No Body Was There

No Body Was There

The house on the hill was abandoned - everybody said so. So why were lights coming from the windows? Not every night, but on the three nights of the full moon, there were flashes of light and Shirat was itching to find out.
"Hey, Pa! Awa'- come in. We're shriekin' wi' the cold. The babby's hungry again an there's no fire."
Shirat turned away and dragged himself into the cottage. Elspeth was cutting up potatoes and putting them into a pot on the table. She looked up, gave him a sigh and went back to her cutting.
"Paaaaaaaaa! The Fiiiiire! We're Cold!"
"What happened? Why's it out?"
Elspeth looked up and addressed him like a small child, low on intellect, needing the obvious explained. "We were running out of fuel. I let it go out; we'll need the fire t'night for the meal. Didn't you bring anything?"
Shirat smiled and held up a bag. "Dinner!" He tipped a rabbit out onto the table, it flopped, soft and loose, the ligature mark around its neck was red and its eyes were open.
"Thank God for that! Which snare was that? Can you put more there? Where did ye get it?" Elspeth grabbed the tiny animal and examined it; planning her meal.
Shirat looked away. As if they picked up on the tension, the children sat quiet, the baby hushed and Elspeth held her breath, waiting for an answer. "Shirat, where did you get it?"
"Doom Knoll," he muttered.
"Are you mad?" The baby let out a wail of protest and Elspeth snatched him from his sister's arms. "What? Do ye think they called it Doom Knoll because they thought it was funny? Well? Will ye risk going up there for a coney?" She flung the rabbit down on the table and strode off, rocking the baby. As she sat and nursed him, his cries turned to heavy slurping gurgles. Shirat watched his wife's shoulders. He could see the tension and the worry in her skinny arms and neck. This last child was more than they had reckoned on. Their eldest, Elisabet, was strong and capable, a help. She would make a man a good wife one day and Shirat was confident that she would marry well; perhaps a farmer? Perhaps someone who could employ him? Elisabet was polite, obedient, and best of all, pretty. Guilt crept over Shirat as he heaped hopes for his family's future on her twelve year old shoulders, but he'd run out of options.
Shirat picked up a handful of gorse and settled it into the grate. His tinderbox quickly set it alight and he blew gently to encourage the flames to cling to the twigs that he held over the swiftly burning leaves. He breathed life into the flame. Embers flared and the branch caught. He propped a log against the branch and smiled as the flames tentatively crossed over to the log.
Behind him, Elspeth cut up the rabbit carcass and prayed.

* * *

They were all asleep and they slept better on a full stomach. Despite Elspeth's misgivings, as the rabbit cooked and the smell filled their nostrils, no one had thought twice about where the rabbit had come from. Now only a small pile of bones remained.
Shirat stood, the curtains grasped in his fists as he prepared for bed. He could see that the lights still flickered in the house. The moon was high and Doom Knoll shone in the moonlight. It would be easy to climb. Shirat was halfway up the Knoll before his brain registered that he had even moved. Hands pulled bracken, feet slipped on flint slopes, shining rocks confused his eyes, reflecting the full moon; he hurried on.
"If nobody lives there, then nobody owns anything that's there. So I might as well take it! Nobody will know." The mantra pounded in his brain, making everything simple and straightforward. "Nobody lives there, everybody says so."
Shirat stood in the open doorway. He looked inside, nobody was there. He stepped in. Silence roared in his ears. "Anybody here?" he called. Nobody answered. A voice in his head asked him: Well, now what? "Stick to the plan! Take anything of value!" He walked around touching, feeling in the dark. There was a candlestick. It might have value. He walked to the door and held it up to the moonlight. Silver!  The voice in his head wanted to know: What are you going to do with that? "I'm taking it of course. My family need it for the food it will buy them. It doesn't belong to anybody."  The voice in his head persisted: It belongs to Nobody. "That's what I said. It doesn't belong to anybody. So I'm taking it."
The voice in Shirat's head changed. It belongs to No Body. No Body owns it. It is not yours. It is No Body's. It is mine.
Shirat paused, everyone talked to themselves, everybody has a conscience, his, was just getting nervous.
"It's nobody's candlestick! Now just get going!"
It's my candlestick, said the voice in his head. Mine. No Body. Me. I have lived here for centuries only as a magic moment in time. Just a spell that still exists; a spell without a body to live in. Everyone knows about me and they warn their children to stay away. Don't go there, they say. No Body lives there. But you didn't listen. You came here. Thank you.

* * *

Shirat placed the candlestick on the kitchen table. When his wife and children woke, there was a fire burning away, a good pile of timber and a meal of porridge bubbling in the pot.
"What happened?" asked Elspeth, wide eyed and smiling. ""That smells good!"
"I met somebody," Shirat smiled. "We did a deal and I agreed to carry him around and he agreed to help us out. Now stop asking questions and eat up."
Behind Shirat's eyes, No Body smiled. Now he was Some Body.