Silence came slowly.

  Not all at once but in pieces.

  First the screams stopped.

  Then the splintering of wood.

  Then the crack and roar of flame softened into a low, greedy whisper as the fire settled into embers.

  Beneath the mill floorboards, Thessa lay curled in the dirt, her hands clamped over her mouth. The air had grown thin and bitter with smoke. Her lungs burned. Ash drifted down through the seams above her covering her like grey snow.

  She waited for boots to return.

  They did not.

  She waited for her mother’s voice.

  It did not come.

  Time lost its meaning in the dark.

  At last, when her chest felt as though it would split from the need to breathe clean air, Thessa reached upward with trembling fingers and pushed at the trapdoor.

  It did not move.

  A beam had fallen across it.

  She swallowed panic and pushed harder.

  Wood shifted with a dull scrape. A shower of ash fell into her hair.

  Again.

  Again.

  With a final shove, the beam rolled aside, and the trapdoor lifted just enough for her to squeeze through.

  Cold night air rushed into her lungs.

  She dragged herself onto the ruined floor of the mill.

  Black Hollow was gone.

  The roof had collapsed inward, exposing the sky now streaked with red from dying embers. The mill wheel lay half-burned beside the riverbank, its paddles broken like snapped ribs.

  The other cottages were worse.

  Some had collapsed entirely, leaving only charred foundations. Others still smoldered faintly, glowing like coals beneath ash.

  Bodies lay where they had fallen.

  Her father lay near where the door used to be.

  Her mother not far from him.

  The world felt distant, unreal, as though she were watching it through thick glass.

  “Mother?” she called, though her voice came out hoarse and thin. It did not travel far.

  No answer.

  She stepped over a fallen beam. The kitchen was gone. The table where dough had once been kneaded was a mound of smoking wood. She stared at it as though it might rearrange itself back into something recognizable if she simply waited long enough.

  “Father?”

  Once again no answer.

  Her knees buckled.

  She hit the ground hard enough that the breath left her in a broken gasp.

  For a moment she did not feel anything at all.

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  No grief.

  No horror.

  Only a vast and terrible blankness.

  Then it came.

  She crawled forward on shaking hands, palms scraping against splintered wood and stone. She reached her mother first.

  “Wake up,” Thessa whispered.

  Her small fingers tugged at the fabric of her mother’s dress. “You said to hide. I hid. I was quiet. I didn’t move.”

  Her voice grew louder, shaking.

  “I did what you told me.”

  Her mother did not answer.

  Thessa’s gaze drifted upward toward the sky.

  “You see this, don’t you?” she rasped.

  The chapel had always stood at the edge of the village, its cracked bell calling them to prayer on holy days. The priest had spoken of mercy and protection.

  “Is this what you call mercy?” she demanded, her voice cracking as it rose.

  She staggered to her father’s side.

  “You said He protects the faithful,” she whispered, her voice splintering. “You said if we worked hard and kept our heads down and did no harm, He would protect us.”

  She crawled between her parents’ bodies and pressed her forehead to the ground.

  “Take me too,” she whispered.

  The plea slipped out before she could stop it.

  “If you’re listening… take me.” she mutters between tears.

  For a moment the silence that followed was absolute.

  Suddenly Thessa hears a harsh voice in an accent she isn't familiar with.

  “If you wish I could take you.”

  Thessa jerks her head up to see the source of the voice.

  What met her eyes was a woman unlike any she has seen before. She was tall, unnaturally so for a woman. Her skin bore the color of peat and weathered bark scars webbed across her arms and face. Her hair hung in thick, matted cords down her back, threaded with bone beads and feathers. Her face was sharp and narrow. High cheekbones cast deep hollows beneath her eyes Those eyes were pale not the pale of milk, but the pale of the moon in a clear night.

  Her garments were layered hides stitched together with coarse thread, fur turned inward against her body. Charms hung from her belt: small glass vials filled with cloudy liquid, a bundle of dried herbs bound with red twine, the jawbone of some small animal polished smooth with handling. Around her throat rested a cord of braided leather strung with teeth not all of them animal.

  Thessa’s mouth felt dry. “Who are you?”

  The woman’s gaze seemed to bore into her very soul.

  “I would ask the same,” she said. “Though I already know.”

  Thessa noticed something then.

  There was a shadow behind the woman.

  But it was not like the others.

  It did not loom or thicken.

  It curled around her like smoke under control.

  Obedient.

  “You can see it, can’t you?” the woman asked quietly.

  Thessa froze.

  The woman’s lips curved faintly.

  “Yes,” she continued. “You can.”

  Thessa swallowed. “The shadows.”

  “Not shadows,” the woman snapped back

  “My name,” the woman said, “is Maerwyn.”

  “You saw it behind the old man,” she said softly. “And the sheep. And your father. And your mother.”

  Thessa’s breath hitched.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I have been watching you,” Maerwyn replied.

  "You’re a witch,” Thessa said.

  It was not an accusation.

  It was recognition.

  Thessa stepped back in fear she had heard of the stories the local folk would tell of witches none good.

  Maerwyn smiled revealing her sharp teeth.

  “That is what they would call me.”

  Thessa musters any courage she could and states “Why are you here!”

  “I came here to recruit you child, you have a very special gift, one that would be wasted if you die here today.”

  “You’re not afraid of me,” Thessa said.

  Maerwyn’s expression softened, just slightly.

  “Child,” Maerwyn said, “I have walked beside death for longer than your village has stood.”

  She extended her hand.

  “Come.”

  Thessa stared at Maerwyn’s hand.

  “Im not sure.”

  “They will return,” Maerwyn said. “When they realize fire did not finish its task.”

  Thessa’s pulse quickened.

  “They’ll look for bodies,” Maerwyn continued. “They will count.”

  She crouched slightly, bringing herself closer to Thessa’s height.

  “And when they do not find yours…”

  The sentence did not need finishing.

  Thessa glanced once more at her parents feeling tears swell once again in her eyes.

  The ash.

  The silence.

  The world she had known no longer existed.

  “You can remain here,” Maerwyn continued, “and be found. Or you can come with me.”

  Thessa gathered her resolve “I'll come with you.”