Flickering Creatures | ONC 2024 Longlist | ✔︎

(15) Seeping Into Hallowed Ground

The evening of Wightnight itself was a completely different experience than Wightnight's eve. Bryony continued to walk back and forth across the bog until the sun brushed the treetops. By then, Wights had begin to gather at the edges of the bog's expanse. Bella landed nervously on her keeper's shoulder as the flickering creatures began to encroach inward. Bryony stroked her head.

Only then once the sun had sunk below the trees did they finish their final pass of the bog together and retreat into the forest. Bryony held aloft the soft purple Witch-light she'd left home with. She must have doused it in Wight-warding potion; Wights parted ahead of her, their alarm twisting the forest into a mirage of minor illusions. Bryony circled the bog and returned to a small, grassy sward at the edge of it.

Bella landed beside her on a log. "Are we waiting here?"

Bryony just nodded. She turned down the fuel in the lantern, snuffing out its light. The late evening seemed to expand around them. Crickets and katydids sang so abundantly, the air resonated with their chirping. Cool breezes—Wight-made or otherwise—stirred the silent air. None were strong enough to rustle the leaves of trees, and so the stillness fell, filled with tendrils of mist that rose up from the ground as the Wights began to move.

It started at the forest's edges. The first few Wights to venture into the bog paused around its edges, wafting in circles as they drew more mist up from the soggy ground. Their lights blurred as they released some of their glow into it. Then they wafted inward. The ones behind them stopped and thickened the mist, which crept like a glowing duvet over the ground. A mesmerizing tapestry of yellow, violet, and cyan light blended and swirled. Its spread coaxed more Wights from the forest, and the mass migration truly began.

Bella held her breath as Wights began to flow past on either side, then above, too. The sky's light had faded to an afterglow behind her, while ahead, stars twinkled in a cloudless expanse of velvet blue. All around the bog, the forest surged with Wights. These began to sort themselves as they moved onto the peatland. Electric blue Enigma Wights floated skyward, silent lightning sparking back and forth between them. Along the ground, Lumina Wights brightened into bog-lights, dense and warm and pulsing. Between the two, Animata Wights darted, releasing their violet glow into the ever-rising mist and swirling it around with breezes of their own creation.

When the encroaching Wights met in the middle of the bog, half began to rise, filling a space as high as the treetops, then higher. More flowed in from all around. There must have been hundreds already. Thousands, even. Even with the Witch-light long since extinguished, Bella could see clearly; the light off the bog outshone the brimming moon. Its mist spilled outward, setting the forest aglow.

And still the Wights kept coming, albeit slower now. Bella was sure they would continue arriving for the rest of the night. The ones in the bog, meanwhile, began to dance. Matched pairs orbited each other, their glowing trails making wheels through the mist. The first two merged. With a bright flash, they scattered, suddenly four small Wights instead. The babies tottered to the ground and rested.

More Wights merged and split. The first little ones began to move again, prospecting over the peat. Several clustered in a hollow where the mist-light seemed to thicken. The baby Wights basked in its glow. It took Bella far too long to realize what they'd found here. Wights fed on the energy released by things that died in the forest or drowned in the bog. Whatever animal had sunk here now fed a new generation of the forest's energy predators.

Bryony got to her feet.

Bella opened her beak to ask what her keeper was doing, then shut it again. She knew what Bryony was doing. She'd spent all day—maybe even several days—sprinkling the bog with whatever potion she'd developed. Given that the Wights still went about their regular activities, Bella could only assume that potion hadn't taken action yet. Sure enough, Bryony pulled a delicate vial from her potion-bag. Holding it at arm's length, she popped the cork and emptied it into the bog.