“Adrik will come in the morning,” Lorell grumbled as he shuffled to the door. “He has gone to catch a nightingale for Kalina. I shall attempt to visit at a more convenient hour tomorrow.”
I held my breath until the tapping faded and silence fell over the chamber.
I was trembling with relief. I now possessed a pathetic weapon—the glass shard would make a mess of its task, but I was in no position to complain about such things—and a flask that might subdue the pain well enough to let me reach the forest, should the hounds come.
I felt calmer having reclaimed what little freedom I could have in this life: To choose death over enslavement.
I snatched a slice of bread off the plate and a handful of wildberries from Almira’s basket and shimmied carefully to the foot of the bed—I felt no pain, thanks to the strange smoke I’d inhaled. I crumbled the bread in a small circle on the darkwood floor and set the berries gently into the center.
As I waited for the faerie to appear, I stared restlessly into the starlit skies, humming a low, ancient tune. The night was bright from the snow and quiet. I plucked a peach from the basket as I sat there. Almira must have grown it with magic, for it tasted sweeter than nectar and sparkled a little when I held it against the light.
A witch of the wild.
How peculiar that one lived here in the open, among faeries and villagefolk, practicing magic as if it were a trifle. As if such magic did not make her a target for enslavement and scorn.
The faeries would hunt her, and the villagefolk were no better.
A witch drew the faeries close, like carrion drew vultures. She was a danger to peace.The witch shall burn, the villagers had decided one night down in the vale and they’d come with torches and rusted pikes up the hill. I’d watched them from the soot-streaked window beside the hearth as they neared. I was nine, and it had been the darkest winter I remembered. My mother had retreated deep into a pocket of her mind, and I was alone to await the arrival of the men and their blades. I held my breath as they passed the ribbon-hung elm and pressed forth, deeper into the darkening woods. I was not who they sought. My mother had hidden my powers well, even from my father. There lived a hag not far, in a strange hut on a cliff. She was not witch nor mage, but something wholly different. It washerblood they sought to spill.
None of the men returned from the woods.
That night, I learned that this world was not made for me. That wherever I went, I’d be considered a blemish on somethingpure, a crease in ironed sheets. The villagefolk were zealous in their pursuit of ordinariness. Their illusion of peace was built on the altar on which they sacrificed anything they deemed strange. On the pyre on which they’d sacrificeme, should a whisper of my cursed powers reach their keen ears.
I learned, that night, that the world feared me.
I would learn soon to fear it more.
I stared, vision veiled with unspilled tears, into the night. Huddled against the window stood a moonlit fir. There fluttered something on its branches whenever the wind hissed past. I shrank back as if struck.
It was adorned with dozens of ribbons.
To repel evil, my mother had claimed one late-summer eve, just a moon or two before I first met death. We’d spent the morning hours laughing madly as we tore her best dress into shreds. Back then, I’d not yet learned of her madness. I’d not yet begun to wonder why the baker gave us only the blackened bread or why the villagefolk closed the shutters when we passed in the street. I was too little to spot the fear and the scorn in their eyes; but I’d grow up quickly and I’d understand too soon. That eve, we went to the gnarled elm by the creek and sang to the wind while we adorned the branches with our ribbons.
I remembered this with a heaviness, with an ache. As if time and shame had stained something once-precious and I could no longer tell if I had ever felt fondly about it.
A shadow stirred under the fir. I drew with a sharp gasp into the corner.
The hounds—
But no, that figure was no hound. It was too nimble as it crept close. Under the lowest branch it stilled and watched me with dark, luminous eyes. A shiver slithered over my back and gathered at the base of my spine. I hid under the blankets and drew five quick breaths before I dared once more to peek out.
There was nothing beneath that fir save glittering snow.
FOUR
As strange as a hag and twice as mad.
The berries and the bread were gone when I woke.
Sleep had come late in the night, but no matter how fiercely I’d stared at the armoire, the faerie had not shown itself. It must have come out while I slept.
It was well past noon, and the world glowed with golden late-winter sun. Thick woodsmoke curled lazily into pristine skies. The air was warm with the scent of a hearty meal.
I felt almost as if burned by the brightness—raw, and aching for something I could not quite grasp. Perhaps in my earliest memories, our cabin amid black firs had felt just as bright and alive. Ahome, not just a husk of walls and a roof to protect us from the evil lurking outside. I blamed this chamber for unearthing such forgotten memories. The darkwood furnishings and the crisp, white sheets. The nettle talismans fastened to doorframes, the mirror above the bed covered with a laced sheet to keep the spirits of the evil dead from slipping back into this world—
I pinched the knotted scar so viciously, an age-old pain flared beneath the skin—like the sting of a rusted blade.
As strange as a hag and twice as mad.
