It was said that in these fruitful times, the people of Colbren grew forgetful. With full bellies and heavy purses, they did not think to send the yearly offerings into the forest. After all, magic had gone. Why should gifts be left for the forest?
But then one of the mine shafts collapsed.
Eighteen men were buried, and for fear of losing more, the mine was closed down. The wealth that had once streamed into the village slowed to a trickle. Fields yielded fewer crops; livestock wandered away with alarming frequency; the roads that led to the village fell into disrepair.
Ryn remembered the touch of her mother’s fingers weaving through her hair, steady and sure, twining her unruly locks into a braided crown. It’s just a story, her uncle would say. A morality tale to scare the children. He was their mother’s brother, and had come to live with them after their father vanished. He had been a man who had only grown more brittle with every year. He rarely left his rocking chair but for the promise of drink or a fresh grilled cake. And he always scoffed at the tales.
The autumn after her father had vanished, Ryn took a few late-harvest apples. She did not have a basket, so she bundled the fruit into a worn cloth, clumsily knotting it closed. She walked into the forest, where the shadows were deep and the frosts lingered. She left the small offering on a fallen log.
The next week, Ryn found a young goat in their yard. It was a scrappy little thing, chewing on one of her uncle’s old boots. Ryn hastily took the goat out of sight, tied her to a fence post, and went into the village to see if anyone had lost a goat.
But no one claimed it. Ceri took to the goat as if she were a favorite new toy, braiding grasses around her neck and taking naps between her hooves.
“We are not naming it,” said her uncle, when he discovered Ceri’s fondness for the animal. “It is livestock, not a pet. And if we have a harsh winter, it’ll be the first thing we eat.”
“Hush,” Ryn’s mother had told him, and she allowed Ceri to keep the goat.
Every autumn, Ryn left apples in the forest.
Her uncle complained of the missing food and her brother looked on in quiet disapproval, but Ryn ignored them both.
They might have forgotten the old magic, but she had not.
And perhaps, if she left enough gifts, the forest might give her father back.
In the dawn light, Ryn slipped from her room.
Her bare feet were silent on the floor, and moved unerringly even in the dimness. A sack in one hand and her boots in the other, Ryn carefully nudged the door shut behind her.
The chill morning air was clotted with fog and Ryn breathed in the familiar smell. The cold was bracing but pleasant, and she smiled as she pulled on her boots. A heavy wool cloak was wrapped around her shoulders, and she strode away from the house. The goat was nowhere to be seen, Ryn reflected, and she wondered vaguely if the animal was off stealing turnips from a neighbor’s garden.
She loved this time of the morning, when everything was lush and quiet. The damp grasses brushed her fingertips as she veered left and cut through a field.
She retreated to the forest the way some people took refuge in chapels. It was soothing in a way she could not wholly describe: The stillness and the vibrant greens, the sense of life all around her—hidden, yet still thriving. The call of birds high up in the trees, the earth freshly tilled by moles and gophers, the soft mosses.
This was the truth of the forest—it was life and death in equal measure. Brimming with acorns and berries, yet beneath the fallen leaves were the bodies of animals that had not survived.
“You took your time getting here.”
Ryn cursed, startled, then glared at the speaker.
“Sorry.” Ceri stood a short distance away, leaning against an oak. Her hair was braided back, her face freshly scrubbed. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“Why did you follow me?” Ryn crossed her arms.
Ceri held up a basket. “You’re going to look for berries, are you not? Because you don’t want to sell the house.”
She should have expected this; for all that Ceridwen played at being the innocent younger sister, that was all it was—an act. She was a sharp-eyed little thing, and she concealed her shrewdness behind her sweet smiles. “You shouldn’t listen at windows,” Ryn told her.
“You and Gareth never tell me anything.” Ceri was unabashed. “Now come on. I brought a basket—and I’d like to be home before noon.”
“All right,” she said. “Come on. But if Gareth asks, you followed me without my say-so.”
“That’s true.” Ceri pushed away from the oak and whistled. A small white animal came lumbering toward them.
The goat. “If she eats all our berries—” said Ryn, with a groan.
The goat lowered her head, allowing Ceri to scratch between her horns. “She’s not so bad,” said Ceri. “Just a little protective. Sort of bristly. I don’t know who she reminds me of.”
Ryn did not dignify that with a response.
“What are we looking for?” asked Ceri. The goat was pulling oak leaves from a low branch, chewing with the slow contentedness of an animal that knew it would never go hungry.
“There are blackberries on the western edge of the creek,” Ryn pushed aside a branch and walked ahead.
Ceri gave a gentle tug on the goat’s horn and she tottered after them, still eating everything she could grab along the way. “I’m not sure we can make enough preserves to pay off Uncle’s debts,” said Ceri. “Or were you hoping to find nightshade?”
Ryn let out a startled laugh. “Ceridwen!”
“No one would miss Master Eynon,” she said. “A few poisonous berries slipped into a jar of blackberry preserves…”
“I don’t understand how someone with such a sweet face can come up with such terrible ideas.”
“That’s why no one would suspect me.” Ceri grinned, but then her smile faded. “All right, all right. So we need something less drastic than murder.”
“Preferably.”
A lone vine stretched out, blocking their access to the berries, its leaves like extended fingers, and Ryn pulled a knife from her pocket and cut it away before the thorns could snag. The bushes smelled wonderful—the sweetness of the berries and the green of the forest warmed by morning sunlight. The goat began to tear into the blackberry leaves, uncaring about the brambles.
“It’s the bone houses that are the problem,” said Ceri. She looked at the forest all around. “You know most young people don’t believe in them.”
“We do,” said Ryn.
Ceri gave a little shrug. “I remember Mam talking about them—and you’ve said you’ve seen them. But most people—they think they’re stories, Ryn.”
“Hywel doesn’t,” said Ryn. “And even though the graveyard is protected, the Turners thought there was enough truth to the stories to burn their dead rather than bury them. Enid keeps planting gorse about the Red Mare.”
“Right, and they’re all old,” said Ceri.
“Everyone is old compared to you,” said Ryn, a corner of her mouth lifting. “What does this have to do with selling the house?”
“Because our lives depend on people dying.” Ceri dropped a handful of blackberries into her basket; her fingers were stained crimson. “And old people tend to die more quickly than young ones. But they won’t be paying for your services, not so long as they think the dead will rise.”