Chapter Two #2
Something breaks loose inside me. My body moves before fear can shape itself into prayer or reason.
The forest explodes around me—branches clawing at my sleeves, bark tearing at my skin, roots reaching for my ankles like grasping hands.
My breath rips out of my chest in burning pulls as I drive forward, harder, faster, blind with terror.
I do not look back—there is no need for it.
I can feel it.
The ground shudders behind me. The thing moves through the undergrowth with a speed and certainty that does not belong to any beast I know. Twigs snap, leaves scatter, the night itself seeming to part for it. Each pounding beat of my heart screams the same truth into my bones—
If it reaches me, I die.
My breath burns my throat. Cold air slices into my lungs, unforgiving. My heart hammers so hard it steals my hearing, my vision narrowing to flashes and black gaps between trees, trunks rushing past like sentinels that refuse to help.
I run and run and run.
Until the moon breaks apart above me, light strobing across the ground as if the world itself is splitting open. Until my pouch slams against my hip and my shawl comes loose and falls somewhere behind me, lost to the dark.
I feel it close.
Not with sound alone—but with the undeniable knowledge of being hunted. The air presses in its wake, pulled toward it. Every instinct in me screams faster, even as my legs begin to shake, even as pain blooms bright and merciless in my sides.
The woods spit me out at last.
The village rises before me as I burst from the trees—the low roofs, the pale paths, the familiar shapes of my house.
I lunge for the door, my hands shaking so badly I nearly miss the latch.
Finally, it opens just enough for me to throw myself inside, and I wrench it shut behind me with more force than I mean to.
My back hits the wood as I slide down, chest heaving, lungs dragging air in broken, gasping pulls.
It won’t come fast enough. My heart hammers so violently it feels like it’s trying to claw its way out of me, each beat loud and panicked and unforgiving.
My ears ring. My hands shake so badly I have to press them into the floor to keep from crying out.
Outside, the night holds. No footsteps. No breath. No sound but my own, ragged and uncontrollable.
Still, I do not move.
One hand stays braced against the door as I force my breath to slow, the world steadying inch by inch. The house creaks, settling back into its bones. Somewhere behind the curtain, Mama shifts in her sleep, a small sound of discomfort leaving her throat before she stills again. She does not wake.
Thank God.
I stay where I am until my pulse eases from a gallop to something almost human. Only then do I notice it—the prickle along my spine, the sense of being watched that does not fade with the dark.
Movement. Outside, near the boarded wall.
My breath catches all over again.
Rough planks cover the opening, set close together to keep the cold and curious eyes out. Only a narrow knot-hole breaks the wood, no wider than a coin. I stare at it from across the room, heart climbing back into my throat.
Don’t, I think. But I must.
I cross the room slowly, my feet barely lifting from the floor. The candle has burned low, its flame trembling, threatening to give me away. I leave it behind and lean toward the wall, pressing my eye to the dark break in the plank.
For a moment, nothing appears.
Then—
Eyes.
They gleam pale in the night, fixed and unblinking, level with mine. Too close. Too intent. My breath stutters as my heart lurches violently, hard enough to hurt.
Then the shape shifts, just enough.
The line of a muzzle. Thick fur along the neck, breath steaming faintly in the cool air.
A wolf.
Relief crashes through me so fast it makes my knees weak, leaving behind something giddy and foolish. I suck in a shaky breath and almost laugh, the sound dying in my chest before it can escape.
Just a big, dark, furry wolf. Nothing more.
The deer—the torn throat, the blood—wolves do that. They rip and pull and leave bodies folded wrong. What I thought were hands were only forelegs braced in the carcass. Claws in flesh. The strands were fur, dark and matted. The shape wrong only because the darkness twists everything it touches.
And the eyes—
Moonlight catches in an animal’s gaze and sets it burning. Everyone knows that. Silver turns red, red looks like fire when you’re already afraid.
My forehead presses harder to the wood.
I ran from a wolf. Like a child, scared out of my skin by shadows and night and stories told too often by fire. Wolves roam these woods, they always have. They hunt. They feed.
The beast lingers for a moment longer, pacing, nose lifting as if tasting the air, then it turns away soundlessly and melts back into the dark.
I straighten slowly and step back from the window, pressing a hand to my chest as my heartbeat finally begins to calm. It was only a wolf. Only the night playing tricks on me, reminding me of itself.
Still, the feeling does not leave me.
It clings to my spine as I move up the ladder again, each rung colder than before, each creak sounding louder in my head. My space welcomes me back with its familiar dimness, but they do not soften.
I pull the wooden box from beneath the bed and open it, hands trembling despite my efforts to still them. The herbs spill their scents into the air as I tuck each bundle away neatly, as if order might settle what my body refuses to forget.
When the lid closes, the quiet rushes back in.
The bed takes my weight with a low creak as the wool is drawn up to my chin.
My heart beats too fast, a restless, uneven rhythm that will not slow no matter how carefully I breathe.
The image of red eyes flares unbidden behind my lids, gone as quickly as it comes, leaving only the echo of it behind.
I clutch the rosary tight in my fist.
The beads press into my palm, familiar and grounding. My fingers move over them without thought, counting, circling, returning. In the dark, the prayers Mama and Popa Vasile insist upon fall from my lips—words shaped like walls, meant to keep things out.
Tat?l nostru, Care e?ti ?n ceruri…
Ap?r?-m?, Doamne…
Fere?te-m? de r?u…[10]
The words slip into each other, carried on urgent, shallow breaths. I repeat them until they blur, until sound gives way to rhythm alone, until my body can no longer hold itself upright against fear.
Exhaustion claims me where vigilance cannot.
My grip loosens around the beads. My breath deepens, uneven at first, then slower.
The night presses close, heavy and watchful, as sleep finally drags me under.
Even then, my hand does not let go. And as the obscurity closes in, the last thing I feel is a quiet, terrible certainty—
Something beyond prayer has already heard me.