NEW WIP
First Chapter
I know I’ve been fairly quiet, but there’s actually been a lot of projects in the works, so there’s lots to look forward to! While “To Behold the Stars Again” is with the developmental editor, I’ve been consumed by this new WIP (title to be revealed). My main inspirations for this one are Over the Garden Wall and The Song of the Sea. There are also similarities with The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Setting: Norway, 900-1000 ACE
Genres: dark fantasy, historical fantasy, folkloric fantasy
Chapter 1 - Off the Beaten Path
Perpetual twilight cloaked thin, twisted trees, obscuring any hope of finding my four-year-old child. With shaking hands, I yelled once more into the semi darkness. Neither night nor dawn, I lost track of how much time had passed since I followed Astrid into the woods though it had only been a short while.
“Astrid!”
Everything was going to be all right. This wasn’t the first time Astrid ran off on her own, likely distracted by the emerging fireflies. I blew warmth into my sheepskin mittens, kneading feeling back into wind-gnawed fingers. Did Astrid have enough layers? A thought pricked my mind and bled into a dreadful vision of Astrid falling into a pit and attracting wolves. I halted on the cleared path, my heart racing.
Phantom cries of an infant trickled into my mind, and I swallowed deep, slow breaths. The crying hid under shadows made of both gloom and delight, pantomimes that rippled away when I sought refuge under a leafless tree to collect myself.
The trunk’s deep ridges yawned in the frigid air, its surface swirling into mournful faces. Weariness battled with my unease and won as I settled on the wet soil. No longer could I recall how I came to this cold place where not even snow would warm the branches or cushion the ground.
Lining the path grew wrinkled mushrooms, like piles of intestines that bore human faces in their grooves. I squinted, jumping back as two of them blinked. Shuddering, I pulled the strings around my fur-lined hood tight. The darkness was playing tricks on my mind.
From my pocket I retrieved a little ragdoll I had made for Astrid. Slightly damp and coming undone in places, it still retained the hazel brown braids I knitted and the blue eyes her father gave her.
Her father… I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to recall his face as I pulled the frayed string of events that led me here. All I remembered was running after Astrid until I entered this forest that hated light and color and smelled of decayed leaves.
I wiped my cheeks. Astrid would think her mother weak if she ever saw me moping so uselessly. If there was a cleared path, she may have followed it too. With a sharp sniffle, I cleared my throat and rose back to my feet.
As I shook the soil from my dress, a flickering orb of light danced up ahead, and my chest swelled with hope. The light moved with the unmistakable sway of a lantern, which meant the person holding it may have seen Astrid or could at the very least show me the way toward a nearby village.
A giddiness filled me as I rushed toward the light, veering off the beaten path and down a narrow trail of pebbles and loose rocks. Twigs and gnarled roots snatched at the hem of my dress, slowing me down as I skidded down a hill, scuffing my linen underdress.
The orb eclipsed behind a trunk, and I cried, “Wait!”
An army of trees stood to attention, concealing the glimmer of hope that vanished as soon as it had appeared. I clutched my chest. This couldn’t be all there was.
“Please.” I huffed, wiping wild strands of hair from my bare face. I strained my eyes, making out a solid black silhouette in the twilight. It hung draped between branches, hunched like a bird.
In the harried dash, I reasoned the man had put out the light, thinking I was a threat. I reached a palm out. “Sir, I wish you no ill will. My daughter has gone missing, and I have been looking all over this wood for her. Can I use your light?”
The figure rustled and twitched, swiveling on its low perch, and I recoiled. A large body of sooty plumage extending to sharp talons now faced me. I swallowed hard, skin crawling from the vision of an owl as tall as me—only it was not quite an owl or any bird I recognized. Where a gray facial disc should have been was an ivory human face with large yellow eyes and a flat expression, its lips a pinched black line in the white. It leaned in close, peering into my face as I froze, breath locked in my chest.
The creature’s eyes followed the minute tremble of my fingers and caged my body in its gaze. My throat burned with the scream I choked down in case I startled it. Its head lowered, nostrils flaring as it caught a scent. Lower. It stopped at my pocket. With a talon, it hooked the ragdoll out of my dress and rubbed its nose into the fabric, inhaling deeply, never blinking once. A bitter tang filled my mouth.
It cooed. “This one is still fresh. Bittersweet and dewy. The Sorceress will certainly approve. Oh, let me enjoy it a little longer…”
As it reveled in the doll, I slowly slipped my mittened hand into my pocket, feeling around for the wooden shuttle I used for my weaving, eyes never leaving the creature. Fingers wrapped securely around the shuttle, I aimed the two pointed ends upwards.
“Can…” My hoarse voice cracked, and I cleared my throat. “Can I have it back?”
The owl’s thin lips split into a hollow grimace. “If the Sorceress allows it. Anything that crosses her domain is now hers. Including your child.”
Heat flushed through my body and my chest tightened. Someone had my Astrid. I breathed in and used a carefully controlled tone. “Where can I find the Sorceress?”
It cooed again, its body melting into the shadows. My heart pounded as it left me without my doll, the only memento I had of… The name slipped into the shadows with the creature. I needed the doll back. Muscles quivering, I raised my voice. “I have another one in my pocket.”
The owl man paused, eyes drinking in my whole body before it fluttered back. I waited until it tilted its head closer, making sure the arc of my swing would meet its face. Once it sniffed the opening of my pocket, I sprang the shuttle into its nose. It reeled back, talons tearing the stuffing out of the doll as it unfurled its wings, snapping branches and shaking trunks. Its shrill screech pierced my ears and my heart stuttered. But in the instant it flapped its wings, I wrenched the doll from its grasp.
Memories of my Astrid flowed back to me and I breathed deeply. My relief was cut short as the owl man lunged, and I jumped behind a tree, holding my breath. It rustled its feathers, rubbing its nose as it wailed, holding its bleeding face.
With shaking hands, I ungloved my mittens and grabbed a pinch of touchwood from the pouch on my belt. The numbing cold slowed my fingers, and I fumbled the pieces of steel and flint. Almost… Hairs lifted on my arms and the nape of my neck as the owl man shook down nearby trees.
Grabbing a dead branch, I poked it into the touchwood and clapped the steel and flint. A tiny spark jumped from the stone, igniting the touchwood. But the shadows thickened, smothering the nascent flame. My stomach sank. “No, no, no.”
A white face streaked in red broke the gloom, amber-bright eyes trapping me in their gaze as it hissed.
Chest heaving, nausea rising, I looked at the doll in my hand, the little doll I made for my Astrid. Astrid. The one I kept. Clenching my teeth, I hurled it as far as my quivering arm could throw. With a snarl, the owl man flew after the doll.
Shakily, I stood on wobbly knees, holding myself on a trunk, and let out a huge breath. The owl man had flown off with its prize and a name. I shook my head, closing my eyes. I had a daughter. A girl with hazel brown hair, a bright smile, and a little button nose. Her name was… Her name…
Shadows swirled around me, scabbing over a wound in the air the ember had caused. It wasn’t safe to stay here, wherever this was. I put my mittens back on and straightened my shoulders. “I have to find her.”
A voice filtered through the twilight. “You wandered off the path.”
I turned on my heel with a gasp, gripping my shuttle tight. A young man stood beyond the line of trees in a small clearing where the shadows were weakest. Though he bore no wings or extra appendages, around his face he wore a bandage that covered his eyes, framed by long white hair with a shaved undercut. I took a little step closer to see who I was speaking to and paused. By his side was a glossy black fox that stared at me with golden yellow-orange eyes.
I loosened my grip around the shuttle but kept my hand hidden. “And you are?”
“Hrafn.”
I cocked an eyebrow at his white skin and hair, very unlike a raven. “You don’t look like a Hrafn.”
The shadow of a smile pulled on his lip, though it might have been a snarl. “What are you doing in a place like this?”
“I’m…” I frowned, rifling through my mind. “My name is… Elli…ka. I’m looking for… I’m looking for my daughter. I think.”
Hrafn stepped closer, jabbing a staff with a brass knob inlaid with gems. Shadows swirled around his feet, arching and writhing across the floor like tamed snakes. “How long do you think you’ve been here?”
I rubbed my jaw. “An hour… Perhaps two.”
A brief light flared from his staff, and I flinched as though burned. I rubbed my eyes. What was that? Was he a seidhr practitioner?
“Judging from your aversion to the light, I would say you’ve been here for a week.”
I gawked. “That’s not possible. I clearly remember…” A cloud hung over events as they blurred into one another. I shook my head, forcing clarity on a smeared canvas.
The young man’s ocean dark mantle swept the ground as he turned on his heel. “I can take you back to the path, but you must not stray from it lest you lose your identity and become a vættr. A restless wight.”
The fox growled at movement in the distance. Solid forms coiled around the trees and their roots, weaving into yawning faces. I shuddered and turned back to him.
“What of you? What are you doing here?”
He prodded his staff in the ground as he started up the trail. “I seek Urd the Sorceress. If you hold on to your memory long enough, she can help you find your daughter.”
I quickly followed and grabbed his mantle. “Take me to her.”
He stilled, lips pulling tight at the grip on his cloak.
Heat flushed on my cheek, and I clasped my hands together. “Please?”
He walked on, neither chastising nor encouraging my trailing. My mind seeped through every hole in my face, thoughts crashing and melding with one another to form the crude tapestry of an incomplete existence. Had I really heard my daughter’s cries? What of the infant’s? They felt so vivid. I distinctly remembered holding a plump, screaming little thing in my arms and then… A heaviness stabbed my chest, and my palms tingled in warning, preventing me from remembering any more.
The man stopped. “We’re here.”
I glanced from the cleared path to the man and his fox, and an expansive, potent loneliness churned my gut. What other things would I forget? “How do you know I will turn into a vættr?”
Hrafn rolled up his sleeve and showed the blanched, transparent skin of his arm. “I don’t have much time before I turn into one myself.”
I grimaced, my hand immediately rolling up my own sleeve to check my skin. Certainly paler than before, but not translucent. I sighed. “And you think Urd can help with that?”
“Having something to tie down your memories helps stall the corruption. I lost something and want to get it back before I turn into one of the hidden folk.”
I reached out, gently tapping his shoulder. The man stiffened but did not pull away. “Then, perhaps we can help each other.”
His shoulders relaxed. “I don’t mind an extra pair of eyes, but please don’t attempt to light a fire.”
My brow wrinkled. “What’s wrong with fire?”
“It makes the shadows angry.”
I felt my cheeks redden. Hopefully, I would remember that next time. The fox sniffed the touchwood on my belt and recoiled, pawing its nose low to the ground. “All right. I won’t use it.”
I tucked my arms close to my body. The twilight chill embraced my bones, and the faintest cry on the winds curled in my ears, calling my name.
Portrait of Hrafn by y0n0ya on instagram.