Doubt (2)

“…Dad? What are you doing out here so late?”

Silence.

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

“Dad…?”

My voice sounded too small. The crickets had stopped chirping. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

I inched closer, bare feet sinking into the cold mud. Dad didn’t move, didn’t turn, even as I wrapped my arms around his middle—still wearing the same tunic that smelled faintly of pine resin and anger from… from before.

Then, his head rotated.

Not like how people turn. Like the owl dolls in the traveling puppet shows—loose at the neck. All the way around.

Moonlight—wait, when had the moon appeared?—spilled over his face. Or what should have been his face. Smooth as fresh clay, no nose, no eyes, just two dark holes where his cheeks seemed to fold inward.

“Meddling foundling.” The voice came from everywhere at once. “This doesn’t concern you.”

Thud.

Fire exploded in my belly. I crumpled, choking up black sludge that burned my tongue. His boot met my ribs—once, twice—until I stopped trying to stand.

“Remember.” His faceless head leaned closer. “You’re not mine.”

He let go.

And 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 faintly of mint and woodsmoke. Fram’s house. Not home. Never home again.

Creak.

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

My throat tightened. “Where is…?”

“Dad’s in the field!” Fram plopped down beside me, nearly spilling tea on 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 when they met mine. “Give her space.”

The herbal tea burned on its way down. Fleda hadn’t touched hers.

“Mom…” I whispered.

Fram’s dad stiffened. “We found only you two.”

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

Fram chattered through breakfast—something about baby foxes in the woodpile—but his words became distant buzzing. I counted the knots in the ceiling beams instead. Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight. If I kept counting, maybe I could forget how Mom’s sunflower apron had looked trampled in the mud.

“More stew?” Fram’s dad offered the pot.

I shook my head, my eyes lingering on his calloused hands. They reminded me of Dad’s—before.

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

The path felt wrong without Mom’s harvest song filling the air. Fleda’s fingers were limp in mine, colder than the locket under my tunic.

At the watering hole, I saw them—bruises blooming purple 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 after her, sandals slipping on wet stones. She stood waist-deep, staring at her reflection as though it might answer questions instead of showing a hollow-eyed stranger.

Fram’s laugh died. “Is she…?”

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

“Sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

Her lips moved soundlessly. Not your fault.

Or maybe I only imagined it.

***

Fram’s dad let us stay.

At night, I traced the cracks in his cabin walls—thin lines like the ones splitting my chest. Fleda slept curled against my back, breathing too quietly. Sometimes I pretended we were caterpillars in a cocoon, waiting to wake winged and new.

But when the nightmares came, which they always did, I saw Dad’s faceless scream. I felt Mom’s absence like a missing tooth I couldn’t stop probing.

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

“Five,” she said without looking up.

“Five what?”

“Days since Mom’s voice.”

The locket burned icy against my skin.

Fram said the village elders were searching, but hadn’t found even a strand of their hair. Each dusk, Fram’s dad sharpened his axe, his eyes fixed on the forest.

I counted knots. Ninety-three. Ninety-four.

Mom’s braids had forty-seven.

This morning, Fleda ate three bites of porridge.

Progress.

Fram’s dad said spring lambs were coming early. Said we’d help name them. Said a lot of things that didn’t need answers.

I found wild onions by the creek. Mom loved—

No.

Don’t think.

Count.

The cabin had fourteen steps between the hearth and the door. Thirty-two pegs on the west wall. Fram snored in sets of five.

At night, when the nightmares woke me, I listened to Fleda’s heartbeat—a tiny drum fighting to keep time.

We didn’t talk about faceless men.

We didn’t talk at all.

But sometimes, when the moon shone too bright, Fleda squeezed my pinky. Once. Twice.

Still here.

I squeezed back.

Still here.

***

Hnngh!

Sunlight stabbed through my eyelids as I blinked awake. Dust motes danced in the strips of gold spilling 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 from the windowsill.

The stew pot on the table still steamed faintly. Fram’s note was 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 fine.

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 around 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 the scrape of wooden spoons on clay bowls.

“Good?” I ventured.

“Mm.”

Her voice lacked the usual brightness. No chirp about too much thyme or too little salt. The hollow look she’d worn since… since then… frightened me more than cellar shadows.

I poked at a floating potato. “Fleda? What… what happened before I came?”

Her spoon clattered.

Outside, a jay screamed. Inside, her breathing quickened.

“You don’t have to—”

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

Her fingers crawled over the tabletop. “Dad’s voice… like when wolves got into the henhouse. Mom kept saying ‘stop’—but not scared-stop. Tired-stop.”

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

Snap.

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

“Said Mom was… was…” Her 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 shook her thin shoulders. I rounded the table, soup sloshing over my hands, and pulled her into me. Her tears soaked through my tunic, where the locket lay cold against my skin.

“Shhh. We’ll fix it. We’ll…”

The lie burned on my tongue. 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 drifted from the woodpile. Normal. Wrong.

“We have to,” I murmured into her hair. “For Mom.”

Her nod felt too heavy for seventeen.

***

Fleda’s sobs faded, leaving her eyes swollen like overripe peaches. I tried to laugh—anything to break the suffocating quiet. Outside, the sun bled into a sky the color of a fresh bruise.

“We should go home,” I said softly. “Before Fram’s dad thinks we’re barn cats.”

She nodded, gripping my hand tightly. No hesitation—though I knew the memories waiting there would cut deep.

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 me as we limped down the path.

The back door groaned like a wounded animal. Inside, the air was wrong—metallic and sour, like when a rat died behind the flour sacks. Fleda’s breath hitched as we peered into our parents’ room.

The quilt was shredded, straw stuffing spilling out like guts. Dark stains marred the sheets—not rusty brown like tea, but the deep, angry red of fresh blood. Books lay spine-broken, pages crumpled and torn. Dad’s favorite whittling knife was snapped clean in half.

“S-Sis…” Fleda’s voice shook.

The kitchen drew us forward, past overturned chairs and shattered herb jars. Then—a sound. Not the gentle hum of kneading dough, but a wet, ragged noise.

Mom crouched by the cold hearth. Her dress hung in tatters, arms mottled purple and scored with knife cuts. Her hair—once shining like polished wheat—hung in greasy clumps, half-hiding a face swollen beyond recognition.

Fleda’s nails bit my palm. We started to back away, but—

“Adele. Fleda.”

Her voice slithered into the air, cracked and wrong. Not Mom-voice. Witch-voice.

We ran.

Thud.

She appeared in the doorway—too fast for human legs. Her hands, the same ones that used to braid our hair, clamped down on our shoulders like talons.

“Didn’t I raise you better than to sneak?”

The stench of old blood and rotting mint wrapped around us. Up close, her eyes were nothing but black pits, swallowing the hazel I’d inherited.

“M-Mom—”

Her grip tightened, pain shooting through my collarbone. The locket turned to ice under my shirt, its edges digging into my skin.

“Shhh.” Her split lip pulled into something like a smile. “We’re family. Families don’t keep secrets.”

Somewhere, a floorboard creaked. Fleda’s tears dripped onto my wrist—warm against the locket’s freezing bite.

***