8. The Hunt Loves a Hunter
The Hunt Loves a Hunter
The mist settled wetly over my skin, and I gradually realized it was raining.
Even the steady rainfall could not chase away the unrelenting fog.
There was no end to it. It couldn’t be helped, and I couldn’t wait.
I had to venture into the woods and keep searching.
I hunted morning, noon, and night. Whenever the impulse took me.
Sometimes I happened on a rabbit or a deer, startling the creatures through the brush. I was just so thrilled to be seen, to have that recognition from them. I would take off after the animal, even though I knew I could never catch it.
Those moments flooded me with warmth . . . and longing. The longing never went away. I wasn’t invisible to everyone at least. I didn’t know how or why, but animals could see me.
It helped a little, the affirmation that I was alive and existed in this world when I felt so very insignificant.
Except when the animals were gone, the leaves and brush they had disturbed unmoving once again, I would stand there, catching my breath, my hands opening and closing at my sides, desolate, the familiar loneliness sweeping over me.
I wasn’t sure I would even run if I came face-to-face with a huldra or harpy.
Not that any such creature had been spotted in these parts, but it wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen to me.
To be seen . . . by anyone, anything, to have interaction even with a harpy, would be welcome. The release of a long-held breath.
One time I happened on a pair of lovers, unaware of me, naturally.
They offered an eyeful, and I witnessed more than I probably should have before I turned away with flaming cheeks, the image of a woman’s splayed knees and a man’s flexing and pumping buttocks forever stamped on my memory, leaving me wistful and humming in places where I had never felt anything before.
I wasn’t so prim to never want to experience coupling.
In the right circumstances and with the right partner, I would not be opposed.
I’d seen the affection between my brother and Meya and the way their eyes sparked and warmed only for each other.
It was part of the reason I was so opposed to the future my father had planned for me.
I knew the possibility for something better existed out there and I wanted my chance to find it.
Only it wasn’t going to happen if I remained like this. If I didn’t break this curse.
I spent the rest of my morning exploring, no hint of anything or anyone in sight in the woods. Definitely no sign of a witch. Disappointed, I returned to the village.
My days all ended in disappointment, plagued with doubts. What if she had moved on to terrorize some other part of the kingdom? Would I live out the rest of my life like this? Die an old woman with no one to remember I existed?
My stomach growled with hunger, interrupting my grim thoughts as I neared home.
I usually grabbed something simple from my own kitchen—bread, cheese, and fruit (that always miraculously reappeared the moment I claimed it), but today I called on Maretta.
I found comfort in my visits with the old woman.
Even though I knew she didn’t know I was in the room, I took the well-trod path to her cottage, entering through the door and calling out a greeting.
Hand-knitted quilts and soft pillows covered chairs.
Colorful rugs left no bit of floor bare.
A wide, cushioned bench angled before a crackling fire—a fire that never seemed to expire even though I hardly ever noticed her tending to it.
It always burned and popped with steady life.
I relaxed and listened to the flow of villagers traipsing in and out of her door seeking her help with their various ailments. She was a reassuring presence, always with answers for her patrons whether they were the ones they wanted to hear or not.
“You want a babe?” she demanded of a young woman who had been married four years with no offspring.
“Then add stewed eels to your diet no less than three times a week. The thicker and plumper the eel the better. As thick as a man’s wrist. Make sure all the eel blood gets into the pot.
And sprinkle this in, too.” She passed a bag of mystery herbs across the table to the woman.
“Oh, and make sure your man tups you on the nights you eat the eels. Vigorously. And from behind.”
“I don’t like eels,” the woman complained, sniffing into her hankie.
“Well. Then you’re not likely to breed,” Maretta delivered to her with a decided lack of regret. “Do you want a child or not? Do as I say and cease your sniveling.”
With a grim nod and a sigh, the woman paid a coin to Maretta, tucked the pouch into the pocket of her skirt, and left.
There was always something tasty bubbling on Maretta’s stove. She was a skilled cook, and her table groaned beneath the weight of ample food, more than she could ever eat. The villagers often paid for her services with items from their larder.
I helped myself to a savory stew simmering with vegetables and chunks of meat and tore off a hunk of fresh-baked bread.
I barely gave the pot a glance when the stew miraculously returned to its normal level, as though nothing had been removed from the well of the pot, and my bowl, one of four nesting on the shelf, magically reappeared, tucked inside the others.
The fresh loaf of bread, of course, remained intact despite the large hunk I’d ripped off it.
Maretta’s culinary efforts of the day went far beyond anything available in my own home, and I ate with relish, lathering the bread generously with the fresh butter dropped off today from a dairy maid.
Finished with my meal, I lowered myself onto the thick fur by the fire, pulling the dark rope of my hair out from under my body and curling on my side, one hand tucked beneath my cheek.
Maretta rocked in her chair behind me, humming lightly as she knitted, and I felt my eyes grow heavy, drowsy from the warmth, from the hum of her voice, from my belly full with good food.
Maretta talked to herself. Her raspy voice, surprisingly strong and deep for a woman so frail and diminutive, filled the walls of her cottage, weaving on the air and wrapping around me like silken threads.
In the early months, I used to believe, hope, that she knew I was present, and that she was talking to me directly, purposefully.
I hugged those moments close, pretending we were in an actual conversation.
“You’re not dead,” she whispered into the warm, firelit air of her cottage.
My head shot up from where it rested on my bent knees, my gaze sharpening on her. “What was that?”
Not sparing me a glance, she went on, “I know everyone says you are . . . and it is accepted as truth.” She paused a long time, her needles working as she knitted. “But I don’t believe it.”
No mistake. She was talking about me.
To me?
“Maretta?” I whispered, my heart pounding with excitement.
She studied her work. “A witch claimed you, but that does not mean you are dead.”
I sat up as though electrified. She was speaking to me! “You’re right! I am not dead. I’m here.” I exhaled. “I knew someone would eventually see me. I knew it!” It only made sense that it would be Maretta, the wise old healer who saw things other people did not.
She continued knitting, staring down at her work.
After a few moments of silence, I moved onto my knees before her. “Maretta?”
She didn’t look up, simply went on working her needles.
Frowning, I bent at the waist and snapped my fingers, waving a hand in front of her face. “Maretta?”
Nothing.
No reaction.
I was wrong. She didn’t see me.
I released a deflated breath. She was simply talking to herself again, doing the very thing I did these days—speaking into the void.
“They still believe something got you and dragged you off.” She shook her scarved head.
“I’ve told them, but these fools would rather stick their heads in the sand.
They don’t want to believe it’s true.” She clucked her tongue.
“Wolves, they say. Hmpf. No wolves got to you. She is out there. I still feel her.”
She. The witch. I still feel her. A long scratch of nails dragged down my spine at that.
Maretta could feel the witch who did this to me? I trembled with excitement and something else. As much as I needed this reassurance, to know that my searching wasn’t completely in vain, anxiety shot through me.
Again, like she could hear the myriad questions racing through my mind, she spoke over the pop and crackle of the fire in the hearth.
“You simply stumbled too close to the flame, my dear girl. It could have happened to any one of us. You won’t be the last one. There will be others out there who fall victim to her power like you did.”
I leaned close to speak near her ear. “I’m not gone. I’m closer than you think.” Maretta looked up, her eyes fixing on my face. My breath caught. We gazed at each other. I could see the tiny hairs jutting from the dark pores of her nose. “Maretta?”
Perhaps she did know I was here? On some level?
Did a part of her sense me? She knew so much about so many things.
She could hold this knowledge, too . . .
innately, buried away so deeply even she did not realize it.
Perhaps she possessed this knowing because she herself had a bit of witch in her—the legacy from an ancestor from long ago, forgotten, but whose magic still whispered in her marrow.
Perhaps that was why she lived to such an advanced age?
“Mayhap you’re trapped someplace,” she whispered. “Held by magic. A captive.”
Yes, yes, yes.
I felt those words like a touch. Hopeful and encouraging. They fueled me. Fed me with renewed purpose, chasing away some of the disappointment I’d felt leaving the woods today with nothing to show for my efforts.
I’d invited magic in the door foolishly that cold winter night, and it had answered my call.
A witch had done this, so she could undo it. I only needed to find her and make that happen. I’d found her once without even trying. Or rather she had found me. If I kept trying, I would find her eventually. I had to.