Whispers in the Pockets

Every youngster at TCOSA is familiar with the rhyme. When the lights go out too low, it is sung in creaky farmhouses, dorm rooms, and alleys:

"Look in both of your pockets.

Pocketses appear during the night

They will either take your hands instead

of your money or bread."

During the day, no one talks about the Pocketses. They are not recorded in scrolls or taught in temples. They are whispering creatures who are rumored to enter homes silently and rummage through clothing while their victims are asleep.

The same thing is reported by others who wake up too early: a rustling at the bed's edge, grazing their sides, reaching into their pockets, and looking. Not violent, nor rough--just looking.

The hands pull away if they discover an offering, be it currency, a token, or even a piece of bread. Only the slightest hint of mildew remains in the air when the sleeper awakens. Children are taught by their parents to always carry something, no matter how small, in their pockets at night.

According to the accounts, they keep looking even if they don't find anything. Instead, the hands move beneath the skin, creating pockets where none should be by pulling and straining. In the morning, victims are found with stitched seams across their thighs, hollowed-out hips, and folds sliced into their tummies. They occasionally find bread, cash, or trinkets hidden inside.

The Calyra reject these tales are "peasant superstition," a method of instilling discipline and modest living in kids. However, they fail to provide an explanation for why even the wealthiest aristocrats persist on keeping cash in their bed linens before sleeping. Nor why troops assigned to the outlying marches may awaken in a panic, gripping at new wounds that resemble tiny slits, as if someone had made fresh incisions in their skin.

There has never been a pocketses body discovered. There has never been a face. Just the hollow morning after, the brushing touch, the rustle.

And the rhyme, of course.

"Look in both of your pockets.

Pocketses appear during the night

They will either take your hands instead

of your money or bread."

According to some, the Pocketses are unbreakable. A harsher story is told by others, that one child figured out how to break them.

Although her exact name is unknown, she was known as "Little Rynn." No matter how much her mother pleaded, the pale, slender child from the outlying marches slept with her pockets empty. Rather than making offerings, she spoke to the rustling hands that slithered across her bed in a whisper to the darkness.

As with any youngster, the Pocketses initially tore through her clothing. She soon started laughing at night, though, as if the invisible entity was revealing secrets to her. Her mother insisted that she spotted tiny, shallow slits on her daughter's arms, legs, and belly where scratches were starting to emerge. The girl never cried. All she could do was smile as she stuffed ribbons and coins into the tiny little folds like toys.

The child's body was more skin than flesh by the third month. Her nightwear hung loose where she had been hollowed out, and she shuffled along. She had a songbird's feather tucked under her ribs, candy in her hip, and chalk in her thigh. She said that her "pocket-friend" had given them to her when questioned.

Her mom was afraid. No temple scribe would document the situation, despite her pleas for priests to step in. They referred to it as superstition. "Children want to be noticed." The girl's voice blended with a whisper too low for words, and the neighbors claimed to have heard her laughing at night with something invisible.

Then she vanished one morning. She had a clean bed. She had folded her garments. All that was left of her clothing were the pockets, which had been ripped free, sewn together, and placed like a nest on the table.

This story is deemed baseless by the Calyra. Nevertheless, parents continue to caution their kids not to talk to the Pocketses. Keep your pockets full at all times.

Because they don't always just search.

Occasionally, they remain.

"Pocket buddy, pocketses pal,

Make me straight and cut me open.

Leave my mother far behind and fill me

up with whatever you discover."