MYTHIC #8: FALL 2018 by FoundersHouse1

Author:FoundersHouse1
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Founders House Publishing LLC
Published: 2019-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

THUS BEGAN MY YEARS of back-breaking work, splitting logs and hauling wood. I repaired the baron’s fences and lean-tos. I kept his roaring fires fed. It was all to keep us safe, both from the enemies beyond the walls, as well as the monster within them, safe from the wolves that would devour us all.

Dorotha’s hands still shook and her eyes flitted downward whenever her husband entered the room. She no longer confided in me, and I was left to guess what cruelty was concealed beneath her sleeves and shawls.

Her firstborn grew to a spoiled boy who learned young to manipulate and whine, to deceive and lie and hate. His favorite game was to join me in the forest where I chopped wood and to throw pebbles and mocking insults, crude words no seven-year-old ought to know. He was his father’s son, all haughtiness and malice and oily tresses of night-black hair. I couldn’t bear to look at the beastly child, nor the shadowy wolf-pups that surrounded him like pets, yapping at every stone’s throw.

All the while, sweat trickled down my neck, and the only response I afforded him was the thwacking of the axe against tree bark.

Some days I wished that the Fates would take shape deep in the shadows of that forest, to spill out their prophecies and grant me their words. How much longer would I need to sit about and wait with the lock on my door bolted and my axe by the side of my bed? Some days I pleaded with the wolves to take us, to free us from this earthly torment. My body quaked for vengeance, but the Norns were silent and the wolves held at bay. My time, it seemed, had not yet come.

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