Black Forest

by Shane Lee

“What do you...oh.” Monty nodded. “Two of our chickens died around then. They were...”

  He remembered their empty shell bodies; the foul, slick blackness inside them; their awful stench. “She must have killed those chickens. Sucked their life out.”

  “Yes!” Iselle slammed a fist on the table, and both Monty and Terra jumped. The storyteller paid that no mind, now pointing a long nail at Terra. “She wanted you, Terra. She wanted you. Nal’Gee latched onto you and left the forest. Gods, she did! What an incredible risk! She didn’t know her own limitations, she just thought she would be able to take you, but she couldn’t!”

  “So when I was sick that time, that was actually...Nal’Gee?” Terra’s voice quivered, and she looked ill at the thought. Monty felt a bit sick, himself.

  “Nal’Gee!” Iselle practically cried, ecstatic at the conclusion. “She clung to you, and she tried to take you—she tried, but she failed. You were too strong for her. She weakened you with that vision of your father, a father you’d only lost recently, and she thought it was enough, but it wasn’t!

  “She must have almost lost, but she had the chickens. How many chickens do you have? Did you have?”

  Iselle was in a fast-talking rant now, and Monty quickly replied, “Eight. Six afterward.”

  “Ha!” she cawed. “Oh, to think of it. The witch was almost wasted away, but she found those damn chickens, and she only had strength enough to kill two of them.”

  “I was hiding by the coop,” Terra said, looking down at her hands while scrounging for the memory. “It wasn’t for long. I took a nap, I was so tired. And when I woke up, I just went back to the house.”

  Iselle nodded, her head bobbing excitedly. “Not strength, then, but time. She knew she could either stay and kill all the chickens and then perish, or eat what she could before jumping back to you. If this is true, this would mean that animals don’t have souls! Not chickens, at least, if she’s able to bounce between them and you...but she couldn’t cling to your soul, no, you’re too strong, she was stuck to you like a bit of tar, like dung on your shoe, she was expiring...

  “Monty was too strong. Your mother, Delila, was too strong. The witch had nowhere else to go, because none of you were going back to the forest! She gambled and she almost lost, until you went to town and you ran into the old woman!”

  Iselle stopped, having talked herself out of breath.

  “Oh, no,” Terra moaned, curling her fingers and scratching at the surface of the table. “Oh no, it was me, wasn’t it? I carried Nal’Gee all the way out of the woods and into town and she—she was able to get into—e-everyone!”

  She dropped down onto the table, crying. Iselle grimaced and shook her head. “Sorry. Sorry. Again.”

  Monty moved his chair next to Terra. She had her face buried in her arms; small, muffled sobs escaped. He put a hand on her back.

  “Hey,” he said, leaning in close to her. “Hey. Listen here, you didn’t carry anything, okay? Did you pick up Nal’Gee and put her in your pocket? Did you throw her into the wagon?”

  “N-no...” Terra said from within her arms.

  “No,” Monty repeated for her, firm. “She stuck to you. She’s a parasite. And if it didn’t happen now, it was bound to happen sooner or later. There was nothing you could have done to stop it, Terra. But we can do something now.”

  “I’m sorry,” she gasped, pulling her head up. She wiped at her eyes. “I was so stupid. I followed Daddy—I followed dad into the woods even though I knew he was dead. I was just...I don’t know!”

  “She manipulated you,” Iselle said, her words soft with contrition. “She felt your pain over the months and years, and she used it against you. And Monty’s right. If it didn’t work, she would have kept trying with you, or with your family. It’s clear that she is...tenacious.”

  Monty took his hand from Terra and stood up.

  “I think that’s enough for tonight. We’re all tired.” He couldn’t speak for Iselle, but it had been an extremely long day for the two of them.

  “All right,” Iselle said. “I...” She hesitated, perhaps shying away from making another apology. “I have some things to think about.”

  “I’ll show you where you can sleep,” Monty told her, though it was more likely the woman would lie up in bed, running things through her head. “But I want to talk more in the morning, and I think we’ve done enough...speculating. I want to make a plan.”

  Iselle smiled, but it was weak, stifled by the burden of reality returning in the aftermath of their discussion. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking about.”

  46

  The next morning came early and cold on the tail of fitful, ragged sleep. Monty, pulling himself from bed as quietly as possible so as to not wake Terra (which he did anyway), first wondered if Iselle had left in the night. But she hadn’t; she slept in Terra’s bed, which was only somewhat smaller than Monty’s and fit her just fine.

  Delila’s room remained empty.

  Waking up in the house for the first time since his mother had died was hard, though it had been weeks since the sending. The quiet, normal in the morning, was strange and heavy. The house was devoid of smell, which Monty supposed was not a wholly awful thing. It was cold—not terribly so, but it would do to light the kitchen fire.

  He stood in the kitchen, looking at the snuffed lantern on the table; the open pane, with soot smudges on the glass. Sleep had not come easy nor lasted long, but he wasn’t tired. He felt like last night was still pressing on, long hours stretching into the early morning, and that his work was not done.

  By the time he moved—and he wasn’t sure how long he had stood there—Terra was up with him, leaning against the doorway of the kitchen and tugging at her hair.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Mm.” Monty knelt down and saw there was still wood by the cookfire circle. Not a lot, but enough for today. He arranged it as he’d done many hundreds of times, lighting it just as easily. The fire slowly crept across the small, chopped logs. He inhaled the woodsmoke as it came, finding a moment of peace.

  Terra was in the pantry, her feet crinkling on old onion skins laying on the floor. Monty looked after her while she rooted around.

  “There’s some potatoes,” she said, pulling out a pair of the same, one in each hand. “They don’t look bad.”

  “Potatoes last a long time,” Monty said.

  “I know.” She set them on the table, then grabbed three more. “I’ll make some for breakfast.”

  Monty thought of her sitting at the table, sewing. Staying up late to read page after page. The books that would stack on the table next to the bed.

  “Sure,” he said. “Let me help you cut them.”

  They chopped the potatoes together on the table, and when that was done, Monty gabbed the skillet, which hung from the ceiling where Terra couldn’t reach. She was tall enough to use the cookfire, though, and she did that just fine.

  Iselle came out of Terra’s room and into the kitchen once the potatoes had been sizzling for a few minutes. Monty had heard the familiar creaks of the hall as she approached.

  “Wish I had a change of clothes,” Iselle said. Her scarf was gone, her hair fallen in a not-unappealing tumble of black splashed with thin streaks of white. “It’s all in the caravan.”

  The mention of her roots didn’t seem to affect her. Monty got the feeling that the emotional outburst she’d had while struggling in his arms was a rare moment of transparency for Iselle. That, and her excitement when coming across new information about Nal’Gee.

  Iselle sat at the table, her eyes lingering on Terra while the girl stood almost on tiptoe to watch the frying potatoes. “Smells good,” she said, looking away with a smile. “I hope you have some salt.”

  “We do,” Terra said, not turning around.

  “Well.” Iselle laid her palms flat on the table, eyeing the small flaws that had accumulated in the color on her nails. “I have been doing some thinking.”

  Monty, rememb
ering her parting words before they slept, sat down with her. “You have a plan?”

  She tilted her head, equivocating with her shoulders. “I have ideas. I would hope that you have some ideas, too.”

  Reluctant to admit that the night’s intermittent pondering had yielded little, Monty said nothing.

  “I thought of some stuff,” Terra said, scraping at the pan with a long spoon.

  “Let’s hear it,” Iselle said.

  “Hold on, I’m almost done.”

  Monty got up to help scoop the potatoes into three bowls, lifting the heavy skillet while Terra divided the portions and sprinkled some salt on the top, pulling pinches from the half-full sack on the counter.

  “Thanks,” Iselle said when Terra set a bowl and spoon in front of her. “Do you cook a lot, Terra?”

  “No. Just a little.” Terra took her seat, and Monty took his. She dug her spoon into her bowl, burying it in the mound of potatoes and leaving it there. “There’s something me and Monty didn’t tell you about Dr. Tobias.”

  Monty chewed his food, thinking back. Had they left something out?

  “When we went to go see the body, we tried—well, Monty tried to read the rites. We thought it might, um...disturb Nal’Gee, if she was still in there. Make her come out, so that we’d know for sure.”

  “Oh.” Iselle paused, letting her spoon rest. “That’s an interesting idea. And it worked.”

  “Yeah.” Terra nodded.

  “Or it didn’t,” Monty said, tapping his bowl with his fingers. “And Nal’Gee just came out to laugh at us. I didn’t know all the rites by heart.”

  “I thought it was good,” Terra said, “and I think it did work.”

  “It may have,” Iselle said. “You could be right, too, Monty. So.” She took a huge spoonful of food, delaying her next words. Monty suspected it was for dramatic effect. “My thoughts are also about Dr. Tobias. Rather, about his housekeeper. What was her name?”

  “Bella,” Terra answered.

  “Yes, Bella. And how Nal’Gee went right from Tobias to Bella. From the old Kettle woman to her daughter. From her daughter to your mother—who was at her sending. And, I assume, from your mother’s sending into the next victim, who most likely was at that sending.”

  “Yes...” Monty agreed, waiting for more.

  “She cannot leap far.” Iselle punctuated the last word with a rattling of her nails on the table. “When she first lured you into the Dromm, Terra, it was to clutch onto you. I assumed that as her power grew, then so would her ability to transfer from person to person. And yet, even after all these killings, she seems to go to someone close. Her power is greater now, surely, but this fact remains. Both when she first emerged, and recently with Bella.”

  “It does make sense,” Monty said, “but I don’t see how that helps us.”

  “I told you it wasn’t a plan,” Iselle said, seeming cross with the fact that Monty didn’t find this as enlightening as she did. “It is an idea. It is a thought on the matter. If we’re going to plan, we need a basis—”

  Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

  Someone knocked at the door.

  47

  Monty got up fast, tipping his bowl over as he pushed away from the table.

  “Who is it?” Terra asked. She looked sharply at the door, tense and still.

  “I didn’t see a back door that we can leave through,” Iselle said, calm. “Maybe I missed it?”

  Who could—it has to be the Judge’s men. Who else? But why would they knock? They can just barge right in if they want. They know we’re here, there’s smoke through the chimney pipe.

  Thunkthunkthunk.

  “Go in the bedroom. Mom’s room has the biggest window,” Monty murmured. “If there’s trouble, get out through it and run. The forest is probably the safest place.” Oddly enough.

  “You’re gonna answer the door?” Terra gaped.

  “Go!” A fierce whisper; a wave of his hand. He moved to the door, not giving them a choice in the matter. Terra and Iselle slipped out of the kitchen.

  As Monty grasped the door handle, he was suddenly very aware that he had never actually fought anyone in his life. Before this moment, that had seemed like a good thing.

  He pulled open the door, balling his left hand into a fist—

  And was greeted by a scroll. A scroll in the hand of a kid who, at first glance, reminded Monty a lot of Rodney Talhauer’s son; slight, and dressed in clothes a little too big for him. But he lacked the mousy demeanor of the former courier. His words were crisp and rehearsed.

  “Missive for Monty Bellamy from the home of Judge Elrich Mullen,” the kid recited. He had clearly taken over the duties of town courier.

  Was I the oldest recruit courier ever? The inane question passed through Monty’s head as he took the scroll, processing the lad’s words. He didn’t say thank you or ask for the courier’s name, just gave him a dull nod and shut the door in his face. His heart was thudding in is chest, slowing down only once he managed to breathe more than a little sip.

  “A message from Mullen.” Monty thumbed the wax seal. It was unbroken, indeed from the desk of the Judge. Although the courier said it came from the Judge’s home. He closed his fist around it, suppressing the urge to crush the paper.

  “It’s safe,” he called past the kitchen. “Just a courier. He’s gone.”

  Monty was handling the scroll as they came back into the kitchen.

  “Who’s it from?” Terra asked.

  “The Judge.” Monty’s face was grim as he broke the wax seal and let the pieces fall. Absentmindedly, he kicked them under the table.

  “How did he know we were here?” Iselle questioned.

  “He probably sent the courier to our place in town first, then instructed him to come here if he didn’t find us.” The farm house wasn’t exactly a hiding place; it just created enough distance to make them feel safe. He glanced up at Iselle before opening the scroll. “Since we weren’t visited in the night by any of Mullen’s goons, I’m assuming no one at the inn told them that you ran off with us.”

  “Or they didn’t recognize us,” Terra said.

  That was possible, but Monty thought it was the former, and that after seeing what had happened, no one in the inn felt particularly friendly toward the Judge’s men.

  “Well? Are you going to open the scroll?” Iselle rested a hand on the table. “I admit I’m very curious to see what the man has to say to you.”

  Monty felt the same, though it was mixed with a heavy sense of foreboding. Not fear—his fear of Mullen was gone. He did fear for Iselle’s safety, and his sister’s, but the Judge himself was not the threat. Just an obstacle.

  He unrolled the scroll and read it aloud.

  “‘The week you were granted has been cut short. I await your response at my home. Come alone or with your sister, it does not matter to me. Bring me your answer or I will come to get it from you.’”

  The message ended there, taking up only a small portion of the paper in the Judge’s small handwriting. It was compact, yet it looked a little sloppy. Monty imagined the small man brimming with anger, scratching the quill into the paper hard enough to splinter the tip.

  “What’s this about a week?” Iselle asked, raising one curious eyebrow.

  Monty informed her of the ultimatum the Judge had laid on them.

  “He wants your land, is it? He might have to get in line behind Nal’Gee.” The storyteller smirked.

  Monty wasn’t in a laughing mood. “We have enough going on without Mullen forcing his way in. But if he’s serious about this, I can’t just ignore it.”

  “Monty, you can’t go to his house!” Terra pulled on his arm, lowering the missive so that she could take a look. “It has to be a trap. He said he would kill us.”

  “If he wanted to kill us, he’d just come and do it, or send his men,” Monty said. The words came out with an odd casualness.

  “Maybe he’s just lazy,” Iselle offered, then held up her hands. “Sorr
y. I know this is serious. It’s just funny to think of that short little man as some big danger while we’re discussing all of this.”

  “Actually,” Monty said, letting Terra take the paper from his hands, “laziness could have something to do with it. He did say us being alive made it easier. Otherwise he wouldn’t be asking.”

  “He’s not really asking,” Iselle pointed out.

  Monty shrugged. “Whatever you want to call it. But yes, Terra—I’m going to go. We’re not going to get anything done with Mullen breathing down our necks this whole time.”

  “What are you gonna do?” Terra threw the paper aside, where it brushed against the table and then fell to the floor. “Are you gonna give him the farm?”

  The fire was burning low. It would go out soon.

  “I don’t know,” Monty said, and he put more wood on the fire.

  48

  They decided that Terra would stay behind with Iselle. There was no need to bring her along into the belly of the beast, as it were, and it was still better for Iselle to be further from town. In the daylight and the clear, cold air, they could see anyone approaching from miles away. As long as either of them kept a passing eye on the horizon, they’d be able to flee any danger.

  But Monty knew the danger wasn’t out there, not anymore. It was where he was headed,

  It was early—not too early for courier runs, evidently, but too early for most of Irisa to be up and about. The fires were lit at the Commons, and the smoke rose from the four chimneys that sprouted up from the roof.

  It could be a trap. The fear in Terra’s eyes glinted in his mind. It could be a trap, and all my assumptions about what Mullen wants won’t mean a thing if I’m wrong.

  The only thing he knew at this moment was that he didn’t know anything about anything. Everything he thought he knew—about Mullen, about the town, about foreboding tales of spirits told to children—had been shaken with violent force. He clung only to hopes and some mutual understanding between him, his sister, and a woman he’d met less than a day ago.