The rays of the morning sun beamed on his face, trying to snap him back to his senses before the chilly frost chilled him to the hereafter.

The nameless boy shielded his face with a grunt and just lay there without moving. He could hardly open his back and blue eyes.

It was utterly silent apart from the bird calls that cut through the dire forest at daybreak. It seemed like the animals, as well as the forest itself, were not used to the crisp cool knocking on the front door.

Two birds landed beside him, chanting a macabre song so wretched that it could wake up all living beings in the sleeping forest.

He waved them away.

Sitting up, he looked around himself in a daze until a frightening thought made him jolt up.

He tripped as he rose to his wobbling feet, limping with all his might to the other side of the woods without a bother for the aching pain soaring through his body.

He might have made it this time but at home awaited Enis, his so-called grandmother and guardian, who might just kill him herself.

She had rules of her own and the foremost of them was to return home before dusk. He was in deep waters, really deep waters, and the day had just begun!

The closer he came to the shanty house, the more his heart raced and pounded.

He slowed down, unwilling to move forwards and face the woman he loved as if she were his real mother, although she never gave birth to him or acted like one by any means.

The last time he came home late like this without permission, she threw him out of the house in the middle of winter and told him to sleep on the bed of powdery snow instead.

It was during these horrifying ramblings and fears that he baulked and almost lost his footing at the sight of their home, which appeared right before him out of thin air. How did he come here this fast?

To calm his heart down a tad and come up with a lie, he patted his chest to no avail and drew a deep breath. He could almost hear his grandmother’s voice beyond the battered door, scolding him like there was no tomorrow.

He, to be honest, feared her more than he dreaded Barken and his friends. Not because she was bloodcurdling or anything of that sort. But because he was afraid she’d abandon him just like his mother did.

She always said that you see, that she’d one day leave him for good – just like his mother did – if he didn’t behave and obey her every command.

He gulped hard, adjusting his brown shirt riddled with dirt, then splashed a handful of ice-cold water on his grimy face from the blue basin beside the front door.

He washed off the majority of the dry and clotted blood and opened his eyes as wide as he could despite the swellings. Unfortunately, his eyes were too purple to cover up.

Then he drew a deep breath again, huffing and puffing, and knocked on the door twice and waited with darting eyes.

No one opened the door.

He bit his lower lip and swore under his breath at the thought of spending the night outside for a second time. It was too bitterly cold for that. It was a miracle he hadn’t kicked the bucket the night before!

“Grandma? It’s me! I’m sorry, I…”

He rested his arms on the wooden door and dropped his head so that his dripping, wet hair hung loosely in the air. Still, there was no answer.

He sighed and lifted his head, then decided to place an ear on the door and listen for any signs of life.

He held his breath; not even footsteps could be heard beyond the door as if the shanty house was devoid of sounds and utterly vacant.

He banged on the door, determined not to freeze to death, but the door was locked tight and Enis was nowhere to be seen or heard.

Then a thought occurred to him and fraught him with worry.

Enis only left the house in the afternoons and spent the mornings sleeping in due to the nature of her job.

But she always – always, always – woke up with the sunrise to eat breakfast, since she could not doze off on an empty stomach. Then she’d fall asleep again until the afternoon.

It was a routine of hers and he had never seen her break it during their entire time living together under one roof.

He should’ve at least heard her prowl about beyond the door at this time of day. Did she go back to sleep already, he thought and turned around to find the morning sun yet to rise completely, then shook his head.

She was supposed to be awake now, right at this very moment, and even if she woke up earlier than usual today and slept in again, surely, she should have heard him knocking at least and cuss him out if nothing else?

Or could she simply be so angry, so indignant and out of it, that she did not even want to see him anymore?

“Grandma, please! Can’t we just talk it out?”

He tapped the door with his forehead repeatedly, then stopped and let out a resonating sigh.

Then something utterly peculiar happened.

Out of the corner of his eye, the doorknob turned by itself and the door creaked open to expose the small hallway with the ruby, striped tapestries, which were peeling and battered like the rest of the shack – torn into pieces as if a flock of black cats had scratched it from one end to the other in a fit of rage.

The two doors down the dim hallway, one to the right and the other to the left, were both closed tight and locked by the look of it. His heart skipped a beat. There was no one around here.

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The front door had opened by itself as if by magic.

The voice of the strange man rang through his head on repeat and would not stop. He reiterated those words aloud and gulped hard, and his eyes fell on the door to the left. It was Enis’ room.

That man called her a witch, didn’t he? But his grandmother could not possibly be a witch, could she? No, even if she was somewhat odd and wicked she looked nothing like it…

Witches, so far as he was aware from reading the ancient books and scriptures in the local bookstore, were hideous beings akin to the man-eating ogres in Sál and the sly and good-for-nothing trolls!

But, Enis, she wasn’t any of those things. On second thoughts, he was not so sure. Why would that stranger tell him such lies, to begin with? They didn’t even know one another.

He backed away as Enis’ room unlocked out of the blue, or perhaps with the help of an invisible force no one but the evil spirits could see.

He, for one, saw no one and nothing besides the creaking door slowly opening on its own. But it was locked just seconds ago, he had no shadow of a doubt, yet how could he otherwise explain this strange event?

There was only one way to find out. His feet moved on their own accord, slowly and steadily, as quietly as a mouse and as gingerly as he possibly could.

His heart raced out of control. What if Enis was in there right now, he thought, lying in wait for him to trespass and violate her privacy?

But there was no one here.

The inside of the mysterious room he had never set foot in before took his breath away. The grey quilt on the draped bed was as smooth as silk and without an ounce of wrinkle. The grating floorboards, dark from years of neglect, were spotless and empty like the abyss.

A large cabinet arrested him, what for, he couldn’t say. Then he recalled an incident when he was just a little boy and he had found Enis’ room gaping wide one obscure morning.

He had entered the room and was about to open this very cabinet when Enis caught him in the act and threatened him to never set foot in her chamber again.

Just like back then, he could not take his eyes off the peculiar cabinet. It captivated his senses like witchcraft.

The stranger’s voice kept buzzing in his head and messing around with his sanity. Yet a witch was the last thing his grandmother could be… right?

He shook his head, determined not to allow the stranger’s words to get to him. There was no way, absolutely no way, she could ever be anything of such a wicked nature!

So why did he grab the cabinet’s handle and freeze in time? Why couldn’t he open it and see the truth for what it was?

A sudden clamour made him jump back and let go of the handle. He turned around in a breath and almost forgot how to breathe.

His feet caught in between the legs of the desk beside the bed, and he fell on his buttocks with a loud thud. A groan escaped his mouth followed by the loud noise of something that fell from the desk behind him, yet he did not look at what it was.

Instead, he stared straight ahead as his grey eyes quivered from side to side in front of the beautiful woman in the doorway, eyeing him down with her blue eyes as cold as the impending winter.

He gulped hard, trying to come up with a nimble lie she’d buy, although he knew she would never. Still… it wasn’t like he could tell the truth either, could he?

What would he even tell her? That a strange man told him something bizarre and that he wanted to make sure she was not some kind of witch?

The softness of her otherwise youthful voice was nowhere to be found as she broke the piercing silence, and was replaced by the husky voice of an old woman.

Yet, unlike her wrinkled hands that leaned against the doorframe, her face was as smooth as silk and made of the finest porcelain.

She looked no older than thirty, albeit he knew, he indeed knew at this very second, that she was much older. He saw it more clearly now. He saw right through what he missed all these years.

The youthfulness of her smooth china face slowly faded away as if she had lost the secret recipe to her youthful appearance, and she turned into her real ugly self.

Unbeknownst, he crawled backwards and miserably hit the desk behind him out of shock. The hideous fat nose, the meaty blemishes, and the crooked teeth were enough to leave him speechless.

For the first time in forever, he was truly afraid of Enis – or rather, afraid of the secrets she hid behind her slug demeanour.

That stern voice was not to be mistaken. Not even a hint of love was disguised in it this time as it otherwise did in a hollow game of pretence.

Her true self spoke up, finally, and she knew too that he had seen through her pretence this time. Yet she did nothing to hide the contempt in her voice.

He almost hoped she would lie, as always, and then continue her little game of pretence with him. But she didn’t. And for some reason, a pang of ache coursed through his rigid body.

It was true, he thought, she was indeed a wicked monster.

“You stupid thing, just look at you quiver and shake! Shouldn’t you know better than sneak around like this? Then again, things were going too smoothly for far too many moons…”

“You’re…” The words stuck in his throat. “So- so, what I mean is- is… are you really a- a…”

“A witch?” She let out a wolfish grin. “Come on! You didn’t think I was really your grandmother, did you?”

He fumbled to his feet. “But- but you never told me you were… that you were a witch!”

“You’re not one to judge me! There’s nothing one would not do to stay young, is there?” she said, adding. “I can name more than a dozen who would, and still thousands who’d do much worse things to live on forever, so stop looking at me like that! Yeah, just like that, with those eyes of yours, which have no right to judge me.”

“You’re… you’re not denying it?”

She burst into a peal of laughter and cackled just like how he had imagined a wicked witch would. It sent chills down his spine.

The witch stopped smiling; her expression hardened in a heartbeat as if she had never laughed in the first place, and thumped close to him like a menacing dark cloud so unexpectantly that he backed away and hit the desk behind him for a second time.

“Why would I! Being a little old granny was becoming tiring anyway, and it’s not like we are related by blood, are we? Just look at you! Do you even have a name? You don’t! Because I didn’t name you – because you’re nothing to me! You’re just work and I get paid for looking after a thing like you.”

“You get paid for this?”

“Don’t look at me like that, you foolish thing! I didn’t stay young on my own, did I?”

He wheezed. “What- what?”

“Stop the act!” She hissed, hauling him up by the collar and slowly choking him out of air. “You must’ve noticed, surely, that both of us stayed alive for more than a thousand years!”

“I- I can’t breathe, I—”

“I don’t care enough about you to lie, don’t you see?” She smirked as she continued. “You were never meant to be alive! Just look at you crying and shaking your head! But here you are, living off of other children’s blood like a parasite!“

He pushed her away and stormed out of the shanty house with shaky hands, rubbing his face over and over again to get back his senses.

His heart pounded hard against his chest as the tears flowed down like a waterfall. All of his thoughts spun around one single sentence, and it broke his heart into two.

‘I don’t care enough about you to lie.’ How could she say that so bluntly? As if he never meant anything to her!

If this was it, he reasoned, if he was meant to be abandoned by Enis all along, then the stranger should’ve just let Barken and the others kill him yesterday!

Why live when the only person he wanted to live for no longer loved him and never did, to begin with?

Even if Enis didn’t take to him, though she ought after all these years, that didn’t mean he should like her less for that reason.

She was all he knew; without her, he was truly nothing and doomed. But this rumination did not go far.

He groaned. A stone hit the back of his head.

He knew it was Barken without even looking back and was about to turn around and let the rich scumbag beat the heck out of him when he saw a raven on the outskirts of the Forgotten Forest.

He squinted and followed it vanish into the depths with his eyes, then wiped his tears off with the back of his hands to see where the black bird disappeared off to.

It was just as bizarre to see a raven in Mazheven as it was to see a deity or druid, you see. It was a miracle unheard of in all of Aderbaal.

He forgot about his miserable life and bolted away towards the forest to catch another glimpse of the mysterious bird.

The raven reappeared before his two naked eyes as if it knew he would follow it. The closer he got to it, however, the further it went into the Forgotten Forest.

Too immersed in his own thoughts at that point, he didn’t even hear the booming voice of Barken grow louder behind him.

“You piece of shit! I’ll kill you! Do you hear me? You step foot in Mazheven again and I’ll break your neck in two!”