“They’re far behind me now,” she told Midnight as she finished her meager meal, tossing the bird the last crumbs. “Upwood isn’t that far. Just over the hill. I’ll be there before nightfall.”
She’d bolted from her hut in the middle of the night, running for the shelter of the forest, thinking that anything was safer at that moment than the village. Her only thought had been to grab what food was at hand and get as far away from the coming torches as possible. Upwood had seemed the best choice.
Except… Her mind fully awake now, Einin realized the impossibility of the village as her safe haven. Upwood was on the traveling priest’s circuit. So were all the other villages she knew.
She swore between her teeth. “Dratted dragon droppings.”
“Caw.” The bird finished his share of the food and tilted its head at her.
Einin looked at the forest, as if somehow she could gain strength from the familiar rocks and trees. She’d been here before, with her father and their goats. She knew most of the forest. The woods were where she’d always felt the happiest, the freest—jumping around with the goats, chasing them, then letting them chase her.
Now and then, a goat would disappear, and the whole family would try to find the lost animal. Einin never looked too hard. She liked thinking about those goats out there, living free, running wild through the endless forest, visiting distant lakes and ruins, seeing the world as she would never see it.
Back in those days… Other than keeping the cottage in order, her job had been milking the nanny goats. Her brothers helped with other tasks like butchering and selling the meat. Sometimes they made kidskin gloves that a merchant carried to faraway castles. At other times, they made wineskins that never went farther than the nearest village markets. Hamm was a great maker of cheese. He said their mother used to make the fattest cheese rounds in the village, along with the best goat milk soap, but Einin couldn’t remember. She’d tried to make soap, but her mother hadn’t written down the recipe, and Einin’s soap never hardened, no matter what she did.
Her favorite part of being a goatherd’s daughter had been playing with the kids.
Her father used to laugh and say Einin was like a goat kid herself, and at times, she’d wished she were a runaway goat. Wild and free.
“Now I’ve done it,” she told the bird as they rested on the fallen log. Ran off into the woods. Yet, instead of excitement, fear filled her veins.
The creek sang behind her, the birds chirped in the trees, the forest full of life. She knew where she was, but she was more lost than she had ever been. With a painful certainty, she knew that she could never go back home again. “That was the last time I saw that hut.”
Downwood was out, and so was Upwood.
“Caw.”
“Can’t go to Morganton either.”
Aunt Rose did not, in truth, have a fever, nor would Einin know if her aunt did. It had been a year since she’d last received a message from her aunt, brought by a traveling tinker. While Einin didn’t doubt that a helping hand would be welcome in the modest house of her mother’s sister, another mouth to feed would be a burden.
“We shall survive in the woods.” She pushed to her feet, marshaling all her confidence.
Yet she couldn’t help but notice that in the deep shadows of the trees, here and there, snow still lingered. The nights were freezing. Few plants grew, the trees barely budding. She didn’t think the wild birds had laid eggs yet.
“I will start with building a lean-to.” She marched forward to gather sticks.
She worked herself breathless, but when she had her pile, she realized she had no strings to tie the sticks together. Here and there, she could see clumps of long grasses, but in the sunny spots, their leaves were too dry and brittle, while in the deep shade, wet and rotten.
“A fire, then.” She searched her bundle, but she couldn’t find her flint. Either she’d forgotten to pack it, or else she dropped it as she’d hurried through the night forest.
She had no knife to throw, no bit of wire to build a snare.
Einin blinked hard, her eyes burning as she stared reality in the face. This past winter, the whole village, everyone pulling together, barely survived the punishing cold and hunger. Attempting to eke out a living in the woods would mean nothing but slow starvation. If she didn’t freeze first.
She looked at the raven, who was hopping in a circle around her as if playing a child’s game.
“My only choices are,” she said, “either the agonizing death of being burned at the stake in the village, or the slow death of starvation in the woods, or…” She swallowed. “A swift death delivered by sharp dragon teeth.”
“Caw.”
“You’re right. A swift death would be best.”
She returned to the flat stone by the creek and slumped onto it. She needed just another moment to gather her courage. She gave a deep sigh, then lay back and stared at the sky. Midnight kicked off and rose to the air, flying circles above her.
The sun shone warmly on Einin’s face. She closed her eyes. She thought of the village, and she thought of the dragon, but soon those thoughts drifted from her. She had not slept nearly enough the night before. Anxiety had kept her awake for most of the night, until she’d bolted in panic like a rabbit. Now sleep pulled her under.
Dusk was falling by the time she woke, shivering. At first, she didn’t see Midnight anywhere, but the raven came quickly enough once Einin opened the bundle that held her meager leftovers. She shared her remaining boiled egg and the wrinkled old apple that was the last of the previous year’s harvest. She drank again from the creek and washed her face. Then she filled her lungs and turned toward the dragon’s cave.
