Chapter Two. In Which a Girl Walks Through the （Cursed） Woods
CHAPTER TWO
In Which a Girl Walks Through the (Cursed) Woods
Brunhilda strode through the town with an ease that belied her age. There was no one on the winding streets, and Risa’s and Brunhilda’s steps echoed on the smooth cobblestones. Every home they passed appeared abandoned, their inhabitants hiding from Risa and the Bad Day in its entirety.
The town square was empty save for a few birds that perched on a stone fountain chirping bright, discordant tones.
After centuries of relentless rain, the carved face of the fountain’s statue had eroded, leaving behind a shapeless figure standing vigil over a pool that no longer worked and jutted out like a sore thumb.
Usually, the gas lamps at each corner of the square were lit with a hazy orange glow. Today, the flames were snuffed out.
There were no girls beneath slick black umbrellas gathering around the fountain, no boys preening at their watery reflections in the pool, exchanging whatever morsels of gossip had made their way to town with the traveling merchants who dared to trek through the woods.
No one discussing who married whom, which couples called it quits, or which Kheadish princes remained single.
Sometimes, when there wasn’t enough royal gossip or when Risa’s bad luck had caused only minor catastrophes that week, the whispers would turn to the rumored bandits on the borders between Kheadon and its neighboring kingdoms, or to the Anti-Airship Federation’s newest demands for the floating sovereign nation of San Cirilo, or to the dozens of witches surely living in the Bosque.
She could imagine what tomorrow’s gossip would be. Risa, taken away by one of those witches from the forest, finally freeing Barrow from her cursed clutches.
Despite the year spent thinking about her future as a witch’s tall, beautiful, and stubborn captive, she hadn’t gone so far as to imagine what her new life might bring. She figured it would entail a lot of cleaning the witch’s hovel and picking herbs for witchy brews.
But as the trees of the Bosque loomed closer, panic gathered in her throat.
Sure, she had once braved the borders at age ten in an attempt to break her curse, but it was different now that she knew she would have to venture deeper into its unmapped depths.
Few who traversed it managed to escape, and only if they crossed it in daylight did they have a chance.
The trees kept most of the world from stepping into Barrow, kept airships and magic and strangers on the other side.
At least in Barrow she knew what tomorrow would bring.
The safety of routine was comforting. Awaking to the sound of rain.
Letting her mother drone on about the perils that awaited her outside their front door, or her father about the town’s treasury.
Ignoring the way townspeople pointed as she passed, black umbrella in hand.
At least those were storms she knew how to weather.
But on the other side of the Bosque waited a world she didn’t know.
She should have said goodbye. Should have hugged her parents. Should have crossed the line she had drawn between them. Should have told them that she loved—
“I had no choice.” Brunhilda’s voice cut through Risa’s alarm. Then she muttered under her breath so low that Risa almost missed it, “Lousy agreements. I should stop making them.”
Risa drew her brows together at the words.
“Are you going to make me the child bride of an evil king?” she asked. Her nerves fluttered in her stomach. She’d spent so long imagining a future running the errands of a witch that she hadn’t thought of other possible scenarios.
“Don’t sound so miserable. You’re hardly a child.”
“So I am going to be the ordinary bride to an evil king,” Risa determined, rather put out.
It was an obvious possibility—she happened to be rather gorgeous, and she assumed evil kings were partial to spouses they could exhibit as trophies.
Oh, to be so beautiful was its own kind of curse.
Just her luck to be cursed with bad luck and good looks.
Her life was really hard.
“I wouldn’t wish that on any king, evil or otherwise,” Brunhilda grumbled in response.
Risa paused, exhausted from all her misfortune and the small pack she carried on her back, which was stuffed with clothes, a book she’d plucked from her father’s library, and a silk purse full of reales snatched from the family safe.
Rubbing a sore shoulder, she stared woefully into the Bosque and the dizzying sway of leaves that made it seem like the trees were alive, waiting to devour her.
Curses. This was really happening.
Before Risa’s thoughts could properly spiral, Brunhilda wrung her grizzled hands and shook her walking stick with such ferocity that for a moment Risa feared the witch would topple over. Unfortunately for her—and surely due to her bad luck—Brunhilda remained upright.
“Are you having an existential crisis?” Brunhilda asked.
“Yes. Am I being fed to a giant who uses humans as toothpicks?”
The hag stared, unblinking. “Don’t be so dramatic. Giants are delicate, peaceful creatures. And vegetarians.” Brunhilda shook her head, wild hair electric. “The misinformation that exists about us magical creatures is ridiculous.”
Who cared about the delicate nature of giants when she was going to be handed off to someone? Sacrificed. Experimented on. Boiled alive. Eaten alive. Torn limb from limb while alive.
Risa gave a dramatic huff and briefly considered turning tail. But something kept her rooted. Magic, probably, like the spell Brunhilda had used to steal the breath from her chest. Or the small inkling of hope she had that Brunhilda would break her curse if she stuck it out.
So, with a deep breath, she stepped farther from home than ever before.
The Bosque enveloped her. While the world she left behind was worn and gray, here the woods greeted her with color.
Rich green moss; warm, deep brown soil; fallen yellow leaves littering the ground.
Wherever she turned, a new shade emerged, bright and splendid despite the sunlight that struggled to filter through the tree canopy.
Brunhilda didn’t wait for her to adjust to this new world so unlike her own. The witch seemed undeterred by the change of terrain or lack of path and stormed several feet ahead, mumbling about contractual obligations and adolescents with bad attitudes.
Risa stumbled after the witch, surprised by the struggle to catch up. “Will you tell me about this agreement?”
Her parents hadn’t explained much. As in most of their interactions, only the bare minimum had been said.
“No.”
“Come on,” she whined. “Shouldn’t I, the subject of the agreement, be aware of the terms?
Will I have to fetch your foxglove tea and poison your enemy witches?
Surely you have the document stored at the bottom of your leaky cauldron for me to look at.
I’ll have my lawyers contact your lawyers. Go over some of the points together.”
One of Brunhilda’s eyes twitched.
Risa wasn’t skilled at many things. She was, however, quite skilled at being annoying. She went on, “Oh no, does the contract detail how you must give up your magical powers before your death—which should have been centuries ago, obviously—to me, your unlikely and unwilling replacement?”
Brunhilda scoffed, thoroughly annoyed. “Witches are born, not made.”
“Ah, so I am to make a goblin king fall irrevocably in love with me—”
“Enough!” Brunhilda waved her cane. “Teenagers are so talkative. Yap, yap, yap. If you must know, I was passing through your awful little backward town on the day you were born. All I wanted was a sandwich. Instead, I found your mother in labor, and I can’t ignore those in need because I clearly like to make things more difficult for myself. So I stepped in to be of assistance.”
“And then you demanded payment for your service?”
Brunhilda stopped suddenly, forcing Risa to trip over her own feet to avoid collision.
“No. Your parents offered.”
That was different. Her parents had never mentioned that bit. They always insisted they had no choice. No way around the agreement they’d made with the strange visiting witch who had stumbled into town.
“You could have said no.”
Brunhilda started down an invisible path only she seemed to see. “Not allowed. Against the Witch Accords. They determine what is acceptable recompense when dealing with humans.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Witches are limited in our choice of payment methods. Why mortals insist on paying us back when they don’t have to is beyond me. It’s why I stopped doing the traveling-witch circuit. No health benefits, just clumps of hair and rotting hearts.”
Risa tripped over a root, but it didn’t stop her from asking, “Why not go for the hair first? Seems a lot easier.” Though her hair was currently tied at the nape of her neck, Risa usually possessed an unruly mane of dark, frizzy hair that shed far more than she liked.
So she could imagine how unsavory random clumps of hair could be.
“There’s an order to things. Firstborn child, followed by a still-beating heart, then a sizable clump of hair. That’s why witches don’t demand payment, unless they’re into the villain thing.”
It didn’t help to hear the explanation after all, mostly because it didn’t actually explain anything.
Who had come up with the system anyway? It only made her angry at her parents and their choices.
Her parents didn’t have to make some stupid deal with some stupid witch.
In their eagerness, they had accidentally bartered her away.
“Perhaps you should meet with your witch council and rewrite the laws,” she said, rather unhelpfully.
The witch cast her a strange look that made those black, fathomless eyes flash yellow, but said nothing.
Risa huffed at the witch’s stubborn silence. “What will you do with me, then?”
“I obviously have no use for a girl.”
“Obviously,” Risa parroted.