Title: Mumuyo and the Bairn
Email: kieskita@gmail.com
Website: http://kwieskita.deviantart.com/

Story:
Kelin, just a bairn* when it happened, lost his dearest friend, Muirreal. She had been all he had had to begin with, and while he did not understand death entirely, he knew it meant that she was gone and unlikely to come back. He was a sweet little child, but he was more uninformed that a child should be, as most assumed that he wouldn't understand anyway. It was his dreamy carelessness, said his mother, but to his father it was his quietness, his gentleness. Kelin was probably more of the latter, but he was still a quiet bairn, and an even quieter youth... but this is a story of when he was but a bairn. What was most important was that he always paid attention. He was careful and cautious, and he observed. He knew how to tell lies best, and how to learn if someone was telling the truth or not. By the delicate age of seven, he had bisected an old grandfather clock and put it back together (albeit somewhat more rumpled and less well-fitting than before) without his parents noticing.

Regardless, when Muirreal died, he wanted to bring her back. He didn't know how she had died, or even where she was buried (he had not been allowed to even attend the funeral) but he knew that the best place to start was where he knew he could get answers. And where better to get answers about death than from the dead themselves? Kelin slipped quietly out of the house that night (he did not come from a poor family, but he preferred to dress inconspicuously) and into the street. The old house was silent as ever, almost seeming to move in the rush of wind that made Kelin cover his ears with his scarf. The scarf was tugged seemingly from his fingers by the wind. The boy gasped, but moved on.

He knocked soundly on the door, glancing back once, trembling once, before the door swung open with such a force (his little hand still holding the knocker) and he was swept in. He let go of the knocker hastily, and the door creaked, almost shutting. The sliver of moonlight that eased through made him shiver. He turned, following the light of a high window, and wished for his scarf.

Gradually, he made progress movign slowly and as quietly as he could along the creaking wooden floor. He stopped at every threshold, until he came to a room where the moonlight was filtered by cobwebs and a thin crack in the floor was illuminated dimly. The boy stepped in.

"A bairn," cried a voice softly in, from the shadows.

Kelin frowned. He looked into pale blue eyes surrounded by dank curls, which had probably once been glorious. Cobwebs clung to the woman's figure as she made a stately, square-shouldered path towards him. She reached out, and Kelin frowned at the gleam of white crusted with old blood.

"Can you help me?" the boy asked, without waiting for the ghost to observe further.

The ghost stared at him for a long time, touching him with her one skin-clad hand on his cheek. "How warm you are," she said in an absent manner, as if she didn't care anyway. She blinked, and Kelin perceived a glittering tear.

"Help me take someone back. Please," the boy cried suddenly, startliing the ghost.

"Oh, child, bairn of the living," she admonished softly, "The only way to take her back... would you have her dwell here like I do? In this old, worn house? Would you let her be eternal while you were to die?"

The bairn pondered this for a long time. "Why are you here? Did someone want you back?"

"I didn't want to die."

finis

*Older word referring to a child

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