The rabbit weaved through the trees, changing directions a dozen times. It dove into one side of a bush and raced out the other. It ducked under a fallen tree, changed direction and shot between Ruxandra’s legs. She tried to grab the creature and fell over, spinning and crashing into a tree. She yelped, then jumped to her feet. The rabbit dashed farther into the underbrush. Ruxandra chased it, heedless of the scratches and tears to her dress and slapping branches that threatened to hit her eyes.
The rabbit slowed, changing direction more often to confuse her and stay out of her grasp. Ruxandra got within arm’s length, lost sight of it, found it again, and came closer and closer.
Then the rabbit jumped the wrong direction, and Ruxandra’s hand caught one of its legs.
The rabbit kicked furiously, struggling to escape her grip. Ruxandra grabbed its neck with her other hand and stretched it long. The rabbit screamed. It was a terrible sound, like a child in agony. It was almost enough to make Ruxandra drop the poor creature.
Instead, she sank her teeth into its throat.
The blood slipped down her throat. It wasn’t enough. Nowhere near enough. But it was warm and filled with the rabbit’s desperate struggle for life. Ruxandra savored every drop as she sucked on the rabbit’s neck. The life faded from the creature, becoming a small, limp handful of fur.
Such a little life.
She gently laid the rabbit on the ground and looked around. She had no idea where she was. The woods were thicker and dense with underbrush. A large river roared and rumbled despite the cold.
She closed her eyes again, trying to ignore the river, listening instead for the heartbeats of small animals. There had to be more somewhere. If she could just—
There.
She moved slowly, listening hard. The one was beneath the snow and smaller even than the rabbit. She walked until she was sure she was right above it, then plunged her hand into the snow, grabbing hard and fast and ending up with a handful of furry rage.
The weasel sank its teeth into her, thrashing its head back and forth to rip her skin. Ruxandra screamed and dropped it. The weasel ran across the snow and disappeared. Ruxandra cradled her hand and gritted her teeth until the wound healed. By then, the weasel was too far to be worth chasing even if she were willing to risk being bitten again.
Ruxandra was still hungry. She closed her eyes, listened again, and then began walking.
The river grew louder, making it harder to listen for heartbeats, but Ruxandra was certain of one close by. She was rewarded with a flash of movement as another rabbit dashed out from under cover and ran from her. She chased again, doing a better job of avoiding the trees and the underbrush. The rabbit zigged and zagged and the river grew louder in her ears. She caught glimpses of it between the trees. It was wide and gray with snow. Its water raced between the walls of the ravine, roaring as it went.
The rabbit ran straight for it.
Ruxandra put on a burst of speed and reached for the animal, determined to drink it. The rabbit changed direction right at the edge of the river.
Ruxandra tried to do the same but had too much momentum. Her feet skidded on the snow. She flung out an arm, trying to find something to grasp, but her fingers closed over air, and she plunged into the river.
RUXANDRA HIT THE WATER—colder than the night air or snowy ground—like a stone. The current grabbed and held her fast, dragging her through the water. She pulled at the water and tried to break the surface, but the river was stronger than she was. It dragged her mercilessly on, ripping her skin on rock and fallen branches. Part of her hair got caught on something, twisted, and tore from her head, making her scream into the racing water.
Her talons came out and ripped along the rocks as she struggled to gain control. The water around her became frothier and obscured her vision. She slammed into a rock, then another, tearing skin and spilling blood into the raging water.
Then her head was above water, and she fell through the air.
The waterfall was high enough that Ruxandra saw the rocks below before the water drove her into them. Her head, back, and legs hit hard. Pain lanced through her. She thought something had snapped. The water grabbed her again, driving her off the rocks and deep into the water and shoving her down with the force of a thousand hands. The pressure flattened her against the bottom of the river and held her there. She struggled and managed to turn upward to see the surface of the water, thirty feet above. The pressure was too much, the water too strong. It would not let her go.
I am going to die.
Thank God.
Instead of terrifying her as it once might have, the thought calmed her. With a deliberate slowness, she blew out all the air in her lungs, watching the bubbles rise and get caught in the whirling maelstrom above her. When there was nothing left, Ruxandra closed her eyes and waited for her body to breathe in the river water. It would hurt, and she would struggle, but it would not last long. Then she would be free.
She waited.
And waited.
And waited.
She opened her eyes. She was still underwater, still trapped beneath the waterfall. She lay, unable to move, not breathing, and still alive. Her body wasn’t desperate for air. There was no sudden gulp of water or overwhelming urge to inhale. She was lying there, cold and submerged, but alive.
No. I want to die.
Inside her stomach, as if in answer, the hunger stirred again.
I must get out from here. I must find more rabbits. Or squirrels. Or something. So I don’t—
The pain in her body vanished as the broken parts healed themselves. She dug her talons into the riverbed beneath her and used them to pull herself along. It was a slow, painstaking process, moving only inches at a time as the river pounded down on her.
Several large branches smashed through the water’s surface above her. One almost touched her before its own buoyancy took it away. She kept creeping forward, and the pressure of the falls grew less and less. Then she was free. The current grabbed at her, twisting her back and forth. She dug her hands deeper into the river bottom to keep her grip.
When her head broke the water for the first time, the frozen, ice-covered trees and cold, rocky ground were the most welcome sights she had ever seen.
She struggled to her feet, exhausted, and stumbled away from the river’s edge looking for a place to hide. As the sky began to lighten, she dug a hole in the side of a gully, between the roots of a tree. When the hole was deep enough that no light could reach her, she slept.
When she woke up, she couldn’t move.
For a moment she panicked, certain something was wrong with her body—that she had damaged herself beyond repair. She forced her arms to move, to rise from the ground. They jerked free with a tearing of cloth.
Her dress was frozen stiff. It had stuck to her skin and the ground.
She began laughing. A soft, helpless, almost hysterical laugh that filled the hole and stayed just on the edge of sobbing. Of all the stupid things to happen.
Ruxandra rocked back and forth, listening to the ice in the dress crackle and tear as it broke free of the ground. She kept at it until she was free and the dress was almost soft. Then she rose and slipped away.
The hunting went slowly. Rabbits were fast and hard to track. She caught one but lost three. Squirrels were worse because they could climb trees faster than she could run.
By the time the sky started to change color for morning, she’d drunk six rabbits and four squirrels. Rabbits tasted better. She liked the fast pulse of their lives; the thin, skittering delight she could feel as a memory in the terrified flesh. Squirrels were more ordinary. There was caution and craftiness in their blood. But either one was fine. Her belly was full and satiated. She made her way back to the cave.
Perhaps I can survive this way.
If I could survive this way, I won’t be a monster anymore. I can be a hermit, living in the woods and praying until I die.
It’s going to take a lot of rabbits though.
>
If I can last until spring, it will be easier. There’s always lots of game in the spring.
The very idea of spring seemed impossible. The thought that the snow would vanish and the world would ever be warm again seemed ridiculous to her as she headed back to the dark, cold lair she had fashioned. It would happen; she knew as much. At that moment, with the ice from her dress pricking her skin and the cold, hard ground beneath her feet, it seemed so far away.
Something growled.
Ruxandra froze. Her eyes darted back and forth. Shapes hid in the underbrush, long shapes with fur camouflaging them in the dark woods.
I wasn’t paying attention. I should have noticed them before.
She turned in a slow circle, watching as they moved into sight.
Wolves.
They were lean, all bones and muscle. Their mottled hair went from white to gray to dark brown to near black. Their brown eyes shone with intelligence. Their white teeth gleamed in the darkness. There were twelve of them, surrounding her on three sides, blocking her from her cave.
As one, they growled.
Ruxandra swallowed hard. The wolves on the sides stayed where they were, watching her. In front of her, three stepped out of the shadows and into full view. They were larger than the others. Their muscles rippled under their fur as they walked forward. Their growls grew louder. Then the middle one, a large female with deep brown fur, stepped forward. Her lips pulled back, revealing teeth as sharp and dangerous as Ruxandra’s. She snarled, sending shivers of fear through Ruxandra.
Why haven’t they attacked?
The lead wolf snarled again and tossed her head. Ruxandra stumbled back a step, then another. The wolf matched her steps, going one forward for each that Ruxandra went back. Along the sides, the other wolves faded back.
They know what I am. The realization shook Ruxandra to the core. They know I’m not human. That I’m a demon. And they don’t want me in their territory.
Eating all the rabbits.
Ruxandra almost started giggling. She couldn’t help herself. Of all the strange and ridiculous things that had happened to her, this was by far the strangest.
The lead wolf snarled again, and the humor of the situation vanished. Ruxandra kept backing away. The wolves on either side spread out and formed a line that reached wide across the forest. The wolves following her drew even with the line and stopped.
It’s the edge of their territory. They’re showing me that I am not allowed past this point.
She kept walking backward, her eyes on the wolves until she was well away from them. Then she turned and ran.
They outnumber me twelve to one. She dodged trees and jumped over underbrush. They could have attacked me if they wanted, but they didn’t. Am I that powerful?
The thought was both intoxicating and horrifying.
No! She forced it from her mind and kept running. Dawn was coming, and she needed to find new shelter before the sun broke the horizon. I will be a holy hermit. I will live off the bounty God provides and spend my nights in prayer until I die.
It took Ruxandra a month to figure out how to stalk prey, rather than just chase it so they made no sound on the forest floor.
But hunger was a good teacher and was far older and wiser than she.
She had other help, too, though her helpers didn’t know it. She watched the foxes and the weasels slip through the night, creep up on their prey, then leap forward with lightning-fast attacks. She watched how their feet moved on the snow, how they inched forward until they were within striking distance.
And when she was not hunting, she was praying.
Though she could not stand the sun, she saw her dark world with crystal clarity. She witnessed the beauty of the stars in their dance above her head, and the slow progress of the moon, from sliver to shining ball to darkness and back to sliver. She saw the crystals of the snow and the reflection of the moonlight in ice, and the still, perfect shapes of the sleeping trees. And she gave thanks to God for each moment.
And in watching the world, Ruxandra learned she could sit still for hours, none of her muscles hurting or twitching or going to sleep. She could stand like a tree, observing the play of hunter and hunted until she knew the pace and pattern of each animal. She saw that the rabbit’s moves contrasted the fox’s and that the weasel and the field mouse each had a skill the other lacked.
Ruxandra remembered the old nun, Sister Agathe, saying that God made every creature one by one, down to the whiskers, and she had been right. They all glimmered with the perfection of their making, their exquisite adaption to the snow, the woods, the myriad hiding places, each other. She prayed her thanks to God for letting her see this, too.
Then the game grew scarce. The rabbits and squirrels were all gone. The weasels and foxes had left too. There was no food to be had.
One night, she dreamed.
She was in her bed, in her room in the convent. She and Adela were entwined together, and Adela’s fingers thrust hard into her, making her moan. Adela put a hand over her mouth to keep her quiet, but it didn’t work. The door slammed open, and Sister Sofia was there, leather strap in hand. She pointed at Adela, who slipped out of Ruxandra and out of bed, then knelt on the floor, her bare back ready for Sister Sofia’s strap.
“Stop,” Ruxandra said.
“No.” Sister Sofia raised the strap. “Harlots must be punished.”
“Do not hurt my friends!”
Ruxandra crossed the room before Sofia could blink. She grabbed the older woman and pulled her close, sinking her fangs deep into her throat. In the background, she heard screaming. She turned, dragging Sister Sofia around so she wouldn’t have to stop drinking. Adela scrabbled back to the corner of the room, screaming again and again. Ruxandra dropped Sister Sofia and advanced on her friend.
“Shhh,” Ruxandra whispered. “Do not worry. I can make you so strong that she’ll never hurt you again.”
Adela’s scream was loud and long and startled Ruxandra awake.
Outside, a cold, hard wind blew, sending snow swirling and twisting through the air. Above her head were the roots of the tree that sheltered her. In her stomach, the hunger grew.
Images sprang in her head: Lusa. Adela’s naked body. Valeria moaning and grabbing at her flesh. Each one’s neck was so round and warm, the flow of blood running beneath so strong and full of magic.
The sun was still in the sky. She had to sit there, haunted by memory and images of what could be and the rumbling of a hunger that would become unstoppable. When the sun set, Ruxandra stepped out of the den and began walking.
She kept her ears and eyes and nose open. She knew the smells of the forest now. She could tell at a hundred yards where there might be rabbits or squirrels. She could avoid the packs of wolves that ran in the mountains. She knew the smell of bear and could tell when a cave or overhang was actually a den. She steered clear of the bears the way she steered clear of the wolves. She had no desire to fight anything, especially not something four times her size with bigger claws and teeth.
She prayed as she walked through the night, asking God to guide her. Her den, small and familiar and safe, was soon far behind her. She scented a rabbit and stalked it. She pounced on it and drank it. The hot red blood and the little beast’s struggles as its life faded sent a wave of pleasure through her. She wanted more—needed more—but the night was almost gone.
This time, she dug her lair in the side of a hill. She lived there for another month, hunting squirrels and rabbits. She had become good enough at it that she had time to spare. Some nights, she was actually bored. She attended harder to her prayers, but they were not enough to still her mind.
On those occasions she took to practicing her Latin, or doing sums, or recalling stories. For some reason, they were hard to remember. The prayers she did every day stayed in her head. Anything else that she had done before she became what she was grew hazy, as if it were a dream.
When the game had moved on, so did she. That became the pa
ttern of her life. A few weeks in one place, then food would go short, and she would move again.
Around her, the world thawed.
She noticed it first in the air. The cold lessened. The nights grew shorter, though they were by no means short. The crisp hardness of snow vanished, replaced by soft, squishing mud. And by the time she moved to her next spot, the ground she had to dig through to make her cave was nearly thawed. Buds appeared on the trees—small, fragile bits of green amid the brown and gray of early spring.
It rained instead of snowed, leaving Ruxandra wet and miserable. She tried not to go hunting in it, but the hunger drove her into the cold and wet. Those nights, the smarter creatures had found shelter, and she had to dig into their burrows to catch them. She would come home muddy and annoyed, but at least her belly was full.
She prayed a little harder on those nights, hoping God would give her the strength not to feel miserable about it all. It didn’t work.
The last of the snow vanished, even from the deepest gullies and darkest ravines. The ground turned green, and the first flowers of the spring bloomed in a profusion of color—red, yellow, orange, and even purple. Ruxandra admired each one, inhaled each one, and tried to avoid crushing them as she hunted. Sometimes the rabbits would go right through them though, and she would chase after. It made her sad when she turned back, but there was nothing to be done. She couldn’t let her prey get away for the sake of a few blossoms.
Then she found the pond.
The sun had just gone down. She was following a trail of rabbit tracks. She wasn’t a good tracker yet, but she was getting the idea. She followed the tracks up to the water before she realized what she stared at.
The pond was wide and deep, though far too small to be called a lake. A stream flowed in one side and out the other, keeping the water fresh and clean. The edges were surrounded with cattails and tall grass, and Ruxandra found the trails of animals leading up to it. There were rabbit and deer tracks, and mystery tracks she soon determined had been left by a badger. All of them had come there to drink. Ruxandra circled it twice, looking and listening. The rabbit was long gone. Night insects flew over the top of the water, and above them bats swooped down, snapping their teeth. Ruxandra walked down to the edge of the pond and looked in. The water was so clear that Ruxandra could see her reflection.