The lane narrowed into ruts choked with nettles, a crooked path no cart dared to take, the kind of way only those who had no choice, who lived at the very edge of the village, ever walked. Brambles snagged at her skirts, burrs clung to the hem, and the evening damp clung to her skin. She did not quicken her pace. The path was hers as much as the house at the end of it, a place the rest of the village pretended not to see.
Her house squatted low against the horizon, timber sagging like a weary old man, its roof patched with tar that glistened dull in the last of the sun. Smoke crawled out of the chimney in a thin, crooked stream, curling like a tired sigh that vanished into the darkening sky. A door that never quite shut right leaned on its hinges, and shutters rattled loose against their frames when the wind shifted.
Isolda pushed the door open with her shoulder, basket still tucked at her side. The smell hit her at once: sour ale gone stale in the corners, damp wood that never fully dried, and beneath it, the faint copper tang of old blood soaked into cracks in the floorboards. It never faded, no matter how much water she scrubbed into the planks.
Her father sat at the table, exactly where she'd known he would be. The cup was already in his hand, his head drooping forward as though too heavy for his neck, like a man half-drowned. The light caught his eyes when he lifted them—red-rimmed, watery, and dulled by drink.
"Bread?" His voice rasped, hoarse from ale and silence.
She set the basket down hard enough that the crust inside rattled against the warped wood. "One heel," she said flatly. "The villagers were generous tonight."
He eyed the crust with disdain, then turned the look on her, the weight of it worse than the hunger in his belly. His lips twisted into something between a sneer and a laugh.
"They've never been generous with you."
She leaned against the post by the hearth, arms crossed tight, refusing to let his words burrow into her chest. "Maybe because they think I bring bad luck. Maybe because you tell them I do."
For a moment, silence stretched between them, broken only by the creak of the chair beneath him as he shifted. His jaw worked, chewing on words he wanted to keep swallowed, but the ale loosened his tongue. He let them out, soft and slurred, yet sharper than any knife.
"You were born on a night the crows wouldn't roost. The midwife said the blood wouldn't stop. She bled for you, and you never once thanked her for it."
Isolda's throat tightened, a raw ache that threatened to climb higher. She swallowed hard, forcing it down, keeping her voice even.
"She died before I could speak a word. That's not ingratitude, that's fate."
His gaze broke away, drifting toward the empty hearth as though the ashes there had more comfort than his daughter. He brought the cup to his lips, the rim trembling against them. "Fate," he muttered, the word curdled with bitterness, as though even speaking it left a foul taste.
She let the silence fall again, heavy and final, and left him to his drink. Words had no use here.
The house creaked with its age and emptiness, every board groaning in protest at the weight of years. The only sounds were the scrape of her father's chair, the uneven thud of his cup returning to the table, the occasional grunt when he shifted. Beyond that, nothing.
Isolda climbed the narrow stairs, her fingers trailing along the splintered rail, each step a hollow drum in the quiet. Her room pressed in low under the roof, rafters slanting so close she could touch them if she stretched. The single window warped in its frame let in only a sliver of the sky, crooked as though the house itself wanted to keep her vision caged. The air smelled of smoke and damp straw, stale but familiar. Small as it was, narrow as a coffin, it was hers.
She sat on the edge of her bed, fingers digging into the thin mattress, and listened. The village outside was hushed, as if every voice had been swallowed whole. Even the dogs, who barked at shadows more often than strangers, were silent.
Through the warped glass she could see the horizon, the faint outline of fields bending into darkness. Beyond them, the Thorn Forest rose, a jagged black wall against the stars. By day it looked like any other wood, if darker, denser, hungrier somehow. But at night it breathed differently. It seemed alive—no, not alive, waiting for the right moment. A wall of teeth ready to close on anyone foolish enough to step too near.
Her chest tightened, that strange pull rising again, the one she never spoke aloud. It felt like a string knotted deep inside her ribs tugging toward the trees. Sometimes she imagined giving in to it—walking there barefoot, letting the brambles clutch her ankles, letting the thorns cut her skin, letting the shadows pull her under until she vanished whole.
Her breath shuddered. She pressed her palms hard against her knees until the pressure forced the thoughts down. Foolish. Dangerous.
A sound broke the silence.
Tap.
Her gaze darted to the window. Nothing. Only her reflection—pale, eyes too wide, caught in the warped glass.
Then—scrape.
Something black slid across the outside of the pane. A thorn, long as a finger, its point dragging deliberate as ink across parchment. The sound was slow, grating, deliberate, as though a name were being written, letter by letter.
Isolda did not move. Breath shallow, she sat frozen, eyes fixed as the thorn carved its line downward, high to low, until it reached the bottom of the glass and slipped out of sight.
The pane trembled in its frame, the faintest shiver of old wood and thin glass, as though the barrier between her and the forest had been tested—and found fragile.