The Fire Path

The earth felt wrong beneath his feet.

Not soft, not solid—something in-between, as if the soil remembered too many burials. As Kliwon stepped outside the guest house, the air greeted him with the thick scent of iron and sap, of feathers soaked in blood. The villagers, still silent, parted to allow him passage. Their faces remained blank, but their eyes shimmered—glassy, distant, like mirrors pointed toward some other world.

He did not speak.

Something told him words would mean nothing now.

The Watcher stood beneath the Offering Tree, taller than he remembered, though he could not recall ever standing close to it before. Its wings hung at its sides, unmoving. The crow-bone mask remained unchanged, but the space behind it seemed deeper now—darker, as though it didn't hide a face, but absence itself.

And yet—**it watched**.

Not with malice.

Not with affection.

With expectation.

As if it had waited lifetimes for this single night.

Kliwon stepped onto the path lined with bowls of fire.

Each flame whispered. He could not hear them with his ears, but his bones resonated with the sound—low voices speaking names, fragments of forgotten tongues. One flame whispered the lullaby his mother used to hum when she thought he was asleep. Another whispered the final breath of the elder whose eye had turned white before the Watcher claimed his tongue.

He kept walking.

The villagers followed behind him, but made no sound. Their torches flickered, but no heat reached his skin. Only the cold did. It licked at his ankles like the tide of some unseen sea.

At the foot of the Offering Tree, the altar had changed again.

It was taller.

Wider.

And something now lay atop it.

A shape, covered in white cloth.

A human shape.

Kliwon's feet froze.

The Watcher gestured with one finger.

Come closer.

He did.

The villagers circled the altar, forming a ring. Some began to hum—not a melody, but a tone. One note. Deep, layered. Men and women, children and elders, all joined. The sound grew, but never changed pitch. It vibrated inside his skull.

Then the Watcher reached out, and pulled the cloth back.

It was **him**.

Or rather, **a version** of him.

Unmoving. Pale. Eyes closed. A crow carved into the center of its chest, black feathers pressed into the wound. It looked asleep. Or recently dead. But it looked **exactly** like him.

His legs gave out.

He dropped to his knees, staring at his own face.

"What is this?" he rasped.

The Watcher tilted its head, then slowly raised a hand—and touched his forehead.

---

Vision flooded him again.

Not in pieces, not fragmented.

This time, it came whole.

He saw himself as a child, not in his mother's arms, but standing in the center of this very circle—alone. The tree was younger. The altar newer. Villagers wept. One by one, they approached and pressed feathers into his small hands. He had not cried.

Because he had already done this.

Not once.

**Three times.**

In three lives, Kliwon had been offered and had refused.

The first time, his mother took him away.

The second, he had run into the fields and disappeared, swallowed by the scarecrow.

The third, he had eaten the feather by mistake—and awoke years later with no memory of it.

He had been reborn into the village, over and over, because the ritual **required completion.**

But none had succeeded in finishing it.

Until now.

Because this time, the Watcher had remembered.

And this time, **he** had remembered.

The vision snapped back.

He stared at the copy of himself.

The villagers began to chant words now—slow and ancient:

> *"One for the crow,

> One for the gate,

> One for the feast

> Before it's too late."*

The Watcher extended its arm.

A blade formed in its hand.

Not metal. Not wood.

Bone.

Kliwon's hands moved before his mind caught up. He took the blade. It was light. Cold.

"You want me to kill him," he whispered.

No voice answered. But the altar seemed to breathe.

The other Kliwon still did not move.

But now—his eyes opened.

Dark.

Empty.

Then the other Kliwon smiled.

It was not his smile.

It was **hers.**

The same smile his mother gave the night before she disappeared. The smile of someone who had seen death and made peace with it. The smile of someone who no longer feared the fire.

"You're not me," Kliwon said.

The other spoke, with a voice made of rust and wind:

> "No.

> I'm what's left of the first child."

The first child.

The one that was supposed to be given.

The one his mother had saved.

Him.

But not him.

The residue. The spirit that remained when she refused the ritual. A soul severed from body but never freed.

And now—**he had returned.**

"I don't want this," Kliwon said, backing away.

The Watcher did not move.

"You can't make me."

The villagers did not move.

But the altar pulsed again.

And Kliwon heard the fields speak.

Not with words—but with memory.

They showed him all the things that would come if the ritual remained incomplete:

* The village swallowed by mist, forgotten by time.

* The souls of the unborn cursed to wander.

* The earth refusing harvest.

* The crows turning on man.

* The Watcher no longer bound.

They did not threaten him.

They simply showed him the cost of refusal.

"I don't want to kill anyone," he said again.

The other Kliwon sat up, slowly.

And whispered: "Then set me free."

He placed the tip of the blade against his own chest.

"I've been waiting inside you for three lives. Let me go."

Kliwon's hand shook.

The villagers chanted louder.

> *"One for the crow,

> One for the gate…"*

Tears ran down his face.

The Watcher stepped back, wings folding.

Kliwon closed his eyes.

And drove the bone knife downward.

There was no scream.

Only silence.

And then—

**Fire.**

The altar blazed without fuel.

The Offering Tree lit from root to crown, its branches screaming as if they had lungs.

Crows flew upward—not away, but *into* the flames, their feathers turning to smoke.

The villagers collapsed one by one, not dead, but empty—like husks shedding masks.

And the Watcher?

The Watcher bowed.

Then dissolved into a hundred black feathers.

---

Kliwon awoke in the ashes of the altar.

The tree was gone.

The villagers were gone.

The field was quiet.

And for the first time since arriving, he felt **alone.**

Truly alone.

He looked at his hands.

The blade was gone.

But the mark remained.

A crow burned into his palm.

He rose, unsteady, and walked toward the rice fields.

They had begun to grow again—green, fresh, alive.

And on the edge, a scarecrow stood.

But this time, it did not move.

It watched nothing.

It was just straw.

And above, a single crow circled once—

—then vanished.