After profusely thanking the farmer, Serilda set off on foot. It wasn’t long before the scenery became familiar. The Thorpe Farm, with its striking windmill turning over the snow-laden fields. Mother Garver’s quaint cottage, whitewashed and surrounded by tidy boxwoods.
Rather than walking through town, she turned to the south, taking a shortcut through a series of pear and apple orchards, barren in the winter, their branches reaching scraggly fingers toward the sky. The cloud cover had burned off and the day was one of the warmest they’d had in months; but despite the sunshine and exercise, Serilda couldn’t shake the chill that had settled into her bones from the moment she’d awoken in those castle ruins. Or the way the hair on the back of her neck prickled every time she saw a flash of dark feathers in the tree boughs or heard an angry caw of a distant crow. She kept glancing around, expecting to see the nachtkrapp following her. Spying on her. Eyeing her tasty eyes and fast-beating heart.
But all she saw were crows and jackdaws scavenging among the bare trees.
It was nearly dusk by the time the mill came into view, down in the valley carved out by the winding river. Smoke curled above the chimney. The hazelnut tree’s snow-heavy branches bowed. Zelig, that beloved antique horse of theirs, poked his head curiously from the stable.
Her father had even shoveled a path from the road to their doorway.
Serilda beamed and started to run.
“Papa!” she cried, when she thought she might be close enough for him to hear her.
A moment later, the door slammed open, revealing a frantic father. He puffed up when he saw her, overcome with relief. She rushed into his arms.
“You’re back,” he cried into her hair. “You came back.”
Serilda laughed at him, pulling away so he could see her smile. “You sound as if you doubted it.”
“I did,” he said with a warm but tired laugh. “I didn’t want to think it, but—but I thought—” His voice grew tight with emotion. “Well. You know what I thought. To be summoned by the Erlking—”
“Oh, Papa.” She kissed his cheek. “The Erlking only keeps little children. What could he have wanted with an old spinster like me?”
He stepped away, his face pinched, and the lightness in Serilda’s heart dampened. He was serious. He’d been terrified.
And she had been, too. There were moments during the night when she’d been sure she would never see his face again. But even in those moments, she’d given little thought to what he must be going through, not knowing where she’d been taken or what was to become of her.
Of course he’d thought she wouldn’t come home.
“What did he do to your face?” he asked, brushing the hair away from her cheek.
She shook her head. “It wasn’t the Erlking. It was …” Her hesitation was brief as she remembered the horror of the drude flying at her with its curved talons. But her father was already worried enough. “A branch. Caught me in the face, quite by surprise. But I’m all right now.” She pressed her hands into his. “Everything is all right.”
He nodded shakily, eyes shining with unshed tears. Then, clearing his throat, he seemed to brush off his burdensome feelings. “It will be.”
The words were weighted with meaning, and Serilda frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Come inside. I haven’t been able to eat all day, but we’ll have a right feast now you’re home.”
Once they had seated themselves by the fire, two bowls of barley gruel topped with dried apricots in hand, Serilda told him all that had happened. She did her best not to embellish—a near-impossible feat. And perhaps, in her telling, the overnight journey had been fraught with a few more dangers (who was to say that a river nix hadn’t been watching the carriage from the icy waters as they passed?). And perhaps, in this version of the truth, the stuffed creatures decorating the Erlking’s castle had come to life, licking their lips and watching her with hungry eyes as she walked by. And perhaps the boy who had come to help her had been most chivalrous, and had not made her give up her necklace.
Perhaps she left out the part where he took her hand and pressed it, almost devotedly, to his cheek.
But as stories go, she recited the events of the night more or less as they had transpired, from the moment she had stepped inside the skeletal carriage to the long ride home being tormented by plump, feathered fiends.
By the time she finished, their bowls were long empty and the fire was craving a new log. Serilda stood, setting her dish aside as she went to the stack of firewood against the wall. Her father said nothing as she used the end of a log to rearrange some of the coals, before settling it neatly on top of the smoldering flames. As soon as the fire began to catch, she sat back down and dared to look over at him.
He was staring into the flames with distant, haunted eyes.
“Papa?” she said. “Are you all right?”
He pressed his lips tight together, and she saw his throat struggle with a hard gulp. “The Erlking believes you can do this incredible thing. Spin straw into gold,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “He will not be satisfied with one dungeon’s worth. He will want more.”
She lowered her gaze. This same thought had occurred to her—of course it had. But every time, she stuffed it back down into whatever dark place it had come from.
“He can hardly send for me every full moon until the end of time. I’m sure he will tire of me and move on to terrorizing someone else soon enough.”
“Do not be flippant, Serilda. Time has no meaning to the dark ones. What if he does send for you again on the Crow Moon, and every full moon after that? And what if … what if this boy does not come to your aid the next time?”
Serilda looked away. She knew how narrowly she had escaped death, and that her father had, too. (Which was another small detail she might have left out of her telling.) She felt safe for now, but that security was an illusion. The veil kept their world divided from that of the dark ones most of the time, but not when there was a full moon. Not during an equinox or a solstice.
In four short weeks, the veil would once again release the wild hunt into their mortal realm.
What if he summoned her again?
“What I can’t understand,” she said slowly, “is what the Erlking could want with so much gold. He can steal anything he desires. I’m sure Queen Agnette herself would give him anything he asked for in return for merely being left alone. It doesn’t seem like he would be concerned with material wealth, and there was no sign of … of pretentiousness in the castle. The furnishings were sumptuous in their own way, but I sense that he has no one to impress, that he cares only for his own comforts …” She trailed off, her mind circling on itself. “Why would he care about a plain village girl who can spin straw into gold?”
After a moment of pondering her own unanswerable questions, she glanced at her father.
He was still gazing into the hearth, but despite the cottage’s comfortable heat, he looked strikingly pale.
Almost ghostlike.