《The Voice in the Woods》 One Franca knew she was not beautiful, but it took her years to understand how painful it was. It started as tiny little things, hints of problems to come: when her family was invited to a ball or to a meeting with other Sicilian nobles, Franca was always among the last to receive a flower or a smile, while girls her age, wondrous in their white and cream dresses, would receive a compliment about how lustrous their locks were, or how shiny their eyes, or how fair their skin. The best sons of the kingdom would share longing gazes with her friends ¨C or supposed so ¨C and they would often take a stroll hand in hand, to go God knows-where into the gardens and between the bushes. Franca, who might have lacked in certain departments but surely not in wit nor hearing, would often leave, alone, to shiver behind a tall pine or beneath a porch, listening in trance like a befuddled opium smoker to the titter and laughter and gasps that came from those secluded places, so close and yet so far. So far, for her. She thought it was her own fault. Maybe her dress was not as beautiful as others? Maybe it was her perfume? Maybe it was her etiquette, something in her voice. Was her conversation not as interesting? She had just taken piano lesson, wouldn¡¯t someone sit down and listen? She knew how to hold a conversation in French! She knew poetry! No, she realized one dreary afternoon when she hit the large mirror in her room, shattering glass and her illusions alike: the broken image told her the truth, at last. It wasn¡¯t about something she could do. Nothing would fix her crooked nose, her bulbous forehead, the deep bags between her eyes, her too-wide waist and her too-thin hips. She would always appear as haggard as water-witch, with her black hair rolling down her shoulders like a moldy curtain. She took up strange habits. Began to attend mass too often ¨C she would often be found holding a crucifix and a bible in her pale hands, praying to God for deliverance to make her desirable. But God seemingly had no time for such frivolous requests. The sun shone outside and girls her age strolled around in the fields, laughing, sharing forbidden kisses under the shadow of beeches. All the while Franca gnawed upon herself like an old festering wound. She had all mirrors removed. Began to find excuses not to attend parties. Instead she threw herself upon the floor, scratching her wrists like an old battered rug praying for help. Help did not come. Never would, as the broken crucifix attested, thrown into a dusty corner. That was when she began to hear the whispers. At first they came at night: a soft murmur in the wind, reaching her ears when kept her eyes closed, weeping as her hands grasped the sheets tight. No words. No meaning.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Just an invite. She thought them a trick. Of her mind, perhaps. Perhaps of something else. Her Christian upbringing did provide some measure of solace, for a time. She came fully back to the faith she had briefly forsaken and covered her room in a curtain of holy water and icons of the Holy Virgin, but her efforts did little to keep the voices at bay. They tormented her night after night, beckoning her to leave her warms sheets and soft bed and step on the cold floor, step outside, step into the woods. It was always the woods. Summer was now approaching and her family often dragged her out, with the excuse open air would help her ailing health, when it would just provide the world with the sight of her mangled body. The whispers began to reach her at noon, while she held a spoon of soup close to her lips. They echoed in her ears while she attended mass with her parents. Come, they said. Come. In the shadows between hedge and branch she began to see shapes. Tall, pointed ones, with alluring smiles and eyes like dead stars. Summer grew thin and with it her resistance. The house of her family had been built in the middle of the island, far away from the rich cities of the coast. It had been built on the backs and sweat of hired hands, many of whom seemed to know about the secrets of the woods. Franca knew they did not go where the shadows were deeper, where trunks and leaves darkened and took on strange shapes. She had even seen strange rituals take place. A bowl of milk left as an offering. A cup burning human hair and incense. Bones, arranged in strange patterns. Always in the direction of the woods. Come. Come. Hours compressed in her memory ¨C she wouldn¡¯t have been able to say how or when she found her feet crackling against leaves, smelling damp earth and musk, light leaving her eyes to shine only in checkered patterns between branches hanging upon her head like a canopy of arms. She shuddered. The night was cool, but the real cold was inside her. Come. She followed. The farmers used to speak about a place that had been there for a long time, like an ancient blighted heart beating at the core of the island. The Old Country, they named it. It surely seemed like she was stepping in the matter of legends. The trees around her grew bent and gnarly, stretched out misshapen, as if they were trying to reproduce human figures twisted in agony. Come. And she obeyed, walking in the mud, cutting her way through brambles and thorns that seemed to hook into her clothes and into her skin, as if to hold her back, to test her resolve. She paid them no mind, nor to the cuts they bled into her skin, crimson turned bright grey inside the bowels of night. Until she reached a small opening. You have come, said a woman¡¯s voice. She froze mid-step. It was a soothing whisper, like a whiff of sweet smoke it caressed her ears, tickled against them. Something had come as well. An imposing figure, half-hidden between the trees, holding a tall and thin staff. A smile like a sickle of moon and eyes like burning embers of gold. Franca did not ask who she was. She did not ask what she wanted. ¡°What can you offer?¡± She whispered instead. What is it that you desire? The wind picked up. It passed through her hair like a caress. Images flew into her mind like a scattered flight of doves: dancing at a ball, a handsome duke entranced by her beauty, picking up flowers in a meadow. A crown of gold? She shook her head. The voice seemed to laugh. It was toying with her, because she already knew her answer. A lover¡¯s kiss. Her cheeks prickled. She lowered her gaze, away from those twin golden orbs that seemed to gawk directly into her forsaken soul. To look in a mirror once more? Franca trembled. Slowly, caring little for the remnants of her soul, she held her hands out in offer. ¡°Yes.¡± Two It happened slowly. The entity in the woods had said as much, but Franca¡¯s heart was so impatient. For the first few weeks she even feared she had been betrayed and the promise she had taken and sealed with her blood amounted to little more than a dream. Even when she woke up with a clear wound running across her right hand, where she had opened her palm against a thorn sprouted from the closest tree, her covenant with the thing that whispered from under dreams and shadows. It had been easy to explain her scar: she had an accident with a paper cutter, nothing to worry about. The line was thin and clear enough to be a good excuse, and her parents and friends quickly forgot about her misfortune, just as they forgot everything about her. But on the first day of winter, she woke up to find something changed. Her heart beating so fast it reached her ears like a rumbling river, Franca walked on uneasy steps towards the bathroom, where she had the last remaining mirror in her quarters. It was a small thing but enough to notice her jaw sat differently. Her nose was slightly straighter, her eyes¡­ were they not a little larger and more even? Panting heavily, she held the mirror against her face for the better part of one hour, checking her reflection from all angles. She had changed, indeed. Subtly so. Someone half as obsessed as she was with her appearance would not have noticed. She put down the mirror, shivers shaking her body. It was all true. All true. She put her hands over her belly, over her womb. All of it. Which meant¡­ She shook off the thought, like an old raven that had sat on a flowered branch. It scattered from her mind. What did it mean? There would be time to think of the payment, and by then, she probably would not care. She was too busy taking note of the changes. As the voice had assured her, they would be subtle enough to be ascribed to puberty finally giving out its due, and more. By Christmas, her face had transformed: she proudly displayed the harmonious profile of a Greek goddess, with her straight nose, her full lips, her large and deep eyes. Her smile lighted up the room instead of carrying clouds with it. People began to look at her, keep their eyes on her instead of shying away their gaze towards something less hideous.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. As winter proceeded, she also grew, like she used to a couple years before. In the course of a season her legs had lengthened two palms, and she was now taller than her mother, taller than most her friends. She stopped before her height became cause for concern, but she was slender and elegant like a nymph. By the time Easter rolled by, she began to get noticed. At parties, during Mass, simply when she strolled by on the back of a horse together with her family. Voices spread, of course. There were those who said she had made a pact with the devil, no girl could become that beautiful in a matter of months. But most thought them jealous and paid them no mind. She had experience with it after all: people cared little for the ugly ones. And now, at last, she was not one of them anymore. With spring she shone: a jewel of beauty in every occasion, she would turn gazes towards herself like a whirlpool gathering all water to itself. She stepped into a room and everyone would look at her: desire ¨C from men, no matter how old, no matter how young ¨C and jealousy ¨C from women. Her so-called friends dropped any charade that their faith or common sense made them hold up and began to whisper behind her back. They called her a wench, a witch, a slut. Franca loved those words. They burned of the same flame that had consumed her for so long. She was now an apparition: tall, shapely, her dark eyes shining with unseen light, her hair long and thick and lustrous, silence would walk with her, muted conversation upon her coming. Most amusing, the men and handsome boys that had insofar forsaken her still did not care about her poetry, about her French, about her piano lessons. Their greedy eyes only saw what they could squeeze pleasure out which, and that made her dizzy. If they could squeeze pleasure out of her, she would be the one to say how, and when, and at what price. Her first was the son of a Duke from Palermo, a beautiful blonde man with deep brown eyes and a mouth that tasted of cigars and peaches. His cologne dug deeper into her than his fingers and she had to take a shower afterwards to mask the scent. She had burned. He had shaken her, made her feel desired. She had of course not conceded fully ¨C it would have been foolish! ¨C but it had been a first morsel of an apple so tantalizing she never wanted to run out of it. And so summer came and with it joys that seemed to know no end. The number of her suitors grew and grew like the mounting tide. People came from the continent to know her. Franca¡¯s mind began to swim in ghosts and phantasms of places until then only imagined as far-off fantasies: London, Paris, Vienna! Under the heat of summer, she pirouetted in her room, covered now with mirrors and flowers, trying one pretty dress after the next. Where would she dine tonight? Would a gentleman take her for a sip of the finest wine upon a terrace looking down into the sea? And as she danced and the days passed, she managed to keep at way the gnawing awareness of the words whispered by that thing in the wood. Words about the time that had been given to her. And when Franca put on her new dress and massaged her taut stomach, she did not think about the price that had been asked of her. She did not think about it for a long time. Until it would be too late. Three She lay on the bed, legs sprawled, arms coiled around the warm body of her lover. She had never imagined it would be like this. She felt like flying. Franca¡¯s eyes rolled back as she let out another moan. She liked this. This was good. It was her right. This was not her first time, but it was the best one so far. A beautiful Duke, tall and handsome had caught her attention. Deep blue eyes like the Mediterranean sea, dressed in his military uniform, a thin scar crossing his cheek, symbol of the battles he had served in. He was as rough as she had imagined, and she as soft and plump and ready as he had envisioned in his mind. She could just imagine him charging into battle with the same vigour he now opened her legs, no need to coax her into wetness with his fingers: she was already wet, her core clenching and unclenching like a damp fist. He put his rod against her folds without even asking, without even saying anything: she was too beautiful, too beautiful, too desirable. So much she had stolen his breath and his word. He pushed deep inside her and she groaned, arching her back and presenting him her breasts, the full, rounded oranges the Voice had grown for her. A little creases passed on her brow. It was not the time to think about the Voice. This was her day and her day only. She yelped as he put his rough, wide hands over her chest, mauling her breasts, just like she was an object for his pleasure. She liked it this way. He pushed deep, back and forth, back and forth, making the bed trembled with the strength of his blows. ¡°Yes yes yes,¡± she cooed, closing her eyes and pulling him closer. She kissed him, and he poured every drop of passion into kissing her back. Franca¡¯s thick lips were never satiated by just one kiss. She laughed into the kiss as bliss spread through her body. She felt like flying. More and more and more. This was the life. This was what had been taken away from her for far too long. Sure, she had to pay for it eventually, but¡­ ¡°More,¡± she groaned against his ear. It was not the time to think about anything else. She wanted pleasure! She wanted to be used, she wanted to make sure he enjoyed himself to the fullest.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. So that he¡¯d come back. So that he¡¯d never forget her. So that she¡¯d stay with him¡­ ¡°More! Ahhh¡­ more!¡± She cried out as he picked up the pace, lifting her lithe body. One hand and an arm under her back while with the other caressed her breasts, flicking her nipples. Yes. He was so rough. And she welcomed him inside her with such pleasure. He pounded inside her, producing low slick noises and wave upon wave of golden pleasure. Her breasts wobbled each time, her hair fell in a black cascade behind her, spreading over the bed like a black shroud. She was so beautiful. She was perfect. ¡°You¡­ are¡­ you are amazing¡­ my lady Franca¡­¡± he sputtered between one pelvic movement and the next. She tittered. ¡°You¡­ are so kind. Use me! Make me your¡­¡± something still hesitated inside her, the last rings of a long-rusted chain. ¡°Make me your bitch!¡± She yelled and the one remnant of her morals and her upbringing was lost. Pleasure doubled as she accepted completely what she was here for. She was in this world for pleasure. And if she was willing to share, men like the Duke would always been far too eager to provide her with everything she desired. She was beautiful. ¡°Ahhh, right there!¡± ¡°Lady F-Franca!¡± She was unforgettable. ¡°Make¡­ make me¡­¡± Maybe it had been her pleading tone, maybe it had been the fact she squeezed her thighs against his member, but he went off like a sail growing taut under a strong wind. He arched his back, she arched hers and he came inside her. This was her right. Nobody would take it from her ever again. Franca shook with the strength of her own orgasm. She floated through air and through the thick pleasure that invaded all of her senses. Her mouth opened in a happy groan as she let out one long lusty moan, coiling her toes as she was used like she was supposed to be. Ought to be. She was, after all, every man¡¯s desire. - And it was not just boasting. Over the course of the seasons, she accrued suitors like she accrued pearl necklaces, or rings, or vacations, or gifts, or beautiful ballgowns. Still, it would not be enough. Whenever she stepped out of her home, whenever she looked out of the window, the forest was there to meet her gaze. The Old Country. But she had a solution. She left the island on a clear December night, stepping on the boat that would carry her to Rome and from there all the way to Paris. The handsome, tall, rich Prince helped her aboard with a large smile and a knowing glint in his eyes, confident in his charm. At last she would find an occasion to show off her French. As the boat paddled its way through the Channel and north towards the open waters, Franca held hands with her gracious host, looking back towards the island. Can¡¯t get me now, she thought. A grin spread over her features. The halogen lights of the boat and the strings of golden light coming from the coast seemed to say the same thing: she was now in the world of men, in more than one sense. She had stepped away from old tales and old fears. She was a free woman, and the thing in the wood would not catch her. Not now, not ever. Franca looked into the night and laughed. Four She did not think about the voice for years. Franca was too busy traveling the world, leaving a series of awed gentlemen and jealous courtesans in her wake. Her baggage piled up: she did not move with her stock of memorabilia, from the wondrous feathers an English explorer gifted her to the horns of narwhal a Norwegian Duke was so eager to impress her with. She wrote home less and less. Her family dwindled ¨C her father was devoured by a hidden illness, her mother died shortly after. Did she cry? Of course, but only a few tears. There were more important things to do, and with every journey, every dinner, every night of passion in the arms of this or that noble, the memories of her old life thinned and slowly disappeared, as if she had never been anything less than astonishing in her beauty. Even as years piled up, she maintained her youthful appearance. She was twenty-two and her cheeks were just as rosy as they had always been. She blew the candles on her twenty-third birthday and yet she was a shining as the years before. Coming twenty-four, her hair had lost nothing of their luster. Whispers began to accumulate about her: she was a witch, she was unnatural, she was dangerous. But as long as only scorned women gave them heed, she paid them no mind. Men were still more interested in what she could do for them with her beauty than wonder where it came from. Still, slowly, like a fire that can¡¯t grow larger than the wood that¡¯s fueling it, on the seventh year since she had made her pact she found herself looking out of a window from a lovely apartment in London, looking down at the busy street, filled with horses and cabs. This was the center of the world, the heart of the British Empire, so far from that old stupid island that has held her prisoner for far too long. Beauty couldn¡¯t carry her to the very top, but she found a nice-looking Earl comfortably sitting on a secondary branch of the royal family. He was loaded. This was but one of his houses, and they would soon leave for their country villa. He would be her husband, her family, soon. By now, she only had a few relatives still living ¨C the rest had all been consumed, one after the next like candles left in front of a bonfire. Franca shifted her gaze from the street to her reflection: a stunningly beautiful woman with her fair skin, deep dark eyes and black hair, she was the definition of bewitching. She had stolen more than one husband with a look and a little turn of her thick lips, a slight tremor on her bountiful chest, a bump of her hips. Still, there was a shadow upon her brow.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. She had buried the memories of her pact for many years ¨C but they had recently resurfaced and her recent engagement to the Duke was not just a matter of luck. I can give you seven years, she had said. Not one more. Not one less. It would be only a few weeks before the anniversary of the seventh year since her pact, and Franca was restless. She passed her hands over her stomach, where the fruit of her future husband¡¯s love was already growing. Your firstborn. She bit her lip. She was too far away. That voice, that entity, could not get her there. She was too far away, in the heart of the civilized world, not in a house lost in the midst of the woods. She had heard stories of fairies and fey beings lost in the woods of England, but they could not compare to the sheer fear she heard every time a whiff of wind caressed her ear. Was that her voice? Had she come back to take what was due? But every time it was just a figment of her imagination, nothing more than her own paranoia. ¡°I will not give it to you,¡± she said to the her reflection, putting both hand over her stomach. ¡°I will not. This is mine.¡± She had expected for a dark figure to appear behind her, grasp her neck and drag her into darkness. Nothing came. The clock kept counting seconds. Nothing happened. Just like that night seven years before, no one was there with her. Until the moment something would be. Franca shivered in the warm room. She left the window, turning towards the stove. She was cold, and cold was not good for the child. The next few weeks were even more miserable. She suffered mood swings, bad breath, cramps. Even the marriage was not enough to satiate her worries. On a July night, but a few days after she had stepped out of the church dressed in pearly white and enjoying the triumph of her life, she found herself sitting alone in the living room, in front of the ticking clock. Her husband had fallen asleep, helped by a few pills she had slipped into his wine. She was alone. The fire was crackling in the hearth, filling the room with comfortable heat and the soothing smell of burning wood. The shadows danced in the corners. The clock ticked this way and that. She held her bloated stomach with both hands, shaking her head this way and that. ¡°He¡¯s not yours,¡± she muttered. ¡°Not yours. Not yours. Mine. I won¡¯t give it.¡± It would soon be midnight. Minutes slithered down her back, cold and heavy like ice boulders. The large hand reached the little one and the clock produced in its call. Twelve times it chimed. As the echoes dissipated, Franca shifted her gaze towards the mirror. Her hair was still as black as ever. Her eyes just as shining. Her figure just as perfect. She was still beautiful. ¡°It¡¯s gone,¡± she cackled, standing up on shaking legs. She stumbled towards the fire, laughing mad with relief. It could not get her. It would not. ¡°It¡¯s gone!¡± She laughed and laughed until she cried. Then she went back to bed, falling into easy sleep for the first time in months. The next day she woke up next to her husband, just as beautiful and stunning as ever. Franca grinned and patted her belly. Everything would be just fine. Five For about one year. That was how long fear left her mind. Her child was named Alexander, after the great conquerors of the past. He surely had conquered her heart: she spent many a night holding the baby against her body, without a care in the world. She had wealth, a loving husband who did not complain too much about her occasional libertine lifestyle, her beautiful baby. Everything she could wish for. Alexander grew strong. At eleven months of age he had developed dark brown hair and piercing green eyes ¨C a trait of his father¡¯s family, for sure. He had just learned how to stand up and take his first precarious steps when something happened that threw Franca back into the throes of anxiety. A small thing. She had taken up the habit of cultivating flowers ¨C it was in vogue among women of her rank. She had her husband build her a glasshouse where she could have all sort of flowers and roses to tend to. One day, as she was changing the earth inside a vase, she looked at the roses she had transplanted the day before and let out a little gasp. The petals, that used to be so thick, rosy and plump, had withered, losing their pretty shade to an ill grey. ¡°What happened?¡± she whispered, turning the flower this way and that to check if some insect had made it its home. She found nothing. Shaking her head at the wasted hours, she cut down the sick plant and changed the soil, making sure to give it a lot of water. She then tended to her other plants. The next day when she went to check on the rose, she found it wilted, laying against the vase, reduced to a grey mold that seemed to spread over the floor like a spiderweb. ¡°Oh no no no,¡± she groaned shaking her head. Then her heart sank. The glasshouse was filled with dead flowers. All the plants she had been working for the past few months had turned the same sick grey as the roses and seemed to be hanging on for dear life. Echoes of fear shook her heart. Could this be¡­ No, it couldn¡¯t. This was not magic, or a curse, or any other supernatural occurrence, just plain bad luck. A malaise of the plants must have spread in the glasshouse. All she could now was to salvage what plants she could have start anew¡­ forget this accident.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. And she could have convinced herself it was but an accident, if she hadn¡¯t come back to her rooms to find the flowers on her balcony dead and grey as well. She stepped back onto the white and red tiles of the bedroom, shaking her head and holding her hands in front of her face, as if afraid they would turn into hooked talons at a moment¡¯s notice. Nothing happened. She stood alone with her fear ¨C and perhaps the hints of a far-away voice caressing her ears, carrying words of vengeance. No. Fantasies! These were nothing but coincidences. She began to use gloves. It was supposed to be part of the modern woman¡¯s attire by the way. She had gloves shipped to her from London and Paris. But they could do little to protect plants from her withering touch. She had the flowers in the glasshouse renewed three times. They all died withing hours. What was worse, people began to complain about a strange odor lingering in the house. A damp, foul smell like a dead thing slithering out of a bog. Like the scent of damp earth and misshapen things standing on their legs under the moonlight. ¡°No no no,¡± she whispered that night kissing her baby, holding him onto her as he looked up at her with those large green eyes. Her husband, careful as always to keep track of her moods, hugged and embraced her all night while she cried her eyes out. The plants on her balcony had all died as well. She had drenched herself in perfume and yet that foul, horrible odor never seemed to leave her, following her steps like a dark cloud of storm. Servants began to gag and retch in her presence. They excused themselves prof, profusely, but couldn¡¯t seem to stand staying close to her. Even her husband, the man who had given her a son and more pounds than she could count coughed and heaved as he held her close. She trembled in his embrace all night, until she at last fell asleep. On the next morning, she woke up to the dreary sound of Alexander crying. She blinked and stood up, extricating from her husband¡¯s embrace. She went to the child¡¯s room, taking him up in his arms. The baby seemed to clam down in her embrace and she felt a little relieved, like she could still save this. She still had her child. The most precious thing in the world. When she came back to the main bedroom the only thought she had in her mind was to wake his father up and share a good breakfast like a family. They¡¯d laugh and joke about her fears and they¡¯d disappear like whimsical plums of mist under the mornings sun. Turning back to the bed, Franca shrieked. Her husband was laying on his back, panting. He turned one of his eyes towards her. The other bulged out, vitreous and bloodshot. From the side of his mouth he coughed black phlegm. She put down the baby, who had started to cry again, and harder ¨C in a panic, she ripped out his nightgown to help him breathe, only to find his skin stretched and blackened, showing the shape of her body as he had hugged her all night long. Her husband reached for her cheek and cupped it with his hand. A soft breath escaped his lips ¨C his one good eye rolled up and his hand fell still to the bedside. Franca¡¯s panicked sobs echoed that of her son. Six It was not a sickness. No sickness of the body could spread like that, as if through her simple presence. Lately, there have been odd new theories, she had heard about, illnesses being caused by tiny animals living in the body, spreading through breath and blood and urine. They barely had time to bury her poor husband, his body tight and swollen like a pus-filled zit, black liquid oozing out of his orifices, that she had turned into a pariah. The first servant to catch the malaise was, ironically, not the one who had spent the most time with her. Robert, one of the gardeners. He had been coming from time to time, taking care of the lawn. She had seen him from the window. He gurgled as something akin to mold spread from out of his nostrils to cover his neck and chest. He had fought for a bit, thrashing and rolling on the lawn, kicking the gravel with beam-stiff legs. Then he had arched his back in utter pain and he died, just like that, without any real fuss, not like her husband, who had managed to be more noticeable in his death than he ever did in his life. The servants noticed. They disappeared like candles turning dark for the night, leaving her alone in a home that was turning dirtier by the day. It was not just dust piling up the corners. Dirty dishes, clothes, sheets. She was never used to it. At night she walked through the empty corridors, holding a lamp to check if everything was closed, every door and every window and even the chimney ¨C then she stood paralyzed, waiting for the shadows to move, for something to come out and grasp her. She had to relocate. Franca had never cooked a meal in her life ¨C she survived on bread and marmalade, canned peaches and dried meat for a while, but the stress was causing her to lactate a lot less, and the baby had started to refuse her milk. She had tasted it. It was sour. One beautiful spring day, she hoped on a coach and left the house of her dreams, its empty walls and emptier rooms, holding Alexander in her arms, comforted by the fact the baby had not been harmed. Not him. Not her little Alexander, her joy, her pride. He would be spared, she would protect him. She still possessed most of the contacts she had gathered in her years of free-running, together with all her looks. Every morning she turned to mirror in fear: would this be the morning when her hair turned grey, when her cheeks wrinkled, her nose hooked? But every day and every night she was just as fresh as always.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. She stood in their apartment in London for a few days. And for a blessed time, it seemed as if the malaise had not followed her. Until the morning when the servant girl came to carry her breakfast to bed ¨C she caught her throat and stumbled forward, coughing blood and black phlegm. Naturally, things began to turn a tiny bit suspicious. How could it be that this beautiful lady, who had seemingly not aged a day, was leaving behind her such a trail of horrible deaths? Surely her husband¡¯s death could be a regrettable case of bad luck ¨C or good luck if one considers the person who inherited all of his fortune, but such a string of cases? Her contacts turned her down. The duke of Moravia was out campaigning. The Prince of Monaco had no time to see her. And with each day, she feared the police, or worse, would knock on her door. She gathered her things, wrote her signature on a long list of papers: sold everything and with the money she moved south, to lower France, in a small village looking towards the sea. Her new apartment was modest. It turned out in her haste she had made a few mistakes on the pile of documents she had signed and transferred ownership of most of her once-considerable assets to the law firm that had ¡®helped¡¯ with the papers. It did not matter, or so she replied to herself. Her new house ¨C a cottage, to be honest ¨C was still cozy and nice enough to allow her comfortable living, and she would find another husband, or at least another suitor, pretty soon. Alexander was a little troubled by the scared look on his mother¡¯s face and all that moving, but he still smiled and called her mom and that was all that mattered, was it not? It was all that mattered. She had three weeks of peace before the residents of the village started to lament headaches, sore throats. It was bound to be nothing. It was almost summer, sometimes things like that happened. Most of them were old people. It meant nothing. It meant nothing, when the harvest was eaten by blight. It meant nothing, when people fell dead in the street, coughing blood. It meant something, when word finally spread and a throng of people came to her home, finding it empty. She had left France the day before ¨C she was starting to understand how much time she had before the malaise caught up to her. For a few months she lived like that: jumping and hopping from place to place, always southward. She stayed twelve days in Milan. Seven in Rome. Four in Naples. Yet words stopped following her and began to come before: she became infamous, the witch that spread plague, the dark-haired beauty that was as stunning as she was deadly. People stopped accepting her money. The few ones who still did stole the rest. And so it was that she found herself once again upon a boat. This time, though, she was holding her most precious thing in her arms. This time, she was coming back home. ¡°Everything will be alright, little one,¡± she whispered to her son. Because it would. She¡¯d make sure it did. Last Franca came back to a destroyed house. She had to walk for the last few miles: she had called a couch, but the man had wobbled, folded on himself and fell dead and spitting blood on the road. She had left him under the unerring sun of Sicily and drove the horses herself, though not without difficulty. Alexander had tired himself to sleep after a full day of screams, his little face streaked with tears. Better this way. Better this way. She could experience a bit of peace. A bit of peace. The wind did not carry voices. Not yet, anyway. When she found her old house she let out a tired whimper. A little part of her had hoped she could find her old room, wind down, maybe even share a warm meal with her little boy. The roof had caved in, turning the upper walls into a splintered flower, a blooming of thorns. The lower levels lay open, bare. Windows shattered, the insides looked dark and empty. She left the couch to itself. The horses did not move, they seemed to wait for her, or maybe they lay down as all animals did when they were close to a predator. Her old home had been eviscerated. Mold and weed grew in the corners, eating away at the light. Whatever might have been precious or useful and not nailed to the walls had been pilfered. Then a second wave of raiders must have had stolen the nails as well. Her steps creaked on a surface of shattered glass and old wooden planks that bemoaned her presence. ¡°F-Father?¡± She asked, knowing very well he lay down in a crypt seventeen miles away. Nobody was there. She walked upstairs, holding Alexander to her chest. Slowly, she found her room, or what remained of it. Her bed had been overturned, her windows broken. Her wardrobe and clothes. She had lost everything. She sat down on the hard bed. Alexander let out a little groan of disapproval as he shifted in his restless dream. ¡°It¡¯s alright,¡± she said. ¡°It¡¯s alright. Everything is going to be alright.¡± She licked dry lips as she sat looking at the shadows lengthen. From under the bed her fingers found the broken remains of a wooden crucifix, the one that she had broken the night she forsake her faith. It wouldn¡¯t be of use to her now. Alexander woke up. She kissed his head and lulled him to sleep once more. She had nothing to give the poor creature, but she had been out of milk for weeks and out of money for days. But everything would be fine once more. She followed the stairs as they lead her down to the base floor and then outside: the trees seemed closer, the forest looming over her. The Old Country, come back to swallow her child. A few hundred feet behind her, someone appeared from the edge of the woods. A tall and broad man with a dark beard, holding an axe. Their gazes met for a moment.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. The man called out to her and started to advance in her direction. She shrieked and bolted towards the woods. The canopy of the forest welcomed her. She ran. Branches biting down into her arms. She ran. Leaves cutting her skin. She ran. Low-hanging boughs grasping her hair. Alexander woke up. His cries mixed with the whispers, coming back like the tide called by a wide cruel moon. Sunlight disappeared. The glow of morning, of the world of men, gave way to a sickened light, green and corpse-like. Like the will o¡¯ wisps she had heard about when she still used to live in Britain. But unlike their bluish brightness, these were a dark emerald, casting forsaken shadows all about. At last, each breath a blade of pain coursing through her chest, she stopped in the middle of a small circular opening. The trees once again looked like bent shapes, twisted in their agony, holes in their bark like eyes and screaming mouths. You have come, said the voice. It was as smokey and as deceptively soothing as always. It seemed to ebb and flow, speak to her ears and inside her brain and coming from echoes a mile away. ¡°Yes. I¡¯m sorry. I did not know¡­ I tried to¡­ I¡¯m sorry. What have you done to¡­? To me? What¡¯s happening?¡± I gave you seven years, the voice calmly stated. From between the wall of trees the same figure appeared. Just as tall. Still holding her staff. Her head surrounded by horns like a halo. Green flames licked her silhouette but she never seemed to be able to make her out. And in payment, your firstborn. Such was the pact. ¡°I¡¯m sorry! I just¡­ I just can¡¯t! I can¡¯t!¡± A boon, turned inside out. Beauty into blight. ¡°What can I do?¡± She looked down at the face of Alexander. Her baby. Her amazing, beautiful baby. His eyes opened and he looked at her. Payment is long overdue. A bonus is expected. Franca froze. Slowly, she turned her gaze away from her son, towards that of eyes burning like pools of gold from between the trees. So. I ask you, Child of Men. What will you gave up? Franca trembled. She smiled to Alexander through her tears. ¡°It¡¯s going to be alright,¡± she whispered, her voice just as broken as her windows. Just as her life. ¡°It¡¯s going to be alright.¡± She put one last kiss on the brow of her beautiful son. Slowly, she lowered his body to the ground. - The woodcutter huffed as he pushed through the dense forest. This place gave him the creeps, even to him who was a good Christian and as thick as an oak. He kissed his thumb and signed himself. He had seen the woman running in this direction ¨C she couldn¡¯t be far. What was a lonely woman doing this close to the damned forest, holding a baby in her arms? She might have been a mother running from brigands. They came back to the old collapsed house from time to time. He froze as a far-away wail reached his ears. ¡°Miss!¡± He shouted, cutting through the bushes with his axe. ¡°Miss!¡± He followed the wail, stopped only when he reached a strange tree, bent upon itself. The shape of its trunk was unnatural. The branches, hanging low, looked like the arms of a person covering her face. The roots a gangly of knotted wood. The wail came from there. He turned, trying not to look at the holes in the bark that looked exactly like two eyes and a wailing mouth. At the feet of the tree lay a beautiful baby, with fair skin and piercing green eyes. ¡°There, there,¡± the woodcutter said holding him up. He was clothed in fine linen, covered with words in a language he did not understand. French maybe? How odd. ¡°It¡¯s fine now. It¡¯s fine.¡± He patted on the baby¡¯s back, though that seemed to do little to calm him down. Something caught his attention. Behind the trees. It had been just a moment, but ¨C a shadow, a tall one. A flicker of green flames. Bright golden eyes. He bit his lip, turned and left that blighted place behind him. He was tall and strong, but all of a sudden he was seven again, scared to tears by tales of the Old Country and the Wicked Fae who lived there. The woodcutter ran away. The echoes of his steps disappeared, as did that of the child¡¯s wails. In a few moments, only echoes of the wind remained. They seemed to linger around the strange tree, the one with the bent, awful shape. Then they disappeared as well. Silence came, and there was no voice in the woods.