When Lisette came to, there was only darkness and a strange voice hissing in the distance. It was a coarse voice, with an even coarser accent. She tried to open her eyes to see whom it belonged to, but her eyelids wouldn’t move. None of her muscles would, in fact. Everything felt so leaden with exhaustion that her body might as well have belonged to someone else entirely.


    She realized in a distant, far-off way that this should be very upsetting. Frightening, even. But the tiredness was so complete that she found she didn’t really mind. The only pressing thing was the desire for sleep. When darkness crept in again, she welcomed it.


    For an unknowable length of time, consciousness rose and fell like a tide, dark nothingness at its height and the return of her senses one by one as it pulled back. During those ebbs she would hear snippets of conversation, or distant voices that she couldn’t quite make out. Smells or sensation would drift in. Often she wasn’t sure if they were all just dreams.


    At one point she heard another strange voice beside her. This one was rich and deep and pleasant, and again Lisette tried and failed to open her eyes. She could smell something that reminded her of church incense and woodstoves. “Yes, I’m sure,” the strange voice said quietly. “We need to…” The smell and the voice faded as the tide rose again.


    At last, though whether it had been hours or days she could not tell, full consciousness hit Lisette like a lightning strike. Her eyes snapped open, her heart pounding. All at once she realized she was too warm. There was a thick, velvet blanket— far heavier than the one she used at home— wrapped around her. She struggled to disentangle herself from it while her eyes adjusted to the dim light.


    Above her there was a curved canvas where there should have been a roof. It was lit by a single low-burning oil lamp, which explained the semi-darkness, and she could see that her strange new surroundings were small and cramped.


    It didn’t look like any room she’d known. A wooden floor barely two paces wide met wooden walls that ended too low, and canvas stretched taut over the top of it. There was a small door in the wall at her feet, complete with a tiny brass latch. The floor was covered in myriad rugs, clean but so mismatched that it was obvious even in the forgivingly low light.


    No furnishings other than the rugs and a small chest pushed up against one corner, on top of which a pile of dirty cloth she recognized must be the remains of her clothes. Her clothes?! Horrorstruck, she looked down at her bare chest and remembered everything in a rush. The tree, the Armsman. The blood.


    Her stomach rolled and cold sweat broke out on her forehead. The memories were vivid to the last detail, but try as she might they ended abruptly at her attempt to pull the Armsman’s corpse from the tree. Had she been captured? Was this strange place a cell somewhere, where she would await execution?


    She clambered to her feet, ignoring the pins and needles in her legs, and tried to get dressed. The tattered clothes were impossible to make sense of, though, and after a frenzied attempt at untangling she threw them aside and scrambled to the door naked.


    She tried the knob. If it was locked, her worst fears would be confirmed. Already an oppressive sense of claustrophobia was nipping at the heels of her thoughts. Please, she whispered, not quite a prayer. Please!


    The knob turned easily. With dizzying relief and trembling hands, she pushed the door open a few inches and peered out to find a young boy peering right back in at her.


    Lisette shouted once in surprise, jumping high enough to hit her head on the doorframe. The boy jumped, too. “Who are you?” She demanded, forgetting entirely all of what she had been taught of propriety. The boy grinned. He didn’t seem at all embarrassed by her nudity, which was odd enough on its own, but he also made no attempt to speak.


    He bowed his head and made a few strange, quick movements with his free hand before pushing a plate gently into the cracked door. Lisette smelled bread and something sweet that made her stomach growl. She cautiously opened the door enough to take the plate.


    The boy grinned wider, made a motion from the plate to her mouth, and hopped down to the ground. Down? Lisette, curious, widened the door further and noticed that the door was a couple feet off the ground. A three-staired step ladder led down to a flat patch of dirt.


    It was then she noticed the others. Five silhouettes in the twilight, all in various states of repose around a small fire. They were all looking at her, and in her dazed confusion it took her a long moment to remember that she was completely unclothed. She jumped backwards into the safety of the room, throwing the door shut.


    Her clothes were useless, so she opted for the blanket instead, pulling it around her like a cloak without even having to set her plate down. Once assured that everything was covered, she returned to the door and pushed it wide.


    “Better?” One of the strangers had gotten up from the fireside and come to stand a few paces away. Lisette tried her best to remain calm despite a racing pulse and thoughts to match. These people hadn’t tried to hurt her, yet, so far as she could tell, and whoever they were they didn’t look like Armsmen. She would give them a chance if only because she didn’t see any other option.


    The person who had spoken was a tall, middle-aged man who looked to be around her mother’s age, if her mother had led a much easier life. The lines in his face spoke of laughter and good spirit. He was clean-shaven and well muscled with dark eyes and darker skin, and he showed none of the hunched over exhaustion that plagued her mother.


    His voice was booming and likable. “I’m Diago,” he said. “I dare say you were in quite some trouble when we found you.” He remained standing a safe distance off as he introduced himself, either for his own protection or to ensure that Lisette did not feel threatened. She was grateful.


    “Th-thank you,” Lisette stuttered out. Her voice was hoarse. She cleared her throat, hating how weak she sounded. “But who are you? How did I get here? Come to think of it, where is here? When can I go home? Is-” she paused, feeling very vulnerable indeed. “Is home far?”


    Diago looked sympathetic. “Well, let’s build up some trust first, then we’ll see if we can’t answer some of your more pressing questions. To start, why don’t you eat? I promise it’s not poisoned. We wouldn’t go through the trouble of rescuing you just to poison your supper.” He smiled, then frowned at the expression on her face.


    “Rescued?” She spat at him before she could stop herself. She was so tired, so hungry, so angry that it seemed she had latched onto the first thing she could find to rage against. She hadn’t asked for their help, nor wanted it. She hadn’t wanted any of this! Tears of rage filled her eyes.


    “Woah, okay, easy, easy, I’m sorry. We saw what was going on and decided to step in.” The older man held up both his hands. “Easy, child.”


    Mollified and embarrassed, Lisette grabbed the bread off the plate she still held clenched in one hand and scarfed it down, barely registering the taste of the honey that had been drizzled over it. When that was done she sat down, hard, feet hanging off the top step. She realized she was crying.


    The food had cleared her head, but that came with a sharp awareness of just how dire her situation was. What had she done?! Memories of the dead Armsman flashed through her mind in painful detail. She could smell his blood, feel his weight pinning her against the ground, feel every stone on the ground that dug painfully into her bare back.


    All at once it felt like she was choking. She gasped through the tears, dropping the plate to the ground to clutch at her throat with both hands. The blanket fell from her shoulders, but in her panic she hardly noticed. She thought she was choking, having a heart attack. Dying.


    Strong hands grabbed hold of her shoulders with such force that Lisette was shocked out of her hysterics. She looked up to see an ugly old woman, wrinkled face scarred from brow to chin, glaring at her.


    The old woman’s eyes seemed to be the only untouched part of her face. They were crystal blue and keen, and they stared so intently into those of the younger girl that Lisette forgot to cry for a moment. Then, all at once, the woman pulled her forward into a hug. It was like a vice, but it did the trick.


    The panic flared for a moment, then calmed back to tears. Lisette felt like her entire life had been a strange fever dream, and one that she had suddenly woken up from. She despaired at the thought, sobbing into the strange woman’s camphor-scented shoulder.


    She cried for her mother, and for the Armsman’s death, and for the shame of what he’d nearly done to her. She cried for her old life that she somehow knew she could never go back to. She cried in fear of the unknown, fear for the future, fear of these strange people.


    And when at last no more tears would come, she found that she was holding tightly onto the strange old woman. She let go hurriedly. The woman stepped back. “...Thank you,” Lisette whispered awkwardly. Her voice was nearly gone. The woman merely nodded and retreated back to the fire.


    Nobody was talking anymore. The three people who had remained fireside were staring openly. Lisette felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment. She pulled the blanket back over her shoulders and was about to murmur something to the affect of an apology when something streaked overhead and landed in her lap.


    It was small and grey and followed immediately by another. Then another. They were jackdaws, she realized. More and more flew down to her. Five rested in her lap and at least another six crowded around her on either side. Two were on her emptied plate on the ground, pecking for crumbs. She sat perfectly still, delighted and awed by their tiny feathered bodies so close.


    “What...” Lisette spoke softly. She wondered if this wasn’t all some bizarre dream.


    “Sorry,” Diago said, startling her. At some point he had come up right beside her, one hand on the wood just beside the doorframe. She hadn’t even noticed. “They don’t really listen,” he added, flapping a hand lazily at the birds. They ignored him completely.


    “Are they... Pets?” Lisette asked timidly, not daring move a muscle. She had seen a bird up close only once in her life, in the priory garden. It had been a tiny song sparrow, and the Sisters had luxuriated in telling everyone how it was a pet. A tame beast, they had said. Not used for ratting or hunting but just for company. A rare luxury.


    This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    These birds were plainer than the sparrow had been, but they had a keen intelligence in their eyes that enchanted her. They were so much lighter than she would have imagined, too, even with nearly a dozen perched on her in various places.


    Diago laughed, a sound that was so jovial and so loud that she startled, causing a few of the birds to flap their wings and squawk irritably. Lisette cut a glance at the tall man, wondering at how different he was from the men she’d known.


    “No, they’re not pets,” he said, grinning. “They’re more like pests than anything else. But they will follow him, so, we make do.”


    More confused than ever, Lisette watched fascinated as one of the birds began to peck at strands of her hair with a gentle beak. “Well I think they’re lovely,” she said quietly, more to the birds than to anyone else. A vague sense of deja vu distracted her from them and she looked up, trying to pinpoint the feeling before it slipped away.


    The boy that had given her the plate approached, and the birds all took flight at once. Three went to him- two on one shoulder and one on another- and the rest of them disappeared into the trees. Lisette was a little saddened by their leaving. She smiled warily at the boy.


    Up close, she thought he looked otherworldly. He had to have been no older than ten or eleven, and slight of stature for his age, but there was a world-weariness about him that spoke of wisdom. His hair was pale gold and curly and long enough to brush past the shoulder, and his skin was paler than even her own. His eyes, though, were dark. Incredibly dark. The irises were so deep they seemed to swallow up his pupils entirely.


    He wore an oversized knit coat and black pants with no shoes, his bare feet filthy. A few leather pouches were tied to a belt that he wore like a sash. From one of these he pulled something tiny and fed it to a jackdaw on his shoulder.


    “Hello... Again,” Lisette said awkwardly. The boy again gestured in that odd, fluttering way.


    “This is Az,” Diago said. “He doesn’t speak.” He tapped an ear. “Born deaf.”


    “Oh.” Lisette didn’t know what to say. “Sorry...” She knew of deafness and of blindness, but children with such ailments were typically kept out of sight by their parents or sold off to work quiet jobs in darkness.


    Az didn’t seem to mind her awkwardness. He grinned and made a motion at the birds on one shoulder. They all flew off, and he pulled something out of his coat with a flourish. It was a stick, one end snapped off and totally unremarkable. He walked up and set it in Lisette’s lap, dark eyes sparkling, and began to move both hands again.


    “He says, that came from the Death-Tree. The yew. He took it for you.”


    Feeling rather slow, Lisette took the stick and looked at the boy, then Diago, then back to the boy. “Sorry, but, how do you know what he says?”


    That drew laughter from a couple of the strangers sitting by the fire as well as from Diago. “He speaks with his hands,” he explained, showing her what he meant by briefly gesturing something in the same odd rapid succession that Az had. “He signs.”


    “Oh,” was all she could think to say again. She set the stick down gingerly behind her, not wanting to offend anyone.


    “It was mighty lucky that you chose a yew to get into trouble under. Those are death-trees, you know.”


    “I... What?” Feeling duller by the second, Lisette wondered once more if she wasn’t simply in the throes of some vivid dream.


    “Hm,” Diago said thoughtfully. “Why don’t you get dressed, then join us by the fire? I think we all need to talk.”


    “There are some old things of my granddaughter’s in the chest inside there,” the old woman called over. “They might be close to fit.”


    Lisette found that they did fit, almost perfectly, though they were things she would never have dared worn otherwise. She settled on a green top with loose, impractical sleeves and a faded skirt that was uncomfortably short. She may have protested had the entire group of people not already seen her naked. Her shoes were nowhere to be found, so she stayed barefoot.


    Diago wordlessly handed her a coat when she stepped down from the door. It fell almost to her shins but was wonderfully warm, the interior lined with something softer than wool and twice as insulating. “Thank you,” she told him politely.


    Fully outside at last, she could see that her room had not been a room at all, but rather a large wheeled cart. She had seen similar vehicles on the road at home, but this one was far more beautifully made. It was built of a reddish wood, and finished to such a sheen that it caught firelight in every polished whorl. A detached hitch lay in the dirt beside it, though she couldn’t see any trace-beast that might pull it.


    Farther off and nearly hidden in shadow there were a few bigger structures that might have been proper passenger wagons. Diago let her look for a moment then ushered her forward to where the rest of the strangers waited.


    Az was seated cross-legged on the dirt now, two Jackdaws in his lap. One of them leaned up into his finger appreciatively as he scratched its head.  Not knowing anyone else beyond a glance, Lisette sat down on the empty dirt beside Az.


    Diago opted for a thick rug on the other side of the fire, folding his long legs beneath him with a groan. The old lady was sat on a stump to his left, and to her left another man lounged on his back with a hat pulled over his face. Between the hat and the shadows outside the immediate ring of firelight, Lisette could barely make him out.


    She looked instead at the rest of the gathered group. There was a skinny old man with no hair on Diago’s right, and beside that a woman that couldn’t have been much older than Lisette herself.


    “Let’s start with the simple,” Diago began, voice carrying effortlessly through the night air. “What is your name, child?”


    “Lisette,” she responded after a nervous pause. Then, remembering her manners: “Nice to meet you.”


    Diago beamed at her. “Pleased to meet you, too, Lis.”


    Lisette nearly corrected him, out of habit, but found that somehow that nickname didn’t bother her nearly as much as her mother’s dreaded Etta. She watched as Diago signed to Az. “Telling him your name,” he explained.


    “I’m Brinna,” the old lady croaked with a toothy grin. Her voice was nearly as startling as her scarred face, but somehow still friendly.


    “Pleased to meet you, Ama,” Lisette used the honorific instinctively, noting how the woman frowned for a moment before nodding with raised eyebrows to the bald man.


    “Teo,” he said. His voice was rough, and Lisette recognized it as one of the voices she’d heard while she slept.


    “Call me Trin,” the ginger woman said softly. Her voice was deep and coloured with the throaty accent of the north. Many of the higher class visitors that sometimes attended Church or toured the workhouses had spoken with the same accent.


    Lisette offered a smile that was not returned and instead looked to her right, where the final unintroduced member of their strange party lounged just out of sight. He said nothing, though, and nor did anyone prompt him to.


    Instead, Diago spoke across the fire. “Now tell us, Lis. How is it you fell afoul of that ill-fated young Armsman?”


    “I was... I didn’t-” Lisette stammered, nervous with everyone’s eyes on her. “I was just sitting in my tree.” Her lips felt numb.


    “Aye, yes! The death-tree! Tell us how’t happened that you... Foolish, denominated girl...” The bald man burst out, leaning towards the fire with his eyes accusingly pinned on Lisette. The flames cast eerie shadows on his features.


    “Calm, calm Teo!” Diago hissed. “We agreed.”


    Teo settled back, staring into the fire with a furrowed brow. There was a moment of tense silence. Lisette’s anxiety grew, creeping up her spine and filling her with a nameless dread. She felt her life as she knew it unraveling by the second, fraying more and more into something like a half-remembered dream. It was terrifying and disorienting.


    “Start from the beginning, Lis.” Diago’s eyes, dark though they were, shone with a gentle understanding. Lisette looked at him and only him, steeling herself, and began the tale with the proper beginning: How she had in younger days spent Sundays perched in the topmost branches of the yew that these strange people called, the Death-Tree.


    Nobody spoke as she talked, and the only movement was Diago translating for Az with precise hand movements after each sentence. Az and the old woman, Brinna, made various noises of discuss as she recounted the Armsman’s attack, but they made no comment. It was gratifying to see that nobody here seemed to think it had been her fault.


    “And then... I guess I woke up in there,” Lisette pointed over her shoulder to the cart as her story finished. She had talked so long that her throat was dry, but she felt better. It seemed as if she had bled a bit of the poison out of the memory by retelling it.


    “An accident...” Diago mused once she had fallen silent. He glanced at Teo, who was shaking his head with raised eyebrows. “Just an accident,” Diago repeated. His features danced with something like glee.


    Confusion mounting, Lisette was just about to ask what he was talking about when loud laughter cut her off. To the right of Az, the fifth and final member of the strange band had joined the discussion at last.


    His eyes were wildly bright in the firelight, blue and set in a tanned face that looked half-mad with laughter. His hair was so light that the flames turned it orange. Once everyone was looking at him, the laughter snapped off like a dry twig. His expression steeled and the silence of his companions was such that he barely needed to speak above a whisper.


    “Mighty convenient, all this, no? The timing is... One might say, improbably perfect.” His teeth flashed in a sarcastic smile.


    Lisette recognized that voice immediately. She had heard it, wondered at it while she was fading in and out of consciousness. It was a rich voice, lilting with an unfamiliar accent and pleasant despite the danger in his tone.


    “Daltir,” Diago started cautiously. “We have absolutely no reason to believe anything beyond what the girl has presented to us as truth. She was nearly killed, after all.”


    “Armsmen are not above attacking their own,” he said quietly. He turned towards Lisette now, and she felt cold under the full weight of his gaze. “We should have left her there.”


    Outraged at the unfairness of his anger, Lisette jumped to her feet. “That’s it!” She shouted. “I don’t know who you all are, I don’t know what the hell is going on, but if you expect me to sit here in the dark while you tell me nothing and- and imply that I’ve... I’ve done something...” Startled then by her own boldness, she lowered her voice. “Just tell me what all this is about, or leave me alone!” She realized she was crying again and hated herself for it.


    The man Diago had called Daltir was still staring, but now his expression was unreadable. Nobody said anything, but some silent communication shared through glances and facial expressions seemed to pass around.


    Fed up entirely, Lisette dropped the oversized coat and walked off into the dark. Let these strange people deal with their own problems. She wanted nothing more in that moment then to run all the way home, damned the consequences. She wanted her mother, her bed, even her god-forsaken “death” tree.


    If they were waiting to arrest her at the town gates, then so be it. She would at least know briefly some sense of familiarity. This is mad, she thought to herself. The darkness grew around her as she walked, the crackling of the fire replaced by the buzzing sound of night insects.


    The air, much cooler outside the ring of light and warmth cast by the fire, felt good on her damp cheeks. She breathed it in slowly and allowed it to wash some of her anxiety away. It felt good to be away from all those eyes.


    She noticed a familiar rock in her path then, and wondered if she was going in circles. Hadn’t she already passed that? She walked by it slowly, giving it an angry look as she did so. When she looked forward again, Az was standing there.


    “Good at sneaking up on people, aren’t you?” She asked before remembering he couldn’t hear her. She noticed his bird friends were nowhere to be seen. She also noticed that he looked scared.


    Wordlessly, he took one of her hands in his smaller ones. Lisette felt a jolt of disorientation, as if the ground under her had shifted, and she found herself inexplicably, miraculously back where she had started, standing in the ring of firelight beside the coat she’d discarded. And everyone was still watching her.


    “Sorry,” Diago said to her, sounding tired. “I don’t like him to do that but, we can’t let you go.” At the flash of panic in her eyes he added, “At least not yet. Not til we explain some things.”


    Lisette was stunned out of her anger. “How did I get back here?” Az gave her hand a squeeze and sat back down in his spot by the fire, looking sad.


    “One of his many gifts, child.” Brinna answered.


    “Gifts...” Lisette repeated. Memories came to her. Warnings. Tales of horrible deaths to children who wandered into the woods and fell afoul of witches. Public hangings, burnings, lashings. Hannah’s older sister, who had been paraded naked through the streets after a man accused her of charming his son. The horrible, bloody mess in the square that the bishop had called the evil result of someone dabbling too far into wicked arts.


    Lisette had thought them paranoia and scare tactics. She hadn’t believed any of it, any more than she’d believed in their God. Her stomach lurched now with fear. “So he’s... You’re...” She found herself looking to Diago for an explanation or reassurance. He merely sighed. When someone finally spoke, it was Diago.


    “Suffice it to say we’re enemies of the church.”