I can see their eyes: wide, white glints flashing in the gloom. The fear that flowed from the eyes shot beams of emotion from person to person, magnifying the feeling.

I saw the glance of a mother to her child in her lap. I could imagine a comforting smile on her lips, much like my mother gave me in times past. But the fear-shine in her eyes beamed to the child, and he started to whimper.

A low shush issued from unseen corners of the room, silencing the child with a noise louder than his own.

A thump sounded on the floor over our heads and the fear-beams shifted upward. Another thump was heard, then a slow drag of heavy fabric across the boards.

The thump drag noises continue, becoming the regular rythem of slow footfalls. The child's whimpering began again, muffled in the folds of his mother's shawl.

The footfalls stopped. The murmuring began.

It started always as a low humming sound and builds up slowly to include sibilants that remind me of the big black snakes that bite. Mothers warned their children not to go into the Northern fields because of them. Several Springs back, a man plowing the field broke open a vast nest of the black snakes. He staggered back to town shrieking and convulsing and ultimately dying.

But those black biters stayed in the fields and were never seen in town. These Others though...

At a dance one Midsummer, I overheard my outspoken Aunt Katryn curse the Others and say they wouldn't be so bold to come into town, into our very homes, if we took after them instead of staying hidden in our root cellars. She was shushed soundly, and my Father led her away into the back bedroom. She didn't speak of it again.

The murmuring grew louder, hums and shhhs and moans and sighs. They seemed to me to be more than just sounds, but to have some meaning. Under the murmurs, I could hear more thudding footfalls, though the swish of their robes on the floor was buried in the sound.

Then the fear-beams flared like lanterns in the dark, and several people cried out in alarm as a human scream shredded the night. The murmuring raised in pitch and picked up speed. We all jumped as the door flew open upstairs with a bang. New footfalls, the sounds of a mighty struggle, and a human voice.

"Please please please.... I beg of you... Please!"

I thanked the gods that night that my Mother had died of the fever three years back. I am old enough to know that it wasn't a peaceful passing, and also old enough to know that any path to the other side would be smoother than having your heart burst with fear and helplessness.

It was my Father's voice that begged and pleaded.

Every eye in the cellar turned toward me, concentrating the fear and surrounding me in a shell of it.



.... to be continued.....