“Papa!” Serilda launched herself from her chair and came to kneel beside him, taking his hands. He squeezed hers back, but could not look at her. “What’s the matter? You look ill.”
His eyes shut, his brow wrinkling with what emotions she couldn’t name.
“I’m all right,” he said—lied, Serilda was certain. His words were tense, his spirit subdued.
“No, you are not. Tell me what’s wrong.”
With a trembling breath, he opened his eyes again and met her gaze. A soft, worried smile touched his lips as he reached down to cup her face. “I won’t let him take you again,” he whispered. “I won’t let him—” He clenched his teeth, but Serilda couldn’t tell whether he was stifling a sob or a scream.
“Papa?” She took his hands into hers, tears brimming in her eyes to see the fear so plainly on his face. “I’m here now. I came back unharmed.”
“This time, perhaps,” he said. “But I could think of nothing but you being trapped by that monster, unable to come back to me. And I can’t do it again. I can’t spend another night like that, thinking I’ve lost you. Not you, too.” The sob escaped this time as he hunched forward.
Not you, too.
It was as close as he ever came to mentioning her mother. She might have left when Serilda was just a baby, but her spirit had never gone completely. Shadows always clung to her father, especially as Serilda’s birthday approached in the fall, around the time when her mother had vanished. She wondered if he even remembered telling her when she was little the story of how he’d made a wish to a god that he would marry the girl in the village he’d fallen in love with, and that they might have a healthy child together. Serilda may have been young when she’d heard the tale, but she remembered her father’s eyes dancing with firelight at the memory. He’d glowed on the inside to mention her mother, but the moment had been brief, snatched away by the pain of her loss.
Serilda had known that he was probably making it up. After all, her father was many wonderful things. He was kind and generous. He thought always of others, putting everyone else’s needs before his own. He was hardworking and patient and always kept a promise.
But he was not bold.
He was not the sort of man to approach a wounded beast. And if ever he met a god, he would be just as likely to prostrate himself and sob for mercy than to claim a wish.
And yet, Serilda had no other explanation for her peculiar eyes, and she’d always wondered if he’d made up the story as a means of comforting her. To show her that these strange wheels that marked her irises were not a sign of wickedness and misfortune, but of something special.
The story might have changed in her own tellings of it. To her, the wheel of fortune was a symbol of bad luck, no matter anyone else’s interpretation. But she still warmed to remember her father’s voice, laced with tenderness. There was a girl in the village who I had fallen desperately in love with. And so, I made my wish. That we might be married. That we might have a child.
As his hands trembled under Serilda’s fingers, she steeled herself, and dared to ask the question that had so often been at the tip of her tongue. That had stayed elusive for her entire life, but now tugged at her, demanding to be heard.
Demanding to be asked.
“Papa,” she whispered, as gently as she could. “What happened to my mother?”
He flinched.
“She didn’t just leave us. Did she?”
He looked at Serilda. His face was flushed, his beard damp. He stared at her with haunted eyes.
“Papa … was she … did the hunt take her?” She tightened her grasp on her father’s hands.
His face crumpled and he turned away.
It was enough of an answer.
Serilda inhaled shakily, thinking of the story she told Leyna in payment for breakfast just that morning.
My mother was taken by the Erlking. Lured away by the wild hunt.
“She always had an adventurous spirit,” her father said, surprising her. He did not look at her. With a sniff, he pulled one hand from her grip and swiped at his nose. “She was like you in that way. Reckless. Not afraid of anything. She reminded me of a will-o’-the-wisp, glowing like starlight everywhere she went, always flitting about town, hardly ever stopping to catch a breath. At the festivals, she would dance and dance … and she never stopped laughing.” He glanced at Serilda with his watery eyes, and for a moment, she could see the love that still lingered there. “She was so lovely. Dark hair, like yours. Dimples when she smiled in a special way. She had a chip on her front tooth.” He chuckled, reminiscing. “Got it climbing trees when we were young. She was fearless. And I know she loved me, too. I never doubted it. But …”
Serilda waited for him to go on. For a long time, there was only the crackle of logs in the fire.
“Papa?” she nudged.
He swallowed. “She didn’t want to stay here forever. She talked about traveling. She wanted to see Verene, she wanted to … to take a ship across the ocean. She wanted to see everything. And I think she knew—we both knew—that life wasn’t for me.” He sat back in the chair, his gaze lost in the flames. “I shouldn’t have made the wish. To marry that wild, beautiful girl, start a family with her. We were in love, and at the time I thought she would want it, too. But looking back now, I can see how I was trapping her here.”
The wish. Serilda’s nerves tingled.
It was true. The Endless Moon, the old god, the wounded beast. It had been real.
She was well and truly cursed.
“She tried to be happy. I know she did. Almost three years we lived in this house. She grew a garden, planted that hazelnut tree.” He gestured absently toward the front of the house. “She enjoyed working with me in the mill sometimes. Said anything was better than embroidery and”—a tentative smile touched his mouth as he glanced over at Serilda—“spinning. She loathed it as much as you do.”
Serilda returned the smile, though her eyes were starting to water, too. It was a simple comment, but it felt like a special gift.
Her father’s expression darkened then, though he didn’t take his eyes off Serilda. “But she wasn’t happy. She loved us—never doubt that, Serilda. She loved you. I know she would have done anything to stay, to watch you grow up. But when”—his voice grew hoarse and he squeezed her hands tighter—“when the hunt came calling …”
He shut his eyes.
He didn’t have to finish. Serilda had heard enough stories. All her life she’d heard the stories.
Grown-ups and children alike leaving the safety of their homes in the middle of the night, dressed in nothing but their nightclothes, not bothering with shoes. Sometimes they were found. Sometimes they were still alive.
Sometimes.
Though their memories might be obscure, almost dreamlike, they were not usually the stuff of nightmares. They talked of a night racing after the hounds. Dancing in the woods. Drinking sweet nectar from a hunting horn beneath the moon’s silver light.
“She went with them,” Serilda whispered.
“I don’t think she could resist.”