A bird skull, a covering of overlapping hides, bleached white and stained, and a heavy wreath of branches around the neck and shoulders, like a nest.
I stopped in my tracks. When I took in my surroundings, my vision swam, struggling to make the adjustment from the narrow focus on where I was going and where my feet were landing to the broader environment.
There, in the distance, in a gap between neat rows of trees. A third, with the hides forming a hood over the bird skull. Shorter than the others.
I turned to head for the widest gap I could make out, and they all moved, not to close the distance to me, but to cut me off. The calf-deep snow didn’t slow them down. Even if it did, they had a longer stride, and they weren’t getting tired.
I pushed on, moving towards the gap, forcing myself to run. They continued to follow, but I made it between the ones with the antlers and the wreath.
Backtracking, almost. I needed to devote a second to getting my bearings, but I had to keep running.
“Rose,” I said.
I heard only a whisper of a noise. I wiped the mirror against the side of my leg, mid-run.
I came face to face with another of the bird-skulls, not looking carefully enough for the white skull and white hides against the snowy background. It clawed at me, backhanded, and dashed the mirror out of my hands. I fell, a result of the combined impact, pain and surprise, landing just beside the flecks of blood he’d clawed from my hand. My glove was cut, the skin around it exposed, and a line of blood was nestled in the center. Bewildered, I watched as the skin parted and joined together, as I opened and closed my hand.
The wind blew, and I heard the flapping of the hides moving. Others were drawing closer.
The one that had just attacked me wore cords strung between hides, each with a long, narrow bone hanging from it.
The others were approaching, with some coming from a distance. All around me, there were clusters of evergreens, branches hanging heavy with ice and snow, and there were patches of grass. One clearing, where a pond had frozen over.
Slowly, I made my way to my feet.
I tested different directions, to see how they would react.
This time, they weren’t keen on letting me move towards any open ground. Clusters of trees, the pond, and areas where the snow had piled higher.
The pond, then. I made my way over, my wounded hand pressed to my chest by my other hand.
No mirror, no Rose.
Frozen earth crunched under my boots as I made my way to the frozen pond. Every footstep hurt.
Were they wanting me to try to cross? Was that the plan?
I sat by the bank instead.
I looked at the bird masks that had gathered formed a loose three-quarter circle around me.
“This okay with you bastards?” I asked. “Can I sit? You like this?”
The hides flapped in the wind.
“Motherfuckers,” I said. I moved my hands up to my armpits, squishing them beneath my arms. I could feel the pain in my wounded hand. My cheek felt tight where I’d been scratched.
I kicked at the ice on the pond. Methodical, careful strikes delivered with the heels of my boots, to break up the surface.
It took a good fifteen hits before the cracks spread.
I used the toe of my boot to flip one large, two-inch thick piece of ice out of the way.
“Please tell me reflections in water work too.”
“Yeah,” she responded.
“You see them?”
“Yeah.”
“I went to a lot of trouble to talk to you,” I said, trying to ignore the looming individuals who were standing behind me. “I need more than one word answers.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You’re not in immediate danger. You’re not in pain, I hope. They’re after me, not you. So I’m hoping you’re thinking a little clearer than I am.”
“Not- not really.”
I sighed.
A minute passed. I could feel the chill creeping in.
“I don’t think they’ve got brains in those skulls,” I said. “Someone gave them orders.”
“Makes sense. Who?”
“Does it matter? I think those orders are why they’re behaving this way. Barring my path to keep me from certain areas. Driving me away from shelter, wearing me out.”
“They want plausible deaths.”
“Yeah. Newspaper runs an article on page seven about the poor idiot who broke down by the side of the highway, wandered into the middle lane and got hit, or got lost in the woods. No mention of eerily patient bird-masked antler horrors. They interview my landlord, he mentions I was acting funny, and cousin Kathryn is the one who wakes up with spooky visions, a few hours later.”
“Go for an implausible death?”
“Not sure how I’m supposed to do that,” I said. I sighed, and my teeth chattered as the air passed through my lips. “All I can figure is they don’t want to claw me to death.”
“Molly was clawed to death,” Rose said.
I closed my eyes.
“They don’t want to kill two of us the same way,” she said. “Molly was partially eaten, too, but I don’t think these guys are the type.”
“You can see them?”
“End of the pond,” she said. “There’s a reflection.”
I looked.
Another one had joined the ranks at some point, where I hadn’t been looking. Taller than the others, with two more bird skulls worn on sloped shoulders. He stood on the ice.
I bowed my head again. “How many?”
“No idea.”
“Is this where everything ends for me, Rose? Do I die here, an ignoble death, with the mantle passing to Kathryn? Do you carry on?”
“As a ghost?”
“As a whatever.”
“I don’t know. I think I’m bound to you, somehow.”
“Right,” I said.
I forced myself to my feet. I was shaking, now.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“I’m not,” I said. “I just hate sitting still.”
“You need a plan.”
“Any fucking ideas?” I asked.
There was no response.
I moved, and they moved as well. Organizing, spreading out. I backed up, and they advanced.
I sat down again, regretting it instantly. Standing would be harder.
The three-masked one slowly removed one mask from its shoulder.
It dawned on me.
That mask was going to be mine.
My mind warred with my body. Every last part of me hated to sit still, was restless in the face of stress. But my body was starting to give up.
I was so tired, I felt like I had gone two straight days without sleep.
“No glimmers of light nearby?”
“Not really.”
“Define really.”
“I see patches of light. I think… even regular surfaces, they reflect light to some degree.”
“Sure. Listen, what I need to know is… which direction do I run?”
“Run?”
“I’ll take a guess, if you have to give me one, Rose. Just lie convincingly. I’ll lose heart if I don’t buy it.”
“Your three o’clock,” she said.
Nothing more. No details. No explanation on why it was the right direction.
Right.
I needed to run, but there weren’t any meaningful gaps, now.
If I assumed these things were stupid, that they were programmed or strictly following orders… if they’d been ordered not to hurt me unless it was in retaliation or because there was no other way to get past me…
I looked back at the one that stood on the ice.