Trembling With Fear 02/10/2019

The Hangman’s Tree

I steal bodies from the hangman’s tree. Jewels, rings, and coins that the hangmen forget to shake out I happily collect too, but it’s the bodies that pay the best. Men and women can reach almost two hundred Liros per corpse; children even more. Although it was a long time before I broke that taboo.

Each night I move in time with the sun’s setting. The mountains cast long shadows over the village which conceal me like a grey blanket as I creep up the hill. On my belt hangs a sharpened knife and a sack hides my face.

The tree is impossible to lose sight of, even on the darkest nights. Its colossal trunk sits omnipresent above the village, silently glaring down on the wooden huts. During the day while in the fields people keep their eyes down and try to ignore the roped titan. In the nights it fills their dreams with dread.

Even the guardsmen, so sure of themselves down in the valley, fear the tree. They stand away from it with their backs to the faces of the hung.  Their rifles tight to their chests, wide-eyed and ready to fire at any sound on the wind.

I sit and watch them from afar, cold and curled up in the brambles. Eventually, when the tobacco runs out, or the wind begins to bite, they lower their guns and head back home. When the day breaks and the new guard marches up the hill, no one makes note of the missing bodies.

#

Once the hill is empty, I finally begin my work, move like a ghost. When I walk my boots are soundless against the ground of wet leaves. My breath barely escapes my lips. With hands wrapped by gloves, I grasp onto the rough twine rope and with a glint of silver cut down the body. It takes less than a minute where any graverobber would take five.

My first night, when I was still learning from Frillo – before he too found a place on the tree – I almost cried when the weight of the person fell on me. Stiff and cold, surrounded by the aura of death that I soon grew familiar with. The reek of sour earth and dirt. By now I am as comfortable as a hunter with venison or a fisherman with fish.

Pulling the body away from the village and deep into the valley, I meet my buyers before the sun sets. They hide their faces too and once the money is in my hands I depart swiftly. Who and why are questions better left unasked.

#

Before Frillo hung, the hunchback forgot to tell me a secret to our trade which may have saved me from sharing his fate. But he never mentioned it and none the wiser I set out to the tree that night. Under the blue hunter’s moon, as if it were any other night.

#

She was still fresh. Barely a day spent on her branch. Almost beautiful in the way her pale face and fair hair gleamed under the cold glow of the moon. When I cut her from her place and set her on the ground, I could swear she felt almost warm. As if a trace of impossible life had clung to her.

The night was bitterly cold but I pulled a glove off and with a hand red and raw from the wind touched her cheek. I had to convince myself I was wrong. The tips of my fingers felt as if pressed against a stove. Startled I shot my hand back. Before I’d never thought I’d wish for the clammy touch of a body.

The choices rattled in my brain. Leave her, or drag her to the buyer. She was certain to fetch a good price, yet I felt no desire to tangle myself into the occult.

The girl decided for me. Her eyelids drew open and she glared at me with clouded-over eyes. Then her jaw flopped open revealing a dark maw filled with a shriek.

I stumbled back, my mind unable to comprehend anything but disgust and primal fear deep in my stomach. The scream seemed to echo out across the entire mountain. A wail far removed from anything human.

The candles in the village flared up and the shouts of men’s barks mixed with the cries of frightened children. Then, came the footsteps of the guards as they raced towards the woman and me.

A fist knocked me down. Face pressed against the wet soil I saw them surround her. While she writhed and kicked, they grabbed the rope around her neck and dragged her back to the tree. She howled and spat as they cast the cut rope over her branch and with a single pull, hung her again. It was done as quickly as if they had seen it before.

She did not die again, however. Instead, she flailed and thrashed, cursing in her animal’s tongue, as I was marched away.

Her rage at being woken made the tree shake as if a storm were blowing through it.

#

The next day, I was granted a place beside her. My hanging took place at night with only an audience of hangmen and guards present. As the noose slipped around my neck, I kept my eyes closed and tried not to listen to the girl’s snarling at my side. When I dropped, the last thing I felt were her nails digging into my arm.

 

THE END