ShadowBorn Bonus Chapters

THE OLD WITCH

The Gathering

I was eleven when the old witch first laid her hollow eyes upon me. She’d stood, mid-path, back crooked, bent finger pointing at me as I sat forefront of our festival booth. Her age-paled eyes seemed like ghosts—dead and vacated long ago—and a shiver kissed the back of my neck.

I glanced down at the needle and thread in my lap, ignoring the old woman with her tattered cloak waving in the sweet spring breeze and her sunken eyes seeking me across the distance and went about my work. Not only was eleven old enough for important duties like attending the plow blessing, and heating the kettle in father’s booth at Frey’s Festival, but eleven was big enough for embroidery. I had just learned to tie the cross knot and sat dutifully as my mother had instructed at the front of our camp, just outside the timbers that held the canvas over our heads and blocked the stars at night. Mama hadn’t even fussed over Holma or Ljot when we’d arrived, and she’d threaded a pretty moon daisy through my braids.

“Embroidery catches a man’s eye,” Mama had said. “It’s a delicate craft. Any woman that embroiders with deftness shows refinement, and that’s a quality any important man seeks in a woman.”

Mama sat me up front where I could be easily seen by passersby as I showed off my new craft.

Father had huffed underneath his breath. “Such nonsense.” Father had taken Mama by the elbow and whispered into her ear where he thought his words were out of my reach, but my ears were particularly sensitive to such mumblings. “There not be enough in our coffers for Holma, let alone our last born. Why let the littlest be seen at all?”

Even so, there I sat, on a worm-eaten stump that father had dragged to our camp. Grass tickled my ankles just above Mar’s old shoes, or perhaps they were Mable’s. I got everyone’s hand-me-downs, and with two sets of twins ahead of me, I had two sets of worn everything. We’d settled on a spot on the outskirts of the village Thorp. Father claimed it was a fine spot, but Mama complained, quite forcefully, that it was too far from the Chieftan’s camp, and no one with any clout would pass this way.

I counted the stitches just as Mama had taught me, all the while feeling the prick of the old witch’s gaze upon me. If I looked up, would she still be there? Or was I imagining I had captured her attention, making myself all too important?

I swallowed the lump forming in my throat and took the chance. I glanced up, across the wide path created by other farming families come campers. And there at the end, she stood, staring at me with a far-off gaze that seemed to go straight through me and back in time to hauntings of her past. Her back was as crooked as a bent willow, the ragged ends of her overskirt fluttered in the breeze like a ghost from a campfire tale, and everyone avoided the old witch as if she weaved a magical field around her to keep them at bay.

In truth, I had seen the old witch first, or at least I thought I did. I had glimpsed that same, despondent face the night before in my dream when we’d slept alongside the road, under the stars, for the festival was held four days travel from our small farm. Even at eleven, my dreams were muddled things. Dark things. Chaotic things that had me bolt upright in the middle of the night, soaked in a cold sweat. Only when I awoke from the witch’s haunted eyes, panting and sobbing, Mar rolled over and told me to shut up and go back to sleep. I sank back down in the woolen blanket we shared with Mabel, the nightmare forgotten. So, I couldn’t be sure it was the same woman, but as she stood with her tangled hair dangling over her sunken features, I had that odd sense of familiarity that often happened to me, though at eleven, I made no sense of the feeling. I just accepted it as my sisters’ had named it: my muttonheaded imagination.

“Mama?”

My mother wiped her hands on her apron, walked to me and bent over my embroidery. “Good, Ginna. Beautiful.” She bit her lip with her broken front tooth. “But you’re pulling too tight. See how it bunches here?”

“Who’s that woman?”

“Pay attention when I instruct you, child. How do you expect anyone to take a fancy to you when you’re always daydreaming? Now. Eyes on your work.”

“But that w,,oman,” I pressed. I hadn’t developed the mind to keep quiet when corrected, and Mama’s exasperated huff told me in no mixed terms that I was out of line. I whispered, “She’s staring at me.”

Finally, my mother glanced up and spotted the old witch. The woman didn’t look away. She didn’t flinch. And Mama’s lips pressed tight as she stared back with a gaze as fierce and foreboding as a bear with her cub. “She’s nei one. Never mind.”

But I couldn’t not mind. The old witch stared at me as if she were a dragr come to life and I was for some reason her ticket to get back to the living. Besides, Mama’s ferocious glare proved that though she said never mind, even she minded.

The old witch didn’t budge, standing her ground in the middle of the pathway. Other campers walked right by her. None looked directly at her, and she never tore her gaze from me. In fact, one man nearly knocked her over as he passed by, then brushed his shoulder as if it had touched dirt.

“Why doesn’t anyone pay attention to her, Mama?”

Mabel scooted around Mama, sticking her round, freckled face a hair’s breadth from mine. “Because she’s a witch. Nei one wants to look at her because she’ll curse them.”

Mar’s narrower, but just as freckled face popped up next to her twin’s. “Nei, she’s a murderess. The woman at the next booth said she killed her husband. I heard her telling her daughter.”

“Cause she’s an evil witch,” said Mabel. “People with dark magic do dark things.”

Ljot approached. She’d been given the hardest task of erecting the timbers with Father, and she was still out of breath although they’d completed the job and the other girls had started setting up our bedding. When Ljot had complained, Mama claimed her robust size gave her an advantage with men’s work. “Rumor has it,” Ljot chimed in, “she was such a loon, nei man could stand to be around her. Not even her husband. Drove him to drinking, it did.”

Osk approached upon hearing gossip. “I heard she thinks she sees things and claims them to be truth. It drove her poor husband daft, so he took all their silver and left her one night. Up and walked away. That was over ten seasons past. Now she has to beg for food  ‘cause no one will take care of her. Even her family won’t claim her.”

“Hush, girls,” scolded Mama. “My girls won’t stoop to gossiping over a poor wretched soul’s misfortune.”

The woman still stood, staring, and my skin itched beneath my shift. I thought her eyes would drive holes through my forehead. I didn’t know if she heard us, but I doubted it. She was too far away, yet the void in her eyes stopped my breath in my throat.

Then Mama flicked my ear. A stinging ballooned. I clamped my hand over it to sooth it. “Stop, Ginna. A lady never stares.”

I gazed downward and studied the pattern of my embroidery, the bunch of linen around my last cross stitch now glaringly crooked. How had I thought that it looked so nice before Mama pointed out my mistake?

Holma dashed up behind us and circled her arm through Ljot’s, her face flushed. “Did you see him?”

Both Ljot and Mama returned a questioning look.

“Oh, he was so handsome,” said Holma, nearly out of breath. “Maybe he’ll be a suitor! He tipped his hat to me and said good day, and then…”

I didn’t hear anything else my sister said. I looked back up, down the path, to where the witch had stood staring at me, but she was gone. Vanished. That’s when the little hiccup in my heart started.

***

One candle-turn had hardly passed when Mama moved me inside our booth while Holma, Ljot, Osk and her prepared our nightly meal. Father sat by the fire, and the two sets of twins had been told to get busy straightening our tent, but in truth, there was nothing to straighten. The booth had been ordered to perfection time and again during the day.

I sat near the back, where I could see the stars just forming overhead when that odd sensation of eyes upon me started anew. I turned, and there she was. The witch. Kneeling right behind me, her darkened face no more than inches from my own.

I froze. My heart double-timed. I wanted to scramble up. Run! Tell Mama, but the old witch placed a crooked finger over her lips to shush me.

This close, her eyes were faded blue and not nearly as ghostly as they’d been out there on the street, and they caught a flicker of light from the firepit so I could see how watery they were. Just then, I didn’t see a witch. Or a murderess. Or an evil woman. I saw a sad, old lady and my heart hiccuped again.

“You see me, but he doesn’t see you,” she hissed.

“Who’s he?”

“Don’t ever let him see you. Not never.”

I shook my head. What did she mean?

“I saw you in the dream last night, too. I know you spotted me. I could sense it in you. One with the dark touch can sense it on another. Like me, a curse hovers over you.” Even in her hushed tone, her voice crackled like old wood underfoot. “I see, too. Just don’t let him know.”

Curse? Him? I had no idea what she was talking about, but then it hit me. She saw me in the dream, just like I’d seen her. The things I saw when I fell asleep at night, when I stared off into the distance, that Mama and Father claimed were neither here nor there, but lodged somewhere in my imagination, this old witch, this broken, abandoned woman saw them too. Then how could they be my imagination? Her husband left her because of it. Had he possibly loved her? I couldn’t fathom that he did.

I glanced at my family. The sets of twins played and sang around the firepit. Father leaned back and closed his eyes, a slight smile playing on his lips. Mama inspected and re-threaded my day’s worth of embroidery, and not a single one of them glanced at us. Not a gaze flitted over us, not an eye checked on my whereabouts. It was like we weren’t even there. Overlooked, as always. When I turned back to the old witch, she had vanished once again, and a slithering cold rushed throughout every bit of my body.

***

The Darkest of Dreams

Not more than a week after the Plow Blessing without a single man asking for any of my sisters despite Holma’s encounter with the handsome hopeful suitor, I sat daydreaming. I stared into our longhouse’s firepit, watching the flames waver, and the smoke climb to the roof. It was nightfall, before bedtime, and Holma played Mar and Mabel in a game of King’s Table. Of course, Holma played the king’s side with Mar and Mable playing the opposing force. The rest of my sisters gathered around, cheering them on, switching sides as the forces advanced and fates rewove. I spied them out of my side vision, but all of a sudden they blurred and twisted. I blinked, hoping to refocus my vision, hoping the firelight played tricks with my sight. I turned toward them, but all eight of my sisters disappeared.

A forest replaced them. Beams from the moon broke through spruce branches overhead, but as thick as the needles were, only bits of light leaked downward, and it seemed to increase the shadows below. A woman ran ahead of me, arms flailing, legs frantically working to drive her forward. She let out little squeaks of panic.

“Help me!” The thick spruce trunks and underbrush gobbled up her words, and they fell dead into the night. “Please! Someone! He sees me! He’s coming! He’ll kill me!” The last bit turned into a shrill cry.

I got closer to her. I’m not sure how. I just floated, which often happened in my dreams. It was then I realized the screaming woman was the old witch from the village of Thorp. The creases in her face sunk even deeper than a week before as if her flesh was nothing more than dried parchment clinging to her skull. Her old bones threatened to pierce through her sagging skin as if she’d eaten only crumbs for days.

My chest tightened. My heartbeat thundered in my ears. Or was it the witch’s heart racing like a frightened herd? It was as if my emotions melded with hers and I felt every bit of her terror, the muscles in her legs gelling, the hammer of her chest, the rush of blood in her ears.

As if time slowed, she stopped running and turned, her gaze seeking me across the darkened forest. Her eyes weren’t vacant, or cold, or even sad and watery. They were terrified. Did she see me? Was I even there?

“Never let him see you. He seeks, and whispers, and promises. He’ll trick you. He will. He’ll demand repayment for his favors. Never let him into your soul. Not never.”

A churning mist sprang from the ground beneath the old witch. It oozed and undulated, gobbling her up from her feet to her ankles, then torso. She reached her hands out as if to grab for me. A strangled plea came from her thin, twisting lips, “Help me,” but the snaking mist whirled around her body, enveloping her.

I tried to reach out and grab her bony hand. Where are my hands? Where is my body? I couldn’t make any sense of where or how I existed. My heart hammered at a break-neck pace.

My eyes popped open. A tamped earthen floor with the warm glow of fire appeared beneath me. I twisted and jerked upright, sitting. A cold sweat broke over my forehead.

“He took her!” I heaved air into my lungs, panting. Because she saw visions. Because she was just like me. Some dark thing took her!

Mama’s strong fingers gripped my shoulders. She tugged me back into her embrace, folding her arms around me. “Ginna, Ginna! Child! Calm yourself! Holma, fetch me a wet rag.” Mama rocked me as we sat there on the ground of our longhouse. Holma tossed her a dishcloth. Mama patted the damp cloth on my forehead. It smelled of yarrow.

“What’s wrong with her Mama?” Mar stood over me, hands crossed over her chest, wild nut-colored hairs sticking out of her night braids. She blocked the light from the firepit. Mabel edged up behind her, hands planted on her hips, her hair and shift as disheveled as her twins. I must have knocked them both from the bed, along with myself.

“She’s daft,” said Mabel.

“It’s a dream, that’s all,” said Mama.

“That’s nei dream,” said Father.

Their voices swirled around me like I was underwater. Father’s face filled with fright, but he bent over and plucked me from Mama’s embrace. I was bigger than the last time he’d held me, and for some reason, Father didn’t feel safe anymore. There was a time, when I was a wee one, that his arms solved every problem, and soothed any hurt, but tonight he felt fragile. Weak. Father wobbled as he laid me on the straw mattress I shared with Mar and Mabel.

My thrashing finally stopped, but a shiver overtook me.

Mama’s face filled with worry. “What happened, child?”

Sweat still slicked my brow. My jaw chattered. “I saw the woman from Thorp, Mama.”

Mama shook her head. “Saw? How, child? Were you dreaming?”

“She was such a fright, Mama. She needed help. She said he hunted her. We have to do something.” Tears leaked down my cheeks. I let them roll, shaking too hard to wipe them away.

“Shh,” said Mama. “It was only a dream.” And then quieter to herself, “It had to be a dream.”

Father tugged Mama’s sleeve and pulled her away. He spoke in low tones, and this time I could only make out a few words. Evil. Dark One. Dangerous. The two of them stared back at me as if deciding what to do with a wolf who’d wandered in with the chickens.

Then Mama nodded and sat next to me. The mattress crunched under her weight.

“You’re nearly a woman, now, Ginna, and it’s time you stop these wild imaginings. That’s what they are, you know. Only your imagination.”

The vision of the frightened old woman ballooned in my head. I couldn’t just leave her there. “But, Mama. She—”

Mama’s finger pressed against my lips. “Hush. Enough.”

The tears continued down my cheeks, over my chin, and puddled on my neck before sliding off to be absorbed by the woolen blanket beneath me.

“If anyone ever thought you had dark magic about you, you would be ruined. We would all be ruined. Your sisters would never have suitors, and neither would you. Do you understand?”

I nodded, still shaking.

“Good girl,” said Mama. “One day you’ll grow up and realize it’s all in your mind. You’re just an imaginative child, that’s all. You’re blessed by the Goddess,” she said as she kissed my forehead, “and there isn’t a dark notion about you, child. You’ll see. One day you’ll look back and laugh that you thought such things were real.”

Mar still stood in front the fire, holding a black defender from the King’s Table board in her hand, and she started to cry.

Holma bent over her and patted her back. “Quiet, Mar. Ginna’s well. Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried about Ginna,” she sniffed and pouted at her eldest sister. “I’m worried about us.”

“Whatever for?” asked Holma.

“Because she’ll be our ruin.”

“Nonsense,” said Holma.

“Nonsense,” agreed Mama.

“But you said we’d be ruined. We’ll never have suitors—”

“I said nothing of the sort,” argued Mama. “Ginna’s blessed, and that’s that. We’ll not talk about this again. Understood?”

Mar tossed the black game piece on the ground. Her lower lip grew by half, but Mama raised a cross brow at her, and she said, though weakly, “Ja, Mama. Understood.”

Father watched from the shadows of the corner, his eyes switched between me and Mama and Mable, and he wore such a scowl that I knew he didn’t believe a word Mama said.

***

Confirmation

In my thirteenth spring, I landed the most important job of all. Father took me with Holma and Ljot to sell our winter wares in the village of Thorp. Winter had been wrought with snow as deep as my waist, and we had been holed up inside our longhouse, fire blazing, for moons. We had enough time to accumulate piles of homespun, and even some of my embroidering made it into the goods for sale. We hurried along the path to Thorp.

“Smoke, Father! There!” I called.

“Ja, we be but a couple hundred paces away.”

“Hurry,” I said and skipped ahead.

Father tugged old Flosa’s lead. She nagged with a snort, and the old mare continued rambling along at her own comfortable pace regardless of how excited I was to get to the village.

“Slow down, child. This old mare ain’t gonna gallop just because it’s your first time to market.”

But I didn’t care. I wanted to run. I hadn’t forgotten about the old witch. I hoped I’d find her standing in the street, greeting me with that vacant gaze, and my dream had been all but a childish imagination as Mama said.

“Wait up!” called Holma. “You can’t prance into the village unchaperoned.”

“That be right, little lamb,” said Father. “Stay where I can see you.”

I slowed and inhaled the sweet scents of spring. Recent rain had washed the air. A swath of blue sky blanketed overhead. Green shoots sprung from the ground. Birds twittered. Everything would finally be set right. Proof. That’s what I wanted. Proof that I wasn’t daft. That I wasn’t dark. That some evil didn’t lurk the nights, snagging up frightened women.

We rounded a corner, and the first rows of squatty houses came into view. Like us, travelers roamed the central walk with carts and horses and wares to sell. Cheery smoke rose from rooftops, and I could barely contain my muscles within my skin.

“Come on!” I jogged forward like a spring filly ready to bolt.

“Not so fast, Ginna,” warned Holma.

“Let her go,” said Father. “We’ll keep a right eye on her.”

“We can’t let her run around like a wild animal. Mama would be cross if she knew.”

“Well, then, we won’t be tellin’ your Mama, now will we?”

I glanced back. Holma scowled, but then her eye caught the busy street. She licked her fingers and slicked the runaway hairs around her face and tugged her waist long braid over her shoulder. When had she tied that pretty bow on the end? Was that Mama’s silk ribbon? Even Ljot straightened and swung her hips as she strolled into the town of Thorp with my Father’s weary watch on us all.

In truth, I didn’t care about wares and trading. I didn’t even care about boys, and their mamas coming to scout for prospective wives. I only cared about the old witch, and I scrambled down the lane, searching for her. Would she appear in the middle of the path and stare at me with those hollow eyes as she’d done the first day of Frey’s Festival?

Two seasons was a long time for a thirteen-year-old, and I couldn’t quite remember where we’d camped the day I’d seen her.

Travelers sold their wares in front of erected tents, goods displayed on cloths out front of their booths. After looking down every path and alleyway between houses, I finally stopped and asked a grizzled man. “There was an old witch who lived here once.”

He grunted and rearranged his array of cooking utensils carved from deer bone and antlers.

“Then you’ve seen her, sir?”

“Are you buying, miss?”

“Nei,” I said. “I’m looking for the old witch—”

“Then move on. Can’t afford lookers.”

“But—”

“Move along.”

I stepped back into the path when a woman approached me. She looked vaguely familiar, and I realized she’d been at the festival, in the next booth.

 “Did you say you’re looking for the old witch?”

“Ja—”

“Why ever would you do such a thing, child? Your mama would be ill-tempered if she knew.”

“Well, we won’t tell my Mama, now will we?” I grinned, but the woman planted her hands on her hips just like Mama when she was about to give me a good tongue lash. Apparently, only fathers could get away with such a lip.

“Ain’t nei business for you to be running around after a witch. Last I heard, she lived over there.” The woman pointed down the path to a house that sat at the edge of the village. “But you never mind that and run back to your Mama, or I’ll be taking you back to her myself. Now. Run along.” She waved me away.

I turned on my heel and pretended to wander back toward my sisters and Father, but when the cutlery for trade caught the woman’s eye, I snuck by her and toward the old witch’s house.

With every footstep, my heart quickened.

 The house came into full view. The roof was newly thatched, and children played out front. Even cheery wildflowers sat in a kettle on a table that perched outside the door. There wasn’t anything foreboding about the old witch’s house. It was as if sunshine had beamed in and soaked away all the sorrow. Had the old witch remarried? Had children? Had she, in some way, been redeemed, dark magic and all?

My heart fluttered at the thought. I edged closer as the fancies filled my head. A woman trudged toward the house, a basket of wet clothes tucked under her arm.

“Why are you staring at us, girl?” She strode over and stopped between the children and me, blocking my view, but I didn’t budge. Something felt wrong.

“You, girl!” The woman’s voice rose. “What are you doing, there?”

My gaze flickered side to side. Where was the old witch? Why hadn’t she come out of the house? Surely, we had a connection. Couldn’t she sense me, here, searching for her?

Blackness edged in at the sides of my vision. The happy little house, and children who had all stopped to stare, and the woman who had set her basket on the ground and stood with her hands pressed to her hips, all narrowed, as if I viewed them through a tunnel. And in a heartbeat, they disappeared.

My knees wavered. I thought I’d collapse. I stood in the middle of a forest. An ancient tree trunk, smothered by moss rose before me. I gazed upward, but the heavy canopy of branches and leaves blocked my view to the sky. Shadows wavered along with the leaves. The thick, heady scent of earth filled my nostrils.

Don’t you hear me? Called the village woman from somewhere. Her words rang out but as if they played in my head. Are you daft, girl?

I stepped forward. My foot sunk into a tangle of old leaves and spruce needles. A stench overwhelmed me. Old. Musty. Dead. The liquid in my belly rolled. I brushed my pigskin shoe over the ground, knocking away disintegrating debris. A smooth, whitish knob appeared. I leaned over and wiped away the rest of the forest waste. A half-buried skeleton poked from the damp earth, tangled with vines. No flesh, just ivory bone. The fingers splayed upward as if reaching, and I knew it was the old witch. This is where she ran. This is where I saw her. This is where the darkness gobbled her up. And this is where she laid dead until scavengers picked her clean. A scream started in my throat.

A hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. My mouth levered open but nothing came out, and I found myself standing, staring at my sister Holma. The forest disappeared, and the birds twittered again.

“What’s the matter with you?” said Holma. Her hand still gripped my shoulder. Her fingers pinched my skin. “Come away, now. You’re scaring those children.”

I swung back around, searching for the skeleton, but only the village woman glared at me. Her children gathered around, and she protectively wrapped an arm around the littlest.

“Apologies,” called Holma. “My sister means nei harm.”

Holma shepherded me away. Her words edged with a hardness. “What were you thinking, standing there like a half-wit? Do you want that woman spreading rumors that you’re less-born and should have been put out the night Mama bore you?”

I shook my head as my feet plodded along automatically. We walked back toward the center of the village. Passersby sent nervous glances our way, and I knew I must look a fright, but the image of the skeleton burned in my mind’s eye. The outstretched hands…the picked clean ivory bone…the forest.

“Sometimes, Ginna, I fear you’ll be the death of us all if you keep up this nonsense.”

“What happened to the old witch?” I asked, voice shaking.

“Who?”

“That woman everyone was frightened of two seasons past. When we came for the plow blessing. The one that stood in the path.”

Holma shook her head.

“Everyone whispered that she was a witch and her husband left her because of it.”

“Oh, pah,” said Holma. “She’s been gone a couple of years. Old bat wondered into the forest and never returned.”

My chest tightened, threatening to stop my heart dead.

Holma’s gaze narrowed. She looked at me sideways. “Why?”

I shook my head.

“You aren’t still thinking about that addlebrained dream of yours, are you?”

I stared ahead.

“If you trained your mind on more important matters, such trifles wouldn’t haunt you. Smile. Straighten your back. Stop staring off into the distance. And a man might take notice of you.”

We approached the bargaining farmers turned merchants for the day. Holma exemplified her advice. She smoothed the hairs of her braid, grinned wider than a kid with a honey cake, and swayed her hips as if she meant to cast nets as she walked. It did the trick. Appreciative glances raked over her as we passed. Holma tipped her chin at the comely ones.

But a sinking sensation overtook. I felt as if my feet plunged into quicksand.

I tugged on Holma’s sleeve, but she ignored me, batting her eyes at a young man selling dried cloudberries to a traveler.

“Holma,” I persisted. “Someone has to know what happened to the old witch. People don’t just disappear. Maybe she ended up at another village? Maybe she met a man, and he took a fancy to her, and they ran off together?”

I was fishing, I admit, but I didn’t believe a word I said. The old witch had run off into the forest and never returned. The skeleton had to be her. How could there be any other answer?

The young cloudberry merchant tipped his hat. “Good day,” he called to Holma.

Holma finally let go of my arm and sashayed to the young man.

Father stood across the way, bargaining with buyers, selling our bounty for what would be or not be our winter comfort depending upon the prices he fetched.

I stood, watching Holma and Father as they were caught up in what was seemingly real. Important. Life-sustaining.

I was nothing but an addlebrained dreamer to them.

Or a danger.

I wasn’t anything like my siblings or parents. And for all appearances, I wasn’t anything like the witch, either. She was old, unkept, and broken. Her eyes had glistened with a sadness I couldn’t even identify. But in the way that was important, we were the same. We each held a dark secret inside us that made us unlovable, and from that heartbeat forward, I feared that the blackness boiling inside me, the one everyone continued to deny, would be the death of me.