Mason Beck Fiction

It took a lot, but I did it. I finished the story in time for the spooky hours of Halloween.

If you’re just joining, check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, and Part 7.

If you’ve stuck around for the whole thing, thank you for reading from the bottom of my heart.

And I hope you enjoy the conclusion.

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She dreamed of returning to Christanna, of pleading with Magistrate Altham to send a search party.
Of scouring the maps in his office for a valley no one could find.
Of begging soldiers and settlers alike to help her search, to ride out with her into the unknown.
Of slipping into the stables under cover of night, saddling a horse to go alone.
Of cold nights in the jail for her defiance, until even hope itself grew quiet.

 The day Altham came to her door.
The words she dared not let herself believe.
The walk to the barracks, every step held in baited breath.
And there he was.
Ishmael.
Wrapped in a blanket.
Silent.
Staring.
His face blank. Unmoving.
His body caked in a hardened shell of dried blood and earth.
Wrapping her arms around him. Calling his name.
His eyes, at last, finding hers. Recognition dawning.
And the first sound from his lips…

The sound of his screams.

---

Her eyes opened, startled from slumber. It was dark again.
She had slept through the remainder of the day, the weight of the past months and the last few days most of all at last overtaking her.
Rising slowly, she felt her way to the hearth, hoping for a few stubborn embers to lend her light.
A small blessing. A faint glow still clung to a pair of coals. Enough.
She used them to light a twist of kindling, then carried the flame to the candles and lantern nearby.
The first wick caught, flickering in her hand as she stepped toward the table to light the rest.
The shimmer of the candlelight spilled softly across the room.

And onto her son’s bed.

Her son’s empty bed.

There was only one place he could be.

She ran into the night, coat and shoes forgotten, the cold biting at her heels as she fled down the strangely barren street.

At the end of the lane, the church waited, its windows aglow, beckoning like flame to the moth.

She reached the doors with ragged breath and frozen feet, threw them open, and rushed inside.

She had barely taken two steps before skidding to a halt, her bare feet scraping the rough-hewn wood, splinters biting deep into her skin.

“Hello, Mother,” came her son’s soft, quiet voice.

He stood at the pulpit, flanked on either side by what looked to be every soul missing from the town she had raced through. The pews had been pushed aside, piled haphazardly along the walls. And the floor, torn and splintered, had been ripped open to reveal a great pit of raw, upturned earth.

He leaned upon the lectern, face downturned, hair falling over his brow.

She looked to the faces of her neighbors. Their eyes were fixed on her. Their mouths stretched in wide, unnatural grins.

“Ishmael?” she whispered. “Son… please… come to me.”

The door creaked shut behind her.

She turned.

The congregation now stood behind as well as before, encircling her.

Gooseflesh rose along her arms. Her breath caught. Her knees threatened to give way as her son lifted his head and began to speak once more.

“This sermon is for you, Mother,” he said.

“I’ll tell you what happened in the woods.

And the night I met my father.”

Blood trickled from his scalp and down his brow, his skin flushed with a heat beyond the fever he had before.
Hands fell upon her shoulders, guiding her toward the pew before the pit in the center of the floor. She collapsed into the seat and drew her knees to her chest, clutching them tight as though holding herself together.

“We found a trail within the woods, wide enough for the cart. It wound for miles until it began to descend into a valley. As we went down the slope, we passed into the mist, as if we had walked into the clouds.”

Several members of the congregation stepped down into the pit, pulling pieces of the broken floorboards with them.

“I was scared, but the man I traveled with assured me that God would keep us safe.”
He swayed slightly as he spoke.

The words confused Eliza. The man he traveled with? she thought. He was with his father. She did not understand.

“We came to a bridge of twisted and tangled roots over a wide river. I remember thinking it must be a long way down, for the sound of the water was so far below. We could not see through the fog and crossed as carefully as we could.”

The men in the pit tied the pieces of wood together, one by one, their work slow and deliberate.

“On the other side, the horses’ hooves echoed upon hewn black stone. Even in the fog it glinted like glass. As we pressed forward, the stone rose into tall columns and spires in the mist. No matter how far we went, we could never draw closer. It was as if they withdrew from our presence.”

All at once, the remaining congregation who were not working in the pit began to stomp their feet softly and in unison while Ishmael continued to speak.

“It was at that moment that I heard my father’s voice for the first time. My hands clutched my ears. It was so loud it filled me and burned even the skin beneath my clothes. It was but one word.”
He lifted his head. His eyes glistened.
“Mine.”

The horses panicked, trying to flee in opposite directions while still bound to the cart. My companion and I were thrown.

“The next thing I remember was the feeling of being carried and laid down into a hollow in the earth, much like this one, beneath the roots of a tree.”

Blood now dripped from his arms and fingers, pooling on the floor and trickling into the pit. As the men worked with the wood and rope, they cupped their hands to catch the blood, rubbing it into their craft. The material responded, softening beneath their touch, shaped more like clay than brittle timber.

“When I opened my eyes, I saw above me the jagged limbs of a great obsidian tree. Hanging from its branches was the man called Joseph, the one who brought me into this world. His face turned toward mine as he began to descend. The branches that bore him groaned beneath his weight, creaking like splintered glass and the tearing of parchment.”

Ishmael now sat on the edge of the pit, his legs dangling over the lip. The skin of his feet and calves were torn revealing tendrils of liquid red and black glass.

“When Joseph’s mouth opened, the voice of my true father came forth, channeled through his form so that it would not destroy me. From those lips came the same lines and verses Joseph had once taught me. Of sowing and reaping, of harvest and of famine. But now, their true meaning was made known. The truth that one cannot only till the soil, but must be tilled into it, into the womb of the Umbreth’uun. To become the seed planted within.”

The men had finished their work, erecting a structure with a forked cross at each end. One they planted deep into the earth, its limbs spread wide like roots. The other they raised above it, its forks outstretched like branches.

Hands gripped her arms and shoulders, and then her legs. She had passed far beyond the point of fear. Her eyes did not blink. They never left her son’s.

She did not scream. She did not struggle. She did not speak as they carried her into the pit and began to bind her to the cross.

“Father had been waiting for me,” Ishmael said. “For a very, very long time. He once told his first children the truth of the world and sent them forth to share it. For this, he was punished. They buried him beneath the city they built in his name.”

He stepped slowly down into the pit, each footfall leaving a smear of blood behind. His face was no longer a boy’s. No longer her son’s.

“He took me and tilled me into the soil where he sleeps. He sowed me into the womb of his flesh. And I was reborn as fruit upon his boughs.”

Step by step, he came closer.

“His last command to me was to speak his words to the world. To till the soil. To plant the seeds. And in time… to reap the fruit of his great harvest.”

Her body slackened. Her eyes rolled back in her head. Her mind fled the waking world. Somewhere deep within, she knew the boy who had come home was not the one she had lost.

“Mother?” he whispered, the word trembling from his lips.
“Please… I can’t do this alone. Not without you. Please, wake up.”

He knelt beside her and gently cupped her face, his hands trembling, fever-hot.
With all the care of a child lost and longing, he pressed a kiss to her brow.

Her eyes fluttered open.

The nightmare had not passed.
It had only waited.

She looked up at him, and the tears came, silent and unending.
And to her sorrow, to her astonishment, he began to cry as well.

“I’m sorry, Mother,” he croaked.

His eyes closed, face twisted in pain, as if the words hurt to speak.

“The trunk must bleed before it may rise…

And the ground must drink, if the fruit is to come forth.”

Her scream burst forth as the pain bloomed in her belly. The blade sank deep and carved wide.

The congregation’s footsteps beat louder, rising like thunder.

Her blood soaked into the pit.

Ishmael knelt beside her, removed his robe, and shed the skin from his body.

His boy’s skin sloughed off in wet folds, revealing the red-and-black glass roots that writhed beneath.

The men took up their shovels. One scoop at a time, they covered him in soil and patted it down firm.

In rhythm with the heartbeat pulsing through the feet of the gathered faithful, the children of the settlement guided their parents down into the pit: one by one, row by row.

To till the soil.

To plant the seed.

To birth the fruit.

To spread their Father’s words…

and to Umbreth’uun, the great black tree beneath the world, return once more.