8 : 345 : 14 : 02 : 51

The new day is still only a ghastly blue promise when I trek back to the fallen tree with the old man in tow. The next few days are going to be busy for us. We have to get everything we can pry off the thing and haul it indoors to dry. If it snows much more, the old man can’t make the trip anymore and I’m sure not doing this ship of Theseus by myself.

The senior citizen comes slowly with his stick and the big wicker basket on his back. I have to stop all the time to wait for him to catch up while a vague unease eats me inside.

“Chop, chop, put your back to it,” I cheer the old man on. “Almost there. This is the part where you summon your forgotten youth and surpass your limits.”

“I will, I will,” the old man answers with a wry smile. “I’m not so sure about my forgotten youth, but we’ll get there! There is no need to be in such a rush. A tree that big isn’t going anywhere.”

“Wouldn’t jinx it, if I were you. Knowing my luck, I wouldn’t be one bit surprised to get there and find the thing’s grown legs and taken a—”

We reach the top of the esker and stop short. I forget the rest of my sentence.

Just as I feared, we have a jolly surprise lying in wait for us. Actually, how this twist could surprise either of us, I have no idea, but we’re nonetheless left standing dumbstruck, watching the scene with our mouths agape.

Overnight, the previously quiet woodland scene has turned into Glasgow on the eve of the gold rush. As godforsaken early as it is, there’s a crowd hustling and bustling everywhere about the toppled spruce, the snow trampled to dirty slush. At least half the village is there, or that's how it seems.

A few have dug out their rusted, ancient axes, or brought heavy bludgeons of wood and are whacking off big boughs near the top part. Others peel the bark along the trunk in long strips, using dining knives or even spoons. The bark’s great for fixing your leaking roof, or padding walls, as all know. Anything they can rip off, the folk load into light sleighs and baskets, to drag back home posthaste. Judging by how high they’ve loaded their containers already, they must’ve been at it for an hour or two.

Of course.

The tree isn’t that far from the village. Somebody had to have heard and felt the bang when it fell, and we already knew Rheymar’s sons practically live among the trees. I should’ve known they’d get here sooner rather than later. I just didn’t think it would happen this soon.

Mr Rheymar himself is there too.

“Why, if it ain’t old Miller!” the geezer greets us with a big, wide grin on his rough, bony face. He poses on top of the fallen trunk, not doing much anything, just acting as a supervisor. The goddamn king of beggars among his peons. “Look what my boys found! The sheer size of 'er! Been a long damn while since I last saw a sucker this big come down! Must’ve been eaten down by the rot, eh. This should keep us warm for weeks to come!”

“I—I see,” the old man mumbles, his earlier smile melting into something of a cringe. “It is a magnificent tree indeed…”

“Y’know what?” Mr Rheymar squats to tell him. “I’m feelin’ unusually generous today! Finders keepers, that’s the rule; but I’ll throw you a bone, for old times’ sake. You and the runt—take what you can carry, and get going. Aye! Be quick now, don’t be shy. That is, if you can even keep two sticks in those stiff hands of yours, ha!”

Mr Rheymar looks around at his sons and their friends, who accompany the quip with ugly grins and snickering.

Well ain’t he a saint!

Listening on the side, I get weirdly hot, even though the morning is no less glacial than the others before it.

There’s something magmatic bubbling up inside me. Boiling over. And it’s not breakfast.

“Hey!” Before I realize it, I leap a step forward and yell at Mr Rheymar. “It was us who found the tree first, jerkface! What did you just say again? Finders keepers! So you go pick up your own tree! I’m not giving this to you!”

Why did I lash out like that, I don’t know. My frustration with the whole shitty village had to have reached its limit. I never knew I had it in me. Then again, were you to ask me what I’m really like, deep down, I wouldn’t know how to answer. I’m barely half a year old, after all.

“What?” Mr Rheymar turns back to frown at me. “What’re ya yappin’ about, kid? I don’t see your name on it—whatever you’re called this month! This tree fell on no man’s land. That makes it free for the taking! Don’t you even know that?”

“Huh?”

His comeback leaves me silenced.

I mean, technically, he’s got a point. It’s not like the tree's on our property. I didn’t grab a selfie to prove I blasted it down either. If I had a phone, I’d be at home browsing latina butts on Instagram, not picking up sticks in this frozen horse ass. In everyone else’s eyes, they were here first and we only just arrived. Our tracks from yesterday have been covered in new snow and trampled long since.

In other words, how can I prove I was here first? Is there no way at all? Surprisingly complicated, this timber business.

“But...!”

But it’s true I did all the heavy lifting in this case.

Shouldn’t I be rewarded for my own hard work?

Mr Rheymar scoffs at me.

“Don’t like it? Then maybe learn to get up when civilized people do! It’s our tree now and not your tree only because when we got to work here, you were still chasing sheep in the la la land! Ever heard this thing about early birds? That’s how life works in the grown-ups’ world! Let this be a lesson for ya!”

“Oh come on!” I get a lecture too?

“You better teach that kid of yours how things work in these parts, old goat,” the jerk tells our old man. “Else she’s gonna get herself in real trouble one of these days, with that loud mouth of hers!”

Spoil the whole plot, josser.

“R-right...” Miller mumbles and bows his head. The way he's learned to do since who knows how many years ago.

Mr Rheymar returns to work with the rest of the crew, while the old man gestures at me to follow along.

“Come on. Let’s take what we can, while they still let us...”

Let us? Give me a break. There’s barely anything left!

I stand and squeeze my little fists, unable to cope with the injustice of it all. I’m the one who mowed the damn thing down, and these skunks are just going to steal it right in front of my eyes? And then act like I should thank them for the honor to look at it? Not happening!

But what can I do?

There’s one thing that comes to mind.

One very obvious thing to do.

A feeble voice somewhere in the back of my head tells me I shouldn’t, that it’s a very bad idea. But the cricket can’t explain precisely why in rational terms. So I reject the voice of my conscience. Instead, I move to action.

I go and climb up to stand on the fallen tree and call the gang’s attention.

“Yo, listen up, all you goat-humpers! I told you we got here first! This tree’s all mine from the roots up! And if you want one needle out of this deal, then you’ve got to get on your knees and grovel for it!”

“H-hey!” The old man tries to stop me. “What are you doing!? Come down…!”

“—Pipe down, old man.” I brush him off. “You let them walk over you once and you’ll be a whipped dog to the end of your days. I mean, you already are—but not me. No way. I’m taking a stand, right here. There are things in life you don’t take sitting down, even I know that. Sometimes you say, enough is enough, or it's never going to stop!”

“The Hel’s wrong with the pipsqueak?” Mr Rheymar glares at me and the old man, demanding an explanation.

“I can prove I was here first,” I tell him and point my index finger between his eyes. “By chopping you down——just like I did the tree, you little sun-dried raisin of a geezer.”

Everyone goes quiet.

The axes and clubs stop swinging.

All the eyes are turned my way, showing evident confusion. For understandable reasons.

“What’s a raisin...?” Someone in the background asks.

Unnerved by my senseless gesture and no less senseless words, Mr Rheymar backs up a step. Then his face twists in anger and he steps back.

“Hey!” he barks at me. “You won't point fingers at me like that and get away with it, lassie! If the old goat can’t keep you on a leash, then I’ll teach you some manners myself! Gimme that!”

Mr Rheymar gets a stick from one of his sons, apparently planning to whip me to shape with it. And that’s where the real surprise comes in. As he comes along the trunk to me, I fix my aim a little and knock the stick from his grip with an impeccably timed Flashpoint. Snap!

The twig goes flying. Surprised by the shake, Mr Rheymar loses his balance. He slips and tumbles off the tree and into the snow, to everyone’s shock. Not like he got badly hurt, the snow cushioned his fall.

“You’ve got to ask yourself one question,” I tell him, the smuggest grin on my face, and aim my finger gun anew. “‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“What—what did you just do!?” Old Rheymar asks me back, sitting dazed on his arse on the ground. “What was that all about? You some kind of witch, you little wisecracker?”

“Before who I am, it’s what we do that matters—isn’t right, Master Wayne? That means, you should be very, very worried about what I can do right now! Unless you want to find out the hard way, I suggest you pack up the camp and go find your firewood elsewhere. Because from today on, this side of the forest is our turf! Got that memorized, old dude?”

“You…!” Mr Rheymar glowers at me, more than a little reluctant to obey. But he’s not entirely stupid, and he wouldn’t have made it as far as he has in life without some instinct of self-preservation. “...We’re off!”

In a commendable hurry, the crew packs up, and leaves. The younger generation has even less backbone than their pops, and they take off in an almost comical rush, abandoning their sleighs and some of the baskets in their hurry. Soon, Mr Rheymar’s generic parting remark sounds from a generous distance between the trees,

“I ain’t about to forget this, witch girl!”

I laugh out loud.

“Look at them go! What happened to the bravado?”

Our old man takes no part in my triumph. He watches the rivalry’s exit from the stage wearing an uneasy, dismayed look, and then turns to me with a helpless question,

“W-what did you do that for…?”

And I laugh at his dumb face and tell him not to worry about it.

In hindsight, why didn’t we just go somewhere else and topple another tree? It’s not like there was a shortage of them, and now that I knew the best way to do it, it wouldn’t have taken half as much effort either.

Because I was feeling lazy.

Because I was feeling rebellious.

Because I wasn’t really thinking at all. Because my blood was boiling, my reasoning faculties were jammed for being exhausted and starved for so long, and I stood at the height of hubris with my rediscovered magic powers. And my sanity sure isn’t going to improve a notch from there.

Let’s sum it up as an act of fate.

A case of good old providence.

Above all, it was my personal idea of justice. My way of getting back at the annoying pricks in the village. Whatever they thought about it, I didn’t care. We had wood now, we had warmth, and the means to make sure we’d never run out. All my suffering had finally started to pay off. That day, I felt like I had the whole world in my back pocket and it was a wonderful feeling.

Unfortunately, the world was a lot bigger than any of us knew. And I was about to get an unforgettable lesson that there are as many ideas about justice as there are people under the stars.

8 : 328 : 02 : 38 : 16

I’ve grown to love the hum of fire in the stove. It’s one of the most wonderful auditory experiences in life, I’m sure. At night, before I go to bed, I step outside the cabin to take a look at the thick pillar of smoke rising from our bent chimney and smile.

Too bad, I’m the only one smiling.

Both Selia and the old man stare at the dinner table without a sound and their faces are grim. They’ve been doing that a lot as of late. I was sure they'd get used to our new lifestyle before long, but somehow it only seems to get worse.

“Okay.” I stop my spoon, unable to bear the heavy air any longer. “What’s wrong?”

“The villagers spit when I pass them,” Selia tells me. “The elderly make warding gestures. The children run away when they see me come. Some of them threw sticks and pine cones at me today. Nobody wants my help anymore. Everyone must’ve heard what happened. I’m sure Mr Rheymar is only willing to trade with me now because they need wood and we’re the only ones who have a good supply. The others are too afraid to go deeper into the woods anymore.”

Were they really such a bunch of chicken? Who would’ve thought they’d freak out that bad over a little pop? Imagine if they ever saw me go all out.

“They’ll get over it,” I assure Selia and continue my soup.

I should go and give the kids a solid spanking too. Nobody throws stuff at Selia and gets away with it! Geez!

“I’m not so sure they will,” Selia objects, less confident. “I heard they sent someone to Pelgen weeks ago!”

“Am I supposed to know what's Pelgen?”

“It’s the nearest town outside the forest.”

“Okay. So?”

“It’s a real, proper town, you know?”

Seems I’m going to be famous. I should learn how to write my own name, at least. The autograph’s going to sell like hotcakes soon. Maybe learning to read would be a good idea too. So they can’t put any shady small print in the contract when I sell the brand rights.

“The practice of witchcraft is prohibited by the kingdom’s law!” Selia informs me. “If the villagers complain all the way to the local Jarl about what you did, there’s a chance he will send guardsmen to investigate! And if they find their way here, you might be—”

“—Yeah, yeah,” I interrupt her with a wave of my hand. I can already see the punchline. “Let them come, I’ll deal with them. Trust me, I’ve seen a lot worse.”

Selia doesn’t look convinced. There’s nothing but alarm and shock in her eyes.

“Ereia! When did you become so mean?”

“What?” I can’t believe my ears. “What do you mean, ‘mean’? They were the ones being mean to us, right? We were about to starve! Finally, things are looking up for us, and I’m the bad guy now? Get real! They got a taste of their own damn medicine! And for the thousandth time, that’s not my name. Stop pushing it.”

“Prospering through threats and terror is evil!” she tells me. “I preferred being despised to being feared. And what’s wrong with the name? It’s a beautiful name! Maybe you don’t like it because you have such ugly thoughts in your head!”

“Give me a break!” I grab my bread, and tear off a mouthful with my canines. “Things are a lot better this way, believe me. And I’m okay with not being beautiful, if it means being spared of that name.”

“What do you think, father?” Selia turns to the old man for backup. “We should—Shouldn’t we give all our wood to the villagers and apologize to them?”

“Pwhaaaat?” I almost choke on my bread. “Ahe hew hoking?”

“I’m serious!” Selia insists, and her unusually stern gaze tells me as much. “You have power! You should use that power for the good of us all, to better the lives of everyone in the village, and not to wring unfair leverage over them!”

I can only shake my head at her naivety. I can get wood for our household, sure, but why would I work my ass off to provide for the whole slum of losers? Give me a break. I like to act like it’s super easy, but it’s not!

As I remain righteously appalled, the old man opens his mouth.

“Selia is right. It’s not appropriate, the way we went about this. Antagonizing the other villagers, monopolizing the woods…We should turn from this path while we still can. Let’s make peace with the others.”

“Make peace?” I snort. “They hate our guts! They should be the ones begging us for forgiveness! Always badmouthing you two, always giving too little, always gossiping behind your back, making faces, always, always, always—”

“—They kept us alive,” Selia argues. “They sold us what we didn’t have. They let us have scraps even when we couldn’t afford any. They let us take wood when we found none, and helped us survive the winters until now. So what if they said some mean things from time to time? It’s only so much words! Don’t actions speak louder? Isn’t that what I taught you?”

“Talking is an action too. And life without dignity and respect is a dog’s life. I’d rather be dead.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Well, I do. We have everything we need now, without having to work ourselves to death for it. What about that misery was so great that you’d want to go back to it?”

“We had our pride. Even if it’s not something that shows easily on the outside, we could live with our conscience clear!”

“Clear conscience filled nobody’s stomach.”

“But it made the hunger easier to bear!”

“News to me!”

“Am I wrong then?”

“Yes, you are.” I feel stupid to even say something so obvious. “I’m not so hungry now, and there’s nothing wrong with my conscience either. If only you didn’t endlessly nag at me for turning our lives around, it’d be a downright paradise. Thanks for the grub. I’m off to bed.”

I get up and leave the table.

The bed’s barely three meters away distance-wise, but it feels like an appropriately dramatic exit.

The conversation does die, although I’m not so sure if the following silence is that much better.

I share the bed with Selia, since it’s the only bed in the house, if we exclude the little bunk the old man has in the living room alcove. Back when this was my sickbed, Selia would sleep on the floor, with only some rags for cushion. But there’s enough room for two, if you don’t mind a bit of healthy skinship. And I’ve learned not to mind.

Not at all.

Before I realized, I grew to depend on Selia’s warmth. It helped us through many chilling nights, when there was not enough wood to keep the stove on. I can no longer sleep well without the presence of another. But at some point in the recent weeks, we started to sleep with our backs turned, the contact minimal. We have a strong fire, so we’re warm even without sticking that close. But I don’t like it. Something about this state of affairs frustrates me so much I want to scream.

But I can’t give in now.

I’m not the one who’s wrong! I refuse to admit that.

Determined to become an independent sleeper, I make no move as Selia crawls under the covers behind me. Right as I’m about to fall asleep, I feel her arms reach around me. She holds me tight and close, and I begin to think there’s something in the warmth she shares with me that no number of trees can replace.

I see.

Just like the body is warmed with fire, there’s a different fire that warms the soul.

Selia buries her face in my hair.

“Hey,” her gentle whisper carries into my ear. “Are you asleep?”

“Mhmm,” I make a faint noise, too tired to speak up.

“Would you like to run away with me?”

“Hn…?”

Did I hear that quite right? Or am I already dreaming?

“Things can’t go on like this,” Selia continues. “I know that. I’ve known for a long time. As much as I would’ve liked to stay like this forever, just the three of us, it wasn’t meant to be. I know that. Everything changes. There’s nothing but bad choices left for us in this village. I always knew the ending waiting for me here wasn’t going to be a beautiful one. So we should go. Father doesn’t want to leave, but we can leave, just the two of us. It doesn’t matter where we go. Surely anywhere’s better than here.”

“...”

It’s a terribly naughty proposal for Selia.

But I don’t mind the idea. Not at all. In fact, I’m about to voice my unconditional agreement when Selia’s voice continues in a bittersweet tone,

“Yes. I know. We can’t. It’s just a silly dream. Your path and mine can’t go the same way. Mine’s with my father, while yours is—somewhere better. We’re from different worlds. You’re someone special, destined for great things. I knew that from the moment I first saw you. But I’m still scared. I’m scared to be alone again, not knowing where to go, or what to do…”

“...I’m not going anywhere,” I mumble, barely awake anymore.

Not without you.

You weren’t born to die in a backwater shithole like this. I know that.

You were born to be dressed in silk and gold, and dance in great halls where crystal chandeliers sparkle and glitter and wine pours nonstop. But I don’t have the life experience or eloquence to put the feeling into real words yet. And I’m so tired, for overusing my magic in the recent weeks.

But that’s all right. I can tell her tomorrow. Or any other day. We have all the time in the world.

I don’t know about destiny, but I won’t let anyone get in our way. I have the power to protect us now.

“I love you,” Selia whispers and kisses the back of my neck. “Don’t go down the wrong path. It won’t make you happy.”

At her soft words and the softness on my back, I finally slip into a deep slumber, thinking nothing out there could possibly hurt us, fully content with my meager existence as a firewood-making machine. But Selia was right. She was always right.

It wasn’t meant to be.