The woman floats above the ground, wrapped in mist and a torn thin dress that floats like in water. Her hair floats around her face, both as white and cold as death. Her eyes are dead too, black and cold and rotted away. But even dead they are still so, so angry.
Ruchessa blinks and the dream is gone, she holds the cold blankets about her and stares out the wet window, into the mist. She buries herself under the blankets and tries to get warm again, but she can’t. She is always cold now.
Their farm stretches across miles of rugged land torn through by rivers and ravines. The trees and old forests are all cleared away to make space for the sheep but there are still pockets of pines here and there which the children are forbidden from entering. They do anyway.
There are six of them, a high number for those living out in the country. Their nearest neighbours have only four children and four graves, put there from miscarriages, illnesses, and disappearances into the wilds. But Ruchessa and her siblings have no graves, and so they have grown bold.
Leading the way in all their adventures is Tomry, a young boy who speaks of dragons and wolves and hideous monsters in the dark forests that need slaying. He wields a stick in the shape of a sword and keeps it in his room after their father accidentally used the last one for kindling and he cried for days.
Following Tomry is Henna, a girl not four years old who spends most of their adventures with her thumb in her mouth, sticking as close to her elder brother as possible. She has no interesting stories or wise sayings to help them as Tomry does, Ruchessa is not particularly fond of her.
Next is Marnuk, the second oldest after Ruchessa. He fell down a hillside once while climbing amongst the roots and dirt and now walks with crutches, unable to follow them in some of the highest places they go.
And then there is Ruchessa, the other two siblings are still in cradles so it is her and the others that make the rounds of the farm. She is the oldest and soon she will be sent away to boarding school so she can learn all the secrets of the world. She has been climbing and crawling and running all over the farm as long as she can remember. Her mother fusses over her dirty clothes and dirtier hair and says she will have to learn to keep herself tidy when she goes to the city for boarding school. Ruchessa is not especially looking forward to that part.
Today their adventure is taking them up to the old farmstead, yet another place they are forbidden from going. It is an old crumbling building with huge holes everywhere that overlooks the whole farm. Their father says it was built many years ago but then abandoned because it was too high up and hard to get to. It is not too hard for them though.
“It’s dark in here,” Tomry says, cautiously leading the way, stick at the ready.
“Mm,” Henna agrees, sucking on her thumb.
“It’s not very big,” Ruchessa says, disappointed. “It looked bigger on the outside.”
“S probably all this junk,” Tomry says wisely, shoving at a box which doesn’t move.
Marnuk staggers up behind them on his crutches. “Dark in here,” he says.
“I already said that,” Tomry hisses at him, trying to open the box.
Ruchessa is trekking through the dust and old farm equipment to the other end of the farmhouse. There is a huge hole in the wall through which she can see the whole farm. It is very magnificent and beautiful. But she is more interested in the pile of rusty scythes stacked up against the wall. They will beat Tomry’s stick. She happily picks one up but it is much heavier than she expects and she stumbles around. Marnuk limps into the room.
“That’s dangerous, put it down.”
“It’s just a scythe. Only scary if- if you’re a piece of wheat.”
“Um, well... no...”
“Guys, guys guys!” Tomry says from behind them, speaking far too fast. They turn to look and he has pulled up a trapdoor covered in spiderwebs and dust. “A basement, let’s go in.”
Marnuk has reservations but he isn’t brave enough to voice them so the four of them descend, Tomry and Ruchessa going first with their weapons. The stairs are old and rotten but they take the weight of four children. The room is filled with spider webs but the path down the stairs is mostly clear. It is dark in the room but there are small holes that let in just enough light to see by. The room is stone and mostly empty but in the middle is a lectern.
“What’s this?” Tomry asks, looking at the lectern.
“S a speech thing I think,” Ruchessa says standing in front of it. “We be gathered here today to witness the crowning of queen Ruchessa! A noble and-”
“Let me have a turn.”
“No, I was here first.”
“I think you should put down the scythe.”
“Mm.”
A cold wind blew through the basement. The children didn’t often stop arguing but this time they did. They stood in silence and shivered. They didn’t run, they couldn’t look scared in front of the others, but they walked a lot faster than was probably necessary. They left the farmhouse covered in cobwebs and went back home. In all their excitement they hadn’t noticed the square patch on the lectern with no dust.
Ruchessa left for boarding school later that week. She waved goodbye to the rest of her family and then her father took her on the cart to Rundale, a small town and the furthest away from home she’d ever been. She was dressed in her nicest clothes, things she’d always been forbidden from wearing on the farm, which meant she’d always been forbidden from wearing. The clothes were tight and they itched, her parents claimed that feeling would go away eventually. All her belongings were in her suitcase in the back, her parents hadn’t allowed her to bring the scythe, apparently young ladies didn’t have those in the city. From what she’d learned it seemed young ladies didn’t have much in the city.
As they rode along and the countryside rolled past them her father spoke to her in his kindly way. He was a small man with a big beard that she liked to braid, he still had one of her braids in it now. “The city’s a funny place,” he was saying. “It’s so very small and cramped with all the buildings and the people. But it’s oh so big all the same. The first time I went to the city I felt very trapped and squeezed like I was going to burst, you might feel like that too. But you should ride it out, the city’s just different, it’s really not so bad once you get used to it. And who knows, some people like the city, gods bless them, maybe you’ll be one of them.”
Ruchessa nodded along, she couldn’t imagine the city was that much bigger than Rundale, there were lots of people there by her standards, it wasn’t so bad.
The city was much bigger than Rundale. It was so big she couldn’t even see the whole thing and every street was packed with more people than she had ever seen in her entire life, they were everywhere! The buildings were as big as trees, some were as big as hills, and it was so loud, it was all so much.
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Even once she got to the boarding house and into her room it was still so loud. There were people in the streets below her window, there were dogs barking and babies crying, there were footsteps on the cobblestones. So many footsteps. She thought she was going to go insane.
But she didn’t. She rode it out just like her father had said and soon she was used to it. Noises that all faded into the background. She focused on her studies and made friends with the other girls in the boarding house. They weren’t well liked by the girls from the city who thought they were all dirty farmers or worse, immigrants. Ruchessa wasn’t an immigrant but she didn’t see why they didn’t like them. So they hung out in their little group and helped each other with homework and with various misadventures. They stole pies from the kitchens, climbed up onto the roof, someone stole a telescope from somewhere and they used it to look at the stars, they went swimming in the sea and jumped off the wharves. Ruchessa had never seen the sea before, it was salty and cold but she enjoyed it all the same.
She wrote to her family every month, sending letters with the travelling merchants that went out into the country. She told them of all her adventures and the excitement of the city, they wrote back and told her of what was happening at home, of the sheep and the hills and what was happening to the house, she wasn’t especially interested though, it wasn’t exciting like her adventures she thought. Even Marnuk’s part of the letters, recounting where they’d been exploring, didn’t interest her as much as talking about what she’d been up to. He said that Sammy and Tessa, the young twins, had joined in their expeditions now that they were old enough. He said Tomry couldn’t wait for her to get back so he could show her all the new places he’d found. She’d rather show him all the new places in the city she’d found. She did miss home though, she wished they’d had one last proper adventure before she’d left rather than that short trip to the old farmhouse. To the lectern in the basement and the cold wind.
Winter came and it rained heavily in the city but the roads didn’t turn to sticky mud like at home. They were all cobbled and curved and all the water just drained off them. It was harder to find merchants to take her letters in the winter, they didn’t travel as much and then they didn’t travel at all. Apparently there’d been a terrible storm, the worst storm in years they said. All the roads were out and contact had been lost with most farms. Ruchessa stayed awake for a long time after she learned that, hoping her family was okay. That was when the nightmares started.
It was always the mist and the figure of the dead woman floating in it. Eyes long gone but still angry with her somehow. What had she done? Why her? She tossed and turned and huddled down in her warm blankets, keeping herself awake by listening to the rain on the roof.
Winter stretched into spring and then summer and the roads were finally put back in shape. A letter arrived from her family. They were all fine, they said and she was relieved. Apparently her siblings had all been out exploring, as usual, when the storm hit, but they’d all made it home safely. Her parents had been very worried though and had stopped them from exploring for the whole storm, Tomry had been very upset at that.
After finishing the letter she began to write one of her own, getting more and more excited as she did so. It was almost the end of the school year and soon she would get to go home and see them all again. The city had been fun but it would be good to get back home, especially with the mist and the nightmares, she didn’t put those in the letter.
When she was done she sent the letter with one of the many merchants heading that way now that the roads had reopened and eagerly watched them go, awaiting her turn.
The next month she left with her dad’s old friend Dramos, a big cheery man with a beard even bigger than her dad’s. He wasn’t very cheery today though, he sat quietly in his cart and trundled along muttering to himself.
Eventually he spoke to her but she didn’t like what he had to say. “The storm’s changed things girl, people up in the country have done all they can to survive... Some people’re... well some people’re different now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well you might get back to your family and find... well... that they’ve changed...”
“My family has changed?”
“Well... yes. I was up there soon as the roads came back, checking out everyone, making sure they’re okay. You’re family’s one of the lucky ones, five children all caught in the storm and they all survived, most folk aren’t that lucky. But when I met them they didn’t seem all that happy about it. You think something like that happens you’ll be over the moon but I never seen your parents so sad.”
Ruchessa folded her arms angrily. “My family will be fine, maybe they’re just sad because they lost some sheep in the storm.”
“They’ve lost sheep before, before you were born they had some sickness, lost many more sheep than this. Something’s different this time... And there’s one more thing, they sent a letter back with me-”
“For me?”
“No for the school. I know it ain’t right but I read it.”
“What did it say?”
“They’re pulling you out of the school next year. You won’t be coming back to the city.”
That was her least favourite part of what he’d said. She didn’t really understand the significance of her parents acting sad, but she knew what that meant. She wouldn’t see any of her new friends again, have any new adventures, swim in the sea anymore. She sat in sad silence for the rest of the ride.
It was misty back at the farm, Dromas said it was often misty now, probably something to do with the storm he reckoned. Ruchessa wasn’t so sure, she kept seeing movement in the mist and looked for the dead woman but it was always just trees or birds or leaves. But she could feel the eyes on her, those angry dead eyes.
Dromas let her off near the house and she ran off, dragging her suitcase behind her, eager to escape the mist. She burst through the door and her parents were there. Her mother saw her and took her in her warm arms, crying. Why was she crying?
“Mum are you okay?”
Her mother didn’t reply, she just sniffed and wiped her tears. Her father wasn’t crying, he looked grim instead, beneath his beard. There were no braids in it, it had been a long time since she’d seen it without braids in it.
“Come with me,” her father said and led her through the house, leaving her mother crying behind her. She looked around confused, what was going on?
Her father reached the door to the office, a room they were never allowed in and one whose boundaries they had actually respected. He opened the door and there was the dead woman, floating in her cold mist but she wasn’t angry now, now she was happy, and that was all the more terrifying. Ruchessa jerked away but her father was much stronger and pulled her in, by the time she got in the woman was gone, as was the mist, all that remained was an old dusty book on a lectern and a mirror.
“Be calm Chessa,” her father said sadly. “There is nothing to fear.” That was a lie but she believed him and stood, scared, in the room. Her father went to the lectern and opened the book, he was already regretting finding it and even more regretting reading it. But there was no choice now, he had to save his family.
“Take this,” he gave her a knife. It wasn’t a knife from the kitchen but rather a knife he used for killing animals, a big knife, a heavy knife. She was not getting any calmer.
“Come this way,” he led her to the mirror where she stared at her own reflection. Did she really look that pale and scared?
“Reach out,” her father said, biting back tears now. “Touch the mirror.”
Ruchessa could have resisted, she could have refused. Her father was in little state to stop her and she had a knife. But she was in the grip of Malafrien now, and Malafrien would have her prize.
As she reached for the mirror she looked at the knife in her reflection’s hand. It was so big, so deadly, not something she could come to terms with holding, never mind using. It hung heavy in her hand, so heavy she could never lift it. But her reflection could.
She touched the mirror and the knife came out of it and into her.
She tries to get warm under the blankets but it is impossible. She is always cold now. She tosses and turns and watches the curling mist, watching for the floating dead woman. She knows it is not a woman now, it is something else, something horrible that hides behind those dead eyes. But it doesn’t matter, it scares her all the same. Or it has.
Tonight she decides she will no longer be scared. Tonight she will face the mist and whatever might be hiding in it. Tonight she will face the cold.
She puts on her warmest clothes which do nothing to warm her and sneaks quietly out of the house. The farm is quiet, so very quiet, not like the city. She wants to go back to the city, to see her friends again but her parents have forbidden her, they say she will stay on the farm now to help them. She refuses, she will go back to the city if she has to walk the whole way herself.
So she starts to walk. She has lived on the farm her whole life and explored its every inch, she knows where she is going. She doesn’t trip or falter and makes it to the edge of the farm. The woman watches her. Malafrien watches her.
She looks back at her house, smothered in the mist. She is not sure if she will ever come back. Malafrien is sure, Malafrien knows she won’t. Then she turns and walks away and disappears, for she is an illusion, a reflection spawned from the book to mimic the real daughter who was the price her parents paid Malafrien. And illusions cannot go very far from the book that spawns them.
Malafrien does not mind, and her family likely won’t either, they can make another illusion, they have the knowledge that Malafrien gave them after all their other children died in the storm. The dead woman watches where she disappeared, then she herself disappears. She has other matters to attend to, other books in the hands of other people. The mist around Ruchessa’s household begins to fade, but it is never truly gone.