The bird women dance to her, skipping or flying, some grasping small handfuls of curls, others holding out their arms for Mairwen to tie her hair around them like bracelets. They bat her gently with their wings, laughing and picking at one another, braiding the hair or flitting away with it.
Finally every last strand is gone. Seven of the bird women remain crouched with their wings flared like mantles around their bodies. Mairwen smooths her remaining hair off her face. It’s too short to tie back, too short to be in her way. She chews her lip to keep back more tears, sad but annoyed with herself for such vain mourning. It’s done, and the hair will grow back. She presses her hands to her knees. “I will go now,” she says.
The bird women nod, and one, perhaps the very first one, says, “We will find your friend.”
Mairwen says, “He is a terrible singer,” though she can’t remember if she’d ever heard Arthur sing. She realizes her hair is as choppy and short as his now.
The bird women titter, and all but the first fling themselves up into the air, flapping hard and vanishing into the night. The first says, “Follow me, Grace witch!” before darting off. Mairwen dashes after.
•••
MAIRWEN WAKES FROM THE DREAMwith her hands fisted beneath her chin, stiff and cold.
The memory of the little bird women remains clear.
As does—
The bird woman flutters her wings and darts left, but before Mairwen can follow, a devil slides out of the shadows and in one swipe grabs the bird woman midair, shoving her into his mouth.
Mair reels back.
The devil grins, teeth bright and sharp; feathers spill past his lips, and she hears the crunch of bones.
“Pretty witch, you’re no ghost or green girl,” the devil says, spitting feathers from his mottled chin. He leaps forward and grabs Mairwen’s head as fast as he snatched the bird woman. Mair’s feet slip and
Baeddan.
Yawning, she slowly stretches beneath her mother’s quilt, feeling physically strong. She rolls out of bed. Her toes touch the wooden floor and she rolls on the balls of her feet.
The long shirt she slept in pulls strangely across her breasts and Mairwen touches her collar. Those small nubs press up against her skin now without her needing to explore. Mair’s breath rushes out of her. She hopes there are no more obvious signs of change. She runs her tongue over her teeth; they feel normal. She inspects her hands again. Are her nails darker? Turning to talons or thorns?
Sliding her fingers through her hair, she searches for antlers and finds nothing but knots and tangles. From her mother’s small table she retrieves a bone comb and quickly picks the tangles free. Blood and dirt remain crusted in her hair; she never did wash herself this morning.
An urge to rush out and wake Baeddan or Haf and confirm there’s no change in the color of her eyes or the shape of her mouth grips her, but Mairwen remains calm, dressing in an old gray skirt of her mother’s and a bodice missing several grommets that was waiting to be picked apart for reusing the stays. She looks like a beggar, she imagines, though she’s never seen a beggar. She wraps a scarf around her neck, crosses it over her chest to tuck at her waist and conceal her collarbone as best she can. Then she carefully slips into the front of the cottage.
Baeddan curls by the fire, as much of his body as possible touching the hearthstone, huddled in his ragged leather coat and trousers. He is so still for a moment Mair fears he died—that bringing him out of the forest killed him. But his chest suddenly rises and holds, then slowly falls again. The same slow rhythm as her own breath. Relieved, she glances at Haf, dozing upright in a chair with her head lolled onto her chest. Her hands are loose in her lap, all of her limp and relaxed.
Letting go a long, slow sigh, Mairwen thinks about the dream, about the bird women and the snap of their teeth.Daughter of the forest. Was there something else? Yes, the feeling in that copse, as though she belonged there.
She does not belong here.
The bracelet on her wrist pinches. She needs to examine it more closely. And get out under the sky. Closer to the forest.
She considers waking Arthur and Rhun to bring them with her, but no. Let them sleep. Let them remember everything they can. They would only keep her away from the forest. After putting on her boots, she opens the front door and steps into the sunlight.
Mairwen sets her path toward her boneyard.
Beyond the horse pasture and directly east from her house, the shambles is a hollow between two hills where a young oak grows alone and sheltered from the wind. Mairwen hangs cages full of rotting skeletons in the oak so nature might help with the job of baring bones but no predators can make off with useful pieces. She has barrels of water for loosening the most stubborn flesh and tendons without the fire or heat that would soften bones and render them useless. It’s filthy and reeking much of the time, but her grandmother dug drainage to send the refuse water spilling toward the Devil’s Forest and Mair had always assumed the hungry spirits enjoyed the snacks she sent them.
Mairwen keeps a stool and flagon of wine there, as well as tools for working bone into needles or knives, combs or fishhooks or charms, or even bowls if somebody brings her the right kind of intact skull.
No one sees Mairwen on her way, and it was unlikely they would, for the people of Three Graces have always avoided the shambles, viewing it as a witch’s territory except for some of the braver children or hunters delivering bones.
She’s going to have to confront her mother.
The afternoon breeze gently rocks the cages hanging from the oak limbs. Mair glances over the fenced pen she built herself three years ago to protect the slope where she sun-bleaches bones. Ribs and femurs from two deer are spread on an undyed piece of wool, nearly finished. They’ve been out all year, and are hardly discolored at all. The wool has been a partial success. Her grandmother used to lay bones out on rooftops for this, but the thatching or slate tiles always stained the bones on the underside.
Beside the fence is the burying ground, where she puts some carcasses deep in the soil with horse manure, to decompose slowly and safely, also in cages so the smallest bones aren’t lost. It’s safer than hanging if she wants to keep all the teeth.
