Psychopomp Magazine, September, 2025 Issue 14
In a war-torn kingdom ruled by a relentless king, War Sorcerers known as Bloodpotters resurrect elite fighters called HighSoldiers by creating magical gardens from human remains. This dark novelette follows Hen, a seven-year-old beggar child outside the village of Fauen, whose life transforms when a mysterious traveler arrives with a red cart and glowing red eyes.
The stranger, a Bloodpotter fleeing the war, initially intends to use Hen as fertilizer for his resurrection garden. Instead, he settles in Fauen’s abandoned burnt house, takes Hen as his apprentice, and renames her Omen. He teaches her medicine, magic, and the art of reading while secretly collecting bits of villagers’ bodies—blood, bone, teeth—to enrich the dark soil in his back room.
The Bloodpotter transforms Fauen from a struggling village into a thriving community. He purifies the poisoned stream, ensures bountiful harvests, provides medical care, and shields them from taxation through clever illusions. The beggar children, including General who becomes Omen’s closest friend, find new purpose. Omen becomes the Bloodpotter’s devoted student and assistant, falling deeply in love with him as she grows from child to young woman.
The central tragedy unfolds through the Bloodpotter’s relationship with his HighSoldier lover. Their bond was forged in training as children, but each resurrection through the garden diminishes the HighSoldier’s humanity, replacing love with bloodlust. The Bloodpotter has fled the war repeatedly, trying to find places interesting enough to keep his lover from returning to battle. He confesses to Omen that he’s made gardens from captives in each location, choosing obedient souls to influence the HighSoldier’s resurrected personality.
When the HighSoldier finally rises from Fauen’s garden—built from the essence of the entire village rather than Omen alone—he initially seems content. But the mixture of so many willful villagers makes him uncontrollable. He enchants the people with battle magic, preparing to lead them to war. The Bloodpotter attacks to break the spell, injuring both the HighSoldier and those bonded to him, including Omen.
The HighSoldier departs for battle, taking General and other entranced villagers with him to certain death. The Bloodpotter, devastated and defeated, packs his belongings and leaves Omen with a final request: “Redeem me.” The surviving villagers, realizing the destruction the Bloodpotter brought, lock Omen outside their walls and burn everything. An accidental explosion destroys the entire village.
The story concludes with Omen alone on the road, having lost everything—her home, her friends, her purpose. Yet she sets off in the direction the Bloodpotter traveled, ready to learn his darkest magic. The beggar child once destined to be consumed by a garden now vows to create one herself, willing to sacrifice anything to reunite with the only person who ever loved her, regardless of the cost to others or herself.
Erin Brown is a black, neurodivergent poet and author of horror, fabulist, and fantasy short fiction. She has been published in FIYAH Magazine, The Deadlands, Fabulist Magazine, the Los Suelos CA Interactive Anthology, and Translunar Travelers Lounge, the anthology It Was All a Dream: an Anthology of Bad Horror Tropes Done Right, and Fantasy Magazine, with upcoming work in other publications and anthologies in 2024. Erin received Truman Capote Literary Trust Scholarship in Creative Writing for Spring 2022 and was shortlisted for Brave New Weird 2022. Her poetry featured in the Our California poetry project created by the California Arts Council.