Tip. Tap. Tip. Tap.

With a gasp, Edda’s eyes opened. Her entire body jerked, as one does when waking suddenly from a dream. Her hands scrambled for purchase, and she clawed the surfaces they met, clutching them with force enough to break her nails. Eyes rolling in a frenzy from side to side, she saw nothing for several excruciating moments. There were other sounds, maybe, but all were muffled except for that tip tap and the frantic sound of her breathing.

Where was she? Blood and bloody bones, where was she? Panic gripped her like a vice. The fire. By the mother of all things, it had been so hot. Was she burning? Was she still burning? A strangled cry escaped her lips, and she flailed wildly, comprehending nothing.

“Miss Edda?” a soft, concerned voice queried. A small hand seemed to appear out of nowhere, and then it clasped her knee, and suddenly she could feel it. Not the melting of her skin. Not the searing of her flesh.

Reality converged around that gentle voice, that firm touch. She was sitting; not tied to a scorching metal pole, not even curled up on a paltry bed of straw, but properly seated upon a cushioned bench. She was not in pain. Her vision was blurry, but she blinked away tears and her eyes focused on the woman across from her, whose hand on her knee seemed to anchor her to the present. They were in a small, lit compartment; above her, she could see neither a smoke-filled winter’s sky nor rough grey stone—instead, a rich wooden ceiling.

Tip. Tap. Tip. Tap.

And yet the sound still tormented her. Panting, she swung her head around in search of its source. Throwing herself toward the heavy drapes on one side of the compartment, she yanked them apart. A window, and outside of it, a gigantic black crow perched on the frame, its single red eye staring straight at her. Beyond that, the mid-evening dusk framed bare-branched trees as they passed the window one after the other.

“Mother and maiden!” the woman exclaimed, momentarily distracted from her concern over Edda’s stricken behaviour. She flapped her hands at the window hastily, intent on driving the bird off. But the colossal thing was undeterred, twitching its head this way and that as it maintained its steady, red-eyed glare. “It’s brought you a black dream, it has. The blasted thing.”

They were in a moving carriage, Edda realized. As if to punctuate her realization, a bump in the road lifted her ever so slightly off her seat and she made out the telltale clip clop of laboring horses. The plump, middle-aged woman across from her was her maid Marta, who had tended her for as long as she could remember. This was no execution. This was no prison. Her breathing calmed a bit, but her hands remained fisted in the thick drapes. Her knuckles were white, her fingers cold.

“Where is this?” Edda managed, her voice shaking. Something was dawning on her, some sickening realization.

Marta left off her attempts at frightening the crow away, redirecting her attention toward Edda with brows drawn in sympathy. “My poor dear,” she said, reaching forward to grasp one of Edda’s hands warmly, “Not to worry, Miss Edda. We’re very nearly at Cachtice Castle. Should be there before full dark.”

Edda could feel the blood drain from her face. A wave of light-headedness, of nausea, of pure dread washed over her. No, no, no. Not there. Not where it had all started.

Tip. Tap. Tip. Tap.

The crow rapped its beak against the window again, looking steadily at Edda. As if it knew. As if it was reminding her. It had been her arrival at Cachtice Castle all those years ago that had triggered her torturous wait for death, with only the tip tap of leaking water to keep her company. It had been the events that had taken place at Cachtice Castle over the last decade that had steered her, inevitably and obliviously, to her agonizing demise. And the bird knew, so it reminded her.

“Stop the carriage,” Edda said quietly. Her head spun. Her stomach surged. She could not return to Cachtice Castle.

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The bird blinked its bloody eye and launched itself off the windowsill with a solid thunk, disappearing into the darkening forest.

“Stop the carriage!” Edda managed, lurching forward with her hands over her mouth, barely in time to prevent herself from spewing the contents of her stomach all over the upholstered seating.

Swearing prolifically for a woman of such sweet temperament, Marta knocked twice, loud and hard, against the wall behind her. There was a shout, and then another, and within moments the carriage began to slow. Edda did not wait for it to come to a stop. A hand still clapped over her mouth, she wrenched open the carriage door, stumbling through the threshold and falling the rest of the way to the road below. She rolled, catching herself on wrists and knees. A shooting pain ran up her left arm and it gave way as her body began to empty in waves of bitter retching.

Looking up from where she lay in her own ill, she saw the crow perched nearby, its red eyes trained on her expectantly. It watched her because it knew. She could not return to Cachtice Castle. She would not.

Pushing herself up with her good hand, she was cognizant that the carriage had finally come to a stop some ways off. Marta was calling for her, joined by two male voices; but it was not to them she went. She pitched herself into the forest, through tangled branches and thorny briar that pulled and shredded her soiled dress. The shadows were deep, and she could see little, but she did not care. Anywhere. Anywhere but Cachtice Castle.

Loud, flapping wings alerted her to the crow, just in time for her to duck as it swooped down to grab at her hair. Its talons grazed her scalp, not hard enough to draw blood, but enough to startle her out of her panicked run. The animal landed on a low branch in front of her, and fixed her with its shining, ruby eye. It was the largest crow she had ever seen. Its silky black feathers shone, iridescent even in the dim evening light. And its eyes. Those eyes would not let her escape. She stood before it, gasping and wild-eyed, like a criminal awaiting a brutal judgment. Like the criminal she already was.

“No,” she whispered, “Please, no.”

It cocked its head, still holding her gaze. And then it spoke, in a voice that was almost beyond comprehension, “The tragedy has already begun.”

Edda fell to her knees before the crow, her heart thundering in her chest. Why not a talking crow? Why in the hells not a bloody talking crow? A part of her had already realized it the moment she had recognized Marta. Her memory of her trip to Countess Elizabeth Bathory’s castle more than ten years ago had faded to a vague outline in her mind. It was not an event she often revisited. But one did not need more than an outline to paint the full picture when one had been thrust directly into the canvas.

Marta was dead. She had died almost a decade ago, not long after their arrival at Cachtice Castle. But she had been alive in the carriage just now, just as she had been when they’d first made this journey. And her hands had been warm.

“I cannot return,” Edda pleaded, “I do not understand, but I cannot return to that place.”

“Then you will die in the forest.” There was no emotion in the words; the crow stated a simple fact. “Choose.”

Choose. So, she could choose this time. There had been no choice during her first journey. Stupid, foolish Edda had made few choices for herself back then. Her father had chosen to accept the invitation to Countess Bathory’s gynaeceum on her behalf. And stupid, foolish Edda had been excited for it. She had chattered to Marta the entire way from Hesse. Alternately spouting silly fantasies about what it would be like to escape her overbearing father and brothers with tearful regrets about leaving behind her beloved younger sister. But this time, she could choose?

“I do not wish to die,” Edda said. Not in this forest now, and not on the pyre either.

The crow cocked its head as though curious. “Then you must return to Cachtice Castle and change your fate with your own hands.”

A thrill ran through Edda’s entire body. Change her fate with her own hands. Could she do such a thing? Was it really possible? To avoid the inevitable? To change a future she had already witnessed? She gulped. “But how? I still don’t understand what’s happening.”

Caw caw caw. The crow’s glassy red eye betrayed nothing despite the noise it made. It took Edda a moment to realize that it was laughing. “You understand. Already, the future has changed.” The bird fluffed its feathers, then extended its wings. A spike of panic pierced her as she understood that it readied itself for flight.

“Wait! Please, explain to me what is happening. Tell me what to do!” She stumbled to forward to her feet, grabbing at the crow as it launched itself into the air. “Please!” She stepped back again, craning her neck to watch as it circled once, twice overhead just out of her reach. “Please!” she pleaded, but the crow continued to ascend into the sky.

“Already the future has changed. If you wish to change it further, you must listen to the whispers. You must choose when to be seen.”

“Please!” Edda screamed, but the crow was already out of sight, lost to the inky sky.