Then he’s gone, closing the door silently behind him.
What is he doing?
The flame light stretches along the wall as heavy footsteps tread over the stone floor.
I swallow. My nose itches from the sharp tang of onions in the closed space. But there’s earth too, like fresh-plucked carrots and potatoes.
I wiggle my nose, the cloying scent tickling my sinuses.
The footsteps grow closer and through one of the slats in the pantry door, I catch the first sight of… someone.
He’s large and muscular, with broad shoulders and thick biceps that strain against the knit fabric of his shirt.
Another step.
His forearms are covered in leather pads, as is his right shoulder, as if to protect his swinging arm.
The reticulated leather at his shoulder is held in place by several leather buckles that crisscross over his chest and around his back.
He raises the lantern and the golden light from the flame gilds him in the dark and burnishes each one of his metal fingers.
Is it a glove? Or is his hand literally made of metal?
The hair lifts on my forearms, almost charged.
I bite my lower lip, dare not breathe.
The man’s face is scruffy, the kind of facial hair that lies just on the other side of disregard.
There is a sheen of sweat on his forehead, as if he ran to get here, although his breathing is even.
There is something coarse about him. Like the weather-hardened stone on a cold mountain range. Like bare trees in a winter gale.
Like a hungry wolf in a dark forest, nipping at pale feet.
He takes another step forward, now just inches from my hiding spot. He shifts the lantern and the light catches the sharpened blade of an axe strapped to his back.
I know immediately who this is.
The Tin Woodman.
He’s here.
A breeze steals down the hallway, disturbing the lantern flame, and the fire gutters out.
He curses beneath his breath and retrieves something from his pocket. A lighter, I think. It has the familiar metallic ring of a metal lid opening up.
But before he can flick a new flame to life, athumpsounds in the kitchen and he turns toward it, listening.
The sudden stillness has goosebumps popping on my skin, and the way the man waits, assesses, tells me he feels it too.
Something is off.
Something is…different.
For his size, he moves quickly, pressing his back into the wall that separates the hallway from the kitchen. His chest rises with a breath. He pulls a dagger from a sheath at his hip and then lunges into the kitchen.
There’s a grunt. The lantern hits the stone, shattering.
