Chapter Two: The Dead Do Not Sleep

The next village had no name.

Not on the map, not in the records, not even in the Book of Forgotten Places that Callan carried tucked into his satchel. It was simply a collection of dark stone cottages, sagging from centuries of wind and sorrow, with roofs like broken wings and chimneys long gone cold.

Arlo and his father arrived just before dusk, walking in silence. The last light of the sun stretched their shadows long across the moor behind them. Even Woeful Moor, with its boggy hills and crooked trees, had felt more alive than this place.

This place was quiet in a wrong sort of way.

No birds. No wind. Not even the sound of their own footsteps—just the dry crunch of gravel that seemed to vanish into the stillness.

“Is it empty?” Arlo asked quietly, fingers tightening around the edge of his cloak.

Callan didn't answer right away. He took a piece of Charter chalk from his belt and began to draw a mark on the old gatepost of the village entrance. It glowed faint gold, then dimmed into the stone.

“A Listening ward,” he said. “So we’ll know what’s real… and what isn’t.”

Arlo’s stomach twisted. That meant illusions. Echoes. Things that might look like people but weren’t.

They walked together past the first row of houses. The doors were open. Inside, furniture sat as if waiting for someone to return. A wooden spoon in a bowl of dust. A coat still hanging by the door. Children’s boots—tiny, muddy, and still lined up neatly.

But the village had no living people. Not anymore.

“What happened here?” Arlo whispered.

Callan bent down to examine something in the dirt. A cracked bowl. Inside it: bone.

“A long winter, maybe. Famine. Or something darker. Look.”

He pointed to the edge of the well in the village center. Charter marks had been carved there once—but now they were scorched, blackened, the magic erased by Free Magic burns.

“Someone tried to protect the village,” Callan murmured, frowning. “They failed.”

That night, they camped in the old bell tower, high above the street. Arlo had never been so glad to have walls. Even broken ones.

They ate cold bread and cheese, and Callan read softly from the Book of Forgotten Places while Arlo watched the door. He wasn’t sure why—only that something in the air pressed against him, like a blanket soaked in river water.

“I don’t like this place,” Arlo said finally.

“Good,” Callan replied. “It means your senses are working.”

That was when it came.

A knock at the door below.

Three soft knocks.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Not hurried. Not loud. Just… waiting.

Arlo froze. “Dad…”

Callan stood slowly and reached for his bell. Linneth. Its Charter marks shimmered faintly even before he touched it.

The knock came again.
Knock. Knock. Knock.

Callan gestured for Arlo to stay still and quiet. Then he opened the shuttered window just enough to look down.

Nothing.

Just the still street. A broken cart. An old flagpole.

But Arlo saw it, just as the last light of the day vanished from the sky.

A figure standing in the center of the square.

Not walking. Not moving. Just there. And its face was covered by a child’s mask, painted with a wide, smiling mouth.

Callan shut the window. He didn’t speak for a moment. Then he turned and pulled Arlo close.

“That is no ordinary Dead.”

“What is it?”

“A Memory-Feeder,” Callan said. “It uses echoes of what people miss… to draw them in. It wears faces, but none of them are real.”

Arlo’s heart thudded. “What does it want?”

“To be remembered,” his father said grimly. “And it will do anything to stay remembered.”

That night, the creature came again.

Not with sounds—but voices.

Mother.
Brother.
Come outside, Arlo. I made your favorite stew.
You left your toy outside, remember? The one with the wooden tail. Come and get it.

The voices weren’t frightening at first.

They were familiar.

Sweet, even.

But Arlo knew better. He curled tighter in his blanket and tried not to listen. But the mask… he could feel it smiling, somewhere below.

Callan drew protective Charter symbols along the stone floor in glowing circles. The bell Linneth sat between them, silent but ready.

“Some spirits lie,” Callan whispered, “but the worst ones tell the truth. Just… not all of it.”

At dawn, when the fog finally lifted, Arlo and Callan stepped into the center of the square.

The figure still stood there. Masked. Waiting.

Callan rang Linneth once.

Its sound was different this time—lower, deeper, like water flowing backward.

The figure twitched. The mask tilted.

Then it spoke.

“I remember him,” it said in a voice that was like thirty people speaking at once. “The one who left me here. The one who broke the circle. The one who ran.”

Arlo looked up at his father. “What does it mean?”

Callan didn’t answer. He was staring at the figure.

“I thought you were gone,” he said, almost too softly.

The mask tilted again. “You left me.”

Then it cracked.

The mask split down the middle, and behind it—nothing.

Just wind. Ash. The emptiness of a soul that had forgotten even its own name.

Callan stepped forward. “You’re free,” he said.

He rang the bell once more.

And this time, the wind swallowed the figure whole.

Gone.

For good.

Later, as they packed up, Arlo asked quietly, “Did you know that person?”

Callan didn’t look at him right away. Then he said, “He was a friend. A long time ago. We made a promise… to protect this place. But I lived, and he didn’t.”

They were quiet a long while.

Then Arlo reached into his bag and pulled out a small clay charm—shaped like a sun—and tied it to the old flagpole.

“For the friend,” he said.

Callan looked at him, eyes soft. Then he smiled.

“Yes,” he said. “For the friend.”

And so they walked on.

Past the empty village. Past the edge of maps.

The Old Kingdom still waited.

And so did the bells.