《Perceptive Ambience》 Chapter 1: We Should Probably Leave "It''s a ghost town. It''s fine. No one''s even been out here in years. Plus, why are you complaining now?" Stupid looked over at Strawberry with a stern look. "Keep your eyes on the road. I''m just saying you should pay attention to your gas tank. I don''t wanna run out of gas due to another joyride with you like last time, Stupid", Strawberry said to his friend. The two men sat in the driver and passenger seat of Stupid''s car as they cruised down the unmaintained highway. They were both named Mike, and had the same initial of their last names, and no middle names. To set themselves apart and for ease of communication, the Mike with a large red mole on his cheek was called Strawberry, and the Mike who thought he was smarter than he was, was called Stupid. Their nicknames, of course, were given by each other. After another twenty minutes of driving, the car started slowing down significantly. Strawberry looked at the gas gauge, and it was as he expected. "I told you we needed more gas before coming out here!" Stupid retorted angrily. "I know my car better than you. You don''t even know how to drive." Strawberry pointed to the gauge. "Well we''re out of gas now. How are we going to get back?" "I have extra gas in my trunk just in case this happened. We didn''t even do what we came for, so we''re still going. Come with me. I''ll put something in the tank later." The car stopped. Stupid took the keys out of the ignition, opened the door, and got out, leaving the driver''s side door open. Strawberry undid his safety belt and got out as well, but he closed the passenger door with a loud slam. "Where are we even going?" Stupid had no idea where they were, but he had enough ignorance and bravado to just keep marching anyway. The houses in the area had their paint flecked away, and their stucco peeled. Some of the windows were broken, and the holes of most of them had dried-up spiderwebs blowing in the light breeze. Some vines grew along some of the buildings, but the weeds were more prevalent in what used to be brick-lined personal gardens. There were only pieces of fences; wooden planks rotten and laying in the grass-deficient dirt. Some of the planks had so much dirt and mud caked onto them from who-knows-when, that grass had started to grow in the dirt clods; their roots growing into the wood. Stupid stepped over what remained of the steel wire that used to keep the planks upright, and simply stepped on the ones already horizontal or close to it. Down a hillside was a small circle of trees, and a white building that seemed to be white for reasons besides paint sat in the center. Nearby this scene, was what used to be a river, now only a dirty stream. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. The path down to this crumbled white building was paved, though the pavement had cracked and been overgrown itself. Enough of the ground was still cement that it could be walked on safely, but the tall grasses and goat head thorn weeds had to be stepped over carefully. Strawberry, getting to the part of the path that led downhill, stayed at the top of the hill where it was even with the road behind him and the porches of what used to be houses on each of his sides. "I''m not going down there!" he yelled. "It doesn''t feel right." Stupid heard him, but kept going. After a couple minutes of walking, he got to the white building, peeking over a bush that used to be decorative, but had since gone wild and unmanicured. There was something that looked like they used to be benches made of wood, but they weren''t usable anymore. One of them seemed to have buckled in the center under the weight of the moss that had since grown on it, just like one of the buildings up top had. There wasn''t really anything there. But that wasn''t good enough for Stupid. Looking at where he expected a door to be, he found... no door. There were branches that had fallen from the trees overhead at some point in the past, but they didn''t look to weigh much, despite their size, and they were easily pushed out of the way. Stepping inside the unroofed construct, he pulled a white candle out of his cargo pants pocket, set it on the floor in the middle of the ruin, lit it, and walked away. Strawberry had stood and watched, paced back and forth for a couple minutes, then decided to push on a sliding glass door that was already open, but the yellowed glass door hadn''t left enough room to actually be entered. Another foot of scraping it in the tracks was all that was needed. There was a recliner in front of Strawberry, the carpet dusty. But the recliner fared worse, as it had since become the home of some mice. The kitchen was a mess, with what were probably clean dishes having been put in a drying rack on the counter, but they had never been put away. After quietly investigating without touching anything, Strawberry heard Stupid coming back up the broken pathway, and came back outside. "Nothing." Stupid said to Strawberry. "What were you looking for anyway?" Strawberry asked. "Something worth something. Something at least interesting." "Well since you look disappointed, I''ll guess there was nothing there. Nothing up here either. We should probably leave." "Yeah, let me put some emergency gas in, and we''ll go back", Stupid agreed. "If you use it half the time you leave town, it''s not emergency gas. It''s just gas." Stupid didn''t respond, but instead just led his small party back to his car. He did as he said, and they were gone again. ---------------------------------------------------- Hours later... ---------------------------------------------------- Invisible to human eyes, an orb drifted at the top of the hill, right between two abandoned houses, at the top of a broken pathway. *Strawberry paced back and forth, growing impatient* Another orb, equally undetectable, floated towards the aforementioned one. *A child ran out of the back door of his grandparents new retirement home, with a popsicle in his hand. "Grampy look what Gramma gave me!"* The orbs collided. Chapter 2: Movement Like gentle fingers lazily dipped into warm water, something stirred. Exactly what it was that was stirring, would later be individually described as many things. The two orbs that had collided created no flash; as they possessed no light. They created no noise, as they contained no mass. The new orb, previously being two orbs that drifted lazily, now had the slightest spin. Countless other orbs were in the area, none of them bigger, more energetic, or with any less lack of purpose than any other. The dual orb continued spinning. ------------------------------ Hours later... ------------------------------ An orb, one listing lazily in its own vicinity like so many others, began to float away. It floated slowly, ever so slowly, towards the living room''s wall in the direction of a broken and overgrown outdoor pathway leading down the hill the house overlooked. But the orb wasn''t blocked by the wall''s peeling wallpaper, wood base, or decayed insulation. It continued floating along its pathway, a wide spiral, until it collided with the dual. *The old man came back into the house and closed the door. "There was something off about the neighbors, but they seemed courteous enough", he thought to himself.* The triple orb continued spinning just as it had when it first began. Along the pathway, where it was more grass than anything else, was another collision. These two orbs merged just as the path made its sharp curve leading to the overgrown white building by the stream. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. *A woman wearing a white dress stained with dirt and grass stood up, holding her pruning shears in one hand. She looked at the bush with pride.* *Stupid Mike''s face showed only mild curiosity, but that ended when he didn''t see anything of value inside the chapel ruins.* This wasn''t the only place in the area where two orbs had collided since the first pairing. In front of the house with the open sliding glass door was another occurrence. *An image flashed in the postman''s mind. It was from some television show, and the postman in it always threw the newspaper roll in such a way that it always landed perfectly horizontally in the mathematical center of the doormat. "What stupid nonsense", he thought to himself as he threw his delivery, which landed in the window garden, crushing three tulips.* *The man got out of his parked car, put the keys back into his pocket, closed the car door, and started walking towards the pathway he had walked down so many times before. "I''ve been looking forward to this all week", he thought to himself, "I can really use the recharge."* So many other orbs were beginning to follow the direction of the new orb stream. A motionless dust cloud condensing into spiral arms, all centered and growing from the center where three that became one now hungered. ... or retracting from it. Inside the small house with the open stained glass window, three other orbs had yet to collide, but if they were detectable by a human in any way, they could calculate that they would in fact merge due to the direction and speed they were all going. If it meant anything, they would collide and merge just as they reached the joined orb at the top of the pathway. *He looked at the flower vase on the dining table and suspected she knew that he was only pretending to not care about her flower garden. She probably realized that he liked the look and smell of flowers just as much as she did. After all, she was his wife.* *One of the mice living in the nest the recliner had since become tried to get the attention of the girl in front of him. A pain hit him in the hind leg, causing him to squeak in surprise.* *It was one of her better plates. Her hands weren''t as stable as they used to be, nor was she as strong in any of her muscles. At least she still had the strength to use her broom.* Chapter 3: Observation ------------------------------- Minutes later... ------------------------------- The swirling, condensing orbs impacted each other more and more, rapidly now, fusing while continuing to obey their magnetic sway. Two of the orbs that had originated within the location currently considered to be within the right-side house''s bedroom fused. *The squaw heard someone yelling, and recognized it. "No, I''m making a meal now. You can wait." She yanked down hard on the maize, severing it from the stalk. She put it in her basket with the other ears and walked away.* *"Let me get you some water.", the middle-aged woman said to the middle-aged man. After filling a glass halfway from the faucet, she went back to the room. As she handed the glass and liqui-gel to the man, she said simply, "This will help you sleep."* From inside the neighboring house on the left side of the overgrown pathway, two other orbs collided. *He stood inside his garage. Sure, it was only an agate, but the price of the material didn''t matter; it was the quality of the artwork. Not that he was particularly skilled, he thought to himself. He put his goggles back on and went back to his lathe.* *"Damn it!", he thought. "What is wrong with people?" He had spent quite a lot of money on decorations to be festive, but in the end he still wasn''t respected. What was the point in putting up the lights if some rando was still going to pull them down and steal them? "No", he thought to himself again. "I won''t let them stop me."* It was a surprise that they didn''t impact one another earlier, due to everything going on at this point. It was beyond human awareness, though others weren''t so blind. As they approached from the space that could be considered the white building''s front lawn, they narrowly avoided one another. By the time they reached the spiral arm''s socket, they were no longer separate. *"It''s boring", the boy said. "If you''re quiet, then afterwards I''ll give you a reward", bribed his grandmother.* *The boy awoke with a start and cold sweat. His grandmother looked over at him, and very quietly asked, "The same one?" The boy nodded. It was the same nightmare as he had before. A dog who was so big that its head was the same level as own, pitch black and intangible. The details that could be seen easily, creature of shadow that it was, was its glowing red eyes that pierced the soul. No less piercing were its saliva-dripping, sharp and glistening teeth. It had growled before lunging forward and biting.* If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. There were more of the orbs colliding than could be individually identified at this point, each containing something similar, yet different. Dust had settled on the plates in the sink and the carpet on the floor. Exposure to the open elements had turned the original shag carpet into crust, though the houses across the street faired no better. ------------------------------- A few moments later... ------------------------------- There were no longer any orbs, save one. It continued spinning, now only in place, with nothing attracting it nor being attracted by it. The fused orb slowed, slowed. Finally it appeared to stop... ------------------------------- Instantly! ------------------------------- It burst. Every orb that had come to it, every single one, was broken back into the fragments they had originally been and were flung forcefully back into place, as if they had never moved beyond their initial lazy drifting within their restricted ranges. Yet, the place the orbs fused still contained an orb. Invisible, incorporeal, lacking temperature, lacking mass. It glowed there. It glowed and not in a manner of speaking; it actually shed light. The orb, now containing a copy of the contents of all the orbs in the area, started changing. The wide river rushed along the plain, and the thin stream of dirty water trickled. The land wasn''t entirely flat, but its small and gentle slopes made the surrounding miles easily seen. Depending on where one stood, the hills and houses blocked the view of almost everything. Native grasses and wildflowers were all the plants that lived within vision range, and the nearby trees and bushes were imported. Animals of many kinds came to the clean water to drink, but none of the mammals stayed. The mice living in the house had been there for generations, and mostly drank from morning dew on the weeds outside. There wasn''t any trace of human or animal life in the area when it was purchased. The nearby brown stream was of no particular interest, though if a house was built then the noise wouldn''t be loud enough to bother anyone. It was ancestral land, and a new name was adopted when they settled. Selling off a majority of the land was due to legal shenanigans, and the natives had gone extinct when sickness spread to them. Clay pottery was most of what was used, though some wood was as well. Wood could leave no physical traces of itself with enough exposure and time, but the glazed porcelain purchased in bulk at the store could. There wasn''t really much of a dirt road, really. There weren''t many traders to begin with, as every village was mostly self-sustaining, though also lacking. Necessity being the mother of invention shined, contrasted by the dark highway made of tar and pebbles. Though the orb didn''t have a difference between internal and surface, it processed all of this information and more. The sun rose, raced across the sky, and began to set once more. ------------------------------- The following night... ------------------------------- Chapter 4: Conversion *She loved all of the compliments she got on her roses. They were a perfect maroon, and stood out against the healthy green leaves. She left the thorns on the flowers while they grew, but did remove some of them when she gave them as gifts. She took great care to make sure there weren''t any bugs on them, save the ones that were beneficial to the plant itself.* *It was cold inside, but even colder outside. He sat in his recliner and held the blankets closer as the fireplace crackled. The last flicker of flame had disappeared a few minutes ago, but he was much more comfortable now than he would be if he got up to get another log. Moments later, he was asleep.* Whatever it was that was left over from the recent activity moved from the top of the path between the houses. It wasn''t focused, and didn''t have any particular direction to go. The orbs in the area were no longer dragged along with it as they had been before, though exactly what this meant to... anyone or anything that might be able to detect it was up to interpretation. The pale light it emitted could be seen, if barely, but what produced it could not. Either way, its mild drifting brought it down along the path and its motion paused. A river four hundred feet wide rushed above, though the trickle of dirty water didn''t have enough force to even continue past the maize field on the shore behind it. It continued wandering along the chapel lawn, illuminating the snail trails on the clean marble column that made up the building''s supports. Inside the octagonal building, the wooden podium was well-lacquered and the book sat open and ready. The pews were lit with both the ambient glow of the candles in the wall sconces, and the sunlight pouring in from the faceted clear windows. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Ignoring the dirt and mold on what was left of the broken pews, the light continued to dance along through the space that used to be a wall. It moved up the hilly slope, finding the far edge of the building with the open sliding glass door. It moved across the wild grass to a mirror-backed dresser. A small metal box sat upon it. *"I don''t have the money now, but I promise one day I will. So, for now, this is what I can offer. I''m going to put in a ring for you. You know, when I can." She remembered he said that to her as he placed the star ruby in her hand. It wasn''t big, but these were extremely expensive, and red was her favorite color.* The light continued moving along, and came across a hand-carved wooden dining table with a set leaf, covered in a white tablecloth. A green glass vase sat in the middle. *A woman wearing a white dress stained with dirt and grass stood up, holding her pruning shears in one hand. She looked at the bush with pride.* *He looked at the flower vase on the dining table and suspected she knew that he was only pretending to not care about her flower garden. She probably realized that he liked the look and smell of flowers just as much as she did. After all, she was his wife.* *It was cold inside, but even colder outside. He sat in his recliner and held the blankets closer as the fireplace crackled. The last flicker of flame had disappeared a few minutes ago, but he was much more comfortable now than he would be if he got up to get another log. Moments later, he was asleep.* The center of the light danced and hovered around the glass vase. The red rose, seemingly freshly cut, sat motionless. The light''s center moved on, swirling around the area, moving back to where it had originated. -------------------------- Inside... -------------------------- The rose sat delicately where it had been made; though there was no bush whence the flower had come. Indeed, there was no flower. What there was instead crackled under its own warm red light. Chapter 5: Continents and Centuries Away (1/3) She was lower-class just like he is. It was set up by his grandparents years before, even before his parents were born. Some sort of trade, that ended with the agreement of all parties involved that their children would marry to increase the social standing of their family name. The issue was that each of the two men only produced male offspring. The deal stood, that their families would marry and merge their estates, but there were no opportunities. Once the men''s sons married women from other lower-class families, was a female produced from either of their lines. Soon after they were married, she became pregnant. Their grandparents had passed by now. It was lucky for him at least. It took work, and verbal artistry, but he was able to rise to the position of local mayor of his small township. The fact that his family had been in the area for generations helped this. Medicine was what it was, and she passed away herself during childbirth at home. Luckily, the mayor was able to acquire the services of a wet nurse by the end of the day due to his expansive awareness; though the man was not one to be denied the services of a wife. Thus, the luck ended with him. This increased work requirement was not discussed beforehand, though the mayor was thorough in his severance of any alternate choices the wet nurse might have or gain. Feeling as though his wife had left him when she left him, he took this out with his fists and belt. His daughter had seen her father''s common behavior and anger, and knew not to trigger it, even if he triggered himself quite easily. The girl had grown from a toddler to a child in short order, her maturity aging faster than her body did. She was never put into school, though it wouldn''t have been of any use to a female to begin with. The mayor was a politician first and last, and not one to allow others to invite themselves to his property. It wasn''t as though he would ever invite anyone not already incarcerated in his abode to it either. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. The wet nurse had suffered often, and as she grew older, she was unable to naturally recover as quickly. When the girl had turned thirteen, the wet nurse passed. The mayor was angered, and demanded that someone else ''clean it up''. They did have a large yard that had been a plantation forty years prior. No one was in the plantation house to hear it, but some of the dinner plates rattled against each other. But the mayor was not a man to be denied the services of a wife. Confusion, fear, and pain were the gifts presented. The first time, a cupboard door in the kitchen slammed itself open and shut. The mayor didn''t hear it; he was busy and the headboard was louder. The girl quickly learned over the course of a year that screaming, crying, begging, fighting, and attempting to escape only made things worse. Things on shelves in rooms no one was in began to fall and shatter. Doors, cupboards, and drawers across the house began to open themselves and leave themselves that way. Whenever a new skin welt or bone fracture moved into the house, the most common thing to hear was the question ''Are you going to leave me too?''. The girl had seen through the wet nurse whether such a thing was possible, and had only heard about her mother. The self-mobilized furniture, animated hinges, and flying decorations no longer only happened when not being watched. Demands that the girl was to blame, coupled with her already accumulating injuries, finally set her to rest. But the activity did not stop. If anything, it became more severe both in abundance and individual potency. The mayor resigned, and took flight. He didn''t even bother to sell his property. With no information to declare otherwise, the locals began to gossip. Stories began to form, and an investigation that should have happened two decades prior was finally conducted. Chapter 6: Centralization The eight small white houses were built in a tight cluster, though only four of them had direct view of the chapel at the bottom of the small hill. The other four houses across from those instead had easy view of the silo. Though the highway wasn''t maintained, it had just enough traffic that no grass grew in the cracks. A passing bird landed on a small dirt mound, spotting a soft-looking piece of straw. The nearby thin river showed no signs of human intervention, which was at least in part what made the bird feel safe enough to land where it did. The wandering light source continued along. *He hadn''t done it himself before, but he had watched others from his previous tribe do something like this. He looked at the dried grasses tied together and propped against one another. He was careful with how he slathered the fresh mud upon it. He would have a home soon.* Whatever it was that was creating the small amount of nearby light completed a circular path yet again, finding itself just inside the entry door, with the glowing rose behind it. *He just wasn''t in the mood to look at it now. He would deal with it all eventually... but for now just putting it with the rest was good enough. He tossed the unopened letter onto the end table next to his recliner, which added to the ever growing pile of unopened bills and unread newspapers.* The light source reacted strongly to the orb, and though it already contained its contents, experiencing it once again meant something else. It wasn''t until another orb passed through it that its meaning became clear. *"Well that''s too bad. Do you think I go to work every day because I want to?", the boy''s father asked him rhetorically. "You''re going to do it", he demanded. "At least it''s a small yard", the boy thought to himself as he made his way to the push-mower.* The source of the light encircled the orbs it had just interacted with, and after a moment they were caught up in the light''s wake. It continued its intentional orbit, directing them to the top of the broken path. Leaving them there, it aimed itself at another small cluster of orbs, manipulating their restrained meandering into a pulled direction. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. It left the next group of orbs where it left the first, but after it acquired the third group, it noticed that the collected orbs began to drift back into the places they had been found. A small breeze blew through the dirty ruined neighborhood, and a dry leaf cartwheeled between the path-bordering houses. One of the artificially clustered orbs drifted through the light. *"Look what I found!", the boy yelled as he ran up to his mother. "Yes, that''s very nice", she said, smiling. The boy handed the leaf to her, then immediately forgot it and ran off to play some more.* The orbs continued drifting apart, but the light source spun around them again, putting them back into a grouping. However, now the previously cartwheeling leaf was included. The leaf was held in midair, and the orbs gathered along with it seemed attached. The breeze slowed and stopped, and the leaf fluttered to the ground. -------------------- A few days later... -------------------- Encircling the orbs and coercing them to the light''s point of origin was difficult, as it took them awhile to detach from the leaf and start returning to their previous places, but it still happened albeit slowly. The light continued to manipulate the nearby orbs regardless, as the orb''s lesson had presented as a requirement, but it was another of the many orbs that showed something else important. *She placed the leaf on the grass next to her, smiling as her son ran around in the spray of the garden hose attachment.* Seeing that, whatever it was that was the source of the light realized that something else was necessary. *She took the red gem out of her jewelry box, and held it between her thumb and index finger. It sparkled in the sunlight, and at just the right angle, it grew a star of its own. ''It would be beautiful resting on her finger, but how often did she get the chance to wear a fancy ring?'', the thought to herself.* The light hovered lower towards the ground, now only half the height of the end table the newspapers had been discarded upon; though instead of indoors it was at the top of the path between the houses. It spun around once, and something was present that wasn''t before. It was a simple end table, oft referred to as coffee, simple yet functional. Resting upon it sat something shining and red. The light source went back to the orbs it had collected that yet again drifted away from the mildewing leaf pinned against the outer wall of the house opposite the sliding door, leading them to the new decoration. Chapter 7: Continents and Centuries Away (2 / 3) The village''s townspeople were curious but uncomfortable. Only a couple of them came. Two volunteered, and a third spoke up as a volunteer once the others spoke. Then the second recanted as they were chastised by a family member, making the third volunteer change their mind as well. Going alone, even if the mayor had still lived there wouldn''t have been acceptable, as he never invited anyone nor allowed anyone to invite themselves. At the time, every time, it seemed more of a personal choice and that the man simply kept to himself and remained professional, but after he stopped being seen by anyone, some questions arose. No questions would have arisen if he was still present. He was intimidating, and that alone kept anyone''s imagination from getting away from them. Gossip was to be used in regards to others, but not him. Two others were chosen to go with the only volunteer remaining. The three men went onto the disused farmland no longer owned, and after the course of two hours finally got to the house itself. The wooden shutters over the windows clapped the walls, the whitewash against the house was stained with grass, and a the front door seemed to have never been closed. They stayed together, still thinking there might be a chance that the mayor might still be there, despite the old woman motionless from her window chair saying that she saw the man leave with a fearful expression in his eyes in the dark of night. Walking inside, dust and dirt were everywhere, every drinking vessel was pulled out of the cupboards and smashed on the wooden floor in front of them, chamber pots no longer smelling but clearly hadn''t been emptied even long before the property was vacated. One of the men voiced that he feared they might find a body, which wasn''t uncommon in those days, but there weren''t any traces of wildlife having gone inside, which was odd. Their own fears began to grow, and- --------------------- A door slammed. --------------------- Two of the men nearly jumped out of their own boots. "It''s just the wind", the one man that didn''t jump said in consolation, though he didn''t see anything move or feel any wind. He admitted to himself that even he wasn''t as stoic as he had previously been. Trying to step around the countless fragments of ceramic was impossible, especially for three men. Abandoning the kitchen and dining area, they moved into the sitting room. One of the windows had broken, though it looked as though it had done so from being slammed shut too quickly. Some of the ceramic shards they abandoned shortly before clattered, almost sounding like someone was coming towards them. "Is anyone there?" one of the men shouted out. No reply came. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. They inspected the study, but it was just vellum on desks, some vellum on the floor, and two dried inkwells that showed any sign of anyone being in there if one would ignore the pristine but dusty furniture. From the far side of the house, though the echoing made it impossible to tell which of the two directions, all three men heard the sound of wood dragging against wood. When they got to the final rooms, the fact that something was wrong became impossible to ignore. Their fear had been growing as they went through the house as random noises became more frequent and from less discernible locales... The first man to be appointed to the team opened the door widely. There was a simple wooden bed there, though the quilt upon it was not properly positioned. Seeing and hearing nothing, the man went inside and looked to see if someone had fallen out of bed and passed away on the side he couldn''t see. Since the one man went in and nothing happened, the other two felt confident they could do the same. Nothing seemed to be there. The volunteer crouched down, and began to look under the bed, but there was a very close bang. "Be careful, don''t bump the bed. I don''t want it to collapse", said the man to the others. Neither of the other men were close enough to have done so, as they realized upon checking each other''s positioning. One of the men was looking out of the window at the time, standing even further away. "You heard that, right?" the volunteer asked. "Yes, it sounded-" but the second appointed man didn''t finish his sentence. The bed itself made another banging noise, this time jumping up from its position a good two inches. It didn''t take the adults more than a moment to back themselves against whatever wall was closest to them, gazing at the bed in disbelieving shock. It made itself jump a few times, nearly galloping in place as it bounced between each of its four legs. The men didn''t need to be told a third time- it was time to go, and now. As they ran terrified from the building, the cupboards, doors, furniture, and drawers went wild. Small items that weren''t already broken, and some that were, went flying across the rooms or down the hallways. --------------------- A week later. --------------------- She knew what she had to do. Her grandmother taught her, as hers had taught her. When things like this happened, the only thing to do was to bind it. It wouldn''t defeat the entity, but it would at least alleviate the problem for a long time. Rumors had gotten to her from the gossip of the local wives, retelling in hushed tones what their husbands had told them, with the promise of silence before a word would be said. Something happened there, though exactly what was unknown. For the mayor to run off like that, and not even sell his house? A man that everyone knew pinched his pennies? No, something definitely happened. The rumors answered at least one of the questions. She waited until late afternoon, so dusk would set before she had arrived where someone else might see her. People had started to get stupid lately, and she didn''t know how it would be considered. It was better safe than sorry. She looked down at the small sapling that she carried in a cheese cloth. It would protect everyone for a good long time. --------------------- That night... --------------------- The ritual complete, she took the sapling to the edge of the forest. There was a wide area of dirt that for some reason wasn''t fertile even for grass, probably due to lack of the river able to moisten the earth so far. Though, there was one spot of grass in the middle, and that could serve as a good place to plant the tree. The adult trees had a lush canopy, though this tree having a monopoly of the immediate area''s fertility would help it grow big and old. Back at the house the ritual was performed in, all was silent.