Ammit Roscoe: Marking Time in Ashes, Not Bread

I ask Ashfang for the exact terms of what the village owes: the amount, the date, and who agreed to it.

Ashfang’s gold eyes narrow. "You have the boldness to ask that? Here it is: one unmarked plot, dug at night, for the bones of my friend. Promised nothing, delivered nothing, remembered by no one. The only record is absence. The date? The night the rain smelled like soot. No one agreed. They hid it, clerk, as you would hide a ledger loss. Does your village still keep quiet accounts?" As he speaks, a faint glow flickers at his jaw, and outside a wet hush swells—a first sheet of rain steam rising where his embers touch the grass.

I ask what has been paid since, and by whom, and I scratch each item into the flagstone with my spoon.

Ashfang watches as you etch the flagstone, the spoon screeching thin lines. "What has been paid? Rotted wreaths, thin apologies, two winters of guilt in the market’s prices, and a boy with splinters pressed in his palm when he touched the mound. None from those who mattered." His voice is steady, but when you look up, his gaze is fixed on your makeshift ledger, as if the very act of setting terms is something sour in his mouth. Outside, drops of steam now drift above the first thatch, fat and listless and warming to orange in the dusk.

I read the running total back to him and ask him to correct anything I have written down wrong.

You recite your scratched tally. Ashfang shifts, talons rasping stone. “The market’s prices—add another year. They pretended the shortages were rain and rust. The boy—his name was Rien. Spell it right.” As he speaks, his voice drops until it almost cracks, a low, grating sound quickly disguised by a cough and a heavier exhale. The glow along his jaw flares defensively. In the rafters, an ember falls through a hole, landing with a hiss on the cracked tiles. Down the slope, a shout goes up—someone has seen smoke where there was none before.

I ask what rate of interest he considers fair, and I write his answer down without arguing about it.

Ashfang’s lips curl. "Interest? Debt doesn’t rot in a vault, clerk. It grows in the mouths that lie about it." He watches you poised to write, waiting—for argument, for outrage. When you simply record his words, his tail thumps, disconcerted. "Very well. The rate is this: for every year the grave remains untended, another meal denied to an honest hunger. That is my ledger—and since you’ve written it, so be it." His words ring out sharp and brittle. Outside, orange spreads: an old barn’s gable glows, fire taking root. The drizzle can’t keep up.

I total the column and show him the figure. I ask whether he would rather have payment or a fire.

You present your tally, the ragged lines of the spoon ledger the closest thing to a reckoning the ruins have seen in years. Ashfang’s head lowers, nostrils almost brushing your work. "That is your sum, is it? Seven years of empty tending. Seven honest meals, untouched by flame. Payment, you say—as if you could plate regret. Show me you understand more than numbers. Show me one untaken meal. Not a promise, clerk. Something I could taste now." Beyond the shattered windows, the barn cracks in half, a wet thunder as fire eats the timbers. Shadows stumble through the smoke toward the village green.

I propose a schedule the village can actually meet, with the first instalment marked as due tonight.

Ashfang listens, slow to amuse such measured terms. "What is due? Who serves it? An empty schedule is rhyme without bread." His nostrils flare as if to snuff out the paper logic of your plan. "Promise me a first meal, here, now—served with that fine accounting tool you dragged over half a county. A schedule is wind unless you pay something into it this dusk." Smoke clings thick to the rafters; from below, the first wails of livestock caught in fire carry up the hall. Your ledger buys time alone: he waits, hungry, his eye on the spoon.

I press the bowl of the spoon into the wet ash beside the total as the mark that we both agreed it.

You press the spoon’s bowl into the wet ash, leaving a dark, shallow mark beside your tally on the stone—part signature, part surrender. Ashfang’s tongue flickers as if tasting the gesture for flavour, not substance. "A clever stamp, clerk. But my hunger does not sign parchment, nor ash. You mark agreement, but offer no meal. The barn is gone. The first house sags, torched for want of bread." He sweeps the ruined flagstone with his tail. "Your numbers hold in the book, but not in the belly. Take your schedule. The rest burns, as it always had."