Chapter 2 Isabeau
two
Isabeau
The darkness of my cottage pressed in around me like a shroud, heavy with the silence that Papa’s absence had carved into every corner.
I sat motionless by the window, staring out at the moonlit garden where just hours before I’d been harvesting herbs.
Blissfully ignorant that by nightfall, I’d be utterly alone in the world.
The cup of chamomile tea I’d mechanically prepared sat untouched on the sill, gone cold hours ago, just like the hope in my chest.
Outside, the herbs I’d so carefully tended swayed gently in the night breeze.
Feverfew, yarrow, lavender, and all the different plants Papa had encouraged me to grow and study when other fathers were teaching their daughters to embroider and simper.
They looked ghostly under the Harvest Moon’s glow, silvered and strange, as if they too had been transformed by tonight’s events.
My night dress hung loosely around my frame.
The thin cotton doing little to ward off the chill that seemed to emanate from inside me rather than from the air.
I’d wrapped a woolen shawl around my shoulders.
It was the last one Mama had woven before the fever took her four winters ago.
Now both of them were gone, and the shawl felt like a pitiful shield against the enormity of my solitude.
I couldn’t bring myself to drink the tea. Couldn’t bring myself to do much of anything but sit and stare and breathe, each inhale a conscious effort, each exhale a small surrender to existing.
The fire in the hearth had dwindled to embers that cast long, dancing shadows across the dining area. I should stoke it. I should eat something. I should sleep. But each of those actions required a will I couldn’t summon.
My fingers trembled as they traced the edge of the oak table where Papa and I had taken our meals together for as long as I could remember. The wood was smooth from years of use and careful maintenance. Papa had crafted it with his own hands before I was born.
“This will still be standing when we’re both dust,” he’d told me once, knuckles rapping against the solid surface. “Good craftsmanship outlives the craftsman, little bell.”
A tear slid down my cheek, and I wiped it away with an angry swipe. What good were tears? They wouldn’t bring him back. They wouldn’t rescue him from whatever fate awaited him in that accursed forest.
The forest.
My eyes drifted toward the window again, beyond my garden to where the treeline marked the beginning of the forbidden territory. It was too far to see from my cottage, but I knew it was there, dark and waiting, the beast somewhere within its depths, and Papa with it.
What if I went after him?
The thought slipped into my mind like a thief, sudden and unwelcome. No one had ever returned from the forest, not even those who went in by choice. Lovesick youths looking for privacy, or even adventurous children on a dare. They all vanished, swallowed by the darkness beneath those ancient trees.
But what did I have to lose now?
I rose from my chair, legs unsteady beneath me, and crossed to the mantle where Papa had mounted the hunting knife his own father had given him. My fingers had just brushed the handle when reality crashed back over me.
It was madness. Even if I somehow survived the forest itself, what chance did I have against the beast? I’d seen it with my own eyes. Massive, otherworldly, and powerful enough to drag a grown man away as if he weighed nothing.
No, rushing headlong into death wouldn’t honor Papa’s sacrifice. He’d given his life so that I might live mine.
But what kind of life remained for me?
I wandered aimlessly around our small cottage, trailing my fingertips over every surface Papa had crafted.
The chairs with their intricately carved backs—one for each year of my mother’s life.
The cabinet where we kept our meager stores, its doors inlaid with delicate flowers that matched the ones in our garden.
The bedframe in his room, sturdy oak posts rising toward the ceiling like sentinel trees.
His hands had shaped it all, coaxed beauty from raw lumber with nothing more than patience and skill. Hands that had also braided my hair each morning when I was small, that had wiped away my tears when Mama died, that had waved a final goodbye just hours ago.
I slumped back into my chair by the window, exhaustion washing over me in waves. Yet I knew sleep wouldn’t come, not with my mind replaying that final, terrible moment when the beast emerged from the trees. Not with my ears still ringing with Papa’s last scream.
The locket at my throat seemed to pulse with a warmth that defied explanation. I clutched it tightly, remembering some of Papa’s final words to me. “Thy mother’s locket, wear it always. It will protect thee when I cannot.” What had he meant? What protection could a simple piece of jewelry offer?
Yet it was all I had left of either of them now. That and the emptiness that yawned wide in my chest, vast and horrible.
A tear slipped down my cheek, then another. I didn’t bother to wipe these away. There was no one to see my weakness now, no one to be strong for.
“What am I to do, Papa?” I whispered to the empty room. “How am I to live without thee?”
The silence that answered was deafening.
I don’t know how long I sat there, suspended in that awful stillness, before the sharp rap at the front door yanked me back to the present. Three hard knocks that reverberated through the cottage like the church bells that had heralded tonight’s nightmare.
For a moment, wild hope surged in my chest that Papa had somehow escaped, had fought his way back to me. But reality doused that flame as quickly as it had ignited. No one returned from the forest. No one.
I considered ignoring the knock, pretending to be asleep or absent. But the warm glow of candlelight would be visible through the windows, betraying my wakefulness. Besides, who would come calling at this hour if not bearing news of importance?
“Shit,” I muttered, hastily wiping at my tear-stained face.
I couldn’t muster a smile—not tonight, perhaps not ever again—but I could at least attempt to appear composed.
I tightened the shawl around my shoulders, suddenly conscious of being dressed only in my night clothes and crossed to the door on unsteady feet.
The knocking came again, more insistent this time.
“I’m coming,” I called, my voice sounding strange and hollow in my own ears.
I unlatched the door and pulled it open, expecting to find Colette, or perhaps one of the elders come to offer condolences. Instead, I found myself staring at a wall of torch-lit faces. Half the village, it seemed, gathered on my doorstep like spectators at an execution.
And at their center, towering above the rest, stood Gaspard Coventry.
My stomach plummeted. Even in the flickering light, I could see the gleam in his eyes.
A hunger barely masked by the solemn expression he’d arranged on his handsome face.
Across his broad shoulders hung the carcass of a freshly killed stag.
Its glazed eyes staring sightlessly into the night.
Blood from the animal had seeped into his shirt, staining the fine fabric dark.
“Isabeau,” he said, his deep voice carrying the practiced tone of sympathy that rang utterly false to my ears. “I came as soon as I heard.”
The crowd murmured their approval. Gaspard had missed the sacrifice, out hunting as he always was on the night of the drawing. As the village’s most skilled hunter, he was exempt from the lottery, being too valuable to risk losing to the forest. How convenient for him.
“What dost thou want, Gaspard?” I asked, too drained to feign politeness. “It’s late.”
He had the audacity to look hurt by my curtness. “I’ve come about thy father, of course. A terrible tragedy. The entire village mourns with thee.”
The villagers nodded in solemn agreement, though I noticed how their eyes darted curiously past me into the cottage, hungry for a glimpse of my grief in its natural habitat.
“Thank you for thy condolences,” I said stiffly. “Now, if thou’ll excuse me—”
“But that’s not all,” Gaspard interrupted, taking a step closer. I could smell the stag’s blood now, metallic and fresh. “I—we—have come about thy situation.”
“My situation?”
“Thy living arrangements,” he clarified, his gaze sweeping over me in a way that made my skin crawl despite the layers of fabric between us. “Thou canst not continue to live here alone.”
“I’m nearly of age,” I said, my fingers tightening on the door frame. “My birthday is but hours away now. At midnight—”
“Even so,” Gaspard cut in, his smile never reaching his eyes. “A woman cannot own property in Thorndale. Thou knowest the law.”
I did know it. I’d just never thought it would apply to me, somehow.
In my mind, I’d always been half-owner of this cottage alongside Papa.
My father always told me my worth and to accept nothing lower.
But the law saw differently. Women themselves were property, to be passed from father to husband.
“What exactly is thy meaning, Gaspard?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest and drawing my shawl tighter, as if the thin wool could shield me from whatever was coming.
“I’ve come to offer thee a solution,” he said, straightening to his full, imposing height. “I will take thee in as my ward. Thou shalt want for nothing under my care and protection.”
The crowd erupted in cheers at this proclamation, as if Gaspard had just announced the end of winter rather than the subjugation of a grieving daughter. Their faces shone with admiration for their hero, their mighty hunter who always provided, who always protected.
My ears began to ring, a high, thin sound that nearly drowned out their voices. Gaspard as my guardian. Gaspard controlling where I went, what I did, who I saw. Gaspard watching me across the breakfast table each morning, across the dinner table each night.