“Them?” she asked, her eyes flickering over the town, where dark stains splashed over porches and windows, clapboard sidings and wooden walkways. The screams had stopped now, mostly.
“No. Me.”
Just before the Bright-Eyed changed, shattering his form into a thousand nocturnal creatures—slithery, blue-spotted salamanders and leathery bats, sharp-faced foxes and those horrible fluttering furred moths—Greer could have sworn she felt a soft press against the nape of her neck, his kiss as swift and tender as the moments after were terrible.
Greer woke upgasping for air.
Bedsheets looped around her limbs, tangled and sodden. Her skin was flushed and clammy as the last of the nightmare left her. She pressed a hand over her heart, trying to calm her ragged breaths, trying to still her racing pulse.
Greer’s eyes darted around the room as panic bubbled up in her throat, choking her. In an attempt to get her bearings straight, Greer began to recite the list of things she knew to be true, just as Ailie had taught her.
“You are not on Barrenman’s Hill.”
She nodded.
“The Bright-Eyeds have never attacked.”
Another nod. Her heart no longer felt as though it were about to explode from her chest, and she took that to be a good sign.
“The Bright-Eyeds are not here.”
Even as Greer said this, it didn’t seem as certain a truth as her others. She could still feel the warm imprint of his kiss on her neck. The timbre of his husky voice still resonated in her ears.
“It’s the day of the Hunt,” she tried again.
Thatwas unfortunately true.
With a final nod, she pushed herself from the sweat-stained sheets.
The morning had dawned so darkly that it still felt like night. Any trace of sunlight was bullied away by snow clouds, and a sparkle of jagged frost coated every stationary thing. Icicles hung in lines of bared teeth, giving the window’s view an air of menace.
It’s going to be miserable,Greer thought, as she braided her hair.
This was not the way she’d wanted her Hunt to start.
Ailie had told many stories of her own day—of retreating into the hollowed trunk, breathless with anticipation, of seeing Hessel’s hand pull her out, and of all the interminable boredom that unwound in the time between. Her mother had spent the long hours scratching elaborate etchings inside the tree, trying to keep her wonders and worries at bay.
But that day had been bright. That day had been warm.
Greer had always imagined squirreling herself away in that same tree. She wanted to find Ailie’s drawings and add one of her own, scratching out a hasty rendering of Mistaken while waiting for Ellis. In these daydreams, it was always unseasonably warm, and she’d emerge from the hollowed tree in a beautiful dress of voile and lace, with flowers in her hair, and her cheeks would be pink with fresh love.
There would be no flowers today. And her cheeks would be red and stinging from wind and frostbite. Her dress would be wool and covered away by sweaters and her thickest fur-lined cloak. A knitted hat would cover her braids, and her hands would be too bundled by mittens to sketch anything.
Greer didn’t know how to draw Mistaken anyway.
Not anymore.
She turned from the window. “Why are we doing this?”
For the good of the town.
There was a soft knock at the door. Greer turned, expecting to see Martha, but it was Hessel, seemingly summoned by her thoughts. He was already dressed, though Greer doubted that he’d ever gone to bed. She eyed his coat, wondering if the mysterious note was still secreted in its pocket.
Her hearing had returned in slow degrees as she’d tried to sleep. She’d heard him leave the house, his footsteps clattering down the porch, down the walk, down toward town, and Greer had lain in bed for a long while after, guessing where he’d gone.
Before she could find out, sleep had seized her. Then—the dream.
“Good morning,” he said. “I…I brought you coffee.”
