Idid this, though. It was my fault. I brought this on myself—running into the woods on that cold night in a childish pique. I was a waving flag for a lurking witch intent on mischief.
Invisibility was aloneness. Aloneness was invisibility.
The two were the same.
8
The Hunt Loves a Hunter
Day 289
The mist settled wetly over my skin, and I graduallyrealized it was raining. Even the steady rainfall could not chase away the unrelenting fog. There was no end to it. It couldn’t be helped, and I couldn’t wait. I had to venture into the woods and keep searching. I hunted morning, noon, and night. Whenever the impulse took me.
Sometimes I happened on a rabbit or a deer, startling the creatures through the brush. I was just so thrilled to be seen, to have that recognition from them. I would take off after the animal, even though I knew I could never catch it.
Those moments flooded me with warmth...and longing. The longing never went away. I wasn’t invisible to everyone at least. I didn’t know how or why, but animals could see me.
It helped a little, the affirmation that I was alive and existed in this world when I felt so very insignificant. Except when the animals were gone, the leaves and brush they had disturbed unmoving once again, I would stand there, catching my breath, my hands opening and closing at my sides, desolate, the familiar loneliness sweeping over me.
I wasn’t sure I would even run if I came face-to-face with a huldra or harpy. Not that any such creature had been spotted in these parts, but it wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen to me. To be seen...by anyone,anything, to have interaction even with a harpy, would be welcome. The release of a long-held breath.
One time I happened on a pair of lovers, unaware of me, naturally. They offered an eyeful, and I witnessed more than I probably should have before I turned away with flaming cheeks, the image of a woman’s splayed knees and a man’s flexing and pumping buttocks forever stamped on my memory, leaving me wistful and humming in places where I had never felt anything before.
I wasn’t so prim toneverwant to experience coupling. In the right circumstances and with the right partner, I would not be opposed. I’d seen the affection between my brother and Meya and the way their eyes sparked and warmed only for each other. It was part of the reason I was so opposed to the future my father had planned for me. I knew the possibility for something better existed out there and I wanted my chance to find it.
Only it wasn’t going to happen if I remained like this. If I didn’t break this curse.
I spent the rest of my morning exploring, no hint of anything or anyone in sight in the woods. Definitely no sign of a witch. Disappointed, I returned to the village.
My days all ended in disappointment, plagued with doubts. What if she had moved on to terrorize some other part of the kingdom? Would I live out the rest of my life like this? Die an old woman with no one to remember I existed?
My stomach growled with hunger, interrupting my grim thoughts as I neared home. I usually grabbed something simple from my own kitchen—bread, cheese, and fruit (that always miraculously reappeared the moment I claimed it), but today I called on Maretta. I found comfort in my visits with the old woman.
Even though I knew she didn’t know I was in the room, I took the well-trod path to her cottage, entering through the door and calling out a greeting. Hand-knitted quilts and soft pillows coveredchairs. Colorful rugs left no bit of floor bare. A wide, cushioned bench angled before a crackling fire—a fire that never seemed to expire even though I hardly ever noticed her tending to it. It always burned and popped with steady life.
I relaxed and listened to the flow of villagers traipsing in and out of her door seeking her help with their various ailments. She was a reassuring presence, always with answers for her patrons whether they were the ones they wanted to hear or not.
“You want a babe?” she demanded of a young woman who had been married four years with no offspring. “Then add stewed eels to your diet no less than three times a week. The thicker and plumper the eel the better. As thick as a man’s wrist. Make sure all the eel blood gets into the pot. And sprinkle this in, too.” She passed a bag of mystery herbs across the table to the woman. “Oh, and make sure your man tups you on the nights you eat the eels. Vigorously. And from behind.”
“I don’t like eels,” the woman complained, sniffing into her hankie.
“Well. Then you’re not likely to breed,” Maretta delivered to her with a decided lack of regret. “Do you want a child or not? Do as I say and cease your sniveling.”
With a grim nod and a sigh, the woman paid a coin to Maretta, tucked the pouch into the pocket of her skirt, and left.
There was always something tasty bubbling on Maretta’s stove. She was a skilled cook, and her table groaned beneath the weight of ample food, more than she could ever eat. The villagers often paid for her services with items from their larder.
I helped myself to a savory stew simmering with vegetables and chunks of meat and tore off a hunk of fresh-baked bread. I barely gave the pot a glance when the stew miraculously returned to its normal level, as though nothing had been removed from the well of the pot, and my bowl, one of four nesting on the shelf, magically reappeared, tucked inside the others. The fresh loaf of bread, of course, remained intact despite the large hunk I’d ripped off it.
Maretta’s culinary efforts of the day went far beyond anythingavailable in my own home, and I ate with relish, lathering the bread generously with the fresh butter dropped off today from a dairy maid.
Finished with my meal, I lowered myself onto the thick fur by the fire, pulling the dark rope of my hair out from under my body and curling on my side, one hand tucked beneath my cheek.
Maretta rocked in her chair behind me, humming lightly as she knitted, and I felt my eyes grow heavy, drowsy from the warmth, from the hum of her voice, from my belly full with good food.
Maretta talked to herself. Her raspy voice, surprisingly strong and deep for a woman so frail and diminutive, filled the walls of her cottage, weaving on the air and wrapping around me like silken threads. In the early months, I used to believe,hope, that she knew I was present, and that she was talking to me directly, purposefully. I hugged those moments close, pretending we were in an actual conversation.
“You’re not dead,” she whispered into the warm, firelit air of her cottage.
