Tales from the Universe
Moral Dilemma: When something dangerous is happening and you cannot afford to wait for certainty, how much evidence is enough to justify acting against someone who may be innocent?
The first sheep was found beside the eastern fence.
Its throat had been torn open.
Nothing had eaten it.
That bothered Edrin more than if something had.
Wolves killed to eat.
Dogs sometimes killed because killing excited them, but there were only six dogs in Rook’s Hollow and Edrin knew every one.
He crouched beside the carcass.
His daughter Sera stood several paces away.
“Wolf?”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
Edrin touched the mud.
There were tracks.
Large.
Four-toed.
Canine.
“Wolf,” Sera said.
Edrin looked toward the forest.
“Maybe.”
The second sheep belonged to the miller.
The third belonged to the widow Pell.
By the fourth night, nobody in Rook’s Hollow was sleeping properly.
Animals were brought indoors.
Children were forbidden from walking alone.
Lanterns burned beside every barn.
Then someone mentioned the stranger.
His name was Cal.
He had arrived two weeks before the first killing.
He lived in an abandoned charcoal hut near the forest.
He bought food with old silver coins.
He spoke very little.
And he owned no shoes.
“Who walks barefoot in winter?” the miller asked.
Edrin looked down at his own boots.
“Someone with cold feet.”
Nobody laughed.
The village met in the alehouse.
Everyone had evidence.
Toma had seen Cal walking near the eastern fields.
Widow Pell said her dog growled whenever Cal passed.
The butcher had noticed scars across Cal’s back.
A child claimed Cal’s eyes looked yellow at night.
Someone else had heard howling from the forest on the same evening Cal bought raw meat.
“What kind of meat?” Edrin asked.
The butcher frowned.
“Goat.”
“How much?”
“Two pounds.”
“Was it unusual for someone to buy meat?”
“Raw meat.”
“Most meat is raw when you buy it.”
The butcher glared at him.
“You defending him?”
“No.”
It was the wrong answer.
The room changed.
Edrin felt it.
There were now two suspicious people.
They sent three men to speak with Cal.
Edrin went because he had asked the annoying questions.
The miller went because two of the dead sheep had been his.
Toma went because Toma owned the largest axe.
They found Cal splitting wood.
Barefoot.
The miller noticed immediately.
“Where were you last night?”
Cal stopped swinging.
“Here.”
“Anyone with you?”
“No.”
“Convenient.”
Cal looked at Edrin.
“What happened?”
“Another sheep.”
Cal’s expression changed.
Not surprise.
Concern.
The miller saw something else.
“You knew.”
“No.”
“You didn’t look surprised.”
“I heard people talking in town.”
“About last night’s sheep?”
Cal hesitated.
The miller stepped closer.
“How did you know there was another one?”
Cal looked toward the forest.
Toma adjusted his grip on the axe.
Edrin noticed.
“Cal.”
The stranger looked at him.
“Tell us.”
Cal sighed.
“I heard it.”
“Heard what?”
“The sheep.”
“When?”
“After midnight.”
“And you didn’t go help?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Cal looked toward the trees again.
“Because I know what killed it.”
They brought him back to the alehouse.
That was when the story became worse.
Cal claimed something lived in the forest.
Not a wolf.
Not a dog.
Something that hunted like both.
He had followed it for almost a year.
“From where?” Edrin asked.
“North.”
“Why?”
“It killed my brother.”
The miller laughed.
It wasn’t amusement.
“So a monster followed you here?”
“Yes.”
“And the killings started after you arrived?”
“Yes.”
“And we’re supposed to believe you aren’t the monster?”
Cal looked at him.
“I didn’t say that.”
Silence.
Even Edrin felt his stomach tighten.
“What does that mean?” Toma asked.
Cal rubbed his face.
“It follows me.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
The miller stood.
“Get a rope.”
Edrin blocked the door.
“No.”
“You heard him.”
“I heard him say something follows him.”
“He brought it here.”
“Maybe.”
“Your daughter walks these roads.”
That struck exactly where the miller intended.
Edrin pictured Sera carrying firewood.
The eastern fence.
The sheep’s throat.
“Move.”
Edrin didn’t.
“What do you want to do?”
“Hold him until morning.”
“And then?”
The miller said nothing.
Everyone knew what came after and then.
They compromised.
Cal would spend the night locked in the grain cellar.
Six armed villagers would guard the building.
If another animal died while Cal was locked inside, he was innocent.
It sounded reasonable.
Cal agreed.
That bothered everyone too.
At midnight, something screamed near the western pasture.
Every guard heard it.
The miller went pale.
They ran.
Edrin reached the pasture first.
A goat was dead.
Same wounds.
Same tracks.
Toma laughed from sheer relief.
“Not him.”
Edrin felt relief too.
Then the miller pointed at the ground.
The tracks led toward the grain cellar.
The cellar door was open.
The lock had been broken from the inside.
Cal was gone.
Relief disappeared.
“Get the rope,” the miller said.
This time Edrin didn’t stop him.
They hunted until dawn.
At sunrise they found Cal beside the river.
He was covered in blood.
Toma raised his axe.
Cal shouted:
“Wait!”
Nobody waited.
Edrin tackled Toma.
The axe struck mud.
The miller drew a knife.
Cal backed toward the river.
“Look at the blood!”
“I see it!”
“Look at it!”
Edrin did.
There was blood everywhere.
Cal’s shirt.
His arms.
His face.
But beneath the blood were wounds.
Deep ones.
Across his chest.
Across his shoulder.
Bite marks.
Cal wasn’t covered in something else’s blood.
Mostly, he was covered in his own.
“What happened?” Edrin asked.
Cal pointed downstream.
They found the creature fifty yards away.
Dead.
It was roughly the size of a wolf.
That was where the resemblance ended.
Toma vomited.
Nobody blamed him.
They carried Cal home.
The village healer stitched him.
People apologized.
Some sincerely.
Some because everyone else was apologizing.
The miller stood beside Cal’s bed.
“I nearly killed you.”
“Yes.”
“I was wrong.”
Cal looked at him.
“Yes.”
The miller seemed to expect something else.
Perhaps forgiveness.
Cal closed his eyes.
The miller left.
For three weeks, no animals died.
Rook’s Hollow relaxed.
Children returned to the roads.
Sheep returned to the fields.
Cal recovered.
Then the fifth sheep died.
Edrin found it before sunrise.
He stared at the torn throat.
Sera arrived behind him.
“No.”
Edrin said nothing.
Tracks led from the carcass.
Large.
Four-toed.
Canine.
They led toward Cal’s hut.
Sera whispered:
“There were two.”
“Maybe.”
She looked at her father.
“You still say maybe?”
Edrin stood.
“Yes.”
By noon, the village was gathered again.
The same room.
The same people.
The same fear.
Only now everyone was embarrassed by the last time.
That made things strangely worse.
Nobody wanted to accuse Cal.
Nobody wanted to be the fool who almost murdered an innocent man twice.
So they began inventing other explanations.
“Could be wolves.”
“Those aren’t wolf tracks.”
“Large dog.”
“Whose?”
“Could’ve come from another village.”
Edrin listened.
Three weeks earlier they had transformed weak evidence into certainty.
Now they were transforming strong evidence into doubt.
Same fear.
Different direction.
Sera leaned toward him.
“What do we do?”
Edrin looked around the room.
“I don’t know.”
That evening, he visited Cal alone.
Cal opened the door.
Edrin did not enter.
“Another sheep died.”
Cal closed his eyes.
“You found tracks.”
“Yes.”
“Coming here.”
“Yes.”
Cal nodded.
Edrin waited.
Finally Cal said:
“I don’t remember last night.”
The forest seemed suddenly louder.
Edrin’s hand moved toward his knife.
Cal noticed.
Neither man pretended otherwise.
“Did you kill the first creature?” Edrin asked.
“Yes.”
“Was it following you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Cal looked down at his bare feet.
“I told you I didn’t know.”
“And now?”
Cal was silent.
That was an answer.
Edrin could have called the village.
Twenty armed people would have arrived.
Cal might have died before anyone learned anything else.
Or Edrin could leave.
Wait.
Gather evidence.
Perhaps another sheep would die.
Perhaps a person.
Perhaps Sera.
There was no clean choice.
Only different risks assigned to different people.
“Come with me,” Edrin said.
“Where?”
“The old stone storehouse.”
Cal laughed bitterly.
“A cell.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Until we know.”
“And if we never know?”
Edrin had no answer.
Cal stared at him.
“You’re afraid of me.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think I killed the sheep?”
“I think you might have.”
“That’s enough?”
Edrin looked toward the village.
“No.”
Then toward the forest.
“But it may have to be enough to do something.”
Cal’s jaw tightened.
For a moment Edrin thought he would run.
Instead Cal held out his hands.
“Don’t tie them.”
Edrin considered it.
“All right.”
They spent the night in the storehouse together.
Edrin locked the door from the inside.
Cal sat against one wall.
Edrin sat against the other.
Between them lay Edrin’s drawn sword.
“Terrible prison,” Cal said.
“I’m new at this.”
Near midnight, Cal began sweating.
An hour later, shaking.
Then screaming.
His body changed.
Not completely.
Enough.
Edrin understood why Cal had never worn shoes.
He also understood why the creature had followed him.
By sunrise, the storehouse door was covered in claw marks.
From the inside.
Cal lay unconscious on the floor.
Edrin’s sword remained unused.
The village built a stronger room.
Cal designed the lock.
On certain nights he slept there voluntarily.
Usually nothing happened.
Sometimes something did.
No more sheep died.
Years later, people still argued about what almost happened in Rook’s Hollow.
Some said the village had behaved shamefully when it suspected Cal.
Others said suspicion had saved them.
Both were true enough to be uncomfortable.
Edrin never found a rule that solved the problem.
He found something less satisfying.
Evidence mattered.
Uncertainty mattered.
Danger mattered.
So did the person standing beneath suspicion.
None canceled the others.
Whenever someone later asked him how he had known what to do, Edrin corrected them.
“I didn’t.”
“But you made the right choice.”
“I made a choice that left enough room to discover whether it was right.”
For Edrin, that became the difference.
Not certainty.
Room.
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