She waited for Perchta at the border of the grove and the forest. I could not say what she truly looked like, for the whole world seemed to bend and shimmer around the idea, and any human words likebeautifulorstrangefelt weak and meaningless to use, but she wore a long robe that could be called green and her black hair was caught up in a thin gold band.
I did not move, not even my hands, the basket finished in my lap. I felt as if I should lower myself onto my belly in the grass and hide until her gaze passed over. But I did not move.
She faced Perchta, who walked toward her, but also faced the forest and the grove at the same time. They spoke for a little while—or maybe it was hours—and then the goddess disappeared and Perchta returned.
“Why did you not come to speak to her?” Perchta asked.
“I was afraid,” I whispered.
She rolled a leaf and began to chew the end thoughtfully. “You still hold so much fear.”
“Who was she?” I asked.
“She was once called Hecate,” Perchta said. “She is the goddess of spirits and magic. She once told me the same things as I tell you.”
The light had begun to fade but I was so struck by this, I could not bring myself to move. “What do you mean?”
Perchta gathered up the baskets and headed toward the hut. “When new gods are born, they are birthed from the old. Hecate was my godmother.” She peered up at the fading sky. “You’d better hurry.”
EVERY MORNING, ICHECKED ON MY VERVAIN SHOOTS, HOPINGthe earth was not too blighted and thrilled when I discovered themtaller and greener. After that my garden grew nearly every day. Unlike Death, Perchta refused to let me do anything until I could tell her the name and qualities of every plant we were using. I often brought them back from my lessons in careful handfuls—yarrow and marigolds, sage, thyme, lemongrass, and even spring violets—to add to my little patch at the arched gate that led into the forest.
I spent many days and sometimes nights with Perchta when Death was gone—tending to the garden in the spring rains and fixing the roof of the hut when it sprang a leak, creeping back into the château only when it was morning—half afraid every time that Death would catch me, and irritated with myself for the urge to hide from him. Many times, I felt certain I wouldn’t go back to her hut—it felt risky and exposed in some way. But I always did.
She taught me to hunt rabbits and forage the late winter and early spring herbs that grew in the forest. In many ways, she reminded me of Valerie, and thinking of Valerie brought memories of Rochelle. I told myself this was why I felt so drawn to her and her hut.
One day, I made no mistakes and turned a cartwheel in the grass in relief.
“Now we can move on to mushrooms,” Perchta said, pleased.
I thumped to the ground and fell back, groaning.
Mushrooms. Nuts. Mosses. The nature of different salts and clays.
“Don’t burn the pine,” Perchta said, slapping my hand so I dropped the stick. “You’ll plunge the whole forest into flame!” She handed me another. “Hickory burns hotter and slower.”
In Death’s study, I drew star maps and calculated configurations, but Perchta dragged me through the dark, to a high, rocky peak, until it felt like I could see the edges of the world, and if I stood too fast, would fall off, hurtling up into the sky. I stood on a mountain bald at midnight and saw them, cast in their milky haze that reminded me of the abyss. In Death’s books I drew circles upon circles, but in Perchta’sgroves I found them—in the ring that surrounded the grove, in the snail shells plucked from rich dirt, in the cones of the purple bells. In Death’s book, scrying was a complex process and required the use of a silver mirror poured with casting spells. Perchta brought me to a deep, dark pool under the willows and we laid on our stomachs on the bank and stared into our reflections on the water.
My dark hair was loosed, veil lost somewhere in the abyss or the forest, and the wild spring wind kept playing with the ends and trying to drop them into the water. “When will I know if it worked?” I asked Perchta. I felt as though I was growing cross-eyed, peering into the depths. I was frustrated—with myself and with the task of walking the path between two masters.
The old woman did not answer, stretched out on the bank as if she were sound asleep. Was she dead? I eyed her back, but it moved slowly. I could hear her answer in the silence.Focus.So I leaned back over the bank.
It was my reflection that bothered me—I did not like to see myself, dark brow, dark hair, and eyes set so deeply into my face that they were just two black holes, as if they’d been gouged out and I was only a shell of a person, rotted inside-out from my curse. It made me feel exposed, though I knew others couldn’t see it like I did. Patrons did not immediately find me cursed. Dacia never had. Until that day with Maxime, only I knew.
I stopped seeing my face, then, and thought of Dacia’s bright blue eyes watching me with that little smile at the corner of her mouth I found so bewildering. It was not a smile she’d given to other girls or even her patrons. It was mine.
Or had been.
In the dark water a flash of white stirred. I blinked. For a moment there was Dacia, spinning, with her dress flying and her curls loosened. But when I tried to look deeper, my heart racing, it was only a silvery trout swimming below the surface.
I pushed up from the bank with aching eyes and sat, refusing to look into the water again.
GODS AND MASTERS WERE NOT THE ONLY BEINGS IN THESEnew, strange worlds I navigated. For other things lived in the forest as well. The wolves ran beside me unless Schneid was there—never getting close enough to strike, but always too close for comfort. In the early spring, with the waters rushing from snowmelt and a dense fog rising from the cool ground, Perchta pointed out the silvery flash of nixie’s tails in the foam. When the trees were in bud, I saw a huge, white horse thundering through the forest—awestruck, I told Perchta about it and she warned me never to accept a ride from the cheval mallet, for I would have to pay with my life. Then, during one wet spring evening I was rushing on my way back to the château and came up over a knoll to find myself face-to-face with a giant.
I surprised him as much as he surprised me. He was as tall as a fir tree, with eyes that took up most of his face, bright as fire, horrifying. We both screamed and fell backward on our asses—him, shaking the forest as he landed. Quick as a wink, before I could even move, he transformed.
A human-size figure stood before me with a long white beard and eyebrows, dressed in a monk’s dark robes. Several lanterns as tall as me were lit and placed on the ground beside him, and the path was scraped and worn around a dark opening in the hillside. “Are you here to steal from my mine?” he demanded sharply, moving to block the entrance.
“Mine?” I asked, picking leaves out of my hair and rubbing dirt off my skirt. “I’m not a miner.”
