try until nothing is left

The people of Moorwick liked to keep their secrets and weren't partial to you, despite being the grown child of one of their own. You had an outsider stench and a wandering eye that raised their hackles. It felt like disobedience. When you had arrived, it was clear that they anticipated that after some niceties and condolences, you would have been on your way back to the city, sufficiently placated as any reasonable person in mourning would be, but you did not go.

The mayor of Moorwick, a man named Colson Sinclair, had given you the key to your father's old cabin on the fringes of town, nearest to the great maw of the Atticus Forest, and charmed you with a gleaming smile as he told you to stay as long as you needed to. There was some tension in his words, hopefulness that you might refuse his hospitality and realize this pursuit of information had always been moot.

Their displeasure was palpable when you continued to show up across town in the coming days and weeks, taking most of your meals from the corner booth at the local diner, sweetening burnt coffee and gnawing on the rubbery dinner specials. They always thought it was quite odd that you showed up in the evenings to order coffee and a quick meal, but no one ever dared to sit across from you in the booth to ask why you did.

After the diner, you would wait late when darkness fell across Moorwick, and the last of warm, glowing amber dimmed in the windows of houses far off from your father's cabin. It was easy enough to watch the town from this distance, to know when it was safe to collect your things and step outside into the misty night air.

The thing about Moorwick was that it always rained, whether in some cold torrential downpour that flooded the streets and leaked through the ceiling of the cabin, or a gentle mist that found a way to seep into your bones and wrap you in a dreadful chill. It made your elbows and knees ache, your fingers tightly grasping a flashlight, to cramp and swell. By the time you would return home just before sunrise, your toes were wet and pruned in your rain boots, and your clothes peeled off your body like a second skin.

There was a reason why you left the cabin in the dead of night, set an alarm to blare at you at three o'clock in the morning: you had someone to meet in the forest, waiting within the depths of the trees and shadows. You never wasted time dallying to make yourself presentable because there were only so many hours in the night, and only so much time you had to make the trek back to the cabin before being noticed when the guise of nightfall had lifted.

So, you crept along the shadows for as long as you could, then crouched and crawled through tall, robust grasses that whipped back in your face as you pushed through them. Your knees were already cold, pants sodden by rainwater and soft earth that swallowed your weight as you moved one leg forward and then the other.

Once you were through the trees, beyond the safety of the town, the air around you changed. The fog came to attention, writhing and coiling, serpentine in the way it encircled your body as if examining you closely to see whether to toss you away or allow you the privilege to go deeper.

The Atticus Forest permitted you to venture its depths, but the fog followed you wherever you went in its domain, as was only right. You were a guest in this great place, and at any time, it could cast you out.

Then, once you were far enough, you called out into the fog and darkness. Three times more, you yelled into the black air and through the immense trees so he could locate you from wherever he had wandered in this ancient place. And, once a wailing wind began to rise upon you, you quieted and waited for him to come to you.

The screams of lost and tormented souls carried on this invisible wind, rustling branches and howling hauntingly through clusters of tree trunks. They followed behind thunderous hoofbeats throbbing inside your head like blue lightning, and drummed inside your chest as if trying to match your heartbeat.

Suddenly, the air around you recoiled, shrinking away at the sounds of the dead and then the otherworldly shrieks of a horse. Just as the fog retreated, a massive white stallion appeared in the pillar of light from your torch. His muzzle was shredded flesh and muscle and exposed bone, eyes glowing red in your warm light. The horse chomped on the bit fused into his jaws as he picked up his large feet and pranced impatiently in place, held steady by his rider.

The man astride the white steed was silent and motionless, ramrod straight in the saddle, chest still as he did not need to take breaths. He wore black armor weathered by time and smelled like he had been lying on the forest floor for a long time, of wet dirt and moss. A crimson cape draped from his shoulders, ending in tatters that fluttered like red flames when caught in your light.

"You took your time tonight, Horseman," you told him, to which he offered no verbal response but leaned his large body sideways off the saddle, extending his arm out to you. "The rain is supposed to get worse. We might not be able to accomplish much tonight."

Without a word, the Horseman gestured you closer impatiently. To think, less than a year ago, he had been holding an axe to your neck as he held you off the ground by your hair. You were going to become a part of his legend, one of the many heads he collected because he no longer had one of his own.

But you were smart under pressure and had made a bargain with the Horseman. If he were to help you find your father, you would find him his lost head. Both felt like impossible challenges that would run you in circles until you could think of something better, or he would tire of waiting and kill you, anyway.

For now, you had time that you didn't plan to squander.

You picked up your heavy feet, suctioned to the ground by mud and rainwater, and let the Horseman wrap his arms around your waist once you were near. He hoisted you up from the ground and helped you to straddle the saddle. Your back was flush to his breastplate, secured in your seat by his arms as he gripped the reins and jutted the white steed in the ribs with his spurs.

The people of Moorwick liked to keep their secrets and weren't partial to you, despite being the grown child of one of their own. You had an outsider stench and a wandering eye that raised their hackles. It felt like disobedience. When you had arrived, it was clear that they anticipated that after some niceties and condolences, you would have been on your way back to the city, sufficiently placated as any reasonable person in mourning would be, but you did not go.

The mayor of Moorwick, a man named Colson Sinclair, had given you the key to your father's old cabin on the fringes of town, nearest to the great maw of the Atticus Forest, and charmed you with a gleaming smile as he told you to stay as long as you needed to. There was some tension in his words, hopefulness that you might refuse his hospitality and realize this pursuit of information had always been moot.

Their displeasure was palpable when you continued to show up across town in the coming days and weeks, taking most of your meals from the corner booth at the local diner, sweetening burnt coffee and gnawing on the rubbery dinner specials. They always thought it was quite odd that you showed up in the evenings to order coffee and a quick meal, but no one ever dared to sit across from you in the booth to ask why you did.

After the diner, you would wait late when darkness fell across Moorwick, and the last of warm, glowing amber dimmed in the windows of houses far off from your father's cabin. It was easy enough to watch the town from this distance, to know when it was safe to collect your things and step outside into the misty night air.

The thing about Moorwick was that it always rained, whether in some cold torrential downpour that flooded the streets and leaked through the ceiling of the cabin, or a gentle mist that found a way to seep into your bones and wrap you in a dreadful chill. It made your elbows and knees ache, your fingers tightly grasping a flashlight, to cramp and swell. By the time you would return home just before sunrise, your toes were wet and pruned in your rain boots, and your clothes peeled off your body like a second skin.

There was a reason why you left the cabin in the dead of night, set an alarm to blare at you at three o'clock in the morning: you had someone to meet in the forest, waiting within the depths of the trees and shadows. You never wasted time dallying to make yourself presentable because there were only so many hours in the night, and only so much time you had to make the trek back to the cabin before being noticed when the guise of nightfall had lifted.

So, you crept along the shadows for as long as you could, then crouched and crawled through tall, robust grasses that whipped back in your face as you pushed through them. Your knees were already cold, pants sodden by rainwater and soft earth that swallowed your weight as you moved one leg forward and then the other.

Once you were through the trees, beyond the safety of the town, the air around you changed. The fog came to attention, writhing and coiling, serpentine in the way it encircled your body as if examining you closely to see whether to toss you away or allow you the privilege to go deeper.

The Atticus Forest permitted you to venture its depths, but the fog followed you wherever you went in its domain, as was only right. You were a guest in this great place, and at any time, it could cast you out.

Then, once you were far enough, you called out into the fog and darkness. Three times more, you yelled into the black air and through the immense trees so he could locate you from wherever he had wandered in this ancient place. And, once a wailing wind began to rise upon you, you quieted and waited for him to come to you.

The screams of lost and tormented souls carried on this invisible wind, rustling branches and howling hauntingly through clusters of tree trunks. They followed behind thunderous hoofbeats throbbing inside your head like blue lightning, and drummed inside your chest as if trying to match your heartbeat.

Suddenly, the air around you recoiled, shrinking away at the sounds of the dead and then the otherworldly shrieks of a horse. Just as the fog retreated, a massive white stallion appeared in the pillar of light from your torch. His muzzle was shredded flesh and muscle and exposed bone, eyes glowing red in your warm light. The horse chomped on the bit fused into his jaws as he picked up his large feet and pranced impatiently in place, held steady by his rider.

The man astride the white steed was silent and motionless, ramrod straight in the saddle, chest still as he did not need to take breaths. He wore black armor weathered by time and smelled like he had been lying on the forest floor for a long time, of wet dirt and moss. A crimson cape draped from his shoulders, ending in tatters that fluttered like red flames when caught in your light.

"You took your time tonight, Horseman," you told him, to which he offered no verbal response but leaned his large body sideways off the saddle, extending his arm out to you. "The rain is supposed to get worse. We might not be able to accomplish much tonight."

Without a word, the Horseman gestured you closer impatiently. To think, less than a year ago, he had been holding an axe to your neck as he held you off the ground by your hair. You were going to become a part of his legend, one of the many heads he collected because he no longer had one of his own.

But you were smart under pressure and had made a bargain with the Horseman. If he were to help you find your father, you would find him his lost head. Both felt like impossible challenges that would run you in circles until you could think of something better, or he would tire of waiting and kill you, anyway.

For now, you had time that you didn't plan to squander.

You picked up your heavy feet, suctioned to the ground by mud and rainwater, and let the Horseman wrap his arms around your waist once you were near. He hoisted you up from the ground and helped you to straddle the saddle. Your back was flush to his breastplate, secured in your seat by his arms as he gripped the reins and jutted the white steed in the ribs with his spurs.