THE MIST WAS so thick that they could barely see each other’s faces, but there was movement out there, beyond their circle. From the corner of their eyes, by the prickling on the back of their necks, they knew something, or some things, were out there, circling them, watching, listening. Searching.
Martine opened her mouth to speak, but Safred put her finger to her lips, signaling for silence. They leaned close together over Bramble so that their heads were almost touching.
“This isn’t about you going to the island,” Martine whispered. She was sure of that, somehow. “What are they looking for?”
Safred looked down at Bramble. “We should have left her out there,” she breathed, worried. “Rigged up a sun shelter or something. She would have been safe there.”
“What do you mean?”
“What she’s doing leaves her soul unprotected. Going, she was protected by the gods at the altar. If she is coming back… perhaps the mist is their protection against — against whatever threatens.”
“The Forest?”
Safred shrugged helplessly. “I don’t think so. Something beyond life.”
Zel interrupted. “You don’t want to say it, but it’s the demons that eat souls, isn’t it?”
Safred’s face confirmed it. Martine had never quite believed in that story — the demons were supposed to eat the souls of those who had lived badly, without generosity or courage or kindness. The souls of the evil, the petty, the mean-spirited. She wondered if they had eaten Acton’s soul. It would be ironic, if all this effort had been for nothing, because his soul was long since dead.
“They’re real?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Safred whispered. “The gods won’t answer when I ask. But, there’s something out there.”
“Is there anything we can do?” Cael’s face was pale. It was the first time he had shown any fear, and that made Martine’s gut turn over.
Safred hunched her shoulders, uncertain.
“There is a… a spell,” Martine said.
Zel looked at her, shocked. When the old women were at the Autumn Equinox, the young women sang the dark song, the song of protection against evil, to guard their families against the coming winter. Against all demons. But it was secret, passed from mother to daughter of the old blood.
Oh, Mam, forgive me, Martine thought, but I can’t leave Bramble unprotected. She began to sing.
There were five notes only, repeated over and over again. The words didn’t matter, Martine had been told, but the melody must be precise. Usually, women sang the names of their loved ones, or words like “safe” and “protected” and “life.” Martine sang “Bramble,” spreading the word out over all five notes, repeating and repeating.
After a moment’s silence, Zel joined in, her hand sweaty in Martine’s.
The moving shadows in the mist seemed to pause as they sang. Then, as though they had been waiting for some sound, something to center upon, they gathered closer. Gods protect us, Martine thought, I hope I haven’t doomed us all.
Then Safred joined in, singing not in the terrible, dead voice she used to heal, but in her own light alto. Cael opened his mouth to begin, too, but Martine warned him with a shake of the head, no. She didn’t know what would happen if a man sang those notes.
The mist began to draw back, leaving them in a small circle of clear air. But as it did, screaming began around them. It was the sound of a rabbit screaming as the fox bites down, the sound of the lamb under the eagle’s claws, of a child falling over a cliff. Small, defenseless, and totally false, it tried to lure them into breaking the circle, shock them to their feet. Cael jerked as the first cry tore the air, but Martine had him by one hand and Safred by the other, and they held fast, singing louder.
The noises changed into howls, threatening, louder than Martine thought her ears could stand; the sound crept into the back of her brain and urged her to run. Flee! Take cover! It was hard, very hard, to stay still when every instinct said to move, and move fast. Zel was sweating, staring at Safred as though her life depended on it. Cael sat with hunched shoulders, gripping their hands so hard that Martine’s fingers were losing all feeling. Safred’s legs twitched as if she had started to move and then stopped herself. If only they could see what was out there. But perhaps the mist was to protect them from seeing. Perhaps seeing would send them mad.
Bramble jerked and groaned as though she had been wounded. The movement was enough to distract their attention from the howling and bring it back to her. Their song became stronger, and immediately the mist circle moved further outward, pushing back. They were safe within that circle, Martine was sure, but the howling and shrieking were growing louder and the shadows in the mist darker, clearer.
Larger than humans, moving with cumbersome, swinging movements, the shadows changed as they watched: grew arms and legs, flexed claws, divided one head into three. It was profoundly unsettling — not just fearsome, but striking at Martine’s understanding of how the world worked. This was not the world she knew; this lake, this Forest, were connected to the world beyond this one, where humans did not belong. Perhaps rebirth was simply the way humans escaped from the terrible darkness beyond death, if that darkness held these beings.
Bramble shivered, and shuddered, and began to thrash her arms and legs. Her knee struck Safred’s and Zel’s hands and almost broke their hold. The howling intensified, the shapes throwing themselves at the circle and being stopped by the edge of the mist, their bodies too visible as they flattened themselves against the circle. Much too visible, because they were not animals, nor wraiths like the water sprites or wind wraiths, nor even demons as some storytellers described them. They were human, and yet not. Some elongated, some compressed, some twisted around on themselves like snakes, some wizened away like dried leaves.
Martine sang although her throat was raw, sang with a dry mouth and cracked lips, sang and sang and sang again, the five notes that her mam had taught her, and did not look at the faces of the demons in case she saw her mam’s face there, or her da’s, or Cob’s or any of her loved ones who had gone with Lady Death, because she did not want to know if they had not been reborn, if they had swollen with pride or shrunken with envy or turned awry with greed and become one of these shrieking, hungry monstrosities.
Bramble gasped, gasped as though she were drowning, and woke.