Page 57 of The Witch in the Dead of Night

I grinned. Silas made that offering to the Goddess of Marriage and Fertility nearly every spring. “You know,” I said, parroting one of his favorite lines, “as High Priest of Wealdstone, he is responsible for the spiritual wellbeing of our charming little hamlet.”

“Nor does he take his duties lightly,” she quipped.

“A husband and a few little ones would certainly put some meat on her bones,” came a familiar voice.

I practically tripped over my feet as the words met my ears, whipping my head around to stare at Silas. “Did you hear that?” I asked Gran, astonished.

She fixed me with a sardonic glare. Her eyes were a mirror image of mine, as dark blue and fathomless as the colossal lake that stood between here and Bard. “You know very well that I am deaf to useless drivel,” she said.

I laughed despite myself. As one of the village elders, Gran had overheard her fair share of snide comments. And yet, she never took them to heart. I wished I had even half of her gall. She caught Silas’s eye and gave an exaggerated wave and smile, revealing a row of crooked teeth.

The High Priest turned his watery eyes away from us and shuffled down the street, pausing to exchange heated words with the barkeep, Mr. Farrow, over the state of his grimy windows. “Farrow!” he barked. “The gods do not look favorably upon the unkempt, you know.” I rolled my eyes.

We paused as we reached the home of Willa and Gregor Bonny. Their house was humble, like most in Wealdstone, with graying walls and a thatched roof that smelled faintly of mildew. Still, it was nicer than the battered cottage I shared with Gran that sat on the outskirts of the village. I knocked, my knuckles stinging as I rapped them lightly against the wood. A few moments later the door swung wide. “Finn, Ettie, it’s lovely to see you both,” said Willa.

Her youngest boy, Callum, peeked out from beneath her skirts. Willa and I had been close friends as children. We used to forage for mushrooms around the edge of the woods under my father’s watchful eye. The mushrooms would feed our families, but back then it was simply a game to us. When she met her husband, Gregor, toward the end of our school years, she had fallen head over heels in love with him, as teenagers do. She dropped out of school shortly after she realized she was pregnant. Now, she was swollen with her fourth child.

“Hello there,” said Gran, smiling widely at the child. His eyes rounded and he ducked behind his mother.

“Don’t mind him,” said Willa, stifling a yawn.

“A shy one, eh?” Gran chuckled. “Finn was the same as a child. Not Jem, though, couldn’t stop him from befriending every stranger on the street.”

My smile faltered at the mention of my brother’s name. The knife wound that his loss had left in my heart had dulled over the years, but never healed. Willa’s lips stretched into a tight line. “I remember.”

Willa’s family had been spared during the outbreak of violet fever that had ravaged Wealdstone eight years ago, but she still laid a stone on the cairn for mine. I glanced down as her son reemerged. He took after her, with his ashy blonde hair and big brown eyes. “How much do we owe you, Ettie?” asked Willa, taking the linens off my hands.

“Just five today,” Gran replied.

“Take these inside,” Willa instructed her son, patting him gently on the back. He clutched the linens with grubby hands before wandering clumsily into the house. Willa shoved swollen fingers into her apron, fishing out five copper coins and dropping them into my palm.

“You look about ready to burst,” said Gran. “How are you feeling?”

She groaned. “My back hurts something awful and my ankles are so fat that I can barely walk. Midwife says another week or so, but I’m just about ready to yank this babe out myself.”

Gran let out a barking laugh. “I remember the feeling, although it was quite a long time ago. Best of luck to you,” she said.

Unfamiliar voices at our backs caught my attention. I turned, catching sight of a group of men on horseback towering over Silas. There were five in total, four of them flanking a hulking beast of a man with a shaved head and golden rings looped through his earlobes. Their captain, if I had to guess.

They had clearly been on the road for some time, their horses thin and their skeins deflated. Cloaked in muddied furs, they could be trappers if not for the fact that they were armed to the teeth with a chilling array of crude weapons. Rusty blades, splintered arrows, and stocky axes that could have been lifted from a farmer’s wood stack were tucked into their belts.

Their voices grew louder, and when they turned their eyes onto us, Willa shrank away, placing a swollen hand on her belly. I wrapped my fingers around my grandmother’s arm, unsure of what to do. “Where’s the tavern?” barked the man with the shaved head.

“Now see here,” said Silas, standing in the man’s way. “What is your purpose in Wealdstone?”

“This dump has a name?” laughed one of the gang, a short creature with a braided beard.

“All visitors must announce themselves upon entering the village,” said Silas.

“And before coming into my establishment,” grunted Mr. Farrow. Although he was nearing old age, he had once been as formidable as any of these men, according to Gran. He had served as Captain of the Guard in Bard for a time before retiring to the village to run the tavern. The band of men laughed heartily in response to Mr. Farrow’s words, save for one, whose lips pulled into a tight line as he twirled a blade between his fingers. His eyes were as watery as his nose.

More and more villagers were leaning out of their windows and doorways, a small crowd forming in the streets. I imagined that Silas would have chastised them for their unhealthy curiosity if he wasn’t frozen where he stood. “We mean you no harm,” said the one with the shaved head. “We are simple trappers from the east looking for a place to lay our heads.”

“There is no inn here,” Silas replied in a shaky voice. “So I’m afraid you’ll have to be on your way.”

I didn’t hold Silas in particularly high regard, but I could almost respect him in that moment for standing his ground. The man with the shaved head leered over him as if he might flay him alive and eat him for lunch.

“I’m sure we can make arrangements,” he said.