Bookworld Online: Marsh Man

The Hag had a blank expression on her face. I was both scared and pleased, which was a really odd feeling. I had tapped the front door of the hut with the hilt of my trusty knife and when she opened it, she saw what I had strapped to my back. I knelt and took my arms out of the loops I had over my shoulders and stepped aside so that she could see everything.

While she stared at the gutted near-deer and tree combination, I took the bundled tree coins from around my neck and held them out for inspection. She turned her head to look at me and she had that odd look again. I wasn't stupid enough to ask what it was, since I had decided that I was going to live and I wasn't going to run from my fear and terror anymore.

She took the bundle of twenty tree coins and looked at them, then huffed at the rope marks in the bark. She untied the rope holding them and then used her own knife to slice off the bark. The wood underneath was perfect and unmarked. She nodded very slightly and put them in the hut beside the work bench, then she came out and looked at the rope I had tied around the creature.

“Undo that.” The Hag said and pointed.

I knew how I had knotted it to stay in place, so I reversed it and after a couple of minutes, the near-deer easily slid off of the trunk. Because I had left the bark on the tree, the blood hadn't soaked into the wood underneath. I almost saw the hint of a smile on her face and I quickly looked away. I knew that when she was happy, she was also easier to anger, so I stood there and waited for her instructions.

“Keep cutting the coins from the tree until you get to here.” The Hag pointed to a spot just over ten feet away from the cut end, then she easily picked up the near-deer. “Don't use the end for firewood. I have other plans for it.”

I went to the tree and started cutting. I did ten, then ten more, then ten and ten again. I reached the place where she pointed and stopped cutting. I looked at the piles of them and was glad that I hadn't tried cutting more of them where I found it. There was no way I could carry them if I had and I didn't have enough rope to bundle them up to carry properly. Even being temporarily strong didn't make me able to lift odd shaped or awkward things.

When I was done, I made sure to tie up the tree to the side of the hut to keep it off the ground. I brought in the cut off coin sections and stacked them beside the ones she had peeled. Without being asked, I used my own knife and peeled the others while the Hag butchered the near-deer. She wasn't neat or clean with her cuts and she mangled some of it, which meant she didn't have a lot of experience with the skill.

It didn't matter, though. She cut it all up into much smaller chunks anyway and we would use it for stew for the rest of the month. The Hag looked over at me and observed my meticulous work and she didn't swat at me or tell me that I was doing it wrong. I hid my satisfaction at that, because I didn't want her to think I was doing it for her. Oh, no. I was doing it for myself. I wanted to protect myself and being the best helper she ever had was all I could do to achieve that.

To my surprise, it worked.

The anger, the occasional swats for doing things wrong, and the hollering for wasting her time became less and less prevalent over the summer. Things passed before my eyes as I gathered ingredients and helped prepare potions, skinned and butchered things we caught in the traps, and then we made another trip to the village.

By this time, my dirty blonde hair was completely black. Funnily enough, no one mentioned the change. Of course, we were dealing with Mack at the general store again and Diane wasn't around, so she didn't see my slightly changed appearance. Mack gave us the extra barrel of spirits, just as Diane had promised, and he didn't complain when the Hag informed him that her prices had gone up.

The man had only smiled and haggled with the Hag for several odd items that he had just brought in. I wasn't sure what 'spices' were; but, the Hag was very happy to get a large bundle of them for nearly half of our potion delivery. I wouldn't understand for another year why the spices were so important to her.

It let us keep meat and water fowl for a lot longer!

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Summary Mode engaged. Events too generic to play through visually.

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Preserving meat made me desire more of the spices and I worked extra hard during both the winter and summer months over the next couple of years to make as many potions as I could to buy more preservation spices. The Hag didn't comment at my enthusiasm, except to warn me that if I farmed too much out of an area, I would have to go farther out to get the same common ingredients, which increased the danger.

I nodded solemnly and had to agree that I had to go farther and farther out to get more ingredients and that was not a good thing, no matter what time of year it was. I did my best to rein in my enthusiasm and would occasionally see a nod or an appraising look from the Hag. I wasn't sure why I was enjoying the sense of satisfaction that gave me.

It was odd, since I was not anywhere near the point where looking for her approval was a part of what I wanted in life. Or... at least... I didn't think it was. I had always tried to distance myself from her and her proclivities, especially the drinking binges and her weird behavior when she was too drunk to remember what she did.

During one particular episode when I was fourteen, she asked for me specifically to gather only the magic frogs that made you taste colors and to ignore the oil and acid ones. It actually made me reconsider staying in the hut with her. That was something, because sleeping outside meant visits from all sorts of creepy crawlies and they got everywhere. I wised up and only 'found' several of the illicit frogs, nowhere near my normal amount, and brought home an abundance of oil frogs instead.

She was angry and slapped me around a bit, then she licked one of the frogs and her eyes glazed over. She pulled me into bed with her soon after, the both of us fully clothed, and she cuddled and cooed at me. It was scary as hell. I shivered in her arms and she kissed my forehead, then my cheek, then she buried her face into my neck and bit me. I shuddered as she sucked on my blood that flowed freely from her bite.

The Hag let out a low moan at the scared feelings I was giving her with my blood and then she promptly fell asleep. I promised myself that I would stay well away from her when I delivered the frogs the next time. I didn't even consider not delivering them, which would have saved me a lot of hassle in the long run. I didn't know any better at the time, though. I just drank a number four potion and moved on.

Over the next few years, as she taught me everything she knew, the Hag passed me certain potions discretely and ordered me to drink them. I did so without question, because if there was one thing the Hag disliked, it was someone telling her no. Especially me. I hadn't told her no since she had taken my fingers and toes years ago, so she was pretty used to me doing everything that she told me to do.

The people in the nearby village became used to seeing me around with her as well. We looked alike, with our mangled appearances and wild hair. Hers was a disguise of course, since no one knew that she was a terrifying beauty underneath her illusion disguise. I looked like a younger version of her old hag disguise and that was perfect for her purposes. No disguise was needed for me.

Everyone felt pity for the both of us and gave us a lot of space when we appeared in the town. It was only twice a year when we were both there, making potion deliveries. She would go on her own occasionally to get more to drink or to do 'errands'. She never told me what those errands were and I never asked.

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Summary mode disengaged. Normal play resumed.

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I woke up one spring morning and I was in the Hag's bed. I didn't remember anything at all of the night before. Or the day before. Or the week before. I groaned as I sat up and I rubbed my head. I had a splitting headache and it took my eyes several minutes to adjust to being opened. When I finally could see without pain, I saw several things that surprised me.

The hut was a complete mess. Everything was strewn everywhere. The potion ingredients I had gathered were spread all over the floor, the bench was on its side, and the equipment was scattered haphazardly. The cooking pot was tipped over and the last of the stew was congealed on the side of it. The potion rack for our personal use was also empty, even though I distinctly remember painstakingly refilling it, and there were frog carcasses everywhere. They weren't normal frogs either. They were magic licking frogs.

“Oh, no.” I whispered as I looked at the mess.

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You have a choice to make. Will you make the right one?

A) Go back to sleep. B) Look around. C) Try to remember. D) Forget it all. E) Run.

Dammit, how are any of them a good choice with a headache? I asked myself and sighed. Okay, there's not really much I can do without knowing what happened, so I'll chose C, despite how much this is going to hurt.

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I looked at the devastation of the hut and wracked my brain to try and come up with a reason. My head throbbed and pounded as I did my best to recall something of what happened. I knew it was almost a fruitless gesture, since licking the magic frogs excessively almost always erased everything you did from your memory. It took me nearly ten minutes before I remembered one key moment from over a week ago.

It was the day that the Hag said was my birthday and I was now an adult.

I had never heard of such a thing before and she explained what it meant. She told me that it was the day she had rescued me from my horrible parents and had claimed me as her own. She was drunk, of course, so I didn't understand a lot of what she said as she babbled about not knowing when I was actually born and just adopted that day as my birthday, since that was the day that mattered to her.

I didn't understand what she meant, until she handed me a mug of something. She ordered me to drink it and I did. In one gulp. She stared at me for a second and she laughed. Actually laughed. That scared me and she took my hand and told me to not worry, which scared me more, and she laughed harder.

“Lick this.” The Hag said and handed me a frog.

After that, everything she said made perfect sense. I understood it all. Or so my alcohol and frog addled brain convinced itself. How she wanted me tough to survive whatever life threw at me, just like she did. How she never thought of me as a burden. How she liked that I had grown both strong and valuable to her, for both my terror and my willingness to feed her. How she loved me more than she thought she could ever love anyone, even herself.

Then she kissed me.

After that, was the best and weirdest time of my life, and I had had some very weird times. Almost dying being several of them. That was nothing to what we did to each other that night, though. And the next day. And the day after that. Oh, the day after that was...

My head gave a particularly hard throb of pain and cut off my thoughts. I looked down at myself and saw that I was completely naked. She had done some things to me that I hadn't understood at the time and felt absolutely wonderful and terrifying at the same time. She loved that she got that reaction from me and it only fueled her own need to keep that feeling going. Of course, we both went out hunting frogs at one point and then I lost track of both time and what we did after that.

I tried to get out of bed and felt dizzy, so I laid back and closed my eyes. I wasn't tired, despite feeling exhausted, and I just laid there and listened to everything around me. I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, until I realized something.

For the very first time in a very long time, I could not hear the telltale sounds of the Hag nearby.