That night, she barred the door.
Not with the simple wooden latch she always used, but with everything she could lift—chair, basin, even the small chest of linens. The hut felt smaller for it, the air heavy, and the fire's light seemed weaker than it should have been.
She sat on the floor, back to the wall, the crow roosting near the rafters. Every sound made her flinch: the creak of wood in the wind, the pop of a coal in the hearth.
And then came that sound.
A low, steady murmur—too soft to make out words, yet too constant to be the wind.
Her hand instinctively went to her belly. The warmth there had grown stronger in recent days, filling her limbs like a second heartbeat.
The murmur deepened, vibrating through the floorboards. She pressed her ear to the cold wood.
It wasn't under the hut—it was beneath it, inside the earth itself. Like a chorus buried alive, speaking in tones she wasn't meant to understand.
The crow hissed—a sound she'd never heard from it before—and its wings beat hard against the beams.
"Stop," she whispered to the voices, though she knew they wouldn't. "Please… not tonight."
The floor beneath her hand warmed suddenly, the heat spreading upward into her arm. And along with it came something sharper—like claws gently brushing the edges of her mind.
A thought—not her own—slipped into her head.
> We have been here long before you.
We will remain long after.
She bit her lip until she tasted blood. "Leave me," she said aloud.
The murmur stopped.
For a moment, there was silence. Then, faint but clear:
> Why would we leave… when you carry our beginning?
Her breath caught. The child inside her shifted—not the light flutter she'd grown used to, but a deliberate, forceful movement, as if it too had heard the words and answered.
The crow dropped from the rafters and landed on her knee, staring into her eyes as though to anchor her.
Somewhere deep beneath the floor, a single, sharp knock echoed—and then all was still.