Wolves Among Us (23 page)

The next morning Mia set out to find a bit more firewood. She had used up her winter supply. She hated the forest and worked quickly, bringing home just enough fallen, dead branches for today.

As she opened the door to her home, a sword winked at Mia as Bjorn turned it over, wiping down the blade with a polishing cloth.

Bjorn did not look up as Mia came through the door. She held her breath and entered as Alma grinned and rushed for her legs. Mia bent down and scooped her up, kissing her on the cheek, exhaling with relief. Alma made everything better. Even when Alma was frightened by a noise outside the window or a flash of lightning in the sky, it was Mia who felt comforted as she cradled Alma. Alma could never know the deep relief Mia had on those nights just touching her, holding this soft, trembling little flower. Alma gave Mia a reason to be brave. God let women bear children so women would never give up hope. Even if here on earth women were denied everything else, God would always let them bear children. Alma hinted at His goodness. Children were a promise brighter than the rainbow.

Mia sat Alma back down, swatting her on the rump to nudge her in the direction of her doll. Alma grinned and went back to it.

Bjorn had still not said a word nor even looked at Mia. She kept watch on him out of the corner of her eye, her body stiff with dread. Stefan had given no comfort or help yesterday. Mia had gone to Mass early today anyway, careful not to look at Stefan in the eye. She had focused on the statue of the Virgin Mary, who remained blind to her too. No one in town said a word to her as she left.

“I am sorry,” she said. She was sorry for it all: the missing dinner, the leaving with no word yesterday, the anger.

Bjorn looked up, his eyebrows arching. “For what?”

“I am surprised you need ask.”

He stood, lifting the sword, turning it to catch the light from the fire under the cooking pot. “I’m going to ask you a question, Mia.”

She waited.

Stepping closer to her, he offered her the sword, hilt first.

“Would you kill me? If you knew you could not be caught?” he asked.

Mia pushed the hilt back with her palm, slowly, careful not to push the blade into his stomach. She turned and bent over the cooking pot, pretending to stir. It had gone bone dry while she had been out. Any good wife would know this meant disaster. Anything she put in it now would scorch or curdle. Bjorn would taste her neglect for weeks.

“Does it look good?” he asked. “I would like a good meal tonight.”

“I can’t say. I need to fetch some water for it.”

He caught her by the arm, pulling her face to his.

“Where were you?” he asked.

Mia looked at the floor. Always best not to look someone in the eyes when they grew angry. Thomas had taught her that, though not because he beat her, as others would, but because he relied on her hard work to buy his beer.

“I went to Mass. Then I got some more wood, for later today. I ran out of wood.”

“You went to church? Father Stefan was there?”

“Of course.”

Bjorn moved around her, to her back. His arms went round her waist, one of his hands still holding the sword.

“But you went yesterday, too. There could be only one reason to go back again today.”

“Mass makes me feel better. That’s the only reason.”

He brought the sword up along her body, resting it under her chin, the sharp blade cold against her throat. Alma dropped her doll, her eyes wide.

“And what did you say to the good Father today?” Bjorn asked. “Did you complain about me? Did you whisper my secrets to him? Are you the reason he resists Bastion and me?”

“I don’t know any of your secrets. I didn’t know you had secrets.” She tried not to think of what Bastion had told her about his adulteries. Bjorn would hear those thoughts in her tone.

“Then you’ve told the other women. Everyone knows the women of this village love a bit of gossip. How they must enjoy yours.”

“They don’t talk to me.” Mia would not add that they did not like her, that they treated her with indifference. She would not humiliate herself to escape his wrath. She had grown tired of that escape.

“I may be bewitched by another woman, but I will not be cuckolded by my own wife. Keep your petty complaints, your stupid, baseless suspicions about me to yourself from now on.”

He lowered the sword but did not step back. His body pressed into the curves of hers.

Alma’s expression changed to one of anger. She marched to Bjorn, holding open her palm and pressing her other hand into her stomach. Bjorn stepped back with a short laugh. “Give your child something to eat.”

Mia tore a piece of bread from the morning’s baking and gave it to her. Alma flopped to the floor, tearing at the crusts, nibbling at it like a mouse, her eyes watching Bjorn with a fierce interest.

“Why did you marry me?” she asked.

Bjorn replaced the sword over the doorway.

“I asked a question,” Mia said. She kept her voice soft, more interested in an answer than in an argument. She moved away from Alma so she would not hear.

“I never wanted to marry,” he said. “It’s too much effort to please a woman you have to see every day.”

“So you married me because I did not need to be pleased?”

“I needed a wife. You did not ask questions back then. I thought you would give me peace. I thought you would be a good wife.”

“Am I not?”

Bjorn laughed.

“What will become of us?” she asked. “When Bastion is gone and the village is quiet?”

Bjorn ran his hand over his chin, walking to settle himself at the table for his meal. Mia ignored the rising panic, knowing she had no meal to feed him.

“Nothing,” he said, his eyes cold and hard. “Nothing at all.”

The word sank like a stone in her stomach. Mia looked around the little home, her pathetic attempts to copy the other women of the village by setting things in order, behaving as the marriage book had said she should, trying to please Bjorn no matter how it crushed her spirit. She had failed. Everything looked a mess. She had no meal to feed him, never mind her own empty belly.

Bjorn reached for the plate on the table with a glare toward Mia. He knew the pot held nothing for him. She saw it in his eyes, everything it told him about her and these years together. She had nothing to offer him.

Mia rubbed her hands together, nodding.

She bent down by Alma, whispering in her ear. Alma stood, raising her arms over her head. Mia scooped her up and walked out.

Mia could not pretend any longer. She had no energy left to try. If she stayed, if she tried again, desperation would cling to her, seeping into her voice and expression. Bastion would smell it out when he came calling again. She would have no argument, no defense. She would have no reason not to give up, no reason not to fall into his arms and let him take her far from this life.

Except for Alma. Mia would not give in, and never give up, because God had given her Alma. He healed Alma for no cause Mia could think of. He dwelled in shadow and mystery, to be sure, but Mia knew one thing about Him now, one thing forever: This God of mystery and shadow gave good gifts, even to those who failed Him. Even if she failed Him again and again, she believed He would still be near, walking with her in her darkness.

And Mia knew something else, too: She would choose to die in the forest before she broke her promise to God to honor Bjorn. Bjorn wasn’t worthy of it. God was. She would be true to this mysterious God, and by setting foot into the forest, without sword or knife, she knew she chose to die.

“I will take care of Alma,” she whispered to God. “I will take her as far from here as I can.”

Mia stepped into the shadows of the trees, cradling Alma in her arms. The forest rested quiet in the day. Those with hungers slept, waiting for night. Mia saw paw prints in the earth, one set, each print about the size of her palm with four toes, each with a claw curving in toward the center—the mark of a large wolf. A wolf had found her house last night. Bjorn had killed one wolf, and another had sprung out of the darkness to take its place, pacing back and forth, watching. Mia picked up her pace, hoping the wolf would not wake.

The foolish virgins,
Mia thought.
I am no better than they.
Mia had heard the parable of the foolish virgins from Father Stefan. Ten beautiful young virgins waited at night for their groom. But the wait proved too long, and the night was so dark that all ten virgins fell asleep. At last the cry rang out, “The groom is here! The time for the feast, the wedding, it is upon us!”

But five of the virgins had no oil left for their lamps, so they couldn’t make their way to the feast. They went out into the dark streets, searching for oil, searching for help. And the five wise virgins, the ones who had stored up oil, the ones who were ready for a long, dark night, these women won everything—even love.

The five foolish virgins mocked Mia as she picked her way through the last of the afternoon light, through this thick forest, with Alma clinging to her, every step difficult and painful. Green boughs scratched Mia’s face and caught her by the hair. She continued forward, letting the bough take a piece of her hair with it. She only wanted to save Alma.

Mia had let herself get too thin, too weak, and knew she did not even have strength to last the remaining minutes of light. Night was settling around them fast. Mia realized now that they would both die when wolves and bears and boars woke and went hunting for the foolish and the weak. The five foolish virgins were never heard from after that, apparently, because they were never mentioned again in the Bible.
Probably eaten,
Mia thought.

Her arms burned with the effort of carrying Alma, but when she tried to set Alma down, the child moaned in fear, scrambling, scratching, and grasping for Mia’s embrace.

Alma had never experienced the fear of being unwanted. Mia nuzzled her cheek against Alma’s as reassurance. Mia had known the life of a fugitive long ago. She knew how to bury her sorrows and fears, how to drive them down deep into the mud and run.

Mia was a woman now, and everything on her stove had gone to giving Alma more strength, and to Bjorn’s big appetite. Nothing remained for Mia.

The last light faded as Mia pushed on. An hour later, exhausted, she collapsed beneath a tree. She could hear the animals scurrying overhead and the insects scurrying underfoot. Heavy footsteps frightened Alma, but Mia suspected it was a deer. Tired of chewing on the birch trees through the winter, deer would be grazing on spring’s new growth with no thought of danger. Around her, toadstools glowed blue-green in the darkness, moonlight breaking through the canopy above in rare, distant spaces.

Alma curled into her lap, sucking her thumb, falling asleep. Mia blinked in the darkness. The forest writhed to life. Predator hunted prey, insects sang and chewed through the leaf litter, owls flew past not more than an arm’s reach away. She heard tiny screams of a mouse or rat as an owl caught it.

Mia had always cooked her meals in a pot and acquired food by digging through dirt or paying a butcher for cuts of meat. She had never hunted or heard claws tearing flesh. Suffering came to everyone in the night
.

Bastion and Bjorn would be searching in the village tonight for signs of more witches. The women arrested would sit in the jail and think tonight of what must soon happen to them. Sleep was mercy. Everyone and everything still under the curse stayed awake to suffer.

Mia knew those screaming, scurrying animals had a better lot, dying before dawn. Mia would die slowly, over the course of days. If God had mercy, she would find a place for Alma to live before that happened. Perhaps there would be a woman who could not have children of her own. Perhaps she could take Alma in.

If Mia could muster the strength to carry Alma just a bit further, she would find a town. Surely she would find a town.

A scream startled Mia awake, her heart pounding against her ribs. An owl repeated the call. Mia blinked, wondering how long they had slept like this, Alma in her lap and Mia slumped against the tree.

Steps in slow cadence broke branches in the distance. Something heavy approached, something not hunting, but searching. Mia froze, tightening her grip around Alma.

Bjorn would not have followed. He did not care enough.

Mia’s stomach burned from the rush of spiked fear, a cold iron mace being swung through her body as she saw the ghost. A woman’s image glided in between two huge beeches ahead. She had long silver hair, unbound, spreading across her shoulders, flowing down to her elbows. Nothing more than a skeleton’s body hung underneath her plain shift. The ghost stepped, cracking a twig underfoot.

Ghosts do not break twigs,
she thought.
This must be a woman of flesh and blood, living.

The woman turned and came right to her, not blinded by the darkness, not dependent on the patches of light. It was the healer Mia had spied in the village. She carried a thick rope at her side.

Mia closed her eyes as the woman got closer, leaning down and burying her face into Alma’s back.
Better to be taken by an owl. Victims saw the stars before they died.