Swamp Water Stew

Gork Yellowbelly stirred the last bony human hand into the cauldron. The kettle was too big for his kitchen, but the others had somehow squeezed it in. He sniffed the broth, raised the spoon and tasted it.

“Not ‘nuff devilwort,” he said, scowling. Their spices had run low, which meant that Washee would paddle to the Blackfens – again! – and borrow more from her friends and relatives. They all hated him there.

“What you say?” asked Nob. The younger bog goblin ambled up, briskly rubbing his palms. “Smell good, good, good Gork. When we eat? Me so hungry!”

Gork was ravenous too. “We eat when it ready, dumdum,” he said without malice. “Not much here anyways.”

Nob shrugged. “Fine. You need more sluggy slug?” Nob raised the large slug he’d found, squirming wetly as if knowing its fate. Gork sighed.

“Go ‘head,” he muttered. Nob chucked the writhing creature into the water, bending over to watch it boil in the thin broth. Gork disliked slug stew, but Nob and Washee loved it. Most boglins did. Finfish tasted better, but greedy boglins had trawled Widowsnake Lake of everything worth eating.

But praise be to the Bog Mother! Nob and Gork had miraculously found two humans trapped in mulchmire a few days ago. He and Nob had thrown rocks at them until they quit struggling and then hauled the bodies out.

Gork hadn’t seen wicked humans in ages. Fortunately, humans lived far away in hilly, drier lands, but out of the mist these two had appeared: a muscular, bearded male clad in shaggy pelts, accompanied by a wrinkled female crone, a crooked nose jutting from under her hood, a leather thong of chipped teeth adorning her neck. She had viciously cursed them in their strange tongue until Gork took the fight out of her with a well-placed stone, followed by a well-earned glob of spit.

The woman’s haunting gaze had remained even after she died, two cataract-scarred eyes that followed Gork wherever he moved.

While he and Nob dragged the bounty to their raft, Gork had chanted a classic victory song from long ago:

Human stew for me and you.

Chunky chunky through and through.

Chew a heart, gnaw a liver,

but peel the skin while still they quiver!

Word spread fast (Nob really was a dumdum blabbermouth, Gork thought) and three separate boglin clans had converged on Gork’s island by the end of the day. Defeating two humans was quite a boast; Big Blark even poled across his massive feast pot, an iron monstrosity of blackened metal and warped handles. They boiled one human and roasted the other while celebrating the triumph, and only pretending, Gork knew, to care about his happyday. Despite Gork’s hunger, he hardly enjoyed a bite himself. It was his special day, just once a year, and now only gristly leftovers remained, not even enough to pickle, salt or dry. The thought depressed him.

Gork hung up the ladle and added more twigs to the fire. His kitchen contained the barest of essentials: a clay jar of mixed spices, some knives, a heavy skillet, a dull prong, the ladle, and several wooden cups and bowls. He swirled a mug of shroomshine – the best in the whole swamp – but even the still was broken now, thanks to Big Blark. His drunken boss had kicked it when tensions arose between Blark, Washee and himself. Furious at the time, now he couldn’t even remember what they had been arguing about. At least Blark had let him keep the feast cauldron.

Nob suddenly squealed and pinched a pimpled tongue between his fingers.

“You dumdum,” Gork said. “Steam mean hot. You not know dat yet?”

“Yop, me know,” he mumbled, looking sheepish. “Me fooget.”

Gork rolled his eyes. Nob would forget how to walk straight if his head didn’t point forward. But he was still a Yellowbelly and their nephew. When a huge crocagator named Razorraw ate Washee’s younger sister and her mudmate last year, Washee had begged Gork to adopt their only son, and when he had refused, she bullied him into agreeing.

Gork flopped into a chair, watching Nob wave steam with a broom. Even the smell of human scraps didn’t make him feel better. It painfully reminded him of just how little his happyday had actually made him happy. Even the Muckfest celebration didn’t help. Every other boglin in the swamp stewed their choicest slugs today, sang songs, and hugged their special ones.

Gork’s stomach grumbled and complained more than ever, and he wondered where his life had gone so, so wrong.

The door banged opened and Washee entered, chilly frostfell air gusting around her, two buckets sloshing from a crossbar straddling her shoulders, and Gork recalled exactly where his life had gone wrong. Washee fit the typical female boglin mould: greasy limp hair, wide nostrils and even wider birthing hips, although Gork found her bosom rounder than most. That was good. He had to like something about her.

She groaned and stiffly set the buckets down. “Ugh. How much more water you need, Gork? Me have more chores to do besides—What? You drinking already? It only mornin’!”

He lifted a pinky while he drained the cup of shroomshine, hoping that would suffice for an answer. Nob tittered nervously at their exchange.

“You lazy, no good boglin!” yelled Washee, pouring a bucket into the cauldron. “Here me do all da heavy work, while you sit on yer round bottom and drink juice! Lazy, fat old boglin. Momma Washee right about you.”

Here we go, he thought. “Momma don’t know fisheyes ‘bout me,” growled Gork. The shroomshine, as usual, had oiled his tongue. He hated to argue so early, but he equally despised when Washee mentioned her mother’s opinions about him.

“Oh?” said Washee. “Momma Washee understand you do bad work for Big Blark. Always late. Always sit around and yab, yab, yab.” She made talking motions with her hand. “She know you not give me babies yet. So she understands somethin’ not work so good! So, yah, Momma know plenty fisheyes ‘bout Gork Yellowbelly!”

Gork flushed. She was bringing up the babies again. That’s all she talked about nowadays, a big litter of greasy younglings, but Washee approached her fifteenth season and the chance of coldborns ever more likely. “Maybe it you!” he countered angrily. “Maybe Gork work fine, and Washee all messed up inside! Hmm? Did smart Momma ever talk ‘bout that?”

Washee stood taller than him, her ample bosom straining at the sackcloth shirt. Her skin darkened to the color of wet moss. Nob hunkered behind the cauldron, only his eyes visible over the rim.

“I see,” she said with quiet venom. “I see.” Yellow eyes narrowed, and she poked Gork in the chest. “I know what you do.” She poked him a second time. “You blame Gork’s problems on me, eh?” She leaned closer, her lips peeled back in a snaggletooth snarl.

Gork stepped away. She usually just yelled at him, which was bad enough. He didn’t like the poking. Or the snarl.

“I promise you dis, Gork Yellowbelly—I’m gonna find me a new mudmate one day, one who can give me babies. Maybe dat big, strong Blark Wartnose. Maybe someone whose worm can wiggle and someone Momma Washee respects. Not da short, clumsy boglin who drinks shroomshine all day and night!”

P-tew! She spat in his face. Liquid trickled down his forehead and into an eye. Nob squealed and hid while Gork quivered in shock. He couldn’t believe it. She had spit on him. Like one would spit on a fallen foe. Insult added to injury. A final disgrace. Washee looked him up and down, as if imprinting his uselessness in her mind, and retrieved the second bucket of swamp water with a disgusted huff.

Maybe it was the shroom juice in his veins, or maybe spite bottled up for far too long, but his hands savagely reacted on their own. Gork whipped the heavy iron skillet off the wall and pounded it atop Washee in one fluid motion. The impact jarred him all the way to his teeth.

“Oooooh!” she howled, hands pressed to her crown, her knees bending, her limp hair darkening, and she staggered to the edge of the cauldron.

“Agh!” screamed Nob. “Nah! Nah! Aagghh!”

“Miserable mean rattlemouth!” bellowed Gork. A fury he had never known possessed him, a red rage that clouded his vision. “I show you useless wiggling worm!” and before he knew it, Gork had planted himself under her wide buttocks, strained, lifted, and heaved her up and over the rim of the cauldron. Washee rolled into the boiling water with a shriek. Gork readied the pan, acting on pure irrational instinct. Washee’s fingers latched to the edge, but Gork hit her knuckles with a quick slap. She slid back in, bubbles roiling, her feet kicking the pot’s interior with a hectic, warbling ring, but after that brief resistance, Washee did not return.

Gork dropped the pan and staggered away, blood pounding between his ears like a kettledrum. What I do? Why? WHY? OH NO! His heart raced. He felt faint. He felt sick. He felt faint again. He collapsed in a chair, staring blearily at the cauldron while Nob whimpered behind the frayed broom. Nob sidestepped toward the door, the broom held in front of his face as if he could hide behind it.

“Where you goin’?” asked Gork dully.

Nob shrieked and bolted for the exit, but Gork caught him. Nob kicked and struggled but Gork wouldn’t let go, and Nob finally went limp, tears streaming from squinted eyes.

“Stay here,” said Gork, and he forced Nob into a chair. Nob shook but didn’t resist. “You...you...kill Washee,” he moaned. “Wh – why?”

Gork didn’t answer. He dropped a plank across the door, and then retrieved the ladle and poked inside the pot. A human hand and foot floated around Washee’s soft body.

“Didn’t mean to,” said Gork, more to himself than Nob. Gork didn’t understand either. He didn’t know why. It had just happened. He got angry. Crazy angry. Lashed out. He never would have acted on such an impulse, and now look at this mess. Oh, he knew there would be consequences for sure – the wet cage most likely. He glanced at Nob trembling in the chair, and that is when Gork decided they would have to eat her.

Somehow, that just made sense, and his belly agreed.

It would have been easier to dump her body in the swamp and let nature dispose of the evidence, but the neighbors might see, like that nosy Curly Yellowbelly, or worse, she would float to shore unscathed. Gork’s cabin rested on a lonely island of granite boulders, chicca trees and spruce pines, but other Yellowbellies of the lake community lived in shoreline huts. And, as much as he hated to admit it, Gork was really, really hungry.

“Sh-sh-she good auntie,” wailed Nob. “N-n-not good ta eat though! Gork, what wrong with you? Boglins not eat other boglins! Dat bad, bagooma luck! Oooh nooo...”

“Shut face, Nob.” Gork couldn’t do it if he worried too much, bad family-related bagooma luck or not. He didn’t believe that anyway. All boglins seemed unlucky regardless of what – or who – they ate. Besides, the smell from the pot strangely appealed to him. Although a sour crabapple in life, he thought, Washee might make a sweet porridge in death.

Gork stoked the flames until he and Nob sweltered. He added the last of the spices, his tummy grumbling, and hours later finally spooned lumpy Washee soup into two bowls. He handed one to Nob.

“You eat now,” Gork told him. “You eat it, you like it, and you tell no one. Understand? Dis our secret.” He watched Nob’s dismal expression. “Me...me sorry, Nob. Me know you like Washee, but dis how it gotta be.”

Nob nodded, vomiting some as the smell of his ex-aunt wafted under his nose.

Gork went first. Meat squished between his teeth, either human, slug or Washee he didn’t know. Whichever, it tasted wonderful. Gork chewed slowly, eyeing his companion. “Go ‘head. Soup good.”

Looking miserable and even greener, Nob tilted the bowl to his lips, slurping some, then slurped some more, tilted it higher, and to Gork’s satisfaction, Nob gulped it down and licked his lips. He looked like he was about to cry, but said, “Gork right... (whimper)...auntie Washee not taste too bad.” And then he did cry, but he also asked for seconds.

###

Amazingly, Gork’s happyday feast of human dumplings hadn’t been this good. Perhaps ridding himself of Washee had lifted an unknown burden. Or, maybe, boglin flesh always tasted good. He wondered if anyone else had tested that theory. Boglins could – and would – eat just about anything, especially during a lean frostfell. He and Nob sat in chairs by the blackened hearth, their tummy’s distended, broth smeared on their mouths. Nob had eaten more than Gork thought possible, and now stared at the brick fireplace with slit sleepy eyes.

Outside, the wind began to howl from a gathering storm.

“Gork,” said Nob quietly. “Did...did I do bad thing?”

A bad thing. The words echoed inside Gork with feverish guilt. “Hmm? Naw. Naw. You do what I tell you, dat all. If anyone, stupid Gork do bad. But it done and over. Me cook bones overnight, we have more in mornin’. Sound good?” Gork hoped to convince himself that it sounded good.

Nob burped and wiped a tear from his eye. Gork went to bed alone that night for the first time in many moons. The wind played catch with his cabin, buffeting it to and fro, screaming under the rafters and blowing icy wind off the water. The wind wailed so viciously sometimes that Gork almost thought that it flurried in the room with him, and he pulled the blankets up to his nose, peeking fearfully out.

###

Gork woke the next day, two thoughts blaring through his head: Washee! I’m sorry! And – By the Bog Mother, I’m so hungry!

He lay still for a long while, his emotions grappling. Regret filled him, but at the same time, he no longer feared Washee’s foul morning farts, her barbed accusations, her withering insults. However, a bad dream that night had left a mirage of fading despair.

He had seen the human crone again, gnarled like an old birch tree, her eyes twin orbs of chalky malice as she soared from a bank of clinging mist, claws outstretched to throttle him, chanting in her hideous tongue. Probably praise to whatever foul gods humans acknowledged in the kingdom of Gling. He shook the memory away, knuckle to his lips, and tried to enjoy being alone.

Except for Nob snoring in the next room. Gork sat up. He still had problems, Nob and his big dumb mouth the least of them. With most of the evidence devoured or still boiling in the cauldron, Gork didn’t worry about anyone finding his mudmate. But Momma Washee would come looking for her daughter. For all of Washee’s nastiness and complaining, she was delightful compared to her mother.

If Momma Washee suspected that Gork had done something underhanded, something naughty, awful and distasteful (he giggled at the irony) then she would hammer the fist of boglin justice down on his soft head and splatter him to the four corners of the swamp.

So Gork fantasized about removing Momma Washee too, and wondered again where his life had gone so, so wrong.

He woke Nob up with a few light kicks to the ribs. Nob groaned, stretched and told Gork about the most horrible dream he’d had, where Gork beat Washee with a skillet and then threw her in the cauldron, and he and Nob had eaten her for dinner. “Disgusty-gusting, yes?” Nob laughed, trying to draw a chuckle from Gork. Nob’s mirth soon vanished. His eyes widened. He burped and raised fingers to his mouth.

“Oh...oooh no...oh no...oh NO!”

Gork prodded him a few more times, and then they ate a huge breakfast of Washee stew (the bones soft and chewy now) and headed to work. Nob didn’t want to go, but Gork forced him, mainly to keep Nob on a short leash. He swore Nob to silence, and reminded him that he was a guilty participant, and continued to remind him while they paddled through a hazy sprinkle of frostfell rain.

Gork figured that sections of the dam project had probably collapsed in last night’s storm. That would mean hard work, and extra Big Blark bossiness. He wondered which boglins had put him in charge anyway.

Water dripped from thousands of writhing branches like the intertwined bodies of slick serpents. The sweet stench of rotting foliage filled their noses. Bright lavender flowers bloomed here and there, and the occasional glistening black widowsnake – with its distinct red hourglass pattern – slid by in the water, staring at them with glassy soulless eyes.

Gork shivered. It had been a bad year for widowsnakes, with nests springing up in unexpected places. Razz’s brother Chigwig had been bitten by three of them when he went to pluck stinkcabbage from his garden, and he had swelled to the size of Washee’s mother.

As suspected, the dam was in shambles. Water fountained from multiple breaches where sand bags and mud had shunted away. Workers scuttled over the top while a chain of boglins heaved buckets of sand and gravel, singing a hideously discordant chant that Razz Rag-ear had no doubt invented.

Gork and Nob had just grounded the raft when a hulking figure loomed out of the mist.

“GORK!” Big Blark waited for them, fifty stones of ugly Wartnose goblin. Red blisters capped his most impressive warts like angry mushroom tops. He stood with meaty hands jabbed to his sides, slathered in gray mud from the construction site.

“Ho there, Blark,” mumbled Gork.

“You is late again!” the hefty boglin said. “Don’t Gork know da rules? Repeat after me! ‘Here at dawn, you do no wrong. Show up later, you big traitor!’ Now, traitors, repeat!”

Gork and Nob recited the mantra. Anger coiled inside Gork, but Nob blushed to a dark olive green. As dumb as Nob was, Blark didn’t usually yell at him because he liked his auntie Washee. When Nob still had an auntie Washee.

“What you grinnin’ at, Gork? This big joke? This playtime? No! This serious! This –”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry, Blark. Me and Nob have...problem with widowsnake. Big mean one! Right, Nob?” Nob nodded, but wouldn’t raise his head to look at Blark. He stared at the ground. Blark bustled closer to him.

“What wrong with you?” he snarled.

“Oh...nuthin,” Nob answered. “Uh...big snake. Big. Big.” He shuffled his feet and looked around, avoiding Blark’s eyes.

Blark’s tone softened. “And how is Washee?” Something in the boglin’s eyes danced, and it bothered Gork. How well had Blark and Washee actually known each other? How many of Washee’s visits to the Blackfens had been just to collect spiderwick and devilwort? The more he thought about it, could they possibly have been –

“Washee good,” Gork answered with a straight face, but slyly added, “She been real busy… cookin’.

Nob made a choking sound. Gork squeezed his fists and silently cursed Nob. Blark frowned. Maybe he smelled a lie, or maybe he smelled his lover’s lingering aroma on their breath. Gork might have hated Washee, but he’d be damned to the Black Bog if he would let Blark have her! Gork estimated Blark’s size and weight. Would he fit in the cauldron? Not possible. Not all at once anyway...

“Bah! Enough chat. You two get ta work! Help Razz and Chigwig patch da north face. You both work on their crew today. And you stay late ta make up for time! Now go, lazy butts! Go!”

Blark shoved them. Gork scowled, but he also nurtured a plan that even Blark couldn’t ruin. For the rest of the day, while Gork carried mud bricks and pulled heavy sandbags, and he pounded wooden cogs with a stone mallet and listened to Razz tell dirty jokes and sing bawdy songs, Gork smiled and nodded and kept a tight rein on Nob who stumbled uselessly about, and he polished the plan to hopefully solve his life’s problems once and for all.

###

They labored until the sun squinted low between wiry chicca trees. Razz said that Gork seemed distracted, but Gork claimed to have a tummy ache. It was true. Both Gork and Nob had vomited several times already. They left the dam that evening extremely smelly, sweaty and muddy, and paddled home to their rocky isle. Gork was too exhausted to even think about his troubles (a soup dinner consumed his thoughts instead), until he saw a familiar raft tethered to his dock. His heart crawled into his throat and squeezed, and he opened the door to find Mamma Washee waiting for them.

“Where Washee?” she demanded, standing. Nob made that choking sound again, and Gork thought for sure that the idiot boglin would throw himself down and beg forgiveness. Gork stepped between them.

He blurted a predetermined lie— “Washee take trip to Blackfens. She be back in a few days.” Gork plastered a smile on his face. Not that it mattered. Mamma Washee could see through deception like seeing a stone through clear water.

“She not tell me dat,” Mamma Washee said. She trundled closer to Gork, and the floorboards creaked. Her huge bosom shifted up and down, left and right. The froglike face looked like a swollen replica of her daughter.

“Well, Washee not tell you all.” Gork busied himself at the cauldron. Inside, the moist goop had congealed to a thick layer of fat. He heard Mamma Washee make the same flutter in her throat as Washee did when preparing to yell at him.

“She tell me more than she tell her mudmate!” Gork didn’t doubt that. Mother and daughter probably laughed at his expense every day. By the Bog Mother, they probably invited Blark along too, mocking Gork and the non-wiggling worm between his legs. Mamma Washee glanced into the cauldron, grimacing, and turned to Nob. Nob had sat down, twiddling his fingers and pursing his lips in an irritatingly suspicious manner.

“Nob!” she barked. “Where Washee go?” She towered over her great-nephew. “Well? Horntoad got your tongue?”

“No, no, no,” said Nob. Gork curled his fists. Mamma Washee would wring the truth out of him, Gork knew it. “Washee...Washee take trip. Like – like Gorky Gork say.”

Mamma Washee made the fluttering finfish sound again, swallowed it, and leaned down to Nob. Outside in the last remnants of daylight, the wind began to whisper. “Nob, I not believe you.” Nob risked a glance at her and quickly looked away. His bottom lip trembled. “Nob...tell me where Washee go. Tell now, and Mamma give you nice treat. Nob understand?”

“Nob tell you tr—” Gork began, but she severed his words with a slash of her hand, fat rippling under her arm. Gork clenched his teeth, and moved toward the iron skillet on the wall.

Mamma Washee grabbed both of Nob’s shoulders and forced him to look at her. “Nob. Where – my – daughter?”

Nob’s eyes rolled up into his head. He started sobbing again. Her cleavage bounced close to his face, and Mamma Washee pulled her blubbering relative closer and stroked his head. “There, there, little one,” she said soothingly. “You can tell Mamma Washee da truth. Unlike some,” she added, looking to Gork. He shoved his hands behind his back.

“I tell da truth!” Gork said. “Why you not believe me?”

“Because you a lying, good for nothing bugalug!”

Nob started wailing. She cooed and kept stroking his head, and Gork knew that he’d run out of time. She would uncover the truth, and Gork suspected that in a fair fight, toe to toe, Mamma Washee would pound him into the dirt like a beetle. His hand shot out, snagged the frying pan, and hid it behind his back. He maneuvered behind her.

“Is Washee really at Blackfens, Nob?” Nob perhaps shook his head, although Gork couldn’t see him very well, with his head nestled within her cleavage. “So, where is she? You can tell me. It all right, Nob.” And to Gork’s horror, Nob slowly raised a lanky arm and pointed to the iron pot. Mamma Washee turned to follow his hand, her eyes falling on the cauldron, only a fraction before they widened in surprise from Gork and the frying pan soaring at her from the shadows.

“Yaaaaaah!” He hammered it down, but Mamma Washee raised a beefy arm and deflected the blow. The pan glanced off her wrist and forehead. She staggered, tripping over Nob who was screaming now, and flattened both Nob and the chair beneath him. Wood flew out like chopped kindling, but Gork didn’t know if that was the source of the cracking noise or Nob’s bones breaking. He raised the pan for another attack. Mamma Washee rolled on the floor, tree-trunk legs kicking as Nob made unhappy sounds beneath her.

“You right!” screamed Gork. “Unfaithful Washee not at Blackfens! Washee right here! Right in room! Right in dat pot!” Gork positioned himself close to her, a crimson rage once again clouding his judgment. He had to do this fast. If Mamma Washee rose to her feet...well, he knew the stories of how she had once wrestled a crocagator – and won. Even as Gork moved in for a swipe at her head, her foot smacked his kneecap, and he felt something bend the wrong way.

“Oh Good Bog Mother,” he gasped. Gork fell to one knee, his other leg collapsing beneath him, and he failed to dodge the chair leg whistling at his face. He felt the wet pop of dislodged teeth and tasted the salty wash of blood. He flew back, ripping down the beaded curtain to Nob’s room. Pain speared his head. He spat teeth to the floor, desperately fumbling for the skillet and trying to stand.

“The pot?” bellowed Mamma Washee. “You – you cooked my daughter? You monster!” She had struggled up, although Nob still lay prone behind her. Gork raised the pan, but his knee buckled and he fell again, grimacing in agony. Mamma Washee’s face contorted, rolls of fat somehow amplifying her ugliness, and Gork experienced the most intense fear he had ever known.

She charged him, hambone legs pounding the floor, flesh and fat cascading, and Gork heaved the pan at her. The angle was terrible, the force behind it less than ideal, but the pan flipped dish over handle and struck Mamma Washee clean between the eyes. She keeled backward several steps like a falling gelatinous tree, her head striking the windowsill with a sickly crunch, and she landed atop Nob yet again. His legs kicked up as the breath fled his lungs, and then both boglins lay still.

Gork dropped his head and let the blackness take him.

###

He woke to the caterwaul of windy branches raking his cabin. The house shook. Drafts rattled the support struts and swirled down the chimney, blowing forth soot and grit in small eddying circles. Gork lay in the cold and the dark, listening to the sounds around him, unsure of how much time had passed. He could see Mamma Washee and wondered if she was dead, or just unconscious.

He wondered if Nob was dead too, but feared that his nephew couldn’t possibly have survived beneath her bulk. Gork fought back tears. Nob was dumb, but Gork had liked him. And Gork began to question exactly what the human crone had said to them that not-so-happy day, spitting vile words while he and Nob dashed rocks upon her.

A dawning suspicion squirmed in his gut. A curse. A death curse. Death and hunger…

While thinking about the witch, and poking his tongue where teeth used to be, Gork heard the sound. Part of the wind at first, it soon detached itself as a separate cadence, a crooning female cry of pain, rising and falling octave after octave, shifting pitch and volume roughly parallel with the wind, as if trying to hide within it. Or escape.

Gork limped to the hearth and rekindled the flames and those under the pot. He wrapped a blanket around himself and checked Mamma Washee. She was, in fact, quite dead. He rolled her off Nob, his eyes saucer-wide with pain and shock.

“Me so sorry, Nob,” he said to the dead youngling. “It not meant to happen dis way.” Gork closed Nob’s eyes and plopped in the remaining chair, staring at the corpses, listening to wind that may or may not have been a voice.

Goooooooooork, it seemed to say. Goooooooooork...knooooooooows... Rising, falling, shifting, seeking. Something knew his name, and it reminded Gork of his dead devoured mudmate. He stayed awake the rest of the night, holding hands to a sour stomach gurgling with displeasure. And still he was hungry.

###

A leaden dawn arrived. It drizzled again. Whitecaps lapped the shoreline. He couldn’t bring himself to throw Mamma Washee or Nob in the pot, and the former wouldn’t fit anyway without taking a carving knife to her. Gork propped the bodies in Nob’s room under a blanket, and went outside to climb in the boat and row to work. He would tell anyone who asked that Nob was sick with bellysquirts, and then he would come home and take care of the—

Gork teetered, gawking. The canoe was destroyed.

The canoe had been sturdy too, hand carved from golden cypress, and pushed well onto shore. Someone – or something – had attacked it during the night, and only the peaking wind covered its destruction, maybe even the awful wail of that banshee screeching his name.

A bad, bad thing. A bad bad boglin.

Willow trees bent in the brisk morning breeze. Hazelmoss fluttered, crows cawed, but to Gork, the swamp seemed to know something. It knew what he had done, for no secrets could stay secret forever. It wasn’t a far swim to shore, although frightfully cold, but he didn’t want to bother. Someone would notice and ask questions. Even now, he could see Curly Yellowbelly chopping wood. Dragging his feet, Gork wandered back inside, closed the door and dropped the bar.

He pulled up a loose floor panel and removed a secret jug of shroomshine. It put a wan, sad smile on his face. He stoked the fires, chugging mouthfuls of liquid and considered his options. Three bodies in two days. You monster! Others respected and admired Mamma Washee, especially in the Blackfens.

Respect, he thought glumly. I deserve respect too. Angry now, he dragged Nob’s corpse to the cauldron, heaved him up by the armpits, dumped him inside and added water. He didn’t even question why.

Maybe, he thought, I should have let Blark just have Washee. And then he considered how long Blark could possibly stand her. Probably not long. Too late now. He drank more shroomshine, aware of how it burned a hole in his stomach. He stirred the soup, feeling absolutely sick. Gork didn’t even think he could eat him. Maybe later. For now, he would cook his mistakes into nothingness.

In the meantime, he drank. And when he’d surely consumed enough, and the morning had shifted to afternoon, and a new storm pattered his roof, he kept on drinking, until his footsteps crossed one over the other, and he sang a filthy song that Razz had taught him:

“Oh, what’s a gob get on his happyday?

He gets a special gift, I say, I say.

A package wrapped up real purty, real nice,

A hand down his pants crawlin’ with lice!”

Gork didn’t know when he passed out. One moment he stood with his hand groping down his pants, laughing in a weird way that felt more like crying, and the next we was looking at the wall from a tilted, horizontal angle. He wouldn’t have woken at all except for the pounding in his head. No, not his head. The door.

It shook again. “Gork! You in der? Washee? Anybody?” Big Blark. Gork scuttled to his feet and almost fainted. The room spun. Blark clomped from the door to the window but the shutters were closed and locked, thick curtains drawn across. Blark returned to the door and hammered again. “Washee! Gork! Nob! I smell cookin’. Who home?”

Gork knew he couldn’t hide forever. Maybe he should flee. He could salvage goods in the cabin, stuff them in a sack, and brave the wilds like adventurous boglins of old. Dangerous, yes, but no less dangerous than fighting Blark. Over the pounding, Gork heard the wind’s lonely serenade, and the temperature in the cabin dropped even more.

“I be back!” shouted Blark. “I be back soon!” Footsteps receded. The storm swelled, and Gork sat by himself, enveloped by the odor of cooking meat. Blark would return and knock that door down, and he would see a fat dead boglin and a cooked young boglin and one very, very guilty living boglin. And by boglin law, what little they respected, they would drown him in a wetcage for his crimes.

His foolish, foolish crimes, and still hunger gnawed at his innards with blunt yellow teeth. The wind called his name again but Gork stuffed his fingers in his ears.

“You not know me!” he yelled back. “You not know my name!” He gathered his walking cane and a canvas sack, shoved in bowls and cups and dull knives. He ripped jerky strips off nails and–

– stopped. He heard a sound. From inside the cabin. A quiet sound from Nob’s room where Momma Washee rotted under a ratty quilt. The house shook again, timbers rattling, and rain spattered within the open flume.

No. She dead. She dead and gone. She dead dead dead DEAD!

And then a very dead Momma Washee stepped around the corner. Her mouth hung slack. A purplish tongue lolled out. Her eyes did not stare quite at him, but rather up at the ceiling. Blood dripped from a gash in her head. Gork staggered away, reaching for the frying pan.

“You dead! You dead!” Momma Washee did not answer. She plodded closer, her massive bosom shifting up, down, left, right. Screaming, Gork lunged at her and swung the pan. It struck her face with a dull clang, and although her head twisted and vertebrae snapped, it did not halt her.

She clawed at him. Gork ducked and scrambled away, attempting to throw a chair and trip her, but Momma Washee clumsily avoided the chair and walked to the door, placed her hands on the bar and lifted. The door creaked open. Lightning flashed in Gork’s eyes. He raised a hand to shield them, but between splayed fingers he saw the most unwelcome guest enter;

a truly massive widowsnake, its hood flared.

Oh, what’s a gob get in on his happyday? He gets a special gift, I say, I say.

The widowsnake was as thick as his waist, easily the largest he’d ever seen. The thing slithered between Momma Washee’s legs and curled into striking pose, its forked tongue tasting the air. But Gork saw emotion in those cold reptilian eyes. Anger. Resentment. And he saw recognition. Underneath those slick scales lurked a face he knew–

His murdered mudmate Washee.

Gork started blabbering. This was no dream. The Washee-snake raised her head, the flesh molding into a closer resemblance of his mudmate. Wind blustered through the open door, driving needle-rain ahead of it. Momma Washee’s skirt billowed around her like an enormous skiff sail.

Nob – dead Nob – suddenly exploded from the cauldron with a gurgling hiss and wrapped Gork’s head in the crook of an elbow. The arm tightened, but a day’s worth of immersion in boiling water had cooked Nob to the consistency of a wet noodle. Skin sloughed away when Gork struggled, and Nob’s arm popped off at the shoulder, leaving knobby white gristle, while his hand still groped Gork’s face.

Gork had almost run out of screams. “I’m sorry!” he wailed. Dead Momma Washee shambled closer. “I not mean ta hurt you!” The Washee-snake revealed a mouthful of fangs, dripping venom to the floor. “It all awful mistake!” he screeched, watching poison fall that could stop his heart.

Overcooked Nob hooked a leg over the cauldron, but stringy muscles slid apart and he slopped to the floor, skin splitting to dump out hot entrails. Discolored white eyes gazed at him, not unlike those of the human witch, two soft-boiled snake eggs nestled in Nob’s skull.

“So…sorry...” Gork dropped to his knees. He remembered his past as a foolish youngling just like Nob; he remembered their bountiful boglin Muckfest feasts and endless days of fishing with his friends; of joking, laughter and pranking the other clans; of meeting his future mudmate for the first time and how her ample bosom had thrilled his wriggling worm, and how Washee’s once-shy smile made his small heart pitter-patter in a way he’d never thought possible. All so long, long ago.

Mamma Washee burbled in her throat and hocked a wet glob of spit at his chest. “So sorry...” he groaned again, and the pleasant memories vanished like mist.

A squishy hand grabbed his ankle. A finger probed his nostril.

“Forgive me,” he whispered, but Gork knew it was too late for forgiveness. The icy wind in his cabin knew as well, and it keened with the promise of vengeance. Somewhere beyond, he heard a dry, cackling laugh, and he regretted ever throwing that first stone.

The snake’s mouth opened wide – wide enough to swallow him, Gork realized – and he closed his eyes.

###

Early the next morning, Big Blark arrived with Razz, both carrying crude axes, but the door hung open. Cooling embers cast a rosy glow under his borrowed cauldron. Blood spattered the floor along with indefinable bits of flesh. A gunnysack of spilled goods lay at their feet. Muddy footprints filled the foyer, interspersed by an odd weaving pattern. Razz held a hand to his mouth. Of Washee, Gork, Nob or Momma Washee, there was no sign.

“What in frogballs happen here?” murmured Razz, his wide ochre eyes wide. He tugged a ragged ear as if to find comfort.

Blark searched the cabin but found nothing else. He returned to the steaming cauldron. “Stupid, stupid boglin,” he whispered to the empty room. “You done bad here, Gork. I knows it. Washee knows it. Da swamp know it. Da Bog Mother know it. And somethun’ bad done pay you back.”

“I’m scared,” whined Razz. “Let’s go, Blark. Bad somethun’ still here! C’mon!”

Blark nodded, and started out. But he stopped, looking down at the cauldron. His brow wrinkled. He sniffed the stew, dipped a finger in, and tasted it. “Not bad,” he said. “Could use more devilwort.”

And then they left, the door swinging behind them while a new breeze moaned and flitted throughout the house, as if hoarding secrets too horrible to speak aloud.

THE END

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