by M. H. Lee
Also by M.H. Lee
The Bearer
The Price We Pay
Death Answered My Call
Drowning In Their Darkness
To Be A Hero
The Taste of Memory
In Search of a Frickin' Hero
Drowning In Their Darkness
Freya's life was simple—helping her parents on the farm, spending a few quiet afternoons down by the river with her sister, Jadzia, and occasionally riding into town with her father.
She knew one day she'd marry Devlin—the boy from two farms down the road—and they'd spend their days raising a family just like her parents had before her, and theirs before them.
All of that changed the summer she turned fifteen.
Freya started to feel "it" that summer.
She couldn't explain exactly what "it" was, just that she no longer felt in control of herself when she was around people. When they focused their attention on her she felt herself bend or flow into someone else—someone more like what they wanted her to be.
The first time Freya really noticed the change was on a day so hot that all she wanted was to lie in her room until the afternoon rains blew through.
For whatever reason, Freya's mother had decided to make a blueberry pie that morning. As Freya lay in bed, fanning herself with the brim of her bonnet, she wrinkled her nose at the stench.
She'd always hated blueberries. They were squishy and gross and she’d never understood why people thought they tasted good.
"Freya! Come down here."
As lethargic as she’d been a moment before, at the command Freya jumped out of bed and raced downstairs to join her mother and sister in the kitchen where her mother thrust a plate full of steaming blueberries and flaky crust in front of her. "Try some pie. I'm sure you'll love it. I used cinnamon."
Instead of turning her nose up in disgust like she would have normally, Freya ate the pie, savoring every bite.
Freya eating something she didn't like wasn't entirely strange. She'd always been willing to do little things to make her family happy—give her yellow hair ribbon to her sister, listen to her father tell the tale of the Old Man and the Cooper for the tenth time, help her mother organize the cellar.
What was different—and what she only realized later when she finally stopped to think about it—was that on that particular day, when her mother had asked her to eat the pie, she hadn't forced herself to eat it to please her mother.
No. During those few moments, Freya had wanted to eat the pie.
And she’d loved it just like her mother had said she would.
As her mother had watched with eager anticipation, Freya had shoveled bite after bite of blueberry pie into her face and told her mother how delicious it was.
And she’d meant every word.
Late that night, lying on her bed as a cool breeze finally cooled her skin and Jadzia snored in the corner, Freya thought about what had happened in the kitchen and wondered if maybe she'd changed.
These things happened sometimes. She was growing up after all.
Maybe she liked blueberries now.
To test her theory, Freya snuck downstairs and found the remainder of the pie.
She pulled the plate close, inhaling the sweet scent of pastry and berries, and…gagged. It was all she could do not to retch at the foul smell of the most awful fruit in the world.
She almost dropped the plate on the floor in her hurry to get away from it.
No. She hadn't changed. She definitely still hated blueberries.
Except, it seemed, when her mother told her she’d love them.
Freya worried about this change in herself, but she didn't tell anyone about it. It was just blueberries after all.
But it wasn't just blueberries.
One sweltering mid-summer morning, when she and Jadzia took a picnic lunch down to the river, Freya finally began to see how powerful "it" was.
As they sat there in the sweltering heat of the day, Jadzia eyed the cool water flowing nearby. "We should go for a swim when we're done."
Jadzia had always loved to swim. She was like a steelhead fish, slithering through the water with perfect ease.
Freya shuddered. "You can, but I'm not going."
She had never taken to the water. She hated it. She wouldn't even stand within reach of the bank, it scared her so much.
So, when they'd finished eating and Jadzia started to strip off her clothes to go for a swim, Freya knew that she wouldn't join her sister no matter how hot the day or how refreshing the water.
Except…
Not a moment later, when Jadzia turned to her and said, "Come on, Freya, let's go for a swim," Freya went.
She didn't even hesitate.
The little voice in her head that had warned her of the danger was gone. She wanted to swim with her sister.
Until, that is, Jadzia ducked under the water and Freya found herself alone with the strong current swirling around her hips. She panicked as the water tugged and pulled at her feet, trying to flee back to shore before it could take her. But she slipped, the icy cold water dragging her under, filling her throat as she tried to scream and it pulled her away from the shore.
As the river threw her into rock after rock, Freya wondered what had made her do something so foolish? She knew better, so why had she gone into the river?
She would have drowned that day if the hunter hadn't rescued her. He saw her bedraggled body in the water and barreled in to grab her with arms the size of tree trunks, withstanding the deadly flow of the water as if it were nothing.
Freya was so grateful to him—he had saved her life after all.
But…
As he wrapped her half-naked body in a blanket, Freya felt pulled by his will. He wanted her to be grateful. And he wanted…
He wanted her to show her gratitude to him by…
By doing something she'd never done before. Something she'd always been told she should never do until she was married.
But, in that moment—just Freya and the hunter there alone in the woods—she didn't hesitate. It was what he wanted. So she gave it.
There were no doubts, no worries. Not in the moment
It was only later, when he left her alone by the fire to check his traps, that Freya regained herself.
And then…
Then she finally knew that something was terribly, terribly wrong.
She remembered what she had done with the hunter and how she had felt when she did those things. In the moment, with him looming above her, his hands grasping her hips and his breath heavy on her face, she had wanted it.
Enjoyed it even.
It had been her choice. He hadn't forced her.
But…At the same time…
It hadn't been her choice. Not really.
Without the hunter's need to drive her, she would have never done any of it.
Even now. Even with the memory of the pleasure she'd felt in the moment, it wasn't what she wanted.
Freya just wanted to go home.
She resolved to ask the hunter for help when he returned.
But she didn’t. Because he wanted her to stay.
So she did, never once telling him how she missed her family or how the things they did in the dark of the night weren’t things she wanted.
Because while he was there, she didn't miss them. She only wanted what he wanted, which was for her to stay and love him.
So she did.
Until one day the hunter once again left Freya alone and it all came crashing down on her.
How had she forgotten her friends and family so easily? They must think her dead, lost to them forever. She knew she needed to go home. And she knew she wouldn’t tell the hunter if he came
back, because he didn’t want her to go.
So she fled.
She ran and ran and ran through the forest, branches lashing her face, stones cutting her feet, sobbing, half-blinded by her tears.
She didn't even know where she was going—just that she needed to get away.
The hunter wasn’t a cruel man, it wasn’t his fault. But what she'd become in his presence, it wasn't who she wanted to be.
Freya finally stumbled out of the forest as the sun cast one last angry swath of red across the sky, silhouetting a farmhouse in the distance.
She started towards the dwelling, longing for a hot meal and company, but stopped herself there on the edge of the wood, the lure of comfort calling her forward.
What if…
What if it wasn't just the hunter? What if what had happened with him could happen with anyone?
And what if the person in that house wanted something from her, too?
She wouldn’t find her way home. She'd be trapped—captive to their will.
She might never get home if that happened.
She couldn't risk it.
Freya snuck into the hayloft of a nearby barn, wrapped herself in a scratchy horse blanket, and cried herself to sleep.
What was she going to do?
When Freya finally limped her way home the next day—her feet shredded to ribbons, her skin slashed where tree branches had cut her flesh—there was a large group of men in front of her home.
Freya flinched as she saw them from the top of the hill.
She couldn't go down there. Couldn’t let their wants and needs pull at her the way the hunter’s had.
But it was too late.
"Freya!" Her father ran towards her.
She met him halfway, the power of his need to hold his little girl driving her steps.
"Oh, Freya, we thought you'd drowned." He squeezed her so tight she could barely breathe. "We thought you were dead for sure. We looked and looked for you. What happened?"
Freya stared into her father's worried eyes and she told him what he wanted to hear. "The water swept me away. I finally washed ashore and I've been trying to make my way back here ever since."
"Alone?" her mother asked, having finally joined them.
"Yes."
"Where did you sleep last night?" Her mother watched her, eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"In a barn."
"Why didn't you ask for help?"
Freya felt the tug of her mother's desire to hear the truth, but her father's need for his daughter to be safe and untouched was stronger. Freya snuggled into his embrace, anchoring herself to that desire for things to be simple and clean.
"I just wanted to get home," she replied. "If I'd stopped at the farm, they might have kept me there."
"Enough questions, Lorelei. Come along, Freya. Let's get your wounds tended to." Freya's father led her through the crowd. The men's desires pulled and tugged at Freya like a river, threatening to drown her, but her father's presence was like a fortress, protecting her.
That afternoon, Freya found herself alone in the bedroom she shared with her sister. Her limbs were wrapped in strips of linen soaked in healall and she'd been told not to walk unless absolutely necessary for at least a week.
Freya lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling as she cried silently, the tears rolling down her cheeks and pooling in her ears. What was wrong with her?
The things she'd done—going in the river, being with the hunter—that wasn't her.
And yet it was.
Because she hadn't hesitated. She hadn't doubted for a moment.
They'd asked and she'd acted.
She hated Jadzia for asking her to go for a swim. Jadzia knew how scared Freya was of the water. It was all Jadzia's fault.
She resolved to confront her.
But when Jadzia came in a few hours later and collapsed on her knees at the side of Freya's bed, taking Freya's hand and begging for forgiveness, Freya forgave her immediately.
It was what Jadzia wanted after all.
The next day, Freya was watching the slow progression of the sun across the wall when her mother came to see her.
Her mother's need to know the truth was so palpable that Freya almost blurted out the words the moment her mother entered the room. But just as Freya opened her mouth to tell her mother everything her mother's reluctance to hear those words slammed into her like a wall.
Her mother lowered herself to Jadzia's bed and watched Freya for a long time. She started to speak a few times, but never managed more than a word or two before lapsing back into silence.
All Freya could do was wait, captive to her mother’s conflicting desires.
Finally, her mother left, never having said more than one or two words in all the time she’d sat there. Freya thought about calling her back and demanding to know what was happening, but she didn't.
She longed for her mother's comfort, but what she'd felt from her mother had been as much fear and revulsion as love.
Freya tried to escape into sleep, but that only brought nightmares. Terrible vision after terrible vision where she was powerless to exert her will.
She jumped off a cliff with her arms spread wide in joy while her sister watched and laughed. Lay with nameless man after nameless man, lost in their need for her, unable to assert herself, to say no, the part of her that watched knowing it wasn’t what she wanted, but the part of her that acted doing so freely.
She awoke to the darkness of twilight and threw up, her body crumpled in on itself in pain and horror.
She didn't know what was happening to her. What she did know is that she didn’t want to be what she was becoming.
She stood. She had to act now. While she was alone and untethered by anyone else's needs.
Freya crept her way down the back steps and into the kitchen. Her feet burned with fire at every step, but she ignored the pain. It was temporary—a necessary sacrifice to buy her freedom.
She could hear the voices of her family in the front room—her father's deep rumble accompanied by the high-pitched laughter of her sister and the murmur of her mother cautioning them to be quiet.
Freya turned away from them and walked towards her mother's small workroom. Somewhere amidst the dried herbs and potions she'd find the solution she sought.
Her mother wasn't a trained healer, but people often came to the house to have her tend their ills. She had a certain affinity for others that put them at ease even before she administered her cures. And she was always right about what ailed them even when the person was too embarrassed to tell her the truth.
Freya tried to be quiet as she rustled through the various tinctures and tonics that lined the narrow shelves, looking for the black berries of the nightshade plant. She'd picked them just the week before, so there should still be some left.
Freya found them at last in a mottled glass jar on the top shelf. Her fingertips had just touched the jar when she found herself frozen, unable to move.
"Freya! What are you doing?" her mother's usually sweet voice was harsh.
"I came in here for the nightshade berries. I was going to eat them so I could die."
As she turned to face her mother, Freya saw the trail of bloody footprints she'd left on the floor.
Her mother's face was carefully neutral, but Freya felt the whirlwind of emotion hidden behind those calm blue eyes. "We need to talk. Wait here."
As her mother left, Freya turned back toward the jar of deadly black berries.
"Blast it!" her mother said, returning. "Come with me."
Freya obediently followed her mother out to the front room.
"Freya, dear, feeling better?" her father asked.
"Yes, much," she replied.
And she was, despite her bleeding feet and the bottle of poison she'd been forced to abandon just moments before. Because he wanted her to be better.
Freya's mother stepped between them. "Clive, I want you and Jadzia to run to the Bunderson's farm and pick up some eggs.
"
"Can we do it tomorrow?" he asked, clearly puzzled by this unusual request from his wife.
"No. I need you to do it now."
"Why? What's wrong?"
Freya tried to respond, but her mother's desire that she stay silent prevented her. She whimpered, torn between their competing needs.
"Go, Clive. Now." Her mother's voice was like a horsewhip.
He left immediately.
Freya's mother washed and bandaged her feet once more, never uttering a word. It was all Freya could do not to cry out at the roiling emotions that battered her. Love, fear, hatred, disgust…
Finally, when the bloody signs of Freya's passage had been erased and all seemed as good as new, Freya's mother sat down across from her.
"I was afraid this would happen." She stared at the rag she was twisting between her fists. "My sister was like you.
"It took us time to realize what was happening. She was often alone, running father's herb shop, so we didn't know at first. But it was a small town, so it didn't take long for the rumors to reach our ears. Rumors about how if a man went to the herbalist when Tanya was alone he could get far more than just a tincture to cure his headaches. About how she would be anything he wanted her to be—always willing, always ready."
Freya's mother glanced at her and then away again. "The beautiful girl with long brown hair and green eyes who could and would please any man…"
Freya's mother spat to the side and Freya flinched. Her mother had never spit in front of her before.
"I didn't want to do it, Mother. I mean, I did. He didn't…he didn't force me. I did it willingly. But, I wasn't myself."
"I know."
"You do?" Freya looked for some sign of compassion or understanding, but found none.
"You're an Empath, Freya. Like I am. But you can't control it. Where I can sense a person's general mood and expand my awareness to feel what they feel, you…You are subsumed by their will."