Wulfstan lay in the floor, staring at the cloud-masked stars, a vacant listlessness in his gaze. The hazy grey of his enlarged pupils seemed even foggier. An unpleasant closeness hung in the air and, according to the whining in the village, this last week was scoldingly hot. Like the world had become a boiling pot and they were the cooking meat, with nowhere to escape to.
He couldn't feel it, just like he couldn't feel the jagged, bloodless wound that had split his arm half open. Just like how he didn't even feel it as it closed up right in front of his eyes. He couldn't believe that that was the first time he'd realised he didn't bleed – farm work wasn't known for being risk-free. Arguably, he knew he should have realised sooner that something was wrong when he never had any injuries, no matter what he did. For the first time in all the five years he could remember existing, Wulfstan finally had a clear answer to at least one question he held about his identity.
After those long years, he'd concluded he could not be human.It made no sense.
Humans always cried when they learned distressing news; he'd seen it enough to know that was the truth. Wulfstan couldn't even do that. He'd read many books, managed to muddle through the Bible cover to cover, so he could be considered worldly enough. Educated, even, by the standards of everyone around him. Nothing had been written in any of them that could explain what was wrong with him. Not really. He couldn't accept that he was a demon from Hell – he wasn't evil, he didn't want to hurt anyone. A demon couldn't experience what must be affection like he did for his family.
Living things breathed. They had a heartbeat. They hungered, then ate until full. They got tired, then slept. They felt things, like the weather and pain. A living thing knew what heat was, knew something other than the slight chill that enveloped Wulfstan. If all those things were what a living creature must experience to be alive, then Wulfstan must… not be alive.
Was he dead? A ghost? Was that the reason he couldn't remember anything from before waking up in the forest before the Smythe's? A ghoul, a lost soul, a dead person forgotten by both Heaven and Hell, something along those lines. Any of those words could be helpful if they felt right when he used them to describe himself.
He couldn't be a revenant – they brought death, pestilence. They killed people. He'd never harmed another person, not once. All he could do was calmly slaughter an animal for food – he didn't want to kill.
Apart from that peculiarity, he was more or less the same as everyone else, even if it was just from mere observation. He experienced joy and misery. He knew the pleasure of the flesh, at least his own. He laughed and could smile. Wulfstan held so much reverence for the life of the people around him – he was certain a dead thing, a devilish thing, couldn't, or wouldn't,care at all for anything living. He loved, he was sure, that was what people said that this emotion towards family was called. He loved Ita as a mother. He loved Donngall as a father. He loved Leofric as a brother, that must be what it was. Wulfstan couldn't form the idea of it being anything else, couldn't fathom it.
He couldn't be dead. He refused to believe it.
Dead things don't walk about.
"What are yah doin' out 'ere at this time?" A voice startled him out of his misery. Wulfstan didn't look away from the muted stars above, just listening to the approaching footsteps in silence. A human's footsteps made a sound, crunching the foliage and compacting the dirt beneath their feet. "Hm, laddy, what's wrong wid yah?"
Ita stood just out of Wulfstan's view, probably looking down at him but maybe looking up at the stars too. He found it to be a nice thought,the idea they were looking at the same thing. She didn't say anything for a while, waiting for the boy to speak first. It had been a while since they'd had time to really talk at all and, considering how old he and Leofric were getting, she was likely beginning to feel melancholic at the growing of her boys. Now men, really, not boys.
Finally, after hours of saying nothing, Wulfstan's uncharacteristically hoarse voice whispered, so minuscule and sorrowful, a lamentation of the highest order. "Ita." It was like the weight of every misery in the world had settled on his shoulders and he could do nothing to stop it. "There's something amiss with me. How do I fix it?"
A sigh, followed by the clicking of her farm-work weathered joints as she sat down on the floor next to Wulfstan. She was nearing forty, a couple years behind Donngall, and with the growing seriousness of their ailments, they probably wouldn't be around for very much longer. Farmers rarely lived for long, the toll on their bodies far heavier than any other occupation's effects – Wulfstan really didn't understand why they'd remained as farmers, even though they had the option of more as freemen. Perhaps Ita and Donngall just enjoyed it. The side of Ita's round, red-cheeked face came into view, though her normal gentle smile was nowhere to be found – her lips curved into a confused frown. Loving as ever, she asked, "My boy, what is it that yah tink is wrong wid yah?"
"I…" Wulfstan knew he couldn't say what he thought, couldn't talk about the already-healed wound, about what he'd done outside her real son's window that had led to it. He knew it would be repulsive, that Ita would hate him. "I want to cry but I can't."
Her hand reached out, falling onto Wulfstan's shoulder. "Is that all wid yah? Nuttin' wrong wid that." Ita patted the spot her hand rested on. "Sit up, boyo. Can't talk wid you lyin' down."
Wulfstan did as she said, snapping up at the waist, not even needing to move his arms and push himself up. He looked at her, wordless torment heavy in his face, though his eyes were dry as bone. The downward curve of his lips that was always there was deepened, and his normally smooth face was cut with lines of sorrow. Ita felt as if her heart would break, seeing the boy she saw as her youngest son looking so utterly inconsolable.
If anything, his crying at all would have looked exaggerated. There was no need for tears when his very being exuded the essence of grief. She inhaled back her emotions, not wanting to make whatever this was any worse.
"There's nuttin' wrong wid yah." She reached over and pulled Wulfstan into a tight hug. Despite the broiling hot of the night, he was frigid as a corpse. It was almost pleasant, in comparison to the humidity of the air, but it just concerned her. Ita and her husband had long since guessed that there was something different about Wulfstan – they couldn't be sure of anything, of course, but they knew it was never good to be different. They didn't want him to get hurt when it was something he couldn't change. "We love yah, no matter what. Donngall and me, we see yah as ahr blood and flesh. And ahr Leofric? By God above, yah're the apple of that boy's eye – it's like he tinks yah hung tah moon." Ita sighed, not noticing the way Wulfstan receded away slightly at the mention of Leofric, his guilt heavy in his heart. "I love yah as yah are, no madah what. May tah Lord strike me down if I lie. Now it's time yah sleep, laddy, hm."
Nodding weakly against her shoulder, Wulfstan wrapped his arms around Ita's solid, broad back, desperate to feel the warmth that came with her comfort. No matter how he tried, he couldn't. Despite agreeing that it was time for him to head inside, he didn't make a move to go anywhere, terrified to pull away from the hug he was swathed in. It felt like the end of the world would come if he did – like he'd crossed a threshold he could never come back from.
"Thank you," Wulfstan murmured as if he thought that speaking any louder would shatter the illusion of his humanity and that Ita would suddenly pull away. She would scorn him; she would know that there was something so horridly wrong with him that he didn't deserve to walk the earth for even a moment longer. Tightening his hold, his long fingers curled into the hemp cloth of her dress. "For everything. You didn't need to look after me so well. You didn't owe me that at all. I'm sorry… I'm sorry I'm so useless."
Ita patted the dirt-matted curls at the back of Wulfstan's head, rocking slightly as if she was rearing a toddler again. "Don't apologise. Yah being silly – yah was just a sprout. I couldn't let yah alone." With all the maternal affection she had garnered for Wulfstan through the five years of watching him grow, she pressed a comforting kiss to his forehead. "I tink yah're too tired, boy."
That gnawing pit in his stomach turned aggressive at those words. Ita didn't know that he didn't sleep, even after all these years – she was just trying to be kind. Wulfstan wanted more than ever to sob, to let loose all of his haywire emotions in the arms of the woman who had become his mother, but, even then, he couldn't. Could something like him even claim to have the ability to understand having a mother? Did he have the right to benefit from her love?
Finally, after several minutes of being enveloped in her strong, caring embrace, Wulfstan pushed away and stood up from the floor. Putting on a smile he hoped didn't look forced, though he couldn't be sure, he stretched out his still-uncalloused, still-snow-white hand to help Ita up off the ground. After all this lamenting, he had suddenly become very aware of the uncomfortable feeling his skin had, how wrong his entire body felt. Looking at his hand with Ita's in it, he found it hammered in that impression of his incorrectness – his fingers were impossibly long for his palm, so gangly and out of proportion compared to Ita's. Wulfstan couldn't bear the idea of lookin at his reflection now, unable to conceive of how vile his face would now look to his awakened self.
It was likely just his mind making it up because he was experiencing an rapid disintegration of his identity, even if he didn't know the exact word for it. Everything he had previously thought was crumbling through his grasp like dust. All he could do was hope that no one would notice – if people could overlook everything else wrong with him, it stood to reason they would pay no heed to any change now. The strange gangly young man would remain a sight to ogle at in the street when he went by, no need for further questions.
"Cheers, boyo," Ita said, pulling up from the ground using Wulfstan's assistance. Dusting off her skirt, she looked up at the boy who had once been a spindly, twig of a child, now tangibly, over-exaggeratedly man-shaped but uncomfortable in the way he stood. Despite how she cared for him so, she couldn't help but think that it looked like Wulfstan was pretending to be human in a body that was slightly off the mark. Like one of the tapestries in the church when the people looked a few weaves wrong. A painting when the creator hadn't quite understood the human form yet. Ita didn't want to think of that, it was inconceivable – this boy couldn't be anything but human because he was a sweet child, not some horrendous monster from the depths of Hell, like in the Good Book. He abided by all the rules the Lord set out for how a good son behaves. Unable to smile when she could see, feel, the boy's distress, she sighed and linked her arm with his, pulling him back to the hut. "Early day tomorrow. Sleep and ge' over this lamentin', Wulfstan."
No matter what, anything that was held within him could never be expressed out loud. Wulfstan knew now that he was a divergent thing, something deviant within the natural order of the world. All he thought was for nought if anybody found out what he knew about himself.
-
Leofric knew something was off with Wulfstan.
While he wasn't any smarter than any other unschooled farmer, Leofric had long since attuned himself to the needs, wants and emotions of his family members. Especially those of Wulfstan.
And Wulfstan knew that Leofric had figured something out.
After the incident of Leofric's strange late-night activities, the ensuing peculiarity Wulfstan displayed around the man and then the intense melancholy that had swept over him after the realisation that something was not right with him, Leofric had been bound to realise that Wulfstan had changed. While Wulfstan had always been a bit awkward, his long limbs either delicately graceful or crashing into the people around him, he had suddenly become far more conscious of the way he moved. He would hardly lift his limbs or touch his peers now, only doing what he needed to do. It was as if he had become terrified to come in contact with anyone, especially Leofric. Like he suddenly thought everyone was made of pottery and he was a lumbering bull.
Every time Leofric, as he always had, threw his arms around Wulfstan, grabbed at him, or even came too close, Wulfstan would startle and back away. It was like Leofric's skin had suddenly become poisonous. Or, perhaps, that Wulfstan thought his very presence would hurt Leofric.
Over the days since Wulfstan's realisation, he had lost the spark – whatever slight light had ever been there – within his clayish eyes. Leofric had noticed something he'd overlooked for years; the grey of Wulfstan's pupils. Looking back, they'd always been like that, but he'd never made note of it because it didn't matter. It gave a hollower look to his sorrowful eyes. There was little glinting in them whenever he looked about, like the light that landed on them was sucked into a cavern. A soulless gaze. Leofric thought back and wondered if those grey pupils had ever sparkled in the light or if he'd just imagined it, the light of Wulfstan's smiles and his charming personality filling him with life instead. It terrified Leofric, that he could see a lifelessness in Wulfstan, that the man no longer smiled.
He missed the broad, face-splitting smiles that Wulfstan reserved for him and his parents. He missed the mischievous, secretive grin that only Leofric ever saw. Even when they went to the market, Wulfstan barely smiled his business smile, eliciting concerned questions from regular customers and the typically indifferent villagers alike. It was unsurprising when he brushed it off as just a bad day, before plastering on a smile that didn't belong to his face. The downturn of Wulfstan's lips went from just being how his face rested to being his expression the entire time anyone saw him.
Wulfstan rarely spoke, only when spoken to. It was as if he was trying to withdraw entirely from all the people around him. That was only Leofric's guess – it was impossible to know another's mind – so he hoped he was wrong.
Unfortunately, he was not off the mark.
Wulfstan had begun to consider whether something like him should stay in the world of proper, normal humans. Every night he spent awake and alone, he came closer and closer to the decision to go back to the forest he was found in and try to find his origin.
He had to know.