Dominion

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They ate the dead that first winter on the land, such was their possession by vile hunger, mean desperation, and who can say what else, other than it was unnatural. Any decent history will vouch for the truth of that. And, according to lore, the majority of the graveless sacrificed were uneasy souls, who walked certain nights on top of the earth — haunting not just the ground of their defilement but all the contiguous lands — until they possessed the entire continent as surely as if they had been more fortunate in life.

Ould Lowe, one from that legion of unblessed, had prowled the wilderness since anyone could remember. Each Sunday he could be seen standing atop the hill on the southern side of the lake, ululating as any wild beast, or grief-stricken man, from the first moments of creation.

It was why the land was sold to him at all, because to put up a proper house there he would have to begin construction on the very spot of the ghost’s weekly sojourn. Surveying east and west; north and south — to the edges of the horizon in each earthly direction — Jasper Merian sought a better place, or some compromise that would give him access to his lands without disturbing the unburied. He could see no other way, though, so started digging where he was forced, out there on the very boundary of civilization and silent oblivion. He was not generally a man to go against common sense or community, but this was all any would give him to purchase or settle when he finished his term of servitude.

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