Revenant

Chapter 29

After spending a good, long time inspecting the papers Atticus had included in the brown file folder he'd given me, I became poignantly aware of an immutable truth, one of those universal understandings that have withstood the test of time.

That truth was simply this; before you buy, always find out what the refund policy is.

To be fair to Atticus, he'd provided me with exactly what he'd told me he would; translated passages from a book that contained information on the subject of revenants. In point of fact, considering that it was likely none of these documents had existed a scant twenty-four hours ago, what he'd managed to accomplish was pretty impressive in and of itself. Just looking at the collection of handwritten documents threatened to make my own hand cramp just to consider the amount of pen-holding that must have been involved. And his penmanship... well, it was clean and stylish, and had enough unintentional flourishes to make me a little grumpy.

I hardly write down anything by hand, mostly because my own penmanship tends to resemble what might occur if a hundred ants dipped themselves in ink just prior to having a collective grand mal seizure on the same piece of paper. I can read it, and with some effort it can even be deciphered by other human beings, and to me that's what's important. But still, encountering penmanship this good, seemingly done unconsciously or with very little effort, well... even guys as well adjusted as me can get jealous from time to time.

"Bah. Pens," I snorted, lowering my collection of papers so I could look over to Myrrh, who was watching me intently from the floor a few feet away. "What do we need pens for, hey?"

The mottled brown and black cat cocked his head slightly at me, but made no sound.

"Exactly," I said, returning my attention to what I held and continuing to peruse the information it contained. For all the good I figured it would do me.

I don't know. Perhaps my expectations were completely out of line when it came to high-priced mystical mumbo-jumbo. Maybe a part of me had been half-expecting to flip a few pages and uncover a detailed anatomical drawing with a bunch of helpful info-arrows titled How to kill a revenant, or something along those lines. You know, stuff that could actually help me.

What I ended up with was a collection of different historical accounts detailing various people's encounters with creatures reported to be 'revenants'. The purpose behind these varied accounts all seemed to have the same goal, which was to convince the reader that if they were tangled up in anything that even remotely involved something like a revenant, things were likely going to go spectacularly bad for them.

Unhelpful. Unproductive. Lots of other words beginning with 'un' were popping up in my thoughts.

Like, 'unstoppable'...

'-would not stop.' '-indefatigable, relentless.' '-pursued its quarry with such single-minded ferocity I could scarcely draw breath to utter the Lord's prayer.' '-beating down the iron gates barring the entrance to the church and proceeding through them as though he cared not a whit what God Himself might do to a creature of evil such as he upon setting foot on His hallowed grounds.'

Regardless of how each account differed, they all seemed to universally agree upon that particular fact - a revenant did not simply give up and go away. Like, ever. It got what it wanted, which usually involved someone very specific dying a horrific and gruesome death, at which point they simply lay down no more than a few feet away and stopped moving. That, or they were forcibly prevented from doing so through some means or another, and were rather violently convinced to leave the world of the living the hard way.

And, of course, none of these accounts seemed to agree on exactly what violent means were necessary to bring about the second outcome. Some of the stories flat-out contradicted each other, in fact.