Page 29 of The Blight of Hollowmire

I hoped I’d imagined it in a fever dream, but the cottage is actually worse in daylight.

The scant gray light that seeps through the shattered roof reveals a place that has been abandoned long enough for the forest to begin reclaiming it. One wall leans inward at a dangerous angle, the timbers swollen with rot and slick with moss. The floor is half stone, half dirt now, where the planks have long since collapsed into the soil beneath. Mushrooms—so many mushrooms—grow in the corners and along the walls, their pale caps pushing up through cracks like quiet intruders. And then, there are the massive ones growing in the roof, with golden gills that glow faintly in the dim morning light. They’re bigger than any mushroom I’ve ever seen before, which shouldn’t surprise me in this monstrous woodland realm, but I find I am unnerved by their sheer size.

No one has lived here for years—that much is clear.

The fire Vireth has coaxed into life burns low in the tumble-down ring of stones that was once the hearth. We’re fortunate that much of the chimney is intact, and the smoke drifts upward through the jagged stones rather than billowing out into the ramshackle room.

She kneels beside it, stirring something in my borrowed kettle, and the sight of her unsettles me in ways I struggle to name. Not because she is ugly or horrifying, exactly—quite the opposite.

She is beautiful in the way moonlight on still, deep water is beautiful. Breathtaking, cold, and hiding such dangers in her depths that would make the bravest cower. The firelight slips across her pale skin and the loose silver knot of her hair, catching in the delicate points of her ears. If I came upon her alone on a dark road, I realize suddenly, I would not know whether to offer help or turn my horse and ride the other direction.

That thought does nothing to settle the nervousness swirling in my gut.

The ugly little rodent that I’ve seen her sweet-talking scurries across the ruined floor between us, dragging something that might once have been a frog. The creature glances up at me as it passes, bright eyes gleaming with limpid enthusiasm. Its fur is patchy with what looks like mange, except that it sports green growths of moss or lichen instead of bare skin, and its body undulates in ways that seem unnatural. I try not to stare, but fail. The weasel—if it still qualifies as such—settles near the fire and begins to gnaw happily on its prize. The small snapping sounds of bone between its teeth make my skin crawl.

“You must be hungry,” Vireth says without looking up. “I hear humans have voracious appetites—for all the good it seems to do your bodies. You seem to heal slowly, though I’m glad the wounds do not yet fester.”

“Oh. Ah, yes.” My voice sounds rougher than I expect. Nearly being dismantled by a bogunder will do that, apparently. “I suppose in comparison, that’s true. Is that not the same with fae?”

She snorts. “Obviously. Do you humans not have books of history in your land? Do you not know the wild-folk when you come upon them?”

She stirs the contents of the pot again, then reaches for a small pouch resting beside her pack. The pack itself lies open near the fire, its contents sparse—bundled herbs, a few tools, a waterskin, a coil of cord. Beside it sit my saddlebags, and I recognize the worn leather immediately.

“Magnar?” I ask.

She turns to look at me, and I try not to gasp at the sight of fangs peeking out over her lush lower lip, or the way her brown-red eyes flash with humor and curiosity.

“My horse,” I explain.

“Outside.” Her tone is neutral, but she glances briefly toward the broken doorway. “He is grazing. There’s a safe patch of grass down by the stream.”

“And he’s… unharmed?”

“He is irritated,” she says. “He suffered burns from the bogunder bile, but they have been cleaned and bandaged.”

I exhale slowly, ashamed to feel tears of relief stinging my eyes. That horse has carried me through battlefields and marshes that swallowed better men whole. Losing him to some swamp beast after everything else would have been a bitter ending, indeed.

“You tended him?” I ask, unable to temper my incredulous tone.

“Yes.”

“That must have been… interesting.”

Her mouth twitches faintly, and I decide I am most intrigued to see what her smile looks like. If the shape of it transforms her face into that of a beautiful maiden, or if with her fangs and oxblood eyes, she looks more like a predator come to dine.

“He does not trust easily.”

“Neither do I.”

She looks up again, and for a moment her eyes hold mine across the fire. There is something in them that makes the back of my neck prickle and has all the sinews of my body tightening in preparation for something. It’s not hostility, not exactly. Assessment, perhaps. Like she is trying to decide what sort of creature I am, which has my defensive instincts on alert.

The weasel lets out a pleased chitter and crunches down on the frog’s skull. Finally, I look away. The ruined cottage creaks softly around us as the wind moves through the broken walls. Rainwater drips steadily from the ragged gap in the roof, tapping against stone in slow irregular beats.

“What were you doing in the bog?” Vireth asks suddenly.

“Traveling to Hollowmire,” I say, certain I said as much to her before, though that may have been my injured delirium.

A collapsed bookshelf lies half-buried beneath fallen beams. The remains of a cabinet cling stubbornly to one wall, caked with dust, ancient soot, and spindly little plants. Idly, I wonder how my interesting host knew about this place if it is not hers.