What I am saying is important to me; otherwise, there’d be no point saying it. One day very soon, I’ll be gone, and it will be too late. So listen, or hand me off to someone who will—I need someone to hear my story—someone to know what I could never tell the people I loved, the people who knew me . . . anyone, really. This is my last chance. Will you stay?

I traced the line of moonlight on the ceiling. The wooden bones of the roof stretched broad shadows across the room. The night air was stuffy and, for some reason, I was restless. I tried to lie very still to not disturb my brother. He got grumpy when someone woke him so rubbing the coarse blanket between my fingers and counting the knots in the stitching was my way to tire myself. It wasn’t working. My mind was still alert. I tilted my head back to look out the window at the moon, which was too bright.

To my surprise, Michael was standing at our window, looking out into the night. He cocked his head and slowly lowered his shoulders, slumping as if falling asleep while standing. His pale skin and dark hair made him a phantom in the moonlight. I flipped to my belly and pulled myself closer to the head of the bed.

“Michael,” I whispered. “What are you doing?”

He didn’t respond. So, I crawled out of bed, my bare feet hitting the cool rough floorboards, and tiptoed up to him to minimize the risk of waking our parents. I pushed the sleeves up on my nightshirt. It was Papa’s, and at only eleven it was like a dress on me that I hoped to grow into one day. Looking into Michael’s eyes, they were distant and glossy.

“Michael.” I pushed on his shoulder.

“Stop that.” He brushed my hand away without breaking his gaze from whatever he was staring at out the window.

“What are you doing?”

“Be quiet, Henry. I’m listening.”

“To what?”

“I said be quiet.”

I strained to hear whatever Michael was listening to, but the only sounds were the village cattle lowing at the sky and a disorderly racket from the pub two roads over. Maybe a bird or two.

“What are you listening to?” I asked again.

“The music.”

“From the pub?”

“No.”

“From where?”

“The hills,” he said. I tried to trace his line of sight. My eyes shifted along an invisible line that landed my gaze on the hills beyond our town. Lights danced on the hilltops, and a sense of foreboding eked its way into my bones. In these hills lay a grove we had been warned about since we were small children. Light on the hills was a sign of misfortune.

“I don’t hear any music.”

“That’s because you talk too much.” Michael started pulling himself into the window frame.

“What are you doing?” I grabbed his arm.

“I’m going to the music.”

“No, Michael, there is no music.”

“Get off.” He shook loose and began lowering himself down the front of the house. I gaped for a moment. It wasn’t like Michael hadn’t snuck out before this way, it happened far too often, but this wasn’t his usual rebellious nighttime outing. Something wasn’t right.

I rushed to pull on some slacks and stuff my feet into my boots. Stopping Michael from leaving hadn’t worked. All that was left was to get him back before our parents noticed we were gone. Tomorrow there would be trouble for both of us if he was caught sneaking out again. Going through the house would wake my parents, as Michael’s early attempts to sneak out proved, so I lowered myself out after him.

Michael was bigger than me at sixteen and I struggled to reach many of the handholds and footholds he had used. Michael had already made it a good way down the street when my boots hit the ground. While rushing to catch up, I tucked my nightshirt into my slacks.

“Michael, you can’t go to the hills.” I protested.

“I don’t want you, Henry,” Michael said.

“I don’t care if you want me or not. We’re going home.” I grabbed his arm and pulled back on him, but he kept pushing forward and pulling me with him.

How did he get so strong? All he did all day was help Papa with the mending nets. It wasn’t easy work, but it wouldn’t make him this strong. I had wrestled with him often enough to know. But then something glinted in his hand and I looked to see an ornate coin clutched in his fingertips. “Where did you get that?”

“I’ve had it.”

“No, you haven’t.”

“Yes, I have.”

“The only way you would get a thing like that is by stealing it.”

My brother turned on me, ripping me off the ground by my shirt collar.

“No one calls me a thief!” I had taken and given my fair share of black eyes with my brother, but now I was terrified by him. His brow furrowed in anger but there was an absence in his eyes I couldn’t explain. It was as if he really were asleep.

“Then where do you get it?” I asked, pushing him away.

“It was a gift.”

“A gift?” I re-tucked my shirt.

“From someone who said I deserved it, and more like it.” He continued walking towards the hillside. I grabbed his sleeve again at the edge of the hills, where the road disappeared into the grass.

“Wait.” As his foot hit the grass, a buzz rushed through me. It ran from my hand on his sleeve through every inch of me. Then everything changed.

Strange creatures I had never seen before overran the hills, milling about in grass that turned a greyish blue under the moonlight. They were a variety of shapes and sizes and looked as though someone had taken a bucket of different toy parts and glued them together at random. They were slithering things, bouncing things, striding things that milled about on their bellies or limbs that dug into the soft sod of the hillside. As their chilling eyes turned on us, their otherworldly gaze chased the air right out of me. If the creatures had mouths, they stretched into sinister smiles over the creatures’ alien faces upon noticing us.

One of the creatures that looked like an old hacked-off stump slithered toward us on roots like snakes. Its large golden eyes fixed on us. It came to our toes and reached its twig-like arm up towards Michael. Its knotted finger touched the coin in his hand, and Michael smiled at it as if he knew what was going on. On the other hand, I couldn’t suck in enough air; everything was too real and too wrong. It didn’t make any sense, like old stories spinning to life off my mother’s tongue. Maybe I was the one dreaming.

I heard a crackling noise behind me and, out of nothing, a boy close to my brother’s age came sauntering over. He was dressed in rich clothing and flipped a twisted dagger-shaped scale in his hand. Whatever creature that scale belonged to was larger than anything I would ever want to meet.

He had the same eerie calm smile as Michael. Gold accented his brown skin around the eyes, so he wasn’t just pretending to be wealthy. The creatures gathered up around his ankles, and he greeted him like an old friend. Then, turning, he spotted my brother and me.

“Good evening.” He walked up to us. “I’m Dietrich. Have we met before?”

“No, I think I’d remember,” Michael spoke informally to someone from such a high station. “I’m Michael.”

“And who’s this?” Dietrich looked at me. His eyes were glassy.

“What?” Michael looked back at me. “Henry, when did you get here?”

“I’ve been with you the whole time,” I choked out.

“No, you haven’t.”

I couldn’t believe it. How could Michael not remember me being with him? We were arguing only a minute ago. The stump-like thing sniffed at me and sneezed before retreating to its like beasts, and they glanced among each other with shifty eyes.

“Michael, we should leave,” I urged, but Michael was too fascinated with meeting Dietrich to listen.

“Been here before?” Michael asked.

“No, but I should have. I mean, look at this place. It’s amazing, and this,” Deitrich scooped up a small ball-shaped creature.

Another crackling sound rippled behind us as, this time, a girl stepped through.

“Well, hello.” Dietrich sidled up to her. “Name’s Dietrich.” She cast her eyes down and pulled her hands up to her chest.

I had seen that kind of reaction among many serving class girls who were used to such “hellos” meaning trouble. The bruises clinging to her dark collarbones were evidence of this. Their bluish-purple hue matched the small flower she clutched in her slim fingers.

“Come on.” Dietrich put his arm around her. “What’s your name?”

“Alai,” she whispered.

“Now that’s a fine name.” Dietrich patted her shoulder and scooped her like a wheat fold over to Michael and me. “This is Michael, and—and—I’m sorry, who are you again?”

“Henry.”

“Right,” Dietrich said. “This is Michael’s brother Henry.”

One of the stump-like creatures scuttled back to me. It looked up at me with its yellow blinking eyes. Then, it pulled something like a fig off one of its few branches and presented the fruit to me.

“Go away,” I tried to shoo it but the creature kept pushing the fruit towards me.

“What’s wrong?” Dietrich asked. “It is just trying to give you something.”

“If you eat spirit food, the spirit steals your humanity. Then no creature can recognize you as human, even your own family,” I said.

“That superstitious garbage,” Michael mocked. “You don’t really think we’re in a spirit realm? Grow up already.”

“How do you explain all of this?” I pushed the stump thing away with my foot.

“I don’t know, but it’s not supernatural. Those stories are for scaring little kids into staying indoors and not taking questionable gifts from strangers. There’s no such thing as spirits,” Michael scoffed.

The stump thing threw its fig at me and wormed away on its roots with what I guess you could call an angry expression.

“You hurt its feelings,” Dietrich said.

“I’m sorry—maybe, we should just go before we upset them further.” I gestured back towards the town.

“You go if you want to,” Michael said.

“Let’s go exploring!” Dietrich grinned. “What do you say, Alai?”

She simply raised a timid knuckle to her lips.

“You don’t talk much, do you?”

“I agree with you,” Michael said. “Let’s explore.”

“It’s settled.” Dietrich grabbed Alai’s hand and pulled her forward. “Let’s go.”

“Wait!” I called after them. The three of them ignored me and walked further up the hill. I followed.

We crested the hilltop and looked down into a shallow valley. We gasped, seeing more odd creatures the size of grown men. They looked like empty husks of paper hives spiraling up into the air. Yet, aside from their ashy paper skin and being empty inside, they seemed disturbingly human, with arms and legs like ours and faces like people. There were hundreds of them trudging in circles through the wide basin.

“Woah,” Dietrich abandoned Alai’s hand, which she appeared grateful for, and rushed over to one of the husks. It seemed to ignore him even as he peeled off a layer of its gray skin. “This is so strange. It’s like they’re made out of paper!” Michael joined in with Deitrich’s prodding.

“You don’t have to stay,” I said to Alai. “We can go back.”

“No, I want to stay,” she said in a hushed voice.

Dietrich turned back to us. “Look at these things, Alai—hey,” Dietrich turned to me. “Who are you?”

“Henry?” I said, puzzled.

“Are you not sure what your name is?” he laughed.

“You already met me, not two minutes ago.”

“Did I? My memory is usually pretty good. I’m positive that it was just Alai, Michael, and me,” Dietrich mused. I was moving from wary to perturbed. How could he have simply forgotten I was there? “Let’s keep exploring.”

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