Warden by Kevin Hardman

furrowed, and its jaw worked in silence, as if mining for words that would not come out.
    “Who do you seek revenge on?”
    “Ma-ma-magician!” the revenant finally blurted out.  “Eeeeee-vil magician!”
    “Well, there’s no magician here,” Errol stated, sweeping his arm to take in the entire farm. “Your vengeance lies elsewhere. You need to leave this region.”
    “You-you would hinder?” the thing said with a snarl.
    “No,” Errol quickly interjected.  Revenants often arose with weird powers, and the last thing he wanted was to get on this one’s bad side.  “But your presence here is a disturbance.  You need to move on.”
    “Yes,” Gale spoke up, “so if there’s anything we can do…”
    “You will help?” it asked, almost in surprise.
    “Of course!  We both will,” Gale answered before Errol could stop her. However, she immediately realized she had done something wrong when her response was met with a sharp intake of breath by Errol, who turned to her with a look that managed to convey a plethora of emotions, including shock, fright, amazement, and - most of all - fury.
    “So be it,” the revenant said.  It closed its eyes, and the eldritch light covering it began to fade.  At the same time, its body turned pale, ashen.  Then it began to crumble as the clothes it wore, in similar manner, began to wither away.  Within a few moments, nothing was left but a mound of dust.
    Errol was about to speak when the revenant’s remains began to move. The dust twitched, then crumbled as something rose up from beneath it. It was the creature’s silver bracelet. It floated towards them and then came to a halt right in front of Errol, who took it reluctantly. He looked at the gemstone, which glistened brightly in the lamplight, then shoved it into his pocket.  Then he turned on Gale.
    “You stupid, stupid idiot!” he screamed. “What did you do that for?!”
    Gale, getting a taste of her own medicine for once, was taken aback.  “What do you mean?”
    “You never make a deal with a spirit - especially one like a revenant, which you obviously know nothing about!”
    “What deal? I just told it that we’d help it if we could.”
    “No, you actually agreed to help it, with no conditions.”
    “So, what does that mean?”
    “It means that we have to help it get its revenge.”
    “What happens if we don’t or can’t?”
    “I’m guessing the revenant would consider that a kind of betrayal.  It’ll kill us.”

 
    Chapter 10
     
    Errol spent the night with the Beverlys, sleeping out in their barn. He slept fitfully, his dreams preoccupied with visions of Tom dead, and himself killed by a revenant. Even worse, Gale somehow managed to escape death in his dreams - something that would have been a just reward for her idiotic behavior in the real world - which made the nightmare all the worse.
    He was packed and ready to go early. In his opinion, the problem in their fields was resolved, and he had informed Dennis Beverly of this the previous night when he and Gale had returned from their excursion.  Although he had mentioned the revenant and its disappearance, he had left out the part about Gale’s promise of help (for which she silently mouthed “Thank you” as Errol told his tale).
    The family had seemed impressed with the job he’d done. Even Dennis’ wife had, for the first time Errol could recall, gone an entire quarter-hour the night before without saying anything negative after he finished telling what had happened. She had even politely asked to see the revenant’s bracelet. Errol didn’t know how he would deal with the revenant itself, but the important thing now was to get back out into the Badlands and find Tom.
    Unfortunately, the Beverlys would not let him leave without having breakfast. It was a delicious meal of bacon and eggs, which he washed down with water.  Most of the family ate with him, but he couldn’t help but notice that Gale was not among them. It