1

For trigger warnings, a pronunciation guide, and a note about how the Wild Hunt functions in the Wicked Darlings universe,

please turn back a few pages.

We aren’t the first girls he has taken.

He reminds us of that sometimes, when we do not perform to his satisfaction. He warns us that we are replaceable. He can always drop us into the river at the bottom of the fjord, and take someone new.

There must always be three girls living with him in the cabin. One is Mother, one is Little Sister, and one is Wife .

I pity Wife the most.

There is a new Mother every few years. A Wife might last a week, or several months. It depends on how well she performs.

I’m Little Sister. I’ve been here the longest, because I am the best at my role. He took me when I was six years old, and I’m twenty now… at least, I think I am. I can’t remember my birthday. To him, I pretend I am the same age as when he first took me. I’m short and thin because he demands I eat child-sized portions, and I’m glad of it. My small frame helps me play my role.

The first time I had my bleeding, Mother helped me. She gave me rags, scented herbs, and a poultice for pain. She told me to hide all signs of the bleeding from him. Taught me to put my hair in two fluffy knots on my head, or in two braids, so I would appear younger. She told me to pitch my voice high and wrap my chest flat so I would remain a child in his eyes. So I would not have to be Wife.

Mother told me that any normal man would be able to see that I’d grown and changed, but t his man was trapped inside his own mind, living contentedly in the fantasy he’d created. Mother said that as long as we didn’t disturb the fantasy, we would be alright.

That Mother lasted three years. When he killed her, I cried for eight nights. Never where he could see me. Always in my room.

This evening I’m sitting on the hearth, trying to absorb the warmth of the fire. Nothing is ever thoroughly warm here. We live too far north for that.

The book I’m reading is one of ten in the cabin. Once, when I asked him if we might have new books, he burned one of my favorites, a book about all the creatures of the world. The next month he brought me this one, a book about natural disasters. Hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, landslides—terrible things. “Be glad you live here, in the cabin,” he told me. “It isn’t safe elsewhere in the world.”

In the book, pencil sketches depict each disaster. I like the picture of the hurricane best. The book says that areas prone to hurricanes often have warm, sandy beaches. I like to imagine what the coastline must look like without the high waves, the torn trees, and the wind.

As I stare at the picture, Mother chops the potatoes for dinner. Thunk, thunk, thunk. Mother wears a chain around her ankle so she will stay by the stove, because she misbehaved yesterday. She’s allowed to use one very dull knife for preparing food.

Wife is curled in his chair, the big one draped with animal hides. She’s beautiful, with long auburn hair, thick eyelashes, and a saucy red mouth. I have sometimes wondered what it would be like to kiss her. He certainly seems to enjoy it.

This new Wife isn’t chained to the bed like the last one, because she’s been good. Well-behaved. He allows her some freedom. Besides, it’s not as if any of us can get out while he’s gone. The logs of the cabin are too thick, packed with chinking that’s solid as a rock. The floor is made of sturdy boards as well. There are no windows, and the door is bolted from the outside. Once, a Mother tried to remove the door’s hinges, but she was caught and given to the fjord. After that he reinforced the hinges and removed anything we might use to pry at them.

“You’re late making dinner tonight,” Wife says sullenly from the chair. “He’ll be unhappy.”

Mother keeps chopping . Thunk, thunk, thunk.

“You may think it only affects you ,” continues Wife. “But I’ll be the one who has to put him in a better mood.” She glares at me. “What about you? You should have to do something .”

“I’m Little Sister,” I reply. “I help with the cleaning and the laundry. I read quietly. I play prettily with my toys. I sing to him. I let him tuck me into bed at night. That’s what I do. ”

“But you’re a grown fucking woman.”

Hearing her say it aloud terrifies me more deeply than she can understand. She’s only been here a few weeks. She still has hope. She thinks if she obeys him in everything, she might be able to escape.

“Don’t,” I say faintly. “I’m Little Sister.”

She hears the tremor in my voice and laughs wretchedly. “You’re both just as sick in the head as he is.”

Thunk, thunk, thunk.

“Admit it,” Wife continues, staring at me. “You like living this way, playing his twisted game. Otherwise you’d be long gone. Either you like it, or you’re too stupid to scheme a way out.”

I shrink against the warm bricks beside the fireplace and clutch the book to my chest. I’ve seen what happens to those who try to leave, and fail.

“What about you, Mother ?” Wife says mockingly. “Have you tried to leave?”

Thunk. “It’s useless,” Mother says, low and hoarse. Thunk, thunk.

“If it’s so useless, why don’t you jam that knife into your neck and be done with it?” asks Wife.

“Because then he would take someone else,” replies Mother. “If I endure, I can spare another soul from this fate.”

This Mother has been here for several months. Beyond the games we all play when he’s around, she barely speaks. I like her plain face, thin mouth, and keen eyes. I like the set of her shoulders. And I love her for those words.

If I endure, I can spare another soul from this fate.

My motives are not so lofty. I simply want to survive. I have no other goal.

A thump outside startles all of us. Wife curls in on herself more tightly, takes a stiff breath through her teeth, then rises with fluid grace as he opens the door .

He slams it at once. Stamps frozen mud from his boots. “I don’t smell dinner.”

“I’m sorry, dear,” says Mother. “I was feeling poorly today, so I’m a bit behind.”

He lifts a key from a cord around his neck and inserts it in the two locks on the inside of the door, one after the other. Wife’s eyes follow the path of the key as he tucks it back in his shirt. When he swallows, the owl tattoo cloaking his throat seems to move. Its enormous eyes are always watching.

He keeps the key around his neck while he’s with us. And since he never falls asleep in the cabin, there’s no chance to steal it. I’ve seen women try to knock him out and take it, but he’s a big, powerful man with a hard skull.

Every night, after he has eaten Mother’s dinner, put me to bed, and fucked Wife, he leaves and locks us in again from the outside. He sleeps somewhere else. Another cabin, I think.

Sometimes he gives us extra food, and then we know that he’ll be traveling for days, and that we must ration the supplies. When he isn’t traveling, he always visits in the evening. Once in a while, he’ll come for breakfast or lunch. During those extra visits, he sends me into the bedroom so Wife can suck his cock.

A Little Sister shouldn’t understand such things. He wouldn’t be pleased if he knew that a previous Wife told me all about a man’s sexual hunger and how he sates it. She said it smells, and it hurts, and it makes you wish you were dead.

Tonight he sets down his leather pack, seats himself in his big armchair, and props his feet on a stool so Wife can remove his boots. Then he looks at me. “Well, Little Sister, aren’t you going to welcome me home?”

I lay my book aside and run to him, wrapping both arms around his thick neck and his bushy beard. The hug is quick, our bodies barely touching for more than a second or two. “Welcome home, Big Brother!” I say in the light, childish voice I always use around him .

But instead of letting me fly back to my hearth seat and my book, his giant hand wraps around my arm. “Have you been a good girl today?”

“Oh, yes,” I say brightly. “Haven’t I, Mother?”

Mother finishes dumping potatoes into the boiling water, then turns around. “She’s been very well-behaved. Playing so nicely.”

“I think she should be rewarded,” says Wife.

My spine chills. A reward isn’t part of the game. This is new. What is she doing? The safest thing for all of us is to play the game the exact same way, every time.

“Rewarded?” he asks.

“Yes. I think she should get to sit on your knee,” says Wife.

He frowns for a second, but then he spreads his legs wider and pulls me onto his knee.

I perch there nervously, not sure what I should do or say. He’s staring at me far too closely. “You’ve gotten heavier.”

Wife sets his boots on the mat by the door and returns, perching herself on his other knee and draping her body against his. “Put your head on his shoulder, Little Sister. It’s so comfortable.”

I know exactly what she’s doing, and it’s horribly cruel, but I can’t step out of my role and protest, so I stick out my tongue childishly at her. When I glance back at him, he looks confused. I can’t tell if he’s unsettled by the change in our usual patterns, or by something else. But he pulls me closer, and I gingerly lay my head on his shoulder. I didn’t wrap my chest quite as tightly today, and the side of my breast presses against him.

“Little Sister,” says Mother. “Come and set the table.”

She’s trying to help me. But when I try to move, the burly arm wrapped around me tightens.

And my breathing stops.

Everything stops .

“I knew this day would come,” he says slowly. “You’ve changed.”

I’m breathing again, but it’s fast and shallow and too loud.

“Stand before me,” he orders. “And let your hair down.”

I rise from his knee. “Please, Big Brother…”

“Do as you’re told.”

I remove the ribbons from my hair and it tumbles down around my shoulders.

“Turn, slowly.”

I obey, revolving to face the heat of the fireplace, then Wife’s triumphant sneer, then Mother’s pale, stricken face.

He inspects me from head to toe. “You can no longer be Little Sister. Usually that would mean a gift to the fjord, but you’ve been with me for so many years that I’ve grown… attached. Maybe I can learn to see you as someone else. Perhaps you will make a good wife.”

“But… you have me ,” falters Wife.

“You may be Wife to me for one more night,” he tells her carelessly. “Tomorrow I will go and fetch a new Little Sister.”

Nausea twists through my stomach, but I can’t be sick, or that will make everything worse.

Tomorrow he will kidnap a new Little Sister. And then either he will keep this Wife and kill me , or he’ll murder her and I’ll take her place. I’ll have to let him put his cock in my mouth and between my legs. My life and my role will change forever.

Wife remains on his knee, despair in her eyes. I’m not sure what she expected. Perhaps she thought I would share in the duties of Wife and take some of that burden off her. But there must always be three people living with him in the cabin. One is Mother, one is Little Sister, and one is Wife. He would never accept anything else.

“Ah, I almost forgot.” He leans over the side of his chair and opens the top flap of his pack. “It’s Midwinter’s Eve. I brought each of you a gift. Here, take this to Mother.” He holds out a package to me. It’s heavy and awkwardly shaped, wrapped in stained brown paper the color of old blood.

When I hand it to Mother, she unwraps it with trembling fingers and exclaims in false delight over the small cast-iron pan inside. It’s just large enough to fry one egg.

“You’re so good to me, Son,” she tells him, with a bright, shaky smile.

He grins, pleased, then gives Wife her present—soft, lacy panties and a black silk bustier. She manages a trembling “Thank you,” which isn’t at all convincing and earns her a dark frown from him. He pushes her off his knee so abruptly she nearly falls.

Then he turns to me and offers up a package with a red tag, on which he has written, “To my little sister.”

Forcing an excited smile, I rip aside the paper. Inside is a tiny red cart made of wood, with gold curlicues painted on it and a jointed wooden horse at the front.

“This toy was made by a man called Drosselmeyer who lives far away from here. If you flip this lever, it moves on its own. Watch.” He kneels on the wooden floor and sets the toy down. With a flick of the tiny lever at the back, the little jointed horse begins to walk, leg after leg, with the cart rolling behind him.

Never have I seen anything like it. On another night, I would be charmed, and my heart would swell with warmth toward him, as it sometimes does. He can be kind when he wants to be.

“It’s exquisite,” I breathe, and he laughs—a big, hearty laugh. It’s a travesty that someone like him can laugh like that.

To please him, I rebraid my hair and play with the toy until dinner is ready. He enjoys watching me; I know it because he says wistfully, “You’ve done so well, Little Sister.”

It’s a tribute to my fourteen years in this role, and a farewell to what I’ve been to him. The finality of it terrifies me .

When dinner is ready, we sit around the table, and Mother brings the food one dish at a time, the chain on her leg clanking as she walks. She fills our cups with water and his cup with the wine that we’re never allowed to touch. He raises it high.

“Merry Midwinter’s Eve,” he says jovially. “I’m thankful to be here with my family.”

“Merry Midwinter’s Eve,” Mother and I echo dutifully.

But Wife laughs.

It’s a sneering, unhinged laugh. A wretched laugh, like the sharp ends of broken bones.

He goes utterly still. Mother and I freeze.

“You think I’m going to let you fuck me tonight, just so you can kill me tomorrow?” Wife’s voice rises with every word. “You think I’m going to keep playing this sick game, pretending we’re a family instead of a monster and his captives? You think I’m going to wish you a merry fucking Midwinter’s Eve?”

“Watch your language,” he growls.

“My language?” She laughs, her eyes frenzied and glittering with tears. “You raped me, and you tell me to watch my—”

He’s rising, red-faced, his beefy hands gripping the edges of the table. I’ve seen him like this before; I know what happens next. I cringe down into my seat, making myself as small as possible.

But before he can rise to his full height, Mother reaches under her chair, then lunges, swinging the tiny cast-iron pan with all her strength.

It rings as it strikes his skull.

He stumbles… wavers… then crashes face-first onto the table.

“Get the key,” gasps Mother. “The key, get the key!”

Wife scrambles out of her chair. “Help me push him over.”

They struggle with his body, but he’s heavy, lying in a mess of smeared food and broken dishes. Fear clamps my limbs to my chair, but my mind is screaming. Not the key, not the key. Kill him first, make sure he’s dead. Kill him, kill him, kill him…

His left arm moves, lifts, and his great hand closes around the back of Wife’s neck. A flex, and a snap .

She slumps, slides off the table limply, and hits the floor at my feet, a lifeless doll.

He pushes himself up, covered in potatoes and grease. Mother tries to hit him again, but he grabs her arm and picks up the cast-iron pan.

His first blow dooms her. But he doesn’t stop. Maybe he likes the splattering and squelching noises.

When he’s done with Mother, he drags Wife’s senseless body into the bedroom. I don’t know what he does to her in there, but I’m glad she can’t feel it anymore.

There is one clock in the cabin, a polished wooden piece with a gleaming pearly face. It sits on the mantel, ticking softly, punctuating the grunting sounds from the bedroom.

It’s nearly midnight when he finally emerges, crusted with the remnants of the dinner, soaked with blood. He trudges over to the cabinet, takes out the bottle of wine, then stumbles to his chair and drops into it.

I’m still sitting at the table. That’s why he doesn’t kill me—because I didn’t fight him. I wasn’t trying to escape.

“Come play with your new toy, Little Sister.” His voice sends a twist of panic along my spine. “Let’s salvage what we can of this night. Be a little festive, eh? Just you and me.”

I count to three. Then I force myself to stand. I pretend I’m a puppet on strings, and I’m controlling myself. It’s the only way I can move at all. The only way I can step across the slick red mush that used to be Mother.

He’ll carry away the worst of it tomorrow, and make me clean the rest. Like always. I’ve gotten very good at cleaning .

When he leaves the cabin for the night, I’ll be imprisoned here with two corpses. The smell alone will make it impossible to sleep.

Sitting on the floor between his chair and the fireplace, I run the mechanical horse and cart back and forth, back and forth, while he drinks and the wind howls in the chimney.

Before long, a low, droning sound mingles with the ticking of the clock and the soft rattling of the tiny cart. He’s snoring, with the bottle tucked beside him and his head lolling against the back of the chair. The key glints in the thatch of curly brown hair on his chest.

I can’t get that key over his head without waking him, and there’s nothing with which to cut the cord. The dull kitchen knife might eventually be able to saw through it, but he’d wake up before I managed that. I could get a burning splinter from the fireplace, lift the key carefully, and burn through the cord, but the heat and smoke would rouse him. Plus I might set him on fire, and I have no doubt he’d overcome me before I got the door open, even if he were burning alive.

I rise, my bare feet soundless on the floor. I press one hand to the massive logs of the cabin wall.

I’ve spoken to these walls often since I came here. Sometimes I whispered, and sometimes I pressed my thoughts outward, toward them, into them. I imagined I was speaking to the trees they’d once been, mighty and towering, until he cut them down, killed them, made them into walls, stuffed chinking into their cracks.

The cabin is my prison, but it is also my friend. We are both his victims.

With the smell of Mother’s entrails in my nostrils, and his grating snore in my ears, and the rough bark under my palms, I close my eyes, a single, powerful urge filling my soul. I want to get out .

A vibration shudders through my palms as the cabin trembles. Bits of chinking tumble from between the logs onto my toes.

I snatch my hands back and glance over my shoulder.

He’s still asleep.

That has never happened before. The wind must be strong tonight. Or perhaps there was an earthquake, like in my book of disasters. Or… perhaps my will to escape has never been this strong.

Whatever it was, I can’t risk him waking up and finding me anywhere but on the floor, playing with my toy like a good Little Sister.

Heart racing, I return to my spot. As I sit cross-legged and stare down at the little red cart, I notice something new—a miniscule latch on the edge. When I lift it, the top of the cart opens. Inside, in a tiny square space lined with red velvet, is a single round sleigh bell on a thin black ribbon.

The bell is a strange contrast to the rest of the toy. It’s tarnished, slightly dented.

Taking the loop of black ribbon in my fingertips, I lift the bell out of the cart. It jingles slightly, and for a second my breath stops as I look over my shoulder.

But the sleeping man in the chair behind me doesn’t wake.

The sound of the sleigh bell was eerily beautiful, so I ring it again, gently. It chimes prettily at first, and then the note changes, dips into a lower key, and echoes darkly through the cabin. I wrap my fist around the bell, trying to silence it, but the ringing continues, growing louder and louder, reverberating until it fills my head.

With a snort, he wakes up. “What are you doing?” he shouts over the ringing of the bell.

I drop it on the floor and scoot back, tears welling in my eyes. “I’m sorry! I don’t know what’s happening! ”

“Blasted Fae magic,” he yells as the ringing sound thunders through the cabin. He seizes the bell and flings it into the fireplace. The instant it hits the logs, scarlet flames explode across the hearth, making him leap back.

The ringing stops.

The fire keeps crackling merrily, as if nothing happened.

“A strange night.” He heaves himself up off the floor. “Enough play. You should get to bed, Little Sister.”

“Was it really Fae magic?” I venture.

One of the Mothers used to tell me stories of the Fae. She said they were beautiful, wicked creatures with great powers… which sounded like an improvement over my current captor. Whenever I couldn’t sleep, I used to fantasize about a handsome Fae prince coming to steal me away from the cabin, away from the bearded man who now pulls me close, against his blood-soaked, food-stained clothing, and says, in a voice heavy with wine, “If it was magic, it’s over now. Don’t worry, Little Wife. I’ll always take care of you.”

Little Wife…

I can’t suppress a shudder.

He feels it. Holds me at arm’s length, frowning, the flush deepening along his cheekbones. A vein thickens in his forehead.

I sense the impending storm, and I brace myself.

He backhands me across the mouth. Grabs me and throws me to the floor so hard I feel as if all my bones and teeth have been knocked loose.

He stalks forward, grabs my hair—

But before he can do anything else, a great heavy Something crashes onto the roof of the cabin.

I scream, and he startles.

Something stomps across the roof, accompanied by a clanking, dragging sound with which I’m all too familiar. The sound of chains .

The next instant, a giant chain slams down through the chimney into the center of the fireplace, striking the stone hearth with a sullen boom and scattering the logs. The orange flames shrink down low and turn a deep, bloody red.

“What’s happening?” I whisper. But he doesn’t answer. On his face is the same look I’ve seen on Mothers and Wives throughout the past fourteen years—a look of abject dread and fear.

A dozen slender chains descend through the chimney and seal themselves to the bricks of the fireplace, pushing outward. It’s as if they’re stretching the chimney wider, forming a pathway for something… or someone.

None of this is possible. I must have fallen asleep. I’m dreaming… perhaps I dreamed it all… the murder of Wife and Mother, the terrible ringing of the bell, the chains stretching the chimney…

But I didn’t dream being thrown to the floor, nor did I imagine the pain blooming through my body.

He’s heading for the door, readying the key—but a pair of spiked black chains come snaking out of the fireplace and coil around his ankles. He falls, yelling, straining to get up and reach the door, but the chains hold him tight.

Two giant cloven feet slam into the center of the low-burning flames. The mantel and the fireplace and the hearth all warp so strangely it makes me dizzy. Black claws curl around the edge of the mantel as the Thing inside the chimney bends and looks out.

It’s wearing a mask—a goat’s skull. Black goat’s horns sprout from the mane of blood-red hair blanketing its head and its massive shoulders. I can’t see much of its hulking body because it’s wearing a voluminous dark cape or coat, multilayered and ragged, trailing black tattered streamers across the floor as it climbs out of the fireplace. Tarnished sleigh bells jingle here and there among the folds of its garment .

The monster wraps one clawed hand around the chains holding my captor in place and drags him closer. The chains’ spikes bite into his flesh, tearing it, leaving streaks of blood on the floor.

“Help me!” he screams. “Little Sister!”

He’s reaching out, and by some twisted impulse, I stretch out my hand as if to save him.

For fourteen years he has been the one constant in my life. No matter who came or went, he was there.

I hate him, and I don’t know how to exist without him.

His fingertips brush mine, but the monster yanks him back with a snarl. Between its jagged teeth, an impossibly long red tongue lashes through the air. That tongue must be as long as my forearm, and there’s a glint partway along its writhing surface—an embedded nub of silver, possibly more than one.

The chains come to life again, wrapping around and around their victim before cinching horrifically tight. I don’t try to save him this time. I can still smell the reek of Mother’s remains, and there’s blood on my frilly nightdress where he hugged me.

I watch him die. I hear him gasp, see his eyes bulge like boiled eggs. His mouth gapes, a raw hole in his beard—and then the chains tighten again, and all the bones inside him crack .

The goat-monster lets go of the chains for a moment and unslings a huge sack from his back. Perhaps it used to be red, but it looks as if it’s been dipped in a lake of blood, over and over, until it’s only dimly red at the top, with rings of deepening brown to the bottom of the bag, which is drenched in deep black.

The mouth of the bag gapes open. The monster picks up the misshapen, chain-wrapped corpse in one clawed hand and flings it into the maw of the sack. He cinches it tight.

Then he turns and looks at me, firelight gleaming on his curved black horns.

I shrink into a crouch and retreat to a corner. The curled ends of my dark braids trail on the floorboards .

The monster takes a step toward me. When his hoof nudges the toy cart, he looks down at it, then back up at me.

“Where is the child?” His voice is thick, deep, grating.

“There is only me,” I whisper.

“Fate gives the bells to children who are suffering,” he growls. “When a child rings one of the bells, I come to enact justice upon their abuser.”

His words assuage my fear a little. It sounds as if he isn’t here to murder me, crunch my bones, and stuff me into the sack.

“Who rang the bell?” he persists.

“I did.”

Again he looks at the toy, at the open lid of the cart. “This plaything was given to you?”

I nod. “For Midwinter’s Eve.”

He steps over the toy, and a snuffling noise comes from beneath the goat-skull mask, as if he’s scenting the air. “But you smell ripe. Like a woman.”

I cringe deeper into the corner, unsettled by the word “ripe.”

“One of my powers is discerning age by scent.” It’s almost as if he’s trying to soothe my fears by the explanation.

“Are you Fae?” I ask.

He sniffs again before apparently deciding to ignore me. He glances at the fireplace, then twitches a clawed finger, and the chains hanging down the chimney vanish. Hoisting the bloodstained bag over his shoulder, he heads for the cabin door, his cloven hooves clopping on the wooden floor.

“The key,” I venture. “The man you killed had the key…”

But the monster produces a huge chain from thin air and whirls it a few times before sending its metallic weight crashing against the door—that heavy slab, the portal through which food, supplies, and terror have come to me daily. I haven’t passed through it since I was six years old .

At the impact of the chain, the door explodes, fragments scattering on the snow outside. Wind slithers eagerly into the cabin, its frigid breath soaking my nightgown with cold.

The monster adjusts the bag over his shoulder and stomps outside. That’s when I notice his sinuous tail, with a tuft of red hair at the end.

His dark, hulking silhouette vanishes from the doorway, into the gloomy pallor of the snowy night.

I rise and take a tentative step. My toes curl into a slick pool of blood, but I keep walking, faster, faster, heated by a sudden panic that the door might reassemble itself and close again, trapping me inside forever.

I lunge for the exit—but I stop short at the threshold. Cold air burns in my lungs. Snowflakes dance and perish against the warmth of my cheeks.

The snowy meadow is a gray blur, the forest a smudged expanse of threatening black under the charcoal flatness of the night sky.

I know the fjord is somewhere nearby. My captor described it to me, and he even brought me a sketch of it once, drawn by an artist in a nearby town.

The fjord is where he put them all—the Mothers and Wives who weren’t right, and the Little Sisters before me. He dropped them into the river. He says it’s bottomless. Nothing given to it ever resurfaces.

The monster has stopped walking. He’s holding the chain out, swinging it around so its end draws a big circle in the snow. When the circle is complete, tiny red flames spring up from it, glowing like fluttering crimson veils, turning the snow pink without melting it.

That’s a Faerie circle. And he’s leaving.

When he leaves, I will be alone. Alone in a giant dark world where I have no one and nothing .

For a moment, that reality seems far more terrifying than the monster himself.

I don’t think. I run. Bloodstained bare feet on the snow, carrying me in one leap over the red flames, into the circle with the monster.

My toes have barely touched the ground again when everything changes… transforms into a great gray room of weathered boards, heavy drapes, and towering piles of furniture coated with dust. Huge speckled mirrors with ornate frames hang on the walls, and cobwebs flutter from the candle sconces. Only two of the candles are lit, and they gutter in the draft of our arrival. The ceiling is so high I can’t see it.

The monster slams his burden onto the floor and drags it toward a door with a pointed, asymmetrical peak at the top. He yanks the door open, then lugs the sack down a stairway into darkness.

I don’t think he noticed that I came with him to—wherever this is.

I kneel and press my palm to the tiled floor, my fingers creating a stark handprint in the deep dust. A faint image fills my mind—lights and dancing figures, music and motion. Life. The room used to be a grand and glorious one, but its beauty has faded. Now the air is stagnant with death, and the rooms are so clogged with mountains of dusty furniture that the house can barely breathe.

Strange thoughts to have, about a house breathing …

Frowning, I stand up and shake off the vision.

This one room is larger than the whole cabin. Maybe I can live here. Maybe the beast needs a Little Sister. He might be frightening, but I’m already used to living with a monster.

Cautiously I slink toward another door and open it.

Beyond lies a hallway with more impossibly high ceilings, lit by lamps with frosted glass chimneys shaped like teardrops. The carpet is worn through in places, threads stretched taut and clinging to each other, scarlet thatch over visible floorboards.

As I proceed down the hall, the floor creaks here and there, as if it needs mending. There are holes along the corridor—gaps in the wallpaper and plaster, where the slatted wooden ribs of the house show through.

As I’m eyeing one of those gaps, something moves.

Something behind the wall.

Something enormous.

I suck in a breath and shrink against the opposite side of the hallway. Farther down the corridor, through two more broken places, I glimpse the creature again, slinking through the space behind the wall. Its legs are bone-thin and tall—taller than I am, with a hunched body at the top. My skin prickles with the awareness that I’m in the presence of something very, very old and very, very hungry.

The wall I’m leaning against groans and gives a bit, as if rotted wood is about to yield under my weight. A sense of pain spirals along my limbs, making my breath catch.

The house is in pain.

But it can’t be. It’s just a house, a building. Dead trees and plaster.

It can’t breathe. It’s suffocating, suffering, dying…

Frantic, I break contact with the wall, and the horrible sensation of pain and suffering eases immediately.

Wanting some distance between me and that long-legged entity, I turn and head in the opposite direction, which brings me to a staircase. The light fades partway up the stairs, and from the inky shadows I hear the huge, wet, heavy sound of something breathing—something gigantic, with jaws and a tongue and massive lungs.

Then I see the eyes. Two of them, glowing red in the darkness.

One monster I can handle. Not three .

I flee back to the door I came from, barrel through it, and slam into the cloaked form of the goat-masked monster.

“Fuck,” he exclaims. “What are you doing here?”

I pull back, frowning. He sounds different than before. He still towers over me, but he’s a little narrower in the shoulders, and instead of cloven hooves, bare toes peek out from beneath the ragged hem of his garments. His nails are still sharp and black, but they’re not the long claws he had before.

“You changed,” I say.

He grabs my arm and pulls me to the center of the big gray room where we first arrived. “I’m taking you back.”

“No!” I wrench free and run from him. I’m too scared to go back to the hallway, but I scurry into the piled-up furniture, ducking under crooked stacks of chairs, dodging behind wardrobes and bureaus, and finally crawling under a table.

“The children whose abusers I punish are cared for by Mother Holle after I leave,” Goat-Mask declares in a tone threaded with frustration. “She finds them safe places to live. You should have stayed in the cabin and waited for her.”

“But I’m not a child. She might not have come to help me,” I point out. “If you take me back where I came from, I’ll die. There isn’t much food in the cabin. And you broke the door, so I won’t be able to keep warm.”

“You are not my problem. You’re an adult. That bell shouldn’t have worked for you.”

“It came to me too late,” I reply quietly. “If I’d gotten it when I was six, when he first captured me, then maybe…”

Maybe then I would remember my real family. Maybe I would have been returned to them, and we would have lived safely and happily together. Maybe I wouldn’t have witnessed so much pain and death for years…

Goat-Mask clears his throat and mutters, “I’ll take you to a nearby town. ”

A town, where people draw and sew and play music and laugh with each other. That sounds much better than a house full of monsters.

“Yes,” I breathe. “Thank you.”

“Come on out, then. Don’t make me crawl in there after you.”

I scramble out, braids swinging. My nightgown rips on a sharp nail from one of the bureaus, and the sound of it tearing hurts me, because it is the only thing I own.

Goat-Mask grabs my wrist and yanks me close to him. Chains slide out from the wide sleeve of his garment, and he swings them around, painting a circle of red flames on the floor.

“Are you Fae?” I ask him again.

He doesn’t answer.

Our environment changes, gray boards melting away, leaving us on a snowy road at the outskirts of a lamplit town. It’s the prettiest place I’ve ever seen—stone cottages with tiled roofs, golden light gleaming from the windows, wood smoke drifting into the frozen sky, music floating in the air. I can smell fresh, warm bread.

Goat-Mask steps away, and I grab at his cape, intending to thank him, but he’s already drawing another circle around himself. When he vanishes, I’m left holding one of the sleigh bells from his garments. A long black thread trails from the little hoop on top of the bell.

After gazing at the bell for a moment, I tie it around my neck with the long black thread. It’s almost like a necklace. A few of the Wives and Mothers had such items when they first came to the cabin. They usually lost the privilege of owning them through disobedience. I always wished I could have one, and now I do.

The road into town is ice-cold and stony, painful to my tender feet, which haven’t walked on anything but wooden floors and woven rugs. I wander past the first few buildings, then pause at one with a sign over the door: “The Frosty Radler: Best Beer in Town.”

That sounds appealing, so I push the door open and step inside.

The warmth greets me first—a wave of it, blessing me down to my bones. The heat carries a savory aroma that makes me feel weak with hunger.

I’ve never seen so many people at once—or if I have, I don’t remember it. I blink, dazzled by the sheer brightness and noise of the place, all the glowing lamps and chunky tables and polished chairs of yellow oak. It’s overwhelming—the colors and patterns of the clothes, the clink of dishes, the rattle of cups... and the voices, so many voices.

As the door closes behind me, the merry conversation falters and dies.

Someone murmurs, “Gods, what is that ?” and someone else exclaims, “Is she covered in blood?”

More voices: “Where did she come from? What is she doing here? What’s that around her neck? A Fae talisman? The devil’s bell… evil magic… Fae-cursed… witch…”

The last few words travel from mouth to mouth, growing sharper each time they’re spoken.

A big man with beefy forearms and a stained apron comes out from behind a long counter. “You there. We don’t want any trouble with your kind.”

“My kind?” I survey him, mentally comparing him to the only man I’ve seen for fourteen years. “What is my kind?”

Instead of answering, the man spits on the floor and brushes off both shoulders.

“Fae whore,” hisses a woman behind him.

I want to explain, but there are too many eyes. My breath quickens, and my heart begins to pound horribly fast. I feel as if my throat is closing up, like I’m choking on nothing, like my brain is overheating and burning, sizzling inside my skull. This is a new kind of fear.

“Help me,” I gasp, reaching for the man.

He jumps back. “Get out, witch, before we throw you out!”

“Make her leave, before she casts a spell on us,” someone cries, and a woman yells, “Cut the bell from her neck! Don’t let her call for the Krampus!”

More men leap up from the tables. I don’t give them a chance to throw me out; I burst through the door and flee down the street. I duck into the darkness between two buildings and huddle behind a barrel until the shouts and the running feet pass by.

I wait longer, until I hear them walk back to The Frosty Radler, apparently satisfied that they’ve driven me out of their comfortable town.

My feet are growing numb with cold. I can’t stay here any longer, yet I’m terrified to emerge. My captor was right—the world is a dangerous place. But surely not everyone in it is cruel. There are kind people. I know this, because some of the Mothers and the Wives were kind. If I can find one kind person in this town, I will have what I need for the night. Food, warmth, and a place to sleep.

So many women passed through the cabin that I made it a game, to read their faces when they first arrived and place a bet with myself about how long they would last. A pitiless game, I suppose. But I didn’t have much entertainment.

Perhaps I should make a bet with myself. How long will I last, now that I’m in a new place?

Resistance steels my spine at the thought. I did not escape the cabin only to die in the cold, in the dark.

The bell around my neck seemed to frighten the people at The Frosty Radler, so I unfasten my makeshift necklace and slip it into the pocket of my nightdress .

Keeping to the shadows, I continue down the street. The next corner leads into a narrower road where the shops are crammed closer together. One of them catches my eye because it has two red lanterns on either side of the door. The red lanterns remind me of the goat-monster’s flames.

Two women lounge on the steps under the red lights. One arches a long leg from beneath the shelter of her cloak, showing off stockings made of black netting and a lace band around her thigh. The other is smoking a pipe.

“Where are your shoes, poppet?” calls the pipe-smoking one with a hoarse laugh. “Where are you off to?”

I pause, eyeing them. “I’m looking for a place.”

The one with the netted stockings hooks an eyebrow at me. “What’s your gig, then? Forlorn waif?”

“I’m Little Sister,” I reply.

“Little Sister, eh?” She glances up at her pipe-smoking companion. “That’s a new one. What do you think, Gabi? We need another girl around here. Someone young. Fresh.”

Gabi removes the pipe from her painted lips. “We’d have to ask the Mister. How’d you like a bed, some shoes, and a square meal, poppet?”

“Yes.” I step closer, barely able to suppress my shivering.

“Go on in, then.” Gabi jerks her head toward the door. “Oda will show you around. I’m gonna finish my pipe.”

Oda pushes herself to her feet and hustles me into a short hallway with a green-tiled floor and low-burning lamps. There are three curtained archways on either side and a stairway ahead. Faint murmurs and muffled moans come from behind one of the curtains.

Once we’re inside, Oda takes a closer look at me. “Gods, what is that on your dress? Is that blood?”

I hesitate. “No. It’s berry jam. ”

“Oh, well, if that’s all…” She laughs and mounts the steps unsteadily. “I’m a bit sauced. Could’ve sworn it was blood. Wait here, I’ll fetch the Mister.”

Once she has disappeared upstairs, I sit down on the bottom step and massage my feet, which are beginning to sting now that warmth is returning to them.

Between two curtained archways stands a narrow table with wine bottles and silver cups. On a chipped platter sits an assortment of sliced cheese, grapes, and small cakes like the ones he would bring to the cabin sometimes, when he had beaten me and wanted to make amends.

My mouth waters, but I don’t dare steal anything. At the cabin, we were only allowed to eat at mealtime, or we’d get a beating. They might have the same rule here.

Before the sight of the food can wear down my resolve, a shrill cry attracts my attention. It almost sounds as if someone has been stabbed and has cried out in pain. If this is another place where people murder each other, I’d best not stay too long. At the very least, I should learn the rules so I can avoid being the murdered one.

I sidle over to the archway from which the sound came, part the curtains a crack, and peek through.

A naked woman reclines on a green velvet couch, her thick thighs spread wide. Between them is a slender, nude man who appears to be licking her tender bits. Her fingers curl into his hair, holding him there, encouraging whatever he’s doing.

He pauses and murmurs, “Look at this plump little clit, so pink and swollen. It’s been well-tended. Do you want my cock now, my lady?”

Cheeks flushed, she exclaims, “Yes, yes!”

He rises on his knees on the couch and takes himself in hand, guiding his length inside her while she moans.

They’re having sex. And that terrifies me more than murder. She seems to be enjoying herself—for now—but I’ve lived in mortal terror of my captor invading my body that way, and I can’t bear to watch any longer.

I stumble back, letting the curtains fall into place.

Should I run?

Footsteps on the stairs catch my attention as Oda returns with a large man in a greasy-looking leather coat. A few strands of black hair are scraped across his shiny bald head.

He leers at me. “I hear you’re looking for a place, my dear.”

“You could do a lot worse than here,” Oda puts in. “All you got to do is play Little Sister real cute and let customers slip you the sausage. It ain’t so bad. We get plenty of wine and smokes, decent meals and beds, plus a tonic every week so nobody gets with child.”

“Slip the sausage?” I falter.

The man’s smile fades as he looks me over. Then he lifts a round, brass-rimmed piece of glass and peers through it at me. “Oda, the girl is covered in blood and bruises, and she has no shoes. Where did she come from?”

“Didn’t ask,” Oda replies. “This was Gabi’s idea.”

The man approaches me, peering suspiciously through his eye-glass. “Lovely face. Nice enough body. You got tits under there?” He reaches for my chest, and I spring back, quick as thought.

A frown creases his forehead. “Where are you from?” he asks, in a tone that’s no longer welcoming.

“From a cabin in the woods,” I reply.

“And how did you get here?”

I fumble for a reasonable lie, but I don’t know enough about the people who live in towns. I don’t know what explanation they would accept. So I speak the truth. “A man in a goat-mask brought me here.”

“Oh shit,” whispers Oda. “She’s been consortin’ with the Fae. ”

“And you let her in,” hisses the bald man. “Fae-cursed… sprite… witch… whatever you are… I suggest you leave now, before we call the constable.”

Oda spits on the carpeted steps and brushes off both shoulders, then begins twirling two locks of her hair in opposite directions, muttering indistinct words.

So it isn’t just the bell that makes these people afraid. It’s my association with Goat-Mask.

This time, instead of running, I consider how I might use their fear.

My fingers dip into my pocket and curl around the bell. I withdraw it slowly and hold it up by its black thread.

Oda and the Mister recoil with stricken faces.

“I’ll go,” I say. “If you give me food, shoes, and a cloak. And something to make a fire.”

“I’m not sure—” begins the gentleman, but I move the bell ever so slightly, and he says hastily, “Of course, of course! Oda, give the visitor your cloak and shoes. I have some matches, and take this platter of food. Leave us be, for pity’s sake! Tell your master we don’t harm children, see? This ain’t that kind of place.”

Minutes later, I leave the red-lantern house with my heels slipping out of Oda’s too-large shoes, her feather-edged cloak around my shoulders, and the chipped plate of food in my hands. When I glance back, Gabi, Oda, and the Mister have all gone inside and shut the door. The red lanterns have been put out, and the street lies in darkness.

I find a narrow gap between houses, out of the worst of the wind, and I nibble at the grapes, cheese, and cakes.

The food fills my belly, but the cloak and shoes don’t keep the wind from slicing through my flesh and sawing at my bones. Soon I’m as cold as I was before, with no kindling or firewood in sight. From my pocket, I take the box of matches the gentleman gave me, and I strike one, enjoying the flare of light and the bit of temporary warmth it offers my chilled fingers.

The cold has turned my joints creaky and stiff. It’s difficult to move, so I strike another match, hoping it will thaw me enough so I can get up. I need to head for the woods and make a fire. That’s the one thing I know how to do. That, and cleaning. At the cabin, I was in charge of sweeping the floors, scouring the pans, shoveling the ashes, rinsing the chamber pots, washing the clothes, scrubbing away the blood, and keeping the fire fed.

I’ll burn one more match, and then I’ll get up. I’ll go to the woods and build a fire, and then I’ll be warm.

Strangely, I’m almost warm now… or at least I’m feeling the cold less. I’m stiff, numb, drowsy—

The third match bites my fingers, a savage nip of fire, and I jump. I must have dozed off—I don’t remember watching it burn down.

In taking the matches from my pocket I dislodged the bell, and when I startle, it tumbles out from under the edge of my cloak, ringing as it rolls.

With cold-clumsy fingers, I manage to grip the black thread tied to the sleigh bell, pinning it to the icy cobblestones, keeping it from rolling farther. As I pick it up, it jingles.

I’m not sure why I ring it again. Maybe I’m hoping the sound will pierce the heavy numbness creeping through my body.

The ringing of the bell stretches this time, like it did in the cabin. It grows louder, echoing down the black hollow of the alley.

But I can’t hold on any longer. I slump back against the bricks, and the bell rolls away from my limp fingers.