IV - The Shadow

  “Another disappointing day.” Martin looked at his daughter as they walked through the gloom of the forest. He led their packhorse by her reins, his musket placed in its scabbard. “I did not think it was possible to have an even worse day than yesterday, but we managed it. One scrawny hare is considerably less fortunate than two meager ones.”

  Sybil could not meet her father’s eyes. She walked with her own gaze planted on the forest floor, her cocked crossbow held in her hands. “’Twas my fault today. I had the perfect shot, but I missed—again.”

  “We’d be in the same situation even if you’d have hit that starving, old duck anyhow,” he said. “It hardly had enough meat on its empty bones to keep its feathers from falling out.”

  “Even so,” Sybil said, “I still let you down. As I always do.”

  “Sybil,” her father said, stopping in his tracks. “You didn’t let me down. You’ve never let me down.”

  “Of course I do!” she said, stopping next to him. Misty snorted nervously at her sudden outburst, but her discomfort went unacknowledged. “I do every single day, from the moment I was born. Were I born a man, like Gareth, maybe I would—”

  “Perish the thought.”

  Sybil finally turned to look at her father. His face was more stern than she remembered ever seeing it. “But—”

  “I said to perish it, Sybil. Your mother and I love you just the way you are, and whether or not you can hit a bloody live target with a bloody crossbow will not change that. Nor do the circumstances of your birth. I’ve already told you that you’re a better shot at your age than I ever was, and you’re certainly better than Gareth was, Mother bless his eternal soul, so you will perish the thought that your being born a woman has any bearing on your ability to hunt.”

  They stood in silence for a few long moments. Sybil remained unconvinced, but she allowed the matter to drop with an agreeable smile. “Alright. I will try to take that to heart. Thank you, father.”

  “Think nothing of it, my dear,” Martin said, his voice growing dry halfway through his sentence. With his next breath, he brought his fist up to his mouth to stifle a short series of coughs. “Ahem. Now, we had best get home early so we can tend to your mother. Come along, then, Sybil.”

  Sybil did as she was told and followed her father through the weald toward home, but she could not help but notice just how often during their journey he was forced to raise a hand to fend off struggling coughs.

  ___

  Beatrice was considerably worse than when they had left her that morning. She was unable to fully rise to greet them, and instead only managed to sit up in bed as they stepped into the room. Sybil theorized that her mother’s ailment grew worse later in the day, as she had seemed better that morning than she had been for the preceding hours of darkness. The huntsman’s daughter dreaded what was in store for the many long hours ahead.

  The older woman asked about the day’s hunt, as she always did, and Martin, as was customary, was honest in his reply. With her mother being too weak to prepare supper, Sybil set to the task. She cooked what little meat her father was able to salvage from the previous day’s hare and served it with a pitiful dash from their dwindling vegetable supply. Beatrice ate her portion of the meal in bed, and Sybil and her father ate theirs in the kitchen. Neither of them spoke a word—the only sound shared between them was the rumbling of their stomachs that persisted even after the meal had come to a hasty end.

  With their supper finished, Martin decided to use the remainder of the day’s sunlight to butcher the hare he had managed to shoot that day, as well as to chop some firewood before going about the rest of his evening tasks. He left Beatrice in Sybil’s care, who, after cleaning up from supper, stepped into their bedroom in order to perform her duties. Beatrice had fallen asleep after her meal; her pale, haggard face look almost corpse-like in its stillness, and for a moment Sybil worried that her mother’s ailment had finally taken her until she saw the older woman’s chest rise and fall with its consistent pattern of deep, struggling breaths. Sybil took her mother’s finished supper plate back out into the kitchen, where she cleaned it with the rest of their soiled dishes. Tired from the effort of the day, Sybil eventually allowed herself to rest on the fur-blanketed chair that faced the crackling hearth. She had only meant to sit for a short while, but the day’s exhaustion suddenly piled onto her the moment she touched the chair, and the inviting warmth of the fire encouraged her to close her eyes. She was asleep within the minute.

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  She awoke some time later—how long had passed, she did not know. Sybil looked out the nearby window and saw that most of the remaining sunlight had drained from the sky, but that a sliver of orange hope still kissed the darkening firmament. She threw a fresh log into the hearth and rose to check on her mother, walking from her place near the hearth to the other corner of their home, where the entryway to her parents’ quarters waited.

  Along with the shadow that loomed over her parents’ bed.

  The figure, no more than a silhouette in the gloom, stood with its back turned to Sybil. It stood over where her mother rested, and appeared to be leaning down on top of the older woman, as if listening to her heartbeat or whispering something in her ear. Sybil’s initial thought was that Martin had come inside and was checking on his wife, but despite this rationalization, she still felt an inexplicable shiver erupt all over her body, as if a chilling draft had infected their home despite the blazing hearth that crackled on the other side of the space.

  “Father?” Sybil said; the weakness in her own voice surprised her. When the shadow did not stir, she figured that it had not heard her, and she began to speak again.

  But before she could, the front door of the cottage came swinging open. Martin stepped inside, bringing with him a surge of cold evening air that only exacerbated the chill that Sybil felt. Sybil looked at her father and frowned, confused, before quickly returning her gaze to her parents’ quarters.

  The figure that had been standing over her mother was gone.

  ___

  Sybil sat on a bundle of furs in front of the burning hearth, unable to sleep. She poked at the gentle blaze with a fire iron, turning over the coals absentmindedly and with no real purpose. The exhaustion that had once overtaken her was gone, chased away by the numbness that she had felt when she had seen—or had not seen—the figure standing over her mother.

  She kept telling herself that it had just been her imagination, that it was dark in her parents’ quarters, that her groggy mind, still foolish with sleep, had played an especially cruel trick on her. They were all sound arguments that anybody would have been able to readily accept, but for some reason, they were unable to convince Sybil to banish the thought of that figure from her mind. Shadows, elongated by the light of the dancing flame, undulated on the surrounding cottage walls; Sybil expected to turn her head at any moment to see the silhouette watching her, its eyes somehow even deeper voids of darkness than its looming, shapeless body.

  She heard her mother groan, and she knew that her parents were awake. Their muffled, whispering voices vibrated the space around her; she tried to focus on their conversation from where she rested, but unable to decipher anything, she slowly rose from her spot on the furs and made her way toward their quarters, stopping against the adjoining wall just before stepping into view of the entryway.

  “It’s not Plague, Beatrice,” Martin said.

  “But what if it is, Martin?” Her mother’s voice sounded more weary and distant than Sybil had ever heard it. “What if it is?”

  “That is impossible,” he said. “This village will never know the Plague. We are safe from its wrath here.” He paused. “You need medicine; that is all. A powerful remedy will bring you right back to your old self. You shall see, my love.”

  “But where would we get such a thing? The village apothecary is not capable of making a remedy strong enough to treat whatever this is.”

  “I will go to Brightburrow. Surely there is an apothecary there capable of curing you.”

  “And how will you afford their services? You’ve hardly hunted enough game to feed us, let alone to earn silver. We’ve no means of paying for the services of an apothecary.”

  “I shall take Misty with me and sell her in Brightburrow, then use that silver to purchase the medicine you need.”

  “Nobody will want that tired, old horse,” Beatrice said. “I’m not even certain she’d survive the trip.”

  “Somebody will have her, if only to send her to slaughter. ” Martin said, not unkindly. “And she can survive the journey and then some. Have faith in her, my wife, as you should have faith in me. Just allow me one night’s rest and I shall set off at dawn, and be back within the week. Hold out for me until then, and I shall have the remedy that you need.”

  Their conversation faded, and Sybil crept her way back to her furs. She lay down next to the fire, listening to its crackle, trying her hardest to fall asleep, but knowing that she would never be able to. The memory of that shadow was very far away. The thing that kept her awake now was far more real, and it infested her life in a way that the figure her imagination had conjured would never be able to.

  I must have faith in Father, she told herself, echoing his sentiment from earlier. He will do as he promises and leave at dawn for Brightburrow, and he will bring Mother back the medicine she needs. I know he will. I just need to have faith.

  But by dawn Martin Fletcher was no longer able to get out of bed.