by Alex Aster
When Tor was a small child, long before he had discovered swimming, he used to wish he had been blessed with a warrior emblem…
He locked his jaw. He had always wanted more—and look where that had gotten him.
“You seem troubled.”
Tor whirled around to see Claudia, the giantess leader, standing a few feet away.
He tried to deny it, but she saw right through him. “Take a walk with me,” she said.
The people of Garth nodded as Claudia strode down the street, in a less severe form of a bow. Tor wondered what she had done to earn their respect. For the giantesses, power was not passed down by generation, or even by emblem, but was earned through honorable feats in battle.
“Something worries you,” she said.
“Why would you say that?”
“Eyes are a window to the brain, they betray our deepest, darkest thoughts—and your brain looks troubled.”
Tor wondered if there was a mind-reading emblem hidden somewhere beneath her sleeve. “I’ve been given a task I’m sure I can’t complete,” he admitted.
She nodded. Paused for a few moments. “Is it honorable, what you’ve been asked to do?”
Tor considered that. Killing someone did not seem honorable at all, no matter how he looked at it. Even if he needed to, in self-defense, or in the defense of another, he still would not find that act noble—only necessary.
Still, this was the Night Witch. A person responsible for hundreds of people’s deaths, maybe more. In killing her, he could be saving lives she would have taken otherwise.
Was that honorable?
He turned to look Claudia right in her dark eyes. “I’ve been tasked with killing someone,” he said. “Someone who deserves it, but a person nonetheless.”
The woman did not look shocked. Of course she didn’t, Tor thought. She was a warrior.
“How do you do it?” he asked. Then, he thought of a better question. “How do you live with it?”
Claudia sighed. They were stopped at the edge of town, and she leaned against a hut, looking at the sky. She squinted, and dozens of wrinkles sprouted from the corners of her eyes, making Tor think she might have been much older than he first thought. “The same way one lives with a disease. Every day, it eats you up just a little more.” She clicked her tongue. “But, in the end, you must find a way to go on.” Claudia faced Tor then, her expression turning solemn. “If you don’t, it’ll swallow you whole.”
* * *
That night, they slept in tiny huts, made specifically for visitors. Though their accommodations were much more comfortable than the stones they had slept on the night before, Tor could not find it in himself to close his eyes. He stared at the ceiling, the wood expertly woven into a pliable material, thinking about Claudia’s words.
When he had asked his question, he had hoped she would tell him it was easy—that killing someone who deserved it would not leave even the smallest stain on his conscience.
But, if anything, she had made him feel worse.
He couldn’t kill anyone, even the witch, he knew that for certain.
There had to be another way.
* * *
In the morning they ate with the rest of the giantesses, who were getting ready to set out on an expedition. Tor had watched them carry their giant bows and arrows on their backs like they weighed nothing. Melda sat next to Valentina, who was in the middle of telling them about the time she had run across a lake of quicksand, barefoot.
“Weren’t you afraid you’d sink?” Melda asked.
She shrugged. “Of course. But why would I let that stop me?”
Melda grinned. “I’ve been meaning to ask. What are those bands on your arms?” She pointed to places that looked like they had been painted on, just like Koso’s markings.
Valentina lifted her sleeve. “They’re warrior signs. You earn one for every honorable mission you complete.” She pointed to one. “I earned this when I was ten. There was a beast terrorizing a village to the west. So I got on my horse and went to find it.”
Engle sat back in his chair. “You killed a beast when you were ten?”
Valentina smiled. “No.” She pointed toward something Tor hadn’t noticed until then—a long scar that ran down her neck from her jaw to her collarbone. “I earned the sign because I was brave enough to try.”
On their way out of the dining hut, the giantess cook gave Engle a sack filled with wrapped-up slices of bread, jams, and vegetables. More than enough to last them a few days…if Engle didn’t eat it all within the first hour, that was.
On their way out, Tor overheard Valentina tell Melda, “Come visit us whenever you would like.” Then, she pulled something from her pocket. It was a silver ring, the same color as the band on the giantess’s arm. She handed it to Melda. “And remember. There are many ways to be strong that don’t require a sword.”
The Weeping Woman
Once upon a family secret, a man rode through a village on horseback. He had slicked hair and wore boots that were scratched all over, telling the stories of his many adventures.
The man on horseback stopped at a tavern. When he entered, everyone turned to look. Visitors were rare.
One of the villagers saw an opportunity. He walked over to the man and said, “If what you search is a place to finally rest your boots, I know a most incredible woman, who is kind, intelligent, and in search of a new chapter of her life.”
“Where might I find such a partner?” the man asked.
“In the house next to my own. She is my daughter.”
The man hurried home to warn his family. “He looks to be very wealthy,” he said. “And he has a horse.”
The daughter had dreams of leaving her small village and living in a big house, with food served to her every hour and people under her command. She was not kind, as her father had boasted, but she was cunning. And she had been gifted an emblem that could prove especially useful. One that allowed her to convince anyone to fall in love with her. Though the effects did not last forever, the woman did not care. All she needed was enough time to get everything she had always wished for.
So, the man on horseback and the woman were married. And, a few springs later, she had given birth to two children. Instead of whisking her away to a distant land, they stayed in that same village. And it seemed as though the man’s only valuable possession was his horse. Still, the woman found that even without money, she cared for her husband. As the years ticked by, she wondered if his feelings for her could possibly be true.
One wintery day the effects of her emblem wore off, and the man realized he was not, and never had been, in love. He rode away on his horse while the stars still shined, leaving his family behind.
Overcome with sadness, the woman took her children to a nearby river. She decided she would rather perish than carry on—and would take her children with her.
She walked into the water, holding their hands, intending to drown them and herself. But, before they were submerged, her children escaped.
The woman wanted to find them, to bring them back—but she had been in the water too long. She found she could not feel the frost of the river on her cheeks. Her toes could not feel the stones beneath her feet. Instead of swimming, she now floated, right out of the water.
The woman’s cries seeped into the trees and birds around her, who echoed her weeping.
She roams the island in search of children to take for her own. She lures them with pity, so that she may not be forever alone.
14
Willow Wood
They stood in front of a long-armed weeping willow, the first of hundreds spread out behind it, all hunched over like a gathering of old women. Its dense, cascading leaves were white, like everything else around them.
“It’s beautiful,” Melda said, at the same time Engle exclaimed, “It looks like a s
wamp monster.”
Melda rolled her eyes. Then she gasped softly, looking around. “Do you hear that?” she asked.
Tor didn’t.
“No, really, it sounds like it’s coming from the willow.” She walked up to the tree and reached out a hand to touch its leaves, which hung like a curtain.
As soon as Melda stepped close enough, the willow’s limp branches suddenly came alive.
They wrapped around her body, swallowing her up.
“Melda!” Engle yelled, just as Tor ran forward. He jumped through the thick foliage and promptly collided with something solid. The trunk?
“Ow!” No. Melda.
She stood very still, branches encircling her body the same way a boa constrictor might. But instead of suffocating her, the tree’s movements seemed more like a caress.
“Come here, and be quiet about it,” Melda whispered. He bent all the way toward her, inhaling the faint fruity perfume of the tree. “Listen,” she instructed.
With his ear pressed against the leaves, Tor could finally hear it, too: a low crying. Not just crying, but the type of sobbing that came straight from the chest and left everyone around the poor soul feeling shattered.
He swallowed, throat dry. “What is that?” It couldn’t be the weeping woman. The cries were coming straight out of the tree itself. Unless she was trapped inside it…
The woman’s cries seeped into the trees and birds around her, who echoed her weeping.
Tor yanked the branches holding Melda, and they recoiled, setting her free. “Let’s keep moving,” he said. “She might be close by.”
They walked through the forest of mammoth weeping willows, some extending their branches as they passed, like mothers wanting an embrace, and others shivering from their tops all the way to the ground, the sound reminding Tor of wind chimes.
Engle kept watch. “I don’t see much, on account of all of these leaves. But I still haven’t spotted the crying woman yet,” he said.
“Weeping woman,” Melda corrected. “Weeping.”
“Same thing.”
“It absolutely is not.”
Suddenly, Engle stopped.
“What is it?” Tor asked.
“I’m not sure what…but something’s moving.”
“What?”
“Something’s moving just at the corner of my vision—”
All at once, every single weeping willow shed its leaves. Tor blinked, and the view in the woods was suddenly unobstructed, the previously bare ground now covered in a blanket of white.
Engle gulped. “Well, that…clears things up.”
Melda rushed toward one of the willows, placing a gentle hand on its trunk. “Do you think it wept all of its leaves away?” she asked, voice full of concern.
Engle shrugged. “Maybe.”
They plowed ahead, weaving around the bare trees, and soon came upon a lake that sat still as stone, a few white leaves sprinkled on its surface. And there was something else.
“Do you see that?” Engle asked, his voice cracking like firewood.
A woman hovered just a foot above the pond. She wore a long, white dress that floated behind her like silk underwater, with delicate buttons that reached her neck. Her hair was dark as a raven’s feather, and she combed it with a clam just as a deep sob spilled out of her mouth.
As if sensing their presence, the woman turned to look right at Engle, Tor, and Melda, who had not moved an inch.
Her mouth parted, letting out another cry.
It pained him. Tor swallowed. He suddenly had a deep urge to walk toward the grieving woman. To comfort her. To step a foot into the water, and swim toward her…
“Ow!” he yelped, as Engle grabbed his arm. He turned to shake him off.
“She’ll drown you if you get any closer,” Engle whispered.
Tor looked back at the lake and jumped in horror. The woman was right in front of him, her long-nailed fingers reaching toward his cheek. Her face was twisted in pain, water dripping from her hair in a puddle beneath her floating feet.
He kept staring at her, cries ringing through his ears, as Engle pulled him away. She did not follow, tears flowing down her cheeks as she watched them leave. They kept going until the ground turned from white to gray, and Willow Wood was long behind them.
* * *
They walked through the sparse woods in silence, and Tor tried to appreciate what color there was, knowing from the map they had just a few miles to go before reaching the darkness that was the Shadows. A heavy mist descended, enveloping them in its damp grayness—a sure sign they were getting close.
So why did it feel like they were still so far away?
Tor tensed, a knot of dread tightening in his stomach. The woods around them might have been quiet, but Tor couldn’t escape the wail of the weeping woman, her cries echoing in his head, filling him with an aching sadness and guilt for walking away.
He needed a lake, a river, a pond even—anything he could plunge into to wipe his mind clean. Without water to help wash his troubles away, worries and fears stacked up like swaying piles of glass plates.
And they were about to come crashing down.
They had reached a roughly plowed field of dirt that extended all the way to the outskirts of a thick forest. Tor did not think it was possible, but it had become quieter than before. Even from a few feet away, they heard nothing. No animal sounds, no indication as to what they would find inside the woods. Just as the know-all had said, it seemed as though most creatures had fled the frigid darkness. Goose bumps ran up and down his arms as he looked over Melda’s shoulder, at the map she held with trembling hands.
They had officially reached the Shadows.
The forest was painted in dark shades, from the dark brown bushes to the deep green grass. Everything looked as though it had been touched by night, though it was barely afternoon.
“Well, this is depressing,” Engle said.
He was right. As they walked on, Tor thought to himself that the Shadows had an energy to it, a negative aura that weighed everything down. The farther they walked, the worse his mood became.
It all seemed helpless.
“I’m not hungry,” Engle said, breaking the cold silence. He said it though no one had asked if he was. His voice was flat. “I’m just—not.”
Neither was Tor. He wasn’t anything. No, that was wrong. He was irritated. Angry.
He ground his molars, a tornado of dark thoughts wreaking havoc in his mind. Doubts taunted him like ghosts, appearing and disappearing, driving him mad.
After a couple of miles, the woods stopped altogether, as if it could not be bothered to fill up that particular stretch of land. The ground was cracked all over, in scales. Like they were walking over a giant creature’s back.
Soon, just as it had stopped, the forest returned.
Daylight faded away, yet it seemed as though they had been walking for no time at all. Or maybe it felt like forever. Tor couldn’t decide.
His foot caught on a root, and he flew forward, landing hard on his stomach and knocking the wind from his chest. He lay in the dirt gasping, taking in a massive network of roots, now at eye level. The forest was full of them.
“Are you okay?” Melda asked, offering him a hand. He didn’t take it. Instead, he stayed splayed out on the cold ground.
Tor had never felt farther from home than he did now. How long had they been gone? Had he lost track?
Days. Tor thought about his parents for the first time in a long time, about what they must be going through. Their son was missing, after all. Off on an adventure.
Would they have gone looking for him? Had the Chieftess ordered the village to drop all of their responsibilities in favor of searching for Estrelle’s lost children?
“Tor?” Melda’s hand still hovered in front of his face.
> “No,” Tor said, getting up himself.
At the hermit’s hut, an adventure had sounded honorable. Necessary. Now, it sounded foolish.
“No to what?” Melda asked, her eyes annoyingly filled with concern.
“To everything,” Tor yelled, surprising himself with the sharp tone of his voice. “What were we thinking? How could we believe that we could stop a witch? That I could kill her?”
He shook his head. He couldn’t do it. Tor had planned on finding a way to convince the witch to reverse the curse—but so far, he hadn’t thought of anything. Even if they survived the rest of the journey, they were walking toward a doomed mission.
“I’m done. I’m going back.”
Melda blinked. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“But what about the curse?” She took a step forward. “What about your Grail?” Her sleeve almost ripped as she yanked it up to display the mark on her wrist. “This isn’t just about you. What about us?”
Tor set his jaw. “Someone in the village will know what to do. Someone older, someone more experienced. If we take a hopper, or a horse, we could make it back before it’s too late. We know the way now.” What had he been thinking, going off like this? Had he actually believed he could find the Night Witch, the horrible figure from all of those stories? The one that he hadn’t even known existed, up until a few days ago? He was nobody. A born leader who had wished his emblem away. He might as well spend his last days with the people he loved, with Rosa.
Engle and Melda stood fixed in place.
Tor’s nostrils flared. “Well? Are you coming or not?” He took one step back toward the weeping willows and Garth and Frostflake and everywhere they’d been. Back toward home.
Engle looked at Melda for just a moment. Then, he sighed and stepped forward, to the space beside Tor.
“And you?” Tor said.
Melda straightened her shoulders. “I’m going to find the witch.”
Engle blinked. “Alone?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
Tor sighed. “You can’t be serious. You’ll get yourself killed.”