briarthorne as it had been, centuries ago.

Underneath the village, according to the maps, was a warren of tunnels. Catacombs, really. And at the very center, beneath the Weeping Stones themselves, something marked only as “The Well.”

The notes were frantic. Obsessive. My uncle had written of voices calling from below. Of shapes glimpsed in the fog. Of the bargain struck long ago — a promise of survival in exchange for something far older and hungrier than any god.

And now, the stones wept because the thing they buried was waking up.

I didn’t sleep that night. I sat by the fire, the little carved stone in my hand, the weeping in the hills growing louder and louder until it wasn’t just the stones but the earth itself keening.

At dawn, I made my choice.

I went back up the hill.

The mist swallowed everything. Even the stones seemed half-dissolved, grey shapes against the grey world. I found the center of the circle, marked by a slab cracked down the middle like a broken heart.

I knelt.

And I listened.

For a moment — only a moment — I understood.

The stones didn’t weep out of grief.

They wept out of hunger.

The thing beneath had been fed once, in the old days — fed with blood and breath and soul. In return, the village prospered. But then the offerings stopped. The old ways were forgotten.

And now it wanted to pay.

With interest.

The ground cracked beneath me. The slab split wider, revealing a black mouth yawning open, the stench of rot and forgotten things pouring out.

From the pit, hands emerged. Not flesh, not bone, but things shaped like hands — pale and dripping, reaching.

I should have run. I wanted to run.

But I was already part of it.

Already chosen.

The little stone in my palm burned cold as ice, freezing into my skin.

The hands wrapped around my ankles.

I opened my mouth to scream.

The mist rushed in and filled me.

They found me at dawn, kneeling among the stones, my eyes gone milky, my mouth hanging slack.

They whispered of possession. Madness. Bad blood.

But they never touched the stones.

They knew better.

Now I live here still.

Beneath the village.

Beneath the stones.

And when the mist thickens, and the weeping starts, you might hear me calling.

Asking.

Begging.

For you to listen.