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It was midnight when Saffron slipped out of her bedroom and snuck across the silent, empty grassland of her town. The moon hung high in the sky, covering the earth in silvery light. She moved swiftly, brushing along the buildings for cover, just in case any residents happened to be up and about with eagle eyes.
Breaking out into the wide-open space of the town square, she hurried towards the far end, where the town hall sat. Mia was crouched down by the side of the building, waiting for her friend.
“Here,” she whispered, motioning for Saffron to hurry. “Through the back entrance.”
The two girls rushed to the back of the large wooden building, quietly opening the small wooden door that led straight into the basement.
“I never knew this was here,” Saffron said, noticing how the door blended into the wall perfectly.
“It’s supposed to be a fire exit, in case anyone is trapped in the basement and a fire starts overhead. They made it look like part of the wall so nobody could do what we’re doing.”
Saffron giggled. When Mia opened the door, revealing the depth of the blackness that awaited them, Saffron couldn’t help but step back.
“Are you crazy? We’ll fall down the stairs!”
Mia opened her thin jacket to reveal a torch. She grinned and pressed the button, illuminating the rickety set of stairs ahead of them.
“Where did you get that?” Saffron breathed.
“I found it in my dad’s tools. Seems modern day lighting is allowed for some.”
As Mia took the lead down the wooden staircase, a soft breeze blew over Saffron, covering her in goosebumps. She shivered and dared to look behind her at the treeline. Nothing obvious stared back at her but the overwhelming sense that something was watching her made her not want to turn her back and descend down the stairs.
“Shut the door behind you,” Mia whispered. “We can get back out easily.”
Saffron stepped inside the door and closed it, facing outwards, just in case something broke free from the trees and ran for her.
“Come on,” Mia said, her voice echoing up from the bottom.
Hurrying down the poorly lit staircase, Saffron tried to push her irrational fears from her mind. If she was feeling like this, in familiar territory, and with a friend, how on earth was she going to cope in the forest on her own?
Mia grabbed her hand and frogmarched her to the back of the musty smelling basement. Saffron gazed around her, surprised at how the set up down here was very much like a library. Dozens of handmade bookcases stood feet apart, reaching up to the low ceiling that Saffron could easily touch if she lifted her hand above her hand.
“Personnel records are over there,” Mia said, pointing to the far-right corner. “Town history, buildings, and all that nonsense are in the middle here, and over there...” she pointed to the far left “...is all the ‘miscellaneous’ as Herr Schulz called it. That’s where I found all the stuff on the previous Offerings.”
Saffron almost needed to run to keep up with Mia’s long, hurried strides. The cold concrete floor beneath her feet did not escape her attention. She began to realise that much more of modern life lay in the very foundations of her beloved town than what the adults wanted the children to know about.
Heading into the far corner, Mia kneeled down and began picking through cardboard boxes. “I can’t remember the name of the box I found all the files in,” she said. “It was something really obscure. Something you wouldn’t have ever thought would contain what it did. We’ll have to pick through them all, one by one. You’re looking for creamy coloured folders with names on the front of them. You’ll know them when you see them, trust me.”
Saffron bent down and lifted the lid off the dirty white box closest to her. She flicked through piles of black and white photographs, not taking much notice of them. That was until she came across one that was slightly larger than the rest. The face in the middle of the photo smiled back at her until she lost all the breath in her body.
“Oh my goodness,” she said, almost choking. “This...this is my papa. Mia, Mia, look at this!”
Mia scurried over to her friend and took the photo from Saffron’s shaking fingers. Turning it over she flashed the torchlight over the date written in curly handwriting on the back—1949.
“That would make your papa seventy,” she said, frowning. “I don’t understand. He looks exactly the same here as what he does every day.”
Saffron’s gut churned over with a bad feeling. Dread, anxiety, and oppression all mixed together inside her. “How is this possible?”
“Maybe it’s his father. You know how some fathers and sons can look similar.”
“That isn’t similar,” Saffron said, stabbing her finger at the figure in the photo. “That is my papa.”
Mia shook her head. “No,” she said. “There will be a rational explanation for it, I’m sure.” She threw the photo back in the box. “That’s not what we came here for anyway. Keep looking for the files.”
The girls carried on in comfortable silence. Saffron couldn’t help her mind wandering repeatedly back to the photograph though. There was no doubt that was her father, Walter, as he existed right now was as he existed in that photograph, taken seventy years ago.
A violent shudder ran down her spine. She wanted to ask him about it but she couldn’t do that without revealing what her and Mia had been doing in the first place. At the moment, Saffron felt her loyalties lay only with herself—she had to put herself before anyone else in order to survive the ordeal looming in her future.
“Got it!” Mia said, almost shouting in her excitement. “Look at this—the box is labelled ‘Cropping Records’.”
Saffron frowned. “What does that mean?”
Mia shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. But here—” she passed over a slender off yellow colour manila style folder to Saffron “—this is one of the files.”
Saffron opened it. Several small photographs slid out of it, leaving behind a handful of sheets of paper. “Tammy Fischer,” she murmured, flicking through the papers. “Born April 17th 1900.”
“Wait, what?” Mia said, grabbing at the delicate papers. “She’ll be the first one, the first offering!”
“What about Adala?”
“After her. Adala would have gone into the forest in 1900, so when Tammy turned seventeen, she was the first one to pay ‘tribute’ or whatever the hell it is.”
“So that makes me number...” Saffron counted the years out on her fingers “...number seven?”
Mia nodded. “That’s a lot of girls, isn’t it? One every seventeen years doesn’t sound so bad, but when you think Sehrstadt has existed since what...the late eighteen hundreds, and we’ve had six girls just disappear into the forest, under the pretence of some ‘Offering’ or whatever...” Mia shivered “...I dread to think what’s happened to them.”
Saffron flicked through the rest of the papers to find the death certificate, the last piece of delicate paper at the back of the file. “Date of death—September 21st 1934.” Saffron shook her head. “How could they know this? If she went through the forest and was allowed out into the City, how could they know when she died?”
“Because she didn’t make it to the City,” Mia said. “She was in that forest for seventeen years, until the next Offering went in.”
Saffron shook her head. “That’s impossible. Nobody could live out there for all that time.”
“Then why record the date of death as that?”
“Who deals with all these records?” Saffron asked.
Mia pursed her lips. “I don’t know.”
“Where are the other files?” Saffron said. “Let’s check the others out.”
The girls rummaged through the box, rifling through the precious remaining folders. Sure enough, exactly as Mia said, their dates of death were recorded as the date of the next Offering. All causes of death were listed as ‘misadventure’.
“What the hell does that mean?” Saffron asked, frowning.
Mia didn’t answer. She grabbed all the death certificates, looking at them each individually quickly in succession.
“Look at this!” she said, grabbing Saffron’s forearm in excitement. “The handwriting on all the certificates is the same.”
Saffron’s heart stopped. “That’s impossible.”
“It’s not,” Mia replied. “Look.”
The girls studied the handwriting very carefully, comparing each letter with careful scrutiny. Just as they decided that without doubt, all the certificates had in fact been written by the same hand, a strange sound came from the top of the staircase.
Both girls snapped their heads up, looking towards the door. A shadow moved along outside, its black edges blocking out the slivers of moonlight sneaking in underneath the door.
“Who is that?” Mia whispered. She picked up the flashlight and shone it towards the door.
“Don’t!” Saffron hissed, snatching the item from her friend’s hand. She placed it light down on the floor, very quietly. “They’ll see it.”
The shadow stopped moving, its opaque presence looming over the girl’s exit. Minutes ticked by. Saffron’s heart was in her throat, her pulse echoing through her ears. The shadow moved. Blurred edges became defined lines. A snuffling sound, like a dog sniffing, filtered down into the basement.
Saffron’s blood ran cold. Fear exploded inside her in an instant. “It’s here,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “It’s the wolf.”
Mia’s grip tightened. “What?”
A loud thud sounded against the door, followed by nails scraping down the wood. Mia shrieked, sending the creature into a frenzy. A paw pressed up against the bottom of the door, a long nail dug at the soft mud surface, sending dirt flying as it tried to dig its way under the secret entrance.
“Where’s the exit to the hall?” Saffron whispered.
Mia shook her head. “It’s...it’s locked from the other side. Padlocked. Only Herr Schulz has the key.”
Saffron pointed at the door blocked by the creature. “So that’s our only way out?”
Mia nodded, choking on sobs of panic.
“Shhhh,” Saffron said, trying her hardest not to show her fear.
Mia dug her nails into Saffron’s forearm. Saffron winced and bit her lip, focusing on the pain rather than her sheer terror. She closed her eyes, willing the damn thing to go away, to leave her alone until it was time.
Minutes ticked by. Mud kept flying, nails kept scratching at the wood.
“Saffron,” Mia whispered. “Look!”
Saffron opened her eyes to see a monstrous elongated snout poking through the hole under the door. Its nostrils flared as it inhaled the scents in the musty basement. A low growl emanated from the wolf.
Mia clamped a hand over her mouth, stifling her screams. Then the creature stilled. Seconds later it retreated, its thundering paws fading into the distance.
“Has it gone?” Mia whispered, her whole body shaking.
Saffron waited with bated breath. “I think so.”
“I’m not going out there. No way. What if its waiting for us? What if it’s ran off to lure us out?”
“I think you’re giving it too much credit,” Saffron replied. “It’s just a wolf, Mia. It’s not capable of thinking like that.”
Saffron picked up the torch, illuminating the girl’s world once more.
“They’re a lot more intelligent than what you realise,” Mia said. “I mean it. I’m not going out there.”
“So what are you going to do then? Wait in here until Herr Schulz unlocks the other door in the morning?”
“Fine,” Mia snapped. “But I’m not sticking my head out there first.”
Saffron wished she’d made her knife already. She wished she even had something as simple as a hammer about her person, just something to swing at the beast in case it was lying in wait for them. Anything was better than nothing.
“Are we done with these files?” Saffron said, shining the torch on the open folders.
Mia nodded. “I just want to go home. We answered our questions, right?”
Saffron sighed. “I think I just have even more questions to be honest.”
“But nothing that can be answered by staying down here.”
“No. Let’s tidy these away and go home.”
The girl’s worked in a quick, comfortable silence, carefully organising the files back to their original state. Once they were all packed away, Saffron stood up and held her hand out for Mia, offering her help to her feet.
“Come on,” she said. “We’ll be just fine. I promise.”
Mia’s face had drained to a ghostly white. She nodded, her lips pulled into a thin line.
Step by step, keeping the torchlight low, the girls ascended the creaky old stairs. Saffron kept her head low, using the freshly dug hole to scan across the grassy plain that waited for them outside. From her limited view, she could see nothing but short grass and the beginnings of the trees in the distance.
“I think we’re all clear,” she whispered to Mia, who was trailing behind her, clinging onto Saffron’s forearm still.
“How do you know it’s not hiding to the side or something?”
Saffron faced reality. “I don’t.”
Mia didn’t reply.
When they reached the top of the staircase, Saffron prised her arm free from Mia. “I’m going to need both hands in case I have to shut the door again quickly.”
Mia let go.
Easing the lock off, Saffron slowly slid the door open. Apprehension built inside her with each inch she dared to open the door. Her heart in her mouth, nausea churning in her stomach, she took a deep breath and braved looking outside.
The serene beauty of Sehrstadt’s landscape stared back at her, bathed in moonlight. Not a single blade of glass moved across the wide-open space. The treeline seemed to call to her, almost laughing at her as it hid secrets she still had yet to discover, but nothing came for her this time.
“We’re good,” she said to Mia.
Quivering from head to toe, Mia clung to Saffron as Saffron exited the basement fully, standing clear at the back of the building.
“Lock the door up,” she whispered to Mia.
Mia fumbled with the hidden latch, her fingers slipping.
“Take it easy,” Saffron said. “Just breathe.”
The lock slid into place. Mia grabbed Saffron’s hand. Taking one cautionary step after another, the girls sidled along the side of the town hall, picking their way back home painfully slowly. When they eventually reached Mia’s house, Saffron suddenly realised she had to get to her own house, alone.
“Are you going to be ok?” Mia asked, her eyes darting out across the sleeping town.
Saffron nodded. “I’ll be ok, Mia. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Or later today, whichever.”
Attempting to laugh, Saffron comforted herself with the prospect of being alone after such a fright. Even though her house was only a seven-minute walk from Mia’s it suddenly seemed like a million miles.
Walking quickly but quietly, Saffron made it back to her house without further incident. Except for the persistent feeling of someone, or something, watching her from the treeline. As she closed her eyes to go to sleep, all she could see in her minds eye was an elongated snout and long claws coming for her under the door.