I was never up early enough for any of them. Papa was always gone first, and never without Stein: I'd never seen him leave the hut, unless he was dragging me along somewhere. Mama would gently wake me up when it was time, and at a certain point I stopped asking her whether Lorelei was gone or not. She would be up and gone before either of us. Drove Ma ragged, when she was young. Had to nearly tie her to the cot post with furs but she'd squirm her way out of them and be off before the sun hit. Too much energy, Ma would say. More than I ever had, Papa would always chime. Stein didn't ever have anythin' to say about Lori, unless Papa asked. Wasn't a Bond-Man's place. But she wouldn't have listened to him, anyways. Papa was the only one who ever came close to being able to hold her down in one place for long. I was only five years her senior, wasn't like there was that much of a difference in how we got raised. That morning wasn't any different, though. She was gone, and her spot on the furs was already cold. At least I knew where she'd be. Her favorite thing to do, only just ahead hiding in the underbrush: checking the animal traps. I didn't understand why, of course. Disappointment, everytime. Empty things, or meager squirrels with meat so lean it might as well just be skin.
Smoke billowed along the upper edges of the thatched roof, seeping through and out the cut holes in the top, desperate to escape the hot coal fire whilst Ma stoked it silently. She ladled the thinned stew into a chipped wooden bowl, holding it out for me after I pulled my furs snug over my head. It was getting too small for me, now. Soon it'd go to Lori, and then she'd outgrow it, and Ma will take it apart and turn it into something that could maybe fit one of us. The stew was almost seeping out of a crack in the upper part of the bowl, punishment for my poor carving, and it was easier to just drink it in one go. Ma gave me a disapproving look, dark black hair stuck to her face by a cold morning sweat. She held out a bit of wrapped cloth, chirping to me. "She left without eatin' again. You make sure she gets it down, this time." I just ate the bread last time. It was a fight just getting her to look at it. I just nodded, trading the cloth for the empty bowl. Ma just looked at me, sterner than ever. "I caught her trying to eat some of tha leaves off the trees. You make sure she gets it this time, Alvid."
It was older bread than usual. Wasn't much of a surprise why Lori turned her nose up at it. Sat like a rock in my stomach, even after talking to Greta, which usually eased my nerves. I only hung around for as long as her washing chores were, before her Ma sent me off again. Lorelei would be trying to unhook the traps about now, anyways. The sun was barely poking through the clouds, darkening again quickly as I moved from the open field of the village and into the nearby woods. The dirt was packed deep from the hunter's usual routes, and I could weave through them to our spot further in easily now. Lorelei slowed me down, at first, when Ma started making me take her along. She was five, then, clinging to me and almost jumping out of her skin at the sign of any snapping stick. Three years later and she's able to get there before I can. It's the quiet, I think. Woods get louder when I'm there, or when anyone else is there. Lots of breathing and stomping, running and talking. Not her. She barely speaks a word. Ma thought she was a mute, for a bit. She'll talk a little, now and then, but otherwise she'll just stare. So she fits well in the woods. It's just as quiet with or without her.
She was sitting over by the pit trap, sticks and leaves poking out over it, hands clasped over her knees. Her hair was half pulled over her face, but parted when she inclined her head towards me, eyes lighting up. I could hear the noise from within the pit even from the edge of the clearing. It was a wheezing hiss, growing louder when the sticks bulged out, and a bit of fur flitted into view. I jogged closer, calling out, "Lorelei-- there somethin' in there?" It sounded sickly. It looked just as sickly, poking its head out: a thin squirrel, fur clumped and thinning to its gaunt skull. It chewed at the edge of the stick, and my heart seized up in my chest when Lorelei put her hand toward it. The words caught in my throat, and my legs lurched forward beneath me. It was a short distance, and I was fast. But it was closer to her. It finally finished gnawing through the wood, lunging out and up at her hand. She shrieked, the loudest I'd ever heard her, as it clawed up her arm--
She was faster. Faster than I could even think to stand back up. Her eyes opened wider, the squelch of her skin choking out the silence after her scream. Skin peeled back, muscle twisting to tooth and bone and ropes of writhing flesh. Her arm lashed out, fingers hanging now by just thin and mottled sinew, dangling as it whipped up and back to catch the squirrel in a sudden maw splitting up along her arm. It collapsed around the squirrel with a crunch, blood spewing out from the newfound seams on her skin. Her body shook and shuddered, lumps smoothing out with a muted grinding hissing out from beneath.
I couldn't breathe. But I could move. I scrambled back, trembling, and she was still looking to me, croaking, just as terrified, just as shaky. Her arm was limp at her side, still bleeding, still shifting, trying to re-arrange itself into something resembling a human shape. I didn't stay to see. I just ran. Cold wind wiped the tears from my face, the trees blurring into a dizzying ruined mess of leaves clinging to their branches. To their roots, deep into the ground, stable and secure in a way I would never be again.
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