She held my cloak up while I buckled the belt. The new weight felt odd, but it also felt right. Comforting.
“Keep it covered,” she reminded me as she pulled my cloak closed over my dress, fastening a button-and-loop I hadn’t noticed before. “There’s no reason for a girl your age to be carrying a hatchet. And—”
“And stay on the path. I know.”
“Come back next week, when you can, and I’ll take you farther into the wood. It is time to familiarize yourself with the things that live in the dark.”
I nodded solemnly, dread and excitement warring within me.
“Before you go . . .” Gran gave me an almost mischievous smile I recognized instantly. “Is there any news from the village?”
And by news, she meant gossip, the only thing she truly seemed to miss about communal living.
“Oh! Yes, I almost forgot. Elena Rousseau got betrothed today. To Simon Laurent. There’s a celebration tonight.”
My grandmother didn’t smile. She seemed to be assessing my reaction, much as my mother had. “Elena will be the first of your friends to wed?”
“Yes. And she’s a month younger than I am.”
She was quiet for the span of several heartbeats. “There’s no hurry, child.”
“I know. But has Mama told you that Grainger asked for my hand? That he’s been waiting a month for an answer?” What if he grew tired of waiting, and his eye began to wander?
Gran sighed. “She did tell me, and surely you understand her hesitation now. He is not a good match for you, Adele. He’s dangerous to our entire family.”
My hope wilted like a cut flower. “How can you know that, without giving him a chance? He cares for me, Gran.”
“Yet if he truly knew you, he would fear you, and a man with a weapon in his hand and fear in his heart is a danger to everyone.”
Frustration drew my lips into a frown.
“I’m sorry, chère. I know that’s difficult to hear.”
I nodded. I felt confident that I could convince both my mother and grandmother that they were wrong, but that would probably take more than words. They would have to see that Grainger would never hurt me.
“Give my love to your mother and sister.” Gran planted a kiss on my forehead, then she opened the front door, and I accepted the well-wishes as a cue to take my leave. But when she remained standing on the top step, rather than retreating into the warmth of her cabin, I realized she intended to watch me until I passed out of sight.
I managed to stay focused on the task at hand—sticking to the path—even as my initial shock and acceptance of everything I’d just learned gave way to a stunned numbness. To a thousand questions I hadn’t thought of when Gran had been around to answer them. In part, that was because my feet knew the way. However, it was also easier than ever to stay on the trail now that I could see it properly, even without a lantern.
Until a high-pitched wail nearly startled me out of my skin.
My feet froze on the path. My right hand slid beneath my cloak to grip the head of my new hatchet, evidently ready to wield it through some brand-new instinct, even though I’d never used a hatchet for anything other than chopping firewood.
I turned warily toward the sound, just as the screeching wail shattered into bouncing sobs. Someone was crying. Someone young. Out there in the forest.
There was a child in the dark wood. A lost—maybe injured—child. At least, that’s what the dark wood wanted me to believe. But what if that sob, like my father’s voice, was bait on the end of a fishing line, intended to lure me to my death?
I turned my back on the heartbreaking sound and kept walking.
The crying continued, sobs echoing toward me from the darkness. Twisting my heart into pulp within my chest. The child sounded like Sofia. Yet it wasn’t Sofia. I didn’t recognize the voice, which meant the dark wood wasn’t drawing it from my mind. Which meant it could be real.
What if there truly was a child in need of help out there? Gran had said her greatest sorrow was that she couldn’t help people she didn’t know to expect in the forest. She would never leave a defenseless child all alone out there. And neither could I.
I stepped off the path, following the sobs. Vines slithered toward my feet, faster than before. Branches reached for me. And twice, I heard the snort of something large, off in the distance. But I kept going until finally I saw a small form standing in the underbrush, in dead leaves up to his little ankles. He was small and pale, with a shock of blond hair, and despite the cold, he didn’t have a single stitch on.
Small children went naked in the village all the time in the warmer months, but in the heart of winter? In the middle of the forest?
In the distance, I could see the silhouette of a wagon among the trees. It could only be the one attacked by the whitewulf. The one my grandmother had been too late to save.
Mon dieu, the merchant and his wife had a son. Somehow, he’d survived the whitewulf. He must have been hiding, too scared to come out, even when my grandmother captured the wolf.
“Hey!” I whispered as loud as I could, hoping to catch his attention without alerting any nearby beasts.
The boy spun toward me, startled silent. Tear tracks cut through the dirt on his face, and I could see from here that there were twigs tangled in his hair and grime caked on his bare legs.
“Are you okay?” I stepped over a twisting vine and shoved aside a branch that seemed to be grasping for my hair. “Hey! Little boy!”
He stared at me, wide-eyed, as I made my way carefully toward him, one hand gripping the handle of my hatchet beneath my cloak. For a moment, I thought he would flee. But he only sniffled as he watched me approach.
“I just want to help you. Are you hurt?”
The child didn’t answer, but by then I was almost close enough to touch him. Instead, I knelt in front of him, trying to ignore the vine snaking its way toward us across the ground. “I’m Adele. What’s your name?” I asked, but again, no answer came. “How old are you?”
He didn’t respond to that either, but he couldn’t have been any older than five or six. He was smaller than my eight-year-old sister, and his cheeks were fuller. His teeth smaller. He didn’t seem to have lost any of them yet.
“Are you from Oldefort?” That was a day’s journey down the river during the warmer months and easily a three-day walk on foot, once one made it through the dark wood. Not that I’d ever been on the other side of the forest surrounding our little village. “Did you come here with your parents? Are they merchants?” Were they merchants?
The child remained silent, and I regretted asking about his parents. He’d probably seen them slaughtered. No wonder he wouldn’t speak.
“Well, you must be freezing.” That vine slithered closer, and I slowly pulled my hatchet from my belt. “Come with me, and we’ll get you something warm to wear and something good to eat. Okay?”
The vine reached for my ankle, and I swung the hatchet at it. My new blade sank through the woody rope with a satisfying thunk, and the child flinched, even as what was left of the vine retreated into the shadows, rustling dead leaves on its way.
“Come, mon loulou,” I said, addressing the nameless boy as I might one of the boys from the village. How had a child survived out here on his own, even for a few minutes?