CHAPTER THREE #3
She smiled. “Sweet huntress. I am only cruel. He’s offering an absurd sum to the wizard who grants his wish, but whoever attempts it will need the phoenix itself.
I never supposed any of those fussy scribes capable of discerning the bird even exists, let alone stupid enough to attempt catching it.
Clearly, however,” she said, tapping the paper with a long, elegant fingernail, “there is one who is. He’s at least clever enough to disguise it, but the others will smell blood, and then it won’t be long before this forest is swarming with wizards trying to steal what should be mine. ”
Anya’s head was swimming. “You want me to catch the phoenix,” she clarified.
She had never seen the bird herself, though others had claimed to, deep in the Lichtenwald’s heart.
None, as far as she knew, had attempted to catch it.
There were certain things you didn’t hunt.
Magical things, especially. The forest didn’t like it.
“Someone will catch it, soon. And it had better be you, because only by catching the phoenix on my behalf will your life be spared.” She reached behind her back; when her hand reappeared, she clutched an arrow in it.
“This arrow will bind the bird to me. Careful not to cut yourself with it,” she added with a smile as sly as her dead companion.
“If you succeed – and manage to survive – I will honor your life and reward you with its keeping.”
Anya took the arrow, turned it over in her hand. The head was marked all over with strange symbols that seemed to pulsate with darkness.
Pierce the phoenix with this arrow. Simple enough, if she could find it.
She could find it. But there were others on the hunt, as well.
Or would be, soon. City hunters with their high-powered rifles.
Wizards, with their magic pens. Not magic like the forest’s, not like Mira’s, but dangerous nonetheless.
And surviving the heart of the Lichtenwald was nearly an impossible task on its own. Isn’t it, old mother?
She shook Johanna’s ghost from her shoulders. “And if I fail?”
“If you fail, I imagine it will be because you’ve died.”
Anya almost let out a sigh of relief. She wouldn’t fail. And if she did, well, death was preferable to having her skull sucked hollow.
But at Anya’s relieved expression, Mira laughed, a charming, practiced laugh. “Oh, Anya! You didn’t think I would let you go unpunished for killing my familiar, did you?”
She rose and approached Anya. A cornered animal, Anya felt the urge to run, but as her muscles tensed, she found she couldn’t move – couldn’t even turn her head.
The witch bent low until their eyes were level. She grabbed Anya by the chin, forcing her to look into the deep blue pools of her own eyes. They caught her, pulled her under, and Anya couldn’t have looked away if she wanted to.
Blue pools turned to fathomless depths, endless oceans, the deepest reaches of the midnight sky in winter.
Then the very earth itself, miles and miles of black, crumbling soil, bits of rock and bone and root.
The forest itself lived in her, its wild magic, its ancient, untempered will.
This was the magic she drew from. Anya caught the smell of her breath, the breath of the forest. The magic of the rain, of the earth, of aeons.
Her voice sounded strange. “Until my arrow pierces the phoenix, you will change. But not into a clever fox, or a pretty cat. You may find you wish you had accepted my offer.”
Anya thought, as if peering from the murky bottom of a well, she saw Mira smiling.
“Have you seen a moon moth, Anya? They are very beautiful, like you. I think your eyes are almost the same color as their wings.” The witch ran a fingernail along her cheek, studying her.
“I have seen one snatched from midair, eaten by a bat. I have seen their wings plucked off by children beguiled by their beauty, their fat, bleeding little bodies left squirming in the dirt. I have seen one fly into an open flame, still straining for the fire even as her velvety wings crisped and burned. A moon moth has no mouth with which to scream. Do you think she would scream if she could?” She leaned closer.
“Do you think she knows, if she survives all that, she has only a week, at most, to live? Not to eat, or soar, or sing, but to wait only to be bred, and to die?”
Mira let her go, and Anya came back to herself with a gasp, chest rising and falling rapidly. Frantically, with shaking fingers, she touched her chest, her face, her hair.
The witch laughed. “Give it time, young huntress. I am nothing if not fair. You will change – quicker than you like, but the changes will come slow.” Her smile faded. She stroked the pelt on the table. “They will come costly.”
“You don’t need to do this,” Anya said, close to tears. “I’ll help you.”
“I know you will, Anya.” Mira leaned closer and kissed her, sweetly, on the cheek.
“You have until the summer solstice; the transformation will complete with the dawn of Midsummer’s Day.
Ten days hence.” She glanced out the open door.
“It’s dark, but you may want to leave tonight.
You won’t be the only hunter on this trail, and each day for you will grow much harder. ”
As she left, she shoved Anya’s basket of eggs onto the floor, shattering every last one. Bits of yolk and shell trailed across the floor with the hem of her dress.
The east wind blew through the open door, filling the room. The fox’s empty eye sockets gazed up at Anya forlornly.