Work Text:
Burial
The rain was loud that evening.
She did not dislike the rain. There were many people in the mansion but only an handful of them would go outside in the rain, especially when the wind was strong too. It was always cold on the island on such days, even in summer, but those were also the times when a simple umbrella was enough to separate her from everyone else. To further separate her, that is. Nobody would bother her outside when it rained, nor would anyone come by to tell her to come back inside. Nobody would really bother her even inside the mansion either way, in truth, but... the rain made it easier to ignore their presence.
The rain was not an annoyance.
There was someone who would tell her to be careful though, who would tell her to put on an extra coat, worried that she might catch a cold. Someone who wasn't comfortable with the cold himself, even, but who still strained his old joints to come keep her company her under the downpour. She didn't like that, she didn't like him to exert himself for her, but... something inside of her felt a little warm when he did. It was an odd sensation, one pleasant and yet wrong somehow. But her doll always left that feeling alone, it always allowed it to linger inside of her, so it probably was not something malign in nature.
No, the malign thing was she herself, wasn't it?
The rain did not bother her but it was not an ally either, for it hurt him.
And she herself was the undesirable, for...
... for...
... where to start? She could probably spend an entire day writing down the reasons, and still not be done by the time the sun set.
She didn't care though. Or perhaps it was her doll that made her not care. She wasn't sure.
It was a loud evening. Or had the threshold to the night been crossed already? The livings were still up and about, tending to themselves after a long day of work, and those others were wandering and whispering as well. They always were. She didn't dislike them. They didn't look at her the same way the servants did, they didn't talk about her the same way the townsfolk would, they didn't...
...
It was a loud evening, but the rain sounded strangely distant. The soft -weak- humming coming from the bed sounded decidedly louder than the weather, oddly enough. The twin moons were full, and yet there seemed to be hardly any light inside that room. The candles were all burning however, and the fireplace was alight as well. Was that her doing too? Had she done something wrong again? Something bad? Perhaps she should walk away. Her presence was-
"... is that you, Lisa?" a voice asked as the humming came to a halt.
Her ears twitched. The frail, warm voice shook her out of her own mind, it wiped away the uncomfortable blackness creeping into her thoughts. The little girl stood up and walked to the source of the voice, hugging her doll and not letting it go.
"Have I awoken you somehow, grandpa?" she asked, standing next to the old man's bed.
A loud cough preceded his answer.
"I believe a thunder did, my little one" he said, a wrinkly hand finding its way out of the sheets and looking for her.
Her ears strained upwards. She was certain no lightnings had fallen in the last couple of minutes. Nevertheless, she leaned forward and said nothing.
His hands were large, but warmth was fading from them. Their touch was tender, but vigor had since long abandoned it. She shook her own head left and right softly, trying to mimick the caresses he would once give her, but it was not the same.
"You should rest, grandpa. You are tired"
"You are always tired at my age" the old man replied with a soft, strained laugh, followed by a decidedly stronger cough "What time is it?"
The little girl turned her head, but she couldn't quite make out what the clock said from her position.
"I don't know. Dinner has gone by already"
"Did Giacomo and -cough- Camilla eat with you?"
"... "
The silence felt cold. That was not a question he should've asked, the old man was aware of that much. But he still held some semblance of hope that, perhaps, things might change for the better, just a little bit.
"Have you eaten well?" he changed the subject, his niece's somewhat unkept hair conjuring an unpleasant image in his myopic eyes, the thick fur of her ears warming up his cold, cold fingers.
"There was a bit of cake in one of the fridges. I cooked some pasta too. My attempt at making pesto provided little satisfaction, however I believe I have identified the error I have committed in the preparation. The book of recipes is a sufficiently good guide"
He couldn't even force himself to smile. His memory had grown hazy, he could no longer recall her exact age, but his niece couldn't be older than eight, nine at most. A child that young should not have to scrounge the pantry of her own home to prepare her own meals, not when there were plenty of people capable to care for her living in the very same building.
"There are some leftovers. They won't be thrown away, I left a circle of pebbles around them to be sure. I will bring them to you tomorrow for lunch if you want"
She knew that wasn't needed. Her grandfather was provided for, after all. She just... wanted to do that anyway. She didn't know why. She didn't want to think about it.
"Oh, I'll look forward to that then. Is Shamare with you?"
"Mnh"
The little vulpo took half a step back, lifted her doll and pushed it up to her grandfather's hand, his palm feeling the button eyes, the mouth sewed shut, the somewhat rough fabric and the firm stuffing hidden underneath.
"I don't recognize this patch" he commented, his fingers finding a small area with a different texture.
"The stitches were coming undone and the cloth got ruined too. I fixed it up"
"I believe you've gotten better at sewing than me, my dear" he said, his lips curling up a little, his eyes trying to focus on her and only finding a blurry silhouette in her stead "And... "
Heavy steps, hurried and frantic. The door opened suddenly, quickly, almost but not quite violently. The little girl turned around and backed away, pushing herself against the wall and hugging her doll, what little warmth had managed to creep up to her face now gone.
"Father" the man who had just walked in, a lupo with purple hair and fur, called out "The doctor will be here soon, I promise. How are you feeling?"
"Better than yesterday" the old man replied as he tried to adjust his position on the bed.
The man noticed and immediately aided him, painfully aware of the state of his body, then sat next to the old man.
"I brought some medicine, I'm sure this time it will- "
"Giacomo. There's no need for that anymore" he interrupted him, lifting an hand to look for his face.
"Father, I beg of you" the man replied, taking his palm in his "You'll recover from this, so please take these medicines. These will surely work this time"
"How is Camilla doing?"
The man's ears, low since before he had entered the room, dropped even further. His grip grew tighter, and he immediately eased it back again. He feared any sort of pressure might break his father's frail bones.
"She... still doesn't recognize me. Not my face, not my name, not even this house. Her mind is still lost. So... at least you have to get better"
"Giacomo, my dear Giacomo. You knew this day would come"
"It doesn't have to be today! Nor tomorrow nor the day after! You'll get through this, you always got through these things. Just... don't leave me alone"
"You are not alone, my son. Your wife might have lost her reason, but your daughter is still here"
"That- !"
The man stood up, his father's face twisting in pain as he recalled, rathen than observed, the emotions swirling on Giacomo's face. They were many, they were intense, and none of them should've ever been aimed at that little girl.
"It's her fault Camilla fell prey of madness!" he shouted.
His gaze wandered towards her and, for a moment, their eyes met, but he quickly averted his gaze, as if he didn't want to acknowledge her presence.
"It's because of her that the people of this town get hurt! She calls sickness and misfortune upon us! She calls madness and disgrace upon us all! She- that thing- "
His words stopped, a sharp pain suddenly flaring in his side. He looked down and felt his own flesh with one hand, finding a small, red stain on his shirt. A little wound was bleeding, as if something had just gouged out a tiny little bit of his flesh. He turned towards that creature, and the wretched thing didn't even avert her gaze. It showed no sorrow, no regret, nothing.
She hadn't meant to do that. The wound was minor but she still hadn't meant to hurt her father. It simply happened, even though she hadn't meant for it to. Just like she hadn't meant to ruin the crops. To hurt the townsfolk. To make those kids fall ill. To kill those people, or any of the other things she had caused. But perhaps that was where her mistake lied. Perhaps she should've just embraced the role given to her. Would she be happy if she did?
... her grandpa wouldn't. She was certain of that.
Someone knocked at the door, interrupting whatever might've been happening inside that room.
"Master?" a voice then called out "There is something you must know"
"... please, father. Just... try these" Giacomo said, leaving a glass full of water and some pills on the nightstand before walking out.
The old man opened his mouth, but couldn't find the words. He couldn't bring himself to ask his niece to forgive his son. He was her father, the one who more than anyone should've protected her, and yet he was instead the only one in the entire town to have ever hit her. The burn mark on her shoulder would probably never fade. It was a miracle that the fireplace poker hadn't broken her bones to begin with. Perhaps Giacomo had held back at the last moment, not putting as much strength into that swing as he could've. That was the only explanation he could think of.
Was that the day expressions left her face, never to return?
"It's not your fault"
She couldn't quite believe him. Everything bad that happened in that town was ascribed to her, so she had to be the one responsible. It wouldn't even make sense otherwise. Why would everyone treat her like that, were she not at fault?
"... Shamare doesn't believe you" she said instead as she waved her doll around a bit, the doll itself waving its own arms on its own as if to deny the veridicity of that claim.
"Shamare is a smart doll, but he can make mistakes too"
Her ears perked up a little.
"He will come here! He's a doctor! Surely a little storm won't keep him from visiting a sick man?!" Giacomo's voice suddenly echoed, crossing through the closed door and filling the room, thundering over the rain and lightning outside.
The little girl hugged her doll tighter. She felt it bite, she felt it chew something dark, sticky and unpleasant, she felt it swallow, and something heavy got lifted from her chest, leaving her... indifferent. Unfazed.
"M-master, please, it's not the storm" the servant said, his voice barely audible to the two of them "It's... "
"You don't- !"
"The doctor, he... he refuses to come to this island. He fears he will get cursed by her... "
"Does he think my father's in any condition to cross the lake in this weather?! He will come here and visit him, whether he wills to or not! Prepare my boat!"
"B-but master, that won't- "
"Get it ready! I'll row it myself if I have to!"
"The doctor won't- "
"Now!"
The man hurried away, silently asking for forgiveness for aiding in dragging another poor soul to the den of that bringer of misfortune and yet unwilling to oppose Giacomo. Perhaps because he feared his wrath, perhaps because he sympathised with his plight. Or perhaps he was hoping the man would capsize and drown in the lake, for the sin of having fathered that wretched creature.
"You" Giacomo said, his voice low and heated as he stepped back inside the room, acknowledging his daughter's presence only to grab her by the neck and lift her up "If only you'd never- "
"Giacomo!"
His own father's voice shook him. He still couldn't bring himself to look at that... thing in the eyes, not even with his fingers closed around her neck. He could probably break it if he tried, but... what would happen then? Would it become a spirit? An existence even more wretched than she already was, haunting their town forever? Could he even do it? It was just staying there, motionless, hugging that doll as if it wasn't in any danger. Or did it just not care? Perhaps it would slice his throat the moment he tried to kill it. Perhaps it would make his hand rot and fall off. Was that even really its throat he was holding? What if his senses were being tricked, and it was actually one of the maids he was about to strangulate? That doll wasn't moving at the moment, but what if it suddenly started to? Besides, could he truly kill his own daught-
-no, no no no, that thing was not-
"Giacomo!"
This time his father had gotten off the bed and grabbed him. It took Giacomo a couple of moments to realize that.
"F-father, you shouldn't get u- "
"That's your -cough- that's your daughter, Giacomo!"
He let go of it. Of... her. She didn't exactly stick the landing, but the fall didn't sound as bad as the coughing.
"... I'll bring the doctor here. Please, rest up until then"
Giacomo tried to help his father to the bed, but he waved him off. He still brought him back to bed either way however, refusing to let his shaky legs support his weight any longer. Then, not wanting to delay the doctor's arrival for even a single minute more, nor wishing to spend any more time in the presence of that thing either, Giacomo walked away, the servants whispering in his wake as he prepared to cross the lake.
The girl, on her part, stood still for a while, coughing a bit at first, breathing slowly then. She had felt something inside of her stir when her father had grabbed her, something... intense. Powerful. Sinister. ... inebriating, even. But she had held it back. It was difficult but, at the same time, it was always easier when the person she tried to hold it back from was her father. Why, she wasn't sure. He wasn't someone she held dear. Not anymore. He was... possibly not someone she didn't wish to harm anymore either, even. But she had held back. She didn't always succeed, she had even failed just a while earlier, but that had been... shallower.
She tasted bile in her mouth, and tried to swallow it. Physical contact always made her feel sick, as if the stuff inside her stomach tried to escape, as if her saliva turned into something unpleasant and acidic. She had come to see that as normal at some point, or perhaps she had simply forgotten about the times when getting touched didn't cause such a reaction in her.
She waited another short while, perhaps hoping the bitter sensation would go away quickly, then walked up to the bed again. And this time she pushed her hands underneath the sheets to look for his. He strained his tired arm to wrap it around her, holding her in the closest thing to an hug he could perform.
Her grandpa was different.
She didn't dislike his touch.
He was warm, and soft, and tender.
He didn't repulse her.
But he had grown so, so very weak.
"... would you listen to a selfish request of mine, my dear Lisa?"
"You shouldn't speak, grandpa. And you should take your medicine too"
"There's no medicine for this illness. You are wise, sweetie. Much too mature for someone as young as you are. It's time you accepted this. So please, listen to this one request" he said, his words faint, his voice weak.
"... I will do whatever you want, grandpa"
"Then... please, be happy"
He felt her shift a bit. He couldn't really make out the expression on her face anymore, not even from so up close, but he could still figure the position of her ears and the way they were bent, and that told him enough. Besides, he doubted there was even any sort of expression on her face anyway. That... might've been for the best, even.
How truly unfortunate.
"You are a good girl. You didn't mean any of this. You don't deserve any of this. Please, find your happiness again. Even if it won't be tomorrow, next week or even next year, even if you have to leave this place to search for it. Leave all of this and all of us behind if you have to, but... be happy, Lisa. Like you once were"
She stared at him. Shamare wasn't moving in the slightest. Neither was she.
A lightning fell nearby. She barely heard it. She was focused on her grandpa's words. They were faint, so very faint she believed she'd miss them if she got distracted for even a moment.
"... grandpa, that sounds... difficult" she replied, not entirely sure of what he was even asking of her in the first place.
"It shouldn't. It never should" he said back, pulling her as close as he could, his voice now barely a whisper "But you -cough- you are a strong girl. I know... you will manage"
"... you should go to sleep, grandpa. You are exhausted"
"Aahh, I really am -cough-. What... about you?"
"Shamare and I will stay for a while longer"
"Don't stay up... late. Shamare will... protect you. He promised me. But he can't sleep for you, and staying up late... is bad for your health"
"We won't. Goodnight, grandpa"
"Good... night, my little... Lisa"
The little girl lied down next to him and, after a bit of hesitation, rested her head on his chest.
It was moving slowly, and the beating coming from within it felt so very close, and yet so very faint.
Something black sprouted inside of her. It sprouted and grew, thick and sticky and unpleasant and heavy, and Shamare bit. Her doll bit at it, it chewed and swallowed, but the thing came back. So the doll bit again, the soft, soundless noise of its immaterial jaws sinking into her being over and over, like a lullaby meant to keep her awake. She paid it little mind, counting the beats of the heart underneath her ears instead, listening to her grandpa's breaths as they grew softer, more infrequent.
Distant.
Quiet.
So, so very quiet.
She felt something deep within her tremble and shiver, and there were things behind her eyes wanting to come out, but it felt bad, it felt bad and she didn't want it, she didn't want any of that. Her doll bit again, it bit and bit and bit, over and over, but the blackness was unrelenting. Like a plague, like a wound refusing to close, like a stare refusing to leave, it kept coming back, making her flutter and shiver ever so slightly in those brief moments between one bite and the following one.
"Goodnight, grandpa. The spirits that lie beyond will guide you across. I will make sure of it"
Slowly, the little girl fell asleep to the soundless noise of her doll eating away at that thing which kept attempting to overwhelm her from within.
There was nothing left to count, and nothing else to listen to.
The girl didn't attend the funeral. She believed it to be better that way. Her grandpa was loved by everyone at the mansion. That's what she believed, at the very least, or perhaps what she wanted herself to believe. He deserved to be seen off quietly, and her very presence would undoubtedly stir more than a bit of unrest either way. Of that much she was certain. Besides, his grave was on the island. Did her father want him buried there to keep him close? Or did the townsfolk refuse to bury a person who spent his last years on that island in the town's graveyard? She didn't want to care about that.
Her father always visited that grave. Sometimes it was in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon and sometimes in the evening but, so long as he was on the island, he would always spend at least some time there every day. And he left the island less and less too.
So she waited for the right moment, and gathered what she needed in the meanwhile. It was a rather tedious process, but a necessary one. And, if nothing else, it wasn't a difficult one either. Nobody inside the mansion addressed her. Most of the time people would simply leave whenever she walked into a room, with very few exceptions. Some would run though, even if she didn't try to talk to them. She had grown used to that, although Shamare still occasionally bit something off her when such things happened. On the bright side -if it truly can be called such- was the fact that she could pretty much take whatever she wanted from anywhere inside the mansion and nobody would complain. Nobody would dare to.
... perhaps she couldn't take stuff from her parent's bedroom, in truth.
But she could hardly recall the last time she had walked inside there either way.
The day she had been waiting for eventually arrived, or the night to be more accurate. Her father had left the island. Why, she didn't know. Perhaps she could've managed to get one of the servants to tell her, although she strongly doubted that, or perhaps she might've been able to divine it, but she found herself lacking the interest to go through with that. And divinations were not only difficult and strenuous but also not always accurate. What mattered was that the only person on the island who might've interrupted her was no longer present, so she gathered the necessary materials and headed out at night. It was cold, but she had wrapped herself in a blanket so she was almost fine. And it wasn't raining either, which was nice. The rain was bad for her grandpa's body so its absence on that particular occasion, while simply practical from an objective point of view, still felt... pleasant.
Somehow.
She was sure somebody in the mansion would see her. She had brought a candle with her after all, so seeing her would've been far too easy. The grave stood in plain sight from the side of the mansion too, with no trees or plants or sheds to hide it from view. But she had to. Even without taking into account her own final promise to him, she was still thinking about her grandpa's last request, and perhaps she had managed to make sense of it a little bit. So she visited the grave and stared at it for a little bit. The tombstone was... cold. A little plain, perhaps, but his name was written there, together with his date of birth and death. And his photo was there too, protected by a glass. That's what mattered the most, she believed.
She said nothing. She couldn't hear her grandpa's spirit telling her anything, and in truth she didn't really know what those spirits whispering to her every now and then truly were. Maybe deceased people. Maybe something else. But they were quiet too, at the moment. She kept staring for a bit more, until Shamare bumped its soft, stuffed paws against her legs, dragging her gaze down to the bag the doll was carrying.
Right. She shouldn't waste time.
So she began. The first thing she did was placing seven candles around the grave, leaving it off center rather than in the very middle of it. The candles were small and each inside a tiny glass jar, they hardly provided any light compared to the one she still held in hand, and weren't spaced evenly. That was on purpose though. Then she fetched a kitchen knife from the bag Shamare was carrying and used it to draw lines on the ground, going from one candle to the other and towards seemingly random points inside the circle. The soil was soft thanks to all the rain, so she didn't have to put much strength into it. It had taken her quite a while to figure how what to trace though, how and in what order, but nobody other than she herself and her doll would find any sort of sense in what she was doing anyway.
And yet she did a little mistake. A line traced too early.
How... bothersome.
Why? She had practiced. She shouldn't have done anything wrong. Was it the sensation of Shamare still biting something off from her? The doll had never really stopped since that night, after all, and the exceptionally mild but constant rising and receding of that unpleasant blackness inside of her left her...
... she didn't know.
She didn't want to know.
So she simply cancelled that line with the heel of her shoe and resumed dragging the knife on the ground, drawing the circles and lines the way they were supposed to, in the order they were meant to be drawn. There was another sound echoing faintly in her ears, too weak to make her twitch and yet too loud to make them stand up to catch it. That didn't sound like the spirits whispering though.
Oh.
That was her, she realized at some point. She was humming.
She remembered that tune. It was one her grandpa would sometimes hum while sewing. She had learned it from him while he made Shamare for her.
That humming wasn't necessary at the moment. But she stood still for a while, going over the steps she had yet to perform in her mind and coming to the conclusion that, at least for the time being, it wasn't detrimental either. So she allowed herself to keep humming that tune as she fetched something else from the bag. Little sticks she had gathered from the trees growing on the island, five with their leaves still attached and three barren. She stuck them into the soil, where the lines she had drawn converged, then she grabbed another candle and two small vials. She handed both the new candle -which was not to be lighted- and the one in her hands to Shamare, who backed away out of the circle and started walking around it, taking a brief pause every three steps. The girl, in the meanwhile, sat down on her knees in front of the tombstone and waited. Her clothes would get dirty, but that didn't matter. She had learned how to get them... clean enough on her own. The ground was cold and uncomfortable too, but she would think about that later. Shamare walked a full circle around her, two, two and a half, not three, then lighted the tip of one of the sticks on fire with the candle. The flame didn't spread, standing still atop the wood instead, much like a ballerina who had forgotten all of her steps. The doll then stepped inside the circle again and, walking along the lines, slowly lighted up all the sticks, one by one, before tracing its own steps back and leaving again.
It was only at that point that the little girl lifted one of the two vials in her hands. She leaned forward, touching the tombstone with one of them before uncorking it and pouring the fluid held within on herself, the amount being just barely enough to wet her hair and fur a little bit. Then she brought the other vial to her own forehead, tapped it twice and poured its content on the ground right in front of the tombstone.
The sticks she had planted in the ground earlier all broke at once, bending away from her.
As good an omen as she believed she could get, especially that far into the ritual.
All she had left to do now was, in a way, to wave goodbye. Without getting up, she extended her hand and received a tool from Shamare. A ladle, the likes of which one could find in nearly every kitchen in that town. And with it she started to dig a little hole. The soil was rather soft, it had rained more than just a little bit as of late, but it still took her a little bit to get to a reasonable depth. She didn't want to dig too much either, she didn't know how far from the surface her grandpa's coffin was after all. Once she was done with that too she called Shamare over and the doll walked up to her, turning around to offer its back. The girl pulled a zipper on its back down, plunged her fingers inside and pulled back a small metal box, one she had tried to weld shut by leaving it in the fireplace for a while. She pulled the zipper back up and faced the tombstone.
"I liked being with you, grandpa" she said, her doll suddenly taking a large bite out of her heart, an heavy weight coming and going from within her like a wind "So I will leave myself here. Lisa is here" she said, showing the metal box containing what was left of a stripe of paper with her name written on it to the grave "Lisa will stay with you. If there truly exist something beyond the border, she will accompany you. Or she will reach you, if you have already made your way there. I believe that will make her happy"
Something watery was hitting her eyes from behind. It was annoying and unpleasant. And something more, she was sure of it, because Shamare had just eaten something else yet from her.
She should... stop having such feelings, the girl told herself. She wasn't sure eating that much was healthy for Shamare, after all.
But that could come later. She had to conclude the ritual. So she held the box to her own chest and counted to seven, skipping the number three, before placing it inside the hole she had dug. Then she grabbed a pin stuck to Shamare's stuffed body and used it to puncture her finger, letting a few drops of red fall onto the sealed box.
Something around her stirred. The spirits seemed to whisper something to her. Was that a curse or a praise? Was there even a difference between the two, for someone like her?
She punctured her finger again, letting a few more drops fall down, before grabbing the ladle again and starting to fill the little pit, trying to make it so that nobody would notice the soil had been moved. And then, to finish, she tapped the now-gone pit with her hand, the one she had punctured to draw blood. The flames of the sticks all went out, and an odd shiver shook the fur of her ears and tail.
It was over.
"... it is done" she eventually said, wondering whether the heaviness tormenting her had truly abated a little or not.
Her doll then walked up to her and lifted its arms. She took it and lifted it up, staring at its button eyes. She was almost sure it had grown a fair bit heavier lately.
That, too, was her fault.
"Yes, Shamare. But Lisa is with grandpa now"
The doll made some gestures with its hands. Somehow, the little girl understood it. Perhaps it wasn't with their bodies that they were communicating to begin with.
"... it was grandpa who gave you that name. It is precious"
The doll tapped its chest, then it touched hers. Shamare was a precious name, yes. And precisely because of that, the doll wanted her to have it. At least now that hers was buried. The only person to have ever called her by name in the past years was no longer with her anyway, after all. Nobody would ever call her Lisa again. It was likely that nobody would ever utter her name anymore at all. Not when talking about her, at least. About the girl she had just sent off with her grandpa.
"Shamare is a good name. You have my gratitude. But you will need a new one then" she said, her gaze turning to the grave and reading once again the words engraved on it.
"What do you think... of Morte?"
The doll, seemingly incapable of speech, tapped her lips with his stuffed paws and then touched its own head, accepting its new name.
The two remained there for a while longer, staring at the grave, and even when the light of the candle ran out the girl still didn't move, waiting for a bit longer instead. Eventually, the doll tapped her leg. And, at some point, Shamare and Morte began to gather the materials they had used and erase the traces of the ritual before walking back to the mansion.
Leaving Lisa and her grandpa behind.