The noon sun was hot, and the dying summer air was stifling dry, ringing with the subtle aura of an approaching storm. Angela brushed the golden hair from her eyes. It was disgusting to sweat, but she had work to do. She had vowed with all her heart to be a good wife to her new husband, and if that meant she went gathering berries in the heat, that would be exactly what she would do. That morning she had set off into the woods with the new basket, a wedding gift, under her arms. Though many berries reached their peek in early August, others waited in the shadows, ready and ripe to burst like blood and begging to be made into a pie. Angela's dear grandmother had taught her to make the finest pies. As well as other things.
Children feared the forest, and so did many of the elders. They all sat around the tavern's fire, spinning tales of ghosts and goblins that haunted the woods and the old mill pond. Angela had grown up with those, and she had believed them for many a year. She had sat on her grandmother's knee, eyes wide to take in the firelight, and listened to the words of creatures that crept like shadows from the trees and the water. Beautiful and deadly spirits and fey, a woman's scream of murder from the old mill a century before. Like Sleeping Beauty's castle the woods had grown into cover the mill and the pond and the things that lurked.
But Angela was married now, hardly a child, and the fairy thorns that hid the mill had retreated back in the past twenty years. The tales were told less and less, though the trail was still difficult to find and the thickest trees remained.
The thickest trees hid the best berries.
And so Angela, humming merrily, made her way, forcing the trail to appear beneath her feet. As long as she sang, nothing could harm her. Maybe. Her grandmother had never told her how else to keep spirits at bay.
As she walked the sun faded and the heat broke against the leaves. She shivered, but the berries were thick and she made herself think of how much John would like her pie. They had married only two weeks before, and she loved John more than anyone.
The trees were like night. She held her breath and picked. What song could she sing here? She bent low into the bushes, pulling berry after berry. Her hands were stained... someone silly would say like blood.
She stood up and squeezed the basket with her stained hands. It was now like midnight. The trail beneath her had vanished.
She hadn't been gone so long. She had wandered further with friends before.
Something darted past, unseen. Not a deer, not a fox.
"Hello?" Angela asked. She gazed hard into the trees. Often children came this far.
A pale face flashed, turquoise eyes blazed. Who was like that?
I will lead you from the trees.
No. She shook her head. No words, only the wind.
The trail once more appeared. She followed, barely sure it was the wrong way.
Someone before her sang, the same little tune she had hummed herself. Only not so merry, a little more sad. The sound of echoes.
She really should turn back. But now she was curious. She had always been the curious sort, and John had never agreed to come so far. With the slightest of grins, she pushed forward. The trees grew darker still, and the brush beneath was so thick her footsteps made no sound.
She pushed past the heavy curtains of a willow.
There stood the mill, dillapidated stones and little more. Beneath sat the pond, thick and green and blue. It reflected nothing... not Angela, though she gazed into it. It never had, on the few occasions she had ventured here. She used to play with the braver sorts, up on the rocks. John had never come; he hadn't been allowed. She breathed in the choking perfume of water and plants.
The sweat still stuck to her forehead. Disgusting. She leaned down, careful not to wet her dress, and began to splash the murky water onto her face. She was sure it would feel like moss.
The face swam before, turquoise eyes as large as moons, the face of a beautiful woman, only as pale as death. The hand, smooth and tiny as a girl's, reached and took Angela's wrist.
Angela screamed and pulled away. The hand did not seem to release as much as collapse into a splash against her skin.
But it stung, stung so badly she could hardly bare it. But she was already on her feet, bleeding wrist held against her breast.
She forgot the basket.