All at once I was certain I was no longer alone.
The branches, creaking moments ago from the breeze and groaning from the weight of snow, grew quiet. Even the cold seemed to pause, releasing none of its usual fury.
I peered into the deepening woods around me, suddenly impenetrable, darker, pressing closer, something untold in its depths.
I gulped, feeling observed, the weight of another’s gaze upon me. The presence of something in the darkness pushed nearer, stretching toward me, reaching for me, settling into my bones andthe marrow of me, plucking at the life that hummed and pulsed there with insistent fingers.
My village felt far away.
I lifted my gaze up, beyond the treetops, to the outline of the Crags in the distance. The mountains were a jagged tear in the sky, as though the hand of a god had violently ripped open the canvas of sky to form the peaks, a violent barrier now a shade lighter than the darkening night. Fog circled the summits, almost reaching to the moon.
As distant as the Crags loomed, home felt even more remote in the weighted stillness.
Home—my village with its people and cozy cottages and shops locked up tight for the night—now so out of reach. In this moment, Isstad might as well have been on the other side of those mountains, might as well be across the Dark Channel.
The tiny hairs on my nape tingled with the renewed sense that I was not alone. Another had joined me.
Another.
I felt its scrutiny moving over me thoroughly, palpably, missing nothing,seeingall of me.
I rotated as swiftly as I could in the snow. “Who’s there?” I demanded, wondering if Henrik or Meya had followed me. Da wouldn’t have bothered. My brother and his wife, however, would care enough to pursue me. Or it could be Jens up to his old pranks, ready to torment me.
“Is someone there? Henrik?”
Silence.
I tried again, a brittle edge to my voice. “Hello? Who is out there? Answer me!”
Nothing.
My ears strained, listening to the humming hush. After a while, I shook my head, feeling silly. Of course no one was there. I didn’t matter. No one had followed me. “I might as well be invisible,” I muttered into the cold night, my skin tightening sharply, almost painfully as my words landed on the flat blade of air.
I gazed up at the sky, studded with a million stars, the moon a great orb of light fixed on me. “I wish I was. I wish I wasn’t here. I wish I could just disappear.” Then I would be free.
Snap.
My gaze swung, sensing a presence.
I scanned the press of woods that had always been my comfort and solace despite all the rumors and cautions of the dark and dangerous things that hid within it.
“Is someone there?” My eyes ached, afraid to blink, straining as I searched the snow-dusted trees around me.
No answer, but the wind abruptly picked up, waking, stirring violently around me, a living, breathing thing that rustled the strands of dark hair framing my face with cold fingers and sent the branches shaking in protest.
I reached for my hood and pulled it low over my head to shield me from the battering wind that suddenly felt too aggressive—almost like it was attacking me deliberately. I braced myself against the force of it, against the powerful roar filling my ears. I hugged myself.
Then, it ended. As suddenly as it began, the gale stopped.
I was alone again.
Whatever had been there with me, watching, blowing its icy breath down my neck, touching me with the weight of an invisible hand and then erupting into a howl of fury...was gone. Spent. It had departed.
Once more, it was just me in the woods.
I was alone.
A relieved breath shuddered past my lips.
