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“Eat it,” he whispered harshly.
I tried, tears running down my cheeks as I chewed the gluey mass. My stomach was revolting, and I felt like I was going to be sick again. If they made me eat one more bite, I’d spew up every last crumb.
And then we would repeat the whole process again. And again.
As many times as it took for me to eat the sins that had brought this deer to us.
The Augur put another bite to my mouth, and the tears ran faster.
“Eat them,” the Father demanded. “Draw this blackened taint into yourself, and drag them into the purifying light!”
I was wracked with another round of coughing, unable to hold it back. I gagged on it, and the Father dropped his censer, squeezing me with both hands. “Damn you, Salem, do your duty.”
He shook me hard, making my teeth snap together. Pain erupted in my lip, blood filling my mouth.
I felt hot, clawing at the hood and robes. My teeth ached and my fingers were sore as I gripped the Father’s wrists.
“Get off me,” I gasped, doubling over. I could not do this.
I could swear that my fingertips were claws. My teeth felt too sharp, my whole body overheated and aching.
He released me and I fell to my hands and knees, gagging again. They would make me do this all over again. I tasted my own tears mixed with the blood, knowing I had only extended my misery.
The faces of Father Borodin and the Augur filled my field of view.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“—too much of the divine consecration,” the Augur was saying. “She’s ill. My eyes are not what they used to be, and I have no extra hands to help measure—”
“If you’ve killed her with it, I swear on all that is holy, I will skin you next,” the Father snarled, and then hands were hauling me upright.
I looked into the well, the darkened pit, and at the pale bread lying on the body of the skinned deer. A strange, infinite sadness filled me that it was still here, not whole and free in the Wood.
“Youwilldo your duty,” the Father insisted. “Eat these sins so we may be purified.”
He pushed me towards the corpse and the bread, gripping the back of my neck again and moving me like a puppet.
I stared into the dark, brackish water. Bits of viscera floated there.
A Beast stared back. My sharp fangs filled my mouth, threatening to split my jaw. My claws gouged the stones.
I wasn’t fully aware of tearing from the Father’s grasp. Of ripping my veil away, screaming at the sky as I tore off the clinging, suffocating garments.
Then they descended on me with lash and rod and fist, and I knew no more.
Chapter Two
In the dark,voices whispered to me.
They were unlike any human voice I’d ever heard before. Deep and primitive, ancient voices, whispering inside my bones.
“We’ve been waiting for you.”
Every muscle in my body ached as I ran through the woods, feeling lithe and free despite the pain.
The forest was bleached to shades of gray by the moon. I slipped between the trees like water, breathed in ten thousand smells I’d never known existed, and finally unleashed a joyful howl.
My wolf’s body was unstoppable as it carried me away from Vostok. I had no cares, no worries, no fears. Being a creature was perfection, the knowledge that nothing existed but myself and the Wood, nothing but myself against nature.
