Foxen Bloom Read online

  They reached the stream, and though sweat laid on the hunter's neck as the sun crawled high, he didn't stop to drink. And though he admired the colourful fists of the sunset flowers, he didn't touch. Flowers turned their faces to the hunter as he passed, entreating with their scent, but he shook his head and rounded the pool, moving faster now. Fenton followed behind, snake-weaving and fox-skipping, and brushed his fingers in the air above the sunset flowers as he passed. The flowers whittered to him, their voices light with laughter.

  Ahead, the flash of the white-tailed stag.

  The hunter pushed into the other side of the forest. Fenton listened to the birds but they continued happily gossiping among themselves as he and the hunter ventured deeper into the trees. Fenton's shadow twined around the ancient trunks and sank to their roots, chasing rabbits in their warrens and rattling acorns in hidden hollows. The hunter didn't notice the company at his heels as he kept walking, his gaze focused ever ahead.

  The hunter reached the clearing with the little pile of sticks and the bigger pile of rocks. They'd been heavy, the rocks, and Fenton had broken claws and thorns as he carried them, leaving scattered parts of himself behind. Snow had frozen his flowers brittle. His new, rounded, fingernails had grown in the colour of broken ice floes.

  "Winters must be vicious here," the hunter said as he reached toward the rocks and rested his fingers on the topmost. He left tiny indentations in the frost-tipped moss.

  Fenton edged forward. Between the trees blinked a flash of the white-tailed stag. The hunter's hand tightened around his longbow, but he didn't leave his place by the rocks. His shoulders set firm. Fenton learned the taut lines of the hunter's back from his hide in the dark of the trees. His shadow curled at his feet like fox kits in their den.

  Rain began to whisper in the air, spitter-spatters almost too fine to feel. Water misted around the hunter, catching in the weave of his clothes, the waves of his hair. He made a huffing noise, then in a sudden flurry swung his longbow from his shoulder and brought it to his side. Before Fenton needed to act, the hunter used his leg as a brace to lever the bow's string from the notches that held it. He slid the string into the pack he wore slung over his chest.

  Fenton's hands knew those movements. He stared at his palms, where no thorns grew.

  "My name is Prior. I have come to ask for your aid," the hunter said.

  Fenton started. He expected to find the hunter—Prior—looking directly at him, but instead found Prior's back. Prior stood with his face tilted to the sky and his arms spread wide. He had set his bow beside the rocks. Rain drummed on the leaves of the trees that had bent their heads to keep Fenton dry. Prior turned slightly on his heel and Fenton moved instinctively in kind, like a—a dance. Like dancing. Fenton retreated between the trees until his back hit a sturdy trunk. He felt like a mouse in the thicket. Something hunted him. Trees murmured comfort as Fenton's shadow clambered the nearest trunk and coiled around it in another ring of age.

  Did Prior await a response? Fenton had none to give. When Prior completed his rotation, he lowered his arms to his sides.

  "Didn't suppose it would be that simple, but it was worth a try."

  Rain made his hair slick, and he had to keep swiping it from his eyes, but Prior didn't seek shelter. He rummaged in his pack and began arranging items in a rough circle: a candle, a shallow dish, a clay cup, a knife. He settled onto his knees. He bowed his head. Fenton traced Prior's profile against the forest; his proud nose, his strong chin. The dark sweep of his eyelashes.

  He looked cold. Fenton glanced at the canopy of leaves keeping him dry. He considered the squirrel who poked their head from their burrow and wriggled their nose when rain fell on it, the spiders and the birds and the brooding sky. He caught raindrops in his palm and rubbed water between his fingers. The rain could fall later. Fenton flicked his fingers at the clouds.

  The rain eased. Prior grunted and shook his head, as if clearing away a fly. A vine curled around Fenton's ear, and where once he would have plucked it free, he instead twined it around his finger. Prior took a deep breath. The trees sighed toward him.

  "It has been a difficult winter, and a dry summer before that, and the winter before that as hard as any I can remember," Prior told his circle of things. He touched the candle, the dish, the cup, the knife. "Livestock wither in the fields. Crops turn to ash at the harvest. Where once we would have traded away our excess, now we scarcely have enough to feed ourselves. And of late... of late there is a sickness. Folk in my village sleep and do not wake." Prior's jaw clenched shut. His brows creased. He rubbed the seam of his mouth as if to unstitch it. "My sister has not woken these past three days."

  Prior stared hard at the ground between his knees. Fenton coaxed his shadow to murmur toward the hunter, only to summon it back when Prior began to pull more items from his pack. He poured something into the dish, sloshed something else into the cup. He withdrew a flint—Fenton stiffened—but merely held the flint in his hand before clicking his tongue and returning it to the pack.

  Prior picked up the knife. He lay the flat of the blade on his open palm. "My sister Sylvie adores fairy stories. Tales from the wood best of all. When she was small, I used to nag the elders for stories when I should have been in the fields or tidying the cottage. As many stories as I could, all to tell her after. I missed supper so many times for shirking my chores." His lips quirked. "I'd do it again."

  Falling quiet, Prior tapped the knife against his hand. Fenton wanted to snatch the thing away, throw it in the stream, bury it in salted earth. He did nothing. He couldn't move. His shadow wrapped around his legs like a second skin.

  Prior continued. "Some say a god has cursed the land. Perhaps that is so. There seems no other reason for this spreading darkness, but I cannot accept it as merely our lot. I refuse to accept it. But no healer, nor hedgewitch, nor any of the wise folk I have found can offer aid. So what else am I to do but ask another god for help?" He lifted the knife and traced the lines of his palm with the tip of the blade as he spoke, almost idly. "Since I was a boy, I've heard tales of this place. Warnings. In my village, they say a mage coupled with a wicked spirit and gave the child of that union to the forest, to live in the roots and the breeze. On the far side of the moorland, they say it was a virgin and a fairy princess. I've heard some say about changelings, and children left for exposure raised by wolves. Powerful things, all. And all surely strong enough to break a curse." He held the knife point-down to his palm and raised his brows. His fern scent thickened. His mouth twisted. "If curse it be."

  Prior adjusted his position on his knees; the ground must have been cold. He spoke again to the knife in his hand. "Our grandmother came from the land in the north, where they have different gods, and she told us about Old Nan and her two sons." As he continued, Prior set the knife aside to count on his fingers, his voice lilting like birdsong. "One son to the rivers and one to the land. One to the sun and one to the moon. One to the sea, one to the sky, one to the day, and one to the night. One to shadows, one to life." He huffed out a breath and wiggled his fingers, all ten of them. "That's more than two, you'll note. I was always so pleased to point that out, as if my grandmother had never noticed ten to be more than two. She'd just smile at me and say again, 'Old Nan had two sons'."

  Prior picked up the knife. Fenton's shadow snaked up his body, pressing close, smothering. Protecting.

  "Sylvie used to talk about the white-tailed stag," Prior said.

  In a single swift motion, Prior sliced the knife across his palm. He hissed between his teeth as blood welled a shocking red from the wound. Clenching his fist, he squeezed his blood into the dish, the cup, and over the candle, then set the knife back into position. He wrapped his hand in a strip of cloth drawn from his pack. The actions had taken but an instant.

  "An offering to the heart of the wood in hope of your assistance with the curse," Prior said. He scratched his jaw. "If you care for that sort of thing. And if you care to help at all, I suppose."

  Fenton prised his fingers from the tree trunk and soothed a touch over the indentations until they cleared. His shadow unclenched from its chokehold around his throat and oozed down his chest like sap. Vines uncoiled. Fenton finally exhaled. Birds began once more to sing.

  The forest smelled like Prior's blood. Fenton opened his mouth to taste it.

  "Can you hear me? Do you understand me?" Prior shook his head and pressed his thumb firmly to his wounded palm, as if in reprimand. Red spotted the cloth. "Asking a god if they understand what I'm saying. The arrogance. Not like any of this will do a damned thing. It's not enough to break the curse." Prior began to mutter beneath his breath, too quiet for Fenton to understand.

  Old Nan had told Fenton about curses. Blights, she'd called them. To her, the world was a garden that required tending, and she held the shape of it in her wrinkled, green-thumbed hands. Hard winters and dry summers were necessary seasons, for all those living through them might wish otherwise, but for a sleeping sickness to enroot as Prior claimed? That might indicate a blight at work. It was possible.

  As he considered asking Prior about the blight, a rush of words lodged in Fenton's throat like a guardian thicket. Which of them to say? And to what purpose? Prior had spoken of the white-tailed stag but he was no hunter: he had unstrung his bow, put away his flint, and harmed only himself. Prior did not seek a wish. He sought a god.

  Fenton worked his jaw and plucked a petal from the corner of his mouth. His feet rooted in the welcoming earth. He curled his toes into the dirt. He said nothing, and his silence weighed on him like a stone.

  When the sun began to sink like a burning torch through the trees, Prior rose to his feet and gathered his things into his pack. He picked up his bow. His tread sank heavily into the moss. Fenton
asked the forest to watch over Prior as he returned to the boundary.

  After Prior left the clearing, Fenton knelt in the same place Prior had, his knees filling the same depressions. He traced the places where Prior's blood had spilt, though there were no remnants but for in memory, and drew his fingertips to his mouth to taste the ghost of Prior's sacrifice to the white-tailed stag. A fox kit nosed at Fenton's other hand and he rubbed the kit's head gently with his knuckles. The kit butted Fenton's hand and cheeped at him, then bounded away through the trees, into the drawing dark of the forest. In the direction Prior had taken.

  Ahead, the flash of the white-tailed stag. Despite himself, Fenton darted a glance toward the flash—then froze. The stag had remained in place. It looked back at him.

  Fenton had never seen the stag in anything but passing. Yet there it stood, twice as tall as Fenton, shadow-black eyes set in the rugged bark of its face, two bone antlers proudly jutting from its skull. Fur didn't cover its body, but rather a fine layer of moss, and in places gorse shone a shocking yellow. The true-white fur of its tail was as snow. A deliberate signal. A taunt.

  Seasons upon seasons had passed since Fenton first woke in the forest. Kits had weaned and grown and died in the time between. Fledglings had left their nests and returned with songs from far-off places. Even the hunters had changed; the intricacies of their clothing, the art of their weapons. Fenton didn't note the passing moons or changing stars, but he knew them nonetheless. And more and more, since the summer's hunter. What had changed? The blight?

  Perhaps like called to like.

  Fenton considered the white-tailed stag. He considered Prior, and all the hunters who had come to the forest and never left. Then, rising to his feet, he left the stag behind and tracked Prior's path to the pool by the sunset flowers. Hooves echoed his steps. At the pool, Fenton regarded his reflection. He raised his hands—so like the hunters' hands—to his face—so like the hunters' faces. Similar, if not the same. Not bird nor fox nor bear. No muzzle. No beak. Fenton pressed the ridges beneath his eyes, the protruding banks of his collarbone. A vine curled from beneath his hair and he wound it around his finger, where it bloomed. White flowers studded his dark hair in a ragged crown.

  A fish leapt from the pool and shattered Fenton's reflection. He jolted back. On the other side of the pool, the white-tailed stag waited. It wore no crown but the weapons of its antlers. Fenton bared his teeth at the stag. His shadow tensed. The stag lowered its head. Moved away.

  Fenton left the pool for the sunset flowers. The flowers turned their faces to him, their musk rising in heady clouds. Fenton rubbed a petal between his fingers and thumb until his skin stained dusk. He carried the scent of the sunset flowers with him to the stream, where he drank from his cupped hands. He brushed his wet, stained, fingers over the tops of the golden wheat, where the stalks reached for the sky. Night birds sang their hunts to him. Foxes barked a greeting as he passed. His shadow clung to his heels.

  When Fenton reached the threshold of the forest, in the place where the world began, he stopped. Warning sang in him. The boundary did not permit him to cross. Fenton was not bird or fox or bear. He was not— A hoarse bellow demanded his attention.

  Fenton faced the white-tailed stag. He raised his hand and the stag bowed its head, pushing into Fenton's palm. Moss felt nothing like fur. Fenton sank his fingers into it. He learned the shape of the stag's bone antlers, the coarse living bark of its legs, the springy moss of its hide. He saw himself in the black pits of its eyes. His deadwood heart ached in his chest.

  The stag made a noise like wind in the trees. Pain lanced through Fenton's skull and he flinched back, dropping to one knee, his eyes screwed shut. A whine escaped his clenched teeth. His shadow rushed over his skin in a cool caress as the pain crested, and finally passed.

  When Fenton opened his eyes, the stag had left. He pushed shakily to his feet and faced the boundary once more. No warning sang. Fenton pressed his fingers to the nearest trunk, hard enough to imprint the ridges into his skin. Trees breathed him in. Fenton exhaled. He crossed the threshold and followed Prior out of the forest.

  Flowers bloomed in his footsteps.

  Prior hadn't intended to speak to a god, the day he'd set out with a knife in his hand and an ache in his heart. It had been many years since he'd prayed more than idly. Most of Ashcroft was the same: war had taken the village's prayers, while the subsequent lean days and bad harvests had seen to everything else. Seasons had been long and hard, and as unbending as the trees in the forest.

  A small village, Ashcroft sat at the southern edge of the moorland, close to the Great Road that ran from the port of Spear Bluff all the way north and had allowed several rich estates to sprout across the territory. The walled city of Northrope took most travellers' business, but some passed through Ashcroft on their way east to the coast, or on their return, bringing enough custom to sustain an inn and a full-time smithy. Most folk in Ashcroft were farmers or hunters otherwise, and went to Northrope's market to trade for what else the village needed.

  Travellers made life in Ashcroft richer than many other of the moorland settlements, and not only in coin; Sylvie still remarked on the elfkin family that had hurried through one summer when she and Prior were young, which had inspired her stories for nearly a year. More frequent visitors were merchants and others who made their living from the land. During the past winter, a hunter had visited the village, her face as lean as the season, a short bow in hand. She sought the white-tailed stag, she'd said, for the wish it would grant her, and had come to Ashcroft as it sat close to the trail to the forest. Most eyes had turned from her, then. Ashcroft knew of the forest—all of the moorfolk did—but none ventured there that had anywhere else to go. Even the great creatures—griffins, centaurs, and the like—had abandoned their territories and moved north rather than hunt near its borders.

  Yet determination had scored every line on the hunter's face. She had passed the evening at the tavern and asked for stories, though received naught but warning songs; perhaps she had come to Ashcroft for some cheer, or hope, but it had been seasons since any in Ashcroft had good feeling left in their stores. Betta, the innkeeper, had sold the hunter hardtack at twice the usual price, and refused to sell the last of her mead; a step too far, she'd said, to host a living wake. The hunter had scoffed and promised to visit on her way home.

  Winter had settled into Prior's bones like marrow. The hunter had not returned.

  Then spring had approached, and with it had come the sleeping sickness. The village had sent for healers and hedgewitches from surrounding settlements, and even some of the estates, but none could help. Many were falling to the same sickness. Prior had heard tell a mage worked in Northrope, but even the consulting fee would be far beyond Ashcroft's pockets, let alone any kind of cure.

  Weeks had passed and the sickness had shown no sign of stopping. Prior had tended their small patch of land, finding ever more stone than arable soil, while Sylvie had mopped the brows of the sick until Prior called her home.

  And then one day Sylvie did not wake.

  Lying restless that night, listening to his sister's slow breaths, Prior had thought about Sylvie's stories, and the wish of the winter's hunter, and the forest that darkened the far side of the moors. He had decided he could not lie still and wait for Sylvie to die. He had to try what he could to help her, and the rest of the village.

  Standing with his back to that same forest, Prior sighed. He rubbed his face and grimaced as the action pulled at his wounded palm. "At least Sylvie won't know what I tried to do."

  For as the scent of heather filled him—so much richer outside the forest, as if the forest had not been in the moorland at all—he dared wonder: what if the rumoured god, be they stag, or satyr, or whatever other creature, had answered his prayer? He simply hadn't thought that far ahead. Desperation did not make for a forward-thinking bedfellow.

  Prior cast his gaze to the cloud-bruised sky and the rising moon. The night absorbed his worries and shone them back a hundredfold. If Sylvie's sickness progressed as the others' had, she would be dead in days. Prior hoped he'd fall sick before he had to watch her die.