CHAPTER NINETEEN

Austėja

I wake to his hands around my throat.

I can’t breathe. I’m choking. Shaking. Sweating. Faint.

Thick beard. Large, constricting hands. Raven’s eyes.

He’s going to kill me.

The air is being squeezed from my lungs, and my vision blurs. He’s out of focus. My body softens as if it is sinking through the bed and into the earth. And then there’s a pause. A lessening of pressure. Fingers peel away. I gasp, sucking in breath as though it is for the first time, like a newborn baby entering the world, inhaling the forest air. The way Danutè did. When birthed she emerged still and mute, and we were all silent too. Then her tiny mouth opened, and she sucked in the air around us, holding on to it, stockpiling to fill her petite body. And then she exhaled and she was breathing on her own and she was alive.

I am alive, I realise as I sit up in my bed. Blinking in the darkness. There are no hands at my throat. There is no one here at all. My sister and Motina and Senelè are asleep, and there’s no threat here. There’s no one here who will hurt me. It is just a bad dream. A really bad dream.

They’re becoming more frequent.

Since the discovery of my father’s knife at the Hollow Watcher’s home it feels as if I walk around all day with a heaviness in me. As if I cannot lift my own arms, as if I am dragging my legs, as if I am a weary fallow deer eyeing a wolf with her blood in his mouth.

I cannot explain the knife. I cannot ask Tévas what he did or what he owed Stanislaw. I cannot even ask Stanislaw about it because he is gone too. The only other person who I know has had a deal with Stanislaw previously is Jonas’s father. And Krystupas is not someone I want to approach. He’s not at all like his son, calm and comforting. He intimidates me.

I recall the way Krystupas looked at his sons when I collected him from the barn that day. My stomach churns. He did not look at all surprised. Why?

Is Krystupas hiding something? Maybe Jonas knows more than he is letting on.

Why was Jonas at Stanislaw’s cottage? He said he followed me, but he stayed to search the house. He was looking for something too. Did he find it?

I have not seen him since, except at my father’s one-month anniversary at the High Hill. He kept his distance but scowled when the Duke approached me to offer his condolences.

Birdsong invites me into the forest. I pull myself out of bed, which creaks, and I pause to check there is no movement from my family members. A chorus of breath and the occasional dramatic snore from Senelè, but no one stirs. The fire is low but I cannot risk adding logs to the hearth as the crackle may wake them. I must get a move on or Senelè will rise soon. She has a peculiar knack for knowing just the moment it needs to be reignited before it burns out.

I pull on my boots and coat, as the mid-spring mornings are still chilly. I push open the door and a breeze drifts in, tossing about the flames in the hearth. Before the fire goes out and anyone can call me back, I step outside and close the door behind me.

In the clearing, the sun sits on the horizon, rays straining between the pines in the forest, through their fronded greenery. There are no clouds. The breeze is gentle but it won’t become gusty, not as it has been doing. The weather will be calm today.

The swamp glistens as I pass by and so too does the knife I pull from my pocket. I turn it over. The handle is worn from Tévas’s grip and it smells of him. Woody, sweaty and sweet. The knife edge is clean and that is disappointing, though I don’t know what I hoped to see.

Blood?

I rewrap it in the cloth I tore from my underdress and slip it back into my pocket. I know I must return it to Tévas but I keep it close, hoping the answers to this unsolved mystery will come to me. Will the knife speak to me as the oak does?

I find myself standing by the oak once again. I must have been partly asleep as I don’t recall walking over the bridge or through the forest. But I am here now. It can be no coincidence that I learned of my father’s passing while I leaned against this oak and the man in whose debt he died here also.

Shrubs and flowers have burst up from the once snow-covered, bloodstained earth. They circle the trunk in an array of colours as if to shield me from the pain beneath.

Beside the trunk is a felled log, but not one that belongs here. It has been cleaned and sanded and upon closer inspection it looks as if it has been polished with wax. I run my hand over it. It’s beautiful, golden and shiny, and I know it has been left for me. I sit upon the log and lean my back against the trunk. Not where Stanislaw lay, but next to that spot, and then I look up.

Buds burst from every branch. Many have opened but some are waiting. It won’t be long before I will see not a bare-canopied sky, but a tree full of green and life. Birds flittering from branch to branch.

There is only one young man I know who could do this kind of handiwork and understand that it would be meaningful here in this very spot.

My chest flutters as if there is a little sparrow trapped within. I hold my hand over my chest, not quite ready to let it free.

⚜

Senelè is waiting for me when I return. She sits beside the Scots pine tree, on the bench Motina hauled out so we can enjoy the last few weeks of the spring weather. She really hates being cooped up in the dark. The cottage door is closed and there is no sign of Motina or Danutè yet, although the sun has risen further and the light will squeeze into the gaps between the logs soon. Then they’ll rise too.

‘Good morning, Senelè.’ I join her on the bench and the creases in her face become more pronounced when she smiles.

‘You were up early this morning.’

‘Yes, I woke and couldn’t get back to sleep.’

‘Ahh. Yes, sometimes our thoughts can prevent us from truly resting.’

‘I keep thinking about the Hollow Watcher,’ I say. It feels strange to say it aloud. I’ve only spoken about this with Jonas, and Motina does not talk about it, though she does squeeze my shoulder or bring me honey-tea if she notices I’m distracted. She has been trying to bridge the distance created between us. My throat constricts again as that thought turns over in my mind. I do miss Tévas, but now I’m unsure about who he was and what kind of deal he had with the Hollow Watcher.

‘Does he come to you in your dreams?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are they frightening?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘They are frightening and confusing. Sometimes he’s asking me for help, other times he’s hurting me.’ I rub my throat where I felt his hands. It felt so real.

Senelè purses her lips together and frowns. ‘I’m afraid, my dear, he has left this life feeling disgruntled. There is something unresolved. It is up to you to solve it.’

‘Me?’

She shrugs. ‘You found him. You saw the absolute worst that a human can do to another human.’

‘So you don’t believe it was a bear or wolf? That’s what other people are saying.’

‘No. I believe what you believe. That a human did this, possibly one of our own people. A bear is not clever enough to tie a man to a tree and wolves are not foolish – they would not have abandoned meat at winter’s end.’

It’s hard to swallow. ‘So who do you think it was?’

‘I do not know. But you, my dear …’ Senelè takes my hand in hers. ‘The gods have chosen you to find out.’

‘The gods?’

Senelè leans in closer. ‘The wind speaks to you and I suspect the trees do too. If the Hollow Watcher comes to you in your dreams, it comes through the oak.’

The hairs on my neck stand on end. ‘I don’t know what you’re saying, Senelè. What do you mean? What am I meant to do?’

The door pushes open and Danutè stumbles out, her wispy hair sprouting in all directions. Motina steps outside too, blinking in the sunlight. She limps down the step into the clearing.

‘Shh. We’ll talk more later.’ Senelè glances sideways at my mother and stands up. She squeezes my hand once more. ‘I always knew you were special, Austėja.’

I am left alone with my thoughts as Senelè guides Motina away, no doubt distracting her with some trivial story about the old ways.

What does my grandmother mean when she says I am special? I can hear the wind and the oak tree speak? Could it be true?

I have always felt like an outsider in my family. I am not a beekeeper, but I have wanted to be good at something. To feel good at something the way Motina does when she cares for her bees. The way Tévas did when he dragged logs of wood from the forest and chopped them up into small chunks as if they were loaves of rye. The way Senelè looks when she puts one of those logs on the fire and the flames dance before her. The look of satisfaction.

Now I have something that could truly be mine, that I could be good at … It’s overwhelming. It’s too much.

I am not certain this is something I want after all.