Natasha~

As the day broke, the air held an excitement I could not properly place. I wondered if I would have more birds on the property I could use in tonight’s stew, or if the stars would be extra bright that night.

I did my usual chores with an extra bounce in my step, humming tunes that I had only gotten to hear from afar. I could feel Auntie’s eyes watching me from the window over her work, with a curiosity that she did not normally have for me.

She must be able to feel it too. The chill of the morning had been crisp, and the afternoon had grown into a pleasant warmth that not even the mosquito bites could ruin.

A perfect day, with perfect promise of a beautiful ending.

As the sun reached its peak in the perfectly blue sky, the hut suddenly stopped in its tracks and slowly lowered us down to the ground. We looked to be in the middle of nowhere again, surrounded by trees and dying grass that hadn’t seen anyone in what looked to me to be ages. The foraging had better be good, with mud thick enough to seal the ice box and seeds ready to be gathered for the next year’s garden.

“Quickly! Go hide the legs, niece.”

I nodded and set down my basket before rushing off the platform. The hut normally hid its own legs in a natural dip in the earth, but sometimes it wasn’t able to find one, and I had to make one for it to hide the bottom half of a hen from any prying eyes that might come across us.

The last time anything like that happened, I was a child, and the hut had gotten a dip. The boy was just too nosy and spooked the hut. I remember the bruises I had for weeks after the sudden movement sent me between the table and the chairs.

With the rush that Auntie wanted from me, I did one loop around the hut to see how much I had to cover. I quickly got to work with the foliage that was around us and the wood we had specifically to create the illusion of a foundation built up from the ground, if anyone looked too closely at the hen. It gave us an extra layer of protection we hadn’t had last time.

But we never got any visitors anyway. Not when we were always so far into the forest.

I spent the better part of an hour building up the layers of protection that would be knocked away the moment the hen moved, and the entire next hour inspecting it. Our protection was at stake; if the hen was too late in moving, then we could both be taken into town and killed publicly without a second thought.

Movement was survival, and hiding was protection. The humans wouldn’t understand why we’re so different, and I’ve watched them kill each other for reasons I could not have known.

With a hesitance after finishing my work, I left to explore the nearby woods. I searched for anything I could forage, small dens I could set traps by, and for the proper mud we needed.

As I walked, I wondered how close we could be to a town. The woods I wandered through seemed to know the touch of humans already; all of the foraging spots that I found were clearly picked through recently. It frustrated me, but the chance to slip away for an hour without being noticed excited me.

The colors that they decorated their streets with must be so bright if I could see them from so far away. I wondered if every town had its own colors or if they switched them out for different times of the year.

Soft noises grew as I moved deeper into the forest, voices and the heavy clopping of hooves on paved roads in the near distance drawing my attention from my task. Gentle music hummed, bouncing across the trees and distorting before it reached my ears from outside the town walls.

I tried to refocus, to set traps for small animals I wouldn’t likely get to use in anything, with how much the townspeople have already taken. Every few minutes, I found myself focused more on the noise I could hear from them or wondering what it was like to live inside the town with so many people around me at any given time.

With time, I caught glimpses of the buildings or of people walking around in the border between the treeline and the edge of their town, or wandering through with a partner, arm in arm, as they took their stroll, chatting about town gossip I couldn’t make out from where I was.

It felt like tearing a piece of myself out as I had to turn back to the hut to begin on our dinner.

“You’re later than normal,” Auntie Baba remarked as I finally walked through the door.

I nodded, setting my mostly empty basket down on the counter, “I went into the forest to see what it had.”

“And?”

“Picked clean, I’m afraid.” I began prepping what I had from our own supplies. “It looks like there’s an active town about two kilometers away from here.”

“Only two? Maybe we will sell some potions.” She turned back to her cauldron, mumbling about all the different potions that we could sell.

“I did lay some traps, maybe we’ll get to have some squirrel meat for tomorrow.”

She didn’t respond; she instead rushed off to her cabinets and rummaged through them with a renewed sense of vigor I hadn’t seen in her for a long time. It seemed like the town would be good for both of us, even if only one would ever go inside it.

I ate my dinner alone, as she insisted on working as long as she could stand.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t excited about going into town with permission. I wanted to tell her all about what I saw there, everything I learned, and everyone that I met there.

I would also be lying if I said that I wasn’t scared about it.

Auntie had told me stories of her encounters with towns in the past while I was growing up, of the women that they hung or drowned, whom they accused of witchcraft. Of the pitchforks that they had used against our home, and the torches that they tried to kill us with when I was a baby.

They had accused her of theft and of “devilry,” and decided that was enough for her to die without a trial or letting her explain herself.

I was scared that they would accuse me, and that I wouldn’t be fast enough to make it back to the hut before they decided I had to die just like the others.

Auntie didn’t have to remind me that humanity could be cruel, but it did seem like she needed the reminder from me.