An "Offal" Short Story

Well, I have been writing a longer story, which I plan to become a book. But I thought I should not neglect my blog. So, as a gift, I'm going to write something using random inspiration. Dictionary.com's "word of the day" is offal (which is awful, I know, though maybe not as bad as the pun I just made) I'll use the offal. And inspiration: GO! 


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He knelt down in the dirt, his fingers brushing the top soil. The loam was rich this time of year; the cabbages growing inches from his knee were larger than last year's. There was another scent that caught his attention, though; something faint and sharp. It did not belong in his sister's garden.

Thimon reached between the cabbages, feeling the soft soil's grit gather beneath his fingernails as he rummaged around for the foreign object. Finally he found purchase in a smooth wooden handle, unearthing the small dagger and drawing it out to the light where he could see better. It was very old; the carving on the handle was before his grandfather's time. The symbols that flashed on it he had never seen before, and he suspected somehow they were forbidden. Whatever those things were, they had some power that he did not know of.

He stood, feeling the cool wetness of the soil that had seeped through to his knee, and brushed off the dirt. Something had led him here. He stared at the dagger, at the now-dull edge on its tarnished blade, and the symbols, and pulled open his pouch.

**

"What do you think you're doing?!" his sister, Erli, exclaimed. The blue vein on her forehead throbbed, and as he stared blankly at it her face reddened. "And stop staring at my vein!"

"I don't know what's gotten into you," he grunted, drawing his eyes away and trying not to laugh. Usually when he did that his sister felt silly for making a spectacle and stopped shouting. "I only looked at the thing once."

"And now you feel things," she spat, turning around to stir the stew bubbling over the fire. "And you smell things that don't belong. And I don't know why that thing was in my garden, but I don't want it here. If Nurick came home and saw you holding that..." her voice trailed off. Erli sighed and turned back to her brother, wiping her hands on her apron. "I just don't want to see this take you over. It won't bring Father back."

Thimon frowned, his grip on the dagger tightening as he swept it off the table and back into his pouch. "I know that. I knew you'd say that. As if I didn't remember. As if I forgot that he's dead."

"Thim..." she broke off as he stood, his leg pushing the chair back so it scraped the wood floor harshly. "I- I didn't mean it. Thim, come back!"

He was already out the door. He'd hoped she would understand that he couldn't take it back. The dagger was his now, and the stone too. Whatever the thing was. He hadn't meant to look inside it, to see the strange flashes of light and hear the voices that dwelt therein, but somehow it had...it had made him, as odd as it had felt at the time. And his fathter's voice had been one of the ones he had heard.

And Erli had been just as she always was: skeptical and stern. Like Father, only with looks of pity that made it much harder to bear. And her husband, Nurick, was forbidding and brusque. Thimon still wondered what she had ever seen in the man that would have possessed his beautiful sister to marry such a man. He had no time for Thimon's grief, or his music. He had nearly tossed his flute into the fire before Erli had stopped him last week. Thimon felt the small wooden instrument, the last thing his father had made him, clinking against the dagger in his hip pouch.

The town's busy day was winding down; the merchants' shops were closing, the beggars from beside the baker's shop were huddling together against a cool autumn night in the alleyway, and Thimon passed the doctor on his way out of town toward a house call. Everyone seemed completely oblivious to anyone's plight but their own; he felt invisible. He slumped against the outside wall of the tavern, feeling the stone's presence hot against his neck. He pulled the string out of his shirt and stared at it. Erli had said it wouldn't bring Father back, but he was sure he'd heard his voice in there somewhere. Perhaps, if he had a little more clarity of mind, he could do it. Just now his brain was muddled and wandering. He slipped the thing back into his shirt and stood. Perhaps there was someone who might understand him.

**

"Well, I can't say as I've seen anything like this in quite some -" The town historian stopped, frowning. His tobacco-stained fingers moved with dexterity over the dagger's surface and he seemed troubled. He pointed to the symbols on the dagger's handle. "D-do you know what these is, boy?"

Thimon shook his head. "I have never seen anything like them. I just found the thing. In my sis -" he cleared his throat. "In the woods. What are they?"

The old man paused before speaking. The wad in his mouth moved from one side to the other while he thought. Then he leaned over and spit into a tin on the floor. His knobby hand reached up to scratch an itch on his shiny pate, and his eyes moved from the dagger to Thimon's face. "They's writin', boy. These here are letters, and letters form the words, and with words you can make ordinary objects speak of their own accord."

Thimon's eyes widened. "Writing? B-but I thought -"

The historian nodded gravely. "Yes, you thought writing was forbidden. Well, it is, boy. It is. But it hasn't always been so." He wrapped the dagger up in a stained cloth that was lying on the table. "Don't show this to anyone. My advice: go bury it back up in the woods. And dig a deep hole, son. If you get caught with that..." he shook his wrinkled head. "It's not worth dyin' for."

Thimon tried to keep his hand from shaking as he took the dagger back and put it in his pouch. "But you won't...you won't tell anyone...will you?"

The man shook his head again, waving at Thimon. "Haven't I known you since you were a little one? I wouldn't do it. But there's not a one who can protect you here. Or, leastaways, no one who can that will. Get rid of it. Soon."

Thimon stuttered his thanks, left the loaf of bread he'd brought for the man on the table, and left with his head spinning. Writing? But that had been forbidden to anyone since...since his father was a boy. And he frowned now, thinking of the glint as light hit the symbols. I wonder what it says, he thought, his hand automatically going to his pouch to feel the bulge of the wrapped dagger. And he knew, at that moment, that he could not destroy it. He would wonder for the rest of his life. Perhaps he could go the rest of his days without knowing how his father had died. Or where he had gone the night before his death. But this...this was something he could not let go.

**

The wind was picking up; autumn evenings were beginning to grow much cooler. Thimon struggled against the chill, pulling his too-small wool cloak around him. He was glad Erli had insisted it have a hood, even though he was mocked for it (hooded cloaks were not in style in the town just now), because he could feel the cold biting at the tip of his nose when he turned to see the sign at the crossroads. He only wished he hadn't grown out of all his clothes this year. Too-short pants and sleeves were not a good thing, but money had been scarce from last year's meager harvest, and so he was making do.

Thimon glanced around at the woods. He'd come half a day's journey already, farther than he had ever been away from home in his life, and by the time his sister thought to send for him, he would be far enough that she would not know where to look. Perhaps then she would think about her words, and her choices. And maybe, deep in her heart, she might someday forgive him.

A small copse of trees provided him with shelter for the night, and he built a small fire, pulling out the hare he had killed on the roadside with his small bow. He was glad to see that it had worked. Feeling around in his pouch, his fingers brushed the dagger, and he paused momentarily before settling on his hunting knife. In a few quick slices he had removed the offal and then set to work skinning the small creature. His fire crackled with the sputtering juices of the meat as he turned a small spit, contemplating his next movement. Perhaps he ought to go to the coast...writing was not forbidden there, but the people were proud and lordly. He would stick out, and the magistrates would know he was from the Ong province where writing was not allowed, and he didn't want to think about what would happen to him then. So, he could take his chances with the southern wilderness, but he didn't know much about them. Or the east...The east would be a long trek. There were a great number of towns where his kind would be noticed between here and there. He'd have to skirt all of them, and follow the road without traveling on it. But he'd chosen the dagger now. The unknown. He couldn't go back, and the mystery of the strange symbols and their powerful ability to speak to anyone held him captive.

He was the prisoner of his own curiosity.