Through the cabin window lie the remains of the old mountain pass. The crumbled pavement proves man once subdued the earth. Now, covered with the grit of wet sand and decay of many seasons, the wild quietly reclaims it.

I step outside. The mountain air is sharp. My breaths form their own ghosts. The moon is nearly full, pale, and hovering through bare trees. Gran taught me to avoid the quiet shadows of the twilight hours. To trust what my heart knows is there, but which my eyes don’t see. To never befriend the whispers of silver-tongues. 

She says the mountain beyond the stone wall once billowed with five feet of snow still melting this time of year. A dry season will bring us hardship come harvest, but Gran turns every curse into blessing. “Perhaps we’ll be fortunate and be spared from the biting fae.”

She’d warned times like these would come. A time when mankind would no longer rule the earth. Eleven years ago, I thought she was an old fool. Now I know I am the swine before which she had cast her pearls.

The men have all gone, leaving us behind to defend ourselves from predators, and to work the harsh ground, more stone than soil. Twenty-seven women remain. There’ll be no birth now, only death. Gran’s time is coming.

When I return from my hunt tonight, I’ll wash her calloused feet in the metal basin. Gran’s feet are precious. She is still able to till the ground and mend the fences. We all must work without much leisure, save the one day of rest Gran enforces strictly, even for the poor milk cow.

I’ll tend Gran’s feet and she’ll ask me what I killed today. I’ll tell her a story that will keep her believing I am still good. “You see the rabbit there on the table, don’t ya?” I’ll say too harshly with a good scrub of the brush over her foot. Then, I’ll lift her feet from the basin and dry each with the soft towel I’ve warmed at the hearth. “Ah, that’s nice, love,” she’ll say as she leans back on her small bed and gives in to the wolves’ lullaby. She’ll ask if I’ve seen any wolves today.

Yes Gran, I did. I won’t tell her it was a man I killed.

I’d first spotted him two days ago at the river. My heart banged inside my chest. Why had he crossed our boundary? Hasn’t he heard tales? My hand-bow and arrows keep wolves from preying on precious things.

It should have been a clean shot, but I’d lingered a second too long and he’d turned to me, shocked, nothing but the skin of his hide protecting him from my revenge.

“Are you one of the fae-women?” he’d asked.

That’s what the townsfolk think of my small village of survivors. I ‘d stepped out from the underbrush, lifted my bow and sighted him again without giving him the answer he’d asked for. He gathered his bundle of belongings in strong arms and clutched it to his chest as he moved along the river, away from my village. Arms that might be used to steal, kill, and destroy when they ought to be used to provide, protect, and love. The same as any of the other men I’d killed whose bones are now long scattered by the feral things in these dark woods.

I wish I could tell Gran that I’ve seen no wolf, neither the four legged nor those who walk on two. I want to tend her feet tonight without blood on my hands, but Maezlin had spotted him on the hills early dawn. She’d come flying through the gate afraid she’d killed him, and afraid she hadn’t.

It was left to me to track him. I would show him a grim mercy and speed him on his journey to what should’ve been a distant tomorrow had he heeded my warning at the river.

My eyes dart to the jay squawking in the tree to my right. A red squirrel is warned and chitters into the grey pines. I crouch and touch the wet ground at my foot. My fingers pick up the red stain of blood. Small branches lay broken and last season’s musky ferns are crushed along the path of the wounded.

I find him leaning on the trunk of a pine, a bed of dry needles soaking up his life. The breeze lifts strands of his dark hair that aren’t pressed to his brow with sweat. The sight of him suffering, another mother’s son two steps from the edge of all things, turns my heart. He would surely die, but as I eased his remaining time, I found my soul was no longer barren. Gran was right. It is the strength of women to give a soft landing when the threads of life are drawn tight.

The evening grows colder. I build a fire and cover him with my flannel, resting his head near my thigh. I press the pads of my fingers to his neck feeling for a pulse. I’d forgotten the feel of a man’s beard against my skin.

Beyond the heat of my fire, I sense the night-kin watching. It matters not to her if this man survives for moments more, or many years. Eventually the grave is satisfied.

The Silverton steps from the shadows, the light of my fire glinting in her eyes. “We knew one day your courage would rise. Or, perhaps it’s desire? He is handsome, isn’t he?” She edges closer and stretches her pale fingers over the dying man’s throat.

I stiffen. “I haven’t broken the agreement.”

“And if he lives?” she asks, releasing her grip and slowly rounding the pine behind me.

I grasp the man’s hand protectively. “There will be no births in our village, Eliza.”

“Cast this man aside as you have the rest who’ve wandered into these hills. Their flesh appeases the wolves, and the treaty remains secure,” Eliza said, her voice silvery and convincing.

My gaze fell to the young man’s face. He couldn’t have been more than twenty years. Not old enough to clearly remember the war that brought an end to the rule of mankind and the uprising of the ancient races that once were hidden within fairy tales and ghost stories.

“I’m only looking after you, sister.” Eliza’s mouth twitched as the glow of firelight lit her fair skin. She drew her dark hood over her head then disappeared into the night like mist.

The man at my thigh mutters a fevered prayer.

I squeeze his hand, still warm. A wellspring of life that had long been dry bubbled within me. “Don’t be afraid. They cannot take you while there is hope.”

Gran had taught about hope. Perhaps my heart had been growing soft to hope for months. However long hope had held roots didn’t matter. The seed had moved the mountain.

This is a short story I entered into a contest requiring 1000 + or – words. It didn’t win, but I like it all the same.

Thanks for reading.