The Disappearance of Naomi

Back at my place the next day, I tried to way up the goods and the bads in my life. It didn’t take long, but I couldn’t decide if I was happy with the results or not. The bads were in the form of bills, and not being able to pay them, and not getting as much work as I should like to help pay them, and getting older and slower. On the good side there wasn’t much other than Martha, and the fact that I wasn’t wearing cold wet clothes or shoes any longer. But I figured it probably wouldn’t be long before I was.

This unprofitable line of thought was interrupted by a staccato rap on the door of my office. In truth, my office wasn’t much bigger than the broom cupboard which Martha had to call a changing room, but it didn’t cause my budget too much unbearable pain. Once, years ago, I’d had a much bigger office, and a partner, and between us we’d had a secretary, but that had been years ago. Nowadays, I had a desk, two uncomfortable chairs and a couple of filing cabinets, and a dusty plant that didn’t grow much. It was ample for my needs, though I couldn’t help dreaming of my faded glory. Still, at least I wasn’t dead, which put me one ahead of both the secretary and my ex-partner.

I had given up trying to maintain some sort of dignity. When people who are going about business that makes them uncomfortable, as most people who knock on my door usually are, they are most likely to go on their way if the door isn’t opened to them. So I heaved myself out of my seat, shoving the newspaper into a drawer. I crossed the tiny office floor and walked down the corridor to the door. I could see the silhouette of the person who had knocked, just starting to turn away. I opened the door.

It was a man, Built broad, rather than tall, clean shaven, with a ruddy complexion. He didn’t look the nervous type, the way he held himself suggested someone who was used to getting his own way, and who liked to be in control of things. Even so, he looked disappointed to see me, like he’d rather have knocked on the door and then gone away without seeing anyone. I didn’t blame him for that. Not many people enjoy hiring someone to rake about in their private lives and secret shames.

“Hullo,” I said, which I found usually was enough to get things going.

He didn’t reply immediately, just looked me up and down, taking me in, getting the measure of me. Like I said, a man used to getting his own way, and if he was going to cede on inch of his authority to me, he was going to make sure he wasn’t going to be wasting his time. He seemed to nodd into himself.

“I would like to speak to Mr. Jim Callaghan, in private. Are you he?” his voice was clipped and business like. This bird didn’t like to waste anything.

“I am Jim Callaghan.”

“My name is Aaron Ryan. I would like to hire your services.”

“Uh-huh. Please, come into my office.”

We moved down the narrow corridor, Indian file. I sat down at my uncomfortable chair behind the desk, and he sat in his. I grabbed a pencil and a pad. “Okay, Mr. Ryan, how can I help you?” I figured someone who liked to waste so little of his own breath would appreciate the direct approach.

He reached into his pocket for his wallet, and pulled out a photograph. He passed it over to me. It was a picture of a young girl with long blonde hair. About sixteen perhaps.

“This is my daughter, Naomi. She has been absent for three days.”

The photograph was a bit blurry, but even then her huge eyes leapt out at you. She was a pale, pinched little thing. She didn’t look too happy.

“Have you told the police?”

“I have not.”

I passed the photograph back to him. “You should speak to them. A missing girl is a serious matter.”

“Mr. Callaghan, for personal reasons, I would sooner deal with this matter privately.”

I raised an eyebrow and said nothing. He stared me out, I have to admit.

“Well,” I said, “I guess you can tell me more about it.”

He smiled coldly. “There is little to tell. Naomi has not been home for two nights. I am, of course, concerned for her safety. It is possible she is associating with people who are not likely to be a good influence on her. I would like you to locate her, so we can persuade her to return home.”

“She has not contacted home since she vanished.”

“We do not have a telephone, but I think it unlikely she would have been trying to contact us in any event.”

“Tell me about the evening she disappeared.”

“That would have been Thursday evening. It was in most ways a typical day. When I returned home from my employment, we had a family meal. Afterwards Naomi behaved very quietly and submissively. She retired at nine o’clock. We rise early, but the next morning Naomi did not come down for breakfast. We found her room empty. Her bed had not been slept in. Her room is on the ground floor, and the window was open.”

“The sequence of events seems clear,” I said, thinking, I’m starting to talk like him now.

He nodded, curtly.

I asked, “You have a dog?”

“Yes. There was no disturbance.”

“Like in the story.” He looked at me blankly. I let it pass.

“Does your daughter have any close friends she might be with?”

“I have already accounted for that. She has no girlfriends that she is likely to have run off with.”

“School friends as well?”

“We operate a small school of our own, Mr. Callaghan. She does not attend the public schools.”

I leant back in my chair. A picture was starting to form in my mind.

“Mr. Ryan, I need to you be frank with me.”

“I will be open in my answers,” he said, coolly.

“You are a religious man?”

“I would not deny my faith. To do so would be a sin.”

“You follow a strict interpretation of the faith?”

The coolness became glacial. “There is no interpretation of the faith. We follow the laws laid down by the Lord. There can be no other way.”

“This is why you have chosen not to contact the police?”

“As a part of a system of government that is at best atheistic, we can have no dealing with them.”

I sighed. “You should contact them, Mr. Ryan. Your daughter’s life may be in danger.”

He did the cold staring thing again, not wasting any words on what had already been said. I fiddled with the pencil a bit, looked at the words I had written in the pad. Naomi. Thursday. Quiet and Submissive. Dog. I gnawed on the pencil a bit. Quiet and submissive. This was a man that did not waste words.

“You said she was quiet and submissive the evening of the night she ran away. You mentioned this specifically. She was not always so?”

“Naomi has been troubled of late.”

“Why?”

The cold look again. Any more of this, and frost would start forming on the desk top.

“Naomi is sixteen. She was betrothed to be married. She had not accepted this blessing with grace.”

“Who was she going to marry?”

“Her union had been arranged to a senior member of the Church. This was a fortuitous match. Naomi, filled with sinful pride and refusing to accord me the respect due her father, had questioned this.”

“She did not want to marry this man?”

“She did not see how it was a reason for celebration.”

“Who was to be her husband?”

“She was to have married Joshua Palmer. He is a good and faithful man.”

“How old is he?” The frost appeared on the desk top, right on cue.

“Mr. Callaghan, we have a way of life that may seem odd to you. I ask you not to judge us. That is the prerogative of the Lord, and no other.”

“You said you would be frank.”

“Mr. Palmer is in his fiftieth year.”

I twiddled with the pen some more. Ryan spoke, his voice like an Alaskan winter. “Mr. Callaghan, I appreciate the time you have given me. I fear that it has been a loss for both of us. I would not waste any further time if you are not willing to assist us.”

I sighed. “I haven’t made up my mind to take the case, Mr. Ryan. It isn’t for me to judge my clients. I need to know more before I can say if I can help you.”

He had been about to rise, but settled back into his seat after that.

“Please, think. Has Naomi been in contact with any one who is not … ah … of your faith?”

“We try to avoid contact with such.” If the irony of him saying that to me occurred to him, he did not show it. I managed to keep my face impassive, but inside I was rolling about on the office floor, laughing like a hyena.

“Unless your girl has simply run off into the night with no idea where to go, she must have had a goal in mind. Runaways usually run away because they think there is somewhere better they can be.”

“We try to avoid contact with sinners and the world of Mammon. In particular, we try to keep our women folk away from sin and temptation, and the lustful eyes of the ungodly.”

“She has no friends that you know of, outside your community?”

“I am not aware of any, and I think it is unlikely she would have formed any friendship strong enough to tempt her, without me being aware of it.”

“I will need to speak to other people in your community.”

Icy silence.

“Mr. Ryan, you have asked me to withhold judgment. That I can do, but I can’t trace your daughter if I’m to be blindfolded and gagged from the start. I’ll need to speak to people, other wise I can’t help you.”

“It would be possible to arrange this, under certain conditions.”

“Thank you. Now, tell me about your community, its day to day life.”

“What purpose would that serve?”

“Humour me. I’m trying to form a picture of who your daughter would be in contact with, opportunities for her to contact outsiders. That sort of thing.”

He described, briefly, their way of life. The group lived in a commune up in the hills – not so far away from town as to make it impossible for a young girl to strike out on foot, but far enough for it to be unfeasible. The lives of the men were comparatively normal – some even lived separately from their wives and families during the week, earning their living in Mammon. Mr. Ryan was not one. Every day, he would leave the compound and drive into the city, where he had a perfectly normal job as a real estate broker. Back at the compound, the women folk and children rarely ventured out, and were never supposed to go forth without a chaperone. The children were schooled at the compound – mostly bible and indoctrination, by the sound of it. There was, as Mr. Ryan had suggested, no telephone. Such frivolous, possibly sinful, signs of modernity were frowned on.

Mr. Ryan agreed to meet me at the compound later that afternoon and departed. Spent a few moments looking at the scribbles on my notepad.

Later that afternoon, I took a drive out of town, toward the compound where the Brotherhood of the Saved was located. I’d done a bit of background reading in the interim, and made a few phone calls. The group was made up of about a dozen families, though only five lived on the compound full-time – the Ryans and the Palmers being amongst those. I had entertained the idea they might be polygamists, but this had proved not to be the case – Mr. Palmer’s wife had died the year before, he had even advised the appropriate authorities. By and large, however, the Brotherhood kept contact with Mammon to a minimum, though not to the point that they shunned the chance to make money – all the men, it seemed, had enjoyed successful and rewarding careers. It was a grave sin to waste God’s time and the opportunities God afforded you.

The Brotherhood compound was really just a collection of plain little bungalows. I had been expecting something grim and fenced, more like a prison. Naomi, after scrambling out of her bedroom window, had only to walk down the dirt track to the road.

I halted my Packard some distance from the first bungalow. Somewhere out of sight a couple of dogs started making them selves heard. I sat in my car and waited, as Ryan had instructed me to do. A few moments later, I saw him emerge from another bungalow. He strode towards me. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Callaghan,” he said. By his standards, I figured, this was a gushing welcome.

“May I see Naomi’s room?”

“Come this way,” he said, and led me back to the bungalow he had just come out of. As we crossed the dusty street, I looked around. No other human beings to be seen. The men-folk, I figured, were still doing their good work in the heart of Mammon, and the woman folk huddled demurely out of sight lest the lustful eyes of the stranger fall upon them.

The bungalow was plain outside, painted white, with small windows. A veranda ran along the front. Nothing as frivolous as a flower pot or a even a door mat. Mr. Ryan removed his shoes at the entrance, and so did I, lining them up beside a half dozen pairs of plain brogues. Barefoot, we entered the house.

It was as plain and simple inside as it was outside. The walls were plain, no pictures hanging on them. The rooms were small. There was not much furniture, and what there was had been picked for function not comfort.

Naomi’s room could have been a cell or a room in a barracks. There was nothing to hint that it belonged to the young woman with sad eyes in the photograph. There was a single bed – none too soft, I guessed, a desk and a small book shelf that was empty of books apart from two Bibles. A small cupboard contained a few items of clothing – skirts and blouses, in gray and brown and white. A chest of drawers contained nothing unusual, unless you can count the absence of anything feminine unusual.

I looked out of the window, the window Naomi had scrambled out of. It was small, but she was a small girl.

We went back into the main room. A tall woman stood by the plain table. She was dressed in garb similar to the simple gray clothing I had just seen hanging in Naomi’s cupboard. Her hair was drawn up in a tight bun, but it was the same colour as the girl in the picture’s had been. She was, I judged, at least fifteen years younger than her husband.

She dropped her eyes to the floor and turned on her heel, walking out to stand on the veranda.

“My wife, Ruth” said Mr. Ryan. “She would prefer not to be present while we discuss this business.”

“Might I speak to your wife, Mr. Ryan? In private.”

“It is not fitting for you to speak to her alone.”

I demurred. “Can we speak to Mr. Palmer?”

Joshua Palmer was fifty, according to what Mr. Ryan had told me, but he looked older. He was a dried out, harsh looking stick of a man, with out an ounce of humour or gentleness in him. His house was identical in almost every respect to the Ryan’s bungalow, plain and simple and laid out on the same pattern: a main room, with a corridor which bedrooms opened off. At the far end, a slightly larger room, where the pater familias took repose. Mr. Joshua Palmer sat opposite me across the table. I sat in a hard chair facing him. Compared to Palmer, Ryan was garrulous.

“On Thursday night, the night that Naomi disappeared, did you see her?”

“No.”

“Where were you?”

“Here.”

“You stayed at home all evening?”

“Yes.”

“You do so every night?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do that evening?”

“I read the Bible. Then I retired at nine o’clock.” I had succeeded in wringing something more than a mono-syllable out of him. It felt like a victory. Beyond that, I got nothing from Mr. Palmer. Every sally was beaten back, every question glanced off him with out so much as a spark. He answered questions about his forthcoming marriage without any embarrassment or doubt that he was fulfilling a God given right. After half-an-hour of futile probing, I gave up. The man was invulnerable.

I drove back into town, feeling disgusted by my contact with the righteous. I stopped at the first bar I saw to wash away the taint of sanctity with cheap whisky.

The next day, I drove out in the direction of the compound once more. It was ten o’clock. I drove two hundred yards past the turn off that lead to the compound, until I found another dirt road, which I turned up. I parked the car amid some trees, so it was not likely to be seen from the road or the compound. I cut across a field, keeping to the hedge line until I was forced to break cover to cross the last few yards to the Ryan’s bungalow. The lunatic idea of scrambling through a window occurred to me, but was quickly rejected. I was twice the size of Naomi Ryan. She had not gone through the window. It was a certainty I could not.

The door to the Ryan’s house was open. I walked into the main room without knocking. I could hear a woman singing quietly to herself, a high pitched, not unpleasant voice, reciting a hymn. The baby was still crying to itself, though less angrily that before. I made a quick search of the room, but could not find what I wanted.

“I knew you would return” said a soft voice behind me.

I spun on my heel. Mrs. Ryan stood in the passage way, watching me calmly. I cursed myself as a fool. I was getting old and slow and stupid, and a girl had managed to sneak up on me like I was some blundering amateur. I managed a smile to cover my fright.

“You should not be here,” she said, quietly. “If you are caught here, it will be the worse for me. The rules are clear.”

I found my voice again. “I would like to speak to you about your daughter.”

“Of course. I am no fool.”

“You helped her to escape?”

“Obviously, you are no full either.”

“The window was a bit too much for me to buy. Why would she risk climbing out of it, when it is easier to walk out the door? Your bedroom is at the end of the corridor. She wouldn’t even have to walk past your door.”

She smiled. “I was not born into the brotherhood. When I was a girl I used to read books where girls were always climbing out of windows for one reason or another. Perhaps you are right.”

“I was looking for the receipts. For the clothes.”

“I did not bring them back with me. The risk of my husband finding them was too great.”

“Smart move. But you should have removed some of her clothes. Some clothes had been removed from the cupboard, but no underwear was taken.”

She sighed. “Yes. I didn’t think of the underwear until I saw my husband return with you yesterday. I knew he would be too prudish to poke around in her drawers.”

I grinned. “And you can see I’m the sort of person who does little else than rummage amongst ladies intimate garments.”

She flushed. “If you look now, you’ll find the underwear gone.”

“You married into the Brotherhood?”

“I was young, and Aaron was handsome and charming then.”

“You didn’t want your daughter to marry Mr. Palmer?”

“You met him yesterday, I believe?”

“Yes.”

“Then you ask if I wanted Naomi to marry him?”

“You married an older man, yourself.”

“And that was a mistake I wouldn’t let my daughter repeat. I have six children. Every moment I am with Aaron, I am watched and expected to submit to his authority. I am not allowed to speak to strange men. I amm not allowed to be in a room with another man unless it is a blood relative or I am accompanied by a blood relative.”

“Talk me through how you helped her run away. I have the general outline, but I’m not one hundred per cent on some of the detail. Like, how did you get clothes for her?”

“That was easy. There is a farmer who has a house near here. His wife is a sensible woman. Her husband drives to town once a week, with her. Some of us go into town. Last week, I went into town with them and bought some clothes for Naomi.”

“And on Thursday night?”

“I made arrangements with a friend. When I joined the Brotherhood, I did not lose all my old friends. One or two I still have.”

“Is she with them now?”

“No.”

“Where is she?”

“I will not say.”

We paused.

“I will have to tell your husband what you have told me. He is my client.”

“I understand.”

“I’ll leave out a few details. Like how you get into town. You’ll have to think of an alternative story for that. That way, others will still be able to use it.”

“Thank you.”

“What is likely to happen to you?”

“Violations of our rules are punished strictly. I will be beaten. That is my hsbnd’s right. I will be vilified. I will be forced to do penance.”

“Why do you tolerate it? You are no fool.”

“I joined the Brotherhood because I became convinced of certain things. I do not believe that my husband is my infallible master, not any longer. But I do believe in the sanctity of the vows we took. His weakness and sin will not be lessened if I add my own to it.”

“What will happen to your daughter.”

“Forgive me, that is not something I will tell you. Now I ask you to leave, before I scream. Perhaps, my husband will believe you returned here for purposes other than locating his daughter.”

“Make sure you have your story straight.”

“Thank you. Now you must go.”

I paused at the door, looking at her, tanding ramrod straight and absolutely calm.

“Goodbye,” I said.

“Good bye,” she replied.

I left, but did not go back to my car immediately. Instead I went to the farm house at the end of the dirt road I had parked on. The farmer’s wife was there, and proved ready to talk about her strange neighbours. After that, I drove back into town.

I went back into my office and sat at my desk for a time. I had the same feeling of contamination that I had detected last night. Then I went back into the hallway to make a telephone call. I spoke to Ned Tornquist. I arranged to meet him at a restaurant.

Ned was a big muscular man, with intense eyes and something of the torpedo or bullet about him. He had an unassailable sense of purpose, like he could not be diverted or stopped. This made him a damn good detective. He also had a judicious take on the rules, which made him a good person for a private dick to know, as well.

He got to the restaurant before me – he was as punctual as he was indefatigable, and he had already ordered himself a stake almost an inch thick. He needed every ounce of it. Unlike me, who was getting soft and flabby at the edges, Ned seemed to get harder as he got older.

“Jimmy! I ordered you a steak as well.”

“Thanks. I’m starving. I ain’t tasted anything but holier than thou hypocrisy since yesterday morning’s coffee.”

“You mean that Brotherhood cabal you asked me to look up?”

“The same.”

“Here.” He shoved a manila folder across the table to me, leaving a greasy thump print on the corner. “That stuff that you were talking about. Might make interesting reading. I don’t know. I didn’t work the case.”

He wolfed down his steak as I flicked through the file, a collection of typed sheets and some scribbled hand-written notes. In spite of what he had said, these were not just some notes scribbled down while no-one was looking. Ned had lifted the whole file for me. That was friendship.

Ned eating steak was a sight to behold. He severed a large chunk with crude knife work that made his plate screech and pushed it inches away from its starting point. The impact of the fork on the plate, as it was punched through the steak, was audible at the next table. I knew this because the scrawny old dame sitting there, talking to a much younger man who was trying to look interested, kept looking up in irritation whenever Ned skewered himself another hunk of dripping, bloody meat. The salad wilted, mercifully ignored – if Ned treated the lettuce like he ate the thick pad of meat, he’d drive the fork into the table.

I read the typed sheets with interest. They described a police investigation into some irregular behaviour out at the compound of the Brotherhood. It confirmed pretty much what I had been told by the farmer’s wife.

Ned finished his steak about the time mine arrived. For a short while he looked plaintively at my plate, perhaps wondering at my restraint as I nibbled at tiny morsels of meat. Then he scratched his head with a greasy paw and slapped his stomach, which gave a solid thud, as if the steak had been immediately incorporated into the solid lining of muscle that shielded his belly.

“So what’s the story with your reverend friends, Jimmy?”

“Well, there is a missing girl.”

This sobered Ned up immediately. He’s got a little girl of his own, six years old. He takes things like that very seriously.

“Should I be paying them a visit?”

“I think she’ll be okay. I had some worries earlier, given some of the characters involved, and if she were still there this” - I waved the manila folder at him – “Would make me very frightened for her. But she’s better of where she is.”

Ned relaxed. “I think I remember the story you’ve just been reading” he said, his brow crinkling. “A dame picked up by a motorist, wandering along the road, in her nightie? About two years back?”

“That’s the one.”

“Yeah, I recall now. Her husband had to come down and pick her up. He treated us like we were vermin, likely to bite him. Didn’t see him myself, but that’s what the boys who were dealing with it said.”

“That’s their way of dealing with the likes of us.”

“How did you get mixed up with the righteous and the saved?”

I filled him in on Mr. Ryan, in a few words. Even Mr. Ryan might have been impressed with my reticence. I liked Ned, but he was liable to go off in random directions, especially, like I said, if his paternal instincts were aroused.

Ned stretched back and waved his muscley arms like something out of Africa. “Yeah, well, you let me know if you think these bastards need sorted out. I’m your man for that.”

I didn’t hold any doubt of that.

“Hey, you still seeing Martha?”

“Yeah. She’s singing at Sammy’s till the end of the month.”

“I heard. I might swing by and check it out. Ain’t many dames got a voice like hers.”

Ned and Martha went back further than Martha and I, or Ned and I, as far as I knew and had cared to ask. There weren’t many people in this city Ned didn’t know in one way or another. He was well known, though not always popular in the places he was best known. He liked walking into joints like Sammy’s every now and again, just to see people scurry for the dark shadowy corners.

“Let me now when that’ll happen and I’ll join you. It’s been a while since we three met up.”

“I will.”

Soon after that, we left the restaurant and the old dame and her younger, bored companion, and all the rest of them. Ned took his purloined file back to the station with him, and I headed back to my office. I had a phone call to make.

I called Mr. Ryan at his office. I told him that his daughter had fled with the connivance of her mother. I explained how I knew this. He went very silent, Even more so than usual.

“You are disappointed, Mr. Ryan?”

Silence.

“Perhaps you wished you had a faithful, obedient wife, like Mr. Palmer?”

Silence.

“Mr. Palmer is strict in his views of a wife’s rights. Mrs. Palmer, I believe, was often unhappy.”

Silence.

“Even her sense of duty broke down , occasionally, though.”

Again, silence.

“You remember that a year ago, she was taken to hospital by a neighbour, because her husband had thrown her out of the house at night. With a broken arm.”

Silence.

“It is wrong of a woman to seek refuge like that. It shows a lack of dutiful submission.”

Silence.

“Then there was the matter of Gabriel Palmer.”

I think I could hear Mr. Ryan breathing, but I wasn’t sure.

“You’re daughter was engaged to him, wasn’t she, first of all. From birth.”

Quietly: “That is correct.”

“But then Mrs. Palmer died. And suddenly Mr. Palmer, senior, has a revelation. Gabriel was packed off to New York on a mission. Then Mr. Palmer announces that Naomi should marry him, as he is the oldest unmarried member of the family. What an honour for you.” I paused, but he didn’t say anything to that. “How did you feel when you heard your daughter was going to marry that old lech?”

“It was God’s will.”

“Fiddlesticks. It was the will of a depraved old bully, who had beaten and cowed one woman into her grave, and now wanted to eke what pleasure he could out of his last few years. With your daughter.”

I thought I detected a low moan.

“Your wife is a strong woman, Mr. Ryan, and you are not a bad man as far as I can judge. Mrs. Palmer must have been a strong woman as well, to survive as long as she did with that brute. How long do you think Naomi would have been able to endure it?”

“He is a good man.” Quietly, weakly.

“He’s a bully, and a fanatic, and violent. You daughter is weak. Would she have survived a year with him?”

He put the telephone receiver down.

In my line of work you don’t get many satisfying outcomes, and this wasn’t one that broke the mould. Most of the time, you make things a little better, for a while. Quite a lot of the time, you make things a whole lot worse. I pictured Mrs. Ryan, her unnaturally calm face as she contemplated God only knew what the Brotherhood would demand of her as penance, what might still happen to her when her husband found she wasn’t eager to tell him where his daughter was, and the murky future that girl with the wild, sad eyes had, and the future she’d only just avoided because of her mother’s stubborn courage didn’t extend to including her daughter in her own personal tragedy, and all the past that she’d already lived. The case was closed, but that didn’t mean that I was feeling a whole lot of happiness about myself or my fellow creatures.

The Wyahia

“Yes,” said the old man, staring into the fire, “Hospitality is a great virtue, but you should have a care who you welcome into your house.”

He said nothing for a few moments, and then he spoke again.

“In the north, where I come from, there is a legend of a creature. It is called the Wyahia, which is from the words for wind and darkness in that tongue. It is said to emerge in the long winter months, from whatever dark caves it dwells in. It hates both sun and warmth, but when the sun is gone from the northern sky and the snow is deep on the ground, so that families can not leave their homes for days or weeks, the Wyahia comes out. Its voice can b heard in the wind, as it prowls about the land, as if seeking for something.

“It is cruel. It can sneak into a home in many ways, through a chink in the wall or in the gap under a door. This is why the people of the North seal their homes up in winter, with prayers and blessings, not just against the snow, against the Wyahia. If the Wyahia gains entry to a home, it will begin its work on those within. It can influence their moods and their thoughts and twist them to its will. Whatever it is the Wyahia desires from that family, it will find a way of taking it. And in the spring, when the other families unseal their doors and look about then and set out to visit their neighbours, they will see that this house or that is still standing sealed in the melting snow. There will be no response when the neighbours call out and bang on te doors or shutters. When the door is broken open, the same thing is always found – the inhabitants dead, having fought with each other and slain each other at the behest of the Wyahia. This is not common, mark you, but a few families will destroy themselves like this every winter. Sometimes on is left alive, a crazy, gibbering thing, barely recognizable as the strong farmer or hunter of a few months before. This sorry remnant is killed and the body burned, as are the bodies of all who die in such a way, for their remains are still tainted by the power of the Wyahia’s will.”

“Nonsense,” said Barron, curtly. “You’re wind beast is nothing but the result of people living too long in one place together. I’ve heard similar tales of people turning on each other when they’ve been together too long. Travelers on desert caravans, sailors on ships that can not come to land, or soldiers stationed at forts in hostile lands, like I was. Loneliness and boredom make people lose their heads, not some dark wind spirit.”

“Perhaps,” said the old man calmly. “There are demons everywhere on the earth, after all, and I suppose in the sea as well. But what I am about to tell you is a true story. I know this, for it was me that it happened to.

“I was not raised in this land, this much you know already. I was born far to the north of here, in the land of the Wyahia. In the summer it is not so bad, there is a living to be made from the soil and I is too poor to attract much interest from raiders. In winter, it is a cruel place, when the snow lies deep on he ground so that a man can not walk more than a few feet before he is exhausted. When this happens, the families will seal up their houses, as I described, and live off their saved up food until the thaw. That is the time of the Wyahia, when the snow storms blow down from the north and the wind howls across the plain, bringing ice and snow in its teeth.

“There was a family that lived in the North. There were three of them in the family, a man called Bruin, his wife Cannil, and the brother of Bruin, whose name Alam. Their house – A hurrit in the name of the people of that place, was half a day from the next nearest settlement, in summer. In winter, it might have been as far as the sun is from us now.

“A hurrit is a long house, made of wood and layered on the outside with cured skins. Te roof is made inn such a way so that snow falls off. It is not so unusual in a bad winter that snow will build up over the roof of the hurrit, burying until there is nothing but a lump in the snow. In the hurrit the family would put by as much as they could, in the back room, as provision against the winter. This horde, and prayer was what the people of the North lived on during the winter months when families might be cut off for weeks from all other settlements.”

The old man paused a little while and then continued.

“The tradition of hospitality in the north is very strong. Turning someone away in winter is to condemn them to death. So it is a tradition that none are turned away unless they are a threat, or there is not enough to feed the extra mouth. It is also accepted that if hospitality is extended, you are as a member of the family that has offered it, as long as you remain, and you work as a member of the family.

“A few weeks prior to the real storms of winter, when the weather was already very cold and cruel, as night was falling, Bruin returned from gathering wood in the forest to find someone huddled at the door of the house. The person – it was impossible to see them clearly in the darkness – implored him by gesture and clutching at his arm, to be allowed to come into the house. He agreed. The stranger came into the house.

“In the light, the stranger appeared at first a mass of rags, hunched over and looking about nervously. Slowly, as the heat of the house spread to their cold body, the stranger removed the furs and rags - a wild assortment. Bruin, Cannil and Alam watched with fascination, for there are few strangers wondering the lands at that time of year. And very few indeed as exotic as this traveler. She – for it became clear that the traveler was a woman – had flowing golden hair and eyes of a similar colour. This caused some consternation as the only folk who have such a complexion are the people of Kith, who are renowned as sorcerers and wicked people. But their fears were allayed when they realized that the woman had no tongue. In Kith, it is customary to cut the tongues from slaves. The traveler was clearly a slave, either freed or, more likely, fled, but harmless of and magic. Anyway, with no tongue in her head, how could she speak words to enchant them.

“The other surprise was revealed when the woman had stripped the furs away from her until she was standing in her plain, dirty clothes. A small bundle was bound to her chest – an infant child. Though she could not tell them her story, they could guess at it. The child was sickly and weak, for the mother was so starved that she could barely produce milk for it.

“That night, there was s counsel while the traveler slept. Alam was frightened of the woman and suspected her of tricks and wanted her on her way before mischief visited them. Bruin was unsure, reluctant to take up Cannil’s suggestion. For Cannil wanted them to extend hospitality to the wretch and her child for the winter. Neither man could deny that sending her on her way would most likely be the death of her and the child, and Cannil lambasted them for their lack of human pity. They had food enough, for the harvest had been good and the hunting rich. Eventually, they submitted to her will.

“In the morning, as the mother fed her child, they conveyed to her that she could stay with them. The woman must have learned some of their language, for she understood what they said and wept with gratitude. She had been fortunate indeed – within a week the first snows fell and the winter storms came howling down from the north behind them.

“The woman gave them to understand her name was Danna – or that was what they could make of her untongued attempt to tell them her name. For the first week, it seemed likely the child would die – a tiny, wailing mite of a boy, whose ribs stuck out and whose elbows were the widest part of his arms. He looked barely human, a clutching bundle of sticks, with skin stretch across them so taut it looked like it would split. But in the second week he grew stronger and in the third week – by this time the storms were constant, the snow settled to the depth of Bruin’s thigh outside the door – it seemed likely he would live.

“Danna also grew in strength and helped as best she could with the work of the home in winter – though in truth the work done in winter is more to avert boredom and pass time, as the only important work is the gathering of food in the summer and autumn months. Though she could not talk, she could smile, a warm and cheerful grin that made her strange, face suddenly beautiful. She was quick and agile, and once she had recovered from her ordeal she was surprisingly strong and willing to work.

“Neither man noticed how the presence of Danna wrought changes in the order of the house. Alam was younger by three years, and planned on marrying, but there are few woman in the north and it can be hard to find a match. It was not surprising that he began to feel an attraction towards Danna.

“Alam was the most forward in his advances. As an unwed man, he had no reason to hide his desires. He would work with Danna, and since they could not talk, he would indulge in horseplay and silly, childish games with her, taking every excuse to touch her. He knew that she was a slave, and that she would probably submit to his advances, but he was reluctant to force himself upon her. So they continued dfor some time in a flirtation like two innocent children.

“Bruin watched this develop. He said nothing, of course, but jealousy began to knaw at him. Cannil was a plain woman, and Bruin had married her because there were no others, and her father was a noted man and Bruin hoped to gain prestige through the association. But watching Danna move lithely about the house, her golden hair falling over her shoulders, and the swell of her breasts under the tunic she now wore, playing these silly games wit hhis fool brother, Bruin was filled with lust for the strange slave girl.

“There came lulls in the storms, when it was possible to venture outside. Bruin ordered his brother to go out into the forest to see if there were tracks of moose or other game – a pointless task, as the tracks would most likely be obliterated by snow before a hunt could be organized. He took Danna to work with him in the big shed where more wood was stored. Cannil was to work in the hurrit.

“They worked for a short time, carrying wood to the back room of the hurrit. When Danna returned to the shed, Bruin took her in his arms and pushed her down upon a pallet of furs. Though startled, she did not resist him, and he took her there in the shed.

“This set a pattern, where Bruin would try to find ways to work with Danna. He didn’t know if Cannil knew or guessed, though little work was done when Danna and Bruin were together. Soon Danna started to act more coldly towards Alam and would be openly affectionate to Bruin. Alam, slow to understand what he was seeing, became angry. He would watch the other three with feverish eyes, seeing how Danna might lay a hand upon Bruin under the very eyes of Cannil, and how cannil would merely drop her eyes, as if she were pretending not to see.

“Alam became furious, his suspicion building and strengthening but still not finding voice. At the same time, Bruin became more careless in his tryst. He would reach out to Danna and touch her openly, caressing her hair or her pale skin. At these moments, his face shone with a light that had not been seen in it before, the burning desire of infatuation. Cannil saw, and understood, and said nothing. Alam saw, and his rage grew and his mind became full of thoughts of how he was being made a fool of by his brother, and that he had somehow been betrayed by this Kithish slave-whore. But he was a man reluctant to act and slow of mind – he still tried to believe that he was wrong. Bruin, so it seemed, knew his thoughts and acted to provoke more suspicion with his actions, letting a hand linger too long on Danna’s shoulder, or brushing against her in the view of his wife and brother. He would take cannil noisily at night, as if to drive home to his brother that all the women in the hurrit belonged to him alone, and Alam could only watch and yearn.

“Then one day, a calm day when he had been out in the forest on his brother’s command, he came back to the hurrit early. He could see Cannil working in the doorway of the great shed, at whatever task Bruin had sent her out on. Seeing Alam come home, she came across to meet him at the door, bringing the axe with her from the shed.

Alam met her at the the door of the Hurrit, which was closed. He did not have tmime to say anything to her, for he heard noises that he could not mistake from inside, the inarticulate grunts of Danna and the groans of Bruin, loud enough for Cannil to hear in the shed. Alam flung the door open and saw his brother atop of Danna on a pile of furs, her slayed legs wrapped around him, her hair falling in a golden casacade across the floor.

“They did not see Alam come in. He cried out with rage as he strode across the room. In his hand he bore the axe that Cannil had brought with her from the shed. He swung it wildly at his brother’s back, the blade biting deep into the shoulder. But bruin was a strong man, and rolling off Danna he staggered to his feet, blood pouring from the gash on his back. Alam swung the axe again, this time striking Bruin in the neck, slicing deep, Still Bruin did not fall, but caught the axe as Alam swung it a third time. Even with his strength failing, he managed to wrest it from his brother and swung it, the blade splitting Alam’s skull and sending him crashing to the floor.

“For a moment, there was no sound. Bruins stood, his blood pouring from his neck and shoulder, his brother’s blood and his own dripping from the blade of the axe. His shoulders sagged as the seconds passed and he grew weaker. He looked about him, at the walls of the hurrit, at his wife at the door, his dead brother at his feet, and the golden haired stranger cowering against the wall, cringing away from him. With a final effort, he roared one word, ‘Wyahia,’ and brought the axe swinging down on Danna’s neck. Then he fell dead himself.”

The old man sighed. The listeners made no sound for a time. Then Barron snorted. “A fairy tale. Nothing more than the madness that I spoke of earlier. Danna was no goblin or wind-demon.”

“Indeed, Danna was nothing more than a helpless Kith slave. But she was not the source of the evil. Cannil was the whyhia, the source of death and madness.”

Barron snorted in derision. The old man held up a hand to silence him, then spoke himself. “The Wyahia had waited and watched for what it sought. It is a spirit, cold and dead. It could not breed, but it hungered for a child. Seeing Danna and her child, it brought about the deaths of Bruin, Alam and Danna in the winter. Then, it took the child and fled into the cold caves where such spirits dwell. For I was that child, the child raised by the Wyahia.”