Page 5 of Anathema

As I cradled my wounded arm, a strong gust lifted the letter from the ground, carrying the stark white paper deeper and deeper into the dark trees. The errant breeze loosened my hair from its black rose clip, tousling the long and unruly tendrils across my skin like ghostly fingertips, tickling dreadful thoughts of what might happen if, on a capricious whim, the wind carried that paper into the hands of the governor, or Sacton Crain.

Or maybe it was the fear of not caring if it did.

Then, as quickly as it’d stirred, the wind died around me. As an eerie silence caressed my bones, I watched the letter fade from view.

Gone.

Glimpsing the blood still oozing from my cut, I turned for home to wash it.

A crackling sound caught my attention.

As before, I peered through the misty woods in search of its source.

Quiet. Calm.

Nothing.

The faint sound of a child’s giggle rose up through the trees in a ghostly reverberation. “Maevyth,” the voice whispered in whimsy, the sound of my name casting a chill across my skin.

I swept my gaze over the shadowy tree trunks, recalling a cardinal rule of the forest: never answer to your own name.

“God is death,” it said, echoing the words on the paper.

A blast of blackness shot out from the arched entryway toward me, knocking me backward.

The frost-coated ground slammed into my spine, banishing the air from my lungs, and I turned onto my side, coughing. A treachery of ravens took to the sky overhead, the swoosh of their flapping wings punctuating their loud caws. They missiled over me as if they’d been spooked by something, and my own heart hammered inside my chest, my lungs rebounding with air.

At last, the commotion settled, and with panting breaths, I turned back to the archway. Only one bird remained, impaled through the breast by a sharp bone, a spike of malicious ivory, like the one that’d cut my arm. Fighting to catch my breath, I watched the helpless bird twitch and caw, its blood dripping over the pale white stones piled at the foot of the archway. A glint struck its eyes, drawing my attention to something unusual about them.

With an unwavering gaze, I slowly pushed to my feet and padded toward it, every muscle still trembling, but by the time I reached it, the raven had stilled. Even lifeless, the strange, silvery hue of its eyes was a striking distraction. One that had me questioning if it’d been ill prior to having been gored by the bone.

The glassy, eldritch gleam, so cold and sharp, held my reflected form in a chilling glimpse of a world beyond. A place I feared to imagine.

Death.

And as I stared back at the poor creature, watching the blood trickle down the branches, a heavy ache swelled in my chest.

After a quick glance around to ensure no one was watching, I reached up, cupping my hands around the large bird’s wings. Warm blood oozed down my wrist, mingling with my own as my tugging creaked the bones and wood of the structure. My arms trembled with the effort, but the bird wouldn’t budge. Groaning, I tugged harder. “C’mon now. Come loose!”

Bracing my boot against the archway, I channeled all my muscle into the task.

A loud squawk sent me flying backward, and I let out a scream, tumbling for the second time. The bird lay on the ground beside me, its chest faintly rising. Blood trickled out of the corner of its beak, red against the ghost-white snow, as it writhed in distress. It somehow pushed to its feet and hopped two steps toward me before tottering to the side. Tears welled in my eyes, as the helpless creature opened and closed its beak, as if it tried to tell me what was wrong. I could almost hear it begging for mercy. Its wound was fatal, the bone that’d pierced its breast too big to have spared any vital organs, and its life was slipping away before my eyes.

Do something. Do not let it suffer.

My stomach twisted at the thought. I’d once watched Grandfather cut the throat of a days-old fawn that’d been gravely injured by a hawk. An act of mercy, he’d called it.

From the pocket of my skirt, I reluctantly removed a small paring knife that I kept for carving and fruit. One Agatha had tried to confiscate a few times with little success. Hands trembling, I slipped it from its makeshift cloth sheath and pushed to my knees to cradle the bird at my thigh. As it struggled against me, I exhaled a shaky breath and stretched its neck to slide my blade across the suffering creature’s throat, flinching at the same time my stomach curled. An act of mercy, my head told me, but my heart wrenched a quiet sob from deep inside my chest. Until that moment, I’d never killed a living thing with my own hands.

What a terrible burden to watch something die.

CHAPTER TWO

MAEVYTH

Frigid breaths of remorse stuttered out of me in white puffs, and I loosened my grip to find the bird no longer stirred at my side. It’d gone cold and stiff already.

After a quick glance around, I wiped away my tears and gathered it up, cradling it in my arm, as I hustled toward the edge of the wood. Beneath a winterberry bush, I found a flat rock and scraped a modest hole in the dirt there. The bite of early winter air thickened my hands, numbing them as I hurried to finish the task. Once I’d dug deep enough, I laid the bird inside and buried it. The toxic berries would keep the critters away, but for good measure, I plucked a few, sprinkling them over the inelegant grave.

---