On the other side of the pool, the schellenrock paused to look back at her, as if wondering what could be the problem.
Serilda scowled and pulled her boot from the mud with a gloopy, sucking noise. She backed up onto drier land. “Isn’t there another …” She trailed off, spotting, not much farther down the brook, a little footbridge made of birch twigs and mortared stones. “Ah! Like that.”
The schellenrock rattled its shells loudly.
“It’s not much farther,” Serilda called back, pausing to wipe her muddied boot on a patch of moss. “And this will be much easier for me.”
It rattled again, a bit panicky. Serilda frowned and glanced back at its wide eyes, now unblinking.
“What?” she said, taking a step onto the bridge.
Oh … hello … lovely thing.
Serilda stilled. The voice was a whisper and a melody. The rustle of leaves, the soothing burble of water.
Pulling her attention away from the schellenrock, Serilda looked ahead to see a woman standing on the other side of the little bridge.
She was crafted of silk and moonbeams, in a long white dress, with dark hair that hung nearly to her knees. Her face, though lovely, was not flawless like the dark ones’. She had thick, dark eyebrows over acorn-brown eyes, and impish dimples just above the corners of her mouth. Still, mortal as she might look, the ethereal light emanating from her made it clear that she was something unearthly.
And judging from the schellenrock’s reaction … dangerous.
But Serilda did not feel threatened. Instead, she felt drawn to this woman, this being.
The woman’s smile grew wider, her dimples more pronounced. She giggled, and it was parade bells and shooting stars. She stretched a hand toward Serilda.
An invitation.
Will you dance with me?
Serilda made no decision. Already her hand was reaching out, eager to accept the offer. She stepped forward.
Something crunched beneath her foot.
Startled, Serilda looked down.
Ah—nothing but a birch twig.
She went to kick it down into the brook, but paused.
A warning, deep in her mind, shouting at her.
This was no twig.
This was a bone.
The entire bridge was crafted of them, mixed in with the mortar and rocks.
Heart thrumming, she began to step back, meeting the woman’s eye again.
The smile fell, overcome with a desperate plea.
Don’t go, whispered the voice. You alone can break this curse. You can set me free. All it takes is a dance. One little dance. Please. Please, don’t leave me?…
Another step back. Her foot landed on soft mossy ground.
The woman’s brittle sorrow morphed again, now a vicious sneer. She lunged forward, her fingers reaching to grab Serilda—to claw or strangle or shove her, Serilda didn’t know.
She lifted a hand to protect herself.
A wooden staff smacked the woman’s hands away. She released a shriek of pain and reared back.
A figure leaped onto the bridge, between Serilda and the glowering woman. Lithe and graceful, with moss where hair might have been, growing between tall fox ears.
“Not this one, Salige,” came a stern voice.
A familiar voice.
It took Serilda a moment to recall the moss maiden’s name. Basil? Purslane?
No.
“Parsley?” she asked.
The moss maiden ignored her, her eyes on the woman. Salige, she’d said.
Wait—salige. That was not a name, but a type of spirit. The salige frauen—malicious spirits that haunted bridges and graveyards and bodies of water. That demanded a dance from travelers, begging them to break a curse … but usually ended up killing them.
I found her first, hissed the salige, baring pearlescent teeth. She could break the curse. She could be the one.
“So very sorry,” said Parsley, holding her quarterstaff like a shield in front of her as she slowly backed away, forcing Serilda off the bridge. “But this human is already spoken for. Grandmother wishes to have a word with her.”
The spirit screamed, a sound of frustrated agony.
But when Parsley turned and grabbed Serilda’s arm, yanking her away, the spirit did not follow.
Chapter 43
Are you really taking me to see Shrub Grandmother?” said Serilda, once the bridge with the salige was far behind them and her heartbeat had begun to slow. “The Shrub Grandmother?”
“I would tame your awe before we arrive,” said Parsley, a bit snarly. “Grandmother does not respond well to flattery.”
“I can try,” said Serilda, “but I cannot guarantee.”
The moss maiden moved like a fawn among the branches, quick and graceful. In her path, Serilda felt more like a wild boar crashing through the woods, but she was comforted to know that the schellenrock, at the back of their odd little party, was the noisiest of all with its coat of shells, and Parsley wasn’t telling it to be quiet.
“Thank you,” she said. “For rescuing me from the salige. I suppose now I’m in your debt.”
Parsley paused beside an enormous oak tree, one that stretched so high Serilda could not see the top of it when she craned her neck.
“You’re right,” said the maiden, holding out her hand. “I’ll take back my ring.”
Coldness swept across Serilda’s skin. “I … left it at home. For safekeeping.”
Parsley smirked and Serilda could sense that she didn’t believe her. “Then you will have to remain indebted, for I doubt you have anything else I would want.” She grabbed a curtain of vines draped across the tree’s trunk and pulled them aside, revealing a narrow opening just above the tangled roots.
“Go on,” she said, with a nod at the schellenrock. It ducked inside, its shells jangling. Parsley turned to Serilda next. “After you.”
She stepped into the hollow trunk and was greeted by impenetrable blackness—no sign of the river monster. Squeezing her shoulders, she crouched low so as to fit through, and inched into the tiny shelter, stretching out her hand. She expected to feel the rough, cobwebbed insides of the tree, but found only emptiness in the dark.
She took another step, then another.
On the seventh step, her fingers brushed—not wood, but fabric. Thick and heavy like a tapestry.
Serilda pushed the fabric aside. Gray light spilled forward. As she emerged from the tree, her breath caught.
A dozen or so moss maidens formed a tight circle around her, each one gripping a weapon—spears, bows, daggers. One had a very poisonous-looking wolf spider perched on her shoulder.
They were not smiling.
She spotted the schellenrock crouched behind the group, just as one of the maidens handed him a small wooden bowl teeming with wriggling bugs. He licked his wide lips before enthusiastically burying his face in the bowl.
“You,” said one of the maidens, “are very loud, and very cumbersome.”
Serilda stared at her. “I’m sorry?”
The maiden cocked her head to the side. “We have been waiting. Come.”