Print Edition Vol. 24 - Of Woven Wood

Of Woven Wood

by Marie Croke

His head hurt. Now that was odd. His head never hurt. His head never felt much of anything, generally speaking. Well, there was that one time when the top shelf had fallen upon him. Then it’d been more of a . . . flat feeling, but Haigh had fixed him right up. Re-wove him a whole new face, much better than the first. And bigger. Big enough to hold a larger set of shears, among other things.

This was different.

He could sense something was completely out of place. No, not out of place, just . . . out. An incredibly empty feeling.

Lan sat up and felt over the top of his head. Nothing. Oh, no, Haigh would be furious if he’d lost tools. Then a thought occurred to him. What if his other . . .

He dropped his hands to his chest, checking each opening, his waist, his legs, then dropped his hands in relief. Nothing else seemed missing. Everything was settled firmly in its home. Even the dead rat that Haigh had embalmed was still sitting in its basket, its tail sticking out under the loose lid.

So it was just his head that was missing its contents. Maybe that’s why it hurt. Lan nodded to himself. Yes, that seemed reasonable. If he’d find everything and put it back, then things would be as they’d been and the pain would fade.

That seemed to be how Haigh’s body worked. He’d curse, then bleed, then the part would cause him pain until its skin had finally grown back. Although, for him, it’d take days for his body to bother creating such miniscule pieces of himself. And that one time when his side had been burned open, that one had taken weeks.

At the time, Lan had been less than half the size he was now, his body barely holding a third of what Haigh gave him. He’d figured that the pieces needed to be found and woven back in and that Haigh was just in too much pain to even manage to crawl around looking for his pieces. So Lan had tried to help, searching for them everywhere, but to no avail.

He smiled slightly at the memory, then cradled his pounding head for a moment. He wasn’t used to feeling this frustrating pain, and besides, if he didn’t find the tools, then they’d be missing when Haigh needed them. And if he couldn’t even be counted on to hold things for people, what good was he?

He sighed. Or as good a sigh as he could make with his woven mouth. Then he gathered himself up to start his search. The shears would be large, too large to miss.

He cast about upon the ground, stopping when he saw Haigh. That was odd. . . .

No. Not so odd now that Lan thought about it. He pulled himself closer to the Apothecary and leaned over, staring into glassy eyes. There’d been shouts, and the vibrations of many feet. Haigh had been nervous and rushing about, shoving new things into Lan’s parts. He’d been so proud that Haigh was trusting him with such important ingredients. So proud.

“Haigh, please don’t be angry. I will find the shears and to make up for losing them I’ll gather Night Irises all week while you sleep.” He stopped when Haigh didn’t blink.

He started to reach out, to touch Haigh’s face, to beg him awake, then froze. His fingers had cracked and shredded. Only two of them, but those two looked awful. Just as his foot had looked after that stray mutt had nibbled on him. He couldn’t touch Haigh with those fingers. He’d be sure to strip skin.

A sound at the door startled him. Jaddi stood right inside the room, her frock covered in ash and her face streaked with tears. He’d seen her once before like that. The night of the fire that had torn up Haigh’s side. She’d been much younger.

Jaddi stepped carefully among the shards of broken glass about the room, coming closer and crouching beside Lan.

“Haigh will have a fit,” said Lan. “You’re not allowed in the workroom, Jaddi.”

She didn’t look at him. Then, after a moment, she reached out and ran her hand across Haigh’s eyes, closing off the glassy stare he’d been giving Lan. She reached out to Lan and squeezed his shoulder. “It’s all right now, Lan. Haigh won’t be needing the room any more.” She paused and sniffled quietly, then threw her hands around Lan’s neck. “I’m glad you’re all right.”

He patted her back, with three fingers since Jaddi’s skin could tear just as easily as Haigh’s. “Is he dead then?” The words felt wooden in his mouth. Most words felt that way, but these ones felt stronger, harder to form. And that had nothing to do with his baskety body.

She nodded, rubbing her cheek against his woven chest, her ear catching on one of his lids, tilting it, but not removing it. She couldn’t remove it, not even Haigh could remove it, but the lids occasionally shifted, and if not watched carefully could come open if they thought Lan was wanting their contents.

When she pulled away, he straightened it. That one held tiny frog eggs, the hole enchanted to not leak, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t slip out if the lid wasn’t fastened. Haigh had made it very clear when Lan was only a few baskets old that the enchantments were useless if he didn’t keep the lids in place.

That thought brought him back to his empty head. He reached up and felt again, hoping maybe he’d just missed the tools. No, his lid was still hanging over the back of his head. Empty.

He looked up when Jaddi gasped. She’d stood while he’d been searching and now leaned over him, a concerned expression upon her face. “Oh, Lan. This is horrible.”

Blanching, he bowed his head. “Yes, I know. I lost the tools. He will be so an . . .” He trailed off, staring at Haigh, noting there was nothing wrong. No pieces missing, no torn holes. But he was still dead. Even Jaddi thought so, so it wasn’t his own failure to miss something. “Jaddi, what happened to Haigh?”

She had her hand in his head, feeling the emptiness, he was sure. She shook her head. “Not now, Lan.”

Right. She would be angry with him too. He was useless, so useless. He wanted to cry at his failure and began searching the room again. It seemed fruitless though. The room was such a mess. Haigh just could not work in these conditions. Lan would have to help clean it up, and maybe find the shears and the needles and the prongs. He began to brush the glass shards and their dumped contents away from Haigh and into a pile when Jaddi grabbed at his arm.

“No, not now, Lan.” Her voice was firm, as firm as Haigh’s had always been. “Right now, you need to come with me before they come back.”

“Before who comes back?” He glanced about the room. Of course, he’d known someone else was responsible for the mess. He’d not done it, and Haigh would never have done such a thing, no matter how much he’d cursed when things went wrong. But it just hadn’t seemed important. They weren’t here right now, after all, and there was a mess to clean. And then there was his empty head. “But I’ve lost some tools, Jaddi. I must find them.”

“Never mind that; come.”

Lan took a last look at Haigh laid out upon the floor, then followed Jaddi, wondering if she would help him look later. As she led him out of the house, he noticed the blackened walls and curled books. A sharp scent hung in the air, of fire and . . . herbs. Lan frowned. That meant the herbs must have been burned too. And he’d spent many hours hanging his findings to dry for Haigh. But the fires must have been contained, whether by enchantment or an expert hand, for they had burned what was important, then stopped before burning down any part of the house itself.

Outside, he looked back. There was no telling that anything had happened inside at all. The burned spots had been localized, the workroom a wreck, Haigh upon the floor, quite dead, but with no obvious wound that could be put back together, and yet the house looked as tranquil as it normally did.

Jaddi sighed and he turned to see her with her hands upon her hips, waiting. It was never good to keep others waiting, that’s what Haigh had always said. Usually it was about his customers, but he’d told Lan that it was a good practice for all things one day when Lan had fumbled with the latch to one of his baskets. He ran a hand down his back as he caught up with Jaddi, making sure each of those lids was secure. They were.

All of him was secure, his outside smooth, with only the little latches to show where each new basket had been woven inside of him to make him grow in both size and use. And when he closed his eyes, he could sense that each was full, the fluids sloshing as he walked, the bark shavings and petals rustling, the hummingbird fluttering her wings (chest, center-left column, sixth down). All full―except his head, that was.

They didn’t walk far, just to Jaddi’s own house down the lane. Haigh lived―had lived―on the outskirts of the little town of Otaor. Far enough away he didn’t feel as if eyes were on him on a constant basis. People had to go at least a little bit out of their way to come see him, which was exactly how he liked it. Lan hadn’t minded either way, but at least that way the forest was closer and he knew he did not frustrate any neighbors when he came and went during his night collections.

In Jaddi’s kitchen, overly warm from a small fire where she’d been cooking, she made Lan sit. “Now, let’s see if we can fix that gaping hole in your head.”

He sat up straighter. “Yes, please. I hate having an empty space, especially my head.”

She laughed, though it came out strangled and did not reach her eyes. “That’s not quite what I had in mind. Somehow you’ve managed to rip a hole in the bottom of your head. You couldn’t hold anything right now if you wanted to.”

“Really?” Maybe that was why it hurt then? But, no, he looked at his fingers again. They were shredded and they didn’t hurt. Not one bit.

Jaddi must have noticed his gaze for she grasped his two fingers in her hand. They were bigger than hers, each at least the size of two of her fingers. Haigh had said it was so they could hold something bigger than dried mouse droppings―though one of his fingers had been relegated for that as well.

“Hmm, I’ll have to soak your hand to fix those; don’t want any more of you breaking.” She made him sit with his hand soaking until the wood was more easily bent and woven back into shape, while she went about working on his head. She used new sticks, after snipping off the broken ends. It was slow going, each new branch being woven in all the way around his head so that it would be as strong as it’d been before. Lan appreciated that.

“You take longer than Haigh did fixing me,” he noted.

“Well.” Jaddi paused and straightened her back. Lan heard a distinct snap as something popped, then she leaned back over to continue working. “Haigh generally didn’t care much what something looked like as long as it got the job done. I take pride in the way my work is presented.”

Lan turned to look at her, feeling her fingers fumble to hold on to what they were doing. “Haigh took pride in his work as well. He was a great Apothecary, knowledgeable in much more than simple tonics and antibodies.”

Jaddi laughed again, though this time it seemed she’d actually found something funny in what he’d said. He’d not meant it as funny, though. “That sounds like Haigh.” Then she patted his shoulder once. “I’d not been knocking his knowledge and abilities, but you have to admit, the man was much more interested in what a thing did than how it looked when it did it.”

“That is what is important.”

“We each have our priorities, of course, but I’d like to think the package is just as important as what’s in the package.” She gave Lan a kiss upon his head, then her lips froze upon his wooden skin.

A pounding came upon her door a moment later, followed by a shout. Jaddi grabbed the rest of the branches she’d been using and tossed them on top of her woodpile, then poured the bowl where he’d been soaking his hand into a bucket upon the counter.

“Jaddi, I don’t think those are fire worthy―”

“Shush.” She pulled him into the next room and made him face the wall with his hands outstretched, then threw a blanket over each and placed a vase of flowers in his head. “Don’t say a word and don’t move a muscle.” She went into the kitchen, then poked her head back out to add, “And you better not break that vase. It was my mother’s and worth a lot more than anything you’ve got in your pockets.”

The pounding knock came again and she was gone to the front door, shouting, “I’m coming, I’m coming,” before Lan could respond.

“They are not pockets,” he muttered under his breath. Then he was very aware of how heavy the vase truly was and how his head had just gotten worse under the weight of it.

He could hear the other woman’s voice, annoyed, and a man’s voice, that was too low to make out. “I’ve been told that you were a friend of Apothecary Haigh.” Then the man added something Lan couldn’t hear.

“We were neighbors,” said Jaddi. “It stands to reason I would get to know him. The man never washed his own clothes so I volunteered to take care of them for him.”

Volunteered? She’d run a hard bargain on that, demanding that Haigh always leave her a fresh bottle of medicinal cream for her hands every week when she dropped off his clothes, holding them hostage until he did. There’d been that one month Haigh had tried to resist, wearing the same two sets of trousers and shirts until an accident in his workroom set one on fire and the other became so sticky with resin it started to contaminate his work.

Lan started to open his mouth to correct her, then remembered what she’d said and closed it again.

“I see.” The woman sounded skeptical.

The man said something again. A question by the lilt at the end of his sentence.

Jaddi snorted in response. “Ha, you must never have met the man. He kept that workroom so secret no one’s ever set foot in it. I have never, at least. Only caught a glimpse once when he was slow to shut it.”

That wasn’t true either. It had been, up until today.

“Nope, he was a secretive sort. We get them now and then, but we don’t complain at all here in Otaor when it means we have someone as useful as he was.”

“You obviously knew him better than most.” There was an awkward silence that filled the air. Even where Lan was standing on the opposite side of the wall he could almost see Jaddi’s stern face, her mouth a slight line as when she’d been displeased with Haigh.

“And you obviously must not have found what you were looking for to be banging upon my door as you are.”

“And you have it?”

“I have no idea what it even is. But I do know that Haigh is dead, and I could only assume that it was because of you.”

“That’s a strong accusation,” said the man, his voice snappy and defensive, and for the first time loud enough to be heard.

There was a hard step and a creak on the kitchen floor and a sharp sound that echoed faintly, just as when Haigh slid metal prongs against a boiling beaker. Then the woman spoke again, quietly at first, “That’s fine, Mart. She can think however she wishes. This whole town can think how they please.” Then she spoke louder, “We did not kill him, though I doubt you will believe us. We wanted him alive, to speak with him about something he took from Queen Yula when he was sent from the court.”

That was something Lan had known, sort of. Haigh had mentioned it once or twice, mostly in passing when describing something, or comparing the availability (or lack thereof) of things he needed. But it hadn’t truly meant anything. At least not until now.

“The court?” asked Jaddi. “You’ve got to be joking.” She let out a long drawn-out sigh. “I knew he came from a good background to get the learning he possessed, but that seems a bit farfetched, if you ask me.”

“We weren’t asking. We are telling,” said the woman. “He was once greatly admired until he angered the queen.”

“She as fickle as the stories say?”

“You don’t talk about the queen. Ever.” Mart’s voice sounded as if he were snapping each word out.

“Not at all,” added the woman. “I think anyone would have been rightly upset as she was, but it is beside the point. Haigh simply took something with him that didn’t belong to him.”

“And it took, what? Almost fifteen years to figure that out?”

Crickets. Lan turned his head to the window as if he’d be able to see the bugs.

Instead, he saw his home. An odd feeling crept over him, as if he were just here on an errand, bringing Jaddi something from Haigh, staying to talk for a few moments, before heading further into town with other deliveries. He’d do that every week, enjoying the sun warming his wooden body, knowing everything he held was safe under their enchanted lids. Most of the people here always greeted him in a friendly way and there were some children he’d play with. Not everyone, but enough that he’d been happy.

“Irrelevant.”

The woman’s voice brought Lan back. His thoughts dropped. There’d be no more Haigh to hand tools to, no reason to be holding all of the things he had stored. And his head still pounded, worse now that the vase was pressing on the freshly woven branches.

He felt tired, though he never slept. And sad. Tears leaked out of his eyes and dripped down his face, no doubt leaving dark paths in the grain of the wood. They were talking some more, but Lan paid no attention to it.

Haigh was gone. Lan could still see those glassy eyes staring out at him. They’d been calm and gentle, as Haigh had never really been. The man had had a fire inside that spurred him on, a passion that Lan loved to see when he’d worked. But now Lan would never lean over an experiment again, hands outstretched with anticipated tools or ingredients. He’d never hold anything steady or put details in Haigh’s journals.

He knew exactly where everything was in himself, would be unfastening latches before Haigh could even ask for what he needed. And now? What would he do with himself? There was no point in even going back and searching for what was missing from his head. Not when there was no one to hold them for.

A hand upon his arm made him turn unconsciously, only afterwards wondering what would have happened if it hadn’t been Jaddi who’d touched him.

“They’re gone. Oh, Lan.” She brushed the dark tracks his tears had made, then removed the vase and blankets. The pain in his head eased slightly. “Did you hear all of that?”

“Most,” he said, following her back into the kitchen.

“Do you know what they were looking for?” she asked. “Did he hide it in . . . one of your baskets?” She glanced down his body as if she could see beyond the lids, her eyes lingering on the dead rat tail sticking out at his waist (front waist, rightmost) and the feathers protruding from a lid upon his leg (right leg, center column, sixth down).

Relinquishing his hand again to her ministrations, he started to say he didn’t know, then stopped. He remembered Haigh rushing about, shoving more things into Lan’s hands, insisting he find places for them in his already stuffed body.

There’d been expensive and rare ingredients: a diamond beaker (back, leftmost column, second down) and an emerald hummingbird (chest, center-left column, sixth down); that one was tickling his insides every time it decided to hover. Flowers hardened and coated with blood-dyed amber. He remembered contemplating whether he could remove the embalmed rat, but he’d helped make that rat, Haigh handing him the tools and letting him fill the miniature stoppered urns. He’d been so excited. No, the rat stayed and the ambered flowers were shoved in with a basket of seeds.

So he shrugged. “It is possible. He didn’t say anything about most of what he gave me today.”

She lifted his hand up. “Looks good. Just be careful until it dries all the way. You don’t want anything to misform.”

“How is my head?”

“It looks all right, but I wouldn’t put anything in it just yet.” She didn’t mention the vase, so Lan didn’t mention it either. Nor did he know what he would put in it if he couldn’t find the shears, the needles, the prongs and there was something else, but his head hurt too much to really think about it. Probably one of those pestles; yes, that seemed right. It surprised him that he was having so much trouble remembering.

“But it still hurts.”

“It hurts?”

He nodded.

“Hmm.” She looked into his head again and felt around, pushing against some of the newly woven branches. “It looks good now. Everything looks fine, Lan. I don’t know why it’d be hurting. Maybe it’ll get better as the wood settles.” She kissed his cheek, then turned to peek out the window.

“I’m sure he probably gave whatever it was to you. He trusted you.”

“But I don’t even know what it is.”

She shook her head, her eyes growing dark, and he heard her mutter under her breath. He caught only the tail end, “. . . enough to get him killed. Stupid man.” Then louder, she said, “He certainly loved his toys. I just wish they hadn’t gotten him killed.” She glanced over at Lan’s body again, her eyes lingering on some of the lids, making him squirm uncomfortably.

Lan nodded. He didn’t know what else to do. She was right; Haigh had loved that workshop, had rapped Lan’s knuckles many a time when he’d tried to touch things, some of which were now, oddly, inhabiting his body. It never hurt, but he’d always been chastened and would look on in awe as Haigh finished something else. It’d only been during the last ten to twenty basket additions that Haigh had finally let Lan do things himself. Mostly simple tonics for people in town and the creams for Jaddi, but it’d still been exhilarating.

“They’re gone; come.” Jaddi didn’t wait for a response before starting out her front door.

“Why?”

“I’m not going to just leave him up there. You’re fixed and those queen’s guards are gone. I doubt they’ll be back again today, if ever. Maybe we can bury him right inside the forest or under the eaves of those tall trees in his backyard.” She rattled off a few more options, her voice soothing the pounding in Lan’s head. His own thoughts turned back to the workshop. He’d be able to find the things for his head in there, certainly. That should make the headache disappear. He hoped.

They ended up burying Haigh at the base of a large maple tree halfway between the house and the start of the forest. The wildflowers grew like crazy outside the shadow of the tree, ringing the grave and dancing in the wind as the spring turned to summer.

Lan searched himself, finding bits and pieces of things Haigh had loved, and immortalized them in colored glass, glazing each piece with enchanted paint (left leg, front-left column, third down) and stringing them up into a wind chime to hang in the tree. It took a bit of time, but was easy to do while Jaddi slept at night.

Once it was finished, he took the next evening to search for what was missing from his head. But when he got there, the workroom had been swept clean, probably by a few souls from town who’d been looking for their last deliveries. It was a kind thought, but it frustrated Lan that so many had been in such a place that’d been only his and Haigh’s for so long.

Most of the shelves were empty and the desk had nothing but a small oil burner and a cracked clay pot sitting upon it. Nothing, absolutely nothing to fill his head.

He dragged himself back to Jaddi’s house that night, dejected and overly lonely, where she promptly told him he wasn’t allowed to go back if it made him so upset.

Instead, she had him help her around her house. Taught him stitch work so he could help patch the clothes she mended, since he couldn’t very well wash them. He helped clean as well, finding things to do to make her life a bit easier. He knew she didn’t need his help, but it felt good to be doing things for someone now that he could no longer help Haigh.

His baskets gathered dust―not on the inside; that would be impossible with the enchantments. And not on the outside either since he was very much active. But around the lids and underneath the latches, a slight coating of dust always began to gather. When Lan noticed, he would spend hours unlatching and relatching each and every basket, pretending that they were still in use. Though that did nothing for his empty head.

They were outside, Jaddi weeding her garden and Lan gathering what she’d pulled out to later throw into the forest, when a thought occurred to him. “Jaddi, is there anything you need me to hold for you? I’ve got space, and I can make more now that I don’t need most of what is stored within me.” That last sentence almost choked him up, though he had no real throat to be closing up on him.

She stretched and sat back on her heels to rest for a moment while she considered him. “I don’t really need you to hold anything. Most everything has homes in my house and those that don’t usually don’t stay long. But thank you for the offer.”

She massaged her hands, plucking a piece of dried skin off before she bent back over. “Granted, if I were going somewhere that might be a different story, but I’m content here.” She paused in her work and stared out at Haigh’s empty house, a sad expression passing over her face, but it was gone almost as soon as it appeared and she was back at her work.

Lan felt his shoulders sag in disappointment. That’d been a perfect plan, exchanging Haigh’s things for Jaddi’s. It would have been bittersweet as he missed Haigh fiercely, more with each day, always hearing the man’s words in his ears despite him no longer being around. But it would have cured the constant headache he bore and helped Jaddi. He’d thought.

“So what should I put in my head? It’s been empty since Haigh died.”

Jaddi didn’t look up as she was busy working a long weed out. “Whatever you want, I guess.”

He stared at her, a little angry that she’d be so dismissive. And completely unhelpful. It wasn’t so much to ask for something―anything―to be given a home in his head.

His headache became almost unbearable for a few moments, then eased as his eyes began to water. This was unnatural. He’d never felt any pain at all, at least not physically, before Haigh had died, and now he was stuck with an empty head that refused to be pacified.

Jaddi thought it was emotional pain finding a bodily way out, but she was also a believer that if one thought something often enough it became reality. Not that, Lan privately admitted, he’d never given that one a try.

It was another week after that conversation, in the dead of night, that he decided to take another look about his house. With a mostly full moon in the sky, Lan walked down the lane, now partially overgrown from disuse.

The house was untouched, dusty and empty. He could see decently well with the light coming in from the windows, but it wasn’t the same as it’d been the many years he’d spent growing from a few tiny baskets to the hundred he had now. He sat heavily in a chair in the workroom, staring at the bare shelves and workbench.

His night went by no faster here than it did at Jaddi’s house. Time seemed to slow when he had nothing to do, no one to help, until it felt as if it stopped altogether. The moon’s light shining upon the floor didn’t even seem to move at all.

Wandering further in the house, he stared sadly at the drying room. He’d spent a good bulk of his time here, hanging flowers and stems, crushing them later, draining sap into pots. All of which were now either burned or broken. This room had not been cleaned as the other had. Not as interesting, he supposed.

So he set to work, mostly unconsciously. Cleaning off the tables and dusting off the hooks. He swept the floor clean, taking bucket after bucket full of debris outside. Then he set about scrubbing with a long-handled brush, not realizing morning had arrived until the sun was already long in the sky.

He hurried back to Jaddi’s house, glad for the quick night, and glad again for her company. She didn’t ask where’d he been, merely greeted him warmly when he arrived.

The next night, and every night after that, he went back to Haigh’s house, wiping soot from the walls, mending broken furniture, scouring burned books for pages still legible. There were quite a few, as the fires had been quick work, not thorough.

That thought gave Lan pause. The queen’s guards would have had plenty of time to burn anything they’d wished. Then again, it could have been out of spite that they had ruined things, angry that Haigh had not given them what they needed. Or the queen needed. Or whoever.

He spread out the pages worth keeping, carefully scraping off the burned pieces. The rest he scanned. Most were notes from experiments, many of which Lan remembered. Some were even in Lan’s hand. Those were the newer ones when Haigh had trusted him enough to keep track of things. A few, a very few, were from Haigh’s private journals. They had been rarely updated, and when done so, with little emotion. He only wrote factually, as in one page “Finished updating experiment G-kpo4.”

Lan could read Haigh’s coding easily enough, the first capitalized letter signifying the original recipe, lowercase letters standing for which ingredients were changed and the symbol between standing for how those ingredients were changed―reduced, in this case, with a zero meaning they were taken out completely. A double line with more letters, but before the number, meant there was a substitute. And the number was simply how many experiments in he was. Always at least five of the same. Couldn’t run the risk of bad data.

The page crinkled under his sudden tight grip and a tear plopped upon the page, blurring some of the letters. Lan quickly dabbed it dry, struggling to remain gentle with the fragile paper. It was all he had left.

No, that wasn’t true. Lan pressed his wooden fingers against his chest, feeling the hummingbird (chest, center-left column, sixth down) take flight and flutter her wings against her little cage. It tickled, giving Lan a slight smile. There was much Haigh had left, but it was within Lan. Then Lan sighed. Maybe he should put that silly little hummingbird in his head so she’d have more room to fly about. No, he’d as likely lose her while trying to do so, and then he’d have two places aching instead of one. Besides, Haigh had always told him not to put anything breakable up there, for it was impossible for Lan to see what he was taking out.

There were hundreds of books to go though, most of which had at the very least a few legible pages, some with whole sections that’d not been burned. It took Lan weeks of working every night to collect them all as he cleared out the ash.

It was midsummer when the house was finally back in order. Nothing like it’d been before Haigh had died. Too empty for that. But it was clean, as if ready for a new Apothecary to take up residence. Lan walked the rooms for a few nights dusting shelves that didn’t need dusting, finding imaginary specks of dirt that required cleaning, until he realized the dull feeling rising up inside of him was an echo of how his head felt on a daily basis. Empty. Hollow.

Lonely.

He mentioned the feeling once to Jaddi, who didn’t look up from where she was easing a layer of skin off the back of her hand, a grimace upon her face. “Were you feeling that all along?”

He thought for a moment, then said, “No. Not at all. Just recently when the house became clean and there’s nothing left for me to do.”

“Nothing? Maybe that’s the problem.” She looked up at him and raised her hands. “Don’t you know how to make that cream he was always giving me every week?”

Lan shrugged. “Sure.” He knew it better than Haigh probably did these last few years, considering he’d been the one making it.

“Well, why didn’t you say so before?” She looked almost cross. “Would have saved me a bit of frustration. This―” She waved a hand in front of his face again―“runs in the family.”

It took all of an hour, spread out over a few nights as he had to dry a few things and grind them down, but it was an hour where the headache eased and the loneliness slipped away. Worth every second he spent.

So thanking Jaddi profusely, he filled the dead of nights with collecting and drying. He found the old trees he’d been collecting sap from and hung new buckets, preparing for when it started running. There was no recreating some of the things Haigh had stored around his workroom, many of which had been ordered from out of country, with some, Lan suspected, on the underground market. Though, those that hadn’t been bought illegally were just as expensive. But he took to stocking what he knew he could find.

Despite that not being very much, he still quickly ran out of jars and had to walk farther into town to visit the potter about more.

“It’s been a long while since you’ve stopped by asking after those,” he said. Kiag was a short man, with a straight face and quiet disposition, one of those who always had Lan wondering what it was he thought about a man made entirely of woven wood and baskets.

“Yes.” Lan bobbed his head as he spoke. “But many of Haigh’s things had been broken, and I’d like to replace them.”

Kiag raised his eyebrows just enough for Lan to be able to tell they’d actually moved. “Have you found out what happened to him? Losing him was a blow to this town. Anyone who’d been his client has had to either send from the next town, costing at least three times as much, or suffer in silence.”

Lan shook his head slowly. “I don’t know.”

The potter hmmed to himself. “I’m not one for gossip. I can assure you I’d been letting the things being whispered about him wash over my back. However, if you’re taking up his mantle, I’ll be sure to spread the word.”

Stuttering a thanks, Lan quickly put down a payment to get the potter started on his order and backed out of the shop, too flustered at the thought of doing half of what Haigh had. It was only after he’d walked halfway back to Jaddi’s house and had noticed a few people dodging his glances that he remembered the other half of what Kiag had said and wished he’d thought to ask.

He started to ask Miss Amain when he saw her. Then, feeling all his baskets turn a notch and their contents shifting inside him uncomfortably at her bright smile, he ducked his head and shuffled off, concentrating upon his feet so that he wouldn’t fall.

Jaddi laughed when he asked her later. “Don’t worry about them. There’re some folks who’d talk even if the world were collapsing beneath their feet.”

“But what do they say?” Lan insisted.

She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. “It’s nothing, Lan, nothing true, at least.”

When he didn’t look or move away, she finally relented.

“Some think that he had it coming, is all. Think that he might have had a hidden treasure somewhere.”

Lan nodded and said quietly, “Somewhere. You mean they think I have it.”

She shrugged. “It’s probably crossed everyone’s minds, Lan. But you’re the only one who can open those latches of yours, so you keep whatever it was safe from their greedy fingers. That’s obviously what Haigh wanted, after all.” She smiled sadly. He followed her gaze out to Haigh’s house. “He was a pretty impressive man, regardless of what he might have done.” She bowed her head and sighed. “I miss him a whole lot.”

“But,” she continued with a happy lilt in her voice, “I have you still. So glad they didn’t burn you up like they did with the rest of his things.”

He almost mentioned how he didn’t think they’d done that, but stopped short, not wanting the questions that might follow.

With the jars from the potter, he began to truly fill the shelves in the workshop. He didn’t need to label them, not as Haigh had (though his labeling had been mostly haphazard and usually wrong after the jar had been emptied and refilled a few times). Perhaps it came from a life of memorizing what was contained in each part of his own body, but he knew at a glance where everything was upon each shelf.

Upon the completion of the second order of jars from the potter, Kiag mentioned his wife’s monthly pains, sighing wistfully of the much-too-expensive prices of buying from the random merchant traveling through.

“They have a tendency to throw their prices at the moon, knowing that if we need it, we’ll have to find a way to buy it. My wife grins and bears it though, saying she’d rather not have that kind of money spent just to keep her comfortable. I married right, I know that much, though I wish I could take some of that pain away.”

“I could take care of that for you,” said Lan. “I didn’t know it was such a problem.”

“Great!” said Kiag. “I’ll have your payment ready upon delivery; looking forward to seeing you next week.” Then he shouted at one of his sons to be careful as he followed the boy into the back room. Lan left feeling as if he’d had no control during the whole exchange.

But he still did as he’d promised and brought the man a painkiller for his wife’s tea the following week. And that was just the start.

A few people caught him on his way back to Jaddi’s house that same afternoon, mentioning their own deliveries that had long ago ceased being brought. And more stopped by and left orders with Jaddi in the evenings during the following weeks.

“You know you don’t have to stay here during the day,” she said one morning when she was reciting a cosmetic order from one of the young women in town. “You seem to be getting plenty of work, and I’ve no doubt when word spreads the neighboring towns will be sending orders.”

“Are you sure? I really don’t mind helping you as well.”

“I lived alone for quite a few years, Lan, ever since . . .” Her face darkened, but only for a brief moment. “You can come and visit whenever you like. I’m not telling you to leave, but you seem bored here during the day.” She winked.

Lan nodded, knowing what she didn’t say. Ever since that fire, the one that’d hurt Haigh when he’d gone to put it out. The fire that had covered Jaddi black with ash and done much worse to her parents and older brother. Haigh had carried her out in his arms, the fire waning in his wake. Lan had been screamed at that night, for daring to get so close. He raised his hands, remembering the heat, but he’d ignored it in his fear that Haigh would never come back out.

“You really think other towns will want my work as well?”

Jaddi shrugged. “They did with Haigh.” As if that meant anything.

But in the following days as a mild autumn kicked up cool winds that tugged upon his latches, he found himself lost in work that included towns close enough to Otaor to hear the news that the Apothecary was back up and running. He became happier in his work, though much busier than he’d ever been with Haigh, and the ache in his head was forgotten more often than not.

When he wasn’t mixing or cooking, he delved into Haigh’s journal pages, painstakingly going through each and copying them into new journals where he added all the details he remembered from the experiments. He surprised even himself with as much as he did remember, noting even how many baskets he’d had during most of the experiments.

There were a few that baffled him, using a coding system he didn’t recognize at all. Until he stumbled across one with what had obviously been a bright red seal stuck to the bottom of the page. A lopsided sigil pressed into the wax, drooping from where it had been reheated, much of it trying to escape from the page.

The queen’s seal. Her royal approval of his work.

Lan stared at that seal for a long time before going back through some of the experiments he’d found with the odd coding and reclassifying them under a new pile. Those he’d have to go over later. Right now he needed the pieces he could actually read and understand if he was going to continue going forward with Haigh’s work, taking the results of the experiments and creating his own recipes.

So, lost as he was normally, and perhaps just a bit too trusting, he didn’t even pause when the workroom door opened one day. “Jaddi, I think I’ve managed to figure out how to take away the side effects of this . . .” He trailed off when he turned around.

Jaddi did stand there, her eyes wide with worry and her mouth a thin line, but next to her stood a woman in a regal traveling robe, her arms crossed, and a scowl affixed upon her face. Before and behind the woman stood four guards, all with the same sigil Lan had seen in Haigh’s notes stitched into the shoulder of their uniforms.

Suddenly he felt as if he were only one or two baskets big, and feeling his distress, anything even remotely alive within him became quite agitated. “Can I help you?” His words came out stuttering, sounding childish to even his own ears.

The woman strode forward, her cloak grazing the floor. He was suddenly glad he always kept up on the cleaning.

“I hear you have something of mine,” she stated, stopping about a foot in front of him. She was shorter than him, by about a head, not even as tall as Jaddi. Despite that, Lan felt as if she was standing twice as tall and it was he looking up at her. The queen. Queen Yula was standing in his workshop. It made his baskets shrink slightly thinking about it.

“I don’t think so,” he said. He glanced about the room. “I have never even been beyond Otaor. How could I have taken anything from you?”

“Were you Haigh’s . . . assistant?” She said the word as if it wasn’t the one she wanted to say. Lan recognized the tone well enough. It hadn’t happened much as he got older, but when his baskets had been fewer and people less accepting, he’d heard that tone well enough conjoined with much worse descriptions for himself.

“I guess.”

“His created assistant with enchanted woven baskets where only it can remove the contents?” At his hesitant nod, she added, “A perfect hiding place, don’t you think, for something a man wishes to never see the light of day as proof of his betrayal.”

“I . . .” Lan couldn’t think of a good response that either didn’t insult the queen or incriminated Haigh, so he shut the tiny hole of his mouth as much as possible.

“I wish you to remove all the contents of every . . . cavity. Now.”

“But . . .”

“But?” She took another step forward. “Do you have any idea what that cretin stole from me?” Not waiting for a response, she continued, “When I gave birth to my second child, he was perfect and wonderful, destined to serve my daughter in a ranking position when it came time to rule. But my son sickened quickly with disease, his body becoming a frail husk, him unable to even turn his own head to suckle and swallow.

“Haigh promised he could save him.”

Lan glanced over at Jaddi, but she wasn’t looking at him, her eyes instead upon the floor and the thin line of her mouth turned down as when she was upset. His breathing was steady, from having a woven body and a throat that could never constrict, but his mind was racing despite the dull ever-present ache.

“And did he?” asked Lan, when it became obvious that was what Yula wished.

She stepped back a pace and her voice dropped some of its fierceness. “He took my son from his body, coercing my child into a trinket. A filthy bauble, not even fit for my child to play with, let alone live in. And then had the gall to tell me he could put my son into another’s body, if a boy of his age was brought to him.

“Naturally, I refused. How could I, though I am a queen, ever force that pain on another mother? So, instead I banished him, thinking he’d given me the correct trinket he’d placed my son into. I treasured it, sang to it, as if it held my son’s soul, only to find it was empty when we finally found a boy who had a body, but no soul to use it.”

“And you think I have it now?”

“When my guards arrived, they found him already dead and most everything ruined, so I can only assume he anticipated that I would discover his betrayal and hid my son in you.”

Jaddi gave a strangled cry from behind Yula. “You don’t mean . . . he couldn’t have!” She covered her mouth, swallowing whatever else she was thinking and Lan saw her shoulders shake. He wanted to comfort her, though he didn’t know how he could as he knew what Yula said to be a dreaded truth he’d not wanted to admit to before. It was easier to think Haigh had left them unwillingly than of his own accord.

Yula glanced from Jaddi to Lan, then back again. “So, I guess that makes a sort of sense. I’d probably not have let him off as easy as he let himself.”

Lan glowered at the side of the queen’s head, hating how she could dismiss his death as the act of a coward. “You think he was scared of what you would do to him?”

“I know he was,” said Yula, casting a dangerous eye at him. “He was my Apothecary long before he’d brought a bunch of crappy intertwined baskets to life.”

He bowed his head, a part of him whispering that Haigh really had no other reason but fear to do as he’d done. Lan shook the thought away, refusing to dwell upon it. “Fine, you can have your son back.”

Behind Yula, Jaddi passed Lan a horrified expression through her tears. “Don’t . . . Lan. He―”

One of the guards moved to drag Jaddi from the room. She gasped, but the frightened look in her eyes didn’t speak of pain.

“Stop . . . just leave her alone. Just leave us all alone.” The guard stopped and glanced to Yula, who nodded tightly. Lan asked, “So what was he in?”

“We don’t know,” said Yula, “But I’m sure I’ll know it when I see it.”

Lan doubted that, not if she’d been singing to an empty bauble for over fifteen years before this, but he began to unlatch a lid (chest, leftmost column, first). Jaddi suddenly became calm in the guard’s grasp, watching with a closed expression.

He put the vials of butterfly innards upon the workbench and began on the next latch as Yula stared in shock. Then basket, after basket he unlatched and opened and placed its contents next to those vials. The workbench overflowed onto the chair. The chair overflowed onto the floor. Broken flower petals and seeds were underfoot, crystallized tonics and the diamond beaker glinted in the sunlight. The emerald hummingbird ducked her head, hiding behind much larger things Lan pulled out and hopping away from the embalmed rat when it plopped beside her.

He expected his body to slowly fill with aches and pains as he emptied himself, but the empty, lonely feeling of those baskets never came. Maybe the anger staved it off, or maybe it was the way Jaddi calmly watched him or the truth that was buzzing about his mind.

Maybe it was because he knew Queen Yula to be wrong about Haigh. He’d run through a burning building to rescue Jaddi once, after all. Had then yelled at Lan in a crazed voice, in fear that Lan would come too close and become kindling. No, Haigh was not afraid of a painful death. But he had been afraid of losing something dear.

Yula searched among the things he’d spread out, mumbling occasionally to herself. “This would have been easier had Haigh been still alive. Which do you think it is?” she asked finally.

“I have no idea. Why don’t you take it all?” He shoved the mess forward upon the workbench, startling the little hummingbird, who shot into the air, her wings flashing. Yula jumped back, and to her credit, swallowed any shout that’d risen to her throat.

“Catch him,” she commanded. The guards moved, but too slow. The hummingbird dashed about the room for a moment, then dove over a guard’s hand and slipped through the crack in the window.

Yula sighed angrily. “That had to be him. Go after it.” Two of the guards disappeared out the door chasing down the emerald hummingbird. “And collect the rest; we’ll bring it all back with us.”

“It’ll take years to test it all,” started Lan, but stopped at the quick finger Jaddi put to her lips. “But I’m sure you’ll find him,” he finished.

“Unless he was the hummingbird,” said Yula, her voice so sad, Lan almost relented and told her his suspicions.

A few thoughts stopped him. Her horrified expression when she realized that her son was Haigh’s crappy intertwined baskets was one. However, it was knowing how happy he was, right here being the Apothecary for Otaor and the surrounding towns and maybe one day, even farther. Being happy right where he’d been raised by Haigh his whole life.

Another guard collected everything that’d once been inside of Lan. He felt a small twinge when everything was finally gone, his insides light and airy in their emptiness. It passed quickly, as quickly as the queen left with her guards and retinue that’d been waiting outside.

He stood with Jaddi, watching the last of the royal caravan disappearing, idly wondering how many of the townspeople had gathered to watch the queen pass, for what was surely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the majority of them.

“It’s sad to see everything gone,” he said. “I’d been carrying his things for so long.”

Jaddi smiled at him brightly through her tears. “I have a feeling that what Haigh cared for most is still here.” Then she hugged him, rubbing against his unlatched lids, her tears leaking into one and pooling inside. He closed and latched that lid (chest, center-right column, fourth down) when she pulled away.

“There,” said Lan, “I can start my own collection.”

“That’s a great idea. I never much liked seeing that rat tail every day anyway.”

It was later, much later, when he was finally finished sifting through Haigh’s journal pages, that he stumbled across a very short piece, one of many that Haigh had been trying to hide.

“. . . for the other experiment: I don’t know if the boy would have been better with a real body, flesh and blood. He’s taken to the one I had Jaddi weave readily enough. He has an amazing memory, one to rival even the queen’s recorder, and a knack for anticipating my needs in the workroom. He’ll be great one day, but not as a king. Definitely a boy after my own heart, one I could l . . .”

Lan folded the tiny scrap of paper gently and placed it in his head, latching the lid tightly against the threat of emptiness.

THE END