Extract from "Figures Crossing the Field Towards the Group"

By Rebecca Gransden

An extract from Figures Crossing the Field Towards the Group, chapter “The Murmurers”

Tight roads, the verge gone wild in too quick a time, grass spread in a craze, strange zig zag stems, leaves mash with fronds, buds nod rot fruit and drop to make squelch meat tracks. There have been no cars for days nor dead ones. All beasts have slunk off else where. Lone birds with mad minds peck out drum codes on sick bark and boughs. A vile taint in the air stays faint, a stray hint on pre birth squint.

A dark day leads to a black eve, where shades camp mid trees. There are more woods on all sides as she walks, and they close in. A flit mouse darts to brush branch ends, creep buds and fat dead leaves stuck to mould twigs. The paths of the wood lead with soft grass heads, droop to glance bare shin and calves. Feet place on earth that feels free and firm. Warm in the night. Soft in the night. The wood makes its dark, it stirs the black.

Flo hugs mid drift and sails through the path grass, in the dark, she has to let the path guide. There are bends, more paths, she can feel, a break on one side or the next, where a cool patch has a low sound that calls deep to the wood. 

In the wood is a light. It looks like a glim, with more glims in a line. They bob a bit, slow, the same, a row. She sees through trunks and bush, branch and leaf clump, that there are lights on a path. It is a queue of peeps, stoop white robes, bow of head, heads in hoods. They look good, they could be nuns, or monks. They step with grace, there is no fear. Their glims shine strong. In a whisp the wood brings their noise. A hum, and chant that does rise and fall but stays the same. It is a beaut sound, and gross, and full of gods. They murm as they eat the glow worm.

Flo tracks them as she stays in her lane, soft tread on the night earth, the pokes of dead sticks, the hooks of burs with sore mouths. The glims glide to show how the queue moves through the shade wood, it lights their robes with deep gold fire. They plod in time with the hum, it is not a song, it is not a tune, it sits tween, a hewn noise, purl of the air. Flo sees and thinks the glims and the hum come from the same place, some how they know how each is.

Fresh mulch sinks neath foot steps, and the scent climbs sweet. Black bane fruits droop from the trees, plump and ripe. Flo bats them, she takes care to touch brief. Some of them are split and the juice is like glue. To lick is to get sick. Flo wipes hands in fresh leaves and keeps them from her face.

It is here, neath bane fruit, that the queue halts. With a pause they soak the glim light then drop their hoods and glance up. Flo ducks down to hide, a squat mess of brush and weeds and she can see them all. She thinks they might see her eye shine. It makes her blink, but she keeps watch.

When the bane falls in a rain of black beads, the queue leave the row and on their knees feed. Great greed sinks their souls, teeth in a whirl, the wood gives its death wine. Some seize and froth, bad blood on their robes, let loose of their bowels, rogue shit and dark juice. Swol lips, grand eyes, rip their own skin. Hum. Hum. Til the end of the glims.

Flo hops fell tree limbs, the moon climbs high and is seen split through spare branch. With fire glow wick the glim seethes a line of death smoke, small low cind of dark hell light on the end. Most of the glims have gone out. This one stays and broods, its smell burns the air next to a wide face. One of the queue does not die, but breathes, her mug a con, her eyes white and wide with black dots shrunk in the mid, like an ant pokes its head out of milk. She wags her jaw, tries to find words, but all is a gush of air. The bane fruit runs from her mouth, then down her neck. There is mush and seed in it. A strain leaks from her throat, squeak noise, broke.

—Brrr, brrr. Br…O.—

Flo treads close, stares in the eyes.

—What about my bro?—

The queue lifts up its arms and points to a way in the trees. It seems south, but Flo can not be sure. There are more who live, and they move and sigh. It is like they do not know how to sleep. Plum shade blots stain their skins.

—Fire.—

One takes off his robe and spreads on the mulch. His eyes flick and bulge. His skin is pink and has a sweat slime. The grown girl lifts her arm once more and he makes the same move. They all do, all of them who live point to the woods, may be south, Flo can not tell. Is her bro may be south? A sis should know.

Gas weeps from the dead ones. More bane falls. Flo backs off, the sick fruit a curse. She thinks they might tell lies bout her bro. May be it means he is west, east, or north. They are peeps of a good god, with bane in their veins. She tells them to spit it out, she says their god does not want this. The last glim wick lets go of its hell glow, and the queue breathes in the dark night, while Flo creeps out of the wood, and goes the way they did point, to trust in a god she does not think true.

Rebecca Gransden lives on an island. She is published at X-R-A-Y, Burning House Press, Expat Press, Bruiser, BULL, and Ligeia, among others. A new edition of the novella Figures Crossing the Field Towards the Group is released May 2025 at Tangerine Press.