Chapter Text
Death had always followed Will Graham, wherever he went. Like a black shadow creeping over his shoulders, like an old friend who never left his side, like a growling dog whenever anyone tried to get too close, always on the attack. Will had gotten used to death’s icy embrace, grown accustomed to her constant presence, had learned to accept her inevitability. He had never grown fond of it, but he acknowledged its presence and acknowledged the fact that it would never leave him, the only friend that would ever stay by him, no matter its destruction.
It had started with his mother, when he was just barely a toddler, due to complications in childbirth that left both his mother and his baby sister dead. What a shame it was that Will Graham’s first memory, rather than sunlight shining through the bars of his crib, or chasing his dog Winston through the marsh behind his house on wobbling legs, was sitting awake in the middle of the night, hearing his mother screaming and crying in absolute agony as she died.
Death had let him be for a few years after that, having no one else to take, except for perhaps his father. Death had been merciful enough to leave his father be; though, what comfort was it really when the man made his life a living hell most days? It wasn’t that he didn’t mean well; it was the drinking problem that made him cruel, and the man had a tendency to drink himself into oblivion on a regular basis. Fate liked to deal him cruel hands, so he was left subject to his father’s fits of rage, and hungover apologies the next day.
There were no friends for death to take from him, either, Will having always preferred to keep to himself. He was quiet, usually had his nose buried in a book, forever the peculiar one, forever the odd one. When he wasn’t lost in the pages of his novels, he was down in the river with his rod in hand; the boy had been fishing since he was old enough to hold a rod, and somehow, the quiet of the stream offered more comfort than friendship ever had. He had always been mostly content with the characters in the pages of novels or the worms on the end of fishhooks for friends.
It wasn’t until he was thirteen that death came round again and took everything that he had in one swoop. The war had begun and they were drafting everyone. War and his lover, Death, took the only boys he ever cared to call friends. Brian and Jimmy, the neighbor boys who he had called his best and only friends since he had met them, the only boys that he ever cared to run around with, they went first. They were older than he was by a good bit, eighteen and nineteen, and they were the first to get drafted. He remembered watching them from the window at his school, vaguely hearing their song through the glass as they sang an old war tune. “Praise the lord, and pass the ammunition…”
He didn’t see them again after that.
But he heard the screams of their mothers, one on a Friday and one on a Tuesday, while he was getting ready for school. Their mothers letting out wails that he had only heard the likes of once, when he was two, and his mother held her baby, limp and dead in her arms. He remembered that she had let out a scream like that, mere minutes before her own life drained from her body and she died. It was the scream of a mother who had just lost her child.
Death came again later that same year. Will’s dog, the dog that he’d had since he was a child, longer than he could even remember, was who went next. Winston died of old age, nothing cruel or painful like the others. It was hardly as significant as the death of his mother, or the death of his friends, but it certainly felt like it. His best friend, the only one by his side for as long as he could remember, had died in his arms after losing his legs, his sight, and control of his bladder over the course of a few months.
And death’s shadow came over his doorstep again in a letter, in the year of 1942, when they threatened to take his father away, send him off with the draft to be slaughtered in droves, just like the others. But death’s looming presence over their doorstep had forced them out the backdoor, fleeing from its stinging grips, the two of them packing up what little they had and fleeing to live with family across the seas in Worcestershire, England.
Will’s life was uprooted without a friend in the world, without a place to truly call his home. Lost in his own world, well and truly alone. He had never been much of one for people anyways, but now that there was no one, not even his dog… It stung. It hurt more than he thought that it would. Much more.
He was alone in his own world, so he chose to escape to others.
The ground was wet from last night’s storm. The April skies were gray, as they always were. It was England, pretty much always cloudy, as Will quickly learned, but now more than ever, it felt like. They’d arrived seven months prior, and the days were looking darker now, like the clouds were always on the verge of bursting, but Will couldn’t stay inside any longer, staring at the same four walls of his bedroom. He was going mad. So he snuck into Hagley wood, only a few blocks away from his own home. He wasn’t supposed to be there, and yet he’d found his way in, liking the solitude that the forest offered him.
He’d picked up J.R.R Tolkien’s book, The Hobbit, a few days earlier, having saved what little allowance he earned for the past three weeks to buy it. He’d started it the day that he’d gotten it, but hadn’t had time to finish it. But today was Sunday, which meant that he was free to do as he saw fit. And he was going to climb a tree, and he was going to read a book.
He’d grown up in the great outdoors, climbing trees and running through the mud and fishing when the weather allowed it. He’d always found a home in his books, but in a world where he never quite fit in, the only place where he felt comfortable in his reality was outside. The prickling of grass beneath his feet, the crisp feeling of wind blowing through his dark curls, the smell after the rain, the feeling of bark leaving pink impressions in the palms of his hands as he climbed as high as he could get… That was where he felt free, even of the shadow of death that hung behind him, wrapped around him, enveloped him in its darkness. He was free beyond his four walls.
Will trudged through the muddy forest, the ground slippery beneath his tattered old shoes, hand-me-downs from his cousins that he’d had for years, just barely kept together. He pushed one hand into his pocket, the other clinging tightly to his book as he searched for a good tree to sit in for the day. Sitting beneath one wasn’t exactly practical on a day like today, not with all of the mud and puddles, so sitting in one of the higher branches would do just fine. Besides, Will liked sitting in the branches, feet dangling over the edge, nowhere near the ground. It was almost like flying.
He scanned the woods, most of the trees covered in leaves, spring having brought back the green with it. Not very good for sitting in unless he wanted water dripping on his head and into the pages of his book all day. He settled when he turned and found an old, dead Wych Elm. Somewhat intimidating, sure, but big enough to climb, big enough to sit in, and free of leaves.
Will tossed his book up onto the highest branch that he could reach, careful not to let it fall back into the mud before curling his fingers around a lower hanging branch and hoisting himself up, the familiar prickle of bark against his palm as he climbed onto the first branch, and then the second, and then the third, until he was comfortably settled somewhere near the top, high above the world. Will had always been shorter than his peers by just a few inches, and found contentment in his trees, high above everyone else. Among the trees, among the grass, among the leaves, among the winds blowing around him.
He leaned back against the tree, glancing down to the ground feet below him. He probably wouldn’t die from such a fall, but crack a few ribs, maybe. He wasn’t afraid, though, had never been afraid of heights. Instead, being so far away, so far above the rest of the world, gave him a sense of peace. Of comfort.
He inhaled slowly, the scent of rain hanging thick in the air as he turned to look around him. The old tree was dead, hollow and rotting, making a good place to call home for wild critters. However, Will’s eyes caught a glimpse of something stuck inside, perhaps shoved there, hidden away in the hollowed bark. It was off-white and stained with dirt and she, poking out beneath leaves and soil. Bone, he figured, though from his position, he couldn’t quite tell what sort of animal it may have belonged to.
His father always said that it was curiosity that killed the cat, but always forgot the rest; curiosity may have killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back. Will could never help himself, always wanting to know everything about everything, never content to be in the dark about anything. Hesitantly, Will propped his book up on a higher branch before wrapping his hands around the branch he was on, lowering himself onto the next one before he was able to reach the thing that had been stuffed into the tree.
He dusted off the leaves and dirt before gripping hold and tugging, feeling something snap in his hands as he pulled it toward him. Bones. A skull, to be exact. His first thought was that it was that of an animal of some kind, something that had crawled into the hollowed tree and died. He’d found lots of skeletal remains of animals before, when he and Jimmy and Brian and Beverly would run around in the forest behind Bev’s house, scavenging for bird’s nests. There was nothing new about that, though he didn’t exactly recognize what kind of animal this belonged to. Bigger than a raccoon’s, too wide to be that of a fox…
Then he saw the clump of hair sticking from its head. Human hair.
Dark, stringy, matted, nothing but dirt holding it to the bone. Long, dark human hair. There were two rows of teeth, crooked and yellow but absolutely and undeniably human. Will felt the air catch in his throat as his lungs began to burn inside of his ribcage. She was human. A human body stuffed down the hollow of a tree in Hagley Wood. Someone had put a girl down the Wych Elm.
He was mesmerized. He was terrified. The bone felt rough in his hand, gritty from the dirt that had collected over the years, decades, centuries that had passed since she had been placed there. She had been here a long time, that much was certain. She smiled back at him, face frozen in this permanent smile, with crooked teeth all exposed and hollow eyes staring back at him, laughing at him. In her mouth, he noticed a small piece of… Something. Red. Gingerly, he took it between his fingers and tugged, carefully, finding a piece of taffeta cloth shoved between her teeth to keep her silent in her grave. Will gulped, thumb running lightly over her jaw, captivated and captured by bone that had once harbored life inside. A brain, a heart, a life, a soul, now rotted into the hollow of the tree.
Will heard rustling. The crunch of twigs, foot pressing into the muddy ground.
It was enough to rouse the boy from his awestruck terror, bringing him back from his morbid curiosity as he realized just what he held in his hand. Will immediately threw it back, the bone suddenly stinging like fire against his palm as bile began to rise from his stomach and burn the back of his throat. There was someone there, someone following him, someone watching him. Her killer, ready to push him into the hollow of the tree along with her.
Will dropped from the tree, not waiting another moment. His feet hit the ground hard, the force of it reverberating through his bones. He didn’t have time to process the pain as he ran, bolting the way he had came, disregarding his Sunday afternoon plans for fear of what he had seen, what he had witnessed, what he had done. He ran, ran like hell, feet sliding along the muddy ground, struggling to keep his footing as he ran, far from the girl in the tree.
Behind him, his book fell from its place in the tree, dropping into the mud, falling open on the ground.
“Far over the misty mountains cold… To dungeons deep and caverns old…”