The lake was where Elowen was allowed to feel. She was allowed to unbraid her hair and decorate the locks with flower buds. She was allowed to draw shapes in the soil. She was allowed to sing, even if she didn’t know any songs.
Here, the world was gentle, and Elowen could be gentle with it.
Her village trusted the forest as much as they trusted her, and that was very little.
Long ago, in a time before anyone in her village was born, dragons once lived in the mountains and hunted in this forest. It is said that their blood soaked into the roots and deep into the stone.
Her village said the forest was cursed by their blood, but Elowen did not feel that way.
It felt like the only place in her world that wasn’t.
Still, she was careful. She never strayed too far from the lake, and certainly not any deeper into the forest. She was a healer, not a fighter, and Elowen did not want to put herself in danger, forced to defend herself while alone.
One day, while foraging near the lake for mushrooms, she saw something strange.
A trail of thick, dark, fresh blood in the grass.
Something within her stirred, and her healing nature overrode her caution, compelling her to follow.
The blood cut through the soft grass in uneven strokes, as if something was wounded and attempted to stagger to safety, only to collapse every few steps. Elowen crouched,her satchel thumping softly against her hip as she followed the trail.
It never occurred to her to turn back, so she continued forward, even though the sun was already dipping behind the trees and she knew she must return home before dark.
Her heart raced as she followed the blood trail. Something within her wanted to believe there was more to the woods than her small village knew—that magic still lingered there. That she wasn’t the only one who felt like the silence between the trees wasn’t as empty as it seemed.
Then, near a small clearing, she saw it: a corpse.
Not of a human or a dangerous beast. But of a goat. A large one, well-fed and plump. Or at least, it was before its belly was torn open, leaving behind thick claw marks raked across its hind. Flies had already begun to gather at the wounds. Elowen exhaled softly, and knelt beside it. She brushed a hand over the stiffened leg.
As she stroked the strawy hide of the goat, her fingers grazed over the brand burned into the rear near the tail. She recognized the marking well. Livestock from her village, belonging to an old man with no family. The council kept him well-paid in exchange for keeping them well-fed. An even trade in their eyes, while half the town went to bed every night with the sharp ache of hunger in their bellies.
The goat must have escaped its pen and found a bloody fate here in the woods. Elowen eyed the claw marks again. Not from a wolf, as the marks were too wide. Not from a bear either, as they didn’t hunt in that part of the woods. The marks were also too deep to have been from a falcon or eagle.
Something else downed the poor animal. Something big.
Night began to fall, and Elowen needed to return home before she was punished for being out past curfew. Before something returned to finish off its meal.
Elowen stood. She didn’t hum or think, just hastily walked home with a stirring, unsettling feeling in her gut that she was no longer alone in the forest.
By the timeshe returned to the stone walls of her village, the guards had closed the heavy iron gate. But Elowen was used to slipping through the bars when the guards were lost in conversation amongst themselves.
Once back inside the walls, she could freely walk, no longer afraid of being caught out after dark, though curfew quickly approached. Elowen tightened her thin shawl around her shoulders and made her way to her father’s cottage.
It was small, like all the others. Even smaller, maybe, because the front entry functioned as a small store when the townspeople needed remedy for some wound or ailment. She shared a single bedroom with her father, sleeping on the floor on a mattress she made herself out of worn-out clothes and feathers she’d collected over the years during her ventures into the forest.
When she finally pushed inside the weathered door to her home, her father sat at the small table near thefireplace, poking the glowing embers with an iron rod. He didn’t glance up when she entered, just let out a gruff sound of acknowledgement that she had returned.
“Find anything?” he asked.
“No, father,” she said.
He grunted. “Useless girl,” he muttered. Not with any cruelty, but with exhaustion. The Council always requested something new from her father. A new potion or salve or tea. They ran her father ragged with work sometimes, and it was Elowen’s job to make sure the ingredients stayed stocked.
Sometimes, though, like today, she’d return with nothing, and her father quietly feared it would be the day the Council ran out of patience with him.
Elowen didn’t flinch at her father’s words. She never did. She simply sat her empty satchel down on the floor near the door and moved to a small basin to wash her hands. The cold water ached in her bones and bit at her skin, so she joined her father at the fire to dry and warm them.
That night, they shared a dinner of stale bread and water-thinned gruel. Flavorless. Hard to swallow. But it was all they had, and both she and her father knew better than to complain.
