Daughters,

We are the strength and the beauty and the life. Seed is necessary, but it is the soil that grows the seed, the nourishment of the sun and the water that shape the plant, that give it so much more. For the seed is passive without the soil and the sun and the water. The seed exists in itself, but it is nothing without the rest.

Men, in this way, are powerless. They carry a gift that means little to them, that they would never care for, that does not belong to them. Why the mother has given them this gift is a great mystery, and yet we cannot question it, for it simply is. We must needs use them once, as our rabbits in the spring, as our birds and our insects and our frogs, and then they shall be satisfied, and we shall take the seed, and we shall have the life.

Oh, daughters, this was what I hoped for us. This was all I wanted for us—to carry on, to persist, to bring and continue life for those who are chosen. But here I am, now, alone, for I saw not the signs, and for that I am cursed.

~ the woman in the woods

*         *          *         *          *         *

Night fell cobalt and heavy; a dewey moisture hung in the atmosphere and pearled on the skin and hair of those out and about. The few children were tucked away in some corner of the village, elder men and women caring for them. Those who were of a certain age, the young, the fertile, the ready, were called out into the deep lush purple of the night world. White flecks coruscated from the heavens above, a whole swirling cosmos crystal clear in this barely inhabited pocket of the world. It was a different time and place altogether, this village. It defied the laws of nature, of reality, of morality. What had been a detour from a spring hiking trip had become an interminable nightmare, an inescapable horror that seemed to unsettle no one other than Minn.

When she'd been conscious over the last few hours, she'd cried until there was nothing left to cry, tears of pain and rage and disbelief. They'd sewn someone else's hair onto her head! They'd literally sewn it on! The ring of splitting agony across her forehead, above her ears, and around the back had dulled to a terrible, persistent ache. When Opal had first begun stitching, Minn had been sure she'd black out from the merciless jab and push of the needle, the pull of the thick thread. Her skin had torn and blood had run in rivulets, but she'd been unable to move while Opal had completed her gruesome task, while the girls held her head up and consistently dabbed at Minn's face and neck. By the time the excruciatingly meticulous job was done, Minn had been near delirious. They'd rubbed some sort of salve into her raw flesh and, pulling her head over a basin, run warm water over it, washed the hair and then combed it out. All of these things had been done with a gentleness so at odds with the cruelty of their previous work that Minn had found herself thanking them against all reason. They'd used sweet words and stroked her cheeks and, at one moment, the younger girl, Gerda, timidly suggested something that resulted in a quick slap from Opal, who insisted, "'Tis not time—tomorrow eve."

The late hour had called them away, eventually, and they'd left Minn in her bewildered suffering to go do other probably bizarre and appalling things.

Much time had passed, since then. The night had long ripened. Between the time Opal and Ursula and Gerda left her and the moments she regained her ability to move, Minn passed through foul, incomprehensible fantasies of things past. The circle of pain around her head was ever-present, and when she was at last able to lift a quivering hand to touch their handiwork, a desperate desire to rip the thing off rushed through her, but sanity prevailed; no doubt she'd endure far worse pain if she made that attempt.

Slowly, slowly, Minn's control of her limbs returned. They hadn't given her anything else to drink or eat; they must want her mobile at some point. Nothing was uncalculated, here—she knew that, now. And yet . . .

Once she managed to sit up, to press her feet firmly on the ground and raise herself, Minn saw that on the table by the incongruously cheery fire were the tools her abusers had used: a needle and spool of thick thread, a small tin of ointment, a basin of bloodied water, cloths both sullied and clean, and a decent-sized . . . knife. Fortune at last! Surely they hadn't meant to leave her with a weapon, or perhaps they'd not considered she'd be willing to use it. But Minn's only priority was finding Peter, now, and she'd slit the throat of anyone who kept him from her. She'd failed him once; she wouldn't fail him twice.

Snatching the knife, the woman sought somewhere on herself to hide it. She'd not paid much attention to this third outfit they'd put her in as if she were a doll to dress up, but it was weirder than the others. The first had been plain and simple, a work dress; the second something like a nightgown; this one, though—its fabric, cream in color, was heavy, and it hung about her in pleats upon pleats. Why, she was fairly certain if she drew it out, she could make a tent of herself. Minn thought for sure there'd be some pocket or fold to hide the knife in, but as she searched the dress, she found nothing but a good-sized hole in the front of it which disappeared right back into the dress the moment she let go of the fabric. She could tell just standing there that she had no undergarments, nothing with a band she could tuck a weapon into, and for a moment she was at a loss until she looked at her arms and realized this dress had sleeves! They were tight at the ends, tied around her wrists, but she could slip the knife up inside and let it sit loose against her right forearm. She'd have to be a bit careful in her movements, but it'd work.

A sudden scuffling snapped Minn's attention to the bed the moment she'd secured the knife. The cottage was crowded with shadows made animate by the fire, but as she stared into them, she noticed something move near the foot of the bed. Were those . . . yes, the whites of two popping eyes, the line of a mousey nose, a shaved head . . .

"Faith!" The name came out in a croak. Minn's throat stung, and her head throbbed with the effort. She took a deep, shuddering breath, held out a hand to the bedpost to steady herself.

Cowering on the floor, Faith resembled a frightened animal. Minn had little mind to worry about her, thought only that she'd not hesitate to pull that knife back out if Faith tried something, but then Minn discerned that the creature was muttering something, something that sounded like, "Os-os-o—ossst—"

"What are you saying?"

Faith glared at her from the shadow, and her words picked up in urgency. "Ost-Ostara. Ostara! Os-o-os-Ostara!" Over and over she spat the mantra, worked the fabric of her skirt with her mangled fingers.

The pitiful thing had never, not even upon their first meeting, ceased to repulse Minn. There was something so very wrong about Faith, and though Minn knew she had to get herself together and get out of the cottage, she was willing to try anything to find her son. She tried to reroute the young woman's attention by speaking to her, coaxing her, but the girl didn't alter her obsessive mumbling, so, in a last effort, Minn leaned down and slapped her, hard.

That did it. Faith looked as if she'd woken from a trance and, her whole face twisting into an ugly grimace, she began to cry.

"Stop! Damnit. Listen to me!" Crouching, Minn shook the girl's shoulders, the stitches around her scalp stinging with the exertion. "Faith, where is Peter? Do you know where they're keeping my son? Please help me. Please! I have to find him."

The sickly thing mixed horrible laughter between her tears.

Minn sat back on her heels, saw the room spin, and held on to the bed. "Oh damn you! All of you! Just . . . at least tell me whether my son is alive!"

"Ooohhh . . . ooohhh!" Faith's drawn-out wail held a hint of understanding in it. "Aye," she said at last. "Aye, he's alive."

The assertion, even coming from the monstrous thing on her floor, sent relief flooding through Minn. "Oh, thank God! Thank God. Where is he, Faith? Help me find him!"

But the girl was laughing again, softly, as if she hadn't the strength to do much more. She held up her hands to her open mouth, bit at the air where her fingers should've been. Her gray teeth clacked against one another again and again, and then she paused to continue laughing. "Oooh, they grow hungry," she cackled. "My sisters, they've taken as much of me as they can, and now you've come, and—" Her face morphed quickly into a mask of admiration. "And you are my savior, oh Ostara! Ostara!" She reached her bandaged hands toward Minn, who herself stumbled back, her false hair trembling across her shoulders like black yarn. The movement turned Faith's attention, as if she were a lizard that'd caught sight of a bug. The girl carefully touched her own head and, remembering it was bare, became suddenly still. Her lips dribbled a thread of saliva that caught the firelight, and the bulging orbs in her face hardened.

Minn knew with a dreadful certainty that this wretch was going to attack her and began to back toward the door, knowing only that if Faith tried to take back her hair, the pain would be unbearable.

"You w-won't leave us," the creature hissed, her body shifting, tensing for a pounce. "The White Women make sure of it. I am their daughter, not you—me!"

Paralyzed in fear, knowing any sudden movement could break the tension in a terrible way, Minn slowly reached for the door.

"For we will be the sightless seers," she growled through her pointed teeth, "and abomination will be the friend of the worm, and I will be theirs until they need no more of me, even without my strength!"

With that, Faith leapt with all the power and cry of a caged animal set free, but Minn had been anticipating the move and whipped open the door so quickly it blocked the horrible thing, giving Minn the opportunity to slip out into the darkness and around the side of the cottage. She stood there, in the damp dark, in a cloud of her own hot breath, as Faith fled into the night, screaming and howling like an inhuman thing, and where she was going, Minn neither knew nor cared. Everything here was madness and torment.

Oh, but Peter! Faith had said he was alive. He must be. She felt so strongly—a mother's instinct—and Minn thought of the one place she'd never been able to search, because when she'd set out to sneak through the village, they'd all been gathered there: the center tower. She herself hadn't been in it for days, except for her brief footstep in to beg them for her son. Perhaps the building wasn't what it seemed; maybe there were secret places. She could go there, and if they were in the building, well, she'd hide, and she'd wait, and—

"Sister."

Damnit!

Minn turned and saw Sister Dorothea standing amongst several of the men whose names Minn had neglected to learn. They were all young, none of them Hank's age or older, and she thought them women until she saw some of their beards, because they were bizarrely accoutered in long garments identical to her own.

"Paarung has begun. You will join us."

Dorothea held out a hand and spoke goodnaturedly, and yet Minn heard the undercurrent of force running through her words. It was why she'd brought all those men, this time; Opal and Gerda and Ursula wouldn't be enough. For as much as Minn wanted to pull that knife from her dress and go after Dorothea, she knew this was not the moment. She needed to get into the tower, and if she attacked Dorothea, she'd never get to it. Play along, she told herself. She'd have to, if she wanted to save Peter.

None of the men gave her any strange looks as they led her, surrounding her and Dorothea like a protective guard, through town. Minn refused to respond to any of the woman's simple comments about the beauty of the night or the quiet or the fine air or whatever the hell she prattled on about; she knew that all of them saw her bloodied, mangled head, and she knew they saw the red staining her shoulders. They ignored it all because they'd known what was going on. They condoned it. Psychopaths, all of them. Maniacal, sadistic psychopaths. And when she got out of here, she'd make sure everyone knew of them, came with guns and bombs and tanks and whatever-the-hell it took to eradicate these monsters from the face of the—

Minn's breath caught in her throat as the perimeter of men parted. They'd led her to the orchard, right into it; she'd just been too absorbed in her thoughts to realize it. Hanging lanterns were lit throughout, like apple-sized fireflies floating amongst the trees, and the sound of crickets was replaced with feverish animal sounds, not moans of pleasure but the grunts of rutting beasts. Minn understood, now, the purpose for all of those strange wooden and webbed things throughout the orchard, for though everyone was fully clothed, men and women were everywhere splayed and twisted and bent across them, very obviously (and in spite of their clothing) fucking, though they were not making the process look very enjoyable.