STRANGER ATTRACTION
When she died, something in him changed, as if the ground beneath his feet had cracked and he was trying to stand on broken earth.
Not long after her funeral, the nights turned strange.
Around midnight his door would fly open and Horris would burst into the yard barefoot, eyes wild, tears running down his face. His voice carried through the whole of Ashwood.
“I don’t want to go! I don’t want to go!” he would scream, fighting against hands trying to hold him back.
Men rushed from their homes, women peered through windows, and Kaelith and I stood shaking in our doorways as he struggled and sobbed. Every night it was the same words, the same terror in his voice.