by Amber Argyle
Sighing, Atara sat beside her. “Those old gossips don’t like me either. I’m not demure enough for them. This is a small town with small people. We’re meant for more, Caelia.”
“They’ll never let me have more.”
“Then we’ll leave. Start fresh somewhere else. I have an aunt and uncle in Cordova. We could stay with them over the winter. Skate on the lake and flirt with pretty boys at the dances.”
“I’ll speak with my father.” But Caelia hadn’t worked up the courage. And now, the drum of her friend’s heart was silenced forever. If I could, I would avenge you, Atara. I would kill the beast.
A hand on her arm startled her. Papa’s gaze was concerned. Rimoth was already passing them by, Atara’s family directly behind him. Wiping the tears freezing her cheeks, Caelia hurried to slip into her place behind them, the townspeople following.
They passed the base of the hill that Caelia’s home was built upon, the town temporarily shifting out of sight on the other side. They passed Joy and Vyder’s home and the furrows of their fields. Until they came to the Forbidden Forest’s border, the trees black against the pockmarked sky.
Standing boldly before the rest was the Curse Tree, the thorns as big as Caelia’s smallest finger. “Nothing good comes from the Forbidden Forest” went the old saying. So the villagers paid Rimoth to write curses on ribbons and tie them to the branches. “May the forest take my daughter” when they really meant “pass over her in peace,” or “let my harvest be full of worms” when they really meant “let the harvest feed my family through the winter.”
Blessings from curses.
Caelia found her own curse—bright yellow ribbon that had faded to the color of rotten egg yolks. Her blessing had come exactly as she’d wanted. She hated herself for it.
They paused beside a large pile of branches gathered from the outer edges of the forest. Beside it was tethered the spring kid that Bane had tended through the summer. It nibbled at the sticks in the pile, oblivious to its coming death as much as Atara had been.
Her father took his place beside the druid. Rimoth took a torch from a man and pressed it into the nest of kindling at the base. It caught quickly, the fire devouring the small bits of pine needles and shredded bark. Startled, the kid bleated and backed away.
When the flame had started into the smaller branches, Rimoth turned his attention to the Forbidden Forest. “Beast of the forest, we offer sacrifice—a tender spring kid—in the hopes that you will pass over our daughters in peace.”
The kid didn’t struggle as Rimoth took hold of its neck and flank—it was used to being handled by Bane. Rimoth rolled the creature up on his knees and pinned it to the ground. Only then did the creature struggle, bleating pitifully. Rimoth held out his hand. His pale, silent daughter, Maisy, pressed the knife into it.
Bane buried his head in Caelia’s side. She pulled him close, pressing her forearm and body into his ears so he wouldn’t hear. Rimoth sawed across the creature’s throat. It struggled in vain, its mouth open and silent, as it could no longer draw breath with which to make sound. Maisy shoved a bowl under its neck, catching the blood as it gushed in ever weakening pumps.
It was over in seconds.
Rimoth poured a little wine into the blood to keep it from congealing. He held the bowl out to the forest and intoned some more. Caelia no longer listened, no longer watched. The night was full of death and blood. Maybe it always had been; she’d just never realized before.
The bonfire grew by leaps and bounds, the heat surging against her bare skin, leaving her hot in front and cold in back. Rimoth threw the blood onto the fire. The flames sputtered and smoked, the burned-meat smell acrid and choking. The flames rose as the moisture sizzled away.
Rimoth tied the kid to a branch of the curse tree by its back hooves. They would leave it there all night. And in the morning, he would return for the carcass—the meat serving his own home. Caelia watched the dead kid sway on the breeze.
Had the beast cut Atara’s throat? Had she tried to scream, but couldn’t because she could no longer draw breath? Had she still been alive when he’d begun to devour her?
A cup was pressed into Caelia’s hand. She gasped in a breath, coming around as if she’d been caught in a nightmare.
Her father peered into her eyes. “Drink, Caelia. It will make you feel better.” He gave another one to Bane, who wiped the tears from his face before his friends could see, his back to his dead goat. He drank it all at once and then darted away.
Caelia lifted the wine to her mouth. It tasted of bitter earth—terrible wine, but she swallowed anyway. She stayed safely a step behind her father as he spoke with city officials about ensuring no one went into the forest and brought the beast’s ire upon the town.
Shortly after, the musicians started. Atara had been grieved. The beast had been satisfied. Now, it was time to get drunk and forget.
There had been a time when the drums throbbed beneath Caelia’s skin, beating in time to her thundering heart, the light from the bonfire crimson behind her closed eyes. Sweat had beaded her skin and her feet had pounded out a rhythm. Her skirts flared then tightened around her legs like a second skin. She hadn’t cared about anything but the thrum, thrum, thrum pulsing through her until she was the drum. She had given into that call, dancing with Mal until the fire burned to embers.
Now, the beat that had lived within Caelia had gone silent and cold, leaving her with resounding, hollow silence. Silence so vast she threatened to crumble inward in an implosion of ash. She gulped the wine, wishing for the numbness to take away the pain, even if for only a moment.
Movement behind her. Bane stomped over to a log laid out around the perimeter and sat down with a huff. A spat with his friends? Or was this about the goat still? Bane knew better than to make a pet out of a wether. The wethers were always slaughtered.
She sat down next to him. “Aren’t you going to play with your friends?”
He glared at his food. “They’re not my friends.”
She went very still. “Why?”
He wouldn’t look at her. “Why did they call you a murderer?”
Humiliation and shame flushed hot through her. “I’m not.” Deny, deny, deny.
“Then why are they saying it?”
She pressed her fist to her lips, eyes tightly closed.
“I hit him,” Bane said softly.
She didn’t bother to ask which friend. It didn’t really matter. “It will only make it worse.”
“I’ll protect you, Caelia.” He didn’t look like a little boy in that moment. He looked like the man he would one day become. One who would protect their townspeople, down to the meanest, most pitiful of them.
She pulled him into her arms. “I know you will.” She kissed his messy hair and released him. “Go home. I’ll be along as soon as I say goodnight to Papa.”
He nodded and slipped away. She watched him go, hating that her sins had hurt him. But instead of going to their father, she slipped away from the safety of his influence. Pulling her cloak’s hood up, she stuck to the crowd’s edge. To the shadows.
The townsfolk drank and wept and ate from the communal table. Caelia could make out the nearly empty plate of rolls she and Joy had made together that afternoon.
She’d reached the far side of the fire when she caught sight of him. Mal had his arm around a farmer’s daughter—a lovely girl from the far side of the village. He reached down, whispering something into her ear. She tipped her head back and laughed, exposing the long lines of her throat. Mal eyed her skin like it was covered in honey.
He used to look at me like that.
Caelia hugged herself, shoulders high around her ears. Mal’s gaze flicked her way, his expression falling. Her father had told her that Mal had a new girl. But a part of her hadn’t believed. What a fool she was. She turned on her heel, fleeing the fire. Fleeing Mal.
Chapter Three
Forbidden
“Caelia,” Mal called after her.
A hand closed on her arm. “Caelia, wait.”
Protest hummed deep in her throat. She tried to jerk free, but he was too strong. “Let me go!”
He released her, hands lifted palms out, like she was one of his spooked horses he needed to calm. His features were lost to the shadows. All she could make out was his figure silhouetted against the firelight. She took a breath to say something, anything, but her mouth was as empty as her soul.
“I’ve missed you.”
All the breath left her. “The forest take you, Mal. You do not get to say that to me.” Ancestors, she hated him so much.
For two months, she’d laid in her bed, the fever so high she’d seen nightmare shadows oozing along the ceiling before darting toward her to gnaw on her bones.
It had been her father, brother, Joy, and Pennice whose faces had faded in and out of her consciousness. Her father had fed her and switched out the cool compress. Joy had bathed and changed her. Pennice had kept her alive. Her brother had read her every book they had. Twice.
Mal had only come once. She knew, because she had asked. Every day, she had asked. Her father’s answer had always been the same: a tight shake of his head.
“Why didn’t you come, Mal? I was dying . . .” She could still feel the looming hand of death. Feel it fisting around her body—an instinct she hadn’t known she possessed until then.
And while she’d lay dying, he’d been falling in love with someone else. While she didn’t dare go into the village for fear of ridicule, he lived among them—free while she bore the burden alone.
“What did you expect after your father turned me away?” Mal said bitterly.
Her father’s disapproval had never stopped Mal before. “Won’t that farmer’s daughter be jealous?” she bit out.
“We’re only friends.”
Caelia huffed. He was the same selfish, feckless boy, while for her, everything had changed. She had changed. Her father had been right about Mal all along.
“Caelia—” Mal made to draw her into his arms.
The empty place inside her overflowed with hate that vibrated into her hands. She shoved him hard in the chest. Her body wasn’t strong. Not like it used to be. But he took a step back. “Don’t you ever touch me again. Don’t even speak to me.” She called him the most insulting name she could think of.
She didn’t wait for his response. She marched out from under the orchard’s shadows toward home. Instead of a steady thrum, her heart beat heavy and ponderous in her chest, the weight of it stifling the breath from her.
The sorrow, the heaviness was back. She shifted, heading toward the river, stumbling across the furrows of her father’s and then Vyder’s fields.
With each step, her body sank heavier and heavier into her heels until it was an effort to take even one more step. Until she collapsed to her knees beneath the weeping willow. She leaned forward. Her palm rested on the bare patch of soil. A single, small river stone marked the place where her infant son lay.
She curled up beside him so the crook of her arm rested above him. She imagined him nestled against her. The wind teased her hair across her face, making her think of the yellow ribbon and the curse she’d written: let me keep him. She’d really meant for the forest to take her baby. Let her lose the thing that would ruin her life.
And she had. And in that losing, her life had been utterly destroyed. She sobbed silently. She would only ever be able to sob silently. No one could know. Not if she ever wanted any sort of life. So she held her pain close. Until it ate her from the inside out. How long until there was nothing left but bones and ashes?
“Do you really want to live as if it never happened?” Atara’s words echoed through her.
Caelia lay until the last of her tears had dried. Until she was chilled to the bone. But she couldn’t bear to leave him. Above her, the willow shifted. Out of sight, the river rushed, frogs called out to each other.
The night’s peace was interrupted by heated voices. Too far away to make out. She could not be caught here, lying beside a bare patch of earth after two months of convalescence.
She rose to her feet, her body stiff and aching. She brushed away the dirt and grass and smoothed back her hair. Even at this distance, the drums felt like a distant heartbeat. She sifted through the swaying branches. The bonfire still blazed in the distance—the townspeople would keep it going long into the night. It illuminated the forest, making her shiver.
Pulling her cloak close, she found the path that would take her home. The further she traveled, the louder the voices became. She took a step off the path, determined to go around them, when she recognized a voice. Joy.
Which made sense, as Caelia was on the woman’s land. But the man’s voice . . . He wasn’t her husband.
Worried now, Caelia moved toward the voices. Two dozen more steps, and she could see them—shadowy forms indistinguishable from one another in the distant firelight.
“You don’t understand,” the man said. “I don’t have the money.”
“That’s not true,” Joy said.
“Papa,” said a small voice, “let’s go home.”
Harben. And the child would be one of the man’s too-thin daughters—Larkin or Nesha.
A smack. “You shut your mouth, you little—”
“That is enough!” Joy said.
Had Harben hit his daughter? Joy? Caelia broke into a trot.
“Larkin, hurry home to your Mama now,” Joy said, her voice gentle.
One shadow detached from the others and bolted down the path.
“Don’t tell me how to deal with my child!” Harben snapped.
“You will pay me,” Joy’s voice shook with anger. “And if you were any kind of father, you would stop drinking and start taking care of your family.” She pivoted and walked up the hill.
Caelia was close enough to make out the woman’s profile in the distant firelight. And then Harben moved, shoving her hard from behind. Joy pitched forward, slamming into the ground with a wet thud.
“You will forgive my debt!” Harben shouted. “And you will apologize for interfering with my disciplining of my own—”
Caelia pushed past him. Joy’s body trembled and shook, her limbs kicking violently.
Afraid she would hurt her, Caelia picked up her head, cradling it on her thighs. Sticky, warm blood cooled on her hands—Joy had hit her head on something when she’d fallen.
“Joy?”
Joy went suddenly still. Caelia waited for the woman’s intake of breath. The moment stretched—like counting for thunder after a lightning strike. No sound.
“I barely touched her,” Harben said in a high, panicked voice. “She fell.”
“Joy?” Caelia bent over, holding her ear over the woman’s mouth. No stirring of air against the shell of her ear. No ragged inhalation. Even Harben was silent.
No. Caelia couldn’t lose Joy too. Not the woman who had been there after her mother’s death. Not the woman who had bathed her and helped her to the bed pan. Not the woman who had taught her the secrets of warm earth and hot bread.
“No, Joy, please.” Setting her head down gently, Caelia scrambled to her side and pressed her ear to Joy’s chest. The thump gave her hope. But it was too long before the second. And the third. And then . . . nothing.
“No. No. No. No.” Caelia clutched Joy as a wail rose in her throat.
“She can’t be dead,” Harben said. Even five steps away, Caelia could smell the liquor on his breath. “She can’t have died that easily.”
Caelia keened, the sound resonating through the hollow places inside her. It wailed out into the night, an inhuman sound.
Harben staggered forward and gripped her shoulders. “I didn’t mean to. She shouldn’t have died so easily. Not from simply tripping.”
“You pushed her! You killed her, and I will see you hang for it!” She screamed
for help, the sound ripping through her throat.
Harben stumbled back. He looked fearfully toward the bonfire, the light catching the terror on his face. But the music didn’t stop. Didn’t so much as pause. No one had heard her.
Harben gripped fistfuls of his hair. “You can’t tell anyone. You won’t.”
Something in the man’s voice—something cold and hard and dark . . .
Harben took a step toward her. “You will tell no one!”
When her son had breathed his last, Caelia had ached to go with him. But now, every trembling breath seemed precious. She did not want to die. So she remained silent, fury and devastation giving way to fear.
Harben paced. “You have no idea who I am. I am the son of a queen. One word to the right ear, and I will have money and power you could never dream of in this filthy, insignificant town.”
The man was mad. Truly and completely mad.
He took a step toward her. “You will remain silent or I’ll kill you. I swear I will. And your brother and your father.”
Keeping her movements even—hidden in the dark—Caelia rolled her weight to the balls of her feet.
He took a step toward her. “Do you hear me, you vapid—”
She bolted, running hard for the bonfire. She cried out for help. Called for her father. Arms around her, wrenching her to the side. She fell on her stomach, Harben’s body on top of her. She clawed at the soft earth, trying to get out from under him, screaming for help. He forced her face into the ground. Dirt pushed into her mouth, choking her, caking between her teeth.
He grabbed for her hands. She rolled onto her back and thrust the heel of her hand into his chin. He reeled back, enough for her to wiggle out from under him. He was between the bonfire and her home, cornering her between the river and the forest.
The Forbidden Forest meant death. But so did he. She sprinted, saving her breath for each gasping inhalation. His steps sounded behind her. She concentrated on each stride, on the uneven ground. The forest loomed before her, a wall of black death. She punched into it without hesitation.
Two steps later, she tripped over something and landed, her palms scraped and bloody, her wrists jarring hard.