A Surface of Pressure and Burden

Chapter 1: A Hut of Cold and Hunger

"Lizzie met her at the gate

Full of wise upbraidings:

'Dear, you should not stay so late,

Twilight is not good for maidens;

Should not loiter in the glen

In the haunts of goblin men.'"

-Goblin Market, Christina Rossetti

"'They stole my sister away!' she cried, 'To be a nasty goblin's bride!'"

-Outside Over There, Maurice Sendak

This was the forest, and it was winter.

The pot of barley, lentil, and sun-dried tomato stew was almost boiling on the stove when the door was nearly flung off its hinges as Feyre entered with a blast of icy cold wind. She was covered in mud from head to toe and had a dead deer, dripping blood, slung over her shoulders. I threw myself in front of the tiny hearth to protect the precious flames from going out - I had learned this lesson the hard way with Feyre's dramatic entrances.

"Feyre," Elain said wearily as she pushed the heavy door shut, "Where did you get that?"

"Wow," said Feyre," No mention of the blood on me."

"No, I meant did you go hunting on the Bridwell's land again, because last time you got one of their deer they came to the cottage and threatened to chop our heads off, literally chop our heads off our shoulders, and-"

"I've long since given up hope of any of you actually noticing whether I come back from the woods every evening," Feyre continued in a too-loud voice as if Elain hadn't even spoken, trying in vain to catch my eye at the hearth. "At least until you get hungry again," she added with a pointed glance at Elain, whom Feyre often described as "plump, but like, as a compliment" and then never understood why that made Elain cry.

"We won't be hungry," I put in, "This soup is almost ready, I got some sweet pickles from the larder and Elain made brown bread earlier today. There's still a little bit of the strawberry jam we can have with it."

Feyre rolled her eyes so far back in her head I thought they might pop. "You all think you're so cute with your little soups and salads! Give me a good venison steak any day!" She threw the deer over her shoulder onto the table that Elain had just set for dinner - plates, silverware, and pickle jars scattering to the floor. The scrawny carcass was already starting to thaw and the snow, mud, blood, and guts were oozing out everywhere.

"Will it take you long to clean it?" our father asked, hobbling over from his seat by the fire. I could never understand why that man chose to be so elusively polite - his obvious meaning, that Feyre had just made a huge mess in our tiny cottage rather than depositing the deer in the woodshed like a normal person, went right over Feyre's head.

"Me?" replied Feyre with another eyeroll. "Not her, not the others? I've never once seen their hands sticky with blood and fur. I've only learned to prepare and harvest my kills thanks to the instruction of others."

"And yet they never instructed you to put bloody animal corpses in the woodshed," I muttered. "Probably because the one who instructed you was Isaac 'I Don't Do Labels' Hale and he didn't want deer guts cluttering up your woodshed rendezvous," I couldn't resist adding. "Not shaming, just saying." But I did dread the day that Isaac's very religious family found out about their goings-on. Not to mention that the possibility of adding a niece or nephew to our tiny cottage was beyond overwhelming. Also not to mention there were rumors in town that Isaac was engaged to a girl from Greenfield village.