The Book of Lost Things(43)

“Because adults despair,” she answered, “while children do not. Children accommodate themselves to their new bodies and their new lives, for what child has not dreamed of being an animal? And, in truth, I prefer to hunt children. They make better sport, and better trophies for my wall, for they are beautiful.”

The huntress stepped back and regarded David carefully, as though only now becoming aware of the nature of his questions.

“What is your name, and where have you come from?” she asked. “You are not from these lands. I can tell from your scent and your speech.”

“My name is David. I came from another place.”

“What place?”

“England.”

“England,” repeated the huntress. “And how did you get here?”

“There was a passageway between my land and this one. I came through, but now I can’t get back.”

“So sad, so sad,” said the huntress. “And are there many children in England?”

David did not reply. The huntress grabbed his face and dug her nails into his skin. “Answer me!”

“Yes,” he said, reluctantly.

The huntress released him.

“Perhaps I will make you show me the way. There are so few children here now. They do not wander as they once did. This one”—she gestured at the head of the deer-girl—“was the last that I had, and I had been saving her. Now, though, I have you. So… Should I use you as I used her, or should I make you take me to England?”

She stepped away from David and thought for a time.

“I am patient,” she said, at last. “I know this land, and I have weathered its changes before. The children will come again. Soon it will be winter, and I have food enough to keep me. You will be my last hunt before the snows descend. I will make you a fox, for I think you are even brighter than my little deer. Who knows, you may escape me and live out your life in some hidden part of the forest, although none has yet managed it. There is always hope, my David, always hope. Now, sleep, for tomorrow we begin.”

With that, she cleaned David’s face with a cloth and kissed him softly on the lips. Then she carried him to the great table and chained him there in case he tried to escape during the night, before extinguishing all of the lamps. In the firelight she undressed herself, then lay naked upon her pallet and fell asleep.

But David did not sleep. He thought about his situation. He recalled his tales and returned to the memory of the Woodsman telling him of the gingerbread house. In every story, there was something to be learned.

And, in time, he began to plan.





XVII


Of Centaurs and the Vanity of the Huntress


EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, the huntress awoke and dressed herself. She roasted some meat on the fire and ate it with a tea made from herbs and spices, then came to David and raised him up. His back and limbs ached from the hard table and the constraints placed upon his movement by the chains, and he had slept only a little, but he now had a sense of purpose. Up to this point, he had been largely dependent upon the goodwill of others—the Woodsman, the dwarfs—for his care and safety. Now he was on his own, and the possibility of survival lay entirely in his own hands.

The huntress gave him some of the tea, then tried to make him eat the meat, but he would not open his mouth to it. It smelled strong and gamy.

“It is venison,” she said. “You must eat. You will need your strength.”

But David kept his mouth tightly closed. He could think only of the deergirl, and the feel of her skin against his. Who knew what child had once been part of this animal’s body, human and beast becoming one? Perhaps this was even the flesh of the deergirl, torn bloodied from her body to provide fresh fare for the huntress’s breakfast. He could not, would not, eat of it.

The huntress gave up and offered David bread instead. She even freed one of his hands so that he could feed himself. While he ate, she brought the caged fox from the stables and laid it on the table beside David. The fox watched the boy, almost as though it were aware of what was to come. While they regarded each other, the huntress began to assemble all that she would need. There were blades and saws, swabs and bandages, long needles and lengths of black thread, tubes and vials, and a jar of clear, viscous lotion. She attached bellows to some of the tubes—“to keep the blood flowing, just in case”—and adjusted the restraints so that they would fit the small legs of the fox.

“So what do you think of your new body to come?” she said to David once her preparations were complete. “It is a fine fox, young and nimble.”

The fox tried to bite at the wire of its cage, revealing sharp white teeth.

“What will you do with my body and its head?” asked David.

“I will dry your flesh, and I will add it to my winter store. I have found that while it is possible successfully to fuse the head of a child with the body of an animal, the opposite does not hold true. The animal brains are unable to adjust to the new bodies. They cannot move properly and make poor prey. In the beginning, I would set them free for fun and nothing more, but now I do not even waste my time doing that. Still, they are out in the forest, those that have survived. They are sickly creatures. Sometimes, I kill them out of pity when they cross my path.”

“I was thinking about what you said last night,” said David carefully, “about how all children dream of being animals.”