Lisa leaned back against the barn wall, resting a hand on the swelling belly straining her clothing, breathing heavily. Doing the heavy work of tending to the pigs and sheep kept inside the wooden construction was tiring, even at the best of times. Now, however, with the child growing inside her, it was truly exhausting.

Her baby.

The thought of the life that her body was carrying filled her with tingles of joy. It was a blessed child, she could feel it. How exactly she had become pregnant was a mystery to her, somewhere in a hazy blur so many months ago. Maybe it was a gift from the gods? A holy child, a scion of Idia?

Whatever the case, she was determined to make its life as perfect as could be. She didn’t have a husband, the man she was seeing had left her when she had inexplicably fallen with child, but that didn’t matter any more. Once, she had felt sad, but now with the baby in her life she didn’t care about him at all. Let him stew in his own lonely misery, she didn’t need him.

“Lisa, you done in there?” A voice came from outside the barn. Bille, the mayor in all but name.

“Just taking a brief rest.” Lisa called back.

Bille walked into the barn, pulling a waterskin from a pack and handing it to her. Lisa accepted gratefully, drinking deeply from the refreshing liquid within.

“You alright?” He asked, his face filled with concern as he looked at her swollen stomach.

“Nothing I can’t handle.” Lisa said. “How are the others?”

“Almost done, you’re one of the last. A good thing too, because night isn’t far off.”

“Damn, we’d best finish here then.” Lisa sighed, handing the waterskin back and pushing herself from the wall with a grunt.

“I’ll help. You take the feed, I’ll shovel.” Bille said, nodding to her.

Together, they set to the remaining work, cleaning out the enclosure and refreshing the food for the animals. A task that normally would have been performed by a dozen hands throughout the fields and barns that fed the village.

Hands they no longer had available due to Srinaber.

Ever since the city had formed and started to offer free housing and food, the majority of the young folk in the village had flocked to it, eager for the easy life the city promised. Young folk that provided the majority of the physical labour that kept the village running. As a result, the work they would have completed, necessary work to care for the livestock and tend the fields that kept the village alive, had to be taken up by the rest of those that had stayed. That included pregnant women like Lisa and even the grandson of the mayor, Bille. From what she’d heard, that exact same loss of labour was hitting every other village along the Great North Road, throwing their whole social system into chaos.

Still, she wasn’t going to begrudge those who left their chance to seek a better life. A year ago, she’d have done the same, but any journey was risking an attack by chimeras, and she would never do anything to put her child at risk.

With two hands set to the task, Lisa and Bille finished barely more than a half-hour later, both their faces glistening with a sheen of sweat.

“Finally, let’s get back.” Lisa said, dabbing at the rivulets of moisture that streaked down her forehead.

“Thank you for your help, again.” Bille said, offering his arm, an offer that Lisa gratefully accepted. “Without all of you pulling together, I don’t know what we would have done these past months.”

“Well, it wasn’t purely altruistic.” Lisa said, smiling. “The coins you’re paying sure helped.”

Bille smiled ruefully. “Fair enough, but I appreciate it nonetheless.”

“Have you still had no luck with your grandfather?”

Bille shook his head. “Him and all his friends, all the older generation in fact, are still insisting that the farm work is for the younger generation, and they have ‘done their time’. Short-sighted nonsense.”

Lisa frowned. “How do they expect to survive the winter with that attitude? They can’t just force their grandchildren to do all the labour that is required around the village, because they’re gone.”

“I guess they’re hoping that they will come back, chastened and begging for forgiveness.”

Lisa let out a snort of laughter. “Fat chance of that happening.”

“I know, but no one is really thinking clearly these days.” Bille sighed.

“Well, except you.” Lisa said, nudging Bille playfully.

“Ha! I do my best with the authority that I have, as little as that is.”

“Well, keep on doing that, you’re about the only thing keeping this place together.”

Soon, the village came into sight, its wooden wall emerging from around the dense treeline. The gate, normally kept shut at all times, stood open, and a large carriage blocked the road just within.

“Looks like we have visitors.” Bille said. “I’m really sorry, but I’d best go see what is going on there before grandfather makes some awful blunder.”

“Go on, go deal with it. I can make it back just fine on my own. I’m pregnant, not an invalid.” Lisa said, waving him off.

Bille smiled gratefully, then hurried off to disappear through the gate. When Lisa finally made her way to it too, she could hear raised voices filtering through the air of the village.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“...taken enough already!” A gruff, older male voice shouted, the distinctive voice of Mayor Faris.

“Let’s calm down and think about this carefully.” A second voice responded, Bille.

“Yes, please do. These people are citizens, not slaves, so you have no right to hold anyone here against their will.” That was a third, unfamiliar, male voice.

“These are my people, you will not take another single one of them!” Mayor Faris shouted again.

“We only came to find a Lisa. She’d be in her late stages of pregnancy, likely…”

The rest of his sentence faded to mere buzzing as Lisa’s pounding heart drowned out the sounds around her. They’d come for her? Who were they? Why?

What should she do?

Should she flee, or hide? She hadn’t revealed herself yet, so they didn’t know she was literally on the other side of the carriage behind them. Where would she go, though, it wasn’t like she could just run off and shelter in the woods. With her child inside her, the chimeras would rip her to pieces before the night was up.

And anyway, then she’d never be able to sate her curiosity at who these people were.

Taking a deep breath, Lisa stepped around the carriage, only to freeze as her eyes settled on the strangers.

Two of them were dead.

Well, they were skeletons at least, standing perfectly still, their bones floating in mid-air. Between them stood a man, clad in a glorious wolf-skin cloak rimmed with purple stitching. He held his head high, staring down the furiously glaring Mayor Faris and his pack of equally geriatric cronies. Bille stood between the two groups, evidently trying to calm his grandfather, to little success. His eyes widened as they settled on Lisa, and he made a quick shooing motion, as if urging Lisa to hide herself once more. Too late, however, as Mayor Faris’s eyes also fell on her.

“Lisa, I forbid you to go with them!” He spat out, cheeks flushed bright red with anger or alcohol, it was hard to tell which with the man.

The newcomer turned to her, his face lighting up with an easy smile. “Oh, so this is Lisa. My name is Derren, and I bring a message and an offer.”

“W-what?” Was all Lisa could stammer out.

Derren continued. “Lord Reud bids me to personally invite you to Srinaber.”

“Lisa, I forbid you!” Mayor Faris shouted again, stepping forward. The moment he did, a skeleton also shuddered forward towards him, its bones clacking against the stone floor, causing the old man to flinch back.

“Mayor, I would advise not making any threatening movements.” Derren said, not turning from Lisa. “I do not have full control over Lord Reud’s minions, and they act as they please. If they deem you to be too hostile, there might be an unfortunate incident.”

The easy smile spread on Derren’s face once again. “Lisa, you and your child are special, if you hadn’t already realized that. Srinaber needs people like you, so please, come with me. I can promise you a life free of cares or worries, and free of the labour this place is evidently forcing upon you.” He gestured at the muck still staining her hands, boots, and smock.

Lisa’s cheeks flushed at the unexpected sincerity of his words. This man, dressed so richly and flanked by such magical servants, wanted her? It was almost too fantastical to be true.

“I-” She started to speak, only to be cut off by Mayor Faris once again.

“Forbid you, you hear! You have a duty to work for this village, you aren’t allowed to leave.” He yelled.

That sent a flare of anger through Lisa.

“I’ll go.” She snapped, before her mind even fully processed the words.

Then her heart started to race even more as she realized what she’d said.

The smile on Derren’s face grew wider still. “Fantastic, why don’t you go collect your possessions, and we can be on our way.”

He turned to the skeleton on the other side of him. “Please, go with her, protect her, and help her carry anything she needs.”

The skeleton shuddered into motion, clacking over towards her. Lisa flinched back, but stopped herself taking a step. She didn’t want to seem a coward in front of all these eyes. The skeleton stopped beside her in silence, a mere arm's length away, but otherwise not approaching any closer.

“You- You- But I ordered…” Mayor Faris spluttered.

“I think Lisa has made her decision, and we need to respect that.” Bille said, jumping up beside his grandfather and pulling him away.

“But- But-”

“Come now, maybe a drink or two will help settle your nerves.” Bille said, guiding him away. He threw an apologetic smile over his shoulder at Lisa, then turned back to the exhausting task of managing the mayor.

“Lisa, if you wouldn’t mind, the sooner we are on the road the better.” Derren said.

“Oh, sorry. I won’t be long.”

And true to her word, it took minutes to gather all her worldly possession, meagre as they were, from her home. A few dresses, smocks, and assorted other clothing. Some jewellery, none of it of anything but sentimental value. Her needles and thread, and a small number of unused bits of fabric. And that was it.

She hadn’t exactly led a very rich life.

The skeleton took everything without a word from her, filling its arms with the items as if they weighed nothing. Then it stood in the road, silently waiting for her to leave.

Lisa looked over the home she’d lived in for the past twenty years, the home that her parents and theirs before them had owned. She wanted to feel more sad about leaving, a greater attachment to the place, but she felt nothing. After her parents had died from the flux, the disease that had ripped through the villages along the Great North Road some half-decade ago, it had felt empty. Hollow.

Leaving it felt almost peaceful.

Lisa turned her back on her home and walked back through the village to the stranger and his strange horseless carriage, the skeleton clacking along behind her.

“Is that everything you want to bring?” Derren said as she stopped before him.

Lisa nodded.

“In that case, please, climb in and we can be off.” Derren said, the easy smile back on his face. He pulled open the carriage door and gestured within, bowing slightly.

Lisa’s face flushed once more at the formal treatment, the richly dressed man’s deference making her feel like a princess. Before she could overthink it, she climbed into the carriage’s interior, a simple thing with a bench on either side, lined with thick, soft furs. Derren climbed in after her, the skeleton pushing her things in beside them.

“To Srinaber, please.” Derren said to the skeleton, closing the door behind them.

The moment he did, the carriage shuddered into motion, turning in a little arc and rolling back out of the village gates, the skeletons walking along beside them.

“H-how?” Lisa stammered, immediately cursing herself for the question that must have marked her as an ignorant bumpkin.

Derren, however, didn’t seem to mind. “Lord Reud has created some real wonders for us all to share in. You’ll see much more than this when we get to Srinaber.”

Srinaber. All the changes that had so changed the lives of everyone over the past few months seemed to originate from that place, the source of wonders if the man sitting opposite her was to be believed.

And therefore the perfect place to raise her wondrous child.

Lisa rubbed her belly, settling back against the carriage wall, relaxing into its gentle rocking. After everything that had come in her life, she was ready for a bit of wonder.