The basic idea for this has been with me for a long time. I had a whim to write something seasonal, and grey skies and bare trees worked for this story. Despite the title, it's not very festive.
A Gift (695 words)
Brinn straightened slowly from chopping firewood, and rubbed the small of her back. The bare black thorn bushes around her garden scratched at the watery yellow and grey sky. A crow scudded overhead. Near dark. Time for someone to come up from the village if they wanted to scurry back to the the herd before it was full night. Sure enough, the bell at the gate clanged.
She rubbed her fingers together. Never could get warm, this late in the year. Ha! This late in life. The old injury on her ear throbbed in the wind. She hoped they’d left something spicy tonight, something with plenty of fire in it, plenty of meat. The cold had sunk into her bones in a way that spelled danger. She loped round the winding path to the gate, and then stopped. Whoever had brought the food was still there.
They were supposed to leave it and go. It had to be one of the little ones, on a dare or a game. Sometimes they just looked. Sometimes they threw stones. It made sense. Their parents threw stones if she got too close to the village. Sometimes they wanted a story. One day, one of them would ask the right question.
Brinn crept a little further, crouched painfully. A scrawny boy, a knife in his belt. Old enough to be fancying himself a man. Even now, she could see the way to be on him and snap his neck before his knife cleared its sheath. The beautiful economy of movement, the angles, the pressure needed. What he’d expect her to do, what she’d make him expect, and how she’d strike him all unfurled before her, with the clarity of a fine engraving. She knew too, how to pull the fire up from her depths to power the actions, even with these old bones. She’d always known. It was a gift. But soon she would be too weak, she knew that too.
“I want some gloves,” Brinn shouted, making the boy jump. “Some other things to keep me warm. Tell them that.” He backed away a few steps as she approached. She grabbed the pot left on the shelf by the gate, took the lid off and sniffed the steam.
“You’re old,” the boy blurted. “But they said you killed the raiders only three years ago.”
Brinn shrugged. She didn’t need or want conversation. But she had to see if he’d ask the question. She unlocked the gate and went into her cabin with the casserole. She could hear the boy shuffling his feet at the gate. Brinn ate and waited. After a while, he came in.
”You’re not even that big,” said the boy. “They said you tore them up with your hands.”
“Yes.” Ah, that’s when she’d last been warm. The fire blazing through her. The blood singing from their torn flesh, washing her arms and face in its heat. The raiders would come back. They always came back. And she would be too weak.
“They said you killed Rachel Turner’s uncle. That’s why you live up here.”
“Yes.” The first time. A blazing June day, and she had been chilled to her bones. Elfric Turner leaning against a tree, laughing with his head thrown back. The fierce joy as she beat his skull against the bark until it cracked. So easy then, so much strength. They’d branded her and sent her up to this cabin with the daily offering. When the old man shuffled to the gate, she’d asked the right question. After that, for Brinn, the raiders didn’t come often enough.
“I suppose you want to know why I did it,” said Brinn. “Or how.”
“They say you’ve got a demon.”
“Ha! They like to think that. Some of them could do it. Maybe even you.”
The boy smiled. “I want to know - what did it feel like?”
Before the boy knew it Brinn had him pinned to the wall by the neck. She ripped a small chunk from his earlobe with her teeth. His eyes were wide, but not with terror. She tipped her head back to expose her throat.
“Find out,” she said.
RSS Feed