“There’s magic in the hills,” said the old man.
His face wrinkled inward,
and smelled of the tobacco stuffed in his pipe.
He spoke of the dipping lights, the black tongued chants from the groves, the howling near the springs.
He lives where mist sticks to your skin.
He reared his head to titter and pointed sharply to a tree. A door **** ripped through the bark.
“One man’s home is another man’s prison,” he said, and invited me in.
A crow perched on a melted candle stick in the middle of the single room.
"Through the valley," said the crow.
The old man insisted the road ahead was a wasteland, the vegetation scarce and waters poisonous.
I declined food and drink.
Shadows and death in the valley, magic and craft in the hills.
"Fear," said the crow.
The old man poured tea and clinked his pointed nails on the surface of his mug and gazed through the window.
“You’ll stay here tonight,” he said. “And continue onward in the morning.”
He watched the sun set. My bones iced over to the screams of a coyote.
I rested my head on the cot, but forced my body awake, as the old man howled back to the sounds of the night.