Chapter 2

When Mannog Abernathy was young, he was the most promising hunter in all of the Valdwood. He was always taller and stronger than other children who were purported to be his age. By the time he was an adult, he towered over other men. His stern, square jaw communicated a sense of honesty and dependability, and it was easy for him to gain the approval of others. The wild creatures of the forest rarely challenged him, nor could they outrun him, and he was so skilled at hitting game with his sling that he never needed to learn how to shoot a bow.

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In fact, Mannog did not learn all sorts of useful things, because he was very resourceful and could usually solve his problems by himself. At some point, Mannog had decided that listening to others was not really worth his time. The only person he did listen to was an old hermit who lived by herself in a cabin deep in the forest.

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Mannog would sit in the wicker chair on her front porch and she would talk all day long about strange plants and ferocious beasts and about heroes from far off lands. He would drink her teas and imagine himself as a Flaming Monk or a Knight of the Seven Hills and ended up missing most of her practical advice.

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The time came when an especially dry winter and very stormy spring caused the forest to change unexpectedly. The elder trappers called it a ‘False Gnome Spring’, fidgeting with their pendants and charms nervously. Most of them traveled away from the Valdwood in search of more promising hunting grounds. 

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Mannog lived alone in a shelter in the forest. He did not see the trappers leave, and he prepared his summer hunt as he usually did, as he had taught himself to do. But this year, all of his lures were uneaten and his snares undisturbed. Time and time again, Mannog set his trickiest traps. He would wait unmoving in the brush all day and through the night, but he could not catch a thing. Mannog was very proud of being such a fine hunter and was reluctant to reveal his failure to anyone, lest their impression of him fade. Eventually, he began to starve.

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In Mannog Abernathy’s time, the lands abutting the Valdwood were not as wartorn as they had been or would soon be again, and farmers and trappers rarely locked their barns and workhouses, or even their homes. It was all too easy for Mannog to begin stealing food. The harvest pies and flaxapple roasts were far too delicious to resist.

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A plowhand eventually spied Mannog fleeing with a sack of bread loaves. Soon, a cohort of digruntled farmers arrived at Mannog’s forest shelter and accused him of thivery. Looking down the sharp end of a turnip rake, Mannog claimed that he had seen the loaves, had seen them being stolen by a pack of feral skunkbeetles. He offered to eliminate the guilty creatures, and the farmers were so grateful that they left Mannog with additional food in recognition of his efforts.

In the coming weeks, this series of events occurred several times, with different groups of farmers. Each false story Mannog told was increasingly outlandish, and each new culpable creature was more ferocious than the last. Mannog concocted tales of flying worms with poison suckers and of lumbering beasts with massive fangs and tiny eyes that killed without needing to touch their prey. He spun tales of fish with legs and birds with hands.

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At summer’s end, farmers convened for the Fruit Day harvest festival, and swapped their stories about Mannog. That night, an angry mob arrived at his forest shelter. With a torch held in his face and his hands pinned behind his back, Mannog lied again. This time, he said that the old hermit had forced him to tell those tales, had threatened him with witchcraft. She was the one who had stolen food from the farmers, Mannog claimed, for she was siring a brood of evil beasts. The mob left Mannog and rushed to the hermit’s house, but when they arrived, they found nothing but shrubs and roots and an especially territorial woodpecker.

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Finally, Mannog thought his plight was over. He vowed to himself to steal no longer, and began preparations for Fall and the return of the good hunting. Mannog set his traps in the brush and waited. 

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This time his trap was sprung, but it was not a fawk or sneagle that was found in his snare. Instead, it was a flying worm with poison suckers. He ran to the nearest farm to show them the creature, to warn them and prove his honesty. By this time, the farmers’ patience for Mannog had grown thin, and they turned him away without a second glance.

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Mannog hurried desperately from farm to farm. As each one refused to give him fair audience, his claims about the flying worm became increasingly dramatic and incendiary. He said that it could grow in size and turn invisible, and that it spat lightning. He said that the worm came back to life each night. He even claimed that the worm had broken his leg. He was desperate to peak the attention of the countryfolk, but it was no use, and that evening he returned to his shelter with his dead worm and his head hung low.

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The next morning, Mannog awoke to find that the worm was gone. He also found that he could not walk. It was then that Young Mannog Abernathy began to realize the severity of his acquired curse.