The Will and the Wilds(3)

My paternal grandmother lived only a few miles away until she died some seven years ago, and my mother went to visit her, cutting through the wildwood. I don’t know why the grinlers came so close to the forest’s edge. They’re drawn to the smell of blood, so perhaps my mother had injured herself. It was not her monthly time, for she was eight months pregnant. But the grinlers found her, and despite wielding the silver knife my father had gifted her, they overtook her.

My father must have known in his gut, or perhaps they had traveled together and gotten separated—he’s never been able to clarify, due either to grief or to the missing parts of his mind. He fought the beasts off, but was too late to rescue my partially eaten mother. You see, grinlers do not wait for their prey to die before feasting.

Her life was gone, but her belly moved, and so by the bloodied hands of my father did I emerge into life, barely large enough to survive on my own. I have never sought details of that part of the story. My imagination is enough. So are the imaginations of the townsfolk, for they have numerous versions of this tale, all of which end in my father’s mind breaking in sorrow.

He was sorrowful. He still is. But that is not what broke him.

When the king heard rumors of a mysting army, my father was recruited to his side. The war was brief, a short sequence of battles in which my father fought valiantly, or so his medals testify. He heard of the Telling Stone—from whom, I am not sure—and dared to venture into the monster realm to retrieve it. I imagine his grief emboldened him, as did his fear for me, for he succeeded in stealing the stone that now hangs from my wrist. For that, I name him a hero. For me, he gave up much. Too much.

Mankind cannot linger in the monster realm, just as mystings cannot abide here long. Our worlds are too different, and they reject those who don’t belong. My father stayed too many hours in the monster realm, and in exchange, it claimed the sharper bits of his mind. And so he retired here with the Telling Stone, learned to grow mushrooms, and the rest of our lives have been uneventful.

I consider this as we step over the curls of oon berry that surround our log home like a fence, though the plants grow only a foot high. Mystings cannot cross oon berry without great suffering. All the mystings I know of, at least, and I know of many.

Yet worry over the gobler rankles me as I help my father get comfortable in a chair by the hearth. They are predators, as nearly all mystings are, and would not traipse the wildwood without a sure purpose to be there. I pinch the icy Telling Stone in my fingers, not liking how close the mysting is. But it seems to be wandering, so perhaps it is simply lost.

I set the mostly empty basket in the kitchen and walk down the hall to my room. It is simply furnished, with a narrow bed, an old bookshelf, a nightstand, and the rocking chair my mother would have nursed me in. On the shelf is a small collection of books, one of which is written in my grandmother’s hand. Her mysting journal, in which she recorded all her knowledge and theories about the nether creatures that lurk in the wildwood. Another, larger volume is written in my own script—a tome in which I transcribed all my grandmother’s notes and sketches, sandwiched between my own. Theories I’ve learned from townsfolk, passing travelers, ramblings, or my father’s half-forgotten stories. Some of the notes are pure speculation garnered from studying footprints or the like in the wildwood. Once, and only once, I used the Telling Stone to track down a rooter for my research, and thus I have an accurate sketch. I’ve never tried the tactic to spy on any other species. I value my life too much.

I’ve attempted to share this knowledge, just as I’ve shared the warnings of the Telling Stone, but it’s earned me nothing but strange looks in town. Needless to say, I’ve learned to keep my findings private.

I would desperately love to leave Fendell, to attend the king’s college, or even a lesser school, where I could earn credibility as a writer or a researcher. Where I could establish a background that would demand others listen to my theories or, better yet, allow me to publish them. Yet my education as a girl was not prestigious, and there aren’t enough mushrooms in Amaranda to afford the cost. Those impediments aside, I am a woman, and most advanced schools would never look at me twice, even if I were privately educated and rich. Fear of leaving Papa on his own pins me here as well, for it would take effort greater than I possess to convince him to leave this house. To leave my mother’s grave site.

Pushing the thoughts from my mind, I look through my half-filled book for the page on goblers and study the lightly sketched picture of one, the charcoal lines half-worn from rubbing against its sister page. Chubby things, with too much flesh gathered beneath their wide, rounded heads. I’ve never seen one with my own eyes, and I don’t care to change that fact.

I read my grandmother’s notes. Though they’re in my hand, they flow through my mind in her voice. Goblers are vengeful monsters who mark their prey with a simple touch. If one fails to destroy it, the mark guarantees others will hunt it down. They dislike pokeweed, tusk nettle, and red salt; all of the listed will help to nullify a gobler mark.

Shuddering, I press my fingertip to the list. Pokeweed is a desert plant, but tusk nettle grows in my garden, and there are several stones of red salt in the cellar. I set the book back on the shelf, stoke the fire in the hearth, and set a kettle over the flames to ready some tea for my father.

“Where are you going?” he asks when I pull on my gardening gloves. My left hand is stiff with the Telling Stone’s bite, but I dare not take off the bracelet.