The Tale of the Rikity Tig (complete)

The bonfire is burning white-hot, and I could feel it searing the fuzz off my cheeks. It was much better than the winds that came off the sea, which I know all too well can wear a person raw. After so many months at sea, I’ve almost forgotten what solid ground felt like. Having grown used to constant motion, the stillness unsettles me.

All around me, large bodies move back and forth, shuffling until they begin to look like a vast forest stretched out before me. I stare blankly into the fire, and within it I can hear screams of panic, cities falling, lives coming to a halt. I don’t know how the others can go about and not hear that within the flames.

“You are looking at that fire as if you know her.” A voice reaches me, seemingly coming from the flames. I turn slightly to see a man sitting near me. His head is bowed as he looks over his string instrument. Long, elegant fingers bring chords into the air, covering the screams within the flames.

“It is keeping me from becoming too agitated.” I shift in place, wrapping my coat tighter around me. I do not know where this man came from. He appeared as if out of nowhere, but considering how lost I had become in the fire, it is no surprise someone did.

The man strums slowly, keeping my mind focused on his presence. The forest of men appears to still, and the fire casts its glow upon the man.

“How long have you been gone?” His eyes focus on me, beautiful and haunting all in a single glance. They are as dusky as the morning sky, a heathered shade that looks hypnotic. Does he know me, and I have simply forgotten him after all this time away?

“Long enough for my children to have forgotten me,” I answer. 

He brushes aside his long dreadlocks, then continues to play. “You have children?”

“Not any more,” I murmur.

The man looks up to the fire. “I am sorry to hear about that.” He starts playing a song, something unfamiliar yet nostalgic. “These are not the nights for children anyway.”

I don’t reply. I just look straight ahead at the fire.

The man’s long fingers gracefully pull music from the strings. It soothes me, and my head begins to nod as exhaustion lays upon my shoulders. “There are things in this world much worse than man these days,” he says.

I sniff and raise my head, blinking sleep away for now. “What do you mean?”

A smile comes to the man’s lovely face. “Surely there must be something in the dark that you fear.”

I scoff and shake my head. “You’re talking about children’s stories.”

“Stories begin somewhere. Sometimes they begin with truth.” He lays his palm flat over the strings. “So tell me, have you heard of the creature called the Rikity Tig?”

The bonfire flickers, hissing loudly. It causes a stir and a silence in the forest of men I had never witnessed before.

“The Rikity Tig?” I stare at the man in confusion. “What sort of language is that?”

“It is no language,” the man says with a sort of smile. “It existed before all that, and will stalk us long after.” He plucks a single chord. “Have you ever seen lights out in the darkness, with no explanation as to what they are? Noises that you have never experienced before, coming from corners that should hold no sound?”

I bite at the edge of my tongue while meeting his smile with a sneer. “Are you trying to scare me?”

His lovely smile grows. “Is there something for you to be scared of?”

I look away from him and return to silence.

He chuckles, strumming away again. “It is alright to be afraid of things in the dark, for that is where fear often starts for us. The shadows and the unknown are the birthplace of most stories. I have learned many of them.”

“You’re a storyteller,” I chuckle to myself. “That explains it.”

“Most of it.” He places his instrument between his legs. “One of the first I ever heard was that of the Rikity Tig.”

“That again,” I roll my eyes. “If you want to tell me something, then tell me. But do not go in thinking that you will receive anything from me.. I have nothing. No coin, no home. Only what you see before you.”

“I do not tell stories for the joy of a coin. I have many reasons to share the tales I know.” At this point, the forest of men have taken notice and begun to crowd all about us. “Stories are important, and they should be shared with everyone.”

The crowd starts to gather thicker around us. They want to listen to this man’s tales, while all I want to do is be left alone to gaze into the fire. I have no use for his songs or his words. I just want to go back out to sea, where none of those things matter.

“Why are you trying to lull us into this false sense of security?” I point into the trees. “Do you have friends out there waiting to take our skin and sell our bones?”

“I am alone, aside from you.” His smile is surprisingly serene. “Once, long ago, there was a woman like you who lived alone in the woods, and held onto the things that made her miserable.”

The forest of men is too close for comfort. “Let me guess - this Rikity Tig thing ate her her alive, but spat her up because she was bitter.”

The man shrugs, returning to strumming. “No. It does not eat flesh.”

A lump forms at the back of my throat, causing a tension that makes my neck stiff. “Then what else is there?”

“I’ll tell you, but you must listen. It is important that you hear this story. Can you promise me that?”

I nod in silence. The man looks deep into the woods, and begins his story.

Long ago, a woman lived alone in a house her husband built. He was gone, their children were gone, and she let that weight sit upon her shoulders. She never took it off - she simply let it bend her over time. She kept to herself, wishing for company while her door always remained closed. She lamented her life, bemoaning the time she had left to her. It was always too much, too heavy, and yet she lifted the burden of solitude onto her back without a second thought.

The woman was haggard despite still being in her best years. Grief had tried many times to escape her, and yet she clung to it like a lover. She needed that pain, like strong drink or sleep. Not many people came to visit her. Many who knew her were long gone, and others came to be frightened of her. She was not a witch, but her loneliness and anguish made people believe she was one. She accepted their scorn.

Then one day, a young man in the village passed away. It was a shock to everyone, and no one could understand what had happened. He was so vital, and yet he was found dead in his own home. His wife spoke about his strange behaviour in his final days. “He complained of a light in the woods,” she said. “He said he saw something out there moving around. But every time I looked I didn’t see a thing. Just yesterday, he said it felt like something was breathing on him. So he left the house to search. I thought he came back to bed when I was asleep, but it may have been a dream, because when I woke he was slumped by the window.”

The sad woman came to pay her respects to his family, but her welcome was long overstayed as she pulled their grief into her. “It is best he died now rather than suffer the years he has before him,” she said almost proudly. “What is there for men these days? What did he have to look forward to? War? Famine? Illness? The plague is due back again. He had much more to suffer had he been alive!”

“This is not the time to be speaking of such things!” someone hissed at her. “The family is sick with grief, and yet you only say things that placate you.”

“I am telling them the truth!” the woman protested. “I am preparing them for the yoke of this world. I am trying to make them happy.”

She was grabbed by the arm and forced towards the door. “No one wants your truth! No one wants to hear misery on top of misery.”

“People need to know!”

The other mourners pushed the woman out the door. “You complain about your life, but  if you knew how long you really had, you would bemoan that too!” The door was slammed in her face and she stood there, believing she was right.

“You will all do much better seeing things my way. You would rather remain blissful in your ignorance? That is no way to live!” The woman shuffled off, leaving the town behind to return to her home. “I would be happy to know my time is short! I would celebrate it. At least I would know.” She locked the door and sat herself down before the hearth. The embers were low, but she made no move to stoke the fire. There weren’t even any logs remaining by the fireplace.

As night began to settle over the mountaintops, the woman’s house grew colder. Mumbling and complaining, she went outside to fetch some wood from the stockpile. As she pulled a log away, she noticed something in the distance. At first, she thought it was a star, perhaps a sliver of moonlight, but it seemed far too bright and far too close for that.

She continued to gather logs until she felt as if something was watching her. She looked around to see nothing but the growing darkness of the forest. The light still flashed in the distance, and the bright spot appeared even closer than before. The woman watched it, wondering who was in the woods at this time of night. She hoped it was no one looking for help, for she had none to give. The light moved erratically, sometimes close to the ground and sometimes high in the trees. It must have been a firefly out of season. 

The woman returned to her hearth to stoke the fire. As she sat in her chair, watching the logs catch, she could not shake the feeling of being watched. After having been alone for so long, it felt unfamiliar on her skin, almost creeping along like the legs of insects on her arm or cheek. She would touch them knowing nothing was there, except a gaze she could not find. 

She went to the window, peering outside into the darkness. There was nothing to see this night, no stars or moonlight to illuminate the land and cling to the trees. Merely a deep, unending stillness, something she was familiar with. Then, in the distance, she saw that lonesome little firefly again. It swung in the air, back and forth, up and down, then shrinking to a pinprick. It didn’t move, but the light it exuded flickered in strange finger-like beams. 

The woman leaned towards the window so her breath fogged the glass. She watched as the light flashed brightly, burning her eyes and making her look away. She dropped the curtain, rubbing at her eyes, and decided someone was playing a trick on her. It would not be the first time some arrogant children had tried to frighten her. She sniffed and bit her thumb at the window. “Childish. I see your game! You will not frighten me tonight, nor any night.”

She turned on her heel sharply and took to bed. Yet that feeling of eyes upon her clung to her skin, making it difficult for her to find peace  that night. She tossed and turned in bed, almost suffocated by the presence. A few times she felt breath on the back of her neck, but she blamed it on her long hair.

The feeling persisted, even as the morning turned into noon, now a moist warmth on the back of her neck. She tied up her hair, hoping it would alleviate the sensation. The longer the day went on, the more frustrated she became. It became a grating constant, slowly wearing away her nerve. Every sound became a threat, every breeze an enemy. She stayed in her home, cautious of every step she made. Each creak of the boards sounded like someone speaking, and she would stop and turn to look out the window.

That night, she saw the light at her window again. It hit the corner of her eye, and when she turned to look it burned through the curtains. “I see you,” she rasped under her breath. A laugh bubbled up in her throat.  “I see you. Your little joke does not fall on deaf ears, but it falls uselessly on an unfearing heart.”

She said this, but her eyes remained focused on the light. Like the night before, it made the shape of flickering fingers that stretched out to touch the trees and ground, clawing as it brought itself closer. Rather than burning anything, the light seemed to burrow into whatever was around it. It danced in the darkness, swinging around before it stilled again. Then it began pulling away her curtains. In the gaps between the fingers of light grew pools of darkness, thickening the air so a halo hung around it.

The woman stared so long, she began to see shapes in the light. No doubt the tricksters responsible. She came to her senses to scowl, gazing at the figure in the light with an angry scowl. “I know you are there! I can see you. Whatever trick you are pulling, stop.”

“You can’t hide forever,” a man’s voice said. “I found you once. I will find you again.” 

The woman couldn’t breathe from shock. The voice was so familiar, but its owner had been gone many years. He had vanished during a storm, swallowed by the sea he used to love. “It cannot be!” she wailed, clasping her hands about her ears. “It is not possible.”

The shape of a man stood in the shadows outside. “I’ll find you,” he said again.

“Darling!” The woman ran from her house and stood at the edge of the light, watching the shadow of the man walking forward. “You’re alive!” She tripped over a branch, falling on her face into the dirt.

The hot breath beat down the back of her neck again. She moaned in pain, rising from the ground. But the light was gone and with it her husband. She stared into the darkness with a pitiful moan. On the back of her neck she felt the touch of a pair of lips. Whipping around, she lashed out her arms to find no one there, only the chill of evening. She returned to her home, leaving the fire out and sitting by her window all night.

She knew she was being watched. She was no fool, and she would not allow anyone to make her feel this way. She knew the truth of things, and if they wanted to harm her, they should have been more direct about it. 

The voice was the only thing she would admit to being bothered by. It sounded just like the final words her husband had said to her at the dock. They had bored so deeply inside her that, when she received word he vanished, they never left her. 

She went into town to the market to buy a few things she needed. In the town there was a change all around her. The people were all guilty of something. She cast glances on them as if cursing them all. They laughed at her. As she entered a shop, she noticed an axe beside the door. She took hold of it, looking down the blade and sneering.

“They’re making fun of me,” she snarled under her breath. “Always calling me a witch. Always mocking me.” She squeezed the handle of the axe in her hand. “This is another threat towards me. Well, it won’t work. They don’t scare me so easily.” She grumbled away, unaware of the man approaching her from behind.

“Excuse me, ma’am.” He put his hand on her shoulder.

The woman screamed, whipping around and striking the man with the axe. She hit his shoulder with the blade, then his head with the blunt side. “I am not a fool! You can’t scare me with your tricks!” she screamed, hitting him again and again. The blood that gushed from him did not stop her. The man cried out, and it did nothing to calm her rage. She was the victim of a joke, and all the villagers were guilty.

A child screamed, and the woman raised her head. She looked around, rushing away as people came towards her. “It was a trap!” She jutted out a bloody finger. “You all did this. You can’t blame me. All of you wanted this!”

She fled, dodging those who tried to capture her. She hid in the woods until nightfall, then crept back to her home. But someone was still watching her. She stumbled into her house, watching through the window. “They did this. They shouldn’t make fun of me. They know I am right.” After a while she returned outside to gather logs for a fire, when the light shone in the distance again. It was bigger than a pinprick now, swinging from side to side. 

In town, the man she had attacked with the axe died, and the people discussed what to do with her. Due to the number of witnesses, they agreed there was no need for a trial. The woman would be hanged after her capture. Already men were coming through the woods to her door. She remained by the window, watching the light outside. Maybe her husband would return, and he was using a lantern to find her. But how could he be lost? He knew where their home was.

Her breath fogged the window, and the light looked like the flickering of a candle. It moved as if bobbing in the hand of someone walking through the woods. It glowed brighter when she focused on it, but faded away as soon as she blinked. Whatever was moving out there waved through the dark trees, but that could just be because of the wind.

She could hear breathing just behind her, blowing down her neck in a ripple. She wouldn’t turn around. All of her attention was focused outside. “Why would there be candlelight out here?” she murmured sleepily. “Why a candle at all?”

She pressed herself closer to the glass, looking for someone that didn’t exist. Her breath continued to fog the window, which showed no reflection, so she did not see what moved behind her. 

Suddenly, she saw the candle. It sat in the empty eye socket of a skull, wax dripping down all over its strange, grotesque visage. The old bone was dry and cracked, with moss and dirt between its teeth. The candle guttered, short and about to go out. It was the breath of the creature that fogged the glass, not hers.

The woman stared, horrified by what she saw. “Is that me?” Her voice croaked as she clasped her hands around her face. She could feel the wax on her cheeks and under her eyes. It dripped like the steady ticking of a clock. The candle was so short.

The hot breath on the back of her neck began to feel like fire. As the face in the window breathed, she was grabbed from behind. The woman screamed, struggling against the men who had seized her. She was dragged from her home, still watching the candle burn.

She was taken into town and thrown into a cell, where she lay with nothing but darkness all around her. Her slow breaths filled the silence, and then she heard dripping. Opening her eyes, she saw wax on the floor. Looking up, she saw the candle in that monstrous face hung from the ceiling above her.

“I found you,” her husband said.

“I knew you would.” The woman relaxed onto the floor. “I knew you’d come to me eventually. I’m so happy.”

“Mama, it’s cold,” her son whispered. 

“Come close to me.” She stretched out her hand across the floor. “My baby, come here. I’ll keep you warm this time.”

A cold, shriveled thing slipped into her palm. Wax struck her cheek, and the light began to dim. 

“I found you.”

“I wasn’t hiding.” She looked up as the candle began to flicker out. “No! No! Don’t go!” She stood up, reaching for the candle. “You can’t go out! You just can’t go out!”

The breath was breathing on the back of her neck again. This time it felt like her husband’s kisses pressing hard upon her spine. 

“You can’t go out!” She grabbed hold of the candle, and the wax burnt her fingers. “I’m not ready! It’s not enough!”

The kiss became a fist that struck hard at her neck. The candle was snuffed out, and her feet dangled in the air. Her dead eyes stared at the ground, while the eyes of the entire town focused upon her swinging from the noose. 

She complained that her life had gone on too long. And yet, when the candle was snuffed out, it wasn’t enough time for her at all.

I stare at the man, and the forest of men seem to huddle closer to one another, becoming a mountain range. I let out a shuddering breath, but I am far from cold.

“But what about the Rikity Tig?” I ask. “Was it her? What was it?”

The man looks at me with his lavender eyes and he hums. “The Rikity Tig is what we give power to devour us.”

I swallow hard. “But you said it didn’t eat flesh.”

“And it doesn’t.” He smirks at me. “It devours us, and we are not flesh.”

“But that woman...” I grab hold of his hand so he cannot move. “She was hanged, right? That’s what happened to her?”

The crowd of men separates, slowly becoming a forest again.

“She was, but had she not let the Rikity Tig inside her, she could have saved herself.” He holds my hand, rubbing his thumb into the center of my palm. “All those years of grief she held onto, collecting burdens like sticks into a bundle. She never let go of her suffering. She made her Rikity Tig, and it hanged her in the end.”

I release his hand and catch my breath, clutching my chest. I look back at the bonfire, but I do not let myself stare. I turn back to the storyteller with tears in my eyes. “How do we get rid of it?”

“It will always be there. You just cannot let it grow.” The storyteller picks up his instrument and stands. “Have a good evening.” He vanishes into the forest of men, much like how he appeared before.

I take a deep breath and look up into the sky. Then I feel a breath upon my neck.