She woke up with a start, breath gasping, chest heaving as if her head had been held under water until her lungs were bursting. The familiar dream had returned, except this time some parts were different.
As all times before, she dreamed she was deep in the forest. It was night. The ancient, moss covered trees were tall ash, pine and spruce. Their pointed tops stood against a full moon that shone silver light strong enough to cast shadows among their branches and onto the forest floor. Somehow she knew she was being hunted. Deep within the darkness of the forest there was something – someone – searching for her. Now and again there came crashes, as if some huge troll or jötunn was smashing a path through the trees. At first they were distant but they grew ever closer.
She turned to run, suddenly aware of her heavy, swollen belly. She knew then that this was a dream as she had only visited the wise woman that morning. The crone had confirmed what she already suspected: She was expecting a child. It would be many moons before her time came, though. She did not even show.
As she stumbled through the trees, a movement on her right made her stop and spin around. She saw a figure standing beside a mighty ash tree, not far off, silhouetted against the moonlight. He was tall and wore a long cloak that reached to the ground. In one hand he carried a staff. He wore a wide-brimmed hat that cast his face into shadow. She heard her breath heaving in and out. It rose in clouds into the cold night air.
The stranger gestured to her. Then he turned and walked away. As he turned, she saw a gleam deep within the shadow beneath the hat where the man’s right eye would have been. There was no matching gleam from the left side of his face. Then he passed behind the tree and was gone. Through the trees came the mournful howling of wolves.
As in times before, she followed where he had gone. When she reached the tree he had disappeared behind, there was no sign of him. She found herself on the edge of a clearing.
Dread began to build in her as she remembered what awaited there. At the centre of the clearing was another mighty ash tree, one that bore horrible fruit. From nearly all branches twisted corpses, hung by their necks and twisting in the wind. There were bodies of every sort of creature imaginable, from dogs to deer, from a horse to geese. There were men too. Some were fresh, some were rotting and falling apart, the darkness and shadow of the night covering all manner of horror from sight.
The crashing in the trees behind her was not far away now. Then a new sound reached her ears. From the undergrowth all around came a low growling. Yellow eyes, close to the ground appeared. This had not happened before. There were wolves all around. They slunk into the clearing, the moonlight shimmering on their grey fur.
Then the thing which pursued her was at the edge of the clearing too. She still could not see what it was but could make out a huge figure standing amid the trees. A feeling of intense dread clutched at her heart.
‘What do you want?’ she shouted.
There was no reply, but somehow she knew. It was not her it sought.
It was her child.
Then she woke, leaving the frightening world of the dream, back to the waking nightmare that was her real life. For a few moments she lay, gasping, trying to catch her breath.
As her heart slowed its frantic beating to a more normal beat and the sweat cooled to chill damp on her skin, she lay staring up at the thatch of the roof above, both hands clutched across her lower belly. The words of the wise woman from earlier came back to her.
You’ll have to get rid of it, the old crone had gloated. He won’t want a bed-slave with a child.
She did not know where this dream had come from, but its message was clear. It was time she started running for real.