Despair and Hope
Roy looked around. There was only darkness.
What is this place? Am I dreaming?
“This is indeed a dream, but I am real.”
A woman’s voice cut through the dark.
What? Who’s there?
He couldn’t speak.
“Below.”
His eyes dropped.
A rabbit knitted from thread? Who are you?
“Your wife and child are in danger. Wake up.”
✦
Chapter 1: Despair and Hope
The first rays of sunlight broke through the canopy, and with them came birdsong, the forest waking up.
Roy rubbed his eyes against the light and stretched his arms upward, working the stiffness out of a body that had slept too long in one position.
“Time to check the snares.” He mumbled it through a yawn.
Four years since he’d taken over as the village hunter. Every week, once and sometimes twice, he went into the forest, set traps, and waited for game to walk into them.
This time something was wrong. The spot full of deer just last week was empty: no animals, no tracks, nothing showing they’d moved elsewhere.
He’d had to push his hunting ground further out, three days in the forest instead of one. This morning would decide whether he came back empty-handed.
While checking the traps, he packed up the snares along the way. No point leaving them set while he was gone, he didn’t want animals dying in them for nothing.
He walked several kilometers without a single sign of life. Not even tracks. The hope in his eyes faded steadily.
At this rate I’m going to have to take up fishing.
Then, just as he was nearing the last trap — the one furthest from camp — something crashed through the undergrowth. An animal’s cry. Branches snapping.
The gloom on his face cracked into a grin.
“A deer!” Roy broke into a run.
His ears hadn’t lied. In a small bright clearing, a young male deer was thrashing hard against the snare. The rope had one leg, the other end tied off to a branch overhead, creaking each time the animal lunged. It didn’t stop: jumping in every direction, losing its footing, coming back harder each time.
Roy knew better than to rush a frightened animal. He moved slowly, kept quiet, and drew his bow.
He waited for the right moment. A clean shot that wouldn’t ruin the hide. An intact hide was worth far more than a damaged one, and the trader came at the end of the month.
After the next jump, as the deer left the ground, Roy loosed. The moment at the top of the leap, the briefest stillness. The arrow hit its mark. The animal came down and didn’t move again.
Roy believed animals deserved respect. Their fur kept people warm. Their meat kept people fed. A painless death was the least they were owed.
He pulled the last trap, hoisted the deer onto his shoulders, and headed back to camp.
A small mountain stream ran nearby, its sound sharpening as he drew closer. One of many on this plateau: some barely a step across, others a couple of meters wide. All of them fed the same crystal-clear lake near the village. The locals were proud of it. Best fish in the kingdom, they said, and the purest water.
He packed up camp and started home. Back along the trail he’d worn himself, walking it over and over through the years.
For someone else, maybe it would have felt dull. For Roy, the quiet forest settled something in him. Burned through the old noise: the schemes, the battles, the other life. The birdsong pushed it further back, until he was just the hunter. Just this.
Though lately his trips had been stretching longer, going deeper.
That worried him. Saya was carrying their first child. The closer the birth came, the closer they’d grown. He didn’t like being far from her.
Saya, I’ll keep my promise. Best husband. Best father. You’ll never regret trusting me.
He reached the village near evening, slowed by the deer and the bag of traps.
The moment he stepped out of the tree line into the open field, he saw a figure in the distance: pacing, quick and restless. The man turned, spotted Roy, went still for a second, then walked toward him fast.
Ivir. Saya’s brother.
Roy read his face before he was close enough to speak. Something was wrong.
They stopped a few steps apart. The silence lasted two seconds at most, but Roy was already running through every bad scenario he could think of.
Ivir. Say something.
His stomach dropped. A slow burn started in his chest.
Ivir broke first.
“Roy — almost as soon as you left, Saya fell ill.”
He’d known. One look at Ivir’s face and he’d known.
“She can’t get out of bed, she won’t eat, barely drinks, and I’ve never heard a cough like that in my life!” Ivir’s voice was climbing. “We’ve tried everything. Nothing’s helped.”
Roy dropped his things where he stood and ran.
He tore through the village streets, not seeing anyone, not hearing anyone. Some tried to greet him, they didn’t know. Others just watched in silence, they did.
At his front door he nearly went down, caught the handle, shoved the door open and was inside.
He went straight to the bedroom.
Saya lay with her eyes closed. The sound reached him before anything else: a heavy, wet rasp that filled the room with every breath she took.
He leaned over and took her hand. Squeezed it gently.
Ice-cold. Like touching a dead person.
He pressed his lips to her forehead.
The same.
“Can you hear me? It’s Roy, I’m back.” He brushed his hand across her face.
Her only answer was the rasp.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with her.”
The voice came from behind him. Roy flinched, he hadn’t heard anyone. He turned.
The old village herbalist sat in a chair in the corner. She was past seventy, but her eyes were still sharp and her mind had never slipped. She knew more about healing herbs than anyone on the plateau. The whole village leaned on her for it.
If she’d stayed quiet, I wouldn’t have noticed her at all.
She was well-respected. Influential. But right now she looked to Roy like old Death herself, sitting and waiting to take the two people he loved most into the next world.
“I’ve tried everything I know. Every tincture I thought would help. Saya is getting worse, slowly but steadily. And the child too.”
Roy’s jaw tightened. He said nothing. She kept going.
“Today she didn’t even wake up. I’ve seen a lot of illness over the years. Things that could be cured and things that couldn’t. But this, I don’t know what this is. No fever. Her body is cold. And that sound from her throat. I’ve never heard anything like it.”
“So what are you suggesting? That I sit here and watch her die?”
He snapped it before he could stop himself. Then Saya coughed, and the sound cut through him like a blade. He went quiet.
“If we don’t find a cure —” The herbalist paused. “No. More than that. If we don’t find out what this even is, she won’t last two weeks.” She said it without flinching. Then added: “Unless you’re willing to hear an old woman’s story.”
“Is this really the time for jokes? Have you sent for a doctor from Rafthen?”
He kept his voice down. He wouldn’t wake her.
“Listen first. Grind your teeth after.” The herbalist wasn’t going to let him take it out on her.
“Every doctor in the nearby villages, every doctor in Rafthen, they all trained under me. I wrote their letters of recommendation. Now sit down and listen.”
Roy sat on the edge of the bed and took Saya’s hand again. The herbalist began.
“When I was a little girl, I got lost in our forest.” She let out a slow breath. “I remember it like it was last week, not half a century ago.”
“I knew those woods well. Never went in too deep. But something happened that day. I was picking flowers fo my parents’ anniversary, I’d filled a whole basket.”
“I was about to head home. But every step I took toward home, the forest got darker. My sense of direction got smaller. I started running. Ran until I had nothing left. The forest went black as evening. I didn’t recognize where I was.”
“I cried. Kept walking. Stumbling. Calling for help. And then, between the trunks blocking the last of the sunlight — a single bright ray came through. I thought I’d finally found the edge. I hadn’t.”
“I came out at a swamp. Two hundred meters ahead, a wooden house rose up out of the bog. When I looked at it, it seemed to look back. Then boards came up from the water, right from where I was standing to the porch forming a bridge.”
“I had no choice. The last thing I wanted was another night in that forest. So I walked. Bubbles broke the surface on both sides, left and right, all the way across.”
“No birds. No frogs. Just the bubbling.”
“I stepped onto the porch and raised my hand to knock. The door opened before I touched it. My fist hit nothing.”
“It was dark inside, but I could make out furniture.”
“I took a few small steps in. The moment I crossed the threshold, the room lit up, like the place had been waiting. A fire crackled in the stove. In an armchair across the room sat a young woman, knitting.”
about 65 years ago
“Come in. Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t let the warmth out. The night will be cold.” The woman raised bright green eyes to little Sofiya.
Sofiya turned to look at the door. It was already closing behind me on its own.
“Hungry? Of course you are. Come in, dinner’s ready.” Woman didn’t wait for an answer.
She set the knitted rabbit into a wicker chest, went to the stove, and lifted the lid from a pot. The smell hit Sofiya immediately. She swallowed before I even knew I was hungry.
She divided it into two portions and called Sofiya to the table.
“You got lost. Nobody comes to my house just like that. I don’t like uninvited guests, but that doesn’t apply to you.” She added it quickly, before the girl could worry.
“Thank you for letting me in, dear sister,” Sofiya said, already talking through a mouthful.
“How sweet, like a little dandelion. I’m flattered, but call me Selena.”
“My parents must be out of their minds with worry.” Sofiya slurped and chewed without stopping.
“Eat. It’s getting dark. You’ll stay the night, and tomorrow I’ll show you the way home. I’ve lived here a long time, I know every tree in this forest.”
Little Sofiya nodded and kept eating.
When the last light left the sky, Selena put the girl to bed, stroked her hair until she fell asleep, and hummed something quietly in a strange and very beautiful language.
The night passed.
Sofiya woke up with morning sun in her eyes.
She rolled away from it and forced them open. The blur sharpened.
Selena moved back and forth between the stove and the table, getting something ready.
“Awake, little dandelion?”
“Yeaaah.” Sofiya dragged herself upright.
“Adorable every morning.” Selena smiled.
In the light, Sofiya’s pale, tangled hair really did look like a dandelion.
“It’s ready,” Selena said, sitting down.
Sofiya sat across from her.
“Herbal tea again?”
“Don’t you like it?”
“I like it.” Sofiya slurped the first sip loudly. “You said you’d tell me about the secret ingredient.”
“Can’t I keep one secret?”
“From a great many herbs and their combinations, you can prepare medicines and tinctures for almost any illness.”
“Yes, I already knew that.”
Sofiya said it happily, her father’s knee had given him trouble for years. She was already picturing herself curing him with something she’d made herself.
“I’m glad you want to become a herbalist.”
“Helping people is wonderful. It’s like being a hero.” The girl could barely contain herself.
“Now as I promised. I’ll show you the way home.”
Selena stood, went to the yarn chest, and took out the knitted rabbit.
“He’ll show you the way.”
“I thought you’d take me yourself. And you never told me about the secret ingredient.”
“I told you. I don’t like being around people.”
The warmth was gone from her voice. She might not have laughed with the girl just minutes ago. She dropped the knitted rabbit on the floor.
Sofiya watched it lying there on the dark red threads and then it moved. It got to its feet and began hopping in circles around her.
“He’ll take you home and won’t leave until you see the village. Everything is already arranged.”
The girl nodded and followed the rabbit, stepping quietly after it as it hopped ahead.
✦
“Wait.” Roy cut in. “Old woman, are you delirious? Something in that story doesn’t add up.”
“You noticed.”
A small, satisfied smile crossed the herbalist’s face.
“I was certain I’d spent one night there. But when I got back to the village, my parents wept like...” She paused. “They said I’d been gone three months. That they’d already buried an empty coffin.”
“How is that possible?” Roy asked.
“And when I came back, I already knew everything about herbs. Every remedy for every ailment in this village and beyond.” She let that sit. “When I was older, I understood what I had stumbled into. A witch’s hut.”
“That’s nonsense.” Roy didn’t let it slide. “A mage’s house, fine. But a witch? I’ve never heard of one still living in this age.”
“Quiet, boy.” The old woman’s voice dropped into something that didn’t belong on a grandmother who shuffled her feet.
“Believe me or don’t. Do you think I spent three months hallucinating on mushrooms? Selena is still alive I feel it. And if anyone can save your wife and child, it’s her.”
“And how am I supposed to find her house? I’ve covered every corner of this plateau in four years. No swamp. No witch’s hut. Nothing.”
“That I can’t tell you. But you’ve been the hunter here for four years.” She looked at him steadily. “If anyone can find her, it’s you.”
And that was the end of it.
