Stories by Kacy Hogg

Secrets. They spilled out of people faster than their guts when sliced down the middle. His ears hissed with their noise, a ceaseless buzzing as the Whisperer spoke in sour breaths. There were always Whisperers, those who came to tell him their secrets. In fact, the cobblestone path and the twisting wooden staircase they had to climb to come visit had been worn down so violently from repeated use that if one was not careful, they’d lose their head.

The Whisperers were foolish and hateful, gluttonous, eager. To have him bear their lead-weighted sins like the prisoner he was. As the people washed their hands clean of their secrets, he grew more wretched and more scarred. There wasn’t a spot on his body that wasn’t covered in swirling, glowing words, each letter throbbing like millions of tiny heartbeats as they curled along the curve of his ribs, down the length of his spine, beneath his jaw. But he was used to the pain, the ebb and the flow as a new phrase sewed itself into the fabric of his skin.

England, 1624. The witch hunts had been going on for a while, with women as the main targets. The list was long. Not many men were accused, but some were. He was.