Leaves rustled on the gentle slope that rose to the left of Margaret. Her eyes sprung open, but her footsteps never faltered. Something was moving, perhaps a rabbit or maybe something larger. A ripple of excitement wound its way around her stomach; it could be a deer. Not wanting to scare the creature, she slowed her pace and lightened her steps, breathing gently through slightly opened lips.
She thought of the forest as her own and whatever troubles the rest of the world brought her they didn’t feel so bad once she entered its leafy canopy. Sadly, her friends didn’t feel the same and would never walk with her through Black Rock Forest.
“Aren’t you scared of wolves or demons or monsters or getting lost?” They often asked.
Margaret would always laugh their fears away. She had travelled the path between her home and her grandmother’s cottage for as long as she could remember. At first, she had made the journey hand in hand with her mother, and then on her own after her mother’s death ten years ago. In all that time, she had never seen a monster or demon and had only ever glimpsed the occasional fleeting flash of the grey coat of a wolf racing between the trees. With an abundance of food for them to hunt, they had no interest in her. She had nothing to fear.
A chilly October breeze whipped the dust around Margaret’s feet and tickled her skin with its bitter fingers. Her muscles tightened in response, and she pulled her mother’s old fawn cape closer to her body. An unfamiliar cramp spread across her stomach and clawed at her abdomen. Margaret hesitated. Her normally confident pace faltered. She ran her hands over her belly. It felt swollen and firm.
“Please, not now,” she mumbled into the wind.
Even though she knew she was alone in the forest, she quickly glanced around. Scooping up her heavy skirt, she slipped her hand up her leg, all the time repeating, “Please, no.”
At the top of her legs, her fingers found a sticky warmth and with a sickening dread she withdrew her hand. Looking at her trembling, crimson coloured fingers, her face crumpled. She dropped to her knees and quietly sobbed. Her dirty hand rested on the earthy path as far from her body as she could stretch her arm. Bloody fingers curled up like the legs of a dead rat. She shuddered, and her occasional whimpers drifted into the woods. The forest was silent as if it was mourning the loss of youth from its young disciple.
Margaret wiped the tears away with the back of her untainted hand and slumped against a tree. It was not as if it was a surprise, she had known that day would come. Her grandmother had explained to her all about the month blood. Two of her friends had already experienced the woman’s curse, and she could see in their eyes they were proud to become women. However, Margaret was not ready. She was only sixteen and wanted to remain a child, forever walking the familiar forest path between her two homes. She had hoped the month blood would never come because she knew what that meant.
An image of Lord Sanburne swam in her head. He was old and ugly, both inside and out, his cruel nature evident in every wrinkle and scar on his face. The local landowner believed he had rights to the souls of all the people who worked his land.
He had come sniffing around her when she was just thirteen. He leered and snorted whenever he saw her. Suggestive comments would pour from his mouth, and he would wipe the accompanying dribble from the corner of his lips with the handkerchief he always clasped in his hand.
One day, she had returned home to find his horse tethered outside her home. She crept to the door and crouched in the dirt. Voices drifted through the gaps in the wooden frame.
“I have been a widower, like yourself, for too long now. I’m sure you desire to be free of the constraints your daughter must bring.” Lord Sanburne’s thunderous voice was unmistakable.
“I do not see my children, either of them, as a constraint,” her father replied.
“It must be hard without a wife to help.”
“It’s not been easy.”
“Margaret is turning into a fine woman. She could fetch you a healthy dowry, if you find the right husband—a wealthy man, like myself.”
“She is just thirteen, it is too soon to think of such things.”
Sanburne huffed. “It is never too early to arrange such things. She will be a woman soon enough.”
Margaret heard the shuffling of feet on the stone floor.
“I have a proposition for you. You give me your daughter, and I will set you up in an upstanding profession. Think of the stability that...say a blacksmith business would bring to your family—to your son and his children. You would be set up for life and could grow old with dignity instead of in this poverty. Do you want your son to have this same pathetic life ahead of him?”
“Thank you for your offer, but it is Margaret’s choice.”
A fist thumped on their rickety table.
“No. It is my choice. You accept the generous deal, and we will all be happy. Or I will throw you out of my house and from my land and you know what will happen then. Then she will come to me, begging for help, and I will take her anyway.”
Silence descended on the small cottage and Margaret could only hear the heavy thumping of her heart in her ears.
“Good. It is decided. Send her to me when she becomes a woman.”
Footsteps thudded towards the door and Margaret scurried around the side of the house, hiding herself behind a water barrel.
The door flew open and Sanburne strode out. He clambered ungracefully onto his horse. With flushed, puffy cheeks, he threw her father a cold look.
“Just know this. If I find she has started her month blood and you tried to keep it a secret, I will slaughter both your children, right here on your doorstep.”
Margaret ran from the house and spent the next few hours crying in the forest. She planned to run away but in the end, she knew there was no other place for her to go.
Her father’s bloodshot eyes greeted her, and she ran into his arms.
“It is all right, Father. I will do what must be done. But I will pray that he dies a terrible death before I become a woman, or better still, just after he has set you up as a blacksmith.”
Every few months Margaret was subjected to a visit by the loathsome Lord, and he would ask the same question with his dripping grin.
“Have you become a woman yet?”
Margaret would always curtsey and shake her head, the same time fighting the desire to bury her foot in his bloated stomach and headbutt the sadistic smile from his face.
Then it had finally happened, and her feared future would soon become a reality.
A twig cracked in the undergrowth behind her, and Margaret sprang to her feet. A coldness swept through her body forcing the hairs on her skin to attention. She knew she had no reason to be afraid in the forest, it was the only place she could escape the horrors of her life, but an unknown dread rose from her cramping belly.
“Hello?” she said with a wavering voice and peered into the gloom of the twisted trunks and sparse bushes. “Who’s there?”
The shadows moved, and a low, rumbling growl vibrated the air around Margaret.
She grabbed her basket, pulled her cape tightly around her shivering body and hurried along the path.
It had to be a wolf, she thought, but why was he stalking her? Why now? She wiped her bloody fingers on her coat, not caring about the dirty brown stain it left behind. The blood. The month blood had drawn him to her. Even then, she could feel the warm trickle down her leg. Perhaps the creature thought she was wounded and an easy meal. Maybe she should stand her ground and show the wolf she was not weak or afraid. Her legs did not agree with her thinking; they carried on relentlessly, picking up speed, refusing to stop.