Twelve Wild Traitors

I have been kept prisoner at the Hawk Eye Manor for nine hundred and ninety nine days.

I keep track of the dawns on my bedroom wall. The once blueberry colored wallpaper now marred with nearly a thousand white ticks, from floor to ceiling. I’d even moved my bed and dresser to write more, when I had eventually run out of space.

Tomorrow will be the thousandth day. All us girls at Hawk Eye’s know it, I’m positive, but none of us have acknowledged it. Perhaps that’s why Anastasia is sulking outside in the cold- not from grief of her past, but grief of her future. How much longer will we have to waste away in this mansion? Ten thousand days? Twenty thousand?

Life?

I never knew you could be so depressed from living in luxury before it happened to me. We have, seemingly, everything our hearts could desire: Expensive gowns and garments. The tastiest food in all the land of Onceworth, served hot and fresh whenever we deemed to eat. Jewels and gems to wear, and horse drawn carriages to take us over the enormous lawns. A multitude of servants, to ensure that we never have to lift a finger.

But no matter how big the grounds are, no matter how large the rooms, we are still captives. And no one can truly be happy, lest she has her freedom.

I learnt that the hard way.

I find my sister outside in the snow, as placid and pale as a dead body.

Sprawled out on her back on the ground, frost- glistening lashes curled onto her cheek, and a strange smile spread over her full, red lips, she’s an achingly beautiful figure. An angel fallen into the middle of this dark, dastardly forest. Her face belongs to a runaway princess, and not some poor, outcast girl, with a name unknown to most of the world. She’s wearing nothing more than a thin, white gossamer dress a few shades lighter than her mass of platinum hair- a stupid decision, in this bone chilling weather. Unless her plan is to catch pneumonia, that is.

She doesn’t look up as I approach- doesn’t even bother to open her eyes, though I’m sure she can hear my boots crunching the fresh snow, hear my labored breathing that mists the air in front of me. I crouch down beside her, let out a long, weary sigh.

″Just looking at you makes me feel cold.″

Her lips twitch in acknowledgement of my words. ″Then go put on another jacket, sister,″ she murmurs. Voice as beautiful as her looks- sweet like honey, soft like satin.

I touch her bare arm, surprised that it’s free of goosebumps, the hairs smooth and not standing on end like I’d expected. ″How can you stand it?”

Anastasia’s eyes fly open, revealing her icy blue irises that seem to bore through my chest and into my soul. Eyes that have seen too much, done too much, grieved too much in only twenty years. ″The frostiness and the frigidness- let all of it be mine, mine,″ she says.

I snort. ″Is that from some stupid poetry book?” I ask.

Anastasia rolls her head away from me, eyes fixated on her perfectly manicured left hand, held up in the air. ″There’s nothing to read in that damned mansion,″ she mutters. ″A whole library, and not a single decent thing.″

I sink into a sitting position, ignoring the coldness that seeps into my thighs. ″Don’t lie. I know you love poetry.″

We’re silent for a minute, Anastasia inspecting her perfect nailbeds with scrutinizing concentration, me staring at the endless expanse of inky, opaque black that they say is the sky. Void of any stars, and with a full moon painted a deep, sooty grey, I doubt it is the same sky as the one I used to know- the star speckled, blue, friendly one I’d never known I’d loved so much, until I was forced away from it.

″Why did you come out here?” Anastasia asks finally.

I keep staring at the sky, purposely avoiding her gaze. I can feel her eyes searing into my face, making me uncomfortable. ″I wanted to know if you were okay,″ I say.

From my peripheral vision, I see Anastasia prop herself up on one elbow. ″I’m fine,″ she replies gruffly.

I drop my eyes back to meet hers, take in the weariness in her mouth, the sallowness of her razor sharp cheekbones. ″You’ve barely been around all day,″ I say.

She runs her pinky finger in the snow, tracing her initials as I await her answer. A slanted A, and a curly V. For Anastasia Vivianne.

″I need space,″ she says tautly. ″I’ll join you at the Changing.″

I raise an eyebrow. Unsatisfied with her answer. ″You barely ate anything today. Or even at last’s night’s dinner.″

Anastasia drops down on her back, throws her hands up like she’s reaching for something in the sky. ″What are you now, my keeper?″ she exclaims, frustration clear as day in her voice. ″I need space. Like I said.″

I blow out a breath from puckered lips. ″Grief is always better to deal with when you’re not alone.″

She glares at me, big eyes narrowed into twin slits. ″Like you know so much about grief, little sister.″

″I lost as much as you did.″

She shakes her head vigorously, snow coated hair slapping her face. ″Nay, you did not.″

″Still lost something.″

She doesn’t answer. Her eyes are closed again, the only sign that she’s alive the faint rise and fall of her breasts. I would have thought she was sleeping, had she not been talking seconds earlier.

Silently, as though I am walking on glass, I rise shakily to my feet, tiptoe away from my sister. I leave her like that- vulnerable. Sorrowful. Leave her like that, and follow my footprints back home.

″What do you mean, she isn’t coming?”

Melinda gives me a glare so penetrating from the veranda steps, I think my legs might just melt from the force. In the dim light cast from the boxy paper lanterns strung around the glass sliding door and railing, she’s a shadowy figure, face half obscured from her unruly black curls, thin body adorned in a thick robe the color of blood. Her skinny hands are placed on her bony hips that protrude out of her otherwise stick-straight figure, a sure sign of her irritation.

″That’s what I mean,″ I reply, trudging up the snow coated path to the steps, and quickly mounting them. Though my wayward elder sister might enjoy the cold, I, for one, look forward to a warm dinner and some alone time in the next hour before the Changing. Maybe root out a good murder novel in the library that I have not yet read.

″This isn’t good,″ Melinda grumbles as I pass her on the stair. ″She’s spending way too much time alone lately.″

″Yeah, well, you go and tell Anastasia to get in here,″ I say, one hand hovering over the polished handle of the gold sprayed door. ″Maybe she will listen to you.″

Melinda sniffs, her aquiline nose, pink from the cold, scrunching up in disgust. ″That girl wouldn’t listen if the devil himself threatened her to get inside. She’s stubborn as a mule.″ Her voice drips with vitriol.

I feel a wave of sisterly protectiveness wash over me. I part my lips to defend Anastasia, but quickly close them again. Melinda is right- she always is, the abrasive woman. Any argument I could serve her would flow over her head.

“We’ve been here so long,″ I murmur instead, half to myself, half to Melinda. ″It’s hard, at times, to not feel despaired.″

I open the door quickly, step into the pitch black but blissfully warm kitchen, Melinda right at my heels. I feel around for the light string somewhere near, tug it hard when I find it. The light bulbs flicker, once, twice- then the kitchen is enveloped in a cheery yellow light. A stark contrast against the eeriness of outside.

The shadow servants move around the spacious wooden kitchen, preparing tonight’s dinner- tomato soup and roast beef, from the tantalizing scents wafting around. They’re silent as ghosts and the color of coal, merely silhouettes of men and women. There’s half a dozen here, and they all freeze and turn around as one when Melinda and I cross the kitchen, sweep into low bows and dainty curtsies. Before, when I first arrived here, I had found the shadow servants odd-frightening, even. But I quickly learnt they were harmless, some miraculous enchantment made by Mavy.

The same woman who sent us here.

″She’s missing out on a good dinner, then,″ Melinda comments, peering inside a pot one of the shadow servants is stirring. ″Mm, if only I could stay here all night.″

“Too bad we have to change into wolves every midnight.″ I’d meant it as a joke, but the words come out bitter, harsh, even. Not one of us at Hawk’s Eye likes the Changing, as harmless as it might seem.

″Too bad indeed,″ Melinda says quietly.

We exit the kitchens, into the grandiose main hall, lit with medieval-time sconces lining the crystal walls. Every other room adjoins the oval hall, thirteen identical doors set evenly in the walls, embossed with gold that shines even in the dark. An extravagant staircase, carpeted in red velvet an inch thick, and completed with a banister of real diamond, spirals up and up to the second level in the middle of the marble floor. To complete the picture, a chandelier as large as a man is tall hangs from the ceiling three stories up, covered in dust that drapes off it’s arms and prisms like a creeper on a building.

It’s both perfect and spooky- makes me both want to stay here and marvel in all it’s beauty, and run off as quickly as I can.

″Come on,″ Melinda says, taking the lead. ″Morticia is waiting for us in the dining room.″

″What does she want?” I grumble. ″Some dumb pep talk about how we should be grateful we’re here and not anywhere worse? How, as long as we’re together, everything will be fine? Or maybe a lovely speech about how we’re going to get out of here one day, even though we are not.″

Melinda glowers at me over her shoulder, spins around and halts in the middle of the hall. It’s deathly silent in here, the flames on the torches moving about like performers in a play. I notice, suddenly, that it smells of lavender and honey and something putrid- blood, maybe. Or bones.

″Would you quit being such a pessimist all the time?” She snaps. ″You’re getting on everyone’s nerves.″

I scoff, fold my arms over my chest. ″Oh, I’m getting on everyone’s nerves now, am I?” I say. ″I’m just pointing out the obvious. You like it here about as much as I do. Don’t lie.

Melinda looks like she is about to argue, but she drops her gaze, shakes her head slightly. ″Whatever. I’m not going to argue with you anymore.″ She paces over to the dining room door, raps on the wood loudly- what Morticia always instructs us to do, and what I always purposely refrain from doing.

″I’ll try to be a little more... cheerful,″ I amend. ″Though, I don’t believe I remember the meaning of the word. Would you care to remind me?”

Melinda throws me a nasty look that could curdle milk with it’s sourness.

The door swings wide open on its hinges, bangs against the plum colored wall with a loud bang. I follow Melinda inside, make my way to the long, narrow table covered in a rich blue cloth and decorated with lit candelabras and stained glass vases of holly and heather flowers that scent the room with their sweet, woody fragrances.

Everyone else is already here, seated on the heavy wooden chairs, heads bent as though in prayer- though, I know they are not. No one of us girls believe in God. Silently, I tiptoe to the end of the table, to an empty spot as far away from the head as possible. I pull out one of the chairs, wince as it scrapes on the black and white checkered tiles noisily.

The girl at the head glares up at me, nose wrinkled like she’s smelling something revolting. Morticia. Flashing her a mocking grin, I sink into the soft satin cushion on the chair, and drag it towards the table again slowly, to annoy her.

″Where’s your sister?” She asks me in a stage whisper. Her big, green doe eyes gleam with a mix of condescension and suspicion- typical, when she is regarding me. I half believe that Morticia thinks I’m going to murder her one of these days.

And I just might, if she isn’t careful.

″Freezing outside in the cold,” I reply promptly. I return her shrewd look, try to match her haughty tone. ″What’s it to you, anyhow?”

″Just wondering,″ she says. ″I care about all of us girls, you know.″

I don’t say anything- just glance around the room, waiting for the shadow servants to bring in our dinner. The room is dimly lit, the only light coming from the candelabras on the table, casting everything in long shadows. The drapes are closed over the picturesque window taking up an entire wall, though a frigid breeze still wafts through the open screen, causing the flames on their wicks to flicker and shift. It howls eerily, bringing with it the lonely song of a single nightling bird, singing with all it’s might.

″I have an announcement to make later on,″ Morticia hisses in my ear. I jump, startled that she actually bothered to give information to me, without any pestering on my part.

I snort. ″About what? Some motivational speech? I don’t think anyone would appreciate that.″

Morticia curls up her lip. ″No,″ she says shortly. ″Not a speech. Well-not exactly.″

“Then what?”

Before Morticia can answer, the shadow servants flood the rooms, carrying trays of steaming dishes in their blurred hands. No one talks as they set the pots and plates on the table, dishes out for each and every one of us- even Anastasia, though they notice her absence. My mouth waters at the smell of the steaming soup ladled into my bowl, and I hastily dip my spoon into it, take a large bite that warms my throat and scalds my tongue. I lick my lips. Delectable.

A shadow servant sets before me a heaping plate of beef and crispy potatoes, covered in a thick gravy that spools steam out of it and into my eyes. He pours me a tall glass of wine, till it spills out of the cup and flows onto the tablecloth.

″Thank you,″ I say to him. ″That will be all.″

He bows, drifts backwards so he’s touching the wall- and simply melts into it, becoming one of the thick shadows that drip on the rich violet walls.

The rest of the shadow servants follow suit, one by one, until the eleven of us are left alone.

I turn back to Morticia, who’s delicately sipping her soup like it’s the only care she has in the world. I clear my throat, hoping to get her attention.

When she doesn’t look my way, I speak up, loud enough this time so that the whole room can hear. ″What announcement do you have to make?” I ask.

She glares at me, wipes her red lips with the tip of her cloth napkin as she swallows. A younger girl with flaming red hair peers at me with wide grey eyes. ″Announcement?” She says, in her voice that is soft enough and gentle enough to coax a frightened deer. ″For what?”

The whole table is now fixated on us, gazes flitting from me to Morticia and back again. Spoons rest on the rims of bowls, wine glasses are held just beneath lips as we await Morticia’s answer.

″I was going to tell you all after our meal, Hera,″ she says to the girl, though she is glaring at me out of slit eyes. ″But I suppose I might as well get it out with now, shouldn’t I, Crimson?″

Her speaking my name is a rare thing- a sure challenge for me to respond. I beam sweetly at her. ″Might as well, Morticia.″

She turns away from me, sits up even straighter on her chair, surveys the room with keen eyes. She reaches for her wine glass, takes a long drag before setting it down and speaking again. ″I propose,″ she said, ″That we should try and get out of here.″

Her words are met with silence. I’m sure I know exactly what everyone is thinking: Runaway? But how? It’s never worked in the past - Serepha taught us that. Morticia must be mad, must be mad, mad mad-

Perhaps it is only me thinking that last part. But surely, she can’t mean it- not serious, humorless, straight-laced Morticia.

“Are you joking?” Penelope, one of the older girls, asks from the end of the table. ″You can’t be serious.″

″I am.″ Morticia glares around the room, daring anyone else to argue. Me, being an impertinent, rebellious soul, perk up once again.

″Do you remember what happened to Serepha?”

Morticia’s eyes bulge out of their sockets at the mere reminder. Her nostrils flare like an angry bull’s as she gawks at me. ″What?” She growls.

I don’t cower, don’t back down. I reach for my wine glass, take a sip of the harsh, spicy drink. I try to act casual, like I hadn’t just dropped a bombshell in the middle of the table. Serepha is seven letters we aren’t allowed to say.

When we were first dumped in this mansion over two years ago, we had started out as thirteen girls. Thirteen raging, scared, girls. Thirteen raging, scared liars, brought here as punishment for crimes we’d committed and tried to cover up.

We’d been wild girls then, petrified at the changes we’d found ourselves going through. Humans by day- beautiful, striking humans, prettier than any other creature I’d ever lied eyes on. And wolves by night-viscous, ruthless wolves, deadlier than any beast who’d ever walked the lands of Onceworth.

Frightened, afraid, angry, callous... we were all that and more. Wanting to get out of the manor grounds so desperately, our bodies ached with it, and our hearts screamed it to us.

And want soon became a need.

It was Morticia who had proposed escape. Morticia who led us the end of the grounds in the middle of the night, lined up in single file like a gang of thieves. Morticia who had let her sister Serepha go first over the wire fence.

Morticia who let her sister die, on the other side of the fence, attacked by a Huntsman with a bow and arrows.

We’ve never dared to try and break free again.

She hates to be reminded of her sister, of the gruesome night when one of us were lost, hates it more than anything. And I just did exactly so.

″It wasn’t a very... successful escape,″ I say, not meeting her eyes. I swish the mauve liquid around in my glass, relish the feeling of jittery tension in the air. ″I don’t see why we should try and do it again.″

“We won’t... we won’t do... that again,″ Morticia says through clenched teeth. I glance up to see her giving me the death stare, chest heaving, hard with anger. ″I have a different approach.″

“What, might I ask?” I say. I feel a hand squeezing my shoulder, telling me to shut up. I glance over to see Melinda beside me, shaking her head in a warning. Don’t provoke Morticia. She will just get back at you later.

″There’s no other way,″ Melinda adds, though she sounds reasonable rather than scornful like me. ″No other way out.″

″Ah.″ Morticia smiles, her fang-sharp teeth glistening in the dim light. ″Unless there is.″

I cock my eyebrows. Around me, the other girls murmur to one another, clearly intrigued. Morticia has them caught in her little snare.

″Why don’t... why don’t we simply ask Mavy to let us out?”

I scoff, about to ridicule her idea, but I’m beat to it. ″That’s ridiculous,″ A girl named Lindsey, with short gold curls and cute features says. ″Who just asks their captive to be let free?”

″Hear me out,″ Morticia says, raising a hand. She’s on her feet now, meal forgotten. Elated at the attention her proposal is receiving. ″Every one hundred days, Mavy comes out here to check on us.″

″We know that,″ I mutter, but my words go underheard.

Morticia continues. ″Back when we were with her coven, she would give us little tests every now and then. You all remember them, surely?″ Her eyes gleam in the candlelight. ″Give us a basket of rotting apples, tell us to pick the sweetest one. It would always be the darkest, the one infested with worms and wrinkled with age. Or give us three bronze keys, ask us which one fit in the parlor door just by looking at them, and none of them would be it. What if...what if this is just another test, a bigger one, a trickier one?”

There’s silence for a beat. Then everyone is talking at once, clamoring to have their says heard.

″That’s absurd,″ someone says contemptuously. ″We’re here for life- Mavy made it very, very clear about that.″

″But she’s always been strange,″ Hera murmurs. ″Liked to trick us, in her odd little ways.″

″It’s plausible,″ Melinda says, slowly. ″It’s worth a try, I suppose.″

I take a bite of my soup, which had gradually grown lukewarm, mulling Morticia’s proposal over in my mind. It’s ridiculous, it’s preposterous- never in a centennial would it ever work.

But everyone else seems hopeful. And because I have just an ounce of sensitivity within me, I don’t say anything to damper their spirits- just hurry through the rest of my meal in silence, resisting the rich chocolate cake offered to me at dessert. I leave the dining room first, when the candlesticks are half melted, and the girls are growing wild and restless. Slip out into the foyer, and make my way upstairs to find my sister.

Anastasia’s bedroom is the grandest, largest, most flamboyant one in the whole manor. It belongs in a palace, to the richest queen in all the lands, with it’s enormous four poster bed, and the intricate gold designs creeping up the peach walls and onto the ceiling. In the moonlight filtering through the open window, the room is in near-darkness. I pick my way carefully across the floor, stepping on jewelry and books and gowns, and tripping over teacups and things with sharp points, to where my sister is sitting at the window seat, leaning against the wall, brushing her long hair with elegant strokes of her comb. She doesn’t know that I’m here- I know by the way she’s half-singing, half-humming an old lullaby Mama used to sing us when we were children, before we joined Mavy’s coven.

″Grace the children, young maiden, with thy benevolent smile,

″Bless the peasants, fair maiden, all over thy isle.

″Gentle as a lamb, fair maiden, delicate as a rose,

″You shall thy kingdom, beautiful maiden, of all those souls....‴

Anastasia’ voice trails off as she realizes I am standing not four feet in front of her. She freezes, eyes locked on mine, comb held mid-brush in her hair. I can all but feel her indignant glare before she grumbles, ″Can I not get any privacy away from you, Crim?”

″No, fair maiden,″ I reply saucily. Then, ″You know that isn’t how the song goes, right?″

″I know.″

I gesture to the window-seat, of which Anastasia is stretched out on. ″Mind if I sit?”

She grunts begrudgingly, but shifts into a sitting position, leaning against one of the plush velvet cushions.

I sit beside her, smoothing my plain black smock over my knees. Although the mansion’s wardrobes are equipped with all the dresses and gowns and garments one can desire, I prefer the plainest, most practical out of them all, though that had not been the case when I first arrived. There was a time when I, too, was once vain like Anastasia. Long months and years at Hawk’s Eye, however, soon cured me of it.

I press my shoulder against the wall, twisting my torso around so my front is facing Anastasia. She’s staring straight ahead, back erect and eyes unblinking. Knees and arms crossed. Her thoughts are clear through her body language: Go away. I don’t want company.

″Morticia had rather an interesting proposal today,″ I say.

Anastasia’s eye twitches in response. ″An escape plan?” She asks.

“Um-yes,″ I answer, surprised. ″How did you-″

″What else could it possibly be?″ Anastasia scoffs. She leans back against the windowsill, inspecting her nailbeds with a scrutinizing glare. ″Besides. I heard everything.″ Before I can ask how, she adds, ″I was listening outside the dining hall doors.″

I don’t bother to ask her why. I twirl a lock of hair around my finger. ″What do you think of it?″

″It’s ridiculous,″ she says contemptuously. She turns to me, and in the slight, silver light, I can see her blue eyes blazing. ″That night Mavy threw us here, she made it known to each and every one of us that we will be stuck here forever. No matter what we do.″ She spits out each word, as though she hates even having to talk about it- which, knowing my sister as well as I do, she probably does. ″All because we made one mistake. One tiny, stupid mistake.″ She scoffs again. ″It’s ridiculous,″ she repeats.

I sigh loudly, draw my knees up to my chest. Anastasia has a point- it is ridiculous. There had been a time when I thought Mavy, the woman who I called ‘Mother’ for a while, could throw us in here, as good as dead. She’d come to us, me and Anastasia, when Mama died and there was no one else to care for us. Seemed to materialize in our shabby cottage, promising us the best things in the world, a life beyond our wildest dreams.

I was five. Anastasia was seven.

And off we went, to Mavy’s coven in the middle of a deep, dark, dangerous woods. Raised amongst a hundred other girls- our sisters, I used to call them. Mavy taught us everything-our lessons. Our play. And other things, darker things, that most children do not usually learn in their life time.

How to steal a man’s life, for instance. Or his heart. How to set fire to stone buildings, and eavesdrop on conversations so clandestine, not even the stars know about it.

They were the happiest days anyone could wish for.

″I wish I had never met him,″ Anastasia says suddenly. Her hair drips out of the open window, her eyes fixed on the crystal chandelier hanging like a monster from the ceiling. ″Rhys. Rhys and his wretched, lovely voice.″

I cross my legs. Uncross them again. Contemplate what to say to my sister. Everyone at Hawk’s Eye is here because we did something to cross Mavy- something she deemed unforgivable. I don’t know even half of the other’s girls reasons, but everyone knows Anastasia’s: Falling in love with Mavy’s nemesis. Rhys Cravens. A beauty, a player, a swift little fox- and a magician.

Mavy hated magicians. Hated them more than anything in the entire world and beyond.

″No you don’t,″ I say. Because sympathetic condolences do not come easily to my mind. ″No, you are happy that you met him.″

″Aren’t.″

“Liar.″

Her eyes bore into mine. ″Do you regret doing what you did?”

″No,″ I reply tartly. ″Killing a child is below even me. An innocent child, at that.″ I inspect my hands, bruised and rough and chapped. Turn them this way and that as I continue speaking. ″Guilty adults, however- hand me a dagger, or sword, of whatever it is. I’ll drive it through their chest in half a second. It’s what being an assassin is all about, after all.″

“Ex-assassin,″ Anastasia has to remind me.

″Ex-assassin,″ I amend.

″I don’t know how you can do it,″ she says. ″Steal a life.″

″You were a thief,″ I say accusingly. ″You should know all about stealing.″

“I stole gems and jewels and crowns and money,″ Anastasia replies. ″That’s different.″

“To be honest, I rather enjoyed it. Another dirty heart, done of this world.″

“You are a wild thing, Crim,″ Anastasia says.

″Indeed. I am a wild beast, causing ruckus and chaos wherever I go.″

We are silent afterwards. The wind howls like a ferocious banshee, beckoning us to come outside in the frost night, spend our time ’till dawn in bodies not our own, doing things we will barely remember in the morning. From downstairs, the grand father clock in the foyer chimes five minutes to twelve, a single gong that reverberates through the house and shakes the window panes. I grit my teeth, heave myself up from the windowsill.

″Come on,″ I mutter to Anastasia. ″It’s nearly time to Change. In a literal wild beast.″

I awake lying in the snow, looking up at a pale dawn sky. My limbs are sore and aching. My dark hair falls around my face in knotted tendrils. There’s blood beneath my finger nails, embedded into the line of my hands. And when I lick my chapped, dry lips, I taste more of it on my tongue, rusty and salty and not my own.

I rise into a sitting position, claw at the back of my neck. I feel blood there, too, disappearing into the thick wool coat I had flung on last night, now torn and ripped in multiple areas- and caked with suspicious red patches.

Snatches of memories from last night flood through my mind: Catching a wild deer beneath an ashen sky. Running through the forest at top speed, skidding through snow on four paws. Defending myself against a large amber wolf, scratching it’s muzzle, biting it’s ruff. Licking my wounds afterwards in the privacy of the foot of a gnarled oak tree.

It’s always like this when I Shift, like waking up from a deep sleep and only remembering snippets of a dream, that tug and pull on your memory. They will fade away in another hour, unless I recall them repeatedly until then, which is not something I bother to do. It’s bad enough Changing every midnight, Shifting every dawn. I don’t need the memories with me.

I scan my surroundings. The sky is the color of milk, the sun a blazing ball ascending up the horizon in a cape of thin clouds. With the little light, I can make out the wrought-iron fence a few paces away from me, the spikes on top glistening with the same fresh snow that coats the grounds and tree tops all around me. On the other side of a fence, a Huntsman watches me with dull, black eyes that pop out of his sockets. He is motionless, frozen now that it is sunrise, wearing a thin satin suit, with nothing more for warmth than a velvet cape draped over his shoulders. His skin is blue- icy, icy blue. I turn away, more than a little freaked out by him. They’re strange, the Huntsmen. Not really humans, but a creation of Mavy, just like the shadow servants. Made by some spooky enchantment- not magic, but something else. Something more.

Like the shadow servants, they, too have their own purposes, and theirs are simple: Kill whoever might exit the manor’s grounds, kill whoever wants to enter them- except for Mavy, of course.

It’s a long trek back to Hawk’s Eye. I walk back, barefooted, listening to the chirping of birds and the sounds of deer and wild boars roaming around the trees and bush, unafraid of me now that I am human once more. I watch the flurries drift down from the heavens, cover my footsteps that wind all through the manor’s grounds. By the time I’m back at Hawk’s Eye, the day is bright and warmer, the other girls already there.

Melinda greets me on the porch when I arrive, already dressed in a peach evening gown. She winces at the sight of my torn clothes and ruffled hair, with leaves and burrs sticking out of it, and the blood smudged on my face and hands.

″You got in a fight with Morticia, didn’t you?” She says. ″I told you that would happen.″

″How does that vindictive worm even remember our dispute from earlier?” I mutter.

Melinda shrugs. ″Who knows what our brains are like when we are wolves? For all I know, it could function the way it does now. Or maybe it works like real wolves. Or maybe it barely works at all- like the Huntsmen.″

It’s a warped, scary thought.

″Morticia sent me out to get you,″ Melinda says.

″Why?” I grumble.

″Because Mavy is here.″ Melinda grabs my hand, and leads me into the back door and through the kitchen. ″And she wants to see us all.″