3. Chapter 3
Chapter three
Leena
A s I suspected, Grandmother was already gone before I got up. She never came to the room she and I shared; I wasn’t sure if she’d slept in the parlor or if she’d slept at all. When Karina sauntered out of her and Vasska’s room, I asked where she was.
She shrugged. “I haven’t seen her since last night.”
“Wh—”
“Come on, Leena, it’s time to go.” Vasska grabbed my arm and roughly led me out the door.
“I haven’t had breakfast yet.”
“I’m sure Ms. Tomlin will have something for you there.”
I couldn’t squeak out a word as he led me by the elbow and muttered directions for me to be amiable when Ms. Tomlin spoke to me.
When he threw me in front of the matriarch’s cabin, he pounded on the door. “Drop the food off at my place, Agatha. She’s all yours.” He turned to me with one last sneer. “If you don’t want your grandmother to die of starvation, you’ll do as you’re told.” Fear rippled through me, and before I could respond, he was gone. I stared at the grooves in Ms. Tomlin’s polished door. I’d never felt so cold and confused, but all I could do was wait. And think.
My nails dug into my cloak as I held it tight against my chest. I looked around at the small cottages in the middle of the woods and at the enormous trees draped overhead. Trees surrounded us like a storm, each one reaching out like they were trying to grab us. My eyes fell toward the heart of it, where sound came to a stop.
The doorknob rattled before the large entrance creaked open.
“Leena, I take it?” The elderly woman stared at me, white hair hanging in thick braids from either side of her skull. Her back was rigid and adorned with small turquoise beads of different shapes and sizes, strung from layered necklaces over an intricate robe. Her skin was thin and crinkled, resembling wet rice paper, and her eyes were somehow paler than Vasska’s. They were so white that it appeared she only had pupils, which widened before turning to pinpricks as she stared me down, examining every inch of me. “Hm.” She crossed her arms. “You should do just fine. Come.” She nodded, gesturing inside, and walked into the house.
Was she pretending not to know me, or did she truly not remember me? I had met Ms. Tomlin plenty of times. Our village wasn’t that big .
I followed her inside, instantly hit with the warmth of a fire most of us only dreamed of. Chopping down trees had proven difficult lately. We’d all been living on two or three slats of wood a day to make it last, but the town matriarch must have gotten the first claim on whatever anyone chopped. Just as she’d had first claim on the structures we’d turned into homes.
Her cabin had been in one piece, and most of the town helped with any repairs or renovations needed. It must have been nice to hold such a position, though I wouldn't want the only reason people treated me nicely to be because they either feared me or wanted special treatment, though she didn’t seem to mind.
“Um, Ms. Tomlin?”
“Don’t say, ‘um’ like that, dear. Be confident. You won’t stand a chance if you lack confidence. Besides, it’s improper, and you should know that at your age.” She emphasized the last two words and looked me up and down with an unimpressed grimace. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.
I ignored the slant and focused on the concerning words that came before it. “That’s just it. I won’t stand a chance against what? I don’t understand what I’m being sent to do.”
The woman’s thin brows shot up. “Your uncle didn’t tell you? Didn’t he ask if you’d be willing to do it?”
“Do what?” My voice was hoarse, or else I’d be screaming. “Please,” I said, my throat suddenly dry. “ Tell me.”
A look of pity washed across the woman’s face as she chewed on her lip, pausing before speaking. “You can still turn back if you’d like. Your family doesn’t own you.”
“They do.”
“No, they—”
“Please,” I whispered. My hands were cold; I could barely move my fingers as I fumbled to clutch my cloak tighter against my chest.
The woman studied me. The mighty grandfather clock across her finely decorated sitting room ticked the seconds away. Finally, she let out another sigh. “We need someone to help end this issue plaguing our village. I’m sure you know how dire the situation is, and surely you know things will only get worse.” I nodded. “We need someone…” The woman’s mouth hung open for a moment and then clamped shut. The grandfather clock ticked as she chose her next words.
“I have been in search of answers since this began,” she said. Her bony fingers fiddled with a string loosely hanging from the seam of her robes. “I’m sure you’ve heard that towns around this forest warned us not to settle here. I suppose we should have heeded those warnings.”
“Why? What’s out there?” My heart pounded.
The woman’s fingers stilled, then slid off the end of the thread. “The rumors around town are true. The attacks on our village—the broken carts that have made it near-impossible to travel for food and supplies, the missing villagers, the spoiled food—I have it on good authority that it’s the guardian of these woods. A creature called the Leshy.” A weight plunged deep into my gut, and the blood drained from my face. “We need someone to look for him,” she said. “To appeal to him.”
My whole body frosted over. The chill in the room was so palpable I could feel it seeping beneath my cloak, coating my skin.
“And do what exactly?” I looked down at the polished, intricately designed table the woman was standing next to. Her whole cottage was lavish despite none of her villagers having enough food. Most didn’t even have straw for beds.
“I spoke with many experts and a reliable source, and I learned that the Leshy needs a companion.”
“No…” Bile threatened to heave from my gut, but I choked it down, along with the tears that stung my eyes.
“Before you get too worried, this doesn’t mean you must be his companion to solve our plight, but we need to prepare for the worst.” She paused, avoiding my gaze as she added, “But we need someone to appeal to him, and sending an unmarried, vulnerable woman is our best bet to do that. Just in case.”
A laugh erupted from my throat, both from disgust and disbelief. “You’re joking. You must be.”
“I’m afraid I’m not. This is the task.”
The bleakness and harsh reality of the mission hit me like a punch to the stomach. I had to bite my lip hard to fight back the tears, but I couldn’t stop my voice from wobbling. “You’re sending me to die. ”
“I’m sending you to stop him from stealing children and from leaving our people starving and without resources. This may be our only chance at putting an end to all this.”
“What makes you think he’ll even speak to me or that he’s even attracted to human women?”
“I was told that these deities are attracted to human women, though they don’t accept them often. It may not work, but it’s our best shot. Our only shot, really.”
“One woman has already gone missing, but things are only getting worse. If she wasn’t good enough, what makes you think I will be?”
“We don’t know what happened to her. She may have been killed while trying to protect her child. Besides, she was far older than you and was married with a child of her own. These leshy creatures are finicky, but if we dress you up and you do as I tell you, you may have a shot.”
I sat on the sofa, letting myself sink deep into the cushions. This little talk was only making things worse. “I’m not so sure.”
“Are you not going then?” she asked.
“No, I am. I…” A lump formed in my throat as a myriad of possible horrors flipped through my mind. “What about my family? If I do this, my grandmother will never go hungry, right? And neither will the rest of them?” Vasska needed to be fed or Grandmother still wouldn’t be safe.
“That’s right,” the matriarch said. “Even if you don’t secure a solution, we will do what we can to feed your family. But the main issue is that our food is either going rotten or is too hard to obtain. That’s why we need you.”
“Promise me,” I snapped. “Promise me they’ll be taken care of or I don’t go.”
“I can’t guarantee there will be enough food if you don’t resolve our plight. There may not—”
“Promise me or I’m not going.”
The woman placed a thin hand on the table’s waxed surface. She looked down at her tapping finger as she let out a long sigh. “Very well.”
My shoulders relaxed a bit, but my limbs were still cold. I couldn’t stop from shaking. My uncle was far from perfect, but this? How could anyone be okay sentencing someone to this, let alone family? No matter how loose the term may be.
At least Grandmother would be safe. She might think this sacrifice was reckless, but it wouldn’t be in vain.
Ms. Tomlin looked up, hope sparking in those white eyes. “Go into the forest and summon him. And put an end to it. I’ll give you the means to attract him if my sources are to be believed. In addition to dressing you up, there’s a song I will teach you to summon him. I know your father taught you how to play the fiddle. Any instrument will do. As long as you play this song in his woods, he should come.”
“We don’t know if he’s behind any of this or if he’s even real.” I shook my head in disbelief.
“Oh, child. He is very real.” The words hung in the air, thickening the tension like flour in a pot of water .
My throat was like sandpaper, and another tear skated down my face. “He’ll kill me.”
Ms. Tomlin kept her eyes on the table as she tapped that one gnarled finger against its surface. “Let’s hope he won’t.”
I sucked in a sudden sob, my head falling into my hands. I couldn’t stop the shaking from taking over my limbs. My whole body trembled violently, worse so when the woman took me by the wrist and led me into the back room of her cabin.
“Let’s get you ready. You need your best chance at survival. We all do.” She glanced over her shoulder before guiding me to a chair in front of a vanity set. “If you choose to do this, you cannot fail. We’re all counting on you.”
I couldn’t speak anymore. There was nothing left to say. My fate was being written right before me, and I couldn’t so much as pick up the quill. The woman sorted through a chest of clothes, rattling off who knows what while I tried gaining my bearings again.
“I don’t understand what he’d want with me.”
The matriarch closed the trunk, bringing a pile of red silk and tulle along with her. She tossed it at me, and it fell limply into my lap.
“Let’s hope he wants you at all. That’s the first step.” She walked out of the room without so much as a glance my way, and panic set in. I ran after her.
“He won’t—”
“Hush!” She moved like a shadow to my side, pushing me in front of a floor-length mirror and hissed, “Let’s be honest, shall we? There’s no time for false pleasantries. Other than your aging grandmother, no one will miss you if you fail.” The words sent a distant ringing to my ears. “But you have a pretty face and decent form, so let’s hope you’re worth something to him.” The words splintered a part of me, sending a thin crack scaling through my chest. But she was right. And I could no longer deny this strange new reality.
The forest spirit and monster known as the Leshy was real, and if I wanted to save my grandmother, if I wanted to save the children and innocents of Woodsmeadow, I was to be a sacrifice to him. “And who knows?” the woman said, smiling at me from the reflection in the mirror. “He may even like you.” I stared at my pallid face next to hers. All color had drained from it, and the life had been sucked from my eyes. Ms. Tomlin unraveled the messy braid hanging down my back and brushed through the tangled knots. “And if he does, you might make it to the end of winter.”