Over the rest of that winter, darkness seemed to envelop us, so thick it was like a physical thing. The rush of women who came to us slowed down to a faint trickle of the truly desperate. The daylight, when it came, was ghostly, pale. All that mattered was keeping the fire lit, keeping food in our stomachs, making sure the child inside me survived. We spent most of our days with dried herbs spread around us, making potions and poultices for every kind of ailment, ripping pieces of cloth to wrap around particularly potent mixtures.
My hunger did not abate. I wanted to eat everything, to lock myself in the cellar and devour every herb, every vegetable, every dried piece of meat. No matter how much we carried up and roasted in the hearth, it never seemed to be enough to fill me. Mathena even began locking the cellar at night, so that I would not run down in my half sleep and gorge myself.
The days passed slowly. To distract me, Mathena told me stories of the old goddesses—Artemis turning Daphne slowly into a tree, limb by limb, Aphrodite rising from foam and sea, Hera ruling over all of them at the side of her brother Zeus, who was also her husband—and of the days when the queen consulted her on everything from what to eat for breakfast to which of her husband’s advisors would betray him. I loved her stories. Sometimes I would get so lost in them that I’d look down at the cloth and stalks and seeds in my hands and forget what they were, why I was holding them.
At times, when I was restless and burning, I would take to the woods in the pure light of the afternoon with a fur wrap, often just with a bow and arrow, to hunt.
Which was how I found myself outside one afternoon, stalking through the forest with Brune flying above me and my bow at my side, several arrows sticking out of the quiver on my back. I scanned the trees, the ground, but I was distracted, consumed as always by thoughts of what would happen, once I had brought his child into the world.
What I would do then.
And so I didn’t hear the swishing of branches, the light step of hooves, the way I might have normally, and did not sense the stag until it was right there in front of me.
It stood in my path. I stopped, astonished. It stared back at me, and was unlike any deer I’d ever seen. It looked as bewildered as I did, and for a moment we both stood there in the snow, frozen. Antlers twisted from its skull like tree branches, a crown. Its eyes were big and black and round, soft. Beautiful.
I was mesmerized.
And then everything came into focus. I remembered why I was there, and could not believe my good fortune. Hunting was difficult in the winter, even when I was not with child, and at best I would return home with several squirrels or rabbits.
I lifted my bow and aimed.
“Stay,” I whispered.
My heart pounded. I kept my fingers perfectly still.
I released my hand and let the arrow loose. It flew through the air, and those moments seemed to stretch out and become hours, days, until the arrow landed, right in the animal’s throat. I could feel the arrow entering. I heard the wet, hard sound of it breaking the skin, entering blood and bone.
The stag’s eyes never left mine.
It staggered, blinking, and let out a terrible bleat.
And then it turned and ran, and I took off after it, my fur-lined shoes pounding over earth and snow. I raced through the trees, Brune following in the sky, the scent of blood and death and dying all around me.
I was surprised at how much life the animal still had in it, and I was forced to slow down, my body more lumbering than usual. But I was fleet and strong still, a daughter of Artemis, intent on my prey. Already I could taste the meat roasted over the fire.
I ran through leaves and over tree trunks, past the great oak that had been split in a storm, along the river, following the animal’s tracks and blood, the sounds of it stumbling through the wood.
And then I heard it falling, and I raced forward, toward the sound. I pushed through a cluster of trees, and found myself stepping into a small clearing.
The tree branches swayed overhead. Brune landed in one of them, waiting for her reward.
The wounded creature lay there, twisted in the snow, the arrow jutting from its neck straight into the air. I pulled my knife from my boot, ready to slit its throat, and moved forward. The stag shifted its head and looked up at me. I could see its anguish, hear its ragged breath, and then something pulled me up short.
At first I thought I was seeing things. There was a glow around the animal’s body, the way it began to shimmer and shift. The antlers seemed to twist down, melt, just as everything on its body was transforming, like a tree throwing off ice and snow and sprouting green leaves. Its body was shrinking, its fur disappearing, until all that was left was pale skin.
Human skin.
I blinked, disoriented, wondering if I was imagining what was in front of me.
There was a young man lying there now. Naked, wounded, blood streaming from his mouth, my arrow in his neck.
For a moment I stood frozen, and then I ran to his side and collapsed on the ground next to him.
His eyes were now a deep dark green, the color of leaves in summer. I placed my palms on his skin, half expecting him to disappear and for my hands to move right through him. But he was real, solid flesh, still warm. I moved my hands away.
I knew there was magic in the forest, but I had never seen anything like this. His torso and legs were bare and muscled, his sex dangling down between his strong thighs. The only other man I’d seen naked—or even this close—was the prince, and I’d barely looked at his body, not like this, not in the sunlight, stretched out before me.
The man’s face moved in pain, and I was disgusted with myself for caring about his nakedness.
“I’m sorry,” I said, conquering my initial fears and taking his hand in mine. Liquid ran down his skin and I realized it was my tears. “You were . . . were you not a stag, just before? I did not know . . . ” The words felt ridiculous, even as I said them.
He was trying to speak, and I bent my head down to hear him. I noticed how his face was starting to line, his hair beginning to gray. He was becoming a middle-aged man before my eyes.
“Cursed,” he breathed.
“Cursed?” I couldn’t be quite sure what he was saying. “What curse?”
He struggled to form the word. “Mathena . . . ”
“Mathena?” I tilted my head.
But I could not stop to think; he was dying, the arrow lodged in his throat, the blood spilling out of him. Desperately, I tried to remember my craft, the spellwork I’d done. I called to the four winds, raising my hands, and tried to channel their power into him. “Help him!”
I focused all my desire and need into him, to restoring him, and yet I knew there was no way to save him, not with that wound, not even with all the magic I’d learned. Mathena could have saved him, but not me. Still, I focused my heart and mind on him, clasping his hands in my own.
“Mathena Gothel,” he said, so faintly I might have imagined it.
“She . . . did this?”
He watched me. His mouth forming over words. I remained close, to hear.
“Tell me,” I said.
He was struggling to breathe now and I strained to hear his words. But then he stopped moving, and I was positive I saw his spirit slipping from him. A shimmering sliver of light that moved up into the forest canopy, toward the sun. And the whole time a feeling of love—what else could it have been? A warmth, magic, desire, and need—cascaded through me, moving from me to him.
The snow hit my face as I squinted to the sky, watching his spirit drift away. I turned to him, and he was silent, still.
At that moment, Brune left the tree and came down to me, landing on my shoulder. To comfort me.
Irrationally, I thought how cold the man must be. Bare, in the snow! His skin was already blue from it.
I took down my hair, let it unspool all around me, like a golden blanket. Brune flitted from my shoulder as my hair cascaded around her, and landed on the ground next to me. I covered his body with my hair and lay down, curling beside him.
