a tale that forgot

Once there was a little stone house at the end of the world.  Maybe it wasn't really the end of the world, but it was on the edge of a short cliff that looked down on a raging shore of a constantly stormy sea, and those who braved the sea said that a few miles out the water poured over another cliff and nothing could be seen beyond the spray and mist that hovered there.  So, it was end enough to be called so.  Nobody knew why the house was there.  There was no reason for it; no roads passed by, there were no towns or farms, and no threat of invasion from beyond the water.  But the house was there, unchanging in season after season, and nobody knew who had built it or why.

The closest towns were several days walk from the little house, and it was mostly daredevils who made the journey there and back - back if they survived the dare, of course.  But enough returned safely that rumors began to spread of a young girl living there all by herself.  At first everyone dismissed the story flat out.  Anybody at all in the house was strange, but a little girl, alone, was preposterous.  Still, rumor followed rumor, all of them piling up on the others until they formed a hill of belief, and finally a mountain of reality.

After many months, somebody decided that the reality needed a little more solidity, and a group of young men set out from the Gray Town to visit the house.  They traveled the expected several days in good weather and good company, for they were all friends.  When they arrived at the edge of the world, the stone house was there, bleak as could be, with a great black bird perched on the roof.  And to their shock, in spite of their belief, a little girl was sweeping in front of the door with a raggedy looking broom.  She looked up as they approached and smiled broadly.

"I knew this was the day to sweep the walk!" she chirped, "I just knew I'd have visitors!"

The young men looked at each other, not sure if they should get any closer, but finally the embarrassment of being wary of a child compelled them to.  Big Quinn, the eldest of them, went first and greeted her.

"We come from the town down the Bramble Road.  We heard somebody had taken this house and wanted to see if it were true.  Maybe you would want something from town that we could deliver?"  The girl smiled at them and giggled, but they saw her eyes were flat even though her teeth were showing.

"I don't need anything from any town, but some company once in a while would be nice.  Please come in, we'll have tea and cake," and the little girl skipped into the dark stone house.  The young men hesitated again, startled by a cry from the bird on the roof.  It was not a crow, like they had first thought, but a large black eagle.  Its cold yellow eye stared at them and its sharp black beak looked grim and judgmental.  "Well?" said the little girl impatiently from the door.  And they went in.

The house was cold and damp inside and the furniture looked like mere shadows on the walls.  The little girl hummed to herself as she led them into the kitchen, where a large wooden table stood cumbersomely in the middle of the room, by far the realest looking thing in the place.  The stools around it were shiny and black, but the table looked like fresh cut wood.  As they sat down, the young men could even smell it, and half expected their fingers to come away from it sticky with sap.  The little girl passed small chipped plates around, and dull tarnished forks, and sticky cups.  When all had their set, she clapped her hands and squealed, "First we need to toast!  Raise your glasses to our party, new friends!" and they all clicked their cups together and gingerly pretended to drink while the little girl slurped loudly.  As soon as the cups reached their lips, however, the young men glanced around in astonishment.  They could taste the tea!  Big Quinn, being the leader, was the first to try the "cake".  He put the fork to his lips and his eyes bulged out of their sockets while he made an involuntary mmmm!  So they all tried.  What they tasted was the best cake they'd ever had.  The little girl had been watching intently and now started to clap and laugh gleefully.  "What a party we'll have!" she shrieked, and the young men lifted their cups again.  "Here's to the party!"  And they set in to eating and drinking their fill of unseen tea and cakes.

The conversation was lively, although sometimes one of the young men would start and look about as if waking from a nightmare, but quickly drift back into the conversation and comradery at the table.  At one point, Big Quinn asked the girl where her family was.  "Oh, I don't have a family," she replied matter-of-factly.

"But you cannot be all alone here."

"Of course I can.  Do you see anybody else?"

"But how did you get here?  When?  Why?"

The girl looked sweetly at Big Quinn and said, "I have always been in this house.  As long as it has existed and as long as I have.  And I am here because it is where I should be."  Then she smiled and continued "eating" her cake.  The young men tried to ask her more questions, but she acted as if she didn't hear.  Among themselves the men continued talking and joking as if they were in a tavern at home.  But suddenly the little girl stood up and her voice was like a ray of sunlight piercing the morning gloom.  "I'm so sorry.  I've kept you here all night.  Now you really should go."  The young men stood up clumsily and followed the smiling girl to the door.  They went out into the light of day as she stood inside still smiling with her teeth and then she shut the door soundlessly.

The young men blinked in the sun and looked around, almost expecting the house to have disappeared.  But it was still there and the black eagle was still on the roof, now devouring a rabbit.  Blood trickled down the mossy tiles.  Slightly sickened, the men turned to begin their journey home and one said softly, "I didn't notice the white feathers in its tail yesterday."

The return journey was much the same as the one before, with the group of friends winding through the woods, trying to keep each other amused.  When they camped for the night, they told their ghost stories as they had since they were children, until one of them, unable to hold it in any longer, blurted out a question: "Did nobody else see her fangs?"  Silence fell immediately.  He did not need to explain more.  Little by little the others pulled fragments from their memories of what they had seen from the corner of their eyes at the little girl's table: she had long, sharp teeth like arrow points; she had no eyes, or they were all red, or all black; her skin was green or gray; her hair was thin and slimy.  As they focused on the vision, the sound of leathery wings and strangled whispers filled the air around them, until they turned to look right at the girl and the dreadful sight and sounds sunk out of their awareness.  Until the talk around the fire.  None of them slept that night; they all lay shivering in the dark.

They made good time on their return journey and were startled to see how quiet and empty the town was when they arrived.  Not only that, but all the houses were different.  They were smoother outside, covered with something the young men did not recognize.  Some of them still had faded colors, blue and light yellow, not the natural gray that they knew.  And the walls were aged.  How could they look so old?  Could the young men have taken the wrong path?  Big Quinn looked around for some inhabitant to help them, but the few who were to be seen on the streets were wary and met no gaze.  Finally they found an old man sitting on the steps of a blackened building that might have been a shop once.

"Excuse me, uncle," said Quinn, "Can you tell us which way to Gray Town?"

The man looked up sharply, with irritation, "Some kinda joke, manling?"

"Not at all, good uncle.  It's embarrassing for us to be lost, but here we are."

"That house at the end of the world got us all turned around, I bet," said Fat Edgar to the others.

"What's that?  The end of the world?" the old man leaned back with furrowed brow.  "It's been a long time since I heard that story.  My grandpap said he even knew the boys who went, but he was just a boy of four springs then."  Then he struggled to his feet, refusing aiding hands, and snapped, "Why bring that up now?  And the Old Name?  It's been a royal cycle that this place has been Dural's End."

"What?  Who's Dural?"

"Why, the old Prince of the Run, the Lord of the Valley."  The young men looked at each other in confusion, not understanding a thing.  "Yap, things started to go wrong when those young men left.  And every one who leaves now makes it worse.  Maybe if they'd stay and work in their own land...ah, what does a crazy old man know anyway?" and he hobbled off down the street of broken stones, leaving the group of young men to accept terrible truths any way that they could.