It was Waning Fayim. Elden was coming, when the bright colors of the nearby forest and the spicy smell of harvest would bring cheer to the day, while the crisp air and the thinning trees gave the night an eerie magnificence. Then the leaves would turn and go, and the land’s only covering would be the corpse of summer’s underbrush. The old grey ghost would hang in the sky and the forest trees would clutch at the wind with the bare silhouette of their figures, hoping against hope that they would somehow find life again—but now it was Fayim, and the heat of it hung heavy over everything.
The village Greydawn, where this story took place, is rather unremarkable. There are only two things about it which even bear mentioning. First, Greydawn was the southernmost settlement of Rangelvie, which is the southernmost country on maps. It sat in the foothills of the Mirrored Mountains, right on the edge of the Feysilv Forest.
There were cornfields along Greydawn's western outskirts, and the wind ran stale among the sheaves. A boy sat in the place between the rows, careful not to squash the stalks. He was sharpening his knife, and the whetstone made a sheer, scratching noise as he ran it down the blade. Those were the only sounds—the knife and the wind.
"loooooooooooooookaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas," a voice called, and then the stillness was broken by crashing, like a wave that swells up only to be met by the cliff face. Somebody was running, pushing through waves of corn as they went. The sound came closer and closer until it was cut off by a short cry as a smallish boy emerged from the closest row of corn, only to trip and fall face first into the dirt.
"Lucas! There you are!" the second boy said, gingerly picking himself up and brushing dirt off his hands, "I've been looking everywhere! Mommy said to come get you."
The boy called Lucas did not look up from his knife and stone.
"Why are you like this?" the smaller boy asked.
"I don't belong here," Lucas mumbled.
"You have the eyes."
And here I must mention the second notable thing about Greydawn—in every generation, two or three of the village children are born with the white of their eyes dark grey or black. Both Lucas and William—the young boy who had just come running through the corn—had eyes like that.
"Why are you like this?" William said again.
Lucas sighed and scraped his stone down the edge of his knife again. "I have to be ready," he said finally.
"For what?"
Lucas shrugged. "Everything."
"Well, Mommy says you need to be ready for the harvest festival. She wants to dance some, which means somebody else has to watch Rheanna and Danny and Joen and I'm not old enough and Dad will probably also be busy too and anyway it's a party and everyone wants you there and so—" William stopped to catch his breath. "So I need you to come with me," he finished.
Lucas snorted. "Everybody does not want me there."
"Nu-uh!" William insisted, "We all want you to come!"
Holding out his knife, Lucas peered down the length of the blade, examining its edge and his handiwork as he spoke. "If we go back, you'll have to dance with everyone else. Do you want to dance?"
"Not really."
"Then sit."
William hesitated, then plopped down on the ground nearby. "Do you think we'll—"
"Shh," Lucas said.
Leaning closer in a conspiratorial kind of way, William whispered loudly into his ear. "What is it?"
At eleven, Lucas was four years older than William, so he spoke from the hardened wisdom of his years. "If you want to stay, you need to be quiet."
"Oh."
After an hour, or maybe a few minutes, the crickets were singing and the outlines of everything had gone grey and blurry. Standing up, Lucas sheathed his knife, pocketed his stone, and began to make his way back through the fronds of corn.
William scrambled to his feet and hurried after him. "Are we going back?"
"It's getting late," Lucas said, offering William his hand. "It's not smart to stay out when it's dark. Not that dark is bad. The moon will be full tonight and tomorrow and the night after—the last full moon of Fayim. That's why there's a festival—"
"I know that," William said.
"—so it won't be that dark out. I mean, don't be out in the fields or the woods at night. Even I wouldn't even do that, and I know what I’m doing. There's wild animals and—and stuff."
"I won't," William said.
Lucas looked down at him. "Promise?"
William nodded seriously.
The two of them came out of the cornfield and into the grass between the town and the forest where the festival was. The dancing was over already, and most of the village had gathered around a bonfire to roast apples and bread and cheese. Creeping up, the boys sat quietly at the edge of the circle, not wanting to draw attention to their late arrival. Normally it would not have worked. There were too few people living in Greydawn, so the crowds did not get big enough to be lost in. But just now, everyone was distracted. Wren was telling a story—something about the ancient monsters haunting the southern woods.
Lucas stared up at the night sky, noting the position of the stars and tuning out the voices around him. Events like this were harmless, but they always bothered him. The people of Greydawn didn’t know anything about monsters.
“Do you think it’s true?” William whispered. It was loud. He was too young to know how to whisper properly.
Lucas opened his mouth to respond, trying to come up with an answer that would make it sound like he has been paying attention. Luckily, someone put a hand on his shoulder. He looked up into the stern face of Jonack, Wren's older brother.
"Hi Dad," William muttered.
"Lucas, come and walk with me a moment." Jonack said.
Lucas stood and followed Jonack back towards the cluster of houses that Greydawn was made of. It was darker over here away from the fire, and Lucas found himself glancing back and forth at the silhouettes of the buildings, watching for movement. Jonack was talking to him now. Lucas hadn't noticed at first. It probably wasn't important, but he decided it would be polite to start listening anyway.
"You only ever listen if you were already willing to do what I and your Mother want," Jonack continued. "Can't you see that this is wrong? We were worried—we didn't know where you were. Don't you see—the things we tell you are for your safety. You're the oldest. You have to help bring order to our house. We can't function if you cause as much chaos as the little ones. We are a family. We have to work together. Does that make sense?"
Lucas shrugged, “I guess so.”
“What part of that was confusing?” Jonack demanded.
“You aren't my father.”
For a moment, Jonack didn’t say anything. It was too dark to see, but Lucas could imagine the muscles working around in his neck as he clenched and unclenched his jaw. Jonack did that when he was frustrated. Lucas couldn’t understand what the big deal was. They’d been over this before.
“Go home, to your room.” Jonack finally said.
Lucas squinted. “That’s not much of a punishment.”
“I know you wanted to leave,” Jonack sighed, “This isn’t a punishment. I just can’t deal with you right now.”
Lucas nodded. Jonack misunderstood a lot of things, but he was always frank about it. Lucas could respect that. That was why he turned and ran back to Jonack’s cottage without protest. And anyway, he was in a good mood just now. He had avoided most of the festival.