The forest remained familiar as I traveled. After three days of hiking, it had grown denser, with undergrowth thick enough to trip me every other step, and wildlife skittering through the bushes unafraid. At least I didn’t starve, even as the weather grew colder and the frost pierced deeper. Grandmother had told me I’d know when I had crossed into the fae lands, and despite the new surroundings overwhelming me whenever I woke up in the middle of the day, nothing felt off yet. Things were untouched, not unnatural. Why build the wall so far south when these woods were clearly safe?

It wasn’t until the fourth night that I knew. I’d been woken up by the chattering of a magpie, a little earlier than I should have as the sun was still peeking out over the horizon. I packed my things and continued following a deer trail north, hoping it would lead me to water that wasn’t too far off course. I sang louder than I felt like to give critters a chance to flee, and watched as my breath evaporated into the air. Mother had taught me that trick, despite the woods where I grew up being mostly safe from anything larger than a fox. Father had been the one to teach me the majority of the actual songs, though. Old ballads about travelers and bands of adventurers seeking far horizons, sailing across seas and battling great monsters. I’d never thought those songs would ever feel as fitting as they did now.

The trail grew wider, flatter, and soon I was on a slim path leading to a large clearing a hundred paces ahead. That’s where I found the sign, stabbed into the ground in the middle of the path. Written upon the waterlogged, moldy wood, in large yet crooked letters, were the words:

HERE BE FAERIES

Even without the sign to warn me, I could feel the difference in the air before I saw it.

The clearing was larger than I thought, the regular forest ebbing away to reveal a strip of land stretching east and west, as far as my gaze would reach and beyond. This was the real border, not the wall, though I no longer blamed the people for building it so far south.

On the other side of the field was a dark mirror of the forest behind me. Pines stretched toward the sky, easily three times larger than the ones I’d taken down back home. Oaks the size of cottages twisted their branches between the neighboring trunks as if claiming territory. Despite the sunlight still painting the tree tops rose gold, one needed only take a step into the woods to be devoured by darkness.

As I slowly approached, the air grew colder and thicker, like an invisible wall building up to stop me from moving forward. With every step, the forest grew taller, the trees towering over me like hungry giants, waiting until I got close enough to crush.

Something was trying to keep me away. Not as protection, but a warning — one I wished I could heed.

My temples squeezed with the beginnings of a migraine. My heart hammered against my ribs, trying to flee my body before something tore it out of my chest, but I forced my legs to move despite the fear.

There was no turning back now.

I’d always thought the forest at home was thick, but here, I could practically feel myself shrinking. I was the intruder, yet I felt almost violated by the tree trunks surrounding me, monstrous and suffocating, branches still adorned with red leaves intertwining to block out the daylight. Their presence pushed against me, squeezing me between them with their mere existence. I was under the skin of a massive beast, and every step could be the one to wake it.

I unfastened the hatchet from my belt and carefully continued walking —  step by step, breath by breath. No other sounds but my own, no shuffling of leaves and no distant bird cries. Silence meant prey holding their breaths and predators waiting to strike.

I grabbed a handful of dead leaves off the ground before slowly unfurling my fingers and letting them fall again. No wind carried them forward, which was a small relief. My scent wouldn’t travel too far.

I kept moving as the silence pressed against my ears. Every shadow was a threat, or at least that’s how I had to treat it. There was no room for mistakes when a hundred eyes watched my every move.

Once I’d managed to suppress my fear and remember what to do, I looked to the earth in search for animal tracks. Finding a source of water was my first priority.

There were hoof prints the size of my head that must’ve been left by a giant deer. Relieved to have a goal, I started my trek, following the trail as quietly as I could without slowing down. I didn’t want to linger in one place for too long.

When the sun had fully set, I pulled out one of the torches I’d fashioned out of thick branches soaked in lamp oil and lit it. The light made the shadows dance across the forest floor, all perfect hiding spots for things I couldn’t imagine.

As I walked, the forest came alive. A quiet, steady cooing broke through the silence. The wind picked up and rustled the dry leaves around me, and I could swear I heard slow, deep breathing. But even though I preferred this to the silence, I couldn’t make my muscles relax or ask my heart to stop hammering. If I let my guard down just once, I’d be dead.

The deer’s trail was calm and determined, and did not stop at any point in its journey, which was unusual. I wondered if fae deer were violent. It wasn’t mating season, but would that matter?

An hour after sunset, I ate an apple out of the pack Grandmother had prepared for me. It didn’t do much to quell my hunger, but I knew better than to eat all my food at once and had already begun rationing it. I was too scared to stop and test the berry bushes I passed, and unless I managed to kill something and roast it over a fire — which seemed like a bad idea — it would be a while until I had a decent food source.

What if I starved to death? What if whatever had left these hoof prints was leading me in circles, waiting for me to die of exhaustion so it could pick the meat off my bones?

I swallowed the tears along with an especially large bite of the apple and grimaced as it moved painfully down my throat. I put the stem into a coat pocket once I finished the whole thing, since leaving scraps of food in my wake would be a stupid decision.

The tracks led me northwest, further and further away from the Choke and deeper into the unknown. I knew it was unlikely I’d ever find my way back, and still it hurt to know how far I was from home. Suppose you only miss something once it’s gone.

Gradually, the forest changed again. The leaf skin of the beast broke and I saw stars in the cracks, with a lidded moon peering down at me like the eye of a god, its pale light reflected off the frost covering the earth. Crimson leaves fell from their trees and became pools of blood around upright corpses, and the naked branches were crooked fingers, reaching for each other in desperation. There was a still, eerie beauty to it all.

I shuddered.

A voice broke the silence. At first I thought it was a strange animal screaming in pain, but then came the words.

“Help me!”

It was further west, not too far away from where the deer trail had been leading me. I started running.

“Help me! Please! Anyone!” The voice cracked and broke as images of Sinéad being dragged into the earth flashed in my mind. My legs were tired, and I stumbled over roots and stones as I sprinted down a slope towards a large body of water I could only see thanks to the moonlight. The sound of rushing water told me this was a river.

A fair-haired woman struggled to keep her head above the surface as she held onto a dead tree stuck in the riverbed; the only thing keeping her from being swept away by the current.

I looked around. There was no camp, no equipment, and no trace of a human living nearby. Something was wrong.

“Help! Please! I’m begging you!”

She stretched a hand toward me as her face twisted with terror, like Sinéad’s had right before she disappeared.

My breath hitched. Would I risk letting someone die because of my suspicions?

I threw my coat and bags off on the shore and unfastened the ax strapped to my back. Its haft was long enough to reach her if I got close without touching the current. More importantly, its head was made of iron.

I waded into the ice cold water, heart hammering. The current was strongest in the center of the river, and I wouldn’t be able to pull her out if I didn’t have a solid footing.

“Grab it!” I shouted through clattering teeth. I held the ax by the very end of the haft, hoping the woman wouldn’t flinch away from the iron.

She stared at it. It was well within her reach, yet she hesitated.

There was something strange about her eyes; they were milky white.

Then the current slowed, and she smiled at me. Her teeth were sharp, too large to fit in her mouth, and I was too busy staring at her straining cheeks to notice her grin turn into a snarl.

With a shriek, she lunged at me and we fell into the water. My breath was knocked out of my lungs as the creature slammed me into the riverbed. Hands closed around my throat, squeezing so hard I felt my eyes strain in their sockets.

I swung my ax blindly. It connected with something and a scream came from above. The hands disappeared. I struggled toward the surface, and when I reached the cold air, I gasped so hard I thought my lungs would burst.

I got back on my feet, ax ready, blinking water out of my eyes. But everything was silent.

Well, nearly everything …

There was a pained gurgling as blood bubbled from the creature’s mouth. Its form twisted unnaturally, thin limbs cracking and trembling, and the woman’s face elongated like stretched toffee, eyes jutting out on either side the way they did on a horse. I’d struck it near the neck, the raw gash splitting its flesh as it sizzled, and from that wound spread little black veins like lightning. They crawled up the horse’s muscular neck and down its torso while it scratched its skin raw to keep it away. When the threads reached its chest, it froze for a split moment before crashing limply into the water.

Dead.

I held my weapon tightly as my whole body convulsed with tremors. I couldn’t move. I could barely draw breath. The only warmth I felt came from the blood spreading in the water around me as the creature’s corpse floated closer.

I had to get out of the river.

Using the ax as a hook, I dragged the horse’s body with me to the shore and started undressing. No, I should get a fire going first, while I could still move. Heat, I needed heat. My hands kept shaking as I looked for my tinderbox. There was some washed-up driftwood nearby; I could use that for a fire.

My hands weren’t striking the fire steel quickly enough to produce a spark. I was getting clumsier. I couldn’t feel my lips.

I would die of exposure.

I’d barely finished the thought when the air grew warmer.

“No!” I desperately hit the piece of flint against the metal. Feeling suddenly warm meant I was losing time and my body was shutting down.

Wait.

Mother said those who froze to death would sometimes start undressing as they became so cold they felt hot. I was still freezing and shaking, and could think clearly. But I couldn’t see my breath in front of me anymore. Somehow, the air around me had truly gotten warmer.

No time to lose, then, lest the chill returned.

I managed to stop shivering enough to make a fire. As soon as the flame was alive, I peeled my wet clothes off and put on the second set I’d brought, thanking myself for not letting the coat get wet as I wrapped it around me. I even considered cutting my hair off so it wouldn’t cool me down with the water it retained, but decided to just wring it out and hope for the best as I huddled near the fire. My hair was the one thing people had ever complimented sincerely, and I was apparently prideful enough to risk dying just to keep it.

I was reasonably sure I hadn’t actually died. Even if that sudden warmth was nothing short of a miracle, I couldn’t imagine the afterlife being this miserable.

Once the confusion settled into acceptance and I wasn’t shaking anymore, I turned to look at the cadaver.    

The trail of blood stained the shore as it seeped into the water. All traces of humanity were gone. The horse’s eyes shimmered like pearls and its open mouth grinned at me, resembling a wolf’s maw more than a horse’s muzzle, complete with fangs the length of my fingers. The coat wasn’t that of a regular horse, but rather thousands of tiny, silky smooth scales that shone like mother-of-pearl in the firelight. I didn’t have time to skin it, but I still wondered how it would look if made into a piece of clothing.

I turned away.

For days I’d been waiting for something to try to kill me, and there was a strange sense of relief in it finally happening. The anticipation and paranoia were starting to drive me mad. Now I knew what I was up against. I knew the weapons I’d brought were capable of killing my enemies, as long as I didn’t get myself in a position where I couldn’t use them.

The creature had somehow known I was there and that I’d come to its rescue. I should’ve listened to my instincts instead of trying to be clever. Clearly having a soft heart would be a weakness rather than a virtue from now on. Had it not been for the inexplicable shift in temperature, I would likely be dead by now.

Soon the short-lived thrill of killing the horse wore off and I was once again struck by loneliness and fear. I ate some stale bread with a piece of jerky as a reward for getting out of that confrontation alive, and decided to stay a while in the strange warmth before moving on.