There was still a gentle trill of smoke in the chimney when I reached my home. Herbs dried on the mantle, a new bowl sat half-formed in a pile of wood shavings on the table. Loaves of bread sat rising on the window sill. The cottage held a table, a hearth, and two simple beds. It's warmth clung to my skin as I stood in the middle of it. Little did the cabin know that it's master was never coming home.

I cried. I wrapped myself in the blanket from my bed and sat on the floor. Tears fell for the woodcutter, and for me, and for the destroyed patches of forest. None fell for the village.

The fae's face would not leave my mind, and I hated him for it. It was terrible, but crafted by the gods. My stomach twisted at the thought. He was a monster, not something to admire. The hells could have him. He looked half animal anyway. It was little wonder humans didn't trust them. Trust me. Not that I had ever been among my fae half before, but it hadn't mattered before and it hadn't mattered today. They hated me as surely as they hated anything from the Wyldes.

Even when my tears finally dried up, I stayed on the floor. I don't know how long I sat there. I traced the grain of the wooden boards. Small black patches were smooth where sparks from the fireplace licked the floor. My fingers danced around a gouge I put in the oak with a spoon when I was young. I was trying to carve a bird. Bryn had scolded me for that.

Bryn. I hadn't dared look for his body. I was a coward for not being able to face his fate. I wouldn't remember him mangled or burned or cut down, though. I would remember him as he was. Smiling, gentle, a large man with a large beard and a bigger laugh. He told the most wonderful tales, and he could carve anything with a knife and a piece of wood. He taught me the kinds of trees, and animals, and he took me to Mila for reading and learning. But he was gone, and I wasn't.

I did what Bryn would do to cheer me up, if he were here. I sang. I sang badly, with a broken voice and lyrics interrupted by sobbing, but I sang. I sang a sad ballad I had once heard at the fair. I sang through the sorrow, of the woods that Bryn had loved. Of the mountains that he roamed. I sang of hate and anger that the raiders took him from me. And finally I sang a song of love and loss for my only family. The family of my heart if not my blood.

When I was done, my head ached. I laid down by the fire and slept, not waking until the fire burned out and the cold night woke me.

Blinking, I watched the moonlight cross the floor for a while. Eventually I stood and let the blanket drop around me. My fingers itched for work, so I found things to do. I washed the mess I had become in the water basin. My dress, now ruined, lay discarded on the floor as I pulled on my doeskin pants and long green tunic. Dresses were for blending in to the people of the mountains. Tunics were for working. I stoked and fed the embers, and put my cloak around me. I laid the now risen bread by the fire and swept the wood shavings from the room.

Would the surviving homesteads around the forest accept business from me? I had helped chop wood and clear trees since I was big enough to hold an axe, but my presence was only tolerated because of the woodcutter. Bryn was a friend to all. How long could I stay? And what would I do if the plainsmen returned?

Did I even need to see another human ever again? The only reason for money was to buy what I could not get myself. Clothes, I supposed. Food would never be a problem. Soap, I would miss soap.

A rustling that had no wind behind it whispered outside. My heart beat faster. Even now a stray warrior could be lurking, waiting for a chance to strike. I grimaced and went to the wall by the door where the tools were kept. I couldn't see anything out the window, but that didn't mean nothing was there. Axe firmly in hand, I slowly opened the door, and I crept outside. I would not be cornered in a cabin in the woods.

"Mila." My shoulders dropped their tension as the hunched black form of the Witch of the Woods approached. The setting moonlight showing her the way. Her raven sitting on her shoulder, feathers ruffled. Usually his one clear eye stared back at me, today it was the milky white eye that I had always assumed was blind. I shuddered.

"You need to leave here, child." She wheezed.

"Leave?" My heart sank. "Why?"

"As soon as the fae left, that village turned sour. They hunt us, the witches. They say we brought the bad luck to them. This is the last straw. We will not stay by people who don't want us."

"No." I breathed. "How could they? After all you do for them..." My eyes widened at the horror of a mountain so near the Wyldes without the protection of a witch.

"It won't be long before you're sought out, too." Her cold eyes studied me from head to toe. "You don't deserve what this mountain will do to you without the woodcutter."

"What will you do?" I asked, but already I had retreated to the cabin where I could pack my belongings. Mila followed.

"The coven will gather where no man will find us. The question is, what will you do?" Mila handed me the flint from the mantle. I put it in my sack.

"Can I not go with you? I could be of use." I didn't like the quiver in my voice. I gathered my comb and the small mirror. I shoved the skinning knife in my boot.

"I cannot take you with me as you are now. You cannot cross the borders I must cross, child." She huffed. "I will travel with Gilly. Even now, she comes to me from the north. So I ask again, what will you do?"

For a long time, my thoughts ran wild as I packed my clothes and a large store of food that we had been preparing for winter. The bird squawked, drawing my eyes to the wall beside him. I took the protection trinket Mila had given me from over my bed. I paused at the wooden cup Bryn had carved for me long ago. I put it in my sack too.

"There is nothing left for me here. I'll go further east. Maybe," I swallowed. "Maybe the people on the other side can find a use for me." I looked around the cabin. What remained were not things I could bring with me, or were things belonging to Bryn. I could not bear to move what was his, so I tied my pack and slung it over my shoulder.

"Use your nose, your ears, and your eyes. Stop trying to be what you aren't. Ignoring what gifts you have will get you killed." Mila nodded slowly at me. "Do not consider every human your friend, and do not consider every fae your enemy. You are strong, child. Trust yourself. I will always watch out for you as best I can."

I could feel her silent assessment of me. Her eyes shone. They seemed to look right through me, taking in everything she knew of me and everything I now carried with me. She patted my shoulder.

"I hope our paths cross again." I smiled, but it was a frail motion.

"They will. The Mother wills it." Her eyes shone like moonlight, and a warm and frightening breath of air flowed through me. "A last warning: if you someday change your mind about your seal, and I hope when you are in a safe place you do, be very certain of who you let remove it. Be well, Wren."

My back squirmed. I could almost feel where the seal was engraved down my spine, containing what magic my fearsome half granted me. The last lock keeping my fae self contained.

She left. I grabbed the better axe, and I left too.

~

The sky was still gray with night when I began walking. Behind me, I pulled the sled that Bryn used to carry logs in winter. It held my sack, my wool blanket, the extra axe, a hammer, and a bundle of cut maple that we were drying for the solstice. I carried the good axe. The worn ruts clanked and dented against the mountain rocks, but I followed the muddy bed of a stream which allowed me to pull it at all. Soon the first snows would fall. Not this light crust setting on the leaves but a real snow, and my pace with the sled could quicken. A bird cawed somewhere behind me.

My belly reminded me to eat. I ignored it. Leaves crunched and branches clacked. From the riverbed, I followed an old deer trail that was smooth enough for the sled to traverse. It would lead me to Pine Hollow by dusk. If I was lucky, word of the attacks wouldn't have reached the people there yet, and I might find a warm night in a hay loft.

Determined to heed Mila's advice, I turned my nose to the sky. A breeze carried the tanning yard's scents to me before it came into view. The first building of Pine Hollow.

At the first sign of men, I lowered my nose and turned my ears toward them. I didn't dare move the hair that I carefully braided every morning to hide my jagged missing points. I didn't need to remind them of my difference, not now. If the villagers of Silver Lake were this quick to turn on me, then what better were the men of Pine Hollow?

The people worked as they always had. No sense of urgency or worry tensed the air. Down the hill, a farmer was cutting hay. A babe cried. Goats played. I was nearly lost in the sounds when I caught the tanner watching me from his yard. I waved and kept moving, my ears on constant alert of being followed and possibly robbed, or worse. I could have been paranoid from the attack at the lake, but then, I had never ventured this far alone either.

I continued to the farmer. this summer Bryn and I had felled the timber for his new fence. He tolerated me, in a way. At least, as much as he seemed to tolerate anyone. And I still needed to rely on the people of the mountains, until I passed to the warmer lowlands anyway."Ho, farmer!" I called. He glanced at me long enough to nod me into his field, and then turned back down to his hay. Bunches of golden straw lay at his feet. I left my sled, but kept my axe with me.

"What brings you here alone, girl?" He grunted with every swing of the sickle.

"Something happened to the west. I'm leaving the mountains. I hoped to work for a night in your barn." He stopped cutting, standing up and wiping his wet brow with his forearm.

"Callum saw black smoke this morning from the west." He straightened his back with a huff. "Where is the woodcutter?"

"He is..." I swallowed, my throat tight. "Plainsmen attacked the people by the Silver Lake. We were there. Bryn is gone." He stared towards the lake, as though he could see through the rock and the trees all the way to it's banks. Then he turned his steel eyes at me.

"One night. Cut from here to that post." He pointed. "Cover the pile and be gone before the sun rises."

I thanked him as he handed me his sickle. I watched him walk down the hill towards the next farm and disappear. I turned to my task, and mimicked the farmer's swing.

It was nothing like chopping wood. My arm bent in a way I hadn't used before, and it grew tired long before I was done. I gritted my teeth and continued. Bryn had always said I was stubborn, and stubbornly I cut the tangle of grass in my fist. It didn't stop me from cursing the goats in the nearby pen, though; they bleated and played as I worked to cut their winter meals.

With the last rays of light fading from the sky, I cut my final handful of hay and placed it in the pile. I wasn't told how to cover it, but I found a heavy tarp in the barn. I took the tarp to throw over the whole thing so it wouldn't blow away in the night. A rock on each corner held it in place.I moved the sled out of sight and by the time my head hit the barn loft, I was asleep.