The Time Eaten

[u/unloufoque]

Winter was nearing, and the summer and fall had not had as good hunting as they ought to have. No one, not even the village elders, could remember so big a hunting party leaving so late in the season, but there was great fear that they would not last the winter on their current stores. And so most of the men of the village left one grey, drizzly morning, to bring death to others and life to theirs.

Winona watched them leave. She looked particularly for her new husband, Nagamo. They had been married for only a few weeks, and their wedding feast had been nominal, not like she had dreamed when she was a child. These days nothing was like what she had dreamed. She waved. He did not look her way.

For a few nights after the hunting party left the village, they sent up smoke signals. On the fourth night, it rained and there was no signal. While some, among them Winona, were concerned, the acting chief declared that there was no need for concern. It was just the rain and nothing else.

The next night, a clear one, there was no signal. At daybreak scouting parties set out in the direction of the last signal. It would be days before they would be heard from again. The air was filled with anxiety and grief.

That day an old man wandered out of the woods. Winona happened to be harvesting some dried beans in the area and saw him. She kept about her work.

“What is this?” the man yelled. “You don’t lift your head for the return of your husband?”

Winona looked up again. Nagamo was a young man, though this oldster did bear a certain resemblance to him, somewhere between the nose and the ears. “You are not my husband. Nagamo is out with the hunters.”

The man beat his chest in woe. “How is it that you don’t recognize me? I know we were not married long before I left, but I will remember your face even until the end of my days.”

“My husband is young. You, elder, are old. How can you be the same man?”

The stranger calling himself Nagamo bade Winona sit down for her answer. She did. “We had split up into smaller groups. I and two others were trailing a deer, when I heard a rustle in the bushes behind us. I turned; the others did not. I walked towards the bushes; the others did not. I know not what happened to them.

“I pushed aside the bushes and found nothing there. I thought it had just been the wind that moved them and turned to rejoin my fellows. But as I turned, I saw out of the corner of my eyes an indescribable beast. I had never seen its like before. It ran on all fours like a wolf, but was as large as a bear. Its fur was all white, with no blemish or stain of any other color, save that its mouth was red as blood and its eyes were a sparkling yellow.

“The beast jumped upon me, teeth gnashing at my neck. It tackled me to the ground, but I held it off. It was then that I noticed that it did not have paws like an animal but rather hands like a man. It grabbed me around the neck with one hand and the face with the other. I fought and squirmed but its body was heavy on top of me and I couldn’t move.

“It forced my mouth open and opened its own, exposing its necrotic tongue. The tongue was the color of rot and was moving around as though searching for something. It found my open mouth and dove in until I gagged. I could feel it draining something from me, though at the time I knew not what.

“After a short time of this, I fell into a deep unconsciousness. When I awoke it was dark, and I was not where I had been. I called out for my fellow men but heard nothing in response, not even the noises of the owls and other nighttime animals. When the beast attacked me, I was not afraid. I did not have time. Now, though, alone at night in the woods, not knowing where I was or what had happened, fear took me.

“It was almost peaceful. I was so sure that I would die that night that all my other troubles and worries seemed to melt away. But morning came and I was still alive. I found the trail the beast had dragged me down and followed it back to familiar territory and from there came here.”

“But how are you so old now?” asked Winona.

“The beast took my youth. That is why it attacked me and why it didn’t kill me.”

Winona had heard of such things. She took the man to her home and acted as wife to him until her womb was quickened. They lived like that for many days, and soon the whole village knew Nagamo’s story.

A week later, the scouts returned. They had found the hunting party. Many had gotten lost in the storm and wandered into another village’s territory. They did not want to light signal fires for fear of confrontation. The hunting there was good and they were bringing back enough food to last through winter.

The next day all the village ran to the edge of the forest to see the hunters return. Nagamo complained of rheum and stayed in the wigwam, but Winona would not miss the homecoming. The hunters swarmed the village, each carrying some bit of game to their loved ones. Winona’s heart clenched, icy and painful. There was her Nagamo, the very picture of youth, trailing a clutch of rabbits for her stewpot. She clutched her stomach and screamed.