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No, I was normal. Or as normal as I could possibly be while being attracted to the creatures who ruled the Wood.
Maybe my bloodline sensed that I had been made for the Beasts, and that they were the only ones for me in the end.
The Arbor was quiet this morning, and the Beasts had gone to hunt. I found my way to the mountain hot springs, taking the hidden Fee paths, and scrubbed myself clean again before pulling on a new scarlet dress and a black fur cloak that had been left for me. There was also a small box that smelled of Draven. I opened it and found tiny ivory beads, polished to gleaming perfection.
I put the bone beads in my hair, letting them tinkle in tiny braids. As I strode down the path again, I kept reaching up and feeling the smooth globes between my fingers, astonished by how pretty they were.
I’d never really owned anything pretty in my life. Our village embroidery was the only decoration we were allowed, and even then it was closely examined to ensure it was appropriate imagery for contrite and holy women.
I was so consumed in my own thoughts that I startled when my crow friend swooped down and landed on a nearby branch, cawing loudly at me.
“You’re lucky I came prepared,” I told him, digging out the crust of bread I’d stored in my pocket just for him, but the crow just croaked louder, fluttering his wings.
I’d known him long enough to know he wanted me to see something. I’d always thought he was wiser than the usual crow; if he had been nesting here the entire time, perhaps he’d been touched by Fee magic.
I abandoned the bread. He stretched his wings, taking off into the sky and fluttering past the Arbor.
Few Beasts were around, and none of them stopped me as I passed beneath the twining roots and knotholes and stepped into the Wood south of the Mother Tree. The concept that they were truly giving me the freedom to walk wherever I pleased was astonishing.
I followed the crow, who fluttered from tree to tree, cawing every so often. “It’s not like I can’t see you,” I snapped, glaring up at him. “You don’t have to keep yelling at me about it.”
Hekraah’d and rustled his feathers, looking down at me loftily.
I climbed over a fallen tree and thought about asking the Beasts to give me a man’s pants, shivering with delight at the thought of such a thing.
On the other side of the log, I stopped in my tracks.
The Wood continued on for another thirty feet, but up ahead I saw a runestone and a stretch of flat-packed earth beyond.
A blue barrier rope was strung around the runestone. It was the wayroad passing through the Wood, and as I watched, a caravan covered with tinkling bells, pulled by a wooly little donkey, passed by.
It was followed by another, and another. I scarcely breathed as the caravan moved through the Wood, heading towards Vostok.
I’d completely forgotten that the traders came before the Solstice. It was where most of the village gifts came from, unless you were lucky enough to have a skilled seamstress like Freya in your family.
I crept closer to the wayroad, keeping pace with the slow-moving caravan, but remaining out of sight. As I peered from behind the trunk of a gnarled oak, I watched a man in a heavily-embroidered fur cloak pause by a stump with a flat top.
He opened the doors of the last wagon, and when he returned to the stump, he was holding a massive slab of beef ribs, still touched with frost from the ice they were packed in. He dropped the rack of ribs across the stump, looking out into the Wood nervously.
I ducked behind the tree again, my heart pounding.
These men and women weren’t Vostokians. I could still speak to people, but I was sure they would tell Father Borodin of a woman living in the Wood.
I couldn’t risk it.
I was about to peer from behind my tree again when I saw a large gray mound shift behind another tree, twenty feet away from me.
Ash’s blue eyes flashed when they caught mine. He was still for a long moment, then his lips drew up to reveal his fangs in a sharp smile.
My gut churned. They might have left meat, but Ash had nothing but hate in his heart.
A gift wouldn't save those men and women from death at his claws.
I shook my head, listening as the caravan bells began to tinkle again. The bray of a donkey filled the air, and Ash’s ears swiveled around.
He let out a low growl I could hear even from this distance… and then darted out from behind the tree, running on all fours.
“No!” I tried to take off running after him, but my cloak caught on the brambled lower branches of the overgrown oak.
