“Gather around, my children, I have tales to tell, and you best listen, and ‘member.”

The withered old crone, her back bent from years of toil, looked out at those gathered around the campfire. Food had been eaten, and everyone was relaxing for a bit before heading off to bed or to the first watch.

“Things happen in cycles, great circles that spin and spin and spin. The cold winds of Winter give way to the roaring warm winds of Spring, and plants begin to grow, baby animals are born. Then Marath gets too close with his Forge, to see all the newborn pups, and the world gets warm. Then Summertime passes into Autumn, when things are ready to harvest, and when things start to die.”

The crone cleared her throat and spit something into the fire.

“Most things that die have the courtesy of staying dead. Skathos guides them to the After, or drags them along if they don’t want to go. But there’s always been stories of the Old Bones forgetting people, or those clever enough to hide from his eyeless gaze.”

She paused for a minute and began coughing, a wet, rumbling cough, as if something had seated itself deep in her lungs. She pulled out a piece of cloth and held it to her face, and when the coughing fit subsided, she withdrew the cloth, and a few spatters of blood marred its surface.

“The world changed. The Warlock King tried to stop the cycle of life and death, and failed. But cycles continue, and every year, sometime in Harvestide, when the plants begin to die, the cycle repeats. Sometimes the dead forget they are dead, and they come back, but they aren’t the same as they were; they are just a fading memory, or a dream you are trying to recall after you wake.”

She raised one bony old finger and pointed it upward, as a matter of punctuation.

“That’s what we call the Echo. Some of you may have seen it, but most have been hiding in the woods, running away from monsters for so long, you missed it. Be warned, because it’s coming again, and soon. You’ll know it when the world feels heavy, trees blow in the wrong direction, and you can hear conversations spoken by people who aren’t there…”

One of the onlookers, a young man in a patch-filled shirt, his face sprouting the first hints of a beard, speaks up.

“Is that why we leave gifts of seashells and rag dolls in front of our tents, and hang bags of incense in front of our wagon?”

The crone smiles and replies,
“Yes, the shades see these gifts and are reminded of a better time. They move along. If you happen to find someone who doesn’t belong to the caravan, offer them a trinket. Maybe they’ll move along… but don’t try and stop them otherwise.”