Wolves Among Us(52)
But five of the virgins had no oil left for their lamps, so they couldn’t make their way to the feast. They went out into the dark streets, searching for oil, searching for help. And the five wise virgins, the ones who had stored up oil, the ones who were ready for a long, dark night, these women won everything—even love.
The five foolish virgins mocked Mia as she picked her way through the last of the afternoon light, through this thick forest, with Alma clinging to her, every step difficult and painful. Green boughs scratched Mia’s face and caught her by the hair. She continued forward, letting the bough take a piece of her hair with it. She only wanted to save Alma.
Mia had let herself get too thin, too weak, and knew she did not even have strength to last the remaining minutes of light. Night was settling around them fast. Mia realized now that they would both die when wolves and bears and boars woke and went hunting for the foolish and the weak. The five foolish virgins were never heard from after that, apparently, because they were never mentioned again in the Bible. Probably eaten, Mia thought.
Her arms burned with the effort of carrying Alma, but when she tried to set Alma down, the child moaned in fear, scrambling, scratching, and grasping for Mia’s embrace.
Alma had never experienced the fear of being unwanted. Mia nuzzled her cheek against Alma’s as reassurance. Mia had known the life of a fugitive long ago. She knew how to bury her sorrows and fears, how to drive them down deep into the mud and run.
Mia was a woman now, and everything on her stove had gone to giving Alma more strength, and to Bjorn’s big appetite. Nothing remained for Mia.
The last light faded as Mia pushed on. An hour later, exhausted, she collapsed beneath a tree. She could hear the animals scurrying overhead and the insects scurrying underfoot. Heavy footsteps frightened Alma, but Mia suspected it was a deer. Tired of chewing on the birch trees through the winter, deer would be grazing on spring’s new growth with no thought of danger. Around her, toadstools glowed blue-green in the darkness, moonlight breaking through the canopy above in rare, distant spaces.
Alma curled into her lap, sucking her thumb, falling asleep. Mia blinked in the darkness. The forest writhed to life. Predator hunted prey, insects sang and chewed through the leaf litter, owls flew past not more than an arm’s reach away. She heard tiny screams of a mouse or rat as an owl caught it.
Mia had always cooked her meals in a pot and acquired food by digging through dirt or paying a butcher for cuts of meat. She had never hunted or heard claws tearing flesh. Suffering came to everyone in the night.
Bastion and Bjorn would be searching in the village tonight for signs of more witches. The women arrested would sit in the jail and think tonight of what must soon happen to them. Sleep was mercy. Everyone and everything still under the curse stayed awake to suffer.
Mia knew those screaming, scurrying animals had a better lot, dying before dawn. Mia would die slowly, over the course of days. If God had mercy, she would find a place for Alma to live before that happened. Perhaps there would be a woman who could not have children of her own. Perhaps she could take Alma in.
If Mia could muster the strength to carry Alma just a bit further, she would find a town. Surely she would find a town.
A scream startled Mia awake, her heart pounding against her ribs. An owl repeated the call. Mia blinked, wondering how long they had slept like this, Alma in her lap and Mia slumped against the tree.
Steps in slow cadence broke branches in the distance. Something heavy approached, something not hunting, but searching. Mia froze, tightening her grip around Alma.
Bjorn would not have followed. He did not care enough.
Mia’s stomach burned from the rush of spiked fear, a cold iron mace being swung through her body as she saw the ghost. A woman’s image glided in between two huge beeches ahead. She had long silver hair, unbound, spreading across her shoulders, flowing down to her elbows. Nothing more than a skeleton’s body hung underneath her plain shift. The ghost stepped, cracking a twig underfoot.
Ghosts do not break twigs, she thought. This must be a woman of flesh and blood, living.
The woman turned and came right to her, not blinded by the darkness, not dependent on the patches of light. It was the healer Mia had spied in the village. She carried a thick rope at her side.
Mia closed her eyes as the woman got closer, leaning down and burying her face into Alma’s back. Better to be taken by an owl. Victims saw the stars before they died.
“Get up,” the woman said.
Mia could not move. Her limbs were numb.
“Do not fear me. Stand up.”
Mia tried to bend her legs but only whimpered, the sound drowned out by the piercing of crickets.
The woman’s hands took her by the arms, cold bones like frozen straw under such thin skin. The grip tightened. The woman had surprising strength. The pain of these old fingers digging into her arm comforted Mia. The pain broke the spell of numbness, the blankness of exhaustion.
“Get up, or I will leave you here.” She released Mia and stepped back. A wolf appeared behind a tree just feet from the woman. Its black lips curled up as it growled. Mia froze. The woman turned to the wolf and clicked her teeth at it. It stepped back, watching something near Mia.
A snake slithered away from Mia under the leaf litter. Leaves bobbed up and crunched as it moved. The wolf whined as the snake fled.
With a grunting series of shuffles, Mia managed to stand, lifting Alma into her arms. She could not set Alma down again here. Alma did not wake but recognized her mother’s movement and wrestled into a comfortable position against Mia’s chest.