“The doctor has no reason to put any of us in danger,” said Ulrich. “Heike, you should leave now before it gets any later.”
Heike waited until Doctor Death’s tall form disappeared around the inn again, then drew Wenzel into a hug. He hugged her back tightly without hesitation. As she pulled away, she kissed his cheek and said, “I’ll return before nightfall. There’s plenty to do here, so I’ll be upset if I find you waiting.”
Wenzel pressed his lips together. Heike looked to Ulrich, who nodded, and then shifted her bag over her shoulder, gripped the knife in her hand, and started toward the forest.
This morning, the trees were still. Their highest branches did not flutter, and the spaces between the trunks were wide and empty and mostly clear of underbrush. Heike oriented herself northwest and used the knife to carve an arrow pointing back toward Greymist Fair on the first tree. Her boots crushed twigs and fallen leaves. On the next tree, she carved another arrow, this one pointing to the first tree. She looked back at Wenzel and Ulrich still watching her, now small enough to pinch between her fingers. She turned around and kept walking. The trees enfolded her.
Heike kept her eyes forward and carved arrows on every tree she passed. Her mother had walked this way often—Heike’s own boots had walked this path. The roots of the trees rose fromthe ground in great arcs and swells as the landscape became an undulating wash of hills and valleys. The muted forest light changed only slightly as the day wore on, growing brighter, then warmer.
Heike stopped only once to eat, nestled between the roots of a tall poplar growing on a slope. As she pulled out the bread and cheese Wenzel had given her, a hard and quick scratching echoed through the woods. The birds had gone quiet overhead. The scratching stopped, then started again, louder, closer. Like claws tearing through tree bark. Stopped, then started, louder again. She stared at the last tree she’d marked, on the opposite side of the small valley, where her small carved arrow was barely visible. The scratching stopped. Heike shoved the cheese into her mouth and the bread into her bag and started walking again.
She carved her arrows faster now, three lines, nine quick strokes to make the cuts deep. The scratching began again behind her. When she turned, there was no sign of any person or animal. She’d seen no other life since she’d entered the woods, though from her cottage she’d spotted rabbits, squirrels, and even the occasional lynx prowling through the trees. She knew there were deer and bears as well, though the only bears she’d seen were the ones Gottfried killed and dragged back to the village.
When she dared to glance behind her, the woods were still and silent, as if patiently waiting for her to continue. She pushed the memory of Tomas’s body away and instead thought about her mother. Heike had watched every time her mother had made her new clothes when she was growing up, until they were the same size, and her mother had passed on her bright skirts and the boots that never seemed to wear.
“Never go out without these,” her mother had said as she kneeled before Heike and tied the laces, though Heike was well old enough to tie them herself. Her mother had said it with a smile, but there had been a grim set to her mouth as she pulled on an older, dusty pair of boots Heike’s grandmother had worn, the laces frayed and the soles peeling. Her mother had always looked grim when she thought Heike couldn’t see, and it had aged her beautiful face. In the early mornings, when she’d stood by the twisting trunk of the linden tree and looked down on Greymist Fair, speaking a prayer Heike never heard, she’d appeared as old as the earth. Heike had always wondered if her mother had a magic of her own, a counterpoint to the witch’s, strong enough to keep the whole village safe.
Heike knew now that the grim expression had come from the treks her mother had taken through the forest, because Heike was sure that she herself was wearing the sameexpression. She was lonely but not alone, stalked by something that didn’t mind if she knew it was there but wouldn’t let her see it. She had been walking for so long, she should have come to the Idle River by now, unless it curved much farther west than she thought. Or perhaps the forest had caught her in the same trap it caught all travelers, on an endless path to a destination that didn’t want to be found. Perhaps being hard to find was not a characteristic of Greymist Fair. Perhaps the forest was just good at hiding things.
When Heike walked along the road and wanted to return to Greymist Fair, she thought of home. The branches of the linden tapping at the sides of her cottage. Wenzel and warm milk by the fireplace on a cold evening. The colorful caravans of the traveling merchants who came from faraway lands once or twice a year to set up stalls and trade in the village square. Then the road would fall away behind her and the village would appear between the trees as if she had summoned it.
But that wouldn’t work with the witch’s home. She didn’t know what it looked like, or smelled like, or sounded like. She had no memories there. Heike looked down at her boots and imagined her mother walking this way. She imagined her stepping over fallen branches and through bramble thickets, pushing the sweaty hair from her brow as she trudged on. Her mother hadknown exactly where the witch lived. She had gone often.
Heike carved her arrow on one more tree, ignoring the frantic scratching that started up several trees behind her, and stepped around the tree and into a clearing.
The forest made a wide and perfect circle around a little cottage with herbs tied to the front door and an ancient linden standing guard.
Five
That the cottage was identical to her own startled Heike for only a moment. She approached the door and touched the tied bundle of chamomile, sage, and holly, so similar to the bundle she’d put up on her own door only days ago. The herbs were real, as was the door and the linden tree. When she pushed the door open, it creaked the same way, skidding against the floor before clearing the boards. Heike stepped up and paused in the doorway. An illusion, even a very good one, wouldn’t scare her away now.
There was no worktable, no pots of distaffs and spindles. No scattered array of tools, yarns, and fabrics. No dyed wool. Ash covered the hearth, and a thick layer of dust coated the entire room. But there was the same tall, upright loom, as if someone had forgotten to take it with them when they had moved on. Dust motes spun through the air.
On the opposite side of the room, standing before the loom, a person watched the door. They stood very still, as if they hadbeen there for a very long time waiting for her. This person appeared as neither man nor woman. They were very tall, taller even than the doctor, with skin white as snow and hair black as pitch. Their eyes were water under moonlight. A circlet of antlers and thorns rested upon their brow. A heavy wolf pelt curled around their shoulders, its empty and eyeless head nestled by their chin. Beneath, they wore robes that matched the shadows of the room and undulated like smoke. When Heike looked at them, she had the feeling of looking at a dead bird splayed on the ground. Then she had the feeling of watching the bird’s feathers rot away, watching the bugs eat its flesh, watching its skeleton crumble into dust. Grass and wildflowers erupted where the bird had once been.
Their black eyes looked her up and down. Their nostrils flared. “You are not the same. You look it, but you are different from her.”
“You aren’t the witch,” Heike said. Her breath sent a flurry of motes into a whirlwind. She kept her hand on the doorframe.
“I am Death,” they said.
“Hello,” Heike said, because her mother had taught her to be polite to those who had not proven to be dangerous. “Is this the witch’s home?”
“This ismyhome,” Death said. “Many years ago the witchtried to steal my family from me. She called me selfish.”
Heike cleared her throat. “I’m sorry.”
Death’s cloak of shadows writhed across the floor, and where the wisps of black smoke went, Death followed, as if tugged along. They stopped in the middle of the room.
“Is it selfish to desire family?” Death asked. “Is it selfish to fear loneliness?”
“No.”
“She was a clever witch. She knew how to keep me away.” Death looked around again, frowning and waving a pale hand through the air. “She crafted boots that made her swift, so swift I could not catch her.”
Heike suddenly felt like she’d spent her whole life looking at the world with one eye closed. She held herself very still.
“She said I never would,” Death continued. “She said I would never harm anyone in her village. I said she was temporary, and I am forever. I told her my wargs would keep taking any who feared me in the forest. She stopped wearing her boots, and I caught her. I knew, eventually, you would come here looking for her. I told her I would catch you, too. I would catch you when you entered this place.”
