Something moves beyond the ring of light. Leaves shift. A breath that is not mine passes through the clearing, stirring my hair, lifting the hem of my skirt. I pause, the dagger held still.
Nothing comes.
My body wanders deeper into the woods, following paths only I know, stopping when my feet tell me to stop, kneeling when my hands recognize what my eyes have not yet found. Cut. Gather. Move on.
All the while, my lips keep moving. For the plants, first—old syllables spoken low and even, a cadence meant to soothe rather than command. Thanks given. Leave taken. Balance kept.
Then, beneath it, the words Mama taught me.
Lord Jesus Christ…
…have mercy…
…deliver us from evil…
The prayer rope shifts beneath my shawl as my fingers brush it unconsciously, beads sliding one by one as I move, the two languagesthreading through the night—one learned at my father’s knee, whispered with dirt under my nails; the other pressed into me by candlelight and rule. They braid together in my mouth, the ancient and the ordained sharing breath, neither louder than the other.
The dagger flashes and disappears again. Leaves fall, roots part, while the pouch grows heavier at my side. The scent of crushed leaves clings to my hands, my fingers sticky again with oil and resin. I welcome it.
The moon drifts between branches, veiled and then blazing, painting my hands bone-pale as I work. A night bird flutters into motion above me, wings cutting the air with a dry hiss. My heart stutters, then steadies. Somewhere farther off, something larger moves—slow, heavy, unhurried. I freeze until the sound fades back into the unseen.
I whisper. I cut. I gather.
When the pouch is finally full, it rests heavy against my hip. I tie it closed and stand still for a moment longer, listening to the night breathe around me, letting the silence seal what has been taken.
I am almost back on the path when it reaches me.
A wet, dragging sound. Not the clean snap of bone or the tearing rush of a hunt, but something slower—rhythmic, obscene in its patience. A deep pull, followed by a thick swallow. Again. Again. It carries through the trees with a terrible clarity, cutting through the stillness of the forest and settling at the base of my spine.
I stop.
The forest seems to lean closer, as if stirred by my attention.
Instinct moves me before thought does. I slip behind the nearest tree, pressing my back to its bark, its cold roughness biting through my shawl. I do not breathe.
Pale light spills through the branches ahead, bathing the clearing in silver.
In its centre lies a deer—or what remains of one. Its body is half-collapsed into the grass, legs folded wrong beneath it, throat torn open so wide I can see the dark hollow of it even from here. Blood slicks the ground beneath, black where it pools, glistening in its freshness.
Bent over it is something else.
Tall, hunched, its shape wrong in ways I cannot immediately name. Too long in the limbs, too still in the spine. Its head is lowered to the deer’s neck, mouth pressed to torn flesh.
Drinking.
Each pull is heavy, greedy, accompanied by that thick, swallowing drag that makes my stomach twist.
This is no wolf. No bear. Its hands—if they are hands—grip the carcass with unnatural strength, fingers digging in, holding it open. Its shoulders rise and fall as it feeds, utterly intent. Wrong.
My heart hammers so loudly I am certain it must hear it. I clamp a hand over my mouth, willing my breath to stay trapped as I draw back, inch by inch.
My heel finds something brittle, and before I can shift, it gives a crack.
The sound splits the clearing. I freeze.
The creature stills.
For a breathless moment, nothing moves at all. No sound. No wind. Even the night insects fall silent, as if the world itself has gone rigid with fear.
