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That night, Val hung the herbs and flowers around the hut. She walked along its outside walls and made sure no hook was left without a little bundle smelling of grasses and rosemary.
She felt safer that the house she slept in would protect her from harm, as now she knew that no Nothing-touched could enter it without itself being eaten.
That night, she took a small butter knife and carved a notch onto a log that ran alongside her cot in the wall. Because the summer here never ended, she had no way to track time aside from the sun's rising and setting.
She did not wish to age here as she’d done before. She would keep track of days in this way - small notches, one for each day.
Like this, she spent weeks and then months in the Glade. At least three or four times a week, Sirin would come, and they would eat together. Sirin talked much of the forest and the Glade, of Nothing-touched creatures and trinkets alike. She taught Val sternly of the herbs and flowers that grew there - ones that Val had not seen before. Remedies could be made with them, rain and lightning called to the clearing, and birds cleared of the sky and brought in flocks back around. Of course, this required Val to burn the herbs, to toss them over her shoulder, to speak words over them, and to pour water gathered from the morning dew from the grass atop them. Each of these she recorded in the journal, taking care to make the writing legible and easy to understand.
Being here, she did not hear the taps of the chains. Sometimes, she dreamt of the Hag’s face. It was unmoving, as if she were dead, her head hanging - supported only by the grotesque metal contraption screwed into her skull and around her neck.
When she asked Sirin about time and space, the bird-woman would shake her head and leave. Val would not see her again for days.
Once, she asked Sirin where she went when she was not in the Glade.
“To hunt.” The bird-woman answered simply.
“What do you hunt?” Val asked, stuffing a potato cake into her mouth.
“Miserable men who stray too far.”
Val looked at Sirin in shock.
All this time, she had the impression that this creature had been mostly harmless - as the phoenix in the River Cities had been. They had shared meals for months now - and Val had become accustomed to her company. Comfortable even.
“Mortal men?”
“Of course, mortal men,” Sirin confirmed. “They come to the wood, their heart aching. I call to them, give them happiness, and make sure that they feel it forever. I help them. Unlike you. What do you even do?”
“But you eat them?”
“I do.”
“Why do you then eat here with me?” Val somehow had trouble processing this, in the time they had spent together, she had grown to think of the bird-woman as a friend. The friendship had eased the loneliness of the woods for Val, and she valued the company.
Was she going to eat her too?
“Because I enjoy the food. Why do you eat two servings of pudding, Nameless One?”
Val pushed her plate away.
“Will you eat me too?”
“Are you asking or requesting?” Sirin ruffled her feathers. “Sugar rot is disgusting. It does not satisfy. Women smell of it more than men. Besides, I cannot drive happiness into your heart, and so it would taste sour.”
“You kill them…” Val said quietly.
“You judge me, again, hypocrite.” Sirin was indignant. She did not tolerate another word and flew away.
Val remained, looking off to where the bird-woman had gone.
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The shouts and whoops of the soldiers echoed through the morning air, shattering the silence across the steppes. It was not a battle or scuffle; it was simply a hunt.
A man ran through the grasses ahead of them, and only a hill they had not yet rounded separated him from view.
The Fugitive’s long strides were unrestricted by the presence of armor; only a leather tunic strapped to his chest atop a linen shirt protected him from the scraping of rocks when he inevitably had to dive into the grasses to escape the eyes of the men in his pursuit. His wounds had been very minor - negligible, really. Only a few bruises decorated his back and legs from where the soldiers beat him and the other men the night before.
Of course, he had been lucky that they had gotten too drunk before they reached him - others from his group had not been so fortunate, more than half losing their life as the men dared each other to take the violent game further and further until their prisoner’s lifeless body fell limply to the ground.
Before his flight, the Fugitive was able to secure two scimitars. They had not been sharpened in a long time on the road, long before they had been confiscated in the arrest.
Nevertheless, they were steel, and they were in his possession. There were only four men after him, but that was more than he felt confident in being able to overcome - especially since they were on horseback and armed with bows and arrows.
A single man escaping into the wilderness with nothing around for leagues except the edge of the forest, he was not likely to survive, much less make it too far. He had no provisions, nothing to warm him at night. And knowing that, the chase was only for their merriment. When the outfit moved on, they would be expected back. And this would not take long - daylight was wasted on this fruitless game.
It took another hour on his feet, the Fugitive was nearing collapse by the time the horses sounded further away - turning around as they lost sight long ago, having to circle around as he hid. He breathed deeply and sank on the ground, his knees hitting the dirt hard and muscles twitching from exhaustion.
“Merciful All-Father…” He breathed out.
There’d been no plan aside from a singular thought - to survive. And now, his chances had been only slightly better than they had within the encampment.
He lay in the grass for a few hours, his body too broken for sleep, even though he had gotten none the night prior.
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The notches on the wall had grown substantially now. Val counted hundreds of them, although it felt as if only a month had passed. She’d touch her face and try to feel for any new wrinkles that had developed, but it was a poor way to gauge the flow of time.
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Sirin continued to join her for lunch, and the Cloth of Plenty continued to feed them - lavish meals rolling out onto it whenever she desired. Slowly, Val learned more and more about the Glade. The mire that had stood so quietly nearby turned out to be inhabited by quite a bit of life she’d never seen before. There were carnivorous flowers, snatching bugs and small birds right out of the air. There was moss that crawled on land, although no legs or head could be seen anywhere around it. When she had lived here, Val had never noticed these before and guessed that maybe the Hag’s presence had driven this life away like it had Sirin. But now, everything seemed to flourish and thrive here.
One evening, she even saw the top of a large toad head hover above the water. It had been extra unsettling, even though she had grown used to the creatures that wandered in and out of the Glade. It looked too much like the creature that had crawled out of the river in Chelkalka to take the adolescent girl - and Val decided that perhaps, for a time, she would avoid the mire.
Only chorts were still wary of the boundary line, but as time passed, they became less and less interested in Val - the longer she stayed, the more it seemed like her presence had blended into the scenery until they stopped coming altogether.
“They can’t smell you as much,” Sirin told her. “The sugar rot is faint, you smell as swamp and meadow now—such creatures as they have a very poor sense of it. You can thump them on the head with sugar rot, and they will still confuse you with a rabbit. They don’t like those, too much fur for only a bite of meat. It gets stuck in their teeth.”
And then, there was the Hag.
After three hundred notches, Val began to seek her out when she closed her eyes - before falling asleep. At first, she looked for the tether. Like the thinnest of lute strings, it lived in the very depths where the painful memories had been. Sometimes, she found it so taut and strained that she felt as if she could cut a finger on it if she were to touch it. Sometimes, loose and seeming to lead nowhere at all.
But each time, she tried to take hold. And if she succeeded, she saw the Hag’s face. There was no reason to it, no purpose. But knowing that she had this semblance of control had given Val the bravery to try again the next night and the next.
Until the Hag looked up, and saw Val holding the tether in her hand.
Stupid girl plays games she does not know the rules to.
Val’s stomach chilled with the words echoing in her mind.
You miss the agony and pain so you’ve returned for more of the same? Useless girl doing useless things in my domain. When I return to what is mine, your bones I’ll grind to dust and hang your skin as freshly washed atop a laundry line.
And at that moment, Val heard it. It was faint, but she heard the note in the Hag’s voice. Uncertainty. It had been barely audible, but it was there, and it gave Val more hope than anything else she had gathered from these dreams.
“You won’t return,” Val promised her quietly. She heard her own voice, outside the dream, mutter the words.
At that, the Hag bared her teeth more than they had been forced to already - her mouth stuck in a permanent snarl.
Val had known that these encounters had meant something, but not what. She’d found no power in the Glade that would shift the time around her. She found no way to manipulate the forest beyond the clearing. Small things here and there made her feel as if she had some control - some herbs and reductions she had made that had unusual properties. But, it was only a step beyond alchemy and did not bring her closer to her goal.
At night, she hugged the wool blanket in her care. The smell was gone now, but the memories remained, like her heart's bitter, painful ache.
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“What is wrong with your face?” Sirin sat atop the fence as Val worked in the garden. Although the tablecloth provided all sorts of delicacies, Val craved fresh vegetables that could only be found there.
“Excuse me?” She stood, looking at the bird-woman with offense.
“Your brows grow bushy. You’ve dirt on it every time I see you.” Sirin elaborated. “Your hair is unkempt and hangs past your waist unbraided for months now - you’ve sticks and ashes from the stove in it.”
Val touched her face in horror. She’d not seen it in as long as she had been there, and the thought of hygiene beyond bathing now and then had completely left her mind.
“I am embarrassed for you, Nameless One.” Sirin nodded as if this was a well-known fact.
“I have no mirror,” Val admitted, feeling self-conscious for the first time in a long while. She’d felt shamed and awkward in front of what was essentially a bird. “But you’re one to talk.”
“I bathe and clean myself regularly,” Sirin argued. “Twenty times a day, I preen my feathers. Could you say that is how many times you brush your hair?”
Val frowned.
“You begin to look like the Mother did,” Sirin added, annoyed. “I suppose the Glade has a type.”
Val threw up her hand to shoo Sirin off, and the bird-woman spread her wings and flapped them twice to regain her balance.
“What do you need a mirror for?” She asked as Val started heading off for the hut.
“To see myself,” Val said. “I’d like to. I have been here many years now. I did not get to witness my age for a long time, and I ought to have that right.”
“Why don’t you just use the plate?” Sirin’s face twisted quizzically.
“The plate?”
“The plate.”
“I know what a plate is.” Val retorted. “What plate?”
“The one with the apple!” Sirin groaned as if she had been trying to drive the point home for hours just to have it fall on deaf ears. By this point, Val had grown used to the oddities of the Glade, and if Sirin spoke of something so matter-of-factly, it usually meant something significant.
But, the bird had been unbelievably difficult to appease enough to talk sometimes.
“I have no plate with an apple,” Val said, dismissing it. Of course, the bird-woman immediately felt discredited and got fairly mad.
“The clay plate, the one you put an apple in and pour the water over the top. Swirl it around.” She huffed as if everyone had known that.
Val plucked an apple from a nearby tree and went inside without another word. She rummaged around until she found the plate that she was sure Sirin had spoken of - ornate and made of thick, heavy clay. Its designs had been of just that - apples and flowers, all in white and blue.
“It is incredibly rude to leave your guests alone!” She heard from outside the door, but she did not move to go. Instead, she took the small green apple and let it fall inside the raised lip. She held her breath as she brought the carafe over and slowly poured the water in until the tension of it rose, nearly overflowing.
“Swirl it around?” She called out.
“Swirl it around.” The bird-woman confirmed from outside the threshold.
Val did as she was told, and a bit of water splashed out onto the floorboards. But, as the apple glided about, the water's surface turned first to gray, then mirror-like, reflecting everything above it perfectly - down to the specks of dust.
She covered her mouth but did not dare to lean over it for fear of what she would see. The notches took up a huge part of the walls now, so many that she’d not bothered counting them in a long, long time. As she looked at them, hundreds and hundreds lined the wood. She would be greatly surprised if it were not a thousand or even two or three. Without a doubt, she must be an old woman losing another ten years of her life to the Glade.
“Do you see all the hairs up your nose?” Sirin shouted.
Val did not reply. Instead, she leaned over, her eyes closed. So long had she not seen her own face that she was afraid she would not recognize the woman looking back at her.
When she gathered the courage to open them, she was rendered speechless.
She had not aged a day.
Although a couple of grays had mixed into her light chestnut hair, she looked the same as the last time she saw herself in the village. And Sirin had been right. Her face was dirty, and an unsightly red splotch had marred her chin. Her wild eyebrows had given the impression that perhaps she had lived alone in the woods for ten years.
“Gods…” She muttered, and then something made her stomach drop.
Here it was. The manipulation of time. She was sure that she spent every day and night in the Glade. She should have aged so much - yet time had not touched her. She’d found the hint of the forces here, although still out of reach.
“Sirin!” She called, grabbing the plate and hurrying outside.
“I don’t know what you could have seen that would excite you in there.” The bird-woman remarked.
“The time! It has not touched me!” Val’s hands shook, and a huge smile graced her face.
“And so?” Sirin inquired, growing tired of the fuss.
“So!” Val looked down at the plate, which now reflected only the clouds in the sky. “I’ve found it. I’ve found time.”
“You are so strange, Nameless One.” Sirin’s wings extended as she got ready to take off. “Of course, it hasn’t. Time doesn’t affect the Nothing-touched.”
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