Bone Handle Man

The man stretches. He stretches his legs, feeling the pleasant pull at the top of his thighs, he stretches his shoulders, his chest, his arms, his neck. He stretches his fingers.

They’re shaking.

The man examines each one of his fingers, imagining the muscle beneath the skin, the bone beneath the meat. He moves each one, watching the bones dance on the back of his hands.

Why must they always shake?

But he knows why they shake. It’s why he does what he does. To make them stop shaking.

The table he sits at is a polished wood, possibly mahogany, and the plate of food before him is expensive, if not absolutely repulsive to the tongue, as things go. The waitress offers him a drink and he only covers his mug with his hand.

The man stares in the far distance, past the man and woman arguing about who’s paying, past the elderly couple sitting closer than what is socially acceptable until his gaze meets the specimen he reserved this table for.

A young woman, possibly in her thirties, bright crimson curly hair, pale skin with freckles and emerald green eyes, sitting alone at a table across the room. She’s wearing a fine dress of her own making, not of her mothers; it’s mint green.

It’s his favorite dress, but how did she know? Does she know?

Of course she doesn’t know. The man has been so careful, so meticulous.

The man smiles as he silently thanks the woman for wearing her best for this momentous night.

She will have a fine cut steak with whatever vegetables they have and something sweet to drink, thank you very much. He knows this, as he always knows. The man watches as she carefully cuts her meat into bite size pieces, each one as equally shaped as the steak allows. When she is finished, she places her knife, as she always does, next to the plate, exchanges the fork in her hands and begins to eat. A bite of meat (swallow). Two bites of vegetables (swallow). A swig of sweet drink (swallow). Every end day for the past month she has done this.

And he knows her.

He knows that she didn’t sleep well the night before. He knows this without having to depend on the fact her eyes are slightly pink and a dark rim outlines her lids. He knows as only one intimately acquainted with someone could know. He knows she tossed and turned, though she never opened her eyes.

The man knows that last week a man carrying a jagged knife made from rusted metal followed her. He disposed of that man’s body without her ever noticing.

Why must she always take the alleyways to go home?

That was something the man found so interesting about the woman—it is why this engagement has lasted so long. She must know that predators walk in the darkness, so why does she travel in the shadows?

She always took the alleyways home.

He knows her routine both at morning and at night, he knows her favorite foods, drinks, past times—she’s a fan of reading, which he finds incredible—the ability to read was few and far between as far as people go—and he knows where she lives, but why she insists on walking in shadows, traveling the alleyways…

He doesn’t have the slightest clue.

Her tiny hand raises, with one finger outstretched, calling for the check, but, of course, as he knows full well, her bill has been paid. The waitress tells her so and by her nodding smile, he is certain the waitress did as asked and did not reveal who paid.

Good.

The man reaches deep into his right pocket, searching for his coin purse, only to find his hand wrapping around a handle made up of bone and soft leather. His fingers wrap the handle and it feels like home. Beneath the handle is a blade wrapped in stained cloth, a blade recently sharpened but made years before, at the beginning of all this.

He closes his eyes.

Tonight is the night. He will follow her, as he does, and ask her why she walks in shadow. He will place the pale white knife to her throat and tell her to stop talking when she begins to babble and she will.

They always do.

He will then take her to someplace nice, someplace warm, someplace dark. Someplace alone. And when he is through and done, he will place his sharpened blade to her warm throat, imagine the warm gushing blood beneath her skin, pulsing through her veins and he will ask her to stop breathing. And she will.

They always do.

The man opens his eyes as the woman rises from her seat, pressing her hands against the wrinkles formed in her dress. She picks up her small, decorated coin purse and she leaves the table. The man reaches into his left pocket, retrieves his coin purse and tosses a few coins onto the table for good measure and leaves his terrible food barely touched.

The woman walks through the back door and the man follows her. As he does.

When they had walked in shadow long enough, the man reaches once more in his right pocket, grasping home and removing it from it’s wrapping, he holds it calmly at his side, though, his hands still shake.

Make the shaking stop.

The woman turns the fateful corner, the corner he has been dreaming of for the past month, the darkest corner of the walk. No one is around, no one but he and her beating their feet on the stone alley road.

A crooked and mean smile creases his face.

He will turn the corner and there she will be, confused and concerned by the odd scratching on the stone wall to her left—the scratching that say her name over and over—and he will step behind her, shoving her pretty little head into the wall, only slightly cracking it like an egg and then he will turn her around, place the knife to her throat and demand she tell him why she walks in shadow, the pretty girl with the fire hair, the soft hands and the tired eyes.

The man turns the corner, his hand tightening on the dry, thirsty bone handle in his right hand and immediately he feels a sharp pinch just below his navel. His left hand reaches for it, feeling a small twig like something and his hand retreats wet and sticky. His head spins and his fingers stop shaking—why did they stop shaking?—and the woman he so desires, he so loves stands above him and her pink lips are saying something, but he does not hear a word she says before her fist meets his temple and he is knocked unconscious.

When he wakes, the man finds his hands tethered harshly together by scratchy rope and his head feels as if his brain  were in the middle of expansion, pushing from deep inside towards the outward plane, but his cranium refuses to budge. He can smell fire.

The man rolls over and feels something hot immediately bite at his side while something pinches hard just below his navel. He screams as flames begin to dance on his clothes and he rolls frantically, hollering madly until the flames are gone.

“Are you about done?” the woman’s voice says, dryly.

The man sits up, ignoring the pain in his abdomen, and stares at the woman now dressed much differently. Her hair is a bit more wild, spilling out around her face more than before. She now wears leather and cloth fit for a ranger or traveling scout with alternating colors of green and brown. He smiles.

Her new clothes are practical and well worn, but it’s color and presentation is still marvelous to behold. The man has seen her closet. This was not in it, but it tells the same tune, that she will always work to look her best, whether in dress or not.

But even still, this was not in her closet—which could mean many things.

Fascinating. She is truly and wonderfully fascinating.

The man leans back against a boulder, the smile still painted on his face.

“Oh, my dear,” he says, his voice gruff and unused, “you are truly exquisite. You, by far, are my favorite.”

The woman lifts another log and places it in the fire and he watches her as she squats before it, stoking.

“I mean, truly, dear, none have ever made things so much more interesting. Each turn is not like the last and here we are now and believe me when I say this, but I did not expect to be here. Well done, my sweet, well done. Thank you for bringing a little more excitement into my life.”

The woman sits on the log next to her, gently moving the long sword with a carved rose at its hilt to her right and then she stares hard at the man.

“You know they’re giving sixty golden coins for your retrieval?” She says, “Sixty coins for your worthless skin with all the blood and moving parts within it unscathed.”

“A bounty hunter,” The man says excitedly, leaning forward, ignoring the pain in his stomach, “oh, my dear lady, let me count the ways in which I love you.”

“I offered to bring you dead,” she says, “but they say they need you alive just long enough for a trial.”

“Oh, you want to kill me do you?” The man has a devilish grin.

“For what you’ve done—to all those women…”

“…Ah! So you’ve seen my handiwork! Tell me, what did you think of my artistry?” The man says, licking his grinning lips.

The woman stares blankly at him, but he can see the rage burrowing itself within her—he can see it in the pink of her cheeks.

“Enough talking. You better get some sleep. We have a lot of walking to do tomorrow.” She finally says.

“Now, come dear, don’t become boring. We have but only begun to talk!” He says, playfully.

But the woman only slides off of the log and lay next to it, stretching her hands out towards the fire to warm them.

“Hey!” he says angrily, “I’m talking to you!”

The man feels the burning in his chest; the burning he’s felt all of his life, the welling up on the inside that comes when someone does not give him his way.

And no matter how loud he screams at her, she only sleeps with a blank, empty expression on her face.

A hard kick to his foot and the man is brought awake. He looks up and sees the woman standing above him, staring at him hard.

“Get up, it’s time to go.” She says, turning away.

Where the fire had been there is now only black, charred wood covered in dirt. The man tries to stand, only, he forgets his hands are tied together and he stumbles. He looks over at the woman, expecting her to look his way as she straps her belt around her waist. She does not look. The man stands now, and faces her.

“Lead the way, my dear,” he says, his throat sore, “guide me straight and true to the…”

A stabbing pain explodes on his nose as something the color of deep red meets it harshly.

“Eat that,” the woman says pointing towards the apple that hit his face, “you need your strength.”

“Thank you, my love,” he says with a red smile.

The two of them walk for hours without making a sound. At first, the man tries to talk—he still wants to know why she walked in shadow, he knows it was for more than just bounty hunting—but she will not speak, so he only smiles and lets her lead on.

When they came upon the final road, the road leading to the Circle, the man decided it would be his last chance—to talk to her that is, he’s been working on the restraints for the last hour and have all but one knot loose.

“Tell me, my most fair lady, why do you walk in shadow?” The man says.

“They call you the Bone Handle Man. Is that because you make your knives out of bone?” She says, removing his knife from her own pocket, turning it over in her hand.

“It’s actually quite elegant and I enjoy the name. It’s simple, mysterious, it has a hint of brutality to it and that glorious touch of romance.” He says, teeth bared, “Yes, my marvelous huntress, that knife you hold there is the bone of my first attempt at art.”

The woman holds the bone knife out away from her, looking at the delicate and simple carving of it, the way the edge is almost translucent with it’s sharpness. She then pulls out the rag it was wrapped in.

“She was incredible, she was, but not quite as interesting as you. She had beautiful blonde hair that reached the lower part of her back and she talked quite a bit more. She was wonderful, but like I said,” the man says, looking over the woman, “she was nothing like you.”

The woman wraps the bone knife with the rag and holds it in her hand by the blade.

“What are you doing, my dear? You’re going to cut yourself. It’s sharp enough to cut through the rag and I would hate to spoil those pretty hands of…”

In a swift movement, the woman uses both her hands to apply pressure to the opposite ends of the knife. The knife snaps and the man growls at her, spitting and angry.

“You stupid wench! You’ll pay for that!”

“You’re soon to be at the hands of angry men,” she says, “I don’t think I need fear you.”

The man wrenches his hands free of the final knot and lunges for the woman, driving her up against a tree, his forearm pressed against her throat.

“Now you listen to me,” he says, his breath hot, “this is how this is going to go now. We are going to walk deep into these trees and you aren’t going to say a word. After that, you are going to…” The man stops talking and grunts and doubles over as the woman’s thumb presses into his abdomen, her manner blank, dismissive, uncaring.

His body begins to shake as he stares up at her.

“You remember this now?” she says, pressing harder into his abdomen, causing blinking stars to appear in his vision, “I stabbed you with a dart. You remember?”

The man cries in anger and in agony and falls backwards onto the ground.

“Of course you remember,” she says, “now you listen to me. This is how this going to go now: I’m going to tie you up again and we are going to walk until you stand before the noose? You understand?”

The woman leans down and picks up the rope and steps over to him. She heaves him up off the ground roughly and this time ties his hands behind his back.

“You try and get out of this again and attack me, I promise you,” she says, “I’ll cut your hands off.”

The man looks up at her and for a long moment all he can dwell on is how much he would like to spit on her face and cut her throat, and then, he only smiles at her once more and says, “Oh, my dear lady, I do love it when you talk to me like that.”

She kicks him and they begin walking further down the road.

The town of the Circle is alive with work and market when they enter its gates, the man on the left, the woman on the right. No one speaks to them; they only stare at the bindings around the man’s hands and step aside as they move through the busy market street. Finally, they reach the final path, the path leading to the largest building in the city: the building that holds the King. When they approach the door, two guardsmen step forward.

“My name is Molly DeWitt,” the woman says, “and I have brought for bounty, the Bone Handle Man, Lucius Owens.”

“Now this,” the man says, “has been a lovely first date. What do you say we schedule another? Next Tuesday all right with you? I’m sure I’ll be busy, but I bet I’ll find my way out of it. It is only Gallows Day, after all. If not, maybe I could meet with your sister.”

The woman stops him with her hand on his shoulder, wrenching him back and glaring into his dark eyes.

“How do you know I have a sister?” She barks.

“Ah, I wasn’t certain, but now, my lovely flower, I am.” He says, smirking.

She hits him. Flat in the mouth, she hits him.

“I did think it odd,” he says, spitting blood, “that all that time I watched you, you constantly stared at that dress that was too small for you. At first, I thought that you were only longing to fit in it, but I soon realized that you are at the top of your health and that that dress was for someone who was not only skinnier than you, but also smaller all around. A little sister, is it? Nine or ten years old?”

The woman only stares, breathing heavy.

“I watched you for weeks, my dear, a month in total. I learned you. I know you. And yet, you still showed me surprises when you attacked me in the night. Oh, you were so lovely and I cannot wait to have a double date with you and your sister.” The man says as the guards lift him to his feet. “Easy, gents,” he says, “You wouldn’t hurt a man loved by a woman would you?”

“I will get out,” he says, his voice low, “And I will be coming for you. I will be coming for you and I will find you and I will demand you tell me why you walk in shadow. I’ll get out by seducing the big fat man’s wife and I will come after you with a knife fashioned after her bones.”

“C’mon, now,” the guard on his right says, pulling him hard towards the large wooden door. The guard on his left says, “The watch called ahead. Here’s your payment.” The man tosses her a heavy coin purse.

“Hey, Lucius,” she says, and the guards stop and turn him around. She approaches. “You think you are so clever.”

The man beams at her.

“You say you’ve been watching me for a month.” She says.

The man nods, “Aye, my love, and you were an exquisite creature to watch.”

“So, when you came into that little town a month and a half ago, were you looking for me or did you just happen to like what you saw?”

“Oh, I liked what I saw, my…a month and a half ago?”

“Oh, my dear sir!” The woman cries, smiling, “Didn’t you know? I’ve been watching you for months now. I’ve learned your tricks, your ways of moving, your obsessive behavior, the way you cling to that gold necklace around your throat.”

The man would reach for the necklace if he could, feeling exposed, but with his hands bound, he cannot.

“I’ve heard of your escapes in the past. I know what you are, they say you speak with a tongue of fire, so I chanced that you were a Silver Tongue—how many of you are left?—and planned for it. I bet it was torture not being able to manipulate me, wasn’t it? Do you know that the knowledge of a Silver Tongue’s identity is enough to nullify their powers? Oh, well of course you do. I studied you too. I know your past. I know your ways of manipulating those who would condemn you and I do believe you would be successful—most believe your kind no longer exist—but don’t worry, I’ve planned for that.” The woman leans in, pressing her cheek against his, as to whisper so no one else can hear her.

“I dipped the dart I stabbed you with in methyl-mercury. Now, I don’t know how much it takes to be lethal—I’m no alchemist—but I got some help from a friend of mine, he’s an elf, and he gave me just enough to hurt you. Good luck using that pretty tongue of yours when the mercury sets in and you can’t talk straight. Have the pins and needle sensation already set in? I hear the King grows impatient with those who cannot speak for themselves. Too bad. The King’s people will keep you alive, but by the time you are brought out of it, your fate will be sealed and no matter how much flame you put on your tongue, you won’t be able to do anything about it because they will all know what you are. They will find that silver lining on your voice box. You are ruined. You are welcome.”

The woman leans back and the man stares, wide eyed and wild at her as the guards begin to drag him away and he lowers his head.

“Oh,” she calls out, “I don’t have a sister. I just thought I’d have some fun seeing how observant you are!”

The man looks up and smiles.

“Oh, my dear lady!” he calls, “We were made for each other! See the narrow path we have walked? Come, let us marry! I stand here at the end and you can follow.”

The guards stop and knock on the door, calling for it to be opened.

“Now, come now, good sir,” she says, “we both know you are previously engaged and it does not do a man well to be unfaithful.”

“And who might that be, my love? Who is it that I am betrothed to?” He calls back playfully as the door open and they drag him inside.

“Justice,” she says, as the doors come closed on the Bone Handle Man’s gaze of horror as he tries to tell the guards to let him go, but can force nothing coherent out of his mouth and between his teeth.

Molly DeWitt turns, tosses the coin purse into the air and catches it with that familiar and satisfying ring. She steps back towards town to get something sweet to drink.

Why do I walk in shadow?

Because, when there, one might find monsters.