The Barghest

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Death happens to everyone, the only question being whether everyone knows it has happened to them or not. The God of Death did not like Myndil, because Myndil had discovered a way of reaching
the otherworld without expiring, and this annoyed him. Rules were made only to be broken consciously, and Myndil had tripped over the line of regulations and hopped back over without paying the toll. What Myndil did was not wrong, but it was obvious that he had received help from someone other than himself, and Death wanted to know from whom. Myndil was entirely unsuspicious of being watched, as was the barghest of being the one watching him: Myndil was whipping Ozzy’s arm across the garden, the barghest was leaping into the air to catch it, and their game of fetch was all either cared for until Sister Iarlaith came out from the kitchen to call Myndil in.

“’Mon in, Myndil-son! That’s the dae gone and the warmth gone wi’ yit! Yer milk’s oan. Ah did it wi’ honae an’ o’.”

Myndil gasped. “Oh, boy! Warm milk!” He moved to go when he realized he was still holding Ozzy’s arm. “Oh.” He tossed the arm back to its owner, who popped it into socket and twisted it into joint without looking. He pet the dark wafture billowing along the barghest’s head. “I have to go in now, barghest,” said Myndil, with a plaintive air. “It’s almost time for me to go to sleep. I would have you come in too, so you could sleep in my bed with me and snuggle up to Thingunderthebed, or make a little wolf pile with Aodhgan, but you’ll have to stay here and cuddle with Ozzy instead.”

“I don’t cuddle,” Ozzy’s teeth rattled. “I nestle with my spade, lean against my monument, and let my eyes dim.”

The barghest tilted its head. “Is this what all wights do?”

Ozzy’s shoulders clacked. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never met another. But the dullahan and I share a similar fate, and he seems to enjoy kicking his own head around the gate rather than settling down at night.”

They heard a faint spectral neigh echo nearby. The dullahan came titupping toward the gate on his not-horse. He was jerking his steed’s mane one way, trying to get it to stop kicking his glowing head across the tidal path.

“We play dice and knucklebones of an evening,” Ozzy explained, “whenever he can get his head to stay on for five minutes at a time. He also revels in a good bout of moaning.”

“Nuuuuuuurrrrr…” the dullahan’s voice caromed as he trotted away after his head.

Myndil watched him go. “Goodnight, Mr Dullahan!”

“Nuuurrrrr!”

“Goodnight, Ozzy. Goodnight, barghest!”

Myndil kissed the barghest on the head. There was nothing solid to kiss, the whorling shadows flicking against his lips in a frigid mist. “Sleep tight, if you do sleep. If you don’t sleep, have a very pleasant night chasing the wisps and fireflies. I love you!”

He frolicked into the abbey, and the barghest watched him go, with head canted, ears bent, eyes aglow. I love you… The barghest had no idea what this meant, but it knew how it felt: a warm sensation furoled within, the spark lighting the kindling of connexion rolling through the barghest in a cerulescent waves. It wanted to follow Myndil into the abbey, the sudden desideration pulling it toward a master, making it aware of the thread bound around its heart. Its ears flicked. “Love…?” the barghest wondered.       

“Yes,” said Ozzy, with a hollow sigh, “he’s a rather special lad and likes to openly profess his love anything that gives him attention.”

“Is this something humans normally do?”

“To one another, with tolerable regularity, but hardly ever to beings like us. There is the odd ghost-fancier, but we undead creatures are exempt from much of the human experience.”

The barghest seemed not to understand this. Unlike Ozzy, the barghest never suffered being human and being alive at the same time; it simply was, apparating to do a job without anything like emotion expected to enter into it. It had no idea how to be alive because it had not yet lived: being conscious for a few hours and yet having no concept of growth or maturity gave it a unique perspective; everything was being tried and learned for the first time, and the barghest decided that though it did not know what love was, it liked it and was eager for more.

Fortunately, Myndil was the island’s affection dispenser. He had one tap that was always on, and it was set to either GOD or LOVE. The middle bit between the faucet was marked HUGS.

Myndil had no idea of romance. All his affection was platonic and disinterested, much in the way that friends love and mind one another. He kissed only those who would not bite him, much in the same way children use kissing as currency for favour with grandparents, only Myndil was not interested in charming money from passulated hands. Being the king of companionable affection, Myndil readily gave hugs and kisses away for free. Should he have had grandparents, he would have been the richest grandchild in the world.

There was a tranquillity Myndil’s brand of affection, the same succour gleaned from Sister Iarlaith’s crushing embraces and Brother Crannach’s stout pats on the back, an unconditional love, one that made the barghest exceptionally peaceful. It felt as though it could stay in the abbey graveyard forever, felt as though it might not need to do its job, that ushering souls anywhere was no longer important, and it sat watching the wisps bobbling about the blackthorn, and discovered what panting was.

“Good boy—er, it—er, barghest,” said Ozzy. “Stay there and make sure my ghost doesn’t come back, and there will be a nice bone in it for you come morning. I’ll let you chew on my shin.”

He went to put the barrow away, leaving the barghest lying in the graveyard. A light suddenly appeared behind one of the headstones. It wavered and tried to take shape, but it remained a semi-amorphous blob as it hovered near. The barghest turned to look at it and tried to make out an outline. It took some minutes, but eventually the glowing entity blurred and sharpened and formed a recognizable shape. It looked down at the headstone and wheezed a laugh.

“Verrie good, verrie good,” the glowing shape chuckled, its voice muffled by interplanar transition. “Ho, ho! ‘Here lies Bouler: beloaved brotheh, foundeh of the orphanage, who celebrated is one hundredth birthday by goin’ to God’. That’s all they could think of, is it? Whell.” The shape looked down at the barghest. “Are yoo here for me, b’y? Here to take me to where I’ve been alreadee?”

The barghest sniffed the spectral hand being offered it and shook its head.

“Ah, whell,” the shape exclaimed. “Neveh one for travellin’, Ay wasn’t.” The glowing shape reached down and patted the barghest between the ears. “What a nice hound yoo are. Perhaps yoo’d doo for the Cwn Annwn, eh? Are yoo a ci then?”

The barghest had little idea what the shape meant; it only gazed up at it with love in its eyes.