Theudifara

"...Dad...? What are you doing out here so late?"

Silence.

The night pressed down like a wool blanket soaked in ink. I couldn't see my own fingers when I waved them, but Dad's silhouette stood motionless in the wheat field, head tilted back at the starless sky.

"Dad...?"

My voice sounded too small. Crickets had stopped chirping. Even the wind held its breath.

I inched closer, bare feet sinking into cold mud. Dad didn't turn as I wrapped my arms around his middle—still wearing the same tunic smelling of pine resin and anger from... from before.

His head rotated.

Not like people turn. Like owl dolls with loose necks in the traveling puppet shows. All the way around.

Moonlight (wait, when had the moon appeared?) lit his face—or what should've been his face. Smooth as fresh clay, no nose, no eyes, just two dark holes where his cheeks folded inward.

"Meddling foundling." The voice came from everywhere. "This doesn't concern you."

Thud.

Fire exploded in my belly. I crumpled, retching black sludge that burned my tongue. Dad's boot connected with my ribs—once, twice—until I stopped trying to stand.

"Remember." His faceless head loomed closer. "You're not mine."

He let go.

I fell through the earth into endless cold.

"—ah!"

I bolted upright, clutching my stomach. Morning light stung my swollen eyes. The quilt beneath me wasn't mine—Fram's mom had stitched this one with rabbits chasing carrots.

"Ugh..." Pain lanced through my middle where Dad's... where he'd...

I bit my lip hard. Don't think. Don't remember.

The room smelled of mint and woodsmoke. Fram's house. Not home. Never home again.

Creeak.

"Adele's awake!" Fram's grin faltered as he peeked in, steam curling from two clay mugs. Behind him, Fleda sat at the hearth staring at nothing, her braids matted with dried mud.

My throat tightened. "Where is...?"

"Dad's in the field!" Fram plopped beside me, sloshing tea onto the sheepskin rug. "You slept two whole days! Albert found you and Fleda in the barley field all..." He mimed explosions with his fingers. "Pew! Bam! Blood everywhere!"

I flinched.

"Fram." His father's voice rumbled from the doorway. The burly woodcutter carried an armload of kindling, his pine-green eyes softening as they met mine. "Give her space."

The herbal tea burned going down. Fleda hadn't touched hers.

"Mom..." I whispered.

Fram's dad stiffened. "We found only you two."

A cold worse than the nightmare slithered down my spine. Across the room, Fleda's teacup trembled.

Fram chattered through breakfast—something about baby foxes in the woodpile—but his words buzzed like distant flies. I counted the knots in the ceiling beams instead. Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight. If I counted enough, maybe I'd forget how Mom's sunflower apron looked trampled in mud.

"More stew?" Fram's dad offered the pot.

I shook my head, eyeing his calloused hands. They reminded me of Dad's before... before.

"Fleda needs air," he said gently. "Walk her to the creek?"

The path felt wrong without Mom humming harvest tunes. Fleda's fingers stayed limp in mine, colder than the locket beneath my tunic.

At the watering hole, I spotted them—purple bruises blooming across my wrists in the shape of fingers.

"Look!" Fram crouched by the bank, poking at tadpoles. "Think they'll grow legs by—"

Splash.

Fleda walked straight into the creek, clothes and all.

"Fleda!" I lunged, sandals skidding on wet stones. She stood waist-deep, staring at her reflection like it might show answers instead of a hollow-eyed stranger.

Fram's laugh died. "Is she...?"

The water rippled where Fleda's tears fell. I waded in, numb to the cold, and pressed my forehead to hers like Mom used to do during thunderstorms.

"Sorry," I whispered. "I'm so sorry."

Her lips moved soundlessly.

Not your fault.

Or maybe I imagined it.

Fram's dad let us stay.

At night, I trace the cracks in his cabin walls—thin lines like the ones splitting my chest. Fleda sleeps curled against my back, breathing too quiet. Sometimes I pretend we're caterpillars in a cocoon, that we'll wake up winged and new.

But when nightmares come, which they always come, I see Dad's faceless scream. Feel Mom's absence like a missing tooth I can't stop probing.

Today I found Fleda by the woodpile, methodically snapping twigs in half.

"Five," she said, not looking up.

"Five what?"

"Days since Mom's voice."

The locket burns icy against my skin.

Fram says the village elders are searching. Still didn't find even a strand of their hair. Fram's dad sharpens his axe each dusk, eyes on the forest.

I count the knots.

Ninety-three. Ninety-four.

Mom's braids had forty-seven.

This morning, Fleda ate three bites of porridge.

Progress.

Fram's dad says spring lambs are coming early. Says we'll help name them. Says a lot of things that don't need answers.

I found wild onions by the creek. Mom loved—

No.

Don't think.

Count.

The cabin has fourteen steps between hearth and door. Thirty-two pegs on the west wall. Fram snores in groups of five.

At night, when the nightmares shake me awake, I listen to Fleda's heartbeat—a tiny drum fighting to keep time.

We don't talk about faceless men.

We don't talk at all.

But sometimes, when the moon glows too bright, Fleda squeezes my pinky finger. Once. Twice.

Still here.

I squeeze back.

Still here.

***

Hnngh!

Sunlight stabbed through my eyelids as I blinked awake. Dust motes danced in the strips of gold slicing through the curtains. Beside me, Fleda lay curled like a pill bug, her breath hitching even in sleep. My stomach growled loud enough to startle a sparrow off the windowsill.

The stew pot on the table still steamed faintly. Fram's note sat propped against a chipped salt cellar:

"Dad & me plowing the field! Eat up! -Fram"

I slurped the lukewarm vegetable mush straight from the ladle. Carrots floated like chopped-up earthworms, but hunger made them taste almost okay.

Creak.

Fleda shuffled in, hair sticking up like dandelion fluff. She froze when our eyes met, fingers twisting the hem of her stained nightdress.

"Wash up first," I mumbled through a mouthful. "Fram left stew."

She obeyed like a wind-up toy, returning with damp cheeks and water droplets clinging to her lashes. We ate in silence broken only by wooden spoons scraping clay bowls.

"Good?" I ventured.

"Mm."

Her voice sounded flat—not Fleda's usual chirp about too much thyme or not enough salt. The hollow look she'd worn since… since then… scared me worse than cellar shadows.

I poked a floating potato chunk. "Fleda? What… what happened before I came?"

Her spoon clattered.

Outside, a jay screamed. Inside, Fleda's breathing went all rabbit-fast.

"You don't have to—"

"Early." The word burst out. "Before dawn. Heard them… by the field."

Her fingers spider-walked across the tabletop. "Dad's voice… like when wolves got into the henhouse. Mom kept saying 'stop' but not… not scared-stop. Tired-stop."

A fat tear plopped into her stew. "Made them walk to the woods. Said… said…"

Snap.

We both jumped. Fram's drying herbs rustled in the sudden draft.

"Said Mom was… was…" Fleda's chin quivered. "Worse than trash."

The stew turned to ash in my mouth.

"Then… then the stick…" Her hands mimicked Dad's furious arc. "Kept hitting. Mom fell. I tried… I tried…"

Sobs wracked her tiny frame. I lunged around the table, soup sloshing everywhere, and crushed her against me. Her tears soaked through my tunic where the locket lay cold.

"Shhh. We'll fix it. We'll…"

The lie tasted bitter. How do you fix broken dads? Broken moms? Broken everything?

Fleda's fingers dug into my ribs. "Don't go back! Don't let him!"

Outside, Fram's laugh floated from the woodpile. Normal. Wrong.

"We have to," I whispered into her hair. "For Mom."

Her nod felt too heavy for a seventeen-year-old.

***

Fleda's sobs finally quieted, leaving her eyes puffy like overripe peaches. I giggled weakly at the sight—anything to push back the silence pressing against our ribs. Outside, the sun dipped low, painting the sky the color of a fresh bruise.

"We should go home," I whispered. "Before Fram's dad thinks we're barn cats."

Fleda nodded, her small hand gripping mine too tight. It was a bit unexpected. She immediately agreed without a second thought, even though it was likely she would be reminded of many unpleasant things once we were home.

My stomach still throbbed where Dad's fist had landed, each step sending sharp twinges up my side. Fleda became my crutch, her bony shoulder digging into my armpit as we limped down the path.

The back door creaked like a wounded animal. Inside, the house smelled wrong—metallic and sour, like the time a rat died behind the flour sacks. Fleda's breath hitched as we peeked into our parents' room.

The quilt lay shredded, straw stuffing erupting like guts from a slaughtered goose. Dark stains bloomed across the sheets—not the rusty brown of spilled tea, but the angry red I'd seen dripping from Mom's split lip. Books sprawled spine-broken on the floor, pages torn and crumpled. Someone had snapped Dad's favorite whittling knife clean in half.

"S-Sis…" Fleda trembled against me.

The kitchen drew us like moths to a guttering candle. Closer we crept, past overturned chairs and Mom's shattered herb jars. A sound stopped us—not the happy hum of kneading dough, but a wet, hitching noise. The kind our old ewe made birthing a stillborn lamb.

Mom crouched by the cold hearth. Her dress hung in tatters, arms mottled purple and oozing where knife cuts crisscrossed her skin. Hair that usually shone like polished wheat hung in greasy clumps, half-covering a face swollen beyond recognition.

Fleda's fingernails bit my palm. We backpedaled silently, but—

"Adele. Fleda."

Mom's voice slithered through the gloom, cracked and wrong. Not Mom-voice. Witch-voice.

We ran.

Thud.

She materialized in the doorway, moving faster than anything with two legs should. Her hands—those same hands that braided our hair and patted bread dough—dug into our shoulders like eagle talons.

"Didn't I raise you better than to sneak?"

The stench of old blood and rotting mint washed over me. Up close, her eyes were two black holes, pupils swallowing the hazel I'd inherited. Fleda whimpered, a trapped rabbit sound.

"M-Mom—"

Her grip tightened. Pain spiderwebbed through my collarbone. The locket beneath my shirt turned icy, its edges biting my skin.

"Shhh." Her split lip stretched into something meant to be a smile. "We're family. Families don't keep secrets."

Somewhere, a floorboard groaned. Fleda's tears dripped onto my wrist, warm against the locket's unnatural chill.

***