Ficorpio
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
My name is Miles Reed. I was born and raised in Green Reed Hollow.
Ever since I was little, the old folks in town had repeated the same warning: on Ghost Festival night, the gates of the dead stand open. Restless souls roam the roads wearing human faces, and one of the things they do most often is knock on a door and ask to borrow raw rice.
You must never give it to them.
That was the rule. If you lent out raw rice, you were inviting the dead across your threshold. If you were lucky, your home would know no peace afterward. If you weren’t, somebody in the house would die.
People in Green Reed Hollow treated that warning like scripture carved into bone. Every year when that night came around, doors were bolted before sundown, and nobody dared keep too many lights burning.
That evening, the western sky was smeared dark red, like blood washed across the clouds and slowly sinking behind the hills. I was crouched in the yard feeding the chickens when I heard a soft creak from the front gate, the sound of someone worrying at the wooden latch from outside.
“Who’s there?”
I set down the scoop in my hand and got to my feet. It was already getting dark. The roads through the village were full of ruts and holes, and almost nobody came visiting at an hour like that.
When I reached the gate and peered through the crack in the planks, I froze.
An old woman stood outside.
Her hair was completely white, her back bent with age. In her hands she held a chipped rough ceramic bowl with dried brown mud smeared along the rim. She wore a faded blue jacket, washed nearly colorless, with the cuffs frayed through so that her wrists showed—thin as sticks, skin stretched tight over bone. She looked miserable enough to break your heart.
And I had never seen her before.
Green Reed Hollow only had a few dozen households. Everybody knew everybody. Most folks could name not only their neighbors, but their neighbors’ parents and grandparents too.
“Ma’am,” I called through the door, trying to keep my voice steady, “who are you looking for?”
Even as I asked, unease stirred in my chest. All I could think about was the old warning about Ghost Festival night and the dead asking for rice.
The old woman heard me and slowly turned her head.
The movement was stiff, jerky, like rusted gears grinding into place. Her eyes were cloudy and dull, and they wandered over my face for a long moment before finally settling on me. It looked as if she was trying to smile, but the expression sat wrong on her face. The corners of her mouth twitched upward while the muscles in her cheeks stayed taut, as if someone had dragged the smile onto her by force.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
“Boy,” she said at last, her voice muffled, as though it were coming from deep inside a sealed jar. The sound of it carried a coldness I can’t properly describe. The hair on the back of my neck prickled at once. “Your granddaddy’s Walter Reed, ain’t he?”
I nodded before I could stop myself, and my unease deepened. “Yeah. You know my grandpa?”
She grinned wider, showing a mouthful of teeth so pale they almost gleamed. They were too sharp, too crowded, nothing like normal teeth.
“Then that’s right,” she said.
She paused, and her eyes suddenly sharpened. She fixed me with a stare so hard it felt like nails pressing into my skin.
“Your granddaddy felt sorry for me. Told me to come here and fetch half a bowl of raw rice. Mind this now—raw rice. Don’t you go bringing me the wrong kind.”
The instant she said raw rice, her eyes bulged round and wide. Her pupils shrank to tiny black points, and her voice turned cutting cold, like winter wind slicing across bare flesh.
I flinched back and gripped the wooden handle of the gate so tightly my knuckles hurt. “It’s Ghost Festival night,” I said. “We can’t lend out rice.”
Before she left that afternoon, Grandma had warned me in particular: it didn’t matter who came asking, and it didn’t matter how pitiful they sounded. I was not to open the door, and I was absolutely not to hand over any rice.
The moment the words left my mouth, the old woman’s smile froze.
All that strained, fake kindness vanished from her face. What replaced it was something cold and ugly and vicious. Her eyes looked poisoned. Every hair on my body stood on end. For one wild second I truly thought she was about to lunge through the gate and tear me apart.
“Why you such a disobedient child?” she said, and her voice dropped lower, heavy with something violent just beneath the surface. “Your granddaddy told me himself to come get it. Go on now. Bring me the raw rice.”
“No.” I swallowed hard and made myself stand there. “The elders all say the ones asking for rice on this night are ghosts in disguise. If you lend it out, people get hurt.”
She stared at me for what felt like half a minute, her gaze dark and sidelong, as if she were weighing something in her mind.
Just when I thought she was about to show her true face, she changed again.
Her eyes squeezed out a few cloudy tears. Her voice turned ragged and miserable.
Chapter 3
Chapter 3
“Boy, I ain’t eaten in three days. If I don’t get something soon, I’ll starve to death. Please. Have a little mercy and give me half a bowl of raw rice. That’s all I’ve got to keep myself alive.”
She cried as she spoke, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve.
But her face wasn’t sad.
Not even a little.
There was still that strange smile lingering at the corners of her mouth. Then I remembered something else the old villagers used to say: ghosts don’t truly grieve. No matter how loudly they wail, their faces stay blank—or else they smile.
A bolt of cold shot from the soles of my feet straight to the top of my head. Sweat broke across my back all at once. My scalp crawled like insects were moving through my hair.
It really was a ghost.
A ghost had come to our door asking for rice.
I forced down the terror clawing at my throat and used the line Grandma had taught me, doing my best to sound calm.
“Ma’am, don’t cry. I’ll go get the rice for you.”
The old woman stopped crying at once.
Her smile grew more genuine—or would have, if there had been anything human in it.
“Good boy,” she said. “Go on, then. And remember. Raw rice. Don’t get it wrong.”
I nodded, turned, and ran for the house.
I only had one thought in my head: Run. Find Grandpa. Find Grandma.
I barreled into the east room, slammed the door behind me, and threw the lock. Then I scrambled up to the back window, shoved it open, and jumped out.
Beyond the house was a narrow path choked with weeds that led toward the Mayor’s House. Mayor Carter Hale had been putting up a new house that day, and half the village had gone over to help. Grandpa and Grandma were both there too.
I ran as hard as I could.
The stones on the path bit into my feet. I stumbled and fell more than once. My pants tore open at the knees, and by the time I got up the last time, blood was seeping from both knees and one elbow. I barely felt it. All I could think was that the old woman was right behind me, that her cold breath was almost at my neck.
I don’t know how long I ran.
At some point I finally saw lamplight ahead, warm and yellow against the dark, and heard the murmur of voices from the yard at the Mayor’s House. I rushed through the gate in one desperate burst and caught myself on the doorframe, bent over and gasping so hard it felt like my chest might split open.
“Miles?” Grandpa spotted me first and hurried over, his face full of alarm. “What on earth are you doing here? What happened to you?”
I looked down at myself. My pants were streaked with mud and blood. My hair was a mess. I must have looked half-crazed.
“G-Grandpa…” I panted, barely able to get the words out. “A ghost… there’s a ghost asking for rice.”
The second the words left my mouth, the whole yard went dead silent.