“Tildeneth.”

The witch wakened Tildy by gently taking her hand. Groggy, she struggled to sit upright. “Izzit breazfast time alriddy?” Through blinking eyes, she saw that night still wrapped her room in its embrace.

“Shh,” said the witch, placing a hand on Tildy’s forehead. Already, she could feel herself drifting back to sleep. “I am off early this morning and should return by lunch. Go about your chores and do not hold any meals for me.”

“Zat’s fine,” said Tildy. “I wuz dreaming of flying where I found buried treasure and wuz such a pleasant dream and I want to back go it to.” She shifted deeper under her blankets and did not hear her mother leave.

She woke later, daylight streaming through her window. She barely remembered the witch’s visit, though her instructions were as clear as the written word. She dressed and washed – pleased to see in the looking glass that the smudge had finally faded – before venturing into the Garden. Free to extend her wings without criticism, she whistled as she flitted about, picking fruit here, cutting greens there, plucking her breakfast as she went. It was another fine morning, and an enthusiastic sun promised a beautiful day.

After retrieving a jug of cream from the ice cellar, Tildy sat down to a bowl of fruit and cream, helping herself to extra cinnamon and sugar in quantities no responsible adult would approve. She contemplated her mother’s departure, occasionally restraining a grimace caused by her over-sweetened meal. She had wanted a very early start, but why? Perhaps a farmer had summoned her to a birthing. They occurred at all times of day and were messy affairs. A particularly sweet spoonful made her cough and gag, just like Fietha always warned.

Fietha.

* * * * *

How long had it been since she’d seen him? She counted at least fifty days. Summer had started the week before and the first starfall of the season was less than a week off. Their wayward friend did have unexplained absences from time to time, many of them while avoiding “over-zealous sheriffs”, but he never kept the witch waiting when she expected him. The hairs on her neck tingled.

She let herself believe that Fietha had decided to accompany Dess back to Harsdale with whatever warrior they’d hired. His presence would prevent a double-cross by the mercenary. As she considered it, however, he was more likely bringing goods, hoping to make some extra coin off a village with a desperate need. The witch often said he had a heart of gold, but even that wasn’t enough to fill his pockets.

Having convinced herself that nothing was awry, Tildy finished up her breakfast and tipped the dregs of her cream into Elanor’s bowl. She returned to the Garden, eager to spend some time reading in the summer sun. She brought three books with her, unsure which tale her mood would choose. Sometimes it depended on the kind of sunlit spot she found.

There was The Rescued Autumn Princess, which she had always called “a kissing book” when she was younger. She liked it for private reasons as she matured.

 The second book was Faeries’ Taels and Dreames, a collection of cautionary stories that promised horrible fates to disobedient children. The colorful illustrations of carefree tots wandering obliviously into danger had always thrilled and terrified her.

Finally, there was The Sentinels Grand, stories of the monarchy’s loyal guard. This was her favorite and the one the witch thought would fall apart from frequent readings. It held a place of honor on Tildy’s bookshelf, having been the first book her mother bought her. Within were harrowing tales of armored knights, gallant acts, and mighty battles in which the Sentinels laid waste to all enemies of Evereign. She knew every page by heart and could name every Sentinel: Dyre Uddlewayn, Amarkus Barrowfell, Sher Maraudwen, and so many more. As a young girl, it had been her most secret heart’s desire to have a brave knight fight for the honor of kissing her hand. As she grew older, she often dismissed this as a foolish child’s infatuation, but that didn’t stop her from opening the book to be swept off her feet once again. And then her dreams would be filled with secret smiles, a warm caress, and the soft kisses of a chivalrous knight.

Realizing she clutched The Sentinels Grand to her chest – and feeling a warmth on her skin that was not from the sun – she decided she’d already made her choice. Ducking through a low arch of clinching chestnuts, Tildy found she was near one of her favorite reading spots: a green web of spider-creepers whose interwoven vines formed a hammock. She flicked away a stick bug and sat down in a patch of dayshine as Elanor streaked past like she’d sat too close to the smolder-shrub. She smiled at her longcat and sighed. Quite content, she opened the book, swinging her legs as she ravenously devoured each page.

* * * * *

Her adoptive mother had not returned by the time Tildy’s stomach started rumbling for lunch. She ignored the pangs until a particularly loud grumble caused a nearby laughing thrush to snigger. She returned to the cottage, loudly cursing the bird as it flew away, cackling.

In the kitchen she took a sugartwig and nibbled it as she explored the herb pantry, dry stores, and ice cellar beneath the stairs. The kitchen promised a thousand meals and none. Nothing sounded appetizing, except the sweet in her hand. She pinched her nose as she found the forgotten jug of cream – now curdled – and dumped the gelatinous liquid into a sink of polished marblewood: gloop, gloop, gloop. Her stomach groaned an impatient protest.

She was about to return to the Garden to pick her lunch, when the witch entered the cottage like a windstorm, bare feet slapping the wood floor. Tildy’s greeting failed on her lips as she saw the grave shadow on her face. Without preamble, her mother said, “Something has happened. Fietha and Demensen never made it to Wayfahren.”

“No!” Tildy exclaimed. “They wouldn’t have gone directly back to Harsdale, would they?”

The witch shook her head. “It is possible, but I do not think so. Fietha is no fool, and certainly no fighter.” She sat down at the table. “My heart is dark with fear.”

Her hunger forgotten, Tildy paced the kitchen, gesturing with the sugartwig as she spoke. “So: they left the morning after Healing Day, seven or eight weeks ago, depending on which calendar we use.” The witch counted weeks as measured by seven days – an odd unit of measurement when compared to the usual six. “If I remember correctly, they headed directly north, not northwest toward Wayfahren.”

“Yes. North is an easier track for Biscuit to pull the wagon, so I followed his usual track. After inquiring in Wayfahren, I returned by the direct route.”

“You always tell me to find ways to rule things out. Maybe we could search the northern forest edge to prove they didn’t go that way?”

The witch contemplated this for a few minutes, finally saying, “They could have gone any direction, but your suggestion has merit. You fill some waterskins whilst I check something outside.” She retrieved her red satchel, which contained medicinal herbs and other remedies, a further indicator of her fear for their friends. On her way out, she said, “I hoped spoiled cream is the greatest of our worries today.”

She always knew. Tildy hurried to do as she was told and found the witch staring at a patch of plants just off the path. “Nish nish,” she heard as she stopped beside her.

* * * * *

“Yes, they said the same thing to me,” the witch said. She leaned toward the plant, saying, “We understand.”

Tildy spun slowly in place as an insistent chorus of “nish nish” sounded from every nagweed throughout the Garden of Dappledown. She’d not heard such an uproar and her skin puckered with gooseflesh.

“Perhaps we do not understand at all,” her adoptive mother said with a grim expression that hardened her features. “Nevertheless,” she called out, “we are going.” The Garden fell silent, but a peal of distant thunder punctuated Tildy’s worry.

Without a word, the witch led them into the trees of Eddlweld. They followed an ancient, but overgrown path, one paved by Humans an age ago or more. Hoary sentinel trees soon pressed upon them from both sides, transplanted visitors from a distant land and unlike any other in the region of Senessen. Their roots crisscrossed the path as the forest healed the scars left by unwanted travelers. The air hung oppressively, the shadows damp with moisture. Each breath became an effort for Tildy, as though ropes constricted her chest. Looking ahead, she saw that, as ever, the witch walked unaffected by the environment.

When Tildy remembered that she’d missed lunch, she silently cursed herself. This would probably be a blind boar hunt: fruitless tracking that resulted in no game. She would certainly give Fietha an earful when he returned to explain himself. She considered several of his favorite curses as her stomach punctuated the more colorful ones.

 “Something is wrong,” said the witch, coming to a sharp halt after a few hours of quiet travel. She pointed ahead of them. “That clearing does not belong.”

* * * * *

Inhaling deep lungfuls of air, Tildy peered past her, seeing nothing but speckled sunlight streaming through a break in the canopy. She knew better than to question her adoptive mother: many locals in Wayfahren said that no acorn sprouts into tree, nor does mighty oak fall in the Forest of Dark Eddlweld, that the witch does not know of it. “What does it mean?” she asked, her wary voice small in the gloom. Her hair prickled.

The witch’s response was many minutes in coming and she gave no indication that she would move closer. She finally said, “I am uncertain. Not even the birds warned me of this place.”

Not until she had spoken these words did Tildy recognize how ominous the forest had become. She slowly looked around on fidgety feet, trying to calm her breath despite wanting to jump out of her skin. “Maybe a few trees were taken for lumber?” she suggested, her head chastising the foolish words as she said them.

“We are far from the road.” She paused again and Tildy could nearly hear the thoughts running through her head. For many long minutes more they stood there, the witch pondering and Tildy watching her.

The witch turned and held up a hand. “You wait here whilst I investigate.”

“Alright,” Tildy said slowly. She watched her pick her way toward the clearing, making no sound and disturbing no leaf. More akin to forest spirit than Human, she thought and not for the first time. Her mother paused, then pushed between two bushes, her silver hair strangely brilliant in the dazzling daylight before she disappeared completely.

Heart pounding as she waited, Tildy focused her keen senses on the clearing. What was taking so long? She stood on tiptoes to see a little further. Just a little further. Stretch a bit more.

She looked down to see the ground some fifteen feet below her. She was accidentally flying again. Somewhat embarrassed, she considered descending, but it occurred to her that she might safely observe the witch from a height. She flitted closer to the bright clearing. She would glide to the edge of the sunlight but go no further. Hoping for fresher air, she inhaled deeply, gagging as a rancid smell filled her nostrils.

“Tildeneth, stop!” her mother cried from somewhere below.

* * * * *

Tildy’s momentum and curiosity carried her into the open, where she saw the horrible depredation the witch had discovered. Several stout trees lay broken upon the ground and a wide trail of destruction led from the clearing. Fietha’s demolished wagon lay in the center, completely trampled into the ground. Biscuit, the cart horse, was nowhere to be seen. The men?

She recognized one of Dess’s sturdy boots protruding from beneath the wagon. She saw Fietha’s traveling cloak, tattered amongst the wreckage. Dark stains all around told a grim tale that her mind refused to imagine further. Her wings retracted and she fell from the sky.

Tildy landed in a dense poofin bush, which ejected thousands of gliding seeds into the air. As the world disappeared, she tried to recall happy thoughts of Fietha, but nothing came. Only blackness and tears. Despair opened her mind to dark, creeping thoughts: denial, anger, and guilt. This couldn’t be happening!

Her adoptive mother helped her climb from the bush and said, “He warned us. Demensen. Whatever it was, the thing he mentioned, it caught up. It found him. They would both be alive, had I not refused the call,” she said with surprising bitterness.

She gently lifted Tildy’s chin, and their eyes met. “In death, we must be respectful of those we love, but this is a gruesome business, my dear, and I will not have you involved. Too much have you seen already.”

“But Fietha was my friend, too!”

Holding up a hand, the witch cut her short. “No, I will do our part, but the woods will do most of it for us.”

This stopped Tildy short. She wiped her face with a sleeve and said, “You’re not going to leave them like this? For the carrion birds and other scavengers?”

“They will receive more respect than a blighted deer, to be sure. But there is a way of things in Nature that we must respect.”

“But these are Humans, not animals!”

“I know who they are, and far better than you, Tildeneth,” the witch replied with a bite beneath cold eyes. “They are Children of the World, and I will return them to the World. Go home.”

Tildy was taken aback by the dispassionate finality in her words, and further argument failed in her throat. Ice filled the pit of her stomach, while a fire kindled in her eyes. How could she be so heartless?

When the witch remained impassive against the onslaught of Tildy’s dirtiest looks, she remembered she would not win this contest of wills. She turned and stalked off without another word.

* * * * *

Trudging back to Dappledown, Tildy noticed little of the world around her, not the roots that tripped her feet nor the low branches that brushed her hair. She paid no heed to scraped knees or scratched skin, her thoughts a swirl of whys and what-ifs. Of what-should-have-beens. A running-on of a dozen other feelings and memories and ideas and second-guessings that shouted one upon another until she was nearly deaf beneath the cacophony of her guilt. It was a Thing That Should Not Be!

Mostly, she directed her anger at the witch, thoughts coming back to one thing: If she had agreed to go with her friend Dess – and who would deny an actual friend – would not he and Fietha be alive?

She wanted to believe that, but a small voice reminded her that the monster had tracked Dess for weeks, leaving destruction and death wherever it went. Even if they had hidden him, the creature would have torn up the Garden to find him. While the witch might have earned the name “Trollcharmer’’, there was a difference between fooling a stupid troll and fighting a monster that flattened villages.

A spiteful voice wondered: Had the witch sacrificed their friends to protect her adopted daughter? She had a way of knowing things, after all. The black thought sent shivers through her skin. No, her mother would not do such a thing. Tildy was certain of that. Mostly certain.

Maybe Tildy could have argued more for getting the witch involved. Her own instinct had been to help, and hadn’t she been taught to trust her feelings? What fear prevented the witch from helping her old friend? Clearly, they were still close, despite the passage of time.

Welling tears threatened to quench her anger, but she bit her lip to resist them. Uninvited, one of the witch’s numerous irritating sayings came to mind: “The tears of a good person are enough to change the world.” Bitterly, Tildy pushed down her grief and ignored the building pressure that pleaded for release.

She stepped back into the silent Garden of Dappledown before she realized it. Dusk had arrived – she’d been gone all afternoon. Dark clouds had moved in, and while the earlier thunder had passed, a mournful rain fell as she walked to the cottage. Soft illumination came from the eaves where glimmer-moths sheltered beneath the roof, even their bright colors subdued. She didn’t notice the cold droplets, didn’t care about wet clothes. She pushed through the front door, disregarding a reflection that wouldn’t make eye contact, and climbed the stairs to her room. Elanor the longcat purred a greeting that became indignant as she was ignored. Without cleaning up or undressing, Tildy flopped onto her bed as the dam against her emotions broke. She silently cried for her lost friend and the unfairness of it all.

* * * * *

She woke to flickering candlelight later that night. She had her back to the door, but knew the witch was checking in. Tildy had nothing to say to her and pretended to be asleep. Thunder boomed outside her window; clearly the storm had arrived. After a moment, the candle disappeared as the door silently closed. She lay again in darkness, of both room and mind.

For a long time it seemed, though she could not measure it, she reflected on the loss of her friend, Fietha. The crofter. The witch’s inaction. Thought after angry thought raged at her own helplessness. The gale outside became a frenzy, matching the fury of her disparagement. Each thunderclap served as a reminder of the monstrous footsteps in the crofter’s tale.

It was too much to bear. Carrion birds flapped across the horizon of her mind. Unable to sleep, she sat up in bed, lightning flashing to match the rhythm of her heart. From the corner of her eye, she caught movement in the Garden and saw the witch walking to the cursed spot. Tildy watched her staring at the place, heedless as ever of the weather. It was fitting that the witch was contemplating a place as wretched as she felt.

As she stared out the window, that black space consumed each cherished memory of Fietha, laying her childhood to ruin. Why did it have to be Fietha? What if they’d sent Dess back to Wayfahren and let him find his own way? He’d come very far already.

The what-ifs didn’t matter. Fietha and poor old Dess were dead.

It was all their fault.

The witch’s fault.

Tildy’s fault.

The Thing That Should Not Be needed to be made right.

She put her thoughts in order, determined to do exactly that. Having found the one who escaped, where had the monster gone next? Not on to Wayfahren, so perhaps it was returning to its hole, which must be near “the Shard”. A place with such a notable name wouldn’t be hard to locate. Could Tildy find it if she wanted?

Yes.

She turned away from the window, resolved to an idea taking shape in her head. Tomorrow – with or without the witch – she was going after the monster to make it pay.

She just didn’t know how.

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