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Chapter One
It wasmy fault that the air smelled like hot red copper this morning.
It was impossible to keep out; the scent crept in through the shutters of the church belfry, and worst of all, it actually made me hungry.
I’d peeked out and seen the deer waiting for me when I woke up to that smell, strung over the well in the center of town, eyeless sockets gaping up at my little belfry in a semblance of shocked surprise.
Salem, it seemed to say.Did you have to do something so stupid and get me killed like this?
Red, glistening viscera. Tumbles of purple intestine. Antlers still splattered with gore.
The villagers of Vostok crept around it, veils pulled down tightly over the women’s faces, averting their gaze as they went door to door, searching for the house with one member missing.
The deer was a trade. The Beasts of the Wood had taken one of our own, and left this macabre little surprise as a warning: they owned the Wood that encircled us. They were werewolves, more monsters than men; they walked on two legs like humans, but in all other ways, they were creatures.
They could take what they liked, whenever they liked, creeping in on silent feet and leaving no more than shadows and blood.
The wail went up as I pulled on a clean white dress. “Artyom!”
His mother was on her knees in the street, sobbing into her hands. So the Beasts had taken little Artyom, only nine summers old. It didn’t surprise me.
I wondered if he was a smear of crimson out in the Wood, the Beasts sitting around his corpse like noblemen at a banquet.
I was the only one who had seen him go creeping under the blue rope, disappearing into the Wood with an empty basket at his side three nights ago. When I’d caught him, he’d given me a determined glare over his sunken cheekbones.
“It’s the season for mushrooms,” he’d whispered to me, trembling in my grip. It wasn’t fear; he’d been determined to go, even if it meant offending the sensibilities of the Vessel and tearing from her grasp.
I’d put a finger to my lips, smiled, and let him go, watching until he vanished into the dense forest. Artyom’s mother had six children, and a dead husband couldn’t fill empty mouths.
Her eldest son had to learn to be the man now, and I’d been impressed that even at nine, he’d sloughed the fearful weight of cruel fairy tales to venture past the ropes on his own.
Fat, sleek Father Borodin always said God would provide to those with faith. Those who went hungry knew that God had given them two hands for a reason.
It went tacitly unspoken that many people crept into the Wood under the cloak of night to forage, leaving behind a token for the Beasts to beg their forgiveness.
Freya and her Gran left cunningly woven little dolls that seemed to please the Beasts, and Aldis left hag stones she’d pulled from the streams along with her fish. Dobrushin the butcher left prime marrow bones.
I should have made sure Artyom had a worthy token before he crossed the line. Was it not my mandate as the Vessel to ensure the safety of the flock?
I braided my long, white hair, began my emotional flagellation by forcing myself to take deep breaths of the meaty smell that might as well have been Artyom himself, and hurriedly attached my veil before pulling my hood up. There were footsteps on the stairs, and women’s faces were not to be seen.
In the veil and robe, I ceased to be Salem, and became the Vessel: a shapeless, faceless lump of white and blue.
When the belfry door burst open, Father Borodin’s cloying cologne filled the room, driving out the stink of death. His dark beard, reaching halfway down his chest, had been freshly oiled, and a bronze censer swung from his left hand.
Unlike most of Vostok, the Father wore thick velvet robes, in shades of red and green that glimmered like jewels. He made you want to reach out and touch him, even if the body shuddered in repulsion at the thought of what lay beneath the soft velvet.
“You have seen the well?” he asked, flat gray eyes searching me from head to toe for a transgression and finding none.
I nodded, tucking my hands into my long belled sleeves and holding them in front of myself, cradled against my belly. “Yes, Father.”
“Then prepare yourself. We must begin the purification before the flock succumbs to panic.” He stepped aside, allowing the Augur to come into the room after him.
Like a dog given a bone on cue, when I heard the word ‘purification’, phantom pains ached in my back. The sight of the Augur made my stomach twist.
Unlike the oiled, scented Father, the Augur was severely ascetic. An old man with milky eyes and warts erupting all over his face, he limped into my belfry, filthy robes dragging on the floor, his belt a length of frayed rope.
He held a smoking clay cup in his hands. It was the divine consecration, the first step to cleansing myself.
