WARNING: This story contains strong language, depictions of violence, depictions of childhood trauma, depictions of coercion, depictions of dubious consent, and depictions of domestic violence that may not be suitable for some readers.
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I didn't recognize either voice.
But I knew whatever the speakers were, they weren't human.
One voice was gritty like sand rubbed against metal and the other had a low, whiny note ringing through its words.
"Her skin could be flayed," said the one with the gritty voice. "But there's so little of her... She's so small she'd barely make a cushion cover."
The other creature spoke, making an annoyed sound at the back of its throat. "I need more than a cushion cover from her, Yezekael."
My ears pricked—Yezekael.
I had never heard the name before.
Was it a Horned God or a lesser creature?
Yezekael laughed, and the sound felt like sharpened claws raking down my back. "That you do."
I'd awoken in a strange place, laying on my side with my face pressed against something cold and wet. Cool air curled around my shivering body like mist and made my uniform stick to my skin. A thick mildew smell filled my lungs with every draw of breath. Another smell washed over me. It was coming from where the voices spoke, an odd mixture of stale spices and dead animal, as they discussed me like a thing.
I pried my sticky eyes apart just a sliver, knowing as my heart pumped faster, to keep quiet, to keep pretending I was asleep.
Where am I?
The forest.
It was a chilly night with a full moon that lit everything up bright, and I was lying on the forest floor on a carpet of rotting leaves and sharp twigs. My entire body was in pain. It felt like needles stabbed through my flesh with barbed tips. I couldn't move my legs.
But my hand... I could twitch the index finger of my left hand, and a few heartbeats later the rest of my fingers followed, along with a bend of my wrist.
"It's awake."
I froze, holding my breath.
A huff. "Impossible. I stung her. The poison's in her blood. She's asleep, and when she wakes she won't remember a thing."
That's what they thought, but they were wrong.
Because whatever was in my blood fought back.
But it was right about one thing.
I couldn't remember being stung.
I couldn't remember very much at all. My memories... It was like the time I'd accidentally fallen into the spongy edge of a pond, trying to pull my limbs from the sludge. Muddied memories came back to me, flashes of movement... Of cries... Of wide glassy eyes...
Mama...
I'd been out here in the forest with my mother.
Fear squeezed my heart.
Where is she?
Movement, the crunch of dead leaves, and a gentle rustling noise like feathers. Yezekael made a gritty humming noise as if thinking, while it drew closer—
And closer—
Stale air brushed over my cheeks as it leaned over me—
My heart beat faster, louder—surely it would hear it.
A hollow clacking sound, like the game I played—knucklebones, tossing them up, catching them with my palm or the back of my hand, snatching them out of the air with my fingers—clack-clack. We servants had a modern set made from metal, but the children from the House played with the same knucklebone set their great-grandparents played with—real sheep's bones.
A breath, foul smelling and hot, puffed over my face. I wanted to pinch my nostrils shut. I kept still, taking slow, shallow breaths when all I wanted to do was jump to my feet and run.
It was so close, the loose hair around my ears wafted as its voice grated at my ears. "Her hair, it's like spun gold. One of our brethren might be interested to gnaw the freckles from her cheeks, suck the eyeballs from her sockets, chew on what little fat she has... Or perhaps they'll take to her with a meat cleaver and separate out all the tiny bits that make her special. Grind her bones to dust. Weave a spell from her sinew."
I was going to be eaten alive...
Or my body chopped up into pieces...
Pure panic turned my mind blank, apart from one thought.
I had to move—I had to run!
"My bones hurt," whined Yezekael's companion. A groan followed by a stretch, and the sound reminded me of when Old Man Ben slowly rose from his favorite chair and shuffled across the room. "Her heart—she's a child. It won't be corrupted by greed."
"Perhaps," the other murmured as it withdrew, the sound of crunching pine needles following it as it stepped away.
The stabbing pain in my body had dulled, and as I checked myself I learned that I could move my limbs again.
Where was Mama?
I had to get away. I had to find her—save her.
Had they stung her too?
Was she lying close by, unable to move?
"How did you get the child?" asked Yezekael with its rough, sandy voice.
"I ate her mother. Then stole the girl."
Everything...everything inside my mind went blank but for those words chasing one another.
The air tightened in my throat.
Surely, I couldn't have heard right.
Please...please...please...
"You ate her mother?"
"I was starving. I couldn't resist any longer." The smacking of what I imagined to be thin lips, and a cruel laugh. "She was delicious."
A rushing sound filled my ears and my heart bled pain, such horrible pain, which twisted inside every single part of my body. Heat pricked my eyes. I barely stopped the sob from escaping my lips.
Mama...
Mama is dead...
Eaten.
Yezekael made a considering noise at the back of its throat. "Even if what you say about the child is true—"
"Are you calling me a liar? A deceiver?"
"The child's not enough for what you want."
A whine in the other's voice. "I need your help. That's why I asked you to—"
"I know why you did," Yezekael bit back. "You need me to barter on your behalf. I know what those witches want... The Horned Gods too."
"Then help me," the other demanded.
I could hear the greedy smile in Yezekael's words. "And what do I receive as payment?"
"You live," it growled.
A rusty laugh. "I'd like to see you try to kill me. You're no longer what you once were. You're diminished."
"Yezekael," it snarled.
They were about to fight. I could feel it in the air. Hear it in the way they breathed harder, faster. The way the one with the gritty voice laughed.
It was my mother's voice in my head that had me carefully tensing my body, ready to push up.
Quietly, tabby-cat...quietly. Don't let them hear you...
Behind me, the clearing erupted into noise.
Snarls, snapping, a roar of fury—
A barking yelp—
Thumps. The splintering of wood. Leaves raining down.
I always slunk about quietly, like a cat my mother thought, not just because of my last name. Ready to pounce or steal a ball of yarn, tabby-cat? she'd laugh.
Lifting myself up from the ground on shaking legs, I kept low and crept quietly into the line of ferns, their leaves scratching at my face, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Before the foliage swallowed me up, I went to look back over my shoulder just as a booming noise exploded behind me—
A scream of pain followed—
The yawning sound of a tree falling, crashing upon the earth.
But Mama's soft voice stopped me. Don't look, tabby-cat...keep going...
Pushing forward on wobbly legs, I ran.
I wasn't sure in which direction I was headed, which direction was home—just kept running straight ahead. Yet, how could I outrun an otherworldly creature? I was just a child.
My breath puffed in the cool, moist air and whirled away. Branches slashed across my cheeks and forehead, at my arms and neck too. Spider webs caught across my face like a fine, sticky veil. I swiped the silken strands from my nose and eyelashes as I ran, my lungs burning. My hip knocked into a fallen tree trunk. I cried out in pain, but it was nothing compared to my heart.
Mama... Mama...
Tears flowed down my cheeks.
I stumbled—
Tripped over jutting roots and broken branches—
Shoes skidded on slippery earth and slick leaves.
As sure and fleet-footed as you can... Run, sweetheart...run...
Righting my balance, my mother's warm voice filling my mind, gave me strength.
I was a cat. Sleek and fast, darting through the trees, keeping my head ducked low. Using my arm like the shields I'd seen in picture books or the shields I'd touched and polished in the Szarvas mansion.
Think...think!
We'd spent so much time out here at night and I remembered my lessons. If ever I got lost and needed to find my way back home, depending on the time of night, the easiest way was to keep the moon across my shoulder.
Through the patch of branches overhead I spied the glowing edges of a full moon.
I needed to go north.
Swerving, I placed the bright light over my shoulder.
Earlier, with the full moon rising in the east, we'd walked upward, so I let the downward slope guide me back home.
In the distance, a rusty laugh crackled through the cold, crisp air. "Your prize has run away. Best you catch it before it escapes."
A loud whoosh and a noise pounded the air like a slow beat of drums. Wings, I realized, as the creature, Yezekael, soared through the night sky, flying away.
A shriek of outrage from the clearing behind me.
Faster, tabby-cat... Faster... Don't let it catch you...
As fast as I could, I stretched my short legs long, pumping my arms faster, faster, faster, flying down the uneven ground, my shoes crunching through the rotten forest floor.
All the fine hair on my body prickled.
The sound of something came from above—wood creaking and the slash of leaves as a branch snapped back.
Whatever hunted me was jumping from tree to tree. Cracking as it landed, pushing off, the splintering of wood.
Terror wrapped itself around me as the creature gained.
The gnarled forest gave way to younger trees and the gaps between them grew wider. I was close to the tree line. Close, so close to home.
Faster, sweetheart... You're nearly home...
I bolted out of the forest and onto a vast lawn. My heart... My heart lurched in greedy desperation to see it.
A kastély.
I'd found it hard to learn the word, my mother taking her time teaching it to me. This wasn't the kind of house I'd seen in the shiny pages of magazines that lay about our home, a modern replica copy of a Hungarian castle. This was original, something the family and servants were quite proud of. My mother said when the family of Szarvas became a Lower House for the Horned Gods, the family took apart the kastély from the old world and shipped it here to America and rebuilt it.
Three hundred years later, modern lighting spilled out onto the lawns and gardens.
Life called me on, urging me to dig deep. If I could only get to the house someone would help me.
The whir of air conditioning units, the rumbling sound of cars, the spray of water across the lawns and gardens. Lights and shadows of people, family members, and servants as they crossed in front of the big windows.
Distant figures walked the outside of the house, too far, too far to reach, but if I could get to one of the back doors...
The creature broke free from the forest.
A thump behind me—
And scuttling, like it was moving on more than a pair of legs.
Whatever I'd been stung with, whatever poison was in my blood, surged back again.
My thoughts were unraveling like yarn, slipping through my fingers...
My limbs became leaden. It was hard to keep moving...
Keep going, tabby-cat... Keep going...
I could hear the creature gnashing its jaws as it closed in—
The swipe of claws just missing my neck.
My right foot crossed the fringe of light coming from the mansion as I staggered toward life and left death behind.
Whatever hunted me hissed with fury—
A skidding sound—
A scuttling retreat, softened by grass.
But all of that meant nothing.
Mama... Mama...
I'd never hear her soft, gentle voice again.
She'd never tuck me into bed and pinch my nose with her thumb and forefinger, teasing me that she'd stolen it.
I'd never see her toothy smile, or curl up on her lap, her arms banded around my body as she read a story to me.
I'd never...
My heart broke once more and fresh tears choked my throat as I stumbled onward, each step harder to take than the last.
Just a few more yards and I'd leave the grassy lawn behind. My shoes would crunch on the graveled expanse, and I'd climb the porch steps to bang on the door. I needed to cry for help. I needed someone to save me.
Fern fronds dragged across my bare legs as I lurched through the small garden that bordered the gravel. When my foot sank into tiny stones, a pool of light flooded suddenly out from the mansion. The door opened, and that's when I saw them.
A girl with shiny hair and low-heeled shoes skipped out of the house, clattering down the steps.
Help! Help!
The girl's teasing laugh carried on the air across the lawn to where I moved sluggishly toward her.
Another voice, male. "Oh, I'll be marrying you, Irma."
He strolled out, one hand in the pocket of his fancy suit, hitching up the hem of his jacket. And it was his confidence, in someone only a few years older than me, that had my attention fixed on him until I heard Irma speak. "Well, I am impressed," she said snobbishly, but there was another tone beneath her words—pleased. Even at a young age, I understood what it was like to have someone interested in you. I'd watched it often enough, silently standing afar, seen but mostly ignored. "You've only been here for a short while and already you've fallen in love with me." She spun around, her silky dress that cost more than I could ever imagine earning rippled with the movement—a flurry of peach and pink. She smiled, a hand pressed to her chest as she tipped her upper body forward a little. "However will you survive when you have to leave me and go back home?"
The words sounded strange spoken from someone so young as if she was repeating lines from something she'd read or watched on tv.
He approached in a long, leggy stride. He was tall and I couldn't work out just how old he was. Ten, eleven perhaps, maybe older. She walked backward and hit the side of the house, a gasp escaping her parted lips. Her eyes flared wide, a shine in them, excitement, as he stopped in front of her.
"I'll survive just fine Irma..."
Maybe it was my panting breath, the sound of my footfall leaving the soft grass and hitting gravel that had him swinging wide.
"Who is that?" Irma asked, peering around him.
His eyes narrowed. "It's just a servant."
Servant—
Just a servant.
The words were a blow to my gut. And for the first time, I understood just how lowly born I was, shown by how he turned away with a shrug as if I were nothing.
Irma pushed at his shoulder.
Help, help... Mama... Mama...
I couldn't speak, the words were stuck in my throat. I couldn't push them out.
My legs wobbled, then buckled. The sharp crunch of gravel hit my knees and pain jarred through my bones. I tipped over, falling onto my stomach, tiny stones grazing my face.
I heard them from afar, her voice asking, "What's wrong with her?"
Hands were on my upper shoulders. My body was so cold that their hands felt like iron bathed in fire. Rough-padded fingers tightened, and then I was rolled over onto my back.
The boy leaned over me, his face hidden by shadows. I could barely make his features out but for his mouth, pressed into a cruel line. His eyes glowed strangely, a shine to them like an animal who hunted smaller creatures at midnight. "What's wrong, little servant?"
Whatever poison was eating at my body muddled my thoughts. I could barely remember what I was doing lying on the ground. My voice was frozen in my throat. I could hardly twitch a finger. Everything grew dimmer, narrowing down to a single point—the boy's eyes. Their color was such a deep purple they were almost black... And then everything faded into nothingness.
When I next awoke on a soft mattress in a strange room, the sunlight bright and pure made me squint and shy away. When my eyes stopped burning and my sight adjusted, I blinked up into kind, green eyes, shining with unspilled tears, and my mind... My mind was a blank slate, wiped clean from everything.
I remembered nothing...
But my name.
Tabitha Catt.