[Dark Magazine 06] • The Dark Issue 6 by Magazine The Dark

Author:Magazine, The Dark [Magazine, The Dark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Dark Fantasy, Fantasy, Horror, magazine
Publisher: TDM Press
Published: 2014-11-05T20:50:11+00:00

Eric Schaller’s fiction has appeared in such magazines as Sci Fiction, Postscripts, Shadows & Tall Trees, and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. His stories have been reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Best of the Rest, and Fantasy: Best of the Year.

Mourning Flags and Wildflowers

by Patricia Russo

While the men were stitching the mourning-flags, the leading women of the village gathered on the hillside, the same hillside where Arrani had always sworn that in summer nip-berries could be found growing in the shade of the sliver-barked whistling trees. None of the other women had ever discovered any nip-berries there, but each summer Arrani would come to Deeby’s bread-circles, at which the women met to eat, settle matters of importance, and conduct trade, with a handful or so—never enough to overindulge on, never enough to dry and preserve for winter, yet always enough to exchange for whatever she wanted. The others hadn’t quite decided whether Arrani had a special gift for finding nip-berries (everybody knew that the berries were timid and hid from covetous eyes) or whether she was lying through her smile about their true location.

Summer was on the wane; that day nobody checked the shadows within the grove of whistling trees. From the hillside, the women had a good view of the men sitting around the fire in Ays’s courtyard. It was too warm for a fire, but fires were traditional when stitching mourning flags. Silence was traditional as well—except for the song the children were meant to sing—but given the way they were gesturing, throwing their heads back, and jumping up to go face-to-face and toe-to-toe with each another, the men appeared to be doing quite a lot of talking.

“We should have stopped this before it started,” Gralli said.

“They wouldn’t have listened. They are already upset that we wouldn’t allow the children to sing.” Lulli cocked her head. “Who can hear the trees whistling?”

Some women muttered that they could, while others shook their heads. Under her breath, Lulli hummed the tune they all had sung many times when they were young.

The men are stitching the mourning flags

With green thread and with gold

The men are stitching the mourning flags

With new thread and old

Before Shayrri had lost her patience and told her mother to move her old bones, collect the other elder women who still had a few wits left, and herd the children to the river—“Take nets, maybe you’ll actually manage to catch a fish or two”—some of the older children had begun to sing it.

With green thread, with gold

The mourning flags, each stitched with sorrow

With green thread, with gold

Must all be ready by the morrow

“I’ve always hated that song,” Gralli said.

“They’re using too much cloth,” Lulli said.

“They shouldn’t be using any at all.”

“I think they raided Jum’s storehouse.”

“Who is with Arrani?” Deeby asked.

“Have you forgotten already?” Gralli snapped. “Barro is with her. He wouldn’t go with the other men.”

“Please,” Lulli said. “This is a bread-circle. Are we going to behave like the men, or will we conduct ourselves like women?”

“I don’t see any bread.

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