From the other side of the field, Freya watches them go. She has to leave, herself; she didn’t come back to be a third wheel to erotica.

Being first wheel wouldn’t be too bad. In the three days she’s been out, Callum is by far the most attractive man she’s seen. Not that she’s been looking at men for their aesthetics…but it helps. Assessing thoughts is so much nicer when the faces that hide them are pretty.

Sadly, Callum’s mind has sentries. Kira’s, though…her guards are dead. Freya’s lips twitch. How easy it is to crack Kira’s head, to pluck out what the women need. Once they found her in her little white house, it was a walk through an open door. Pinpoint her mind in an augenblick, extract her memories of Romy. Even then, behind it all, she sang to the tune of Callum.

Freya stood in the snow and listened. Pluck, appear as Rosemarie. Pluck, a song that links them both, and Taika worked her magic. Pluck, file Callum away for later, and crack his mind in person.

Along with everyone else. Sorry to bother you, sir, but would you mind if I stayed the night? Eye contact, sparking irises. The man stepped back to let her in, and never spoke a word.

Repeat by the road, in shops, on trains. No, I’m afraid I don’t have a ticket; no, I won’t be paying for that. Eye contact, sparking irises. Oh, could you give me a ride?

Think of it all as a kind of magic. We have ours; the outside has theirs.

This is what the voices hiss at anything unknown. God, the noise, the fouled land. The number of people, living in boxes, travelling in more. Buying things, looking pretty. Talking to the air. The bags of food she’s bargained for, and vomited back up. Burgers, chips, and acid drinks. Nothing in them was real. Her gut scrambled and died.

How did Anneliese do it? She left their world alone. No whispered guidelines, no instructions. Freya would go insane.

Freedom. She came to this conclusion, stooping in the dark, as her insides cramped and pulsed. Anneliese craved freedom more than any other life, so she dug herself in and survived. Freya was small when Anneliese escaped, but she grew up on the stories: Anneliese fought from the day she was born.

Born and abandoned, left in the snow. Solveig found her caterwauling, and brought her to the village. Once she got older, and realised they were ostracised, she itched for retribution, vindication. Life.

Freedom. Freedom, freedom, freedom. Listening incessantly to tales of how to get it, until, at seventeen, she started her own. She did what others tried to resist. She killed.

And she liked it.

Freya started for freedom, some form of excitement, and the gratification of beating the world. No, she’s never burned like Anneliese, but Taika and the Kyo meant free reign. Seduce, kill, repeat. Men were a dark-lit passion, and the Huldra rage with violence. When the Kyo roped her in, it was perfect.

Men still have their pull. The rage, though…it’s only been three days, but the longer she’s human, the more the rest is vile. Her ruthlessness, her wicked pleasure. Away from the wilds of being a beast, a reviled, ruined monster, she sees what others did. She didn’t when she killed in Holland, but her mutation is fast.

Everything is waning. Manipulation is hard. Mild persuasion is doable, along with easy minds, but where the echoes were loud, now they’re like whispers. Even Kira, the braying mule, will soon return to silence. She’s losing her abilities, and losing herself.

They said, at the end, that Anneliese was weak. Maybe this is what they meant.

Watching Kira and Callum, though, weakness could be worse. If she’s becoming human; if she can live as Anneliese did, with a husband, two daughters, and an uninhibited existence; if she can have what these two have, then does her monster matter? Once everything is over, she’ll be free. She can brush away the past, learn from Anneliese, and never, ever go back.

She has to hurry up, though. Freya shifts in the snow, numbing in the cold. If she’s mutating this fast, the end result could scupper the part she has to play. Either that, or the whispering women will drive her to despair. They never stop talking. Never.

In silence, Freya stands. Kira and Callum are trudging off, down the hill to the train line. With a smirk for their thwarted lust, Freya heads the other way. Her jeans are soaked. Her hands are a bruise, an unhappy human colour. She pushes them under her shirt to her stomach, slipping away through the snow. Under the eaves of Karliquai, she’ll focus, eat, and rest; this morning won’t see violence.

Later, though, Callum will die.