Quoted By:
When I was little, the men outside my window used to keep me awake, all night. I cried and screamed, and wailed as the sounds of their choking, rattling breaths and the creaking of swinging ropes slipped their way into my room. A dozen traitors’ hung by the neck until dead, all on the tree outside of my window, killed over a hundred years ago.
I could see them, staring in through the window, eyes cold and glassy, all trained on me. Their death rattles continued through the night, every night. My brothers resented me for it, banging on the walls, telling me to shut up, and my mother held me as I cried.
No one else ever said they could see them, hear them, smell the scent of flowers that wafted off of them. But Mum believed, just enough to scrape enough money together to pay a spook. It was an older man and a teen boy- his apprentice- who arrived. Everyone in the house but my mother stayed out of their way, mumbling vague prayers and keeping distance from the visitors, as mum explained my night terrors.
It took a single night, and the dead were finally silent. I’d slept like a log for the first time in years.
I’d opened my window to find the spook staring up at me, while Mum paid him the next day. They had a muted conversation, I couldn’t make it out, but there had been a lot of nodding and looking in my direction.
That was six years ago now, when I was promised to start an apprenticeship as a spook the day after I turned fourteen. Like my father, I’m the youngest of six sons, and apparently that qualifies me to be taken on for training as a spook.
But I might be getting ahead of myself:
My name is Leon Scarlow, the youngest of five brothers, and my father is:
>A guard: +Bravery +Violence –Intelligence
>A banker: +Charisma +Bargaining –Fortitude
>A coroner: +Intelligence +Medicine –Charisma
>A farmer: +Fortitude +Stamina –Creativity
>An artist: +Perception +Creativity –Violence
I could see them, staring in through the window, eyes cold and glassy, all trained on me. Their death rattles continued through the night, every night. My brothers resented me for it, banging on the walls, telling me to shut up, and my mother held me as I cried.
No one else ever said they could see them, hear them, smell the scent of flowers that wafted off of them. But Mum believed, just enough to scrape enough money together to pay a spook. It was an older man and a teen boy- his apprentice- who arrived. Everyone in the house but my mother stayed out of their way, mumbling vague prayers and keeping distance from the visitors, as mum explained my night terrors.
It took a single night, and the dead were finally silent. I’d slept like a log for the first time in years.
I’d opened my window to find the spook staring up at me, while Mum paid him the next day. They had a muted conversation, I couldn’t make it out, but there had been a lot of nodding and looking in my direction.
That was six years ago now, when I was promised to start an apprenticeship as a spook the day after I turned fourteen. Like my father, I’m the youngest of six sons, and apparently that qualifies me to be taken on for training as a spook.
But I might be getting ahead of myself:
My name is Leon Scarlow, the youngest of five brothers, and my father is:
>A guard: +Bravery +Violence –Intelligence
>A banker: +Charisma +Bargaining –Fortitude
>A coroner: +Intelligence +Medicine –Charisma
>A farmer: +Fortitude +Stamina –Creativity
>An artist: +Perception +Creativity –Violence
