A glorious handful of days passed where I didn’t incriminate myself. At least, not while there were witnesses. I worked our modest farmstead like a dutiful daughter — ignoring how the fruits and vegetables pulsed like hearts in my fingers — and helped out Alicia at the market and around her little cottage. There are a ton of odd jobs in an agricultural society that don’t really require sunup to sundown attention, but could keep you perfectly busy if you had a mind to be busy.

I saw Carrie and Tabatha a good few times since we avenged Piglet, and was disappointingly unsurprised to find they had very little to say on the matter. Tabatha experienced a brief surge of borderline evangelical righteousness, but soon swung to suggesting she might get a new cat. Carrie had lost interest entirely.

The girls were generally far more interested in my ten-breath interaction with Roland than they were with the details of our little hunt, and I guess why shouldn’t they be? We shoot vermin all the time. Even my six-year-old sister could make a fine coat out of all the mice she had snared in her short little lifespan. But, okay, that would be a bit morbid.

It was just me who was struggling to let go. A couple of times a night I would dream that vixen was watching me with her hazel eyes. Sometimes she spoke. Sometimes she pleaded. Sometimes she sat on my bed and just looked right the way through me. I’m not a dream interpreter, and don’t really care for the craft, but I think that fox was testing me. Either that, or I had something on my face.

I couldn’t always speak to animals. Never wanted to, it should be said, and wasn’t actually sure what was happening until long after it started. It was snatches at first. A little bit of intelligibility in a cacophony of cawing or bleating. For years I dismissed those anomalies as just that; people often catch snatches of conversation on the wind… and imagine that a pigeon said it. Anyway, overtime it resolved into full blown speech I was hearing, and eventually I stopped hearing those classic barnyard noises entirely. Dog goes woof? Cow goes moo? Nope. Dog goes, ‘are you gonna eat that?’ Cow goes, ‘sometimes when I’m staring into the void, I imagine it’s staring back.’ I swear, old Fritz has a whole herd of nihilists. Only the most masochistic dru­id would voluntarily walk through that field twice.

Why my abilities were latent is something I’ll probably never understand. Apparently, it’s not that uncommon. The fact my parents banned all quadrupeds from the property might have had something to do with it, but it definitely wasn’t just a lack of exposure. Iffan had been the same, I’m told. So had dad’s dad and mum’s mum. It was just the way with druids, I guess. Unfortunately, my family had a whole gaggle of druids to use as case studies.

One would be forgiven for wondering why one druid family married another druid family if the general goal in Tythia is not to produce any flipping druids. It’s a valid question, and one with a story attached that I’d probably find pretty funny had I not drawn the short straw among my siblings and been marked with the family curse.

Basically, dad’s family and mum’s family are cut from the same stone — that cold, staunch, noble Tythian stone. Like any good Tythian, they wanted the druids gone from our lands. So, my grandfather, druid though he was, kept his powers a secret until everyone in his village had forgotten about those childhood rumours. Then, he married a nice local girl, and had my dad. There were, like, sixteen more kids, but they’re not important to the story.

Meanwhile, a woman from the village over had noticed she had the same little ‘defect’. Her solution was to flee to the nearest town, and marry a nice young lad who worked in the treasury. They had a darling little girl: my mum. Cycles do their thing, and tick by, until one day mum and dad meet — both fine folk from fine stock — and get married. Dad doesn’t know his dad is a druid, and mum doesn’t know her mum is a druid, and neither of them imagine they are passing on that pesky little recessive gene until — drumroll, please — me.

Actually, that’s not quite accurate. Mum started asking questions of her parents when Iffan moved her childhood treehouse for her by asking the tree to take a few strides towards the setting sun, but that’s the basic story. Funny what gets omitted during courtship.

There are a couple of things that are therapeutic for me when I lay this all out. First of all, I’m reminded that I’m not one of those druids who was raised in secret and expected to quietly carry on the family legacy until one day the wicked little wizards win back their favour — fat chance of that happening. Secondly, it’s good for me to acknowledge that this is all grossly unfair, and that it’s all my parents’ fault, and I should be compensated in cake, every day, forever, until I die peacefully on silk sheets, surrounded by yet more cake.

Thus concludes a pretty good summary of what I’ve been thinking about when I’m not getting lost in the spectral eyes of a stupid fox I allowed to get poked through with an angry cat mum’s arrow.

“Are you going to eat your dinner, Mel, or are you waiting for someone to spoon feed you?” mum huffed.

“I was just letting it cool.” Pretty weak excuse, really; I could already see the surface of the stew congealing.

“Thinking about Roland?” Dane winked.

“Oh, Dane, don’t be that guy.”

“Roland, is it?” Mum gave me a very knowing look.

“It’s not anybody, at the moment,” I said.

“You could do a lot worse than him,” Dane said, slurping on the knuckle of a chicken leg. “I think he’d take good care of you.”

Not too long ago, Dane figured out that he was actually in pretty good standing to become the next reeve — an ambition my father thoroughly approved of — and started speaking like he was already one of the village elders. Everyone said that my sisters were so lucky to have such a mature and thoughtful brother, but I assure you that two patriarchs in a family is no more fun for its women than one.

“A fine endorsement. Perhaps we should invite him around for dinner then,” dad said, in case Dane couldn’t massage his own ego. “I don’t know the lad well, but he’s always ready to unload the wagons when they come back from town.”

Everyone unloads the bloody wagons. Who wouldn’t want to see what crap everyone had ordered from the townies?

“I hope he’s more polite than the last fellow you introduced us to,” mum griped.

“Marnus,” Elzabeth, my fourteen-year-old sister supplied — redundantly, or course; everyone knew everyone in Braxus.

“Can we not do this over dinner?” I tried in vain. Nobody wanted to forget my infatuation with Marnus more than I did.

“Bad sort, that one.” Dane nodded at his own wisdom.

“He had hairy ears!” Lana giggled — which I experienced as quite unsettling, given I was still imagining her in a mouse-skin coat.

“And he stretched his legs so far under the table that I had to cross mine in my chair,” Elzabeth sniffed.

For the sake of my sanity, I had to end this quickly. I did this the only way I knew I reliably could. It was time to pull out all the stops. I turned to my father and said, “Dad.”

He chuckled but then waved for the banter to cease. “Alright, alright. Don’t tease your sister.”

Works every time.

The conversation swung to household chores and harvest predictions — a Tythian staple — while we all settled down and tucked into our delicious chicken stew. Mum had put a generous whack of turmeric in, that painted a picture of sunshine and daffodils down the front of Lana’s smock. The little one got her eating habits from our dad. They both ate like the chicken might still make use of those legs.

It was a warm evening, which is why we had the window shutters and front door propped open. This proved to be a grave mistake.

“Where is she? I know she’s here somewhere. Hattie?” a bellicose gentleman called from outside.

I looked around the table. Not a shred of interest.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Hattie? Where are you my sweet? Out of my way, you; I’m looking for Hattie,” he continued.

“Does… anyone hear that?” I said.

“Hear what, darling?” mum asked from behind her napkin.

That’s probably when I should have twigged, but sometimes I forget to smart. “That guy! Can’t you hear him?”

“No?”

“Hattie!”

The voice was actually kind of familiar. “Isn’t that… Oh no,” I realised, not two blinks before a giant rooster appeared in the doorway.

“Hattie? Hattie are you in here?” Clive said, his head craning on his russet and green neck.

Our eyes locked. And it would be when I was going to town on a chicken wing, wouldn’t it? Of course, this was not just any chicken wing.

“H—Hattie?”

“It’s not what it looks like,” for some reason I tried.

“You monster! You scoundrel! Damn you, Mel! We had a deal!” Clive, sort of understandably, was going ballistic. His wings were pumping ferociously, his feathers splayed out like talons. Which, speaking of, I couldn’t help but notice he had a pretty ferocious set of. “Any one of them, I said! Could have been anyone, but not my Hattie!” He crowed his morning alarm — now a mourning alarm. “It was supposed to be Lettie next!”

“I thought this was Lettie?”

He froze. “You thought my graceful little angel… was Lettie?”

His graceful little angel had been mighty plump, and had dinner written all over her. So of course I said, “Yeah?”

“Murderer! Liar! Cheat! Fascist!”

“What the Glade? How am I a fascist?” I’m not sure why that was the bit I hung onto.

“Mum, Mel is clucking at the chickens again,” Elzabeth said in her high-and-mighty way.

“I am not! Wait, is that what you hear?” I’d always just assumed I was speaking normally, but… actually none of it made sense.

I didn’t have long to consider the peculiarities of my unwilling role as inter-species interpreter; Clive was coming at me, beak and claw first.

“Get this madman away from me!”

“Mel, control yourself!” mum bellowed.

“Me? What did I—Ow!” Clive scored a nasty gash on my shin, which he followed up with a peck.

“You’re ruining everything!” mum wept.

“You’ve ruined everything!” Clive cried, as his razor-sharp beak punched a hole in my boot. Thank the anvil I was actually wearing boots.

“Get him off me!”

“You’re making a scene!”

“You’ve taken everything I love.”

“Bugger off, you massive co—”

“Mel!”

Great, so that bit I said in Tythian.

“But that’s what he is! It’s—ow—a statement of fact. Ow! Would you stop it?”

Then Clive was gone. He was launched across the room like a wicker ball, where he splatted against the far wall. My saviour? A well-used stiff broom, wielded by an absolutely unphased Mirra.

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

Mirra just smiled, that warm little gesture cracking the oak-like bark of her face, and calmly swept Clive out of the house.

“This isn’t over, Mel! On my life, I will have revenge. Sleep with one I open. Don’t dare turn your back. You’ll rue the day you betrayed this co—”

Mirra shut the door.

“Glade and Anvil,” I said, as I rolled up the cuffs of my trousers to inspect the tapestry of carnage wrought on my — slightly hairy — legs. “Can you believe that guy?”

I knew that everyone was staring, but maybe if I didn’t look at them they would grow bored and forget about it.

“Everyone, go to your rooms. Dinner is over,” dad said.

Yeah, no such luck.

My siblings got up and tucked in their chairs. I did the same.

Normally it feels like there’s a horde of us, but when you’re trying to get lost in a crowd of four it’s pretty difficult to blend.

“Not you, Mel.”

Can’t say I didn’t see that coming.

With my brother and sisters gone, the modest little dining room suddenly felt cavernous. I noticed for the first time that we really didn’t have a lot in here. There wasn’t much more than the eight-seater table and appropriate number of chairs, an ancient, rickety crockery cabinet, and a really miffed looking pair of parents. I settled my eyes on the cabinet.

“It’s as we feared, Hamish,” mum said, and somehow she managed to look like she’d been crying for hours. “It’s happening again.”

“Mm,” dad agreed.

“Well, not here. Not under this roof. Not while I’m mistress of this household,” mum said. She had that manic look in her eye that she got when — ah yeah, here comes the belt.

So that nobody ever had to suffer the indignity of having loose slacks, out family kept a special beating belt on a hook in the kitchen. You have to admire the thought, care, and consideration that goes into administering a proper butt-whooping.

“Sit down,” dad said.

Mum was aghast. “But she needs to learn. It’s the only way we can protect her!”

“Sit down, Lissia.”

Go dad?

Mum did sit, but she wasn’t making me any less nervous. The way she was wringing her hands was awfully reminiscent of how ‘angelic’ Hattie had met her end.

We sat like that for a bit. Dad was drumming his fingers on the table, sounding out a funeral dirge. My heart was playing percussion. Embarrassingly, my stomach tried to join in on wind.

“Mirra?” he called.

The stout housemaid appeared before he’d even finished saying her name. That ever-smile was still on her lips. Her grey cable of braid bobbed merrily in its coiled tower upon her crown. Nothing ever phased Mirra.

“Something strong fer the nerves, please,” he said, “then you may retire for the evening.”

She bobbed once. “How many?”

“Three.”

“Very good.”

We sat silently and solemnly while Mirra prepared three large glasses of Runnoff mixed with brandy, a splash of whisky, and a handful of crushed sloe berries — Mirra’s own concoction she called ‘Goodnight’. She set a glass in front of each of us, bobbed a final farewell, and smiled all the way out the door.

Mum drained half her beaker in one. That cannot have been good for her stomach.

“This is becoming increasingly difficult to explain away, Mel,” dad said after a long draught.

“He just caught me by surprise, that’s all.”

“This isn’t the only incident, is it?” It wasn’t really a question.

“Are you referring to the birds the other morning, the flower with Roland, the dog the other week, or the bear? If it’s the birds, I will happily shoot them. That should solve that.” Sometimes I might be too honest.

“The bear?”

“Just kidding, it was another dog.” Okay, not entirely honest. I didn’t know gallows humour was my thing before now. “The others don’t seem so bad now though, right?”

“By Hammer and Plough,” mother intoned. “Why is this happening to us?”

Father ignored her — which I don’t normally approve of, but I was all for on this occasion. “Actually, I was talking about the fox, but I suppose that tells me what I already suspected.”

“The fox? Since when has shooting foxes been frowned upon!” Even I thought I sounded overly defensive.

“That’s not the point. The point is you are… exhibiting,” he settled on. “Worse, it is being noticed. It’s becoming the talk of the village.”

“So? Remember when Josef was getting physical with his wife whenever he sank too deep into his cup? That was the talk of Braxus for many moons. Now he gets his beer at the Rut just like everyone else. People forget.”

That made dad uncomfortable. As reeve, that one had put him in an awkward position. “Some things people never forget.”

“It will blow over, dad.”

“No, Mel. Some things people never forget.”

There was real finality in the way he said it, and I’m not ashamed to say that it hurt. It hurt a lot. I thought of myself as he must. I thought of myself as some heretic by birth. The child born a blight, who was destined and doomed to wither the crops and dry the springs: the abomination.

“It will blow over,” I said with conviction that split and cracked in my throat.

“I think the time has come, Mel, for you to leave Braxus.”

“What?”

“Just for a time,” he said quickly, but still far too slowly to cheer me up.

“You want me to leave? Where would I go? What would I do? Do you hate me so much that you would condemn me to die in the wilderness like a common animal?” My words lashed, and I won’t deny that I felt some satisfaction when I saw them land.

“It’s not like that, Mel. I want what’s best for you. Trust me; we all want what’s best for you. You’re not safe here,” he said, but the softness he injected in his voice felt affected.

“How can you talk about marriage and boys one moment, and then cast me away the next? Do I matter so little?”

“It’s not like that!” I wish I could say his anger was born of shame. He probably just hated contradicting himself. “I believe you will have a normal, happy, healthy life someday. Perhaps even here, with your friends and family.”

“But I’ll have to wait until everyone forgets about me first?”

“But you’ll have to learn to control yourself, first. Your grandfather did the same.”

“I can control myself just fine,” I said, and choked on my drink.

“You’re too erratic right now. It scares people. Perhaps if the villagers knew you could silence your curse, then you would be accepted. The people need to know they can trust you, Mel.”

“Why should I care what they think? Why do I have to change for those who hate me?”

He was very still. Ironically, insulting the people of Braxus was more like insulting his family than insulting his family was. “Your mother and I lived through the drought. There are many of us alive who have every reason to fear your kind.”

‘Your kind’. It rang in my ears. With those two words I realised I had been ostracised long before my exile. “Fine. Then I’ll go.” Why should I stay now?

He exhaled. It might be that the weight of what he was doing now bore down on him, or it could have been plain old narcissistic relief.

“Can I at least leave in the morning?” I said as nonchalantly as I could muster.

“In a few days will be fine. I’m not sending you away blindly, understand. Your Uncle Iffan had a property in Magalat. I’ve been meaning to go and settle his estate for some time, but I think it is best that you go in my stead. You will stay there until you are confident in your ability to hide your darker urges, and then you may sell the place and return. Your mother and I will welcome you with open arms.” He even opened said arms.

“Hold on. You think it’s too dangerous for me to be around people in Braxus, and you want me to go to an actual city? Are you mad? You may as well just hang me yourself.” I felt my cheeks burning, and I could see his were too. Like father like daughter, I guess.

“What I think, is that the freedom we have given you has made you careless. In the city you will learn to forget you are a druid, and you will learn fast. Perhaps if we hadn’t sheltered you then you would have learnt already.”

“Magalat,” I scoffed. “Suicide.”

“This” — he gestured my legs, cut to ribbons by an irate rooster — “is suicide. By the Anvil, you will not be clucking at chickens in Magalat. Even you are smarter than that.” He drained his drink and slammed his cup on the table. “We shall discuss the details tomorrow. For now, I suggest you enjoy sleeping in a bed while you can. Magalat is a long walk away.”

Mother looked torn. She clearly would much rather have beat the poultry-parleying from me, but dad’s word was final. Father’s word was always final.

I went to bed that night wondering what I should wear to my execution.