I had nothing but the hunting coat I’d taken from the manor, my pouch of herbs, and the already damp boots on my feet, but I knew I couldn’t go back to the village for supplies.
Shivers tore through my body—little uncontrollable tremors. But there was no helping it. I was cold and I was about to be colder, so I might as well just get on with it. The trees behind our cottage yawned an opening into the woods. A little way through the underbrush, I’d find the path leading away from our village.
I stepped quickly, hoping to pump warmth into my legs and toes. It worked a little, the blood flowing faster through my veins until a little sheen of sweat grew cold on my forehead and upper lip. The ground sloped unevenly and fell away to ice under my feet. I slipped and stumbled over a thick log with old, crumbling bark. My left hand landed on a branch, and the sharp wood dug into my skin with a stinging pinch. I drew my hand away and sucked on the little red bead welling against my palm. I always did that when I got a cut, even though Papa would swat my hand away from my mouth. He thought it was a disgusting habit, but it brought me some sense of comfort. And secretly, I liked the taste of the blood, even though I knew I shouldn’t.
The path cut through the brush with well-worn edges. It wasn’t traveled often. When Sebastian’s parents were alive, they’d fill the track of dirt with the wide wheels of a carriage on their way to bigger cities and fashionable hosts. Now I walked it alone—with only the scurrying of squirrels and occasional lazy squawk of a bird for company.
Trees leaned into the path and their branches bent over it like an archway. Maybe they couldn’t really let this track of earth go. I stared at them as I went—thick oaks with scaly bark and ash with a few strong-willed white petals clinging to the branches—and thanked them for keeping the snow at bay. My toes thawed as I walked the sheltered ground.
And then, because I’d been so acutely aware of being alone, I was suddenly sure I wasn’t. The air tensed and cracked around me. Gray-and-white bodies whispered between the trees.
Wolves.
Fear cramped my muscles and locked my joints. Running wouldn’t have helped anyway—I had only two legs to their four, and they knew this forest, their hunting ground. The biggest one loped forward and fixed me with its yellow eyes. Slowly, I crouched down and fumbled in the dirt for the stick near my right boot. It felt thin and weak in my grasp, but it was better than nothing.
Hot breath burst through my gritted teeth. The cold of the winter’s afternoon made my gums ache, but I couldn’t close my lips—it was as if my body needed to imitate the wolves’ feral snarls.
They padded forward slowly, knowing they could take their time. These animals were used to being powerful, privileged in their speed and the strong snap of their jaws. Most everything they encountered was at their mercy. Including me.
I planted my feet and bent my knees, holding the thin branch out like I imagined I’d hold a sword. I found the biggest wolf’s eyes with my own and challenged with a stare. Come. You might take me, but I won’t make it easy for you.
I could have sworn he nodded.
They leapt forward in unison, as one coordinated attack. A scream tore through my throat and forced my clenched teeth open. I swung the branch wildly, aiming for their eyes. They threw themselves forward, one at a time, snapping strong jaws and sharp teeth. I slipped backward, turned and twisted, always just a breath out of their reach.
A growling howl echoed through the trees. Bigger, deeper than these wolves could have made. Ama.
Her presence burned behind me. I turned and drank in every inch of her—the smooth golden head and matching eyes. The crest of fur at her neck. Her wide paws pressing into the hard earth. I’d missed her so much.
The wolves whined and cowered, backing away while keeping Ama in their sight. Once there was enough space between us, the wolves turned and fled into the trees.
“Ama,” I breathed.
She stared at me and sniffed the hem of my dress. My heart beat quickly, thumping against my ribs. I stood perfectly still, barely breathing, waiting to see if my sister would recognize me. I counted to ten and still she hadn’t leapt at me. Ama sat in the dirt and swept her thin tail along the ground, the puff at the end gathering dry leaves. I crouched slowly and put out a hand.
“I’m going to fix this. Papa told me who did this. I’m going to see the woman now . . . Aurélie . . . and she’ll help me fix you. I won’t leave you like this, Ama. I promise.”
She tilted her head, bending her long ear toward my words. I reached out and stroked the golden hair on her head. She shivered at my touch and fear leapt into my throat for a moment, but I swallowed it down. Ama wouldn’t hurt me.
My sister fixed me with molten eyes, and we stared at each other while I tried to make my breaths steady and even. I didn’t want to frighten her away.
Then something flared in her golden irises, pluming out from the black pupils. Like a scream. The force of it pushed me away and I stumbled back, landing in the frozen dirt. Ama was in there, screaming behind the beast’s eyes.
“Ama.”
The beast bared its teeth and growled. All at once, it was as if Ama’s control melted away. The beast reared up onto its powerful hind legs, and I skittered back in my crouch, pulling my fingernails through the hard earth, trying to gain purchase.
A musket blast scattered the birds from the trees. The beast whipped its head around and sniffed at the air. Then it shifted back toward me and paused. It seemed like the animal was making a decision. As a second shot cracked the cold air, the beast turned and ran through the trees.
I knew I’d been spared, but I couldn’t help the loss hollowing out my belly. My sister was gone again.
Sebastian rounded the bend with panic brightening his eyes. He ran a little when he saw me, bobbed along the path with steps too light for the moment. I stared up at him while he dropped to his knees beside me and set the musket down. The handle of a leather bag slid off his shoulder.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
It was too simple a question. I hadn’t been eaten by wolves or by Ama, so I supposed I would be considered all right by most. I thought about saying yes, hissing out the word, but I didn’t want to be alone in my pain.
“No.”
Sebastian scanned my face, my arms and legs. He slowly reached for my hands and felt the bones of my fingers with his own.
“What happened?”
I stood and slipped from his grip. “Wolves first and then Ama . . . well, you saw.”
“She attacked you.”
A dark, dry laugh escaped me. “She considered it this time.”
“I thought she was keen on protecting you?”
I closed my eyelids over wet, tired eyes. The trees blurred, a bright green mixed like streaks of paint with a too-blue sky. It hurt to look at. I rubbed the heels of my hands over my face. I’d figured out how to live with the curse—how to make it through the day with the scent of blood in my nostrils, but I didn’t know how to make the pain of it stop.
“What are you doing out here, Sebastian?”
It couldn’t be a coincidence that he’d found me on exactly the path my Papa had set me on.
“You’re going to see someone who might have answers, aren’t you? About my mother and magic.”
“How do you know?”
“Your father. I went to your cottage,” Sebastian said.
Of course. A few coins might have been enough to persuade Papa to tell Sebastian where I’d gone. My heart warmed a little to think he’d gone there in the first place—likely to see me. Or at least I hoped that was why. I was still angry at him for what he said about owning the village, but I was tired of being alone.
“How much did you pay him?” I asked, and let my mouth turn up in a smile.
Sebastian’s cheeks flushed as I expected them to. “A few deniers.”
My face fell. “That’s it?”
“He didn’t seem eager to keep it a secret. He was sitting down with a big cup of something dark to drink when I got there. All I had to do was slip two deniers across the table and he told me where you’d gone.”
Irritation coiled inside me like a spring. I’d had to poison Papa for the same information he’d given to Sebastian for the price of a few pints. My anger flared again.
“It’s easy for you to just throw money around, isn’t it?”
Anger etched deeper lines around Sebastian’s eyes and mouth. “Well, if I hadn’t, we’d be burying what was left of you next to the Carter boy and the young seamstress.”
“Well, thank you for this short reprieve.”
“What do you mean?”
“If the wolves don’t get me, it’ll be the beast. If not the beast, Emméline and her accusations of ‘witch.’ There’s always a new threat lurking behind the last,” I said.
“That’s life. You just need to stay ahead of it.”
Sebastian’s stony stare weighed on me and ground his words into my mind. Yes, this was life—for me and for everyone else. Hunger and desperation lurked in the icy crags of winter. Summer brought sweating and sickness. Danger always nipped at our heels. We trudged on through bad harvests—through stubbed, rocky fields and thin cows and the ache of hungry bellies—because we had to. The only other choice was to give yourself up to the darkness.
And I wouldn’t do that.
“I’m going to find out how to help my sister and hopefully your brother,” I said, pushing myself to my feet. “Come if you want to, but I can’t promise you’ll leave again.”
“I don’t have much left to lose,” Sebastian said. “The worst thing has already happened.”
“Don’t say that. You’ll challenge the devil.”
“You don’t think he’s here already?”
Was the devil here? I wasn’t even sure I believed in him like Père Danil said we should. Believe in him, fear him—the same instructions he gave for God. Both were too abstract for me to care about when my sister had just nearly attacked me as a beast.
“We’re losing light.” I picked up the musket and propped it against my shoulder. The solid weight of it warmed me with an empty kind of reassurance—a false sense of safety because I didn’t really know how to use it. And a bullet wouldn’t hold back these woods or the monsters in it forever.
Sebastian adjusted his bag on his shoulder and fell into step behind me. We let silence become our third companion. The path twisted deeper into the trees. Branches encroached on our space, brushing my hair with their thin fingers when I got too close. Broken spiderwebs glinted from bushes spilling into our path. Soon the track fell away into the dry moss and thick roots of the wood.
It seemed the forest had reclaimed its land. Nature was quick to do that without our interference. We had to be diligent if we wanted to cut away a piece for ourselves.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Sebastian called as the light faded to gray around us.
“Papa told me she lives near the caves. Look how thin the trees are here. It was a path once.”
I stopped and turned toward him. Pale blue tinted his lips and his ears burned bright red. Any warmth from the sun had drained away with the day. Dusk offered nothing but the sharp edge of wind that stirred the dead leaves at my feet and blew my hair around my face. I pulled the strands from my eyes and mouth.
My fingers couldn’t feel the cold anymore and that was dangerous. We had to keep moving and reach the witch’s hearth before our skin blackened with cold.
“Walk, Sebastian, or you might lose your ears.”
He pursed his lips but said nothing and picked his way around me.
“I’ll lead,” he said.
“But you don’t know where you’re going.”
“Neither do you.”
But I did. It felt like I was being pulled on a taut string, that I was being tugged toward Aurélie. I followed the string through the slick, hardened dirt and the brown mulch and the fallen limbs of trees because I needed to know more.
“Trust me, Sebastian, and we’ll find her.”
“Fine.”
He fell back again but I slowed my pace, so we walked side by side while the sun continued its journey across the sky. I held on to the feeling of the witch’s call and followed it until the cottage finally broke free from the shadows.
It was made of stones haphazardly stacked against each other and bound with dark mortar. Moss ran through the cracks of the rocks and made the whole thing look like something left out for too long, veined with mold. The low door hung crooked from rusted hinges. There were no windows, but a chimney burst from the roof and released a steady stream of smoke.
Sebastian moved ahead of me and stared at the little house so intently he tripped over a fallen log. I didn’t try to catch him; he was too far ahead. The pull of the string urged me on, but my own trepidation slowed my steps. I wanted to know what she knew and was scared of that knowledge. Right now, I lived in questions and possibilities. If Aurélie gave me answers, those possibilities would solidify into hard realities, and reality wasn’t always to my taste.
“Do we knock?” Sebastian asked, standing in front of the lopsided door. The slats of broken and splintered wood didn’t even fit together—cold wind would whisper through. The witch must always have a fire burning in the winter.
I raised my clenched fist and tapped it against the door. Banging would have been too much noise for the quiet of the woods around us. And anyway, she knew I was coming. She’d pulled me here.
An iron bolt slid free from its cradle with a low-pitched keening. The door scraped against the stone threshold and swung back into the cottage, and my mother stood before us.