Daughter

The day was already half gone, and Hannah was increasingly mindful of how fast darkness stole the sky once the sun began to settle behind the mountains this late into October, and how wolves tracked its progress, hulking bodies haunting long, cold shadows. She shivered despite the heat of exertion rising in her body under her woolen cape. Sweat trickled down her back and the sides of her face, light as spiders.

It wasn’t only the inevitable creeping dark and the beasts hiding inside it that made the girl uneasy. But as unpleasant as it was to honor the duty demanded by her abilities, shirking it could bring on other, even more disturbing consequences, so she continued to force each foot onto the dusty road in turn, allowing the crunch of rocks under her boots to serve as an anchor, a reminder of her place in the world and her responsibility to those who had left it behind.

Mama stopped at the crest of the hill and turned to watch Hannah struggle up those last steps, without even a hint of compassion in that dull stare. She had forgotten what it was like to have a body and it made her thoughtless. It wasn’t unexpected, now that so much time had passed, but it still stung, the chilly distance yawning ever wider between Hannah and this mother-shape, which held almost nothing of the woman Hannah remembered—warm embraces, laughing eyes, steady guiding hands.

Hannah was ten feet from the top when she was overtaken by one of Mama’s revelations: an assault of words that screamed through her head and pictures that flooded her mind like water from a poisoned spring, punctuated by a fierce barrage of smells and a sickening mash of emotions. The visions felt too big, as though they would split her skull in two, taking over every sense in a disorienting confusion from which it was nearly impossible to glean anything tangible. They snatched her breath, leaving her dizzy and nauseated.

This time was no different.

Chains, blood pooling on a dirt floor. Stone colliding with old wood, screams. Alone, hopeless. Obsidian darkness. A screech, “Volcaré!” Dripping water. A rush of wind. Acrid smell of smoke. Woman laughing, a cruel, twisted sound. Nested symbol carved in flesh: triangle, circle, square; blood welling from the wound. Lines drawn in softened wax: crosses, loops, swirls.

Mama released her then, and Hannah staggered forward on shaky legs. Her body bent, hands braced on her knees, she retched, expelling what remained of the small meal of hot grains she had eaten before she left that morning, followed by strings of yellow bile. After a steadying moment, Hannah straightened, wiped her mouth on the soft woven nettle fabric of her sleeve. Mama now stood motionless at the apex of the hill, at the edge of the road on the right, arm straight, pointing down. Hannah noted that beyond her mother’s diaphanous silhouette she could see the Tatra mountain range expanding into the distance, farther than Hannah had ever traveled, under a lazy patchwork of sky and cloud. Such an unencumbered view suggested a steep drop. That vague feeling of dread suddenly gained heft, as oppressive as a boulder strapped to Hannah’s narrow young back, but she fought the added weight and took a purposeful step forward, and then another, all the way to the top.

By the time Hannah crested the hill, Mama had vanished, and she was alone with whatever was waiting at the bottom of the crag. She wondered, as she often did, where her mother might have gone, but shoved the indulgent thought roughly aside before it had a chance to take root, and instead shuffled to the edge. She peered down, and her disquiet took shape.

It was a girl, lying at the base of the escarpment, her body broken, either by the fall or, more likely, what had come before. Her arms and legs were bent in an unnatural asymmetry, like her body had been dismantled bone by bone, then hastily reassembled by some wicked imp. The scene had much in common with others Mama had shown her these past months, poor ones tossed away, left to rot in the woods surrounding the village.

This maiden’s dress, however, looked as if it had once been fine. The sumptuous rose-colored fabric, maybe silk, was now streaked with mud and violently shredded. Perhaps, Hannah thought vaguely, that was why she was left way out here and not in the woods. Someone didn’t want her found.

But no one was hidden from Mama.

From her vantage point, Hannah could see that the exposed skin of the girl’s feet and hands was livid, and appeared scarified in places, scraped bloody in others. Hannah was thankful that her face was hidden behind a curtain of dark, mossy hair, caked with something that looked like blood and probably was. She knew that the eyes behind that curtain would be wide and staring and void of intent but would nevertheless bore into her own with the weird power of an empty house.

Hannah’s foot dislodged several pebbles, and they tumbled over the edge. She could hear them crack against the rocky face of the slope on their way to the bottom and shuddered to think about what the girl’s bones sounded like as they shattered against those merciless planes.

A flash of light caught Hannah’s eye as the sun above emerged from behind a cloud and something shiny flashed just under the girl’s chin. “Take it,” Mama hissed into her ear, but when Hannah turned around, she was still alone on the road.

Hannah eyed the rocky slope. If she happened to slip, she knew her own bones would be planted there until the ascension, and only the broken stranger below would bear witness to her demise. Mama would have disappeared for good by then, her need for a corporeal body to do her bidding pulling her elsewhere.

“Take it,” Mama insisted, her voice just as waspish as before, and Hannah took a deep breath. She knew the price of denying this request—no sleep, no peace. Mama would be there, her short message elongating into an eternal furious howl until her demand was met. So, she lowered herself into a seated position on the edge of the drop-off and began her descent.

By the time Hannah reached the base, her hands blister-bitten and her throat dry as cut wheat, the sun had shifted itself well into the afternoon, warming the autumn air, and a soft wind had begun to kick up.

Hannah hung her cloak, now unbearably hot, on a nearby bush and approached the prone body cautiously, as if the girl might suddenly wake. The angry sound of flies saturated the air as she drew closer, as did the stinging stench of rotting flesh. Hannah pulled the skirt of her apron up around her mouth and nose and tried not to gag. She spotted the item Mama had led her all the way to the edge of her world to retrieve—an oval pendant glowing in the necrotic hollow of the poor dead girl’s throat.

She released her apron and let it fall, sucked in a quick breath, held it, and shot forward. She nimbly unhooked the clasp holding the trinket around the corpse’s neck and slid the chain free.

She moved swiftly upwind before expelling her breath. With shaking hands, she opened her palm and inspected the small treasure. It was not much bigger than two denars set side by side and had retained its brilliance despite exposure to the elements. It seemed to be made of tiny gold and silver threads, woven together in an exquisite floral pattern. There was a delicate hinge on one side and a tiny clasp on the other, suggesting it could open. Hannah carefully popped the clasp, pried the two sides apart, and gasped. Inside was a miniature painting of a luminous-looking girl, red-gold hair swept up, exposing a long, graceful neck. The features of her powdered face were exquisite; her lips formed a perfect Cupid’s bow, her pale eyes, blue or maybe green, were wide, and her gaze was warm but also strangely intense, which gave Hannah the disconcerting feeling of being seen.

Could this be the girl wrapped in filthy silk? She glanced over at the body and groaned inwardly. There was only one way to find out.

Hannah scanned the ground nearby, found a small switch, and snatched it up. She took another deep breath and approached the body once again. She extended the stick and carefully pushed the matted hair back from the face, still holding the open locket in the palm of her other hand. A cloud of flies fled the body in a riot, furious at being disturbed a second time.

Hannah immediately saw that while she bore a resemblance to the young lady in the portrait, it was clear that they were not the same person. The girl in silk was raven-haired under the mud and dust, and her features were much sharper. Her eyes were the same shape as the girl in the portrait, but ascertaining the color was impossible, as they had already begun to cloud over.

Kin, then—sisters, or maybe cousins.

Hannah withdrew the switch, and the curtain of hair fell back across the girl’s brow, her cheek, a shield to protect those empty, unseeing eyes. Hannah tossed the stick aside and retreated once again to consider her next steps.

She slipped the ornament into the pocket of her apron, noting its weight. She had never stolen anything before, and this was undeniably stealing, even though it belonged to someone who would no longer need it. The small sin made her feel uneasy, and even though the transgression was not hers alone to answer for, she could almost feel...